The Land of the Silver Apples

Chapter Thirty-nine THE FOREST OF LORN

Below was a valley flanked by tall mountains. Its trees were not emerald green. Its fields were not filled with giant flowers, nor was the lake they bordered the brilliant blue of the waters of Elfland, but it was closer to the human heart.

Jack loved every lopsided tree, crooked stream, and marshy meadow of it.

“That’s the Forest of Lorn,” said the Bugaboo, hunkering down. The Forest of Lorn! thought Jack. That was where the Bard had wanted to take them all along.

“It’s a bit steep,” said the Bugaboo. “Hobgoblins have a head for heights, so we’ll carry you down one at a time.”

The Nemesis grumbled, but he agreed that mud men would go, as he put it, “lickety-splat” down the hillside without help. Father Severus and Pega were taken first, then Ethne and Thorgil. Last of all, Jack. He closed his eyes as the Nemesis leaped from rock to rock, crowing with malicious glee. Once, the hobgoblin bounced up and down on a jagged spire, insisting that Jack admire the beauty of the chasm down below. Then he swung dizzily from crag to crag, saying, “Whoopsie!” when he pretended to slip.

“Not bad,” conceded the Nemesis when they at last reached the bottom. “Most mud men would have tossed their oatmeal by now.” But Jack knew the only reason he hadn’t thrown up was because he had no oatmeal to toss.

He was suddenly, ravenously, hungry. The smell of the forest and the cool breath of the waterfall made him feel more alive than he’d been in—well, however long he’d been in the Land of the Silver Apples. And with this sensation came an overpowering desire to eat. Almost without realizing it, he picked a few pine needles and began to chew.

“Stop that! You’re not a beetle,” exclaimed the Bugaboo.

“It’s the effect of Elfland,” the Nemesis said. “It’s anyone’s guess what you were fed there, in the guise of glamour. Earthworms, mud, spiders—could have been anything.” He grinned at Pega’s horrified expression.

“I never ate their enchanted food,” said Father Severus, leaning wearily against a rock.

“You look like it too,” jeered the Nemesis. But the hobgoblins quickly set about making camp and gathering wood.

It had been late afternoon when they’d climbed out of the ice cave. Now it was nearly sunset.

“We’ll be back in a jiffy,” they promised. Jack started a fire, and by the time the hobgoblins returned with trout, apples, giant mushrooms, leeks, and combs of honey, everyone was seated around it, sucking on grass stems to stave off hunger.

The food was delicious. The Bugaboo baked the fish in clay and roasted mushrooms and slices of leeks on sticks. Pega fed Father Severus, who was exhausted but who nonetheless looked extremely happy. “I had forgotten how beautiful God’s world was,” he murmured.

Ethne refused a honeycomb. “I have turned my back on empty pleasures,” she declared. “I eat only to sustain life now.”

“Fine with me,” said the Nemesis, adding her comb to his heap of food.

“Where did you find the honey?” said Jack, who remembered what a painful chore it was extracting it from Mother’s beehives.

“Saw a nest in a hollow tree and helped myself.” The hobgoblin stuffed a giant mushroom into his mouth, and juice squirted onto his chin.

“Didn’t the bees object?” asked Pega.

“Sure did. Stung me all over. Mmf!” A bulge traveled down the Nemesis’ throat as he swallowed the mushroom whole. He slapped his leg with a meaty sound. “Hobgoblins are as tough as tree roots. Even an adder would chip his fangs on us.”

The day was coming to an end, and Jack noticed for the first time that a crescent moon was hanging in the western sky. “Look!” he cried. Everyone turned.

“It was near full in Elfland,” Thorgil said.

“And is near full still, if I know anything about glamour,” the Bugaboo said. “The elves will hold it that way as long as possible, but eventually, shadow will eat away the Silver Apple. Time has leaked into Elfland.”

“You mean they’ll age?” said Jack.

“Not as you do. The elves still have their powers, but they will gradually fade. The same moon will rise night after night and yet, so slowly you can hardly detect it, a leaf will curl up here, a blade of grass dry up there.”

Jack gazed at the silver thread of moon in the deepening blue sky, trying to puzzle it out. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Father Severus, you were gone from Middle Earth a year. I know, because I was there when you were sold to the Picts. How could time pass for you and not the elves?”

