C11 Chapter 11

Jonathan had to summon up all his patience. He sat motionless in his chair, while the doctor’s murmuring voice and Nataniel’s responses were the only things that could be heard in the room.

Not a single sound came from Tova’s little room. He was tempted to go in and check on her but that would only disturb the other two and in a way she was doing fine. She might be in that slumber for a long time, perhaps for years to come?

What a hopeless situation they were in! They would soon have to tell Vinnie and Rikard what had happened to their only child. But how would they tell them? How would they manage it?

He listened to the low voices. He no longer knew how much time had passed but he saw some drops of perspiration on the doctor’s forehead.

“Are you still unable to see anything?” Dr Sørensen asked. His voice was hoarse with fatigue.

“Nothing but a snowstorm across wide expanses. I’ve been looking at that for some time now,” Nathaniel said hazily. He was in a state of deep relaxation.

“Yes, we’ve reached Siberia and that in itself is impressive,” said the doctor. “Let’s try again. We’re looking for a settlement belonging to a small tribe later known as the Ice People, even though some of them are referred to as Taran-gai; is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“We have established the date to be 1 March, 1080. It’s noon. Let’s move north.”

This is a hopeless endeavour, thought Jonathan. Do they really think they can locate Tengel the Evil’s parents in this manner?

At that very moment Nataniel cried out, low and agitated: “Wait!”

“What do you see?”

“I don’t know. Someone’s moving in the snowdrifts.”

They waited.

Finally Nataniel’s mumbling voice could be heard, “A ... caravan?”

“In snow? That sounds strange.”

“No, it’s standing still. It’s waiting by a camp. No, a small village. There are camels waiting in the stables. They are surrounded by goods. They can’t proceed because of the bad weather.”

“Do you see any people?”

“No, only low, primitive-looking houses.”

“Enter the biggest house that you see. Can you find such a house?”

“Umm ... yes ... I can.”

“Enter it! With your thought, you have no body. You have no incarnation, you are sheer power of thought.”

Dr Sørensen turned around for a moment to Jonathan, his face drenched in sweat. “This is so exciting,” he whispered. “Imagine that it’s possible, that we can do this.”

“Oh,” said Nataniel. “The image disappeared.”

“That’s my fault,” the doctor said immediately. “I was distracted for a moment ... but I’m grateful to know that I am of assistance here.”

“Of course you are,” said Nataniel, getting up slowly. “You are very good at this. But it is very strenuous.”

“Terribly strenuous,” said Dr Sørensen. “For both of us.”

“Yes,” said Nataniel. “Oh, no. Look – the couch is drenched with my sweat. I wonder what Lisbeth will say when she sees that?”

“I’m sure it’ll dry,” said Jonathan, looking at the dark spots on Nataniel’s back and shoulders. “I’ll give you a dry woollen blanket to lie on. If you intend to go on, that is?”

“Of course,” said Nataniel. “We just need to rest for a bit.”

“I’ll make some coffee,” said Jonathan.

“Sounds good,” said the doctor.

When they had finished their coffee, they continued. There was no problem in connecting with the time and place where they had previously been. After a brief period of time Nataniel’s thoughts were once again back in the little village.

“Now think that you are entering the house,” said the doctor.

Nataniel lay with his eyes closed. He was quiet for a long time. “I have now entered through the door,” he said in a low voice.

“What do you see?”

“Let’s go five years on in time.”

“To 1085?”

“Yes, the same day and time. But we must find the Ice People, or rather, Tengel the Evil’s ancestors.”

“The same place?”

“No, that would be meaningless. Let’s head toward ... Yes, I think the caravan was on its way northwest. Wait, I’d like to follow it in my thoughts first. Because I think it has a certain significance, even though I’m not quite sure how.”

Silence reigned in the room as Nataniel let his thoughts wander. Jonathan looked at the clock and was appalled to find how many hours had already passed.

“Yes,” Nataniel said at last. “I reached a point ... where the caravan was separated into several small parts. But I think I’m getting closer. Dr Sørensen, seek out the settlement of the ancestors of the Ice People, now!”

“We’ll try together.”

Once more Jonathan heard low murmured words and responses to them. And a few minutes later Nataniel let out a gasp. “I see them!”

“What do you see?”

“Totem poles with fluttering strips of leather. The yak horn at the top. Yes! A cluster of tent-like cottages, aren’t they known as yurts? They are deep in the snow. But there’s no snowstorm. Not here. The air is clear, and cool.”

He shuddered. “I’m cold.”

