Legend of the Mist (9 page)

They
departed quietly, leaving Norah alone in the keep. With only the silent mist for company. It swirled around her, enveloping her in its folds.

She wished bitterly that it would swallow her into oblivion.

* * *

Night settled over Fara
, shielding its sleeping inhabitants under its black, starless canopy. Most of the Norsemen had returned to their fledgling settlement on Rysa Beag hours ago, and the grey dawn was still hours away.

The stifling heat of the day had
broken temporarily, forced to recede by the cooler air of the night; though still it was not as cool as it should have been for autumn in the Orkney isles. The slight drop in temperature had caused the normally translucent mist to thicken, to congeal and spread itself over every dip and peak of the land.

Norah had watched
the mass of fog grow and move over the island from the open window of the keep. When the others had retired to their beds, she could not find the sleep to which they so easily succumbed. She had lain, her space encroached upon by a sleeping Roisin, and listened to her sister's steady breathing and the occasional restlessness from dreams. But her eyes had remained open, the longed-for heaviness of her lids elusive. Frustrated, she had ventured into the common room, and had curled up on the windowsill to watch the formless black shapes which loomed in the distant landscape.

It had not taken very long for t
he sea to begin its call to her. Its gentle rhythm met her ears, settled itself into the hollows and then crept further into the sanctity of her mind.
Frish, frish,
it whispered, flowing and ebbing in invitation.
Frish, frish
; pulling her soul to the inevitability of a watery grave.

But the pull did not terrify her,
not this night. Instead the pull intrigued her, fascinated her. The waves sang their haunting song, promising her death, and Norah found this time that she wanted to listen, was enchanted by the promise.

Her desire to submit to the sea’s call overwhelmed her.
She knew not if she consciously allowed it, or if the pull of the sea was so strong that she could not resist it. Whatever the reason, it called her now and she had no strength to ignore it. No
want
to ignore it.

It was this pull, this
dark, frightening connection to Fara and to the sea which surrounded it that her father had not understood. Nor her mother, nor Uncle Iobhar, who usually turned a blind eye to her episodes of madness.

Not even Garrett had understood she was incapable of
resisting her fate, her
true
fate. It was not to marry Einarr Alfradsson; she would die if she did. The sea told her so. It beckoned her, invited her to release her burden beneath their soft, smothering laps instead. To die the way she was meant to die.

With
only a dim awareness that she was moving at all, Norah climbed down from the stone windowsill, helpless to stop what the sea had started. Entranced, she glided over the wooden floor of the keep and noiselessly descended the staircase. As if watching herself at a distance, she allowed the pull of the water to guide her towards it.

To
encourage her to submit to the death she was meant to have.

And she would
submit. She was not afraid anymore.

It
was time to meet her destiny.

Eight

For the past several days an unprecedented wave of heat had been smothering the lands of
Skaney.
Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, and all those other petty tribes which still refused to relinquish their autonomy to these newly recognized high kingdoms suffered as one people an inescapable coating of sticky sweat. It bonded skin to clothes, to leather saddles, and even to itself in the most uncomfortable of places.

Reaching at long last the shores of the island called Fara, the first thing Torsten noticed was that th
is mass of unseasonably warm air was plaguing the inhabitants on the northern coast of Scotland as relentlessly as it was the people of his homeland.

The second thing to impre
ss itself upon him was the mist. It hovered over the island’s beach like a cloak, and was so thick that when the small craft, which he’d charted to bring him the short distance from Norway to Orkney, reached the beach, its hull appeared to cleave it in half. It was a mist made worse no doubt by the temporary reprieve from the oppressive heat brought by the night air.

Torsten had never seen a mist like it. It curled about his ankles
as he hopped from the craft to the pebbled shore, and slid up his calf as if to drag him down into an unseen netherworld.

Somewhere on this desolate island of rock and mist was his brother. Torsten
had not seen Einarr in three years. After the raid on Bjarmaland, Torsten made good his promise and had taken up trading—wool, at first, then silk.

It was quite by accident that he stumbled upon a connection to the spice trade. While negotiating a purchase of crude silk in a tavern in Antioch, Torsten had become involved in a brawl between a trader of cassia
spice and the man’s would-be customer. Having stepped in and prevented the fisted dispute from escalating to daggers, Torsten made a friend of the cassia trader, whose name was Gulnaraj. Recognizing not only the advantage of the Norseman’s brawn but also his natural ability to negotiate with a cool head, Gulnaraj offered Torsten a partnership. From that day Torsten had travelled the lands of the East, learning the intricacies of cultures about which he had never dreamed before.

