Читать книгу The Ice People 33 - Demon of the Night - Margit Sandemo - Страница 8

Chapter 3

One night a few weeks later, Tamlin, the demon of the night, sat up in bed. He pulled his ears back, bending his horrible head slightly and placing his arms protectively over it.

What he feared most had come again.

The voice that made him cringe in submissiveness and fear was calling.

It called from far away, like an echo on the wind.

“Slave,” it whispered slowly and hoarsely. “Slave! Slave, miserable creep. Can you hear me?”

“I’m coming,” answered Tamlin’s thoughts.

For a moment, he looked down at the sleeping girl beside him and quickly pulled the blanket over her head so that she couldn’t see him. Then he slipped out of the half-open window and took off. His wings were now fully developed but he tended to keep them pressed closely together on his back, so that Vanja had never seen how big they were: now they unfurled themselves in the night, carrying him swiftly far away.

He knew instinctively where he needed to go because this wasn’t the first time that he had given a report. The voice had been calling him since before he was able to fly, when he had had to stand outside during the night, sending thoughts to his lord and master. He had been proud of his honourable task. Now he was big enough to be allowed to meet his awesome ruler face to face, albeit not in reality, as Tamlin was aware. He was to meet a replica, strong enough to control and subdue the demons of the night that Tengel had in his power.

Tamlin flew northwards as swiftly as thought. If anybody had seen him, they would have believed he was a whirlwind. This was why Lilith had chosen a storm demon when she took a lover in order to breed Tamlin, in conformity with the wishes of the ruler.

It didn’t take him long to reach the Valley of the Ice People where the replica of Tengel the Evil waited. Many summer pastures had come into existence in the surrounding mountains, but people avoided the old valley, though it was now easy to reach because the glacier had melted. Nobody had built there in the three centuries since the Ice People’s houses had been torched. Everything was deserted and quiet, yet disturbingly beautiful.

Tamlin sensed where he should land. But he hesitated. He felt ill at ease, hating having somebody in authority over him.

The harsh order struck like a slap from a giant hand. “Come down now, you miserable creep!” Tamlin could do nothing but obey the voice.

There it stood – the shadow, or replica, or whatever you might call it. Out on a projecting cliff, just as it had stood on the night of its bitter struggle with Heike and Tula, in which Tengel the Evil had triumphed in the long run because Heike later died from his wounds. But on that occasion, Tengel’s humiliation had been complete. Four unknown demons had come to Tula’s assistance, plunging Tengel over the cliff. Later, Tula vanished forever with the very same demons.

Tamlin knew nothing about those events.

This was the place where Tengel the Evil had previously fought. It was where his vassal Kolgrim had struck down Tarjei, his worst enemy. Tarjei, the chosen, who had been destined to crush Tengel. But Tarjei was never allowed to show what he was capable of. He remained an exceptionally gifted but unfulfilled member of the clan. Thanks to Kolgrim, Tengel had put an effective stop to his progress.

Tengel had also appeared here before Ulvhedin, almost frightening the life out of the monstrous giant who had had the audacity to turn his back on his ancestor. Ulvhedin, who would otherwise have been a useful tool to continue working with! Sol, too, had once met Tengel the Evil not far from here. But young Sol hadn’t shown the least bit of the submissive fear that Tengel deserved. What a shame that he hadn’t succeeded in getting her on his side. She would have been perfect in the evil one’s service.

Tengel had decided that this was where he was to meet his new slave. This was where his spiritual image was the strongest, this was its accustomed place, and he didn’t have to make an effort to meet his cursed descendants, who should have given him so much joy, but who had thwarted his plans for them.

Now the night demon that he had in his power was able to fly. It wasn’t yet fully grown, not fully developed, but at least the small creature had wings, which was the most important thing. So Tengel the Evil didn’t have the bother of projecting his thoughts all the way to Linden Avenue.

Lilith had done a good job. Her offspring’s characteristics showed that he was the son of the most beautiful of the night demons. Of course, from a human perspective, this slave was frightening, but as a demon he was one of the more attractive ones – or certainly seemed destined to become so.

