The Land of the Silver Apples sot-2

by Nancy Farmer

  “Sure did. Stung me all over. Mmf!” A bulge traveled down the Nemesis’ throat as he swallowed the mushroom whole. He slapped his leg with a meaty sound. “Hobgoblins are as tough as tree roots. Even an adder would chip his fangs on us.”

  The day was coming to an end, and Jack noticed for the first time that a crescent moon was hanging in the western sky. “Look!” he cried. Everyone turned.

  “It was near full in Elfland,” Thorgil said.

  “And is near full still, if I know anything about glamour,” the Bugaboo said. “The elves will hold it that way as long as possible, but eventually, shadow will eat away the Silver Apple. Time has leaked into Elfland.”

  “You mean they’ll age?” said Jack.

  “Not as you do. The elves still have their powers, but they will gradually fade. The same moon will rise night after night and yet, so slowly you can hardly detect it, a leaf will curl up here, a blade of grass dry up there.”

  Jack gazed at the silver thread of moon in the deepening blue sky, trying to puzzle it out. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Father Severus, you were gone from Middle Earth a year. I know, because I was there when you were sold to the Picts. How could time pass for you and not the elves?”

  “I often thought about it in my long captivity,” said Father Severus. “The dungeon was beyond glamour, and so I aged. But Elfland itself is like an island in the sea. It is always summer there, yet its shores are surrounded by the same storms that sweep us poor mortals from birth to death. Past, present, and future exist at the same time for them. They can, if they choose, step into our world at any moment they please.”

  “You mean—you mean they could turn up somewhere yesterday?” said Jack, now totally bewildered.

  “Yes!” interrupted Ethne. Jack was struck by something familiar about her, something he hadn’t noticed in Elfland. Whatever it was, he liked it. “Once, Partholis moved Elfland into the past when she noticed a few wrinkles. It was horrible! We had to repeat everything we’d done before—every moment, every word. I fear, if she is terrified enough, she may force everyone to live the same day over and over again.”

  “That is a Hell I had not even imagined,” murmured Father Severus.

  Now that they were full of good food and warmed by the fire, everyone began to yawn. The Bugaboo and the Nemesis, who seemed to know the valley well, went off into the dark and returned with armloads of grass. They made nests for everyone, with extra grass to pile on top.

  Jack, Thorgil, Pega, Ethne, and Father Severus crept gratefully into these surprisingly comfortable beds. The hobgoblins, however, were not ready to sleep. They declared that such a victory over the elves deserved to be celebrated. They climbed onto nearby rocks and swelled up like giant bullfrogs.

  “Oh, no! Not skirling,” moaned Pega, trying to bury herself in the grass.

  A most horrible wailing filled the forest as the Bugaboo and the Nemesis alternately swelled and deflated. They opened and closed their nostrils to change pitch. “Listen to this one, Pega dearest,” the Bugaboo said. “It’s a lament for a prince whose love has gone far away.”

  “Not far enough,” muttered Pega.

  “Look on the bright side,” said Jack as the hideous skirling broke out again. “Nothing’s going to attack us in the night with that going on.”

  Jack woke up under a heavy layer of dew. The fire had burned down to embers, and dawn reddened a few wispy clouds. Everyone else was asleep. He got up and fed the coals from a heap of branches the hobgoblins must have gathered the night before.

  Jack sat close to the fire to dry his clothes. If he hadn’t known the others were there, he might have thought he was alone. Everyone was burrowed into heaps of grass. It looked like a collection of haystacks.

  The dawn chorus began, first doves, then nuthatches, wrens, sparrows, and a few crows. The first rays of sunlight struck the mountain peaks, making the waterfall shine like fire. He looked for the opening to Elfland, but the waterfall concealed it.

  Thorgil threw back her grass cover and came over to sit beside Jack. “I couldn’t understand the birds in Elfland. I understand these wretched squawkers too well,” she said. Thorgil had never been fond of birds, except when roasted.

  “What are they saying?” asked Jack.

  “The usual rot: ‘Feed me, feed me. I want a beetle, a beetle, a fat tasty beetle.’ The rest are threatening their enemies. There’s something unusual.” Thorgil listened intently.

