West

by Edith Pattou

  I stopped and drank deeply from the skin bag, the last of the melted snow water.

  I had better reach the top soon, I thought, or I will perish right here in this tower of marble stairs.

  Hunched over, clutching my side, I began once again to climb.

  Neddy

  WE HAD SEARCHED AND SEARCHED for Winn and Estelle, but could find no trace of them. We lost time following a lead on a vagrant, a man who had lost his family, and subsequently his mind, to the Sweating Sickness. There was a rumor that he had been seen near the Nidelva River that day and might have snatched the children.

  But he was later found in a run-down ale house and clearly had had nothing to do with the disappearance.

  I was going half out of my mind with anguish, and it didn’t help my health. I had a relapse of sickness, and Sib forced me to take to my bed for several days.

  But finally we received Rose’s letter.

  It was frustratingly brief, but it conveyed the news that she had found Charles and that he was alive! I was elated to hear that she had been right all along.

  I could tell however that there was something wrong, though she was vague in the details. All she said was that she and Charles were setting off on a journey to the mountain in the Alpes called Mont Blanc, where she believed the Troll Queen had taken Winn and Estelle.

  So somehow she knew about her bairn, though again she did not say how.

  And all I knew was that I must set off as soon as possible for the Alpes.

  Rose

  WHEN I CAME TO THE TOP of the stairway, at first it didn’t even register. It was all I could do to take the next breath, and the pain in my side felt like a gaping wound. My vision was more black and red than clear, and my legs felt like pillars of stone. I was desperately thirsty, my lips dry and cracked. I suddenly skidded on the polished surface, almost falling flat on my face. And it was then I realized that there were no more stairs.

  In the dim yellow light, my blurred eyesight could make out a hallway and, at the end, the shape of a door.

  I stood up as straight as I could, rubbed my eyes. I made a few last-minute preparations and said to myself, Very well. I am here. Time to meet whatever lies behind that door.

  And I opened the door. It swung smoothly on its hinges.

  It seemed ridiculous, but for some reason, I had not really thought about what I might find when I reached the top of the stairs, when I actually arrived at the Troll Queen’s palace at the peak of Mont Blanc. Three years ago, when I had come to her palace in Niflheim, I had snuck in, disguised as a softskin slave. I suppose I’d had some vague idea that I might be able to sneak in again.

  But clearly that was not to be. And what met my faltering vision was a most extraordinary sight. It was almost a tableau, like actors motionless on a stage, waiting for the curtain to rise.

  I was in a grand room so glittering with gold and sunlight that my already feeble eyesight was overwhelmed. It had an extraordinarily high ceiling with high windows and was lined with breathtaking gold-hued tapestries and filled with exquisitely carved furniture, much of it golden in color.

  But my eyes soon found the Troll Queen, who was placed at the center of the stage, sitting on a throne with a table set before her. She was just as I remembered her, all that immense stone-cold beauty, except for one thing—a deep scar that ran down the right side of her face.

  There were two other figures there. Urda, whom I recognized at once, and Jaaloki, who looked the same except for the right side of his nose, which was sunken in and disfigured. Had I done that with my needle?

  My knees buckled, and I sank to the floor, licking my cracked lips.

  “Get her water,” said the Troll Queen in her cold, gravelly voice.

  Urda went to a nearby table and poured a goblet of water for me from a golden pitcher.

  I took it from her, reaching up with a shaking hand. Her face was expressionless.

  I drank, emptying the goblet quickly, and stood again, handing it back to Urda.

  “Thank you,” I whispered. Then I turned to face the Troll Queen.

  “Where is Winn?” I asked, trying to make my voice loud and confident, but it came out only as a pitiful rasping sound.

  “He is here,” said the Troll Queen, who somehow understood me. “You are alone?”

  I nodded. “There was an avalanche,” I explained. “Charles and I were separated.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Perhaps it is a relief to you, to be delivered from the pitiable shell of a softskin man who does not know you, who will never know you again.” Her eyes taunted me.

