The Land of the Silver Apples

by Nancy Farmer

  As for the riders, Jack hardly dared lift his eyes to them. Their beauty was dazzling. Both men and women rode in the company, dressed in varying hues of green, and all were without the blemishes that plagued mortal men. Here were no crooked teeth or flawed faces, no marks of illness, accident, or famine. Suddenly, Jack saw his companions in the light of these perfect beings. Thorgil was coarse, and Pega—poor Pega!—scarcely seemed human. As for his own looks, Jack had no illusions.

  “Has the cat stolen your tongues?” the huntsman cried merrily.

  “Do not mock them, Gowrie,” said one of the women. “They are but newly arrived from Middle Earth, though I wonder at the small one. She has the look of the changelings.”

  “She is human, dear Ethne,” replied the huntsman. “I detect the stench of mortality.”

  “Then they must be brought to our halls,” declared Ethne. “The queen will surely want to see them.”

  The company rode off with a winding of horns and crying of hounds. Brude and the Picts remained behind. “You commmme,” Brude hissed, as though human speech came to him with difficulty. His followers grasped their beating sticks and formed a guard around Jack and his companions.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  THE DARK RIVER

  It should have been frightening, but Jack was too enchanted to worry. The forest through which they were passing was lovelier than anything he’d ever seen. Each tree was perfect in its own way yet different from every other tree. Each opening revealed an unexpected delight. A waterfall poured over a white cliff, a pool was dotted with flowers big enough to sit on, a field of daffodils—or something like daffodils—stood as tall as your head. Jack looked eagerly for the next revelation. He scarcely noticed the sullen band of Picts or that he wasn’t free to wander.

  An eagle took to the air from a distant cliff. Its wingspan dwarfed any bird of Middle Earth and its claws could easily have carried off an elk. It screamed a challenge, yet even this cry was delightful and not alarming.

  “It’s as large as a Jotunheim eagle,” Jack murmured.

  “But different,” added Thorgil, sounding half asleep.

  “Browner. Bigger.” Jack found it difficult to describe what set the eagle apart.

  “Like something from Yggdrassil.”

  Jack was jolted awake. The eagle was nothing like a bird that would perch on the Great Tree. It was too perfect. It would never drop a feather or get its feet covered in mud. Yggdrassil’s creatures were awe-inspiring but not immune to change. Nothing living was. Jack felt a whisper of the fear he had experienced in the whirlpool.

  “What’s wrong?” said Pega.

  The whisper went away. Jack willed it to go away. “Just a stomachache. Must have eaten too many apples,” he said, smiling.

  A Pict nudged him with a stick, and he moved on. They passed a tree entirely covered with butterflies and another hung with vines so delicate, they were like shreds of mist.

  The forest ended, and everything suddenly changed. Before them was a dark river—or perhaps it was a long, thin lake, because the water didn’t move at all. The path vanished underneath it and reappeared on the other side. It actually did disappear. You couldn’t see into the water, nor did it reflect the sky or shore. It was simply a band of darkness blocking their way.

  The Picts halted, obviously taken by surprise. They gestured at the barrier with hisses and growls, and Brude’s voice rose above the rest. He wanted to go on; it was clear from the way he waved his arms. Jack thought the water hadn’t been there long and probably wasn’t deep. He probed with his staff. The water swirled sluggishly, creeping up the wood toward his hand. Jack retreated at once.

  “We could easily swim that,” Thorgil pointed out.

  “I’d rather walk,” said Jack, watching oily ripples spread out from where he’d stirred it.

  Finally, Brude prevailed, and the Picts once again formed a guard. “Go,” Brude commanded, poking Jack with his stick.

  The children held hands, forming a human chain, with Jack in front, followed by Thorgil and Pega. Two Picts led them, carefully feeling the way. The rest brought up the rear. The first part was only ankle-deep. Jack breathed a sigh of relief and tried to ignore the tendrils of water exploring his legs.

  The river became deeper. Now it came to his knees, and Jack noticed something odd. You could always feel real water against your skin. Not this. “Go!” Brude said, with an edge of panic.

  Suddenly, one of the leading Picts stepped to the side and vanished like a fly popping into a frog’s mouth. He went down without a splash, and his comrades broke into a run. They fought past the children, shoving and hissing, and scrambled up the farther bank, where they immediately started fighting among themselves.

