Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow (20 page)

The
moster
saw the lass’s expression and cackled. “I was a wee bit bitter over my fate when he was given to me,” she said. “Ride him as far as he can go, then flick his left ear and send him home.”

“Then ride my Falskur,” the second
moster
said, slapping the gray horse on the shoulder.

“Falskur?” Another strange name.

“Aye.” The old woman grinned. “The horse is not faithless, but it was faithlessness that brought me here.

“Ride him until he tires, for he is stronger and faster than his brother Hjartán. When he begins to slow, flick his right ear and send him home.”

“And then you will mount my dear Vongóður,” the Eldest said.

“Hopeful?” The name was startling, considering what the other crones had named their horses.

“We must always have hope, child,” the ancient princess said. “Even when it seems that there is none in sight.”

Fighting back another despairing sigh for which she was too young, the lass stepped up on a stump and then mounted Hjartán. She had never ridden a horse before, but Hjartán stood very still despite her scrambling. He was not as broad as her
isbjørn,
and his coat was smooth, but his mane was thick and she thought she would be able to hold to that well enough. She settled her pack on her back as best she could, made sure that Rollo was on his feet and ready to follow, and then smiled at the three old women.

“Thank you, dear
mosters,
” she said.

They smiled back, and for a moment, a ghost of beauties lost passed over their faces.

“May the old gods protect you, child,” the Eldest said. “When you have reached our neighbor, tickle Vongóður under the chin and he’ll find his way back.”

The first
moster
patted the lass’s knee and then brought her hand down with a crack on the horse’s rump. “Go!”

Squealing, Hjartán shot out of the clearing, heading north and east. Rollo and the other two horses followed
hard behind. The lass clung to Hjartán’s mane and prayed that a branch wouldn’t whip her in the face. She might be blinded—with a thrill of terror, she wondered if that was how the ancient princess had lost her sight. She crouched low on the horse’s neck, hiding her face in her white hood again. Her muscles soon cramped and locked into place. After some hours, she tried to stop Hjartán so that they might all rest, but he would not be halted. She thought of leaping off, but the snow looked hard and icy, so she resigned herself to hanging on.

To pass the time, she thought of her bear, who was also a prince, and their time together discussing plays and poetry and stories about the lass’s childhood. She remembered telling him about finding the white reindeer, which only Hans Peter knew about, and how the
isbjørn
had not been all that surprised at the tale.

Thinking of the white reindeer made her think of her name.

The lass, who possessed in her heart the most beautiful name ever heard, firmed her resolve. She would find the castle east of the sun and west of the moon. She would atone for her faithlessness and make things right with the prince. She would find Tova, and bring her to Hans Peter so that they could be happy. Surely someone gifted by the white reindeer, who had befriended fauns and
isbjørner
and who had traveled so far, would succeed.

Surely she would.

She whispered her name into the wind. Hjartán surged through the trees, his brothers just behind. With a yip, Rollo sped up to match the stallion’s pace. The lass hung on, and the miles flew by.

Wind does not need translation. It speaks the language of men, of animals and birds, of rocks and trees and earth and sky and water. It does not eat or sleep, or take shelter from the weather. It
is
the weather.

And it lives.

The east wind lives in a forest dark with trees. The trees do not grow straight or tall, for the wind is too forceful to allow that. But they grow strong, with deep roots and trunks like stone. The branches have been twisted and twined about each other, thrust out at impossible angles from trunks that curl like smoke.

The aged princess’s horse slowed as they reached this strange forest. The lass was able to sit up straight and look around at the bizarre living sculptures that surrounded them. Rollo, panting hard, dragged along behind them, twigs and leaves caught in his fur and little balls of snow tangled in the long feathery hairs on the backs of his legs and tail.

There was no snow on the ground here, though some was pushed up against the trees in hard drifts. The ground
looked polished: there were no twigs or fir needles littering it. They came to a great rock that had been smoothed into a shape like a throne twice the height of a man. Vongóður stopped, and the lass slithered off his broad, pale back.

