The Ice People 41 - Demon's Mountain. Margit Sandemo

and saw him hurry over to two people who came out of the mist, followed by two female spirits.

      “Ellen,” said Nataniel, with so much love in his voice that Gabriel felt quite warm inside. Gabriel had expected Nataniel to embrace her, but he didn’t. He merely took her hand, holding it between his for an eternity. Both he and Ellen had tears in their eyes.

      Gabriel stared at the beautiful women who accompanied the new arrivals. “Dida and Villemo,” explained Ulvhedin.

      Gabriel looked more closely at Dida. She was so unbelievably dignified, but translucent, as if she belonged to an age that was unfathomably remote.

      Without realizing it, Gabriel seized Ulvhedin by the hand. Just to show where he belonged.

      “Is she a queen?” he whispered.

      Ulvhedin murmured back: “We don’t know. Perhaps we’ll get to know her story tonight.”

      Those words made Gabriel shudder. He felt rather scared.

      Rikard and Tova approached, together with a boy who was said to be Trond. He was with the handsomest man Gabriel had ever seen. He couldn’t take his eyes off him. And everybody else seemed just as impressed. They greeted the newcomer most courteously. Then Gabriel understood who he was. This had to be Gand, whom everybody had spoken about with so much respect.

      Now all the members of the Ice People were gathered: Benedikte, André and Mali. Rikard and his daughter, Tova; Vetle Volden, his son Jonathan, and Jonathan’s children, Finn, Ole and Gro; Vetle’s daughter Mari, with her five children, and his other daughter, Karine, with young Gabriel; Christa Gard with her son Nataniel; and Knut Skogsrud with his daughter Ellen.

      Twenty-two people. It was a long time since the Ice People had been so numerous. Vetle’s descendants were the biggest crowd.

      They had twelve helpers between them in all: Dida, the Wanderer, Heike, Villemo, Dominic, Niklas, Tarjei, Trond, Ulvhedin, Ingrid, Linde-Lou and Gand.

      And nobody apart from Gand knew where they were going or who had invited them. In these strange surroundings.

      They were all excited, but a few were still scared. Gand led them in between the blue, shining cliffs. The cold from the mist had gone completely; the temperature was pleasant and a perpetual, burning sunset lay over the entire golden landscape.

      The phrase “evening land” rushed through Gabriel’s mind. He had read about Silje’s name for the country she had seen in visions. Once more, he looked up towards the summit where the winged creatures circled around. This was precisely what Silje had described. Demons ...?

      Could they be demons, those creatures up there?

      He couldn’t be sure from so far away. He heard a distant roar as if from a volcano that suddenly flared up, or some kind of underground explosion. The roaring sound came and went with greater or lesser strength. Like irregular bangs inside the cliff itself.

      Gabriel looked at the others to see whether they had also noticed the phenomenon, and found that was clearly the case.

      They had only taken a few steps between the cliff walls when a gate appeared in front of them. It was guarded by two giant, black creatures with beaks and thin, spidery limbs.

      “I recognize them!” Tova exclaimed. She was frightened. “But before it said ‘The Gates of Peace’ over them. How bizarre! I know I’ve been here before. This is the entrance to the other world. This place is dangerous, as I certainly experienced!”

      Gand gave her a calm smile. “It isn’t now. Vanja also passed these gates once, when she was trying to find Tamlin down in the abode of the night demons.”

      “Surely these gates with beasts can’t be everywhere, can they?” Tova protested hotly.

      “Yes, they can. Because, as you so rightly pointed out, this is the transition into another world. It differs according to the circumstances in which you pass such a border. Vanja did so on the way to the grottos of the night demons. You did so when you searched for the parallel world. And here ...”

      Mari was frightened. “This is all just a dream, isn’t it?” she said quickly.

      “Of course not!” Tova replied sharply, and Mari burst into tears.

      Vetle tried to reconcile them. “You have to understand,” he told Tova, “Mari is so afraid that people might dislike her and be angry with her. She can’t stand sharp voices.”

      Tova tightened her lips and tried to sound gentle and compassionate, something only Mari didn’t notice. “I’m sorry, Mari. I didn’t want to sound brusque. Now we should continue on our way, shouldn’t we? So we won’t come across anything unpleasant here, Gand?”

      His name was so difficult to pronounce without setting her whole soul in uproar!

      As always, Gand was grounded and completely calm. He smiled and said: “No, it’s not dangerous now.” Why did her presence never affect him?

      And he was quite right: the creatures stood up with gentle, sinuous movements and lowered their shining swords. They bowed deeply before the procession that followed. But it was Gand whom they greeted with the greatest respect, as everyone could see.

      Gabriel assumed that everybody would slip through without any further ado, but a short exchange of words followed when it was Mari’s turn to pass the creatures by the gates. The spidery creatures blocked her way with their swords. With harsh, grating voices, they asserted that she didn’t have the right frame of mind. She was negative and didn’t see all this as something fine and exciting and outstanding. In other words, she had lost her sense of adventure. Mari began to weep again and explained that it was only now that she grasped the importance of belonging to the Ice People. Could she please be allowed to join them? She entreated them all, and most of all Gand.

      The children were concerned for their mother and prayed for her. The younger children were probably thinking that she would have to walk the long, raw way back all by herself. What if she got lost?

      Gand regarded her mildly. “Losing your imagination in childhood is dangerous. You were a gentle, sensitive girl. Perhaps you were too sensitive. Have you tried to become hard in order to face your disappointments and grief in the cold world of humankind?”

      “Yes, I probably have,” Mari sobbed.

      Gand addressed the guards at the gates: “This is just a façade to protect against the uncertainty that runs deep. I think she is showing her true self now. Let her in.”

      The swords were lowered. Mari wiped away her tears, giving the beasts a grateful nod.

      Everybody was inside the “other” world.

      Tova was puzzled. “The landscape isn’t the same. Last time, all this was an open plain. What lay behind it was hidden in mist. And the grey people were lurking inside the mist.”

      “They’re not here now,” said Gand. “You’re not at all in the same place as you were then.”

      All they could see was an endless range of mountains. They walked silently along roads that twisted and turned; a long caravan of living and long-dead souls that right now seemed to be equal. Apart from two members who were different: Dida in her ethereal translucency and Gand, who was leading them all.

      They walked on like this, in puzzled silence, until they reached a valley. All along the way, they could hear dull thuds that came ever closer and became ever louder, followed every time by a flare of colours in the sky – as from erupting volcanoes in the distance.

      They stopped.

      A shining peak, tall and conical, protruded from the ground in the middle of the valley, as if it had been forced up from the underworld by a gigantic earthquake.

      The younger children instinctively sought their mother or father.

      The cliff wall rose sheer before them. A black stone stairway led up to a new, open gate that led inside the cliff. Up there,