Wednesday said nothing for long enough that Shadow started to wonder if he had heard the question, or if he had, possibly, fallen asleep with his eyes open. Then he said, staring ahead of him as he talked, "I know a charm that can cure pain and sickness, and lift the grief from the heart of the grieving.
"I know a charm that will heal with a touch.
"I know a charm that will turn aside the weapons of an enemy.
"I know another charm to free myself from all bonds and locks.
"A fifth charm: I can catch an arrow in flight and take no harm from it."
His words were quiet, urgent. Gone was the hectoring tone, gone was the grin. Wednesday spoke as if he were reciting the words of a religious ritual, or remembering something dark and painful.
"A sixth: spells sent to hurt me will hurt only the sender.
"A seventh charm I know: I can quench a fire simply by looking at it.
"An eighth: if any man hates me, I can win his friendship.
"A ninth: I can sing the wind to sleep and calm a storm for long enough to bring a ship to shore.
"Those were the first nine charms I learned. Nine nights I hung on the bare tree, my side pierced with a spear's point. I swayed and blew in the cold winds and the hot winds, without food, without water, a sacrifice of myself to myself, and the worlds opened to me.
"For a tenth charm, I learned to dispel witches, to spin them around in the skies so that they will never find their way back to their own doors again.
"An eleventh: if I sing it when a battle rages it can take warriors through the tumult unscathed and unhurt, and bring them safely back to their hearths and their homes.
"A twelfth charm I know: if I see a hanged man I can bring him down from the gallows to whisper to us all he remembers.
"A thirteenth: if I sprinkle water on a child's head, that child will not fall in battle.
"A fourteenth: I know the names of all the gods. Every damned one of them.
"A fifteenth: I have a dream of power, of glory, and of wisdom, and I can make people believe my dreams."
His voice was so low now that Shadow had to strain to hear it over the plane's engine noise.
"A sixteenth charm I know: if I need love I can turn the mind and heart of any woman.
"A seventeenth, that no woman I want will ever want another.
"And I know an eighteenth charm, and that charm is the greatest of all, and that charm I can tell to no man, for a secret that no one knows but you is the most powerful secret there can ever be."
