Page 88 of North Is the Night
“You’ve never been to Tuonela,” he challenges. “How will you find your way through a dark forest? There will be no stars or moon to guide your way. But knowing how moss grows on trees will provide you direction. And Tuoni’s guards are all swordsmen. They will hunt you to the river’s edge. They will not be complacent, so neither can you be.”
With a scowl, I redouble my efforts, swinging low and fast. Väinämöinen ducks at the last second, but it’s a close escape. I grip the blade tighter and lunge again, determined to make him bleed. He parries me easily, laughing as he dances away.
“You’re too strong,” I pant, rolling my shoulder with a wince. “Each blow feels like it will break my arm.”
“You’re too weak,” he counters, letting his own weapon fall to his side. “I can’t teach you all I know about wielding a sword in an afternoon. We’ll have to rely on your skills with a bow.”
Defeat surges through me, making my eyes sting with tears of frustration. “I can do it. I can fight.”
“I don’t doubt that,” he says, crossing through the snow to my side. “You have the heart of a bear and the sharp claws of an eagle. Your spirit is strong, Siiri. That will count for a lot.” He gives my shoulder a squeeze. “Come inside. You need food and rest.”
For the first time in days, he helps me cook a meal. Together, we grill a few fish we caught in the lake. He’s acquired a taste for my rieska loaves, so I leave a few of those to bake on the hearthstone. We boil the winter mushrooms and tubers I foraged this morning in a pot.
“You’re a bright girl,” he begrudgingly admits as we lounge around the fire after our meal. “And I’d like to meet this mummi of yours.”
I smile. I’ve taken to telling him Mummi’s stories at night. That’s how he’s gauging my knowledge of the gods. I don’t tell the stories as well as Mummi, but I still get a few laughs and appreciative smiles. “And this will help?” I ask again. “Knowing all this will help me save Aina?”
“It certainly can’t hurt,” he replies. “Crossing the realms is no easy thing, Siiri. Plenty of shamans could never manage it. The only chance of succeeding is if your heartandyour head are in the right place.” He gives me a level look, his mustache twitching. “You seem to have the cleverness. And you have more than enough heart.”
I bloom under his praise, sitting up straighter. As he searches his pockets for his pipe, I glance around the hut, settling on the kantele in the corner. It’s a beautiful, hand-crafted zither. It hasn’t escaped my notice that in our short time together, his eye never seems to land on it. “Will you play something for me?”
He stuffs some loose leaf into his pipe, not looking up. “What?”
“In all the stories, you’re playing the kantele. I can’t play, so you’ll have to teach me.”
“You don’t need to play the kantele to be a shaman,” he says quickly.
Setting my bowl of soup aside, I search his face. “Väin-ämöinen... are you afraid of it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He makes a fuss of lighting his pipe and taking a long drag, blowing sweet smoke into the air.
From his reaction, I know I should let this lie. But that’s just not in my nature. “You never play it,” I press. “You never even look at it. Why?”
He makes a grand gesture of slowly turning his head to gaze in the direction of the zither. He puffs out another cloud of pipe smoke. “I don’t play anymore. I can’t. Not since...”
I wait for him to finish the thought, watching his face change from frustration to sadness to deep longing.
He clears his throat. “To make a kantele really sing, you’ve got to put your whole heart and soul into it... and mine’s been missing for a very long time.”
“Your heart?”
He turns away from the instrument, wiping a tear from his eye. “No... my soul.”
“What happened to you?” I whisper.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Say that again, and I’ll burn this hut down around your ears.”
He puffs on his pipe, blowing smoke my way.
I search his face, desperate to know the truth. “When I first arrived, you asked if I meant to kill you. Many have tried, you said. Lumi certainly wants you dead, though it seems important that she do the deed herself. Why? What did you do? Why would people hunt you?”
“You don’t get to know everything just because you’re curious,” he mutters. “My secrets are my own.”
“I thought shamans don’t keep secrets,” I challenge. “You said your wisdom belongs to the people. There is knowledge you possess, and I’m asking for it. You are bound as a shaman to share what you know. Now, what happened to Väinämöinen?”
He holds my gaze. After a moment, his mustache twitches. “You are prodigiously clever. I think I’d rather hear you say what you think happened.”
