North Child (36 page)

I made it the rest of the way across the bridge in this same crouched-over position, using the
ulu
(after carefully putting away the story knife) and my two clawed feet. When I finally reached the far end I tumbled off onto the snow-covered ground and just lay there, breathing heavily. From the position of the moon I guessed that the journey across the bridge had taken most of the day.

I sat up and looked around. I realized at once that the land was very different from the one I had left behind on the other side of the bridge. First, there was the wind. It was constant, sharp, and insistent. Everything about the place was sharp and biting and bright and hostile. The snow on the ground had the texture of broken glass, brittle and sharp edged. It had been blown by the wind into shallow, undulating ridges that reminded me of Tuki's skin. There were occasional formations of ice that resembled smaller versions of the pinnacles in the ice forest Malmo and I had travelled through, but these looked like actual daggers piercing up from the ground, as though they would cut you if you brushed against them.

I took off my makeshift claws and strapped on my skis. The hard, ridged snow was slick, and I was able to travel swiftly over it. The ice daggers broke under my skis, though I took care to avoid the larger ones. I headed directly north.

As Malmo had told me, there were no animals at all in this land, so I had to carefully conserve my remaining seal meat.

The journey was gruelling – the constant knifelike wind nearly drove me mad. My senses went numb. I moved my legs forwards and kept my eyes trained on the horizon. After seven days I got my first glimpse of the ice palace. I first spotted it as a piercing glimmer. The late-winter sun had just dawned for its fleeting daily visit, and sent light reflecting off the palace's sheer ice walls and slender glassy towers.

The palace lay directly north of me, and I was still a long, long distance from it, but as I slogged forwards, and day followed day, I began to see how vast and splendid it truly was. It stood so tall and shimmering on the snowy plain that it could be seen for miles and miles. One morning, I emerged from my tent after a fitful night's sleep. The glare of the sunlight off the palace was so intense that I only just turned my eyes away in time to avoid doing them damage. From then on I had to be vigilant about averting my eyes, even with my ivory goggles on.

It took many more days to reach the palace. There were few places to hide on the icy plain, but I used all available ridges and hillocks, and the occasional snow cave, to try to keep out of sight of any who might be keeping watch.

When I had come within a quarter mile of my destination, I found a small icy cave, barely as tall as me, in the side of a hill. I dug out the snow inside so I could get deeper into the cave. It faced south, away from the ice palace, and I made myself a snug little camp, sheltered from the relentless wind.

In the cave I thought about how I was going to get inside the glittering palace. Being fairly close, I saw how enormous it was, perhaps three times the size of the tallest church in Andalsnes.

I was down to my last packet of smoked seal meat. I made a small fire, ate a little of the meat, and soon after slept, no closer to a plan than before.

I awoke to the sound of bells.

I had once told Rose that if she needed me I would go to her, no matter where she was. She needed me, I was sure of it. So I left the reading room and ran all the way to the printing press to find Father. But when I arrived Father was not there, having just left on an errand.

“I must have a ship,” I blurted out to Soren.

He could see that I was half out of my mind with worry. He pulled up a chair and calmly beckoned for me to sit. “What has happened, Neddy?”

I poured out the whole tale, of Rose and the white bear and how I felt she was in danger and that I must go to her right away. My sister Sara had told Soren about Rose sometime before, and he was immediately sympathetic.

“Where do you think to go, to find your sister?” he asked, not unreasonably.

“North,” I replied without hesitation. Though I had not had a clear view of Rose, I had had a sense of her as being dressed for cold weather in furs and mittens. I knew that feeling may have been just the power of association, given what I had been reading at the time, but nevertheless I was sure she was somewhere in the north.

“North, eh? That covers a lot of territory,” Soren said. “Let me make inquiries,” he went on. “Your father and I have long thought we ought to do so, but I confess we have both been so wrapped up in this new printing press. At any rate, I understand that the letter you received from Rose came originally from Tonsberg, via La Rochelle in Fransk. It seems to me that Tonsberg is where we should begin our search, and then move on to La Rochelle.”

“That will take too much time,” I said impatiently. “I must not delay.”

“I understand,” replied Soren. “It will only take several days, and that is what we shall need anyway to get a ship outfitted and ready to go.”

“Thank you, Soren,” I said, clasping his hand in a warm handshake.

Soren waved away my gratitude. “I am tired of being cooped up with this splendid but maddening contraption,” he said, gesturing at the printing press. “And I have always wanted an excuse to journey north. It has been little charted and 'twould be a great feather in our cap to do so. Of course, I must be sure to be back in time for my wedding day,” he added with a grin.

“Of course,” I replied, grinning back.

Soren's inquiries proved to be very fruitful, as well as somewhat worrying. We learned that Rose had gone north in a ship – an old
knorr
– headed for Suroy at the top of Njord, but that the
knorr
had not reached its destination. And then Soren's inquiry agent made an extremely lucky discovery in Tonsberg. He found a sailor who had actually been on board Rose's ship headed for Suroy.

