The Islands of the Blessed

by Nancy Farmer

  “So … only wyverns, hippogriffs, and the rest to worry about,” said Thorgil. A really big wave sent water swirling around their feet.

  Jack slung the rope over his shoulder. He used one hand to feel the wall and the other to hold on to Thorgil. “If I disappear, you’re to go back,” he said.

  “If you disappear, I’m going with you,” she retorted.

  Jack went first, slowly and cautiously. It had occurred to him that the cave could fill up with water and they’d be no better off, but the ground went up. The roof of the cave went up as well. “I say! This is lucky,” Jack said. “It’s a regular tunnel.” The farther they went, the better he liked it, although he had no reason for this.

  “Is that light?” said Thorgil.

  Jack had been so absorbed with avoiding rocks, he hadn’t noticed. There was a faint light coming from a side cave. Side cave, he thought, remembering the knuckers. Yet even here a breeze stirred. It was cold and smelled of the sea. When he got to the entrance, he could see that the light came from a small hole on the farther side. The ground trembled as a wave crashed nearby.

  He thought he saw a man crouching in a white robe. The Bard, he thought, for one frozen moment. But it was a cloth draped over a rock. He expected to feel sorrow and disappointment. Instead, he was unaccountably happy, as though he’d turned aside from a dark road to find a house with a cheerful fire on the hearth. The cave was brimming with the life force.

  “Why is it so nice here?” said Thorgil, coming up behind him.

  “You feel it too? I don’t know. It seems like a good place to rest.” Jack saw other articles around the room. Yes, room. This was no ordinary cave, but the dwelling place of someone long gone. He saw a three-legged stool, cooking utensils, a cauldron, a goblet with a pattern of vines inscribed on it, and a staff. Everything was coated with fine sand that must have come in through the hole.

  “Do you know what this place is?” Jack said, with dawning excitement. “This is where Father Severus found Fair Lamenting. His cave is on the other side of that hole. It was a small cave, remember, and he enlarged it with his knife until he broke through to here. He didn’t realize this place was so large. He thought it was simply a hiding place.”

  “It would have looked dark from that side,” said Thorgil.

  “He reached inside and found the bell wrapped in the robe St. Columba had worn when he was head of the School of Bards. Brother Aiden said it was very fine and embroidered with gold.”

  “It never occurred to Father Severus to look farther,” said Thorgil. They stood together in the room, caught in the wonder of it. After the total darkness of the tunnel, this place seemed bright. The walls were decorated with wonderful scenes. Swans floated sedately on painted lakes, deer gathered in a meadow, dogs leaped and barked for the pure joy of it.

  “St. Columba must have made these,” Thorgil said. “What was he doing here?”

  “Brother Aiden said he was giving up his magic to become a Christian,” said Jack. “It looks like it took him a while to make up his mind.”

  Thorgil sank gratefully onto the sandy floor. “I’m tired,” she admitted. “There must be another way out or St. Columba couldn’t have lived here, but I’m too tired to look. It wouldn’t hurt to take a nap.”

  Jack looked around instinctively. In his experience falling asleep in a strange place was always dangerous. They could find themselves in a hogboon’s barrow, for example. But if there was any place in the green world that felt safer than this cave, he couldn’t imagine it. He sighed deeply. Even sorrow was forbidden here, or was unimportant.

  He shook the sand off the white cloth and found that it was a well-made woolen cloak. He spread it over himself and Thorgil, for the damp wind coming through the hole was very cold. They fell asleep, burrowed into the soft sand.

  “Smell that!” cried Thorgil, sitting bolt upright.

  Jack was still comfortably half asleep. He hadn’t rested this well since leaving the village and was unwilling to move, until the odor wafted into his nostrils too. He sat up abruptly. “That can’t be what I think it is.” His mouth filled with saliva and his stomach knotted.

  “Wild boar,” Thorgil said reverently. “Beautiful, succulent, greasy wild boar roasted over a fire.”

  “But how …?” Jack knew from Brother Aiden’s description that Grim’s Island was too desolate for such large animals.

  “Who cares? I know what it is and I want some.” Thorgil stood up and swayed on her feet. “By Thor, I’m weak with hunger!”

  “Is the smell coming from outside?”

