C8 Chapter 8

“MARCEL! MARCEL! MARCEL! For God’s sake, Marcel!”

Half blinded by horror, Saga staggered through the nettles outside the barn. Subconsciously, she followed the footprints the men had left. The dew lay like a glistening veil over the fine grass and their heavy shoes had set a darker track, an even path leading in the direction where they had thought that people probably lived. It wasn’t the route the killer had taken.

“Marcel! Marcel!” Saga shouted.

Her helpless calls split the calm out in the glade, scattering small animals. Marcel was, of course, already far away, hunting down a monster dressed as a human being. How would he be able to hear her? He must be deep inside the roaring forest.

Saga prayed. Dear God, let Paul fall asleep. She sobbed. Terrified, she followed the tracks into the edge of the forest. She ran senselessly on in the gloomy light until, all of a sudden, she realized that she could no longer see any footprints. She stopped, exhausted and dejected. Looked around ...

Should she run back to the barn?

Never! Never on her life!

“Marcel!”

There was no answer. The roaring wind in the treetops drowned all other sounds.

Or almost all.

As she was looking around, she slowly became aware of something else. There was a different, alien sound, mingled with the mighty song in the treetops ...

Saga lifted her head and looked towards the grey-black darkness of the fir trees: bristling, dead twigs and dark trunks, everything covered by the tears of the night, the dew. Or a humidity that came from another source – she didn’t know what.

In daylight, the forest floor was dark green. Now it seemed as hazy, as if elves had been playing on it.

The sound frightened and confused her.

Where was it coming from?

It was like the sound of metal being struck or rubbed against another metal or stone. Enormous, resounding and roaring, the sound travelled through the forest. Like the long, singing, vibrating sounds of ice on a lake as it freezes even harder. Like enormous blows on long iron bars ...

After each gigantic sound, a dying echo rolled away among the tree trunks or along the mountain walls, which she knew were on either side of the valley she stood in.

Saga’s voice was weaker now. More anxious and inquisitive: “Marcel?”

But, of course, he couldn’t reply. It looked as if the valley curved a bit farther ahead, and if he had run that way he would be out of earshot.

Nevertheless, she didn’t want to give up. When the wind seemed to abate for a moment, she shouted as loudly as she could: “Marcel! Be careful! He’s deadly dangerous!”

She got an answer, but not in the way she had expected.

The hollow, vibrating sounds rose to a crazy level, and something bluish soared past among the trees some distance from her. Not close enough for her to be able to see what it was. At that moment, the greyish darkness became even darker, with a diffuse glow.

Saga gasped for breath. She couldn’t walk back, not to the barn, no, no. She couldn’t just stand there either. She began to run forward through the forest, trying to follow the road that Marcel must have taken, even if she could no longer see where he had walked.

The storm roared above her, but down on the forest floor everything was calm. However, Saga was scared out of her wits and so preoccupied with her own confusing thoughts that she simply didn’t register properly what was going on around her.

She was mad to have ventured out in a storm like this. But then, after what she had seen, she couldn’t have stayed in the barn either.

Oh God, Marcel, where are you?

There it was again. That sound. That long, scraping, singing sound that echoed like an unbearable thunder through the bewitched forest. Never right above her head: no, it seemed to sweep past her at a distance, as if it wanted to get a view of her before it dared to venture forward.

On this night, the forest was certainly bewitched. A new, whistling sound could be heard and large blue and green balls whirled past among the trees. She couldn’t see them properly, but every time such a ball appeared, Saga would put her hands to her face and crouch down, pathetic in her defencelessness. It was as if the magic, dense semi-darkness had a life of its own, moving around her, gathering around her, lying heavily and expectantly over the entire forest.

For a moment, the thought struck her that all this witchcraft had something to do with the Finns who had lived in the forest. That it was old, black magic being expressed in a kind of revenge on modern people who dared to venture into Ukko’s holy sites. No human, no matter how expert they were in witchcraft, could have produced this nameless horror that raged in her.

Now, more than ever before, she had to admit that she was Lucifer’s chosen one, because this was not the work of earthly creatures!

Saga whimpered from sheer terror. She didn’t notice that the blisters on her feet had begun to bleed again. She was determined to be vigilant and to defend herself against this indescribable, unfathomable entity that was pursuing her.

Shouldn’t the sky be getting brighter, lighter, instead of growing darker?