  Jack and Thorgil were abandoned in the middle of the lake. “Where’s Pega?” cried Jack.

  “She fell over!” Thorgil said. “When those pigs went by, they knocked her down!” Jack looked around, hoping to see movement in the water. There was nothing.

  “Commmme!” roared Brude from the farther bank.

  “No!” Jack shouted back. She had to be somewhere. How long could she hold her breath? “Pega! Move your arms! Stand up! Try to jump!” But the lake stayed perfectly still. They felt around the bottom with their feet, and it was Thorgil who found her, lying just under the surface. Unconscious, but alive.

  They inched along, carrying the girl between them. The water came up to Jack’s chest, and he wondered if he could swim in this—whatever it was. He didn’t like the idea of it touching his face. The Picts watched sullenly. They could help, Jack thought, but they won’t the swine. They didn’t even try to rescue their comrade.

  Finally, they clambered out into a shimmering sea of grass and laid Pega down. Jack bent over, hands on knees, panting. He felt as though he’d run a mile. Thorgil stretched out on her back, equally overcome.

  “We have to get the water out of her,” gasped Jack, staggering over to roll Pega onto her stomach. But when he pressed on her ribs, nothing happened. He rolled her back. She was pale as chalk.

  “She’s breathing,” said Thorgil, kneeling beside them.

  Jack fished out the candle Pega carried in her string bag and held it to her nose. She shuddered and moaned. “I was dreaming,” she whispered.

  “You’re awake now.” Jack was trembling with relief. She had looked so dead!

  “Terrible dream,” the girl said.

  “Don’t think about it. Look at the meadow instead.”

  Thorgil helped Jack raise the girl. They both supported her, for Pega was so overcome, she had no strength left. Gradually, she roused and sat up by herself. They gazed at the perfect blue sky, the meadow, the birds that caroled as they flew.

  It was a beautiful place, quiet and somehow secret. The grass bent before a breeze, rippling like a live sea. Beyond the hateful river, Jack could still see the forest. The trees were utterly flawless. Together they formed a mass of greenery more lovely than anything in Middle Earth.

  The Picts herded Jack and his companions onward. It wasn’t an unpleasant journey. Grassland gave way to orchard, and everyone gathered fruit from the trees. As before, nothing was quite like Middle Earth, but the fruit was so delicious that Jack didn’t care. The apples were silvery, like tiny moons hanging among the dark leaves. The smell alone was enough to make you happy, and when you ate them, you didn’t need anything else.

  On the other side of the orchard they saw a palace in the distance. “Elfhame,” growled Brude, gesturing with his stick. Jack had seen the hall of the Mountain Queen in Jotunheim. It had been magnificent, carved out of ice and haunted by mists, but Elfhame was more fair.

  Graceful towers were joined by magnificent arches. The walls were covered with climbing roses, and irises and violets formed purple shadows under the trees. Or at least they resembled irises and violets. A path led off to a fountain around which were men and women frozen in the middle of a dance. Jack stopped in his tracks. “Have they been turned to stone?” he sai
d in a low voice.

  “Olaf One-Brow used to carve animals from wood,” Thorgil said, touching one of the statues with her finger. “I think this is similar, but—” She paused, frowning.

  Jack understood her confusion. Olaf’s animals covered the ceiling and pillars of his home, where they watched its inhabitants like friendly spirits. They weren’t perfect. You’d never mistake them for the real thing, and yet somehow the giant’s soul had flowed into his art. You could imagine his bellowing laugh behind the squirrels, ravens, and wolves that decorated his hall. These statues, beautiful beyond belief, were dead.

  Jack gasped.

  “What is it?” cried Thorgil, her hand going to her knife.

  “That tree,” he whispered. Pega turned to see what had startled him. It seemed a normal tree until you got close enough to see the fruit was actually honey cakes.

  “Good!” grunted Brude, shoving them out of the way. He and his followers gathered around and stuffed their mouths. Thorgil also waded into the fray, jostling, fighting for position, and gorging herself with equal abandon. Jack was uncomfortably aware of similarities between Northmen and Picts.

