Spirit Walker

by Michelle Paver

"Yes, he's fine, he's guarding--he's fine."

  Torak stopped. "Guarding who?"

  Tenris face became grave. "She's sick, Torak. We had to lock her up."

  "Who?" said Torak. "Who's sick?"

  "It doesn't matter," said Tenris. "Come, we're wasting time."

  "Who is it?" Torak insisted. But a part of him already knew.

  "Torak--"

  "It's Renn, isn't it? Tenris, please. I need to see her."

  Tenris sighed. "It'll have to be quick." At a run he led Torak through the deserted Seal camp and out to

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  the cave at the end of the bay, where the man who'd killed the whale had spent his lonely vigil. "We put her where we kept them before," he said as they drew near.

  The cave mouth was all but sealed by a massive door of whale bone and seal hide, and Bale stood on guard with a harpoon. When he saw Torak, his face lit up. Torak pushed past him without a word.

  Through a gap between the door and the cave wall, he saw Renn pacing up and down. It was too dark to see her properly, but he made out her disheveled hair and furious expression; and the sore on the back of her hand. A cold weight sank inside him like a stone. When she saw him, her face cleared.

  "Torak!

  Oh, thank the Spirit! Now get me out of here!"

  "Renn--I can't," he said. "You're sick."

  Her mouth fell open. "But--you don't believe them. Of course I'm not sick!"

  Behind him, Tenris put his hand on his shoulder. "They all say that," he murmured under his breath. "But don't worry. Bale will look after her. And I've made sure she'll not go hungry." When she saw the Mage, Renn shrank back. "Get away from me!" Then to Torak, "I'm not sick!"

  "Tenris is right," said Bale, gripping the harpoon so hard that his knuckles were white. "My brother was just the same."

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  "Renn," said Torak, putting both hands on the seal-hide door. "I'll bring you the cure, I promise. You will get-"

  "I don't need the cure!" she spat. "Why don't you believe me?" She pointed at Tenris. "It's him!

  He's the Soul-Eater!"

  "In the end, they suspect everyone," said Bale.

  "Why won't you believe me?" cried Renn. "Tell him to show you his mark! Make him show you his tattoo! He's a Soul-Eater!"

  Tenris touched Torak's arm. "Torak, we have to go--or it'll be too late for her or anyone else."

  "No--Torak--don't go!" shouted Renn. "He'll kill you!

  Torak!"

  She threw herself against the door.

  Bale braced it with his shoulder. "Go," he told Torak. "I'll make sure she comes to no harm."

  "You will get better!" called Torak. "I promise! You will get better!"

  "Torak!" she screamed.

  "Come back!"

  With her cries ringing in his ears, Torak followed Tenris into the fog.

  "Quickly," muttered the Seal Mage. "The turn of the sun is close, I can feel it."

  With Renn's cries fading behind them, they started up the trail. Soon all Torak could hear was his own breathing and the sound of water trickling over the 304

  rocks. He felt oppressed by a choking sense of wrong-ness. In the space of a few heartbeats, he'd ignored warnings from both Wolf and Renn. A clatter of claws behind him.

  He swung around.

  Wolf?

  He couldn't see anything in the swirling whiteness--except Tenris up ahead, disappearing into the fog. "Tenris!" he called. "Wait for me!" More clattering claws--then a small humped figure scuttled across the trail. Not Wolf. The tokoroth.

  Torak raced forward. "Tenris!

  Look out!

  The tokoroth!"

  Pain exploded in his head, and the rocks rushed up to meet him.

  Torak woke with a start.

  His head was throbbing, his shoulders ached. Someone had taken off his jerkin and laid him on a cold stone slab. Someone had tied his wrists together, pulled his arms above his head, and hooked them over a horn of rock. The binding was tight--he couldn't wriggle out--although if he could push himself up with his heels, he might be able to unhook his wrists and . . .

  Someone gripped his ankles, holding him back. Someone with sharp claws and a knife. When he tried to kick free, they pressed its point against his calf. 305

  Mist swirled about him, tinged blue with wood-smoke. He heard the crackle of a fire, and caught the tang of juniper. He couldn't hear the Sea. He must be high up on the cliffs. At his feet, two demon eyes glared at him from a face tattooed with leaves.