“I often thought about it in my long captivity,” said Father Severus. “The dungeon was beyond glamour, and so I aged. But Elfland itself is like an island in the sea. It is always summer there, yet its shores are surrounded by the same storms that sweep us poor mortals from birth to death. Past, present, and future exist at the same time for them. They can, if they choose, step into our world at any moment they please.”

“You mean—you mean they could turn up somewhere yesterday?” said Jack, now totally bewildered.

“Yes!” interrupted Ethne. Jack was struck by something familiar about her, something he hadn’t noticed in Elfland. Whatever it was, he liked it. “Once, Partholis moved Elfland into the past when she noticed a few wrinkles. It was horrible! We had to repeat everything we’d done before—every moment, every word. I fear, if she is terrified enough, she may force everyone to live the same day over and over again.”

“That is a Hell I had not even imagined,” murmured Father Severus.

Now that they were full of good food and warmed by the fire, everyone began to yawn. The Bugaboo and the Nemesis, who seemed to know the valley well, went off into the dark and returned with armloads of grass. They made nests for everyone, with extra grass to pile on top.

Jack, Thorgil, Pega, Ethne, and Father Severus crept gratefully into these surprisingly comfortable beds. The hobgoblins, however, were not ready to sleep. They declared that such a victory over the elves deserved to be celebrated. They climbed onto nearby rocks and swelled up like giant bullfrogs.

“Oh, no! Not skirling,” moaned Pega, trying to bury herself in the grass.

A most horrible wailing filled the forest as the Bugaboo and the Nemesis alternately swelled and deflated. They opened and closed their nostrils to change pitch. “Listen to this one, Pega dearest,” the Bugaboo said. “It’s a lament for a prince whose love has gone far away.”

“Not far enough,” muttered Pega.

“Look on the bright side,” said Jack as the hideous skirling broke out again. “Nothing’s going to attack us in the night with that going on.”

Jack woke up under a heavy layer of dew. The fire had burned down to embers, and dawn reddened a few wispy clouds. Everyone else was asleep. He got up and fed the coals from a heap of branches the hobgoblins must have gathered the night before.

Jack sat close to the fire to dry his clothes. If he hadn’t known the others were there, he might have thought he was alone. Everyone was burrowed into heaps of grass. It looked like a collection of haystacks.

The dawn chorus began, first doves, then nuthatches, wrens, sparrows, and a few crows. The first rays of sunlight struck the mountain peaks, making the waterfall shine like fire. He looked for the opening to Elfland, but the waterfall concealed it.

Thorgil threw back her grass cover and came over to sit beside Jack. “I couldn’t understand the birds in Elfland. I understand these wretched squawkers too well,” she said. Thorgil had never been fond of birds, except when roasted.

“What are they saying?” asked Jack.

“The usual rot: ‘Feed me, feed me. I want a beetle, a beetle, a fat tasty beetle.’ The rest are threatening their enemies. There’s something unusual.” Thorgil listened intently.

Jack saw a flock of swallows swooping through the upper air, just below the brightening clouds.

“I can’t quite make it out. Something like, ‘They’re here, they’re here, they’re here.’” Thorgil turned away from them and poked at the fire with a long stick. Her other hand was tucked protectively under her arm.

“People do recover from injuries,” Jack said carefully, watching the shield maiden.

“Many do not,” she replied.

“That’s no reason to give up.”

“I never give up!” she cried angrily. The two nearest haystacks quivered. “I’ll admit, when we were on the high ledge, I thought about throwing myself off.”

“Thorgil,” said Jack, alarmed.

“But I could not. This”—she grasped the hidden rune of protection—“prevented me. It sapped my courage. I should tear it off and hurl it into a lake.” Thorgil tightened her grip on the rune.

“But you can’t,” Jack guessed.

“No! The accursed thing won’t let me. I can’t get rid of it.”

“If I understand the Bard correctly, the rune chooses you,” said Jack. “One day you’ll know it’s time to pass it on—just as I knew you were to have it.” He didn’t say—what was the use?—that he missed it dreadfully and wanted it back.

“Gifts have a way of turning on you,” Thorgil muttered, staring into the fire.

Jack said nothing for a while. He thought about Lucy’s silver necklace. Sunlight was making its way down the mountain and would soon reach their camp. Mist fumed off a nearby pond, and Jack heard the light splash of a fish.

It was hard to stay depressed in such a place. “Why did you strike the demon who was about to take Father Severus?” he asked.

“What demon? I saw a huge dog.”

“A dog!”

