The Islands of the Blessed (14 page)

Jack sat down on the ground. “No, you're not,” he admitted.

“We were listening to the argument,” the Bugaboo said. “You can't blame your parents. To them you're still a sprogling.”

“But how can they allow Pega and Hazel to suffer?”

“They don't see what they don't want to see. Let's sit awhile and enjoy the sky. I was about to say, before you performed a leap that would do a hobgoblin proud, that on nights like these the walls between the nine worlds grow thin.”

Jack gazed up, listening to the faint echo of ice falling on ice in far Jotunheim. The trolls were folded inside their mountain, taking refuge from summer. Yet each year the sun shone more brightly, and each year more of their realm melted away. It made him sad to think of it. “Look!” he cried, pointing. A streak of light crossed the heavens like a spark. Then another and another.

“Now, that
is
a treat. They're leaves falling from the Great Tree,” the Bugaboo said.

“From Yggdrassil,” Jack murmured, remembering how the Tree had reached up higher than the moon. At the top lay a
heavenly green field around a hall so enormous, a thousand men could stand side by side in its doorway. It was Valhalla. He shivered. “Thorgil says the Northmen hear their dead calling to them when lights dance in the sky.”

“Many things happen when the walls between the worlds grow thin. Once I heard waves breaking on the Islands of the Blessed,” said the Bugaboo.

Jack thought of the gifts the Mountain Queen had given him: the marten-fur coat, cow-skin boots, and tunic. They had been stored away because he'd outgrown them. Only her knife was still useful.

And the cloak. It had been a very long time since Jack had thought about the spidersilk cloak. He'd given it to the Bard along with the wealth-hoard he'd used to buy Pega's freedom. It was probably in one of the old man's chests.

“Thank you for showing me this,” Jack told the hobgoblins. “My problems don't seem so important after watching leaves fall from the Great Tree.” He stood up.

“You can't be thinking of going to bed yet,” said the Nemesis. “The night's entertainment has just begun.”

“Excuse me?” said Jack.

“We haven't forgotten about the Tanners. We're only waiting for your permission to take steps.”

Jack remembered how dangerous hobgoblins could be, and he wasn't sure he wanted to involve them. “You wouldn't do anything
drastic
, would you?”

“Of course not,” scoffed the Nemesis. “Only a harmless bit of hobgoblinry, no worse than saying boo at a birthday party.”

“Dragon Tongue thinks it's an excellent idea,” the Bugaboo added.

“I suppose … if the Bard agrees, and if you promise not to hurt them …”

“Never!” The Nemesis's eyes gleamed in the starlight.

“Well … all right.”

“At last! I get first crack at Ythla,” cried Blewit, jumping up.

“I get Ymma for what she did to dear Pega,” said the Bugaboo.

“Wait! Wait!” shouted Jack as the hobgoblins bounded off like giant frogs, but they paid no attention. He followed them as best he could in the darkness, with the streaks of light falling from the sky and the stars shaking as though they would come loose.

Jack fell several times on the way. His eyes weren't as good as the hobgoblins', and they were used to traveling in the dark. He was anxious to get to the Tanner hovel before anything happened. But by the time he arrived, the hobgoblins had already got inside. “Phoo! Filthy in here,” he heard the Nemesis say. Then out they came, each one carrying a Tanner. They leaped over the fields, and every time their feet touched earth, Jack heard a scream.

“We've come to take you away!” the hobgoblins shrieked, tossing their captives into the air and catching them.

“No! Not Mrs. Tanner!” Jack shouted. They were too swift for him.

“We've got a lovely dark hole full of earthworms,” Blewit warbled. It was the first time Jack had ever heard him sound happy. “We're going to put you inside and feed you spiders and all kinds of nasty, oozy things.”

Ythla sobbed and begged for mercy.

“Mercy! Not likely, after you stole from people who took you in.”

“We're sorry! We won't do it again!”

“Oh, you won't. Not where you're going,” gloated Blewit.

By now the hobgoblins had passed beyond the village and were approaching the hazel wood. Jack's side hurt from running and his legs threatened to give out. Now he understood why his father hadn't been able to catch the hobgoblins when they stole Hazel all those years ago.

