by Daniel Kirk
There was a strange smell in the air. Becky wasn’t sure if it was Nick’s burned and swollen hands or something else. Then she remembered where she’d smelled something like this before. The odor was like the lion and tiger cages at the zoo. It was dark, and meaty, and almost sweet in a sickening kind of way. It was a smell that crept up close to you, an invasive, dangerous smell.
Out of the darkness the creature lunged! Nick and Becky sprang back. Its snake tail whipped past them. It disappeared in shadows before spinning around to reveal its head. The eyes were huge and yellow and glittering in the dim light. The pupils were black slits. But what stood out the most, as Becky and Nick cowered and tried to hide behind a mass of roots, were the teeth. The creature had a snake body and a head not unlike an Elf, with pointed ears and a fine, delicate nose. But when it drew back its lips and hissed, its teeth gleamed. They were long and sharp, more lethal than a Goblin’s teeth, or the Lamia’s teeth, or anything else Jardaine, Becky, and Nick had ever seen. They were transfixed by the hideous, leering face.
Jardaine dropped behind a boulder. She heard a swoosh and spun around to see another of the creatures, sidewinding toward her through the dust. This one didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry; its face, a mask of predatory glee, came slowly closer. Jardaine saw its tiny, misshapen arms. A cloud of dust rose where it paddled along the floor. The monster’s tongue flicked delicately. Then, all at once, it sprang at her. Jardaine grabbed her Kolli and ducked, and the monster shot over her head. She smelled the dank underbelly of the thing and nearly retched. She grabbed a thick root and swung her body underneath.
Becky screamed in terror as one of the monsters snapped its jaws and ripped her shirt. There were at least five or six of them now, closing in on all sides. There was only so much dodging, so much running she could do. She felt fingers on the leg of her jeans and cried out. But when she looked down, she saw that it was Jardaine. “This way!” she whispered.
Nick turned and saw his two companions backing toward a narrow corridor. He spun around, but lost his balance and fell. The dust swirled around him. “Wait for me!” he cried, holding up his injured hands. The creatures were on him in an instant. Becky managed to turn and run down the corridor. Jardaine was chanting the spell she’d memorized for using mental energy to move inanimate objects: Kan De Gudind tilladen de ønskeri af hendes ydmyg tjener tol at kompte rigtigt, og medfoere de sten onur Uhyrer til simmenbrod og knuge dim!
There was a sound like thunder, and a black jagged line split the roof of the tunnel behind them. Jardaine and Becky raced ahead as boulders began to fall. The Fire Sprite blew out like a candle as the blast struck them full force, a barrage of debris and granite dust. They stumbled and fell in the darkness. A high-pitched keening filled the air, muffled only when the cascade of rock sealed off the passage. When the dust settled, and Jardaine’s Fire Sprite flickered back to life, they could see that the way back up the passage was closed to them forever. “We’ve got to get to Nick.” Becky coughed. “We’ve got to save him from those—those monsters!”
Jardaine almost felt pity for Becky. The girl was so very, very stupid, so clueless, so … hopeful. How, Jardaine wondered, could she even ask such a question? Of course, Nick was dead. If he hadn’t been dead before the rocks fell, then certainly he and the monsters were crushed now, buried beneath tons of debris. “Too late,” she said.
“If you made the rocks fall with magick,” Becky pleaded, “you can use magick to move them, and maybe we can save Nick!”
Jardaine shook her head. “He died trying to save the two of us!”
Becky wiped the tears from her blackened cheeks. “He did?”
“Why, certainly, my child,” Jardaine lied. “He drew the creatures away from us so we could escape. He was brave and true, and now he lives among the immortals, as the Goddess teaches us. Feel glad that he died bravely, in service to the Great Ones. Weep no tears for Nick!”
Becky was confused. “But how could the Goddess have let him die, when we needed him to help us stop Tuava-Li and Tomtar? What are we going to do now?”
