After Captain Olsen had spoken with Eicewald for a while, he changed course and turned the ship toward the mist. He ordered the great sail to be hoisted and all hands to man the oars. The ship moved on swiftly in the direction of the wall of mist which covered the horizon. The sailors rowed, but without much conviction. On their faces was fear: the fear of approaching somewhere accursed.
“Heave!” the Captain ordered. “All together!”
Eicewald meanwhile was consulting one of his tomes as he watched the strange barrier.
“I don’t know about you,” said Gerd, who was pale as a ghost, “but the closer we get to that wall of mist the more nervous I get.”
“It’s just fog,” Viggo pointed out. “Don’t be a scaredy-cat.”
Nilsa wrinkled her nose. “A very strange fog,” she said. She was watching the barrier of mist closely. It was more than sixty feet high, and wide enough now to cover everything as far as the eye could see.
“It’s certainly impressive,” Ingrid said.
“It looks solid,” Astrid pointed out. “As if we were going to crash into it and break up.”
Magic. Powerful, Camu warned Lasgol.
You can feel it?
Yes. I feel. Great magic.
Do you know what kind? Whether it’s dangerous?
Not know. Only feel.
Lasgol realized that Camu had not yet developed the ability to identify or quantify the magic he detected. The day he managed that – and he believed he would, since it was an innate part of his power – it would be a great skill that would help them in situations like this. Now they were sailing head-first towards a magical mist without knowing what awaited them once they reached it.
Try to feel it and see what it transmits to you. Try to find out what type of magic it is and whether it’s dangerous or not. Is its source of the magic near, or far away? Everything you can find out. If you can, that is.
I try. I can.
If you can’t, don’t worry, it’s okay.
I can, Camu insisted.
Very well. Go ahead, Lasgol said encouragingly. He knew that once Camu set his mind on something, there was no way of making him change.
The ship reached the wall of mist. Nothing could be seen beyond it.
“Ready to go in!” Captain Olsen called out.
Astrid held Lasgol’s hand and turned to him. There was worry in her eyes.
The dragon-figurehead of the ship touched the strange barrier.
And they entered the Eternal Mist.
Chapter 23
The ship entered the mist gently, without bumping against anything. The effect of sailing straight ahead into a wall vanished from their minds. Suddenly they found themselves surrounded by a fog so thick that they could see no further than two hand-spans. At the same time a ghostly silence fell on the ship. They could hear nothing, neither the wind nor the oars going in and out of the water. Nothing.
Nobody said a word. They were all looking around them: the sailors with their hearts full of fear, the others of worry.
“The fog will cause you no harm!” came Eicewald’s voice. Unfortunately, it was not exactly the most relaxing of voices, and did little to calm the sailors.
“Lower the sail,” Captain Olsen ordered. “There’s no wind inside here!”
Several sailors set to work on this task, but the lack of vision meant that they found it a very difficult one.
“Don’t move from where you are!” Olsen called. “If anyone falls overboard, we won’t be able to save him!”
“That’s neat,” Viggo protested. “This is getting better every moment. First we almost die of boredom, and now we’re going to die of ‘blinding mist-itis.’”
“Stop talking nonsense, pumpkin-head!” Ingrid growled.
“You can’t see me,” he said in a provoking voice, “but I’m winking at you.”
Nilsa laughed.
“You’re lucky I can’t see a thing, because otherwise you’d get what for.”
“Don’t mess with me. If you’re upset because your boyfriend Captain Fantastic doesn’t do what you tell him to, that’s not my fault.”
“Where on earth did you get that from!”
“Nilsa, who else!”
“Nilsa! Don’t tell anything I tell you to anyone, least of all to him!”
“It just slipped out,” she apologized. “He asks me a lot of questions … and you know I love talking … you know me …”
“Well then, don’t talk to him! Talk to Astrid, she’s more discreet!”
“What with all this chatter, I’m not afraid of this mist any longer,” Gerd admitted.
“I’m glad of that, big guy,” Viggo said. There came the sound of a loud slap on the back.
“Ouch!” cried Lasgol.
“Oops, sorry, I saw a shadow and I thought it was Gerd. I made it a pretty hard slap.”
“Yeah, you certainly did,” Lasgol protested. The blow had hit him in the middle of his back, and he was trying to ease the pain by moving his shoulders around.
Astrid laughed. “Don’t even think of kissing Ingrid under cover of the fog,” she said to Viggo. “I bet you’d end up kissing me instead.”
“What a good idea!” Viggo said enthusiastically.
“If you try,” Ingrid said threateningly, “I swear when we reach solid ground I’ll hang you by the feet from a tree and leave you there to rot!”
Nilsa and Gerd laughed.
Ona moaned behind Lasgol, and he turned to soothe her. Ona, good. Don’t worry, it’s only fog. There’s no danger. Camu’ll warn us if he detects anything, won’t you, Camu?
I warn. Ona relax.
“Keep rowing and make sure you keep those oar-strokes steady!” Olsen shouted.
The fog appeared to be getting thicker all the time. It was as dense as smoke, and was deeply disconcerting. They could see nothing any longer and had to walk with their arms stretched out, so they soon gave up and, sat down where they were.
An
