Chapter 17

After slapping herself on the forehead for not thinking of doing this the night before, the only attenuating circumstance Hildur gave herself was the fact that she hadn't actually been taught to do what she was about to try yet. But between Lalli being absent from his dream realm yet again and Onni's resigned reaction to his failure to locate his cousin, this could very well be her last hope to help make things better. Her magic teacher had once explained to her that the dream realms of non-mages were in another, "deeper" layer of the dream world. This made them technically accessible from the layer on which the dream realms of mages existed. With no better idea about how to properly go about it, Hildur filled her lungs with what passed for air in the dream world and let herself sink in the dream sea. It started out quite hard to get through, but the pressure of the "water" gradually became lighter and lighter, until it started feeling like air again. She realized that she could actually breathe in it, just before finding "water" under her feet again. That part hadn't been that hard, in the end. She headed for the area corresponding to Silent Denmark.

As soon as she reached her destination, she noticed the entrance of an isolated dream realm. She entered it, only to find herself in the hallway of what seemed to be a large house. It was nowhere near as large as the home in which she had grown up, but it was quite a sign of wealth by what she had seen of Swedish standards. The various thoughts that went through her mind as she entered the first room accessible from the hallway could only agree on one thing: manifesting as her jaw dropping. Right there, on a couch, someone who looked like a ten year older version of Sune was sleeping right next to someone who had be Lalli, who looked like he was eating an entire cake. Lalli interrupted his meal to stare at her, put his plate on a nearby table and rushed to meet her. In spite of them never getting properly introduced, Lalli recognized her from a description Onni had given him of her, and explained what had happened: a giant that had taken so much energy to defeat that he had been cast out of his safe area, both he and Emil drifting away on an ice floe in the physical world. She brought Lalli back to the "mage layer", and brought him to Reynir's place to both show him that he was alive and figure out where the two groups could meet.

In the mess of tears that he had become between his relief of the good news and waking up worried about how he was going to deal with whatever Lalli was going to have in store for him, it took a lot of repeating for Mikkel and Sigrun to understand what was going on. Reynir was very happy that Sigrun was the one calling the shots, because he could easily see Mikkel deciding he had basically imagined everything, insisting on continuing to move, and obliviously forcing Lalli and Emil to reach the outpost by their own means. By noon the next day, the difficulties in convincing Mikkel to stay long enough, and Sigrun's "pat" on his back almost sending Reynir into a mud puddle, had been more than worth it. The couple of evenings away from the group had also been enough to erase Emil's remaining doubts about magic existing. Reynir's relief was unfortunately gone by the time they all had dinner that evening, as he realized that the ghosts were still following them, and that Sigrun's health was still worsening in spite of the basic healing magic he could work on her arm. Lalli didn't look in that much shape either, but at least the occasional slowness of his pace seemed to be entirely psychological, and to not be accompanied by any kind of actual illness.

This only made Lalli's sudden alertness has the group was only a couple of days of travel away from the outpost more noticeable. That alertness was promptly followed by Lalli grabbing Reynir's sleeve and dragging him on side path to the right of the one they were supposed to be following, with nothing more than a barely audible "come" in Swedish. At the end of the path was a building that Reynir promptly recognized as run-down version of the church from his visions. Lalli dragged him right inside, not even taking time to check for any trolls. Kitty, whom Reynir happened to have in the backpack he was carrying, didn't react at all, indicating that that checking for trolls may have not been necessary to start with. Reynir decided to look around, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do now. His attention was somehow drawn to a door to the entrance's right, that had something that looked like either moss or the edges of a troll nest. As he walked closer to the door, he heard a faint voice calling his name. He gestured to open the door, but Lalli stopped him:
-No. Light not good for... it.
So there was troll in the building. But why had neither Kitty nor Lalli... he realized that the presence behind the door felt familiar, which went a long way to explaining how he and the church's pastor had been able to make contact in the dream world, ninety years after she should have died. The second realization that came to him was that he was going to need to convince Sigrun, Mikkel and Emil to spend the upcoming night in the church.