  Fear settled on him like a second skin. He was on the Crag, laid out on the altar rock, guarded by the tokoroth.

  Then a second tokoroth emerged from the smoke. A girl with matted hair falling to her knees, and stick-limbs covered in bruises. Her fingernails and toenails were yellow, and filed to long, pointed claws. In silence she leaned over him, and his skin crawled as her greasy locks brushed his belly. Her bony fingers drew his father's knife from the sheath at his belt. "What do you want?" he whispered.

  In silence she raised the knife in both hands.

  "What do you

  want?"

  In silence she laid the cold slate knife on his chest.

  A soft clinking in the mist--and both tokoroth cowered on the ground.

  A figure loomed out of the mist. With every step, the puffin beaks clinked at his belt.

  Torak felt as if he were falling from a great height. All the kindness, the gentleness ... all a lie. Wolf had

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  been right. Renn had been right. And he had been wrong, wrong, wrong.

  The Seal Mage had taken off his jerkin to reveal a lean, muscled body that was horribly burned down the whole of the left side. His arms were smeared with wood ash, obscuring his clan-tattoos. His face was an ashen mask--as if, thought Torak with a sick sense of dread--he were already mourning someone dead. He wore no amulet, except for a twist of something red and shrunken on a thong at his neck, and his naked chest was unmarked, save for a stark black tattoo over the heart. A three-pronged fork for snaring souls. The mark of the Soul-Eater.

  "You," said Torak. "A Soul-Eater."

  "One of the seven, Torak." His voice was the only thing that hadn't changed. Still beautiful; still as calm and powerful as the Sea on a sunlit day. "But with your help," he said quietly, "I shall rise above the others. I shall become the greatest of them all." Slowly Torak shook his head. "I won't help you do that."

  Tends smiled. "You don't have a choice." Turning his head, he barked a command at the tokoroth, his voice suddenly harsh and cruel. The boy raced to fetch a heavy basket almost as big as himself, while the girl scurried to the neck of the Crag. Torak saw that she was building a wall of 307

  driftwood across it, cutting them off from the trail.

  The boy tokoroth hadn't finished the bindings around his ankles. So if he could keep Tenris talking, maybe he could work his feet free. And maybe if he howled for Wolf. . . . But what then? Tenris had a spear and a harpoon lying ready by the fire, and both tokoroth had knives at their belts. Three against one. Against such odds, what could even Wolf achieve? "Your friends can't help you," said Tenris as if he'd read his thoughts. "One of them is guarding the other. There's a kind of beauty in that, don't you think?" From the basket he took out several pale, cone-shaped objects and began laying them out around the altar rock. This time he didn't seem to care about treading on the silver lines polished in the stone.

  Torak had to keep him talking, to give himself time to think. "The sickness," he said. "You were the one who sent it."

  "I didn't

  send

  it," said Tenris, standing back to study his work. "I

  created

  it. My tokoroth have the demon skill for creeping into shelters. And I . . . well, I'm very good at poisons."

  "But-

  why?"

  "That's the interesting part," said Tenris, resuming his task. "When I began three summers ago, I had no idea how I'd use it; I simply knew that I needed a weapon." H
e shook his head. "Sometimes not even I 308

  can tell all that the future holds."

  Torak felt sick. "So Bale's little brother . . ."

  Tenris shrugged. "I just wanted to know if it worked."

  "And this summer. The clans.

  Why?"

  The Seal Mage raised his head, and his gray eyes glittered. "To smoke you out. To find out what you can do."

  So Fin-Kedinn had been right, after all.

  "And it worked," said Tenris, "although not in the way I expected. You see, I didn't know who you were. All I knew was that there was someone in the Forest with power. I thought that whoever it was would perform some great feat of Magecraft to rid his people of the sickness." His lip curled. "Instead what did you do? You came to me-me!

  Begging me to make the cure! Oh, it was meant to be!"

  "And the cure," said Torak. "Was that a trick too?"

  Tenris snorted. From the pouch at his belt he took the selik root and tossed it on the fire. "There is no cure," he said. "I made it up."

