by Suzie Wilde
Hefnir steered to seaward and they raised the sail, which filled. Bera became aware of her wounded leg, which she had entirely forgotten. It was throbbing. She stopped rowing and unbound the linen cloth that was stiff with blood.
Egill slid nearer. ‘Let me see.’
‘What do you know of wounds? That’s my job.’
‘But you’re not caring for yourself, are you?’ Egill’s voice was low and tender.
Bera shrugged, not sure she deserved caring about. Never had.
Egill took her hand. ‘You push folk away, Bera, do you know that? You don’t let them close.’
‘I have to take this Obsidian north. I didn’t choose to leave Heggi…’
‘I’m not talking about Heggi. I’m talking about friendship. Love.’
How could Bera explain that no one matched up, let alone Egill? The thought surprised her. Matched up to what?
‘I wanted to love my husband. I tried.’
‘And Faelan?’
‘You know nothing!’ Bera’s face flamed.
Egill laughed. ‘Good. Get a bit of spark back into you.’
Was this why folk forgave Egill? So often she could turn away their anger, pretending she had planned it for their own good. What did Egill really feel? Perhaps she skated on the surface of deep feeling now, so that she was not plunged into madness again.
‘Help me with this, then,’ Bera said.
She bit her lip as Egill stripped off the stuck linen. There were deep bruises and the toothmarks were puffy with red and purple centres. Egill dipped a bailer over the side, soaked the cloth in it, then dabbed at the wound. She was trying to be so gentle that it had no effect.
‘Give it to me!’ Bera seized the rag and rubbed the wounds, which hurt a lot.
‘Careful! The saltwater will clean the wound.’
‘I cleaned it better before.’
‘That’s too small for a bandage,’ said Egill. ‘Stop thinking you know best.’
Bera stopped. ‘You sound like Sigrid.’
‘Is that so bad?’
Bera considered this. It was too complicated to unravel, her relationship with Sigrid, so she changed the subject.
‘What happened to Hefnir’s Seabost crew?’
Egill made a face. ‘They jumped ship in Smolderby. Last seen in the tavern, fighting and whoring. You’ve seen the types in there. They could be dead.’
‘Will be for sure, if they didn’t escape.’ Bera moved Egill away from the eruption. ‘Why is it called Wolf Island?’
‘Iraland?’ Egill breathed its name like a lover, turning her head by instinct to where it lay.
‘They’re from there as well, aren’t they? Those two.’ Bera tilted her chin at the crew. ‘So are there lots of wolves?’
‘There are. But, Bera, it’s as gentle as the rain. Green sward, mists, smiling folk and the creamiest milk you’ll ever taste. Soft words, too, like lambing. Say it: lambing.’
‘Lambing.’ Bera liked the way it made her lips kiss.
Egill put a finger to her own lips and then Bera’s. ‘It will all be well when we get there, you’ll see. Heggi won’t be harmed; he’ll be waiting for you in Dyflin.’
‘There’s more to come here, Egill. I will never get to Iraland.’
‘Not even for Heggi?’
‘Only for Heggi – if I’m still alive.’ Could the looking-glass lie? Heggi would be one among so many dead if she got this wrong.
Hefnir called her over to the steer-board. ‘So I’m bearing north and east. You’d better be sure where we go then.’ He gave her a hard look. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ll tell you when we have to change course.’ Bera wanted to scratch his face for being the warrior with her now but a coward before.
‘I suppose you’ll say your skern told you.’
She was sharp. ‘I will recognise what I saw in the glass and that’s where we will land. The black stone of my beads is telling me we are close.’
‘How?’
‘By growing warmer.’
‘It’s not a game for bairns!’
‘The heat is a sign of its nature.’
‘Is it obsidian?’
‘It is. I think deep within the earth Hel is making obsidian like a smith forges metal. Every piece of it has a spark of its property, big or small.’
‘Like a knife?’
