Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [15]
“Which the giant did!” Peter said, too excited to keep from interrupting. This was part of the story he knew very well.
“Yes,” Father said. “The frost giant came out and they did fierce battle with each other, a battle that lasted four days and three nights and shook the ice-covered lands all around them. But Jorg couldn’t prevail, and the giant finally repulsed him. But that night Jorg wrote a song about the great battle and sang it to the earth and the moon and the stars, and the earth and the moon and the stars listened and took note.
“The next day Jorg went to stand again before Bryn’s dark tower, and again called him out to battle. And this second great and thundering battle also lasted four days and three nights, before Jorg was repulsed once more. That night Jorg wrote another song about the second battle, and the earth and the moon and the stars listened again and took note. But Jorg was as clever as he was brave and mighty. This time he added a verse to his song wherein he promised that on the third time they battled he’d win a decisive victory and overthrow the giant, taking his head and all of his treasures. And the earth and the moon and the stars pondered this and conferred together and decided that this must indeed come to pass, for it’s been written in a song. Before that day — and remember that this happened during the early days of all things — nothing untrue had ever been written into a song.
“So Jorg and the frost giant battled a third time and it also lasted for four days and three nights, but this time Jorg won. He overthrew Bryn and took his head and all of his treasures. Now we can never know if Jorg defeated the giant solely by his own strength, or if his song convinced the earth and the moon and the stars to help, or even if the very fact of the song was itself enough to conjure powerful magic that determined the battle’s outcome. But what we do know is that Jorg the Clever cut off one of the giant’s fingers to roast over a fire for his dinner that night.”
“And the finger was bigger than the biggest suckling pig,” Peter said, jumping in with another part that he knew.
“Yes, it made a fine meal,” Johannes said. Despite the interruptions, he couldn’t help but smile at his son’s obvious enthusiasm. He continued, “So, Jorg ate the giant’s finger down to the bone, and then he took Bryn’s white finger bone and carved this very flute out of it and called it Frost.” He held the flute out again for his son to see. “And it had great magic in it.
“Jorg was our distant ancestor. Diluted though it may be over the generations, the blood of heroes runs in our veins. When he grew old, Jorg gave Frost to his son, Alban, who passed it on to his son, Albrecht, who passed it on to his son, and so on and so forth, for a hundred generations or more, until I received it from my father, your grandfather. We’ve always owned it from almost the very beginning of time and — this is important — Frost must never be lost, or allowed to be stolen, or given away to anyone but those of our bloodline, or a dire curse will befall us from now on and for every generation to come. That’s the bad part of the magic that’s in this thing, and part of what I never told you before. Do you think you can remember that, Peter?”
“Uhm … Yes, but …” That’s when Peter began to suspect what was about to happen, and he realized something was very wrong. He knew the part about the generations and that Frost was handed down from father to son for more years than he could ever begin to imagine. And he knew this moment would come someday, but not so soon, and not to him. “But Max …” he began to say.
“No,” Johannes said. “Not Max. This is for you. Max may be the oldest, so if I had any lands or high titles to pass on, those would rightly go to him. But Frost doesn’t get handed off to the oldest son, it goes to the best musician. And that’s you. I’ve known