The Pirate King

THE MASTER BUILDER - part 2

Now it was the final day of winter, and the wall became all but completed.

The gods sat on their thrones in Asgard, and they spoke.

“The solar,” said Balder. “We have given away the solar.”

“We placed the moon inside the sky to be able to mark off the times and the weeks

of the yr,” stated Bragi, god of poetry, moodily. “Now there could be no moon.”

“And Freya, what could we do without Freya?” requested Tyr.

“If this builder is virtually a large,” said Freya, with ice in her voice, “then I

will marry him and comply with him returned to Jotunheim, and it is going to be interesting to

see whom I hate more, him for taking me away or all of you for giving me to

him.”

“Now, don’t be like that,” commenced Loki, however Freya interrupted him and said,

“If this giant does take me, and the sun and the moon, then I ask handiest one aspect

from the gods of Asgard.”

“Name it,” said Odin all-father, who had said nothing till now.

“I would love to peer whoever triggered this calamity killed earlier than I pass,” said

Freya. “I suppose it handiest fair. If I am to go into the land of the frost giants, if the

moon and the sun are to be plucked from the sky and the world plunged into

everlasting darkness, then the existence of the one who were given us thus far have to be

forfeit.”

“Ah,” stated Loki. “The apportioning of blame is so difficult. Who recalls

exactly who suggested what? As I consider, all of the gods proportion similarly in this

unfortunate mistake. We all cautioned it, we all agreed to it—”

“You cautioned it,” said Freya. “You talked these idiots into it. And I will see

you lifeless before I go away Asgard.”

“We all—” began Loki, but he noticed the expressions at the faces of all of the

gods in that corridor, and he fell silent.

“Loki son of Laufey,” said Odin, “this is the result of your negative recommend.”

“And it became as awful as all your different advice,” said Balder. Loki shot him a

green with envy look.

“We want the builder to lose his guess,” stated Odin. “Without violating the

oath. He need to fail.”

“I don’t recognise what you count on me to do about it,” said Loki.

“I do no longer assume anything from you,” stated Odin. “But if this builder succeeds

in completing his wall via the cease of the following day, then your dying may be painful, and

lengthy, and a bad and shameful death at that.”

Loki looked from one god to the following, and in each of their faces he saw his

loss of life, saw anger and resentment. He did now not see mercy or forgiveness.

It would be a terrible demise indeed. But what have been the alternatives? What should

he do? He did no longer dare to attack the builder. On the opposite hand . . .Loki nodded. “Leave it to me.”

He walked from the hall, and none of the gods attempted to forestall him.

The builder completed setting his load of stones at the wall. Tomorrow, at the

first day of summer, because the sun turned into setting, he could finish his wall, and then he

would leave Asgard along with his wages. Only twenty more granite blocks to go. He

clambered down the hard wooden scaffolding and whistled for his horse.

Svadilfari became grazing, as he usually become, inside the lengthy grass at the threshold of

the forest, nearly 1/2 a mile from the wall, however he always came when his grasp

whistled.

The builder grabbed the ropes that attached to the empty stone-boat and

organized to affix it to his fantastic gray horse. The sun become low inside the sky, however it

could not set for numerous hours, and the disk of the moon changed into pale, however it become

there, excessive within the heavens, as nicely. Soon both of them might be his, the greater

mild and the lesser, and Freya the female, who become extra stunning than both the

solar or the moon. But the builder would not matter his winnings earlier than they had been

in his palms. He had labored so hard, and see you later, for all of the wintry weather . . .

He whistled for the horse once more. Odd—he had never had to whistle two times.

He could see Svadilfari now, shaking his head and nearly prancing within the

wildflowers of the spring meadow. The horse would take a leap forward and then

a step lower back, as if he ought to scent something attractive within the warm air of the spring

night however couldn't tell what the fragrance become.

“Svadilfari!” referred to as the builder, and the stallion pricked his ears up and

moved right into a quick canter across the meadow, heading for the builder.

The builder watched his horse head in the direction of him, and he felt satisfied. The

hoofbeats pounded across the meadow, doubling and redoubling with the echoes

that bounced from the high grey granite wall, so for one moment the builder

imagined that a whole herd of horses changed into coming in the direction of him.

No, idea the builder, simply one horse.

He shook his head and found out his mistake. Not one horse. Not one set of

hoofbeats. Two . . .

The other horse become a chestnut mare. The builder knew she become a mare

right away—he did no longer should appearance among her legs. Every line of her, each

inch of her, the whole lot about the chestnut turned into girl. Svadilfari wheeled as he

ran throughout the meadow, then he slowed, and reared, and neighed loudly.

The chestnut mare left out him. She stopped strolling, as though he were no longer there,

and he or she put her head down and regarded to be cropping the grass as Svadilfari

approached her, but while he was within a dozen yards she started to run from

him, a canter that became a gallop, and the grey stallion ran at the back of her, trying to

capture her, usually a period or behind, nipping at her rump and tail with histeeth, but continually lacking.

They ran throughout the meadow collectively in the creamy golden mild of the give up

of the day, the gray horse and the brown, sweat glistening on their flanks. It was

almost a dance.

The builder clapped his fingers loudly, and whistled, and called Svadilfari’s

name, however the stallion left out him.