  Jack saw a flock of swallows swooping through the upper air, just below the brightening clouds.

  “I can’t quite make it out. Something like, ‘They’re here, they’re here, they’re here.’” Thorgil turned away from them and poked at the fire with a long stick. Her other hand was tucked protectively under her arm.

  “People do recover from injuries,” Jack said carefully, watching the shield maiden.

  “Many do not,” she replied.

  “That’s no reason to give up.”

  “I never give up!” she cried angrily. The two nearest haystacks quivered. “I’ll admit, when we were on the high ledge, I thought about throwing myself off.”

  “Thorgil,” said Jack, alarmed.

  “But I could not. This”—she grasped the hidden rune of protection—“prevented me. It sapped my courage. I should tear it off and hurl it into a lake.” Thorgil tightened her grip on the rune.

  “But you can’t,” Jack guessed.

  “No! The accursed thing won’t let me. I can’t get rid of it.”

  “If I understand the Bard correctly, the rune chooses you,” said Jack. “One day you’ll know it’s time to pass it on—just as I knew you were to have it.” He didn’t say—what was the use?—that he missed it dreadfully and wanted it back.

  “Gifts have a way of turning on you,” Thorgil muttered, staring into the fire.

  Jack said nothing for a while. He thought about Lucy’s silver necklace. Sunlight was making its way down the mountain and would soon reach their camp. Mist fumed off a nearby pond, and Jack heard the light splash of a fish.

  It was hard to stay depressed in such a place. “Why did you strike the demon who was about to take Father Severus?” he asked.

  “What demon? I saw a huge dog.”

  “A dog!”

  “It was Garm, the hound that guards Hel. Rune described him to me. He has four eyes, jaws dripping with maggots, and he’s covered in blood. He tried to claim me, but I told him I was Odin’s shield maiden.”

  Jack was astounded. It must be the same thing that happened with knuckers. You saw what you expected. “Well, then, why did you strike Garm?”

  “I—” Thorgil paused, holding the rune of protection. “I thought he was being unjust. Why should he take Father Severus and ignore oath-breakers like Father Swein and Gowrie? Garm did take them later.” A satisfied smile flitted across Thorgil’s face.

  “That’s it!” cried Jack, loud enough for Pega to sit up precipitously, scattering grass in all directions. “Remember Tyr? The god who sacrificed his hand to bind the giant wolf? It was a noble deed, to be sung about through all time—and you’ve done the same!”

  Thorgil looked up, and now the morning light reached the camp and shone onto her face. “So I have,” she murmured.

  “Yes! You’ll be known as—what shall we call you? Thorgil Silver-Hand, who fought the Hound of Hel. I’ll make a song about it.”

  “Oh, Jack,” whispered the shield maiden. She blinked back tears, then shook her head angrily. “Curse this sunlight. It’s making my eyes water.”

  Pega got up and began tidying the camp, as was her habit. She brought an armload of branches for the fire. “Are you talking about Tyr?” she remarked. “One of my owners taught me a poem about him.” She began reciting it in Saxon:

  “Tyr bi tacna sum healdeð

  Trywas wel wi æ elingas.”

  “I know that one,” said Jack. “‘Tyr is a star. It keeps faith well with princes, always on its course over the mists of night. It
never fails.’ I memorized that when the Bard was teaching me about stars. I never connected it with the god.”

  “After Tyr lost his hand, he became the guardian of voyagers,” explained Thorgil. “He stands at the roof of the sky, and his is the one star that never moves. We call it the Nail.”

  “And we the Ship Star,” said Jack. He was delighted to see that the despair was gone from Thorgil’s face and that she no longer tried to hide her hand. It was silvery, as though powdered with metal. The color was clearer in the light.

  The Bugaboo and the Nemesis climbed out of their grass coverings and helped Father Severus up. “You rest,” the Bugaboo told him. “We’ll see about breakfast.”

  Ethne emerged last, looking cross at finding herself soaked with dew until she realized this was an opportunity to suffer. “I shall not sit by the fire,” she declared. “Pneumonia will be good for my soul.”

  “Dry yourself. Pneumonia isn’t good for anything,” snapped Father Severus. So Ethne basked in warmth, and the rest of them waited eagerly to see what the hobgoblins would come up with.

