Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 40 - Imprisoned by time

Imprisoned by time

The Legend of the Ice People 40 - Imprisoned by time

© Margit Sandemo 1986

© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2019

Series: The Legend of The Ice People

Title: Imprisoned by time

Title number: 40

Original title: Fångad av tiden

Translator: Nina Sokol

© Translation: Jentas A/S

ISBN: 978-87-7107-704-9

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

“Nataniel! Nataniellll!”

The persistent screams came in a dream, but Nataniel knew that they were nevertheless significant. Even while he was sleeping he tried to focus on them and make a mental note of what he saw and heard.

The dream was strange: he couldn’t quite place it; it moved in spheres he had never heard or known of.

There was a clear blue sky. Something was floating and whirling down from it, but it wasn’t snow. Petals, perhaps?

White petals with a touch of pink or light mauve.

Or perhaps they weren’t petals but women’s faces, pale as snow?

“NATANIEL, HELP! HELP ME, NATANIEL!”

It wasn’t the faces that were screaming but a voice he recognized from real life.

Strangely hard yet quiet sounds from a stringed instrument reached him. “It is a biwa,” said a man’s voice not far from him, though he couldn’t see anyone.

It was petals that were falling, from the flowers of fruit trees – apple blossoms or perhaps cherry blossoms. And as the petals reached the ground they were transformed into the pale faces of women, with red lips and melancholy, almond-shaped eyes. One of the faces floated close to him, then disappeared. But its eyes had looked straight at him, and they conveyed a terrible tragedy. The small mouth was heavily made up, the lips painted to look thinner than they actually were. Sorrow, sorrow, endless sorrow was written all over its face.

He heard the man’s voice again. “We are grieving over Heike,” it said. “Taira is gone forever. Gone at Dan-no-ura.”

“NATANIEL! NATANIEL!”

The deadly, fearful screams were there again. And those screams belonged to someone he knew.

“NATANIEL! HELP ME! I CAN’T GET BACK!”

He woke suddenly and sat up in his bed. Drowsy from sleep, breathless and not yet able to see clearly, he whispered: “Tova! It was Tova! What has she done now?”

For he took the dream seriously. Nataniel had experienced his dreams coming true too often to simply dismiss the strange visions he sometimes had.

Heike? “We’re grieving over Heike.” But you can’t grieve over someone who’s been dead for over a hundred years. At least not with that depth of sorrow. And those faces – they looked practically ancient, and they clearly weren’t of Nordic descent.

“Taira is gone forever. Gone at ...” He mustn’t forget that word, he sensed that it was important. “San” ... no, “Dan-no-ura.” That was it. Nataniel rushed to write down the words he had heard. Biwa. Was that some kind of musical instrument?

He jumped out of bed and fetched an encyclopedia from the bookshelf. Biwa ... it probably wouldn’t be there ... but yes, it was!

“Biwa: a Japanese lute-like instrument with a flat-fronted, pear-shaped body and a fingerboard with four frets and four strings; a plectrum is used to play it.”

Japanese. He would never have guessed that. Then again, he had never heard the word biwa before, he was practically certain of that. But you could never be entirely sure. The brain is able to store words that you might not be aware of.

But what about all the rest of it? “We are grieving for Heike. Taira is gone forever. Gone at Dan-no-ura.” He knew who Heike was, of course, but the other names were completely unfamiliar to him. He couldn’t have heard of them before, for his knowledge of Japan was very limited.

Was it all just nonsense? Perhaps. He had heard the story of the woman who dreamt that she was the guest of honour at a grand ball, and everyone flocked around her and listened to her attentively as she said something extremely profound and highly intellectual. Everyone was in awe of her wisdom. Then she woke up all at once and rushed to her desk in the middle of the night to write down the startlingly wise words she had uttered. In the morning she read the words she had written down during the night. They said, “Hulihu, huligame, men are polygamous. Hulihu, huligame, women are monogamous.”

Perhaps something similar had happened to Nataniel now, with his own dream. Meaningless words to which he had given too much emphasis.

But he didn’t think so. Tova’s screams of anguish had been too heartrending to listen to.

He looked at the clock.

Was it really that late?

Seven-thirty wasn’t an unchristian hour to call someone, especially not Vinnie and Rikard.

Vinnie answered the phone, and she may have sounded a little drowsy but he couldn’t help that.

“Hi Vinnie. It’s Nataniel. I was wondering if I could ask Tova something.”

“Tova? She’s not at home. She left for Oslo the day before yesterday. She had to visit a friend, she said, and I couldn’t really stop her. She doesn’t have that many friends and she is twenty-two years old now.”

Those weren’t exactly comforting words for Nataniel to hear. As far as he knew, Tova didn’t have any friends, especially not in Oslo.