Legend of the Mist

by Veronica Bale

  Something was ... right. Utterly and absolutely right.

  Fortified by this new, unnamed purpose, Norah rose from her bed, disentangling herself from a deeply asleep Roisin.

  Her hair she left as it was, a tumble of stray, crimson locks. With a lightness of foot that even a faerie would admire she crept to her dressing table and removed the ruby amulet suspended by the chain of Persian gold from its box where she kept it. When it was securely fastened around her neck, she slipped on her shoes and, wearing only her rumpled shift, crept down the keep stairs, through the silent fortress and out into the pre-dawn air.

  The mist, thick and low-lying at this time of morning, rose to her waist, undulating around her as she moved through it. She skimmed her hand across its surface, dappling her fingers as if in a pool of water.

  He’s coming. He is ready.

  He would be at the inlet where she’d played as a child. The knowledge which coursed through her being told her so. Her feet swished through the brush as she walked, and the hem of her shift grew moist from the heavy dew.

  When at last she stood at the top of the inlet’s grassy embankment and gazed down at the beach below, it did not surprise her to find a solitary figure standing there, staring out over the water.

  Norah’s breath caught in her throat as she absorbed the sight of Torsten, for there was not a doubt in her heart that it was him. But he was changed, different in some intangible way. Perhaps it was the way he stood, or it might have been the set of his shoulders.

  Whatever it was, the transformation in him spoke of acceptance, of understanding who he was and who he had once been.

  He must have heard her footsteps as she crossed the rocky beach, but his eyes did not move from the horizon over the water. When she reached his side, she looked up at his face, more visible now with the lightening sky. Dark bruises smudged the tender flesh beneath his eyes where he’d caught his brother’s wayward elbow. At least the swelling in his nose had gone down.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “Ask me a question like that, and I know you must never have suffered a broken nose, fifla.”

  “I’d have to say ye’re right,” she grinned.

  “You were right, too.”

  Norah hesitated, a tingle of excitement building within her. “About?”

  “About what you said. That we have known each other before. I know it now.”

  “Ye’ve kent it all along.”

  “Yes, but I am ready to admit it now.”

  “Why?”

  Torsten did not answer her immediately. Instead, he faced her. His crisp, blue eyes, so much gentler than his brother’s, looked deep into hers as if he were trying to read the secrets locked within.

  Her heart began a rhythmic fluttering in response. Even the quality of his gaze had changed. It was older, not in the wisdom of years but of centuries.

  She let him search her soul, hoping that whatever he found there would be the affirmation he needed to continue. When his eyes slid down her slender neck to the ruby amulet at her breast he was ready to speak.

  “Einarr says that I am no true Viking, for I cannot accept what Vikings do: we kill. In a way, he speaks true, for I have never agreed with raiding. To take innocent life, whether man or woman, young or old, is something I cannot abide. But what Einarr does not realize, what no one realizes, in fact, is that all my life I have never been able to accept what a warrior is, what a warrior must do in battle, even to those who deserve it. Death and killing—I have never become accustomed to delivering it. Each death, no matter how well deserved, cuts me, takes a little piece of me away from myself.”

  He paused, drawing a shaky breath. “I have often wondered what sets me apart from the rest. After all, we Norse are not the only ... what word should I use ... kingdom of warriors. Your Celt brothers are renowned for their fierceness in battle, are they not? Why, then, should I not find myself battle hardened like they are?”

  When he paused again, Norah waited patiently, not moving, hardly breathing. He seemed to be mustering the courage to tell of the burden which pressed upon his heart, and she understood that he needed to speak in his own time.

  “I think,” he said at length, “that one lifetime of battle will harden a man. But more than one lifetime of it makes a man weary. I believe you were right, that we have lived lives before this. I have seen more battles, in more lifetimes, than my brother could ever imagine. But you knew that already, ja?”

  Instead of answering, she placed her hand against his rough cheek, taking care to avoid the tender spot along his cheekbone where the bruising from his injury spread.

  “It’s this island. Ever since I set foot on this island I’ve known it. Perhaps not outwardly but on some level the knowledge has been there. Even its name. I remember hearing it for the first time and feeling like I’d been plunged into a winter fjord. This island feels like home in a way no other place has ever felt. I am a part of this island in a way I cannot explain.

  “And you,” he finished. “A part of me knew I would find you here, waiting for me. Finding you again, after all this time, was inevitable. But it frightens me. It does not make sense. How could I have loved and lived before? Tell me, how is that possible?”

  “It isna,” she answered, her voice hoarse with emotion. “Or, no’ in this world, at least, this world of reason and logic, in which memory of the past is lost to time. If it were possible, the people of this island, the people of my own clan, wouldna think me mad.”

  “If it were not for you I would think myself mad,” Torsten said, a reluctant grin softening the intensity of his eyes. “Still, I wish there was something, something that I could touch, or see, or feel, to prove what I know in my heart.”

  The moment he said that, Norah’s skin began to tingle on her right side—the side that faced south. The pull of the broch, dormant until now, resumed its familiar tug, and wisps of voices floated to her on the breeze.

