Snow-Walker

Five

Silence I ask of the sacred folk.

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.”