The Scholar, the Sphinx, and the Fang of Fenrir

Chapter 2-2

“So this person you want me to speak with will return me to normal?”

You need only pass a simple test to see him, and then he will help you. Maybe.

“Oh, that’s reassuring.”

Let him know that I sent you. He will be more willing to help you then.

“He’s an old friend of yours, I take it?”

He’s my brother.

“Please tell me that being irritatingly cryptic doesn’t run in your family.”

It would do you well to not be so curt. I have guarded over humans for millennia, thus I have come to tolerate your kind’s…less admirable qualities. He, on the other hand, is not so patient. Offend him even slightly, and you will lose your chance to return to your original self forever.

“Very well, I understand. So, this test you mentioned…”

The fisherman will explain.

“The…who?”

David’s eyes opened, although for a minute he was not sure that he was awake. He should have been in the carriage, beside his sleeping wife, watching the French countryside roll by. But there was no carriage, no Florence, no countryside. There was a rickety, leaky boat that he sat in, bobbing on a churning sea that stretched out to infinity in every direction. The sky, which had been joyously sunny before, was painted in mirthless overcast, not threatening a storm but not offering any comfort. The only thing that remained from before was the coachman, the same abnormally large man in the leather coat and pot-shaped hat. His reigns had been replaced by oars the size of ship masts. David felt severely small, sitting face to face with this man.

The man removed the Dutch-oven hat from his head, revealing a tangled mass of earthen-dark hair. A thick beard devoured the lower half of his face, and as he sat up straighter, he showed that he was even taller than David had first thought.

This was not a man. This was, in both body and presence, a giant.

“Name’s Hymir,” the giant bellowed. “You ready to go fishin’, old man?”

Having returned from the Dream realm, David grunted at the stiffness and chill in his flesh and bones. He had never been fond of boats—not that he was fearful of water, as he could swim fine—but the constant swaying and the spray of sea foam in his face was rapidly unnerving him. Being seventy years older than he should have been did not improve matters, either. Everything ached and creaked and would not work properly. Something as simple as craning his neck to look around was an effort. “Dios mío, ser viejo es insoportable,” he muttered.

Dios míoser viejo es insoportable“What’s that?” boomed the giant, as he brought the tree-sized oars around in another powerful stroke.

“I said, ‘being old is a pain,’” David explained.

The giant nodded. “Can’t argue with you. I turned 1,132 last month. It’s no walk in Valhalla, I’ll tell you.”

David c****d an eyebrow. “Granted, that’s viejo. Are you immortal?”

viejo“Can’t be sure. Most of us giants don’t live to ripe old age. Usually there’s a war, or a plague, or you trip and fall—for a giant, tripping and falling is not a trivial thing. Many never get back up, and there’s an earthquake’s worth of destruction to clean up afterwards. But me, I stay away from all that. My place is out here, on the water. Lots of fish, lots of clean air. Used to run a tour guide business for centuries, taking folks out here to fish for legendary catches. But my last one…” Hymir shook his head with a hearty laugh. “Crazy Thor, trying to catch Jormungandr like some eel on a hook! I laugh now, but I tell you, that rattled me so badly, I swore off the fishing guide business for life!”

David should have been curious to learn more about the story, as tales of grand adventure held a soft spot in his heart, but his concentration was elsewhere. He was scanning the horizon. “How far do we have to go to find Hypnos’s brother? I don’t see a spot of land anywhere.”

Hymir cast his gaze to the sky. “Don’t get impatient. The stars are pointing us the right way. It won’t be long now.”

“Hypnos said you’d tell me about a test I need to pass to see this…who am I trying to find, anyway?”

Hymir pulled another mighty stroke through the water. “Ah, test, yes…there is one of those, isn’t there?” He was quiet as he paddled along a few more times. “Can’t imagine you need to be too athletic for it, if Hypnos thinks you can pass it.”

David glared at Hymir. “You don’t actually know what this test is, do you?”

“Now, now, give me a minute to think. I’m working with a 1,132-year-old brain here.”

“Yet you remember a fishing trip with your friend Thor that must have happened, what, a millennium ago?”

“That’s different! You don’t forget something like that. We’re talking about hooking a monster whose whole body could curl around the entire world! With a mouth full of teeth that could grind mountains into pebbles!” Hymir shivered at the memory. “Mountains…that rings a bell…I think climbing is part of that test. But it’s not really climbing if it’s underwater, is it? Why wouldn’t you just swim upwards…”

“Did you say, ‘underwater?’” David nearly bolted out of his seat, but the precariousness of the rocking boat kept him down. “Wait, I don’t have to…” He looked over the side of the boat, into the frothy dark depths. “That’s ridiculous. My body’s too old to do an easy swim on the surface, let alone dive underwater!”

