When his eyes became accustomed to the darkness of the hut, Lür could see that Mother was leaning over the lifeless body of a baby.
"Another Son of Adam who leaves us to make the Transit. I have to console his mother, I have to console my daughter. I have to think of something, I don't know what to do to comfort her."
She wasn't aware of the two men that had entered. She was talking to herself, as if the outside world wasn't of great importance.
Her voice reached Lür's ears, and he thought he could make out accents that he assumed had been forgotten. An ancient flood of emotion ran down his spine.
Negu signalled for him to go over, and as he got closer to her, he could see how Mother was looking at the child's pale face with infinite sadness.
"If I could do something..." she whispered to the baby. "I don't know if I can handle this anymore."
"Yes you can, my lady," Negu said. "I'll help you through this."
She nodded, without looking at him, agreeing with him without believing him.
"Mother, I've brought someone you should meet."
But she ignored him, lost in her own world.
"All my children are weak. I have to make a decision, maybe I should send the trackers toward the Setting Sun. We don't know whether the Cataclysm finished off those lands as well."
"I've come from there, Mother. And there is no life left," said Lür.
Mother turned her face upon hearing a new voice. She seemed to awaken from a daydream.
"Are you a survivor from the West?" she asked, with some interest.
"Yes, I suppose I am."
She left the child in a fur-lined basked and went over to Lür. She took hold of his hands and turned them over, studying the lines. Then she jumped back and covered her mouth with her copper colored hands.
"You're not a normal man," she said, in a whisper that only Lür and her could hear.
"I would like to talk to you, alone. I'm not armed and I represent no danger to an eternal person such as yourself."
"It's ok, Negu. Leave us alone."
Negu clenched his jaw, but followed his orders. Mother continued studying Lür's palms for a while longer, without taking her eyes off him.
"I don't know what it is that makes you special, but I know that you are. I know you are..."
"I heard stories about you many ages ago," Lür interrupted. "Before the Cataclysm. Mother, I was also born a very long time ago, I also remain young and cannot age."
Mother grimaced and let go of his hands, disappointed.
"Ah, another fake."
"Don't you believe me?"
"If you knew how many have come before you and told me the same..."
"But in this case it's true, and you know that there's only one way to find out."
Mother turned her back on him and thought for a moment, until it looked like she had come to a decision.
"Ok, stay with us. Time will pass and we'll see whether or not you age."
I've got nowhere better to go, Lür thought. And I don't think I could put up with one more day of solitude, now that I know I'm not the only survivor.
Mother went over to him and began to draw a line with her index finger, starting at his forehead. She ran it down his neck, his chest and his stomach. Finally, her hand closed around his crotch.
"Have you had children?" Mother asked.
Lür tried to kept his calm, feeling uncomfortable, while an erection grew under the heat of Mother's hand.
"Mother, no..."
"Call me Adana. Not many have ever known my Real Name. Call me Adana when there's no one around to hear you."
"Adana?"
"Yes, I was Adam's firstborn child."
Why this gift? Why so soon? Why have you told me so much when you hardly believe what I told you?
"Have you had children?" she asked again.
"Many more than I can remember."
"Maybe one day... maybe if what you're saying is true," Lür thought he heard her say. But it would be impossible to know for sure if that was the case, because Mother only talked for herself.
"You will be my good friend," she finally said. "And we shall act as such."
He nodded his head, although he knew that the look on her face was saying something different.
But there's time, Lür, he said to himself. There's time for that. She won't die like the others. There'll be time for that.
And Mother knelt back down next to the baby's body and forgot that Lür was there.
There were happier times, and from that day, Lür joined the trackers, led by Negu. They traveled far, looking for clans that had survived, searching for food underground, following traces of herds, although they almost always found emaciated corpses. The ground was still barren and uninhabitable.
The thaws passed quickly. Lür and Negu became inseparable and considered themselves to be brothers. Negu was an excellent companion during the long nights of walking, listening carefully to every memory that Lür shared with him, and all his questions were wise and rational. They took care of each other when one of them felt weak and both kept a pocketful of supplies for the other without ever speaking about it. One day, Negu gave him one of the small figures he used to carve by the firelight, while Lür told him about his mountain on the other side of the Great Crest.
"Here, brother," he said, placing the small bison in the palm of his hand. "All the Sons of Adam have seen that your words are true. You are as eternal as Mother, but you have yet to find your place on this Earth. Just like this beast, you could also be a wise man if you have the intelligence to know both realities. You will have to make many choices in your life, Lür, deciding between instinct and wisdom. Never lose this carving, remind yourself that you once had a brother who accepted you for what you are and don't stop breathing until every person on earth knows what you are and accepts you as such."
The members of the Sons of Adam clan treated Lür like a wise man to go to when in doubt of whether a piece of meat was still edible, for the best way to tie knots to make a hare trap, or how to use hot tar to make a handle for an adze. Eventually, Lür sat on the right hand side of the couple during ceremonies and the new Sons of Adam who joined the clan considered him to be the third patriarch of the clan.
