by Daniel Kirk
“No,” he said, “I saw it with my own eyes.”
“How big was it?”
“Hard to say, it was still so far away. Not big, not small.”
“How much space is there between the branches up there where the fruit hangs? Enough for an Arvada to fly?”
Nick bit his lip. “Maybe, but the pilots can’t navigate with that much control, Jardaine. They’d crash, for sure!”
“Get away from me, Nick,” she whispered. “Hurry over there, by the far wall, and keep your eye on the low branches. I’ll navigate the thing from here, and with you on the far side to signal me, we can make sure the Arvada makes it between the branches without getting punctured. If the fruit of the tree won’t fall for us, we’re going to take it.”
Jardaine closed her eyes. With her teeth clenched, her hands bunched into fists, and her eyebrows knotted in concentration, her willpower took form. It shot like a spark into the mind of the Air Sprite tethered on the far side of the wall. When the creature suddenly lumbered to attention, lifting its great translucent maw in the frigid air, the Aeronauts inside the vehicle clamored to their posts. Now it was down to a battle of will, and Jardaine had caught them all off guard. The Air Sprite was rising, yanking the ropes free from their icy mooring, and the frozen sea creaked and groaned in protest. Inside the Arvada the captain and his crew were tossed against the brass walls of the cab, banging limbs and cracking heads, and within minutes every Elf aboard was either unconscious or in no condition to offer any resistance to the great beast as it flexed and shot into the air.
Jardaine directed the Sprite over the wall, and with a mighty roar it spat flame from its mouth. At the sight of the fire and the brass cab the Elves of Hunaland ran screaming for shelter. The bloated, quivering shape of the Air Sprite could be seen moving through the smoke just above them. What appeared to them to be a giant, wingless bird was now moving among the branches of Yggdrasil. The Elves abandoned the courtyard and hid wherever they could, quickly followed by the chanting monks. Jardaine was left alone, keeping a close watch on the position of the Sprite, glancing now and again at Nick. He waved his arms around to let her know how close the Sprite was coming to the pointed tips of the branches. The smoldering fires that the Elves had abandoned, now fanned by winds from the Sprite, sent up columns of smoke.
Nick thought he saw that the blackened end of a branch, split at its tip into seven or more pointed fingers, was uncomfortably close to the Sprite. “Down!” he screamed, jumping on the cobblestones, waving his hands so that Jardaine would understand. Another moment, another thirty or forty feet, and the hide of the Sprite would be—too late!
The gigantic beast roared, and a burst of pain shot through Jardaine’s skull. When she was in such close mental contact with the Sprite, its pleasures and pains were as real to her as her own. She fell back on the ground as it roared again. Impaled on the branch the enormous beast writhed, flames spitting from its mouth, its tail whipping against the high limbs. There was a splitting sound, like the crack of lightning, and the Arvada tumbled downward. The air was filled with the thick, greasy smell of the Sprite as the winds inside its body spewed out. Nick, in the shadow of the falling thing, ran to Jardaine. She was still sprawled on the ground. Above them the Sprite and its metal cab were striking branch after branch, breaking off chunks of bark in its terrible descent. “Get up!” Nick screamed. He tugged and tugged on Jardaine’s arm. “Get up!”
Finally the Elf got up. She stumbled out of the shadow as dozens of tree limbs and the Arvada crashed behind her, the brass cab splitting into pieces. Razor-sharp splinters and chunks of metal flew past Nick and Jardaine. With a horrible, strangled roar, the Air Sprite lay heaving on the cobblestones. Parts of it lay across the sacrificial fires, and the body of the beast smoldered and cooked in dark patches. Nick retched at the awful odor, and now it was Jardaine’s turn to haul him forward. “I see it,” she cried, “I see the fruit!”
They dashed over the body of the Sprite, slipping again and again on its hide and tripping over folds of translucent flesh. There was a branch on the far side of the beast, with a cluster of green leaves, bigger than Jardaine and Nick together. At the center of the bunch of leaves lay the shattered fruit of the Adri. “Reach in and get the Seed,” Jardaine hollered. “Get the Seed, quickly!”
