Margit Sandemo: The Ice People 35 - The Flute

The Flute

The Legend of the Ice People 35 - The Flute

© Margit Sandemo 1986

© eBook in English: Jentas A/S, 2018

Series: The Legend of The Ice People

Title: The Flute

Title number: 35

Original title: Vandring i mörket

Translator: Nina Sokol

© Translation: Jentas A/S

ISBN: 978-87-7107-675-2

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

Their steps crunched faintly on small stones beneath their feet as they moved along the passageway. They could hear a whistling sound from the carbide lamps as the wind rushed through them. Whenever they spoke their voices resounded far off, rolling away or ricocheting against the walls.

Every so often a vast echo was created as they entered enormous vaults over fifty metres high.

Scenes of tremendous beauty revealed themselves to the three young people as they slowly made their way. Dripstone columns of the most fantastic formations succeeded one another: some resembled burnt-down candles in subdued yet brilliant colours; others looked like sleeping trolls. From the ceiling, limestone stalactites reached down, sparkling white or gold or flickering red, and sometimes translucent. From the floor of the cave similar columns poked up, the stalagmites. They reached dizzying heights, and in some places they were so thin that they looked as if they might break off at any minute.

However, they had been standing there, growing infinitesimally, for millennia.

But the three young researchers examined these groups of stones without much interest. This was, after all, the tourist section of the big network of caves. It was well known and mapped. The researchers wanted to take a look at some of the other areas.

A local guide was accompanying them, otherwise they would never have been given permission to walk around in the caves in pitch darkness. But their guide knew the explorers well: this wasn’t the first time they had wandered through the darkness in this way.

All three of them could see the guide’s back far ahead of them, for he was much better accustomed to the ribbed floor in these passageways. Through the ages, the process of erosion had furrowed the bedrock in that way, and in fact it wasn’t often that they came across areas scattered with small stones. For the river that flowed here in prehistoric times had washed everything away, leaving the bedrock bare.

They didn’t talk to one another. They just walked determinedly in silence through the parts that were already familiar to them. For they were now going to explore an area that even their guide didn’t know.

The area was near Adelsberg, in Slovenia.

The year was 1914.

Adelsberg was the Austro-Hungarian name for the place. It was where Sölve Lind of the Ice People had been executed in 1779, when his unhappy little son, Heike, had wept at his fate – the only one in the world able to mourn Sölve of the Ice People.

The Slovenians’ own name for the town was Postojna.

It is where Europe’s greatest and most beautiful limestone caves are situated. As long ago as the thirteenth century, “the old cave” was a known phenomenon. At the moment of his death, Sölve had stared right into the opening of that cave – and understood.

In 1818, it was discovered that the cave system was infinitely bigger than had previously been known. The Pivka River once flowed there, dissolving the limestone and creating the caves. The Pivka now disappears into a gorge high up, and flows down through the enormous network of passageways and cavities under the mountain.

Tourists and cave experts naturally found their way into the system. A passable route was created for tourists, to ensure that they wouldn’t get lost inside the mountain or risk falling down bottomless shafts.

Geological researchers had a bit more freedom, although they too needed guides to show them the way, guides who were robust local men.

Many of those who have visited the Postojna caves claim that one has not truly seen the world from all angles until one has seen these caves.

There is probably some truth in this. You can ride on a small railway about one and a half kilometres into the mountain, and it is a wonderful experience for even the most blasé visitor.

But the overall length of the passages that criss-cross one another inside the mountain are much greater. There are many kilometres of branching passageways, some still unexplored.

In 1914, when the young researchers and their guide were feeling their way through the darkness, there were still large areas that hadn’t been examined, and the railway hadn’t yet been built, of course.

The guide stopped and waited for them to catch up.

In German he said: “We are approaching a narrow shaft now. It’s a good thing that you’re all small and slim. We’ll need to use a rope, because even though the entrance looks flat, it quickly falls away straight down a shaft leading to the next level, about half a rope’s length down.”

They nodded doggedly and got ready.

Sliding down into unfamiliar territory was something they were used to. One by one they softly landed on the floor of the new level and continued behind the guide along a rather inaccessible passage, with stalagmites blocking the way everywhere.