“Or live cheerfully,” murmured Jack. Forath herded Thorgil out of the room, for which the boy was thankful. Much had happened, and he needed quiet to take it all in. The Jotuns, whom he’d been taught to fear and hate, had turned out to be not so bad. Olaf always said he wouldn’t mind living next to them as long as the ground rules were worked out. It seemed he knew more about them than anyone realized. And Thorgil—evil-tempered Thorgil, who called him a thrall on every possible occasion and had shown him nothing but contempt—had freed him.

It was all extremely puzzling.

One of the hardest things for Jack to get used to was the constant whisper, whisper, whisperof thoughts around him. They were jumbled up because everyone was thinking all the time, but he picked up words if someone was close by.

He let Fonn spoon soup into his mouth. She broke up chunks of soft, white bread and spread them with butter and honey. She placed a bowl of fruit within his reach.

“What’s that?” said Jack, pointing at a cluster of purple berries.

“Grapes,” Fonn said proudly. “I grow them in the greenhouse. Olaf brought us the seedlings from Italia on one of his trips.”

One of his trips?Jack thought. “How long have I been sick?”

“A week. You were in bad shape when you arrived, so Mother thought it best to make you sleep.”

A week! Jack had lost complete track of the days. He didn’t know how long he’d been in the hidden valley, and now he’d wasted another week. How much time was left for him to rescue Lucy?

“Don’t worry,” Fonn said in her harsh, yet oddly gentle, voice. “Worry makes it difficult to recover. Everything is decided by the Norns, and nothing any of us can do will change it.” She drew a thick curtain over a window Jack had noticed but had not looked at closely. He wondered what lay outside. He fell asleep thinking of Olaf trapped in this little room, carving toys for children he would never see again.

Another week passed before Jack was strong enough to walk around. The eagle’s talons had been tainted and had poisoned his blood. Only the queen’s magic had saved him. He grew used to Fonn and Forath, though the latter found it difficult to speak aloud. Jotuns communicated from mind to mind. They had no use for speech, but a few had made the effort to learn it for strategic reasons. Humans sometimes invaded Jotunheim, and trolls—especially teenagers—liked to go on raids to Middle Earth.

The view outside the window was of a seemingly bottomless cliff of ice. It was both beautiful and cruel-looking. No human could possibly escape that way. There might have been land far below. Jack could see nothing through the swirling ice crystals.

The Jotuns loved cold. They complained of heat when the temperature rose above freezing. They had managed to keep a pocket of eternal winter in their own world, but Fonn said summer made inroads every year. Once, she said, the earth had been a sheet of ice. The sea had been frozen as well. You could walk all the way from Utgard to Jotunheim.

“Utgard?” Jack asked.

“The Land Beyond the Sea. Our ancient home.”

“Olaf mentioned something about that,” Jack said. “He said it was destroyed by a volcano.”

“Yes,” Fonn said sadly. “My great-great-great-grandmother walked from there over the breaking ice. It was that which sundered us from the heart of our world. We can never return, and with each age, the forces of summer move deeper into our realm. Someday it will be entirely gone.”

“I—I’m sorry,” Jack said. “Isn’t anything left of Utgard?”

“Forath speaks to whales. That’s her special skill. They say a small island remains. At the center is the volcano, and all around lie empty windswept fields of ice. It sounds lovely.” Fonn sighed.

“Can’t you build a boat and go back?”

“We’re not made for ships. We’re too heavy, and all of us have a terror of deep water. A few of us, like Forath, go on whale-back, but only near the coast.”

Bold Heart visited every day, and Thorgil burst in from time to time with horrid stories about how to kill things. The Jotuns weren’t cruel about slaying their enemies, but they were very efficient. They appeared to have taken a shine to the enthusiastic little berserker. Once, Golden Bristles came in, and Fonn translated for him. He thanked Jack for freeing him from Freya’s cart, and Jack remembered, with a sick rush of guilt, that Lucy would soon be trapped in it.

How much time had passed since he’d arrived in Jotunheim? He wasn’t sure. From the position of the moon he guessed three weeks, but that meant he’d spent no time at allin the little valley near the dragon’s lair. How could that be? All Jack really understood was that time was passing, slowly perhaps, but still moving. And that the day of Lucy’s sacrifice was drawing ever closer.

The hall of the Mountain Queen was very different from the little room where Jack had recovered, but it was also beautiful—in a huge, Jotun-like way. The walls were of ice, and tall windows let in the blue light surrounding the top of the mountain. Frost-laden air swirled great, white curtains on either side.

Most of the Jotuns were dressed in furs, though a few louts wore only loincloths to show off their bodies. Jack decided long fur cloaks were an excellent fashion. Those lumpy shoulders sprouting orange hair, those wrinkled potbellies and yards and yards of flaky troll flesh were greatly improved by being covered. Even that wouldn’t have concealed the browridges on the males. These were proudly displayed, the bigger the better, and those who had a human kill to their record were tattooed.

Queen Glamdis sat on a golden throne sparkling with diamonds. It had been made by dwarves, Fonn whispered as they waited by the side to be summoned. The queen wore a glittering crown in her orange hair and a long blue dress embroidered with gold. Over this was a bearskin cloak. Her face was much older than Fonn’s, and her features were sharp and hawklike. Jack thought she looked quite noble. He was getting used to trolls.

To one side of the throne was Golden Bristles with Bold Heart on his back. Thorgil sat proudly at the Mountain Queen’s feet. On the other side was arrayed the harem.

Sixteen louts of varying ages were dressed in finery. The oldest sat on a throne only slightly less imposing than that of Queen Glamdis. He was so aged, his browridge had collapsed over his eyes and he propped it up with a Y-shaped stick.

“That’s my father, Bolthorn,” Fonn whispered.

Jack himself was dressed for the occasion in three sets of woolen clothes, one on top of the other, beneath a cloak of marten fur. He was still cold. His boots were made of cow skin with the hair still on to help his feet grip the floor. It was made of polished silver, very bright and beautiful, but as slippery as ice.

“Come forth,” said Queen Glamdis in a harsh voice like Fonn’s. Jack knew it took effort for the Jotuns to speak at all, and they were not capable of making themselves sound sweet. He came forward, as he’d been instructed, and bowed deeply.

“So you’re the one who melted my ice bridge,” said the queen.

Uh-oh,thought Jack.

“You’re a fire wizard,” she declared.

“I’m a bard, Great Queen. I serve the life force.”

“I met another of your kind. He was called Dragon Tongue, and he melted a hole through that wall.” She pointed at a patch of darker ice near a window. “I had it mended, of course, but the scar’s still there.”

“He was trained by Dragon Tongue,” Thorgil piped up.

Be quiet,Jack thought.

“I’ll decide who will or won’t be quiet,” said the queen, and Jack cursed himself for stupidity. He’d forgotten Jotuns could see into his mind. “However, I detect no malice in you,” Glamdis went on. “Thorgil Olaf’s Daughter has told me of your quest, and I’ve agreed to help. I should warn you that the Norns obey no one, not even the gods. I can ask that you be present when they visit. That’s all.”