The Islands of the Blessed

same foul-tempered Thorgil no matter how she looked.

“I’ve never known a waterspout to be so destructive,” remarked the old man, rummaging in a chest. “It plowed a road through the forest and probably carried off Gog and Magog.”

“It did what?” said Jack. After running home to check up on his parents, he’d spent yesterday afternoon helping the Bard prepare elixirs. It was now morning, and Jack hadn’t been near the village since the storm.

“The blacksmith’s son told me that Gog and Magog have disappeared.”

“Perhaps they ran away,” Jack suggested. The thought of the men being pulled into the sky was horrible.

“I fear not. The blacksmith said they liked to sit outside during storms. It was the only time he ever saw them smile, and since it was their sole pleasure, he left them to it. A mistake, it would seem.”

Jack had seen Gog and Magog squatting in the mud during a thunderstorm. They’d sat together, swaying back and forth, with their faces turned up to the sky. Their teeth had gleamed in the lightning. They’d seemed possessed with a wild joy that Jack neither understood nor cared to see, and he’d hurried away as quickly as possible. He shivered. “Where are they now, sir?”

“That depends on who conducted the Wild Hunt.” The Bard laid out a collection of pots, sniffed each one, and made a selection. He lifted down a large mortar and pestle from a shelf. “Oh, yes, the Hunt is real,” he said, grinding the herbs. “Who leads it depends on who sees it. Brother Aiden was its quarry as a child, until Father Severus rescued him. Aiden was convinced he saw the Forest Lord and his hounds. Severus thought he saw Satan leading the damned.”

“And Thorgil saw Olaf One-Brow,” said Jack.

“If she’s correct, Gog and Magog might have been taken to Valhalla. Wouldn’t that make her cranky!” The Bard’s blue eyes twinkled. “Ah well, Thorgil wouldn’t be Thorgil if she wasn’t cranky.”

“If you say so.” Personally, Jack wouldn’t have minded if the shield maiden were pleasanter—more like Pega, for example. It was extremely wearing to mediate between her and the enemies she always managed to make. And yet, when he’d seen her lying next to the sheep byre, dead for all he could tell, like that poor ewe—

“She’ll be fine,” said the Bard, with that uncanny ability to know what was passing through Jack’s mind. “Now I want you to mix the contents of this mortar with a lump of butter the size of a hen’s egg. Knead a handful of flour with enough water to make a stiff paste, blend everything, and roll out pills the size of peas. Dry them before the fire.”

“Which pot should I store them in?” asked Jack, who had done this before.

“The green one for headaches. Dear, dear, the garden is almost picked clean. I’m going to need plants from the forest.”

Soon they were walking down the path, leaving Thorgil to sleep. The Bard had put on his better robe, belted up to protect it from mud. His white beard fanned out over his chest, and his feet were encased in tan leather boots that laced up the front. Old as he was, he barely needed to lean upon his black ash wood staff, though he needed Jack to carry elixirs and the harp.

Jack could feel the life force stirring in the air around the staff, and it filled him with longing. Once he too had owned such a magical thing. He’d owned the rune of protection as well, if you could say such a thing belonged to anyone. The rune passed from person to person, following its own destiny, which was beyond the understanding of whoever sought to possess it. Once gone, it could never return. Jack sighed inwardly, remembering its living gold engraved with the image of Yggdrassil. It had preserved the Bard for many long years before coming to Jack, and then—in a moment of weakness, he thought darkly—he’d given it to Thorgil.

The fields were strangely bare, like plucked chickens, and more than one house had its roof missing. Water oozed out of hillsides. Streams cut new channels into soil, and here and there sunlight flashed from ponds.

Jack looked back at the Bard’s house, perched dangerously on a cliff over the sea. It had weathered the storm beautifully.

Whether this was due to luck or the old man’s magic, Jack didn’t know, but it clung to the rocks like a limpet.

They made their way through the village, dispensing medicine where needed, and good advice. At the blacksmith’s house the Bard played music to raise the family’s spirits.

“Gog and Magog were like my own lads—well, if they’d been brighter and more presentable,” the blacksmith amended, looking fondly at his handsome daughters and sons. “I was that used to them. They slept in a heap with the cows, and if a wolf came near, they put up such a mooing, not one calf was ever lost. I’ll miss them, by God I will, the poor, witless creatures.”

You had a power of work out of them for the crusts of bread they were fed, thought Jack uncharitably.

The Bard played his harp. The blacksmith’s wife tapped her foot to the rhythm, and Colin, the blacksmith’s youngest son, performed an impromptu jig.

And yet if Gog and Magog hadn’t come here, Jack mused, who knows what fate might have been theirs? They might have ended up as slaves in a lead mine. At least they had some joy, mooing with the cows and worshipping lightning. What is happiness, after all? He thought of Thorgil, whose hope had been to fall in battle; and of his father, Giles Crookleg, who relished disappointment; and of Father Severus, who enjoyed cold baths and fasting. The elves pursued an endless round of pleasure—much good it did them, doomed as they were to fade at the end of days.

Happiness is a puzzle and no mistake, Jack decided.

The Bard roused him and they set off again. Shreds of mist rose from a hundred rivulets left behind by the storm, and a scarecrow was bent double in a ruined field. “He didn’t protect anything,” Jack commented as they squelched past in the soft earth.

“Odin’s crows take more than a heap of straw to be impressed,” said the Bard.

Jack and the Bard trudged on, observing the devastated barley and oat fields. Half of the sheep were missing, according to the villagers, although most of them would probably turn up. The chickens and cattle had been protected indoors, and Thorgil’s ponies had also survived. The Tanner girls had pulled them into their hovel when they saw black clouds approaching.

It was an amazing feat, considering that there was scarcely enough room for the Tanners inside. The girls had forced the horses to lie down and then lain on top of them with their mother between. It made a stifling crush of horse and human flesh, but all had lived.

“That means we’ve earned the right to ride them,” Ymma, the older Tanner girl, declared when Jack and the Bard stopped by to check on their welfare.

“You’ll have to discuss that with Thorgil,” the old man said.

“Pooh! She thinks she owns everything. Who’s her father, I ask you?” the girl said rudely. “Where’s her family?”

“Everyone says she acts like a Northman,” added her younger sister, Ythla.

The Bard turned on them so suddenly, the girls shrank away and their mother grabbed their arms. “What do you mean, talking back to the Bard?” Mrs. Tanner cried. “Go down on your knees at once and beg his pardon. Honestly, sir, I don’t know what’s become of them since their father died.” She pushed the girls down and they apologized loudly.

Jack wasn’t surprised. One look at the old man’s face and you understood why he was known as Dragon Tongue and why even Northman kings were afraid of him. But the girls had only said what everyone else was probably whispering.

They found Mother sitting by the beehives. Only two colonies had survived. The rest were dying of cold and wet, the bees creeping over the ground or struggling weakly in the mud. Mother had built a fire nearby—not too close, for smoke could harm them as well—and had laid out chunks of bread covered with honey. The insects clustered eagerly around the food.

“They’re the last of a royal line,” she said sadly, “brought here by the Romans. The women of my family have guarded them since time out of mind. No Saxon bee matches them for strength and industry, but they will be lucky to live through this winter.”

The Bard played his harp and Mother sang, using the small magic that calmed nervous animals. Her voice