Snow-Walker

Twenty

Offered, myself to myself.

Gudrun was waiting for them.

She was standing with her back to the fire; the smoke of it hung about her in the dark spaces of the hall.

No one spoke. Kari leaned with his back against the door, hands behind him; then, slowly, he walked out into the firelight. Jessa stayed where she was.

He stopped a few yards from Gudrun and they stared at each other in silence. To Jessa the likeness they shared was astonishing: the same thin paleness, the same sense of hidden power—even the same straight, shining hair, though Kari’s was ragged and muddy, and Gudrun’s arranged in long elaborate braids.

Then the woman moved with a rustle of silks.

“Where are your friends?”

“Your men have them.” Kari’s voice was low, but his hands were clenched and trembling. “You should have known that.”

She shrugged lightly. “Perhaps I did.”

“No,” he said slowly. “You didn’t.”

A flicker of expression crossed her face, as if she was surprised, but it was gone before Jessa could be sure.

Gudrun moved nearer to Kari. She was taller. She ran a narrow finger down his patched coat. Jessa saw, tied around her wrist, a wisp of dried snakeskin.

“Not the clothes for the Jarl’s son.”

“You took that away from me.”

“I could give it back.” She smiled with real amusement and touched his hair. Jessa saw how he stiffened.

“It’s too late.” He pulled away and went to the fire and tossed on a handful of kindling. Then he stood close up to the flames. The new wood crackled and spit; the sound echoed in the roof.

“You’re afraid of me.” He said it steadily, but with an effort, looking into the leaping web of flame. “Because I’m the same as you—just the same. You invented all those lies so that no one would know it, but they only have to look. Any powers you have, I have too.”

She smiled, smoothing her dress. “But I know how to use them. You don’t.”

“I’ve been learning.”

“Tricks played on fools. Not the real spells, not the twisting of minds, the webs of fear and delight.”

She had come after him and reached out again, fingering the ends of his hair as if she could not leave him alone. “As for fear, I’m afraid of nothing.”

“Except your reflection,” Jessa said.

Gudrun turned quickly, as if she had forgotten her. “Silence!”

“It’s true.” Kari looked up. “And you know it’s not the one in the mirror. I’m your reflection.”

Gudrun was still a moment. Then she said, “Indeed you are. You and I are the same.”

“No.” He shook his head, but she went up to him, clutched his hands.

“Look at us. Together we could make the north such a kingdom of sorcery as has never been dreamed. I have let you live for this, watched you, to see what you would become.” Her cold eyes glittered. “And you’ve become me.”

“No!” Kari stepped back. “You’re wrong. I would never join with you.”

Gudrun straightened; her fingers stabbed the air; she snapped out a rune. Kari caught his breath. To Jessa’s horror, he staggered with a gasp of pain.

“Stop it! Leave him alone,” she cried.

But already he was lifting his head, straightening, white and unsteady. When he spoke, his voice was bitter. “You won’t do that again. Now feel its reflection.”

He did not move or say anything, but the witch slowly bent before him like a candle too close to heat. Her eyes widened; she staggered to the table and clutched it, one hand gripping the edge, her knuckles white.

“This is pain,” he said quietly, coming up behind her. “This is how it feels. And these are nightmares—see them? This is silence. This is fear.”

Gudrun shuddered, shaking her head. She beat off something invisible with her hand; quick, nervous snatches. Kari stood and watched. Then he touched her hair. Jessa felt her heart thump with fear.

“Are these the webs you mean?” he said softly. “You see I can weave them too.”

Gudrun buckled into a chair. Her long hands lay on the table—Jessa could see them trembling. The hall was dark and silent.

Then Kari turned away, and Gudrun’s hands were still. He went back to the fire. After a while he said in a sharp voice, “It’s over, your time of power. There are two of us now—a balance. I think you should go back to the place you came from; leave the Jarlshold to choose its own leader.”

“You?” she said scornfully, raising her head.

“Not me. They won’t want me.” He rubbed his hair wearily. “I’m too much like you.”

“Kari!” Jessa cried.

He turned and saw that the witch was standing, tall and pale. Her white gown fell in straight folds; it glinted like frost.

“It’s not finished,” she said. “Has he told you about the serpent, this Brochael you’re so fond of? The serpent hugs the world; it devours itself. It will never be destroyed until the end of the world, when the great wolf of darkness snaps its binding, and the ship of monsters sails into the harbor. Far from here, far to the north, is a hall, all woven of white snakes; its doors face out to the eternal ice.”

She held out her hands; drew them slowly apart. Jessa saw light gleam between them. The hall seemed to shudder; the shutters creaked as if something was pressing against them.

“That is the place I come from,” Gudrun said. “The serpent is what I serve. And now it strikes.”