They stood there for a while, all three of them. The horse plainly thought that its duty was fulfilled, and refused to go farther. The lass was hesitant to send the stallion on his way, however, and Rollo was just glad that they had stopped. He flopped down on the hard ground and fell instantly asleep.

“Hello?” the lass dared to call out at last. “East wind? The three old . . .
mosters
. . . who are your neighbors sent me.”

In truth the lass was not expecting to see anything more extraordinary than a man. A strong man, perhaps, a strange man, most likely. But just a man all the same. The
mosters
had said that their neighbor was the east wind, but the lass had not taken that literally. Jarl used to regale his children with tales of great heroes and ancient gods riding into battle on the backs of the winds, but the lass had always suspected that the heroes, if they did exist, had simply ridden horses like everyone else.

And now as she stood in this alien landscape and called out to the east wind, exhausted in body and mind, she just hoped that whoever answered had a sleigh she could ride
in as they continued their journey. That is, if he would help her continue her journey.

The air swirled around her. It rose to a frenzy that tore her hair out of its braid and whipped it around her face. Vongóð ur dropped his head and flattened his ears but didn’t shy. Rollo looked up, sighed, and staggered to his feet to stand protectively by his mistress’s side. The lass clung to the horse’s mane, closing her eyes against little icy particles of dirt or snow that blew into her face.

When the wind calmed, she opened her eyes, and the east wind was sitting on his throne.

The east wind didn’t look human, because it wasn’t human. It was a great swirling concoction of leaves and twigs and mist and smoke and rain and dust that at last collected into the shape of a wolf, sitting upright on the stone seat of the throne.

“Why are you here”—its voice howled and whispered and whistled in her ears, and a tendril of wind snaked out to tap up and down her body from head to toe and back again—“human maid?”

“You’re
real,
” she breathed, and could say nothing else for a heartbeat. When she found her voice again, she said, “I’m looking for the castle east of the sun and west of the moon.”

A great shudder racked the east wind. It flew to bits, and then gathered itself into wolf-shape once more. “Why would you want to go there?”

“I lived in the palace of ice with the prince who was an
isbjørn
. Because of me, he is being forced to marry a troll, and I wish to help him.”

“Mortal creatures are so strange,” the wind mused. “Here is another one looking for a human male she barely knows.”

“Did you help Tova?”

“I suppose that was her name. I carried her to the plain where dwells the west wind.”

This news made the lass’s shoulders sag. “So you do not know the way to the troll’s palace?”

“I have never blown so far, nor have I ever wanted to. The magic of trolls is an evil even the winds cannot defend against. You would do wise to emulate my neighbors: build a hut and abide where fate has taken you.”

“I can’t,” the lass said, shaking her head with vehemence. “I must find the palace. I must free the prince. I
must
.”

“Then all the help I can offer you is to carry you to the west wind.”

“Thank you.”

A huff of air blasted her hair straight back. “Will you still thank me later?” The form on the stone throne shivered. “No matter. We shall blow to the home of my brother.”

The lass sent Vongóður home at last. Rollo melted into the twisted trees and returned with feathers around his muzzle a few minutes later.

“You have some fine birds in your forest,” he complimented the east wind.

“I
did
,” the east wind replied.

“Sorry,” the lass said, hunching her shoulders in embarrassment. She gave Rollo a hard look.

“We can’t all live on bread and love,” he said.

“‘Love’? What do
you
know about love?”

“It’s at the heart of every story,” Rollo said with authority. “If humans could avoid falling in love, you would never get yourselves into any trouble.”

The lass closed her eyes for a long minute. Was she in love with the prince? Maybe. She had loved the
isbjørn,
in a way. And in a different way she loved her brother Hans Peter and wanted to help him. So it was for love that she was doing all this. But would she be happier if she just went home?

Could she live with herself if she did?

She opened her eyes. “Can we leave now?”