‘And my bead. The looking-glass has more… It’s like a weapon but I can’t fathom what… Perhaps the way the circles are formed.’
She was working it out aloud but saw the glint in Hefnir’s eyes.
‘I’m keeping it safe, Hefnir.’
‘Let me see if I can fathom it. I know more about weapons.’
‘And I know more about protection. Now, we should eat.’
Bera was pleased to find the barrels in their place and packed with rations. She took some cheese and smoked meat to the crew first and then Hefnir. Egill was sitting with her back to the mast, so Bera went forward to eat with her. The boat motion was like dancing and the old, familiar movement of unused muscles in her body made her feel real.
She sang under her breath, ‘In the bones, in the bones…’ then grief flooded in.
‘What is it?’ Egill asked her.
Bera was back on another boat, with another friend. The difference between youth and age, marked in pain.
‘We sang it on the beach when we landed here.’
‘I heard,’ Egill said. ‘So why are you sad?’
Bera nudged her. ‘Eat.’
Egill took her ration. ‘Belly timber.’
They tore into their food and afterwards Bera felt more confident.
‘I don’t only care for myself, you know.’ She kept her eyes on the sea rim. ‘If that was what you meant.’
Egill kept quiet for so long that Bera was forced to look at her. Their eyes met but still she didn’t speak.
‘I have a duty, Egill, as a Valla. This time it’s life or death.’
‘Life always is.’ Egill’s pale eyes showed no curiosity.
‘It’s loss that makes you strong.’
‘So Sigrid says. So what are you weeping for?’
Egill could be so blunt about other people’s grief. In any case, Bera could not tell her that this loss was in the future. She had to bear that knowledge alone.
‘Is Obsidian all Hefnir wants?’ asked Bera. ‘Why did you not get to Iraland?’
Egill looked round then lowered her voice. ‘We stayed in Smolderby long enough for the Raven to be repaired and met Faelan, fishing. Then the Serpent King arrived and we headed straight for the Abbotry when we heard about Obsidian from Cronan.’
‘Did you know the Serpent brought goods to the Abbotry?’
‘Not then, of course not.’
Bera wanted to be sure how Faelan was involved. ‘Who told Faelan to bring me?’
‘We all did, in a way, like we said. But only Cronan saw him again, after we left Smolderby. Why?’
‘I wondered why he brought me, knowing I would not want to see you again. As long as it wasn’t the Serpent.’ She did not believe Faelan even knew him.
Egill shook her head. ‘I don’t know what Cronan said to him but Faelan’s never met the Serpent. Bera, it’s Hefnir who wants the stone, not me. He knew that if he failed to steal it you would be sent for and triumph. And so you have!’
‘Only I know the terrible cost of holding the black glass, Egill.’
‘Hefnir said he promised to return the stone to the Venerable Prince Abbot of All Iraland. Hefnir thinks that’s why the Serpent King wants it – to get there first and stop him.’
‘Stop him doing what?’
‘Taking power for himself as Chief Warrior.’
‘Does this All Iraland person want to use it to stop eruptions?’
‘They don’t have them there. Not even earth trembles, hardly.’
‘Then why does he want it?’
Egill shrugged. ‘Who knows? To sell for weapons maybe? They are fighting the old w
ays all the time. They prize anything made of obsidian above rubies in the Golden City.’
‘Why?’
‘Possession. Just to own it. They have huge houses full of precious things that men own. Women too!’
They both considered this.
‘I don’t want Hefnir, you know,’ Egill blurted. ‘Not like you think.’
‘It doesn’t matter now, Egill.’
Egill took her hand. ‘Hefnir was surprised you had a baby. Or is she Dellingr’s?’
Bera shoved her. ‘That insults us both. Hefnir knows full well that Valdis is his. That’s why…’
‘What?’
Bera bit her lip hard. ‘That’s why she looks so like him.’
Egill knows you weren’t going to say that.
‘Do you love her?’ Egill asked.