The Troll reached into the gloppy pulp of the smashed fruit. His arms sank up to the elbows in the mess, and each time he drew them out, there was a terrible sucking sound. “Hurry!” Jardaine cried. “What’s taking you so long?”
Nick pulled his hands free and then dug them in once again. Only after the third or fourth time did he notice the burning sensation, starting in his fingertips and then creeping up his arms. “Owwww,” he cried, yanking his hands free.
He held them up before his eyes in the frail light and saw that his skin was puckered and blackened everywhere the pulp of the fruit clung to his flesh. He screamed, wiping the mess on his clothing, trying to stop the burning. He saw a jug of water next to one of the fires and ran to pour it onto his seared hands. Jardaine, meanwhile, knelt to peer into the ruins of the fruit. There was a lump at the center of the thing, a green lump, no bigger than an acorn. Taking the hem of her robe in her hand she reached into the spongy mass and withdrew the Sacred Seed of the Adri. She stood up, wiped the Seed clean, and dropped it into the pocket of her robe. “Let’s go, Nick,” she hollered, running for the palace. “We’ve got to get Becky, and then get out of here! They’ll kill us for what we’ve done!”
at the door. Matt got up on one elbow, rubbing sleep from his eyes. The first thing he saw was Tuava-Li in the dim light, facing the window. Her arms were outstretched, her eyes closed. The knock at the door didn’t seem to faze her. She’s doing one of her rituals, Matt thought. She’s always up before anybody else, greeting the new day … no matter what kind of day it is, no matter what you need her to do.
Then the knock came again, louder this time, and Matt threw his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m coming,” he said.
Tomtar was on the floor in a heap of tangled blankets. He sat up, drawn back from the Gates of Vattar to the waking world. “What’s going on?”
Matt peered through the tiny security hole in the door and saw Mary’s son-in-law, Joe, standing in the hallway. The light in the hall was a sickly greenish yellow. The fish-eye lens in the hole made Joe look like a seal, with his bristling whiskers and greasy black hair. When he knocked again, Matt jumped back. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothin’s wrong,” Joe replied. His voice sounded hollow coming through the door. “Your ride’s here. You ready to go, kid?”
“My ride?”
“We got the plane, and we’ve got clearance to take off, now. You comin’ or not?”
“Give me … five minutes,” Matt called, glancing frantically around the room. Clothes were strewn around, backpacks, books from the co-op laundry. Earth calling Tuava-Li, Matt said in his mind. He was getting better at thoughtspeak every day, and he enjoyed startling Tuava-Li with it the way she always seemed to startle him.
The Elf, roused abruptly from her trance, opened her eyes and stared. We’ve got to go, Matt said wordlessly. The airplane’s here! We’re actually going to the North Pole!
Minutes later, Matt opened the door, out of breath, and thrust a duffel bag into Joe’s arms. “Can you carry this for me?”
The bag was meant to be a distraction. Even if Joe’s mind didn’t accept the possibility that Faerie Folk were real, and he wasn’t able to see Tomtar and Tuava-Li, he might well see the Human coats they were wearing, and one thing might lead to another. It wasn’t worth risking it, at any rate. Joe clomped down the corridor as Matt followed, dressed in his cold-weather gear, and Tomtar and Tuava-Li hung back, out of sight. “Looks like a good day for flyin’,” Joe said. “I got some muffins and a coffee, start the trip right!”
“Great,” Matt said.
Tuava-Li’s mind was still in an altered state from the exercise she�
��d been doing, the Cross of Gold. Her fingers were still tingling, and there was something wrong—she could feel it. Here they were, so close to their goal; certainly by day’s end they would reach the North Pole, and there they would pluck the Sacred Seed from the fruit of the Adri at Hunaland. Is it something about Matt that’s bothering me? she wondered. She’d been plagued by the thought that when the time came for him to die, she had no idea what would happen, how it would happen, or who would do the deed. She trusted that the momentum of the myth would take over, when the time came. There was no point telling the boy about the sacrifice he would be making; in all likelihood, he would die willingly, heroically. She knew the story could not be changed, even though there was a part of her that wanted to forget their quest and just let Matt go home. But no … it wasn’t Matt that bothered her; it was something about Joe.