  The flames flared a deep, throbbing purple. The two tokoroth drew closer and gazed at it in fascination.

  Tenris eyed them with contempt. "Sometimes being a Mage is almost too easy. All it takes is a little colored fire." He gave the girl a savage kick that sent her flying. Hissing, she scuttled back to her woodpile. 309

  To Torak's dismay, the boy rushed back to the bindings at his ankles. He kicked out sharply. The boy tokoroth jabbed his calf with the knife to make him hold still. "So now that you've smoked me out," he said to Tenris, "what next?"

  Tenris gazed down at him, and his face contracted with pain and longing. "When I found out what you could do, I could not believe it. That a boy

  should have such power. Power to tame hunters and trammel prey. Power to rule the clans . . ." He shook his head. "What a waste."

  Then he leaned closer, and Torak smelled the bitterness of ash. "Soon," he murmured, "that power will be

  mine.

  I will take it for myself, and become the spirit walker. I will be the greatest Mage who ever lived. . . ."

  "How?" Torak said hoarsely. "What are you going to do?"

  "Midsummer," breathed the Seal Mage. "The most potent night for Magecraft--and it's your birthnight! Oh, it is perfect! All the signs point to this, all telling me to do it!"

  Gently he put out his hand and pushed back a lock of hair from Torak's forehead. "Do you remember what I told you about Midsummer night? That it's all about change?" 310

  Torak tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry.

  "Tree into leaf," murmured the Seal Mage, "boy into man." He leaned down, and his breath heated Torak's cheek as he whispered in his ear. "I'm going to eat your heart."

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  Chapter THIRTY-ONE

  Wolf had done what no wolf should ever do. He had abandoned his pack-brother.

  He had been so astonished when Tall Tailless ignored his warnings--so astonished and so

  cross

  --that he had deserted him.

  So while Tall Tailless went off alone to the Den of the pale-pelts, Wolf loped up the ridge and down to the Still Wet, where he snapped at the reeds in his anger, and chewed up a hunk of dead wood, until at last all the crossness had been spat out. And now as he stood in the Wet to drink, he thought of the time when he'd been a lonely cub, and his

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  pack-brother had found him. Tall Tailless had shared his kills, and given him the crunchy hooves to play with. When Wolf's pads had been hurting from the trail, Tall Tailless had carried him in his forepaws for many, many lopes.

  A wolf does not abandon his pack-brother.

  Wolf gave an anguished yelp, and raced back toward the Den. He loped over the ridge and down again; wove soundlessly between the birch trees and out onto the pebbles. He couldn't see the Den, as it had been swallowed by the breath of the Great Wet--but he could smell it. And he could hear the female padding up and down in the smaller Den in the mountain. She was angry, worried, and scared, and the pale-pelted tailless was growling at her; Wolf didn't know why. But apart from them, the Den was empty.

  In fact, it was

  too

  still. He smelled the lemmings cowering in their burrows. He heard the fish-birds on the cliffs hiding their beaks under their wings. All were waiting. Frightened to move.

  Wolf raised his muzzle to catch the smells. He smelled much fish, and the left-behind scents of many taillesses; he smelled the fat, friendly fish-dogs who swim in the Great Wet, and sometimes lumber up onto the rocks. And he smelled the other smell, too: the demon stink.

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  The stink grew stronger as he padded forward, and his hackles rose. When he was a cub, that stink had frightened him. Now it awakened a strange hunger: deeper than the blood-urge, stronger even than the Pull of the Mountain. . . . But where was Tall Tailless?

  With all the smells whirling in the windless air, Wolf couldn't catch the one scent he longed to find.

  And now the female and the pale-pelt were snarling at each other--and as Wolf ran toward them, he saw that the pale-pelt was carrying meat for the female in his forepaws:

  meat that stank of demon!

  Wolf sensed that the female was hungry, and wanted to eat. He had to stop her! But what if she ignored his warning, just as Tall Tailless had done? What if she didn't even understand what he was telling her? Wolf lowered his head and crept forward, placing each paw with silent care. He had an idea. There was one thing the female always understood. A snarl.

  "I'm not hungry!" snarled Renn as the Seal boy set the bowl on the ground. "And for the last time,

  I'm not sick!'"

