“Your brother wind was convinced that you would help me. He said that you had blown far and wide, and would surely know the way. But he was wrong.” She put out a hand and stroked the back of the east wind, as though comforting it. “What a shame.” She shook her head. “Dear east wind,” she said in a fond tone. “You have been so kind, and blown so far to help me, I couldn’t ask you to help me go any farther. But could you at least direct me toward the domain of the north wind? Rollo and I shall walk there.” At her feet, Rollo groaned.
With a hiss and a scrape, the west wind shot up into a towering shaft of swirling sand. Then it collapsed, raging out to encompass the east wind, the lass, and Rollo, along with the stony desert around them. The wind howled through the rocks, picking up more grit and sand and scraping the surface of the rock formations with it. The force knocked the lass off her feet, and she huddled next to Rollo, burying her face in his fur to protect her eyes. She smiled into his flank, where no one else could see it.
“If you wish to take your chances with the north wind I’ll not stop you,” the west wind said. “But not even I know where he resides. The North is the greatest of us all.”
“Oh.” The lass had felt certain that the west wind would help her. But if it didn’t know the way. . . .
“But the south wind knows where our brother dwells,” the west wind continued. “They are forever chasing each other over and around the world. It may even be that the south wind has blown to the trolls’ palace. But if not, then South knows how to reach North.”
“Thank you.”
“We shall see if you still thank me in a week or a month or even a day,” the west wind grumped, echoing the east wind’s sentiments.
Riding the east wind had been exhilarating, but riding the west wind was taxing. Trapped in a spinning column of sand, the lass felt as though she were falling, then being lifted up, only to plummet again. She wondered if the west wind were doing it out of spite, and fought the urge to be sick.
An eternity later, the west wind dropped her. She didn’t fall far, landing on all fours on a stone floor. When she recovered from the shock, she sat up and looked around.
She was in the ruins of a great palace. The rich stone carvings were crumbling, and vines had wormed their way between the cracks in the paving stones and up the sides of the square pillars. Animal faces and strange, squat human figures leered at her from between leaves the size of dinner plates.
A swirl of black earth, green pollen, and warm dew skirled through the ruins and languidly took the shape of an enormous bird of prey.
“What is
that
?” Its tone was ripe with disgust. “What is it doing here, Brother West?”
“This foolish human is looking for the palace east of the sun and west of the moon,” the west wind replied. His collection of grit and heat wafted across the broken floor tiles, exhausted.
The green-and-black bird shot in and around the pillars of the ruins in agitation, making a singing, whistling noise. “Never have I dared to blow there!”
Once again, the lass’s patience snapped. “I know, I know! Because you are afraid of the trolls! But
I
am not, and maybe that makes me a fool, but I don’t care. If you can’t blow me to the palace, at least blow me to the home of the north wind, and perhaps
he
will be able to help me.”
“It’s a temperamental little thing, isn’t it?” The south wind soared over and stroked the lass’s face with a moist, feathery breeze. “Humans are so odd.”
The lass flapped her hands in front of her face, trying to slap away the south wind in irritation. “Will you help me, or not?”
“I don’t see why I should.”
“Because somebody, somewhere, has to fight the trolls,” the lass said with vehemence.
“I don’t think there’s any need to be so hysterical about it,” the south wind said. “In fact, I think that you’re overreacting. It’s common among humans. The last human I carried was prone to breaking out in sobs and praying aloud for the safety of her lover.”
“Tova?” The lass had forgotten to ask the west wind if he had carried Tova.
“I didn’t ask,” the south wind sniffed. “I picked her up on my way to visit my brother north. She was sitting on a grassy plain, sobbing and tearing her hair.”
“I left the last human I carried sitting on a grassy plain, sobbing,” the west wind panted. “Did she taste of strawberries and snow?”
“Indeed she did!”
“You abandoned Tova in the middle of nowhere?” The lass kicked out at the west wind but failed to do any damage to it.
“She couldn’t go any farther,” it snapped. “She was not as hardy as you. She feared that she would perish.”
“I took her to our brother North,” the south wind sighed. “Though I do not know what happened to her after that.”
