By Hearthstone
"READY FOR the next one?"
I lip-read T.J.'s question and nodded. He slid a flash card with a handwritten swear word on it across the table, then watched me with gleeful anticipation.
Smiling faintly, I opened my mind and focused on the dagaz runestone in my hand. Magic flowed through me like water through a pebbled stream. The stone warmed, and I signed the swear. I felt sound vibrations in the air, then T.J. fell back onto his bed, shaking with laughter. I gave him a look and signed three words: Pull yourself together.
"Right. Sorry." T.J. grinned. "It's just . . . hearing cuss words come out of thin air like that cracks me up every time."
I've never heard the sound of voices. I've rarely uttered a sound, either, aside from the occasional sharp intake of breath. Communication had never been a problem, however. My closest friends, Blitzen, Magnus, and Sam, knew ASL—Alf Sign Language—so we conversed easily. When the need arose, they translated for me.
But now I was spending more time in Hotel Valhalla. Many einherjar didn't know or seem interested in learning ASL (except for T.J., who felt that he needed to learn more curses in order to keep up with Halfborn and Mallory). Blitz, Magnus, and Sam weren't always around to translate, and I had an intense dislike for writing down my words for others to read. Because reasons.
So, I came up with a different way to communicate: rune magic using dagaz, the symbol meaning new beginnings and transformations, to convert my signs into spoken words.
I touched my tightly closed fingertips together: More.
T.J. nodded and slid over another card. I'd just opened my mind when he broke my concentration by tapping my leg. He pointed to a thin gold band around my wrist and asked,
"Why's it doing that?"
The band was a gift from Inge, a lovely hulder—a woodland being, like a sprite, with a cow's tail and minor magical powers. Inge had once served my family in Alfheim. Been enslaved by, more accurately. I had released her from service the first moment I could. In return, she had made me the bracelet with strands of her hair. She and the band were connected by magic, she had explained. If I were ever in trouble, the bracelet would send her a signal. Likewise, I would know she needed help if the bracelet was twinkling.
The bracelet was twinkling.
Alarmed, I leaped to my feet and shoved the dagaz rune into my pocket. T.J. grabbed my arm. "Hearth! Is everything okay?"
I shook my head and pulled myself free. T.J. deserved more of an explanation, but there wasn't time. I had to get to Alfheim.
I grabbed my rune bag and raced across the hall to Magnus's room. Inside was an atrium with direct access to Yggdrasil, the World Tree. I swung up into its branches and climbed to the nearest entrance to my home world. The last thing I saw before I slipped through was T.J. staring up at me in confusion.
Then I was floating through the intense sunlight of my world. Far below was the weedchoked rubble heap that was once my childhood home. I willed myself to shift direction away from it. Not because I regretted its destruction—quite the opposite; the place conjured up nothing but unhappy memories—but because I knew Inge would be elsewhere. And wherever she was, she was in trouble. The bracelet conveyed that much with its frantic twinkling. She'd been captured, I feared, and enslaved as she had once been by my family.
I landed on an immaculate patch of grass in a picturesque park. The shade trees, duck ponds, trimmed hedges—everything around me screamed perfection, like most things in Alfheim. I kicked up a divot just to leave a blemish, then set off to find Inge.
There was just one problem: Alfheim was vast. Wealthy estates like my family manor were separated by miles of open green space. Neat, orderly neighborhoods of smaller dwellings marched row after row as far as the eye could see. It would take weeks to locate her by going door-to-door, and even if I found the right house, it was unlikely that the homeowners would admit she was there.
So, I made an educated guess and cut across the park toward the wealthiest neighborhood. I figured I was on the right track when the bracelet's lights began pulsing faster. Just to be sure, I switched direction. The pulsing stopped. The miniature light show resumed when I returned to my original course. I did a subtle fist pump and hurried on.
The bracelet led me to a gleaming white mansion surrounded by lush gardens, wellmanicured lawns, and a polished marble wall topped with sparkling shards of glass.
Unfortunately, it had a guard shack outside the massive iron gates, so climbing over that wall
was out of the question. So was sneaking around to search for another way in, because, as I stood there thinking, the two guards spotted me. They were old acquaintances of mine, police elves Wildflower and Sunspot. And by acquaintances, I mean not friends.
