Viper's Daughter

by Michelle Paver

  ‘Marupai will help.’

  Renn did not reply. Somewhere, the spirit of her mother was laughing. She pictured Seshru’s beautiful heartless face and her sideways smile. You’re not doing too well, are you, daughter? You’ve left your mate a second time and hurt him even more.

  The wind dropped, the Sun rested on the waves, and flakes of gold rocked on the quiet Sea as they searched for a campsite. Renn was so tired she would have camped on a rock, but Naiginn was infuriatingly fussy.

  ‘What about there?’ She pointed to an inlet.

  ‘The last people who camped there died of fever, no one’s been near it since.’

  He rejected the next bay because its hot springs stank.

  ‘I don’t care about the smell,’ yawned Renn.

  ‘I do. My people call it the demon breath, we never—’

  ‘Right,’ she snapped. ‘Let’s try that island, shall we?’

  ‘What island?’

  She pointed at a dark line on the shining Sea.

  ‘There is no island,’ he said flatly.

  ‘You may not like it that my eyes are better than yours—’

  ‘I’ve known these waters all my life, there is no island!’

  ‘But I can see it!’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To camp on the island!’

  From this distance it looked perfect: low-lying, but with no rim of surf to warn of rocks that would make it hard to get ashore. She saw seabirds wheeling above it, and where there are seabirds there are fish.

  But as she paddled closer, a whale spout showed white against the land. Another whale blew. And another.

  ‘Better leave it to the whales,’ Naiginn called smugly.

  Renn didn’t reply. There was something odd about the island. It seemed to be rocking on the swell.

  Drawing nearer, she saw a dense flock of seabirds rise from its western edge. More birds flew up to join them, forming a dark cloud that wavered and stretched as it veered across the island, then settled at the other end.

  ‘It isn’t an island,’ Renn said in an altered voice. ‘At least – not one where we can camp.’

  What she’d taken for land was an immense flock of seabirds floating on the waves. An island made of birds. To find what you seek, you must put the island of wings to flight.

  ‘Those whales are hunting!’ shouted Naiginn. ‘Don’t go too close!’

  ‘It’s part of the riddle!’ she called over her shoulder. ‘It’s the island of wings, I have to make it fly!’

  He yelled something she didn’t catch. Paddling closer, she heard the loud rheu! of spouting whales – but she wasn’t frightened, she knew they didn’t eat people. They sucked in mountains of tiny shrimp, trapping them behind the hairy plates which they had instead of teeth.

  The birds were shearwaters, smallest and toughest of seabirds, and unlike gulls and guillemots they uttered no cries; but as she approached she heard a strange pattering, like rain on a shelter. It was the sound of thousands of shearwater feet running over the waves to take off.

  The patter rose to a rush of wings as one edge of the ‘island’ peeled off the water into the air. The black flock shivered and broke apart as they dived, each bird plucking prey from the Sea, raising a tiny dart of spray – while around them the whales spouted and arched, taking their vast share of the life-giving shrimp which the Sea Mother had sent up from the deep.

  There was something dream-like about the mountainous whales and the minute silver darts spiking the waves, the loud slow blows of the greatest of hunters, and the pattering torrent of tiny voiceless birds.

  ‘Renn, it’s too dangerous! Come back!’

  ‘I have to make them fly! That’s what the riddle means!’

  She no longer felt the ache in her shoulders. Her skinboat was speeding over the waves.

  The shearwaters saw her coming and their raindrop patter rose to a murmur, then a thunder as she swept into the dark cloud of whirling wings. Now the whole island was rising into the sky, she felt as if it was carrying her with it and she too was flying.

  Suddenly a gleaming black mountain surged out of the Sea in front of her boat. For an instant she saw the gaping cavern of the whale’s mouth, the furrowed trenches of its belly stretched to engulf a lake of prey. She saw the big smooth mound of wet muscle that was its blowhole. Rheu! A column of spray shot skywards, soaking her.

