by E. C. Hibbs
Tuomas offered his hand.
She glared at him for a moment, then her eyes softened, and she allowed him to help her to her feet.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Are you going to be alright in here?” Tuomas asked Lumi as they stepped into Enska’s hut. “There will be a fire.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Enska.
He picked up a pail of water and poured it over the embers. A plume of smoke filled the hut, but was quickly swept out through the hole in the ceiling.
“I can light it again later,” he said. “Come. Sit.”
Even though the source of the heat had disappeared, it was still warm. Lumi limped to the side of the hut and slid down the wall, hugging her knees to her chest.
It was almost like being back in Henrik’s hut. This one was practically the same size, with the same bundles of dried herbs and flowers hanging from the beams. The aromas of angelica and roseroot filled his nose, mixed with the mustier smell of burned wood and slightly damp reindeer fur from the skins underfoot.
Enska settled across the hearth. His eyes were the same as his children’s: widely-spaced, brilliantly blue. His kindly face was creased with age, laugher lines etched deeply like the channels of a river. He was nowhere near as old as Henrik, yet Tuomas sensed he knew just as much.
Enska removed his hat and mittens and urged his guest to do the same. When Tuomas pulled off his own mittens, Enska’s brows lowered in concern.
“What happened to your hands?” he asked.
“Frostbite,” said Tuomas.
Enska clicked his tongue. “Nasty business. Have you lost anything?”
“The tips of a couple of fingers.”
“I’m sorry. At least it wasn’t worse. This is one of the coldest winters we’ve had in years.”
Tuomas nodded, then changed the subject. He needed to put his anxiety to rest.
“Lilja isn’t here, is she?” he asked.
Enska looked surprised.
“Lilja? No. I haven’t seen her in about five years.”
Tuomas breathed a sigh of relief.
“Why do you ask?” Enska frowned. “You’ve met her?”
“And Kari,” replied Tuomas. “He tried to kill me. And Lilja is in league with him.”
A flash of alarm passed across Enska’s face, then he closed his eyes. His lip quivered, and for a moment Tuomas thought he was going to cry, but he held back the tears with a sharp sniff.
He straightened his shoulders and pulled his drum onto his lap, gently caressing the skin with one hand. Near the Great Bear Spirit in the centre were the figures of two children, hand in hand, a painted drum surrounding them in harmony.
“So they have both fallen,” he said, his voice heavy with resignation. “I hoped they would be stronger than this. Especially Lilja. She had such potential… such power.”
Tuomas swallowed, painfully aware of the healing wound on his chest.
“I know.”
Enska looked at him with newfound interest.
“Who are you, boy? The taika I sense coming off you is even stronger than Lilja’s. But it’s unlike any I have felt, too. You’re more than a mage in training, aren’t you? How else would you have a Spirit with you like this?”
Tuomas faltered. But before he could answer, Lumi spoke up.
“He is the Son of the Sun,” she said.
Tuomas glared over his shoulder at her, and she matched it.
“What is the point in pretending? If you want help now, tell the truth,” she snapped.
“The Son of the Sun?” Enska gasped.
His knuckles went white on the drum. His eyes roved as he tried to absorb the news.
Tuomas watched him warily. What if he had been lying about Lilja and Kari, and now the two of them would jump out of the shadows to capture him again?
Enska noticed his discomfort.
“No, no, don’t look so frightened,” he urged. “I won’t harm you. It seems you’ve been through enough of that already. And I suppose it’s been at the hands of my children.”
He looked down sadly. “I’m so sorry. I thought I had raised them better. The least I can do is try to help you both.”
“He speaks the truth,” Lumi said, wiping water from her chest.
But Tuomas still couldn’t help glancing at Enska’s throat for evidence of a scar.
Enska gave them a smile still tinged with sorrow.
“Well, it makes sense for the Spirit of the Lights to be here, in a way. It explains how we have gone so long without seeing the aurora. People have been asking me to check on their ancestors, to make sure they are still dancing somewhere, but I haven’t been able to connect with any of them.”
Lumi let out a long sigh.
Tuomas lowered his head in shame. Being away from home was hard enough for him, but for her, it must be terrible. Her entire purpose for existing was to enfold the ancestors in her Lights and spin her fires through the night.
“That’s my fault,” he said. “I was stupid, and now everyone’s paying for it.”
“You pulled her out of the World Above, and now you need to send her back,” Enska guessed.
“Lilja tried to, but she couldn’t do it,” said Tuomas. “She told me only I could.”
“She was right,” replied Enska. “Magic begets magic. What is done needs to be undone by the same mage. Just like if you sing yourself into a trance, you must be the one to return to your body afterwards – if anyone interferes, then the mage is the one who suffers.”
He scratched at his forehead thoughtfully.
“I think that instead of trying to put the Spirit back now, we should seek guidance for how best to do it. In a way that won’t harm her further.”
He readied his drum on his lap and drew the protective circle with his finger. Tuomas frowned. He had extinguished the fire; how was he going to warm the skin for work?
“I was in a trance shortly before you arrived. It will still be fresh,” Enska said, recognising Tuomas’s surprise.
