The Islands of the Blessed

by Nancy Farmer

  “I’ve had enough of ships,” she spat at him. “Death traps, that’s what I call them. Besides, I have a brother in this town and it’s his duty to do right by us.” Without a thank-you or even a good-bye, Mrs. Tanner started off with Ymma and Ythla in her wake. They dragged the bulky bags behind them.

  “Good riddance,” muttered Jack.

  His spirits rose as they walked along the road to Din Guardi, even though he had to carry Fair Lamenting. The bell was wrapped in many layers of cloth and the resulting bundle was too large to tuck under his arm. Townspeople stood aside, impressed by Jack’s and Thorgil’s clothes and even more so by the Bard in his spotless white robe. The old man had added a wreath of oak leaves. That, along with the blackened ash wood staff, told everyone that he was an important wizard.

  There was no longer a border of hedges around Din Guardi, for which Jack was grateful. It had formed a barrier between the fortress and the outside world, but its purpose had not been for protection. The Hedge had been like a silent army of closely massed trees, ever watchful at the boundaries of Unlife. When you passed through the tunnel linking the fortress with the outside world, branches reached out to catch your feet or scratch your face. When Unlife failed, the Hedge had torn apart the old Din Guardi and the men who were caught within had not been seen again.

  Now the new building was open to the sea and sky. Jack thought it made an impressive sight, but he was surprised to see no sentries. The front gate stood open. “Isn’t that dangerous?” he said.

  “Hall built of stone, sword close to hand, yet all fails when vigilance wanders,” quoted Thorgil.

  “Quite right, shield maiden,” said the Bard. “Brutus is a weak king, more suited to singing love ditties, but he’s all we have to work with.” They went inside and wandered around until they encountered a servant carrying a tray of meat pies. “Announce our arrival,” the old man ordered. “Tell King Brutus that Dragon Tongue has arrived with two friends. We request lodging.” The servant didn’t question the Bard’s authority and hurried off to obey.

  “The floor plan is different from what I remember,” complained the old man. “It’s not intelligently laid out for defense. I believe Brutus has forgotten that this building is meant to house an army ready for battle. I ask you, who ever heard of pink as a proper color for a fortress?”

  Presently, the servant returned and led them to the throne room. Brutus was lounging on a couch, and all around him, on floor cushions or standing by his side, were ladies in long, flowing gowns. Some held musical instruments and others held trays of food. All of them were vying for the king’s attention. He lazily accepted their tribute—a honey cake, a morsel of chicken—and waved languidly at whichever musician he wished to hear.

  “Wasting your time as usual, I see,” said the Bard, rapping his staff smartly on the floor.

  “Dragon Tongue!” cried Brutus, rising to his feet. “What a pleasure to see you! And you, too, Jack. Thorgil, you’ve turned out to be quite a charmer.”

  Thorgil blushed and Jack felt annoyed. The shield maiden always ignored his compliments, but she was smiling now.

  “I must disagree, dear Dragon Tongue. Ladies are never a waste of time,” said Brutus. The court women giggled and fluffed their hair.

  “Try to remember you’re a king. Your business is to rule,” the Bard snapped, but Brutus wasn’t the slightest bit embarrassed.

  “Father Severus attends to the ruling,” he said. “He’s much better at keeping order, and he positively enjoys hearing dreary old court cases. He’s the abbot of the monastery now, you know. My job is to inspire.”

  The old man shook his head. “You’re hopeless, like all the rest of the Lancelot family. But I’ve come here on business. Our village has been devastated by a Wild Hunt, and I must trade for grain. Is there a corner in this pink monstrosity where an old man and a couple of children can rest their heads?”

  “Of course!” Brutus said. “Let’s see … the Amethyst Suite is available, or you might like the Swan Room. It’s all in white. My goodness, you’d melt right into the background!” The king was overcome with mirth.

  “Any place with beds will do,” the Bard said.

  “We must have a feast to celebrate your arrival. I have the most inventive cook. Last night he served roast pig stuffed with lamb stuffed with goose stuffed with pigeon stuffed with lark. We were all placing bets on what we would find in the next layer.” Brutus sent ladies off with various orders. Servants dragged in chairs.