  I stared back at her. So it was true. She had done this, cruelly and purposefully removed me from my white bear’s memory.

  “At any rate,” the Troll Queen went on, “he no longer matters. It is—”

  “Yes,” I broke in, my voice harsh. “I know. It is the bairn, my bairn, who matters. Where is he?” I repeated.

  “You are impatient. First we must have introductions. This is Urda . . . Oh, but you know Urda, don’t you?”

  Urda and I looked at each other. The last time I had seen her face, it had been a mask of savage grief. Her son, Tuki, had been obliterated right before her eyes. By the Troll Queen, whom she still served, the sorceress who had killed the child she loved. How could she not feel a deep and abiding hatred? But then troll emotions had always been unfathomable to me.

  I tried to read Urda’s eyes, wondering if it was perhaps me she blamed for Tuki’s death. But they were blank, unreadable, like two black stones.

  “I believe you have also met Jaaloki, prince of the Under Huldre,” the Troll Queen continued. Jaaloki smiled at me, laying a finger alongside his now disfigured nose. I was overcome by a chilling feeling of nausea. The snakebite scar on my face burned.

  “Jaaloki nearly ruined my little game with his poisoned bite,” the Troll Queen said, with an affectionate glance at the skeletal troll beside her, “but you did provoke him.”

  It was at that point I noticed the table in front of the queen held an echecs set. And the Troll Queen saw where I was looking.

  “Very good. Yes, this is important. Skac,” she said. “It is why you are here. At least in part.”

  I stared, uncomprehending, at her beautiful face, my eyes drawn to the deep scar down the side.

  “Where is Winn?” I said again.

  “You are tiresome,” the Troll Queen said, with an irritated sigh. “Put your things down and come sit.” She gestured toward a chair pulled up to the other side of the echecs table.

  When I didn’t move, the Troll Queen nodded to Jaaloki, who was swiftly at my side. He flung my pack and sword to the side of the room and, grabbing me by my upper arms, propelled me to the chair, pushing me into it. His fingers bit into my skin, so hard I was sure they left bruises. He hates me, I thought.

  “This is how I have amused myself these past three years,” the Troll Queen said, her eyes boring into mine. And she hated me too, even more so than Jaaloki did. Her suppressed fury was almost a living, breathing thing between us.

  “Echecs?” I said softly.

  “Skac, I call it. And it is my own version,” she said with a smile. “Urda and I play. Or I play alone. And if I make this move”—I watched as she moved several pieces about the board, including the white queen, her queen—“the ground in the small province of Armagnac will buckle and break apart.

  “And it was this,” she went on, moving the game pieces in a different setup, “that caused the Blood Rain in Fransk.”

  As the meaning of her words sank in, I stared dumbly at the Troll Queen’s white hand, with its ridged, whorled skin. She was setting the white queen in its original starting spot, readying the board to begin play. I noticed almost offhandedly that there was an indented line on one side of the face of the playing piece that was the white queen.

  “Where is Winn?” I said again. It was all I could think to say.

  She closed her eyes, clearly annoyed. “We shall play for the
bairn.”

  The way she said “the bairn” with such indifference shook me. It was the same kind of matter-of-fact indifference she had showed when she spoke of the earth buckling in Armagnac and of the Blood Rain that had so terrified the friar.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “It is the Huldre way. I am like my father and his father before him. We like games, puzzles, complicated rules to follow. This game of skac is simple, really, but I find it entertaining.”

  And I remembered then the set of conditions that the Troll King had set up, with my white bear’s life in the balance, and I understood.

  The Troll Queen looked at me, expectantly.

  My mind whirled. My knowledge of echecs was basic. Back when I first played it with Estelle, I barely knew the game and had improved only slightly over the past few years. Charles enjoyed playing and had taught me to play a passable game, but surely I wasn’t good enough to defeat the Troll Queen.

  “I need to see Winn,” I said. “I need to know that he is alive.”