“But how am I supposed to warm mine?” Tuomas asked. He felt the skin on his own drum. It was tight, but not enough; and he had learned his lesson about making sure it was warmed enough to be ready.
“No need. You won’t be able to hold the hammer.”
Tuomas winced, remembering the state of his hands. Even though he’d tried not to use them to load the sleigh with Elin, it hadn’t occurred to him that he wouldn’t be able to drum.
“Then how am I supposed to beat it?”
“Just follow my lead and keep it close to you,” said Enska. “Just set your intention: that’s the most important thing. Every time you drummed before; you had an intent in your mind. Concentrate on that, don’t let go of it.”
Tuomas hesitated, but nodded.
“Alright.”
“You can do it,” Lumi whispered behind him, so quietly he had to look around to check he had heard her right. She gave him a tiny nod, her eyes shining a sheer periwinkle blue.
Enska struck the drum. The sound was deeper than the ones Tuomas had heard before; less refined – each beat seemed to melt into the next. He closed his eyes, letting himself relax, pressing his own drum to his chest as though he could absorb it into himself.
He became very aware of his heart. It was a second drum within his own body: steady, never-ending, shining like the Sun Spirit. He tasted ripe lingonberries on his tongue and felt the warmth of summer on his back as his taika swelled.
The surroundings seemed to dissolve. He gritted his teeth and almost lost focus – what was he doing? Did Enska seriously think he was strong enough to enter a trance without drumming himself?
He fought back a surge of panic. He wasn’t doing this for himself – he was doing it for Lumi, and by extension, Mihka and everyone in the Northlands who were worrying about the missing Lights. He thought of them, of Mihka’s white hair in the pouch at his belt, of the water which he could practically hear dripping off Lumi’s fingers…
There it was. His intention.
He focused on Enska’s beat. The air became thick with taika. He felt as though he was underwater, but there was no need to hold his breath. The power supported him gently, like he was floating on a cloud.
His souls began to loosen. He opened his mouth and let a chant spill out, mingling with Enska’s. Behind his lids, his eyes rolled back in his head.
Then he felt himself leave the ground, peeling away from his body, drifting up like smoke towards the hole. Before he could even pause to think, he was out in the night, the dark sky opening around him, cocooning him in its peculiar silent bubble. Somewhere nearby, he sensed Enska, and their life-souls floated away from the snowy land, until he broke through the invisible barrier between realms.
Into the World Above.
He found himself in a place where time and form had no meaning. There was no weight, no gravity. Everything and nothing existed side by side. The stars stretched on forever, and he thought he heard a strange music coming from them.
Somehow, he knew Enska couldn’t hear it. It was a tune not for human ears, but for Spirits: choral and ethereal, with instruments he could not name.
Up here, he was no longer the boy called Tuomas. He was something more, which transcended that earthly flesh. He was a life-soul unlike any other: that which had dwelled in the Great Mage from generations ago. The life-soul of a Spirit, not a human. And it brought a flood of peace unlike anything he had felt before.
He realised he was not alone.
Who is here with me? he asked.
He didn’t need to open his mouth to form the words. They had no sound or order. They were the dapple of light on a pool; of whispering leaves in a breeze; of cool rain on its journey from cloud to river. It was a language of silence and beauty and life and death, all together; none greater or lesser than the other. And he knew, instinctively, that he was the only human who could speak it.
After a brief silence, a giant figure emerged from the darkness. It was made from starlight and cloud, ever-changing, shifting like ripples upon the surface of a lake. It looked at him with huge black eyes. Had he been physically standing, their gaze might have been enough to drive him to his knees.
It was more power than he could comprehend. More than Henrik, Lilja, Kari… more even than Lumi. And in that instant, he knew who was in front of him.
The Great Bear Spirit.
The glittering face drew close. He could feel its immeasurable strength: the source of everything, the guiding hand of all who had gone before.
I do not come to many, said the Bear. But I come to you, as I came to Lilja.
You honour me, he replied.
There is no honour in this, Red Fox One. Only the need to set things right.
The Bear regarded him for a moment; so long, it felt like an eternity. He was stunned by its appearance: neither male nor female; and old – so old, all other Spirits seemed like children in comparison.
The ancestors cannot dance while the leader of the aurora is gone, it said. Without the White Fox One, they cannot look down and see you, and you cannot look up and see them.
I know what I must do, he said. I promise I’ll put her back. But I don’t know how to do it.
The Bear sparkled before him.
The solution is simple. You have tried to put her back in the wrong places, and asked the wrong people to attempt it. You must return her to the World Above at the same place you took her out of it.
He was taken aback. So, after all of this, I just need to go back to Akerfjorden?
To the frozen Mustafjord, where the water meets the land.
Do you mean I never had to go north in the first place? When I summoned her, if I’d just stayed there, I could have put her back in the sky there and then? All this has been for nothing?
Everything happens for a reason, replied the Bear.
As the words reached him, he realised the truth of them. On the Mustafjord, hadn’t he frantically tried to send Lumi back, and failed miserably? He’d only managed to hone his power by seeking Lilja out, and if he hadn’t done that, he never would have met Elin and her family, or learned the truth about his life-soul – or about the connection between him and Lumi.
