“No.” Hans Peter’s face was white and strained. He waved his knife at the bear, not threatening it so much as urging it away. “No. Leave her be.”
The bear shook its head. “Need you. Please. Come with me.”
“Why do you need me?” the lass pressed. “Come where?”
“Live with me in a palace. For just one year.” Every word seemed to drag out of the bear’s broad muzzle with more and more effort.
“He wants me to live with him in a palace for one year,” the lass reported to her shocked family.
“No.” Hans Peter dropped the knife to the floor with a clatter. Whirling around, he caught hold of both of the lass’s shoulders and shook her gently. “Don’t do this. Please don’t do this. You cannot know what evil there is in the world.”
“You, live in a palace?” Frida’s eyes were moving from the bear to her youngest daughter, and she looked much more interested than frightened now. She licked her lips. “So, this is an enchanted bear? Like King Valdemon in the old legends?”
“Don’t talk nonsense, woman,” Jarl growled. He had not dropped his knife. “Get away from here,” he said, brandishing his knife in a much more violent manner than Hans Peter had.
“You will not be . . . harmed,” the bear said.
Jarl took another step forward, hearing only a growl.
“Husband, wait a moment,” Frida said. “Perhaps this is the luck that Askeladden has brought.”
“Having an isbjørn take my youngest child isn’t ‘luck,’ “ Jarl replied. “And I doubt Askel had anything to do with it.”
“This is the bear he was hunting, I’m sure,” Hans Peter said. “And as I thought, it will bring no good to any of us.”
“It wants to take the pika to live in a palace.” Frida’s hands were on her hips: she was about to get stubborn.
“Mother,” Hans Peter said in that strained voice, “you cannot know what you are saying. This is not a natural thing—you said yourself that this was an enchanted bear. You cannot want the lass to enter into this enchantment.”
The lass gently moved out of her brother’s grip and stood so that she could look the bear in the eyes again. The bear gazed back, its black eyes holding the same hurt and pain that she saw in Hans Peter’s. “You will not harm me?”
“No!” Hans Peter grabbed one of her hands in both of his. “No!”
“Oh, act like a man,” Frida snarled at him. “Your sister has an opportunity most people could only dream of, to—”
“To enter into such horror that you cannot imagine,” Hans Peter said in anguish.
“To live in a palace,” Frida finished.
Even the isbjørn froze at this pronouncement, and all eyes were now on the lass’s mother. She was staring through the open door beyond the white bear, looking beyond even the snow that swirled and lightened the darkness. “A palace,” she repeated.
“My lord isbjørn,” the lass said, breaking into the silence. “It is all well and good that I shall live in a palace for a year, but what of my family? If you have such wealth, can you not give a little to them?”
“Daughter.” Jarl’s voice was anguished. “No.”
“Little sister, please,” said Hans Peter desperately. “Do not do this.” He turned to the bear. “Why have you come here? Did she send you?”
The bear rocked back and forth, looking at each member of the family in turn. “This Askeladden? He hunts me?”
“Yes.”
“Lucky third brother?” The bear’s words had an edge to them.
“I suppose,” the lass said, cautious. “But so far he hasn’t really done anything of use.” She flicked a glance at her mother to see if this would upset her, but Frida continued to stare out the door.
The bear nodded. “Askel will find bear. Another bear. Fame and wealth for your family.” He made a noise like a reindeer lowing. “Will you come?”
The lass hesitated, but only a moment. There was a singing in her blood, and her heart pounded as though it would leap out of her chest. “Askel will find another bear,” she reported. “He will be famous, and you all will be wealthy.”
“It’s not worth it,” Hans Peter said.
“No, it is not,” Jarl agreed.
“You come?” The bear’s eyes were anxious. “All well. You safe. Family wealthy. You come?”
“Let me get my things,” she said.
Hans Peter made a strangled noise, and put out one hand to her.
The lass turned and looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m going. I think I have to go. But I’ll be back, and you needn’t worry about me.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.
