The Extremely Epic Viking Tale of Yondersaay (23 page)

“This from a talking tree!” Dani said.

“It’s all down to the figurehead carved in the prow,” Rarelief said, wiping away a tear of mirth from his eye. “It’s shaped like a dragon’s head.”

“So it is,” Dani said. “I remember now. And the one in the harbor only has one eye.”

“And is it still there?” Granny asked.

“Is what still where?” asked Rarelief.

“The Black Heart of the Dragon’s Eye! Is it still the dragon’s eye?”

“Yes, I think so,” Rarelief said. “You haven’t been to a funeral lately, have you?”

Granny thought for a bit. “No, not for many, many years,” she said.

“And all your old friends are still lively as ever, even though they’ve been alive for over a hundred years?” Rarelief asked.

“Well, yes,” Granny said, “but I thought that was because of our modest diets of only seven square meals a day and our habit of taking exercise in the form of a ten-minute stroll along the promenade of an evening.”

Rarelief burst into laughter again. “The Black Heart of the Dragon’s Eye has an effect on time—how it is perceived and how it is utilized,” he said. “No one except for Odin knows all of its uses. It’s mostly used to heal wounds quickly or to stave off death, which is why people rarely die here. Mr. Scathe found two more uses for it. That we know of …

“The first has to do with why the islanders are Vikings one day of the year and only one day of the year. And the second has to do with my friends and family—all the trees of the Crimson Forest.”

“Silas Scathe had decided the easiest and quickest way to hunt for treasure in the Crimson Forest was to get rid of the trees. All the trees. But he couldn’t fell them. The islanders would notice, and there was no way they’d put up with that nonsense. He would have to create a diversion. Then he would have to get rid of all the trees all at once and be nowhere near the forest afterward so he couldn’t be blamed.

“He devised his plan and settled on a day.

“The plan was this: Mr. Scathe would utilize the powers of the Black Heart of the Dragon’s Eye to make all the villagers believe they were behaving in their normal Viking way, all day, on this day. When the sun came up twenty-four hours later, every single incident and event from that day, every thought even, would be lost to their memories, never to be recalled again.

“The day Silas Scathe chose as the day for this to happen was Christmas Eve. Everything was all set up and prepared and ready. Except for one thing. In order to move thousands and thousands of trees on one day, even with the help of the Black Heart, which would speed up the task no end, the job would, on balance, all things considered, go a lot more smoothly if the trees agreed to the move. It’s not an easy undertaking, uprooting a hundred-foot-high, hundred-year-old, hundred-inch-wide oak whose roots are clinging desperately to the earth. Much better to have them ready and willing and happy to help.

“Mr. Scathe came into the Crimson Forest the night before Christmas Eve to talk to all us trees. He used the shrubberies to help him, to vouch for him, and tell us what a decent fellow, in all fairness, he was. He told us he had an offer for us. He told us he had found the long-lost Fjorgyn Thunderbolt and had mastered its transformational powers. He could not show it to us because he could not move it. He said it was embedded deep within the belly of Volcano Mount Violaceous.

“‘I, Mr. Silas Scathe, of Denmark,’ he said that night, ‘will grant each and every one of you majestic specimens the ability to walk.’

“We were all taken aback. Could he really do this? Would he really do this? Why would he do it for us? We had not been very overly friendly with him. In fact, most of us hadn’t stopped trying to haunt him.

“‘Over these past years, I have come to love the entire island and all life on it,’ he said to us. ‘But most particularly the forest with its pretty flowers, its friendly shrubberies, and its powerfully magnificent oaks and elms. I am more than a little annoyed, however,’ he continued, ‘at the way the trees are outrageously mistreated. The islanders do not accord you the respect you deserve. I am outraged by this inequality. Outraged! And with your permission, I will stand for this oppression no longer!’ He paused for effect. We trees grumbled agreement.

“‘Why should the humans be able to walk and not us?’ was whispered back and forth.

“Mr. Scathe went on, ‘I will change your lives, your destiny, your very nature. But I can only do it tomorrow, and I can’t do it here because although I have mastered the powers of the thingummy, I can’t move it—it’s embedded in the mountain—so I’ll just move you all, one by one instead.’

“We trees talked among ourselves for a bit; we sent our leaves twittering to and fro in quiet whispers so Mr. Scathe could not hear our conversation.

“‘What do we have to lose?’ we asked ourselves. ‘If he can’t give us the ability to walk, which, let’s face it, is something we’d all sort of like, then we’ll just come back here, the day after tomorrow, no harm done.’

“The deliberations took a long time. All the oaks and elms and other trees talked, discussed, and argued all through the night. In the end, just as the sun was rising on the allotted day for moving, that first Christmas Eve, we called Mr. Scathe back and said, ‘Yes. We consent to being moved by you and your men, so that we can be given the ability to walk.’

“Mr. Scathe’s men, operating under his leadership, closely followed his persnickety instructions. They did an inventory of all us trees first, took our names, and wrote down our dimensions and so forth so as to better order us into groups to make our removal less of a hardship.

“It was nearly midmorning before the inventory-making men made their way over to my side of the forest. I was very excited about being able to walk, I can tell you. We all were. Every one of us was as accommodating as could be. Every one of us except muggins here.” Rarelief pointed a skinny branch at himself.

“When Mr. Scathe’s man, Harofith the Officious, came by with his clipboard, I stood to attention, ready to answer all his questions. It was on the first question that I went wrong or got confused. Either way, something happened.

