Odd and the Frost Giants

High above them, the eagle rode the winds.

Easy, or so the fox said, and the bear morosely agreed. Or at least, it was easy until you didn’t have fingers. Which they didn’t. Still, even if you didn’t have fingers, Loki pointed out, you could normally still find a rainbow and use it. Rainbows turned up after it rained, didn’t they?

Well, they didn’t in midwinter.

Odd thought about it. He thought about the way rainbows appeared on rainy days, when the sun came out.

“I think,” said the bear, “as a responsible adult, I should point a few things out.”

“Talk is free,” said Odd, “but the wise man chooses when to spend his words.” It was something his father used to say.

“I just thought I should point out that we are wasting our time. We don’t have any way of getting to the Rainbow Bridge. And if by some miracle we crossed it, look at us—we’re animals, and you can barely walk. We can’t defeat Frost Giants. This whole thing is hopeless.”

“He’s right,” said the fox.

“If it’s hopeless,” said Odd, “why are you coming with me?”

The animals said nothing. The morning sun sparkled up at them from the snow, dazzling Odd, making him squint.

“Nothing better to do,” said the bear after a while.

“Up here!” said Odd. He clung tightly to the bear’s fur as they clambered up the side of a steep hill. They could see the mountains beyond.

“Stop,” said Odd. The waterfall was one of his favorite places in the world. From spring until midwinter it ran high and fast before it crashed down almost a hundred feet into the valley beneath, where it had carved out a rocky basin. In high summer, when the sun barely set, the villagers would come out to the waterfall and splash around in the basin pool, letting the water tumble onto their heads.

Now, the waterfall was frozen and ice ran from the crags down to the basin in twisted ropes and great clear icicles.

“It’s a waterfall,” said Odd. “We used to come out here. And when the water came down and the sun was shining brightly, you could see a rainbow, like a huge circle, all around the waterfall.”

“No water,” said the fox. “No water, no rainbow.”

“There’s water,” said Odd. “But it’s ice.”

He took the axe from his belt, pushed his crutch beneath his arm as he got down from the bear’s back and walked over the ice until he stood before the frozen waterfall. He used the crutch to hold himself in position as best he could. Then he began to swing the axe. The noise of the blade hitting the thick icicle cracked off the hills around them, making echoes that sounded as if an entire army of men was hammering on the ice…

There was a crash, and an icicle as large as Odd smashed down to the surface of the frozen pool.

“Clever,” said the bear, in the kind of tone of voice that meant that it wasn’t clever at all. “You broke it.”

“Yes,” said Odd. He inspected the shards of ice on the ground, picked up the biggest, most cleanly broken piece he could find, then took it to the side of the frozen pool, and put it on a rock, and stared at it.

“It’s a lump of ice,” said the fox. “If you ask me.”

“Yes,” said Odd. “I think the rainbows are imprisoned in the ice when the water freezes.”

The boy took out his knife and began to trace outlines on the ice block with the blade, going back and forth with it, scoring it as best he could.

The eagle circled high above them, almost invisible in the midwinter sun.

“He’s been up there a long time,” said the bear. “Do you think he’s looking for something?”

The fox said, “I worry about him. It must be hard to be an eagle. He could get lost in there. When I was a horse…”

“A mare, you mean,” said the bear with a grunt.

The fox tossed its head and walked away. Odd put his knife down and took out his axe once more. “I’ve seen rainbows on the snow sometimes,” said Odd, loud enough for the fox to hear, “and on the side of buildings, when the sun shone through the icicles. And I thought, Ice is only water, so it must have rainbows in it too. When the water freezes, the rainbows are trapped in it, like fish in a shallow pool. And the sunlight sets them free.”

Odd knelt on the frozen pond. He hit the big lump of ice with his axe. This did nothing—the axe just glanced off the ice and nearly cut into his leg.

“Do that again and you’ll break the axe,” said the fox. “Hold on.”

He nosed along the bank of the frozen pool for several minutes. Then he began scrabbling at the snow. “Here,” he said. “This is what you need.” He put his paw on a grey rock he had revealed.

Odd pulled at the stone, which came up easily from the ground, and it proved to be a flint. Part of it was grey, but the other part, the translucent part of the flint, was a deep salmon-pink color, and it seemed to have been chipped.

“Don’t touch the edges,” said the fox. “It’ll be sharp. Really sharp. They didn’t mess about when they made those things, and they don’t blunt easily if you make them well.”

“What is it?”