am called Highest, and True-Guesser. I am Grimnir, and I am the Hooded One. I am All-Father, and I am Gondlir Wand-bearer. I have as many names as there are winds, as many titles as there are ways to die. My ravens are Huginn and Muninn: Thought and Memory; my wolves are Freki and Geri; my horse is the gallows.” Two ghostly-gray ravens, like transparent skins of birds, landed on Wednesday’s shoulders, pushed their beaks into the side of Wednesday’s head as if tasting his mind, and flapped out into the world once more.
What should I believe? thought Shadow, and the voice came back to him from somewhere deep beneath the world, in a bass rumble: Believe everything.
“Odin?” said Shadow, and the wind whipped the word from his lips.
“Odin,” whispered Wednesday, and the crash of the breakers on the beach of skulls was not loud enough to drown that whisper. “Odin,” said Wednesday, tasting the sound of the words in his mouth. “Odin,” said Wednesday, his voice a triumphant shout that echoed from horizon to horizon. His name swelled and grew and filled the world like the pounding of blood in Shadow’s ears.
And then, as in a dream, they were no longer riding toward a distant hall. They were already there, and their mounts were tied in the shelter beside the hall.
The hall was huge but primitive. The roof was thatched, the walls were wooden. There was a fire burning in the center of the hall, and the smoke stung Shadow’s eyes.
“We should have done this in my mind, not in his,” muttered Mr. Nancy to Shadow. “It would have been warmer there.”
“We’re in his mind?”
“More or less. This is Valaskjalf. It’s his old hall.”
Shadow was relieved to see that Nancy was now once more an old man wearing yellow gloves, although his shadow shook and shivered and changed in the flames of the fire, and what it changed into was not always entirely human.
There were wooden benches against the walls, and, sitting on them or standing beside them, perhaps ten people. They kept their distance from each other: a mixed lot, who included a dark-skinned, matronly woman in a red sari, several shabby-looking businessmen, and others, too close to the fire for Shadow to be able to make them out.
“Where are they?” whispered Wednesday fiercely, to Nancy. “Well? Where are they? There should be scores of us here. Dozens!”
“You did all the inviting,” said Nancy. “I think it’s a wonder you got as many here as you did. You think I should tell a story, to start things off?”
Wednesday shook his head. “Out of the question.”
“They don’t look very friendly,” said Nancy. “A story’s a good way of gettin’ someone on your side. And you don’t have a bard to sing to them.”
“No stories,” said Wednesday. “Not now. Later, there will be time for stories. Not now.”
“No stories. Right. I’ll just be the warm-up man.” And Mr. Nancy strode out into the firelight with an easy smile.
“I know what you are all thinking,” he said. “You are thinking, what is Compé Anansi doing, coming out to talk to you all, when the All-Father called you all here, just like he called me here? Well, you know, sometimes people need reminding of things. I look around when I come in, and I thought, Where’s the rest of us? But then I thought, just because we are few and they are many, we are weak, and they are powerful, it does not mean that we are lost.
“You know, one time I saw Tiger down at the waterhole: he had the biggest testicles of any animal, and the sharpest claws, and two front teeth as long as knives and as sharp as blades. And I said to him, ‘Brother Tiger, you go for a swim, I’ll look after your balls for you.’ He was so proud of his balls. So he got into the waterhole for a swim, and I put his balls on, and left him my own little spider-balls. And then, you know what I did? I ran away, fast as my legs would take me.
“I didn’t stop till I got to the next town. And I saw Old Monkey there. ‘You lookin’ mighty fine, Anansi,’ said Old Monkey. I said to him, ‘You know what they all singin’ in the town over there?’ ‘What are they singin’?’ he asks me. ‘They singin’ the funniest song,’ I told him. Then I did a dance, and I sings,
Tiger’s balls, yeah,
I ate