Jardaine clenched her jaw. How, indeed, were they going to plant the Seed of the Adri, without a Troll to complete the trio required to do the job? How were they going to find a Troll now? Return to the surface, somehow, and grab one from Hunaland? Impossible. Her only hope was to wait for Tomtar to arrive, and then use her magick to force him to join her team. He and the others would surely be thrown off course by those infernal roots in the Cord. It was imperative that she get back to the Cord and wait. But how? “I need time to think, dear one,” she said, feeling suddenly exhausted. “We must sit here a while, and think.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” Becky asked, casting a glance into the dark corridor. “There could be more of those … those snake things down here. We won’t be able to get away!”
“Faith, girl, have faith,” Jardaine said.
Becky knelt by the Elf and looked into her eyes. “Do you pray to your Goddess? I mean, do you pray for help, and guidance, and stuff like that? Because sometimes I … we … I mean, people, pray for help. Do the Faerie gods and goddesses that you believe in, do they ever, like, do things for you, when you pray really, really hard?”
“Aye, my dear,” Jardaine replied. “Prayer is communion with the Great Ones, and there’s a part of me that’s always with them, no matter what else I might be doing or thinking. The Goddess who watches over this earth is with me all the time. There’s not a thought or a feeling that passes through me that the Goddess doesn’t hear.”
“Do you think she could hear me, too? Because…”
Becky lowered her face. Her tears fell in the dust. “Because I’m really, really scared. I’m scared of the dark, and how quiet it is, and how alone I am. I’m scared about Matt, and my mom and dad and baby sister, but right now I’m just afraid. I’m afraid of everything, Astrid, except … for you.”
“Hush, child,” Jardaine said. “Fear is not your friend. Fear will not help us find the way to our goal. Now have faith, and let me think. Let me pray. If you want to pray to your Human gods, go ahead. But all will be well. All will be well!”
Jardaine felt the falseness in her words, and hoped that Becky didn’t feel it, too. She wasn’t remotely certain that all would be well. And if there were any Goddess out there that cared about her well-being, she’d never seen any evidence of it. The world was full of creatures and spirits and forces that were beyond her ken; but from all appearances, every living soul in the world was out for itself, greedily trying to take what it could from every other soul. That was the way of the world. And all would never be well.
, trapped between a fractured sheet of ice and a fading sky. The sun hung low on the horizon, though it must have only been late afternoon. Autumn was quickly giving way to arctic winter. The temperature was dropping, too. Matt had been pulling the sled for hours, and he was finally getting the hang of it. The motions of the skis had to be perfectly coordinated as he leaned into the wind; he couldn’t go too fast or too slowly, without risk of losing his balance and momentum. The neoprene face mask protected his cheeks from the bitter cold. His goggles, though, were a nuisance. They had the tendency to fog up, making it impossible to see where he was going, and he’d have to stop and wipe them clean. Once in a while he’d turn his head and, for a moment, he was convinced that he’d seen a glimpse of trees behind him. But then the illusion would quickly fade. The thin, cold air was undoubtedly playing tricks with his mind; there were no trees anywhere within hundreds of miles.
Though his face still felt cold, Matt’s body was uncomfortably warm inside his insulated pants, coat, and gloves. His back was sore where the sled harness rubbed. There were muscles in his legs and hips and arms he never knew existed; every one of them cried out in fatigue. There were blisters on his heels, too. He could feel the pain with every step, though his fear of falling through the ice made it hard to concentrate on anything but the ground beneath his feet. He had to be vigilant, avoi
ding as many of the cracks and fissures as he could, staying clear of patches of thin blue ice. Beneath the surface were two miles of ocean, straight down. The thought of slipping into the frigid depths was terrifying. Every time he had to drag the sled over a gap in the ice, sometimes a crack no wider than a pencil, other times a foot or more, he imagined what it would be like to fall in and drown.
Crouching beneath the tarp at the back of the sled, Tuava-Li and Tomtar stayed warm and out of the wind. Matt was glad they were covered up; their cold-weather gear wasn’t as good as his own, and their tiny fingers, toes, and ears wouldn’t have stood up to the biting cold. Their eyes weren’t equipped to take the glare of the sun, and the kid-sized goggles Matt had bought for them in the co-op didn’t really fit. The three traveled in silence. Matt was listening for polar bears, and the breaking up and grinding of nearby ice into pressure ridges, and he didn’t need any distractions.
