Renn shivered. The Swan Mage had reminded her that only the thickness of a reindeer-hide stood between them and the dark.
Torak sat with his arms about his knees, watching sparks shooting up the smoke-hole.
Suddenly, Renn felt the distance between them of things unsaid. She knew he had secrets from her. When he'd emptied his medicine pouch during the ice storm, she'd seen a scrap of the black root that made him spirit walk. He must have gotten it from Saeunn. And he hadn't told her.
But that paled beside what she hadn't told him. "Renn," he said quietly. "Do you remember your dreams?"
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"What?" she said, startled.
"Your dreams. When you wake up. Can you remember them?"
"Mostly. Why?"
"Since we left the Forest, I can't. It's all just black. What does that mean?"
She swallowed. Tell him, tell him.
At that moment, a strange, booming groan echoed through the night.
Krukoslik saw them jump. "It's the lake. It's freezing. Crying to the Mountain to send more snow to keep it warm. We need this too. An end to this accursed ice that's starving the antlered ones."
Firelight leaped in Torak's eyes. "The Mountain," he said. "It's time for you to tell us what you know."
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NINETEEN
Krukoslik laid more peat on the fire, releasing a bitter tang of earth. Renn glanced from him to Torak. In the red gloom, their faces were shadowed and unfamiliar.
"We who live at the edge of the world," said Krukoslik, "call two mountains sacred. The Mountain of the North, which is home to the World Spirit, and the Mountain of the South: the Mountain of Ghosts. But no matter how far we hunt from the Mountain of Ghosts, it's mother and father to us. It makes the rivers and the snow. It holds up the sky. It sends the sun, the bringer of all life. It takes the spirits of the antlered ones and gives them new
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bodies. And it shelters our ghosts, the souls of the dead who have lost their way."
Renn said softly, "Souls' Night. What happens on Souls' Night?"
"Souls' Night?" Torak turned to her. "You think that's what she's waiting for?"
She signed him to silence.
"On Souls' Night," said Krukoslik, "the Mountain gives up its dead. When the wind howls, we hear them: the thundering hooves of the antlered spirits, and the lonely cries of the hungry ghosts." His face softened. "We comfort them. We put out piles of lichen for the antlered spirits, and for our ghosts we build a shelter. We fill it with warm clothes, their favorite foods, toys for the young ones. And a fire to banish the dark."
He smiled. "Oh, it's a good time! For a day and a night we keep them company, singing songs, telling stories. Then it ends, as it must, and we send them from us. Many of them find their way to peace"--he pointed to the smoke-hole--"and join the ancestors, hunting the great herds which trek across the sky. Others don't, and go back to the Mountain. But they'll try again next winter, and we'll help them. We'll never let them down."
Torak said what Renn was thinking. "But this winter..."
Krukoslik's face darkened. He reached out and touched one of the painted guardians. "It began the spring before
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last. We lost children. They vanished without trace. Dog sleds went missing. The wreckage turned up far away. Then the moths came, and the shadow sickness. Yes, Renn, we've had them too. Now ice starves the antlered ones. And yet it was less than a moon ago that our Mages began to suspect where the evil one had made her lair."
"But what does she want?" said Renn. "What will happen on Souls' Night?"
"No one knows," said Krukoslik. "Terrible cries have been heard in the foothills. Small, owl-eyed demons have been glimpsed flitting among the stones. Our Mages see visions: the gray terror gnawing the innards of the Mountain." He swallowed. "We fear that she has taken it for her own. This--this was always her way."
"You knew her?" said Torak.
"Even the evil one was young once. When I was a boy, some of the Eagle Owl Clan still lived. Good people. We used to see them at clan meets. Eostra was different. Hungry for the secrets of the dead." He glanced about him. The Mages had moved on to another shelter; everyone else was asleep. "It's said," he went on, "that when she became a Mage, she carried out the forbidden rite."
Renn gasped. "She did that?"
"What?" said Torak. "What did she do?" Krukoslik leaned forward. "One of her clan had been killed in a rockfall: a boy of ten summers. They say that
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on Souls' Night, in the moon's dark, she went to the cairn where the body lay. To raise the dead ..."
Renn put her hand to her clan-creature feathers. She shut her eyes. She saw a windswept hillside, a tall woman with long dark hair standing before a cairn.
The cairn heaves. Rocks fall away. Eostra peels back her sleeve and draws her knife across her forearm, anointing the lifeless flesh with blood. The dead boy sits up. His head turns. His clouded eyes meet hers. From his mouth bubbles the froth of decay. Like a lover, Eostra stoops. Her long hair caresses his face as she brings her head close, close--as she licks the corpse-froth from his moldering lips....
