03 - The Islands of the Blessed

by Nancy Farmer

  “Who cares? I know what it is and I want some.” Thorgil stood up and swayed on her feet. “By Thor, I’m weak with hunger!”

  “Is the smell coming from outside?”

  “No. From there.” The shield maiden pointed at the dark tunnel. “Do you suppose St. Columba is still hanging about?”

  “The Bard said he sailed for the Islands of the Blessed long ago,” said Jack. Strangely, he wasn’t sad thinking of the Bard now. He felt slightly guilty about it, but almost instantly that regret vanished as well. It was impossible to be depressed here. Jack went out into the tunnel and sniffed. The odor was coming from somewhere above them. “Whoever it is, I hope he’s generous.”

  “We should take the cloak,” Thorgil said. She rummaged around and found a carrying bag with straps that fit over her shoulders. “This is perfect! I can put my wealth-hoard in here.”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said doubtfully. “St. Columba meant to abandon these things. Look what happened when Father Severus carried off Fair Lamenting.”

  “That’s because Father Severus didn’t understand magic,” the shield maiden said reasonably. “You do. You’re a bard.”

  “Not really,” said Jack.

  “Well, you’re the closest thing we’ve got. Now put on that cloak and pick up that staff. It will make a decent weapon if we run into trouble. I’d take the cauldron except it’s too heavy—now what’s wrong?”

  Jack had turned very pale. “You can’t take a bard’s staff.”

  “Don’t be silly. St. Columba isn’t going to want it back.”

  “You don’t understand. Such things have to be earned.” Jack had never, ever dared to ask the Bard to borrow his. It was one of those things you didn’t do. A lifetime of experience went into crafting the magic. Life itself gave power to a staff—all the minutes and hours and days of a person, all the memories, hopes, triumphs, friendships, sorrows, and mistakes. They went into the wood to be called up at need.

  Jack had only begun to build this lore when he used his staff to free Din Guardi. It had crumbled into dust.

  “You used to have a staff. How did you earn that one?” said Thorgil.

  It was when they were in Jotunheim, he told her, crossing the frozen waste to the Mountain Queen’s palace. Thorgil’s ankle had been broken and Jack went in search of wood to make her a crutch. He found an ash tree, a most unusual plant in such a cold place, with two branches exactly suited for his needs. One had a fork at one end for Thorgil to lean on. The other reminded him of the gnarled, blackened wood the Bard used. He decided to make himself a walking stick from it. It was only later he realized that the ash had been an offshoot of the great tree Yggdrassil.

  “You see?” Thorgil said triumphantly. “The gods meant you to have that staff, and now you are meant to have this one.”

  Jack wanted to believe it, but he was afraid. “I’m not worthy,” he said.

  “Probably not, but you have to start somewhere,” Thorgil argued. “It’s like learning to be a warrior. You get knocked around a lot at the beginning.”

  Jack’s hand hovered over the staff. He could feel a thrum of power in the air. “If it burns me to ashes, you’ll be sorry.”

  “If you don’t do something soon, I’m going to die of hunger, and you’ll be sorry.”

  Jack grasped the staff, and it was as though a sheet of light wrapped him from head to toe. He saw the entire island in a flash: the seas battering the shore, the stormy clouds, the dark mountain and forest on top. He saw men fighting one another with swords. Then the vision was gone. He slumped, still holding the staff.

  “Well? Are you burned to ashes yet?” the shield maiden demanded.

  “I’m not sure. I think the problem will be to avoid burning up other things,” said Jack. He felt dizzy. “I hope I’m strong enough to control this.”

  “You’ll be fine. You’re Dragon Tongue’s successor.”

  “Don’t say that!” A flame licked out of the end of the staff and left a black mark on the ceiling. “Oh, Freya! Don’t make me angry,” Jack begged. “I need time to get used to so much power. I meant to say that I’ll never be Dragon Tongue’s successor. I’m only his apprentice.”

  Thorgil shouldered the pack carrying her wealth-hoard and went outside. “I’d say if we don’t get to the end of this tunnel fast, there won’t be anything left of that boar except bristles.”

