by Suzie Wilde
It’s what it holds that’s key: black on black. Only there’s a big problem.
Bera’s attention was drawn to someone who looked like a walking anvil. His whole body was encased in metal and his helmet made a sharp point under his chin, with only slits to see through. His body was wedging open a tall, spiked, iron gate. Egill quickly slipped her slim body into the narrow gap and was gone. The metalled man was shouting and pushing Cronan through. If the gate shut, Bera would be the wrong side of it. She ran. The warder’s eyes glinted behind his iron mask as she jinked through. He clanged the gate shut at once and made a point of locking it with a heavy key, then turned and glowered at them. Cronan meekly thanked him and set off.
Bera asked Egill why he had no authority over the warder.
‘They don’t have thralls as such here.’
Bera wanted to see how the man could walk in his heavy metal tunic. She wished Dellingr could see the work, especially the patterning on the breastplate. It probably hurt to wear it, though, and made her appreciate Cronan even more, for keeping his good humour despite unending pain.
‘At least the warder can take his metal tunic off,’ she said.
Egill said, ‘It’s called armour.’
So many new things she had to learn – and fast. Bera listed them, playing with the words as they hurried to join Cronan who was waiting at a wide wooden bridge. Alone.
Her skern pointed at it, smirking. Cross that bridge, see?
The land beyond was a mossy green sward that gently rose again. No one was in sight.
‘Where did Heggi go?’ Bera asked.
‘Hefnir was going to show him something,’ Cronan said.
‘I wish he wouldn’t go off alone.’
‘He’s with his father,’ said Egill.
‘Take my arm again?’ Cronan asked.
Bera helped him step up onto the bridge, which rattled and boomed as they began to cross. She was beginning to think he was able to do most things for himself, so perhaps he was stopping another argument.
Beneath them, for its entire span, was a steep-sided trench filled with dark water.
‘You can’t see this trench from the gate, at all!’
‘It’s called a moat,’ said Egill pompously. ‘I devised it.’
‘Then I hope it’s better than your dam or we’re about to drown.’
Egill poked her, grinning, but Bera had not meant it as a joke.
Before they reached the other side, she stopped and looked down to see how deep the water was. Very deep, and black – and she could scry. At first she saw nothing, just felt the relief of the old skill coming back, like prickling blood into a limb that has gone to sleep. Then sight came and Bera was rapt. She tried to scan the tower but there was a flurry of obstruction… silver-grey pelt, of some kind. She felt a mind questing for her, somewhere close. It was one she had bluntly sensed at the waterfall. Wild. Male. His keen eyes amber and black. Locked on him now, Bera felt his thoughts as long ripples of molten gold. They met, mind to mind, open and aware – and he would kill her if she threatened him or his pack. She sent waves of trust and smiled.
‘Wolves.’
‘I wanted it to be a surprise,’ Egill wailed.
‘You sound like Heggi!’
‘Hefnir’s feeding him to them now!’ Egill said. ‘They’ve just had his legs and are starting on his arms.’
Heggi must be safe if Egill could joke. Bera was exuberant, feeling she was in full command of her new power. Somehow she would prevail, whatever came. She ran at Egill and pretended to push her into the water. They were naughty friends again and they tugged each other across to the inner circle where the tower stood on its grassy mound.
‘Wait for me, children!’ shouted Cronan.
As soon as he stepped off the bridge it lifted behind them and they were trapped. Not a bridge but another gate. Bera’s laughter died.
At the base of the grey tower the pack leader lifted his head and gave a long, summoning howl. The rest joined in, gathering about him to stare at the intruders. They were a way off but could cover the ground faster than any man could run. Did they feel threatened? Had she only wanted her kinship with the leader to be true? Bera touched her amber bead that was like his eyes.
‘Are they fenced in?’ she asked.
‘Course not,’ said Egill. ‘That’s why the man at the gate’s in armour, in case they ever manage to cross the moat.’
‘Wolves swim.’
