Odd thought about it. He thought about the way rainbows appeared on rainy days, when the sun came out.
“I think,” said the bear, “as a responsible adult, I should point a few things out.”
“Talk is free,” said Odd, “but the wise man chooses when to spend his words.” It was something his father used to say.
“I just thought I should point out that we are wasting our time. We don’t have any way of getting to the Rainbow Bridge. And if by some miracle we summon it, look at us—we’re animals, and you can barely walk. We can’t defeat Frost Giants. This whole thing is hopeless.”
“He’s right,” said the fox.
“If it’s hopeless,” said Odd, “why are you coming with me?”
The animals said nothing. The morning sun sparkled up at them from the snow, dazzling Odd, making him squint.
“Nothing better to do,” said the bear after a while.
“Up here!” said Odd. He clung tightly to the bear’s fur as they clambered up the side of a steep hill. They could see the mountains beyond.
“Stop,” said Odd. The waterfall was one of his favourite places in the world. From spring until midwinter it ran high and fast before it crashed down almost a hundred feet into the valley beneath, where it had carved out a rocky basin. In high summer, when the sun barely set, the villagers would come out to the waterfall and splash around in the basin pool, letting the water tumble onto their heads.
Now, the waterfall was frozen and ice ran from the crags down to the basin in twisted ropes and great clear icicles.
“It’s a waterfall,” said Odd. “I used to come out here. And when the water came down and the sun was shining brightly, you could see a rainbow, like a huge circle, all around the waterfall.”
“No water,” said the fox. “No water, no rainbow.”
“There’s water,” said Odd. “But it’s ice.”
He took the axe from his belt, pushed his crutch beneath his arm as he got down from the bear’s back and walked over the ice until he stood before the frozen waterfall. He used the crutch to hold himself in position as best he could. Then he began to swing the axe. The noise of the blade hitting the thick icicle cracked off the hills around them, making echoes that sounded as if an entire army of men was hammering on the ice . . .
There was a crash, and an icicle as large as Odd smashed down to the surface of the frozen pool.
“Clever,” said the bear, in the kind of tone of voice that meant that it wasn’t clever at all. “You broke it.”
“Yes,” said Odd. He inspected the shards of ice on the ground, picked up the biggest, most cleanly broken piece he could find, then took it to the side of the frozen pool, and put it on a rock, and stared at it.
“It’s a lump of ice,” said the fox. “If you ask me.”
“Yes,” said Odd. “I think the rainbows are imprisoned in the ice when the water freezes.”
The boy took out his knife and began to trace outlines on the ice block with the blade, going back and forth with it, scoring it as best he could.
The eagle circled high above them, almost invisible in the midwinter sun.
“He’s been up there a long time,” said the bear. “Do you think he’s looking for something?”
The fox said, “I worry about him. It must be hard to be an eagle. He could get lost in there. When I was a horse—”
“A mare, you mean,” said the bear with a grunt.
The fox tossed its head and walked away. Odd put his knife down and took out his axe once more. “I’ve seen rainbows on the snow sometimes,” said Odd, loud enough for the fox to hear, “and on the side of buildings, when the sun shone through the icicles. And I thought, Ice is only water, so it must have rainbows in it too. When the water freezes, the rainbows are trapped in it, like fish in a shallow pool. And the sunlight sets them free.”
Odd knelt on the frozen pool. He hit the big lump of ice with his axe. This did nothing—the axe just glanced off the ice and nearly cut into his leg.
“Do that again and you’ll break the axe,” said the fox. “Hold on.”
He nosed along the bank of the frozen pool for several minutes. Then he began scrabbling at the snow. “Here,” he said. “This is what you need.” He put his paw on a grey rock he had revealed.
Odd pulled at the stone, which came up easily from the ground, and it proved to be a flint. Part of it was grey, but the other part, the translucent part of the flint, was a deep salmon-pink color, and it seemed to have been chipped.
“Don’t touch the edges,” said the fox. “It’ll be sharp. Really sharp. They didn’t mess about when they made those things, and they don’t blunt easily if you make them well.”
“What is it?”
“A hand axe. They used to do sacrifices here, on that big rock over there, and they used tools like this to slice up the animal and to part the flesh from the bones.”
“How do you know?” asked Odd.
There was satisfaction and pride in the fox’s voice as it said, “Who do you think they were making sacrifices to?”
Odd brought the tool over to the lump of ice. He ran his hands over the ice, slippery as a fish, then he began to attack it with the flint. The rock felt warm in his hands. Hot, even.
“It’s hot,” said Odd.
“Is it?” said the fox, sounding pleased with itself.
The ice fell away under the flint axe, just as Odd had wanted it to. He hacked it into a shape that was almost triangular, thicker on one side than on the other.
The fox and the bear stood nearby watching. The eagle descended to see what was going on, landed in the leafless branches of a tree and was still as a statue.
Odd took his ice triangle and placed it so that the sunlight shone through it onto the white snow that drifted on the frozen pool. Nothing happened. He twisted it, tilted it, moved it around and . . .
A puddle of light appeared on the snow, all the colors of the rainbow . . .
“How is that?” asked Odd.
“But it’s on the ground,” said the bear doubtfully. “It should be in the air. I mean, how can that be a bridge?”
The eagle took off from the tree with a clap of wings, and began to fly upwards.
“I don’t think he’s very impressed,” said the fox. “Nice try.”
Odd shrugged. He could feel his mouth pulling up into a smile even as his heart sank. He had been so proud of himself, making a rainbow. His hands were numb. He hefted the stone axe, was about to throw it, hard, away from him and then simply dropped it.
A screech. Odd looked up to see the eagle plummeting towards them. He began to step back, marvelling at the eagle’s speed, wondering how the bird could pull out in time . . .
It didn’t pull out.
The eagle hit the patch of colored light on the white snow without slowing, as if it was diving into a pool of liquid water.
The puddle of color splashed . . . and opened.
Scarlet fell softly about them and everything was outlined in greens and blues and the world was raspberry-colored and leaf-colored and golden-colored and fire-colored and blueberry-colored and wine-colored. Odd’s world was colors, and, despite his crutch, he could feel himself falling forward, tumbling into the rainbow . . .