Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 17 - The Garden of Death

“Just go on rowing,” Daniel said quietly.

He did not need to tell them because they were already paddling for dear life.

Daniel sat in the stern, looking the polar bear right in the eye. The critical moment had come ...

Then the bear tossed its head. A deep rumbling came from the animal’s throat, then it turned and lumbered across to the other side of the ice floe, away from them.

In a few minutes, they were far away from the polar bear. While the men took a breather, they stared at Daniel with big, puzzled eyes. “What did you do?” Isu asked. Daniel hesitated. But these people who lived in such close proximity to nature wanted to understand. He opened his shirt and showed them the mandrake. They gasped and came over to take a closer look and to touch it. Their awe was great, and they exchanged words that Daniel did not understand, but he assumed that it had to do with their faith in gods and charms and witchcraft.

Anyway, he had risen enormously in their esteem. All day long, they laughed and were happy, offering to take him hunting with them. He was bound to bring luck with such a mandrake! Daniel told them that he couldn’t go hunting with them, but he wished them lots of good luck. It was fine if they wanted to touch the mandrake once more to be assured.

He was not sure whether it had been such a good idea to show it to them. To be on the safe side, he asked them not to say anything about the mandrake in Nor. They promised that they would not, but he wondered how strictly they would keep their promise.

They passed through a narrow sound where the men went ashore to meet other Samoyeds and brought more food on board. Daniel was allowed to stretch his legs, which he found blissful. Then they were off again.

Early one morning, Daniel got the first hint of what awaited them. He heard the muted, albeit excited, voices of the others and opened his eyes. Looking south, he could see the land rising to low hills. However, an incredible sight lay directly ahead. A mountain that rose straight out of the sea, blue-black and frighteningly tall, had broken the monotonous horizon. The four sheer sides ended in four pointed pinnacles at the very top – like a crown jutting out against the azure morning sky.

The men saw that he had woken up and immediately satisfied his curiosity. “The island is called the Mountain of the Four Winds,” one of them said. “It’s sacred.”

Yes, I can well believe that, Daniel thought. Vendel could not possibly have seen it, or he would have spoken about this rock. At that point in his journey, he was probably still drugged after having drunk Sinsiew’s mystical potion.

They approached the island, which towered over them. The shadow of the Mountain of the Four Winds fell on them, and for Daniel it seemed as if a cold giant’s hand was lowered over him, squeezing all zest for life and willpower out of him. The mandrake stirred. He could see that his two fellow travellers felt the same gloom. They paddled feverishly to get away. It’s just an illusion, he thought. Because the mountain is so intimidating and threatening, and we have travelled in sunshine for so long. And the mandrake ... Never mind, it’s just because I’m moving that I can feel its claws scratching a little.

Then they were out of the long shadow again. He heaved a deep sigh of relief. Nevertheless, he was frozen to the bone, even in the warmth of the sun. He did not want to turn around, but felt as if this eerie island was sending penetrating glances towards him from somewhere high up under the four pointed pinnacles of the crown.

Then he discovered something else: the coast was rising higher and higher. Farther away, he could see real mountaintops, rising quite unexpectedly from the endless, flat tundra.

He had an inkling of what it might be.

“Taran-gai?” he asked.

The little Samoyeds nodded. The smiles had disappeared from their eyes. They shuddered violently instead. He could well understand why. As the boat worked its way through the green icy water, the mountains rose taller and taller. Finally, they were gliding along with Taran-gai’s steep slopes to the east of them, and none of the three said a word. Perhaps it would be wrong to say that the boat sailed along the coast, because the two Samoyeds stayed as far out at sea as they dared. They had no wish whatsoever to get too close to the shore, and Daniel did not blame them.

Despite the summer heat, the cold from Taran-gai’s many glaciers radiated a more than cooling breath of air towards them, and the icebergs that glided past in unfathomable silence also took some of the warmth. Daniel was fascinated by the coast’s cold dark colour, and the sharp, bare rocks that protruded between the glaciers. There is also beauty in this, he thought. Wild, stark and inaccessible. The beauty of it all was intimidating.

After a while he caught sight of a distant, jagged mountaintop that appeared to rise inland and which was considerably taller than the others. It must have been the tallest mountain in Taran-gai.

Their voyage continued. Daniel relieved one of the men at the oars. New, frighteningly gloomy summits appeared towering over Taran-gai’s massif.

This was something that Vendel had not spoken about. But then, he had not seen the mountains from the sea, and it had rained on the day he went inland. The summits had probably not been visible. They rowed as quickly as they could, silent and persistent.

The entire horizon to the south was filled with brooding massifs and jagged, eroded mountaintops. Daniel shivered, and told himself that it was because of the cold air from the glaciers.

Then, all of a sudden, they reached the end of the mountain landscape. The eastern slope was steep and tall, and behind it the tundra began again.

Thank God, Daniel thought, breathing a little easier.

They had entered the gulf of the Kara Sea, that the Russians call Baydaratskaya Guba, but which the Samoyeds just speak of as Nor. Once more, they could relax and row at a normal speed. They still had a good way to go.

Now it was Daniel’s turn to be relieved. He leaned back in the stern. There were no ice floes in sight so he could take it easy.

So Vendel Grip’s child was a girl, he thought. The hypothetical child had come alive and had a name. It was perhaps a good thing that she was a girl because, apart from Ingrid and Christiana, only boys had been born in the family in the last three generations. It was very alarming that the mother had died in childbirth. And the Samoyeds’ “Just wait and see! As soon as you see her, you’ll know who she is,” did not bode well either.

Daniel’s only consolation was that a cursed boy was said to have been born up in Taran-gai before her. Since Daniel was now twenty-five years old, Shira had to be twenty-six. And the cursed boy a few years older, roughly thirty.

An adult – and probably dangerous, as most of the afflicted ones were.

From a distance, he could see smoke rising inland from the bay.

“Is that Nor?” he asked. Yes, it was.

Daniel’s heart beat faster. Now he was close to his objective. After a long winter full of hardship, he stood face-to-face with his actual task – to try to lift the curse that had lain on the Ice People for centuries. His only aid was the root of a plant. The gallows flower. The mandrake.

As they approached the camp, which was much bigger than he had expected, he saw children and adults swarming down to the beach to meet the strange vessel. He saw that the seal-catcher was also there. That was the boat he would be boarding for his voyage back. Daniel dreaded that journey. He hoped that they would not hunt seals on the return journey. That was something he did not want to witness.

Vendel had not believed Daniel would succeed in getting to Nor so quickly, so Daniel did not know what to do with Shira. Take her home to Sweden? That was what Vendel dreamed of, but could you tear a Yurak-Samoyed up by the roots and replant her in Scania? And Sinsiew had strongly opposed that idea. Neither of them was pure Yurak – they both had Taran-gai blood in their veins. But Daniel had a suspicion that the difference between these two peoples was not very great.