“Miserable creep,” snarled Tengel the Evil’s spiritual image, so that dusty green clouds billowed out of the mouth of the horrible, obnoxious old creature. “What can you tell me?”

Tamlin, who was proud by nature, hated having to crawl to this being. To be treated as a subordinate, as a slave, was disgusting, but Tengel the Evil had such power over him that all Tamlin could do was to bow and scrape with his head bent and a humble attitude.

“Oh, lord and master, there’s nothing dangerous to report.”

“Really? Is that so?” Tengel said sharply, so that the decaying fumes enveloped the demon. “I want a full report about every single member. The oldest?”

“The one in Sweden is dead.”

“Splendid,” said Tengel with a twitch at the corner of his mouth. This was probably the closest he could get to a smile. “And the others?”

“Those that call themselves Viljar and Belinda are frail. Belinda is of no account and her husband has lost his strength. They won’t live for long. They haven’t spoken any dangerous words and their thoughts and interests are focused on earthly things such as eating food and managing all the stupid functions of the human body.”

“But there is one person in the house who is strong,” said Tengel, so sharply that Tamlin took another step backwards. “Benedikte. What about her?”

He was fretting that she had escaped his plans at the time of the ferry crossing.

“Benedikte?” said Tamlin thoughtfully. “She’s not dangerous. She can’t even see me!”

Tengel the Evil interrupted him impatiently. “No human being is able to, you fool!”

Tamlin realized that he would have to choose his words more cautiously. “I’ve monitored Benedikte extra carefully, just as you requested, oh Master. I don’t see anything extraordinary in her behaviour. Her thoughts are focused on her son, André, and nothing else. Since she became a mother, she’s completely forgotten what it means to be stricken.”

“Continue to keep your eyes and ears open! The son ... does he show any signs of being stricken or ... chosen?”

The last word was followed by a grimace, because Tengel the Evil hated the chosen ones – the scum that Tengel the Good had invented.

“André?” said Tamlin. “No, definitely not. He’s just a tedious average human child.”

Tengel the Evil seemed satisfied. “Go on!”

“Henning is steady, trustworthy and slow. He has no plans to journey to the Valley. His wife is a damned priest’s daughter: she doesn’t even know where the Valley is, and has no intention of moving her big bum out of the house if she doesn’t have to. The ones in Volden’s house aren’t dangerous. Christoffer struts about thinking a lot about the Valley of the Ice People, but he doesn’t have any actual plans to come here. In fact, they’re just a bunch of slow, inane and sluggish people. The task I’ve been given is pretty boring!”

“Malin is of the Ice People,” Tengel the Evil pointed out encouragingly.

Tamlin shook his head. “She’s quite bright, but she has plenty to take care of in her own world. She hasn’t looked in the Ice People’s books or meddled with their things since I arrived in the house. None of them has.”

“There’s one you’ve forgotten!”

“Have I?” Tamlin asked as matter-of-factly as he possibly could. “Yes, you’re right: Vanja. She’s as empty as a shell, she’s of no interest. She only thinks of looking smart and admiring her own reflection.”

Tamlin hoped that the séance was over, but he was wrong. Tengel’s apparition lingered, pondering something.

Then it spoke. “There’s somebody else.”

“What?” said Tamlin. “Somebody else? No, I’ve mentioned them all.”

“There’s one more,” Tengel said slowly and savagely. “Find that person for me!”

“I don’t understand. I’ve never heard of anybody else. “

“There’s somebody who keeps himself hidden from me.”

“Nobody can hide himself from you, Master,” Tamlin fawned.

Tengel wasn’t listening. “There’s somebody who hindered me at Fergeoset. Who did away with the ferryman I had placed there and who ruined the sacred image that was to be my slave. And who also killed Ulvar, my previous helper. But I’ve never succeeded in seeing this being. What powers does it possess that can withstand me? How can anyone hide himself from me?”

Tamlin waited. He had no idea who Tengel the Evil was talking about.

