“Who is he? Who is he?” he shouted grumpily to his companions.
All they could do was shake their heads and give him regretful looks.
Tengel the Evil moved closer, his throat stretched out like that of a bird of prey about to attack. He peered at Rune with a look of hatred. “I’ll find out who ...”
Then he let out his shrill, birdlike scream. He tumbled a few steps backwards, but got to his feet immediately, recovering his dignity with a serious expression.
“The talisman,” he whispered hoarsely. “The talisman that betrayed me. That tricked me into remaining in the Valley of the Ice People until it was too late! I owned you and you turned against me. Now you will die!”
He fell silent as he recalled all the times he had tried to ruin the mandrake, but without success.
“What are you talking about, Master?” asked Lynx.
Tengel pointed his long, twisted finger at Rune. His hand was trembling. “He’s a mandrake! A simple root with stems and leaves!”
The last words were screamed out in frenetic hatred.
The others looked at him. They didn’t understand.
“How have you come to be like this?” yelled Tengel the Evil. “If you think that you look like a human being, you’re wrong. You are and will always be a misfit. Who has made such a clumsy piece of work?”
Rune said nothing. If he was hurt, he didn’t show it. He just returned the murky, yellow-green glance without so much as blinking.
“Do you want me to ... eliminate him, my equal?” said Ahriman ingratiatingly.
Tengel the Evil turned on him immediately, hissing like a cat: “Equal? Of mine? Don’t imagine any such thing, you miserable creep.”
“Do you want me to?” repeated Ahriman, now slightly more cautious in his choice of words.
“You can’t. He’s immortal.”
“So am I.”
“You are certainly not! I’m the only one who’s immortal.”
“Apart from the talisman,” Ahriman reminded Tengel the Evil bluntly. “No, no, never mind,” he continued, seeing Tengel’s ominous expression.
Tan-ghil turned back to Rune. “I can turn you into a miserable root again, you wretch!”
“I don’t think so,” said Rune calmly.
“Of course, it will be the same idiot who spun the magic runes around the valley, who has given you this pathetic, humanoid form. But I’ve solved the runes, so why shouldn’t I also be able to ...”
“It was I who solved the runes,” said Ahriman swiftly.
“Oh, shut up and go to hell!” yelled Tengel. “Had it not been for my will, you would not be here now.”
“I never expressed any wish to come to the cold north,” replied Ahriman cheekily. “But since I am here, I want to give my honourable fellow hiker the benefit of my advice.”
In Zarathustra’s dualistic religion, Ahriman was the master of lies. He was a negative, destructive force, who tried to tempt human beings into materialism. Actually, Zoroastrianism ought to have vanished many centuries ago, before Christ. Yet the cult of Ahriman had been assimilated into various other creeds, so he had survived. And no wonder, because humankind has been tempted by materialism.
Now Ahriman wanted to reach the vessel of evil. For what reason it was impossible to say. Perhaps he thought that he could drink himself to global power? But first of all, he had to get to the source of evil. And this was something only human beings could do, not more or less dubious deities.
Tengel the Evil, who didn’t like to be reminded of the embarrassing moment when Ahriman had solved the magic runes rather than himself, had turned away from him in disgust. He spoke very disparagingly to Rune.
“Very well then. So you’re immortal, you wretched root, whoever has helped you to become so ...”
He fell silent. He remembered how he had tried in vain to destroy the mandrake several centuries ago in the Valley of the Ice People. Rune began to puzzle him a lot. Of course, he had heard of other mandrakes when he lived in East Asia. They could easily be destroyed.
So why not this one as well?
That was as far as he had reached in his train of thought when he felt the ice shake underneath him. And this wasn’t the first time that day. Something similar had happened a little earlier.
The others also noticed it. They looked at each other but said nothing. The tremor was over as soon as it had started.
“I’ll spare you, you pathetic root,” said Tan-ghil, “if you tell us who’s behind all this.”
“That’s easy,” answered Rune. “Your own descendants. They’re all of your blood.”
“Well, thank you,” hissed Tengel. “I know that, but there is one who is special.”
“There are many who are special. I don’t know which you have in mind.”
“Mind what you say!” admonished Tengel. “You may be immortal, but what would you say about going into the Great Abyss? You see, you wouldn’t die there. You would live on. I can assure you that you won’t think pretty thoughts when you’re there. Loneliness, mandrake: do you know what that is?”
“Yes, I do,” replied Rune. “Anyway, I couldn’t care less whether I live in this world or in the Great Abyss.”
Tengel was beginning to get really angry. “Well, what about a little torture for a start?”
“That won’t affect me. I don’t experience pain.”
That was a lie, but Rune didn’t want to give Tengel the Evil that triumph.
“Lynx! Seize him! Do with him as you did with the people of your homeland!”
The abominable henchman came forward and Rune stepped backwards without taking his eyes off Lynx. He knew that if this macabre man got a grip on him, he was lost. He would be sent to the abyss immediately. Rune also knew that he had no possibility of escaping, but he would draw out the time and try to find out more about his hunter. This prey didn’t give in that easily.
Rune observed the man as he closed in on him. There was definitely something odd about him, something he didn’t quite understand. Although he seemed quite normal, you couldn’t help shuddering when you looked at him. Lynx was ... exceptional.
Rune was hardly unfamiliar with strange people or creatures, but he had never come across this phenomenon before.
All these thoughts had to pass incredibly fast through Rune’s brain, because he didn’t have many seconds to think. He tried to establish which type of human being Lynx resembled. A fattish man with dark-brown fish eyes and the short, thin Hitler moustache that had once been the vogue in central Europe ... And once, Rune had heard Lynx bellow the word “Scheisse!” That decided the matter: Lynx was German. The war had been over for years by now, and the world had stopped regarding every German as an enemy. Bitterness had given way to an understanding that many Germans were fine, considerate people, without blame for what had happened in those days.
But this man could well have been one of Hitler’s henchmen, though he probably wasn’t. His clothes appeared to date from the 1920s. The same could be said of the way his hair was cut, and the hat he had originally worn. Now he no longer wore a hat.
Rune had to curb this train of thought. If this middle-aged man had lived in the 1920s, he would be dead by now. But that wasn’t the case. Rune could easily tell whether somebody was a spirit or a living person, since he moved freely in