Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Chapter 148 : The Masked One never moved, but Renn felt icy fingers on her throat, choking off the s

The Masked One never moved, but Renn felt icy fingers on her throat, choking off the spell.

'None may hinder Eostra.'

'You're not real!' gasped Renn. 'I'm not afraid of you!'

'All fear Eostra.' Slowly, the feathered arms rose, and their shadows took wing. In an instant, the Masked One stood by the dead fire, looming over Renn.

Torak lay between them. Renn saw the unclean robe pooling about him. She saw the pulse beating in his throat. Exposed. Vulnerable.

'You can't have him,' she said.

The terrible mask leaned towards her, unbearably close. Ashen hair slithered across her cheek. She caught the stench of rottenness.

'The spirit walker,' said Eostra, 'is already lost.'

Renn stared into the pitiless, painted glare. Horror tightened its coils. Hope fled.

With a cry, she tore her gaze away. She saw the Soul-Eater's hand clenched on the head of a mace. Her flesh had the grainy density of granite; her talons were tinged blue, like those of a corpse. Between the fingers bled a fiery glow. The fire-opal.

'His time draws near,' said the Masked One.

Terror hooked Renn's heart and jerked it like a fish. 'You can't know that for sure.'

'Eostra knows all. He cannot escape.' One feathered arm reached out and she raked the ruins of the fire. She opened her talons. Ash fine as crumbled bones hissed down onto Torak's unprotected face: filling his mouth, covering his eyes.

'No,' said Renn.

'Eostra shall suck the power from his marrow. She shall devour his world-soul and spew what remains into endless night.'

'No!'

'From host to host her souls shall spirit walk down the ages. Eostra shall conquer death. All shall cower before the undying one. Eostra shall live for ever!'

'No!' screamed Renn. 'No no no no no!'

Men shouted. Dogs barked. The shelter was in uproar.

'Renn!' Torak was bending over her. 'Wake up!'

She went on screaming. 'No! You can't have him!'

The eagle owl glared down at her from the rim of the smoke-hole. Then it spread its wings and lifted into the dark.

'Was it a vision?' said Torak. 'Renn? Was it one of your visions?'

'She was real.'

'But she wasn't here, in the shelter.'

'She was.'

They sat with their backs against the peat-pile: Renn rigidly clutching her knees, Torak with one arm around her shoulders. Krukoslik had gone to the Swan Clan shelter to talk with their Leader. Most of the men were outside, calming the dogs. On the other side of the fire, women soothed children and cast fearful glances at Renn.

She'd stopped shaking, but she felt drained, as she always did after a vision. This had been the strongest and the worst ever. Dully, she stared at the glowing embers. No trace of the ash which Eostra had poured over Torak like a death rite.

'Tell me what you saw,' he said in a voice so low no-one else could hear.

Haltingly, she told him: about Eostra planning to rule the unquiet dead, and become the spirit walker. 'She means to eat your world-soul. That's where your power lies. She will eat it and and spit out the rest. Then she'll be the spirit walker. She'll move from body to body. She'll live for ever.'

'And I'll be dead.'

She turned to him. 'No. That's the worst of it. You wouldn't die. You'd be Lost.'

'Lost? What's that?'

She sucked in her breath. 'It's when you lose your world-soul. You're still you name-soul and clan-soul but you've snapped your link with the rest of the world. You're adrift in the dark beyond the stars, in the night that has no end. Eternally alive. Eternally alone.'

In the fire, peat smoked and spat.

Torak withdrew his arm and leant forwards so that she couldn't see his face. 'When I was sleepwalking, I felt lost in nothingness. You were shaken when I told you. That's why, isn't it?'

She nodded.

'But why did I feel it then?'

'I don't know. Maybe she was trying out a spell. I don't know.'

He pushed the hair from his face, and she saw his hand shake. 'Can it happen to anyone? Or am I more at risk?'