  There was something that he could see, touch and feel. It had been there all along, only he had not known of its existence. A knowing smile crossed her lips, and she placed her open hand palm up in the space between them. He laid his hand atop hers; it was warm and strong, rough with a lifetime of hard work.

  The instant they touched, the force which had existed between them since the first time they met coursed through her arm and down to her core. The slight, indrawn breath from him testified that he felt it too.

  “Come wi’ me,” she said.

  Torsten allowed her to lead him away from the beach and back up the embankment. She followed a southern route, one he did not know but did not question. Wherever she was taking them, he would find the answers he was looking for.

  They were the answers to questions which had lain asleep within him the whole of his life.

  The mist thickened the further south they went. It rose higher and higher, until it covered their heads and they were walking through a sea of white. Nothing was visible but what was immediately in front.

  Quiet closed in; even the calling of the gulls faded away. Though the ground was rough, Torsten’s feet were steady as were Norah’s. He knew this ground, knew where every dip and peak and divot were. With his hand firmly ensconced in hers they traversed the length of the island to a secret place that no one, neither Gallach nor Norseman, knew existed.

  As the morning light lifted the last of the night sky the mist thinned, leaving a translucent film over Torsten’s eyes. Through it, he saw the most amazing sight, the one which Norah had led him here to see.

  It was a stone structure. A large, circular stone structure, its bones in a state of bad decay. One side of the outer wall had completely crumbled away, leaving the interior open to the elements. Green fingers of vines and brush climbed up over its surface like they were trying to pull the heavy, grey stones back to the earth from whence they’d come.

  The atmosphere of the place was alive, infused with the spirits of the dead who had been waiting for this moment when two of
their own would return. Torsten could feel them there, old friends; he was comforted by the sense of their presence.

  “Where are we?” he whispered, wary of the sound of his own voice in this quiet, sacred place.

  “This is the southern edge of Fara.”

  “Do your people come here often?”

  A secret smile spread across her lips. “No one comes here, ever. But me.” When Torsten raised an eyebrow in question she explained. “I have been coming here for as long as I’ve been able to leave the fortress on my own. But even before that, I kent it were here. It has a power over me, this place. It pulls at me like a ribbon tied to my breast. For some reason, though, none of the others come. It’s as if they dinna ken that it’s here, that there even is a southern half of Fara to be explored. I think that whatever pulls me here must repel the others, for they dinna belong here. This place is no’ for them.”

  “Was it a castle?”

  “It was a broch, the ancient home of my ancestors. My eyes have never seen them of course, but I am told that old, dying brochs like these exist all over the islands. This broch, here on Fara, is the home of my past. It is here that I ken myself best. I see the faces of those I loved long ago and I hear their voices. When I come here ... I am home.”

  Torsten nodded, taking in the broch with reverence. “I feel the same.”

  “Why dinna we go inside and have a closer look?”

  Hand in hand they crossed the remaining ground that separated them from the broch, and stepped over its threshold. The walls, Torsten saw, were actually composed of an inner and outer ring, with a narrow space about the width of two large men in between. Holes in the stonework spiralled upward, suggesting that timbers had once been lodged there to provide the framework of stairs.

  His guess was confirmed when, inside, he saw more holes in the inner walls that formed two, level rings, one on top of the other. They must have been the second and third storeys.

  The roof had long ago rotted away, and the foliage which could be seen devouring the outside of the broch had made its way inside as well. Through the dense green mattress, mounds of rock that had once separated the structure into different rooms divided the space like a grid. At the farthest point opposite of where the outer wall had crumbled open, a patch of blackened earth suggested the place of ancient fires.

  A wisp of memory flickered at the back of his mind: Norah seated on a wooden bench, illuminated by the soft glow of firelight. Himself at her side. Pulling her face to his, he pressed his lips to hers, kissing her passionately. Strange, pulsing music engulfed them, penetrated them, mingling with laughter and voices.

  Norah ...

  Niria ...

  “We belonged here once,” he said, his throat tight with longing for the past.

  “Aye, we did,” came her reply, a soft caress at his ear.

  He turned to her then, studying her face as if for the first time. “You look different. But so much the same.”

  “Ye look exactly the same,” she smiled.

  A sound caught Torsten’s attention, and he turned his head sharply. “What was that?”

  “Did ye hear something?”

  “I heard ... wait—there it is again.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s ... music.”

  He peered through the shroud of fog. Indeed there were the strains of music coming to him on the breeze. Or perhaps not on the breeze but on the mist. From the mist. A strange sort of music, soft at first, then growing louder, echoing off the stones of the broch. The tune was frenzied, but joyful. The beat thrummed inside his chest, and he laughed, incredulous.

  Norah, too, laughed, delighted by his reaction to the music she’d heard many times before. With a devilish grin she pulled his hand, still clasped in her own, urging him farther into the broch.

  The smile which lit his face was one of pure elation as she began to move to the beat of the music, inviting him to dance with her. Whether or not he believed what was happening did not matter. If it was madness, he was more than happy to submit.