The sun was coming up on the horizon as Joe threw open the door of the building and stepped out onto the splintered deck. The wind howled, and the temperature was easily ten degrees below freezing. The wind stung Matt’s eyes as he hurried down the steps and followed his guide across the gravel road. He imagined that Tomtar and Tuava-Li, with their large, sensitive eyes, would feel the sting even more than he did. “You picked up snow goggles, didn’t you?” Joe asked.
“Yeah, I got three pair yester—”
“What?”
“I mean I picked up a pair at the co-op. I’ve got them in one of my pockets, somewhere. Maybe in my backpack.”
“You better know! You’re gonna need ’em.”
They came to a blue pickup truck. The motor was running, and a cloud of exhaust sputtered from the tailpipe. Matt saw the big sled in the back, packed with gear and wrapped in a khaki tarp. “That’s for me?”
“Yeah,” said Joe, pitching the duffel bag. “Mary said your old man needed some supplies. Toss your stuff in the back, then get in. We’re runnin’ late.”
Joe climbed in through the driver’s side door. Lift us in next to the sled, Tuava-Li said in thoughtspeak. ’Twill be easier to keep our presence hidden from the Human if we stay out of his sight.
“Come on, Tomtar,” Matt said quietly. “I’m going to lift the two of you into the back.”
“I don’t mind being outside,” said Tomtar, lifting his arms to be picked up. “We’d better be getting used to the cold, where we’re goin’!”
Matt left his friends to hunker down next to the sled, hurried to the passenger’s side door, and opened it. “What were you doin’ back there?” asked Joe.
“I—well, I never saw a pack like that before, with the kayak, and the skis and all, put together like that, so I was just getting a look.” Matt searched for a convincing explanation as he climbed in beside Joe and latched his seat belt. “I just wanted to make sure it was all fastened down in case we stop too fast or something.”
Joe scowled and shifted the vehicle into gear. The heat coming from the dashboard vent blasted Matt in the face. Though he tried to ask Tuava-Li in thoughtspeak if she and Tomtar were okay, he couldn’t concentrate. With the flick of a knob Joe had turned on the CD player. Music blared out of the speakers, rattling the seats. In the thick polyfoam coat with the hood and hat pulled low over his forehead, and all the layers of clothes he had on, Matt felt ill. “Can I turn the heat down a little?” he asked.
“Whatever floats your boat, Captain!” Joe said, flashing a toothy smile.
“And the music, too?”
“What, you don’t like music?”
“Sure, but …”
Minutes later they pulled up at the airstrip. There was one small building on stilts, jutting out of the snow. There was another flat-roofed structure with a short viewing tower, and a freshly shoveled gravel strip for takeoffs and landings. The Twin Otter was waiting in front of the building, its fat rubber tires shining like black balloons in the sun. As soon as Joe put his truck into parking gear, Matt hopped out of his seat and ran around behind to unhook the flap on the back of the cab. Tomtar and Tuava-Li hurried out of sight before Joe appeared. “A man with a mission,” he said, coming around to undo the knots that secured the supply-laden sled. He shook his head. “I could have sworn that duffel bag was red. Did you see something red back here? My eyes must be playing tricks on me. I just saw it out of the corner of my eye. Now it’s gone!”
Matt thought of Tomtar’s winter coat: it was bright red. Tuava-Li’s was orange. “No. I didn’t see anything red. Should I help you pull the sled out on this side?”
“Might as well get used to haulin’ it yourself,” Joe said, scratching his chin and smiling that fierce smile. “Go ahead, kid, pull it out!”
Matt tugged and heaved at the sled, trying to get its awkward weight angled so it would slide out of the back of the truck. Finally it landed with a plop on the gravel, and Matt dragged it slowly toward the Twin Otter. “Bend your knees,” Joe instructed, walking alongside Matt. “Keep your weight forward. You won’t have to drag it like that once you’re out on the ice. Your dad’ll show you, for sure.”
“Yeah,” Matt said, baring his teeth with the strain. “My dad’s an expert on all this stuff.”
Another man, tall and heavyset, came out of the control tower and hurried toward the plane. He grabbed the ropes Matt was using to haul the sled and said, “What are you doing, dragging this over gravel? You’re gonna damage the skis!”
