Snow-Walker (35 page)

Sadly she turned back to the map. The road ran north, clearly marked. Mountains and lakes and a large river were shown, but the farther north it went the more empty the map became, until there was nothing but the road, as if whoever had drawn it had no knowledge of what lay up there lost under the snows.

Or perhaps he had heard stories. For at the very top of the map, right across the sealskin, was a great black slash, as if some enormous chasm or crevasse opened there, and the road ran right to its edge, or into it. Some words were scrawled nearby, and Skapti read them out.

“The end of the road is unknown.”

The black chasm also had a word in it, written loosely and untidily.

Gunningagap.

They stared at it in silence. Then Brochael looked up.

“What do the stories say?”

“You know what they say.”

“Remind us. Earn your keep.”

Skapti linked his long fingers together and flexed them. “Gunningagap is a howling emptiness,” he said simply. “It's the place where the sky comes down to meet the earth. It's a great chasm that encircles the earth—here in the north its edges are heavy with ice; and eternal wind roars out of it, night and day. Long ago, they say, there was only the gap. Then a creature crawled out of it, a frost giant called Ymir. The gods killed him. From his body they made Middle-earth, the rocks from his bones, the stones from his teeth. His skull is the blue sky—four dwarves sit at the corners to hold it up. So the poets say. But one thing is sure, the gap is still there.” He was silent a moment, then added some lines quietly.

“When Ymir lived, long ago,

Was no sand or sea, no surging waves.

Nowhere was there earth or heaven above,

But a grinning gap, and grass nowhere.”

“So what's beyond it?” Jessa said.

He stared at her in surprise. “Nothing. That's what they say. Nothing. It's the end.”

The thought of it silenced them—the frozen wastes of snow, the howling winter blackness of the world's brink. Jessa brought her mind back to the warm room with an effort.

“But everyone says the White People live beyond the world's end. And they come here, from time to time, so…”

“I don't know!” Skapti said, exasperated. “I'm a mere songster. A lackwit. A plucker of strings. How should I know? Perhaps there are worlds beyond this. No one has ever tried it and come back, that's the truth.”

She tapped the map, its worn mountains and half-erased rivers. “Then we'll be the first.”

“Well spoken, Jessa.”

Wulfgar stood in the doorway, his face flushed from the wind, his eyes bright. He came in, brushing the dust from his hair, then tugged off his coat and threw it at Brochael. “You will. We'll make sure of that. This expedition will come back because none like it will ever have set out before. Sorcery, guile, strength, cleverness. You four have all those things. But I'd like to send one more thing with you. A sword.”

They looked at him, uncertain, but he smiled at them, his old lazy smile. “No, not me. You were right about that.” Sitting down, he leaned back in the chair, gripping the arms. “I am the Jarl,” he said proudly, and a little sadly, “and I won't desert my people. No, I want you to take Hakon. You'll need another swordsman.”

Amazed, Hakon gaped at him. “But I'm not… I mean, I've been training hard, but my hand is still not as…”

Wulfgar leaned forward. “Hakon Empty-hand, you'll do as your lord tells you. Someone has to keep an eye on Jessa.”

She glared at him, then laughed. “Five then.”

“Five. And a better five I couldn't have. Because it all depends on you,” he added softly. “Signi's life. All of it.” He rubbed his hair again. “I don't know what I'll do when you're all gone.”

In the silence Kari caught her glance. He was watching Wulfgar apprehensively, as if there was something else he had not told him, but when he saw her looking, he smiled and shook his head. She felt awkward. For a moment she had been wondering if Kari had changed Wulfgar's mind for him.

Jessa walked thoughtfully between the houses, through the noise and bustle of preparation. Outwardly the hold seemed to be back to normal after the bewildering spell storm; the smiths hammered, the fishing boats were out, women gossiped and spun wool in the sun.

And yet she had begun to realize that the dreams were still here.

Twice in the night she had woken from strange, tangled visions. Not only that, but the weather was cold. Too cold. Since midsummer a keen wind had whistled around the hold continuously; made drafts in all the rooms and corridors, moving tapestries, banging doors and shutters, touching the back of her neck like cold fingers.