  “No. From there.” The shield maiden pointed at the dark tunnel. “Do you suppose St. Columba is still hanging about?”

  “The Bard said he sailed for the Islands of the Blessed long ago,” said Jack. Strangely, he wasn’t sad thinking of the Bard now. He felt slightly guilty about it, but almost instantly that regret vanished as well. It was impossible to be depressed here. Jack went out into the tunnel and sniffed. The odor was coming from somewhere above them. “Whoever it is, I hope he’s generous.”

  “We should take the cloak,” Thorgil said. She rummaged around and found a carrying bag with straps that fitted over her shoulders. “This is perfect! I can put my wealth-hoard in here.”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said doubtfully. “St. Columba meant to abandon these things. Look what happened when Father Severus carried off Fair Lamenting.”

  “That’s because Father Severus didn’t understand magic,” the shield maiden said reasonably. “You do. You’re a bard.”

  “Not really,” said Jack.

  “Well, you’re the closest thing we’ve got. Now put on that cloak and pick up that staff. It will make a decent weapon if we run into trouble. I’d take the cauldron except it’s too heavy—now what’s wrong?”

  Jack had turned very pale. “You can’t take a bard’s staff.”

  “Don’t be silly. St. Columba isn’t going to want it back.”

  “You don’t understand. Such things have to be earned.” Jack had never, ever dared to ask the Bard to borrow his. It was one of those things you didn’t do. A lifetime of experience went into crafting the magic. Life itself gave power to a staff—all the minutes and hours and days of a person, all the memories, hopes, triumphs, friendships, sorrows, and mistakes. They went into the wood to be called up at need.

  Jack had only begun to build this lore when he used his staff to free Din Guardi. It had crumbled into dust.

  “You used to have a staff. How did you earn that one?” said Thorgil.

  It was when they were in Jotunheim, he told her, crossing the frozen waste to the Mountain Queen’s palace. Thorgil’s ankle had been broken and Jack went in search of wood to make her a crutch. He found an ash tree, a most unusual plant in such a cold place, with two branches exactly suited for his needs. One had a fork at one end for Thorgil to lean on. The other reminded him of the gnarled, blackened wood the Bard used. He decided to make himself a walking stick from it. It was only later he realized that the ash had been an offshoot of the great tree Yggdrassil.

  “You see?” Thorgil said triumphantly. “The gods meant you to have that staff, and now you are meant to have this one.”

  Jack wanted to believe it, but he was afraid. “I’m not worthy,” he said.

  “Probably not, but you have to start somewhere,” Thorgil argued. “It’s like learning to be a warrior. You get knocked around a lot at the beginning.”

  Jack’s hand hovered over the staff. He could feel a thrum of power in the air. “If it burns me to ashes, you’ll be sorry.”

  “If you don’t do something soon, I’m going to die of hunger, and you’ll be sorry.”

  Jack grasped the staff, and it was as though a sheet of light wrapped him from head to toe. He saw the entire island in a flash: the seas battering the shore, the stormy clouds, the dark mountain and forest on top. He saw men fighting one another with swords. Then the vision was gone. He slumped, still holding the staff.
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br />   “Well? Are you burned to ashes yet?” the shield maiden demanded.

  “I’m not sure. I think the problem will be to avoid burning up other things,” said Jack. He felt dizzy. “I hope I’m strong enough to control this.”

  “You’ll be fine. You’re Dragon Tongue’s successor.”

  “Don’t say that!” A flame licked out of the end of the staff and left a black mark on the ceiling. “Oh, Freya! Don’t make me angry,” Jack begged. “I need time to get used to so much power. I meant to say that I’ll never be Dragon Tongue’s successor. I’m only his apprentice.”

  Thorgil shouldered the pack carrying her wealth-hoard and went outside. “I’d say if we don’t get to the end of this tunnel fast, there won’t be anything left of that boar except bristles.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  ODIN

  Jack slung the cloak over his shoulders, and to his surprise it fit perfectly. It had seemed larger when he’d used it as a blanket for himself and Thorgil. The staff, too, was exactly the right height. The dizziness passed and Jack was able to walk steadily. The tunnel turned pitch-black only a few paces from the side cave. He called up a spell in a language he did not consciously know. He could not have repeated the words, but the meaning stayed with him:

  Keep foot from fall,

  Hold head from harm.

