Margit Sandemo - The Ice People 16 - The Mandrake

They did not say what they were actually thinking: that Dan had grown into an immensely handsome man, big, tall and strong in physique. His face was perhaps a little too distinctive to be called handsome, but it was very masculine with its dark colouring and look of strict seriousness.

Berit interjected, “Oh, Ingrid should have been here to bid you welcome. We are worried, you see. She’s vanished and we’re afraid that she might have been frightened of the thunderstorm and gone off to hide somewhere.”

“Your daughter is standing at the top of the tower, worshipping the thunder gods,” Dan said dryly. “She seems to be enjoying it to the full.”

“Yes, we should have guessed as much,” Alv murmured as he rushed up the stairs.

He came back down again with a gruff, fatherly grip on Ingrid’s upper arm. Her eyes were glowing with excitement and joy.

Good God, Dan thought. She looks fantastic! How fascinating.

“Hello, Dan,” Ingrid cooed with a rather shameless smile. “Father said you had arrived. You’ve managed to bring the storm with you, I see.”

“Well, at the moment it is not so much a storm as it is pouring rain,” he smiled back. “I suppose it’s not so easy to frighten you if you can bear to stand up there in this kind of weather.”

A crash of thunder practically made the whole house shake.

“I was only trying to understand what thunder is,” she explained when the noise had subsided. “I don’t believe that rubbish about it being God’s punishment for all the sins committed by the people of this parish.”

Dan grew excited. “Actually I have learned a great deal about thunder ...”

“You have? Such as what?”

They went on talking eagerly as they entered the living room. Dan’s scientific explanations were perhaps not entirely accurate – humanity had not yet solved the riddle of electric power – but they were more logical than the traditional superstition that reigned in the area. Ingrid was enchanted by his words and had no problem following his train of thought. He had tears in his eyes from sheer joy at having the opportunity to share his ideas on these topics with another person. Alv and Berit looked at one another as they followed them. Finally, Ingrid had found her equal.

“It’s a shame that they live so far away from one another,” Alv said.

“Yes, it is too bad that –” Berit stopped herself and her husband concluded the sentence, “– that they are both of the Ice People? And that all four grandparents on their fathers’ sides were of the Ice People. That is much too big a concentration of them.”

“Yes, and Ingrid has, strictly speaking, been promised to someone else.”

“I have heard that the same is true of Dan. He is to marry as soon as he returns home. Well, it would never have worked out anyway. But think of the children they would have had, if things had been more normal, I mean. At any rate, it’s nice that Ingrid has a friend to talk to. The rest of us are simply too inadequate to keep up with her.”

The two young geniuses of the Ice People did not hear them. They were completely absorbed in their own conversation. Dan was greatly surprised by all the intelligence to be found behind Ingrid’s beautiful forehead.

And Ingrid? She glowed like the sun.

That evening the entire family set out for Elistrand along with their guest.

After an evening meal that had been put together very quickly, they all sat in front of the fire and talked. It was still raining, which meant that it was cold enough to light the fire even though it was early summer.

“Can I be allowed to join Dan on his expedition in the mountains?” Ingrid asked.

“Have you entirely lost your mind, child?” her mother Berit exclaimed. “That would be a pretty sight, would it not? Just what do you think your future husband would think of a girl who travels around studying plants?”

Dan leaned forward and looked into Ingrid’s eyes, which reflected the yellow glow coming from the fire.

“You see, Ingrid, I have another plan, too. That’s why I wanted to go to the Norwegian mountains. An utterly dangerous plan ...”

“Please tell us more about it,” said Tristan, who was sitting next to his considerably younger wife, Marina. They were an unlikely couple yet apparently happy, each on their own terms.

Dan became excited. Even though he had not seen these people since his childhood, being with them made him feel at home. Their blood was his blood, too.

“You see, I have studied my grandfather Mikael’s books about the Ice People. And there was something that struck me ...”

By this time everyone had grown interested. Tristan, who was the oldest of those present, said, “You must bear in mind that those stories are somewhat incomplete. There is hardly any mention of the first period in the Valley of the Ice People.”

“I know that,” Dan nodded. “But I intend to pick up a loose thread that it seems no one else has thought of before.”

“And what is that?” asked young Jon, the son of Elisa and Ulvhedin. He and Bronja seemed inseparable. They sat so close together that sticking a knife blade in between them would have been impossible.

“Have none of you ever given any thought to what has happened since? With Tengel the Evil, I mean.”

Now Ulvhedin’s eyes began to glow in the semi-darkness. His terrible face grew even more grotesque in the glow of the fire, and the fact that he had a beard did not make him look any less demonic. Slowly, he said, “You mean, after Tengel the Evil had raised the Prince of Darkness?”

“Well, we actually know a lot about that. But his death is not mentioned anywhere. Where is his grave?”

There was silence.

“Well,” said Jon, “I assume it is in the cemetery in the Valley of the Ice People.”

“At the cemetery,” Tristan snorted. “Not Tengel the Evil! And not at the place where he buried the pot.”

“We can’t be sure of that,” Ingrid said with relentless logic. “Because that place remains unknown to us all.”

“That’s right,” Dan nodded. “At least until Kolgrim, and before him possibly Sol, stumbled upon it. Believe me, there was no one in Tengel the Evil’s time who was familiar with it. So where is he buried?”

“Maybe he went to the place where the pot was buried in order to die there,” Ulvhedin suggested.

Dan agreed. “I have also considered that possibility. So I intend to find it and see if that was the case.”

“You’re mad!” Alv exclaimed. “You mustn’t do it! You would be exposing yourself to mortal danger! Particularly since you are not one of the cursed.”

“I am not so convinced of that. On the contrary, I think it would provide a certain amount of protection because only those who are cursed are actually able to see Tengel the Evil. But of course I could take Ingrid and Ulvhedin with me.”

“Yes!” Ingrid shouted.

“You can just forget that,” Alv interjected.

Tristan stirred a little. “Why do you want to find his grave, Dan?”

The young scientist grew serious. “Because I desperately want to make sure that he does, in fact, actually have one.”

“You mustn’t say that!” Elisa gasped.

Dan turned towards her. Elisa’s big, childish eyes were pitch black in sheer horror.

“I think he has a grave, Elisa, but I just want to be absolutely certain. And to read him the Lord’s blessing.”

Several of the others in the room took a deep breath. Dan had touched on a subject from which they all tended to recoil. They all knew that there were at least two among them who did not accept the Christian Church.

“I didn’t think you were religious, Dan,” Ingrid said curtly, with a touch of disappointment in her voice.