The sailor's name was Gest, and he said that the
knorr
had been hit by a mighty storm. He himself had been swept overboard but had managed to survive by grabbing hold of an empty ale cask. He was then rescued by a passing ship that took him back to Tonsberg. He said that his mate, a man named Goran, had drowned but that he did not know what had happened to the captain of the ship and the girl who had been a passenger aboard the
knorr
. His best guess, as it was of those who knew of the storm in question and which way it had blown, was that if the ship had survived the storm, it was likely to have been driven far west and north, maybe as far as Gronland.

I tendered my resignation to Master Eckstrom, telling him that a family emergency had arisen, and said a fond goodbye to Havamal. As a parting gift, my new friend gave me a manuscript, which he had hand copied, with extensive information about Gronland and the people who lived there, as well as some practical details about travelling by ship into frozen waters.

Father, Soren, and I departed two days later on a ship we had renamed
Rose.

The bells I heard sounded just like the bells on the sleigh of the pale queen. My heart pounding, I quickly got up and moved to the entrance of the cave, cautiously peering out. The sun had not yet risen and the light was murky, but by moonlight I could make out three sleighs. They were stopped about halfway between my cave and the ice palace. The sleighs were crowded with fur-clad figures. I could hear harsh voices – voices like Tuki's and Urda's – raised in what sounded like anger. Then I noticed a figure bundled in fur moving away from the sleighs, running raggedly in an eastern direction. And several larger figures had jumped out of the sleighs and were in pursuit, shouting. The largest of the pursuers had what looked to be a long whip, and he flicked it at the moving figure. The figure jerked violently backwards. The wielder of the whip then reeled in the helpless person, clearly a woman from her screams, dragging her along the ground – the whip wrapped around her waist, her arms pinned to her sides.

Noise began to swell from the sleighs and several other figures jumped out.

Impulsively I ducked back into my cave, then quickly made sure all my gear was safely stowed and left it there. I stealthily began to make my way towards the sleighs. The scene was a chaotic one, with lots of shouting and figures running around in confusion, and the light was still dim. I slipped into the fray, joining a small knot of fur-clad figures who were huddled beside one of the sleighs. I could not see anyone's face, so bundled were they all in fur-lined hoods and scarves. With my own Inuit fur-skins, I blended in easily. A larger figure came striding towards us, speaking in a harsh, guttural voice, and I recognized the language as Tuki's. The figure's face was not covered, and I could see handsome features and ridged, white skin. I kept my eyes down and let myself be herded into the sleigh with the rest of them. The large one with the ridged skin jumped up into the driver's seat, then turned and glared at us menacingly, continuing to speak. A few words sounded faintly familiar, but the voice was so rough that I could not be sure. I thought then of the little dictionary I had made of Tuki's words and regretted that I had not thought to grab it out of my pack before leaving the cave.

The one with the whip came towards us, dragging the captive behind him. He shouted out something to our driver, and this time I clearly recognized one of the words he said. The word for “dead”. It was a word Tuki had taught me back in the castle, when we came across a large fly, its legs sticking up in the air.

I shuddered. The figure roughly unspooled his whip from the body and left the inert form lying on the hard snow. By then order had been restored and everyone was seated in the sleighs. Using their whips on the reindeer, the drivers guided the sleighs towards the ice palace.

Someone near me was sobbing quietly, but the rest were silent. I wished I could see the faces of the forms clustered around me in the sleigh.

I gazed back at the huddled figure lying on the ground. And then I realized that these creatures, with their harsh voices and ridged skin, driving the sleighs were trolls. Tuki and Urda were trolls. And the pale queen who had taken the white bear was a troll. The Troll Queen.

I felt foolish that I hadn't figured it out before. How often had I heard stories about trolls, or Huldre folk, when I was young? They were described in many ways – hairy, enormous, three- to twelve-headed, drooling, hideously ugly – none of which seemed to describe Tuki or that pale beautiful queen. And yet there were a few things that did fit – the voice like rocks and the craggy skin – and I did dimly remember the few tales of Huldre folk, a more obscure kind of troll, describing them as beautiful.

We came up to the palace, and as we began to circle it, I saw that it was even larger than it had appeared from afar. In fact, it was more of a town. The ice palace itself towered above, and in front of, an extensive sprawl of smaller buildings. These were made of ice as well but not the same finely polished glittering ice of the palace; they were more opaque and coarsely hewn. A high wall made of blocks of ice circled the compound, with various gates and doors granting entrance. We passed through an imposing back gate made of black iron that stood open.

There were several trolls waiting to greet the sleighs. Some stepped forwards and took charge of the reindeer, while others roughly steered the occupants of the sleighs towards a low-lying building. I heard the drivers of the sleighs speaking to the palace trolls, and recognized the words “
servants
” and “
dead
”. There was another word I recognized. It was the word “
slank
”, which was a favourite beverage of Tuki's, although there was a particular kind of slank he hated. Urda gave it to him when he had been bad; it made him sleepy and forgetful. I resolved not to drink any slank until I knew what kind it was.

If it was not exactly warm inside the ice building we were herded into, at least it was not as cold as it was outside, and some of my fellow sleigh travellers began pushing off their hoods and unwrapping their scarves. I saw they were humans like me, and though their features and hair colour varied widely, the expressions on most faces were similar – a dull, blank look, with their mouths hanging slightly open. The few who did not wear this slack-jawed expression looked frightened and confused. I tried to make my own face as blank as those around me, but I watched and listened closely to what was going on.