The creatures raced through the hazel wood, zigging and zagging along paths Jack could only guess at.
The
draugr
is in here somewhere
, he thought. But he had no time to be afraid. He stumbled after the sound of running feet, more often than not colliding with bushes or tripping over roots. By the time he got to the other side, he was at the end of his strength. He collapsed onto the ground.

He was lying in the broad road carved out by the Wild Hunt. The starlight had grown brighter, as though light were leaking from some unknown source. The hobgoblins had put down the girls and their mother. It was the first time the Tanners had got a good look at their captors.

“Oh, dear God! They're demons,” groaned Ymma.

“We're demons! We're demons!” screeched the Nemesis,
doing a cartwheel around the terrified group. “We've come to take you away!”

“Stoke up the fires!” sang the Bugaboo. “We've got a load of sinners to deliver!”

“We repent!” cried Mrs. Tanner.

“Too late.” Blewit stuck his long face close to hers, and she screamed. “You stole, you lied, you cheated—and you hurt little girls.”

“We'll never do it again. We'll leave the village.” Ythla tried to hide behind her mother, but the Nemesis pulled her out by one leg.

“You
are
leaving the village,” he said, grinning dreadfully.

Jack by now had got back his breath. He was satisfied with the girls' punishment, but he felt the hobgoblins were being too hard on Mrs. Tanner. “Stop that at once,” he called, getting to his feet.

“Eek! It's the young bard!” shrieked the Nemesis, bouncing into the air with exaggerated terror.

“Please, oh great one, don't turn us into stone!” cried the Bugaboo, falling to his knees.

Jack understood then that the hobgoblins were inviting him to rescue the Tanners. “I might or I might not turn you into stone,” he said carelessly. “The girls certainly deserve to be dragged down to Hell, but you've gone too far with their mother. She's innocent.”

“She is not!” Blewit said indignantly. “I heard her plotting to drive Hazel and Pega away—and you, too, if she could manage it. I say let's sharpen the pitchforks and roast them all.”

“Submit, demons!” cried Jack, raising his arms the way the Bard had when he battled the
draugr.
The Nemesis rolled into a ball, and the Bugaboo unfurled his ears to their fullest extent—
fwup!
—and furled them up again. Blewit merely folded his arms and waited. “I've decided that these sinners should be spared—for the moment—on condition that they leave the village as soon as possible.”

“We'll do it. We'll be good,” whimpered Mrs. Tanner.

“Very well. You demons can go,” Jack said grandly.

“Oh, can we? Oh, thank you, great bard,” said the Nemesis, groveling in a way Jack knew was sarcastic.

“But if we see one scrap of bad behavior,” growled Blewit, “if you make Hazel cry or upset Pega, we'll be back!”

All three of the hobgoblins popped out of sight, but their voices still resounded:
“We'll! Be! Back!”

The Tanners clung to one another, not daring to move, until Jack took Mrs. Tanner's arm. He still felt sorry for her, although he believed Blewit. She wasn't innocent. She had probably trained her daughters to be thieves. “I'll take you home,” he said. The Tanners followed him docilely, and at the edge of the hazel wood he cast his mind out to feel what creatures were abroad in the darkness.

To his amazement the scene before him cleared, as a muddy stream does when clean water flows into it. He could see exactly where the paths were, and he knew that the
draugr
had hidden herself elsewhere. “Hold hands and follow me,” he commanded.

On the other side Ymma, very hesitantly, said, “I'm sorry I
called you a ‘damned wizard.' It was foolish of me. We would have been lost”—she swallowed hard—”if you hadn't rescued us. How did you know we were in trouble?”

“I'm a bard,” said Jack. “I know these things.”

“You do realize what you've done,” said the Bard the next day. He and Jack had set out to inspect the inlet where Skakki and his crew would land. The stones of the old Roman road were covered in moss and shaded by a canopy of beech trees so thick that the twilight never lifted. The air was hot and still. The only thing moving was a haze of mosquitoes. “You do realize that in forcing the Tanners out, you've taken responsibility for their move.”

“I couldn't leave them here. They'd be up to their old tricks in no time,” Jack said sullenly.