Why were police patrolling this mansion? I wondered. Then I saw their rather plain uniforms and skinny billy clubs. They weren't cops anymore, but private security guards. After the last time I'd seen Sunspot and Wildflower, when my father had unleashed a herd of wild nøkks on them, they must have lost their badges. It was worth coming to Alfheim again just to see that.
I took the direct approach and walked up to the gate as if I had every right to be there. The guards' eyes widened with recognition and, I noted with satisfaction, a hint of fear. Sunspot darted into the guard shack. Wildflower, meanwhile, produced a bullhorn and put it to his mouth. I assumed he was yelling at me, but since his lips were covered, I couldn't tell what he was saying. And yes, he knew I was hearing-impaired. The fact that he used a bullhorn to communicate with a deaf person should tell you something about him.
Without breaking stride, I pulled gebo, the rune for gift, from my bag and lobbed it at Wildflower. He flinched as the stone bounced off his forehead. Then he blinked, straightened, and offered me the bullhorn.
I tucked the horn under my arm, touching my fingertips to my chin and signing Thank you as I walked past him to the gate. Sunspot remained in the guard shack, probably quaking in his renta-cop shoes. I pressed a lagaz rune against the lock. I must have put a little extra magical oomph into it, for the entire wrought-iron gate, not just the lock, liquefied into a puddle of molten metal.
Whoops. My bad.
Halfway to the mansion, I reached for my dagaz rune. I planned to amplify my ASL-tospeech magic with the bullhorn and pretend to be a giant who had come to collect his long-lost Inge.
That plan fell apart when the ground began shaking. T.J.'s curse word flashed through my mind when I looked behind me and saw the cause of the tremors.
Sunspot must have called for backup. It was a huge, hideous troll. (How such an unattractive creature had been allowed, much less employed, in Alfheim, I don't know.) Protective sun-gear covered every inch of him and bore the same security-company logo. Even under his dingy white jumpsuit I could tell he had a massive chest and equally muscular legs, and I could see his yellow teeth and bloodshot eyes through the tinted plastic shield that hung down from his hood, covering his face. His thick gloved fingers flexed as if they itched to encircle and squeeze my neck.
The troll charged me like an angry rhino. A rather slow angry rhino, but still.
I dropped the bullhorn and scrabbled in my rune bag for the algiz protection stone.
Backpedaling wildly, I hurled it at the troll's massive work boots. A shimmering energy shield sprang up. The troll bounced off it like a bumper car and landed on his fleshy butt. The ground shuddered so violently I almost fell.
He didn't stay down long. With a roar so powerful I felt the sound vibrations, he punched his fist through the shield and came at me again.
I hit him with everything I had. Isa, the ice rune, slowed him down by turning the mansion's brick walkway into a skating rink. He stomped his boot, shattering both the ice and the bricks underneath. I tossed the uruz symbol above his head and dropped a very surprised ox on top of him. He flicked the animal off like a piece of lint and sent it flying, legs akimbo, into a nearby pond. Using my hagalaz stone, I pummeled him with grapefruit-size hail; then I blowtorched him with flames I summoned with my kenaz rune. But he still kept coming.
After using so many runes, I was nearing exhaustion. I darted around a corner of the house and hid in a nearby rosebush to catch my breath. Thorny yet secure, it gave me time to search my memory for a troll's weakness.
But I came up empty. As I crouched in the bush, waiting for the troll to kill me, the names my father used to call me echoed in my mind. Worthless. Disgrace. Stupid.
I was in danger of falling into a shame spiral when it hit me. Names. The best weapon against a troll is to learn its true name. Like a password, speaking the name out loud unlocks the way past the troll's natural defenses—its thick hide, its thicker skull, its bad breath.
Okay, I thought. Now how do I get him to tell me his name? Asking wouldn't work. Even if he understood ASL, I doubted he'd be stupid enough to answer my question. Then I remembered where I was—not the rosebush, but Alfheim.
Elves liked to feel superior to others—a skill my father had honed to a sharp, cutting edge. Perhaps a troll who lived here would, too. If I could get him to brag about himself, he might let his name slip.
I touched Inge's band for courage and emerged from the bush. The troll thundered over, arms outstretched and gloved fingers reaching for my neck. I flung up my hands in surrender. My heart hammered two beats before he lowered his meaty paws.
"What trickery is this?" he roared.
I feigned confusion, pointed to my ears, and shook my head.
The troll sneered. "Oh yes. The deaf elf who can do magic. I've heard of you. Mr.