  They arrived with eels, pignuts, and the inevitable mushrooms. After a leisurely meal they held a meeting to decide where to go next.

  “If we could find my ship, I’m sure we could take Father Severus home,” said Thorgil.

  “Travel on a Northman ship?” the monk said faintly. “I don’t know…”

  “We’d have room for all of you. Skakki hasn’t yet loaded up with thralls.” The shield maiden grinned maliciously.

  “Thorgil,” warned Jack.

  “The sea’s a day’s journey that way,” said the Bugaboo, pointing east. “There’s an opening to the Hollow Road near the beach, and we hobgoblins can go home. You’re an honorary hobgoblin, by the way, Pega.”

  “No, I’m not,” said Pega.

  “That’s the best plan,” the king blithely went on. “The pass through the mountains to the west is far too difficult for Father Severus.”

  The travelers made ready to go, which didn’t take long, for they had nothing to carry. Pega took a quick bath in the lake. Jack found a walking stick for Father Severus, and Thorgil practiced using her knife with her left hand. She was in high spirits and demanded that Jack start on her praise poem at once. “Thorgil Silver-Hand. I like that,” she said.

  The hobgoblins knew every stick and stone of the Forest of Lorn. “We come here all the time,” explained the Bugaboo. “The mushrooms are enormous! One chanterelle will feed a family of five, and as for the boletes and morels…” Jack stopped listening. When hobgoblins got onto the subject of mushrooms, they went on for a very long time.

  They followed a deer trail. Because of the late start and Father Severus’ weakness, they reached the mountain pass only at nightfall. It was freezing, and a thick fog brought darkness swiftly. “As I remember, Jack, you had a charm for getting rid of fog,” Thorgil said.

  “Unfortunately, it also causes rain,” he replied. They decided that fog was more comfortable than rain and made as good a camp as possible in a hollow sheltered by rocks. Dampness coated everything. The fire kept dying. Father Severus coughed all night.

  Chapter Forty

  THE MIDGARD SERPENT

  In the morning they could scarcely see three spear-lengths ahead. “I’ve got a sore throat,” Ethne announced. “I do believe I’m coming down with my first illness. What fun!”

  They didn’t stop to eat, but hurried down the mountain to the warmer air by the sea. “I recognize these trees,” Thorgil exclaimed. “That’s where Skakki and Rune made camp. There’s where Eric Pretty-Face ate a dead seagull he found and threw up. That’s the cave Heinrich the Heinous and I—” The shield maiden broke off.

  The cave was filled from top to bottom with rocks. There was scarcely room for a mouse to slip in.

  “Oh, Freya. The earthquake,” whispered Thorgil.

  The Bugaboo probed it with a stick, and gravel poured down. “You’re lucky you got out alive,” he said.

  “Where is everyone?” the shield maiden said. “They must have built a shelter. They wouldn’t abandon shipmates—but where’s the ship?” It was hard to see anything beyond the first few feet of sea.

  “This fog might not lift for days,” said Jack, looking up doubtfully and gauging how much rain would pour down if he worked a spell. “Why don’t the rest of you search farther down the beach? I’ll do what I can here.”

  Jack settled into a comfortable position and reached out to the life force. He sensed, not far away, a sunlit sky. The fog was shallow, and from above, it looked like a cloud hugging the ground. Farther out was the gray-green sea. There was nothing on its surface except a few gulls.

  In the sky itself, swallows dipped and soared. They skimmed the upper surface of the fog, and Jack felt the power of their wings. Wonderful creatures! Beyond them, Jack felt other wings. He searched and saw nothing but water, with here and there the white tip of a wave.

  It’s the wind, Jack thought, surprised. The wind, too, had wings, like a flock of invisible birds. The Bard sometimes called up breezes to cool fields wilting in summer heat or to break up a snowstorm that had gone on too long. But he hadn’t taught Jack the skill yet.

  I discovered it all on my own, the boy thought proudly. The old man said that once you were steeped in magic, more and more secrets were revealed to you. He also said most of them were dangerous.

