03 - The Islands of the Blessed

by Nancy Farmer

  At once the Shoney commanded fin men to restrain Jack and Thorgil and to seal the mouth of the tomb.

  “You can’t do this!” shouted Jack, struggling against the fin men. “The Bard doesn’t deserve to die! The councils of the nine worlds will hold you responsible!”

  They will not hold me responsible. Dragon Tongue went willingly, said the Shoney.

  “Shair Shair, you know this is wrong,” the boy pleaded.

  Great was her love. Bitter was her fate. She could not rest until life was given for life, said the sea hag, and Jack saw again the mindless face of the creature feeding at the banquet. She wasn’t remotely human. She had no more regard for the Bard’s fate than she had for a fish she was planning to eat.

  By now the tomb was completely sealed, and the procession began to move away. Both Jack and Thorgil fought their captors, but it did them no good. They were carried back to the palace courtyard, bound with ropes, and deposited in the coracle. Whush presented himself for orders.

  Take them away. You know where, said the Shoney. There was nothing they could do to stop him. The coracle sailed off, and Whush pushed them along with a pole. They came to the wall of fog and broke through to the open sea, with the wind blowing and cold spray lashing over the side of the boat. Somewhere they crossed the outer border of Notland, but Jack couldn’t be sure when. He looked for Skakki’s ship. The ocean was a vast wilderness of gray waves with not an island, a bird, or a boat anywhere on it. Whush poled along steadily with his gray hat pulled down over his gray face. His robe billowed out behind him like a sheet of rain.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  GRIM’S ISLAND

  “The Bard couldn’t give up that easily,” said Jack. “He must have a trick up his sleeve.” They had been sailing for what seemed like hours. The sun had climbed to zenith, bringing welcome warmth, and now was descending to the west. Clouds were beginning to gather.

  “His fame will never die,” Thorgil said dully.

  “If you say that one more time, I’m going to kick you over the side.”

  “We shouldn’t fight among ourselves,” she replied, and Jack was immediately repentant.

  “I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to say.”

  “And if you tried, you’d find that I can kick harder than you can,” the shield maiden said.

  They were lying in the bottom of the coracle, and now Jack noticed that the quality of the wave sounds had changed. He struggled up, to look over the side. They were approaching land. It was a rocky, uninviting place with a tall mountain in the center. The only greenery was a forest of trees at the top of this mountain; the rest of the island was barren. Whush was poling toward it at great speed, and presently Jack felt the bottom of the coracle scrape over sand.

  “What’s happening? Are we going to be thrown into the giant eel pit?” cried Thorgil.

  Jack heard a clicking sound in his head, which meant that Whush was laughing. Much as I hate to deprive our eels of a treat, the Shoney has decreed otherwise. Pity. He is becoming sentimental in his old age.

  “The Shoney gave his word that we would be allowed to leave Notland,” said Jack, realizing that a fin man’s word didn’t mean very much.

  So he did and here you are.

  “Where’s here?” demanded Jack.

  I need not tell you, except that it gives me pleasure to do so. Whush’s V-shaped mouth tilted up into a smile. This is Grim’s Island, where our princess met her death. It seems fitting that you should be abandoned here. The fin man hoisted Jack and Thorgil under one arm and carried them onto the beach. He dropped them onto the sand and continued on to the base of the mountain. You won’t be climbing that anytime soon, he said with satisfaction when he returned. He cut their bonds, but before they were able to wriggle free, he was pushing off in the coracle.

  “Wait! That’s our boat!” shouted Thorgil. “How do you expect us to leave?”

  Whush paused, well out of reach. Swim, I suppose. One word of advice: I’d find shelter quickly, because the weather is about to turn bad. It does that often here. And he sped off, poling vigorously, until he was lost among the tossing waves.

  “It’s so cold! What do you remember about Grim’s Island?” Thorgil said.

  “It’s dark all winter, and in summer it’s either shrouded in fog or lashed by storms,” said Jack. “Let’s see, the mermaid built Father Severus a hut shaped like a giant sea snail. We should look for that.”

