There are very few items of Power left in the world. Most have been destroyed across the ages in defense of one Cause or another, the people wielding them not knowing how to properly use what they had. The Great Staff of Ra, once carried by Egyptian Pharoahs is one of these, smashed into a thousand pieces by the Roman legions that swarmed over the once great empire. A few of them have been lost through cataclysmic events like earthquakes or underwater tectonic shifts that cause great rents in the earth. One such shift caused the flooding of the Greek city of Joppa; the ensuing tsunami destroyed much of the city, taking the Winged Sandals of Hermes along with it. But a few, a very scant few, items have survived the vagaries of war and the clumsiness of mankind.
And I happen to hold three of them.
Perhaps the oddest one of all is Odin's Eye. I think everyone knows the story, yes? Odin the Wanderer went into Jotunheimer, the Land of the Giants, to seek out the Well of Wisdom. He thought that having foresight would help him prepare for the final battle, or Ragnarok, and give him an edge over the Midgard Serpent. In order to drink from the Well, however, Odin had to sacrifice an eye by plucking it from his skull and dropping it into the water. Only then was he allowed to drink the magical water and thereby gain knowledge of the past, present, and future.
What people don't realize is the Well had no use for Odin's eye floating around in its pure waters. It only demanded the sacrifice to make sure Odin was serious about his request. Now, it just so happened that I was walking past the Well on my way to study Fire Magic with the Jotuns. The spirit of Mimir, guardian of the Well, appeared and asked me to remove the eye from the water before it began to rot. Once I managed to remove the eye and held it in my hands, I noticed that it no longer looked like an eyeball at all. Rather, it looked like a round piece of glass. Mimir informed me that the eye, after being submerged in the Water of Wisdom, had been transformed into crystal and could now see a small distance into the future as well as see the truth of all things in the present. I thanked Mimir for the gift, put the round crystal in my satchel, and forgot about it while I was studying with the Jotuns.
A few years passed and I had quite forgotten about the Eye of Odin when I received an urgent summons from the Asgard to attend Odin himself in his residence at Valaskjalf. Apparently Odin's son, a very young Thor, had accepted a challenge from the King of the Mountain Giants, and I was requested to travel with the teen God of Thunder to provide whatever wisdom or assistance I saw fit. Now, I at that point in my career, I had already lived through multiple encounters with the Greek deities and really had no desire to become involved with the Asgard. However, when the God of War and Magic stares at you with his luminous remaining eye, twenty Valkyrie looking down at you from the battlements, it's hard to say no.
And so, I found myself traveling with a handsome young Thor, his blonde hair shoulder length, his shoulders covered in magical steel mail, along the road to Ulfgrimmrstead, the ancestral home of the Mountain Giants. I have to interject here that I was amazed at the youth's strength and stamina. I realized he was an Asgard deity, but even so, the Greek gods and goddesses I knew all had the constitutions of a physically fit man. If Thor was typical, then the Asgard were physically far superior to any mortal hero.
Once we reached the Halls of the Mountain King, I was made aware of the nature of the boy's challenge. King Utgaroa had devised four challenges for the young Thor. Should he be able to beat all four, Thor would be awarded a great object of Power, a hammer imbued with several magical abilities that the giants had crafted in preparation for Ragnarok. By the look on Utgaroa's face, it was clear to me that the old King had no intention of allowing Thor to win.
The first challenge Thor faced was an eating contest. He was pitted against a wisp of a man named Logi who barely came to Thor's waist. I predicted the outcome to be "no contest". Well, I was right, but not quite in the way I had imagined. You see, despite the fact that Thor ate with the speed and gusto of a typical teenaged boy, Logi ate even faster; I watched in disbelief as he even ate into the wooden platters the food was placed upon. As Thor became more panicked and tried to eat even more, I realized that something was not quite right here. Reaching into my satchel, I brought out my Eye of Odin to see what was actually going on. It the depths of the glass, I could see Thor eating away like a horse. But sitting next to him was not a man, but rather a fire elemental. Utgaroa had paced an illusion upon a creature of fire so that it appeared to be a man, and as everyone knows, fire can consume a great deal. There was no way Thor would be able to consume more food than Logi, and so, I took matters into my own hands.
As unobtrusively as I could I raised my hand and cast a minor spell, causing several tankards of ale to topple and spill all over Logi the Fire Elemental. In the Eye, I saw his flame shrink and wither; at the table, I saw the small illusory man stop eating all together. At the end of the appointed time, Thor had eaten more than Logi and was declared the winner.