  Drive dark from day.

  A gentle light radiated from the staff to reveal the gray walls of the tunnel. A path of white sand went up before them.

  “Now, that’s a trick worth learning,” said Thorgil, who had been about to walk into a wall.

  “It’s not a trick, and I don’t know how I did it,” Jack said. “We’d better hurry, because I don’t know how long this spell will last.”

  The smell of roast pork grew stronger the higher they went, and soon it was mixed with the odors of many other good things. “I wonder what they’re celebrating,” said Thorgil. “They’re certainly making a lot of noise.”

  “That’s not a celebration.” Jack stopped her from going farther.

  “By Thor, you’re right! I can hear swords.”

  “I should have told you earlier—when I touched the staff, I had a vision of men fighting on this mountaintop. I thought it was only my imagination. How could a troop of men climb up here and still have the energy to fight?”

  They heard cries and oaths. A man screamed as he was wounded. “Perhaps there’s another tunnel,” suggested Thorgil.

  “That still leaves the question of why anyone would do such a stupid thing,” Jack said. “It’s so brainless, it could almost be berserkers.”

  He expected Thorgil to argue—she always championed berserkers—but she grabbed his arm. “I know that voice!”

  “Gaaaahhh! That’s the third time I’ve cut your head off today, Bjorn!” someone roared. “You’ve gone soft!”

  “That’s Olaf One-Brow,” cried Thorgil. “I know it is!

  What’s happened to us? Are we dead and don’t know it?”

  “Olaf! Watch your back!” shouted someone else whose voice was familiar.

  “Arghh!” bellowed Olaf. “You think that’s going to stop me? You’ll need at least three spears to slow me down.”

  Jack heard the sound of something being messily plucked out of flesh. “Pick up your head, Bjorn, or I’ll use it as a football,” said the voice he now recognized as Eric Broad-Shoulders’s. Eric, Jack remembered, had been eaten by trolls.

  “If you want to kick something, you’ll need two legs,” jeered Bjorn. Everyone laughed heartily at the joke. Someone blew a horn and the sounds of fighting ceased.

  Thorgil had collapsed against the wall, trembling violently. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m sure we’re alive,” Jack said, kneeling beside her. He guessed that she was terrified of meeting the dead, and he wasn’t all that thrilled about it either. He’d run into a lot of unquiet spirits recently, from the draugr to the men trapped in the wall to the hogboon.

  “I’m so afraid,” she moaned. “It’s like the night of the Wild Hunt. Olaf wouldn’t take me along because Odin wouldn’t let him. Oh, Jack, what if we go out there and he—he—rejects me?” She burst into tears.

  Of course, thought Jack. Thorgil wasn’t afraid of a host of dead berserkers who, by the sound of it, had spent a happy day slicing one another to bits. She was afraid they wouldn’t let her join in. He could see the opening at the top of the tunnel. Night had fallen, but a bonfire nearby cast flickering light. A large figure suddenly eclipsed it.

  “Don’t hang back now,” a man called. “We have food aplenty and the party’s just beginning.” He lumbered down the tunnel and picked up Thorgil. “You’re too dainty for a Valkyrie,” he rumbled. “Get on the outside of a haunch of boar and we’ll see you right.”

  “Don’t touch her!” Jack cried, pointing his staff, but nothing happened. No fire sprouted out of the end, and the man was completely unaffected. He laughed good-naturedly, and Jack could see a line of red where his head had been reattached. So this was Bjorn.

  “You come too, little skald,” said Bjorn. “I haven’t seen your kind since Dragon Tongue scorched the fur off Ivar the Boneless for marrying Frith. Plenty of boar to go around.”

  “It’s all right,” said Thorgil, tucked under the warrior’s arm. Jack followed them up, feeling somewhat foolish. The cloak and staff of St. Columba ought to have earned him some respect. Little skald indeed!

  They came out to a completely wild scene. The whole mountaintop was covered with warriors wandering among the trees to find parts of themselves that had been hacked off. They fitted hands back on to wrists, feet onto ankles, heads on to necks. When reapplied, only a line showed where they had been joined, and the scars faded quickly. Bjorn’s neck was already completely healed. Other men stuffed intestines into gaping holes in their stomachs, and the skin grew back.

