The Black Sphere Chapter 3

"The wind feels really cold today," Astrid said.

"I know what you mean," Hiccup nodded. He felt it too, but it had nothing to do with the temperature of the air around them.

The two of them were gliding about a hundred feet above the ocean. Just below them, two Lava-Lout ships were sailing homeward. One of them carried Orn, a runaway thrall who had fled to Berk, and had been recaptured there. Orn was now tied hand and foot and lying in the bottom of the ship, about three inches deep in the ice-cold sea water that slowly leaked into the ship before someone bailed it out with a bucket now and then. He looked abjectly miserable, and that was also how Hiccup felt. He loved the freedom he had discovered as a dragon, and he passionately hated anyone who would take freedom away from anyone. But Viking law was clear; anyone who wanted to own a slave was free to do so. Berk didn't practice that law, but neither could they overrule it when other people's thralls were concerned.

"Was there anything else I could have done to keep that man from going back into slavery?" he asked his mate.

"No," she said sullenly. "I can't think of anything. I've tried." They were speaking dragon language, so Rangi, who was riding on Hiccup's back, couldn't join the discussion. Rangi was just as unhappy about the situation, and he could do even less about it than the Night Furies.

They were flying back to Lava-Lout Island. Their stated goal was to make sure that the runaway thrall was not going to be mistreated once he got home. Their real goal was to find any kind of loophole in the law that would allow them to reclaim the young man and take him back to Berk. At this point, Chief-night-fury wasn't very optimistic, but he wasn't going to abandon his cause until all hope was lost.

The Vikings in the ships kept looking up at them nervously. Their minds told them that the dragon wars were over and that the Night Furies meant them no harm. Their guts told them that the black dragons were an existential threat to everything that the Vikings stood for. They were about halfway home. This voyage had been a complete success for them, but it couldn't end fast enough for them.

Astrid was trying, for the fortieth time, to think of some better way for this situation to end when she saw motion out of the corner of her eye. "Hiccup! Did you send a Nadder patrol out here?"

"Not me." His eyes narrowed. "Did you call a Nadder to rescue Orn?"

"I wish I'd thought of it, but no, I didn't. Did you?"

"No." He switched to Forge. "Rangi, did you send dragon to rescue man?"

"No, I did not send a dragon," Rangi answered, a bit too firmly for Hiccup's liking.

"Did you tell Varinn to send dragon to rescue man?"

Rangi looked away at some clouds. "Maybe."

"Answer me! Tell truth!"

Rangi spoke quietly into Hiccup's ear. "Chief, if I tell you the truth, then you can't say you know nothing about this, and you'll get in trouble. Chief Lunkhead won't suspect that I had anything to do with it; he thinks I'm a useless lackey. Please don't ask me to tell you any more than that until we're safely home."

A moment later, the Nadder arrived. He made a quick circle around both ships (probably to find out where his intended quarry was), then dipped and caught the ropes that held Orn's hands together. As the Vikings cried out in shock and reached for their weapons, the Nadder and the thrall soared upward and were soon lost in the clouds.

"Hey!" Chief Lunklunk shouted. "That was one of your dragons, right? Chase it down and bring our thrall back, or I'll charge you with theft!"

Growl, snarl, growl. "The chief says he doesn't know anything about what that dragon is doing, or where he's going," Rangi called down. "My chief is no thief! But he's not a hunter of other people's thralls, either."

Lunklunk wasn't convinced. "I am going to prove that you were involved in this somehow," he threatened, "and when I do, you're going to pay for that thrall, and you'll pay in gold!" He was still scanning the clouds, hoping to see the dragon and figure out where it was going.

Snarl-snarl, grumble. "The chief says, 'Don't make a false accusation against me, or you might be the one who pays.' " No one said anything after that for several minutes. Then Chief Lunklunk yelled upwards again.

"Well? My thrall is gone, so you've got no reason to follow me home anymore. Go on home!"

Hiccup shook his head and grunted. "Chief-night-fury says he still wants to see how your thralls are treated. You said he could check your island out, and that was unconditional. If he's satisfied that you're being humane, then if something like this ever happens again, then we can settle it a lot more quickly."

"Suit yourselves," the chief grunted and began scanning the horizon for signs of home.

"Hiccup, what are you doing?" Astrid wondered.

"Exactly what I said," he answered. "I want to make sure that these Lava-Louts aren't abusing people."

"If Orn was telling the truth," Astrid said, "then we already know the answer to that. They probably treat their thralls as badly as any other Viking tribe, and that means pretty badly!"

"I'm sure of that," Hiccup replied, "but our suspicions won't prove anything, and neither will the word of a runaway thrall. You and I need to see things for ourselves. That way, if we ever want to make an issue out of the way they treat their thralls, we'll have facts to make our case, and not just hearsay."

"What kind of an issue might we want to raise?" she wondered.

