Wolfsangel

50

What if there is no air? What if this leads nowhere?

Adisla tugged at the rope with increasing desperation, able to see nothing at all. The passage from the bottom of the pool was long, dark and entirely underwater, and she had gone too far down to turn back. She pulled and pulled, hand over hand, hand over hand, fighting down panic. The ceiling of the tunnel was smooth rock but she kept hitting her head, which forced her to bend her neck down so her shoulders took the impact instead.

She struggled against the urge to breathe in or give up, to hammer at the ceiling and waste energy. Then, abruptly, the passage rose. Air hit her face and she swallowed it down. She opened her eyes to blackness. She could see nothing at all but crawled out onto the rough and potholed floor of a cave. She pulled herself up to sitting and felt something between her fingers, cold like autumn grass.

‘Hello.’

The dead air of the cave seemed to cling to her skin. Dead air. That was the smell — something was rotting. Adisla composed herself and reached for the pouch at her side for the flint, steel and tinder Feileg had taken from the Noaidi. The tinder was useless — she could feel it was soaked — but the flint and steel would work. She took them out, struck them together and the corpses were upon her, rotten faces looming from the dark. In the awful instant of the flint’s flash she saw three dead boys. It was not grass she had touched but hair. Adisla offered a prayer to Freya. She was almost glad of the dark now and shrank back against a wall.

She waited for Feileg to come, holding her knees into herself for the small comfort she could take from hugging something. But Feileg didn’t appear. She had thought her example would encourage him. Had she been wrong? She forced herself to listen to her breathing to make sure time was really passing, that the eternity she felt was in reality no more than a few heartbeats. Feileg still did not come.

She tried to think what to do. Return to the surface, she decided. Adisla felt for the rope and prepared herself for the haul back. It would be easier, she told herself — she knew how long the tunnel was. She took the rope in her hands and tested it. Yes, it was secured at the other end. She could pull herself through. Then she thought of Vali, enchanted and forsaken in that pit. If Feileg was incapable of coming through the tunnel, there was no guarantee another entrance to the witch caves could be found.

A terrible thought struck her. What if Feileg had drowned in the tunnel? Would she find his body blocking her way? Trembling and terrified, she forced herself to think. This was the Troll Wall and the witches had been the death of countless heroes. Who was to say that Feileg would be any different? For Vali’s sake, she had to go on without him.

Adisla steeled herself and searched the boys’ bodies, hoping to find a lamp. She found only the amulets at their necks. She took one. It had done the child no good, but who was to say it wouldn’t help her? Crawling past the boys, she cut her knees on the floor. Never mind, she was going to have to get used to that. When she was sure the corpses were behind her, she struck the flint again. In the brief flash she saw the passage going on and down, and went ahead before striking once more to check her way. She didn’t expect to see anything much, but thought she might at least get some warnings of drops, low ceilings or falls. Nevertheless, she proceeded cautiously, feeling her way forward. It was painful progress and it was slow.

She hoped she would find Feileg again. He had told her that he had a great treasure in the hills. Feileg was naive and didn’t have the guile to lie about something like that. If he said he had treasure, he had treasure. It would be something she could use to bargain with the witches to get them to use their magic to bring Vali back to human form. She could offer her word she would deliver it. But what was the word of a woman? Perhaps Feileg would have been useful: they would more readily accept the oath of a warrior.

She tried to smother her deeper thoughts. For as long as she could remember she had loved only Vali. Now she was terrified of him, and Feileg, with his honesty and kindness, offered her the chance of a simple life away from the affairs of kings and sorcerers. Adisla’s love for Vali had devoured her, Feileg, her mother, everything it touched. But for that love, the Danes would never have come for her and her mother would still be alive, little Manni too. She couldn’t abandon the prince, though, no matter what.

Questions of the heart were for the sunshine and the open air. In the tunnels of the Troll Wall she had more pressing concerns. Adisla had never known such dark. It seemed like a beast smothering her, her flint a little thorn that she jabbed into its belly, forcing a momentary retreat, before its dead weight came down on her again.

How would she call a witch? What would she say? Adisla didn’t know. First, she thought, she needed light. There was plenty of detritus on the tunnel floors. Surely she would come across a lamp eventually? It was impossible to believe that the dead children she had found had spent their whole lives in the dark.

