II) Thor: The Mountain That Answered

The invitation specified that Thor was not required to bring a weapon.

She read that sentence twice.

Then she brought Mjölnir.

“It says not required,” she told Lexander when he looked at her hand. “It does not say unwelcome.”

“It is a summer fair.”

“Then I expect the hammer to enjoy itself.”

He returned to Thora’s letter. “Try to avoid causing a border incident.”

“I caused one.”

“That we were told about.”

Thor pointed at him. “An important distinction.”

High Barrow stood above the northern timber road, where mountains rose so steeply that the village appeared to have caught on them while falling from somewhere higher. Its people held a fair every summer to celebrate the reopening of the pass. This year the rebuilt road had brought traders from three kingdoms, and someone had decided that a guest who could throw lightning would improve attendance.

Thor suspected the invitation had been written by a committee.

The committee met her beside a sheep pen.

There were four of them. The youngest had flour on his sleeve. The oldest carried a ribbon and wore the resigned expression of a woman who had been waiting all morning for someone to do something foolish.

“Welcome,” she said. “I’m Hessa. You’re late.”

Thor liked her immediately.

“Your road has too many bends.”

“We asked the mountain to straighten. It declined.”

The fair smelled of charcoal, warm cheese, and rain that had not yet fallen. Thor inspected the food stalls with the attention she considered appropriate to diplomacy. There were races, carvings, an archery contest, and a wrestling ring where three young men abruptly discovered reasons to stop stretching when they saw her.

“Cowards,” she said cheerfully.

Hessa tied the ribbon around a post. “You can wrestle after the bell race.”

“The what?”

The flour-covered boy pointed uphill.

Above the village, a narrow trail climbed toward a square stone tower. Beyond it lay the saddle of the pass. The tower’s bell had warned travelers of weather for generations. At the fair, teams raced up with small brass bells, fastened them beside the great one, and returned before the judges finished their second cup.

“That depends upon the judges drinking slowly,” Thor observed.

“We practice,” Hessa said.

Thor studied the hill. “I could do that.”

“No flying.”

“I hadn’t said anything.”

“You looked at the sky.”

“I enjoy the sky.”

“No lightning.”

Thor sighed.

The team assigned to her consisted of a shepherd named Arren, a mason’s daughter named Pellia, and the flour-covered boy, whose name was Kit and whose apparent youth concealed a ruthless interest in winning. He informed Thor that last year the east ridge team had beaten them by seventeen breaths.

“We had a torn strap,” he said.

“Naturally.”

“We did.”

“I believe you.”

“You sound as though you don’t.”

Thor looked down at him. “You should meet my brother.”

The race began with an argument about whether one runner had moved before the whistle. Hessa settled it by blowing the whistle again and threatening to go indoors if they required a third attempt.

Thor ran.

For the first stretch, she laughed.

It felt absurdly good to climb toward something that did not intend to kill her. Kit charged ahead. Arren saved his breath. Pellia carried their bell, which rang against her thigh until she stuffed a piece of cloth inside it.

The trail narrowed above the last pasture. Beneath them, the fair became a scatter of colored roofs. Thor could still hear music.

Then the wind turned.

She stopped laughing.

Clouds moved across the far saddle, dark underneath. She felt the charge gathering along the ridge, the uneasy pressure that lifted tiny hairs at her wrists.

“How many are ahead?” she asked.

“Two teams,” Arren said. “Why?”

Thunder answered behind the mountain.

Thor looked down. From the village, the ridge hid the approaching storm.

“We end the race.”

Kit opened his mouth.

“Now.”

He closed it.

At the tower they found the east ridge team trying to open a weather-swollen door. Four traders sheltered beneath its outer stair. A pack mule watched everyone with profound disappointment.

Pellia set down the little bell and joined Thor at the door.

“Wait,” she said when Mjölnir came up. “The frame’s bearing against the stair.”

Thor held the hammer still.

Pellia ran her fingers along the stone. “If you knock this inward, that may come down.”

“I can catch it.”

“While carrying seven people and a mule?”

“I might disappoint the mule.”

“It already looks disappointed.”

They opened the door with a timber lever and three people lifting the outer step. Thor supplied most of the lifting. Pellia supplied the information that made lifting useful.

Inside, the bell rope hung motionless.

Arren pulled it.

Nothing happened.

Thor looked up through the open floors. The great bell leaned sideways between rotten beams. Its mounting had shifted. The clapper rested against its lip.

“That,” she said, “is inconvenient.”

Kit was staring toward the pass.

“There’s another team.”

“You said two ahead.”

“Two racing. My sister went up with the shepherds before us. They’re bringing the summer flock through.”

The rain struck.

It came in a white sheet that erased the far slope. A moment later, lightning hit the bare ridge above the tower. Stone flashed blue. The mule screamed.

Thor felt the strike in her teeth.

There were things she could do with a storm. None involved making every danger in a mountain valley politely stop. Water was already running across the path; old scree shifted beneath it. Even if she took the next lightning bolt herself, the hillside would continue to move.

