Rune, he thought, and he felt a banging in his chest. He looked so lonely over there. So dejected. He couldn’t enter the valley. He would have to navigate all the way around it. All by himself.
Rune, who was so kind and loyal. Taciturn, enigmatic, unfathomable.
Gabriel could feel that his eyes were brimming with tears. He felt that they had let Rune down far too often, whereas he had always been loyal and compassionate towards them.
Tova was looking at Ian. She was trying to catch his eye but he merely studied the deserted landscape in front of them. Right now, she had to admit that she wasn’t feeling on top of the world. All her old complexes had returned in full force as she admitted to herself how attractive he was. At this moment, confronted with the superhuman task in front of them, she could have done with his support and to know that, despite her shortcomings, he was fond of her.
But Ian Morahan wasn’t sensitive to telepathy. He didn’t pick up her unspoken, desperate prayer for him to turn around and smile in the way he did now and then, tenderly and lovingly. So Tova felt that she was all alone in an empty universe.
Nataniel appeared grim. Now his life’s task was about to be accomplished. Everything would depend on how much he had learned and how strong his abilities were ...
“Should we wait until the fog has lifted?” Ian asked.
Marco answered: “At this time of the day, it’s impossible to tell whether a fog bank is lifting or settling, or moving at all. I suggest that we find shelter from the wind and wait a bit. Rushing into the fog and perhaps being unable to see anything would be folly and a waste of time.”
“Yes, let’s do that,” said Nataniel. “Let’s wait, I mean.”
It was a blessing to shelter from the ice-cold wind. Gabriel felt as if he was being wrapped in warm cotton wool, and he rubbed his frozen ears. Marco wondered whether they should try to walk a little way along the foot of the mountain wall to see if they could catch sight of the monolithic peaks, but Nataniel advised them not to. The mountainside was impassable to the right and to the left. The only way was directly down from the pass.
So they waited.
“I think the fog is rising,” said Tova.
“Yes, it seems to be,” answered Marco.
Gabriel said: “I can still see Rune.”
The others followed his gaze. It hadn’t occurred to them to look back across the glacier. Their hike across it was in the past now.
Tova said: “You mean that tiny dot very far away? Almost right on the other side?”
“Yes.”
“Poor Rune,” she said spontaneously.
That was what all five of them were thinking. The lonely, very, very lonely ...
Then, all of a sudden, Marco stiffened.
“Look!” he exclaimed, horrified.
Three other dots had now appeared on the glacier and they were closing in on Rune with remarkable speed.
Tova gasped. “That short figure there ... Can it be anybody else but Tengel the Evil?”
“And the other one is Lynx,” said Ian. “But who’s the third?”
Marco replied slowly: “I’ve no idea. But it must be someone who has solved the magic runes of the black angels.”
“Who can do that?” asked Nataniel.
“Not many,” replied Marco. “I know only a few in the world of evil who can.”
“Who? Please tell us!”
“One belongs to an obsolete religion. The other is Ahriman.”
“Do you think it could be him?”
“I don’t know what Ahriman looks like. And we can’t really tell at such a distance.”
Tova moaned: “Ugh! They’re closing in on our Rune! He’s stopped suddenly. We must help him.”
She wanted to get going, but Nataniel held her back. “No, stop! There’s nothing we can do!”
“We can’t let Rune down yet again!” said Gabriel.
Once again, they saw that strange expression on Marco’s face. A mixture of vigilant tension and baffling anxiety.
They stood stock-still, taking in the far-off tableau with deep sorrow in their hearts.
Tengel the Evil was full of triumph as he stepped out onto the glacier. Actually, he had planned to enter the Valley of the Ice People in the usual way, but the river was so powerful and strong right now in early spring that they would have had to walk pretty high up along the ridges, which were covered in snow and ice. So Tengel decided to follow the route of his enemies. Perhaps he might even overtake them?
They would have to walk further than the others had done because the chosen ones had been carried on the backs of wolves. Tengel the Evil was able to move pretty fast hovering a few centimetres above the ground. Ahriman, who wanted to see how everything went, was also able to move easily in space and time. The one who had the most difficulty was Lynx, whom the other two had to grab and drag between them in the most embarrassing way. Nevertheless, he had maintained his stoic, phlegmatic attitude and kept a stony face.
When they were some way across the ice they let go of him and he quietly brushed the dirt off his clothes. He gave his master a cold, glum look.
Ahriman, who was himself pretty skilled in the labyrinths of evil, had grimaced when he saw Tan-ghil’s enigmatic companion. He wondered what sewer that man had been picked out of.
“Well, I never,” said Tengel the Evil softly. “One of the poor wretches is trudging back across the ice. And he’s limping like a deformed crow. Does he want to run away? Let’s take a closer look.”
“It’s the wooden man,” muttered Lynx.
Ahriman’s black eyes looked puzzled. “What?”
“Oh, he’s just a strange character that my damned descendants carry about everywhere,” said Tengel contemptuously. “And now we’ve got him. I’ve never seen him close up. First of all, let’s shock him a bit. Or have you any other suggestions, my friends?”
If Tengel had chosen to look at the other two, he would have discovered that they were not really his friends. Camp followers and crawlers certainly, but both of them were out to feather their own nests.
He was certainly feared. Even by the disciples of evil. Ahriman thought that he had bought his freedom, which was why he ventured into the Valley of the Ice People, but even so he felt terribly frightened of the squat, abominable lump of dust that led them. He certainly didn’t want that creature as his enemy.
They very soon reached Rune. When they were quite close, the wooden man stopped and waited for them. Running away would have been pointless, and Rune had accomplished his mission. The Ice People no longer needed him. He had lost his good friend, Halkatla, and now he couldn’t care less what awaited him.
“I’ll crush him between my finger and thumb,” hissed Tengel the Evil.
Then he stopped abruptly. They were now seven or eight metres from Rune, who stood quietly with a sad, resigned expression on his face, as if everything they said and did was completely meaningless.
Tan-ghil blinked. “Where have I seen this poor wretch before?” he mumbled, half to himself and half to the others. “It wasn’t in this shape ...”
“We’ve met before,” said Rune in his creaky voice.
Tengel the Evil had an uncomfortable feeling down his spine that he didn’t know too well. Could it be fear? No, rather