Suddenly, Tengel the Evil’s terrible glance was directed at Tamlin. “On your way home from here, you are to visit your tribe where the demons of the night reside. You must talk to each and every one of them and order them to search for that person who is hidden from me. They are to search all over the world. When they find the presumptuous being, they are to destroy him. That’s my order. If they’re unable to do it, I’ll see to the matter myself. Then I’ll punish you all severely! Leave now! And keep your eyes and ears open in the homes of the Ice People!”

“Yes, Master.”

Tamlin forced himself to bow, and then he took flight.

Far below him, he saw the deserted Valley in the starry night. He could discern the figure of Tengel the Evil like a small, black pile. Then it dissolved.

His master had been pleased with him. Tamlin was relieved and proud.

He flew on towards the domain of nightmares, the hidden realm of the demons of the night. He hadn’t been there before, and the route went through the dark minds of human beings. Soon he arrived at the entrance and rushed down through blue-black corridors, between twisted columns at the entrances of grottos like dark holes. He instinctively found where he wanted to go, past the worst nightmares of slumbering children and adults, where peculiar, gnarled shadows waited by the cave openings. He saw dimly shining eyes watching him. He heard an undulating, moaning scream and he understood that this was an echo of the bad dreams of those who were sleeping.

On his way he met other demons flying out of the grottos, because it was always night somewhere on earth and they had a lot to do.

Then he reached the innermost grotto, landed and went in through the tall gate.

Many demons were gathered here. They turned to look at Tamlin as he stepped inside. A tall, beautiful woman, half animal and half human, walked towards him, and he greeted her with a respectful nod. “I am Tamlin,” he said. “Our terrible ruler has placed me in the house of the Ice People, and I am trying to carry out my task to our joint honour.”

The woman smiled. “Oh, so you’re Tamlin. We know you. What do you want?”

Tamlin quoted Tengel’s order to them to seek out “the invisible one”.

A demon stood up. “I know about the invisible one. We don’t want to be involved in this.”

“This is the order that was given to me,” Tamlin objected. “I can’t refuse to obey it because the power of Tengel the Evil is much too great. I must guard my honour.”

“Then you’re not to be burdened with knowledge of the invisible one,” replied the older demon. “There are strong powers behind the Ice People clan. We can’t get involved, so it’s better for us to keep quiet. I know that it’s now your duty to report me to our evil ruler, who has unlawfully seized power over us. However, your mother can eradicate your knowledge of me from your consciousness. Will you please do so, Lilith?”

Lilith? Lilith was his mother! The most beautiful of all the female demons!

The beautiful, animal-like woman put her hand over his eyes and murmured a few words. “When you leave here, my son, you’ll have forgotten everything about this demon’s knowledge.”

She removed her hand and smiled at him.

“When you’ve completed your task with the Ice People, you’ll be united with us once again. I can imagine that you’re bored in the home of human beings, but they don’t live forever. You’ll be free when the clan dies out. Or when Tengel the Evil assumes power on earth.”

Didn’t they live forever?

“What’s the matter, my son? Your face has turned so dark?”

Tamlin shook his head with a look of indifference.

Lilith went on: “I hope you’re being watchful in the house so that nobody knows of your presence? Be careful not to drop anything or leave traces!”

Tamlin replied: “Nobody knows that I’m there.

“Very well!” replied Lilith. “Thank you for your warning, and thank you for your visit! We’ll see each other again when the time is right.”

Tamlin took leave of them and shortly afterwards he was out in the human world once more.

As he flew homewards, swifter than the wind, he tried in vain to remember something of what he had heard when he was with the demons. But his mind was empty. Somebody had warned him about something, and he had objected ...

No, his mind was empty.

Vanja had woken up in the meantime. She could feel that Tamlin had disappeared.

Not again, she thought. Had he gone out to pry around the house – or was he somewhere in her room, and up to his usual mischief?

She felt strangely alone. The room, the whole house in fact, seemed empty. Only ordinary human beings lived here.

A sleeping raven was sitting in the tree outside her window. It often sat there.

She got up, gazing out into the dark night. Where could he be? He had never vanished before.

After a while, Vanja went back to bed. She crept down underneath the blanket, lying pensively on her side.