  They were both extremely stiff from being tied up, and they hadn’t had anything to eat since the day before. “I could look for shellfish,” Thorgil offered.

  “Water and shelter are more important. Look at that sky!” Jack’s courage almost failed him when he saw the storm rapidly approaching from the north. They ran along the beach, and large drops of freezing rain began to pelt down. Soon it was difficult to see more than a few feet ahead. Jack shouted when he tripped over a lump of rock and fell onto the sand.

  “It’s a doorway!” yelled Thorgil over the rising wind. “I think it’s that snail house.” They wriggled into the entrance and found that the inside chamber was spacious. The walls were as smooth as glass and the floor was of fine sand that was surprisingly dry. They burrowed into it for warmth. After a while they took turns crawling to the door and holding their hands out to gather rain to drink.

  “It’s already dark,” said Thorgil as she nestled into the sand again.

  “Then we should sleep,” Jack said.

  “Shouldn’t we, you know, write a praise-poem for the Bard? Like we did when Olaf died.”

  “The Bard isn’t dead!” Jack didn’t want to think about it.

  “Not yet,” said the shield maiden with relentless honesty, “but he soon will be, sealed into that tomb.”

  “Why don’t you shut up and leave me alone!” the boy shouted. “It’s one of those things you don’t talk about in the dark. Go find some other barrow to haunt if you can’t keep quiet.” Afterward he felt ashamed of himself, but not enough to apologize. He didn’t want to open a discussion. He didn’t want to think. Unfortunately, he couldn’t sleep either. He kept waking up all night, and all the periods of sleep were full of dreams he didn’t want to remember.

  The morning was cold and clear. They trudged around the island and found a stream flowing out of the mountain. “At least we won’t die of thirst,” said Thorgil.

  “Who cares?” said Jack. “We’ll either starve or die of cold. It only prolongs the misery.”

  “You’re the one who’s always telling me to cheer up.”

  “You’re the one who has something to be cheerful about. You’ve got the rune of protection. I have nothing to remember the Bard with,” said Jack.

  “Yes, you do,” said Thorgil. “You have his lore. He could have chosen anyone in the world to be his apprentice, but he chose you. He said he was very proud of you.”

  “What good was that?” the boy cried. “I couldn’t save him from—from—” Jack walked off before he could break down, and Thorgil wisely left him alone. Instead, she waded out to some rocks to gather winkles. Her feet were blue with cold by the time she got back, and she had to jump up and down to get the feeling back. She heaped up a stack of driftwood. Jack was sitting on a rock, looking out to sea.

  “Could you call up fire?” Thorgil asked him.

  Jack tried, but his mind wouldn’t settle.

  “Never mind,” the shield maiden said. “Winkles are good raw. Olaf used to eat them all the time. You dig them out with your fingernail, see?” She had found sea tangle and dulse, two kinds of seaweed, and rinsed them in the little stream to get the sand off. Little by little she induced Jack to eat, and gradually he felt better. But only slightly.

  “I wish we could climb that mountain,” said Thorgil, looking speculatively at the thick grove of trees at the top. “I’m sure there’s food up there.”

  “Father Severus tried,” Jack said. “He couldn’t even get up there when he was trying to escape from—” His throat closed up a
nd he couldn’t say more.

  “Well, I’m going back for the ropes Whush left. They might come in handy.” The shield maiden walked off along the beach, and after a while, reluctantly, Jack followed her. She had found the ropes and something else they hadn’t noticed in the rush to find shelter the day before. Next to the mountain, where Whush had walked the day before, was a small chest about a hand-span wide and a hand-span deep. It was made of the same dark wood as the chairs in the Shoney’s audience chamber. Like them, it was inlaid with ivory.

  Thorgil opened it and gasped. It was filled with jewels. Red, blue, yellow, green, and clear as ice, they sparkled in the sunlight. And among them were pearls as large as hazelnuts. “The Shoney must have sent them,” she said. “But why, if he means us to perish?”