She stumbled over a root and fell straight forward, but quickly got back on her feet.

In front of her, above a small glade, it seemed as if the sky had opened an eye. Not a real eye, but a huge, blue-green whirl. The eye opened with a roar, as if staring blindly at her.

Saga screamed, hid her face in her hands and instinctively stepped back. When she looked again, it was gone. The apparition had disappeared, and the dense sky looked a ghostly grey.

She found herself on her knees, weeping and with her hands folded as if to pray.

“I’m on my way to Graastensholm Parish,” she pleaded pathetically. “To Linden Avenue, where I believe my relatives need me. I have a task for which I’ve been preparing myself all my life. Please, please, I mustn’t be prevented from going. Let me go, I beg!”

Once again, there was a roaring sound and a new “eye” of several shades appeared in a different place. Saga screamed and rushed across the glade, into another stand of tall pine trees. But it was pointless. The whirls were everywhere, changing colour and size, but they were there all the time, flaring up and dying down as new ones appeared.

A roar like the clash of a huge cauldron echoed around her, and she was caught by a gust of wind that whirled in through the glistening pine forest. Saga screamed in despair, holding on to a tree, trying to fight against it. The wind still blew but for an instant everything was calm, just long enough for her to catch her breath. Then it rustled and rattled around her, and all of a sudden small, sharp ice crystals were whirling through the air, making their way into and under her clothes so that she had to use her arms and legs to ward them off. She fell to her knees again, crouching to protect herself from all these inexplicable events. She wept and prayed, but to no avail.

Then it was over. She got to her feet once more and went on, now in such dense darkness that she might have been underground.

“Marcel!” she moaned. “Come and help me!”

Finally, she got an answer. From far, far away she heard: “Saga? Where are you?”

“Here,” she shouted. “It’s so dark!”

“Yes.”

Suddenly, he let out a scream as if in pain.

“Marcel?”

He shouted something that sounded like: “All the forces of hell have broken loose tonight.” Saga whimpered. Oh, no. Oh, no. They mustn’t take Marcel, they just must not!

His voice reached her again from far away: “Can’t you come here, Saga? I ... I can’t come to you. Something is preventing me.”

Once again, he screamed in violent pain.

“I’m coming,” she screamed anxiously. He said something else but the words were drowned in a new, furious, roaring hissing.

That didn’t matter. She had heard his voice: he was alive and had discovered the same thing she had. So she wasn’t crazy after all!

If only she could reach Marcel in time ...

Before Marcel had replied, she had actually believed that he was dead. That the evil force they had dragged with them all the way from Sweden had killed its rival out in the forest on this horrific night of hell. Now she had heard Marcel’s voice, and nothing on earth could prevent her from reaching him.

The evil, ghostly scenes were building up. They gathered around her, aggressively and determinedly. But Saga closed her eyes and ears to the roaring whirls that opened up all the time and the seething flares that hissed everywhere among the tree trunks.

Through clenched teeth, she whispered: “You, the fallen angel of light, are demonstrating your power! I see that your power is strong but this is enough!”

Now Marcel’s voice came back, tortured to breaking point. “No, no, don’t come here! Turn away, he’s after you. He mustn’t, he mustn’t ...!” His shout was followed by a scream of pain.

Saga put her hands to her ears. She didn’t dare to think what had happened. All she knew was that she had to find Marcel.

Something multi-coloured and sparkling swept past her face, disappearing with a comet tale of light behind it.

Saga came to another glade. And now – with a rumble and roar that threatened to blow her eardrums to pieces – the earth in front of her opened, so that she was prevented from reaching Marcel. She screamed in mortal dread, staring down into an immense abyss, slipping over the edge, grabbing at tufts of grass and hanging on in despair as best she could. She gasped for breath.

She heard Marcel’s anxious shout. “Saga? You screamed! What happened?”

She heard the despair and fury in his voice. But she couldn’t answer ...

She whimpered. The mandrake. I should have brought the mandrake with me, even if it’s not supposed to be mine. I shouldn’t have left it, perhaps it could have protected me.

A furious anger was building up in her. Was she, or wasn’t she, one of the Ice People? Was she, or wasn’t she one who was chosen?

She didn’t know whether it was her indignation or the thought of the mandrake that did it, but all of a sudden, she noticed that her old fearlessness was returning. The strange inability to act that she had experienced during the entire journey to Norway was now apparent to her. After all, she had so much to fight for! The task, the unknown task, that awaited her in Graastensholm. And more plainly, the struggle for Marcel’s life. It was obvious that he was in deadly danger – because of her!

