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

The Garden of Death

The Legend of the Ice People 17 - The Garden of Death

© Margit Sandemo 1983

© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2017

Series: The Legend of The Ice People

Title: The Garden of Death

Title number: 17

Original title: Dödens Trägård

Translator: Anna Halager

© Translation: Jentas A/S

ISBN: 978-87-7107-535-9

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

All contracts and agreements regarding the work, translation, editing, and layout are owned by Jentas A/S.

Acknowledgement

The legend of the Ice People is dedicated with love and gratitude to the memory of my dear late husband Asbjorn Sandemo, who made my life a fairy tale.

Margit Sandemo

The Ice People - Reviews

‘Margit Sandemo is, simply, quite wonderful.’

- The Guardian

‘Full of convincing characters, well estabished in time and place, and enlightening ... will get your eyes popping, and quite possibly groins twitching ... these are graphic novels without pictures ... I want to know what happens next.’

- The Times

‘A mixure of myth and legend interwoven with historical events, this is imaginative creation that involves the reader from the first page to the last.’

- Historical Novels Review

‘Loved by the masses, the prolific Margit Sandemo has written over 172 novels to date and is Scandinavia s most widely read author...’

- Scanorama magazine

The Legend of the Ice People

The legend of the Ice People begins many centuries ago with Tengel the Evil. He was ruthless and greedy, and there was only one way to get everything that he wanted: he had to make a pact with the devil. He travelled far into the wilderness and summoned the devil with a magic potion that he had brewed in a pot. Tengel the Evil gained unlimited wealth and power but in exchange, he cursed his own family. One of his descendants in every generation would serve the Devil with evil deeds. When it was done, Tengel buried the pot. If anyone found it, the curse would be broken.

So the curse was passed down through Tengel’s descendants, the Ice People. One person in every generation was born with yellow cat’s eyes, a sign of the curse, and magical powers which they used to serve the Devil. One day the most powerful of all the cursed Ice People would be born.

This is what the legend says. Nobody knows whether it is true, but in the 16th century, a cursed child of the Ice People was born. He tried to turn evil into good, which is why they called him Tengel the Good. This legend is about his family. Actually, it is mostly about the women in his family – the women who held the fate of the Ice People in their hands.

Chapter 1

Daniel Ingridssøn Lind of the Ice People.

Conceived because of a witch’s potion. Born in disgust. Abandoned, newborn and helpless, to a baby-farmer. Saved from death by a magical herb. And since loved by all for his confident smile, his tolerance of other people’s weaknesses, his belief in what life could give him – and what he could give to life. The cold wind from the Arctic Ocean blew in his dark hair and he heard the gusts in the bare bushes as he stood there, looking out over Arkhangelsk. How had he arrived here? He hardly knew. The journey to Finland with the Swedish army. The battle at Villmanstrand on 23 August 1741. His father taken prisoner. He, Daniel, had fled – into the country of the enemy, into eternal Russia. Why?

He had a vague idea that he was predestined for this. To try to solve the enigma of the Ice People, seek the origin of the puzzle and destroy the destructive power in their blood, the curse that held them all in a crushing embrace of fear and despair.

In order to do so, he would have to walk in the footsteps of Vendel Grip. To a country by the outer rim of ice and cold, to the very core of the Ice People’s secret. To the source of life. Nobody knew where this source was. The only one who could tell them about it had passed away: Tun-sij, the shaman, who also had the blood of the Ice People in her veins. But she had had a daughter and Vendel Grip had fathered a child by that daughter. Daniel’s second task was to try to find Vendel’s child. Vendel and Daniel had become good friends in recent years, exclusively by letter since they had met for the first time. He had learned a great deal from Vendel.

He had imagined that this correspondence would be a way of learning Russian, but he had been forced to learn something totally different. The journey from Villmanstrand to Arkhangelsk had taken an entire winter. He had mostly kept quiet at first because he was horrified at how bad he was at the language. But he had absorbed a lot, and in places he had had to work for a little money so that he could move on. People had probably taken him for deaf and dumb or just not too clever.

But now that Daniel had reached Arkhangelsk, his first objective was the mountain land of Taran-gai. Giving an account of his experiences, adventures and brushes with death on his journey would take too long. The mere task of exchanging his Swedish soldier’s uniform for ordinary clothes had taken time. He had solved that problem in Finland because he knew he would be pretty unpopular in Russia if he waited until he arrived there. How he managed to find food on the journey, avoid wild animals and the Russian authorities is a different story ... No, that will have to wait!

Vendel’s lessons in Russian had been a foundation that he could build on, which was why he learned the language extremely fast. Now that he had reached Arkhangelsk, he was brave enough to walk down to the harbour and look for work. This was his best chance of finding out how he could progress; so many languages and dialects were spoken there that people would hardly notice him, and he might be able to earn a few kopeks.

He had spent about a week there when he met a man who had roamed a lot around the coast of the Arctic Ocean. Daniel told him that, if possible, he wanted to try to reach the region of the Nenets. The Russian laughed: “Nenetsy? What do you want to go there for? By the way, we call them Yurak-Samoyeds.”

“I know,” Daniel nodded. “I have promised to take a greeting to them if I reach their part of the world.”

“Their part of the world?” The Russian roared with laughter. “It’s not a part of the world where you just drop by. It’s the end of the world!”

“Have you been there?”

“No, you must be crazy! I haven’t even been halfway to Naryan-Mar, their principal city.”

Naryan-Mar! Vendel had mentioned that place. Was it the place he had passed on his homeward journey?

“Can you reach it by sea?”

“I suppose you can. I don’t know. If so, it’s bound to be a hell of a roundabout way.”

“A roundabout way? Isn’t there a direct route?”

“Probably. But wait till tomorrow, till I have had a word with somebody I know, so that I can tell you the way.”

Daniel thanked the man and the following day they told him that he had to follow the Pinega River inland to the village with the same name. There, he was to leave the river because from there a kind of road led across to the Mezen River. He was to follow it right down to the Arctic Ocean once more, to the village of Mezen. From there, he would have to journey due east to Safonovo and on to Ust-Tsilma. This was beside the Pechora River, which he was to follow to the Naryan-Mar estuary.

Daniel wrote it all down but was careful not to show the others what he had written. His Roman alphabet would probably startle them ...