“If you didn’t mind taking her, then you won’t mind taking me,” the lass reasoned.
“Our brother may not approve of me dropping so many humans in his home,” the south wind said.
“I really don’t care,” the lass replied. “I think it’s despicable that the four winds—the great and powerful four winds—are all such cowards! The trolls are causing great evil, and you will do nothing to stop it!”
“But how can the evil of mortal creatures affect the wind?” The south wind’s tone was arch.
“If the trolls can’t harm you, why are you afraid of them?” the lass countered. Then something about the south wind’s words snagged her attention. “Mortal? I thought that the trolls were immortal?”
“The years tramp more slowly for them than for humans, and I have yet to hear of age killing a troll, but there are other things that can destroy them,” the west wind said. The south wind was swirling through the broken pillars again, apparently mulling over the lass’s words.
“Like what?”
“Powerful magic. Weapons of enchanted steel. Dragons.”
“Oh.” The lass had none of those things.
“Rest and eat,” the south wind said, winding through the ruins to make the lass’s skirts flap. “Tomorrow I shall carry you to my brother.”
“Thank you.”
Though stronger than the west, the south wind was far more pleasant. Warm, moist air scented with exotic flowers bore her up as dawn gilded the ruins of the ancient temple. Feeling as though she rode on a bed of soft moss, the lass closed her eyes as the south wind’s bird shape sped over mountains and valleys, crossed oceans, and wove between treetops.
Rollo was tucked up as he had been on their other wind journeys, but this time he would occasionally raise his head and lap at the moist air with his tongue. When she
did open her eyes, the lass delighted in watching the play of dewdrops on her hands, seeing them bead up and then run up her arms as the south wind sped forward. Finally even that grew tiresome, though, and she closed her eyes and slept. The south wind bore her on and on, beyond a day and a night, until it was little more than a stiff, wet breeze that could barely hold its shape. With a last puff of effort, she was set down on the crest of a snowdrift as hard as stone.
“Brother,” the south wind called weakly.
The roar of the north wind blasted the snowdrift into a million sharp, cold diamonds, and the lass fell down and down, into a crevice of blue ice and white snow. Rollo landed heavily atop her, knocking the breath from both their bodies.
The north wind howled down the crevice, smashing the lass against a jagged wall of ice. She struck her head, and all went dark.
When she woke, the lass found herself in a snow cave sitting propped up by a chunk of ice. A pool of water as gray as steel reflected dim light onto the roof of the cave, and a walrus was lying beside the pool only a few paces away. It was big, and brown, and had long yellow tusks.
“If you scare away my fish, I’ll eat you and the wolf,” the walrus said. Then it heaved its ungainly body into the pool without causing a splash. The lass assumed that it swam out of the cave, because it didn’t resurface.
“Nasty temper,” Rollo said from his position at her side. “Nothing but threats and insults since the wind brought us here.”
“Which wind?”
“North. South was too weak.”
“Will the north wind help us, do you think?”
“It won’t talk to me,” Rollo huffed. “But at least it brought us in here and gave us our things.”
The lass realized that she was covered in the white parka, and various other items of clothing had been spread
over her. She wasn’t sure if Rollo or the north wind was responsible, but she was grateful all the same. It was very, very cold.
Riding the south wind had dampened her clothes, and now they had frozen stiff. She stood up and quickly undressed, then yanked on the first things she could get her hands on. In the end, she had a nightgown on over an outer shift, but she didn’t care. There were layers of skirts and vests over that, and then the white parka. Besides, there was no one here to see her but Rollo and the walrus, and the walrus still had not returned.
The north wind arrived before the walrus did. A great whirl of icy particles whipped into the cave and tore at the lass’s clothes and hair. Before she could protest, it lifted her off her feet and carried her out of the cave, with Rollo and her pack as well. The wind dropped her just outside, near the water, and then pulled back.
Looking around, the lass felt her jaw fall open. She was not on solid ground. She was on a large sheet of ice and hard-packed snow, floating in a sea of other sheets of ice, mountains of ice, pillars of ice. That hadn’t been a little pond inside the snow cave earlier; it had been the sea coming through a hole in the floor.