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  ODIN

  Jack slung the cloak over his shoulders, and to his surprise it fit perfectly. It had seemed larger when he’d used it as a blanket for himself and Thorgil. The staff, too, was exactly the right height. The dizziness passed and Jack was able to walk steadily. The tunnel turned pitch-black only a few paces from the side cave. He called up a spell in a language he did not consciously know. He could not have repeated the words, but the meaning stayed with him:

  Keep foot from fall, Hold head from harm. Drive dark from day.

  A gentle light radiated from the staff to reveal the gray walls of the tunnel. A path of white sand went up before them.

  “Now, that’s a trick worth learning,” said Thorgil, who had been about to walk into a wall.

  “It’s not a trick, and I don’t know how I did it,” Jack said. “We’d better hurry, because I don’t know how long this spell will last.”

  The smell of roast pork grew stronger the higher they went, and soon it was mixed with the odors of many other good things. “I wonder what they’re celebrating,” said Thorgil. “They’re certainly making a lot of noise.”

  “That’s not a celebration.” Jack stopped her from going farther.

  “By Thor, you’re right! I can hear swords.”

  “I should have told you earlier—when I touched the staff, I had a vision of men fighting on this mountaintop. I thought it was only my imagination. How could a troop of men climb up here and still have the energy to fight?”

  They heard cries and oaths. A man screamed as he was wounded. “Perhaps there’s another tunnel,” suggested Thorgil.

  “That still leaves the question of why anyone would do such a stupid thing,” Jack said. “It’s so brainless, it could almost be berserkers.”

  He expected Thorgil to argue—she always championed berserkers—but she grabbed his arm. “I know that voice!”

  “Gaaaahhh! That’s the third time I’ve cut your head off today, Bjorn!” someone roared. “You’ve gone soft!”

  “That’s Olaf One-Brow,” cried Thorgil. “I know it is! What’s happened to us? Are we dead and don’t know it?”

  “Olaf! Watch your back!” shouted someone else whose voice was familiar.

  “Arghh!” bellowed Olaf. “You think that’s going to stop me? You’ll need at least three spears to slow me down.”

  Jack heard the sound of something being messily plucked out of flesh. “Pick up your head, Bjorn, or I’ll use it as a football,” said the voice he now recognized as Eric Broad-Shoulders’. Eric, Jack remembered, had been eaten by trolls.

  “If you want to kick something, you’ll need two legs,” jeered Bjorn. Everyone laughed heartily at the joke. Someone blew a horn and the sounds of fighting ceased.

  Thorgil had collapsed against the wall, trembling violently. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m sure we’re alive,” Jack said, kneeling beside her. He guessed that she was terrified of meeting the dead, and he wasn’t all that thrilled about it either. He’d run into a lot of unquiet spirits recently, from the draugr to the men trapped in the wall to the hogboon.

  “I’m so afraid,” she moaned. “It’s like the night of the Wild Hunt. Olaf wouldn’t take me along because Odin wouldn’t let him. Oh, Jack, what if we go out there and he—he—rejects me?” She burst into tears.

  Of course, thought Jack. Thorgil wasn’t afraid of a host of dead berserkers who, by the sound of it, had spent a happy day slicing one another to bits. She was afraid they wouldn’t let her join in. He could see the opening at the top of the tunnel. Night had fallen, but
a bonfire nearby cast flickering light. A large figure suddenly eclipsed it.

  “Don’t hang back now,” a man called. “We have food aplenty and the party’s just beginning.” He lumbered down the tunnel and picked up Thorgil. “You’re too dainty for a Valkyrie,” he rumbled. “Get on the outside of a haunch of boar and we’ll see you right.”

  “Don’t touch her!” Jack cried, pointing his staff, but nothing happened. No fire sprouted out of the end, and the man was completely unaffected. He laughed good-naturedly, and Jack could see a line of red where his head had been reattached. So this was Bjorn.

  “You come too, little skald,” said Bjorn. “I haven’t seen your kind since Dragon Tongue scorched the fur off Ivar the Boneless for marrying Frith. Plenty of boar to go around.”

  “It’s all right,” said Thorgil, tucked under the warrior’s arm. Jack followed them up, feeling somewhat foolish. The cloak and staff of St. Columba ought to have earned him some respect. Little skald indeed!