The builder ran out, intending to trap the pony and convey him back to his

senses, but the chestnut mare appeared almost to realize what he intended, for she

slowed and rubbed her ears and mane towards the side of the stallion’s head, and

then ran, as though wolves have been after her, toward the edge of the wooded area. Svadilfari ran

after her, and in moments they both vanished into the shadows of the wood.

The builder cursed, and spat, and waited for his horse to reappear.

The shadows lengthened, and Svadlifari did not return.

The builder lower back to his stone-boat. He seemed into the woods. Then he

spat on his fingers, took preserve of the ropes, and started out to haul the stone-boat across

the meadow of grasses and spring flora, towards the mountain quarry.

He did now not go back at sunrise. The sun become already high inside the sky by the point

the builder again to Asgard, hauling the stone-boat behind him.

He had ten stone blocks on the stone-boat, all he may want to manipulate, and he was

hauling and heaving the stone-boat and cursing the stones, however with every heave

he got towards the wall.

Beautiful Freya stood on the gateway, looking him.

“You have only ten stone blocks with you,” she told him. “You will need

twice that many bricks to complete our wall.”

The builder said not anything. He carried on hauling his blocks towards the

unfinished gateway, his face a masks. There have been no smiles, no winks—now not any

longer.

“Thor is coming back from the east,” Freya advised him. “He may be with us soon.”

The gods of Asgard came out to watch the builder as he hauled the rocks

in the direction of the wall. They joined Freya, stood about her protectively.

They watched, silently at the start, and then they started out to grin and to snigger,

and to name out questions.

“Hey!” shouted Balder. “You only get the sun if you end that wall. Do you

suppose you'll be taking the sun domestic with you?”

“And the moon,” stated Bragi. “Such a pity you do now not have your horse with

you. He should have carried all the rocks you need.”

And the gods laughed.

The builder allow go of the stone-boat then. He confronted the gods. “You cheated!”

he said, and his face become scarlet with exertion and with anger.“We have not cheated,” said Odin. “No more than you have got cheated. Do you

think we'd have permit you to construct our wall if we had recognised you were a large?”

The builder picked up a rock one-passed and smashed it in opposition to another,

breaking the granite block into two. He grew to become to the gods, half of of the rock in

every hand, and now he become twenty, thirty, fifty toes tall. His face twisted; he no

longer looked like the stranger who had arrived in Asgard a season before, placid

or even-tempered. Now his face looked just like the granite face of a cliff, twisted

and sculpted by anger and hatred.

“I am a mountain massive,” he said. “And you gods are nothing however cheats and

vile oath-breakers. If I still had my horse, I would be completing your wall now. I

would be taking the lovely Freya and the sun and the moon for my wages. And I

would be leaving you right here within the darkness and the cold, without even beauty to

cheer you.”

“No oath turned into damaged,” stated Odin. “But no oath can guard you from us

now.”

The mountain giant roared with anger and ran in the direction of the gods, a massive lump

of granite in each hand as a club.

The gods stood aside, and handiest now the giant saw who was status behind

them. A massive god, crimson-bearded and muscular, carrying iron gauntlets and conserving

an iron hammer, which he swung, once. He permit pass of the hammer whilst it changed into

pointing at the massive.

There become a flash of lightning from the clear skies, accompanied by way of the dull

growth of thunder because the hammer left Thor’s hand.

The mountain giant noticed the hammer getting swiftly bigger as it came

hurtling closer to him, and then he noticed nothing else, not ever once more.

The gods completed constructing the wall themselves, even though it took them many

more weeks to cut and haul the ultimate ten blocks from the quarries excessive within the

mountains and drag them all the way back to Asgard and region them in position

on the pinnacle of the gateway. They were not as properly formed or as properly fitted because the

blocks the grasp builder had formed and positioned himself.

There had been the ones of the gods who felt that they have to have allow the large get

even in the direction of completing the wall before Thor killed him. Thor stated that he

preferred the gods having a few amusing equipped for him, while he got domestic from the

east.

Strangely, for it become most not like him, Loki become now not round to be praised for

his component in luring away the horse Svadilfari. Nobody knew wherein he was,

even though there have been those who mentioned a extraordinary chestnut mare seen at the

meadows beneath Asgard. Loki stayed away for the excellent a part of a year, and when

he showed up once more, he was followed with the aid of a gray foal.It changed into a stunning foal, although it had 8 legs instead of the same old four,

and it observed Loki anyplace he went, and nuzzled him, and dealt with Loki as if

he have been its mother. Which, of route, turned into the case.

The foal grew into a horse referred to as Sleipnir, a big grey stallion, the fastest

and the most powerful horse that ever there have been or ever there could be, a horse

that would outrun the wind.

Loki offered Sleipnir to Odin as a present, the satisfactory horse amongst gods and men.

Many human beings could admire Odin’s horse, but simplest a courageous guy would ever point out its parentage in Loki’s presence, and nobody ever dared to allude to it twice. Loki might go out of his manner to make your lifestyles unsightly if he heard you talking approximately how he lured Svadlifari away from its master and the way he rescued the gods from his own bad concept. Loki nursed his resentments. And this is the story of the way the gods were given their wall.