Alderman's brat, right?"
Through lip-reading and some guesswork, I got the gist of what he said, but I wrinkled my brow as if utterly baffled.
The troll circled me, still suspicious. His eyes darted to my rune bag. With a surprisingly quick move, he snatched it from my hands. "Ha! Now you're deaf and powerless!" Smirking, he dangled the bag just out of my reach.
I cowered appropriately but kept watching his lips.
"Oh yeah!" He tucked the bag into his belt. "What has two thumbs and just defeated the mighty Hearthstone?" He pointed his thumbs at himself. "This troll! And now this troll is going to have some fun."
He rearranged his expression to one of sympathy and bent forward, hands on knees, to look me in the eye. "I'm going to pretend to have second thoughts about killing you. First I'll gain your trust." He plucked a rose and held it out to me encouragingly.
I faked a look of growing hope and took it.
The troll smiled and patted me on the head. "Isn't that nice? What's even nicer is how I'm going kill you." He mimed opening a screw-top bottle and guzzling its contents. "I'll twist your head off your neck, then drink down all your blood. Yum, yum." He smacked his lips and offered me a sip from the pretend bottle.
Smiling hesitantly, I accepted and mimed taking a swig. On the inside, though, I was dying.
Pretending to drink your own blood from your decapitated body has that effect.
"And you know what I'll do after that?" the troll continued. "I'll mount your head on a stick and fasten it to my vest so everyone will know that I, Siersgrunnr the Magnificent, bested the famous magic-wielding deaf elf!"
I almost gave myself away then, and not just because the troll had let his name slip. Roughly translated, Siersgrunnr means Cheesebutt. You try lip-reading that and not laughing.
Instead, I shoved my hand in my pocket and clasped the dagaz rune. With the other, I pointed
to myself and then at the open gate. I can go?
"You want to leave? Oh, sure, sure. I don't mind killing you when your back is turned." He made a shooing motion to hurry me along.
Heart pounding, I walked a few paces toward the exit. I had no intention of leaving. I just wanted to move closer to the bullhorn.
The dagaz rune was heating up in my palm. It was now or never. I turned back to face the troll. Widening my eyes, I pointed at something over his shoulder. Oldest trick in the book—and he fell for it.
In one fluid sequence, I grabbed the bullhorn, hit the ON button, tossed dagaz into the air, and spelled out the troll's name in rapid-fire ASL.
"Siersgrunnr!"
Cheesebutt whirled around, his face contorting in sudden fear. He knew he was weaker now that his name had been spoken. "Who—who said that?"
I dropped the bullhorn and jerked two thumbs at myself. Then I darted forward and grabbed my rune bag. The tiwaz stone—the rune of Tyr, the god of war—practically leaped into my fingers. I used it to transform the rose into a thorn-spiked club. One swing took him out at the knees. A second knocked him unconscious.
Once they realized they couldn't hide behind Cheesebutt any longer, Wildflower and Sunspot raced up from the guard shack, their billy clubs at the ready. But the double threat of my rune bag and spiked club sent them running right back to the gate again—and into the hills beyond.
My bracelet sparkled.
Inge.
I mounted the house's front steps and banged on the door with the thorn club.
Someone inside must have seen everything. The door opened, Inge was shoved out, and then it slammed shut again. Inge leaped into my arms.
After a moment, I pulled back and signed, Are you okay?
She nodded and signed back, You were brilliant. They were terrified.They—
She suddenly froze and stared past me in shock. Tremors shook the ground. Had the troll awakened? I spun and thrust Inge behind me.
Then I relaxed. The troll was still lying where I'd left him. The tremors were from a different, but equally disturbing source: Thor.
"Hello, Mr. Elf, Ms. Hulder!" he called as he jogged by.
Hi, Thor, I signed. Nice shorts.
Thor stopped and pointed at his earbuds. "Sorry, I'm listening to rock! Maybe you should use the bullhorn."
Or I could just sign louder.
"Add in bicep curls for a full-body workout?" Thor hefted his hammer, Mjolnir. "A worthwhile suggestion, Mr. Elf! Well, good-bye!" Thor thundered off.
Usually, I'd leave Alfheim just as quickly. This time, though, I didn't mind staying a bit longer.
Maybe it was the success of the dagaz magic or defeating a troll single-handedly.
But I suspect Inge's smiling face had something to do with it.