When she was alone, which was too often, every word repeated in her mind. She shook her head as if freeing it from reality in order to concentrate on the absurdity of myth. Attempting the impossible, she pretended that dreams were true and that truth was the dream. And when she disbelieved herself, and shouted into her own head that she was a fool, so she remembered that the proof was all around her.
She had seen, and touched, and heard. There was no myth after all.
But the new magical reality rejected her, so what was truth after all? Hours stretched and time was the enemy, but if she had discovered the most beautiful thing in all the world, then time was also a myth, and could be born.
It was night again when everything changed. Skarga was dreaming, though was not yet asleep. She could not envisage a mortal man turning into some other creature, growing wings, shrinking his skin into feathers, the nose to a beak, human eyes to the golden gaze of the predatory bird. Sighing, staring into her own thoughts, she was still wondering when the noise came.
It began very small, like the popping of bow strings plucked from the wood, or the spit of logs on the fire. The sounds were spasmodic but continued, faint echoes entirely surrounding her, then becoming faster and louder. She thought of the snapping of icicles and the splinter of ice sheets. Explosions, implosions, air extinguished. Skarga sat up, wary and increasingly threatened. So she tugged on her tunic and pinned it, kicked into her boots, buckled her belt, grabbed her remaining knife and reached for her wolfskin.
As Skarga fled from her bed and raced up the corridor outside, a roar of utter destruction tumbled all around her. She could remember no sense of direction. She did not know which way led to the hall or where others might congregate. She ran away from the thunder and an icy mist chased her heels. The tunnels behind her were collapsing. Sound was now everything. She began to see other people as men rushed from hidden doorways. A few stood dazed for a moment, others were still pulling on their clothes. Skarga passed them, running, feet slipping. She saw the man Lodver striding from the shadows, dark, neat, efficient. She remembered him from the islands, when he had given up his bed to her and been kind to Egil. Now he was busy and ignored her.
“Get the picks and the shovels and the carts. Get the sand sacks. Pile rocks. Shore up the walls.”
Other men were also giving orders and restoring control. Skarga recognised the shimmer of a wild red beard; Halfdan, always teasing, always laughing. Now he was shouting. “You fools. Get to the main passages, leave the small divisions to fall.”
A rummage of men raced towards her, armfuls of sandbags, a rumbling of carts filled with rocks, two men dragging beams. She squeezed back against the wall, letting them past. Forced to wait, she tugged on her gloves, which had been tucked in her belt, and turned up the collar of her cape. She could hear Orm’s cavernous voice in the distance. “It’s an avalanche, you bastards. Work your arms off or we go under.”
Another helter-skelter of men passed her running the opposite way. One wide eyed, staring over his shoulder, the first sign of panic. Mumbling. “Out. We have to get out.” Lodver again, controlling, directing. He looked up and saw Skarga crushed against the wall by the squash of heaving men and equipment.
He yelled at her over the tumult, and pointed. “That way. Keep right. Hurry.” She kept running. Then she was running alone. The sound of collapse became fainter. She looked for a passage leading upwards, but there was no one to ask. She called over and over to Egil, but she had no idea where his room was. She was utterly lost. A division of the ways faced her, three tunnels. The widest was central and she raced up it but skidded into a blinding shatter of tumbling snow. She twisted, scrambling backwards, turning and tripping. Collapse behind and collapse in front. She raced back to the tunnel’s division. Lodver had said keep right. She chose the right hand passage, and ran again.
A creeping and insidious fog crept low, binding her ankles, numbing and slowing her, freezing the soles of her boots to the ice. Each footstep dragged. Each stumbling, ragged step held her back. Once she slipped and fell and her knees cramped, held in globulous mist. Tearing herself free, she scrambled up and on. She could hear the somersaulting, grinding rumble of snow behind, closing on her. Fear forced her faster but her calf muscles throbbed and she was crying as she ran. She felt the vapour rolling around the back of her neck, a damp terror, the first fingers of ruin. She slid again, spinning wildly into dark and unknown places. She saw nothing but the occasional gleam of pearly ice. Then suddenly she crashed into obstacles before her, freezing steel in her face, and heard the snap of a hundred icicles splintering all around. Immediately she reached out both arms, and felt soft, yielding walls. Walls moving against her. She stepped back, but found no space. She was enclosed. She was once again a prisoner.