  “I’d hoped to see Ethne here,” the Bard said. “She’s completely unsuitable for a convent, and in my opinion, you couldn’t ask for a lovelier queen. Do you ever look in on her?”

  For the first time Brutus seemed uneasy. “You haven’t heard?”

  “I live in a tiny village. I have trouble hearing anything. Is she ill?”

  “Not exactly,” the king said.

  “Well, where is she? I’ll go at once to help her.”

  Brutus nervously laced his fingers together and nibbled his lower lip. It would have looked silly in most men, but it only made him more adorable. One of the lady musicians sighed. “It isn’t allowed—I mean, Father Severus wouldn’t allow it,” stammered the king. “It has something to do with church rules. I did tell him it was a bad idea. I meant to send you a message, but …” He spread his hands helplessly.

  “But you couldn’t be bothered!” roared the Bard. “By Odin’s eyebrows, you’re a king. You give the orders to Father Severus, not the other way around. Now where’s my daughter?”

  “It’s awkward …”

  “If you don’t tell me what happened this instant, you’re going to be hopping around a marsh full of hungry herons!”

  The air crackled with electricity and the tapestries on the walls billowed out. A court lady fainted into the arms of her companions. Brutus quickly laid out the tale with many a glance at the old man to see how he was taking it. It seemed that Ethne had gone mad—well, not mad exactly. She heard voices. Hearing voices might be insane, except when you really did hear them. And Ethne did. It was her elvish relatives trying to get her to return.

  They came to Ethne’s room every night. They filled her ears with the glories of Elfland and offered to take her home, if only she would give up her quest to gain a soul. “Father Severus couldn’t hear them, but I could,” said Brutus. “The elves have never hidden from me, and the queen has always fancied me.”

  “I know,” said the Bard, disgusted. “This is what I feared from the beginning. My poor child is caught between two worlds, and she’s chosen a path too difficult for her. I wanted to immerse her in the life force, and that rascally priest has walled her off from it. Wait till I get my hands on him! Where is she?”

  “That’s the problem,” the king said miserably. “He really did wall her up. I mean, she’s alive, but he put her into the one place the elves dared not approach. There’s a tiny room next to the chapel. It’s full of Christian magic, and the Fair Folk can’t endure it. Father Severus put her there and the monks bricked up the door. The only opening is a narrow window.”

  “You mean she can’t get out?” Jack cried. He’d seen the room. It was hardly wider than a bed and not much longer.

  “Death would be better than such an existence,” said Thorgil.

  “Ethne agreed to it,” said Brutus. “She was suffering so from the voices, and she truly wanted to earn a soul. Food and drink are handed through the window and she isn’t entirely without entertainment. She can listen to the monks pray. Several times a week the abbot—Father Severus—gives a sermon. Oh, and he let her keep the cat.”

  “Thank Freya,” breathed the Bard. “She still has Pangur Ban.”

  “Is that what he’s called? He goes in and out the window and brings her all sorts of things from the outside world.” The king looked relieved by the old man’s apparent approval, but in the next instant the Bard’s staff came crashing down and the walls trembled.

  “You have much to answer for,”
the old man said. “You should have taken Ethne away and married her. Love would have driven away the illusions of Elfland, love and the presence of honest sunlight. But I have graver concerns than punishing you. I must go to St. Filian’s now, for there is a debt that has fallen due. I fear that all the treasure Father Severus has laid up in Heaven will not cover it.”

  King Brutus gave them ponies to ride, for it was a long walk to the monastery. He insisted on providing them with a basket of meat pies for the road. The Bard angrily waved it away, but Thorgil accepted it. The king held her hand just a little too long when he gave her the basket.

  Neither Jack nor Thorgil dared speak to the Bard. He rode silently ahead, and the air around him rippled like a heat haze over a summer field. But when they reached the grove of pines overlooking the monastery, the old man turned aside and found a grassy meadow. “If I go to St. Filian’s in this state of mind, I’ll bring the whole place down around our ears,” he said. “Does that sound familiar, Jack?”

  The boy grimaced. The year before, he’d accidentally called up an earthquake when the monks threatened to throw his sister into St. Filian’s Well.