‘They don’t like the black water,’ said Cronan. ‘Besides, we keep them fed this side so why would they want to? They are the best protection for the tower.’
‘How do you get in and out of the Abbotry?’
Cronan smiled. ‘We seldom leave and visitors are few in the inner circle.’
‘Look,’ said Egill.
A sort of cart came charging over the long downhill sward and stopped with a great clang beside them.
‘Climb aboard.’ Egill cupped her hands so that Bera could step up onto the contraption. ‘It’s called a trolley.’
Bera was suspicious. ‘Is this one of your designs, as well?’
The wood was strong, better than anything she had yet seen on Ice Island. There were three short, thick planks lashed together with walrus rope to make a platform on wheels. Several coils of heavy chain lay on top.
Egill leapt up easily in her trousers. ‘All my devising. I call it a trolley because it moves as fast as a trole can walk.’
‘We can only hope it works,’ said Cronan. ‘They must have finished it while we were away.’
The more boastful Egill was, the more Bera feared the outcome. ‘Where did you find the wood?’
Egill waved a hand. ‘It’s a door.’
Travelling by door is a first.
They helped Cronan aboard. He picked up the heavy chain on one side of the trolley and Egill handed the chain on the other side to Bera, then she paid out the links until both women had a good hold. Cronan began pulling his chain in time with Egill and Bera on theirs. He couldn’t walk fast or well but Bera again marvelled at the strength in his upper body. It was hard going uphill but with the strength of three they were travelling fast and nearing the tower. The trouble was, it also brought them closer to the pack of wolves who were gathered in a circle, waiting for their approach. The pack leader’s brain was sharp and commanding… but what was he ordering his pack to do?
By the time they reached the steeper edge of the mound they were tiring. The lead male fixed Bera in his sight in real time, as he had done before in her scrying. Bera wanted to hold her beads but had to keep both hands on the chain and pull.
‘Is this a good idea?’ she asked. ‘Are you sure this trolley thing works, Egill?’
‘I pray it does,’ Cronan said. ‘We have to go beyond the tower.’
‘Why?’ Bera asked. ‘There’s only that mountain beyond.’
‘Keep pulling,’ said Egill.
The wolves stood stiffly erect, staring in silence. The air was full of the iron smell of blood and death.
‘Help us, Mama,’ whispered Bera.
There was a thud. Bera twisted in time to see something fall and arms retreating inside. A shutter closed, high up in the tower.
‘That’s higher than a wolf can jump,’ Egill said. ‘Or climb.’
‘What was it?’
‘Food.’
‘They gather by the tower when they see movement at the bridge,’ said Cronan. ‘They get to eat on days when we expect… company. One way or another. We used to lose many horses.’
Even that glimpse gave Bera the sense that a whole body had fallen. Surely it was too large and solid to be a man. The pack were already fighting over it. They were snarling and mauling the flesh, or pouncing for scraps, in the order they had won in earlier fights, Bera supposed. Other deaths. She tried to scry but the leader made his mind blank, watching her pass beneath the mound.
Bera raised her hand in a mark of respect to him.
‘What did you do that for
?’ asked Egill.
‘It was the right thing to do.’
The large male stalked off to feast. The other wolves fell back until he had carefully selected and ripped off a huge piece of flesh and then they warily returned.
‘What are they eating?’ Bera asked.
‘Whatever is spare,’ said Cronan, closing the subject.
All men could refuse knowledge when it suited.
Egill complained, ‘I’m doing all the work here!’
‘I’m still pulling,’ said Bera and started again.
When she turned to the front, she was surprised at how far they had travelled. Her eyes followed a cliff upwards. And up and up and up as far as she could look without toppling backwards. Bera was used to longhouses and homesteads spread across the land. What confronted her was an immense ridge rising upwards, dotted with openings like puffin holes. These were big enough for a man to stand in.
‘We’re going inside the mountain?’ She couldn’t keep the awe out of her voice. ‘Do you live here, Egill?’