The snow billowed and she was buried. Skarga closed her mouth. Again she was drowning. Her cries were silenced. And then, instead of being forced down, she was lifted up. Something had her. She felt the cold damp of fur, and was shaken. Taken, held fast, thrown from side to side, raining snow. She went limp. Whether it was rescue or death, she surrendered.
She was dragged by something warm and strong and wet that gripped the back of her neck as though she was no more than a bedraggled kitten mewling in its mother’s mouth. She felt hot breath. There was a freezing wind but it flew past. She was held steady within the storm but she could not tell whether the chaos of destruction travelled and she remained still, or whether the awful terror was left behind as she was swept away. Then she knew it was both those things and beyond and beneath and behind and above, a cascade of white, a vibrating gale of winter fury piled into the final deluge.
Then all movement stopped for one moment and she was dropped, landing hard on ice, biting her tongue. Again she was lifted, this time not by a mouth but by the silken paw of something huge. She clung, finding the huge muscles beneath the shaggy fur. The fur was thicker than the bear skin cloak, for that was only the pelt and this was the creature itself. Each fibre was woven in ice crystals and each of her fingers delved into the living warmth beneath.
She sighed, laying her head on the damp softness. All noise receded. The bear’s paws made no sound but a rhythmic vibration, like the chanting of the transanima song which had bewitched and lulled her. When she opened her eyes she saw only the beauty of silken white which tickled her eyelashes. She closed her eyes again, and felt herself utterly protected, taken deep into the forgetfulness of complete exhaustion.
When she awoke she felt it was a lifetime gone, and the first thing she noticed was the silence. She was above ground and the frost was thick and sharp in the air. The land all around was flat and shadowy white and the sky was infinitely huge and black. The bear had gone and in its place was the man. He was sitting at ease on the high bench of a great carved sled and she was sitting at his feet with her head in his lap.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Across the black hugeness, the winter lights leapt. The stars flicked, silver studs beneath silk, milky bands of star dazzle behind a gliding wrap of phosphorescence, the lamp at the top of the world. It was the northern world’s three month night and the next full moon would announce the feast of Yula.
Skarga, staring upwards, looked at the man and the sky above the man, and saw only miracles of magic, as if each thing she saw was equally impossible. Even the sled, where she sat, should not have been there.
“You are now strong enough,” said Thoddun, “and it is time to move.” The shining sky swirled within a gilding of green, racing up from the horizon until one great sheet billowed emerald across the stars. Thoddun’s face reflected the luminosity, his golden hair threaded in green, his brow veneered in gold. So he seemed, for a moment, to be a part of it, the bones and planes of his face another sky, starlit behind the sweeping gorgeous brilliance. Skarga did not have the words for questions. “Sit by me,” Thoddun said. “You must hold on. We will be travelling fast.”
She blinked herself into the present and scrambled up. The se
at of the sled allowed two sitting tight together, but the sides were shallow, offering little shelter. Ahead, shaggy backs harnessed in leather and buckled in copper, were five dogs. Thoddun held the reins loosely between his fingers. He was gloved, bare headed, and the high collar of his bearskin enveloped his face up to the ridge of his cheekbones. He lifted one heavy boot to the front brace and cracked the reins. The sudden brief sound broke both the silence and the dream. The dogs had been slumped, waiting for orders. Now they bounded up, emerging from the snow, shaking out the mass of their hair around their necks, thick coated ruffs, silver grey, long legged, swift pawed, pale eyed. Thoddun spoke one undecipherable word and the lead dog leapt forwards. The sled tracks sliced down into the snow as shards of ice danced upwards either side.
The wind was in their faces with a blasting flurry of iced attack and Skarga was immediately blind. She tucked herself very close to the billowing bearskin and buried her head downwards, fur warm against her cheek.
“If you let go,” Thoddun warned, “I will lose you.”