  They let the ponies graze while they picnicked. In the distance Jack could see the walls of the monastery. The earthquake cracks had been filled in and a brilliant layer of whitewash had been applied. All around lay an extensive garden, and a new white building stood at the edge of the Lady of the Lake’s territory. Father Severus must have driven the monks hard to accomplish so much.

  “That, I believe, is the convent,” the Bard remarked, looking at the new building.

  Jack lay down the bundle containing Fair Lamenting, and Thorgil handed around meat pies. The pastry was crisp, the lamb meltingly tender, and the whole flavored with pepper, Jack’s favorite spice. Also in the basket was a flask of mead. “I’ll save this for later,” the Bard said. “I need my wits about me.” His mood seemed to have improved with the good food and fresh air.

  “I’ve often told you,” the old man said, “that one should never use anger to reach the life force. Yet that was what I was about to do.” He shook his head. “I’ve lived a long, long time, but mortals still have the ability to make me lose my temper.”

  Mortals? thought Jack, but he didn’t dare ask what the Bard meant.

  “I need advance knowledge before I approach St. Filian’s.” The old man felt in the bag he always carried and drew out the silver flute of Amergin.

  “That’s pretty!” exclaimed Thorgil.

  “Wait till you see what it does,” said Jack.

  The Bard played a tune first, a rippling, lilting melody like a mountain stream pattering over rocks. Birds landed on the branches above him and cocked their heads to listen. Then the music became solemn, not sad exactly, but very serious. It was the kind of music an ancient forest might make. It spoke of time passing and beauty fading. All things ultimately returned to the earth, even trees that had seen the Romans arrive with their mighty plans. But the Romans had gone into the earth with the trees. They had rested awhile and then had returned with the sun, as creatures immersed in the life force did.

  The Bard put down the flute. Thorgil quickly wiped tears from her eyes. “There,” the old man said. “I needed to remind myself what’s important, or I might have lost my temper and called lightning down on that idiot Severus. Now I’ll play something else.” He put the flute to his lips and produced a sound so deep that Jack felt it in his chest.

  The sound rolled through the grove of pine trees, and the birds fled before it. It was like the purr of an immense, self-satisfied cat. It made Jack sleepy, and he thought about how nice it would be to curl up in front of a fire. Suddenly, a large, snow-white cat sped out the monastery door and bounded up the hill as fast as it could go. It arrived at the top of the hill lickety-split and threw itself at the Bard.

  “You old rascal! You’re so heavy, you must have made off with half the chickens in the neighborhood,” cried the old man, fending the creature off. The cat paraded back and forth, rubbing itself against the Bard and meowing. “Yes, yes. I missed you too. It’s been a long time since the Vale of Song. Sit down, old friend.”

  The cat obeyed and regarded the children with intelligent blue eyes.

  “This is Jack, my apprentice,” said the Bard. “And this is Thorgil Olaf’s Daughter of the Northland. Jack and Thorgil, allow me to introduce Pangur Ban.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  PANGUR BAN

  Pangur Ban yowled melodically with what Jack supposed was a greeting.

  “A very good day to you too,” the boy replied, and Thorgil added her respects.

  “He’s so big and white,” she said, “I’d think him a troll-cat if he weren’t so friendly.”

  “You can speak directly to him,” said the Bard. “Pangur Ban understands every word.”

  “Well, then, I’m sorry I called you a troll-cat,” the shield maiden said courteously. The creature sniffed her. His tail quivered and he gave a staccato, panting cry.

  “Yes, she is allied with the creatures of the air,” the Bard explained. “She drank dragon blood by accident, but that doesn’t give you the right to hunt her. I apologize, Thorgil. Pangur goes quite distracted when he smells Bird.”

  “If he tries to hunt me, he’s going to wind up as a rug on my floor,” said Thorgil.

  Jack quickly fed the cat a meat pie. He stroked the white fur and was rewarded by a deep, hypnotic purr. “It’s lucky you gave him to Ethne, sir,” he said.