Egill kept her head down. ‘You can’t see the guest bit.’
They reached the trolley stop. Egill threw a long loop of rope over a post and another warder, wearing breastplate and helmet, chained it securely.
‘We are the last,’ Cronan told him.
The man helped them down, then escorted them over a shorter wooden bridge.
‘Does this work the same way as the other bridge?’ Bera asked.
‘Watch!’
Once they were on the other side of the moat, the man turned a lever and began to wind the bridge upright.
Egill tapped her chest. ‘I devised the—’
Cronan coughed.
Egill drooped. ‘It becomes a barred gate. It was like that when I arrived.’
Bera felt ensnared in somewhere strange; somewhere she didn’t want to be at all. But her duty was clear: her task was to get into the tower and use whatever was in there to stop the earth tumult. But what was it and how to use it? And then what? And what else lay in store for her in the Abbotry?
Hefnir arrived, with the smile he always wore when he got his way, and her doubts redoubled.
Bera gazed up at a weathered face of honey-coloured stone, dotted with peepholes. It was as if the ermites who lived outside in their skeps had produced a honeycomb for the workers to live in, whose eyes were now fixed on her. She fancied she could hear them humming. There was yet another guarded door at the foot and Egill went straight inside with Cronan. Hefnir let them go ahead and then took Bera’s hand.
She pulled away. ‘Where’s Heggi?’
‘Looking for dogs – but he won’t find any here. I managed to stop him snatching a wolf cub as a foster-child.’
‘So he’s told you we lost Rakki?’
‘He’s talked of little else.’
Bera nodded. She needed Hefnir’s favour until she had worked out this new abode. At the moment it was completely strange and what had seemed an island was actually a bulbous tip with mountains ranged behind the one before her. There would not be any other way out than by sea, and there was only Faelan’s small fishing boat tied to the jetty. But Hefnir must have arrived in a longship. Could it be the Raven? She must find out where it was but that meant keeping Hefnir sweet.
‘You have powerful new friends,’ she said. ‘They must be rich to be so well guarded.’
‘You haven’t yet seen the strongest safeguard,’ Hefnir said. ‘I’ve already shown Heggi.’
He had hurt her and their marriage had been full of lies. His face was always reserved, even when things were happier. But they had made one hunting trip together when they shared a special bond and so she tried to put the memory into his head of the one time when he was open.
‘And is Heggi safe from all threats?’ she asked, holding his gaze.
‘He’s our son.’
She had touched on the worst thing between them and he had answered. She believed they had shared a frank moment once more and was glad, for her own and Heggi’s sake. Bera took his hand and was even glad to feel its familiar warm leatheriness. But she had not forgotten what he had done, or yet forgiven, and she would use him to get into the tower and keep the island safe. So she let him lead her to a wizened hagthorn tree, which bent protectively over a spring.
‘Our drinking water,’ he said. ‘It’s a holy well.’
Bera wondered if she could scry and bent over the deep pool, then recoiled.
‘What’s that?’
Hefnir laughed. ‘Our protection.’
In the dark water a circle of whiteness gleamed. They were small skulls with neat round holes in the crown, obviously made on purpose.
‘These were children!’ It horrified her.
‘Children are closer to the spirits and the skull is the house of the soul.’ Hefnir recited his new belief brightly. ‘It’s important that running water passes right through them.’
Bera turned on him. ‘And Heggi? Did you bring our son here to kill him or just frighten him?’
‘You know better. I showed him how every border is defended from every foe, alive or dead. In Iraland they bury a line of them.’
‘To make a ghost fence. Isn’t that what it’s called?’ She shuddered at the thought that her homestead might be divided from Faelan’s land by a row of children’s heads. ‘I don’t believe they work.’
‘Then they won’t, not for you,’ Hefnir said. ‘It’s belief that makes them strong.’
‘What do you believe?’
‘That our son will be protected here by our faith.’
‘I keep our folk safe.’
‘With a woollen blanket of Valla whisperings?’
