Land of the Silver Dragon (19 page)

‘Yes, Lassair. Arnor is dead, but Skuli is very much alive, although it would be better for many people – not only us – if it were not so.'

‘I saw him,' I said faintly. ‘I'm sure I did.' In my mind I relived that moment on the edge of the village, when I'd seen a man, or perhaps a vision-man, on my way back from checking Granny's grave.

A real-life man, it now appeared. And one who presented a grave danger to me and mine ...

‘It's very possible,' Thorfinn agreed, ‘for he was close on your tail, and he would have taken you if the chance had presented itself.' From his grave tone, I understood that being taken by this Skuli was something to be avoided at all costs. ‘It is also possible that it was Einar you saw, for he too had been watching you.'

‘Einar was ...' I wasn't sure I understood.

‘We knew that Skuli had gone in search of the shining stone,' Thorfinn said patiently. ‘We knew too that he would be totally ruthless, and let nothing get in the way. He would fight, despoil, kill; he would, if he got his hands on someone he believed was aware of the stone's whereabouts, torture the truth out of them.'

‘I thought that was why I'd been brought here,' I said in a small voice. ‘I thought Einar was going to force me to tell him something I don't even know.' The echo of that fear shivered up through me. I tried to dismiss it. ‘I was nearly right!' I added, trying to laugh.

‘No you were not, child,' he said gravely. ‘It was no part of our plan to do you harm.'

But I barely heard. My mind was racing, trying to absorb all I'd been told. Something occurred to me: ‘You said just now there were two reasons why Skuli wants the stone. What's the second one?'

Thorfinn gave a deep sigh, as if the burden was suddenly too much to bear. ‘Because of one specific quality which it possesses,' he said heavily. ‘There is a particular journey he desperately wishes to embark upon, and he has convinced himself that only by possessing the shining stone, and harnessing its power, will he find the way.'

I frowned. ‘But I thought – didn't you say that the stone's main quality was that it helped you look inside yourself?'

‘Yes, I did,' Thorfinn confirmed. ‘But that, as I'm sure you realize, is not the voyage Skuli has in mind. No, child – it is another of its powers that he desires.' His voice dropped to a whisper and, leaning towards me, he murmured, ‘He believes that the place where he is bound can only be reached with the aid of the spirits, and he intends to use the stone to manifest them to help him.'

He must be mad
, was my first, violent reaction. No man in his right mind would even consider something so dangerous. Fleetingly I wondered where this place was that Skuli so desperately wanted to go, and what he hoped to achieve by finding it at such peril. Then, slowly, it dawned on me: he had to be stopped. Whatever it took, Skuli must not be allowed to get his hands on the shining stone.

I even began to view my own abduction in a slightly different light.

‘Do you understand now?' Thorfinn asked. ‘Skuli had located your village, and he knew where the rest of your family lived. He knew about your wizard friend in Cambridge, and he was waiting to grab you as soon as you ventured out alone. But he had reckoned without Einar, who already knew much of what Skuli had to work to discover, and who, perhaps with the might of right on his side, succeeded in getting to you before Skuli did. It was, I understand, a close-run race.'

I saw myself in memory, blithely striding along, thinking about home and food. Not one but two giant-sized men had been stalking me, and the only, tiny, sound I'd heard to give away the fact of their presence had come just before I was taken.

‘They walk softly on the ground, for such big men,' I said. I was still trying to suppress thoughts of what Skuli might have done to me, and it helped to think about something else.

‘They do,' Thorfinn agreed. ‘Both are hunters, and learned young how to tread without making a sound.'

Hunters
: arrows, knives, blood, pain, guts, death. Not a good image. ‘So Einar brought me all the way here to keep me safe from ... er, to keep me safe,' I said quickly. ‘Couldn't he just have taken me on board his ship and sailed up and down the coast for a while? Why did he have to bring me so far?'

Thorfinn did not immediately answer. When eventually he spoke, it was as if he was replying to a different question entirely.