She was close to him; her hands moved in a flash of light. Jessa screamed and grabbed Kari, hauling him aside as the knife slashed down. Gudrun turned and struck again; the blade whistled past Jessa’s face, slicing through strands of her hair. Kari grabbed it. With an effort he wrenched it out of her hand and flung it onto the fire.

At once the flames roared up, higher than his head. Long coils of smoke poured out, twisting around his neck and arms. Smoke swept around Jessa’s waist, squeezing her tight, even though her hands went through it as she beat at it. She yelled and squirmed, but the serpent of smoke held her, hugging the breath out of her. Its tongue flickered at Kari, pinning him against the wall, blackening the stones and scorching the tapestry behind him into smoking holes. As he dodged, the cloth caught alight; a line of flame ran up the edge, crackling through the dusty threads.

Kari scrambled through the smoke to Jessa. As he caught hold of her the weight on her chest seemed to burst; she breathed in, sick and dizzy.

“Where is she?” he yelled, but Jessa shook her head and jerked back as the tapestry fell, a roaring sheet of flame, from the wall.

“This way!” she screamed.

They ran to the door and tugged. It didn’t move. Jessa slammed her palms against it and whirled around. “The windows, then!”

But the windows were shuttered, the hall a closed cage of burning cloth. Smoke stung their eyes; they were coughing and retching. High overhead the roof tree crackled, spilling sparks like blossoms.

Outside, a voice was yelling. Something thumped on the door.

Jessa slammed and kicked at it. “How can we get out?”

“We can’t.”

He dragged her down and they gasped the cold air near the floor. Then she looked at him. To her astonishment she saw he was half smiling. She forced herself to be calm. “What are you going to do?”

“This.”

He kneeled in the smoke, his hands gripped into fists.

And the smoke turned white. It gathered itself together into hard grains and fell silently. It fell from the darkness up there in the rafters; fell as a gentle, relentless snow, onto the flames, onto Jessa’s hair and upturned face. The air grew cold; the water on her cheeks froze. Soot hardened to a black glaze, and the flames sank. Tapestries stiffened into rigid folds and hard, crumpled masses on the flagstones.

Slowly, easily, the snow fell, whitening floor and tables, hanging like frail lace on their clothes, and on Gudrun’s, as she sat in the center of the hall, watching them.

She sat calmly in a great chair, her face expressionless. On a stool at her feet huddled the wizened old man Grettir, looking more ancient than ever. His long eyes watched them both carefully. Jessa stared back. Had they been there all the time, in all that flame and smoke?

Suddenly someone outside yelled. The door shuddered, as if something heavy had struck it.

The witch stood up and came forward. The old man followed her like a dog. She seemed slightly smaller, almost as if something had gone from her. Close up, Jessa saw the faint lines on her face as she kneeled thoughtfully by Kari.

“It seems you’re right,” she said. “There are two of us now.” She smiled at him. “So I will do you the greatest harm I can. I’ll give you what you want.”

“What do you mean?” he muttered.

“I leave it all to you,” she said. “With this curse. They will never love you, never trust you. Power like ours is a terror to them. You’ll see that. Your new Jarl will want to be rid of you as soon as he can.” She touched his shoulder lightly. “And you’ll use them, as I did. It’s what we always do.”

Then she was on her feet, walking to the black folds of tapestry. She tugged them back, and there was the small arch Jessa remembered. The door shuddered again. Gudrun ignored it, and turned and tossed something down that rolled and lay on the stone flags. “Keep this,” she said. “One day I may come back for it.”

As she turned he said, “You’re wrong about me. I’m not like you.”

“We’ll see,” she said. Jessa thought she was smiling. Then she was gone, the old man close behind, into the stone passages behind the curtain.

After a moment Jessa turned and ran to the door. She pulled the latch and it lifted easily; she tugged the heavy door wide. The men outside stared at her, but someone gave a great shout and grabbed her arms. She saw it was Brochael, with a crowd of others at his back.

“Where’s Kari?”

“Inside.”

They surged past her. She saw Gudrun’s men standing uncertain outside, but she left them and followed Thorkil.

“Where’s Gudrun?” he asked.

She shook her head, suddenly tired.

Wulfgar had picked the object off the floor. He gave it to Kari, who fingered the knotted snakeskin.

“Search the hold,” Brochael said, but Kari shook his head.

“You won’t find her. She’s gone.”

“But where?”

“Back. Wherever she came from.”

“For good?” Brochael asked gruffly.

Kari shrugged. “That’s more than I can say.” Suddenly he turned to Wulfgar. “Well. Here we are in your hall. It seems the Wulfings have come home at last.”

The skald went over and kicked the frozen mass of the fire.

“And not a moment too soon,” he remarked.