Snow-Walker

Twenty

The old songs of men I remember best.

“She’s a skraeling,” Skapti whispered. “I’ve heard of them.”

From the back of the room the woman emerged, carrying cheese and fish. “So the barbarians of the south call us,” she said coolly.

She put the food into the sack and pushed it toward them. “This is for you to take tomorrow. It’s all I can spare.”

“Thank you,” Jessa said in surprise.

“Oh, I have a price.”

They looked at one another uneasily. The woman’s dark eyes noticed; she smiled through the smoke of the fire. “But first, tell me how you came to the ends of the earth.”

It was to Jessa she spoke, and Jessa told the story, as quickly and clearly as she could. The woman listened, sitting close to the flames, once or twice nodding her glossy hair. The smoky tallow dips that lit the small house reeked of goat fat; they showed only shadowy corners, a loom, a scatter of skins.

“And now,” Jessa said, “we need what you know.”

“Indeed you do.” The woman put her fingertips together. She looked at them all. “You are a strange company, to have come so far. Beyond the wood is a land of legends.”

“As is this land for us,” Skapti said, smiling.

“So all legends are true, then. But as for what lies before you…” She shook her head. “All I know is this. Two days’ walk to the north of here is the great chasm. Even before you see it, hours before, you will hear it, a raging of blizzards, a roaring of the elements. The wind will be a wall before you. Crossing the chasm is a bridge, a mighty structure of ice and crystals, lifted by sorcery. It comes and goes in the sky. It leads, they say, to the land of the Snow-walkers. Of that place I know nothing.”

She looked at Kari. “But I have seen them, once or twice, glimpsed them in the blizzard. They are white as ice, and have strange powers. Like gods.”

Kari shook his head. “Not that.”

“You should know, traveler.”

“What about you?” Jessa asked. “Why do you live here alone?”

The woman smiled again. “There are many of us. The others travel between sea and pasture, in the blizzards and the ice floes, with the flocks. This is the place of memory, the place between heat and cold, light and darkness. One of us is always here. I am the memory keeper, the story weaver. Here I weave the happenings and hangings of my people.”

“Their history?”

“Their memory. What is a people without memory? Nothing but a whisper on the ice. Later, Jessa, I will show you, all of you.”

“But your price for the food,” Brochael growled.

She looked at them silently. Then she said, “I have an enemy.”

“And you want us to…?”

“Ask him to leave.”

“And if he won’t?”

“Kill him.”

Skapti threw a worried look at Brochael.

The woman smiled, mocking. “The idea appalls you.”

“We’re not murderers, nor outlaws,” Brochael said heavily. “At least not all of us. Who is he? What has he done to you?”

She laughed, amused, and her laughter shocked them until Kari said, “Don’t tease them. Tell them what you mean.”

Touching his shoulder lightly, she said, “I mean to.” Then she lifted her eyes to Brochael. “He knows why I laugh. This enemy of mine is not a man.”

“A woman?” Hakon was appalled.

Her dark eyes lit; she shook her head. “Not a woman either.”

“An animal,” Moongarm said quietly.

“I thought you would know.” Spreading her hands to the blaze, she said, “Every night, in the starlight, a great bear prowls about this house. It hungers for the goats. It kills anyone that travels here. If it will not go, I would have that bear’s skin.”

She looked at Kari. “You must speak to it for me.”

Worried, Brochael said, “Look, a bear is a dangerous creature—”

“So are wraiths and ghosts and spirits. The Snow-walkers move among them, speak to them as I speak to you. Isn’t this true?”

Kari nodded. “I’ll try,” he said simply.

“And if it won’t go, we’ll do what we can,” Brochael muttered.

“You should. Or tomorrow it will be hunting you.”

Brochael stood up. “We’ll go and get things ready. Jessa, you stay here.” He flashed her a look; she knew what it meant and sat down again, warming her hands and hiding her annoyance. The others went out; Hakon closed the door.

The woman bent closer. “You have strange companions.”

“Some of them.”

“One is a shape-shifter, I see that. And the two bird wraiths that sit on my roof, did you know that they are also sometimes like men, tall, cloaked in black?”

Jessa stared in surprise.