The insult made her furious. ‘Or Raven’s sail, that brought us safely to shore? Do you challenge all the Valla customs passed down through the ages, mother to daughter?’
He sighed, as though a fool did not deserve an answer.
‘Have you really taken on their beliefs, Hefnir? Or are you using them to distance Heggi from me?’
He moved away. ‘We should go inside. There’s much more to see.’
‘I don’t have time for that. I only agreed to find a way into the tower.’
With one quick step he grasped her wrist. ‘Be careful, Bera. How much more sacred the water would be with a Valla head in it. A direct link to the world of spirits and all their knowledge.’
‘Don’t threaten me, Hefnir. You trust Valla knowledge to help you. You’re pretending these Abbotry beliefs.’
‘And don’t you dismiss them, Bera. I need you alive. The Westermen are not like us: one man holds all the power here. He is the Abbot and he could have you killed for looking at him. I’ve persuaded him you are more than just a woman but even then you need to be careful.’
‘And why would you persuade him, Hefnir, except to get your hands on Obsidian. Well, I won’t let you have it, ever. Obsidian draws out the dark in everyone, my skern told me long ago, and I didn’t even trust you with Egill’s bowl.’
His face was blank. ‘You know nothing about Obsidian and nothing about me anymore.’
‘It turned out I never did,’ Bera said.
She insisted on going to Heggi. They passed through a long, empty space, crisscrossed with shafts of grey light high above them. Their footsteps scuffed dully on bare, beaten earth, making Bera yearn for the clean smell of spruce boughs. That would never come again. They entered a wide tunnel with narrow passages leading off in other directions. It was like being in a burrow. There were movements in the shadows and glints of metal. Warders? Then there was more light and ahead was an opening where Egill and Cronan were waiting. Heggi was not with them.
Bera stopped Hefnir. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s in our billet,’ Hefnir said.
‘I thought we were going to see him.’
‘We are – but Cronan wants you first.’
Bera followed him into a wide space that seemed roofless, although there was no movement of air. Their footsteps sounde
d hollow and she could hear the in, out of her own breath.
A loud clatter made her jump.
‘Birds, birds, birds.’ Egill’s shrill voice echoed, making the birds many.
‘Cronan hears us, standing at the threshold of understanding.’
Bera remembered that thresholds might bring understanding but also danger.
Cronan held out his arms. ‘Come, beauties!’ he called.
Nine birds, glossy black and beady, came to him and perched along his arms. Huge crows. They regarded her over savage beaks that looked like leather masks, with closed minds but insistent wills that were scratching Obsidian nine times over.
Hefnir called Egill, ducked into one of the passages and they were gone.
Bera woke as if from a trance.
‘Where will you be?’ she shouted. ‘You be? Be? Be?’
Cronan and his birds stepped into the shadows. There was a booming blacksmith’s ring of iron on iron and then silence.
Bera spoke to herself sternly. Fear must become action. It was clear that she was on her own journey – had been from the start and wanted to be – but Cronan had knowledge she needed to share and was part of it. He must be special because the crows had spoken to her all that time ago. Reluctantly she admitted to herself that she also liked him. What folk said about humpbacks was wrong. Men could have other strengths. She crossed to where he had gone and came to an oak door with a huge iron ring-latch in the shape of a serpent eating its own tail. Bera felt the prickle of tears before the memory caught up with her.
A bracelet worn by her mother. Bera must have been very small. Alfdis had told her it was a sign of eternal renewal, like the chain of Vallas, mother to daughter, but Bera had been afraid of it. This wasn’t the time to do more than acknowledge the mix of grief and fear thoughts of her mother often provoked. One day she would try and find answers – and perhaps Obsidian itself could help.
She studied the door more closely. Nailed to the centre panel was the wooden serpent cross of the Westermen. This door was part Northman, part new belief. What exactly did they believe? In such a place as this, anything was possible. There was rustling behind her and Bera was terrified that a thousand serpents were slithering towards her.
She seized the iron ring with both hands and turned.