At the second contest, it was announced that should Thor be able to completely drain the contents of King Utgaroa's chalice, Thor would be the winner. Well, seeing how that boy could eat and drink, I didn't think this was out of reach for Thor and, so, sat back to watch the proceedings. However, I watched in disbelief as Thor brought the cup to his lips and began to drink and drink and drink without the contents of the chalice changing at all. No matter how much Thor swallowed, the chalice remained full. I quickly brought out my crystal Eye to see what was going on this time. What I saw astonished me.
Through the magical glass, I could see that the cup was normal, but what was contained within it was not, for the cup had been magicked to hold the enormity of the world's oceans. What Thor was trying to drain was all of the water in the world. I thought as fast as I could. I could feel that the enchantment on the chalice was too strong for me to break on the fly. Besides, the release of energy would probably kill most of the spectators and Thor, and I didn't fancy telling Odin I had accidentally killed his kid. So, I did the next best thing.
I quickly placed upon Thor an enchantment that was similar to what was on the chalice. If the contents of the chalice could represent the world's oceans, I made Thor represent the one thing that could hold that much water: the ocean floors. Within moments, Thor had drained the chalice completely to the great surprise of King Utgaroa and to the shouts and cheers of the giants.
When Thor's third challenge was announced, I knew immediately that something was up. His challenge was to lift the King's cat off of the floor and place it on the King's throne. Now, it was obvious to me that the task as described was too simple and that there was probably magic involved yet again. And so, as Thor walked over to lift the orange feline, I took a quick look within my glass. Sitting there curled up on the floor was an image that turned my soul to ice. It was the Midgard Serpent, the creature of Chaos and Evil that was destined to destroy the world in the Great Battle at the end of time. I knew that the Midgard Serpent was so large that it was wrapped around the entire world several times. There was no way Thor was going to be able to move it.
I watched, though, as the valiant young man planted himself, legs spread apart, and tried his best to lift what he thought was a cat. To my great surprise, Thor actually managed to lift one of the cat's paws off of the floor, though he wasn't able to keep it up for long. I began to feel the cold grasp of despair upon my chest, for I knew that no magic in the world would be able to lift that great and evil serpent against his will. But then I got an idea. I could not make the Serpent move, but perhaps I could get the Serpent to move on its own.
Making certain that no one was watching me, I conjured an illusion into the mind of the sleeping snake which made it believe that the time of Ragnarok had arrived. I made it dream that Odin himself was standing at the edge of Valhalla, waiting for their battle to begin. Rousing itself from its dreams, the snake, loosed its hold upon the earth in preparation of going to Valhalla. As soon as it did, Thor was able to get his hands underneath the creature's belly and lift it onto the King's throne. The King's countenance this time was not one of amazement, but rather was one filled with hate, hate that was directed to Thor. I was very glad that my meddling had not yet been detected.
Thor's final challenge was to wrestle a champion of the King's choosing. I almost laughed when I saw who this person was. From a corner of the room, out walked a old woman named Elli. She was so thin and so brittle looking, I thought she looked more like an ambulatory broom than a female wrestler. At the sounding of the bell, though, the old woman struck out like lightening, grabbing Thor and lifting him in the air as if he was a rag doll and threw him down onto the stone floor. I heard a definite crack as his head hit the paving stones. Thor stood up obviously dazed, but before he could move in defense, the old woman had slammed into his stomach, driving the teenaged God onto his knees.
It was clear this was another of Utgaroa's magic tricks. Looking into my glass, I could see why Thor was overwhelmed. The old woman Elli was no woman at all, but rather was the incarnation of Old Age, the one thing that no man or god is able to defeat. To counter Old Age's power, I summoned up a cloak of Youth and wrapped it around Thor, thereby canceling Elli's edge against my young charge. The contest was quickly finished after that.
Once all of the congratulations were taken care of, Thor was begrudgingly awarded by King Utgaroa a beautiful war hammer called Mjolner, a hammer Thor became known for carrying once he matured enough to begin adventuring on his own. Those adventures, however, were not documented by me; by that time I had returned to the mainland and took up the mantle of The Merlin, a post that is generally passed down father to son. In my case, though, due to the seriousness of the times, I was called in to assist the Druids as The Merlin, but that is another story for another time.
Excerpt from The Memoirs of Dr Mandragora: From the Maudlin to the Macabre