“I'm not criticizing you.” The Bard stopped and wiped sweat from his brow. “Whew! It's as hot as a dragon's belly in here. I wouldn't be surprised if we had a thunderstorm tonight.” Which meant, Jack knew, that they
would
have a thunderstorm tonight. The Bard was never wrong about such things.

“The Tanners will be far better off in Bebba's Town,” the old man went on, “where their troublemaking won't be so noticeable. There are many places they can find work. Really, lad, you've done them a favor.”

“So … how will they get to Bebba's Town?” the boy asked, guessing he wouldn't like the answer.

“On Skakki's ship, of course. Will you look at that road!
Straight as an arrow and hardly a rock out of place. The Romans were amazing builders. Unfortunately, they didn't have a speck of sympathy for nature. A road had to go from here to there by the shortest way possible, and if a tree was in the way, they cut it down. If there was a hillock, they leveled it. That's why the Romans aren't here anymore. Nature doesn't take kindly to being pushed around.”

They continued walking, with the Bard stepping sure-footedly on the slippery moss with hardly any help from his staff. The air changed as they neared the inlet, becoming cooler and mixed with the smell of seaweed. In the distance Jack heard surf. “Perhaps there won't be room for the Tanners,” he said hopefully.

“I sailed on this ship with Olaf,” the old man said. “He could ferry a herd of horses with it—well, to be accurate, he could
steal
a herd of horses with it. Our cargo isn't large, and we'll only have you, me, Thorgil, and Seafarer for passengers. There's plenty of room for the Tanners.”

Wonderful
, thought Jack.
Ymma, Ythla, and Thorgil crammed in together like a box full of spiders.
Not to mention Sven the Vengeful, Eric Pretty-Face, and that new fellow, Schlaup. Thorgil said Schlaup could lift an ox over his head with one hand.

Northmen loved picking fights better than swilling ale, and they were extremely fond of ale. Jack remembered how Olaf had kept order with blows and threats, and wondered whether Skakki was tough enough. “Isn't Brother Aiden going?” the boy asked. By now they had reached the path that led from the road to the sea.

“Aiden would die rather than set foot on a Northman ship,” said the Bard. “He saw his friends murdered by some of the very people we're going to travel with.”

Jack, too, had seen Northmen run berserk, and the memory still haunted his dreams.

A tongue of land formed a shallow bay and made an ideal place to anchor. It was well hidden from view, and on either side was a beach of clean white sand. The Bard found a rock to sit on. “Swallows have reported seeing Skakki's ship a week to the south. You can stop furrowing your brow, Jack. He's trading amber and sea ivory this time, not slaves.”

“This time,” Jack said bitterly.

“I've told the villagers we're taking an Irish merchant vessel and have been vague about where it's to be anchored,” the old man said. “You understand that we can't let them catch sight of the crew. You and Thorgil will have to do all the loading.”

“What about the Tanners?” said Jack.

“I'd rather they didn't know who we're sailing with until it's too late.”

They sat for a while, watching the waves break beyond the tongue of land. Green sandpipers scurried along the beach, running for safety when the water foamed in. A flock of black-and-white eider ducks sailed overhead.

Brother Aiden had told Jack that eider ducks had once befriended St. Cuthbert. They had attended his sermons, and the mother eiders trusted him so much, they had let him pick up their chicks. When St. Cuthbert became abbot of the Holy
Isle, he forbade anyone to hunt the birds. But a wicked monastery servant had killed one and thrown the evidence into the sea. The very next day the sea had coughed up bones and feathers onto the chapel doorstep. For even the sea, Brother Aiden said, knew better than to lie to a saint.

Jack had heard many stories about St. Cuthbert and animals. Otters kept him warm when he meditated, sea eagles dropped fish when he was hungry. Once, the saint scolded a pair of ravens for stealing thatch, and they brought him a lump of fat to oil his boots with, by way of apology. It was Christian magic and, as far as Jack could see, not that different from the Bard's magic.

The old man said the life force flowed in streams deep in the earth. If you understood its workings, you could call it forth—or rather
it
chose to listen to your call. This was where the power to do magic came from. Jack didn't understand much of this explanation, but he knew the power was difficult to control. And sometimes things happened that weren't supposed to happen.