She went in, past the sacks that were being packed with food, and up the stairs. Skapti was coming down, carrying the kantele, his precious instrument, well wrapped.

“You're taking that, then?” she asked, passing him.

“Some of us have to work, Jessa.”

They were to leave in two days. Wulfgar and ten of his men were riding with them to the borders of the land, to the giant road. He'd insisted on that. As she ran up the stairs she clenched her fingers in her pockets, puzzled at how cold they were. Then she tapped on the door.

A woman opened it.

“Any change?” Jessa whispered.

Fulla shook her head. She was Signi's stepmother, an elderly woman. Her iron gray hair was bound in long braids; her dress hung with ivory charms. She let Jessa in, and they both stood by the silken hangings.

Signi lay unmoving, her beautiful corn gold hair brushed smooth. Her eyes were open, blue and clear and empty.

Jessa picked up the cold fingers. “Hear me, Signi,” she said.

Nothing. No flicker, no turn of the head.

Slowly Jessa laid the limp hand down. “She seems cold.”

“She is.” The woman bent to touch the girl's forehead. “And I'm sure she's getting colder. I keep the fire well stoked, but the room has a growing chill. I've told the Jarl. It worries me.”

Coming out, Jessa went back down the stairs. She was worried too, worried and restless. She went to the outside door and looked out. Wind caught her hair and whipped it up; the chill made her shiver. Something was wrong here. She looked around carefully, noticing other things. Most of the hens were inside, and very quiet. Up on the fellside the goats were huddled together in the shelter of boulders and tall trees. And now she came to realize it, there were no birds about the hold. None but Kari's ravens, hunched up on the hall roof like black carvings.

On impulse she ran between the houses and up the hillside and kneeled, looking closely. The grass looked shriveled. Small flowers of tormentil and thrift, bright yellow and pink two days ago, were brown wet stems. She picked one; it was rotten down to the heart, the leaves a blackening clot. Rolling it in her fingers she stood, looking over the fellside.

All the flowers were gone. Gudrun's unseasonal frost had seared the land here, though far off, well up the fjordshore, it was still midsummer, the soft colors flaunting in the meadows. And there were no new green shoots. The raw wind flapped and gusted, but only in the hold; in bewilderment she stared up at the trees behind her; the forest was still, its dark fringe unmoving.

She ran back down, frowning.

Kari was sitting in his room with Hakon. As she came in she saw that he was carving another small bone circle with deft, skillful cuts.

“Why didn't you tell me?” she demanded.

Kari's knife paused in midair.

“Tell you what?” Hakon asked in surprise.

“He knows.” She sat down between them. “It's still here, isn't it? Why didn't you tell us?”

Kari put the knife down on the bench and looked at it bleakly. “Keep your voice down, Jessa. If the holders know, they might panic.”

Hakon had stopped burnishing his sword. “What's still here?”

“The spell. Whatever Gudrun sent.”

“How did you find out?” Kari asked quietly.

“The flowers.” She laid them on the bench. “The weather. The wind.”

“It's not wind.” Kari picked up the ring of bone and turned it over. “Those are dreams, moving around us.”

“Can you see them?” Hakon asked, horrified.

Kari looked at him sideways. “I should have been ready for her!” he said, suddenly bitter. “Since she sent the rune creature last year, I've been gathering watchers around the hold. But she was too sudden, too fierce.”

“Watchers?”

Kari looked at him. “Ghosts,” he said.

Hakon paled.

Kari clenched his fingers on the bone disc. “You're right, Jessa, the rune spell is still here. It won't go. I can see it from the corners of my eyes, a coldness growing in the hold. It's wrapped around Signi, but she was just the first. It will spread, an icy sleep, and one by one, without warning, they'll all fall into it, their souls slipping away from them. Winter will close in. The fjord will freeze, the fires go out. Farmers, fishermen, thralls, they'll all lie down and the ice will cover them slowly, month by month. Even the beasts. She's wrapped the hold in its own dreams, and there's almost nothing I can do about it.”

“Almost?”