‘Tonight, Freydis will continue with her storytelling,' he said. ‘Now, child, I am growing cold. Fetch the ponies, and we will return to the homestead.'

‘Now,' Freydis began, ‘I shall tell the tale of the Perilous Voyage, for it is a journey that many of our kinsmen have made, and one that many did not survive.'

It was late in the evening. The tables had been cleared of everything except the mugs and the flagons of ale, and two or three torches had been set in the walls. The fire in the long hearth was glowing, shedding soft light on the attentive faces sitting on either side. As Freydis announced the subject of her tale, there were one or two murmurs, and some of her audience turned to look at her in surprise. Had they expected her to pick up Thorkel's story? The previous night, after all, she had left us with that disturbing image of a man visiting a strange port and returning to his crew not the same man. Not that it mattered to me, of course ...

I sensed someone watching me. Turning, I saw it was Thorfinn. He gave an almost imperceptible nod.

Then I understood. Freydis's tales were for my benefit, for I was the stranger; I was probably the only one who had never heard the stories before. As far as I was concerned, there was no need for Freydis to relate the end of Thorkel's tale and its aftermath, for Thorfinn had already done so.

I settled back to hear about the Perilous Voyage.

‘They went to trade their furs, their amber and their walrus ivory,' Freydis said, her eyes glittering in the firelight as she looked around the circle of her audience, ‘but, for many, that was merely a pretext: in their hearts, they knew that what they sought was adventure. And where better place to seek it than the vast continent that spread out to the south and east? In their light, nimble ships, they had the means of penetrating deep into its secrets, returning home with tales of giants and river monsters, whirlpools and rapids, and cities sparkling with jewels beneath a sun that burned like fire.' In a whisper judged perfectly to reach the intimate circle around her and no further, she added, ‘Who, after all, can resist the summons of the unknown?'

She told of the men who discovered the inland route from the northern seas to those of the south; of how, when the waterways petered out, the brave sailors got out of their craft and carried them overland to the next river. Bending to the oars once more, they rowed until they were exhausted, then did it all over again the next day. They fought hunger, fatigue, homesickness, as well as more tangible enemies such as starving wolves and hostile tribesmen. On they went, travelling almost due south now, until the great northern forests thinned and disappeared and they emerged on to the steppes.

‘Then, when they had already travelled so far that home was but a memory,' she went on, her voice strengthening, ‘they came to the most terrifying obstacle of all: forty miles of rapids, formed of no fewer than seven cataracts; fearsome chasms between high rock walls where the river plunged like a rip tide condensed into a narrow funnel.' She spun slowly round, letting the image sink in. ‘They gave them names, those brave sailors,' she said, respect very evident in her voice. ‘The Gulper. The Sleepless. The Island Force. The Yeller. And, when each had been overcome and the men were desperate for rest, they came to the fiercest of all. Some called him Ever-fierce; some, simply, Impassable.'

Impassable. Could there be, I wondered, a more daunting name?

‘If they managed to do the impossible and come safely through Impassable,' Freydis continued, ‘still more swirling waterfalls, rapids and unexpected descents awaited them, until they began to fear they had passed unwittingly into some watery hell from which the only escape was death.'

Again, she fell silent, slowly looking round at us all. ‘There was only one way to survive the rapids,' she said matter-of-factly, ‘and that was to do as they had done between the waters of the northern rivers and carry their craft, around the wild white waves. The prudent followed the portage tracks all the way. The adventurous – some would say the foolhardy – chose only to avoid the hungry maws and the sharp teeth of the waterfalls, opting to shoot their slender ships like arrows down the broiling white water, riding the angry waves like fierce, brave horses.'

I tried to imagine it, but my heart quaked at the very thought. How had they found the courage to risk their ships – the only means by which they could hope one day to return to their distant homes – amid those thundering waters? How could they dare risk their lives?

As if she had picked up my thought, Freydis was nodding. ‘Many perished,' she said, her voice low. ‘The survivors set up a great stone, on which they marked in runes the names of the dead. That stone,' she added softly, ‘is still in use today.'