'I think you're more at risk. Because you're the spirit walker. And . . .' she hesitated. 'Because you broke your oath.'

He waited for her to go on.

'When you swore to avenge the Seal Clan boy, you took your oath on your knife, your medicine horn, and your three souls. When you broke that oath, it may have weakened the link between them.'

He was silent, staring at the fire.

'But Torak,' Renn said fiercely. 'All this is only what Eostra wants, not what has to be! We won't let it happen. We can fight it together!'

Torak gave her a look she couldn't read.

Then daylight was flooding the doorway, and Krukoslik was stamping snow off his boots and letting in the dawn.

'It's decided,' he said. 'We'll take you to the Gorge of the Hidden People, but no further. You'll have to find your own way in.'

TWENTY-ONE.

Torak had no time to take in what Renn had told him. The camp sprang into action, people running to harness dogs and prepare the sleds.

He and Renn were hustled off and given clothes 'fit for the Mountain'. When Torak got outside, the sky was overcast, and the peaks were hidden from sight. But he felt them as a tightness in his chest.

Renn emerged, looking ill at ease in her new clothes. They both now wore an inner jerkin and leggings of diverbird hide, the plumage warm against their skin, and a calf-length tunic of supple reindeer fur, cinched at the waist with a broad buckskin belt; socks and under-mittens of soft, light woven stuff which the Swans said was musk-ox wool; and long boots and over-mittens of tough reindeer forehead skin.

Such clothes must have taken days to make. When Torak remarked on this, Renn gave him an odd look. 'Can't you guess? These were made for Souls' Night. They've given us clothes for ghosts.'

Krukoslik came over to them. His face was grim his camp had been menaced by a Soul-Eater and he would not be going with them. A party of Swans would take them as far as they dared.

Krukoslik introduced their Leader, Juksakai, a slight man with disconcerting pale-blue eyes and a permanent frown. With a jerk of his head, he indicated that Renn would go on his son's sled, Torak on his. Torak thanked him for helping them, but Juksakai only scowled and shook his head.

As Torak got on the sled, Krukoslik said, 'I wish you'd change your mind, Torak.'

'You think I'm going to fail,' Torak replied.

'I think you're brave. But foolish. Such people don't live long in the Mountains. I hope I'm wrong.' Touching his clan-creature skin, he stepped back from the sled. 'Goodbye, Torak. And may your guardian run with you.'

Juksakai shouted a command to his dogs, and they were off.

All day they rattled over the ice, climbing first into the foothills and then the Mountains themselves, which remained shrouded in cloud. For a while, Rip and Rek flew alongside Torak, but they were soon off again, as if summoned away. Torak saw no sign of Wolf. He wondered if his pack-brother had caught the scent of the eagle owl, and given chase.

The wind was bitter. The lowering clouds weighed on Torak's spirits. He thought of being Lost in the dark beyond the stars. 'Eternally alive,' Renn had said. 'Eternally alone.'

They camped in a stony hollow where the invisible Mountains loomed over them. This was as far as the sleds could go. Tomorrow they would continue on foot.

The Swans built shelters by propping the sleds together and draping them with hides weighted with rocks. There were no trees, but fires were swiftly woken. Torak asked how, and Juksakai showed him a heathery plant which burned even when wet. He also showed Torak the cloven tracks of musk-ox, and clots of fine wool snagged on scrub. 'Be warned. They're faster than bison and can scale slopes you can't. And they're the prey of the Hidden People; we only ever gather the wool.'

The Swans were good at ice fis.h.i.+ng, and a frozen lake yielded a pile of burbot and char. Over nightmeal, Juksakai thawed a little. He told Torak and Renn how his clan hunted in the Mountains with slingshots, and he showed them his clan-creature skin, a plaited wristband of swan hide, dyed red. The Swans, he said, used their clan-creature sparingly: children wore the claws, men the skin, women the feathers, the Leader the beak.

