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When he touched him, Maskull felt a terrible shooting pain through his heart. "I can't go on regarding you as a man, Krag. You're something more than a man whether good or evil, I can't say." Krag looked yellow and formidable. He did not reply to Maskull's remark, but after a pause said, "So you've been trying to find Surtur on your own account, during the intervals between killing and fondling?"
And when he went toward the South he saw Muspelheim, where stood Surtur with the Flaming Sword, a terrible figure, who would one day join the Giants in their war against the Gods. And when he turned North he heard the roaring of the cauldron Hvergelmer as it poured itself out of Niflheim, the place of darkness and dread.
Thor gains great renown by killing the Midgard serpent, but recoils and falls dead, suffocated with the venom which the dying monster vomits over him. Loki and Heimdall meet and fight till they are both slain. The Gods and their enemies having fallen in battle, Surtur, who has killed Dreyr, darts fire and flames over the world, and the whole universe is burned up.
It looked almost like an answer to my question.... I ought not to have asked about myself, but about Surtur. Then I would have got a different answer. I might have learned something... I might have seen him." He remained quiet and apathetic for a bit. "But I couldn't face that awful glare," he proceeded. "It was bursting my body. He warned me, too.
"Sit still, ye Vanir," Loki railed. "If the Æsir are to bear the brunt of Jötunheim's and Muspelheim's war upon Asgard it was your part to be the first or the last on Vigard's plain. But already ye have lost the battle for Asgard, for the weapon that was put into Frey's hands he bartered for Gerda the Giantess. Ha! Surtur shall triumph over you because of Frey's bewitchment."
"Then you assert that Surtur is already there?" "Surtur is where he is. He is a great traveller." "Won't I see him?" Krag went up to him and looked him in the eyes. "Don't forget that you have asked for it, and wanted it. Few people in Tormance will know more about him than you do, but your memory will be your worst friend."
Frey and Surtur fought; he perished, Frey perished in that battle, but he would not have perished if he had had in his hand his own magic sword. And now, for the third time, Garm, the hound with blood upon his jaws, barked. He had broken loose on the world, and with fierce bounds he rushed toward Vigard Plain, where the Gods had assembled their powers. Loud barked Garm.
"Perhaps there is such another world," said Polecrab huskily. "But did that vision also seem real and false to you?" "Very real, but not false then, for then I didn't understand all this. But just because it was real, it couldn't have been Surtur, who has no connection with reality." "Didn't those drum taps sound real to you?" "I had to hear them with my ears, and so they sounded real to me.
But one thing's evident: nothing but the wildest audacity will carry me through, and I must sacrifice everything else to that. And therefore if Surtur shows himself again, I shall go forward to meet him, even if it means death." Through the black, quiet aisles of the forest the drum beats came again. The sound was a long way off and very faint.
"How comes this horrible world to exist?" Catice did not answer. "Who is Surtur?" "You will get nearer to him tomorrow; but not here." "I am wading through too much blood," said Maskull. "Nothing good can come of it." "Do not fear change and destruction; but laughter and joy." Maskull meditated. "Tell me, Catice. If I had elected to follow Spadevil, would you really have accepted his faith?"
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