One year had turned into two, and two had slipped into three. In all that time, Torsten had stayed away from Einarr, away from Hvaleyrr and the reminders of the awful things he’d seen and been a part of.
Even at his father’s death Torsten had not returned. His work was a distraction, and he was perfectly content to lose himself in it. Anything to avoid the war and murder into which his brother dragged his men; which his father, until his passing, condoned.

No one in the East knew of Harald Fairhair; no one in the East would have cared about him even if they had.
For that reason alone the East suited Torsten perfectly.

Einarr must have sensed his brother’s inner turmoil, for he had not
once asked Torsten to come home. But now Einarr was to be wed, and the long silence between the two brothers had been broken that spring. When he received Einarr’s message, forwarded to him from Hvaleyrr through a contact he’d left in the eastern lands of Aksum, Torsten had initially been inclined to reject his brother’s request. Seeing Einarr and his men would bring back a flood of memories, of dead faces, which he’d worked so hard to forget.

But when h
e sat down to write his refusal, something had stilled his hand over the parchment, something he couldn’t explain but which sat deep within his breast, urging him to go. Quietly and unwaveringly it insisted that he
needed
to see this unimportant little scrap of land protected by his brother’s fearsome reputation.

For days—weeks, eve
n—Torsten ignored the impulse, pretended it did not exist. Pretended that the nagging little itch was entirely his imagination. It was no use. By day he would find himself staring out over the crowded, dusty streets of whatever village he happened to be in, seeing not the hustle of activity but the rhythmic lapping of blue-green waves upon a rocky shore. And by night ...

By night that rhythmic lapping turned into a song, its gentle melody
deceptive and frightening in its power over his unconscious mind. In his dreams he yearned for that unknown shore, so much so that when he woke he could feel its residue as an ache deep within him. Over time the ache intensified so that he woke trembling and perspiring in his bed. It was then that he knew his journey to Fara was inevitable.

“You would leave me here to fend for myself among these heathens?” Gulnaraj had said when Torsten told him of his decision.

“You are twice the size of most of them, and much better fed. Besides, you have your son at your side, and he is nearly as tall as I.”

“He is, though he does not have your strength, and between you and
me, I wonder if he’s not a little soft in the head.” Gulnaraj paused and, with defeat clear on his dark, age-lined face, he shrugged his shoulders. “Since I cannot change your mind, my friend, I wish you luck. And here,” he added, digging into the pocket of his white linen trousers and offering his closed fist to Torsten. “Something for your brother’s bride.”

Torsten had held out his hand, and when Gulnaraj dropped the object, he gasped. Glittering on his open palm was a large, sparkling ruby set into a frame of
Persian gold. The piece was suspended on a delicate chain and was so beautiful that Torsten shook his head, startled by his partner’s generosity.

“I cannot accept
.”

“I insist
. I would not have traded for it if I had not been reminded of you when I saw it.”

“Of me? How so?”

Gulnaraj thought, pursing his lips. “Perhaps ‘reminded’ is not the correct way to describe it. When I saw the necklace I was taken by the ruby in particular. Something about it made me think of you, made me feel you might have a need of it one day. It appears my hunch may have been right.

“
I am glad to have something to give you,” he concluded when Torsten shook his head. “You have been a good friend to me, and I wish only the best for you and your family. Mind you come back safe and sound, though.”

“Ja,” Torsten had agreed, slipping the pendant
into a small breast pocket sewn on the inside of his tunic. “You keep well yourself.”

With a
firm, fond handshake, Torsten took his leave of his partner.

His journey home was made over land, and took him most of the summer to complete. By the end of the season he reac
hed the southern tip of Norway. Just as the wave of heat was spreading out over the northern peninsula, he charted a private ferry to sail further south, to the cluster of small islands known as Orkney.

When finally they reached Fara’s
vacant shore, the tired boatman held out his callused hand for payment. Torsten removed a small, leather draw-string satchel from around his neck, and retrieved the correct amount of gold coin plus a bit extra for the man’s troubles. With a nod of thanks he disembarked from the small craft.

He did not turn as the hull
slid back from the rocky beach and retreated into the moonlit sea, its wooden bottom scraping against the rough surface with a groan. The mist, which from afar had first suggested the presence of land, licked at his legs. The soles of his boots crunched over the stones which stretched from the water to a short ledge of eroded soil. Scrub and grass hung listlessly as if too tired to lift itself back onto the land.

It was nothing
Torsten hadn’t seen before, an island like any other. And yet there was something disconcerting about hearing the crunch of the rocks as he trod over them. Something unsettling about the mist which, in its thickness, seemed to follow him as he waded through it. If he didn’t know better he might think it were drawn to him, a conscious, sentient mass seeking him out.