  No time to say sorry for disturbing its hunt. The whale’s dark eye met hers, and it was wise with the wisdom of the deep: To me you are a speck of foam on the Sea and I bear you no ill will, but that won’t save you…

  As its great back arched to dive, waterfalls poured from its upturned tail. The tip of one giant fluke caught the prow of Renn’s skinboat and flicked her high, the boat flying one way, she another.

  The last thing she heard before she hit the Sea was the patter of shearwater feet settling back onto the waves, and Naiginn yelling her name.

  Renn is cold beyond imagining. Torak’s lips are blue as he mouths her name. They are separated by a wall of ice. She hammers with her fists but it’s harder than flint, she can’t break through. In her head her mother is laughing. You’ll never reach him now…

  Renn woke with a shudder.

  She was lying under musty reindeer pelts in freezing gloom. Beside her a rawhide vat. Its urine stink reminded her of the women’s part of the Narwal shelter at the clan meet.

  Her parka and leggings were gone, she wore a calf-length robe of motheaten seal hide. She still had her spare knife tied to her shin, the duckbone whistle at her neck and Torak’s headband round her wrist. Nothing else.

  Naiginn’s face appeared above her, taut with concern. ‘How d’you feel?’

  ‘Like I fell off a cliff,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Lucky you didn’t break your neck.’

  ‘Is this Waigo?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘I can’t bring you inside, it’s against the rules.’

  Moaning, she turned to the wall, and came face to face with a leg-bone as thick as a log.

  She touched it with her finger. A jolt and a surge of heat coursed through her. The air grew bright and fragrant. She knew at once that she was having a vision. She was walking through whispering sedge among grazing herds of the strangest creatures she’d ever seen. Deer taller than elk, horses no bigger than dogs. She was not afraid, for she sensed that she was in the Deep Past, seeing things which once had been.

  From across the plain came weird booming shrieks. Huge shaggy brown creatures were ambling towards her. Mammut. Their twisted tusks swept the sedge, and with long supple trunks they gently touched each other’s faces. Renn heard their deep slow rumblings like distant thunder. She sensed togetherness and peace.

  The vision changed. Clouds darkened the plain and men with poisoned spears chased the mammut over a cliff. Crows pecked carcasses until nothing remained but bleached bones.

  ‘You saw all that?’ said Naiginn. The awe and envy in his voice told her she’d described her vision aloud.

  ‘I’m cold,’ she moaned.

  He left, but soon returned and carried her into the blubbery fumes of the men’s chamber, where he laid her in a nest of musk-ox wool by a crackling fire.

  ‘How did you manage that?’ she murmured.

  ‘I told them you’d seen mammut. They don’t believe a woman could have such a vision, so they’ve decided you have the souls of a man.’

  When she woke again she was warm, and aching in every limb. From the smoke-hole hung a carved narwal the size of a hand, smeared with blood-offerings. But this shelter was different from the one at the clan meet. It was built of the massed bones of mammut. Giant ribs supported the smoke-blackened walrus hide. Teeth ringed the fire, each as big as a man’s foot. Maybe this far north, only the remains of the sacred beasts could protect the clan from demons.

  Like the men he was talking to, Naiginn was bare-chested and seated on part of a mammut backbone. An old wo
man shuffled towards them. She too was bare-chested, her shrunken breasts swinging like empty pouches as she dragged a mammut shoulderblade piled with slimy dark-red meat. She withdrew and the men ate noisily. Renn was hungry, but no one brought her food.

  On the wall behind her, two mammut tusks made a twisted arch, and from it glared a Mage’s mask. Painfully she raised herself on her elbow. A mane of red seaweed trailed to the ground, and the painted wooden face was a cormorant’s: sharp beak, green slate eyes. At the back of the mask, two strings hung down. By pulling them, the Mage would open the beak to reveal a second face within. The red mane told Renn that this face would be the sun.

  Only a Mage of great skill can use a mask with two faces. Renn guessed that when Marupai wore it he became cormorant, and flew to the sun to speak with the spirits. Maybe Naiginn was right, maybe his father could help her.

