Chapter 8 The Dwarf Village
The path through Svartalheim was much easier than the road that they had followed the day before. Almost as soon as they passed into Gloeim's lands, the path broadened. Most of the walls of the cave had been rubbed smooth and set with brightly glowing stones that filled the cave with light. The further they walked, the more that they encountered signs of habitation: a little cart laden with glittering ore, the distant chime of pickaxes striking stone and even an abandoned boot, but none of the dwarves were in sight.
The path began to climb. Occasionally, they would glimpse small tunnels leading off to the left or to the right, but they kept to the main trail as it twisted through narrow corridors, large rooms and soaring caverns.
They stopped to rest when they reached another stream. Sigyn crouched to take a drink of water and Loki stooped to inspect some dwarvish symbols that were carved into a rock, but they both stiffened and spun around at the sound of a nearby voice.
Loki motioned for Sigyn to stand back in the shadows while he went to investigate the noise. One hand hovered over his throwing knives as he inched forward. He strained his ears as he moved closer. The sounds were coming from around a boulder ahead of him. At first, he couldn't make out the words. They were spoken in an odd, cadence that moved up and down in pitch. It was…singing?
Loki relaxed slightly when he realized that he was listening to a dwarfish nursery song. He peeked around the giant rock and then the rest of the tension leaked from his body when he spied a little dwarf girl in the adjoining room.
The girl stood no more than two feet tall and was just as big around. She had bright golden hair that was plaited into two thick braids, blue eyes, and a tiny mouth that was as plump and red as a cherry. The bright color of her lips was enhanced by the yellow beard that grew on her chin. Like the hair on her head, it was neatly parted and wound into two short braids tied off with ribbons. The girl was picking mushrooms off of the wall and tossing them into a wicker basket.
Loki watched her for a little while. Then, convinced that she was alone, he gestured for Sigyn to join him, and together they stepped into view.
"Hello there!" Loki called out, showing both of his hands to the stranger as a sign that he was not a threat.
The little dwarf stopped singing, but she didn't run away. Her huge blue eyes grew even larger as they drank in the sight of the strangers. Loki and Sigyn must have met her approval because she dropped her basket and hurried forward.
"Asgardians!" she, her voice full of surprise and excitement. She stared at them for several silent seconds and then dropped into a sketchy sort of curtsey. "Well met! I am Hilde, Hooki's daughter. What are you doing here? It is very strange to find travelers in my uncle's caverns."
Loki dipped his chin toward the little girl. "I am Loki Odinsson, Prince of Asgard...and this is Princess Sigyn Freyasdottor of Vanaheim. We did not mean to trespass upon your uncle's property but we have lost our way. Perhaps you could help us?"
"Lost your way?" the girl said under her breath, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "Lost indeed to wander here! I don't think I'm supposed to talk to strangers...but I never met any strangers before, and you don't look very frightening." she stopped muttering abruptly to look Sigyn straight in the eyes. "Are you a real princess?" she demanded.
Loki snickered. "People keep asking you that, Sigyn. You must not look very authentic."
Sigyn rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to answer, but Hilde was already speaking again.
"You look a little bit like a princess, but you don't have a crown. If I was a princess, I would have a huge gold crown with rubies and emeralds and diamonds and sapphires and..."
"She does have a crown," Loki interrupted, "But she can't wear it right now because we're on a secret mission."
Hilde's tiny mouth formed a small "o" of excitement. "A secret mission?"
"Yes, we have to get back to Asgard before-" Loki stopped speaking abruptly.
"Before-?" Hilde prodded, leaning forward.
"I can't say," Loki said with exaggerated solemnity. He threw a rather obvious glance at the pack he was carrying, patted the leather and then pointedly looked away. "I've said too much already. It is a critical mission for Odin Allfather. We don't have a moment to lose, so if you could just help us be on our way to Asgard, or perhaps to Chief Hambli's caverns-"
"But I don't know the way!" Hilde said sadly. Her chubby fingers pulled anxiously at her braided beard. "Father might? Or Uncle..."
"Would you take us to them?" Loki prodded.
