“Marco?” Tengel snorted. He was green with envy.
“Yes, Marco! I’m very fond and very proud of him. Don’t imagine for a moment that I’m on your side. But you’ve drunk water from the dangerous source, which means that I can’t kill you.”
“If you try that I’ll send you straight to the Great Abyss!”
Lucifer allowed himself to laugh quietly. “Well, you can try.”
Tengel the Evil had to lean back so that he could look the angel of light in the face. He wouldn’t admit it even to himself, but never in his sinful life had he ever seen such a splendid sight. Even if his eyes were filled with hatred and envy, this was an undeniable fact.
Lucifer was certainly impressive in all his might. The enormous wings, which seemed to reach right up to the sky and whose edges brushed the earth, glistened like black silk in many nuances. His hair fell curly and jet-black over his shoulders, and his eyes, which had an undefinable colour, shone with an intoxicating effect. His face was perfect, serious and yet kind, and his complexion was like polished ivory. He wore only a loincloth, which was also black, and the muscles in his chest and arms played under his skin.
Yet it was his sovereign authority that made the greatest impression. Once the foremost, created by flame, but banished when he had doubted the Lord’s judgement.
Tengel the Evil didn’t know much about all that, he only registered that he was faced with something immense.
And he didn’t care for that at all!
Why was it not true what humans asserted? he thought indignantly. Were Lucifer and Satan not one and the same person? Was the enormous, arrogant figure before him telling lies?
And the Ice People had him on their side! No wonder they had the audacity to oppose their great ancestor, Tan-ghil of the Source of Evil!
Lucifer lifted his hand. “You have many innocent lives on your conscience. I shan’t cause them more grief by involving them in my decision to delay your journey. You’ve also killed many of your like-minded people. You’ll become aware of them now.”
“You can’t touch me. I’m the Ruler of the World.”
“Not yet! Not until you’ve drunk of the water again and regained your full strength. And believe me: you’ll have problems reaching that!”
The dark hand made a movement and Tengel the Evil felt a pair of hands grab his ankle and hold it. He bent and looked down. There he saw a dead man lying on his stomach with both hands around Tengel’s ankle. Tengel was able to recognize the man: he was Number Two in his command.
He kicked his foot in order to shake off the man, but the man seemed as heavy as lead, and his body seemed to be made of stone.
“Ha,” he snorted at Lucifer. “Do you think that he can prevent me from entering the valley? I’ll drag him along very easily.”
Before he had so much as taken a step, a new man had tagged himself onto the first.
“You underestimate me,” said Tengel contemptuously. But as he spoke, another tagged onto the second one. Then another came, and now four men were stuck onto Tengel the Evil. They were as heavy as rock and immovable. Despite his terrible oaths and attempts at witchcraft, one after the other latched onto the feet of the man in front, making the burden even heavier. The lines grew until he had two long, long rows of dead men behind him.
“An axe!” Tengel yelled. “An axe! I’ll chop off the hands on my ankles!”
“No axe in the world can break through this metal,” said Lucifer calmly. “You can try until Doomsday, if you want.”
Tengel pulled and tugged trying to move forward, but he couldn’t.
“Nothing, nothing can prevent me from reaching my vessel of water,” he hissed. Then he shouted as loudly as he possibly could across the cold snow: “Lynx! Lynx! You must prevent those wretches from reaching the valley. Delay them until I get there and you’ll have a lovely time of leisure, in a paradise for somebody like you!”
Lucifer had now regained human size. His wings had gone and once again he wore his cloak. He turned his back on the furious Tan-ghil and placed his arm around Rune’s shoulders.
“Come, my friend from the Garden of Eden – and now from the forests of Finland. Come, let us help the wretched Ice People!”
Rune was completely speechless. He was utterly dumbfounded at meeting Lucifer and just walked with him to the mountain pass that led down into the valley.
When they were a long distance away from the bellowing Tengel, Lucifer stopped and turned Rune towards him. He laid his dark hands on the shoulders of the mandrake boy.
“I must say, whoever tried to make a human being out of you was a clumsy fool. You’re neither one thing nor the other, neither a root nor a human being.”
Rune looked down. He was sad.
Lucifer gently touched Rune’s hemp-like hair. “We haven’t got time now. But if we do at some point in the future, we will take a closer look at you and hear what you want to be yourself.”
Rune merely nodded. He didn’t know what he wanted.
Far behind them Tengel the Evil had turned silent.
The Garden of Eden? The mandrake?
It wasn’t until this very moment that he realized that he had once owned the very first mandrake. The one that was created as a pattern for all mankind.
And he hadn’t even discovered that! What wouldn’t he be able to carry out with that root? Or? Hadn’t it always opposed him with an incredible strength and will?
Now it was in the service of the Ice People. He wondered what they had promised it or paid for it?
Tengel the Evil didn’t know any other reasons for depending on something than what one could make out of it.
He could have screamed aloud in bitterness.
He tore at the hands that held his ankles. But they seemed to be a part of himself. He tried some witchcraft, but nothing worked.
Now he would have liked to have had Ahriman here, because he knew the magic of his opponent, Lucifer. But the wretch had fled. He was a coward.
Damn, damn!
Tengel the Evil didn’t know very much about the relationship between Ahriman and Lucifer. They were contrasts, representing two sides of human nature. Ahriman stood for materialism and hence also for lies. Lucifer stood for spirit and light. Mostly under other names. The oldest were probably Angra Mainu for Ahriman and Ahura Mazda for Lucifer. But these old names were largely forgotten. The ancestor of the Ice People knew nothing about them.
Tan-ghil was livid as he watched the two strolling quietly away from him towards the Valley of the Ice People. With a superhuman effort, he actually managed to move one foot a few millimetres. He heard the scraping against the ice far behind him as the entire line of heavy corpses was pulled along.
The other foot.
It rattled nicely behind him.
Triumph!
He could manage it. It was bound to go slowly but he was able to move forward. A couple of millimetres at a time.
And ... they had probably forgotten his spiritual force, his shadow in the valley. It was unable to drink the water in the vessel, but it could set obstacles for them.
He signalled with his thoughts: “Lynx! Lynx, can you hear me? Stop those wretches! Send them to the Great Abyss. You’re my slave, remember that! I’ll forget your flight if you otherwise