He raised his hand to eye level and studied the black, shining skin, the vestigial segmentation of the body that was like a single small, dark muscle. He breathed on it.
Are you mine?' he whispered, but there was no reply. He kept his mouth close to the insect and breathed warm air over it. Are you mine?'
He allowed a thick blob of saliva to drop, and the insect rolled around, hugging itself like a contented cat in the viscous liquid until its skin shone.
I know nothing.
But still he shuffled off the step so that he was standing on the ice once again. He crouched down and touched it with his fingertips, asked it to melt. A layer of water formed on the surface, and the next moment he sank through ten centimetres and was standing on rock.
The water seeped into his boots, chilling his feet. A semi-circle of open water extended two metres from where he was standing. Through the clear water he was able to glimpse three more steps, disappearing down into the darkness.
The ice was easily a metre thick at the edge, and Anders' chest contracted. The power that must be required to cover an entire sea with such thick ice. He felt as if his chest were being compressed by strong hands, and he could hardly breathe. He looked up at the sky.
The birds were going crazy. It seemed as if every single bird was desperate to occupy the space directly above his head, and it was barely possible to distinguish individual bodies among the flapping, screaming lid of feathers and flesh hovering above him.
He closed his eyes and ran his fingers over the tuft on Bamse's hat, the tuft Maja used to suck on as she lay there listening to her tapes. The deep sea lay beneath his feet, the birds screamed and yelled above his head. He was standing on the brink of something, and as a little man he was incapable of grasping its proportions.
Where's the little man? No sign! Not there! Blood will flow, ho ho ho…
Ronia the Robber's Daughter had been on TV and by mistake Maja had happened to see just as the wicked fairies arrived. She had run sobbing out of the room.
Anders grasped the tuft on Bamse's hat in his left and, closed his right hand around Spiritus and asked the water to part.
There was a swell and a slapping around his feet. The water spurted over the edge of the ice in cascades, cold water spattered his face. A V-shaped wedge formed diagonally below him, as if the water had been sucked down into a hole rather than being forced over the edges. However, the wedge was not deep enough to free the next step.
Part!
The power from Spiritus flowed like a low-voltage current through his body, down into his feet and out into the water, but nothing happened. He tightened his hand around Spiritus as much as he dared. He knew that the power to achieve what he wanted was there. He just couldn't quite manage to pass it on. Expelling a breath he let the prayer go, and the water swirled over his feet once more.
A blob of bird shit plopped on to his head and ran down his forehead. His left arm had been hit too, and a milky white stream of excrement was working its way along his ribbed sleeve. He shook his arm before the shit reached Bamse, wiped his forehead, tipped his head back and yelled, 'So what am I supposed to do? Tell me, instead of shitting on me! Tell me what to do!'
The gulls had no answer for him. They tumbled towards each other in a rustle of feathers, still screaming at the top of their little lungs and dropping strands of slimy waste into the water, on to the ice.
Disgusting. It's disgusting.
Anders looked at Spiritus. The insect resembled a lump of excrement as well.
It should he beautiful. But it's just revolting.
The feeling of physical revulsion sank its claws into him, because he knew what the next step was. What he could do to provide the power source with a better connection, create a stronger contact between himself and…the battery.
It's a battery. I am a machine and it is a battery. Nothing else.
His stomach did not accept this argument and curled up, twisting away as if from a threatening blow as Anders moved his right hand towards his mouth. A wave of resistance rose from his frozen feet and up through his body, aiming to stop him, prevent it from happening, protect itself.
Anders screwed his eyes tight shut and opened his mouth wide, slapped his right hand to his mouth as if he were terrified. Spiritus flew into his mouth and crawled over his tongue. Before he had time to change his mind, before his body had time to come up with any further resistance, he swallowed.
Making a decision is one thing, seeing it through is something else entirely. The fat, slippery body got stuck before it had gone very far, and his throat closed up, refused to let it go down. Anders swallowed again as Spiritus' movements tickled his soft palate, threatening to trigger the vomiting that was lying in wait.
He cupped his hands and scooped up a handful of sea water, tipped it into his mouth and swallowed again. The pressure in his throat eased, and Spiritus slipped down.
He stood with his arms dangling by his sides and breathed deeply in and out several times. All the sounds around him slowly quietened, and the world in front of his eyes stratified and flickered, as if he were looking at it through layers of cobwebs.
Then it came.
Earlier he had felt as if his hand were a remote control; now that feeling spread throughout his whole body. And it wasn't just that he could exercise control. He was whatever he controlled. When he looked down at the surface of the water, he no longer saw water, he saw what he himself was made of, what he was a part of.
He ran his hand over his face. It was still there. He pinched his cheek. The skin resisted and it smarted a little. He was a person made of flesh and blood, but a different person. Someone whose body was a space he inhabited. Outside that space he could hear the screaming of the birds, through the windows of his eyes he saw himself, and he was the sea.
He asked for safe passage for his carrier, and began to make his way down the steps. No water foamed over the edges, it was as if the sea were actually parting, gathering on either side of him, and he walked down the steps between two shimmering walls of water.
The steps were slippery with seaweed, and the bladder-wrack bubbles popped quietly as he cautiously moved downwards. He slipped and grabbed the step above to save himself.
It isn't meant for humans…
The feeling of being the sea remained, but his former consciousness came to the fore and began to talk through the ease with which he was walking down a flight of steps into the depths.
It isn't meant for humans. You're going to die.
Yes. But he'd already accepted that, hadn't he? He didn't even have enough fuel to take him back to the normal world, he no longer needed fuel. He was going to go down these steps and see where they led. Then there was nothing more.
Maja.
He was going to see Maja.
He had walked down six steps. His left hand closed around the tuft at his hip and brought him even closer to his human body and consciousness. There was the sound of flapping and fighting above his head, and almost all the light disappeared. He turned around.
Only faint dots of light from the sky penetrated through the furiously fighting block of birds that had crowded down into the passageway to follow him. The flapping of their wings fanned air across his face, and as if the birds' lungs were being compressed, or the acoustics had altered, all he could hear was whistling and croaking from their throats as they struggled to keep their distance from him, while still following.
The odd gull was forced out along the edges, passed through the walls of water and was sucked up to the surface. An injured bird dropped two steps away from him, hit the rock and lay still.
This is impossible…