“Enter a yurt. Choose one that seems relevant.”

Nataniel pondered for a long time. They could almost see him picking and choosing among the leather tents.

“This one,” he said finally. “I’m going to enter it.”

A short time passed. Then he said, with bewilderment in his voice, “Two women are sitting by a pile of burning embers. They are busy cooking. They are placing flat breads on a warm stone. They are speaking together ... I understand their language!”

“It is rather their thoughts you understand. Continue. What are they talking about?”

“Something important is going to take place. They are preparing for a feast. No, not a feast – a ritual? I can’t quite figure out what they mean. Now the tent canvas is being opened, that is, the hide hanging in front of the opening. Another woman has entered. She is very beautiful in her special Mongolian way. The two women quickly get to their feet and rush out. They fear her.”

“Is she young, or old?”

“Not old. But not entirely young, either. She possesses a mature kind of beauty. She is now squatting in front of the breads and singing a song while she makes magical gestures. I think ... she is skilled in magic. She is making some sort of invocation but I am not familiar with it.”

Then Nataniel fell silent.

“What’s happening?” asked Sørensen.

“Nothing new. She is just sitting there. Her face is lit up in ecstasy. She is definitely the witch of the tribe – or the shaman, perhaps?”

They waited. Nataniel’s eyebrows moved without effort in his sensitive face. He was so beautiful as he lay there, thought Jonathan. His best qualities showed when all his daily concerns were erased from his consciousness. Nataniel had an enormous sense of goodness and love towards all living things – that was his big weakness. But how do you ask a person to be hard and cold because they have a battle to win?

Jonathan didn’t know.

Then Nataniel began talking again, now very eagerly. “A man is entering. I ... recognize him! He was one of the people from the camel caravan sitting in this room. He is not one of these steppe people, as the woman is. He is something else, I can make out his facial features. This is ... a Japanese man! My God, yes, he is Japanese!”

“Good,” Jonathan said encouragingly. “Finally, the Japanese aspect has entered the picture. Go on!”

“They are smiling at one another. He is young, younger than her. But not much. And ... I think he is a wizard! He performs black magic!”

“What makes you say that?” asked Sørensen.

“He ... is also carrying out certain rituals. But they don’t resemble hers. I think ... No, this much I understand: that he arrived with the caravan from the east. From Japan. Presumably he fled from there, it feels that way. And he is skilled in magic! They are conjuring evil spirits out of the air.”

“So the Japanese man who is skilled in magic has joined forces with the shaman of the tribe?”

“It seems that way. He is talking now. He must already have been here for quite a while because he is able to speak their language, even though it sounds a bit awkward.”

“Do you understand what they’re saying?”

“Oh, yes! Their words enter my mind in the form of thoughts, so that’s no problem. The man is saying ... that they will beget a child tonight. A child that will be encompassed by all the magical rituals of their two tribes. A child ... under the sign of evil! A child that will be so evil that it will be able to conquer the world. I’m terribly sorry, but I really don’t want to be present during this procreation.”

“You won’t have to be. But is there more you want to see?”

“I would like to be moved three years into the future. I want to follow these two people.”

“We’ll try.”

After a while they had achieved contact with them.

“They’ve moved,” said Nataniel, sounding tired. “They are nomads. I am inside their tent. The mother is there – and the child. It is a malicious child. I don’t like it. Whatever it was they set out to do, they didn’t succeed. All they’ve managed to do is create a child completely without feelings. Poor kid!”

“What’s happening?”

“The father, the Japanese man, has entered. He ... kicks the child. The child screams. Poor boy, how can a father do such a thing to his child?”

“What does the child look like?” Jonathan asked. It was the first time that he had intervened in the conversation.

“He is very handsome. In a cold way. But ... Good gracious!” Nataniel was horrified.

“What’s happening?” asked Sørensen.

“The boy – he can’t be much more than two years old – just grabbed a knife and threw it at his father’s throat. Oh God! There’s so much blood! The mother is screaming. The father is slowly dying.”

“It was probably all for the best,” said Jonathan. “And what’s happening now?”

“I’m ... following the boy’s thoughts. His name is Tan-ghil by the way. He also feels an urge to kill his mother to silence her annoying screams, but he’s decided to spare her life. She may be of use to him. He’ll spare her for a little while longer ... No, I don’t want to stay here. I want to leave before the boy discovers me.”

“But what will happen to them?” asked Jonathan.

“I see them being chased out of the place because of the magic they’ve been performing. They move on in a northwesterly direction. I don’t want to see anymore.”

