Chapter Eight   The Sight

Ungarn pounded his fist on the doorpost.  He felt the Berserker rage come upon him as he stood in front of all that was left of his mighty Hall:  some upright beams, the doorpost, the stone hearth.  All else was ashes.  The barbarians had fired everything that could burn; the smoke house, the families' cottages, the shipbuilding sheds, the barns.  He shook his head, and then shook himself like a bear, his heart pounding in his breast.

A heavy hand lay on his shoulder.  "Father, come away, " rumbled the deep voice of Red Erik.  He put his arm around his father.  Ungarn turned to him and wept in his son's strong arms, crying out piteously, sobbing for his dead wife, his lost daughter and his ruined Hall in the same breath that he cursed the gods and vowed vengeance.

"Living like a bear in a cave!  All, all that I built for you and your sister, all is gone!"  He raised his tear-stained countenance to the grey-clouded skies and roared:  "Odin!  Old One-Eye, is this how you fight me?  You made me strong; was I too strong for you?  Are you jealous, old thane?  I will beat you; come down here, you coward!"

"Stop it, Father.  There is much to do.  You waste your time yelling at the gods, whilst they only laugh."  Erik pushed his father ahead of him as they walked to the ship.  The crew were still cutting logs and trimming off branches to make rollers, as they were about a half kilometre from the beach.  They would drive a wedge under the prow and slide the first roller underneath it; then shove the ship forwards onto the next roller, and so on.

Erik was at a loss; how had his ship ended up in the mud outside the cave where his family hid?  He was mystified; only his son, little Leif, had offered any explanation.  "I picked up the ship in my head, Father.  A storm was coming, and I was afraid that it would wreck you, so I picked it up and brought it here."  Leif was working with the men, trimming logs so that they would roll smoothly.  He looked up, dropped his knife and ran over, throwing his arms around his father.

"Father!  We're working so hard, and we have so many logs!  Soon we will roll the ship down to the water."   He released Erik and went to his grandfather, taking his hand.  "Grandfather, you're so sad," he said.  He put his arms around the burly warrior chief's waist.

Ungarn patted Leif's head.  "Yes, child, I'm sad.  I'm mourning many things: your grandmother, your aunt Helgarda…" Tears fell into his beard, and he sobbed.  Leif pulled him down to sit on a rock.  He climbed up into his grandfather's lap and hugged him:  "Please, Grandfather, don't weep.  Aunt Helgarda will come home."

Ungarn raised his head.  "You know this?"  He looked at Erik.  "He knew that your ship was in the path of a storm; he knew you would be home within a day.  Maybe he knows where she is!"  Erik squatted down at his father's side.

"Leif, what do you see?  Can you see Helgarda?"  He put his hand on his father's knee.  "If you can bring my ship in from the ocean, boy, you can bring my sister home."

Leif squirmed.  "I don't know, Father.  I don't know how I did that, it just happened.  Sometimes I – see things.  I don't try to see them; they just come to me."  He leaned against his grandfather's chest and closed his eyes, looking very troubled indeed.

Leif's eyes flew open.  "Oh!" he cried.  He jumped off Ungarn's lap and began to run towards the forest.

"Wait, Leif!"  Erik ran after him, motioning to his father to stay behind.  Erik caught up with his son at the foot of a tall spruce tree.  "Why did you run away like that?"

Leif looked up.  He put his finger over his mouth, cautioning his father to be silent.  Erik looked up into the thick blue-green needles.  An owl was sitting on a branch, a pure white owl.  Erik bent over to whisper to his son:  "Why did you run to this tree?  Is it that owl?"

Leif nodded.  He held up his arm, and the beautiful white bird floated soundlessly down from its perch.  It sat on his arm and hooted softly, then rose into the air and flew to Ungarn, who had been watching them in puzzlement.  The owl landed on Ungarn's knee, and held out one clawed foot.  A piece of parchment was tied onto it with string.

