The Islands of the Blessed - Nancy

We make dishes, said the fin man.

All right so far, Jack thought. He hadn’t annoyed anyone. He put down his bundle and watched for a while longer. “How can a Pictish beast swim with such a long, straight pole in its middle?” he said.

The fin man grasped Jack’s arm and walked him to the end of the tail. The boy almost panicked. The creature’s fingers gripped him with frightening strength, and Jack didn’t know what he intended. The fin man pointed at the tip of the tail. Bend it, he said.

Jack touched it cautiously. It wasn’t as nasty as he’d expected, and he found that it was amazingly springy. He used both hands to pull it up as far as it would go, when the tail suddenly whipped back into position. Jack was flung head over heels into a wall. Fortunately, the thickness of the air saved him from real harm. He slid down with the sound of clicking in his ears. The fin men’s V-shaped mouths had reversed so that they resembled smiles. I’ll bet anything that clicking is laughter, Jack thought.

He walked back with as much dignity as he could manage. “Good for you. You’ve broken the ice,” approved the Bard. I could have broken my neck, too, Jack thought resentfully. The fin folk seemed to have the same sense of humor as Northmen.

We play that trick on all youngsters, the first fin man said. My name is Whush. You are—?

“Jack,” said Jack. He introduced Thorgil and the Bard.

We know Dragon Tongue. He shows up now and then to lecture us.

“Merely looking for stolen property,” the Bard said. “And that reminds me, I saw four human children in the victory procession.”

They’ve been here for years, said Whush. You would do them no service by taking them from their new families.

“You’re probably right.” The old man sighed. “I just wish you wouldn’t steal toddlers.”

Their mothers were careless. Without us, the toddlers would have drowned.

Now other fin folk shyly approached the flensing platform to inspect the visitors. Mermaids and merlads swam around them, darting away like frightened fish when they were noticed. Jack hadn’t thought about the existence of merlads, but of course fin men had to start out somewhere. Like the maids, the lads were much handsomer than their adult counterparts, though they didn’t deteriorate to the level of sea hags. Fin wives, Jack corrected himself. He saw a few creatures that seemed to be halfway between the two stages. Their hair was falling out and their mouths were broadening into a V shape.

The merlads were showing a great deal of interest in Thorgil, swimming in to touch her and speeding away. “The next time one of them does that, I’m going to smack him,” said Thorgil.

“No, you aren’t. We have enough problems,” the Bard said.

The mermaids were just as interested in Jack, but shyer about it. He was uncomfortable with them because they weren’t wearing anything from the waist up. At least they kept their distance. Pretty boy, come with me, one of them called.

I saw him first, said another.

You! He’ll never look at you, barnacle-face.

He will so, seaweed-for-brains! The two mermaids fell into a squabble, poking and pinching each other until a sea hag came over to separate them.

Maids! Maids! If you don’t behave, you won’t go to the banquet tonight, scolded the sea hag—fin wife, Jack amended. He had to keep himself from bolting, the creature was so overpowering close-up. With her brawny shoulders and big hands, she looked stronger than Whush.

She was cloaked in a gown that shimmered with color like the inside of a shell. Hundreds of pearls were looped around her thick, scaly neck. It was such a contrast, Jack couldn’t take his eyes off her.

You’re a bold one, giving me that fish-eye look, said the sea hag.

“I—I—was admiring your dress,” he stammered.

Silver-tongued, too, the creature said approvingly. You’ll make a fine husband for one of our mermaids.

“He’s only visiting, Shair Shair,” the Bard said. “You’ll have to look elsewhere.” Shair Shair smiled in the fin folk way, as if to say, We’ll see about that. She lumbered off, for like all the sea hags, she was graceless. Jack caught a glimpse of her toes, long and scaly with claws at the tips, beneath the beautiful, shimmering robe. In spite of her unsettling appearance, Jack rather liked her, as he had liked the troll-maidens Fonn and Forath once he’d gotten used to them.

“At first everyone was standoffish and now they’re too friendly,” Thorgil complained, swiping at a merlad who was attempting to grab her hair. “Who was that monster? She had enough pearls on her to sink a ship.”

“Do not insult her,” the Bard said sharply. “She is Shair Shair, wife of the Shoney. She’s the draugr’s mother.”

“Oh, bedbugs,” said Jack, using Pega’s worst swearword. “What’s going to happen when we tell her about her daughter?” 

Chapter Thirty-four

THE SHONEY’S FEAST

Nothing happened quickly in Notland, Jack discovered. The fin folk were masters of indirection. They knew that the Bard had come to see their king and did nothing to bring it about. Shair Shair had looked the visitors over and gone away. Whush invited them to follow him around. He seemed to have no particular goal in doing this.