“Sometimes, when I think back on it, I feel myself hearing Odin’s voice whispering into my leaves or I can feel the touch of the claws of one of his old ravens on my branches. I don’t remember being aware of it at the time, so it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to say that there’s a chance I’m imagining things, but I feel, deep within my sap, that Odin was there with me, the whole time, whispering to me when I answered that first question.

“Harofith stopped before me and looked up. He poised his pen over his clipboard and said, ‘What is your name?’

“Now, this is an easy question. What is your name? Look.” Rarelief turned to Dani and said, “What is your name?”

“Daniela Octavia Miller,” Dani said.

“See? Easy,” Rarelief said. “But on that day I did not say to the officious man with the clipboard, ‘Rarelief the Splendiferous.’ I did not say ‘Rarelief,’ or even ‘Liefie,’ which is what my dear father still calls me, or would if he was here beside me. No. What I said was ‘Freakylief the Diseased.’”

Granny and Dani gasped.

“Harofith stepped back from me immediately and turned up his nose. He wrote on his pad while saying aloud, ‘Freakylief the
Diseased.
’ He didn’t ask any more questions. I saw him underlining ‘Diseased’ again and again.

“‘No, wait!’ I cried out. “It’s not really Freakylief the Diseased, not anymore! It’s Rarelief the Splendiferous!’

“‘Of
course
it is!’ Harofith called back over his shoulder. ‘I’m sure you’re perfectly healthy and not at all diseased.’ But that was it; he was gone. I’d lost my chance. I wouldn’t be uprooted and carried up the mountain like the rest of my pals. I wouldn’t be having Mr. Scathe do the magic-y thing with the Fjorgyn Thunderbolt on me. I wouldn’t ever be gifted the ability to walk.

“I hung my branches, and I wept.

“‘Never mind, Rarelief,” my mother and my friends said to me. ‘We will talk to Mr. Scathe when we get there; we will tell them there’s been a mistake, and they will come back for you. We won’t forget you.’”

Dani stroked one of Rarelief’s branches as he spoke. Just talking about it seemed to bring some of the sadness back for him.

“But they didn’t come back for me,” he said quietly, slumping into his branches. “And they didn’t learn how to walk either! An eagle flew between my dear mum and me and told me everything. They moved all the trees, all the other trees, during that one Christmas Eve and replanted them elsewhere and abandoned them there,” he said, snapping upright. “They were duped! We all were. By old Scathe the Scalded Arse! We will get our own back one day, and we’re in no rush about it. We have all the time in the world.”

“What about Dizzie and Dozie? Why are they still here?” Granny asked.

“Ah,” said Rarelief. “They had been uprooted and were being carried out of the forest and up the side of the mountain the same way all the other trees had been from the dawn of the day until dusk. But Dizzie and Dozie, being the practical jokers that they are, kept messing around. If they weren’t firing acorns at the men carrying them, they were pretending to be travelsick and puking sap all over everyone. Or they were playing dead and flopping down heavily and were impossible to carry. In the end, the men transporting them had it up to here, brought them right back, and dumped them beside me. Here all three of us have been ever since.

“And I’m very glad about that. They are a bit juvenile, but they’ve been great pals over the centuries. Isn’t that right, lads?” Rarelief shouted over at them.

Dizzie and Dozie smiled back. Dozie started giggling and said, “Stop it, stop it!” as a family of squirrels ran up his bark. “That tickles!”

“As I’m sure you’ve realized, Mr. Scathe made a little mistake when he was manipulating the Dragon’s Eye. He thought he knew how to control it, but he didn’t really; he wasn’t quite precise enough in his instructions. So the islanders turn into Vikings just the way they were back then
every
Christmas Eve.

“Mr. Scathe only realized his mistake the next year, on Christmas morning, when none of his men could remember a single thing that had happened the day before. Mr. Scathe was about to go and fix the error when he had a thought. Maybe this was a good thing. Maybe he could use his little mistake, his momentary lack of precision when he laid out his instructions, to his advantage.

“He decided he would use the Christmas Eve changing and the Christmas Day forgetting. He has found another purpose every year since. It was the best mistake he ever made. The next thing on Mr. Scathe’s wish list was to teach the volcano a lesson. That particular story involves a sliver of a glacier, but I’m guessing you’d rather hear that particular story another time. I have no doubt that right now the pair of you are eager to head back out in search of the Red King,” Rarelief said.

“Ruairi,” Dani corrected him.

“Oh, yes,” Rarelief said. “Sorry. Small Brother, Ruairi King of Nowhere.”

“Nope,” Dani said. “Just Ruairi. Plain old Ruairi Miller.”

Ruairi was surprised by the speed and agility of Hamish Sinclair. Hamish had run with him under his arm, swapping over only once or twice, all the way from Yondersaay Village, across the Crimson Forest, through the River Gargle, along the Beach of Bewilderment, and up the side of Mount Violaceous.

“I’ll leave you in here until I can get the jarl to come down and have a look at you. He’ll know what I’m to do.”

“Where am I?” Ruairi asked.

“You’re in the dungeon,” Hamish said. “Is that not obvious?”

“In the dungeon? Of a castle? On Yondersaay?” Ruairi asked.

“Yes, you are in the dungeon of Violaceous Hall,” Hamish said.

“So, I’m a prisoner then,” Ruairi said.

“No. Yes. In truth, I don’t know,” Hamish said. “But I daren’t bring you upstairs in case you run off. And I need to go find the jarl, and there’s nowhere else to put you. So I reckon I’ll be leaving you in here, safe and sound, for five minutes, and then it’ll all be figured out, I’m sure. Make yourself at home.”