He had read online about pressure ridges, places where broken ice floes were forced together by the waves and ocean currents. Some of the ridges were twice Matt’s height, and he had to glide over miles of terrain looking for a way across. Blocks of ice bigger than houses were scattered around, and the journey was slow and deliberate. Still, he was managing it better than he would have imagined possible, and he figured he’d made good time as he headed into the wind. He’d been worried about polar bears, but he’d seen no sign of any living creatures, and heard nothing but the endless creaking, groaning, and popping of the ice sheets, and the howl of the wind. He’d been pessimistic about his chances in the Arctic. Yet he’d managed to make it through a day without any setbacks or surprises he couldn’t handle. Though he’d never been good at sports, his brief experience with cross-country skiing had come in very, very handy. He was feeling cheerful and positive when he came abruptly to open water.
There’d been no warning sign. Suddenly the ice just stopped, and the ocean began. The water was black and choppy, and angular slabs bobbed on the surface. Matt thought he could see a field of unbroken ice in the distance, but it was impossible to judge just how far away it was. His depth perception was worthless in this environment. There were no regular markers to help him judge distances, and things that looked like they might be a hundred feet away could just as well be miles.
At the edge of the ice, with the sun going down and the temperature dropping, Matt felt his optimism fading and the weight of despair creep over him. He knew he’d have to tell his friends about the ice; they’d wonder why he’d stopped so suddenly. He turned around and began to ski back the way he’d come. Maybe it was a good time to stop for the night; he’d think more clearly in the morning. Tuava-Li’s voice appeared in his head. What’s happening?
I’m looking for someplace to set up the tent, Matt answered in thoughtspeak, with ice that isn’t blue and covered in cracks. I can’t go any farther without some rest and something to eat. It’s getting dark, anyhow.
As soon as Matt decided to stop, fatigue caught up with him. His legs felt like they were made of lead, and the thought of curling up in a sleeping bag was the only thing that kept him going. Matt had been relying on the wind from the north to guide him, and that was, of course, an unreliable tool. Tuava-Li and Tomtar had said that once darkness fell and the stars were out, they could tell which direction was north. Then they’d have a better sense of how to navigate the next day. Matt knew it wasn’t going to be so easy for them to find a way around the open water and get back on solid ice. Maybe they could kayak across. Still, it would be good … unbelievably good, to stop and rest. He skied for a quarter of a mile, just to put some distance between himself and the ocean. It was nearly dark. He had to blink to make the image of several jagged trees on the distant horizon fade away. Why, he wondered, did he keep imagining that he was seeing trees? Was it because the terrain here was so bleak and unfamiliar? He studied the ice beneath his boots. It looked white, as far as he could tell. That meant it would be thick enough to sink in six long screws and set up the tent. “Okay, guys,” he said, “come on out. We’ve got work to do.”
Once it was dark, a fog of ice crystals settled over the terrain. Everything looked like it was blanketed in glistening, silver cobwebs. Tomtar and Tuava-Li crept stiffly out from under the tarp and stretched. It didn’t seem as if they’d been any more comfortable on the sled than Matt had been pulling it. The three of them worked fast to unpack and set up the tent. Matt had remembered most of what he’d heard at the co-op about how to sink the big screws. He knew where to place the three support poles for the double-thick nylon tent. He knew how to organize and arrange the things they’d need inside—the lantern, cookstove, and food on the right, and the clothing and bedding on the left. There was an extra pot, and a portable toilet, which they left in the tent vestibule. There were hooks and a nylon cord at the roof where they could hang up their hats and mittens, and any other clothing that needed drying out.
Matt tied the kayak, sled, and skis to one of the ice screws and crawled in. Tomtar and Tuava-Li were busily flattening the foam sleep mats, and getting ready to unroll the sleeping bags. Matt felt too weary to talk. He pulled off his mittens, leaving just the thick liner gloves on his hands. He found a pack of matches and lit the lamp. Then he unpacked the stove. He ran the tube at the top into the gasket in the fuel bottle, and lit it, too. Matt had filled one of the cooking pans with snow and ice before he came into the tent. He put the pan on the burner and melted the ice, just enough to pour it into his thermos bottles. The arctic air was as dry as a desert, and it would be easy to get terribly dehydrated without taking in enough water. Finally, as the inside of the tent began to warm, he pulled the soggy neoprene mask from his face. If he tugged too fast, it might take a layer of skin with it. “Careful, Matt!” Tomtar said.