  “No,” said the Troll Queen.

  “Yes,” I replied, stubborn.

  She shook her head, but turned to Urda. “Bring the girl,” she said.

  Urda silently left the room.

  To my right was a large fire burning in an imposing fireplace with an elaborately carved marble mantelpiece. It flared, letting out a loud crackling sound. I shivered.

  I stared down at the board, rubbing my arms to bring warmth into my body.

  Troll Queen

  THIS SOFTSKIN GIRL, THIS CREATURE before me, with her bloodshot eyes, matted hair, chapped skin, and dirty clothing, is pitiful. Like one of the lowest of my softskin servants back in Niflheim.

  She is so beneath me, so unworthy an opponent. She has no power, only a dull persistence. Why have I gone to all this trouble? But I remember all that she stole from me. My ice palace in Niflheim. My people. The boy I was to marry, the one she called Charles but I had named Myk. I run my finger deliberately down the valley in my face.

  I could just extinguish her. Have it over with, quickly. But no. I have sought this too long. And it will be right and good and enormously satisfying to watch her as she realizes the fate I have planned for her son.

  Then I will be done with her. With all softskins. All except the bairn.

  Aagnorak.

  Estelle

  I WAS BACK AT THE KEYHOLE.

  One of my fingers was bleeding from all the poking and prying I’d been doing, but I didn’t care. And I felt like I was getting close. I was not going to give up until I got the lock open.

  Suddenly I heard footsteps approaching.

  I had just enough time to remove the knife when a key was thrust into the opposite side of the keyhole. And the door handle in front of my nose turned.

  I fell back, and the door swung open. Urda looked down on me sprawled on my back, the knife clutched in my hand.

  She took it all in, and I feared for a moment that she would be angry, but she said nothing.

  She quickly crossed to Winn, setting a full cup of the milky drink beside him in case he woke. She then turned and beckoned to me.

  “Come,” she said.

  I gaped at her, not moving.

  She crossed the room, reached out, and calmly took the knife from my hand, laying it on the table. Then she grabbed my arm, pulling me to my feet.

  “Come,” she said again.

  Heart pounding, I followed her.

  Rose

  WE SAT SILENT for what seemed a long time.

  “Are your rules the same as mine?” I asked abruptly, my eyes on the echecs board.

  She nodded.

  “So how will it work?” I asked. “If you capture my king—”

  “Your boy is mine.”

  What did she mean, hers?

  “And if I capture yours?”

  “He will be restored to you, and you will both leave here unharmed. But of course you will not capture my king.” She spoke with a cold-blooded certainty.

  “Then why do we play the game?” I asked.

  “Because it amuses me. And it gives me the pleasure of destroying several more softskin villages as we play.”

  “You hate us.”

  She did not bother to reply. The look in her eyes said it all.

  “And once we are done here, I shall begin Aagnorak,” she said after a pause.

  “What is Aagnorak?” I asked, though I was almost certain I already knew.

  “The destruction of the softskin world. Flames will touch the clouds. The sky will turn black, the stars vanish, the earth move. Fire and ice. Aagnorak.”

  She paused, an imperious, knowing look on her face. “There are Huldre in many hidden corners of this world,” she went on, “though not as many as there once were. But when the way has been cleared, the world shall be ours.”

  “And you will lead it.”

  “Of course.”

  I felt like I was in the middle of one of those old Viking tales that Neddy told me when I was a child. And I couldn’t believe, or did not want to believe, that what she said was even possible.

  And yet three years ago I had seen her power with my own eyes. Had seen her extinguish Tuki in a flash of light. And more recently, I had felt the Blood Rain on my skin and heard the stories of the Sweating Sickness. Still, perhaps, this is all talk, I said to myself. She may indeed be crazed with her rage but hasn’t the power to back it up.

  Whether she had read the skepticism in my eyes, or just wanted to be sure I knew her power, I didn’t know, but I felt my throat tighten, as if fingers were closing around my neck. I reached up to my throat. Nothing was there. But I felt the pressure as my throat grew tighter and tighter.

