“I should have dreamed,” said Odin heavily. “All my wisdom seems worthless. They will have her; how can they be stopped? They will easily be finished by morning.”

  “Ah, perhaps not,” said Loki mysteriously. He stood motionless, but even standing still he seemed to dance and shimmer. “Perhaps I have still a part to play.”

  “What can you do?” asked Odin.

  Loki glanced over his shoulder; he stepped lightly to the top of a knoll and looked down at the wall, then leaped back. “Their horse is very strong,” he observed. “It seems to me he does most of the work. I wonder how they would manage without him.”

  “He has hauled all the blocks from the quarry,” said Odin. “But no doubt they could carry them without him, if they needed to.”

  “Perhaps they could, but it might take them a little longer. Just a little longer, say until after sunrise tomorrow.”

  Odin frowned. “But what can you do to their horse?”

  “Nothing to him,” said Loki with a toss of his head. “But perhaps he might be persuaded to join me in a midnight frolic. He has worked hard all summer; he must be weary of labor.”

  “I doubt that he would join you in anything. They have kept to themselves; they have little to say to the Aesir.”

  “But he need not see me as I am,” said Loki with a chuckle. “A little mist, a little enchantment . . . Something might be arranged.”

  Odin drew his brows together. “You are devious,” he said slowly. “Deceit — it goes against the grain.”

  “No doubt,” said Loki with mocking sympathy. “You are far too noble for such tricks; it is lucky that you have me. Never fear: your hands shall not be stained. You may leave the dissembling to Loki.”

  Odin clenched his spear in anger; there were times when he would have liked to loose a thunderbolt at Loki’s laughing face. “Do not push me too far,” he growled. “You forget who you are dealing with.”

  Loki laughed. “What will you do, dear brother? Forbid me entrance to Asgard? My father, the Wind Giant, sends his winds where he will, and no one can stop him; do you think I am any weaker? I am lord of fire, that burns where it pleases.” With a hiss, he dissolved into a blaze that ran in a scorching circle around Odin and returned to spring into his original shape. He was chuckling with malicious enjoyment.

  Odin seethed with fury, but held his peace. He knew only too well that he needed Loki now. But someday— he dwelt with pleasure on that thought, picturing a cavern and snake’s venom dripping.

  “Come,” said Loki briskly. “Do you wish me to do what I can, or shall we hand over Freya to these fellows as they requested, and all dwindle into a merry old age together?”

  “Old age is not the greatest of evils,” said Odin slowly.

  “To be sure,” said Loki. “And we can all stand on the battlements and wave a cheery welcome when the giants set sail to Asgard. Perhaps they will take pity on your white hairs and call off the battle.”

  Odin looked at him with distaste. “Cease your foolish babble. Do what you must do; we have no other choice.”

  “To do your will is my greatest pleasure, O Guardian of Vows,” said Loki, bowing deeply. He vanished in a whirl of flame; a little fire ran licking along the rocks, and sank to nothing.

  Odin stood a moment, staring at the place where Loki had been. Slowly his eye was drawn to the spear he held in his hand: it was named Gungnir. It had been cut from a branch of Yggdrasil itself, and carved in descending spirals around it were powerful runes, the same as those graven into the trunk of the World-Ash, of justice and faith to treaties. He had felt it tremble in his hand before this, and knew that when it did so the branches of Yggdrasil were tossing and waving under the onslaught of strong winds; for the fate of his spear and of the World-Ash were closely intertwined. He stared at the spear almost as if he feared it. Then convulsively he tightened his grip on it and went on down the path.

  Night lay chill and clear over Asgard. Stars glittered in the deep sky, and the moon rode through tattered clouds, pursued by the shadow of the wolf Managarm that would never catch it while that age lasted. The roofs of Asgard lay steeped in darkness and shifting moonlight. The only sounds were the grating of stone on stone as the giant brothers worked on the last arch of the wall, and the harsh breathing of Svathilfari as he strained in harness, pulling the massive blocks.

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  For a long time Loki had been standing in the deep shadow beneath a tree, watching. A little smile of amusement played over his face now and again; he was thinking what fools the Aesir were, to sleep so trustfully and leave their fate in his hands. Odin especially, with his runes and his treaties and his blood brotherhood that he took so seriously, but all the while chafing under the burden because his desires ran otherwhere. Anything, he would do anything to stave off the day of Ragnarok, as if he or anyone else could escape the fate lying in wait for him. Loki almost laughed aloud at the foolishness of it. He himself was looking forward to that day, to seeing the proud Aesir humbled at last by the giants, his own people. But not his people, for they had rejected him as well, and the Aesir had never accepted him wholly. Outcast and scorned, he would make mischief for them all while he could, and then make merry at their downfall.