“Tell me about it!” Matt answered, as he clipped the mask to the cord at the top of the tent. Then he peeled off the gloves and wiped away the grit crusted around his eyes. “This isn’t too hard, is it? Well, not too hard for the two of you, anyway, sitting back there in the lap of luxury, while I drag you to the North Pole.”
“Faerie Folk travel like Kings!” Tomtar said, grinning. He’d unzipped his coat but not taken it off. The temperature was still cold enough that every breath was a cloud of vapor.
“Matt,” Tuava-Li said, “may we look at your tattoos? I want to see if anything has changed.”
“Hang on,” Matt said. “Let me finish getting set up, we can have a bite to eat, and then you can look all you want.” He thought about his tattoos; when they changed, he always seemed to get an itchy feeling. He hadn’t noticed anything during the day, and he was glad for that. The fact that the inky marks under his skin had a will of their own always gave him the creeps, even though he understood that they provided valuable information … if he could only figure out a way to interpret them. He took a long draft from his canteen. “I’m glad you guys are saving your energy for finding that seed when we get to the city at the top of the world. What’s it called again?”
“The fruit, or the city?” Tuava-Li asked.
“Both, I guess.”
“The Sacred Fruit of the Adri hangs from one of the boughs of Yggdrasil, the great tree that grows inside the walls of Hunaland.”
“No wonder I couldn’t remember,” Matt said. “That’s a few too many faerie words in one sentence for me.”
“They say that magick hides the realm from the eyes of outsiders,” Tuava-Li said. “Yet if we’re the Chosen Ones, perhaps the Goddess means us to know when we’re near. Have you seen any sign of the mighty tree?”
“No.” Matt shook his head. He began sorting through the packs of food stacked against the wall of the tent. “Nothing out there but ice and sky. Oh, and the ocean. We came to a pretty big crack in the ice, and we’re gonna have to find a way around it when we get going in the morning.”
“I’m a little concerned about the direction we’ve been traveling,” Tuava-Li said.
Matt shrugged. “Well, we made good time t
oday. If those creeps who flew us up here had an ounce of decency left in them, and what they told us was true, we’re a little closer to the Pole.”
“What do you think, Matt,” Tomtar asked. “Were those men telling us the truth?”
“If they’d wanted to kill us, I suppose they could have done it right away. They did leave us the sled. We’d be lost without it. Maybe they were feeling guilty, since they were dropping us so far from the place we were headed.”
“It was Mary and the other woman who packed the sled,” Tomtar said. “They couldn’t have known what the men had in mind. I trusted Mary! I thought she liked us, too. She was supposed to be our spirit guide, remember? To help us on our way?”
Tuava-Li shook her head. “Joe and Charlie believed they were sending us to our deaths. They’ll lose no sleep over our fate. But they don’t know about Hunaland, and they don’t know about the veil between the worlds. Once we pass into Elf Realm, ’twill be far easier for us to find our way—I know it. I have a feeling we’re very, very near.”
“I do, too!” Tomtar said with a hopeful smile.
Matt shook a packet of dried potato flakes into a small pan, then added some water and powdered milk. He set it on the stove. Soon the three of them dined on instant mashed potatoes, with walnuts and cashews on the side. They washed down their meager meal with mugs of warm tea, and opened up a handful of small peanut butter cups for dessert. The inside of the tent was now above freezing. The clothes they’d hung from the roof of the tent seemed to be drying nicely. “Okay, tattoo time,” Matt said, as he peeled off his fleece jacket and the top of his long johns. “You’d better look fast; I’m not in the mood to freeze.”
In the golden lamplight Tuava-Li and Tomtar stared at Matt’s tattooed torso. They were so close that Matt could feel their breath on his skin. “Sorry, guys,” he said. “I know I must smell like a bear. It’s been a long day.”