  The Troll Queen stared at me with narrowed eyes, though I noticed that the green of her irises was tinged with a white-yellow glow. There was a slight smile on her lips, and even though I could see her hands lying on the armrests of her throne, somehow I knew it was her fingers around my throat, squeezing the breath out. I felt my vision begin to grow dark.

  Abruptly the invisible hands loosened, and I lay back in my chair, gasping for breath. I could hear something like laughter coming from Jaaloki. It was a jagged, shrill sound that made the hairs on my skin rise.

  And then Estelle entered the room with Urda, and my heart leapt up. She looked pale and frightened. But her eyes lit when she saw me, and she straightened her shoulders. I could see Urda’s hand on the back of her neck, holding her where she was.

  I wanted to run to her, take her in my arms. But the Troll Queen shook her head.

  “Tell her that the bairn is alive,” she said to Estelle.

  The girl’s eyes were wide with fear, but she nodded.

  “Say it,” hissed Urda.

  “Winn is alive,” Estelle said, her voice trembling. “He has a tooth,” she added.

  “There,” said the Troll Queen. “Now you may make the first move.”

  Jaaloki went over to Urda and Estelle. And the three of them stood there, a silent audience.

  So I did. I moved a pawn two squares ahead. It was a simple, basic beginning move, one Charles had taught me.

  The Troll Queen smiled and moved the pawn in front of her queen one space ahead.

  I moved a pawn on the other side of the board one space.

  The Troll Queen moved her queen one space ahead, behind the pawn she had moved before. I saw with a start that her eyes had changed completely into that white-yellow brightness. I had to turn my own eyes away.

  When she removed her hand from the piece, the Troll Queen said with a smile, “A giant wave just washed away a small fishing village in Portugali.”

  I closed my eyes, picturing the devastation, water crashing in through windows, sweeping terrified people out to sea.

  I can’t do this anymore, I thought dully. The pain in my side had unaccountably returned. I rested my forehead on my hand. Between my fingers I looked over at Estelle. She was staring at me, an almost urgent expression in her eyes
.

  “Your move,” said the Troll Queen.

  I tried to concentrate, removing my hand from my eyes and staring down at the board. And even with my limited knowledge of the game, I saw clearly that in as little as one move, depending on the Troll Queen’s whim, my king would be captured. And nothing I could do would change that. I exhaled.

  My sword was too far away, but before I entered the throne room I had slipped a dagger in my boot. If I went for the Troll Queen, took her by surprise—

  “Your move,” she said again.

  I looked at Estelle. I knew she knew I had lost. She was being brave, heartbreakingly brave.

  I stood.

  “Sit,” commanded the Troll Queen. “We will finish the game.”

  I saw Urda’s hand tighten on Estelle’s shoulder. Jaaloki took several steps toward me.

  Still standing, I reached for my knight.

  Suddenly Estelle shouted. “Rose! La reine. Her queen!”

  Jaaloki turned back and lunged toward Estelle. Urda grabbed her, pulling the girl away from the skeleton man.

  Without hesitation, without thought, I snatched up the Troll Queen’s white queen, the one with the dent along the side of its face. It burned my hand, but I held on. I felt the constriction around my neck again, swifter than before. Vise-like.

  And again without thinking, I used all my strength and hurled the queen echecs piece into the fire that burned in the great ornate fireplace.

  There was a blinding flash of heat and light, along with a thunderous roaring sound. The pressure on my neck vanished, and I spun to look at the Troll Queen.

  I gasped when I saw that the top of her head was in flames. She made no sound, but her eyes were bulging out, distended.

  The fire flared up high, white-yellow, blinding, and all of a sudden was gone. The Troll Queen’s body had turned completely to ash. White-gray ash. It held the shape of a body for a few seconds, then collapsed to the floor, leaving only a pile of light gray.

  My mother’s dream.