She passed her cloak to Kit.

“Keep everyone here. Pellia, make sure they stay off that inner stair. Arren, find anything dry enough for a signal fire after this passes.”

“Where are you going?”

Thor lifted Mjölnir.

Kit pointed at it. “No flying.”

She grinned despite the weather.

“You may disqualify me.”

Above the tower, the wind struck hard enough to twist her sideways. She crossed the saddle low, following the path instead of the clouds. Thunder rolled through her chest.

She found the sheep first.

They had crowded onto a shelf beneath an overhang. Two shepherds stood beyond them. A third crouched beside a girl whose leg lay at an angle Thor did not like.

Water poured down the trail between them and the tower.

The girl saw the hammer.

“Kit?” she asked at once.

“Dry. Annoying. Safe.”

The girl began breathing again.

Thor knelt. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Mara.”

“I know another Mara. She would have something severe to say about your choice of weather.”

“I’ll complain when I see it.”

Good, Thor thought.

She liked a person who still had room for irritation.

They bound the injured leg with strips cut from a pack. Thor lifted Mara and looked toward the trail. A section had gone, leaving a wet scar across the slope. Above it, a boulder shifted by the width of a finger.

She knew the temptation. Fly the girl out. Come back. Carry another. Be fast enough for everyone.

Then the lightning gathered again, and one of the shepherds slipped while trying to move the sheep.

Thor put Mara beneath the overhang.

“That rock,” she said. “How much is behind it?”

The oldest shepherd looked up. “More than you want.”

“Is there another way down?”

“Old charcoal path. Below us. We can’t reach it without crossing the slide.”

Thor examined the distance. The storm’s charge settled over her shoulders like an old familiar cloak.

For years she had imagined what she would do when the world required her full strength again. There had always been an enemy in those imaginings. A face to strike. Something whose defeat would explain the effort.

The boulder had no opinion about her.

She climbed to it, drove Mjölnir into firm stone below its edge, and set her shoulder against its cold, wet weight.

“Now,” she called.

The rock pressed downward.

The shepherds moved.

It was not glorious work. Mud ran down her collar. One boot sank until water poured over its top. The sheep refused the safe route until the oldest shepherd produced a noise so personally offensive that three of them obeyed out of apparent surprise.

Thor laughed once, then lost the breath to the weight.

A bolt struck the ridge.

She caught what reached toward the people below her, pulled its fury through the hammer’s bright head, and sent it into bare stone beyond the slide. The noise left the world ringing.

The rock shifted another inch.

“How many?” she shouted.

“Two more!”

“People or sheep?”

“Sheep!”

“Of course.”

She held.

When the last animal cleared the crossing, the shepherds shouted from the lower path. Thor pulled the hammer free and leaped aside.

The slope came down.

Rock struck rock. Mud burst into the gully. For a long moment there was nothing to see but brown water and shattered stone.

Then she heard Mara laughing from below.

“That,” the girl called, “will slow the east ridge team.”

Thor bent over with her hands on her knees and laughed until her chest hurt.

They reached the village near dusk. The rain had passed. Kit ran straight into his sister and received an entirely justified rebuke for jarring her leg. Hessa took one look at Thor and sent someone for hot food before asking a single question.

Thor sat beneath the awning with a bowl in both hands.

The committee gathered around her.

“We ought to thank you formally,” said the youngest member.

“You could make this bowl larger.”

“We were thinking of a proclamation.”

“Those are difficult to eat.”

Hessa sat beside her. “What do we need?”

Thor looked up at the silent tower.

“A bell that works. A second warning post where someone can see the weather before it crosses the saddle. And an inspection before you send children racing under rotten beams.”

Hessa nodded without defending herself.

“Pellia told us about the beams in spring.”

“Then next time listen in spring.”

“Yes.”

Thor accepted a second bowl.

She stayed three days.

On the second, she carried new timbers up the mountain while Pellia complained that a divine assistant still ought to follow measurements. On the third, they rehung the bell. Thor expected to be asked to strike it.

Pellia gave the rope to Mara instead.

The girl balanced on her good leg, pulled, and filled the valley with sound.

Thor stood beside the tower and listened until the echo vanished.

Before she left, Kit found her at the lower pasture. He held a little brass bell with a blue ribbon threaded through its handle.

“You didn’t win,” he said.

“I had suspected.”

“We decided this was a different prize.”

“For what?”

He considered her muddy boots, the hammer, and the newly repaired tower above them.

“Coming.”

Thor took the bell.

For a moment she found no useful answer.

Then she said, “I expect an invitation next year.”

“Will you follow the rules?”

“Send better ones.”

At home, Lexander heard her coming before he saw her. The little bell had been tied to the strap of her traveling bag.

He looked at it, then at her.

“Border incident?”

“Disqualified from a race.”

“Naturally.”

She placed a wrapped portion of mountain cheese on his desk and sat down.

“You should come next summer.”

He set aside his pen.

“Tell me.”

So she did.