  The tree was soon picked clean. But when the warriors stepped away, their faces all sticky with sweetness, more fruit swelled up on the branches. So of course they had to go back for seconds. Eventually, the Picts and Thorgil slumped to the ground, bloated but apparently happy.

  Pega delicately plucked a honey cake with her fingers. “Would you like one, Jack?”

  He stared at the tree with dislike. “How can you have honey in a place with no bees?”

  “Who cares?” said Thorgil, sprawled on the ground.

  “I do. Bees are the servants of the life force, and if they’re not here, this tree doesn’t exist. I don’t know what you’ve been eating, but don’t be surprised if it makes you sick.”

  “You really don’t know how to have a good time.” The shield maiden belched richly.

  “There’s another thing,” Jack said. “Father used to tell Lucy a tale about a honey cake that fell on the ground and put down roots. It grew into a tree. Well, here’s the tree! Father made up that story, but this is a place where impossible things happen. The flowers are too big, the fruit too sweet. I say it’s glamour, and it’s all a lie.”

  Pega put down her cake without tasting it. Her face looked strained and tired. “When I fell into that—that river, I thought I was going to die. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. All the fields and flowers were gone. It was dark … dark …” The girl covered her face with her hands.

  “It was a bad dream. Don’t think about it.” Jack was concerned by her obvious distress.

  “It was real! It’s hard to remember, everything’s so pretty here. You don’t want to remember.” Pega hurled the honey cake into a bush. “Elfland had vanished, and all that was left was a cave full of bones and filth. I think that’s what this place really is, only the glamour hides it from you. There was no hope. No warmth. No love.” She burst into tears.

  Something in Pega’s words woke a memory in Jack’s mind. He and Thorgil had been waiting for the Norns in the hall of the Mountain Queen. Voices gathered in the distance, coming nearer and whispering of a world of loss so terrible, you would run mad to think of it. All that was bright and brave and beautiful would go down to defeat. You could not stop it. You could only watch it die. And Jack remembered his answer to such despair: I serve the life force. The Norns’ way is only one leaf on the Great Tree. I do not believe in death.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  LUCY

  Jack was about to tell Pega about the Norns when a horn sounded from within the palace. Voices called, a host of them. The front gate opened, and out came the prettiest, merriest people Jack had ever seen. They were dressed in all the colors of the rainbow.

  Some danced like the figures in the fountains, and some played harps or flutes. Others tossed rose petals into the wind and sang with voices so fair, Jack thought his heart would break. Beauty and longing overwhelmed him until he scarcely knew whether it was joy or pain he felt.

  Jack was transfixed. He could not have moved if a shower of silver arrows were raining down on him. Everyone else seemed as stunned as he.

  The company drew near, and Jack recognized the huntsman called Gowrie. By his side Lady Ethne carried garlands of flowers. “Welcome!” she cried, presenting the garlands to Jack, Thorgil, and Pega. Brude craned his neck hopefully, but she passed him by. “Welcome to Elfhame! Come heal your earthly cares. All joy lies within, where Partholis rules with Partholon, her consort. Come, weary travelers, to join our revels!”

  Jack found himself surrounded by the company. He felt outrageously happy and smiled at Ethne, who smiled back, instantly winning his allegiance. She was so radiant! He had never known anyone so fair. She drew him on effortlessly.

  The Picts followed behind like a pack of hungry, ill-favored hounds.

  Jack walked in a dream. Wonders led to more wonders. The gate of Elfhame was a single arc of gold framed in a wreath of emerald vines. The doors were of silver. Pillars soared up inside to a dark blue ceiling spangled with a myriad of lamps.

  Elves stood on either side, dressed in robes trimmed with fur and shot with gold. Little dogs with jingling bells on their collars danced around their feet. One dashed up to Pega, bared its pretty teeth, and darted away.

  Some of the ladies had toddlers on leashes. These kept falling over and whimpering. One of them sniffled constantly, and its owner rapped it sharply on the head with a fan.

  Jack and his companions were swept on through several rooms, each more magnificent than the last, until they reached a hall with a floor of glass. In the center of the air burned a miniature sun. Jack turned his face up in wonder, to feel its mild warmth.

