Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Chapter 99 : Renn didn't answer. The encounter with the twins had left her drained, and terrifi

Renn didn't answer. The encounter with the twins had left her drained, and terrified of what they might have seen in her thoughts.

She and Bale were back in the main shelter, where Ananda had left them. Yolun peered in, and jerked his head at Bale. 'Out,' he growled. 'I'm to give you supplies and Lake-worthy clothes.'

Renn made to follow, but he stopped her. 'Not you! A woman will see to you!'

Renn soon discovered that Yolun wasn't the only one who hated seeing them freed. When Dyrati brought her new clothes, she refused to meet her eyes, and dumped the clothes on the mat. 'You won't be needing your buckskins,' she said sullenly. 'Too heavy when wet, too stiff when dry. Put these on.' She indicated a pair of calf-length leggings of soft elk hide and a sleeveless jerkin of finely woven sedge. 'You'll have to sew on your clan-creature feathers yourself.'

In uncomfortable silence, Renn changed her clothes and cut off her clan-creature feathers to sew on later. When she tried to thank Dyrati, the older girl made for the door.

'Dyrati?' said Renn. 'What have I done?'

Dyrati's mouth tightened. 'As if you didn't know. You might have fooled our Mage, but you can't fool me.'

'What do you mean?'

Dyrati turned on her and made the sign of the hand. 'Stay away! I've told them what you are! I've told them what we used to whisper behind your back. You with your black, black eyes and your dreams that come true! You're bad luck. Everyone knows it. Everyone knows that whoever gets close to you comes to harm!'

Renn felt sick. 'That's not true.'

'You know it is! Your brother. Your father. Torak. Someone should warn that Seal boy before it's too late!' Then she was gone, leaving Renn on her own.

She was shaken. What if Dyrati was right?

Oh, nonsense! she told herself. Dyrati's just a spiteful girl who's never liked you.

The trouble was, n.o.body did like her much. They tolerated her because she was Fin-Kedinn's bone kin, but they were scared of her talent for Magecraft.

Misery welled up inside her, and she longed for Torak. Only Torak had ever been her friend.

On the walkway she found Bale, who now wore elkhide leggings and a jerkin of silvery fish-skin. 'Are you all right?' he asked when he saw her face.

'No,' she snapped.

He raised an eyebrow, but made no comment.

Watched by Ananda and a cl.u.s.ter of silent Otters, they made their way towards the hatch, then climbed down the rope ladder and into the skinboat.

'Our gear's all stowed,' said Bale as he untied the moorings and pushed off. 'Let's go before they change their minds.'

The Lake was treacherous with hidden currents, and the skinboat bucked wildly. Several times, Renn nearly fell out.

'It doesn't like fresh water,' said Bale, excusing his beloved craft's poor performance. 'It's my fault. It sits much lower than in the Sea, I'm not used to that.'

Huddled behind him, Renn was soon soaked, despite the beaver-hide mantle she'd found in one of the packs. She felt like a burden. Bale was much stronger and better at skinboating, and when she did try to help, she ended up clas.h.i.+ng paddles with his.

Every so often, she made herself feel useful by taking out her grouse-bone whistle and calling for Wolf. But she never got an answer, and that only made things worse.

Dread settled inside her when she thought of what lay ahead. She will use her power, the Otter Mage had said. But Renn didn't want to use her power, not ever.

They pitched camp for the night in a sheltered bay. Their Forest food had run out, but the Otters had provisioned them with salmonskins of roasted reed pollen, so they made a cheerless gruel.

Bale seemed preoccupied. When they'd eaten he said, 'What did the Otter Mage mean when she said you're afraid of your power?'

Renn braced herself.

'She meant Magecraft, didn't she?' When she didn't answer, he said, 'If we can't find Torak, it might be the only way. You have the skill. Why not use it?'

'That's easy for you to say,' she muttered.

'But for Torak. You'd do it for Torak?'

She made no reply.

'What are you afraid of?'

'I'm not afraid!'

After that, they didn't speak. Bale upended the skinboat on sh.o.r.esticks and covered it with pine boughs for a shelter, then rolled himself in his beaver-fur mantle and turned his back on her. It was a long time before Renn got to sleep.

They paddled east throughout the next day, but saw no sign of Torak. Renn had no sense that they were getting closer to him but they were getting closer to something. The dread inside her grew worse.

As the sun began to sink, they were buffeted by a strong east wind, and Bale had to work hard to keep them moving forwards. Then, as they rounded an island, Renn felt a chill on her face, and there it was: the relentless glare of the ice river.

The dread in her belly hardened to stone. Somewhere out there, her father had found his death.

Bale twisted to face her. 'This doesn't feel right. Why would he go there? There's no prey, nothing!'

'The Otter Mage said we would find what we sought in the east.' But Renn knew better than most that the prophesies of Mages are tricky things, and can have many different meanings.

As they paddled nearer, the chill became a freezing blast, and the ice turned blue. Renn craned her neck at the s.h.i.+ning cliffs which towered overhead. She heard the trickle of melt.w.a.ter, but she couldn't see it. No falls tumbling from the cliffs; just that dazzling blue ice.

'We're too close,' said Bale. 'We'd better turn back, make camp at that bay we pa.s.sed. We've come as far east as we can.'

In her sleep that night, Renn saw Torak.

He crouched on a beach of black sand, his clothes in tatters, his face wild and hopeless as he lashed out with a flaming brand lashed out at Wolf.

Renn gasped and woke.

Bale was gone.

