“Run!” I shouted, and took my own advice. My last glimpse of the cave showed me Tuttugu running my way and Snorri behind him, still trying to haul himself clear of the drop-off.
I sprinted out beneath the hanging lichen and recoiled off Tuttugu as our paths crossed. The impact sent me sprawling and probably saved my life as my terror would have seen me racing out onto a killingly steep descent toward the fjord.
“Quick!” I wheezed the word while trying to haul air back into my recently emptied lungs.
Tuttugu and I staggered out onto the slope, clinging to each other, a rolling cloud of pulverized stone billowing behind us. We fell to the ground and looked back as the cave exhaled dust, like smoke whooshing from the mouth of some vast dragon. Buried thunder vibrated through us, resonating in my chest.
“Snorri?” Tuttugu asked, staring at the cave mouth without hope.
I made to shake my head, but there, emerging from the cloud, grey from foot to head, came Snorri, spitting and coughing.
He collapsed beside us, and for the longest time none of us spoke.
Finally, with the last traces of dust drifting out across the water far below, I stated the obvious. “No key in the world is going to open that for you.”
EIGHT
We returned to coast-hopping, the Norseheim shore leading us south. Given that Snorri’s options appeared to have reduced to the wastes of Yttrmir in the distant and unwelcoming kingdom of Finn, or a poisoned lake in still more distant Scorron, he settled for seeking out Skilfar as originally planned, his quest so far having added only questions rather than answers.
Aslaug came to me that first night, just as on the previous one on the fjord while we sailed away from the collapse of Eridruin’s Cave, and warned me against the Norseman’s plans.
“Snorri is led by that key and it will be his ruin, just as it will ruin any who keep his company.”
“They say it’s Loki’s key,” I told her. “You don’t trust your own father?”
“Ha!”
“Can’t the daughter of lies see through her father’s tricks?”
“I lie.” She smiled that smile which makes a man smile back. “But my lies are gentle things compared to those my father sews. He can poison a whole people with four words.” She framed my face with her hands, her touch dry and cool. “The key is locking you in to your fate even as it opens every door. The best liars always tell the truth—they just choose which parts. I might truthfully tell you that if you fight a battle at the equinox your army will be victorious—perhaps though, your army would have won on every day that month, but only on the equinox would you not survive the battle to see the enemy routed.”
“Well, believe me when I say I’m stopping in Vermillion. Horses, wild or otherwise, couldn’t drag me to Kelem’s doorstep.”
“Good.” Again the smile. “Kelem seeks to own night’s door. It would be better it were never opened than that old mage gain control over it. Get the key for yourself though, Prince Jalan, and you and I might open that particular door together. I would make you King of Shadows and be your queen . . .”
She broke apart in the gloom as the sun set, her smile last to depart.
? ? ?
We restocked on staples and water at isolated communities, and passed the larger ports by. Seven days’ sailing from Harrowheim’s quays brought us to within sight of Beerentoppen, our last landfall in the lands of Norseheim. Seven days best forgotten. I thought I’d seen the worst of travel by sea when the Ikea brought us north. Before I passed out I’d seen waves big as a man slamming into the longboat, the whole vessel rolling about and seemingly out of control. Between Harrowheim and Beerentoppen however a storm overtook us that even Snorri acknowledged as “a bit windy.” The gale rolled up waves that would overtop houses, setting the whole ocean in a constant heaving swell. One moment our tiny boat sat deep in a watery valley, surrounded by vast dark mountains of brine, the next second would see us hoisted skyward, lifted to the very crest of a foam-skinned hill. It seemed certain the whole craft would be flipped into the air by one wave only to come crashing down into the arms of the next for a final embrace. Somewhere in that long wet nightmare Snorri decided our boat was called the Sea-Troll.
? ? ?
The only good reason to let dawn find you awake is that the previous night’s wine has not yet run out, or that a demanding young woman is keeping you up. Or both. Being cold and wet and seasick was not a good reason, but it was mine.
The predawn glow revealed Beerentoppen hunched amid the marches of its smaller kin who crowded the coast. The faintest wisp of smoke marked it out, rising from a blunt peak. The range lay on the westmost tip of the jarldom of Bergen and from these shores we would head out into open seas for the final crossing to the continent.