  Come to me, invoked Jack, intrigued by his new power. Fly to me, spirits of the air. He cast his mind out farther and farther, delighting in the gusts and swirls and billows around him. He was flying too, the lead bird, the one who told the others where to go. He was their king. The great air-birds turned and followed him. They were coming!

  Jack laughed and held out his arms. A blast of wind shredded the fog. Jack had never seen mist move so fast! It was gratifying and at the same time frightening. A second later a savage blow struck him, sending him spinning across the beach. Water flew through the air, making him choke.

  On and on it came, howling and tearing up trees. Waves crashed over rocks; spray blew against the mountain. Stop! cried Jack, struggling to regain control. He clung to rocks, to keep from being blown away. Go back. Lie down. Stop.

  He tried everything he could think of, but the wind kept battering him until at last it lost interest and turned away. That was what it felt like: The wind simply got bored with him. With that, it rose into the sky and wandered off.

  Jack picked himself up. He was bruised in a dozen places. He was chilled to the bone, and his clothes were soaked. Trees were scattered like kindling.

  “Jack! Jack! Are you all right?” cried Pega, running down the beach ahead of the others.

  “I guess so,” he said, brushing twigs and mud off himself.

  He found his staff jammed between rocks at the entrance of the cave.

  “What was that thing?” asked the Bugaboo. The hobgoblin’s ears stuck straight out, and his skin had turned bright green with alarm.

  “I—I’m not sure,” said Jack. The instant before he’d been struck, he’d seen a long white pillar rise out of the sea.

  “It was like a giant snake,” said Pega, confirming his observation. “It was weaving back and forth between the water and the sky. I tried to warn you, but it moved too fast.”

  “It was the Midgard Serpent,” said Thorgil. Everyone turned to her. “He’s one of the children of Loki,” she explained. “He was so evil and dangerous, Odin had him cast into the sea. He forms a belt around Middle Earth, holding his tail in his mouth, and when he thrashes, the earth quakes.”

  “That’s what happened here. An earthquake,” said the Bugaboo, pointing at the rocks filling the cave.

  “Rank superstition,” scoffed Father Severus. “Everyone knows earthquakes are caused by Lucifer stamping his foot on the floor of Hell.”

  “The Midgard Serpent and Thor are enemies,” Thorgil went on, ignoring the monk. “Thor likes to fish for him. He cuts the head off an ox to bait his hook, tosses it into
the sea, and waits for the stupid beast to bite. The same trick works again and again. Thor pulls up the serpent, but he isn’t strong enough to get him all the way out. That’s what we just saw—the tail end of the Midgard Serpent being pulled along.”

  “Sheer fantasy,” jeered Father Severus.

  “Rune saw it happen in the warm seas to the south, and Rune is not a man who lies,” the shield maiden said with a hint of menace.

  “No one would ever think that,” Jack said quickly. He didn’t bring up his own belief, that the waterspout had been caused by the wind. “Now that the sun’s out, we can look for the ship.”

  They all shaded their eyes and looked out to sea, but even Pega, whose eyes were sharpest, saw nothing except a vast, gray-green expanse. Any evidence of a camp had been destroyed by the waterspout. Jack worked to free his staff, which had been wedged between boulders too large for him to shift.

  “Let me try,” said the Nemesis.

  “Don’t break it,” cried Jack as the burly hobgoblin shoved him to one side.

  “Keep your tunic on. I know what I’m doing.” The Nemesis rolled a boulder out of the heap.

  “Look out!” shouted Jack. He barely had time to yank the staff out of the way before an avalanche of rocks came down. The Nemesis bounced to one side as nimbly as a bullfrog avoiding a crane.

  “See? It worked,” crowed the hobgoblin.

  “What’s that?” said Pega, pointing at the mountain above the cave. High up Jack saw figures carved into rock. They were too far away to make out clearly.

  “I’ll have a look,” said the Bugaboo. He climbed easily, having sticky pads on his fingers and toes. “There’re three sets of pictures,” he announced when he was perched on a high crag. “On one side is a hammer and a branching tree—fairly crude compared with hobgoblin work, but recognizable. On the other are a ship and—I think—a horse, except it has too many legs. In the middle are three triangles bound together.”

  Thorgil screamed. Jack almost jumped out of his skin. “What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” he cried.