The Sea of Trolls - Farmer Nancy (читать книги онлайн без TXT) 📗
“Rune,” said Jack.
“Yes?”
“We found Mimir’s Well.”
“What great good fortune! I hoped you had, but we were speaking of Olaf earlier, and I didn’t want to change the subject.” The old warrior’s voice was sad.
“I don’t want to talk about it with the others. Not yet. I don’t think it would be right.”
“I’ll shut them up,” Rune said decisively. “I’ll tell them it has to do with the magic. Did you drink?”
“Yes, and so did Thorgil.”
“She did? I thought she seemed different. She didn’t once try to hurt anybody. Tell me, how did it taste?” The longing in the old man’s voice was almost unbearable.
“You tell me,” said Jack, handing him the bottle with the poppy on the side.
“Ohhhh,” Rune said with a deep sigh.
“It’s all right. I told the Norns you had sacrificed your voice to defend your friends and had given me your best poem. That seemed to satisfy them.”
“You’ve seen Norns too? How wonderful!”
“I didn’t like them,” said Jack.
“Shh. It’s never good to offend the forces that govern our lives. I can really drink this?”
Jack nodded. Rune opened the bottle and drank. A light came into his eyes, and he stood straighter than Jack had ever seen him do. “So, what does it taste like?” Jack said.
“Like the sun coming up after winter. Like rain after drought. Like joy after sorrow.”
“Your voice!” Jack cried. For the old man no longer whispered. His words were strong and new. Rune didn’t have a young man’s voice. He would never again be the magnificent singer of his youth, but he sounded deeper and more moving.
“Why is everyone making a racket?” grumbled Sven the Vengeful. “I haven’t had nearly the rest I wanted. Are you talking in your sleep again, Eric Pretty-Face?”
“NOT ME,” said Eric Pretty-Face.
That morning they came to the mouth of the fjord. The cliffs on either side were seething with birds, and thousands of nests clung to the rocks. The water was silver with haddock and salmon. Bold Heart chased off a few seagulls when they tried to land on the sea serpent’s head. “We’re leaving Jotunheim,” Jack said somewhat regretfully.
“And entering Middle Earth,” said Rune.
The birds swirled and screamed. Thorgil crouched in the bilge with her hands over her ears. “She understands what they say,” Jack whispered. They came to open water and turned south on a bright gray-green sea with a brisk wind. Eric the Rash and Eric Pretty-Face put up the sail.
Jack felt as though something had lifted that had weighed on him ever since they’d entered Jotunheim. “This place welcomes us,” he said in wonder as he gazed at the coastline slipping by to their left.
“This is where we belong,” said Rune. “Jotunheim ever hated our presence.”
Jack turned and looked out over the vast ocean toward the place where Utgard had lain. Fonn’s great-great-great-grandmother had walked from there when it was a sea of ice. But each year summer moved closer to the heart of the frost giants’ world.
“I can’t understand the seagulls anymore,” Thorgil said. “Well, I can, but I can’t pick up every single word.”
“Don’t you like that? You hated listening to them,” said Jack.
“I did… but it was still kind of nice.”
“Magic is closer to the surface in Jotunheim,” said Rune. “I’m sure you haven’t lost the ability. You’ll just have to work harder at it.”
And Jack, too, felt the life force had moved deeper. It was there, but it would not come easily to his bidding. Which wasn’t a bad thing, he decided, grasping the blackened ash wood staff. He’d become afraid to summon its power in Jotunheim. The fire was too wild and unpredictable.
They traveled south, camping at night on little beaches. Jack and Thorgil told the warriors most of what happened, keeping only the Norns and Mimir’s Well to themselves. The Northmen were mightily impressed with Thorgil’s slaying of the dragonlet as well as Jack’s triumph over the spider. They hadn’t been idle either. Besides the fight with the sea serpent (which now stank to the heavens), they’d battled with a giant, evil-tempered pike.
“Tried to get me every time I drew up water,” said Sven the Vengeful. “I finally showed it what was what.”
“TASTED GREAT WITH CRANBERRIES,” commented Eric Pretty-Face.
Then there had been a battle with a pair of huge wolverines when the warriors went foraging on shore, and an encounter with a giant lynx, and one afternoon, when Eric the Rash took a nap under a tree, he woke to find that a slug had devoured most of his shirt and part of the skin underneath.
They met more ships as they approached the entrance to King Ivar’s fjord. The fishermen cheered as they passed and begged to be allowed to visit and take a close look at the sea serpent. Eric Pretty-Face threw his chest out proudly. But he’ll never equal Olaf One-Brow,Jack thought with a pain over his heart. None of them will.
The sound of the sea died away as they went inland. The water became placid, and here and there on the shore Jack saw deer and rabbits—normal-size deer and ordinary rabbits. Far away to the north lay high mountains covered in snow. Jotunheim,thought Jack. It looked unreal. Perhaps it wasunreal.
Presently, they saw the farms high in the hills and the steep meadows dotted with sheep. They saw the dock, which was filling up with people, and beyond, on a shoulder of dark blue stone as bleak and lifeless as metal, Ivar’s palace. Heide, Dotti, and Lotti scanned the ship anxiously.
Oh, heavens. How can I tell them?thought Jack. In the end, no one had to tell them. If Olaf wasn’t visible, he wasn’t there. You couldn’t hide him. Dotti and Lotti screamed and tore their clothes. Heide wept silently, after the manner of her people. Skakki led them all back to Olaf’s house.
“I told him,” said Heide, standing before the long fire in the middle of the hall, “‘Iff you take the boy and his sister to the court, it will be your doom.’ I sssaw him lying in a dark forest with his life blood soaking into the earth. Poor Ox-brain.”
“It wasn’t quite like that,” said Jack.
“The visions are neverrrr exact. The meaning wasss clear.”
Dotti, Lotti, and the children sat solemnly around the sides of the fire trough, with Olaf’s friends and companions. Skakki occupied Olaf’s great chair. It was too large for him and always would be. Skakki, at age sixteen, was now head of the household.
“He died as he wished, in battle,” said Rune in his new, strong voice.
“And had a funeral worthy of a king!” cried Thorgil. Then she sang:
A hush fell over the hall. For a moment no one moved. Then Rune said, “That was poetry.”
“Women can’t make poetry,” said Sven the Vengeful.
Everyone turned to Thorgil, expecting her to fall into one of her rages. She only sat down, looking stunned. Bold Heart sailed from the rafters to her shoulder and warbled into her ear. “I don’t know how I did it either,” Thorgil said, “but thanks for the compliment.”
“She’s talking to birds,” whispered one of the smaller children. “Does that mean she’s a witch?” Dotti shushed him.
“It means she’s a wise woman,” Jack said.
“But she’s making poetry. Surely that’s unnatural,” insisted Sven. Again everyone turned to Thorgil, waiting for her to have a tantrum. Nothing happened.
“Thorgilll,” said Heide, drawing out the name, “do you feel all right?”
