by E. C. Hibbs
“Don’t mind what happened last night, boy,” he said in a whisper. “I’m just… concerned about not being able to connect with the Spirits.”
“So you’re not afraid of me?”
“No.”
He said it too quickly. Tuomas sighed, but still nodded.
“Thank you,” he muttered.
“Go in peace.”
“Stay in peace.”
Elin jumped in beside him and pulled her mittens back on. It was then that Tuomas noticed they were made from white fur – she had sewed them from the hare’s pelt which Lilja had given her a few months ago.
She took the rope and gave it a snap. The reindeer grumbled, unwilling to leave the herd, but Tuomas waved his arms to mimic an eagle and that finally made it move. The sleigh jolted forward. He kept his attention fixed on the tundra so he couldn’t see the convoy shrinking behind him – it was too much like the last time he had left Akerfjorden.
Before long, they were alone in the endless white. The miles were lost; the path was broken only by knee-high shrubs and spindly trees bending under the weight of snow. In the distance, the edge of the forest loomed, the topmost branches feathered by frost. And along the horizon, he could see the first peaks of the mountains: a great stone wall separating them from the islands on the other side.
The sky transformed a crisp pink and baby blue. The moisture in the air glittered, turned to ice where it hung. The temperature dropped and Tuomas’s lashes began to freeze. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the crystals, and held his hands over his eyes to thaw them out.
Elin wrapped an extra shawl around her shoulders. Then she fetched her bow and plucked the string with one finger to check it was still taught. It was a wonderful piece of craftmanship, made from ash wood and carved with a dazzling collection of patterns.
“Are you getting hungry?” she asked.
“A little. We’ll stop soon,” Tuomas replied. “Thank you for coming with me.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s nice to spend some proper time with you for once.”
Tuomas smirked. “And I haven’t even asked you to dance.”
“You can dance with your sister, not me. Not unless it’s midsummer or something.” She threw a glance at him. “Do you think you’ll go back and see her again?”
Tuomas went to say yes, but then he paused. The previous night’s events were still fresh in his mind.
“I hope so. The last time I saw her, she was pretty angry.”
“At you?”
“No, thank the Spirits.”
Elin let out a low whistle. “Good. If it was at you, you’re lucky she didn’t strike you.”
“She wouldn’t do that,” Tuomas said. “I hope.”
“I did try to stand up for her, you know,” said Elin. “When you went away, I tried to explain, but nobody wanted to listen. I think they just want to forget she was here.”
“I thought something like that might have happened,” Tuomas admitted. “It’s safe if she’s up in the sky. Well, as long as nobody insults her. But I suppose everyone’s learned the hard way not to do that now.”
“I suppose it’s easier to bury things you don’t want to remember,” Elin mused. “Hey, what did Henrik mean before? He’s afraid of you?”
Tuomas cast his eyes down.
“I hoped you hadn’t heard that. He says he’s not, but he is. Everyone is. Now they know… who I am.”
Elin snorted. “What do they think you’re going to do? Start striking anyone who doesn’t please you? Or are they forgetting that you saved all their ancestors’ skins in your previous life?”
Tuomas shuddered at her choice of words. It reminded him horribly of the Moon Spirit.
“I’m not sure what they think anymore.”
He gazed up at the sky. Purple clouds had started to drift across it in thin wispy streams. Even though he wasn’t going into trance, he could almost feel his souls swirling inside him. He focused on them, imagining one so much brighter than the other. How could they both be together and yet so different?
Elin cleared her throat to break the silence.
“Actually,” she mused, “I know your taika is strong, but what are you the Spirit of? Lumi’s the Spirit of the Lights: the White Fox One. So, what does that make you?”
“The Red Fox One,” Tuomas said.
Elin blinked in surprise. “That’s your Spirit title?”
“Yes. Lilja told me, the last time I saw her.”
“Well, Lumi could make auroras and run really fast. Do you think you can do that?”
“No,” said Tuomas, “I’m still just a human as well, remember. And there can’t be two Spirits for the same thing. Even if it was possible for me to do half the things Lumi could, the Lights aren’t what I’m in charge of. I just… know that.”
The words sounded so strange, but he focused on them, rolling them around in his mouth as though tasting a new food. This was exactly what he’d needed to think about and hadn’t had the time.
He glanced at his hands. They were hidden inside his mittens, but he imagined them, frostbitten and calloused, and wondered how it would feel to fling taika from them like Lumi did. To be so in control and at one with the element of his soul… it was like something out of a fireside tale.
But then, he remembered with a smirk, was he himself not a fireside tale? That was what the Great Mage had been for so long. And now he walked among the people again, in the body of a confused boy who didn’t even know what his power was, except for getting into trouble.
Elin softly pressed her elbow against his ribs.
“Hey,” she said, “doesn’t this remind you of when we were going to the Northern Edge of the World?”
Tuomas smiled, grateful for the distraction.
“You told me you were scared of falling off the edge.”
“No, I wasn’t!” she protested. “I was scared of that when I was younger, but not now.”
“I’d be scared if you still were,” he joked. “What kind of crazy person would I be with?”
“Shut up,” Elin snapped, but her eyes shone with silent laughter.