With a start, Renn opened her eyes. Torak's hand was on her shoulder. "Renn," he whispered.
She wiped her mouth with her hand.
Krukoslik was scowling at the fire. "She'd got what she wanted," he said. "Henceforth, she could talk to them. Soon after, sickness took the rest of her clan. And Eostra disappeared."
"And joined the Soul-Eaters," said Torak.
"She became a Soul-Eater," said Krukoslik with peculiar intensity. "This is what you must understand, Torak. People say the Soul-Eaters took that name merely to frighten, but with Eostra, it's true."
"What do you mean?" said Renn.
"The Swan Clan frequents the high passes.
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Sometimes they venture near the Gorge of the Hidden People. They've seen her. They say she walks with a three-pronged spear for snaring souls. They say that if you hear her cry, you're lost."
Lost----Renn's fingers tightened on her clan-creature
feathers.
"That cry," said Krukoslik, "rips the souls from your marrow. With her spear she snares them. She devours them. Eostra truly is an eater of souls."
Torak placed his hands on his knees. "But I have to find her," he said.
Renn shot him a glance. "You said 'I.' Not 'we.'"
He didn't reply.
Krukoslik was shaking his head. "They say this is your destiny, Torak. But after what I've told you--"
"Krukoslik. Three winters ago, in the time of the bear, you helped me find a Mountain. Will you help me now?"
"This is no small thing you ask," said Krukoslik. "Our Mages used to go into the Mountain, but not anymore. There's only one way to reach it, and that's secret."
"You have to tell me."
They faced each other, while the wind moaned and the lake cried out to the Mountain.
Krukoslik sat straighter. Once again, he was the Clan Leader who must be obeyed. "We'll sleep now. I'll give you my answer in the morning."
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***
Renn woke to an unnatural silence that made her skin crawl.
The fire burned, but it made no sound. The walls of the shelter heaved in and out, but she couldn't hear them, or the moaning of the wind. Torak turned his head and muttered in his sleep. His lips moved noiselessly.
Slowly, Renn sat up.
At the far end of the shelter, in the dark of the doorway, someone stood.
Renn's heart began to pound.
The figure was tall. Its back was turned toward her. She saw ashen hair hanging in lank coils. From the shadowy head rose the spiked ears of an eagle owl.
Renn wanted to wake Torak, but she couldn't move. Her hands lay in her lap like stones.
The figure in the doorway must not turn around. If it did--if it faced her--her heart would stop.
Slowly, the figure turned.
&nbs
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TWENTY
Eostra the Masked One, whom even the other Soul-Eaters had feared. Her carved mouth gaped on darkness. Her unblinking glare froze Renn's souls with dread.
A dead chill settled on the shelter. The fire sank to ash. Ice crusted the reindeer-hides and the faces of the sleepers. Renn's breath smoked.
Beside her, Torak slept with one arm flung above his head. Frost spiked his eyelashes and glittered on his skin. His lips were white.
Renn spoke his name. He didn't stir. She cried it
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aloud. Only a wisp of frosty breath showed that he was still alive.
"They hear nothing," said a voice like the rattle of bones. "They know nothing. Eostra wills it so."
"You're not real," said Renn.
"What Eostra wills shall be. Eostra commands the unquiet dead. Eostra rules Mountain and Forest, Ice and Sea." Her voice was barren of emotion. The Eagle Owl Mage was dead to all feeling save the hunger for power.
Renn told herself that she, too, was a Mage. She started to speak a charm of sending, to banish this evil from the shelter.
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 toward her, unbearably close. Ashen hair slithered across her cheek. She caught the stench of rottenness.
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"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 forever!"
"No!" screamed Renn. "No no no no no!"
Men shouted. Dogs barked. The shelter was in an uproar.
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"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
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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 forever."
"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 leaned forward 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."
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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 farther. You'll have to find your own way in."
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[Image: Torak and Renn.]
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 each now wore an inner jerkin and leggings of diverbird hide, the plumage warm against their skin; a calf-length tunic of supple reindeer fur, cinched at the waist with a broad buckskin belt; socks and undermittens
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of soft, light woven stuff which the Swans said was musk-ox wool; and long boots and overmittens 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. "Good-bye, Torak. And may yo
ur guardian run with you."
Juksakai shouted a command to his dogs, and they were off.
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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 oxen, 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 fishing, 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
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showed them his clan-creature skin, a plaited wristband of swanhide, 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."
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