Into my mind flew an image of a bearded giant, wet, spent, knife in hand as he carefully picked out the rune marks that stood for his dead friend. He was muttering under his breath – a prayer, no doubt – and he had tears in his pale blue eyes ...

‘Now, at last, the way became easier,' Freydis was saying, calling my attention back to her tale, ‘for the river broadened out and slowed its hectic pace, and the sailors could raise their sail and have a rest from the oars. In time, the river emptied into the smaller inland sea, and from there it was an unchallenging trip down the western shore until, finally, the Great City came into view.'

The Great City. I had heard the name: in fact, quite a lot of what Freydis had just recounted seemed vaguely familiar. I closed my eyes – she was now describing the city's wonders – and let my mind go blank.

Almost instantly, I heard Gurdyman's voice inside my head as, together, we pored over his map:
One such voyage led to their Great City
.

Its name, I remembered, was Miklagard.

The frustration bubbled up as, once again, I wondered why Gurdyman had elected to tell me of these matters just before I was abducted and brought here. It surely was not simply coincidence. But how had he known? Had he somehow been preparing me? For what?

Somehow (could it be, was it possible?) he had foretold that this would happen; that I'd be stolen away from my home, my family and my friends and deposited here, far in the north, for reasons I was only starting to understand.

‘Shining stone.'

The words slithered into my awareness like a glittering serpent. Freydis had spoken them. Snapping to attention, I listened.

She was telling the story of a man who had not survived the cataracts; who, alone in his vessel while his companions had portaged their own craft, had risked one too many sets of rapids, and been thrown into the hungry, turbulent water as his frail ship broke up into firewood.

‘His kinsmen mourned him long and deeply,' she said, sounding now as if she was chanting, ‘for, although his heart had begun to turn to the dark, he had led them well and they trusted him. As they stood around the marker stone on which they had carved his name, they vowed their loyalty, and they swore that they would not rest until he had been avenged.'

Avenged? It sounded as if the man's kin believed his death had been no accident, unless they were planning vengeance on the very cataracts themselves ...

‘For it was Arnor's claim that he had been deprived of what was rightfully his by birth,' Freydis said, very quietly, ‘and both he and his kin believed that it would have protected them all from the dangers of the Perilous Voyage.'

Arnor. I knew I'd heard the name. Arnor ... Yes; he was the younger brother, deemed unsuitable to receive the shining stone. The one who, in Thorfinn's words,
would have turned its dangerous and formidable power to further his own dark ambition
. It was as if Thorfinn was repeating his words of earlier, directly into my mind.

So Arnor had not been appointed guardian of his family's great treasure, because that honour had gone to his sister, I reflected, and he had believed himself robbed of its powers as protective talisman. Yet he had gone on the dangerous voyage anyway, and his life had been lost.

I tried to recall everything that Thorfinn had told me about the stone. I couldn't actually remember him mentioning it could protect its bearer, but he had said that it allowed the harnessing of the unseen forces of the spirit world. With those at your disposal, I realized, what more protection would you need?

Freydis was winding down to the conclusion of her tale; I was a bard myself, and I recognized the change in her voice, which was gradually turning from stimulating to hypnotic. I felt I could safely miss the end of the story; I had more import-ant things to think about.

I was trying to put it all together: to discover, in truth, what it all had to do with me. Skuli, clearly, wanted to succeed where his grandfather Arnor had failed; this voyage to the Great City must surely be his goal, and he believed that, to make it safely, he needed the shining stone. Yet the Dragon's side of the family line were equally determined he should not get his hands on the treasure; presumably, they had good reason for not wanting him to reach that goal ...

My head was bursting; I could no longer think straight. It was so hard, I reflected crossly, when they were feeding me information so grudgingly.

Around me, people were standing up, stretching, draining their mugs and heading off for bed. There was nothing else to do but join them. With the fervent hope that I would see more clearly after a night's rest, I headed for my sheepskins and a well-earned sleep.