CHAPTER TWENTY

The Northern Lights

Saga didn’t feel much better the following day at breakfast. Even Bjørn sticking his nose and paws in a pot of honey didn’t make her smile.

‘You did the first task – you can do this one,’ Ruvsá told her, decorating a bowl of porridge with berries and hazelnuts and thick cream for Saga, and urging her to eat.

Saga groaned and rested her head on the table.

‘Good morning,’ Canute said brightly when he came and sat with them, reaching for some toasted rye bread and spreading it thickly with butter.

‘Is it?’ Saga moaned.

Canute waved his toast. ‘Any day that starts with a feast is a good day.’ He piled his plate high with cake and berries. ‘This is like Jul every day!’ He popped off the bench to go and fetch a glass of warm milk.

Saga’s heart twinged. She’d forgotten that Jul was creeping closer. In the middle of every winter, when the darkest, shortest day came to pass, they celebrated Jul. Saga and her afi would decorate their longhouse with boughs of evergreen trees, holly and mistletoe, and there would be bonfires and feasting in the village, where they would all sing and play games. At the end, they’d set a giant wreath on fire and throw it down a mountain, to wish for the sun to return. It was Saga’s favourite day of the year and usually she’d already be looking forward to it with Dag, but this year her village was empty and she was far from home.

‘Hey!’ Canute suddenly exclaimed, returning to discover Bjørn sitting in his place in front of a now empty plate, with crumbs all over his nose.

Saga stifled a giggle. ‘That wasn’t very nice, Bjørn,’ she told her bear, who huffed out what sounded like a laugh and lunged for Canute. Canute squealed and dropped his milk, which Bjørn lapped up eagerly.

‘It’s because he knows you’re scared of him,’ Saga told Canute, who was scowling at Bjørn. ‘You really need to learn how to hold on to your food better.’ Although she suddenly remembered that after the first challenge, Bjørn had been scared of Canute, and she puzzled over that again.

Ruvsá nudged Saga, nodding at Rollo, who had started speaking.

‘The second challenge won’t take place until tonight,’ Rollo announced. ‘You may spend the day here, in your rooms or in the hot springs. I ought not need to remind you that any other location in the ice castle is strictly prohibited. Though I suggest you spend your day wisely –’ his hawkish gaze flitted over them all – ‘as the challenge that awaits you is perilous and who knows who shall walk away from it unscathed.’ This time, when he sat down, the great hall did not break back into their discussions and laughter. This time, it remained silent.

‘Is it just me or are the sorcerers a bit …’ Saga hesitated.

‘Creepy?’ Canute offered.

‘Strange,’ Saga finished.

The three children and Bjørn were sitting together down in the hot springs, eating their way through a pile of biscuits Ruvsá had pinched from the storage cave, and dangling their feet in a bright berry-pink pool.

‘Rollo really seems to like the idea of us failing –’ Ruvsá began.

‘Or being horribly killed or torn to pieces by one of his tasks,’ Saga interrupted, making Canute snort into his biscuit.

‘But he’s the only one who’s really spoken to us so far,’ Ruvsá carried on. ‘The others are just –’

‘Creepy,’ Canute interrupted.

‘Silent,’ Ruvsá said, throwing a biscuit at him.

‘It just seems odd to me that though the sorcerers are the guardians of Bifrost and harvesters of magic, they never do anything to help anyone,’ Saga thought out loud. ‘They have the power to stop the troll raids or send aid when villages have been flooded or had a fire or their crops failed, but they don’t. They don’t even know what our lives are like!’ Saga began to get heated. ‘They just live up here in their ice castle, playing with magic and never bothering to use any of that magic to make our lives better. So why should they be the ones who get to make all the rules over what we can and can’t do?’

Canute shrugged. ‘What can we do? That’s just the way it is.’

‘The Sámi have known this for a long time,’ Ruvsá pointed out. ‘Most of us do not accept the sorcerers’ laws but follow our own leaders instead.’ She grinned. ‘I am only here to take some of their magic from them.’

Bjørn chose that moment to amble over and steal Canute’s biscuit from his hand. Canute yelped, jumping so hard that he slipped and fell into the berry-pink pool with all his clothes on.

‘I told you you needed to hold on to your food better!’ Saga giggled. Canute looked outraged. His hair and his nose were dripping water, and his clothes were so wet and heavy that it took him three tries to pull himself out of the pool. Bjørn huffed in delight at the biscuits Canute had suddenly abandoned, chomping them up one by one, while Saga and Ruvsá laughed until their sides hurt.

Saga dragged a finger through the snow, confidently drawing the twists and turns of a complicated rune. It looked like a bear with lightning-bolt fur. A bear touched by Baldr, god of light. No sooner had she finished than from the snow rose a luminous bear. Brighter than starlight, it ran over the snow, lighting Saga’s path ahead as, far in the distance, someone called her name.