  Horses huddled in clearings, their eyes glinting whitely. Above the trees the clouds rushed by in a mighty, soundless storm.

  A giant boar was roasting over a fire pit, and dozens of warriors were hacking off bits to devour. Tables were laden with all manner of food, including pots of nauseating graffisk, codfish that had been buried underground until it smelled of the graveyard. Beefy Valkyries in leather armor served horns of drink to the feasting men.

  In the middle of a clearing a Valkyrie sat behind an enormous, surly-looking goat. She monotonously pulled on teats the size of grain bags and liquid thundered into a washtub.

  “The goat’s name is Heidrun,” said Bjorn, putting Thorgil down. “She feeds on the leaves of Yggdrassil and produces an endless supply of mead. Good Heidrun,” he said, patting the beast on the head. The creature snapped at him.

  “Don’t Valkyries have names?” Thorgil said faintly. The women were moving around the forest, finding men who were too injured to move. They reattached missing parts and dragged the warriors to the tables, where they fed them morsels of food. “Dotti and Lotti used to baby Olaf like that when he came home drunk.”

  Jack had once made fun of Valkyries, claiming that they were no better than servants in Valhalla. He had driven Thorgil into a fury, but he felt no wish to do so now. She looked stricken. This was the ideal she had always held in her mind, to fall in battle and join her comrades in Odin’s realm. Only now it seemed she would be consigned to waiting on tables and milking goats.

  “I want to see Olaf,” she said in a tearful voice.

  “You mean Olaf One-Brow? He’s my best friend,” said Bjorn proudly.

  In spite of cutting your head off three times today, thought Jack. “You wouldn’t happen to be Bjorn Skull-Splitter?” he asked. The warrior was almost as big as Olaf, with legs like tree trunks and a chest as broad as a door.

  Bjorn grinned. “I see my fame has not died in Middle Earth. Tell me, little skald, am I sung about wherever brave men gather?”

  “Your tale has certainly spread,” Jack said evasively. Einar Adder-Tooth had been wrong in one regard: Bjorn wasn’t roaming
the icy halls of Hel. “Would you like to know what happened to your—” Jack had been about to say enemy when he saw a familiar figure emerge from the forest and snatch a horn of mead from a Valkyrie. “That can’t be Einar Adder-Tooth!”

  “He arrived recently,” said Bjorn. “Said he’d been caught in a landslide. I killed him twice last week, and he only got me once.” The warrior showed not the slightest resentment toward the man who’d arranged for him to be devoured by a hogboon.

  I’ll never understand Northmen, Jack thought.

  Thorgil swayed and almost fell. “I want to see Olaf,” she repeated. But by now Bjorn had been distracted by the appearance of Adder-Tooth and went over to deliver a friendly punch to his head.

  “Sit down,” Jack said. “I’ll find him.”

  This proved difficult, for dozens of men were careening around, stuffing themselves, drinking, and bragging about their victories. One patted a Valkyrie on the behind, and she snarled, “Try that again and I’ll rip out your windpipe.”

  “Haw! Haw! Haw!” laughed the warriors all around. One voice sounded familiar.

  Jack saw him seated at the foot of a throne. He was wearing his helmet, which was probably why Jack hadn’t recognized him before. It had a ridge across the top like a cock’s comb and two panels at the sides to cover his cheeks. The front was a metal mask like a hawk’s face and the beak came down over Olaf’s nose. His eyes peered out of holes and made him seem otherworldly. He is otherworldly, Jack thought.

  But the figure that towered over Olaf, the one sitting on the throne, was so terrifying that Jack almost sank to his knees. He wore a helmet similar to Olaf’s, but only one eye glinted through the holes in the mask. The other was an empty socket. Jack knew who he was.

  Odin’s missing eye lay at the bottom of Mimir’s Well. No one could drink from the well without sacrificing something of great importance. Jack had given up his rune of protection. Thorgil had given up her status as a berserker. In return they had gained the knowledge they needed most. Odin, in payment for his eye, had acquired the lore necessary to rule the nine worlds.