“It was Garm, the hound that guards Hel. Rune described him to me. He has four eyes, jaws dripping with maggots, and he’s covered in blood. He tried to claim me, but I told him I was Odin’s shield maiden.”

Jack was astounded. It must be the same thing that happened with knuckers. You saw what you expected. “Well, then, why did you strike Garm?”

“I—” Thorgil paused, holding the rune of protection. “I thought he was being unjust. Why should he take Father Severus and ignore oath-breakers like Father Swein and Gowrie? Garm did take them later.” A satisfied smile flitted across Thorgil’s face.

“That’s it!” cried Jack, loud enough for Pega to sit up precipitously, scattering grass in all directions. “Remember Tyr? The god who sacrificed his hand to bind the giant wolf? It was a noble deed, to be sung about through all time—and you’ve done the same!”

Thorgil looked up, and now the morning light reached the camp and shone onto her face. “So I have,” she murmured.

“Yes! You’ll be known as—what shall we call you? Thorgil Silver-Hand, who fought the Hound of Hel. I’ll make a song about it.”

“Oh, Jack,” whispered the shield maiden. She blinked back tears, then shook her head angrily. “Curse this sunlight. It’s making my eyes water.”

Pega got up and began tidying the camp, as was her habit. She brought an armload of branches for the fire. “Are you talking about Tyr?” she remarked. “One of my owners taught me a poem about him.” She began reciting it in Saxon:

“I know that one,” said Jack. “‘Tyr is a star. It keeps faith well with princes, always on its course over the mists of night. It never fails.’ I memorized that when the Bard was teaching me about stars. I never connected it with the god.”

“After Tyr lost his hand, he became the guardian of voyagers,” explained Thorgil. “He stands at the roof of the sky, and his is the one star that never moves. We call it the Nail.”

“And we the Ship Star,” said Jack. He was delighted to see that the despair was gone from Thorgil’s face and that she no longer tried to hide her hand. It was silvery, as though powdered with metal. The color was clearer in the light.

The Bugaboo and the Nemesis climbed out of their grass coverings and helped Father Severus up. “You rest,” the Bugaboo told him. “We’ll see about breakfast.”

Ethne emerged last, looking cross at finding herself soaked with dew until she realized this was an opportunity to suffer. “I shall not sit by the fire,” she declared. “Pneumonia will be good for my soul.”

“Dry yourself. Pneumonia isn’t good for anything,” snapped Father Severus. So Ethne basked in warmth, and the rest of them waited eagerly to see what the hobgoblins would come up with.

They arrived with eels, pignuts, and the inevitable mushrooms. After a leisurely meal they held a meeting to decide where to go next.

“If we could find my ship, I’m sure we could take Father Severus home,” said Thorgil.

“Travel on a Northman ship?” the monk said faintly. “I don’t know…”

“We’d have room for all of you. Skakki hasn’t yet loaded up with thralls.” The shield maiden grinned maliciously.

“Thorgil,” warned Jack.

“The sea’s a day’s journey that way,” said the Bugaboo, pointing east. “There’s an opening to the Hollow Road near the beach, and we hobgoblins can go home. You’re an honorary hobgoblin, by the way, Pega.”

“No, I’m not,” said Pega.

“That’s the best plan,” the king blithely went on. “The pass through the mountains to the west is far too difficult for Father Severus.”

The travelers made ready to go, which didn’t take long, for they had nothing to carry. Pega took a quick bath in the lake. Jack found a walking stick for Father Severus, and Thorgil practiced using her knife with her left hand. She was in high spirits and demanded that Jack start on her praise poem at once. “Thorgil Silver-Hand. I like that,” she said.

The hobgoblins knew every stick and stone of the Forest of Lorn. “We come here all the time,” explained the Bugaboo. “The mushrooms are enormous! One chanterelle will feed a family of five, and as for the boletes and morels…” Jack stopped listening. When hobgoblins got onto the subject of mushrooms, they went on for a very long time.

They followed a deer trail. Because of the late start and Father Severus’ weakness, they reached the mountain pass only at nightfall. It was freezing, and a thick fog brought darkness swiftly. “As I remember, Jack, you had a charm for getting rid of fog,” Thorgil said.

“Unfortunately, it also causes rain,” he replied. They decided that fog was more comfortable than rain and made as good a camp as possible in a hollow sheltered by rocks. Dampness coated everything. The fire kept dying. Father Severus coughed all night.