The sudden realization made the lass lose her balance and she staggered to keep herself from falling. What if the sheet of ice she was on tipped? How thick was it? She
had heard that the great bergs and islands of ice in the far north floated freely, ramming ships and trapping sailors. Her father thought that was what had happened to Hans Peter’s ship.
“Are you ill?” The voice of the north wind was sharp and cold. It knocked the lass’s hood back off her head, and burned her ears with particles of ice.
“No!” She snatched her hood back, straightening. “I just—I didn’t realize—is this ice solid enough to hold me?” Then she saw Rollo, a pace away with all four legs splayed wide and his eyes rolling in panic. “Is it solid enough to hold
us
?”
The north wind’s laugh sounded like icicles breaking off eaves and smashing to the ground. The lass clapped her hood tight to the sides of her head, guarding her ears from both the sound and the blast of cold air.
“I’m sorry.” The wind sounded contrite. And quieter. “I had forgotten the delicacy of humans. The ice will hold you and your companion.”
“Thank you.” The lass cautiously took her hands from her ears. “I suppose you know why I’m here?”
“Yes.”
And then the north wind took shape in front of her. From the swirling particles of ice it formed into the shape of a snow-pale man in a long robe, with blue-white hair and a beard to his waist. Clasping his hands, he looked her over. “You wish to go to the palace east of the sun and
west of the moon,” the north wind replied. “And you want to know if I can take you there.”
“Can you?”
“Indeed I can.”
Again the lass felt her jaw drop. A flutter of hope rose in her breast. “You truly can?”
“I have blown there once before, though it nearly did me in,” the north wind told her. “And I will blow there again, if you are determined to go.”
“I am.” She bit her lip. Despite the friendly tone, and the thoughtful lowering of the wind’s great voice, this was still the
north wind
she was facing. But she had to ask. “Why? Why did you blow there once before, and why are you so ready to take me?”
“Once before a girl came, and begged me to take her. I took her because she meant to cause mischief with the troll queen, and it pleased me to help in that.”
“Tova?”
He raised an icy eyebrow. “Do you know her?”
“She was in love with my brother, when he was the troll princess’s
isbjørn
.” The lass frowned in thought. “Why do you want to cause harm to the troll queen? Your brother winds seem to be afraid of her.”
“That creature has caused me no end of trouble,” the north wind grumped. “She dares to order me about, to try and control
me
! She changes the weather, making the winter last too long and spread too far to the south. I
know why the creator made me, and it was not to serve her purposes!”
“The troll queen is making the weather so cold?”
“Of course. I can tell from your speech that you are from the northern lands. The cold there has not broken in decades. . . . Can your people not have noticed?”
“We noticed, but what could we do about it?”
“True, true, you are very weak.” Another sigh. “No doubt it was too much to hope that Tova could succeed in doing harm to her. Or that you could. Still, if you wish to go . . .”
“I must go! How soon can you take me?”
“We can go now, if you like. But I know that you humans need to eat, and it is a long journey.”
The lass carefully settled on the ice beside Rollo. They had apples, and bread and cheese, and a bit of dried meat. After they had sucked some snow to rinse their mouths, the lass packed her bundles and stamped her feet to settle them in her boots. “I’m ready.”
With a laugh, the north wind scooped up the girl, the wolf, and the bundle in his arms. He was growing larger by the second, his human features blurring as he expanded. “I doubt that, but there is no point in waiting longer.” And with that, they hurtled into the sky, a great boiling mass of wind and ice and fury, aimed at the troll queen and her distant palace.
If she had thought the other winds had power, it was
nothing compared to their eldest brother of the North. The lass felt like some ancient goddess, one of the Valkyries, riding high over the world in a magical chariot. They soared over ocean and mountain and plain, heading steadily toward both the sun and the moon, which hung side by side this far north.
As they traveled the sun and moon dipped in the sky and then rose again, moving around them in a stately dance. In the summer months, at the top of the world, neither sank below the horizon. The sky was both dark and light, the sun a tiny pale ball and the moon a long thin crescent, lying on its back like a bowl. Then, for a time, the sun was directly below the moon, looking insignificant and weak.