Nancy Farmer - The Islands of the Blessed

“I’d l-like your permission, sir, to put down the bell and d-draw my knife,” said Jack, unable to stop the trembling in his voice.

“In a moment. Your knife will make no impression on the draugr, by the way. You might as well try to cut stone.” The old man listened attentively. “Most intriguing.”

“Wh-What?” said Jack.

“A path has opened and some extremely interesting visitors have stepped through. We can’t have them meeting the sea hag. Take out the bell, lad, and ring it.”

“What!”

“Do it quickly. We need to draw the draugr to us.”

Jack almost dropped the bell as he fumbled it out of its wrappings. He knew he had to obey before he thought about the consequences. He swung Fair Lamenting. The clapper struck the sides and a golden chime rolled out through the hazel wood, driving all fear before it and filling the boy with rapture. No music had ever been so sublime.

It was like all the best moments of his life happening at once, like the time he watched Father build their house and when Mother sang to the bees. It was when the Bard asked him to be an apprentice and when Thorgil, Pega, and he hugged one another under the grim walls of Din Guardi. But it was also a memory of his grandfather sitting by Jack’s bed when he had a fever and of John the Fletcher’s sister making him an apple tart after he fell into a pond. Those people were dead. Now, in the glory of this music, they rose up before him.

Jack dropped the bell to the ground. He found, to his amazement, that his face was wet with tears.

“That’s why they call it Fair Lamenting,” the Bard said quietly. “Hark, now. You must be alert. She approaches.”

They heard weeping. It sounded like a woman sobbing as though her heart would break. It drew nearer and the air became chill. A mist swirled along the ground, and the smell of unnameable rotting things surrounded them. Jack drew his knife.

The Bard raised his staff in the moonlight at the edge of the wood. “I command you by root, by stone, by sea!” he cried.

A darkness solidified under the trees. Who calls? said a voice filled with stones scoured clean of life.

“I am the heir of Amergin,” said the Bard. Jack looked up, amazed. “I am here to listen to your plea for justice.”

Deep was my love; bitter was my fate, said the draugr. My bones washed up on my father’s shore, and great was his grief as he laid me in a tomb. He did not seal it, for he knew I could not rest. Until justice is done, I may not be born anew into the world.

“Fair enough,” said the Bard, “but you can’t go around killing things. That only ties you more firmly to this existence.”

The mist on the ground thickened. Tendrils of it reached up to brush Jack’s legs, and he unconsciously felt for the rune of protection that no longer hung around his neck.

I don’t believe you, said the draugr.

“It’s the truth,” the old man said. “Each murder carries its own cry for justice against you. Already you have forfeited the right to Father Severus’ life—do not dispute it!” he shouted as the darkness swelled and branches snapped.

Who are you to stand in my way? I will take my revenge where I will. The trees groaned as they were forced apart. A portion of sky over the woodland turned black.

“I am the emissary of the life force! I stand against Unlife! If you wish to return with the sun, you must listen to me!”

The mist billowed up, pressing against Jack’s chest until he struggled to breathe.

The Bard raised his staff. “Do not force me to subdue you!”

A howl as terrifying as the one Jack had heard before filled the night. Deer crashed out of the hazel wood. Badgers, foxes, a wolf, and three figures that looked almost human bounded over the fields. Jack wanted to run as well, but he couldn’t desert the Bard.

The old man lifted both arms and lightning flickered around his body. He towered up fully, as large as the darkness. Now it was impossible to tell which was more terrible. For a moment the two faced each other, and the ground trembled, and the air shook. Then the howling stopped. The mist evaporated, and the darkness shrank until it was no taller than a woman.

Good fear-spell, thought Jack, dimly aware that he had fallen to his knees. The Bard was his normal size again, but a light still glimmered about his robes.

“That’s better,” the old man said. “In a few weeks’ time I shall be traveling north to see Severus. Justice demands that he pay for what he did to you, but the form of his punishment is yet hidden from me. It will happen as it is meant to happen.”

I have waited so long, said a voice no longer full of death, but like a young and sorrowful woman. I loved him deeply.

“You must be patient, child. No more killing. Lie still under the wandering clouds until I summon you. I swear before the councils of the nine worlds that I will see you safely to your long rest.”

A sigh like a wave gently withdrawing from a sandy beach flowed over the hazel wood. The darkness thinned until it became only an ordinary tangle of bushes and trees. A frog cheeped from a hidden stream. The Bard lowered his arms, groaning slightly with the effort. “What I wouldn’t give for a cup of hot cider right now,” he muttered, leaning heavily on his staff.

“That was wonderful!” Jack cried, rushing to help him.

“It was, wasn’t it? Haven’t lost the old touch, thank whatever gods and goddesses are listening,” said the Bard. “I’m able to walk on my own, lad. You carry the bell, and for Heaven’s sake, don’t let it ring. You can come out now, my friends,” he called over the dark fields.

In the distance Jack saw two blobby shapes pop out of the ground.

“Festering fungi!” yelled one of the shapes. “What kind of company do you keep, Dragon Tongue? I thought the Great Worm and her nine wormlets had come to devour me!” A creature with large eyes shining in the moonlight and a wide, lipless mouth bounded up to them.

“The Nemesis?” said Jack, hardly daring to believe his eyes.

“Who else would I be?” the hobgoblin snarled. “Certainly not his Royal Stupidity there. ‘Let’s visit Jack’s village,’ he said. ‘Let’s see if darling Pega has changed her mind about marriage.’ Idiot! Why would a winsome girl like that want an oaf like him?”

Jack laughed in spite of himself. The Nemesis went on spouting insults as the Bugaboo appeared, filthy and dripping. “Any port in a storm, eh?” the hobgoblin king said cheerfully. “When I heard that howl, I ducked into the nearest hole. Too bad it was full of mud!”

“You can bathe in a stream on the way home,” the Bard said.

“Delighted to see you again, sir,” the Bugaboo told the old man. “And you, too, Jack. What a treat! Tell me, is Pega, um, her lovely self? Does she miss me?”

Jack didn’t know what to say. Pega thanked God on her knees every day that she hadn’t married the hobgoblin king and gone to live in a musty cave full of mushrooms.

“I’m sure she’ll faint dead away when she sees you,” sneered the Nemesis.

“It might be a good idea to limit the number of people who do see you,” the Bard suggested. “Folks here might mistake you for demons, and we wouldn’t want them to take after you with rocks and rakes.”

“It’s our traditional welcome,” the Bugaboo said, sighing. “What was that horrible cry we heard in the woodland?”

“Such a tale is best left for daytime.” The Bard hunched over his staff, and Jack realized that the old man was completely exhausted.