Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 29 - Lucifer´s Love

Lucifers's Love

The Legend of the Ice People 29 - Lucifers's Love

© Margit Sandemo 1985

© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2018

Series: The Legend of The Ice People

Title: Lucifers's Love

Title number: 29

Original title: Lucifers kärlek

Translator: Anna Halager

© Translation: Jentas A/S

ISBN: 978-87-7107-641-7

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 established 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

Dimmuborgir is the name of a region in northern Iceland. The mysticism of the place can make even the most level-headed person shudder. The name means “black castles” or “dark citadels”, and if you go there on a rainy day, you might imagine that you are in the most frightening fairy-tale world. The whole region is filled with grotesque stone formations and tall columns covered in moss, which will make you believe that this was where the trolls turned into black pillars of rock when the rays of the sun or a lava-spewing volcano caught them in prehistoric times.

Dimmuborgir is situated in a rural part of Iceland. Its closest neighbours are the equally enigmatic and strange Mývatn, a lake, and Námaskard, a bubbling lava bog. Not many people live near Dimmuborgir. A barren landscape surrounds the “black castles”, while not far away mountains and open expanses seethe and spew red-hot lava into the air.

Between Dimmuborgir’s lava pillars lurk dangerous grottos, in which deep, dark water glints at the bottom. Nobody knows the temperature of the water: in some parts of the region it can be three hundred degrees, while in other places you can take a nice hot bath. Around Mývatn, and as far as you can see, columns of steam rise from the surface of the earth. The beauty of the place is like an echo from primeval and pagan times – in fact, from right back when the world was created, when neither human beings nor animals existed, only the rocks, the silent wind and infinity.

Something happened in Dimmuborgir one spring during the nineteenth century. No one could any longer say exactly when – perhaps some time between 1840 and 1870 – or what it had been. Only vague anecdotes survived.

Those who lived near Mývatn spoke of a deep discord, which they didn’t have a name for. They spoke of large, shrieking flocks of birds. Those who knew most about it were two men who had been riding across the wide plain on their small, sturdy horses. In fact, people said that they hadn’t been terribly close to Dimmuborgir. Anyway, they had seen something, because their horses had reared and they had had to rein them in.

After this, the old accounts differed. Some said that the men saw large flocks of black birds circling over the region. Others spoke of a dark fire that coloured the lava pillars blood-red. Yet others described a tremor in the ground, or a scream of pain that seemed to come from the earth itself.

We have to remember that fires and tremors were commonplace in this region. This would have been one of many earth tremors that people built the story on. Rumours have the habit of growing and changing over the years.

So why believe in it?

Because everyone spoke of the same tense anxiety. It wasn’t the usual unsettled feeling that follows the eruption of a volcano or a hot spring. This was something that went much deeper. Something that went right to the very core of people’s souls. Nothing tangible had happened, so the enigma remained unsolved for most people. But not for all. There were some who knew ...

The fire spluttered. It was nice and cosy in the house where Kol and Anna Maria lived near Värnberg in Uppland. It was a lovely evening. Anna Maria was darning stockings in the dwindling daylight and their only daughter, Saga, was reading a book, as she usually did.

Kol was away on business for young Axel Oxenstierna, who owned Värnberg. He was often in Stockholm, where he held the office of lord in waiting to the crown prince. This was why part of the work concerning the running of Värnberg devolved on Kol. It wasn’t all that onerous, because Kol was no longer a young man, but he liked to feel useful. Axel Oxenstierna probably understood that.

Saga really lived up to her name, because in Swedish a saga is a fairy tale.

As a child, she had looked like a young fairy-tale princess. Her hair was jet-black, with thick curls – she had inherited her dramatic colouring from her Walloon father, Kol. Except that her eyes were different. Kol’s brown eyes were so dark that they looked black, but Saga’s eyes were greenish. Not yellow like a cat’s, like those of the cursed Ice People – Saga was one of the chosen, not one of the stricken. This was something they had known ever since her birth. No one could tell for sure how you identified one of the chosen. Perhaps there was some kind of aura around them that people could sense but not see?

Of course, it was something that worried Kol and Anna Maria. The chosen ones always had a calling. There was something that they were destined to do and for which they were especially gifted. However, it was always a difficult calling that would cost them a great deal – sometimes even their lives. This was why Kol and Anna Maria were anxious.

Saga didn’t have any such worries: she took life with a lofty indifference that impressed and almost scared her parents. She was a very curious child, eager to learn. She asked one question after another, often driving her parents to despair. But they answered her as best they could. Her mother, Anna Maria, was very intellectual – she had been a teacher in her younger days, and she had continued to study because she enjoyed it.