Ship of the Dead by James Jennewein Page A

effect on one as old as me.”
    â€œBut you’re a dwarf!” said Dane. “You won’t need as much. We have to try!”
    â€œI don’t have to do anything,” Déttmárr snapped. “It is my life. I will choose whether to eat of it or not to eat of it.”
    â€œBut why wouldn’t you?”
    â€œBecause I’m done with life, that’s why. The wars, the treachery, the cruelty, the tears. Do you know how many times someone has come and told me that the world was ending and I just had to forge a weapon to kill a demon or draugr or some other denizen of the underworld? Too many times, that’s how many!”
    Dane tried to comment, but Déttmárr barreled on.
    â€œAnd did you get a look at that she-witch of a wife I have downstairs? Answer me truthfully. Would you really want to live even a day with that woman? Can you imagine how I feel? Six hundred years I’ve been with her. I can’t imagine another day with that creature, much less another ten years.”
    â€œI heard that!” came the woman’s voice from below.
    â€œAnd I meant for you to hear it!” cried Déttmárr. And exploding in a fit of coughing, he collapsed back on the bed. “Go now. Let me die in peace.”
    â€œNo,” Dane insisted. “I’m not leaving without that weapon. Eat!” Dane took the dwarf’s hand and placed the apple core in it.
    The dwarf stared down at the core in his palm, then up at Dane and his friends. “You’re not leaving till I try this, right?”
    Dane nodded firmly. Déttmárr lifted the apple core to his nose and sniffed, making a face.
    â€œIt’s just a little badger spit you’re smelling—perfectly harmless,” said Lut.
    â€œGo on,” said Dane. “Eat it.”
    Déttmárr gave it a long look, then put it in his mouth and nibbled off a tiny piece of the golden peel. He chewed and swallowed, waiting for it to take effect. Nothing happened.
    He took another bite. Still nothing.
    â€œSo much for your magic apple,” said Déttmárr. Dane saw the disappointment on the faces of Lut and Jarl, but he refused to give up. He gave a hard stare to the dwarf and watched as this time Déttmárr opened wide and bit off the whole top half of the apple core, stem and all. He chewed it all up and swallowed. Again they waited. Nothing. Dane felt his vitals go cold. Was this really the end of it? A failure before they even started? Déttmárr opened his mouth to eat the rest of the core—and suddenly froze. The core fell from his fingers to the bed, his mouth still stuck wide open.
    The dwarf began changing right before their eyes. His white pallor disappeared and a new glow came into his cheeks, his skin turning rosy pink. The deep creases and wrinkles on his face and arms began to disappear as his flesh took on new firmness. The snow-white eyebrows turned dark gray, and fine shafts of new hair began to sprout atop his head. His eyes burned brighter and his beard too took on new color and shine. Dane couldn’t find his tongue; what he was seeing was truly an act of the gods.
    â€œ Now do you believe me?” Lut asked the dwarf.
    Déttmárr looked up in wonderment. “By Odin, I can feel it!” he cried, throwing off his blanket and jumping to his feet on the floor, gazing at his newly revitalized limbs. “I’m young again! I can breathe! I can walk! I can dance!”
    Déttmárr danced about the room, hooting and shouting with glee and flinging his beard back and forth in front of him as if it were a dance partner.
    â€œQuiet up there!” his wife shouted from below. “You’re upsetting my roly-polies!”
    This made Déttmárr laugh all the more. He suddenly patted the top of his head, elated to feel he was no longer bald. “Hair! I’ve hair again! Whoo-hoo!” Sent into new squeals of laughter, Déttmárr leaped into