Snow-Walker

Twenty-Seven

The children of darkness, the doombringers.

“Perhaps this is the place you fear most,” he said quietly. He felt drained already, weary from the desperate struggle to hold on to himself. Now he reached out and touched the hangings of quartz, setting them swinging. The bird wraiths stood behind him; he knew she saw them as he did: two tall men. One laid a narrow hand on his shoulder.

“Where is this?” she demanded, her voice clotted with wrath.

“You know where, though you’ve never been here. This is Thrasirshall. The place you sent me to die.” Shaking his head, he smiled wanly. “The strange thing is, it was here I learned how to live.”

Gudrun looked coldly around her, at the sparse room, at the bird wraiths. “I see. And now you think you’re a match for me?” She laughed at him, her eyes bright, and he felt his heart sink, as it always did before her.

“My powers are too much for you, Kari. I’ve had years of practice. Try if you like, but remember this: Of all our people, only I can steal souls.”

He looked up at her, and knew his danger.

“Until now,” he said.

Moongarm looked sidelong at Signi. “What does it feel like?” he murmured.

She shook her head, the pale hair swinging. “As if I’m adrift. Nowhere.”

He crossed the room and picked up the ice chain. “That’s a feeling I know about.” He ran it through his hands, over the sharp, broken nails.

“So why did you come with them?” she asked quietly. “Why here?”

“You’ve guessed why.” He flung the chain down and turned away from her, a lean uneasy figure in the white room. “Because the spell that’s on me came from here. I didn’t know that at first, didn’t know who the woman was. I never saw her again. But as I wandered north, an outcast, hated, chased away from every settlement, I heard the tales of them, the sorcerers at the world’s end, a pale, dangerous people. I thought then she must have been one of them. When I saw the boy, I knew. But he can’t help me. And then, just now, there she was, standing in that doorway. The same woman.”

“Gudrun?”

“It was years ago, but I knew her. She looked at me, but I saw that she’s forgotten me. Forgotten.”

“She’s hurt us all....”

“But I asked her for this. I asked her! And I was glad of it. At first I thought she had made me more than a man. Not less.”

He brooded bitterly, watching the floor with his strange amber eyes. She felt sorry for him, and suddenly afraid.

“Moongarm…”

He crossed to the door. “I have to go. You’ll be safe enough.”

“Moongarm, wait!” She stood up, the ice chain tinkling. “Leave it to Kari!”

Sword in hand, he looked back at her and shook his head. Then he opened the door and slid out.

Painfully Jessa picked herself up off the floor, where the thrashing of the snake had flung her. Hakon lay on his stomach, coughing for breath; he rolled over and stared at her.

A long wet stain scored the ice between them; it froze as they watched, into a stinking shimmer of crystal. The knife too was coated with ice; she wiped it in disgust against the side of her boot.

“All right?” Brochael asked.

Hakon nodded, getting up. “Was it alive?”

“As alive as I wanted,” Skapti said. “I could even have done with a little less.”

“Don’t waste time!” Jessa snapped.

“She’s right.” Brochael turned to the door. “Open it.”

She lifted the latch and pushed suddenly. The door swung wide without a sound, but despite their hurry none of them made any move to enter. Because what lay beyond the door was not a room, or a place in any world they knew. It was a nothingness, a mist of light, and figures loomed and moved in it, receding into distances that were too far. They knew this was the spirit realm, the place where Kari sometimes went in the darkness, under the stars. But if they were to go in, how could they ever get back? Jessa thought.

She glanced at Skapti. “Do we?”

“No!”

Brochael turned. “We have to! Kari is in there.”

“And Kari knows far more about it than we do.” The skald crossed to him, took his arm with long, firm fingers. “I know it’s hard, Brochael, but we can’t just blunder in. We might not be helping him. We’d be putting ourselves in danger.”

“He’s right,” a sly voice muttered.

Grettir stood behind them on the stairs, a tiny, hunched figure in his coats and wraps. He rasped out a chuckle. “Go in there and you’ll wander forever.”

“You would say that!” Brochael came back and caught the old man by the throat, all his frustration infuriating him. “Tell me the truth now, before I squeeze the life out of you. What’s happening to them?”

Grettir still smiled. “A contest of souls, axman. And only one of them will come out of it alive.”