‘Of course! But I’m not as bound to her as I am to Heggi.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s not her fault. The birthing came with fire and fury and rending pain and—’ Bera would not tell Egill how the child was taking her powers for herself. ‘I think new life also brings death.’
‘And she looks like Hefnir,’ Egill said drily.
‘So, tell me how unnatural I am! How heartless and icy and whatever else the Serpent King said… that I’m cold as obsidian.’
‘I never knew my mother,’ said Egill. ‘My father wouldn’t speak of her.’
‘My mother gave up after my brother died. She didn’t fight.’
‘It messes you up,’ Egill said. ‘You and me. It messes you up with no mother.’
Thanks to her, Heggi was about to lose his second.
27
The thick sea milled. A freezing mist rose to meet the warm, putrid air above and the small crew aboard the Raven was helpless between the two. They were nearing the Ice Rim and small bergs were randomly floating turquoises in water the colour of copper. Egill pointed out their beauty but nothing mattered to Bera anymore. The landscape revealed what she thought lay inland from the homestead: tall, ice-capped peaks with jagged black rock beneath. Here, instead of summer-green valleys, there were sharp clefts filled with ashy ice and snow: grey-blue glaciers coursing down the ages into the sea. She could feel their chill. It was north – and bitterly cold. Perhaps the sun never came here. Perhaps she was meant to freeze to death.
When Egill noticed Bera’s deep shudders she went and asked Hefnir if there were furs aboard. A crewman opened a stern locker and took out greased blankets, which they put on over the furs. Egill wrapped Bera. The crew took down the listless sail and rowed, letting the boat drift in clear water.
Hefnir laughed, in his element again. ‘This is like our passage over!’
So unheeding. Bera would despise him if she could find the energy.
Take charge.
‘Of what? Fate has me on the rack and nothing I do will change it.’
A flat grey rock gently sank and Bera realised it was a monster ice shark.
‘I’m glad there’s one creature here, besides us.’
‘Where are all the birds and fish?’ asked Egill.
‘The earth’s upheaval has begun, Egill. They are far away.’
‘In Iraland, I expect. It’s safe there.’
It would just take longer to die, once the ash cloud covered the sun.
Do something! Be in command of preventing it. There might be another way.
Her skern was right. The looking-glass had only shown one possible outcome; there might have been others if she had waited.
Bera touched Egill’s arm. ‘I think we’re close to where we have to be. Keep Hefnir’s attention away from me.’
‘That’s more like it! What are you going to do?’
‘I have to get the looking-glass out and I don’t want him to see where it’s hidden.’
‘So where is it?’
‘It’s safer if you don’t know, Egill.’
This time, Bera saw her face only briefly in the glass before diving straight through it into a squid-ink world. She gasped and had no more breath. It was hot – so was she under sea or under earth? – and so fierce that her hair fanned and crackled. Her clothes were heavy and scorched so crisp that they might catch light. Distant flames. But the sounds were the echoes of sea creatures as they swam far away to safety. Whale song, deep and dark, and the crackling high notes of faster fish.
She touched her beads and found her skern’s hand. ‘Where am I?’
With Hel.
‘In the dark lands?’
And under the water.
‘How can it be both?’
Hush, sweetheart, and watch.
His long finger pointed ahead of them to a flicker of orange. It was thicker than water but still liquid, making the cold sea boil. As they neared, a wider vent opened and burning matter spewed out.
‘What is that?’
Lava. Boiling rock.
Bera was in the deep ocean with the Skraken on the abyssal plain, watching its nail rip open its belly to spill fiery blood and guts in a heap that formed new land. There would be islands born in the fiery stream, but she would not be there to see them. The answer was the same – sacrifice – and this merely showed why it must be done, and where. She had to return the black stone to Hel and the price of saving folk was a blood debt to Hel. The answer was always the same: Obsidian and Bera, linked forever in death.
Like Valla and skern.