You care for the White Fox One, the Bear said, even though she caused you pain.
I caused her pain too, he replied.
The Bear gazed at him with its celestial eyes.
The path of a mage is never easy, Son of the Sun.
It circled around him, its formless voice washing over his mind like a soft river current.
I know you gave your sister a humanoid form, because that is how you perceived Spirits. But your perceptions have widened since you brought her out of the sky. You need not see her as a human girl any longer. I shall give her a less vulnerable body, closer to her true form. At least that way, she will conserve her energy until you reach the Mustafjord.
Will that work?
She is weak, but not defeated. She does not know how to be defeated, said the Bear. It brushed its nose against him. Go in peace.
Stay in peace, he replied.
Heaviness overwhelmed him. He became aware of a heartbeat somewhere below, and breathing, and the strict shape of a human body. For a moment, he wanted to fight it, to stay free and formless, but he came too close and fell back into it.
Tuomas opened his eyes with a gasp.
He was lying on his side; he had obviously tipped over while in the trance. His drum was still clutched to his chest.
He sat up and inspected himself. It was strange to see his own body again. Even though he knew it was his, it almost felt as though he had slipped on a coat belonging to someone else.
“How long was I away?” he asked.
“A few hours,” said Enska.
“Hours?”
“I woke up not long before you, but I’ve looked outside at the stars. A fair amount of time has passed.”
Tuomas rubbed his face groggily, gritting his teeth as pain fired through his hands.
“Did you hear everything I did?” he asked.
Enska nodded. His eyes were wide with reverence.
“Yes,” he replied, barely above a whisper. “And I felt it as well. It is true. You are the Son of the Sun.”
Tuomas breathed deeply. At last, he believed it, as sure as he knew his own reindeer among a herd several hundred strong. He could sense his own power, swelling within him like boiling water: a taika not of this World.
He turned to look at Lumi, to tell her what had happened. But then he saw her and froze.
The girl was gone, and in her place sat a small white fox. But it was more ethereal than any fox he had ever seen. Its ears were erect and turned towards him, eyes shining with the aurora. The end of each strand of fur glittered and its entire body glowed from the inside, as though filled with starlight.
The fox stared at him, the same way she always had. She padded forward and pressed her nose to his hand. Then she sprung to the door, pushed it open with her front legs and ran out into the dark.
Tuomas bounded after her, but by the time he stumbled into the snow, she had disappeared.
Elin was outside, walking towards the spare hut with her arms loaded with firewood. She frowned when she saw Tuomas.
“Was that Lumi?” she asked in disbelief.
Tuomas managed to nod, then his head swam from standing too quickly. Elin dropped the logs and only just managed to catch him before he fainted.
Chapter Twenty-Four
When Tuomas awoke, he was inside a hut, but the herbs were missing from the beams so he knew it wasn’t Enska’s. He presumed it was the spare one which he and Elin had been offered.
Somebody had put him in a sleeping sack and taken off his coat and belt, so he was just in his tunic and leggings. His belongings laid beside him on the twig-covered floor, including the drum.
He looked around. Elin was in her own sleeping sack, her face turned away. Embers smouldered in the hearth. He laid twigs and bark ov
er them, to catch the flames before they burned out.
His mouth was dry from sleep and cold, so he fetched water from the bucket by the door, poured it into a pot, and set it to heat over the fire. When it was boiling, he dug around in the supplies left by the villagers until he found some herbs, then tossed them in. In no time at all, the wonderful smell of tea filled the hut.
He went to pick up his cup, but paused when he looked at his hands. They were still bandaged. It would be very difficult to handle tea like that; and he knew it would be best to take them off. His skin would need cleaning.
Praying there would be no more damage, he carefully unwound the strips of fabric, gritting his teeth as the flesh stung. Eventually, he got the last bandage off, and inspected his fingers.
His left hand had come through the frostbite mostly unharmed, but his right was truly frostbitten. As he’d known, he had lost the tips of two fingers, and his thumb was still puffy, the nail black. He wouldn’t be surprised if that one fell off, too.
He shuddered at the sight, testing his range of motion. He was able to wiggle everything, but his bones still ached. It might be weeks yet before the extent of the injury was really known.
Elin moaned, the smell of the tea stirring her. She peered over at him; black hair tangled wildly about her face.
“Hello,” she greeted sleepily. “How long have you been awake?”
“Not long,” replied Tuomas. “I’m sorry about yesterday. I think I passed out.”
“You did.” Elin rubbed her knuckles into her eyes. “Are you alright now?”
“Yes.”
Elin sat up in her sleeping sack and rested her back against the wall. Tuomas fetched a second cup and filled them both with tea. She took one with a grateful nod and the two of them drank in unison.
Tuomas gingerly lowered his cup. He was using his left hand. In the past, he had always relied on his right.
Not anymore, he thought. You’ll be using the left for everything now.
“Happy midwinter,” Elin said.
Tuomas looked at her. Was it midwinter already? Where had all that time gone?
“And to you,” he said. “I can’t believe it’s here.”