  “You may call it luck,” said the old man, “but as you know, these things happen for a purpose. Pangur had arrived on an Irish ship before I even knew of Ethne’s existence. He asked me for a soft berth in a monastery because he loves monasteries. They never run out of food, and the monks dote on him. When Ethne declared her intention to gain a soul, I thought, ‘Nothing could be better for my girl’s soul than a worldly old cat like Pangur Ban.’”

  The Bard then questioned the cat about Ethne. How was she faring? Did she get enough to eat? Would she like her old father to knock down the wall and carry her off to King Brutus? The cat yowled with mirth. “I know he’s a poor excuse for a husband, but he would cherish her,” the old man said.

  Little by little, Jack gleaned the situation as the Bard translated Pangur Ban’s words. Ethne had fallen into a kind of trance. On the one hand, she was grateful to be free of elvish voices. On the other, so little happened that she spent most of the time staring into space. Twice a day food was thrust through the window and refuse taken away. No one spoke to her. She could hear the muffled prayers of the monks and Father Severus’s sermons, but she no longer listened to them.

  She prayed when she thought of it. She paced to and fro in the narrow space between the bed and the wall. The rest of the time she slept. Pangur Ban was at his wits’ end trying to find activities for her—there’s only so much petting a cat can endure. He brought her treats from the outside world. He raided the kitchen for pies, fruit, roasted birds …

  Pangur Ban licked his lips and glanced at Thorgil.

  Of course the monastery was no longer the luxurious place it had been before Father Severus arrived. Half the time the monks lived on bread and water, and self-flagellation was epidemic.

  “Self—what?” asked Jack.

  “The monks beat themselves with whips,” the Bard said. “It’s supposed to make them virtuous. I’ll never understand Christians.”

  Jack found it difficult to understand too. He’d been knocked six ways to Sunday by Father, and all it made him was resentful.

  Most important, Pangur Ban brought Ethne fragments of the outside world. He would drag in a vine covered with leaves, or a rose, or a mouthful of acorns. He brought her mice and small birds, and she’d begged him to take them away and free them. Once he brought her a dead mole, and she wept for the pity of it.

  “That wasn’t nice,” objected Jack.

  “I disagree,” said the Bard. “The worst thing that can happen to Ethne is that she loses h
er ability to feel. Then she will become all elf and soulless as they are. Sorrow is a part of life.”

  “We can’t leave her in that prison,” Thorgil said.

  “No, we can’t.” The old man gazed into the distance, going far beyond the monastery, the lake, or even the bright sky beyond. “Unfortunately, we have two problems. I must rescue Ethne, but I must also attend to the draugr. If the draugr emerges before I’ve found a solution, she’ll start killing again.”

  They sat and looked down at the monastery. The ponies ambled closer and nudged Thorgil with their noses. Horses always favored Thorgil, Jack thought, even ones who’d never seen her before. Pangur Ban stretched out his long body and appeared to sleep, but the tip of his tail moved ever so slightly. “I’ll have to deal with the draugr first,” the Bard finally decided. “I know Ethne is suffering, but I hope she can endure a while longer. I dare not allow the draugr to emerge.”

  He picked forget-me-nots and wove them into a garland. Laying a hand over them, he chanted something in a language Jack didn’t know. But Pangur Ban did. The cat rolled on the ground and purred ecstatically, finally coming to rest at the Bard’s feet. The old man wound the garland around the cat’s neck. “I have called life into these flowers,” he said. “They will not fade for many a day.”

  Pangur Ban sped away.

  “What language was that, sir?” Jack asked. “You’ve often used it to work magic.”

  “It is the speech they use in the Islands of the Blessed,” said the Bard. “I learned it as an apprentice.”

  “But Pangur Ban understands it.”

  The old man gazed after the cat, who was just then reaching the monastery door. A monk bent down to pet him and received a crisp bite. The cat fled through the door. “Remember my telling you about how dangerous it was to trade places with an animal’s spirit?” the Bard said.

  Jack nodded. He remembered how the old man had hidden in the body of a crow and been unable to leave.

  “The longer you’re in an animal’s body,” the Bard said, “the more you forget about being human. They didn’t teach the skill at the School of Bards until the final year, and some apprentices never made it out of their animal’s body. Pangur Ban was one.”