He closed his eyes and hugged her tight. The firelight made a halo out of his silvered hair, and tears ran down his cheeks. “I’ll get my white parka and boots; you’ll need them.”
“This is madness,” Jarl half whispered, sinking down onto a chair. “Madness.”
“No, Papa,” the lass said, going over and putting her arm around her father’s shoulders. “No, it’s the right thing to do. I feel it deep in my heart.”
He reached up and squeezed the hand that lay on his shoulder. His fingers were icy cold. “Oh, you poor wisp of a girl. If anyone could come out the better for an adventure like this, it would be you.”
Rollo trotted forward and leaned against the girl’s legs. “I shall protect you,” he said, giving the bear a defiant look.
The lass gave a little, nervous laugh. “And I shall have Rollo to protect me,” she told her father.
“No,” the bear said. “No wolf.”
The lass narrowed her eyes at him, her free hand dropping down to rest on Rollo’s head. “Yes, wolf. If Rollo doesn’t come, then I’m not going.”
The bear swayed back and forth, growling low in its throat. It was not threatening, more thoughtful. Then he heaved a huge sigh. “Wolf come,” he agreed heavily.
And so she went to pack her meager belongings. A comb. A carving of a reindeer Hans Peter had made. The few tattered clothes she had inherited from her sisters. And that was all. She tied it up in her shawl and pulled on a pair of breeches that had once belonged to Torst and then Einar, before becoming so ragged around the hems that several inches had been cut off. She put on both her wool sweaters and got her mittens.
Hans Peter wrapped her in his parka, putting the white boots once more over her own worn brown ones. Her father handed her a napkin in which he had wrapped some lefse and cheese. Her brother put everything into the leather knapsack he had taken on his sea voyage, and she strapped it to her back. The lass kissed her brother and father both and then her mother, who merely nodded at her in farewell.
“Get on my back,” the isbjørn instructed.
Hans Peter lifted her onto the bear’s broad back without needing to be asked.
With Rollo hard on his heels, the isbjørn took off into the blizzard as though he had wings. The lass held tight to his soft white fur, and prayed.
Chapter 8
Just when the lass had settled in to the strange rocking motion of a bear at full gallop, the animal stopped. They were on top of a steep crag that looked down over the ravine with the little stream where the lass had freed the white reindeer. The snow was letting up and the moon had dared to show its face, which made it easy to see the black ribbon of water. Standing beside the boulder that jutted into the stream was Askeladden.
He had pulled aside the high collar of his parka, and his breath steamed the air. Even from this height, the lass could see that he was angry, his face red with more than cold, and he was punching one mittened fist into the other. He kicked at the boulder, suddenly, viciously, and let fly with a curse.
“Get down,” the isbjørn said.
The lass slithered off his back, and Rollo came up alongside. A thrill of fear ran through the girl. Maybe it was all lies. Maybe now the bear was going to eat her, and Rollo, and Askeladden. Or it had changed its mind and was going to just leave her here. At least, with the white fur parka, she
was warm.
“Wait here,” the bear said.
He loped a little farther along the edge of the ravine and raised his head, sniffing the air. He made a strange sound, a sort of hollow huffing noise that tingled the lass’s ears and seemed to carry on the wind. After a few heartbeats it was answered by a similar sound that came from the south of where they were.
Then the enchanted bear stood on his hind legs. He was twice as tall as Hans Peter, the lass realized. He extended his black claws, curled his lips back to reveal long white teeth, and snarled. Down in the ravine, Askeladden was too busy cursing to notice. The bear opened his mouth and let out a roar that shook the snow from the boughs of the trees all around them.
The lass sat down with a bump in a snowdrift, her jaw agape. Riding on the bear had been exhilarating, and she had been daydreaming about the palace she was going to live in. Now it hit her, hard, that she was at the mercy of a very large and very wild animal, enchanted or not.
