Wolfsangel

39

Adisla had now been on the island for months and to her surprise had been treated very well. It wouldn’t have been her first choice of a home — a long flat rock rising out of a turbulent and cold sea — but her fear that she was to be some stinking Whale Man’s bed slave had not been realised.

The people were kind: they brought her meat and bitter bread, berries and salted cheese, even gave her a rough beer to drink. She was also allowed to sleep alone — in a low conical tent which was open at the top to allow the smoke of a fire to escape. Although the tent was tiny, the little old woman detailed to care for her was skilled at building the fire and Adisla found it less smoky than a longhouse.

Her arrival had been terrifying. The whole rock had seemed to swarm with men — thirty or forty of them, all in animal masks, but not like the pelt that Feileg wore. These were skilfully constructed from supple twigs, shaped into the likeness of a bear or wolf, a bird, reindeer or seal, and covered in fur or feathers to terrible, frightening effect. The men drummed and sang and peered at her closely, but they didn’t touch or harm her.

Haarik had been given instructions on where he might find his son and been told that a scout was watching from the mainland, ready to ride a reindeer hard to the young man’s slaughter if he tried anything. The Whale Men had dealt with Norsemen before and were careful to extract oaths that they would not be harmed once Haarik’s son was released. For all his talk of violence, the king looked pleased to leave. He had a warrior’s distaste for magic and wanted to collect his son and then put as much distance between himself and the island as possible.

Most of the Whale Men soon left the rock — including the sorcerer who had travelled with her — but Adisla remained with the old woman to care for her and in the silent company of a man called Noaidi. He was small, even for a Whale Man, dark-haired with very blue eyes, and he habitually wore a wolf mask as he moved about the rock. At nights he usually went down towards the sea on the open ocean side and sat at the mouth of a huge cave, playing his drum and singing in a way that seemed to echo the sounds of the wind. Noaidi said nothing to her for days. And then, when she had been there about a week, she realised she had not actually tried to speak to him.

One night when he didn’t go off to chant Adisla saw him remove his wolf mask and go to his tent. She went across and knelt at the entrance. He was lying on some furs and the little fire had been fed until the inside of the tent was as hot as a smithy. In the firelight, without his mask, he was a shocking sight. He must have been around twenty-five but was terribly drawn, his cheeks hollow and his eyes red. He hardly seemed to notice her at first and she saw he was trembling.

‘Why am I here?’

Noaidi looked at her. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. He clearly had to think hard to remember the words and spoke Norse in a thick accent that reminded Adisla more of a cat than a man.

‘You speak our language.’

‘I know your people. Too well.’ He smiled a brief smile and she could see that he was very ill indeed.

‘Then why am I here?’

The man thought for a moment. He coughed and took a swallow of water from a cup. Then he gestured her into the tiny tent. She crawled in and sat down, very near to the blazing fire. It was uncomfortable but she wanted to question her captor. The sorcerer seemed if anything rather cold. He smiled again though, and seemed pleased to be able to talk to someone, although he was breathless and his words were halting and slow.

‘I will not lie to you. In our visions we saw a spirit that we foresaw would do us great harm — Jabbmeaaakka, the death goddess, lady of dark places and the dark places of the mind. The prophecy was clear: she would destroy us. So we looked for magic to protect ourselves. First we struck at her. It did not work. A year ago the spirit met one of our men in the underworld. The underworld in here.’ He tapped his head. ‘She killed him. Like that.’ He snatched with his hand at the air, as if crushing a fly. ‘But we saw that the spirit was making powerful magic, magic that she began years ago, before she even knew she was beginning it. Now we seek to turn that magic against her. So we looked for you.’

‘Why me?’

‘We saw, in here — ’ again he tapped his head ‘- that the way to turn this magic was through you. Her weapon will be our weapon. We need powerful magic to do this. There is another spirit, a wolf god. We can set him against her if we can bring him here. He will come — looking for you.’

He was shaking quite badly now.

‘And what happens when this spirit arrives?’

‘Through you,’ he said, ‘he grows teeth.’

‘Do spirits have teeth?’

The man swallowed some more water.

‘Spirits and gods take many forms. They are here — ’ he tapped the ground ‘- and they are everywhere. You are just here.’

‘And you?’

‘Everywhere. Sometimes.’

‘How?’

The man tapped the ground again.

‘This is solid when this — ’ he tapped his head ‘- is solid. When this — ’ his head ‘- becomes as water then this — ’ the ground ‘- can flow away. When it does, I fight the goddess. Our minds tangle and we battle each other.’

‘How?’

‘Through resolve and persistence. I steal her magic. We are winning.’

‘It doesn’t seem to do you much good,’ said Adisla. ‘You look fit to die.’

‘The things I win from her…’ He seemed to be having more difficulty framing his words. ‘I would not take them unless it was necessary.’

‘Does she harm you in this struggle?’

‘Not so very much. She seems weak or distracted. I cannot tell. To do what we need to do, to make the thing that will kill her, we have to steal her power from her. The damage is not in the taking of it but in the having. There are things of great power — runes, symbols older than the gods. I rip them up by their roots and take them from the death goddess and plant them in my mind. Sustaining them, it seems, is what costs.’

