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

Dida wasn’t the only one who felt like that.

Rune continued: “The spirits left me with a renewed wish that I was to keep the obnoxious one under surveillance. I promised that I would, but I felt pretty dejected. What on earth could I do?

“Then Tan-ghil returned from the Mountain of the Four Winds. He was so worn out that he lay in his cave for many moon phases afterwards. That was something I heard the men who visited my master speak about. The walk through the grottos had been bad enough in itself, but I think it was drinking from the source of evil that truly broke him.”

“So do I,” said Shira with a serious look on her face. “For me, encountering the water in the source was an appalling experience. So what could it have been like for him? The dark water is bound to burn even worse.”

Rune was lost in his own thoughts. “When Tan-ghil emerged again, everybody was shocked. They could hardly recognize him. He had aged considerably and there wasn’t much left of his former handsome features. I got close to him once and I’ve never experienced anything so sickening in my life. Evil had already begun to put its mark on him. And it was to get worse ...

“While Tan-ghil lay exhausted in his cave, my master believed that his punishment for stealing me back from the evil one was bound to be harsh. For that reason he was very careful to sell me secretly to his son, who needed to pay only a small seashell for me. It was stupid of my old master to sell me because I would have been able to protect him. But perhaps he didn’t understand that. Now he no longer had any protection: I was no longer with him and couldn’t take care of him. The punishment my former master was dealt was the harshest possible. Tan-ghil killed him in a cunning ambush.”

“How awful,” murmured Dida. “Such a nice man!”

“Yes,” Rune replied. “I grieved for him. My new owner, his son, had to hide the fact that he had me because he feared the worst. Tan-ghil was really shocking, even then. This is something you must all understand.”

“We can well believe you,” said André.

“Of course, Tan-ghil was no longer content to live in that barren mountainous country. The promise he had been given about earthly power, riches and eternal life propelled him forward. He wanted to go out into the world and conquer it. This meant that most of the clan wanted to continue westwards, especially as other peoples were beginning to settle in Taran-gai. The Ice People believed that they could extricate themselves from his control as soon as they came to a more hospitable and fertile region. But that was not part of his plan. Those he needed he kept in his power, as they were soon to discover.

“Four of the women didn’t want to leave Taran-gai. This was because they had children that they didn’t want to take with them on a long trek, and another reason was that one of the women was pregnant with Tan-ghil’s child. Poor woman! As we have heard tonight, Winter Sorrow, that damned and later lost child, was about to be born.

“But the main group journeyed westwards. Among them was Tan-ghil – and me, who had changed owner. The long trek had begun.”

The audience made themselves comfortable in their seats. They were entering a new epoch in the history of the Ice People.

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