  “He liked you,” said Jack. “You were envious of his wealth-hoard and that made him feel good. And you told him stories about pillaging. I guess he thought you’d like to feast your eyes on a wealth-hoard of your own before you died. He can always send Whush back later to collect it.” Jack spoke bitterly, wanting in a perverse way to destroy Thorgil’s pleasure. How dare she be happy when the Bard was dead. If he was dead, the boy amended. He wasn’t ready to believe it.

  But Thorgil was too delighted to care. “This is what Beowulf asked for after he slew the dragon. I remember the words from the saga: ‘Run quickly, dear nephew. Despoil the dragon and bring me a banquet of jewels to feast my hungry eyes.’ He sure knew how to die!”

  “You’re both crazy,” said Jack, turning away. Then he noticed the sky. It was full of the kind of clouds the Northmen called sky silk, and he remembered Rune’s words. When you have the wind at your back and sky silk moves to the right, it means a storm is coming. These were certainly moving to the right. And swiftly. Even as he watched, the clouds thickened to a milky haze.

  “Uh-oh,” said Thorgil, shading her eyes.

  “It’s a storm, isn’t it?”

  “Look at the gulls. They’re fleeing before it,” she said. The seabirds were coming in from the sea. They screamed to one another as they circled distractedly before landing in the forest at the top of the mountain.

  Jack remembered something about the smell of the air before a really big storm, something about metal. He could smell it now. The clouds had already changed from milky white to gray.

  “We have to get to higher ground,” Thorgil said urgently. “Storms like this produce giant waves.”

  “What about staying in the snail house?” said Jack, beginning to catch her alarm.

  “If you want to drown. It’s too close to the sea. Hurry!” Thorgil handed the rope to Jack, hefted the chest, and ran for the mountain.

  They looked for a way up, but all of the apparent paths ended only a few feet above the beach. By now the sky had deepened to an ominous slate blue, and wind began to buffet them, threatening to knock them over. “Drop that cursed chest!” Jack shouted. For Thorgil, always somewhat clumsy because of her paralyzed hand, was dangerously so with the heavy box under one arm.

  “Don’t touch it!” she screamed when he tried to yank it away. They both slid down the boulder they were attempting to scale and into a deep crevice in the side of the mountain.

  “Put that down, or you won’t be able to climb up!” Jack ordered.

  “It doesn’t matter. We can’t get out anyway,” said Thorgil, panting and hanging on to the chest.

  Jack looked up. It was true. They had fallen down much farther than he had realized, and the rock was perfectly sheer. The wind howled over the top, and waves had begun to crash so violently that the spray reached them even where they were trapped.

  “I guess this is it,” said Thorgil. “You can tell the sea enters here because of the barnacles. It’s certainly going to be flooded during this storm.” A wave hit a rock and the ground trembled.

  It was growing dark although it was only midday. The sky—and Jack could see only a small slice of it—was boiling with evil-looking clouds. The speed at which the weather had changed was astounding, and the far end of the crevice was so deep in shadow, it might as well have been night. He edged toward it, hoping to find a way up. He put out his hand to feel the rock and found—nothing at all.

  It wasn’t a shadow after all. It was the mouth of a cave.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  ST. COLUMBA’S CAVE

  “A cave? Let’s go inside,” said Thorgil.

  Jack had an instinctive dislike of dark holes in the ground. So far he hadn’t found anything good in them. “What about knuckers?” he said, remembering the spiderlike creature that had almost trapped him and Pega.

  Thorgil paused. She had met them too. A wave shook the ground and cold water splashed over them. “If we stay here, we’ll surely drown. We don’t know that there are knuckers inside.”

  “There could also be wyverns, hippogriffs, manticores, basilisks, and krakens,” said Jack, naming a few of the things they might find in dark tunnels. He wasn’t sure what all of them were. More water sprayed over their heads.

  “Those things eat you quickly,” pointed out Thorgil, who seemed to have more information. “That’s not so bad. Knuckers kind of suck at you for a long time.”

  “Wonderful,” said Jack. They both stared at the dark opening, unwilling to move. “The Bard once said…” Jack swallowed and forced himself to go on. “The Bard once said that caves with no air movement are the most dangerous. This one has a breeze.” He could feel a steady flow of warmer air blowing in his face.

  “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.”

  “I
t 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.