  "Just eat," said the boy. Backing out of the cave, he dragged the seal hide across the cave mouth, leaving a gap a couple of hands wide for air. 314

  Renn didn't like the Seal boy, but she wished he hadn't gone. It was frightening being in here on her own. She could feel the suffering of the sick from three summers ago; the walls were dank with their despair. But

  you're

  not sick, she reminded herself. You're just tired and hungry, and worried about Torak.

  She decided to try again with the Seal boy. "Do you know

  why

  the Hunter attacked?" she called out.

  Silence.

  "Because your Mage killed one of its young. I found the carcass. He trapped it in a seal net--the kind only your clan makes--and he took nothing but its teeth. Does that sound like something a good man would do?" No reply.

  She clenched her jaw. "I know it was him," she said. "I heard his belt clink as he rowed across the lake."

  Still no answer, but she could tell that he was listening. She could hear him breathing on the other side of the door.

  "The teeth of a Hunter?" she went on. "Only a Mage would have any use for those." She paused. "If I'm right, and he made the sickness--then he killed your brother." For a moment there was a stunned silence. "How do you know about my brother?"

  "Oh, I know many things," said Renn. "He killed

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  your brother," she said again. "I know what it's like to lose a brother. I lost mine not long ago."

  "Be quiet," said the Seal boy.

  "Think back," said Renn, "to just before your brother fell sick. Tenris had been up on that cliff top, hadn't he? Doing Magecraft."

  "So?" came the reply. "He's the Mage, that's what he does."

  "He did Magecraft, and then your brother got sick."

  It was a guess, but a good one. She heard a sharp intake of breath.

  "He did it to bring the prey," whispered the Seal boy. "He did Magecraft to bring the prey. . . ."

  "That's what he told you," said Renn.

  She heard the crunch of sand as he walked up and down. "No more talk," he said abruptly. But there was doubt in his voice.

  "You know I'm right," she said.

  "I

  said no more talk!"

  he shouted.

  "Why won't you
>
  Hsten!"

  Renn shouted back.

  The seal hide shuddered, and she knew that he'd punched it.

  After that, neither of them spoke.

  The smell of meat filled the cave. Renn hesitated-- then went over to examine the bowl. Smoked whale meat with juniper berries. It smelled really

  good. But if she ate it, the Seal boy would think she was giving in.

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  She put the bowl down. Paced the cave. Went back and picked it up.

  She was just about to try a piece when the Seal boy gave a cry, and in through the gap leaped Wolf--leaped straight at her--sending her flying, sending the meat spattering against the wall--flattening her beneath him. He was snarling, his black lips drawn back from his big white fangs. She tried to scream, but his forepaws were heavy on her chest. What was

  wrong

  with him?

  "Wolf!" she gasped. "Wolf--it's me!"

  "I'm coming!" yelled the Seal boy, wrenching aside the hide and leaping in with his harpoon.

  With astonishing speed, Wolf sprang off Renn and twisted around to face him.

  "No!"

  screamed Renn. "Don't hurt him! He must be sick--or--something!"

  The Seal boy ignored her, and jabbed at Wolf with his harpoon.

  Wolf sprang sideways, snapping at the shaft.

  Renn saw her chance to escape--the cave mouth was wide open--but what about Wolf?

  He was dodging the harpoon with ease.

  She picked herself up and fled.

  Behind her she heard another yell from the Seal boy--more in outrage than in pain--and glanced back to see Wolf leap from the cave and disappear. 317

  Too shaken to make sense of it, she turned and raced off into the fog.

  It was thicker than ever. She had no idea where she was; no idea how to find Torak.

  She tripped over a pile of driftwood, then blundered into a rack full of whale meat. A shelter loomed out of the whiteness, and she clapped her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. At any moment she dreaded to see the Seal boy leaping out at her--or the tokoroth-- or the Soul-Eater. Suddenly to the north, fire flared high in the sky.

  She stopped.

  Torak had said that the cure would be made in a rite on a cliff top. Although "the cure" had to be a Soul-Eater trap.

  She set off at a run toward the fire.

  A noise behind her. She ducked. Too late. A hand grabbed her arm and yanked her back.