“The image is gone. But what about Tova?” Sørensen asked.

“She was never here. It was a dead-end trail.”

“So where is she then?”

“Presumably in Japan. She probably landed too early in time and ended up following the father’s life in Japan. That’s the only way I can make proper sense of it.”

“But the battle of Dan-no-ura took place in 1185, precisely one hundred years after this!”

“No, I don’t understand it myself. I don’t understand what she’s doing at that battle.”

“Do you want to go there? To Japan?”

“That would probably be the best thing.”

“Then take a deep breath. Come back to your body with us again.”

Nataniel went through the slow, and what had now become familiar, procedure of returning to the present. Then he sat up, just as drenched in sweat as he had been last time.

“I need a shower,” he muttered.

He remained sitting on the edge of the bed. “I realize that I won’t be able to reach Tova this way. It’s going to be too hard to find her and it’s an unbearably strenuous process.”

“You’re right about that,” said the doctor.

“I mean, even if I were to manage to find her with great difficulty, I won’t be able to reach her. I can feel that now. In that yurt I was nothing but a mere thought. They didn’t notice me. And I need to get into proper contact with Tova if I’m going to help her in any way. Being a thought won’t be enough. But I have another suggestion.”

“And what is that?”

“We can try using telepathy. Thought transference. Tova was able to invoke me in the dream. If I lie down next to her and hold her hand ... Doctor, do you think you could get me into enough of a trance to get me into contact with her mind? I’m not talking about the Tova who is lost somewhere in a gloomy past, I’m talking about the Tova who is lying on her bed. Do you understand what I mean?”

The doctor thought for a moment. “Well, we can always try,” he said at last. “I’ve managed to conquer so much new terrain today that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you actually did succeed in contacting her.”

Today? thought Jonathan, looking out of the window. It was so dark outside, he didn’t dare check the time on his watch.

“Nataniel Gard!” the doctor exclaimed with emotion. “It is really such a great pleasure working with you! Believe me, there aren’t five people in this nation that have your abilities.”

“No, and the ones that do are all members of the Ice People,” Jonathan interposed dryly. “Nataniel, Tova, Benedikte, Christa, and, not to forget, Gand.”

“And Ellen,” said Nataniel. “She too has a special gift, even though she doesn’t particularly care for it.”

“I wouldn’t mind meeting them someday,” said Dr Sørensen. “Well, let’s return to the situation at hand. Shall we get started?”

Nataniel was also eager to begin. “I can always take a shower later. I may end up just as sweaty after this anyway.”

They carefully entered the bedroom. Tova was lying there in exactly the same way as before. Together they helped push her closer to the wall, and Nataniel lay on his back next to her. He took her hand and Sørensen spread the blanket across them.

“I have to erase all my thoughts of everything,” said Nataniel, “so that I can receive any possible messages she may have for me, if we can manage to do this at all.”

The other two were wondering the same thing: if it would be at all possible to receive anything from this living corpse.

This time it took quite a while, Jonathan thought. He sat thinking about the fact that he should have turned on the heating and cooked some food for them, but he didn’t dare move. He didn’t know what was going on in the minds of Tova and Nataniel. All he knew was that they had to remain dead still. Nataniel hadn’t been sure whether he could tell them anything while the experiment was taking place. He didn’t think it would be possible. But he had promised to make a signal with his hand, which was resting on the blanket, should he manage to get into contact with her.

So far nothing had happened.

And it had been over an hour since they started.

Jonathan’s back was beginning to hurt despite the fact that his chair was upholstered.

Dr Sørensen placed his hand lightly on Nataniel’s arm. As though to strengthen the effect.

All at once he froze.

Nataniel’s hand moved a little. He lifted his two fingers in a small wave and then lowered them again.

The doctor and Jonathan exchanged glances. The mood in the room was arrested in a perpetual tension.

Nataniel had received something.

During the hour that had passed, he had concentrated all his focus on Tova’s soul or mind – or more simply, the world of her thoughts. At first everything had felt dead, like a slow, floating stillness, like empty space.

But he had intensified his concentration, increasing it to such a degree that everything else disappeared from his consciousness. Even Ellen, who normally never left his thoughts. Everything, absolutely everything revolved around Tova.

And here it came. At first as a very faint signal from an immense distance.

That was all it was at first. But then it appeared again after an interval of several minutes: something that resembled words.

And then ... at long last he managed to register something. A small, faint voice. Helpless and confused. “I have rushed ... across land and sea ... from century to century ...”

So it wasn’t the Tova lying next to him! It was Tova from the lost world.

