Iced at Ragnarokk

With cruel and creeping fingers, she had seized the wheels of the world--a demoralizing surprise, for all of us who thought to know her.

Now, most everything we had left was frozen beneath her grasp.

I had been expecting a ship made of fingernails and a crew of angry dead.

Ice came instead.

We had all been walking around coated in a living, growing slime for weeks--just the latest gift of the errant stars. The sun had never returned for summer, and enchanted molds and other fungi had bloomed and festered in the constant dim and fog. We smelled of mildew, and were slick with the slime. It thickened as you watched, claiming furniture, trees, and people alike.

I'd watched the world unraveling in bits for awhile now--houses swallowed by the earth by the hundreds, people hunted--but it was the slime that really spelled out 'end of days.' We were being prepared for decomposition, before we even died.

And then, six inches of slime suddenly were turned to ice--in Midsummer, no less. Our supplies were lost.

I thought ruefully of Odjinn and his cat food sales pitch--of course, the raving fool was right. We were now poised to starve.

But the Giants, masters of the deep freeze that they were, had it all figured out.

Locke had set up shop in the center of a frozen pond, smug and brazen as you please, arrayed in everyone's finest--contraband furs from head to toe, gold lockets piled about his neck so thick it was like a muffler, a limited edition sweatsuit piped with mink and ermine (and other weasel furs), fine leather dress shoes with the heels cut off, and coyote tails trailing from his long coat. Layers of fine perfumes--men's and women's--competed with the musty smell he'd acquired dealing on the ground with the rest of us scrubs.

He was part wolf, part giant, supposed friend to everybody.

Like all the rest of them, he dealt in promises.

I was the fool who bought them.

Locke's hat had snarling stuffed badgers along the brim. They appeared to be mocking me. The fur hat was two feet tall, and somewhat resembled a priest's miter, complete with fur lappets trailing down his chest. From moment to moment, his countenance tended to shift between disdainful godhead and deranged jester.

"You truly are a son of a bisch," I remarked, surveying his latest outfit. It was my standard greeting.

"Proud to be so." He raised his head a bit taller, preening himself with his hands. "And you'll make a fine coat one day--for one of my dolls."

"They don't even wear clothes," I scoffed.

He shrugged. "I like variety."

"And everything knows you do. Even the hills hide when you come around." Banter was part of the barter, but I always felt a shudder come over me after trading a few barbs with Locke. His tastes were an easy target, but they just dragged me into his world even to jest of them. He felt no shame about it anyway. He styled himself a prince of deviance.

I was here because I'd just scored a good deal of gold, and the law demanded I trade it for promises--the only currency allowed.

Our own promises--though stamped in gold--had lost their worth.

But now I had enough gold for a lifetime of promises. Thousands upon thousands.

Locke sensed the shift in focus. The lockets tinkled as he turned to look at me.

"Value for promises has gone up."

It wasn't a surprise. The more gold I brought them, the less it was worth.

"How many you got?"

"A few." No sense flooding his coffers all at once.

"Heard you scored a good deal more than that."

"Liars. Jealous, too."

"Of what?"

"My reviled position. You know what they call me."

"Ratters."

"And worse."

"Would explain your foul disposition."

"They know well enough the source of that." Finer folk than I paid the balance then. Repaying the debt to the likes of him was an ugly irony.

"Well, it's one for two, now. A Giant's promise is worth more than gold, after all." His hand was on his chest in mock reverence.

How a few numbers can change the balance of the world.

"Do they really expect us to believe such rot? You just upped the value of your currency ten times!"

"Plenty do believe it," he shrugged, and smiled with his stolen teeth, "more did when it mattered. What choice do you have now? You can sell me the gold, or the wolves will take it. You can buy with promises, or starve with gold."

And that was the crux of it. The time for choosing was over. Things were frozen in place.

With great fanfare, he opened a velvet case--it had once held heirloom flatware of gold or silver--and placed it on a cherry dining table. The table's legs and edges had ornate sculpting, but the veneer had chipped in places from its move from whatever dining room had been its original home. Things like that were meant for a stable world.

He pulled out a fancy inkwell and quill pen, as well as fine paper. Fashion meretrix and pirate though he was, he had a surprisingly artful script.

The note read:

"Upon the honor of the Giants, this note entitles the bearer to one promise. Let this note be known as holy bond upon the word and honor of Chief Financial Arbitrator Locke."

He wrote out two identical notes. The second, he tore in half and handed me one half.

It read:

"Upon the honor--

This note--

bearer--

Let this note be known--

Upon the word--"

There might be a saying, 'half a promise is worth less than none.' Certainly I realized its meaning at that moment.