"Well, for starters, I'll give good odds that Orn is going to wind up in Berk again, and I'll also give good odds that Chief Lunklunk will mount another expedition to find him. If we know that Orn will suffer if he goes back to the Lava-Louts, then we're within our rights to offer him sanctuary."

"I'll give you really good odds that Chief Lunklunk won't see things that way," Astrid warned him.

"Then Chief Lunklunk will have two choices. Either he can try to take his thrall by force, in which case the Night Furies will get in the way; or he can find out where Warhamster the Wise is spending his time, demand a formal hearing, and let the Law-Speaker make the final decision. That could go his way, or it could go our way; I give it a fifty-fifty chance either way. But, either way, that could take months, and I don't think Lunklunk wants to wait that long. Anything could happen; he could lose some more thralls, or some other crisis could arise and keep him from pursuing Orn, or Orn could flee to some other tribe and hide there. For now, let's get some facts about the thralls on Lava-Lout Island, then go home and see if, by some bizarre chance, that Nadder was one of ours and he brought Orn back to Berk with him."

"That would be quite a bizarre chance," she nodded, "especially since neither of us has the slightest idea who that Nadder was. Right?"

It wasn't like Astrid to be so sarcastic, which showed how strongly she felt about this whole situation. Of course, both of them knew exactly who that Nadder was; it was Nadder-blue-needs-much-scrubbing, or Scrubby as his human friends called him. (Who else would Varinn have sent on a rescue mission?) They had pretended not to know him, and he had played along. Now, Orn had a decent chance of staying in Berk as a free man (his scent trail wouldn't start in any predictable place this time), and Chief-night-fury could truthfully deny any involvement in the rescue at all.

The rest of the flight was uneventful, to the point of being tedious. Chief-night-fury tried to break up the monotony with some wild maneuvers, but his heart wasn't in it. That was an indicator of how strongly he felt about this whole situation. It was with some relief that they finally saw the threatening silhouette of Lava-Lout Island looming up on the horizon. They got there as the sun was setting. The dragons could easily have flown on ahead of the slow-moving ships, but that might be perceived as rude by their host, who was in a bad temper anyway. So they waited in the air until Lunklunk's ship was tied to the docks and the chief had stepped out, so he could formally greet his visitors as they landed.

"Welcome to my island," he said shortly. "We have a small guest home for the dragons' interpreter; we save it for traders like Johann, but I think it's empty tonight. I don't have any facilities for dragons, but you can make yourselves comfortable anywhere you like, except on the roof of my house. I'll see you in the morning." With that, he turned his back on them and marched toward his village, with his Viking crewmen in tow.

"Wow!" Rangi exclaimed. "I guess he wins the prize for Most Genial Host."

"You should follow him so you find guest home before night," Hiccup suggested. Rangi began to walk down the docks, then turned back.

"If you don't mind, I'd rather spend the night with you guys. I'm not comfortable being by myself in the middle of a strange tribe that isn't very friendly."

Hiccup and Astrid glanced at each other and shrugged. They found a sheep pasture where the grass was reasonably green and soft, and spent the night there, with Rangi sandwiched between the two Night Furies. Hiccup decided that, if a guest felt more comfortable sleeping in a field with dragons than in Lunklunk's guest home, that made quite a statement about the Lava-Louts' hospitality.

In the morning, the Night Furies went through their usual routine of flying out to sea to do some fishing. They made sure to bring back a decent codfish for Rangi's breakfast, especially seeing how he'd gotten no supper last night. When they settled to the ground with full bellies, a messenger from the chief was headed their way.

"The chief is ready to show you how his people treat their thralls," the man said without introduction.

"Tell the chief, 'Thank you for being concerned about us, but we spent a pleasant night here,' " Rangi said.

The messenger looked puzzled. "I don't remember the chief saying he was concerned about that."

"Yeah, we noticed that, too," Rangi answered. Evidently, sarcasm was one of the many crops that didn't grow on Lava-Lout Island. The messenger shrugged and beckoned for them to follow him.

Lava-Lout Island was an unfriendly place, even if the Vikings who lived there had been halfway pleasant. It was dominated by two low shield volcanoes that spat out lava bombs from time to time. The spattering lava of the bombs' impacts charred the landscape of the entire island. The houses and buildings were all made of stone, with slate roofs to protect them. It was customary for Lava-Louts to wear a special heat-resistant suit when they ventured outside. No one had offered Rangi a suit, and the dragons, of course, were on their own. As they walked toward the center of the island's only village, they watched a volcanic bomb launch out of the more distant cone, trace a fiery arc across the morning sky, and land about half a mile away in what might have been a patch of mushrooms. Whatever was there caught fire and was quickly consumed. Their guide seemed not to notice.

They arrived in the village's central common, which was as blackened and unfriendly-looking as the rest of the island. Chief Lunklunk was there, along with a few high-ranking jarls (judging by their fancy clothes and jewelry) and an assortment of unhappy-looking men and women in shabby clothing. "Welcome, Chief-night-fury," Lunklunk called, ignoring Astrid and Rangi. "I picked a few thralls at random for you to examine. As you can see, there isn't a bruise or a whip-mark on them. Feel free to satisfy your curiosity... but please don't take too long about it. The thralls have work to do, and so do I."