She came up gasping, sweating from the lava and shivering with shock. Her chest was on fire. She drew draughts of the icy air that fell from the mountains deep into her lungs. How was she to find her way to the place?
It will find you.
They needed to get ashore soon but every sight of it looked a blanket of whiteness, with no beach or river inlet; only glaciers rolling with infinite slowness into the sea. No sign of fire, or anything that told her this was the place.
Bera went back to the steer-board. ‘Let me helm.’
Hefnir told her to rest. ‘I can find a good enough place to stop.’
‘No you can’t. It has to be the right place and only I will know it.’
He shrugged. ‘Then find it before we freeze. But I’m steering.’
Out at sea, it all looked too much the same. Her black bead got no hotter, so when at last Bera saw a sloping beach she made Fate choose it. Hefnir let the Raven’s hull glide in on a wave. They rolled the boat a short way over pebbles dappled with snow and then Bera took stock. The stark terrain that rose straight up beyond the beach was white, so no wonder it had been hard to tell if it was ice edge or land.
They did not have the strength or will to make camp, so they threw down some blankets and lay in the lee of the hull, staring up at a waxen sun. There were dagger-sharp stones at her back and freezing air falling from the mountaintops that could strip flesh off bones. Bera huddled into her furs, resisting the intense hostility that seeped up through the ground. The land itself wanted to kill her.
Bera wished she was half as powerful as her mother. If Sigrid were there, she would be. Where had that thought come from? It was true, though, and the thought of never telling Sigrid how she made Bera more the Valla was another load she had to bear. It was a real weight, and Obsidian somehow made it worse. She went to touch her sword but then remembered it was gone. Dust in the air, as ashen as the clouds that were bringing dusk early. The cloud of filth was growing too big for any wind to blow away. Fear of the dark in such a place would crush them.
She would not give in to it. ALU.
Fire.
Bera announced they should fight against the night. She told Egill to take the crewmen to collect wood, while she fetched dried grasses to get it started. Hefnir started to check the boat for any damage to the hull. Egill declared she was the best mender.
‘We need plenty of wood, Egill. You’ll be busy.’
Some things had not changed and Bera was glad to make things ordinary for the others.
Before nightfall, Bera needed to relieve herself. She hunkered down be
hind some rocks and enjoyed the rush of hotness. There were brymstones around her, with glints of black glass. Bera got up and picked some up. There was no sense of mastery; these stones were inert, warm like her black bead but holding no sway over a person. Hefnir could be trusted not to become enthralled by them. She threw them away.
The sun was low, casting long purple shadows along the frost-bleached scrubland. Over near the foothills of the closest cone-shaped mountain there moved a small animal, perhaps a fox. There was something about its shape that made her think of ice bears but they were a long way from the White Sea. She gathered some more firewood and hurried back.
The flames, as ever, raised everyone’s spirits. Their faces, ruddy and happy in the flickering light, were a reminder of home, hall and good cheer. The sun settled on the top of the highest peak and Bera thought this was a sign: it was a beacon that could be seen from the homestead too. She sent out thoughts to Sigrid and then Valdis. Something stirred, like Obsidian in its cradle in the tower.
I can see nothing through the ash cloud.
‘No need. There is only the lonely path I must take to Hel.’
They all needed rest, so they lay down close to each other, Egill on one side of Bera and Hefnir the other.
Egill kissed her cheek. ‘Sleep now, Bera dear. We’ll keep you safe.’
Hefnir was silent but with malice pouring up through the soil, she took comfort where she could. Exhausted, she fell asleep at once.
Bera woke with a start and immediately felt guilty when she saw the others preparing a meal. Yet she felt completely refreshed. It was the best night’s sleep she had had, possibly since her billet in Seabost. Was it because she felt protected? She pushed the thought from her. The last person she wanted to protect her was Hefnir – and no one could depend on Egill. Once she had liked the thought that Dellingr protected her and look where that had ended. Faelan, too.