“It’s a little bit heavy to carry,” Joe grumbled, “and we’re almost there, anyway.” Then he said to Matt, “Kid, this is my buddy Charlie. He’s the one who flies the plane.”
Matt shook the man’s gloved hand. “Okay, Charlie,” Joe said, “let’s get behind this thing and hoist it into the hold.”
While the two men were bent over, lifting the heavy sled up through the freight door, Matt helped Tomtar and Tuava-Li into the single door at the front of the plane. From inside, the Twin Otter looked like something out of an old war movie. The paneling and most of the seats had been removed in back to make room for freight, though there was still a partial wall between the seats for the pilot and copilot and the rest of the cabin. Multicolored cables dangled from the ceiling, and a pair of old fans hung from the corners, their blades turning slowly in the breeze. Light spilled in through tiny windows on either side of the plane. “Kid,” Joe called in an annoyed voice from the back door, “get over here and help guide this sled inside!”
“Sure thing,” said Matt. He nodded his head toward a stack of boxes and blankets behind the single passenger seat, and Tomtar and Tuava-Li took the opportunity to hide behind them. Then he hurried to the rear of the plane.
Soon the sled was secured with nylon ropes to hooks in the cabin walls. Matt strapped himself into his seat behind the pilot. When the tower gave Joe and Charlie the signal, the plane took off. Matt jammed his fingers into his ears; the roar of the engines and the screech of the tires over the gravel runway were deafening. His stomach did flip-flops as the plane lurched forward, moving faster and faster. Once the Otter was airborne, the roar diminished, but it never let up. Tuava-Li and Tomtar sat huddled behind boxes. Both of them were holding on tightly to the nylon ropes stretched around the sled. Both of them chewed furiously on Trans they’d taken from the Huldu in their backpacks. Nearly everything around them was metal, and the Trans barely offset the weakness and nausea they were feeling. “How’s it goin’, kid?” Joe shouted from the front.
“I’m okay,” Matt hollered back.
“You got the landing coordinates?”
“The what?”
“The coordinates, the latitude and longitude where we’re supposed to touch down. We’re gonna stop in Alert to refuel. They’re about eighty-two degrees north, and sixty-two degrees west. You understand? We’ve got to know exactly where your dad’s camped, so we can get you as close as possible.”
Matt swallowed. “He’s … at the North Pole!”
Joe looked at Charlie and smiled faintly. Matt could see Joe’s expression from where he was sitting, and there was something in it tha
t he didn’t like. “Isn’t the North Pole enough directions?” Matt asked. “You said you’d been there before!”
“Oh, we’ve been there,” Joe shouted. “But there are three North Poles, kid. The North Magnetic Pole, the North Geographic Pole, and the Pole of … what’s that called, Charlie?”
“There are four North Poles,” the pilot said. “There are the two you said, then there’s the Geomagnetic Pole, and then the Pole of Relative Inaccessibility.”
Joe snorted. “What’s that one?”
“That’s where you’re up a creek without a paddle.” Charlie laughed. “It’s the spot on the Arctic Ocean where you’re the farthest from land.”
Matt desperately tried to remember where Mary had said she’d told Joe they’d be landing. “My dad—he’s at the Anderson camp. That’s the place Mary said you’d been!”
Charlie bent close to Joe and whispered in his ear. “What did he say?” Matt asked.
“He said, take it easy, and we’ll talk again when we stop to refuel at the CFS in Alert.”
Matt didn’t know what the CFS was, or where Alert was, but he assumed that Joe and the pilot knew what they were doing. He tried to settle back and relax, but the roar of the engines and the constant shifts in altitude kept him nauseated, tense, and distracted for the entire flight. When they finally made a bumpy stop on another gravel runway, outside another handful of dreary buildings on stilts, Joe climbed out of his seat. He told Matt to get down on the floor of the cabin and not get up again until he said it was okay. From his new vantage point on the floor Matt had a better view of Tomtar and Tuava-Li. They looked as ill as Matt felt, if that was possible. Once the motor was cut, and Joe and Charlie had climbed out of the plane to head for the nearest building, Matt peeked out the window to get a look at his surroundings. Why would Joe want to keep his presence a secret? “’Tis not good,” Tuava-Li said aloud, her voice still shaky with the wobble of the plane. “There’s something wrong.”