Free Snow-Walker by Catherine Fisher Page A

night.
    It was on one of those nights that Jessa had her dream.
    She had fallen asleep in the warm huddle of blankets and she dreamed the peddler came out of the darkness and put his hand on her shoulder. He shook her. “Wake up. I haven’t let you down. Look, I’ve melted the snow.”
    She got up and crossed to a large glass window and looked out. She saw a green land, a blue sky. Flocks of birds wheeled and screamed overhead: gulls, skuas, swifts. In the courtyard horsemen were riding; each horse had eight legs, like the horse of the High One; each was black with fiery eyes.
    She looked around, but the peddler was gone, and only a white snake moved across the stone floor and under the raised bed.
    Then she dreamed that the curtain opened and someone looked in. The figure crossed the room to her, looked down at her, and she saw it was Gudrun, her white hand stretched out. One finger touched Jessa’s cheek with a stab of ice.
    She woke at once and sat up, heart thudding.
    The curtain billowed. In the next room the key was grating in the lock.
    She leaped up, ran out of the booth, and flung herself on the closing door. The latch jerked in her hands.
    â€œThorkil!” she screamed, feeling the door shudder; the wood cut her fingers. Then he was there, pulling with her. “It’s locked.” He gasped. “Too late.”
    And she knew he was right. She released the latch and stood there, listening. There was no sound, and yet they both knew he was there, standing just beyond the door.
    â€œKari?” Jessa said softly.
    Nothing moved. There was a small knothole in the door. She could look through; she could see him. But she dared not.
    Then they heard him walk away, into silence.
    After a while they went and crouched by the hot embers of the fire; Thorkil stirred them up to a brief blaze.
    â€œTomorrow,” Jessa said firmly, “we’ll find him. We’ll search every room and corner. Everywhere. Brochael needn’t know, either.”
    He sat down, easing the tight ring around his arm. “If he’s insane,” he said at last, “he’d be dangerous.”
    â€œWell, at least we’d know . We’ve got to find out.” She glared at him. “Are you coming?”
    He ran a sooty hand through his hair and frowned with annoyance. “Of course I am. Someone has to keep an eye on you.”
    In the morning they sat at the gaming board, waiting for Brochael to go out into the courtyard. At last, after five minutes, he had not come back. Jessa looked up. “Ready?”
    He shrugged. “It’s that or lose.”
    They had decided to start right up at the highest part of the tower and work their way down—there was still one staircase that was complete from battlement to floor, although even that had holes. They climbed slowly, their lungs aching with the cold, opening every door, prying into the forgotten crannies of the hall. Everything was the same as before: dark, frozen, echoing.
    â€œThe candlelight was from a window this high,” Jessa said at last. “If we really saw it.”
    â€œNot these rooms. No one’s used them for years.” Thorkil sat wearily on the stairs, grinding the frost with his heel. After a while he said, “Perhaps Kari is kept underground. If you think about it, it might be. Brochael has always been so sure we won’t find him.”
    She nodded reluctantly. Nowhere had been forbidden to them. Wherever Kari was, they were unlikely to find it by accident.
    Thorkil got up. “Come on.”
    â€œWait!” She turned quickly. “Did you hear that?”
    The corridor was a dim tunnel of stone. Dust moved in drafts over the floor. One drop of water dripped from a sill.
    â€œWhat?” Thorkil muttered.
    â€œA scrape … a screech. I don’t know. Something alive.”
    He glanced at her; her lips were pale, her gloved hands clenched in tight fists. “I didn’t hear