The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #3)

by Rick Riordan

“Magnus, when you told me about your magic sword, did you perhaps fail to mention that it—that he can speak?” “Did I?” Honestly I couldn’t remember. The past few weeks, Jack had been off on his own, doing whatever sentient magic swords did in their free time. Percy and I had been using standard-issue Hotel Valhalla practice blades for sparring. It hadn’t occurred to me that Jack might fly in out of nowhere and introduce himself. Besides, the fact that Jack talked was the least weird thing about him. The fact that he could sing the entire cast recording of Jersey Boys from memory…that was weird.

“What do you make of this?” I passed the book to Alex. He frowned. “That’s my mom’s symbol, obviously.” (You heard right. Loki was normally a male god, but he happened to be Alex’s mother. Long story.) “And the rest of it?” I asked. “This word looks like moo with a j. Perhaps Scandinavian cows have an accent?” “I take it you don’t read Old Norse, then, or whatever that language is?” “Magnus, it may shock you to learn that I do not have every talent in the world. Just most of the important ones.”

The legends don’t mention that one of those entrances is in the Forever 21 store on Newbury Street, just behind the women’s activewear rack. It normally wasn’t the entrance I liked to use, but it was the closest to Uncle Randolph’s mansion. Nobody in Valhalla could explain to me why we had a gateway in Forever 21. Some speculated it was left over from a time when the building was not a retail store. Personally, I thought the location might be one of Odin’s little jokes, since a lot of his einherjar were literally forever twenty-one, or sixteen, or sixty.

“Then good luck, Magnus Chase, son of Frey. And remember, you must stop Loki’s ship Naglfar from sailing at Midsummer—” “I know.” “—or Ragnarok begins.” “Right.” “Which means our renovations to the banquet hall won’t ever be complete, and we’ll never get high-speed Internet restored on floor two hundred forty-two.” I nodded grimly. I did not need the extra pressure of being responsible for an entire floor’s Internet connection. “We’ll succeed. Don’t worry.” Helgi tugged at his beard. “But if you do start Ragnarok, could you please get back here as soon as possible, or send us a text?”

“The crew of this ship will need you with them, Magnus,” he said. “But I promise you this: once Hearthstone and Blitzen have found the location of the whetstone, once they have laid the groundwork for the assault, I will send them back to get you. Then the three of you can face the true danger together. If you fail, you’ll die as a team. How is that?”

“I will try to contain my happiness.” “That’s wise,” Njord said. “Your elf and dwarf will find the whetstone you require. You will discover the secret location of the mead. Then you will retrieve the Mead of Kvasir, defeat Loki, and return him to his chains!” “I appreciate the vote of confidence.” “Well, it’s more that if you don’t, Loki will flyte you into a pathetic, powerless shadow of yourself. Then you will have to watch all your friends die, one by one, until you alone are left to suffer in Helheim for eternity while the Nine Worlds burn. That is Loki’s plan.” “Oh.” “Anyway!” Njord said brightly. “Good luck!”

Long story short: Alderman took the cursed ring. He put it on and turned even crazier and eviler, which I hadn’t thought possible. Personally, I liked my cursed rings to at least do something cool, like turn you invisible and let you see the Eye of Sauron. Andvari’s ring had no upside. It brought out the worst in you—greed, hate, jealousy. According to Hearth, it would eventually change you into a bona fide monster so your outside could be as repulsive as your inside. If the ring was still working its magic on Mr. Alderman, and if it had overtaken him as quickly as the wilderness had overtaken his estate…Yeah, that wasn’t good.

We could find a Plan B. Any Plan B. But the rational part of me knew that wasn’t the answer. We were following the most insane, horrifying Plan A imaginable, which meant it was probably the right one. Just once I wished I could go on a quest that involved walking across the hall, pushing a SAVE THE WORLD button, and going back to my room for a few more hours’ sleep.

YOU KNOW how it goes. You’re minding your own business, taking a train up a ravine in the middle of Norway, when an old lady with a bag of knitting supplies introduces herself as your godly mother. If I had a krone for every time that happened…

Yelling at a goddess isn’t generally a good idea. You run the risk of getting impaled, zapped, or eaten by giant house cats. (It’s a Freya thing. Don’t ask.) Frigg didn’t seem bothered, though. Her calmness made me question how she could be related to Mallory.

Mallory tossed the stone above the thralls’ heads. All nine rushed in to catch it, piling into each other while holding sharp, long, awkward blades. In such a situation, what you end up with is a large pile of dead thralls. Sam stared wide-eyed at the scene. “Wow. Mallory, that was—” “Did you have a better idea?” Mallory snapped. “I’m not criticizing. I just—” “I killed nine giants with one stone.” Mallory’s voice sounded hoarse. She blinked as if sparks from the whetstone were still flying in her eyes. “I think that’s pretty good for a day’s work. Now come on. Let’s open those doors.”

She scowled. “I didn’t see any other way. Did you?” In truth, I didn’t. I was pretty sure Mallory’s solution was the way we’d been meant to use the whetstone. The gods, or our wyrd, or some twisted sense of Nornish humor had dictated that we would sail halfway across the world, undergo many hardships to win a gray rock, then use it to trick nine miserable thralls into killing one another.

“Jack,” I said, “why don’t you go check on Sam? Maybe you can advise her on getting through those doors. Or you could sing to her. I know she’d love that.” “Yeah? Cool!” Jack zoomed off to serenade Sam, which meant Sam would want to hit me later, except it was Ramadan, so she had to be nice to me. Wow, I was a bad person.

WE HURTLED through the sky like things that hurtle through the sky. The wind whipped my face. The snow blinded me. The cold was so bad it made me cold. Okay, yeah, the mead of poetry definitely wasn’t working.

Before, I’d only seen the ship in dreams. Now, I realized how desperate our situation was: eight people facing an army designed to destroy worlds, and our hopes hinged on me finding Loki and calling him some bad names. The absurdity of it might have made me feel hopeless. Instead, it made me angry. I didn’t feel poetic, exactly, but I did feel a burning in my throat—the desire to tell Loki exactly what I thought of him. Some choice colorful metaphors sprang to mind.