She suddenly tensed. Before Tuomas could even ask what was wrong, she lurched forward and coughed. It was a horrible dry hacking sound.
Tuomas’s heart raced with worry.
“Are you alright?”
“Yes,” she choked out.
Tuomas grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him. He pulled a mitten off with his teeth to feel her forehead.
“You’re warm.”
“Well, it makes for a nice change out here.”
“I’m serious,” Tuomas said.
Elin sighed, then took his wrists and made him let go of her.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine. It doesn’t hurt – just feels like a little tickle at the back of my throat.”
“That’s what Paavo said at first.”
He slid his mitten back on and urged the reindeer to go faster. The sooner they got to Lilja, the sooner all this would be fixed. If she knew what was causing the plague, then she must also be able to stop it. She was certainly powerful enough.
“Elin, you need to tell me if it gets worse,” he said. “Don’t try to be tough like Paavo. Fight it as hard as you can, but don’t lie to me about how you’re feeling, either.”
“Alright, alright,” she replied. “But you need to stop worrying about me. I’ve had worse than this.”
“No, you haven’t.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Henrik and I didn’t tell anybody because we didn’t want a panic. But this isn’t a cold, or anything like that. It’s your souls which are sick.”
Elin’s eyes went wide. “What? How can that be?”
“I’m not sure,” said Tuomas. “But we’re going to find out.”
Elin coughed again. Tuomas slapped her between the shoulders, but she waved him off and settled back against the sleeping sacks.
Her head resting on them reminde
d Tuomas of the night before last. He turned to her again and shook her to get her attention.
“Elin?” he asked. “When you had that nightmare, what happened? You said something about a boy.”
She frowned. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Paavo said something about a little boy too, after he collapsed,” said Tuomas. “I just think it’s a bit strange for you both to mention it. What did you see?”
Elin rubbed her temples with two fingers and let out a soft groan.
“Uh… there was a boy, only a kid, maybe four or five. He was standing on a frozen lake. And there was mist too, like what happened on the Mustafjord; and something in the mist, but I couldn’t see what it was.”
“And then what happened?”
“I can’t remember. I just felt really scared.”
Tuomas silenced. Simply hearing about it made his blood run cold. There was something wrong. Terribly wrong.
They carried on until the Sun Spirit reached her highest point in the sky. A few lonely trees had somehow taken root away from their brethren in the forest, and Tuomas pulled the sleigh to a halt, tying the reindeer’s harness around a thick branch. Then he and Elin threw down some skins and built a small fire. Tuomas retrieved a couple of bones from a sack and placed them in the flames to cook the marrow inside.
He had no sooner let go of them, however, when Elin raised her bow and let an arrow fly.
There was a garbled cry from somewhere in the snow. She trudged over to it and pulled up a ptarmigan, snapping its neck with a quick twist. Then she grasped it by its feathery legs and returned to the fire.
“Good shot,” Tuomas remarked.
“Thanks,” said Elin as she pulled the arrow free. “See? I’m still in good shape.”
She thanked the Spirits and the soul of the ptarmigan for its sacrifice, sat opposite him and began plucking. By the time she had finished and stripped it to the skin, the bones were ready. Tuomas knocked them out of the fire and tossed half to Elin, before taking his smallest knife and driving it down the length of one bone lengthways. It split cleanly in two, exposing the pink marrow inside. He prised it out and slipped it into his mouth.
Elin hastily gutted the ptarmigan and wrapped its meat in a length of fabric. She tucked it amongst the tent tarp to save for dinner, and stuffed the white feathers into a hide bag. It was a rule of the Northlands: if a life was taken, be it animal or plant, none of it went to waste. To do so was disrespectful not only to the deceased, but to the Spirits who watched over all.
After they had eaten, the two of them carried on, following the Sun Spirit as she arched towards the horizon. They went in relative silence, happy in the others’ company. Every now and then, Elin would cough and sweep up some snow from the side of the sleigh, putting it into her mouth to melt and cool her throat. Before long, however, she had fallen asleep, and Tuomas let her rest.
The blue sky transformed into a magnificent mix of red and gold. He squinted in the low light, but kept his eyes straight ahead. He fished a torch out of the back of the sleigh, wedged it between his legs and struck a flint so the top caught. The fire brought a welcome glowing circle around them as day faded away, and the land descended once more into early darkness.
If there had been no noise before, now it disappeared completely. There were no birds calling or flying; no trace of a wandering wolverine. Any movement was dulled by the powdery snow. Even the wind stopped blowing. Time stretched on without end.
When he was younger, these were the moments which Tuomas had struggled with on the migration. Infinite nothingness, never changing, always feeling like they weren’t moving at all. He had lost count of the amount of times Paavo had to juggle keeping him entertained and herding the reindeer onward. But his brother had never lost patience with him.
Then he saw what he’d been waiting for: a large mass of moving bodies and swaying antlers, flanked by people holding torches.
He smiled with relief and gave the rope a snap. The reindeer immediately sped up and trotted towards the new herd. Tuomas raised his torch in greeting.
