Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 42 - The Calm Before the Storm

The doctor would also have recognized this dual attitude.

He carefully placed an old letter in his suitcase. His mother had given it to him; it was addressed to her from her sister in Norway. It bore the name and address he needed if he wanted to find that part where his mother had originated from. He probably had a lot of relatives there. He wasn’t quite sure whether he was interested in meeting any of them. Sitting and making stilted conversation over the best the house could offer in the way of food for their cousin Ian, or whatever they wanted to call him.

He wanted to be alone. To gather strength so that he could conquer his sickness.

He took a final stroll around the city. He walked past the pub where the Irish used to meet. He didn’t feel in the mood to talk now.

It was strange how unsentimentally he viewed these familiar streets! He wouldn’t miss any of this; he had no sense of it being “for the last time”. Had he actually thrived here, come to think of it? He had done his job, but you could say that he had squandered his leisure time. Because what had he achieved in his life? As a child, school had been bad, but that was no excuse for not making amends later on. He had just let his spare time flow past in the simplest and laziest way.

Perhaps that was just as well considering his present situation. That he hadn’t spent a lot of money on a useless education.

He had one advantage with regard to his journey to Norway: his mother had spoken Norwegian to her children. He believed that he hadn’t forgotten the language, even if it was quite a long time ago. What you learn as a young kid often pops up when you least expect it.

Morahan took a deep and painful breath. He was ready to begin his journey.

It was true what the Wanderer had said: Tengel the Evil was beginning to awake. Physically, he couldn’t do anything. His body lay paralysed in a hidden cave in the forests of the Harz, so remote that only foxes and badgers went there. Even they wrinkled their noses at the horrible stench in his ravine and fled from it. But Tengel the Evil’s thoughts were at work. They were seeking, seeking ...

The Valley of the Ice People was calm. Only the odd hiker came, and Tengel the Evil would soon chase them away with the thoughts that crept into their consciousness.

Occasionally, the valley had other visitors whom he didn’t understand and hence didn’t like at all. Very rarely, big bird-like objects flew over his valley. They made a terrible noise that roared in his ears and they were so horribly large, which made him terribly nervous. Worst of all: he had once seen people inside these mechanical monsters. It didn’t make sense to Tengel the Evil.

On the night between 30 April and 1 May 1960, he was in an uproar. Not because of the stupid “birds” but because of something entirely different. He was no different from ordinary people: everything he didn’t understand was “stupid” ...

Damn! Damn his inability to move. Damn the moment when he had allowed himself to go into hibernation, sometime in the thirteenth century. Damn the mandrake, which had made him believe that it wasn’t yet his time! Damn the church, which was the main reason why he had hesitated. Damn Targenor and the rat catcher, who had cheated him with the flute! Targenor was doubly damned because he had made him fall asleep here.

Most of all, he fretted that he hadn’t seen the danger for himself. At why he hadn’t seized power in the days when he wandered about on earth. It didn’t matter that religion had been strong. He had been even stronger.

If it hadn’t been for the mandrake that got in his way time and again.

Tonight ... tonight!

He had done his routine search ... at Linden Avenue to make sure that everything was calm!

But they weren’t there!

Of course, this had happened before when they were on a journey or away from home. But this time, things were different. His thoughts wandered to the Voldens. They weren’t there either, apart from their stupid partners, who were fast asleep.

Tengel the Evil had gone on searching all the places where the Ice People and their horrible friends used to live and move about.

Nobody! Not a soul anywhere! He couldn’t even sense their horrible ancestors, nor even the damn defectors: the stricken ones who had changed their minds.

Everything was deserted. Completely deserted and quiet. As if none of his enemies existed on earth anymore.

Perhaps they thought that they could outwit him? Was that what they were up to?

If so, they would simply have to think again! Because who could outwit him, Tan-ghil the Evil, ruler of the world?

If only he could come to power ...

Now it was to happen. He felt it in every fibre of his body, in the tiniest corner of his consciousness. He was in the process of waking up. There was no doubt about that. This time, it was irreversible. Nothing could stop him; the flute that could induce his hibernation no longer existed, so nobody could lull him into a deep, humiliating slumber.

Then let the earth shake. Above all, shake in terror, you presumptious descendants of the Ice People, who refused to obey my orders centuries ago when I still resided in the Valley of the Ice People.

Where were they now? His inner eyes searched night and day, through time and space; he just had to find them and eradicate them!

But where? Where were they hiding, his rebellious descendants?

His descendants, who planned to fight him, were in the hall of the Demon’s Mountain, where Tengel’s global search couldn’t reach them. Group upon group, flock upon flock had come to Tula and her four demons. All his living descendants, together with those who had already passed away, with the exception of the ones who had played his game. The Taran-gai, that small, oppressed people, were there. Marco and his black angels had already appeared. And there were still crowds hiding in the darkness on the top benches of the hall. They were allies of the unrighteous Ice People, but they were unknown, dangerous, and lurking up there ...

In the hall, everybody’s curiosity was focused on a single person: he who stood on the dais. The excitement was intense. They were all staring at Rune, and the audience showed a rich spectrum of emotions.

Of course, most of them were simply baffled. They had all heard of Rune, Jonathan’s friend in the illegal resistance movement against the Germans during the Second World War. They knew he had helped Karine and had aided Jonathan loyally, sacrificing his life for the Ice People lad. However, they had paid little attention to Rune: his short life had merely been a tragic, minor episode in the great legend.

But here he was now. Here!

The little group that had gathered around him up on the dais laughed and wept. Heike was there, and so were Henning and Dida and Targenor. And Ingrid, Sol, Mattias, Daniel, Benedikte and André. And not least Nataniel.

Somebody in the hall suggested loudly: “Perhaps you’ll give us an explanation?”

At last everyone calmed down, and Rune was alone with Tula and Dida on the dais.

He stood there, his light-brown, tangled dreadlocks almost hiding his ugly, wood-like face. His brown clothes looked as if they were made of coarse fibres, and his hands and feet were obviously mutilated. Most of his fingers had been more or less amputated and he moved about as if his feet hurt in his brown boots. You could still see the hole in his jacket and sweater, in the middle of his chest, where the bullet had killed him in the concentration camp.

Karine looked at his eyes. She remembered how strangely they had once gleamed in a lorry. Or was it in a train compartment? Perhaps both. And there was something else she had noticed about him, which she had sensed when he held her close to comfort her. Something that wasn’t there ...