After almost a day and a half of travel, ice made it impossible to go any farther into Tatke Fjord. We pulled the kyak up onto land and took out all our gear. Anchoring the small boat in the snow, Malmo said, "I will come back for it on my return journey."
And so we set off on foot, carrying our gear in packs on our backs, the skis lashed to them. At first I felt unbalanced and top heavy, as if the smallest puff of wind would knock me over. But as I walked I grew used to the load and gradually felt steadier.
Slowly we ascended to the top of an ice cliff, following a trail that hugged the side. It was a hard climb, the pack heavier than a dead sheep on my back, and my breath came out in great puffs of silver smoke as I trudged upward. In all that whiteness I never would have seen a path, but Malmo followed it unerringly. When we reached the top, we donned our skis.
The farther north we went, the colder it got. Before then I had thought I knew about cold. But the winters in Njord were springlike compared to the bitter, lancing cold of that frozen land. It was like a predatory, hovering beast, bent on sucking every bit of heat and life out of a body.
I am certain that had I not had Malmo as guide and companion, I would have died.
"It is a good thing you are shaped the way you are, you know," Malmo said. "Good for the cold."
According to Malmo my short, sturdy body was Inuit-like, well designed for enduring very cold temperatures, its compactness conserving heat. Even my dark eyes, though not as dark as an Inuit's, gave more protection from the glare on the snow than lighter eyes. It seemed ironic to me that if I had had the willowy form and sky blue eyes of my sisters, features I had always deeply envied, I may well have been doomed in the unforgiving land.
The surface stayed relatively smooth and we made good progress on skis. We spoke little, concentrating all our energies on moving forward. The ivory goggles I wore were continually iced up, but I grew used to that, as well as to looking out at the world through the row of miniature icicles that had formed on my eyelashes. I tried rubbing them away but found that in doing so I had broken off some lashes. Having once been told that my eyelashes were one of my best features, I stopped trying to get rid of the icicles, though I laughed at myself for such vanity. I would be lucky to survive at all, much less with my eyelashes intact.
One morning when we emerged from our tent, we found the land covered in a dense white mist. As we set out, Malmo warned me that things were not always as they appeared in a snow fog.
It was a completely white world, with no edges or contrast by which to measure things. At one point I saw a huge iceberg looming toward us and I cried out to Malmo, who looked as if she was about to ski right into it. It turned out to be a small hillock of snow that Malmo guessed to be several leagues ahead.
That night, as we huddled in our tent, Malmo told me stories of hunters in a snow fog stalking what they took to be a huge animal and finding it to be merely a small white hare. "And once," she said, "there was a hunter, one of my people, who came upon a small white bear cub. He reached out his hand to touch its fur and discovered that it was a full-grown white bear, ready to attack."
I gaped at her, unbelieving.
"It is true," she responded serenely.
The snow fog stayed with us for several days. And then, on its heels, came the blizzard.
Troll Queen
THE PREPARATIONS FOR the wedding banquet have been going well, but I grow impatient. I had not realized how elaborate and complicated the many traditions of a Huldre royal wedding are. I am considering doing away with all of it and performing a simple ceremony of my own creation. That way Myk and I can be joined together when I wish. Tomorrow perhaps.
It is vexing that there are other matters to be taken into account. For example, if I move up the ceremony, then the southern trolls will not arrive in time. The wedding is to symbolize a historic meeting of our two lands, and to change the plan now would mean a loss of prestige—and could possibly cause a diplomatic rupture between us.
Furthermore, my people would wonder why I am not following Huldre tradition. Not that that matters.
Fah. I shall do as I please.
Rose
MALMO HAD READ THE blizzard's approach in the clouds and wind, and with a calm sort of urgency that was typical of her, she began to direct me on the making of a snowhouse. Using the snow knife I had gotten back in Neyak, I followed Malmo's lead in fashioning blocks of snow that we then piled on top of one another in a set pattern. Malmo's snow blocks were perfectly shaped into solid rectangles, while mine looked like messy blobs, but by the time we heaved the last block into place, mine were at least recognizable as a squarish shape. Malmo made about four blocks to every one I came up with, though with experience I got a little faster.
By the time the storm hit full force, we had fashioned a sturdy, fairly large snowhouse. We were just putting on the finishing touches when I saw the wall of blowing snow coming at us. Before I could move, it knocked me to my knees, and barely able to breathe, I tried crawling toward the snowhouse. But I could not see it. Panic rising, I flailed about, stretching out my mittened hands to feel my way to it. Then Malmo's hand locked around my arm and she dragged me inside. I lay there on my back, breathing hard.
I had no idea just how long I would have to remain in that hut made of snow.
Malmo knew. She told me that this was Negea, the wind that began at the very top of the world, from even beyond Niflheim, and Negea could flay the skin off a human in just a few seconds. She said Negea had been known to blow for weeks at a time. I thought she was exaggerating.
The days crawled along in that small white world, with the sound of howling wind forever in my ears. I could see how people lose their wits. Luckily, Malmo was wise in the ways of surviving such long spells of confinement.
Our second night in the snowhouse Malmo brought out her story knife. At first I didn't know what it was, thinking it another snow knife. It was also made of ivory but was smaller, with a different shape. And unlike the snow knife, the story knife had beautiful carvings on the blade, decorative pictures of fish and seals and sea and sun.
She gestured for me to sit beside her, and using the blunt side of the blade to smooth the snow in front of us, she then used the tip to sketch a picture into the smooth surface.
The designs were simple—stick figures to represent people and crude symbols for other elements, such as the sun, a tree, and a river. But oddly, I could recognize each thing she drew right away. She spoke as she drew, identifying and naming the figures and their surroundings.
The first tale she told was about a mother seal that cared for an Inuit girl after the girl's parents were lost at sea in a hunting accident. Malmo was a gifted storyteller and I sat enthralled, watching die knife deftly etch out the pictures that told the story. The characters she drew came alive like performers on a stage.
As the days passed, the story knife made the boredom bearable. Malmo even taught me how to use the story knife myself. I used it to memorize her stories, telling them back to her, as well as to tell her stories of Njord—the old stories of Freya and Thor and Odin. Some were the same stories that I had told the white bear back in the castle, and the memory of that time came rushing back. At such moments I would hand the story knife to Malmo, unable to continue. She understood.
Day followed day in the snowhouse, the storm howling around us. Even telling tales with the story knife began to seem tedious. But finally, just as we were reaching the end of our food supply (and I, the end of my wits), the blizzard ceased. I was lying on my back, staring listlessly up at the white ceiling, when I suddenly realized that the sound of the wind had stopped. I looked over at Malmo. She nodded at me. "Negea is done," she said simply.