Sitting in the snowdrift with Rollo pressing against her, she could no longer see down into the ravine, but she could hear Askeladden’s shout. There was a twang, and a crossbow bolt struck into a tree just to the left of the bear’s head. The bear dropped to all fours and ran, keeping to the edge of the ravine but going in the opposite direction from the lass.
“Let’s go,” she said to Rollo, pushing him aside so that she could clamber to her feet.
“He said to wait here,” the wolf argued.
“Do you really mean to take orders from a bear?”
And off she went, giving her pet no choice but to follow. She kept closer to the trees, not wanting her brother to catch sight of her. In the white parka and boots, he might decide she was a very small bear, and take a practice shot at her. In fact, having felt the pelt of the enchanted isbjørn, she was convinced that Hans Peter’s parka was made of the same fur. She wondered anew where her brother had gotten it, and what the embroidery meant.
The bear’s tracks curved in from the edge a little, and the lass thought that very wise. There was no way of knowing if the ground underneath the snow was stable, or was there at all. It was possible to walk on the thickly crusted drifts that extended out from cliffs, but usually only for a very small and cautious human. For something the size of the enchanted bear, it could be deadly.
The trees along the top of the ravine cleared, and she skidded to a stop only a few paces from the isbjørn. No, from two isbjørner. The second one was not as large, nor as white, but it was still magnificent. The bears stood nose to nose, growling deep in their throats.
The smaller bear began backing away, whining. The larger bear stalked toward it, a commanding note in his growl. The lass moved her hood back a little from her face, trying to hear what they said.
“No, please, brother,” the smaller isbjørn pleaded.
“I am not your brother,” the enchanted bear said, his voice angry. “Do it now.”
“No, please, my lord,” the other bear whined.
The larger of the isbjørn, the lass’s isbjørn, softened and seemed now to pity the other. “Forgive me. I have no choice. Go now, please, and your spirit shall ascend to the stars as a reward for your sacrifice.”
The other bear let out a strange, keening cry. It started to back farther away but couldn’t seem to break free from the enchanted isbjørn’s gaze.
Then the smaller bear wheeled around and ran for the edge of the ravine. The lass cried out, knowing that the snow there was jutting out over thin air and would not hold his weight. The bear stopped just short of the most dangerous part, though, and reared up onto his hind legs. He roared, much as the enchanted bear had done earlier. And, like there had been earlier, there was a twang, and a thunk, as a crossbow bolt made contact.
Only this time, it did not hit a tree. It found its mark deep in the heart of the other isbjørn, and the beast fell backward into the snow.
“No!” The lass started forward, but the enchanted bear barred the way.
“Get on my back,” he growled.
“We have to help him.”
“He’s dead. Get on now,” the bear said, still blocking her. When she hesitated, he turned his head and bared his teeth. “You wanted family wealthy. So.”
The lass sagged. She could hear the scrabbling sounds of her brother Askeladden climbing up the side of the ravine to his quarry. He would take it back to Christiania, and it would be made into a coat for the king. And Askeladden would be rich and famous, just as he and Frida had always dreamed.
Just as the lass had asked.
“Wish wisely,” the isbjørn said, guessing her thoughts.
Subdued, the lass climbed on his back and the isbjørn began to run. He ran away from the ravine, fast and faster, and the lass kept an eye on the ground to the right, where Rollo ran alongside them. She could hardly believe that a bear, a great ungainly bear, could run so fast. Nor that her own dear wolf could keep pace with them. The cold wind tore the tears from her eyes and sent them running back beneath her hood to soak her hair at the temples. The black trees turned to a blur, and then she saw Rollo dropping behind.
“Wait, stop,” she cried, thumping the bear’s shoulder with her fist. “Rollo. He can’t keep up.”
The bear stopped, sliding a bit in the snow. He grunted. “Must go even faster,” he told her. They waited for a full minute before Rollo caught up, and when he did, he fell sideways into a drift, wheezing.
“You’ll have to carry him, too,” the lass told the bear.
“Can’t. Won’t stay on,” the isbjørn argued. “Leave behind.”