“Can’t we just ask to see the Shoney?” Thorgil said. Both she and Jack were tired of wandering around aimlessly.

“That’s not how things get done here,” the old man said. “If we try to hurry the fin folk, they’ll simply melt away. They have a saying: ‘The longest way around is the shortest way there.’”

“It’s already long enough,” said Thorgil.

Whush, for reasons known only to himself, led them on a tour of the farms. They observed the white cattle, the barley fields, and the chicken-of-the-sea coops. They endured a long and exceedingly boring description of kelp harvesting. They were introduced to sea goats, or capricorns. These were handsome creatures with long horns and flowing hair, and Whush informed them that the hair could be used to spin cloth. Instead of hind legs, the goats had fish tails. They could both swim and leap, and were altogether charming in the way they frisked around.

But even capricorns got tedious after a while. Jack was tired and thirsty, and when they came to a dark stream, he asked whether it was all right to drink from it. Not that stream, said Whush. It comes from the queems. It wouldn’t be good for you.

“Queem?” Thorgil said. “That’s the Pictish word for ‘tunnel’.”

Yes. Tunnels of the dead.

Jack looked across the stream and realized that what he’d taken for small hills were in fact barrows. They were covered with thick grass that had turned an autumn yellow and were humped up like cats waiting to be stroked. “Tunnels going where?” he asked.

“Remember what I told you about mirrors,” the Bard said. “They are called ‘endless water’ because they are believed to be a portal to another world. The dead swim through them to a long, dark queem that leads to a bright new sea where winter never comes and the water is as clear as sky. Departed fin folk are buried with mirrors for that reason.”

I’ll bet the draugr’s barrow doesn’t contain a mirror, thought Jack. That’s why we’ve brought one. He wished they could simply drop the wretched thing off and go home, but that would have been too simple. The longest way around was the shortest way there.

Fortunately, Whush next took them to a farmhouse, where they were offered food and drink. The water was salty and the oatcakes had too much seaweed mixed into them. The farmer’s wife, a sea hag with so many barnacles that it looked like she was wearing a helmet, tried to interest Jack in one of her daughters.

Rest here. The banquet will begin late, said Whush. It was the first time anyone had suggested that they might attend the banquet. The sea hag—fin wife, Jack reminded himself—showed them into a courtyard. Kelp was heaped up for beds. It was unpleasantly clammy, but Jack was too tired to care.

It was dark when a pack of small merlads sprang upon him like so many puppies and rousted him out of bed. The dome of cloud over the courtyard flickered with lightning. A distant rumble told Jack that a thunderstorm was taking place in the outside world.

“It’s so humid,” groaned Thorgil, who had been awakened by a group of little mermaids bouncing up and down on the kelp. “I’d give anything for a swim.”

“You can swim in the air,” Jack said. He leaped upward, much to the delight of the merlads, and did a somersault.

“It isn’t the same. I feel hot and sticky.”

Jack realized that he hadn’t felt a breeze since arriving in Notland. Thick, muggy air pressed down on him, and he felt a sudden longing to be on a ship with a crisp wind at his back.

The Bard was still asleep. Jack knelt down to wake him. “What? What’s that?” said the old man, instantly coming alert.

“It’s nighttime,” Jack said. “I think we’re supposed to get ready for the banquet.”

“I don’t know how much readying we can do,” the Bard complained, rising painfully from his bed. “Drat this seaweed! It always makes my joints ache.” He walked around the courtyard to get the stiffness out. “I’d give anything to miss the banquet, but we won’t get anywhere with the Shoney if we don’t attend. He’ll insist on showing us his wealth and power. When we’re suitably awed, he’ll ask for our gifts. Then the bargaining begins.”

The fin wife showed up with two sturdy merlads bearing torches and invited them to dine before leaving. The Bard thanked her graciously. Jack wondered why they would eat before attending a feast. “She’s being polite,” explained the old man. “She knows humans don’t like ocean meat, and that’s all the Shoney’s going to serve. There are twelve huge Pictish beasts to get through, and the fin folk won’t leave until they’ve devoured every scrap. They’ll wash it down with buckets of kelp lager, a kind of beer. Stay away from the lager. You’ll be running for the bushes all day tomorrow, and there aren’t any bushes in this place.”

The fin wife had laid a table with dishes Jack recognized as Pictish beast bones, and they were each given a hardboiled seagull egg and a bowl of oyster stew. A single roast salmon graced the center of the table. The cow’s milk, served in hollowed-out whale teeth, tasted strongly of seaweed. “The flavor comes from what they eat,” pointed out Thorgil, who didn’t mind the taste at all. “During famine years the Northmen feed their cows with seaweed, and the milk is just like this.”