  The old woman was back, clutching a rawhide bowl. Naiginn took it and curtly dismissed the woman. ‘Eat,’ he told Renn.

  A rancid green sludge. ‘What is it?’ she mumbled with her mouth full.

  ‘Ptarmigan droppings.’

  She spat it out. ‘You eat droppings?’

  ‘Not me, I had kivyak, but I’m not a girl. Drink this. It’s wormwood, it’ll ward off fever.’

  After forcing down the bitter brew, she lay back and shut her eyes. ‘How did I get here?’

  He told her about fishing her out of the Sea. ‘You were so pale I thought you were dead.’

  ‘What happened to my boat?’

  ‘Smashed.’

  ‘My gear? Did you salvage anything?’

  ‘What you had on you: medicine pouch, tinder pouch, axe, knife. That whistle which makes no sound.’

  ‘My bow?’

  ‘No.’

  She was silent. She hadn’t loved it as much as the old one, but it had served her well and it didn’t deserve to end its life that way.

  ‘Your disguise washed off,’ said Naiginn. ‘The elders had never seen anyone like you, they thought you were a demon till I told them you’d seen mammut.’

  ‘Where are my clothes?’

  ‘Your boots are drying, the rest were burnt. They stank.’

  ‘And this robe doesn’t?’

  He grinned. ‘What you did… You really are mad.’

  ‘I solved part of the riddle.’

  ‘Did you get any answers?’

  ‘I don’t think it’s the kind of riddle that gives them. It sets you tasks which you have to do.’

  A man spoke brusquely to Naiginn in Narwal. His bristling moustaches reminded Renn of a walrus.

  ‘Is that your father?’ she asked when the man had gone.

  ‘No, he’s one of the elders.’ He looked worried. ‘Marupai isn’t here.’

  Renn struggled to sit up. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘On the Mage’s Rock, out to Sea.’

  ‘Then let’s go and find him.’

  ‘It isn’t that simple, he’s gone to work a charm.’

  ‘When’s he coming back?’ she said uneasily.

  ‘Not till First Dark, when the sun sinks below the Sea.’

  ‘But that’s the end of summer! We have to find him now!’

  ‘We can’t. Women aren’t allowed on the Rock.’

  ‘But they think I’ve got the souls of a man.’

  ‘In the body of a girl.’

  ‘Tell them I’m a Mage.’

  ‘Women can’t be Mages.’

  ‘Yes, they can!’

  ‘Renn, I know my people. Let me think!’

  He was silent. Then he snapped his fingers. ‘I’ve got an idea.’

  ‘D’you think you can do it?’ Naiginn said under his breath.

  Renn glanced at the Narwal elders standing on the blustery hilltop, arms crossed on their chests. ‘You never know with ravens. If they do come, will it work?’

  ‘My people respect ravens, they help us find carcasses flung up by the Sea Mother.’

  ‘You stay here, I’ll move off a bit. Rip and Rek won’t come if I’m with strangers. That includes you.’

  The settlement of Waigo occupied a green hill with a commanding view of the Sea. Above a shingle beach a line of skinboats hung from whale-jaw arches, and above these the Narwals’ shelters clung like limpets. The hilltop was flat, as if its head had been lopped off. A pile of bleached walrus skulls served both as a lookout post to watch for whale spouts and a beacon to guide the boats home.

  Even with Naiginn half-carrying her, Renn had struggled to reach the top. Her head was swimming, her legs limp as seaweed. As she left the men the wind did its best to fling her off the hill. Her calf-length robe shortened her stride and she repressed the urge to get on all fours and crawl.

  She made it to a rock on which ravens had smashed guillemot eggs. The blue-green fragments glistened with fresh yolk. Good, the ravens must be near. Provided, of course, that they were Rip and Rek – and provided they heeded her call.

  She blew the duckbone whistle.

  Clouds scudded across the sky. The elders watched grimly.

  She whistled again. Please, little grandfathers, hear my call! This is no time for tricks!