Hiccup, Astrid, and Rangi spread out to look at the thralls of Lava-Lout Island. Most of them pulled away from the dragons, so Rangi was the only one who could get close enough to check them out. It appeared that Chief Lunklunk was correct; the thralls were dirty and their clothes were tattered, but they seemed to be fairly well-fed and in decent health.

"Are you happy here?" Rangi asked one young woman.

She glanced nervously at one of the jarls, then said, "They feed me. My house protects me from the lava. I'm willing to stay here." Her voice was flat and without inflection; she might have been reciting lines from a script. Rangi nodded and moved on. After a few minutes, it was obvious that, if the thralls were being mistreated, the evidence was carefully hidden.

"Are you satisfied, Chief-night-fury?" Lunklunk asked him.

Grunt, croon, growl. "The chief says he is sorry he wasted your time. We have no further business here."

"Good," the Lava-Lout chief nodded. "Have a pleasant trip home, and I hope you die heroically, like a Viking should. And now, if you don't mind, we've got a busy day ahead of us. Jarls, take charge of your thralls and get them working. I've got to prepare the special work detail." Rangi climbed onto Hiccup's back and the two Night Furies took wing.

"That was waste of time," Astrid said sourly.

"I not convinced," Hiccup rebutted her. "Orn say things are bad here."

"We see nothing bad," Astrid replied.

"I think bad stuff hidden from us," Rangi cut in.

"I agree," Chief-night-fury nodded. "So we gain height, hide in bottom of clouds, see if they do bad stuff when they think we not around to see." They suited action to words. Both Night Furies were masters of the art of lurking in the bottom of the cloud layer, partially hidden but still able to see what was happening on the ground. Rangi couldn't see much from that height, but Night Fury eyes are well-adapted for long-distance vision.

They could see the jarls giving orders to their thralls. Some used gestures in addition to words, some gave their thralls a push, and one of them definitely cuffed a man on his ear when the thrall didn't move fast enough. It wasn't a pleasant display of human compassion, but it wasn't enough to justify intervening in another tribe's affairs, either. Hiccup decided to follow Lunklunk instead of watching the other thrall-owners. He wanted to see what the "special work detail" was all about.

He watched as the Lava-Lout chief rode a pony from the village to a cluster of small stone huts about a mile away. He dismounted and pulled an ornate embroidered cloth bag off his saddle horn. He pulled something out of it.

"Astrid, look at that!" Hiccup hissed. The object in Lunklunk's hand was a little bigger than the chief's fist, shaped like a ball, and blacker than a new-moon night. It reflected no light at all; it was like looking at a spot of absolute darkness. He held it in one hand and put the fingers of his other hand in his mouth, evidently to give a loud whistle.

What happened next made Hiccup and Astrid forget about the black ball. Out of the huts came an assortment of... beings. They carried themselves like people, but they looked like the unholy offspring of humans and dragons. Some had dragons' legs, others had dragons' forearms, a few had wings, many had tails, and one or two had heads like dragons. There were about forty of them. They stood in front of their huts, motionless, waiting.

"Astrid, we definitely need to know more about this! Let's get closer." They dove and landed on the far side of the huts, where they couldn't see so well but could hear just about everything.

"All right, you freaks!" they heard Lunklunk shout. "I need ten volunteers to hunt for bog-iron on the other side of the island. Who wants to do some honest work and be human for the day?" By ones and twos, ten of the human/dragon hybrids made their way to the other side of the clearing, where the chief was waiting. Lunklunk stood in front of them, held up his black sphere in one hand, and hopped from one foot to the other while calling out, "Eppe peppe kakke. Hillo hollo hello. Zizzy zuzzy zik!" With bright flashes of light, the ten volunteers turned into normal-looking humans.

"What... was that?" Rangi quavered.

"Seidr," Astrid said disgustedly. Some Vikings knew how to practice seidr, or magic, but it was considered a contemptible way to get anything done, and doubly so if a man did it; seidr was supposed to be women's work if it was done at all. Dragons weren't impressed with human seidr because it was a pale copy of what a dragon could do with his Power.

"It is good thing we had no respect for Chief Lunklunk," Hiccup commented, "because he would have lost all respect now."

"Now we know that's what Orn meant when he was talking about 'the freaks,' " Rangi added. "No wonder he wanted to run away, if that's how Lunklunk keeps his thralls in line!"

"Now I really hate thrall system," Hiccup grunted angrily.

"What we do now?" Astrid asked.

"We wait until Lunklunk go away," Hiccup decided. "Then we talk to those poor dragon-people, find out more." They had to wait only ten minutes before the Lava-Lout chief and his "special work detail" were well out of sight.