The girl quickly nodded her head. "Oh, yes!" she answered, clearly enraptured by the idea of being part of a secret mission. "Our house is just a little way down the road. Father won't be there, but mother will. Mother can take you to uncle. He's her brother, you know- her little brother. I don't have any brother's of my own, I just-"
Loki tuned out as Hilde continued to talk. He couldn't decide if she was a natural chatterbox or merely starved for conversation. In any event, she barely paused to draw breath as she guided them down the pathway toward her home. He smiled to himself. The dwarves would knowable way to Chief Hambli. After that, it would be easy to take Azimuth. Finally, his goal was in sight. Soon Loki would be headed home.
The thought of heading home caused Loki's thoughts to shift to Sigyn. He wondered what would happen to her when they returned to Asgard. He had no idea how much time had passed in the kingdom since they had left. Regardless of whether it was weeks or days, Loki did not think that her family would not look kindly upon the decision to disappear, unchaperoned, with a man. Perhaps he could do something to help her? Loki and Sigyn had not spoken often during the long journey to Svartalheim, but theirs had been a comfortable silence. Even without words, Loki felt that they had come to know one another- in essentials, at least. On the surface Sigyn was meek and biddable, but a core of steel ran underneath. Sigyn was intelligent, resourceful and creative. Loki saw the light in her face when she spoke of the glory of Vanaheim and understood her longing for so much more than her life promised to offer- but he feared that she lacked the will to make a change. Sigyn's loyalty to her family- misplaced in Loki's opinion- seemed to drive everything she did, and he had no doubt that she would quietly submit to whatever atonement they demanded for this adventure. It frustrated Loki to imagine Sigyn's future. She would be wasted cloistered in Noatun for the rest of her life, tending her grandfather and sisters- or, worse, bound in marriage to the sort of oafish Vanir warrior that her family would probably try to thrust upon her to quiet the scandal of her time away from home.
Sigyn is not my problem... Loki told himself, trying to focus his thoughts on dealing with the dwarves, but his traitorous eyes kept slipping sideways to watch her walking beside him, and his memory taunted him regularly with the image of her naked body bathed in the light of the fire the night before.
Luckily, Loki's torture was short lived. It wasn't long before the dwarf village came into view.
The path rose and then dipped sharply, emptying into a huge chasm that was traversed by a stream. Craning his neck, Loki could make out a crack in the ceiling and pale rays of sunshine filtering in from the surface high above. The watery light caught on flecks of metal and chunky crystals on its way down the shaft causing the walls to glitter like a field of stars.
The dwarf homes were more like burrows than the houses that surface dwellers used. Their rounded metal doorways lined either side of the path, stacked on top of one another like cells in a honeycomb. Above the highest doorways, small holes leaked smoke from the cooking fires inside, allowing it to rise up toward the outside world.
Hilde stopped at one of the doorways and flung it open.
"Mummy!" she called into the hole. "Come and see what I found!"
At first, there wasn't any answer. Eventually, however, a dwarf woman appeared at the doorway, clutching an iron cooking spoon and muttering under her breath.
The woman was obviously Hilde's mother. The features were the same: large, wide-set eyes, button nose and tiny mouth. She stood at least a foot taller than her daughter but, like Hilde, was every bit as broad as tall. Perhaps her hair had once been golden, but it had faded to a dirty brown with streaks of gray. The hair on her head was twisted into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Her beard, which stretched all the way down to her lap, was brushed straight and bound at the end with a gemstone clasp. The most striking difference from Hilde, however, was the woman's expression. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips were pursed in clear displeasure. She shot Loki a suspicious look and then gave Sigyn one of outright disgust.
"Look, mummy!" Hilde said, clearly oblivious to the woman's annoyance. "I found them while I was looking for mushrooms! They're from Asgard! Isn't that exciting? They're on a secret mission for Odin- oh! But I probably wasn't supposed to say that!" Hilde paused just long enough to flush before prattling on, explaining to her mother that Sigyn was a 'real princess' and that she had been enlisted to help the strangers on a secret quest.
Loki was paying more attention to their surroundings than the girl. Hilde's voice had caught the attention of others. All around the cavern, little doors were opening and dwarf faces were peeping out of their burrows to gawk at the strangers.
"It's not natural for land dwellers to be here," Hilde's mother said. She seemed to be intentionally ignoring the pair and looked only at her daughter. "They can't be up to any good. Tell them to get along on their own."
"But they don't know the way!" Hilde wailed.
