C2 Chapter 2

She woke up surrounded by a strange red glow.

She was naked. She tried to cover herself with her hands, but they felt almost as if they were glued to ... a rock wall? There was a warm wind coming from below. That was where the red glow emanated from. She was in a cave tunnel.

Much to her despair, Tan-ghil was also present, along with the terrible, beautiful men.

They seemed frightened; they were, in fact, horrified by the red wind!

She must be dreaming, this couldn’t be real. Soon she would wake up under her blankets and skins in her mother’s house.

But the pain she felt in her hands and feet indicated that she was awake.

Tan-ghil spoke sternly to the black-clad men. His gesticulations suggested that he was warning them not to touch her. But when he turned his back on her in order to perform a magic ritual that she couldn’t make out, one of the lustful men edged closer to her as though he wanted to grab her naked body. He probably wanted to do a lot more to her – she could tell by the look of him. Tiili tried to scream in despair but there was no need for her to fear him. As he reached the current of air and extended his arm to touch her he howled and tried to pull back, but it was too late. The flesh of his arm burned up in a matter of seconds, she saw something silvery white beneath it and then he was sucked down through a crevice as all his skin was singed off his whole body – and he was gone.

The other black-clad men fled with horror from the tunnel. Tan-ghil had turned around and had a chance to see what had happened. He smiled an abominable, cruel smile.

Tiili felt sick with disgust and shock, but she knew the pale men would no longer bother her.

She was alone with Tan-ghil and she was hanging with her feet and hands fastened to the wall.

Sobbing with fright she looked at him pleadingly.

But he felt absolutely no compassion for her.

“You were chosen for this from the day you were born,” he said curtly and brutally. “My treasure now lies hidden in the mountain behind you. No one can get past you. No one but me. Because I know how to open you.”

Was that grimace supposed to be a smile? Tiili watched with horrified eyes as he demonstrated to her how she was to be opened.

“That ... is your lock,” he said, pointing at her crotch. “And this is the key!”

From his dirty grey cape he pulled out a thing that filled Tiili with disgust. A long and shrivelled member that immediately became erect. When she turned her head away in disgust he laughed maliciously.

“Not yet, my girl, not yet! You’ll have to be patient just a little while longer. First I need your brother. I’ll take him with me down to a man, a rat catcher, who can help me. It is not yet quite time for me to take possession of the world throne. The world is not good enough for me to take over. But in half a century I will return, and you’ll receive the hour of dalliance you so long for! Afterwards ...”

He made a gesture as though he was waving away a speck of dust.

His words made her head swim with despair. Targenor ... of all he had said that was what had made the biggest impression upon her. He intended to force her noble twin brother to serve him!

He wasn’t going to be permitted to do that! Not Targenor!

Poor Mother!

What he had said regarding fifty years hadn’t quite registered with her because so much was happening around her. She was completely beside herself with sorrow and fear and loneliness, and no longer able to think clearly.

Then Tan-ghil left.

At first it was a relief to escape his company. And she convinced herself that Targenor and her mother and the others from the village would come and rescue her. The thought of it gave her the will to go on living.

Tiili was not one of the stricken or chosen ones. She didn’t have the ability to hear Targenor’s calls to her with her inner consciousness. Much less respond to them.

She soon discovered that her bodily functions were no longer working. She was breathing and her heart was beating, but that was all. She had no need to eat or drink or sleep.

The latter turned out to be a terrible disadvantage. The time seemed long enough as it was, and now she had to remain awake constantly.

Of course she tried to scream – because she had regained her voice. But who would hear her?

Every so often she saw those frightening, beautiful creatures in black robes. They stood at the very end of the tunnel as they secretly stole glances inside. But they never entered.

The stream of red air that kept her alive was fatally dangerous to them.

So many tears ...

In the end she was unable to cry anymore.

If she only had been able to stop thinking! The fear she felt for her loved ones! The fear for her own future. If only she could sweep all of it away and live like a totally empty creature.

But she was still able to measure time.

It grew alarmingly long.

That was when she received help.

It began when she heard shouts coming from the big, empty space that she could discern just outside the tunnel. The shouts weren’t coming from the black-clad men, of that she was certain.

Someone was crying for help.

Tiili didn’t know that it was a spirit that Tan-ghil had sent down to the Great Abyss. She shouted back and received a response.

But then the voice disappeared. It faded into the distance and she didn’t hear it anymore.

Still, when something entered the tunnel she thought it was the creature, then she felt someone touch her shoulder.

At first she started. The touch was very light and seemed to scratch her a little.

“Who is it?” she asked.

Something crept up on her shoulder. She looked at it and was about to scream but composed herself. Animals had always been her friends, and she wouldn’t dream of scaring one away.