Of course! The Tova who had called to him in the dream and who came from far away. He should have foreseen that.

The distant, faint voice continued: “I have come from far away in time and space ... but perhaps now you can hear me? Far, far away in the distance?”

“Yes, Tova, I can hear you,” his thoughts answered. “I want to help you. Where are you?”

Her voice was faint and helpless and he felt great compassion for her.

“In Japan!” she shouted. “I can’t get back!”

“Why not?”

“Tengel the Evil has locked me up here. I was sidetracked. My incarnation ...”

“Yes, your incarnation ...”

“It belonged to a secondary line, a branch that remained in Japan. Tengel the Evil’s father came from here, did you know that?”

“Not until today. Are you still in your incarnation there?”

“Yes, I can’t seem to escape it. Tengel wants to keep me here until he needs me for something.”

“Just like Erling Skogsrud. Do you know your incarnation?”

“Yes, her name is Setsuko and she is a lady-in-waiting at the court of the little emperor. She is going to die in four years, and I will die along with her. But Tengel the Evil plans to use me before then. In the present, that is.”

Nataniel shuddered. “And then you will be allowed to keep your life?”

“I think so. Nataniel, I want to go home.” Tova’s voice sounded weak.

“Do you know how Setsuko is going to die?”

“No, just that it’s going to happen in four years’ time.”

“What year are you in?”

“According to our calendar it is 1181. I chose that year. Tengel the Evil’s era. It was a stupid choice.”

The year 1181. Nataniel tried to calculate it. “Then I know how she is going to die, Tova. In 1185 there will be a big battle at Dan-no-ura in which the entire Heike clan will be extinguished. Along with the emperor and presumably all the ladies-in-waiting.”

“Nataniel, I don’t want to die!”

“You won’t have to. I think I know what we can do.”

“Tell me what it is!”

“I can save you while Setsuko is still living. You are subjected to the power of Tengel the Evil, and we can’t interfere in a person’s life that has already been lived. We’ll have to wait until Setsuko’s death, and at the very moment that she dies I will have to try to release you.”

“Oh, how awful!” she lamented. “But it’s four years until then! We can’t wait that long. Tengel the Evil will soon be entering the world, he said so himself – and then I’ll have to serve him.”

“Is that what you want?”

“No, no!” she sobbed.

“Good. Now listen to me. You won’t have to wait for four years. I will break the rhythm of time by entering directly into the battle at Dan-no-ura. And I will meet you there.”

“But it’s four years until then!”

“Four years for Setsuko, yes, but not for you. When I enter the picture, she will already have lived those four last years of her life. Through my interference you will be immediately transported to 1185 because my thoughts will register the events on that day. ‘On the 24th day in the third month at the Dan-no-ura province in Nagat.’ You see, we have such precise details that we can go directly to the battle. I even know where Dan-no-ura is on the map because I looked it up in an atlas during our break. It’s located by the Shimonoseki Sound at the bottom of Japan’s biggest island, Honshu. Finding it was very interesting. Dan-no-ura wasn’t mentioned, but somewhere in the writings I looked at the name Shimonoseki was mentioned.”

“Oh, Nataniel, I don’t want to drag you into all of this.”

“Don’t worry, it will all be fine. I’m going to be right next to you at Setsuko’s moment of death.”

Tova’s helpless little voice seemed to have gained new hope. “Do what you can. I intend to see all of you again.”

“I’ll come, Tova! You can depend on me! So long for now!”

But he had already released his thoughts and was ever so slowly preparing to return to the outside world.

He opened his eyes and sat up.

“What happened?” the other two asked immediately.

Nataniel shook his head hazily and told them everything he had experienced as best he could.

“And now, Dr Sørensen,” he said abruptly. “A new phase is about to begin, a new experiment. I can’t enter the battle through my thoughts alone. I will have to expose myself this time.”

“But you can’t,” Jonathan exclaimed. “You can’t go back in time with both your soul and your body!”

“No, of course not. I’ll have to be there in someone else’s body. Someone who’s mentioned in these writings. Dr Sørensen, you will have to transport me there.”

“But that’s impossible! I can only help you experience your past lives. And you obviously weren’t present at the battle of Dan-no-ura. No, it can’t be done.”

“Rubbish! You’ve already surpassed your normal limitations today, haven’t you?”

“Well, I suppose so ...”

“Well, then you know what you and I are capable of when we join forces! Now it’s just a question of choosing the right person to enter ...”

Jonathan and the doctor stared at him in awe.