‘Saga? Saga!’

‘Follow the bear,’ she mumbled.

‘Saga, you’re dreaming!’ Canute shouted, and Saga woke up from her nap with a start.

‘It’s time for the second challenge – we need to hurry,’ Ruvsá called over her shoulder as she grabbed her hood and bundled herself in extra furs.

‘What were you dreaming about?’ Canute asked curiously.

But Saga shook her head and turned to Bjørn instead. Leaving him again wasn’t any easier the second time, and she was almost grateful that they had to rush out of the room, slipping down the ice corridor as they ran to the great hall.

But it was already empty.

There was not a whisper nor sign of the ice flume vanishing from sight like it had after the last time they’d used it.

‘Did we miss it?’ Saga exchanged horrified looks with Ruvsá and Canute. There were around twenty contestants left after the first task and not one of them was anywhere to be seen.

An old sorcerer shuffled into view. Her shoulders were hunched, her blue robes puddling at her feet, her silver hair as sparse on her head as snow on the mountaintops come summer. Her pickaxe bore her name in gold: Vigga. When she noticed the three children standing alone in the hall, Saga braced herself. Vigga’s was the only pickaxe she’d seen with gold on it – she must be one of the elders of the sorcerers, someone very important.

Her face cracked like a nut as she smiled at them. ‘Do not fear, young ones. You are not too late. The sledge is awaiting you outside.’ She pointed a twisted finger at the windows. ‘Run along now.’

Saga wasn’t sure if she was serious – surely she didn’t mean for them to jump out of the window? – but Saga dashed over to where the sorcerer was pointing anyway. The faint purple film that usually covered the windows was missing. Saga stuck her head outside to get a better look. A fierce wind howled at her and she burrowed deeper into her furs, her eyes watering. ‘There’s a ledge!’ she told Ruvsá and Canute, who were right behind her.

Hesitantly, she stepped out of the window and on to the narrow ledge. It was coated with thick ice and she wished she had claws with which to cling on as she carefully looked for what Vigga might have been talking about.

‘There’s nothing here –’ She stopped, noticing something hanging from the ledge. It was a rope ladder, matted with snow, and twisting in the wind. When Saga looked down, the wind whipped more snow into her eyes and she couldn’t see where it led. She glanced back at the great hall.

‘Go on,’ said Vigga, gesturing.

Saga stepped on to the ladder. It shuddered under her boots, threatening to fly away in the wind. When she’d descended a few shaky steps, Canute started climbing down, followed by Ruvsá, and their combined weight helped hold it steady.

As Saga descended, the glow of the castle suddenly vanished and freezing mist rushed past her face: she was inside a cloud. It tasted like snow and smelled like the sea, and she imagined it wandering in from the coast, heavy and salty. The next time Saga looked down, she almost fell off the rope ladder. A huge sledge had suddenly become visible.

Carved from what looked like the wood of fifty ancient trees, it had iron runners for cutting through the ice, a wooden roof gleaming with blue runes, and large lanterns hanging down to light its way. It hovered in the air.

One by one, Saga, Canute and Ruvsá jumped down on to its deck.

‘There you are!’ Torben exclaimed in his booming voice, his blue eyes shining from deep within his fur hood. ‘Fenrir here was beginning to think you’d scurried off home, but I told him those young ones are braver than Tyr on a battlefield!’ He clapped Fenrir hard on the back, beaming at the children. Fenrir was the wolfish raider Saga had noticed a few days ago, always slinking along at Torben’s side, with lots of shaggy grey hair all over his head and face. ‘Come to the fire,’ Torben continued, waving his shield around to clear some room. It bumped into the leader of the shieldmaidens’ leg, and she scowled at him. ‘Whoops, sorry about that, Solveig,’ he said. She prowled off, flipping her long, blonde braids over her shoulder, and Torben grinned. ‘As you can see, she’s taken to me like an eagle to herring.’ Fenrir huffed a laugh and Canute snorted.

The sledge suddenly jolted. Saga and Ruvsá held on to the posts supporting the wooden roof above them.

‘What was that?’ Canute asked, wide-eyed.

‘We’re on our way now,’ Fenrir said ominously, the firelight tossing shadows over his hairy face.