She had never known such speed. Briefly she wondered, if she fell, whether he would drive on and leave her. She assumed he would. “I won’t let go,” Skarga whispered. But she was running away again, always running. And this time, once again, she had no idea what she was running towards. But she was no longer alone. She had protection.
Thoddun spoke thoughnot to her. She was not sure where his words were directed. Nor could she understand them. She heard the dogs’ breathing and the soft crunch of their paws breaking the ice crust. One turned, panting, tongue dark blue, thick and moist. The wind howled, whistling against her ears. She heard her own heart pounding. The great blazing sky still flared green shimmer above them but she no longer looked up. Only the ferocity of the wind challenged their speed and Skarga could see only the bearskin and the ice thrown out into mist on either side. For nearly three days she had tramped the vast snows and scrambled amongst the iced foothills. Now, snug as any bear cub embraced within its mother’s warmth, she was carried over the endless spaces in one terrifying blink. She managed the only question that mattered, although she knew the answer before she asked. Thoddun might be prepared to abandon her to the wilderness, but he would never have let Egil go. So in a small voice she asked, “Egil is - ?”
“Is safe,” said Thoddun briefly. “And flying north.”
For many miles the horizon was a knife cut between the ranging snows and the enormous skies, but as the blazing fantasy lights faded and sank, so their dancing reflections melted back across the land and the world changed again, becoming drear and threatening. The vivid darkness was spangled with cold star sheen but cast neither shadow nor echo. The unmirrored whiteness dulled to shadow grey and the racing dogs were the same silvered shade as the snows they covered. Skarga shivered and moved even tighter against Thoddun’s bearskin. As the miles sped, she closed her eyes and tried to close her mind.
When Thoddun spoke suddenly, it startled her. His voice was raised a little above the wind’s whistle, but the words were whipped loose, their endings lost, carried by blizzard. “So you have no hunger then, for the vast open places of the world,” he said. “You are as scared of the great snows as you are of the oceans. You would doubtless be even more frightened of the skies.”
She thought she would. “I never knew I was frightened of so many things.”
“So you were always a prisoner,” he said. “Before Grimr took you, before your father sold your life, you were a prisoner of yourself.”
Skarga said, chin up, “I’m not an eagle. I don’t have to learn to fly. I managed my life as best I could, and faced the fears flung at me. But I never had to think about drowning. I never wanted to come here, where no one lives.”
“If you are not afraid only because you remain within the safety of small boundaries,” Thoddun said, “then you are truly afraid to live.”
Skarga sat straighter. “My boundaries were never safe. Maybe you don’t have any boundaries, but I’m mortal. I don’t see why you criticise me. I don’t criticise you.”
Thoddun laughed. “Of course you do. I hear them. I read your judgements constantly floating on the surface of your mind.”
“Then get out of my head,” snapped Skarga. “I never invited you in there.”
He was still laughing softly. “Impossible, as it happens. I carry the intuition of creatures without speech. The language of the great bears comes through their minds like lapping water; telling of direction, of hunger, of yearning and prowess and desire. I would see less of your mind if it were deeper and more subtle. It is your pallid platitudes I read, and the excess of emotional wastage.”
Skarga glared up at him. The wind made her eyes sting. Only white fur encompassed her focus. “You’ve saved my life twice. Both times were for Egil, but I’m grateful anyway.” Shouting over the wind increased her sense of injustice and her temper. “And you’ve been wonderful to Egil and he loves you, so if you’re trying to goad me into bad manners, I won’t do it. But you don’t know everything and you certainly don’t know me and underneath all that midden heap of dross in my mind which you seem to want to pick at, there’s a great deal more which I’m very glad you can’t see.” And she scowled back at her lap, because he wasn’t even bothering to look down at her.
At first he didn’t answer. Then, when she had finally accepted his silence, he said, “Did Grimr hurt you so badly?”
“Why say that?” Skarga demanded. “I said nothing about him. I wasn’t even thinking about him.”
“No,” said Thoddun, quite placid. “But I was. When I knew you first and took you on my ship, you were different. You had more fire and more courage. You’d grown strong battling your brothers. Now even your temper is sullen. Even when I purposefully annoy you, you rise only to sulks. Did Grimr entirely break your spirit?”
