Catherine Fisher - Snow-Walker

“Kari’s grown, Brochael,” Skapti said. “Grown in power. The old man might not have realized that.”

“It’s too late anyway.” Hakon dropped his gaze from the bridge. Then he said, “Take a look, but don’t turn your heads. Don’t let him know.”

Above the bridge two tiny black flecks had soared out of the aurora light, becoming shadows among the starlight.

“The birds.” Jessa flicked a look at Grettir and saw with despair that the old man had noticed them too.

He chuckled and stood up unsteadily. “Ah. About time.”

“What are you going to do?”

He grinned at them. “Let me give you a lesson. Do you know the time to steal a soul? The best, easiest time? As a man dies. It comes loose then, comes free. Almost anyone might reach out and take it—valkyrie, demon, sorcerer, Snow-walker. To take a soul from a living man takes great skill, enormous sorcery. Of all of us, only Gudrun can do that. I can’t. I must be content with a dead one.”

“You’re going to kill him?” Jessa gripped the frost rails. “But you said—”

“I lied. His body will die. His wraith I will take to Gudrun. That’s all of him she wants.”

His eyes lit; his long finger jabbed at the rainbow bridge.

“There!”

Two small figures had emerged from the nimbus of light; for a second they stood still up there, poised on the glassy arch. Jessa knew they were staring down at the empty land as she had done, feeling the relief of being out of the wind. Even from here she could recognize them—Kari’s shining hair, pale in the moonlight, Moongarm just behind him, gripping the rail.

“Kari!” she screamed, leaping up. The others were shouting too, wild, useless warnings. For Grettir lifted his hand and spoke one word, a strange, ugly syllable.

And the bridge faded.

Like a rainbow fades, she thought, gripping her hands into hopeless fists. Through wet eyes she watched it go, lose substance, solidity, melt to a thing of light, through which the figures of her friends slipped, grabbed, fell, plunging down and down like small broken things into the mist. The storm of Gunningagap swallowed them abruptly.

Their fall had been silent.

“Kari?” Brochael whispered.

Jessa turned away, sick and furious. Grettir was still, eyes closed, as if listening for something, reaching for it. She gripped the bars and wanted to scream at him, to kill him, and then she stopped, drawing a tight, painful breath.

From the pile of weapons, Hakon’s sword was being lifted, lifted by an invisible hand. It came floating through the air to the back of Grettir’s neck and jabbed.

The old man stiffened, eyes wide. Astonishment and dismay passed over his face. Then he nodded appreciatively. “Clever,” he murmured.

Jessa grabbed Brochael’s arm and forced him around. “Look!” She gasped, warm with joy. “It’s all right! They’re alive!”

Slowly Moongarm became visible to them all. He held the sword point against the old man’s neck. “Sit down,” he snarled, “and do nothing, sorcerer. I wouldn’t like to soil my friend’s sword.”

The old man crumpled. He seemed ruefully amused. “She said you were unpredictable, Kari. I had not guessed how much.”

“Hadn’t you?” Kari stood on the ice, the ravens flapping out of nothing about him. “Are you sure about that?”

Grettir looked up at him, and his face changed. After a moment he said gravely, “You have grown so much like her.”

Kari said nothing to that. He came over to the cage and gripped the bars.

“Can you do it?” Skapti asked.

“I think so.”

Hakon shook his head. “We saw you fall!”

“I’m sorry.” Kari looked at Brochael. “I had to make it look like that. We’d crossed earlier. I had a warning. Long ago.”

Brochael nodded, numb with cold. He reached out and touched Kari’s sleeve. “I should have known,” he said, his voice gruff. “Get us out of here.”

The bars dissolved; they melted to nothing. And all the world went with them, into darkness and cold.

Someone was chafing her fingers and hands; numbly she felt the pain throb back into them, the hot pulse of blood.

She opened her eyes slowly. Brochael’s bulk loomed against mist and starlight. He said, “You’re all right. You’re back.”

She was wrapped in blankets, chilled to the bone. A fire was burning on the ice, crackling and sparkling; for a moment she wondered how, and then realized Kari must have made it, a rune fire, but giving out wonderful heat. Then she saw the sack burning in it, and the thin, familiar spars of wood. It took her a long moment to realize what they were.

Appalled, she sat up.

Skapti brought her a cup of warm water and some salt fish. She took it, staring at him. “How could you?” she asked gently.

“No choice. We had to get warm.” He smiled wanly toward the burning wood of the kantele. “There’ll be plenty more songs, Jessa, if we get out of this, don’t worry. They’re in me. She won’t undo them. Not the trees in my forest.”

She nodded sadly, wondering what he meant. Her body felt strange, cold at the edges, like a house no one has lived in for a while. She flexed her toes and fingers, her shoulders.

Grettir was sitting quietly by the fire, Moongarm close beside him. They were taking no chances, but the old man seemed content just to sit, as if he accepted his plan had failed. But his bright eyes gleamed at Jessa under his hood, and she knew he was laughing at them all.

She must have been asleep a long time; the stars had moved around in their great silent wheel. Otherwise everything looked the same. The land glimmered, pale and empty.

Kari was talking. “Halfway over I knew something was wrong, but not what. We had to come unseen.”

Skapti shook his head. “It’s cost me a year off my life.”

Brochael said nothing; he put his big arm around Kari and squeezed him.

“And now what?” Hakon asked.

“Now we go to Gudrun,” Kari said firmly. “Alive.”

Grettir shook his head and smiled slyly. “For now, little prince. For now.”

Twenty-Four

The planets knew not what their places were.

They walked through an empty land, without time. It was a country where nothing grew, where even the wind dared not come. Soft snow fell silently through the long, arctic night; it was a realm of starlight and sorcery, beyond the world. Since they had entered it, each of them had felt a constant fear, a strange diminishing of themselves. They were no longer sure who they were or how real this was—in this place anything could happen. Even the air was alive, tingling with power.

They walked together in a group; only Kari walked a little way in front, the birds above him. He said nothing, but all his old apprehension seemed to have fallen from him. He had put on that coat of power, that air of remoteness they knew. He was ready now, Jessa thought. And for whose death? Because only he or Gudrun would survive. Once they had walked away from each other. But not now. This would be the end.

The fortress loomed nearer, a hall built from icy blocks, fitted together with sorcerous skill. The gates were open. They were entanglements of ice, sharp shards of bright crystal. Grettir walked in between them, limping; the travelers followed him with drawn swords.

A great courtyard stretched before them. They crossed it quickly, watching the high windows. Hakon glanced back. Only their footprints marred the smooth snow. And yet they all knew they were being watched.

Only Kari saw them, as he passed by; the great host of the Snow-walkers, talking, laughing, amused, curious. They were a pale people, their faces as thin and delicate as his own. Children among the crowd stared at him; men and women with white snake marks in their skin. Gudrun’s people. His people. It moved him; apart from Gudrun he had never seen anyone who looked as he did. Turning away bitterly, he faced the doors.