It was a bat that had strayed into this horrible tunnel.

“God’s peace be with you, little friend,” she said in a gentle voice. The bat wasn’t really pleasing to look at; on the contrary, it looked frightening as it wrinkled its nose threateningly and bared its fangs. But it was a living creature! It had been a long time since Tiili had actually seen one.

“You’re scratching me a little,” she chattered. “But that’s all right.”

The bat let out a sharp sound that pierced her ears.

My goodness, I can understand what it’s saying, she thought with surprise. Could it be an effect of the red glow?

Yes, now she thought about it, she had been able to read the thoughts of the black-clothed men when they had been there.

The bat seemed to wonder what she was, and Tiili told it about her bitter fate. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to use one’s voice again. To know that someone was listening.

“And no one knows that I am here,” she concluded.

Strange thoughts entered her mind like fluctuating waves.

“What is it you’re trying to tell me,” she asked. “Am I able to transmit thoughts? And you’re asking whether I will permit you to bite me? Now that sounds a little unpleasant to me!”

More waves of thoughts vibrated through her mind.

“And whether you may help me to sleep? Nothing could please me more! You will transmit to me ... your ability to hibernate all through the winter? But what if they look for me and I can’t hear them?”

The thoughts stopped.

“Well, I’ll try,” she said after thinking about it for a moment. “But could you help me get into contact with Targenor first and then we can see about sleeping later?”

The bat interpreted that as an invitation to sink its fangs into her. Tiili hadn’t been prepared for it to happen so quickly, so she screamed out loud when the fangs sunk into her neck. It just so happens that Nordic bats aren’t bloodsuckers. (In fact, none of the species are, not even the ones known as vampires. They pierce a hole in the skin and then lick up the blood.) However, the Nordic species are able to bite properly if they want to. Tiili felt warm blood running down her neck and wondered anxiously whether the creature had hit an important vein. But that didn’t seem to be the case.

It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but Tiili coped. She badly wanted to make contact with her brother.

But Targenor was already dead. His corpse had drifted out to the Adriatic Sea where no one found it.

And Dida couldn’t determine where the vibrating signals were coming from or who was sending them.

The bat kept its promise to Tiili. When autumn arrived it crept up under the ceiling of the tunnel and hibernated. And at the same time the girl fell asleep.

She didn’t wake until late the next summer. By that time the bat was gone and she never saw it again.

But when Dida grew old and was about to die and Targenor’s spirit came to her and sat at the edge of her bed to take the dying woman by the hand they spoke of Tiili.

At that point it was winter and Tiili was fast asleep. Then Dida and Targenor left the Valley of the Ice People in order to fight Tan-ghil on their own.

Tiili had become susceptible to impressions from the outside. She could hear the bog men moving about nearby, both inside and outside the mountain. She registered that the power of Tan-ghil’s spirit was present in the valley. And once she sensed a young woman passing outside the mountain: she sensed the woman’s horror and how she rushed away from the spot.

It was Sunniva the Elder she had heard.

Many years later she sensed other people who came close to the mountain. They, too, fled. It seemed as though the entire valley was fleeing!

At that point she was gripped by such a strong sense of despair that she managed to develop her own thought power. It moved outside the mountain and found the little family rushing across the side of the mountain in fear.

They didn’t see her. But she got close to them, very close, and looked up at the woman sitting in the saddle. Tiili was screaming for help with all her might, but they couldn’t hear her. The horse carried a strangely beautiful and transparent window of many colours. Tiili looked up at it and didn’t think she had ever seen anything so marvellous before.

Then she turned her gaze from the stained glass and looked pleadingly at the woman once more.

Since no one seemed to be reacting to her pleas, she became so dejected that her power of thought was diminished and she could no longer see the people on the moor.

This time her tears began to flow again, the ones she thought had dried up long ago. They trickled for a long time down her cheeks and she wept aloud in her eternal loneliness.

The centuries passed, proceeded slowly. Nothing new happened in her mountain. Sometimes something would take place outside. She registered Kolgrim’s presence, and Ulvhedin’s much later ...

But how did that help? No one knew that she was in there.

Had Tan-ghil said half a century? That had passed long ago. She had been so frightened that he might return and now all she wanted was just that, so that she could get the whole thing over with.

But what if it were never to happen? What then? Would she remain hanging there forever?

Because when a certain amount of time has passed you have nothing to go by any longer. And then there are no limits anymore.

That she was able to maintain her common sense was entirely due to the little bat. To be allowed to sleep had been her greatest longing. And now she had learned to hibernate during other times than winter so the centuries passed faster than she had feared they would.