“Absolutely not. I told you, Rollo comes, or I don’t.” She folded her arms in a mutinous pose, even though the bear couldn’t see her. “Go slower.”
The bear sighed. The lass almost slid off his back into the snow with the force of it. Rollo got to his feet, anxious to show that he was ready to run again, but his sides still heaved with his labored breathing.
The isbjørn swung his head around until he was standing nose to nose with the wolf. Every muscle in the lass’s body went rigid. It reminded her of the way he had stood to stare down the other bear, the one who had been sacrificed for her sake, and her family’s fortune.
But this time the isbjørn did not talk. Black eyes stared into gold, and the bear made a little singing sound deep in his throat. Rollo’s ears pricked forward, and his hackles raised. When the bear looked away from him, the wolf shook himself, his tongue lolling and his breathing easy.
“I could run all night,” he said. “I feel marvelous.” He stretched, arching his back like a cat.
“Good. We go.”
And the isbjørn ran again, covering the snowy terrain even faster than it had before. The lass had to crouch low against his back, clinging with both hands to his fur, her legs locked to his rib cage. She spared only one look for Rollo, who ran beside the bear as easily as he might have chased a rabbit across the yard. After that she dared not look again, for the wind had so dragged at her head when she lifted it that she had almost been ripped from the bear’s back. Instead she buried her face in the warm fur and clung for dear life as the bear ran up and down hills, dodged between trees, and once gave a great leap across a river.
They went faster and faster, and the hills became mountains, and the bear ran up the sheer stone sides as though they were level, with Rollo at his heels. The sun set and then rose again, and they passed into a forest so thick with trees that the lass could not tell night from day, and yet the bear’s pace did not flag and neither did the wolf’s. The girl slept for what could have been hours, but was more likely days, until she felt the bear slowing down.
When he had slowed enough that she could lift her head to look around, she had no idea where they were. The sharp peaks and mountains of her home, dark with trees, were gone. Instead a white plain lay before them, deep with snow. To the west there was a tall crag, and on top of the crag she saw a shining thing of greenish white that looked like a crown sitting on the head of a giant.
>
“That is your home now,” the isbjørn said.
“Let’s go,” Rollo shouted, and took off across the snow plain, yipping like a puppy.
The bear gave a bellow that might have been a laugh and went after him. The lass put her face down once more, the wind dragging at her.
At least Rollo was excited, she thought. And her family would have wealth. That was what was important. She hardly dared to admit it, but the novelty of being taken by an enchanted bear to live in a palace had worn off.
She was simply terrified.
Part 2
Lady of the Palace of Ice
Chapter 9
It took longer than the lass would have thought to reach the crag where the palace stood. They had already traveled for unknown days, and night was falling by the time they reached the foot of the crag. The white plain had been so flat and featureless that she had misjudged its expanse. Rollo beat the white bear to it, and stood, panting eagerly, at the bottom of a steep trail that wound around the hill.
“Follow me,” the bear said to Rollo. His manner was much warmer toward the wolf now. The long race across the plain seemed to have made them friends.
The lass sat up on the bear’s back and looked around as he went up the path. It was barely wide enough for the bear, and so smooth that she could see their reflection in it. The crag wasn’t stone at all, she realized with a start, but ice—smooth green ice covered with a rime of white snow everywhere but on the path. The peak was so regular in shape, and the path so even, that she guessed it had been created by some hands other than Nature’s. But whose? Who was powerful enough to make a mountain out of ice?
She spoke this last thought aloud, and the bear answered her.
“She is,” he said as he plodded up the path. It spiraled around the hill, and now the lass could see that the white snow plain extended in every direction as far as the horizon. “She is that powerful.”
“Who?”
But the bear did not answer her.
It was full dark and the moon was on the rise by the time they reached the top of the crag. The palace was not much narrower than the crag: there was only a slender path going around its base. With a gasp, the lass saw that the palace itself had been made of green ice, though the massive doors were hammered gold set with diamonds and rubies the size of goose eggs.