The Ice People 47 - Is There Anybody Out There?. Margit Sandemo

Targenor and her mother and the others from the village would come and rescue her. The thought of it gave her the will to go on living.

      Tiili was not one of the stricken or chosen ones. She didn’t have the ability to hear Targenor’s calls to her with her inner consciousness. Much less respond to them.

      She soon discovered that her bodily functions were no longer working. She was breathing and her heart was beating, but that was all. She had no need to eat or drink or sleep.

      The latter turned out to be a terrible disadvantage. The time seemed long enough as it was, and now she had to remain awake constantly.

      Of course she tried to scream – because she had regained her voice. But who would hear her?

      Every so often she saw those frightening, beautiful creatures in black robes. They stood at the very end of the tunnel as they secretly stole glances inside. But they never entered.

      The stream of red air that kept her alive was fatally dangerous to them.

      So many tears ...

      In the end she was unable to cry anymore.

      If she only had been able to stop thinking! The fear she felt for her loved ones! The fear for her own future. If only she could sweep all of it away and live like a totally empty creature.

      But she was still able to measure time.

      It grew alarmingly long.

      That was when she received help.

      It began when she heard shouts coming from the big, empty space that she could discern just outside the tunnel. The shouts weren’t coming from the black-clad men, of that she was certain.

      Someone was crying for help.

      Tiili didn’t know that it was a spirit that Tan-ghil had sent down to the Great Abyss. She shouted back and received a response.

      But then the voice disappeared. It faded into the distance and she didn’t hear it anymore.

      Still, when something entered the tunnel she thought it was the creature, then she felt someone touch her shoulder.

      At first she started. The touch was very light and seemed to scratch her a little.

      “Who is it?” she asked.

      Something crept up on her shoulder. She looked at it and was about to scream but composed herself. Animals had always been her friends, and she wouldn’t dream of scaring one away.

      It was a bat that had strayed into this horrible tunnel.

      “God’s peace be with you, little friend,” she said in a gentle voice. The bat wasn’t really pleasing to look at; on the contrary, it looked frightening as it wrinkled its nose threateningly and bared its fangs. But it was a living creature! It had been a long time since Tiili had actually seen one.

      “You’re scratching me a little,” she chattered. “But that’s all right.”

      The bat let out a sharp sound that pierced her ears.

      My goodness, I can understand what it’s saying, she thought with surprise. Could it be an effect of the red glow?

      Yes, now she thought about it, she had been able to read the thoughts of the black-clothed men when they had been there.

      The bat seemed to wonder what she was, and Tiili told it about her bitter fate. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to use one’s voice again. To know that someone was listening.

      “And no one knows that I am here,” she concluded.

      Strange thoughts entered her mind like fluctuating waves.

      “What is it you’re trying to tell me,” she asked. “Am I able to transmit thoughts? And you’re asking whether I will permit you to bite me? Now that sounds a little unpleasant to me!”

      More waves of thoughts vibrated through her mind.

      “And whether you may help me to sleep? Nothing could please me more! You will transmit to me ... your ability to hibernate all through the winter? But what if they look for me and I can’t hear them?”

      The thoughts stopped.

      “Well, I’ll try,” she said after thinking about it for a moment. “But could you help me get into contact with Targenor first and then we can see about sleeping later?”

      The bat interpreted that as an invitation to sink its fangs into her. Tiili hadn’t been prepared for it to happen so quickly, so she screamed out loud when the fangs sunk into her neck. It just so happens that Nordic bats aren’t bloodsuckers. (In fact, none of the species are, not even the ones known as vampires. They pierce a hole in the skin and then lick up the blood.) However, the Nordic species are able to bite properly if they want to. Tiili felt warm blood running down her neck and wondered anxiously whether the creature had hit an important vein. But that didn’t seem to be the case.

      It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but Tiili coped. She badly wanted to make contact with her brother.

      But Targenor was already dead. His corpse had drifted out to the Adriatic Sea where no one found it.

      And Dida couldn’t determine where the vibrating signals were coming from or who was sending them.

      The bat kept its promise to Tiili. When autumn arrived it crept up under the ceiling of the tunnel and hibernated. And at the same time the girl fell asleep.

      She didn’t wake until late the next summer. By that time the bat was gone and she never saw it again.

      But when Dida grew old and was about to die and Targenor’s spirit came to her and sat at the edge of her bed to take the dying woman by the hand they spoke of Tiili.

      At that point it was winter and Tiili was fast asleep. Then Dida and Targenor left the Valley of the Ice People in order to fight Tan-ghil on their own.

      Tiili had become susceptible to impressions from the outside. She could hear the bog men moving about nearby, both inside and outside the mountain. She registered that the power of Tan-ghil’s spirit was present in the valley. And once she sensed a young woman passing outside the mountain: she sensed the woman’s horror and how she rushed away from the spot.

      It was Sunniva the Elder she had heard.

      Many years later she sensed other people who came close to the mountain. They, too, fled. It seemed as though the entire valley was fleeing!

      At that point she was gripped by such a strong sense of despair that she managed to develop her own thought power. It moved outside the mountain and found the little family rushing across the side of the mountain in fear.

      They didn’t see her. But she got close to them, very close, and looked up at the woman sitting in the saddle. Tiili was screaming for help with all her might, but they couldn’t hear her. The horse carried a strangely beautiful and transparent window of many colours. Tiili looked up at it and didn’t think she had ever seen anything so marvellous before.

      Then she turned her gaze from the stained glass and looked pleadingly at the woman once more.

      Since no one seemed to be reacting to her pleas, she became so dejected that her power of thought was diminished and she could no longer see the people on the moor.

      This time her tears began to flow again, the ones she thought had dried up long ago. They trickled for a long time down her cheeks and she wept aloud in her eternal loneliness.

      The centuries passed, proceeded slowly. Nothing new happened in her mountain. Sometimes something would take place outside. She registered Kolgrim’s presence, and Ulvhedin’s much later ...

      But how did that help? No one knew that she was in there.

      Had Tan-ghil said half a century? That had passed long ago. She had been so frightened that he might return and now all she wanted was just that, so that she could get the whole thing over with.

      But