Alvíss and the Dawn

Thor was not home. That is important to establish, because if Thor had been home the whole thing would have lasted about four seconds. A dwarf would have stepped through the gate, Thor would have seen him, Thor would have killed him, and then Thor would have eaten dinner. Thor was out killing things in the east, which he almost always was, and that meant the gate to Bilskirnir stood half open and unguarded like a pub after closing time.

The dwarf's name was Alvíss. All-Wise. He had given himself that name, or his people had given it to him, and either way he had lived up to it by memorizing every damn thing ever said in the nine worlds. Short and pale, with a nose in the grey color that skin gets when it never sees sunlight. His eyes were round and wet like stones at the bottom of a well. He smelled of mildew and sulphur and the sour scent of someone who has slept in his clothes for a hundred years.

He entered Asgard with the sort of confidence that only total ignorance of one's own situation can produce, and he brought a claim. Someone, he said, had promised him Thrúd. Thor's daughter. As a bride. He said it loudly, to the guards, to the servants, to anyone who would listen. 'I have come to collect my bride,' he said, and his voice echoed through the hall like a rat screaming in a barrel.

Thrúd stood in the doorway to her chambers and looked at the dwarf. Tall and strong, with her father's shoulders and her mother's gaze, and right now that gaze said nothing at all, which was worse than if it had said something. No one had consulted her. Someone had apparently promised her to a mouldy little creature from the underworld while she was not present, and that was apparently how things worked.

The guards did not know what to do. A dwarf claiming rights to a god's daughter. Sif was not home either. No one with the authority to crush the dwarf or throw him out was available, and Alvíss politely refused to leave. The dwarf sat down in the hall and waited. He drank ale, drank more ale, and told everyone who passed that he was All-Wise, that he knew every name for every thing in every world, and that he would soon marry the most beautiful woman in Asgard.

Thor came home at dusk. He had giant blood in his beard and was in a good mood, the particular good mood that comes from having solved every problem of the day with the same hammer, and he walked into his hall and stopped. There, at his table, sat a dwarf. A pale, grey-nosed, mildew-smelling dwarf who was drinking his ale and smiling at him with small yellow-brown teeth.

'Who the hell are you?' said Thor. It was an honest question. Thor rarely asked other kinds. Alvíss stood up, straightened his back as best he could, and explained that he was All-Wise, the wisest of dwarves, and that he had come to collect his promised bride, Thrúd, daughter of Thor. He said it with dignity, he said it with pride, and he said it to the wrong person.

Thor looked at the dwarf, then at his daughter in the doorway, then back at the dwarf. His hand went to Mjolnir by pure reflex, the way a man's hand goes to his wallet when someone mentions money. He could crush this creature. Easily. Quickly. It would solve the problem, and Thor liked solving problems quickly.

Then something unusual happened. Something almost inexplicable. Thor thought. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe it was the ale fumes in the hall, maybe it was the tiny spark of cunning he had inherited from his father Odin and almost never used. The thought was simple: if he crushed the dwarf there would be trouble with the dwarves. Agreements had apparently been made. Promises had been given. Thor did not know by whom or why, and it did not matter. If he killed Alvíss he would break an agreement, and that type of problem could never be solved with a hammer.

So Thor sat down. He put Mjolnir on the table, and the sound made the ale cups jump. 'You say you are wise,' said Thor slowly, and you could almost hear the thoughts grinding behind his forehead like millstones that have not been oiled in a long time. 'Prove it. If you can answer everything I ask, then perhaps you deserve my daughter. Otherwise you leave here with nothing.'

Alvíss lit up. This was his arena. Knowledge. Names. Classification. He had spent his life in the darkness beneath the mountains learning what everything was called in every world, every synonym and kenning, every poetic circumlocution. He sat up straighter and nodded. 'Ask,' he said. 'Ask whatever you like.'

Thor asked about the sky. What do the gods call the sky? And the giants? Alvíss answered without hesitation. The gods say 'heaven', the Vanir say 'weaver of winds', the giants say 'the high one', the elves say 'the fair roof', the dwarves say 'the dripping hall'. He rattled it off like a child who has learned his vocabulary, fast and precise and with a small touch of smugness in his voice that made Thor want to hit him.

Thor asked about the moon. Alvíss answered. Thor asked about the sun, and Alvíss answered that too. The gods call it 'sun', humans call it 'the light', the dwarves call it 'Dvalin's toy'. With each answer Alvíss nodded to himself, small and pale and utterly convinced of his own superiority. He did not notice that Thor was drinking ale while he answered. He did not notice that Thor was refilling his cup too, again and again.

Thor asked about fire. About clouds. About the wind that sweeps across the sea and capsizes ships. Alvíss answered everything. His voice grew hoarse and still he continued, because this was his purpose, the only thing he was good at. Not strong, not handsome, not brave. He knew things. That was all he had, and damn anyone who tried to take it from him.

The hours passed. The night deepened and then, slowly, imperceptibly, it began to lighten again. Thor asked about the sea, and Alvíss told him that the gods call it 'lake' and the giants call it 'the deep one' and the dwarves call it 'the brewed deep'. Thor asked about ale, and Alvíss told him what it was called among elves and among the dead. His eyes were red with fatigue. His hands trembled around the ale cup. Always he answered.

Thrúd had sat down in the doorway with a blanket over her shoulders. She watched her father keeping a dwarf awake with questions, and the dwarf answering and answering and answering without understanding what was happening. Warm mead in her hands, silence on her lips. Her father had it under control, for the first time in his life, and it was a strange thing to see.

Thor asked about the grain that grows in the fields. He asked about trees. Then he asked about the night, and that was a bold move, asking about night while the night was ending. Alvíss answered. The gods call it 'night', the giants call it 'the lightless', the elves call it 'joy of sleep'. His voice was barely a whisper now. His grey skin had become almost translucent.

Alvíss was the one who noticed it first, and that is the most tragic part of the whole story. He felt the warmth before he saw the light. A faint, creeping warmth on his left cheek, a warmth that never reaches down beneath the mountains. He turned his head toward the east and saw the thin strip of gold on the horizon, and his eyes widened, and his mouth opened, and no sound came out.

'You answered well,' said Thor, and he smiled, the broad, stupid, triumphant grin of a man who had just done the smartest thing he would ever do. 'You answered everything. You just answered too long.'

The sunlight crept across the floor of Bilskirnir like spilled gold. It reached Alvíss's feet and they turned grey. Stone grey. Granite, solid and cold and eternal. It crept upward, over his legs, over his hands still gripping the ale cup, over his chest and his throat and his face with the open mouth and the widened eyes.

Stone. The whole dwarf, stone. It took perhaps ten heartbeats. The ale cup cracked in his stone hands and the ale ran down his stone fingers and dripped onto the stone floor.

Thor stretched. His back cracked. He had been up all night, and he felt it in every joint, and it was worth it. Damn, it was worth it. He looked at the stone statue that a few seconds ago had been the wisest creature in the nine worlds, and he scratched his beard. 'I tricked you,' he said to the stone. 'With cunning.' He tasted the word. Cunning. It was new to him. He liked it.

Thrúd rose from her place in the doorway, shook off the blanket, and walked past the stone statue without looking at it. She patted her father's arm as she passed, brief and firm, the closest she came to a thank you. Thor stood and looked at Alvíss for a long time.

The stone statue of Alvíss remained in Bilskirnir for many years after that. Thor used it as a hat rack.