The red dust sky cleared with time and Lür and Negu discovered that towards the south, the land had began to turn green and the animals were not ghosts walking around in the fog.
After convincing Mother, all the members of the clan set off on the Great Journey. Sons and daughters, grandchildren, children and the elderly, they all got to their feet and followed the steps of Mother, Negu and Lür.
But by then Negu had lost all the hair on his head and part of his vigor. His long beard had been white for quite some time and his hunched stance needed the support of Lür's arm or a long stick to walk up a gentle hill.
Mother took care of him with a serene patience. When his last tooth fell out, she stopped chewing his meat for him and began to boil broths with bones and herbs and held the bowl for him so as it wouldn't fall from his shaking hands.
"It's always the same," Mother said to Lür one day, whilst Negu was puffing from exhaustion in the long hut. "I look like a girl next to him, and for me, he's the child. I've been through this so many times... Have you had the same experience?"
"No, I've never had companions for very long. I always left before they got old."
"So then, Lür, my good friend, there's no good solution for people like us. You've hidden your true being from everyone, so you've had to renounce companionship. People have always known me for who I am, and I've formed my own clan, but the pain of seeing everyone die will be the end of me."
"Mother, are you coming?" came a voice from the end of the hut.
"He's barely alive, but he's still calling me to warm his bed," said Mother, with the saddest smile that Lür had ever seen.
Lür watched her leave, walking into the tent with a calmness that only those who don't fear the passing of time
have.
Mother returned, quieter than usual, although Negu was more talkative, even though his voice was increasingly more high pitched and irregular, and it was hard to follow his stories. Lür would carry him from one side of the camp to the other, put him to bed, wash him and help him to survive for another day. Always another day.
Negu lived a long life and died with a smile on his face, limply holding on to Mother's hand on his right and Lür's hand on his left.
All the Son's of Adam, even those who weren't blood family, cried for the loss of their patriarch.
Mother cut one of her long braids with a sharpened shell and buried it next to Negu's body. Lür carved the figure of a small pot-bellied horse, one of his favorite foods, and a disk of Father Sun, which had given him so much light and heat throughout his life that had been marked by the Cataclysm.
His body was still warm when Adana went into Lür's hut that night.
Lür was waiting for her. He'd been waiting forty years to hear those words she whispered, with the ancient sounds that only they knew:
"We are now alone, my beloved friend. Has our time finally arrived?"
23
The wheel of life
ADRIANA
The next day was exactly the same as the previous one. The plates of hot food on the floor of the cell when she awoke. The unbearable silence of forced isolation. And at night, the presence of Gunnarr on the bed, resuming his story.
"That's enough, Skoll," I told him, grabbing hold of his arm before he thrust the weapon into my father's ribs. "You want me, so I'll go with you."
"If you run again, there'll be no duel on this farm. There'll be a massacre, plain and simple."
I looked at my father for the last time, lying on the floor and barely conscious due to his drunken state.
"Let's leave now, Master. I have nothing to take from this farm."
They took me far away, because King Svear had called them urgently to the south, to Frisian land. Each berserker was paid three pounds of gold, which was a fortune back then, but Skoll had to present twelve berserker. And not one less.
They managed to get hold of some horses and we went towards the coast, where a small knörr, a war boat, was waiting for us, hidden behind steep bank. Skoll organized the work and gave each of us specific orders: load the supplies, check the boards of the keel. There was a lot to do, but he always kept an eye on me.
It was almost night when, on the shore, next to the hull of the boat, without anyone knowing where it had come from, appeared a small shadow that calmly watched us. I gulped when I recognized the figure of my Uncle Magnus.
"I'm very offended," he said to us. "You've taken my nephew, but nobody asked me to join your group."
"Who's that dwarf?"
One of the berserker went over to him with his sword in his hand, anticipating our bewilderment.
"I think he's a trader, one of Kolbrun's brothers," someone said.
"Why are you here?" Skoll said, standing between my uncle and I.
"I already told you, I've come to join your gang."
"There's already twelve of us and we don't need a pet," Skoll answered, vaguely on edge from the presence of the intruder, but still not taking him very seriously.
Magnus slowly walked up to the group of berserkir, looking them up and down.
"The one with the shaved head is your best man, isn't he?" he said to Skoll, pointing to Runolf. "I was watching him during the feigned duel. He always stands on your right and has the express order to cover your back at all times. He's a good choice, he has fast reflexes."
"And it looks like you want to die tonight," interrupted Skoll. "Runolf, kill this dwarf."
"Without weapons," said my uncle. "We'll have a duel without weapons.
"Without weapons? And how are you going to defend yourself? With those little hands of yours?" Runolf laughed.
"So naive," whispered Magnus, with his hoarse voice.
That was the first time I saw one of his stunts. My uncle jumped forward, grabbed a long, thin wooden stick from amongst the ship's tools, snapped it in half with his knee and stuck it into either side of Runolf's neck.
