Without speaking, they began to move forward, helping each other over the treacherous mire. The water was brackish and icy, with a sharp smell of weed and decay. Strange tiny lights, purple and green and blue, moved among the reeds and mists, always at a distance.
Jessa’s skirt slopped against her boots; her hair was muddy and clung to her back. The fumes of the marsh made them cough, and the sound echoed through the stillness.
Gradually the ground rose, became drier. They climbed a long slope of thorn and black, spiny bushes, and pushed through them onto a track paved with flat stones.
As they followed it between the first houses, their footsteps sounded loud in the stillness. There was no watchman, no challenge. Jessa wondered how late it was, whether everyone was asleep, but the silence was not normal. And no smoke. That meant no fires in the houses.
They passed Mord’s house, but the door was closed and she dared not try it. The shadows between the buildings were black; as they came silently under the walls of the great hall, Jessa saw that the windows were shuttered, and no light leaked from them. The two ravens, like gargoyles, were perched on the roof. One gave a short kark.
“Where is everyone?” she asked. “What’s she done with them?”
“Nothing. They’re here.”
“How do you know?”
Kari did not seem to hear. He took her hand, and they moved silently along the black wall.
At the door the watchman’s stool was empty, and there was no dog. Jessa put her hand to the door and lifted the latch. It moved easily, with a tiny creak that made her wince. Both together, they pushed it ajar, and slipped inside.
Twenty
Offered, myself to myself.
Gudrun was waiting for them.
She was standing with her back to the fire; the smoke of it hung about her in the dark spaces of the hall.
No one spoke. Kari leaned with his back against the door, hands behind him; then, slowly, he walked out into the firelight. Jessa stayed where she was.
He stopped a few yards from Gudrun and they stared at each other in silence. To Jessa the likeness they shared was astonishing: the same thin paleness, the same sense of hidden power—even the same straight, shining hair, though Kari’s was ragged and muddy, and Gudrun’s arranged in long elaborate braids.
Then the woman moved with a rustle of silks.
“Where are your friends?”
“Your men have them.” Kari’s voice was low, but his hands were clenched and trembling. “You should have known that.”
She shrugged lightly. “Perhaps I did.”
“No,” he said slowly. “You didn’t.”
A flicker of expression crossed her face, as if she was surprised, but it was gone before Jessa could be sure.
Gudrun moved nearer to Kari. She was taller. She ran a narrow finger down his patched coat. Jessa saw, tied around her wrist, a wisp of dried snakeskin.
“Not the clothes for the Jarl’s son.”
“You took that away from me.”
“I could give it back.” She smiled with real amusement and touched his hair. Jessa saw how he stiffened.
“It’s too late.” He pulled away and went to the fire and tossed on a handful of kindling. Then he stood close up to the flames. The new wood crackled and spit; the sound echoed in the roof.
“You’re afraid of me.” He said it steadily, but with an effort, looking into the leaping web of flame. “Because I’m the same as you—just the same. You invented all those lies so that no one would know it, but they only have to look. Any powers you have, I have too.”
She smiled, smoothing her dress. “But I know how to use them. You don’t.”
“I’ve been learning.”
“Tricks played on fools. Not the real spells, not the twisting of minds, the webs of fear and delight.”
She had come after him and reached out again, fingering the ends of his hair as if she could not leave him alone. “As for fear, I’m afraid of nothing.”
“Except your reflection,” Jessa said.
Gudrun turned quickly, as if she had forgotten her. “Silence!”
“It’s true.” Kari looked up. “And you know it’s not the one in the mirror. I’m your reflection.”
Gudrun was still a moment. Then she said, “Indeed you are. You and I are the same.”
“No.” He shook his head, but she went up to him, clutched his hands.
“Look at us. Together we could make the north such a kingdom of sorcery as has never been dreamed. I have let you live for this, watched you, to see what you would become.” Her cold eyes glittered. “And you’ve become me.”
“No!” Kari stepped back. “You’re wrong. I would never join with you.”
Gudrun straightened; her fingers stabbed the air; she snapped out a rune. Kari caught his breath. To Jessa’s horror, he staggered with a gasp of pain.
“Stop it! Leave him alone,” she cried.
But already he was lifting his head, straightening, white and unsteady. When he spoke, his voice was bitter. “You won’t do that again. Now feel its reflection.”
He did not move or say anything, but the witch slowly bent before him like a candle too close to heat. Her eyes widened; she staggered to the table and clutched it, one hand gripping the edge, her knuckles white.
“This is pain,” he said quietly, coming up behind her. “This is how it feels. And these are nightmares—see them? This is silence. This is fear.”
Gudrun shuddered, shaking her head. She beat off something invisible with her hand; quick, nervous snatches. Kari stood and watched. Then he touched her hair. Jessa felt her heart thump with fear.
“Are these the webs you mean?” he said softly. “You see I can weave them too.”
Gudrun buckled into a chair. Her long hands lay on the table—Jessa could see them trembling. The hall was dark and silent.
Then Kari turned away, and Gudrun’s hands were still. He went back to the fire. After a while he said in a sharp voice, “It’s over, your time of power. There are two of us now—a balance. I think you should go back to the place you came from; leave the Jarlshold to choose its own leader.”
“You?” she said scornfully, raising her head.
“Not me. They won’t want me.” He rubbed his hair wearily. “I’m too much like you.”
“Kari!” Jessa cried.
He turned and saw that the witch was standing, tall and pale. Her white gown fell in straight folds; it glinted like frost.
“It’s not finished,” she said. “Has he told you about the serpent, this Brochael you’re so fond of? The serpent hugs the world; it devours itself. It will never be destroyed until the end of the world, when the great wolf of darkness snaps its binding, and the ship of monsters sails into the harbor. Far from here, far to the north, is a hall, all woven of white snakes; its doors face out to the eternal ice.”
She held out her hands; drew them slowly apart. Jessa saw light gleam between them. The hall seemed to shudder; the shutters creaked as if something was pressing against them.
“That is the place I come from,” Gudrun said. “The serpent is what I serve. And now it strikes.”
She was close to him; her hands moved in a flash of light. Jessa screamed and grabbed Kari, hauling him aside as the knife slashed down. Gudrun turned and struck again; the blade whistled past Jessa’s face, slicing through strands of her hair. Kari grabbed it. With an effort he wrenched it out of her hand and flung it onto the fire.
At once the flames roared up, higher than his head. Long coils of smoke poured out, twisting around his neck and arms. Smoke swept around Jessa’s waist, squeezing her tight, even though her hands went through it as she beat at it. She yelled and squirmed, but the serpent of smoke held her, hugging the breath out of her. Its tongue flickered at Kari, pinning him against the wall, blackening the stones and scorching the tapestry behind him into smoking holes. As he dodged, the cloth caught alight; a line of flame ran up the edge, crackling through the dusty threads.