Being carried on the back of the east wind was a very strange experience. The writhing mass of twigs and leaves and wind and feathers and ice swooped down from its throne and lifted her high off the ground. She had not yet shouldered her pack, but when she looked back she saw that it and Rollo had been gathered up as well. Her wolf alternately howled in fear and growled to show how brave he was as they ascended. Up in the air the east wind gathered itself, a wolf the size of a ship running over the treetops.

The lass hovered, suspended, atop the wolf wind of the East. She stretched out her arms and leaned back, feeling it cradle her. It was like riding on the back of the
isbjørn,
only better. Now she truly was flying, free of the ground. She laughed.

The east wind surged forward, and the laugh was ripped from her throat. Beneath them trees whipped the sky and crops lay down. They passed over mountains and hills, whistled down fjords and over the sea. At one point the wind rose until it was swallowed up in clouds, churning and driving them like egg whites swirled with a wooden spoon. More ocean lay beneath them when the clouds dissipated, then beaches and forests and fields of wheat.

And then nothing.

Dirt. Sand. Cracked, dry ground on which the only growing things were scrubby little bushes that looked half-dead. The earth was red and the rocks were raw and jagged.

And then they were smooth.

As fantastical as the forest of the east wind had been, the west wind’s palace of living rock was stunning. Red and purple and gold stone had been twisted and shaped like clay. Great arches passed overhead, pillars, caves, hollows as smooth as a worn wooden bowl, filled with purple shadow that looked like water as the sun set. There were mounds of rocks like pillows, like mushrooms and beehives.

The east wind slowed here, and the lass was able to gape at the formations of stone as they passed over and around them. Soon they came to an open space like a great shallow bowl. Dozens of little whirls of sand and grit spun merrily about in the bottom of the hollow.

The wolf wind set the lass down and shrank until he was only slightly larger than an
isbjørn.
The stone bowl was blazingly hot, like being inside an oven. The lass shucked off her parka and boots and still sweat poured down her face, plastering her disarrayed hair to her neck. Rollo was panting, and he danced in place to avoid burning his paws.

The little funnels of grit danced together and became one giant spinning pillar of wind and sand. A dry, rasping voice issued from it.

“My brother East, what have you brought me?”

“A human who is looking for the palace east of the sun and west of the moon,” the east wind replied. “Have you ever blown that far?”

“Never!” The spinning column wavered and then steadied. “I have no dealings with the trolls.”

“I thought not,” the east wind said. “But she is determined to go. Can you help her? You have blown farther than I ever have.”

The west wind swayed back and forth in its hollow. “Why should I take this human anywhere? I do not meddle in the affairs of trolls. Perhaps the troll queen will
hear of what I have done, and take her revenge upon me.” The column of wind shuddered.

The lass looked from one gathering of wind to the other. “The troll
queen
?”

“Her daughter is the princess who turns humans into northern bears, to toy with them before she marries them,” the west wind said. “But the queen is far more terrible: older and uglier, and wicked to her stone bones. No entity in this world dares to cross the queen of the trolls.”

The lass raised her eyebrows. “I do.”

“That is because you are nothing more than a foolish human child,” the west wind retorted.

“And you are nothing more than a rude little breeze, blowing sand in my eyes and quivering,” the lass snapped back. She had not come this far just to be turned away by a
wind
. “The princess, and the queen, must be stopped.”

“Then find someone else to help you, if you want to kill yourself,” the west wind said.

“Coward,” the lass said, without heat. She shook her head in a pitying way. “You won’t even blow me to the north wind’s home. I feel certain that such a strong wind as he would know the way, even if you don’t. And I have no doubt that he would take me all the way to the palace east of the sun and west of the moon.”

A little gust came from the west wind, as though it had snorted at her ploy.

“Well, that’s all right then,” the lass went on, hands on
hips. “I’ve come this far without your help. I’ve been helped by three kind old human women, with little more than the clothes on their backs and more to lose to the troll queen than you. I’ve been helped by this good east wind, your brother.