“The Snow-walker is the strangest of all. He has an emptiness deep inside, a blank space where his childhood should be.” She put both hands around herself, hugging. “And all of you are hung about with dreams; they’re snagged and caught on you, as if you had burst through a web of them.”

Jessa nodded, silent.

After a moment the woman went on. “There is something else. Your story put me in mind of it. Many weeks ago I heard a sound in the night and opened the door of my house, just a crack. I saw a tall white woman coming north over the snow. Behind her a girl walked—a girl with fine yellow hair and a blue silken dress. They were joined, hand to hand, by a silver thread, and the thread was made of dreams. Then the moon clouded. When it passed, they had gone.”

“Signi!” Jessa breathed.

“I would say so. The other one was your friend’s image.”

Jessa nodded gloomily, and the woman watched her. “Be warned, Jessa. These Snow-walkers are not people like us. How can he defeat her without using the same powers as she does?”

Astonished, Jessa looked at her, remembering Brochael’s fears; then the door opened and Hakon and Moongarm came in. Behind them Skapti ducked under the low doorway.

“We’ve tied a goat outside,” Brochael said shortly.

The woman smiled. “I would prefer not to lose it.”

“Lady,” Skapti said graciously, “we’ll do our best.”

The bear did not come. As night fell they lay listening, wrapped warm in furs. Brochael and Skapti discussed tactics; Hakon sharpened his sword. His hands shook a little, but Jessa knew he would forget his nerves if it came to a fight.

Moongarm said, “What do you want me to do in this?”

“Go to sleep!”

The gray man did not smile. “This is a bear, Brochael. You’ll need all the help you can get.”

“Not yours!”

“Brochael…,” Skapti muttered.

“No!” The big man thumped a fist stubbornly. He glared at the werebeast. “I won’t fight alongside a man I don’t trust. My friends, yes, but not you. You stay here.”

For a moment Moongarm gazed at him calmly, his strange eyes unblinking. “You’re a shortsighted man, Brochael.”

“I see far enough. I see through you.”

Moongarm’s eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. He turned and lay down, a huddle in the dark. Jessa glanced at Hakon, who shrugged. They both hated this.

The night gathered slowly. After the bitter journey Jessa found it hard to stay awake; without knowing, she drifted into sleep. The others must have done so too, because a great snarling and roaring woke them all in sudden terror.

She grabbed her knives and heaved the furs off. Moongarm’s blanket was empty.

“The fool!” Brochael raged.

He flung the door wide; Jessa stared under his arm.

The sky was black; ablaze with stars. The wolf and the bear, each glinting with frost, circled each other warily, the tethered goat bleating and squealing with terror.

The bear was huge, its pelt creamy white, splashed with mud. It bared long teeth, snarling with hunger.

“Moongarm!” Kari’s voice was sharp. “Not yet!”

The wolf slavered at him, its eyes cunning. It crouched in the snow, its tongue hanging over wide jaws. Ignoring it, Kari came out of the house, Brochael close behind him.

Kari came forward over the snow. A little way from the bear he too crouched, still.

The bear did not move. Neither did the Snow-walker. None of the others heard their conversation.

For Kari the bear’s mind was a white cave, a swirl of sharp scents, cold, the tang of blood. He reached in deeper, fascinated by the stream of instinct that drifted around him. In a place beyond words and speech, the bear’s thoughts moved.

The bear was winter, it was white, it was huge. Wherever winter is, it said, there is terror, there is cold. The cold comes from inside me. I am the ice; I am the vast frozen plains; they are all here, deep inside me, and yet I walk on them, cracking my thoughts with the weight of my wet fur.

I am winter, said the bear. How can you kill the cold, the frost, the wide, empty wind? I am all these. I am the stars, the aurora, the pain in your fingers and ears. I am the world’s edge.

The bridge, Kari asked, struggling to keep his thoughts clear. What is the bridge? Is the bridge a rainbow?

But the bear answered no questions; its mind did not move that way. Its long chant began again, endless, as if its mind revolved on the same matter hour by hour. It snarled at him. Kari felt Brochael’s anxiety; he dragged his mind out of the cold, reasonless hollows.

Standing up, he said, “It won’t leave; it can’t. Animals have no reason but their hungers. And this is a beast of myth. You’ll have to do what you must.”

