Now he made no attempt to move, his best blue shirt picking up soot smuts from the dirty floor.
“There’s nothing wrong, is there?” she asked anxiously.
He pushed the long silvery hair back from his eyes. “No.” But he sounded puzzled, not quite sure.
“Tell me,” she said after a moment.
Turning to her, his face was drawn, uneasy. “Oh, I don’t know, Jessa. It’s just that tonight, since the twilight began, I’ve felt something. A tingling in my fingers. A shiver. Coldness. It worries me that I can’t think what it is.”
“Do you think it’s this wedding?”
“No. I think it’s just me.” Suddenly he stood, pulling her up. “I’m hungry. Let’s go down. I’d like to see Hakon’s new sword.”
Jessa stopped dead. “He’s only just been given it. How did you…?”
His pleading look silenced her.
As they walked up the crowded hall a ripple of hush followed them, as if conversations had faltered and then gone rapidly on. People were only just beginning to get used to Kari; it took them such a long time, Jessa thought irritably. His pale skin and frost gray, colorless eyes disturbed them; when they saw him they remembered Gudrun and were afraid.
But Wulfgar was pleased. “So you came!” he said lazily. “I wondered if we’d have the honor.”
Kari smiled back, glancing at Signi. “I’m sorry. Brochael says I have no manners; he’s right.”
The blond girl looked at him curiously. Then she poured him a cup of wine and held it out. “I’m glad you’ve come, Kari,” she said, in her soft, southland accent. “You and I need to be friends. I want to know all Wulfgar’s friends. I want them to like me.”
He took the cup, his eyes watching her face. “They will, lady.”
She flushed, glancing at Wulfgar. “Is that a prophecy?”
Wulfgar laughed, and Kari said, “It’s already come true.”
He raised the cup to drink and stopped, so still that Jessa looked at him. He was staring into the wine as if something had poisoned it, and when he looked up his face was white with terror.
“She’s here,” he breathed.
Alarmed, Wulfgar leaned forward. “Who is?”
But Kari had spun around, quick as a sword slash. “Close the doors!” he yelled, his voice raw and desperate over the hubbub. “Close them! Now!”
Skapti was on his feet, Wulfgar too.
“Do it!” he thundered, and men around the hall moved, scrambling from tables, grabbing their weapons. Jessa caught Kari’s arms, and the red wine splashed her dress.
“What is it?” She gasped. “What’s happening?”
“She’s here.” He stared over her shoulder. “Gods, Jessa. Look!”
Mist was streaming through the high windows—strange glinting stuff, full of shadows and forms, hands that came groping over the sills, figures that swarmed in the doorways. In seconds the hall was full of it, an icy silver breath that swirled and blinded.
Women screamed; angry yells and barking and swordplay rang in the crowded, panic-stricken spaces. The fires shriveled instantly, hard and cold; candles on the table froze. The mist swirled between faces, and people were lost; Jessa saw Wulfgar tugging at his sword, then he was gone, blanked out by a wraith of fog that caught her and seemed to drag her by the arms. She tore herself away and somewhere nearby Kari called out; then he was shoved against her so hard they both fell, crashing against the table. She grabbed him and screamed, “Kari!” but he didn’t answer, and putting her hand to his face her fingers felt wetness. She held them near to her eyes and saw blood.
“Kari!”
In the uproar no one heard her. Pale, unearthly forms of men and dogs moved around her; a sword slapped down hard nearby as men fought among themselves, against their shadows. She scrambled up and was knocked back by a blow from something cold and hard; crumpling on hands and knees she felt the side of her face go numb and tingle; then the pain grew to a throbbing ache.
Someone grabbed her; she flung him off, but he gasped. “It’s me!”
She recognized the sword. “Hakon! What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.”
“Kari’s hurt. We need to get him somewhere safe!”
They felt for him in the mist and grabbed him under the arms; then Hakon dragged him back under the table, kicking benches out of the way. They crouched over him, shocked.
“It’s Gudrun!” Jessa stormed.
“What?”
“Gudrun! She’s doing this!”
Around them the mist closed in. Shapes moved in it; they thought they saw huge men, tall as trolls, creatures from nightmares. A fog wolf with glinting eyes snarled under the table; the legs of distorted, monstrous beings waded past them through the hall. Frost was spreading quickly across the floor; it crunched under their feet and nails; they breathed it in and the pain of it seared their throats, clogged their voices.
“Getting cold,” Hakon’s voice whispered, close to her.
“Me too.” She struggled to say “Keep awake,” but her lips felt swollen, her tongue would not make the sounds.
Cold stiffened her clenched fingers.
“Hakon…,” she murmured, but he did not answer. She felt for him; his arm lay cold beside her.
Around them the hall was silent.
Now the white grip of the ice was creeping gently over her cheek, spreading on her skin. With a great effort she shifted a little, and the fine film cracked, but it formed again almost instantly, sealing her lips with a mask of glass. She couldn’t breathe.
Crystals of ice closed over her eyelids, crusting her lashes.
Darkness froze in her mind.
Two
A farseeing witch, wise in talismans,
Caster of spells.
Lost in the frost spell, each of them walked in a dream. Brochael dreamed he was in some sort of room. He was sure of that, but couldn’t remember how he had come there. He was holding open a heavy door; a chain swung from it, rusted with age. In his other hand was a lantern; he raised it now, to see what was there.
In the darkness something made a sound. He swung the light toward it.
It was squatting on the floor, pressed into a corner. A small, crouched shape, twisting away from the light. Heavily, Brochael crossed the dirty straw toward it. The door closed behind him.
The red flame of the lantern quivered; he saw eyes, a scuttle of movement.
It was a boy, about six years old. He was filthy, his hair matted and soiled, his clothes rags. Crusts of dirt smeared his thin face; his eyes were large, staring, without emotion.
Brochael crouched, his huge shadow enveloping the corner of the stinking cell. The boy did not move.
“Can you speak?” He found his voice gruff; anger mounting in him like a flame. When the boy made no answer, he reached out for him. With that trembling touch he knew this was Kari; he remembered, and looked up, and saw Gudrun there. She put out her hand and pulled the boy up; he changed, grew older, cleaner, taller, so that they faced each other among the shadows.
The lantern shook in Brochael’s hand.
He could not tell them apart.
Hakon dreamed himself in a white emptiness. As he reached for his sword it slid away from him; alarmed, he grabbed it and the whole floor rose up beneath him, became a surface of glass, slippery, impossible to grip. Desperately, palms flat, he slipped down, down into Gudrun’s spell, and below him was an endless roaring chasm, deep as his nightmares.
An idea came to him, and he stabbed the sword into the ice to hold himself steady, but out of it wriggled a snake that wound around his hand, the cool scales rippling between his fingers. He lost power and feeling; the fingers were forced wide and the snake gripped his wrist so tight the sword fell from his numb fingers; it toppled over the brink, and fell, and he fell after it, into nowhere.
Skapti’s nightmare was very different. For him it meant standing in a green wood, watching the mist from a distance. He knew it was a spell. Shapes moved in it; his friends, he thought, each of them lost.