What a strange relationship she and Tamlin had! Both of them were more children than grown-ups, but the games they played were beginning to turn into something dangerous.

He had never used his tail again as he had on the first night. However, a few days later, she had suddenly registered his claw-like hand on her breast. That wasn’t unusual but this time was different – it was resting against her skin. Underneath her nightgown. She had opened her eyes and looked straight into his mischievous ones.

“You’re improving,” he laughed in his hoarse voice, which was no voice but merely a series of whispering sounds.

Now she understood what he meant. He was cupping one of her breasts and it wasn’t just a little bud anymore: there was a slight curve between it and her ribs, the first sign that she was growing into a young woman.

“Yes, and the other one as well,” he said; she was about to feel it, but he had been swifter than her so his hand touched her breast first. It didn’t matter. She let his claws tickle her new forms.

“I’m becoming a grown-up,” she murmured. “It feels ... invigorating.”

Tamlin did nothing, just letting his hand rest there, and then she fell asleep.

After that, they often lay like that. Then one evening, he let his tongue play across her skin, playfully and light as a feather. She could see his dark head in the gloom of early spring, how he held it above her as his hair tickled her face. His tongue played under her chin until she shivered, licking her throat, over her shoulders and breast until she broke loose with a moan and turned her back to him.

“You’re teasing me,” she said, her voice thick. “You’re horrible, horrible, horrible.”

“Not at all,” he replied with satisfaction. “I’m enjoying it, and I know that you’re enjoying it as well.”

“How do you know?” she hissed.

“Well, you feel the same way about it as I do.”

Those words made her stiffen. “Tamlin, get out of my bed! Immediately! I don’t want you here anymore!”

He was silent for a minute. “I hear fear in your voice. I promise I won’t do it anymore.”

“How incredibly nice you are, all of a sudden!”

“Nice? Not at all. I just don’t fancy lying on the floor. Besides, your fear may mean that you’ll tell the others about me. So my niceness boils down to selfishness. I’ve been given an assignment, and you’re not to gossip about me. It’s as simple as that.”

“What kind of assignment?”

“Just shut up and go to sleep, you slut!”

His words made her so furious that she got up and sat by her desk all night. Tamlin stayed up with her and was exceptionally sarcastic and sharp towards her, and that morning they parted as bitter opponents.

That had been yesterday.

Now he was gone.

Had he grown tired of her? Had he moved his hiding place? Maybe to be with a more willing, more compliant girl?

The thought triggered deep furrows in her soul.

Then a dark shadow came rushing over the night sky. It came closer and landed outside her window, which she opened wide.

“Where have you been?”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Now, Tamlin, don’t be rude! I thought ... I thought ...”

To her horror, she began to cry.

“Did you think I was never coming back?” he asked her coldly, edging his way past her into her room. “How cute!”

She quickly wiped away her tears. “Can’t you tell me where you’ve been?”

“No!”

“Were you on ... your mission?”

“Perhaps. Oh, do shut up! I want to sleep.”

He flopped on the bed and pulled the blanket over his head.

Vanja was never sure whether he actually slept. Perhaps he just pretended, in order to pass the time in a more pleasant way. He was probably just resting. When he wasn’t busy with his actual task in their house, that is.

Vanja went to bed reluctantly, lying behind him. He was obviously still cross with her after the night before.

“You’re cold,” she said bluntly.

“Yeah, and so what?” he snarled. “The sun doesn’t shine where I’ve been.”

She put her arms around him, drawing his back towards her bosom.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you use your wings, my little friend,” she smiled. “I didn’t even know they worked. They are so much bigger now than they were. Can they really have grown so much?”

“Stop calling me your little friend, you damn cow!”

“Is that really the only word you know? And you’re smaller than me.”

“That’s bound to change.”

He was silent and confounded. Vanja tried to radiate warmth through her nightgown and into his ice-cold body.

Suddenly, he turned halfway so that he was lying on his back but with his face turned towards her. “I am cold,” he gasped. “My soul turned to ice last night.”