‘And these runes will help you call your wolf?’

‘I think so. I cannot tell. Sometimes I can sense him, sometimes not. Sometimes he is a man, sometimes a wolf. I see his face and I know he will come. I am sure of that.’

‘How are you sure?’

‘Many ways.’

‘Be careful the wolf doesn’t use his teeth on you,’ said Adisla.

Noaidi nodded. ‘I have gone to him in dreams and called him. When he arrives I will bind him. He will use his teeth where he is meant to — when he grows them.’

Adisla continued to question Noaidi. She discovered that Noaidi was not his name but rather a title given to sorcerers in that region. His real name was Lieaibolmmai, which Adisla found very difficult to say. He had become a magician because as a child he had shown the gift of prophecy.

‘All my life,’ he said, ‘I have seen this day coming. All my life I knew that Jabbmeaaakka would strike at me.’

The fire in the tent burned on and the two of them fell into silence.

Adisla thought Lieaibolmmai seemed a gentle man and couldn’t believe he was planning anything bad for her. After a long time she asked the question that was concerning her most. ‘Am I a sacrifice?’

‘I don’t know.’

She looked into his eyes and saw nothing to reassure her.

‘Am I to suffer?’

‘No,’ he said but looked down and would not meet her gaze. ‘Magic is like speaking. You know what you want to say, but when you speak, not the exact words you are going to use. His mind, he who is coming, must open, it must be shocked into opening. Then the spirit will come to earth fully. Perhaps his mind can open without you, perhaps not.’

‘Which spirit?’

‘The wolf, the wolf who will protect us.’

Then he would say no more.

After a month, under a sky of slate, men came over from the mainland in boats. They took Adisla to Lieaibolmmai’s cave in the hollow light of the late day. It was a huge wound in the side of the rock, three times as high as a man and more than three times as wide. It was strewn with rubble and dipped down into blackness. The sorcerers lined up at its mouth, peering into the dark through their animal masks.

‘Down,’ said Lieaibolmmai to Adisla. He was not friendly now but serious. He was wearing his wolf mask so his face was invisible, but she could see that under his red robes he had become terribly thin. His voice was quiet, like a fever sufferer’s, and she saw sweat at his neck despite the cold of the day.

‘For what?’

‘This is where the spirits are,’ he said. ‘Here they can come through. Here the wolf comes to earth.’

‘I will not go.’

Lieaibolmmai swayed slightly, as if her refusal was causing him pain.

‘Until he comes you are safer here.’

‘I will not go.’

He took off his mask and looked at her. ‘Please,’ he said with gentle eyes. ‘It is easier if you agree.’ One of the other Noaidis came to his side and supported him. Lieaibolmmai was trembling, standing as stiff as a tree in his battle to stay on his feet. A man who was willing to put himself through such an ordeal was unlikely to tolerate much more resistance.

Adisla thought of what she had done to her mother, of the grief that had dogged her every day since the raid and her apparently remote chance of ever returning to a normal life. Then she went down with the Noaidis. Remarkably, Lieaibolmmai came with her.

At a point where the passage narrowed and dropped so much that she had to bend her head to continue, it fell away into a shaft. There was a flat boulder leaning against the wall, a great slab. Underneath it were some wooden wedges. Adisla looked at it and shivered. They were going to seal her in.

Lieaibolmmai caught her look. ‘Only a precaution,’ he said. ‘If he is human, as we expect him to be, there will be no need for it.’

Adisla wondered what he meant but decided she would rather not know the answer and said nothing more.

A Noaidi showed her how to wrap a rope around herself in order to climb down. There was no light as she descended, just darkness and the smell of wet rocks. She went down about the height of five men and found herself on an uneven floor. Lieaibolmmai was lowered, limp as a hanged man. He untied himself and sat panting for a while. Then he gently pushed her forward through the dark.

She felt her way, a hand on the ceiling, another on the wall, her feet testing for further drops. It seemed that they went a long way forward. Then she felt the passage open out and Lieaibolmmai told her to stop. He struck a flint, set some tinder burning and lit a whale oil lamp. A wolf’s head loomed at her from the dark, its teeth bared and its eyes angry. She screamed but quickly realised it was only a carving, though very disquieting. The sickly light showed the cave around her smeared with runes, a tiny stream of water filtering into a pool at the back. He pushed the flint and tinder into her hands, set down a pack beside her and took off his thick reindeer coat.

‘For your comfort,’ he said.

‘What happens here?’ said Adisla.

‘Magic is like speaking,’ said Lieaibolmmai. ‘Let us see what we are required to say.’

‘What am I waiting for?’

‘You will see in good time.’

‘How much time? How long must I spend in here?’

‘Not long, I think. It is hard to tell. We are working the magic as best we can. He is not easy to find sometimes. Today. Many days. I don’t know.’

Noises drifted down from above: drumming and chanting.

Lieaibolmmai gave Adisla a sad smile. Then he turned and was swallowed by the dark. Adisla heard the sound of the Noaidis heaving him up and then the slither of the other rope as it was pulled in. She was alone in the blackness and the damp.