  They came out to a completely wild scene. The whole mountaintop was covered with warriors wandering among the trees to find parts of themselves that had been hacked off. They fitted hands back on to wrists, feet onto ankles, heads on to necks. When reapplied, only a line showed where they had been joined, and the scars faded quickly. Bjorn’s neck was already completely healed. Other men stuffed intestines into gaping holes in their stomachs, and the skin grew back.

  Horses huddled in clearings, their eyes glinting whitely.

  Above the trees the clouds rushed by in a mighty, soundless storm.

  A giant boar was roasting over a fire pit, and dozens of warriors were hacking off bits to devour. Tables were laden with all manner of food, including pots of nauseating graffisk, codfish that had been buried underground until it smelled of the graveyard. Beefy Valkyries in leather armor served horns of drink to the feasting men.

  In the middle of a clearing a Valkyrie sat behind an enormous, surly-looking goat. She monotonously pulled on teats the size of grain bags and liquid thundered into a wash tub.

  “The goat’s name is Heidrun,” said Bjorn, putting Thorgil down. “She feeds on the leaves of Yggdrassil and produces an endless supply of mead. Good Heidrun,” he said, patting the beast on the head. The creature snapped at him.

  “Don’t Valkyries have names?” Thorgil said faintly. The women were moving around the forest, finding men who were too injured to move. They reattached missing parts and dragged the warriors to the tables, where they fed them morsels of food. “Dotti and Lotti used to baby Olaf like that when he came home drunk.”

  Jack had once made fun of Valkyries, claiming that they were no better than servants in Valhalla. He had driven Thorgil into a fury, but he felt no wish to do so now. She looked stricken. This was the ideal she had always held in her mind, to fall in battle and join her comrades in Odin’s realm. Only now it seemed she would be consigned to waiting on tables and milking goats.

  “I want to see Olaf,” she said in a tearful voice.

  “You mean Olaf One-Brow? He’s my best friend,” said Bjorn proudly.

  In spite of cutting your head off three times today, thought Jack. “You wouldn’t happen to be Bjorn Skull-Splitter?” he asked. The warrior was almost as big as Olaf, with legs like tree trunks and a chest as broad as a door.

  Bjorn grinned. “I see my fame has not died in Middle Earth. Tell me, little skald, am I sung about wherever brave men gather?”

  “Your tale has certainly spread,” Jack said evasively. Einar Adder-Tooth had been wrong in one regard: Bjorn wasn’t roaming the icy halls of Hel. “Would you like to know what happened to your—” Jack had been about to say enemy when he saw a familiar figure emerge from the forest and snatch a horn of mead from a Valkyrie. “That can’t be Einar Adder-Tooth!”

  “He arrived recently,” said Bjorn. “Said he’d been caught in a landslide. I killed him twice last week, and he only got me once.” The warrior showed not the slightest resentment toward the man who’d arranged for him to be devoured by a hogboon.

  I’ll never understand Northmen, Jack thought.

  Thorgil swayed and almost fell. “I want to see Olaf,” she repeated. But by now Bjorn had been distracted by the appearance of Adder-Tooth and went over to deliver a friendly punch to his head.

  “Sit down,” Jack said. “I’ll find him.”

  This proved difficult, for dozens of men were careening around, stuffing themselves, drinking, and bragging about their victories. One patted a Valkyrie on the behind, and she snarled, “Try that again and I’ll rip out your windpipe.”

  “Haw! Haw! Haw!” laughed the warriors all around. One voice sounded familiar.

  Jack saw him seated at the foot of a throne. He was wearing his helmet, which was probably why Jack hadn’t recognized him before. It had a ridge across the top like a cock’s comb and two panels at the sides to cover his cheeks. The front was a metal mask like a hawk’s face and the beak came down over Olaf’s nose. His eyes peered out of holes and made him seem otherworldly. He is otherworldly, Jack thought.

  But the figure that towered over Olaf, the one sitting on the throne, was so terrifying that Jack almost sank to his knees. He wore a helmet similar to Olaf’s, but only one eye glinted through the holes in the mask. The other was an empty socket. Jack knew who he was.

  Odin’s missing eye lay at the bottom of Mimir’s Well. No one could drink from the well without sacrificing something of great importance. Jack had given up his rune of protection. Thorgil had given up her status as a berserker. In return they had gained the knowledge they needed most. Odin, in payment for his eye, had acquired the lore necessary to rule the nine worlds.