He flipped the bone ring. “I have an idea. But most of all we have to find Signi.”

“That's exactly what Gudrun wants.”

“Of course it is.”

They sat silent, feeling he had spoken prophecy, like a shaman reading the future. Perplexed, Hakon rubbed the dragons on his sword. “Have you told Wulfgar this?”

“Yesterday. As soon as I was sure. It's another reason he has to stay.”

“But why should any of them stay?” Jessa said suddenly. “Why not clear everyone out of the hold—?”

His look silenced her. “No one can escape their dreams, Jessa. We five who go, I can protect. That's all.”

“And those left?”

He spun the bone ring on the bench. “This.”

She picked it up and turned it over. “What is it?”

The smooth white surface was carved with small running lines. They seemed to move before her eyes, as if they rippled. He took it from her quickly. “It's their defense....”

A babble of noise outside interrupted him, raised, urgent voices. Jessa jumped up and went to the window. After a second she said, “Come and see this.”

Hakon came behind her, Kari at her shoulder.

Below them a man was bent over in the mud; a small crowd gathering anxiously around him. He was shouting, his face white and desperate. As Wulfgar and Skapti came running up, the crowd moved back a little, and Jessa saw a small boy lying on the ground, curled up as if he was asleep. A handful of grain spilled from his closed fist; the hens still pecked at it hungrily.

“The children,” Kari whispered. “They'll be the first.”

“Come on!” She pushed past him, ran down the stairs and out, and they both followed her without a word. The crowd fell silent as Kari made his way in beside Wulfgar.

“Has it started already?” the Jarl murmured.

Kari touched the boy's forehead; the father glared, as if he would have pushed him away but dared not. For a moment Kari was still, his face remote, his colorless eyes watching the sleeping child. Then he looked at Wulfgar and nodded.

“What's the matter with him?” the father yelled.

The Jarl caught him by the arm. “Summon your courage, Gunnar. The boy is asleep, that's all. Take him home and put him to bed; I'll send you some help.”

Watching him go he said, “It's beginning, then.”

The door to the hall slammed wide, startling them all; inside they saw the tapestries billowing in the dream wind. A tiny flake of snow, no bigger than a shieldnail, sailed down and settled on Jessa's sleeve. It did not melt for a long time.

“Find Brochael,” Wulfgar said grimly. “Tell him to get the men ready. We leave in the morning.”

Then he turned back and looked at Kari. “You said this will spread. How far?”

“The hold first. It's already here—I can't stop that. Afterward, over the whole realm.”

“Then we need some way to contain it, Kari. Anything.”

Kari nodded slowly. “I'll do what I can.”

Late in the night Brochael woke up and turned in the cramped sleeping booth. It was too small for him, as they usually were, but this time he was glad of the discomfort, because the strange dream of the cell had come to him again, and the memory of it disturbed him.

After a moment he sat up with a mutter of irritation. It was cold in the stone room; the fire must have gone out.

He dragged the great bearskin from the bed, swung it around himself, and padded over the floor, scratching his tousled red hair. The brazier held a low glimmer of peats, and as he dropped new ones in, the light darkened even more, making the room a huddle of cold shadows. Still, it would blaze up eventually and last till morning.

He watched it sleepily for a moment, his mind avoiding the echoes of the dream. Gudrun's sorcery still lurked here. It was not often that he thought about her—he hated the woman for what she had done to her son. Apart from Kari only he, Brochael, knew the full evil of that. And he feared her. As for Kari… All at once he realized how quietly the boy was sleeping, and turned quickly.

The bed was empty.

For a moment, rigid, Brochael stared at it. Then he shook his head, dragged the bench up to the warmth, and sat down, leaning back against the wall. The alarm that had flared in him for a second died down—he knew Kari well enough. The boy had strange gifts, and they drove him strangely. Often at home, in Thrasirshall, he would walk the snowfields and forests all night, the ravens flapping above him. Brochael knew he spoke to ghosts and wraiths and invisible things out there, things he could tell no one else about. He tugged the bearskin tight on his broad back. Wherever Kari was, it was his own realm. He was skillful there.