Two weeks past the turn east they came to what he thought he was looking for, but when they stopped, the local Whale People told him that the island he was seeking — Domen, also known as Vagoy, the wolf island, the blood-red rock — was further east still. He gave them a little money and said he would prefer that island to be beneath his feet as he spoke but only a couple then said that it was. The Whale People weren’t liars, he knew, just very eager to please.
‘Is there treasure there?’ asked Bjarki, but Veles did not translate this. Instead, he said, ‘Do your people hold it very holy?’
‘It is the place where our ancestors are. It is the mouth of the other worlds.’
‘And offerings are left there?’
‘More riches than you can imagine.’
‘That’s quite a lot,’ said Veles in his own tongue.
‘What did he say?’ said Bjarki.
‘I don’t think we’re going to be disappointed,’ said Veles.
They went on, and a week later, under a sickle moon, spotted the island. The dusk was flat and cold and the island rose from the sea in a featureless hump with a thin snow covering.
‘This?’ Bjarki was at his side.
‘Fits, doesn’t it? The blood-red rock?’
‘Looks more black to me,’ said Bjarki.
‘Use your imagination. No, on second thoughts don’t bother,’ said Veles. ‘Just find a landing spot, will you?’
‘Will the prince be here?’
‘I think we’ve established that I don’t know,’ said Veles. ‘Something may be here that may lead us to him. If not, there may be something else for us. And if not that, then the next time I hear of treasure in Ultima Thule I’ll be able to tell whoever it is they’re talking rubbish. Or perhaps I won’t. Perhaps I’ll send them up here to freeze their backside to the boards as I’ve done.’
The ship reached a small beach, grounding easily in the calm sea. Veles noted that anyone on the island wouldn’t get off without help. There were a number of little boats across the narrow strait drawn up on a mainland beach but none on the island itself.
Veles disembarked, as did the berserk and his men. Bjarki had his sword drawn. Veles glanced at it. In his experience a sword was more of a liability than a help in some situations. What was the berserk going to do if two hundred baying Whale Men appeared to defend their holy island from invaders? Wasn’t it better not to appear threatening? Particularly and especially if you actually were offering a threat.
They made their way up a rusty slope of loose stones. Veles thought the Whale People had chosen a very unpromising location for their gateway to the gods. He had been in many such places and some of them were very pleasant — gardens in the sunshine, vineyards even.
Veles shivered. He wanted to get out of this place — but not until he had found what he had come for.
‘Aha!’ said the berserk. ‘Maybe you are right, Veles.’ He was holding up a fine reindeer coat. ‘This’ll fetch a decent bit when we’ve given it a scrub.’
Veles looked at the coat. It was well made and relatively new. It would fetch a reasonable price, he thought, though he was more inclined to put it on against the cold. He stroked the fur and something came off on his hand. Blood.
‘That, as my mother used to say,’ said Veles, ‘is the mule of stains, and very difficult to get out. It’s dried on too. It won’t fetch much.’
They went on and found other things. There were drums and shoes, clothes and packs. Everywhere there was blood. Then they came upon their first body. And another. And another. All were awfully mutilated.
‘It’s a corpse hoard,’ said Bjarki, ‘a trove of slaughter.’
Veles might have argued with his choice of words but not with the sentiment. The top of the island was a field of the dead.
‘Lord Odin has had some fun here,’ said Bjarki. He had the wolf mask over his face. He looked slightly ridiculous, as it only stretched to just below his mouth.
‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Veles. He looked around and was glad he had given the mask to the berserk. Whatever had done the killing seemed to favour men who masqueraded as animals. There were about thirty corpses, or what the birds had left of them. A wolf’s nose jutted out here, a gigantic beak there. The ears of a huge Arctic hare lay at his feet. Veles could read what had happened. The coats and drums had been dropped by people who had not wanted to risk anything hampering their escape.
He kicked over a mask with his foot. There was a head inside it.
‘Looks like somebody beat us to it,’ said Bjarki, ‘though they’ve left enough furs. Doubtless their ship was too laden with gold.’
He was more used to this sort of sight than Veles and he picked his way through the corpses while the merchant caught his breath and composed himself. Veles looked about him. He wanted to be certain that whoever or whatever had caused this mess had gone from the island. The bodies had not been there for very long and the ravens still had some rich pickings. One pecked at a corpse next to him, watching Veles as the corpse itself seemed to watch him through the eyes of a stag mask. He didn’t like this at all and shooed the bird away. His confidence in the non-existence of supernatural powers was always stronger by a fire, drinking with his fellows, than it was in such wild places.
The crew spread over the island, looking to loot the unlootable. There was the odd fur, the odd knife, but these people had been very poor. Their drums might be worth a bit, Veles thought. He could always sell them back to them, or offer them as curiosities to the courts of the south.
‘Here’s your treasure!’ It was Bjarki’s voice, shouting from somewhere down the slope towards the open sea.
Veles couldn’t see where he was calling from. He walked down. This slaughter must have been some sort of mass human sacrifice, he thought.
‘Some Blot, eh?’ said Bjarki as if reading his mind. ‘Old King Hrutr did nine slaves at midsummer one year, but this beats that head or rump however you look at it.’ He pointed into a cave. ‘Down there,’ he said. ‘Look.’
Veles squinted into the darkness. He could see nothing. Anxiety gripped him. He wondered if Bjarki was luring him into the dark of the cave to kill him. No. The berserk would have had no qualms at all about splitting his skull in broad daylight, in front of a market-day crowd if the mood took him. If Bjarki had wanted him dead, he would be so already.
‘Do you have any way of seeing better?’
Bodvar Bjarki picked up a dead brand from the fingers of a corpse with as little disquiet as if the man had still been alive and simply passed it to him. Veles struck a flint, kindled the sparks on some wood shavings he had in his pouch and applied them. The torch flamed and the men went down.
Shadows danced around them as they descended. The light of the torch seemed merely an absence of dark, not a thing of itself. In it they saw runes painted on the walls.
‘Can you read them?’ said Bodvar Bjarki.
‘Treasure,’ said Veles, ‘and good fortune.’ He had never bothered too much with runes, preferring the Latin alphabet. He could read them but with difficulty. He wished they did say that, but it seemed to be the normal bilge about spirits and gods.
‘How did you see in here?’ said Veles. It seemed very dark to him.
‘It’s obvious it’s a tomb,’ said Bjarki.
‘So you haven’t actually been in here?’
‘I have no intention of letting you out of my sight, merchant. I don’t trust you. You’d strike a bargain with the men, maroon me here, sell the boat and cheat them out of the profit if I gave you as much as half a chance.’
‘The idea never occurred to me,’ said Veles. It hadn’t actually, but it was good to know Bjarki feared a mutiny, and kind of him to suggest a way it might be done.
The passageway stopped at a large mound of stones. There was no sign of collapse on the tunnel roof, so Veles took them to have been placed there. On one large block a rune had been carved, a jagged sideways swipe with a line through it.