Suddenly, she felt strong, filled by an inner, glowing determination, and inner light. She gathered all her strength and held on to the tufts of grass while her fingers slid on the slippery surface. She found a small foothold with one foot, which gave her more courage and strength. She stared down into the abyss once more. She thought that she could detect black cliffs deep down there. With a resolute groan, she pulled and fought her way up again until she had solid ground under her feet.

“Saga!” the distant shout sounded, now almost desperate. “Why don’t you respond?”

With horror, she saw how the surface of the earth closed together once more as if there had never been a hole!

“Everything is all right now, Marcel,” she gasped, but, of course, he couldn’t hear it. She repeated it, a bit louder.

She lay on the grass for a moment to recover. Then she got laboriously to her feet, walked along the edge of the glade where the hole had been and staggered into the forest on the other side.

However, her fear – which she called cowardice – had disappeared. Lucifer’s horrible visions no longer frightened her. She stopped and looked around. The strange visions had ceased! True, the air was still strangely dark, but there were no longer any craters opening up, no huge flares zooming past her.

She could clearly feel that the danger was not yet over. Something else had replaced it. At first, she couldn’t catch what it was. Something lurking and secretive in the atmosphere. A heavy, oppressive ... Now the visions were stronger. A smutty obscenity.

Yes, that was exactly what it was!

He wanted her now. It was trying to influence her. Making her more susceptible. Mature.

The dim light changed colour. A steaming, reddish shade glided in and over the grey, giving it a sickly colour. Everything turned hot around her. She felt desire cling around her body. She felt a ticklish sensation everywhere.

In the darkness among the trees in the leafy forest that she had arrived in, she saw a creature that seemed to keep an eye on her.

She ran and hid behind some trees.

The forest was calm.

She was too scared to call for Marcel. This was something she would have to manage by herself. She stood so still that the only things that moved were her eyes. They sought into the sick darkness in the stifling air. They seemed to detect creatures everywhere, behind the trees. Lurking creatures that watched, and desired, her. All the erotic creatures of folklore that ruined people. Fauns, satyrs, sirens, elves, mountain kings, centaurs, mares, vampires ... Popular belief swarmed with them. She wasn’t able to decide whether they were there or not. It was just how she felt. But they were insignificant. Much more dangerous was the being that stood within, expectant and relentless. She couldn’t see him clearly from where she stood under the hanging, leafy branches. But there was certainly no doubt that he was big. He seemed enormous and superhuman, even though the darkness undoubtedly distorted his proportions. He seemed to have a couple of enormous wings. But at the very next moment, as he stepped forward, she could see that must have been an optical illusion, because his figure was completely human.

But frighteningly shocking! Saga refused to let herself be impressed. She closed her eyes, trying to extricate herself from the sticky sensuality that clung to her with lascivious hands. All her erogenous zones were influenced the whole time, consistently and determinedly. There was a delightful ticklish sensation in her breasts and on the inside of her thighs, as if somebody was stroking her with light fingers. She felt boiling hot, filled with a desire she hadn’t thought possible. She moaned quietly as she pressed her lips together and breathed deeply.

“Go away, Lucifer!” she shouted in an authoritative voice. “You’re not the one I want. It’s Marcel, and you know that perfectly well! Go back to the abyss you came from! You’ve nothing to do with me.”

It thundered and roared above her, and the earth began to tremble. Oh dear, she thought, horrified. I shouldn’t have mentioned Marcel. What if the demon of the abyss got back at him! She hadn’t heard any sign of life from Marcel after his last, anguished scream.

Out of the darkness that had fallen, grey, red and misty, Saga saw the exultant figure draw closer. She turned and began to run to and fro through the forest, just to get away.

But he was constantly at her heels. He didn’t seem to run, he merely glided among the trees, always at the same distance so that she couldn’t discern him clearly but only as a shadow in the thick mist.

She felt that the entire forest reeked of sexual urge. For a second, she saw the head in the trunk before her mind’s eye and wondered if her fate might be the same if she didn’t give in. Or perhaps that would be how it would end anyway? Perhaps that was how he got rid of troublesome victims?

