Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman Read Free Book Online Page B

like it used to.
    “Give it time,” said Freya.
    A huge hand came down and clapped Odd onthe shoulder, sending him flying.
    “Now, laddie,” boomed Thor. “Tell us just how you defeated the might of the Frost Giants.” He seemed much more cheerful than when he had been a bear.
    “There was only one of them,” said Odd.
    “When I tell the story,” said Thor, “there will be at least a dozen.”
    “I want my shoes back,” said Loki.
     
    There was a feast that night in the great mead hall of the Gods. Odin sat at the end of the table, in the magnificent, carved chair, saying almost as little as he had when he was an eagle. Thor, on his left side, boomed enthusiastically. Loki, who had to sit down at the far end of the table, was pleasant enough to everyone until he got drunk, and then, like a candle suddenly blowing out, hebecame unpleasant, and he said mean, foolish, unrepeatable things, and he leered at the Goddesses, and soon enough Thor and a large man with one hand, who Odd thought might have been called Tyr, were carrying Loki from the hall.
    “He doesn’t learn,” said Odd.
    He thought he had said it to himself, in his head, but Freya, who was sitting beside him, said, “No. He doesn’t learn. None of them do. And they don’t change, either. They can’t. It’s all part of being a God.”
    Odd nodded. He thought he understood, a little.
    Then Freya said, “Have you eaten enough? Have you drunk your fill?”
    “Yes, thank you,” said Odd.
    Old Odin left his chair, and walked towardsthem. He wiped the goose grease from his mouth with his sleeve, smearing even more grease all over his grey beard. He said, quietly, into Odd’s ear, “Do you know what spring it was you drank from, boy? Where the water came from? Do you know what it cost me to drink there, many years ago? You didn’t think you defeated the Frost Giants alone, did you?”
    Odd said only, “Thank you.”
    “No,” said Odin. “Thank you .” The All-father was leaning on a staff carved with faces—dogs and horses and men and birds, skulls and reindeer and mice and women—all of them wrapped around Odin’s stick. You could look at it for hours and still not see every detail on that stick. Odin pushed the staff towards Odd and said, “This is for you.”
    Odd said, “But…”
    The old God looked at him gravely through his one good eye. “It is never wise to refuse the gifts of the Gods, boy.”
    Odd said, “Well, thank you.” And he took the staff. It was comfortable. It felt as though he could walk a long way, as long as he was leaning on that staff.
    Odin dipped his hand into a pitcher, brought it out holding a small globe of water no larger than a man’s eyeball. He placed the water ball in front of a candle flame. “Look into this,” he said.
    Odd looked into the ball of water, and his world became a rainbow, and then it went dark.
    When he opened his eyes, he was home.

C HAPTER 8
AFTERWARDS
    O DD LEANED HIS WEIGHT on the staff and looked down at the village. Then he began to walk the path that would take him home. He was still limping, a little. His right foot would never be as strong as his left. But it did not hurt, and he was grateful to Freya for that.
    As he headed down the path to the village, he heard a rushing noise. It was the sound ofsnow melting, of new water trying to find its way to lower ground. Sometimes he heard a clump as snow fell from a tree onto the ground beneath, sometimes the deep thrum thrum thrum, followed by a harsh cracking sound, as the ice that had covered the edge of the bay through this eternal winter began to cleave and to break up.
    In a few days, Odd thought, this will all be mud. In a few weeks it will be a riot of greenery.
    Odd reached the village. For a moment he wondered if he had come to the wrong place, for nothing looked as he remembered it looking when he had left, less than a week before. He remembered how the animals had grown, when they reached Asgard, and then, how they