He reached out at her, through sunlight and mist. Through unbearable coldness into empty places, into nothing. With all his power he reached for her soul—and touched ice. He took out his knife and began to dig at it, chipping and stabbing, kneeling on a glacier, out in the cold. Somewhere, she was laughing at him; he ignored that. A little way off, dark against the stars, all the Snow-walkers watched.

It was hard, tiring work; fiercely he chipped at the ice and shards of it flew up in his face. He jerked back, afraid for his eyes. Hands pulled at him, voices murmured, but he shrugged them off.

“Keep them away!”

The bird wraiths moved behind him, menacing.

And now, deep in the glacier, something gleamed; he pushed his fingers in among the crushed slush and tugged it out: a stone, a diamond, hard and glittering.

It burned him and he almost dropped it. It became a snake winding over his fingers, a bird fluttering in his hands, a flame, a drift of vapor, a stinging wasp, but still he held it, through all the pain and the woman’s growing anger all around him.

“Even though you’ve found me,” she whispered. “You won’t keep me.”

“I will. This time.”

She was there, feeling for his hands, opening his fingers, but he flung her off and held on.

She came again, her hands soft on his. “I’m your mother,” she said. “Remember?”

“I know that.” Despite himself, tears blinded him; he held the stone fiercely, huddled over it. “But that’s over. All of it. Everything is over.”

Then she knew. With a scream of rage and fear she struck at him, became a coldness that closed about him tight, tearing at his life, but he held the diamond tight. And it was her soul that he held, and her power and anger and amazement, and he let it flow into himself, feeling that he knew her for the first time, knew all of her, and it terrified him.

“Let me go!” her voice screamed. “Let me go!”

Dragging all his energies about him, Kari began the webs; he conjured with runes and blackness and cold, pulled out every shred of power he had to wind about her, to hold her, to keep her still. Murderous with rage she tore at him, became a flame that burned him, lava that seared his hands, but he knew he was holding on, that he was winning, and the power in him grew and he wound the spells tighter, fiercer, binding them about her.

Somewhere, someone was shouting, but he couldn’t think about that now, he had to imprison her; his hand slid to his pocket and he pulled out the crystal he had brought for this.

Deep within it he embedded Gudrun’s soul, deep in the sharp glass facets, weaving spells about her with words that came from nowhere into his mind, as if all the sorcery of the Snow-walkers rose up and flooded him now. And when the spell was finished, when he was sure it was safe, he closed his eyes and let his mind empty, and there was silence, and exhaustion swept over him like a wave.

“Is it done?” a harsh voice croaked in his ear.

Numb, he nodded.

“Then you must get back. This is nowhere. We’re lost here. Now, runemaster!”

“Later,” he murmured.

“Now! It must be now, Kari!”

They crowded him close, anxiously. All he wanted to do was sleep, to lie down and rest, but he knew they were right, and he staggered up, his hand gripping the crystal.

“Which way?”

“Any way! It’s all one.”

Nodding, struggling to think, he stumbled forward into the dark, into a mist that swirled purple and green and then white, ice white.

And as the others stood at the door, they saw him drift toward them, loom suddenly out of nowhere, and Jessa swore that for a moment two men were with him, until the mist swirled and she saw they were only the ravens swooping out, eyes bright.

But Kari was indistinct; he stumbled as he came, and just as he reached the threshold, he almost fell. Brochael caught him, but at the same time Moongarm pushed from behind and snatched something out of Kari’s hand, snatched it fiercely, hungrily, a small, glittering stone.

“No!” Kari gasped.

Brochael grabbed the man’s sleeve.

“Let me finish this,” Moongarm said quietly.

“No!” Kari struggled to stop him. “Brochael!”

“You know it’s best,” the werebeast said. “I’ll take this where no one will ever find it. Where she’ll never get back. Call it my revenge. And it’s what you want, Brochael.”

Slowly Brochael let go of his sleeve. Then he said gruffly, “It’s taken me too much time to come to know you.”

“And now you do?”

“I think so.”

Moongarm nodded at him. “I’m glad, my friend.”

And then he turned and walked through the doorway, deep into the mist, and as he walked his body twisted and blurred into a lithe, gray creature, shimmering, gone in an instant.

Kari turned away, silent.

And over his shoulder the others saw nothing but a small frozen room, every surface of it seamed with ice, and in a white chair Gudrun was sleeping, just as Signi had slept.