She had tried to get closer to Marcel, but now she had lost any sense of direction and simply ran where it was easiest for her to get through. All the while, she was struggling against the urges in her own body that were telling her she should turn around and meet the spirit. But she wouldn’t, wouldn’t ...

With a sob, she remembered the mandrake. How thinking of it had inspired her with confidence. “Oh, dear guardian spirits,” she whimpered quietly. “I know that you can’t help me, nevertheless I beseech you, and you, dear mandrake, you that I’ve never dared to approach. Give me strength! Help me!”

The thought of the mandrake became a light in the darkness for Saga. Suddenly she knew that if she had had it in her hand, she would have turned around and held it high towards the horrific being that was pursuing her.

Her feeling about this was so intense that she imagined that she had the mandrake in her hand, and she turned around, lifting her hand with an authoritative movement. “Go away from me, black angel,” she shouted so that her voice echoed through the forest. “Me you won’t touch! Because I don’t want you, either as Count Paul von Lengenfeldt or in your present form.”

A sharp gleam blinded her so that she tumbled backwards. Then she ran again, falling blindly forward in the semi-darkness; she ran for her life sobbing and weeping, pursued by unimaginable fury.

She didn’t escape. She could feel his insistent craving for her and knew that she was lost, but nevertheless continued to run. She wouldn’t give in without a struggle! She felt a searing pain in her chest, she had the taste of blood in her mouth, and her legs would soon give in.

Wasn’t it as if the roaring sounds in the forest had abated a bit? As if the shadowy darkness, the dense, erotically laden air had lifted?

Or was that just something she imagined? Saga was too scared to stop and check. She tumbled onwards, gasping for breath as she staggered from tree to tree. She also vaguely imagined that the desire in her body was abating only to radiate through her again the next moment. She was so agitated that all she could do was go on running, onwards and onwards, until she could do so no more.

She collapsed on the earth with a moan. The last thing she registered was that the surroundings seemed to be in normal light once again. However, she wasn’t even sure of that.

What was going on?

She didn’t have the strength to think.

She had probably been lying there for a few seconds when she vaguely heard somebody weakly calling from far away: “Saga!”

It was Marcel’s voice.

She lifted her head carefully and brushed the moss from her cheek.

To say that everything was back to normal would have been an exaggeration. Everywhere, there was a nauseating smell of desire and craving, and it would be a while before it evaporated.

“Marcel,” Saga shouted pathetically and helplessly.

His steps came nearer. And there he was, tired, weak and exhausted, with wet hair and dirty clothes. His eyes were deep in their sockets. He had suffered, but he was alive!

That was the most important thing!

“At long last,” he said with a relieved sigh. “I never thought I would get to see you again, dearest Saga. I thought that I would never be able to reach you. Come! We must get away from here – quickly!”

He helped her to her feet, holding her for a moment in a tight embrace.

“Forgive me for doubting you,” he said, shaken. “About that ... about ... Lucifer.”

Saga was still gasping for breath. “What happened?” she murmured into his shoulder as he helped her to her feet. “Why did all the horrible things stop all of a sudden?”

“They haven’t stopped,” he replied, brushing pine needles and leaves out of Saga’s hair, but maintaining his grip on her shoulders until she was able to walk. “They’ve just abated. I wonder whether it’s the sleeping powder that has begun to take effect.”

Saga thought that a one-time archangel ought not to be affected by sleeping powder, but then she remembered that it had come from the Ice People’s treasure, which changed things somewhat. The Ice People had found the treasure useful when they had had to fight off the forces of darkness.

“He hasn’t yet been defeated then?”

“No, not at all,” replied Marcel. “But he’s fighting with reduced strength. Come, we need to get away!”

In reply to his words, a few flares whizzed past their heads, albeit not as strong as before.

“Have you seen him?” Saga asked, as Marcel pulled her with him away from the valley.

“I’d rather not speak about it,” he said curtly. “Not now. Come, we need to get up to the heights. Down here in the forest is where he has power.”

“We’ll never break loose!” she stammered.

“Yes, don’t you understand? If we get away from him now, we might be able to keep at a distance from him until his time on earth is over.”

“Yes, of course,” she whimpered. “After all, his time is short.”

“Yes, I instinctively gather from his despair that it’s drawing to a close.”

The thought inspired Saga with renewed courage. They climbed and crept across a slippery, moss-covered slope without daring to look back.