We were all squirted by the two streams of blood flowing out from the deceased Runolf.
"Looks like you've just had an opening," he said to Skoll. "I either board with you now, or I'll kill you as well, and this time it won't be so quick."
"You can't take on nine berserkir. And don't doubt for a second that if you kill me, they will kill you."
"I know, but neither of us will be too concerned about that. You won't be, because you'll be dead, and I won't be for reasons that you couldn't understand. You're headed south, I know the routes and the dialects. I know the Frisian's battle strategies. I will train you, you're too unorganized when you're fighting. I will turn you into a more stable force with less casualties."
"Have you fought before?" Skoll asked, interested.
"I have, yes. Come and sit next to the fire with me and I'll show you what I can bring to your warriors."
Magnus took Skoll over to the fire and they spoke for a long time, until it started to burn out, although I knew the suspicious nature of the berserker and I knew that he had yet to gain his confidence. Despite that, he decided to let Magnus travel with us. He was a new acquisition that was too valuable to let go, and Magnus knew it.
After dinner, while Skoll left to take care of Runolf's corpse, my uncle came over to me in the shadows.
"Your father and uncles are gathering a small army to rescue you. I came ahead. I'm just gaining time," he whispered in my ear, as I pretended to carry on with my chores.
"It's too late," I said, without taking my eyes off two berserkir who were loading ropes onto the boat. "They either get here now, or they won't make it in time."
"So we'll just have to improvise. You're handy on a boat and you know how to tie good knots. Tonight, tie the ones that are sleeping to the ship's masts by their hands and feet. Make sure that they can't escape and jump into the water."
"They won't all be asleep, one or two of them will be keeping watch from the stern."
"I'll take care of them. You just lie down with the rest and pretend to be asleep. When they begin to snore, tie them up with tight knots and spread the tar out around them, the whole ship must go up like tinder. You go to the bow and I'll wait at the stern. We'll set fire to the boat from both ends at the same time, then jump off and swim back to shore."
"We'll drown, we can't swim that far."
"Have some more dinner and get your strength up, there's no other way around this. I can't kill nine men on land and you've never killed a warrior, just unarmed farmers, so you'll hesitate in front of the first one and he'll kill you".
I'll save you the gory details, stedmor. Everything went according to plan and we woke up close to frozen, having spent hours swimming to shore to leave behind the huge fireball we had turned the boat into.
"Now they'll come looking for us because we killed Svear's personal guard. That king has many aliases and we won't be safe here, we can't even go back to the farm without putting your father and everyone who lives there in danger," said my uncle Magnus, as we dried our clothes next to a make-shift fire and I laid down to rest.
"What are you trying to say?"
"We have to leave, son. On Danish land we are outlaws."
"Do you mean that we need to hide out for a while?"
"No, I don't like living like that. We have to go far, in the opposite direction that the berserkir would go. We'll go to Miklagard, the ancient city".
My uncle was talking about Constantinople, which at the time was the largest trading city in the known world. A golden anthill where we could go unnoticed.
"We'll change our name and appearance, and you should say goodbye to everything you've known so far."
"But won't my father be sick with worry?"
"We have to keep going, we can send a messenger to the farm along the way. We'll find each other again, although they
must pretend that everything is normal for a while, perhaps for several years."
"But my father will be an old man by then. I don't want to risk not seeing him again, I still have so much to experience by his side."
My uncle looked into the fire. We were both sitting and the winter sun barely warmed our backs. He stared at me, as if he were weighing up if what he was about to go through with me was worth the trouble.
"After everything that's happened, I'm going to have to tell you who we really are," he said slowly, studying my reaction.
"And who are we? I already know who I am. I'm Gunnarr, son of Kolbrun."
"Son of Nestor..." he said.
"What do you mean, son of Nestor? Nestor is my uncle."
"Nestor is our father, Lyra's, Kolbrun's and mine. Which makes him your grandfather."
"That's crazy, you're fucking crazy! I don't understand, what are you trying to tell me then?" I shouted, standing up.
"What I'm trying to tell you, my dear Gunnarr, is that the wheel of life, of the life of everyone in our family, doesn't stop. For any of us. It never has. We don't grow old. And as far as we know, we don't die. And we think that you're one of us. Your mother's pregnancy was as long as our mother's pregnancies. We were born many ages ago, I was born to the east of Volga, your father and your grandfather were born in Jakobsland, the Land of Jacob. And your aunt Lyra was born south of Friesland."
I was scared, I took a log from the fire and held it up between us, not sure what to do if he attacked me.
"You're the spawn of Loki, is that it?"
"Gunnarr, Gunnarr... this has nothing to do with how you Danes see the world. We're not evil. Have we done anything bad? We are a family that sticks together and we look after each other, like you just did with your father. And put that down, for God's sake, you're going to burn yourself," he said, pushing the log away from his face.