Hymir shrugged. “Sorry, old man. Geras likes his solitude, and there’s no place that has more solitude than down there.”

“Why do you keep calling me ‘old man’ when you’re over a thousand years older than I am!”

Hymir tapped a meaty finger to the side of his head. “It’s all in the mind. I don’t think like an old man. I don’t focus on things like achy backs, or what I can’t do because I’m ‘too old’ to do it. Therefore, I’m not anywhere as ‘old’ as you are.”

David was going to argue that Hymir did not think about those things because he clearly had selective memory, but the giant had a point. David was still himself, whether eighteen or eighty, and he had faced much more daunting obstacles than this in his life. “All right, I understand. So, what was that name you said? Gyro?”

Gyro“Geras,” Hymir corrected. “Not familiar with ‘im myself. But if he’s anything like that devious hag Elli that tricked Thor into a wrestling match, you best be on your toes. She doesn’t look like she could lift a feather, but she pounded the God of Thunder flat as pannekaken! They may look like harmless, shriveled skin bags, but the older you are, the more you know, and the more you know, the more dangerous you can be.”

pannekakenDavid knew how dangerous certain ‘clever’ people could be. His memories of Nico, the Teumessian, who valued cunning over all else and had tried to have Acacia killed in order to become the most cunning creature alive, had not faded with time.

Acacia…it was hard enough to hear the word “sphinx” without a pang in his heart, but to think of her name, to mentally hear it sing in his mind…and then to hear her gentle voice, see her golden eyes and smile in the weavings of his imagination…

“We’re here,” announced the giant. He let the oars rest in the water as the boat’s pace gradually slowed.

David was thrust back into the present and audibly groaned at being torn from his reverie. But it was just as well that Acacia was a memory, and not here in the flesh. For her to see him as he was, to see what would have undoubtedly been revulsion on her face, would have destroyed him.

Funny, that he was more concerned with what Acacia would think of him, rather than with Florence’s reaction upon his transformation. It was probably because of how comfortable he was with Florence, knowing she would still care for him despite his condition. Besides, she was eventually going to see him as an old man anyway, as they aged together over the years. He could never grow old with Acacia; her kind did not seem to age physically, given that she was centuries old and still had the face of a youth. Not that it was even a thought to concern himself with; wherever she was, the sphinx had another life to live that didn’t involve him. She had let him go so he could lead a happy, prosperous, stable life in Paris.

She had let him go…

“Are you wandering off, old man? I said we’re here.”

David looked over the side of the boat again and gulped. “You mean, this is where I…disembark.”

“How’s about something to give you a bit of courage?” Hymir leaned over the pot he had been wearing on his head, which he had placed on the floor of the boat between his feet. David had thought it was empty, but as he sat forward to look into it, he saw a frothy brew had burbled up inside of it.

“Not like the cauldron I once had. Now that was a beautiful piece, a mile deep, with enough brew to satisfy all the gods and giants together. Lost it in a wager. To my own son, no less.” Hymir sighed. “My modir gave me an earful about losing that cauldron all night long. The old lady’s got one tempest of a temper.”

modirDavid smirked, figuring Hymir’s modir was his mother. “Mothers are good at that. Mine has given me enough tongue lashings in my time.”

modir“Bet your modir doesn’t have 900 heads to scream at you with.” Hymir held out the cauldron to David, who almost dropped it from its weight. “Drink up. You’ll need the energy.”

modir David hoisted the cauldron to his lips and managed a tentative sip—and instantly spat the liquid out. “Qué repugnante!” he coughed. “What’s in this?”

Qué repugnante!”“The ale of the gods. And some lime juice. And ox blood. Puts some hair on your chest.” Hymir laughed deeply, as he took the cauldron back and enjoyed a long swig of the nasty brew. “Now, I wish you good luck. Keep your wits about you.”

“Wait, you still haven’t told me what the test—”

David wasn’t able to finish his sentence, for Hymir picked him clean off of his seat with one hand and pitched him over the side of the boat. David thrashed in the water, sputtering and gasping for air as his frail limbs did no good at keeping him afloat. As he sank beneath the tumultuous waves, he heard Hymir call out, “No, down, old man! You want to swim down! And hold your breath, that’ll help…”