How does a person in her situation make the time pass? Tiili composed little songs that she sometimes sang to overpower the sound of the whirling draught in the stillness of the mountain. Sometimes she created long stories, but the themes were limited since her only reference was the good yet toilsome life she had known in the valley.

But she didn’t dare make up stories about her own rescue. She knew from experience that the sense of bitterness she would experience afterwards was worse than anything else.

She was not aware of Heike’s and Tula’s battle against Tengel the Evil’s projection, because the time for her winter hibernation had already set in.

She had long ago stopped reacting to the sounds and shouts from the empty space outside the tunnel. Whoever it was, they weren’t able to reach her, nor she them.

Then followed a long period of silence. Years of silence.

And then ...

Something was happening around her mountain. All her senses, including the extra ones she had received from the bat, grew more intense.

Something was brewing! She could have sworn it!

New creatures had entered the empty space. Creatures that were able to get closer to her tunnel. But they never entered it.

She shouted. Now she was shouting in a heart-wrenching frenzy. She felt that if she didn’t get into contact with those creatures now she would never manage to contact anyone.

The unrest continued for several days. Tiili didn’t dare fall asleep. She kept all her senses awake in order not to miss out on anything.

The tall, pale men were excited, she could sense that. And the new ones that had arrived? She received mixed impressions of them. But she was able to register that there was some kind of battle going on.

Oh, she was so impatient! So desperately impatient, and worried that they would disappear again. For now it didn’t matter to her who came, friend or foe: all she wanted was for her captivity to end.

Mostly she just wanted to die. To rest in peace.

They were certainly capable of helping her with that. At least the pale men were.

Don’t go away, oh please don’t go away, whoever you are!

She had shouted so much that her voice had grown hoarse.

And then finally – someone was approaching her tunnel!

“Help!” she shouted. “In the name of compassion, help me to die!”

Voices? They were unfamiliar voices but she understood what they were saying even though they didn’t speak the same dialect as her. But it wasn’t really a dialect either, more like another language of which she understood bits and pieces.

They entered her tunnel! Oh, thank you dear gods, they’ve entered the tunnel!

It was doubtful whether “Little Flower” had anything to thank the gods for after seven centuries of captivity, but perhaps her words made the almighty ones feel ashamed?

She saw that four creatures had entered. Four humans. Her heart was pounding wildly and for a moment she forgot to shout from sheer excitement.

She immediately reproached herself. Because they turned around! They turned around and left her because all of them, including herself, had heard some commotion outside the tunnel. She was also able to discern some creatures that came flying towards her rock wall. It seemed as though they landed next to the tunnel. But it was hard for her to see properly and make out what was going on out there.

The four went back out. They hadn’t seen her. Her spirits sank and she sobbed dryly with disappointment.

“I’m here!” she cried out. “Please be so kind as to come back. I can’t wait here any longer!”

The unrest and commotion continued outside. It sounded as if there were quite a number of people out there. Or perhaps they weren’t all people?

What could they be then? I must have fallen asleep, she thought. This must be a dream.

Time passed. Tiili began to lose hope, and the familiar sense of powerlessness and dejection crept up on her. That mustn’t happen, not now! It pained her so much, and now it would feel a thousand times worse. She wouldn’t be able to take any more, she could feel that.

Then she saw them again. She took a deep breath.

There were more of them now. Eight of them.

They had seen her! They had seen her! They seemed to stop abruptly in horror.

What strange clothes they were wearing!

What sort of creatures could they be? Now she was convinced that she was dreaming.

Suddenly two more came, two women. They spoke to the others and took two of them back with them. Don’t go! Don’t leave me here, all of you!

But those that remained approached her in disbelief. She was so excited now that she couldn’t speak properly, she just wept.

They spoke to her! They said her name! How could they know it? Perhaps they were Tan-ghil’s helpers?

No, they had friendly voices, and she could see tears in their eyes. Tears shed for her. What an unusual dream.

Now they were asking her what they could do for her. Alas! Didn’t they realize that there was nothing that could be done in the face of Tan-ghil’s magical powers?

“Let me die,” she said.

She looked at them more closely, but her gaze had turned more hazy now so that they seemed to merge into one: three men, two women ...

What was the sixth individual? So frightening ... so unreal ...

She was looking at the storm demon, but she didn’t know it and there was no time to explain to her.

How beautiful two of the men were! And so was one of the women. The other one was far from beautiful, but in her exhausted state Tiili found her to be pleasant, too.

One of the handsome men spoke to her again. His name was Nataniel, she thought, that was what she had heard the others call him. He explained that they were looking for Tan-ghil’s water jar and she answered him as best she could. That it was located behind her but that they wouldn’t be able to get past her.