“I don’t sulk and I’m never sullen and you’re horribly rude,” said Skarga. “And why would anyone want to purposefully annoy anyone? I know I’m in your way, but I never meant to be. And I owe you civility. That’s all.”
He laughed again. “You owe me only one thing, and that’s Egil’s life. You cannot protect him anymore. I can.”
Skarga pulled away. She felt the sled tremble. “Egil doesn’t need protecting now. And since I don’t own him, I can’t give him to anyone else. If you mean I should let him transfer all his loyalty to you, well that’s his choice, not mine.”
“If you move suddenly again,” said Thoddun, “at these speeds, you will topple the sled. If that happens I will leave you in the snow. Now, come here, and don’t be absurd.” Reluctantly she sidled back, thankful again for the great warmth of his body and his cape. He looked down at her for the first time and then, quite unexpectedly, he caught the reins single handed and with his other, threw his fur around her shoulders, enclosing her to his side with one arm hugging her beneath the cloak. She felt the tension of his muscles through his coarse flaxen tunic and the pressure of his hand clasping tight and strong. “Now sit quite still,” he said, “while I tell you something.”
She heard her heartbeat quicken.
“Don’t be nervous,” he continued. “I’m not going to eat you.”
Skarga was stung. “That’s not something you got out of my mind.”
He was laughing again. “Not yet. Indeed, when I took you into my ocean, you swam surprisingly well.”
Wrapped and bound to him by arm and cloak, she could hear his breathing. His heartbeat was far slower and steadier than her own. Remembering the magic, her anger dissipated. “The dream-sea was wonderful,” she murmured, muffled. “I loved every moment. I wasn’t scared of the water anymore. Can you do it again?”
Her voice was diminished by the howling wind, but he heard her. “Perhaps,” he said. “But this is not the time for questions. I intend telling you a little more about myself, something particular, which you should know before we arrive.”
“If I’m not too stupid to understand.”
“Whic
h is undoubtedly probable.”
It had started to snow. Through the darkness, a fine dust of silent white gossamer sealed them into a suddenly smaller world. “Arrive where?” she asked. “Is it far?”
“I am going to tell you this,” he said, ignoring her question, “because otherwise you will be frightened again. Your fear is sometimes, shall we say, inconvenient to me.”
Skarga was ashamed to realise that she did not understand him after all. “Then ignore me,” she said.
Thoddun paused. The snow spun as the wind hurled directly into blizzard. The dogs lowered their heads and slowed, becoming blind. Thoddun’s arm tightened imperceptivity around Skarga’s shoulders. “I cannot ignore your fear,” he said simply. “I smell it. Before the flutter of the warm heartbeat reaches me, before the small movement in the brush, before the sound of flight or the scent of quickening breath, I smell fear. Fear draws me. Even underwater, before I feel the swell of the current which runs with the fish shoals, or the tiny air bubble from the flick of a fin, I smell fear. It is the one thing I cannot ignore.”
His deep rhythmic breathing was her pillow and the blizzard barely reached her. Now Thoddun’s words encroached into the security of that comfort. She whispered, “You mean when you hunt.”
“Yes,” he said. “I mean when I hunt.”
“Grimr hunted too,” said Skarga.
“He would do that,” Thoddun answered. “He would not be able to help himself.”
Skarga saw only his tension as he flexed, guiding the sled, holding the dogs in check. At his belt, which was worn and old and plain against her hand, was the uncarved hilt of a dagger, less ostentatious than her own. She murmured, “You said Grimr was singular. You made a point of telling me that.”
“I told you the truth,” said Thoddun. “He is only himself. But we will not speak of Grimr now. It is myself I must warn you about.”
She realised, quite suddenly, how much and for too long she had adjusted to Grimr’s perversity. Thoddun’s warnings were not calculated as Grimr’s had been. Thoddun said, quite simply, what he meant. Skarga whispered, words lost beneath the wind, “You’re warning me that you’re going to - change.”
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 28