Purple, smokeless flames rippled down the centre of the sledge, but Saga stood near the back with Ruvsá, watching their flight away from the mountain. They flew over the snow like a great seabird, leaving silvery tracks behind in the air. Lanterns dangled from the tips of the curved runners, illuminating their path. Not long after they’d left, a brutal gust of wind came howling over the snowy plains and chased all the clouds away. As the last wisps of cloud fled, Saga gasped at the sight above: the black sky was swollen with stars. All the stories her afi had told her came rushing back and she suddenly heard his voice as if he was standing next to her, telling tales of the sun on her sky-path, of the ship-palace of Njord, god of the sea, of the frost giants who lived high in the mountains, safely tucked away in their own realm of ice, Jötunheimr, awaiting their next battle with the gods who lived in their home of Asgard. Saga wished her afi was here now. He was brave and wise, and he always knew the right thing to do. He’d told her to journey to the Far North, but he’d believed that the sorcerers would be able to help and now Saga knew that they never would. She glared in their direction. Rollo and Holger stood at the front of the sledge, guiding their passage, their ice crystals glowing brightly on their foreheads.

Saga was tempted to march over and demand they did something about the troll attacks again when the sky filled with colour. The Northern Lights were dancing.

‘Look!’ Ruvsá pointed back at the ice castle. Saga squinted, just making out a thin line of blue robes: sorcerers on the very tip of the mountain, high above the ice castle. Now and then the Lights pulsed brighter, surging in moss-green and sunrise-pink, before dimming. It reminded Saga of huge whales that burst out of the fjords, sending water scattering like jewels, before slowly sinking out of sight.

‘It’s the sorcerers,’ Torben told her, looking up with Saga and Ruvsá, ‘sucking the magic from the Lights to fill their ice crystals with magic.’

Saga frowned. She hadn’t imagined it to be like this, as if the sorcerers were greedily feeding on the Lights, stealing the magic. ‘Will the Lights ever run out?’ she asked him.

Torben shrugged. ‘That is a question for the gods and seers.’

Saga watched the Lights shimmer. And, beyond that, a secret glimpse of something burning bright and colourful: Bifrost, the bridge to Asgard, the world of the gods. Saga had never seen it before. She sucked in a breath, overwhelmed with wonder. And not a little curiosity.

‘Do you think the sorcerers ever try to cross it?’ she whispered. It was said that no mortal could set foot on it, but the sorcerers didn’t act like normal people and nobody knew how powerful they really were.

‘They’d be fools if they did,’ Unn replied, startling Saga, who hadn’t realized she’d joined them to watch. She gave Saga a funny kind of smile. ‘Then again, show me a man who has never acted like a fool.’

Not sure what to say, Saga glanced back, but the bridge and ice castle were too distant to see now. She wondered how exactly the sorcerers stole the magic from the Northern Lights to fill their crystals, and why it was so important to them. The sledge hurtled onwards, the Lights rippling in pale greens and pinks, filling the sky and reflecting on the frozen wilderness. Other contestants began to grow tired of standing and sat around the fire, passing the time with tales of wars and gods, but Saga stayed at the back of the sledge, watching the rugged landscape soar by beneath, passing herds of wild reindeer, and the odd lone white bear, nearly invisible in the snow until it raised its head, black eyes glinting with reflections from the sledge’s lanterns.

After a time, they reached the end of the island.

‘We have arrived.’ Rollo stopped the sledge. When Saga jumped down, deep snow swallowed her up to her knees. Ruvsá and Canute landed beside her, also eyeing the water that thrashed the shore, wild and inhospitable. Patches of frozen sea ice rocked on the surface. Saga really, really hoped their task wouldn’t have anything to do with the sea.

Canute made a strange gulping sound and Saga suddenly remembered his fear of water, but her mouth was too dry to speak.

‘These waters are home to giant horned whales,’ Rollo began when everyone had clustered together on the shore. Saga’s worry churned into dread as the sea roiled and spat at them, like a cornered beast. ‘You shall be mastering your command of magic to hunt for a lost whale tusk beneath the waves. Yet take heed you do not enter these waters lightly, for they are treacherous, and many a brave contestant has frozen in their depths. Now do ensure you have tightly fastened your talisman to yourself –’

‘So that you may retrieve the bodies of those that do not survive?’ Unn interrupted with a roll of her eyes, making Saga gape at her. Who was this woman who was courageous enough to show such disrespect to the sorcerers?

Rollo’s mouth tightened until it nearly disappeared. ‘So that we may track your attempt at completing the task. If you do not feel sufficiently prepared to battle the water, then I suggest you do not enter it.’

‘I believe I’m sufficiently prepared for whatever surprises you may have in store for us, across the islands or lurking in the halls and passageways of your castle,’ Unn bit back.

‘I like her,’ Ruvsá whispered to Saga, who nodded fiercely. Maybe Unn wasn’t so bad, after all. But Rollo did not look amused. An unreadable emotion flickered across his face as he stared back at Unn. Leif took advantage of Rollo’s loss for words and seized Unn’s arm, ushering her away from the sorcerer she’d deliberately provoked.

‘What was that about?’ Saga wondered out loud.