Perhaps, though, it was not the mist that was unsettling, nor was it the sound of the stones, but rather that they were both so ... familiar.

Torsten shook the sensation off as he climbed onto the ledge of grass. One beach was just like another and he had seen so many. That was all that was familiar about this one. But the explanation was not enough to dislodge the notion that he had ... what? Been here before? Impossible!

He walked slowly
, musing as he followed the line of the ledge around the shore. He supposed he should try to find the village and secure a place to sleep for a few hours until dawn broke. With any luck, he would find Einarr’s lodgings directly, but if not then perhaps some peasant villager wouldn’t mind if Torsten curled up with his animals. Beasts were warm, and it was not beneath him to take advantage of such a luxury no matter its source. Yet still he continued to wander, continued along the ridge where the land met the beach though the village most certainly lay in the other direction.

His wandering path followed an easterly
route. It sloped gently upwards, unlike the main foot path leading inland which pitched steeply upwards from the harbour. At a point where the ledge had risen above the water to the height of two men, the path ended where the ground thrust upwards into the sky, creating a steep cliff with a rock face that plunged into the sea below. At its peak the mist thinned, and a haloed moon filtered through its sheer curtain.

And there, silhouetted against
the silver glow, was a sight which stilled Torsten’s breath. For perched on the edge of the cliff above ... was a maid.

Torsten was s
o taken by the sight of her, so enchanted by it, he did not at first realize that his initial reaction was to think it perfectly natural that a maid be standing there. No, more than just any maid,
this
particular maid. Indeed her figure on that cliff seemed as connected with this place, as much a part of it as the crunch of his boot soles on the stony beach or the mist which lapped at his shins. Her dark hair spilled over her shift and rippled down her back in a cascade of glossy, deep rose ...

T
hat observation brought him to his senses. Why had he thought her hair rose? For all he knew in this hazy darkness her hair might very well be raven-black. Still, he could not quell the idea that those long, satin strands were a deep, luxurious red, and he wondered for a moment what it might feel like to slide his fingers through them.

Watching this unknown maid, a strange ache settled into
Torsten’s chest. Her figure was beautiful, a form so perfectly curved and arched that it resembled the marble sculptures he’d seen in lands like Lacedaemon and Sparta.

But the beauty he found in the maid’s figure was not for its form alone. In his travels Torsten had seen many beautiful women
, with bodies as alluring as hers. For reasons he could not fathom he thought her beautiful because ... he
knew
her.

How long he had been staring
up at that cliff he did not know. He could have gone on staring until dawn. So he was not prepared for the shock which came next. Raising her arms as if they were wings the maid tilted her face to the hollow light of the moon—

A
nd stepped off the edge.

Gasping audibly
, Torsten turned and sprinted headlong down the ledge until he was low enough that he could jump to the shore. His mind was focussed on nothing but the image of the maid and the point where she had splashed into the undulating sea.

By the time he made it to where the beach
met the cliff’s face—she had not resurfaced.

* * *

The water closed over Norah’s body with a clap that hurt her ears. It was cold, in stark contrast to the mild air above it. The shock of it caused her to inhale sharply; frigid water flooded her lungs in response, scraping down her throat like shards of glass. Immediate dark overwhelmed her, like a lid being shut on a tomb. So dark that she could not see her hands as they paddled involuntarily.

A
ringing sounded in her ears as her lungs struggled to breathe air that was not there. A high-pitched ringing that ... no, wait. Not ringing.
Laughter
. The sea was laughing at her. Triumphant in its victory, it wrapped wraith-like fingers, soft as a breeze, around her legs, her waist, pulling her down.

Norah did not fight; she
allowed the sea to drag her to its floor to whatever watery death it had in store for her. Gradually she began to succumb to the lack of air. Her head grew hazy, her eyes grew heavy, and the screaming pain in her lungs began to fade.

As
her consciousness slipped away from her, the faces reappeared behind her eyelids. They drifted, floating like clouds through her mind as they did when they visited her at the broch. Painted faces, decorated in swirling designs with an unknown but important meaning. The faces smiled their lovely smiles at her, reassuring, as she was drawn ever downwards by the invisible hands of the sea.

And then,
in the few seconds before she lost consciousness entirely, she felt the sea tightened its grip. Strong fingers dug into her flesh; thick, unyielding arms wrapped themselves around her waist, pulling her in sharp, jerky movements.

The last sensation
that made its mark upon her dying mind was the feel of rushing water over her body as she was dragged swiftly to the bottom of the sea. Where she would lie for the rest of eternity.