Emerging from the shelter, she saw him watching two reed boats putting out from their bay.

'I had a dream,' she told him. 'Torak's worse, he can't last much longer.'

Bale nodded grimly. 'Trouble is, he's a long way away.'

'How do you know?'

He pointed to the boats. 'They've been out here looking for fish for the past five days, so they didn't know who we were. They were helpful. Told me what the others kept from us. Someone found Torak's bow in the reed-bed.'

'The reed-bed?' Renn was aghast.

'Near the Island of the Hidden People. The Otter Mage sent us the wrong way.' He punched his palm. 'Ah, Renn, we were so close! If only we'd known, we might have found him by now!'

'But to send us the wrong way! Why?'

'What does that matter? We're further away than ever. And if you're right, he's running out of time.'

She thought quickly. 'How long will it take us to get there?'

'As the raven flies, maybe a day. By skinboat, with all these islands in between? Two days, maybe three.'

'Let's get going!'

'Not yet.' He pointed east. Above the ice river, purple-grey clouds were ma.s.sing. The World Spirit was restless.

'But we can still try!' she said desperately.

'If I knew the Lake, yes. But out here, with a storm coming? No. We'd be no use to Torak drowned.'

She ran to the water's edge. Now she saw that everything had conspired to bring her here. Maybe this was why the Otter Mage had sent them east: to force her into doing what she'd resolved she never would.

Turning her back on the ice river, she stared west. Spiky black islands floated on the amber Lake. Somewhere beyond them, Torak was dying of soul-sickness.

'Then I've got no choice.' She faced Bale. 'We'll have to send help from here.'

'What do you mean?'

She took a deep breath. 'I'll have to do Magecraft.'

'Renn, this is madness!' yelled Bale as he fought to keep the skinboat afloat in the teeth of the storm. 'We've got to get back to sh.o.r.e!'

'Not yet!' shouted Renn. 'We have to get past that last island! I must have a clear view to the west, or the help won't reach him!'

'But we're taking water!'

'If you care about Torak, keep going!'

The sky turned black, the wind screamed in her ears, tugging at her clothes and whipping her hair about her face, churning the Lake to a frenzy of white water. The skinboat reared and plunged, and only Bale's skill kept them from going under.

Somehow, she managed to stay kneeling on the crossbar, gripping the boat with one hand as she thrust the other into her medicine pouch. She'd done all she could on the sh.o.r.e. Only the final charm remained.

As she pulled out what she needed and held it up, she felt a thrill of grim satisfaction. The Viper Mage might have Torak's name-pebble, but she, Renn, possessed something just as potent.

'What's that?' cried Bale.

'His hair,' she shouted. 'Last winter he needed a disguise, and I cut it off and kept it!'

Staggering to her feet, she raised her fist, and Torak's long dark locks streamed in the wind.

Bale grabbed her belt to hold her steady. 'For the last time, we've got to get back to sh.o.r.e! That's hail on the way! If it holes the boat, we're sunk!'

'Not yet!'

Throwing back her head, Renn howled the charm to the storm she summoned the power of the guardian of all Ravens, who flies over ice and mountain, Forest and Sea she summoned it and sent it to seek Torak and the wind wrenched the charm from her lips and bore it west across the Lake.

But in the midst of the charm, as she braced her legs on the frame of the pitching boat and clutched Bale's shoulder to steady herself, she felt a powerful will confronting hers.

I feel your purpose . . . You shall not succeed.

Renn's knees buckled. She nearly went down.

You shall not succeed.

She tried to shut it from her mind but it was too strong. Stronger than the Otter Mage, stronger even than Saeunn it had the awesome power of the Soul-Eater and it was not to be outdone by the puny spell of some untried girl.

The World Spirit hammered open the clouds, and down came the hail, pummelling their faces with arrows of ice.

Bale swung the skinboat about. 'Rocks! Rocks ahead!' Renn raised her fist one final time. 'Fly!' she screamed. 'Fly to the aid of the soul-sick!' The wind ripped Torak's hair from her fingers and scattered it over the Lake, and Renn was flung backwards as the skinboat gave a terrific heave and reared out of the water.

'We've hit a rock!' yelled Bale. 'Grab hold of the boat! Don't let go!'

The hailstorm thundered west, carrying Renn's charm with it. It swept across the Lake, flattening the reeds, pounding the Island of the Hidden People.

At the edge of the black beach, the pine trees thrashed, and beneath them Torak's miserable shelter shook. Pine cones and branches rained down upon it. Then something heavy dropped out of a tree and thudded onto the roof . . .

. . . and Torak woke up.

TWENTY-ONE.

Torak cowered on his scratchy bed of pine-needles, listening to the World Spirit punis.h.i.+ng the trees.

He was terrified of the hail, and of whatever had fallen onto the roof. He was terrified of everything: the Lake, the Hidden People, but most of all, the wolves. They were waiting for him in the Forest. Sometimes he glimpsed the big grey one sneaking about just out of stone-shot, waiting to pounce.

Because of the wolves, he hadn't dared go into the Forest. Instead, he eked out an existence on frost-shrivelled berries and blackened mushrooms, with the occasional slimy green hopping thing when he could catch one.

The world no longer made sense. The sky screamed at him, and from the trees, little red scuttling things pelted him with wooden fruit. Darts of green lightning shot past, laughing at him, and slithery brown creatures bobbed about in the water, scolding him. While he slept, a monster came and gnawed his shelter, and when he woke up, he saw branches swimming upstream.

Again something thudded onto the roof. This time, it squawked.