illusions,” said Tun-sij.
Mar and Sarmik and his two sons were leading the Taran-gai group. The four of them had stopped at the foot of the slope.
Gabriel had taken out his notebook and was eagerly writing.
“Our leaders are discussing what they ought to do. They aren’t sure of the position of the other one, Kat-ghil, because you can’t see very far in this fog. We seem to be on a kind of island – Kat’s hill is an island. He looks horrible ... (crossed out). He looks horribly foul. Tiny and stocky with evil eyes staring out across the valley that we can no longer see. And in a semi-circle behind him is some kind of grille or fence from which dried human bodies are hanging. Just like mummies. That makes sense because he probably takes after his father, Winter Sorrow, who used to abduct women and sacrifice them afterwards. These mummies look like women. But not all of them. The others are probably his enemies. He may regard every human as his enemy. But I don’t see the spirits that ought to be surrounding him. And didn’t Kat live in a hole in the ground from which spirits used to fly in and out? Perhaps this is Kat-ghil?”
At that very moment Gabriel heard warning shouts from the vanguard and instinctively ducked. Something came whirling towards him through the air. Gabriel shut his eyes and covered his ears with his hands because it made an unpleasant, shrill sound.
When he opened his eyes again he could see grey creatures who looked as though they consisted of the fog itself rushing over the group and up to the peak as though to gather energy, then coming back again.
They were formless, without substance, like grey comets, densest at the front only to thin out at the back in a long tail. They swept down past the Taran-gai, who had thrown themselves to the ground. But Mar and Sarmik stood up.
“Aren’t we shamans ourselves?” Sarmik shouted. “We’re going to retaliate together!”
They all got back on their feet. Only Gabriel remained lying down on the ground on Ulvhedin’s orders. His guardian was squatting next to him, protecting him against the attacks. Gabriel had tucked his notebook underneath him. He pulled it out and wrote, perhaps mostly to chase away his thoughts and quell the terror he was experiencing.
“Kat has stood up and turned to face us. He really does look horrifying! His teeth are jagged and pointed, and I can’t help thinking that it’s so he can chew his victims properly! But that can’t be true, I mustn’t become macabre! He is extending his arms towards his descendants and shouting to them. Yes, he really is shouting, though never before have I heard such a shrill voice – it pierces every bone in your body. It’s probably some sort of conjuration.
“But Mar and the others who can conjure are responding! Help, the curses are really flying through the air now! And step by step our people are making their way up the mountain.
“Ugh! Kat has suddenly changed his attack. His spirits ... are taking shape. Oh goodness, they must be eastern demons, or whatever you call them. They are making their way down towards us, each more terrifying than the last. Yet still ... somehow they look a bit ridiculous. Like a child’s idea of horror figures. Dragon-like dogs on two legs, sticking out their tongues and puffing and snorting just like dogs. They are making wild faces but ...”
Gabriel couldn’t help it, he burst into uncontrollable laughter. They really did look comical!
His sarcastic laughter had an intense and completely surprising effect around him. All the spirits stopped. Kat stared at the blasphemous one. The spirits clearly couldn’t stand being laughed at and it seemed that they all took themselves very seriously. In other words, they possessed no self-irony.
That sort of thing is dangerous. Creatures of that kind are the most dangerous of them all.
But Kat and his spirits had no chance to recover from the shock of being laughed at because the Taran-gai stormed the hill and toppled the frightening grille with the mummified victims. And the next moment Kat was surrounded by the palms of hands thrust at him and a resounding, strong, common conjuration aimed directly at him.
He screamed. They heard him screaming for help but it was too late. Right before Gabriel’s eyes he shrank and turned into a dried-up mummy, just like his victims. But he was still alive. He lived long enough to experience his powerlessness and humiliation. Long enough to see Vassar and Orin re-erect the grille, remove all the poor mummies from it and hang him on it instead. Then the shamans turned to the grille and chanted, sounding like a big, gloomy and monotonous choir. Kat was helpless. His dried-up face grimaced wildly but no matter how much he resisted he had to accept the fact that the entire grille and its macabre decoration – himself – was dissolving into nothing.
When Kat was gone they heard the pitiful moaning of the oriental demons as with a final little “peep” they vanished into the fog.
The Taran-gai shamans stood completely still.
Then they turned to Gabriel.
“Thank you,” said Sarmik, their leader. “Thank you, little friend: you gave us the small breather we needed to overpower them!”
He issued an order and together they gathered Kat’s unfortunate victims on the hill and buried them under rocks. All the while they sang strange hymns honouring those who had suffered such a grisly fate while Kat had been in this world. Gabriel thought it was so beautiful. He would have like to place a flower on each grave, but there were no flowers. The ground was covered in snow. Instead he said a small Christian prayer as his grandfather Abel had taught him. It certainly couldn’t do any harm.
When the chanting had ended they remained standing there. But then they looked at one another in bewilderment, because the singing was continuing! It was not coming from them and it did not sound nearly as beautiful.
What they could hear were wild, frightening troll runes coming from a peak concealed in the fog.
“Kat-ghil,” whispered Tun-sij, “Kat-ghil with the troll songs.”
“That always meant war for anyone in Taran-gai,” said Inu.
“We’re not in Taran-gai now,” countered Star.
“We could try to sneak past him,” Hiir suggested. “Across the moors.”
“And what will we do there?” asked Tun-sij sharply. “We are here to clear the way for the chosen ones of the Ice People and nothing more.”
“Yes, of course,” said Hiir. “How stupid of me.”
The little Taran-gai were clearly ill-at-ease. Their pride at having defeated Kat had now been replaced by another fear.
Somewhat unenthusiastically, they trudged down the mountain and went in the direction of the sound.
“Kat-ghil is even more dangerous,” Mar muttered to Gabriel. “His troll songs are deadly.”
But most of the individuals here are already dead, Gabriel thought. Then he remembered what Tun-sij had said about the Taran-gai fearing for their souls. They feared ending up with Shama or in the Deep Abyss.
The closer they got the more clearly they could hear the song. It had a distinctly evil sound to it. Guttural and aggressive. The steps of the Taran-gai became even more sluggish and hesitant.
A new peak could be seen in the distance, and a new sacrificial fire. Next to it sat Kat-ghil with his legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees. His head was tilted back as his song ascended, shrill and grating, towards the sky.
Then he suddenly fell silent. His horrendous face turned towards them. Kat-ghil was severely stricken: that was clear for anybody to see. But it didn’t seem to bother him – on the contrary, he seemed rather proud of it. His mouth curled with loathing at the sight of the group approaching him.
He straightened up abruptly, making it look as though he had grown, and his malicious gaze rested on Vassar. The song began again, strong, powerful and intense.
Vassar stopped instantly, clutched his chest and curled up. The next moment Tun-sij screamed out loud.