She crawled on and on, her fingers numb from striking the flint. At the end of one cramped fissure the ceiling and the floor came together into a narrow slash in the rock. She crawled forward and pushed her head and arms into it. Then she struck her flint and nearly dropped it in awe.

She did not notice the cavern, the spears of white that dropped from the ceiling, nor the folds in the rock where dead witches seemed to peer out at you. She saw only the blazing gold piled high to the ceiling, splendid as a bonfire. She struck again and again, and among the swords, the byrnies, the goblets and the plate, the jewels and the coins taken in tribute from nightmare-tormented kings for twenty generations, she saw something far more precious — a fish-oil lamp.

It was quite a drop to the floor from where her tunnel came in and she knew there would be no turning back once she had gone down. Adisla withdrew her head, wriggled round and lowered herself down feet first then dropped into blackness. Agony shot through her leg as she landed and she let out a cry that echoed back at her. She had twisted her ankle — the same leg that the arrow had struck. Even as she held it she could feel it begin to swell. No matter. She needed light. She struck the flint and crawled to where the lamp was. Her fingers curled around it and she shook it. It was nearly full. Again she hit the flint. Five, maybe six, tries and she located what she was looking for — something that would burn, a tattered cloak in some rich material she had never felt before. She found the edge of the cloak, teased off some threads and struck the flint. Adisla had made a fire this way thousands of times at home but now it seemed impossibly difficult. Her fingers were bleeding from catching them on the edge of the steel by the time an ember took. But then she had the lamp alight and looked around at the glory of the witch queen’s hoard.

Her fear did not subside as the dark shrank back but it changed in nature. Before, the tunnels had seemed full of unseen eyes, invisible and hungry mouths. Now, in the silence of the huge cavern, she was afraid that she might be alone. Adisla realised that she might well die in these caves, witches or no witches. In some ways, to be alone was the worst monster of all. The gold was incredible but, she realised, useless. She couldn’t drink it, she couldn’t eat it, and it almost mocked her.

The pain in her ankle was growing. Was it sprained or was it broken?

There was a distant noise, a stirring like a breath but much louder. She told herself it was the wind, but the air was still. She wanted to extinguish the light and hide but knew that she had chosen to face whatever was in those tunnels. There it was again. What was it? Adisla’s throat was dry and she had to struggle with herself not to snuff out the lamp.

Cold prickled her skin and she began to shake. The lamp was guttering, or was that her imagination? Panic gripped her. Adisla scrambled up but had forgotten her ankle. She screamed and fell to her knees, nearly dropping the lamp. The flame guttered and nearly died. She forced her hands to pick it up and held it high to look around.

A terrible child stood over her, haggard, filthy, with the face of a woman and the eyes of the drowned.

And then Adisla was calm. She realised that she had not seen the lady properly in the dark. This was no cave-dwelling hag, this was a queen. The lady extended her hand and her kind smile told Adisla to forget about all pain, the anguish she felt for Vali, her desire to find Feileg, even the agony of her ankle. It would all be all right, thought Adisla. She knew that this lady had suffered torments beyond imagining and could take all those that Adisla felt and wash them away. The lady was dressed in a fine robe embroidered with gold; a beautiful necklace burned at her throat and a crown of sapphires shone like ice in the sun upon her head. Even the dark seemed to peel away around this lovely woman.

‘I need you to help my Vali,’ said Adisla. The lady smiled and Adisla understood that she knew that and was already working to free him. From the lady’s demeanour, Adisla felt certain that even now Vali was on his way to meet her and that soon everything would be settled. This lady had great powers and could break any enchantment that Vali had suffered.

Yes, everything was going to be all right. The lady had looked into her mind and sent her a vision to bring her peace. Adisla saw herself on a farmstead in the sun, children about her who ran giggling from old Bragi as he staggered around pretending to be a bear. There was someone else next to her, Feileg or Vali, she couldn’t be sure which. She felt secure, though, loving and loved among the people she valued most in all the world. The lady had shown her that future and she was grateful to her.

Adisla took the witch’s hand and Gullveig led her to the lower caves.