As he spoke, as if it had waited for this, the wolf leaped. It seized the bear’s loose throat and dragged at it, snarling.

With a yell Brochael ran out, Hakon behind him. Claws slashed; blood splattered the snow. The big man heaved his ax up and sliced at the bear’s thick pelt; it roared in rage and tried to turn on him, but the wolf jaws held it.

Then the bear shook the wolf off like a piece of rag; it turned and lumbered toward the men.

The wolf that was Moongarm staggered up, snarling, head low. Brochael, Hakon, and Skapti stood, shoulder to shoulder. The bear paced toward them, growling.

“Ready,” Brochael muttered.

The wolf yelped; the bear swung clumsily. The men yelled; they attacked together, defending one another, an ax and two swords, avoiding the fearsome claws and teeth, the great muscular limbs. In an uproar of fury the bear swung back; again the wolf leaped at its throat.

Hakon’s sword slashed down.

The bear crumpled, dragging the wolf with it, striking at it, rolling on it, crushing it.

“It’ll kill him!” Skapti gasped.

Breathless, Brochael gave a hiss of frustration and swung the ax high over his head. It caught the bear full in the neck; the beast shuddered; bones snapped under the blow.

It twitched and made a small, low rattle.

Then it lay still.

Silent, they all looked at it. Its fur lifted in the faint breeze. The wolf struggled out, gasping and wheezing; it stood, eyes blazing, blood dripping from its jaws.

It stepped toward them.

Brochael raised his ax.

For a long moment the tension hung. The wolf was battle worn, savage; there was nothing human about it. Jessa felt her fingers clench; she wanted to shout, to warn Brochael to step back.

Then the wolf turned, as if with a great, silent effort. It loped into the smoke and mist.

“Moongarm!” Brochael snarled.

“I think,” the skraeling woman said quietly, “it would be better to let him be. These shape-shifters carry the wildness in them for hours after a kill. They are not safe.”

“I’d be happy if we never saw him again,” Brochael muttered.

The skraeling looked down at the bear. “This one and I have long been enemies.” Kneeling, she touched its muzzle. Perhaps she saw, as Kari did, the way its soul gathered on the snow, the white ghost-bear that wandered away into the frost. “I honor you, bear,” she whispered. “Your memory will not be lost.”

Later she showed them the loom. It was dim, until the woman held the tallow dip over it. Then they saw the cloth was colored with brilliant dyes. There were battles woven in it, and voyages over blue seas, and great death struggles against the trolls of the dark. An old hero made the earth from an eggshell, made a kantele of pike bones and sang the trees and clouds and mountains into being. And as Jessa looked closely the hanging moved before her, and she smelled the salt of the sea and heard the leaves rustle. She saw herself and the others, and all their journey was there, all its fears and doubts, and now they were walking into the white, unwoven spaces. But the candle guttered, and she knew she had imagined that, and that none of them were there yet.

The woman turned to the poet. “You will recognize this.”

He nodded, his sharp, lean face alight with pleasure. “All poets weave this web, lady.”

They smiled at each other.

Moongarm did not come back. When they were ready to leave, the travelers gathered, looking across the snow to the horizon.

“We can’t wait for him,” Brochael said grimly. He turned to the woman. “I hope we haven’t left you with a greater enemy.”

“We can’t just go,” Jessa murmured.

“We can and we are.”

Skapti shouldered Moongarm’s pack. “I’ll take this.”

“Leave it here.”

The skald shook his head. “It’s not heavy. He may catch us up.”

“I hope so,” Jessa said.

“I don’t. We’re well rid of him.”

“He may be hurt, Brochael!”

Brochael snorted. “That one!”

The woman looked at him then. “There are all sorts of pain, Brochael. Maybe there are some you do not recognize.”

He turned away.

They said good-bye, and the skraeling woman watched them go, the wind lifting the ends of her black hair. She folded her arms and called, “If you come back, I’ll be pleased.”

“We’ll come back,” Jessa said.

The woman shook her head. “You walk into the whiteness now. Into dreams. Only wraiths and sorcerers can live there.”

She turned and went back into the low house.

Jessa turned away. “We never even asked her name,” she said.