This is magic, thought Ungarn.  Leif and his father came puffing over, in time to see Ungarn pull the string off the owl's leg and take the parchment.  He unfolded it, and something fell out into his hand:  a long golden hair.  Ungarn's head spun; he thought he would faint.  "Eric!" he grated.  "Is this – is this hair, is it hers?"   Leif pushed his father aside impatiently.

"Let me see it!"  He took the hair in his hand.  His face became still, still, and he looked older, as if he had suddenly become a man.  He closed his eyes.  His voice, when it came, was soft, deep, the voice that would be his in the years to come:  "Helgarda, come home.  You are needed here," he said.  Then he collapsed bonelessly onto the ground.

Ungarn looked at the few runes written on the parchment.  "This is Helgarda's writing.  She lives!  Helgarda lives!"  Ungarn rose to his feet.  "Call Skjald!  Build a bonfire; tell your men to stop cutting logs.  We must rebuild the Hall.  Your sister is coming home."

***

The old mage watched his master from his hiding-place amongst a pile of boulders. Wholly unexpected, that this owl should arrive carrying a message, and truly unexpected that Helgarda lived.  For four days he had cast the runes, stared into his scrying bowl, meditated on the flames of his fire.  He had seen no sign of the girl.  It was as if she was dead, and that was as it should be.  He had carefully followed the instructions he had been given: in the midst of battle, as she fought with superhuman strength and skill, one with more strength and skill than she had pulled her head backward and made ready to cut her throat. This was as expected; Helgarda would die a hero's death.  Why, he asked himself, had he not foreseen that as the sword descended, she would vanish?

"Skjald!"  He heard Red Erik's mighty voice summoning him.  He took up his sack of herbs and plants and picked his way down from the rocks.  He bowed deeply to Ungarn and his son.  "Master?"

Ungarn put his arm around Leif's shoulder.  "Give the mage the hair, child," he said, and Leif held out his hand and dropped the golden hair into Skjald's palm.

"How did this come here?"

"A white owl came, and she had a parchment with Helgarda's writing, and this hair was in it," said Leif.  "Grandfather read the runes.  He says she is alive."

The mage sat at Ungarn's feet.  "What may I do for you, Master?"  He wound the hair around his finger; took the parchment and read the runes.

"Bring her home," ordered Ungarn.  "She lives, she is somewhere.  Call the gods, do what you must, but bring her back!" thundered the thane.

An evil older than time whispered sibilantly into the old mage's ear.  "What did I ask of thee, Skjald, that thou hast disobeyed me?  She is in a place of power; I cannot reach her there.  If I did, I could not take my place on the Dark Throne. This may not be!  Bring her home, Skjald, and I will deal with her myself.  As for thee…"

One word rang out.  The old man fell to the ground, gasping, clutching his chest, cried out once hoarsely, as the bones of his spine snapped, reflexed, until the back of his head bowed over to touch his heels; then sprang back, pushing him upright and then bent to the ground, forehead first.  His old thighbones rattled in their worn sockets; his ribs shrank and squeezed his lungs.  He had no breath to cry out, no tears to weep as the blood in his veins turned to vitriol.  Unconsciousness he willed to come to him; he remained aware, and his eyes bulged out of their sockets and reversed.  Horror shook his brains in their bony case.  His heart stopped.

Leif reached the mage as he stopped struggling.  He turned to his father, his face pale.  "He's all broken," he whispered.  Red Erik knelt, felt for a pulse that was not there.

"Come, son.  Skjald has died.  We must tell Ungarn."

"No!" cried Leif.  "He's not dead!  He's broken, something broke his bones!"

 "How can you know that?"  Erik looked at his son.  The child's face was solemn, as it had been when he told them that Helgarda lived.  He put his hand on the child's head.  "Son, can you mend him?  If he could bring a ship off the ocean onto dry land…if he could see someone who had disappeared…

Leif looked up at his father.  "I don't know.  I have to think about him."  Erik carried the body of mage back to the cave, Leif following, his gaze inward to another place and time.