  But tonight he had another chore, a little prank to play on these sober dull-witted creatures who had slaved away all summer on the wall. He cast an appraising glance at the horse’s lean flanks and surging muscles, cast into high relief by the moonlight. This might be amusing, he decided. But it was too bright a night; the moonlight bothered him. He made a small summoning gesture with his hands.

  Svathilfari had paused to catch his breath, and now to his annoyance saw that a mist was beginning to rise. He liked to see where he set his hooves. He was intelligent for a horse, wiser indeed than his masters Fasolt and Fafnir knew; and he was aware that great events hung in the balance, that it was imperative that the wall be finished this night. He had worked on it for so long that he had begun to think of his labor as a fact of his existence, as immutable as the grass he ate or the rain that wet him. It seemed inconceivable that it should be finished soon, but he could see that the whole was nearly perfect. He did not know why it must be finished; it was enough that his masters fed and cared for him in their rough fashion, and used the whip when he did not toil fast enough. With a sighing grunt he bent to the harness once more.

  A faint sound came to him out of the night. He pricked up his ears. Patches of mist blew around him, obscuring his sight; he could scarcely see the wall, not eight yards away. But he could hear, and the sound that came to him was the low whinny of a horse. He swung his head toward the sound with an inquiring cough, and then through the fog he glimpsed a slim gray mare stepping daintily across the meadow, as soundlessly as if the fog had taken on a body of its own.

  He tossed his head, feeling suddenly as if his harness were a chain that he would like to break. He had not seen a mare since last spring, before his masters had summoned him down from the mountain meadows to work on the wall; it seemed a very long time ago. This mare walked steadily toward him through the streamers of fog that blew between them, her head held high and her ears cocked forward. He lifted his head and whinnied in return, but quietly. For some reason he did not want to draw attention to this mare. Swiveling his eyes, he saw the broad backs of his masters bent on the wall; they had noticed nothing unusual.

  The mare paused a little way from him. She stretched out her neck from a distance with a nuzzling gesture, flicking her ears. His nostrils dilated; he felt as if the straps of the harness were strangling him. He tried to move a step toward her, gently, but the weight of the stone block held him back. He could not move without digging in his hooves and straining, and he felt that would be undignified. So he lifted his head and blew through his nostrils in frustration, staring at her.

  He had never seen so finely wrought, so delicate, so fiery a filly. Her eyes were large and liquid, her mane fell flowing down her supple neck, she tossed her head and danced while he watched. The scent that blew from her summoned him, and he felt his remaining resistance ebbing away. The wall vanished from his mind; it became a thing insubstantial, of no more importance than the mist — of less importance, for the mist wreathed itself around the mare’s legs, threatening to swallow her from his sight. He trembled in the harness.

  She came close to him and nibbled at the harness around his chest. Under her sharp teeth it broke and fell away. Instantly she sprang away and stood watching him, poised to run, her head turned back over her shoulder.

  With a fierce neigh he plunged after her, and she turned and fled. His masters on the wall looked down, and dimly he heard their voices calling him, but he was running far away as in a dream, racing through misty fields, plunging up the steep slopes of hills, brushing through thickets, pursuing the mare that ran before him as if she were made of wind.

  Fasolt and Fafnir flung down their trowels and scrambled from the wall. They cast perplexed glances at each other; Fasolt muttered, “What’s got into that fool horse?” Fafnir growled a curse and set off in pursuit.

  Up one mountainous slope they chased him, and down another. They could hear him neighing from a distance, but he fled like the wind, and they could not come near him. Then from far off they heard the shrill whinny of another horse, and Fafnir slammed his fist into a pine tree in disgust, breaking it in half. “A female! That’s what it is. We’ll never catch him now.”

  “We may as well get back to work,” said Fasolt. “Maybe he will come back soon.”

  “Maybe the moon will haul rocks for us,” muttered Fafnir. But he followed his brother back up the slope.

  All night they labored, hauling together with ropes to pull the last stones from the quarry. The sky grew light with the coming dawn, and still they worked in stubborn silence. Now and then, from far away among the hills, the wind blew to their ears the distant neighing of horses. As they hauled the last block, the keystone, to the foot of the wall, the limb of the sun broke over the horizon and the fields were flooded with light.

  Fafnir looked grimly at Fasolt; they were both pale and grimy in the growing light. Without a word they fastened the tackle to the block and began to haul it up to the arch. An hour later, Fasolt made the last stroke with his trowel and threw it down to the ground. The wall was finished.