Saga didn’t want Marcel to feel just how much she was filled with desire. Undoubtedly, by the irony of fate and to the great resentment of the fallen angel, her desire was now focused on Marcel. Perhaps this was what the evil spirit should expect? She thought that Marcel was affected by it. His eyes were moist and he wetted his lips constantly; his glance shifted when he happened to brush her with his hands.

They were on a ledge and needed to rest. Huge flares rushed past them under and around them – yet the magic seemed strangely weak now. The roar could hardly deafen the whistling sound of the wind in the treetops.

Saga gasped: “I don’t understand ... Why didn’t he ever attack me ... directly? After all, he’s followed me all this way. He could have ... taken me at any time.”

Marcel didn’t take his eyes off Saga. His look was intense and warm and filled with love – and desire. “Don’t you think it’s in his nature? He’s like the cat that likes to play with a mouse. This is how he is in the shape of Paul – mischievous, wanting to humiliate.”

“Yes, I think you have a point.”

He regarded her pensively. “It could also have something to do with the Ice People. I think you’re protected somehow. It’s in your blood.”

“Yes, perhaps. The mandrake certainly scared him. Oh, Marcel, you’ve no idea ... No, I don’t want to talk about it now!”

She couldn’t even bring herself to speak about what she had found in Paul’s trunk because it made her feel sick.

“We need to move on now,” Marcel murmured. “I think he’s found us again.”

One of the awful, roaring whirls had opened in the sky just above the trees. They began to climb much more quickly, feeling how he pursued them in his invisible, blind way, and the mountain shook under them. Saga screamed.

“Relax, Saga, he has hardly any strength left.” Marcel tried to calm her but he was scared himself.

They reached a tall plateau with low cliffs on either side, where the storm tore at them. Marcel asked Saga: “So he never succeeded in swaying you ... erotically?”

“Heavens, no!” Saga gasped, out of breath. “Never! Never ever!”

Marcel gave her hand a grateful squeeze, leading her to the edge of a cliff overhang. “He must be somewhere down there,” he said.

She looked down. Right below them was a terrible cliff they could hardly see the bottom of, and immediately beyond it was the extensive valley with the forest. The pine trees were quite scattered. Then, suddenly ...

“There!” Saga exclaimed, pointing down into the mist.

A creature was staggering down there. Leaning weakly up against a tree. There was no doubt: it was Paul – or Lucifer, as they now had to accept he was. That it was Paul and not the fleeing knifeman was quite obvious. There was no one as tall and handsome as he, and he was dressed in the same gaudy clothes as before.

“Look Marcel! There’s the bag with the Ice People’s treasure. Right behind him. He doesn’t even have the strength to hold it any more, he’s dropped it ...”

Marcel whispered: “Now he can take no more.”

The figure down there lifted his hands to his face and rubbed them over his eyes. He seemed drowsy and confused.

Saga exclaimed agitatedly: “The sleeping potion.”

“Yes,” Marcel answered. “And have you noticed something else?”

“The horrible apparitions in the forest have ceased. Everything is calm, apart from the storm.” And apart from the unbearable, erotic fever in her body. It was still there, but she didn’t mention it.

“Marcel, do you ...?”

“Think we’re out of danger? Yes. I’ll just move a bit higher up and look out from the next vantage point. I think I’ll be able to see pretty far from there. Maybe right over to some houses ...”

The sky behind the ragged cliff tops had assumed the dramatic colours of dawn. Grey, golden-eyed clouds tore across the red backdrop.

But shadows still reigned in the valley.

Saga stopped on the ridge to look at the creature down there in the valley. She could hardly believe the miracle, but her soul was filled with immense relief when she saw him collapsed in the grass, lying there helplessly with his arms stretched out in front of him.

It was over. The long drawn out, creeping terror had left her.

She got up. Her eyes were brimming with joy.

“We’re free, Marcel! We’re free! We’ve defeated Lucifer himself, the fallen angel of light! Now all we need is to get away!”

A deafening roar filled the air behind her. She whirled around.

Marcel was standing there, looking at her, with a proud smile on his face. But it was a different Marcel from the one she knew. He had grown to an immense size. His facial features were even nobler and instead of his clothes all he wore now was a black loincloth. His skin was greyish, and his jet-black hair blew in the wind. He held his hands in front of him, clasping a dark, gleaming sword. Behind him, above his head, a pair of immense black wings spread out against the blood-red sky.