  “Come on,” urged Ethne, laughing. Jack followed her onto the glass. It’s like walking on water, he thought, for beneath the transparent floor was a lake full of golden-scaled fish that glittered as they swam. The elf lady took his hands and swirled him into a dance.

  Thorgil probed the surface with her foot before stepping on it. “I do not fear this,” she announced.

  “Of course not!” cried Gowrie, pulling her on. Pega halted at the edge and then walked stolidly after the couples. Jack glanced back to see that no one had chosen her for a partner. He let go of Ethne and hurried back to her.

  “Come on, Pega,” he said kindly, holding out his hand. Her look was so grateful, his heart turned over. She had almost been a queen in the realm of the hobgoblins. Now her ugliness was painfully obvious. He tried to copy the elves’ steps, but Jack wasn’t a good dancer, and of course no one had ever bothered to teach Pega. All he knew were highland flings that were more like jumping up and down until you ran out of breath.

  But then Ethne joined them, and her magic turned them all graceful. Round and round they went, with the miniature sun overhead and the golden fish beneath their feet. It was intoxicating. It was like the best days of Jack’s life rolled into one. He was so happy, he laughed out loud.

  Then they were at the other end of the hall. Jack staggered to a halt, his heart pounding and his body clammy with sweat. Pega collapsed against him. Ethne was still as fresh as a daisy.

  Before them rose a dais bearing four thrones. At the right end sat the Lady of the Lake. Jack remembered her, all right. His back tingled where she’d shot him. In the center were a tall woman in golden robes and a tall man in silver. At the other end, in a throne hardly bigger than an ordinary chair, was Lucy.

  “Lucy!” cried Jack. The Lady of the Lake raised her hand threateningly. A man Jack hadn’t noticed rose from the floor near the Lady’s feet.

  “Good for you! You made it!” Brutus said, bounding from the dais. No longer was he dressed in the rags of a slave. He wore a splendid gold tunic under a crimson cloak. The great sword Anredden hung from a belt flashing with diamonds. “Don’t speak to your sister yet,” he said. “There are courtesies we must observe in this place.” He grabbed
Jack’s arm and pulled him down to bow to the thrones. Thorgil and Pega followed suit.

  “Brutus—,” began Jack, both exasperated and delighted to see him. What had the untrustworthy slave been up to all this time?

  “Manners, lad,” said Brutus. “Noble Partholis and Partholon, these are the companions I told you about,” he said, making another, exaggerated bow to the dais. “They have come to marvel at your splendor. I implore you to veil your face, Partholis, so they won’t be blinded by your beauty.”

  “You’re as honey-tongued as always, heir of Lancelot,” said the queen, laughing. “How do you put up with him, Nimue?”

  “His compliments ripple like a babbling brook,” said the Lady of the Lake, smiling. “They are as various as its waves, and as inconstant.”

  “You wound me, mistress! I am ever faithful,” cried Brutus, smacking himself on the chest. “The fountains that gladden my soul run dry. I am distraught! I perish with grief!”

  “Don’t perish yet,” Nimue said with a giggle. “We have a party on tonight.”

  “Is that the thrall you lost? He seems completely insane,” murmured Thorgil to Pega.

  “You get used to it.” Pega grinned with delight.

  “We welcome you, friends of Brutus,” Queen Partholis said, rising from her throne. “We offer you our goodwill and hospitality. Make free with all the pleasures of Elfland and find comfort in its halls and gardens.” Her voice was like summer rain falling on parched soil. Jack could have listened to it for hours.

  “We are most grateful, Your Noble Highnesses,” said Jack, giving almost as florid a bow as Brutus. He felt silly, but he supposed it was the thing to do.

  The queen laughed again, a silvery ripple that made Jack smile in response. “Lady Ethne advised us of your arrival, and so we have prepared a feast.” She clapped her hands.

  Thralls poured out of side chambers with tables and benches. More followed with steaming trays of swans, venison, jugged hare, suckling pig, and many things Jack didn’t recognize. Oysters and whelks made a border around a giant salmon on a platter so huge, it took six men to carry it. Tiny larks, scarcely a mouthful each, were heaped in crystal bowls. And of course there was every kind of pudding, pie, trifle, syllabub, and flummery imaginable.