And then she had to tell them about the lock. It was horribly embarrassing, she was about to die from shame, but they didn’t hold it against her in the least, they just felt sorry for her.

How kind they were! And she was so dazed that she couldn’t think clearly.

They introduced themselves, then they began discussing among themselves and all she could do was weep from shame and a sense of hopelessness.

Then it seemed as though they had reached a decision. One of them had been selected to “open” the lock in place of Tan-ghil!

But what could they possibly mean? That would be impossible! The one they had selected ... was the most handsome of them all, the one called Marco.

Oh, the whole thing was getting too much! This is enough! I want to wake up now!

The others left and she was alone in the company of this Marco.

How embarrassing! How terribly embarrassing! And he looked so refined and kind!

But it seemed that he was just as uneasy about the situation as she was.

But what she expected to be the most embarrassing situation imaginable turned out to be a beautiful experience! He was so tender, so kind and friendly, and Tiili didn’t want to say anything but his advances excited her in a way she didn’t think possible. His voice was full of understanding, and he was so kind ... so gentle ... she thought, that she stopped being afraid.

To be so close to another person! It was such a wonderful feeling, she almost began to cry again, but this time from quiet joy.

And in the middle of it all he said he knew Targenor!

Which she couldn’t understand. He couldn’t possibly know her twin brother because such an immense amount of time had passed and no one could possibly live for that long. Targenor must have died many centuries ago.

Marco said he would have to do something that might cause her pain – and he did. Still, she was not shocked or angry or sad at it.

She didn’t understand anything.

But it was all to no avail ... The magical chains did not let go.

That was when she came up with the audacious suggestion that perhaps they hadn’t continued long enough. It was, after all, just a dream.

Would he take that the wrong way?

No, he didn’t. And then they became friends, good friends who shared a little secret together, and from then on everything felt much easier. Marco tried once more and this time she saw that he clearly enjoyed it and that he had no problem being with her, which made her so terribly happy.

And the chains let go. She was free. But she still couldn’t understand it.

This wonderful man, whom she already liked, carried her out to the others because her own legs wouldn’t carry her. But she didn’t mind being carried by her best friend.

Goodness, there were many peculiar creatures on the cliff! Tiili grew so afraid that she buried her face in Marco’s neck. But apparently it wasn’t dangerous. Some of the girls attended to her and to her great sorrow she had to watch Marco disappear into the red tunnel with a few of the others.

But he mustn’t leave now: he was her only support out here in this frightening world! She quietly moaned his name without anybody noticing it.

And how exactly were they supposed to get through this? She was in the middle of a dream, wasn’t she? A dream in which everything was happening much too fast for her and everything was much too confusing and dramatic.

She didn’t like dreaming of being released. Waking up was always such a painful disappointment and she just couldn’t take any more of that right now. I want to rest, she moaned inwardly. I want to sleep, sleep, but preferably die. How can I possibly go on living in captivity after dreaming about all these wonderful people, especially Marco? Because I know that however much I want to dream something like that again, where he is so close to me, it won’t happen. You never get to dream the dreams you want to.

Everyone around her was uneasy. She sensed an atmosphere of leave-taking. In this dream there were constant sounds of muffled booms and the smell of soil. That was what the people were so afraid of.

A man named Sigliek, who referred to her as “my grandfather’s cousin”, took her in his arms and carried her to where the rest of them were rushing, through an opening in the wall. It seemed to be urgent, everyone was running so fast.

But you can’t just leave Marco, she shouted mutely. And there were several others who disappeared into my red tunnel – you can’t just leave them!

For now she understood that the muffled booms in the ground meant danger.

But just as she was being carried into the passage she saw, to her great joy, Marco and the others come running after them. Hurry, hurry, before it’s too late, she pleaded.

But wasn’t one of them missing? The other handsome man. Nat ... Nataniel was it? What a strange name!

Then Tiili had to concentrate on her wild escape through a never-ending tunnel where everyone was fleeing from a muffled boom behind them. She realized that it was the ground rising. At first it had started to crack the walls of the tunnel, but that had stopped now.

I want to wake up now, I don’t want to dream anymore, she thought. Dreaming about one’s freedom is merely self-torture. Freedom doesn’t exist for Tiili of the Ice People, of that I’m certain!

Marco? Where was he? Somewhere behind her, but there were so many now.

With a shock that felt like a blow to the face, she encountered daylight. Freezing cold and fresh air.

She was wrapped in a lot of clothes by concerned, friendly people.

It was the shock of the light and air that made her realize that she was, in fact, awake.

Tiili didn’t react with tears of joy. She didn’t respond at all. She was utterly mute and paralysed. All she could do was wait until her body and mind could adapt to this new change.