Nancy Farmer - The Sea of Trolls

“We’re almost there,” said the Bard. He led the boy to a shelf of rock on which they sat to rest. The valley seemed to tremble, like heather on a hot day.

“We’ve been following one of the courses of the life force. That’s why you feel strange,” said the Bard.

It seemed hot. Jack’s skin prickled as though ants were crawling on him. He slapped himself to get rid of them.

The old man spoke, but Jack found it hard to concentrate. Sometimes the words seemed to come from nearby, and sometimes they floated to him from a great distance. They were important. Jack knew they were. The sound of the bees was important too, and the bubbling spring and the stealthy rustle of the tree.

“Wake up!” Jack felt himself shaken and gaped at the Bard’s worried face. “You must pay attention. I was telling you about how the life force flows in streams deep in the earth. It is this that feeds the great forests and meadows sweet with grass. It is this that calls forth the flowers and the butterflies that are so like flowers. The deer follow its courses as they browse. The badgers and moles build their homes over it. It even draws the swallows in the midst of the sea. All things are subject to it—except people.”

The Bard got up and paced around the small meadow beside the pool. Jack got up too, just to be moving. He felt he might fall asleep if he didn’t.

“Long ago, people decided they didn’t want to be like animals. They wanted to choose their own destinies, and so they did a very dangerous thing. They walled themselves off from the life force.” The Bard spread his arms wide to the sky. He looked, Jack thought, like a great bird about to fly. The light of the little valley seemed to gather around him. Then he lowered his arms and the light faded.

“In doing so, they lost the ability to understand it. They could no longer merge themselves thoughtlessly like the animals. And this cut them off from a great joy. They felt as if their lives were dull and meaningless. A few people tried to tear down the wall, but they were no longer able to endure such reality. Did you ever hear of the Valley of Lunatics?”

Jack pushed himself away from the rowan tree. Without quite realizing how he’d got there, he had found himself leaning against it in a quiet daze.

“Come on, get moving,” cried the Bard. “Things are worse than I thought.” He pulled Jack into the meadow and whirled him around. “Jump! Run! Do handstands!” he ordered. And so Jack danced and cavorted around the meadow, feeling silly and exhilarated at the same time. His mind seemed to clear. The heavy air of the valley freshened. Finally, he threw himself to the grass, laughing and panting.

“That’s more like it,” said the Bard with his hands on his bony hips.

“Where’s this Valley of Lunatics?” Jack asked.

“In Ireland.” The Bard lowered himself carefully to the grass. The boy could almost hear his bones creak.

“That’s on the other side of the world,” said Jack.

“Not really. You could reach it in a few weeks.”

“Father says the Irish walk upside down and have eyes in their feet,” said Jack.

“Your father—don’t get me distracted, lad. The monks told him that as a joke. Half of them are Irish. The Valley of Lunatics is real, though.” The old man flexed his fingers, and Jack heard his joints pop. “My best friend and I trained as bards in Ireland. We studied for many years before we were trusted with the secret knowledge of the life force. We were taken to a place where it pooled under the earth. That’s where its strength is greatest. Day after day we sat, struggling to open our minds to its power. And just as quickly retreating when it got too close. The minute we felt it taking over, we had to get up and run around.”

“Is that why you had me do handstands?” said Jack.

“Exactly. It puts you back in your body, keeps you from being overwhelmed. But my friend liked the feeling of power.” The Bard sighed and fell silent for several minutes. Jack found himself growing drowsy again.

“Move around if you have to,” said the Bard. So Jack did a few somersaults and finished up by walking on his hands, as he’d seen a jester do at a village fair.

“You see, whatever power a bard has,” the old man continued, “comes from the life force: his music, his ability to hold an audience, his skill in calling up storms.”

Jack straightened up. That last one sounded interesting.

“It takes years to control it, and my friend didn’t want to wait. He refused to stop while it was still safe. At first he was successful. He could cause a fire to hang in midair or birds to fly upside down. But one day—while he was trying to make a forest pull up its roots and walk—something went snap. I could actually hear it. He fell over. A second later he sprang up and his body shook as though a giant dog had him in its jaws. Then he gave a mighty howl and ran off as fast as he could go.”

Jack was horrified. The Bard had said his defenses were gone. Was it his fate to go mad as well?

“I followed him,” said the old man. “It wasn’t easy, for I had to stop at nightfall and go around bramble bushes and streams. My poor friend went straight ahead no matter what was in his way. I found pieces of his clothing on thorns. At last I came to the Valley of Lunatics.”

A mist had blown up from the sea, and the air was beginning to chill. The bees had left their feeding. Each moment there were fewer of them as they sped off to their warm hives.

“I could hear them cackling before I could see them,” said the Bard. “It was a terrible sound, so like laughter and yet so completely joyless. All the failed bards in Ireland had found their way to this one place where the life force was stronger than anywhere else. And there they stayed. I saw my friend, but he was nothing like the man I’d known. His eyes and hair were wild. He was in the grip of a power far beyond him, and I, poor apprentice that I was, had no way to free him.”

The old man climbed to his feet and held out his hand. “Let us not dwell on the unhappy past. I may have done you harm, but I’m no longer a raw apprentice. I can help you. And perhaps it was all for the best. Dangers sweep upon us. Storm clouds are gathering. Swords are being forged….” Muttering to himself, the Bard made his way up the path.

Jack followed him. He felt somewhat dazed. The sleepiness that had come upon him earlier was creeping back, but the farther they got from the little valley, the better he felt. And by the time they reached the Roman house on its windswept cliff, he was fine.

Moons waxed and waned over the little village. The apples on Father’s trees turned golden. Grain bent in waves before the west wind, and presently, harvest time arrived. Sheep were shorn, honey was taken from the hives, pigs were slaughtered in preparation for winter. Jack stayed in the Roman house. He couldn’t hear the killing of the pigs, but he could feel it. The air trembled with their deaths.

All the while he practiced magic with the Bard. He learned to call up mist, make apples drop from a high branch, and call birds down from the sky. It was small stuff, but it delighted him.

Then it was winter. Snow settled over the high hills. The sea turned dark and the sun fled. Jack stayed indoors and memorized poems. The Bard had made him a small harp, but the cold was so intense, Jack’s fingers were clumsy on the strings. The old man decided it was time to teach the making of fires. “Concentrate on heat,” he said, sitting across from a jumble of sticks and straw.

“I’m freezing,” said Jack. The Bard had put out the fire at dawn, and the air was so cold, it was frightening. Ice rimed the paintings on the walls.