After they'd eaten, he insisted that Torak and Renn take what he called a steam bath, sitting with hides draped over their heads, dripping water onto hot stones and breathing in the steam. The Swans took no part in this, but watched in unnerving silence.

When it was over, Torak asked Juksakai why his clan was helping them.

'We're not,' he said. 'We're helping us.'

'What do you mean?' Renn said uneasily.

The Swan Leader regarded Torak. 'You seek the Soul-Eater in the Mountain. Maybe when she has you, she will send a thaw, and the antlered ones can eat.'

Torak grasped the significance of the steam bath: a ritual purification. He gave a wry smile. 'So I'm a sacrifice.'

Juksakai did not reply.

Renn looked stricken.

The dogs were restless in the night, and Torak slept badly. Renn, too, appeared tired; and she wouldn't meet his eyes. Torak felt the tension between them. He'd known for a while that she was keeping something from him. He wondered when she would have the courage to tell him.

Another overcast day, and the Mountains stayed hidden. The Swans led them through a snowy pa.s.s that followed a rus.h.i.+ng river upstream. The ground rose so steeply that Torak and Renn had to use their hands to climb. Breathless, they lagged behind.

The Swans pitched camp by the river, at the mouth of a deep ravine. Two shelters were swiftly built by stretching hides over existing walls of stone and peat: the remains of Mages' shelters, said Juksakai.

Renn slumped on a rock and put her head on her knees.

Torak took deep breaths, but still felt breathless. 'What's wrong with us?' he panted.

'We're getting near the sky,' said Juksakai. 'Less air. Spirits don't need to breathe.' Nervously, he fingered his wristband. 'This is as far as we go. Tomorrow you're on your own.'

Renn sat up. 'You mean . . .'

Juksakai nodded. 'The Gorge of the Hidden People.'

Torak took a few steps towards the ravine. Precipitous cliffs reared above him, overhung by strange, twisted crags like enormous creatures peering down. A rocky trail wound inwards, following the river. Cloud seeped from the Gorge, s.h.i.+elding the Mountain from view but Torak felt its icy breath. He saw the Swans muttering prayers; Renn touching the clan-creature feathers tied round her waist.

After a silent nightmeal, Juksakai took a portion of fish, made a reverent bow to the river, and cast the fish in the water. 'This is one of the veins of the Mountain,' he explained.

Torak asked its name, and Juksakai replied sternly that it was never spoken aloud. 'But I think you in the Forest call it the Redwater.'

'The Redwater?' Torak was startled.

'You know it?'

'I yes. It was near the Redwater that my father died.'

Leaving Juksakai, he climbed down the bank and stared at the foaming water. This felt like an omen: the past thrusting into the present, like old bones emerging after a thaw.

An eerie twilight bathed the camp. As Torak turned to face the Gorge, the clouds parted and at last there it was: the Mountain of Ghosts. Distant still, yet it towered above him. Snow streamed from its single, perfect peak which held up the sky. Its white flanks seemed lit from within by its own sacred light.

For three summers, Torak had pursued his quest against the Soul-Eaters over Sea and Ice, Forest and Lake and it had brought him here. In a flash, he perceived that on those far-off slopes, he would meet his destiny. And for him, nothing lay beyond. On the Mountain, he would die.

This was what Renn had been keeping from him. This was the dread which had been growing inside him.

Panic flared. Run. Let someone else fight Eostra. You never asked for this.

But what about Fa?

The thought dropped into his mind like a pebble in a pool. In some way that he couldn't yet fathom, his father's spirit was linked to this: his final quest against the last of the Soul-Eaters. He couldn't turn his back on Fa.

As he stood craning his neck at the Mountain, a great loneliness opened up inside him. He needed Wolf.

Putting his hands to his lips, he howled for his pack-brother.

The echoes wound into the Gorge of the Hidden People: fainter and fainter, dying to silence.