  The god’s single eye blazed like a star as he considered the boy. Wolves—Jack noticed them now for the first time—lounged at the god’s feet, and ravens perched on his shoulders to bring him news of the wide world. You are not one of mine, said a voice like distant thunder.

  I am not one of yours, Jack agreed, clutching St. Columba’s staff. I serve the life force. I do not believe in a world of endless killing. He was very afraid, but at the same time, he knew it was important to stand up to this being.

  The figure laughed. Both air and earth shook with it. You sound like a puny Christian, or perhaps one of those harp-strumming skalds always yowling about trees. One of the wolves stood up and yawned. Its tongue lolled out between its fangs.

  A single leaf unfurling in springtime is worth more than all your realm, said Jack, surprising himself. He hadn’t planned to say that. It was one thing to resist the awesome power before him and quite another to pick a fight.

  War is inevitable, Odin thundered. All exists to kill and be killed, and only courage in the face of death is beautiful.

  What good is this courage when you fear life itself? said Jack. If you are deaf to the laughter of your children or cannot understand why your wives rejoice when you return from a voyage, are you not already dead? What courage does it take to leave a world when you are blind to its wonders? Jack was pretty impressed with his poetry, but he was also afraid of how Odin might react. He didn’t seem able to stop arguing. The words simply rolled out.

  In the end night covers all, said the war god. The bonds of this world will break, and Garm, the hound of Hel, will be freed from his leash. The frost giants will make war upon light. The ship of death, made from the finger- and toenails of corpses, will set sail to bring destruction upon the living. Ragnarok is coming, the final battle. None can escape it.

  Jack gazed at the being looming up and up and up until it brushed the racing clouds. His blood sang in his ears as it had on the Northman ship with the waves foaming beneath the prow and a fine breeze following. Your world is only one leaf on the Great Tree, Jack said. It is already falling from the branch. I do not believe in Ragnarok. Warmth spread from St. Columba’s staff to his hand and on to the rest of his body. A light radiated and fell on the throne.

  It was empty.

  It wasn’t even a throne, but an outc
ropping of gray stone that had weathered until it was pitted and broken. Lumps of rock at the side had been the wolves.

  Olaf One-Brow was sitting on one of the lumps. He removed his helmet and squinted at the boy. “Jack!” he cried delightedly. “How did you get here? Don’t tell me you fell in battle.”

  Jack’s ears still sang with blood. It took him a moment to realize where he was. “I’m not dead, Olaf. At least I don’t think so. Thorgil’s with me, but she’s afraid you don’t want to see her.”

  Chapter Forty

  A JOYFUL REUNION

  They found her eating at one of the tables. She dropped the chicken leg she was holding and held out her arms.

  “What a treat, heart-daughter!” bellowed Olaf, swinging her into the air. “The very idea, thinking I wouldn’t welcome you! Nothing could cheer this battle-scarred old heart more. It’s too bad you didn’t see me earlier. I killed five warriors and maimed a dozen others.”

  “I heard the last part of it, when you cut off Bjorn Skull-Splitter’s head.” Thorgil was laughing and crying at the same time.

  “Between you and me, he got soft sitting around on Horse Island,” Olaf confided. “But he acquitted himself well at the end.” He put the shield maiden down.

  Her knees buckled and she had to hold on to him. “I’m sorry, heart-father. I’ve been on short rations for a while.”

  “That’s easily fixed,” her foster father said. He went to the fire pit and tore off a rib blackened with smoke. Jack was surprised to see that so much meat was left after the scores of warriors who had been feasting. Perhaps the boar, like Heidrun, was a never-ending supply of food.

  “Is it safe to eat?” Jack said, though the smell was driving him mad. “I mean, for the living.”

  “Who cares?” said Thorgil, tearing into the meat. Soon her face was smeared with grease and soot. Olaf fetched her another rib, as well as one for Jack. The boy ate carefully, mindful of St. Columba’s white cloak, and wiped his fingers on the grass. He was still somewhat dazed from his encounter with Odin. How could he have dared to challenge such a foe? It seemed that St. Columba’s staff had a will of its own.