  He allowed her to entice him, his body swaying and hopping with hers. It was a merry dance; together they laughed and swirled to the ghostly music, spinning and spinning until the walls around them were no more than a blur of grey-green stone.

  Soon the light in the broch began to change. It darkened, and an orange glow flickered against the walls like lighted torches. The smell of food and of rich turf fire drifted through the space. Torsten raised his eyes and saw the image of an ancient wooden floor, translucent, painted over the morning sky of the present.

  The laughter and voices which he’d recalled in his brief memory ... were no longer a memory. They were there, mingling with the music.

  Then the faces, the beautiful faces painted with symbols of woad. The pictii of a long lost age. They smiled lovingly as Norah and Torsten danced. They had been waiting after all, and were welcoming them back with a feast and merriment in the ways that were their custom.

  Torsten’s eyes flew wide at the spectral faces. He scanned the room, both frightened and thrilled by what he saw. Norah, in his arms, radiated joy as she danced. He didn’t know quite how to describe it any way other than that she was joy itself.

  They whirled and spun, faster and faster, until he grew dizzy. Until he began to pant from the exertion. His lungs burned with exhaustion, but Freya help him, he could not stop.

  He did not want to stop, even if he died from the exhilaration which threatened to burst his heart.

  And then ...

  And then as suddenly as it came it was gone. The orange light dimmed, overtaken by the grey glow of morning. The mist around them swirled one final time, then stilled, taking the faces of old with it into the past.

  Norah slowed, and Torsten with her. Heaving and laughing they stared at one another, both recognizing the rare and amazing gift they had just been given. The proof that Torsten had so desperately wished for. It was more than Norah had expected him to find.

  “I cannot believe what I have just seen,” he huffed.

  “Aye,” she giggled, “nor would the people on this island—neither yers nor mine—which is why I’m believed to be mad.”

  He paused, searching her face. “It’s true then?”

  She nodded, moving close to him. So close that he could feel her body against his, could feel as their laboured breaths melded together in a shared rhythm.

  In that instant Torsten lost all sense of the world which existed outside the broch. There was no Einarr, there was no Fearchar, nor Freyr nor Iobhar. The war which his brother waged against Harald Fairhair could not touch them here. The only thing that mattered was that he, Torsten, loved Norah as much now as he had in lifetimes before this one. She was his destiny, and he was hers. That fact could not be denied forever.

  It would be denied no longer.

  His heart raced as he brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, hair the rich colour of blood. He threaded his fingers through the loose locks, cupping the back of her neck. In response, she slid her delicate hands up his waist and to the small of his back, holding him in her embrace. A silent shiver tickled his spine.

  He’d seen the devastation that the desert could wreak upon a man in his travels. He saw wretches desperate for water, choking on sand and parched beyond repair. He had not realized that he was one of those men, parched and desperate for her, for the one soul he could not live without.

  When Torsten touched his lips to hers, he did so gently. He was in no hurry, there was no question in his mind that her lips were his to claim. For several long seconds he contented himself with the thrill which ran through him at this simple encounter. Then with indrawn breath he opened his mouth, inviting the kiss to deepen. She did not hesitate to accept, and moved her lips in rhythm with his.

  The tip of her tongue as it caressed his was his undoing. With a moan, he possessed her mouth, kissing her long and deep. This was not his first kiss, but it might as well have been for the way his heart thumpe
d madly behind his ribs.

  When it ended, he pulled Norah close, holding her in his strong arms and burying his face in her fragrant hair.

  “I cannot let you marry him,” he moaned. “Even if he is my brother, I cannot let you. You do not belong to him.”

  A wave of relief crashed over her. He knew now, he had accepted what had been, and what was meant to be. Tears stung at her eyes and she smiled against his warm, solid shoulder.

  “There willna be a marriage,” she vowed. “Something will stop it from happening. When the moment is right, the hand of fate will descend to put an end to this.”

  “How do you know?”

  “How do I hear the voices and see the faces? I canna say, I just ken it.”

  Without letting her go, Torsten pulled his head back, gazing down at her with furrowed brow. “And you trust it, fifla?”

  She nodded. “I do. I trusted it to bring me ye, did I no’? Of course I didna ken fate were bringing me ye exactly, but I did trust that it would bring what was intended for me.”

  Sighing, Torsten stepped back, and took Norah’s hand in his. Leading her to the nearest stretch of crumbling wall, he seated himself on top of it, shifting to accommodate her as she sat beside him.

  “I wish I had your faith,” he lamented. “I wish I could trust as you do. But I do not know what it is that I am meant to trust.”

  “Do you no’?”

  Her slightly reproving tone caught him off guard. “You say that like you do not believe me.”

  “It isna that,” she chuckled. “Rather, I’ve lived on Fara all my life, and I’ve known the voices and the ... the magic, if ye will, for a long time. But ye havena. Ye’ve kent nothing of Fara until now, so how could ye expect to trust any of it so soon?”

  “You think I might learn to trust it in time?”

  “I think ye must learn to listen.”

  “Listen to what?” Torsten asked, confused.