"More likely they don't have food for their bellies and are looking for a handout," the woman said sternly. "Better they get on their way."
"But mummy! At least let me take them to papa or uncle! They said-!"
"Nevermind what they said!" the woman barked with a note of finality. "They're beggars at best and thieves at worst! Now, come inside and do your chores."
The woman grabbed Hilde's elbow and began to drag her into the house. The small round doorway was almost closed when Loki spoke again.
"We could pay you."
The woman froze, clearly tempted.
"See, mummy!" Hilde said, excitedly.
"Pay us what?" the woman demanded.
"Gold." Loki reached into his pocked and displayed a handful of coins. As he had hoped, the woman's face lit up with greed. "This- and more when we reach my father…if you help us."
Loki turned his hand to the side so that the coins slid from one palm to the other in a stream of gold. The tinkling of metal was too much for the dwarf wife to resist.
"Very well," the woman relented. "Hilde, go and fetch your uncle." She turned to Loki and Sigyn. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt anything if you rest inside a while...for a price."
"Of course," Loki said in his most gracious voice. He dipped his head in a polite bow.
The dwarf woman stood aside and gestured the pair of Asgardians into the house.
Loki had to bend over almost double to fit through the doorway, and he couldn't stand up straight once he was inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim lighting inside the dwelling- it was even darker than it had been in the cave and it smelled sooty and damp. He would have vastly preferred to remain outside, but then he reminded himself of his plan and continued forward.
Hilde's mother led them through the house to a carved-out hollow at the rear. The room was a stomach-turning amalgamation of cooking area and barn. The hearth took up one whole side and water trickled into a basin on the wall. A simple worktable stood near the fire, completing the simple kitchen. Two plucked chickens were nailed to a wooden brace that traversed the ceiling, dripping blood onto the floor. A few more birds were roaming freely around the room and a spindly little goat was tied in the corner.
"Dwarvish hospitality at its finest," he spoke under his breath.
Beside him, Sigyn had just caught sight of a loaf of bread covered with flies and was turning slightly green.
Their hostess acted as though nothing were amiss. She tossed down a pair of dirty braided rugs and then spoke to Loki. "Hilde will be back with my husband directly," she said curtly. She wanted the gold, but she didn't bother to pretend that she enjoyed the company. "There's water in the basin and stew in the pot." As she said this, she held out her hand expectantly.
Loki sighed and dumped the coins into her hand.
Satisfied, the woman waddled away, closing the door behind her.
"What was that about?" Sigyn asked as soon as they were alone. "I thought we were looking for the Azimuth? You told them that we want to know the way back to Asgard?"
"Patience," Loki said calmly. "I know what I'm doing. They're all a bunch of greedy little beggars. They won't let us go until they figure out if there is money in it for them. They'll take us to Hambli."
"What makes you so certain?"
Loki smiled. "I've had my share of dealings with dwarves…Besides- he's the only one who can afford our dragon's egg."
"Dragon's egg?" Sigyn gasped, blinking in surprise. "What do you-!"
She stopped talking at the sound of movement outside the door.
"The Dragon's egg that we're bringing back from Muspleheim," Loki said, indicating with his eyes that Sigyn should play along. His voice was suddenly much louder than it needed to be. Sigyn took the hint. She fell silent and watched in astonishment as Loki took out one of the rocks that he had collected that morning and carefully placed it in the ashes of the hearth. "I'm putting it in the fireplace to keep it warm so that it can hatch. We have to keep it secret, Sigyn," he said, his volume still raised. "We absolutely cannot let the dwarves know about the egg."
Sigyn opened her mouth to reply again, but before she could speak, the door swung open. Hilde and her mother bustled in again.
Loki smiled to himself when he noticed their expression. They were trying too hard to look innocent. It was obvious that they had been listening at the door. He saw the older dwarf's eyes cast greedily around the room and so he made a show of putting his boot over the place where he had hidden the egg. He was certain that she noticed.
"Come on, then," the woman said irritably, her eyes fixed on Loki's boot. "The men have returned from the mines."
"You go ahead, Sigyn," Loki said. "I have to…er….collect our belongings."
"There's no thieves in this house!" Hilde's mother snapped irritably.
"I meant no disrespect!" Loki said as he subtly-but-not-really scooped the rock back up and put it in his pocket. "Please, lead the way."