Vanja laid one arm over him and the other under his neck. “Let me warm you, Tamlin! Let all evil between us be forgotten for a little while. Let us hold each other, because I also need to feel your closeness. I missed you dreadfully last night – you mustn’t leave me like that without warning!”

He accepted her warmth willingly. She understood that he was shaking from an unknown fear.

A demon, full of fear? What could he have met last night?

“Where did you think I was?” he smiled nervously towards her nightgown.

“I had no idea, that was the most awful part of it all. I thought perhaps I had hurt you too much the night before, perhaps ...”

“Hurt me? Are you crazy? Oh, come on, after all you’re really not that special. You wanted to say something else?”

“No, it doesn’t matter,” she said, because now he had hurt her.

He got up on his elbows and was suddenly quite demonic once more.

“Yes, go on, tell me!” he hissed between his teeth.

“No, surely I also have a right to secrets!”

“You hell-cow!” he whispered furiously, lashing out at her.

“I can feel that you’re yourself again now,” she retorted. “So I don’t have to keep you warm any longer.”

She turned her back to him.

But Tamlin poked his hand under her arm and under her nightgown until he found her breast. He held the little bud between two fingers, playing with it for quite a while.

With her heart beating fast, Vanja felt him carefully but determinedly press his abdomen into her back until she could clearly feel his hard organ against her spine. It hadn’t grown any smaller over the years. Thank goodness for nightgown and loincloth!

She lay so still that she was hardly breathing, and she could feel that her abdomen was beating heavily and was sticky and hot.

This was dangerous, it really was! It couldn’t go on! Though she had no reason to be afraid provided he feared that she would blabber about him.

Was it fear that she felt?

After that night, Vanja was too scared to have the little demon child in her bed. He wasn’t really a child now. He was somewhere in between, just like herself. And he was obviously growing much faster than she was, so now it was becoming serious.

He was offended, but she was indifferent to his grumpiness. It didn’t help at all that he said she was crude and heartless.

“Don’t try to charm me,” she said curtly. “Do you want me to think that demons are so lethargic and lazy that they have to sleep in beds! They don’t, they rush around and do horrible, shocking things or flitter about in a void because human beings no longer believe in them.”

“You have no heart!” Tamlin said glumly from his place on her fine rococo desk. He couldn’t have been more out of place.

Vanja walked right up to him. “I’ve taken care of you for three years now,” she said through clenched teeth. “Taken care of you and protected you while you’ve had nothing but scorn for me. But now it’s over, see? I want to live a life of my own and to have my bed and my room to myself. There’s no longer room for both of us!”

Tamlin suddenly turned nice. “What is it that you’re so scared of? I haven’t done anything to you. Is this because you suddenly had difficulty breathing? Did you get wet between your legs? Like when my tail discovered you? Should I have found out last night?”

His direct hit made her livid.

“Tamlin, I couldn’t care less where you go, but you have to leave my room now! You’ve lost your right to live here.”

He looked away and began to fiddle absently with her writing materials. “All right. I’ll move. But I’m not allowed to move out of the house. That’s a part of my assignment. So I’ll just move in with Benedikte and young André.”

Vanja stiffened with horror. “No, you mustn’t do that! Oh well, you can stay here. But you’ll never be allowed to lie in my bed anymore! Whether the fault is mine or yours doesn’t matter, but it won’t do any longer, surely you can understand that?”

“No,” Tamlin replied mischievously.

Vanja closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. When she opened them again, he was gazing at her with glistening eyes and a playing tongue.

“Let’s say that we share the blame?” he asked her, and Vanja smiled gratefully.

“It’s impossible to be cross with you for any length of time, Tamlin. But remember this: if you touch me once more, I’ll tell the others that you’re here. Then being you won’t be fun! Benedikte might summon our forefathers, who have great power. Don’t forget that!”

“Oh, there are those who have greater power than them,” Tamlin said enigmatically, but her words had clearly made him feel ill at ease. “Well then, you can keep your horrible old fleas’ nest, I can easily ...”

“I haven’t got any fleas!” Vanja yelled, and once again they argued fiercely. But she had got her way, which was the most important thing.