A middle-aged man came forward. His face was covered by a scarf, but Tuomas noticed the hat above it was made from white reindeer fur: the material only worn by mages. A drum hung on a thong around his chest.
“Hello, Enska.”
The man peered at him in astonishment. “Tuomas?”
“Yes, it’s me. And Elin.”
The mention of her name stirred Elin from her slumber. Noticing Enska, she grinned, her body tensing as she struggled to hold back a cough.
Tuomas manoeuvred his reindeer to walk alongside the others. Enska kept pace with the sleigh and wrenched his scarf down to reveal his face.
“It’s good to see you again,” he said, then turned and shouted over his shoulder. “Lilja! You have visitors!”
At the edge of the herd, a lone woman stopped dead. She wore a coat of reindeer fur – the sleeves pure white – and two long braided pigtails trailed down her front, their sandy strands laced with ice. A drum bounced against her hip, bound to her belt on a strip of leather.
As the sleigh drew parallel with her, she looked at Tuomas. The torch’s light flickered in her icy eyes.
“I thought I wasn’t going to run into you again until we reached the coast,” she said.
“Nice to see you too, Lilja,” Tuomas replied. Then he threw a glance at Enska. “How did you know I came to see her?”
At that moment, a cough sounded from somewhere on the other side of the herd. Lilja looked away. One hand strayed to her drum – Tuomas noticed it was shaking.
“Because our children have the sickness too.”
Chapter Ten
Lilja didn’t speak a word while they pitched camp for the night. Tuomas kept glancing at her, but she wouldn’t look back, busing herself with scattering lichen for the reindeer to eat. The snow was frozen solid and they couldn’t shovel through it with their hooves to the moss underneath.
Several familiar faces came over to greet the guests, headed by the small group of village leaders. But the courtesies were short, because everyone knew they needed to get the tents built. Slumbers were never long on the migration and every moment of rest went a long way.
As in Akerfjorden, however, Tuomas noticed those who did approach also threw him wary glances. He smiled widely, trying to show them that he was still the boy they remembered, but they hurried off.
“Don’t let it bother you,” Elin whispered.
“Did you see the way they looked at me?” he replied, equally quiet.
Elin gave him a gentle pat on the back, then coughed into her elbow. Her breath came short and strained.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said before Tuomas could fuss over her. “Come on, let’s get the shelter up.”
“I’ll help you,” Enska called over.
They dragged the poles from the sleigh and arranged them in a conical shape. Tuomas bent down so Elin could clamber onto his back and secure them at the top. Then, together with Enska, they rolled out the tarp and wrapped it around the skeleton. Like all tarps, it was made from reindeer hides stitched together with sinew, but it had worn thin in places and some of the seams had started to come undone from use.
“How long have you been walking?” he asked Enska.
“Two days,” the mage replied. “There was no point leaving sooner. We’re further north than Akerfjorden, after all. To be honest, we decided to leave a little later for the children’s sake. All of them are ill – there’s not a single healthy one. Some of the older ones are sick too. We were hoping an extra’s day’s rest would help them fight it off, but they actually seem to have gotten worse.”
Tuomas tied the last knot to keep the tarp anchored to the poles.
“It’s the same with us,” he said. “My brother’s twenty-five and he collapsed yesterday. Have you heard anything from Einfjall?”
“No, but I’d guess they’re having the same problems.”
“H
ave you been giving them nettle and angelica tea? That’s what Henrik recommended. It takes the edge off the cough.”
“Is that going to make a difference?” Enska asked sceptically.
“It’s the best we can do for now,” said Tuomas. “Henrik’s lived through this illness before; everyone else has forgotten it. We should trust that.”
Enska blinked in surprise. “Henrik’s had the sickness?”
“A long time ago. He’s the last one alive from the last time it struck. He said it only targets the young ones; older people are immune.”
“Tuomas, I can tell this isn’t a normal cold. No cold attacks only youngsters and not the elderly. Does Henrik know anything else about it?”
“No, but I do,” Tuomas said quietly. He walked with Enska towards the sleighs so nobody could overhear, and whispered everything that the Sun Spirit had told him. Enska’s eyes widened, but he nodded.
“Soul-plague,” he repeated, horrified. “That actually makes a lot of sense. Even more so when you combine it with… well… what’s inside the mist.”
“Draugars,” Tuomas finished.
“You know about them?”
“Not really. I just know the name. I was told Lilja was the one to speak to about it.”
Enska’s face darkened. Tuomas had never seen him look so serious.
“I understand, but be careful,” he warned. “This is not an easy subject.”
“I know, but –”
“No,” Enska cut him off firmly. “I’m not talking about the draugars or the sickness here. I’m talking about Lilja.”
Tuomas frowned. “What about her?”
“That’s up to her to explain. It’s not my place,” replied Enska. “You and I both know she’s anything but weak, but… she’s also not as strong as she makes out. She has her own darkness, deeper than what you think you know. So please take care. I’m asking you this not as a fellow mage, but as her father. I mean it.”
Without another word, Enska took the skins from the sleigh and laid them inside the tent to serve as a carpet. Then he waved to get Lilja’s attention. Her face was unreadable, lips pressed so tightly together that they were almost invisible in the gloom.