  Over her shoulder she saw them riding the wind with reckless abandon: Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Sweeping past the elders, they alighted at her feet, snapping their glossy black wings. She bowed a greeting. With throaty croaks, Rip and Rek bowed back. The elders remained inscrutable, but Renn sensed they were impressed.

  As abruptly as the ravens had arrived they hopped onto the wind and flew off, loudly cawing cuckoo.

  Naiginn was grinning. ‘It worked! We can go, as long as you stay in my boat and don’t set foot on the Mage’s Rock. Hurry, before they change their minds!’

  Torak ate a handful of bitter chickweed and a shrivelled mushroom. A surge of nausea. He vomited. Wolf lapped up the sick.

  Torak couldn’t see the snow owl but he felt it watching. ‘Please give me back my hunting luck!’ he begged. ‘What must I do to make things right?’

  He’d offered earthblood and a lock of his hair, but it hadn’t worked. His shots went astray, his snares and fishing lines caught nothing. He’d been reduced to raiding the little mounds on the fells where voles kept their winter food-hoards; but a clutch of tiny haregrass roots wouldn’t keep him alive. Soon he’d be too weak to hunt.

  He was exhausted from the strain of watching for ice bears, and he couldn’t always rely on Wolf to warn him, as stinking springs often masked the scent. Torak hadn’t seen the big female again, but he started at every piece of drift ice and every curl of foam. Always when he went ashore he found a menacing line of tracks. Always he felt the unseen presence of the great white owl.

  He’d hardly set off again when mist swallowed the coast. Whatever Renn had done to throw Wolf off her trail was still working, but luckily Torak spotted another of Naiginn’s markers wedged in a rock rising from the Sea. It was a stick of driftwood pointing the way. He knew it was Naiginn’s because of the slanted lines notched in it, like a narwal’s tusk. When Torak had seen the first one he’d suspected a trick. Then he’d found traces of their camp and realized it wasn’t. I’ll help you in any way I can, Naiginn had said. Apparently he was keeping his word. This made Torak feel worse. He needed to hate Naiginn, to keep from thinking about Renn.

  The mist thinned and the coast reappeared. Torak heard splashing.

  It was a sea-eagle and it was drowning, thrashing the waves with waterlogged wings. It was some distance out to Sea and Torak felt so weak that he decided against rescuing it. But it’s bad luck to leave a creature dying in a strange way, so he changed his mind.

  The eagle was young and had got tangled in a mess of kelp. It hated being rescued. Shrieking with outrage, it pecked and lashed out with its talons. Torak grabbed the scrap of reindeer hide he’d been sitting on, flung it over the struggling bird and hauled it aboard. When he’d cut it free it hopped into the bow and stared at him resentfully.

  Eagles are proud, but not very bright. This one didn
’t have the sense to wait for its wings to dry. It tried to fly away and fell off the boat.

  With a sigh Torak fished it out.

  The eagle hissed at him and jumped overboard.

  Again Torak pulled it out. ‘Do that once more and you’re on your own.’

  The eagle was so exhausted it sat hunched in the prow, quietly spitting.

  Wolf pushed past Torak and sniffed. The eagle gave an ear-splitting shriek. Wolf decided against risking an eye for a mouthful of feathers and withdrew behind Torak, who was heading for the coast to put the ungrateful bird ashore.

  No sooner had he reached the shallows than the sea-eagle jumped onto the shingle, shook its vast wings and wobbled off on the wind.

  ‘And don’t come back!’ muttered Torak.

  Dizzy with hunger, he started for the fells. On a bank above a creek he found a snow owl’s lookout: a tussocky patch of red grass enriched by droppings and littered with pellets crammed with fur and bones.

  Torak had an idea. With earthblood from his medicine horn he daubed his Forest sign on a pebble. Then he cut off a lock of hair, wound it round the pebble and laid it in the grass. He couldn’t see the snow owl, but he knew it was watching.

  ‘Owl,’ he called. ‘You saw me rescue that sea-eagle! I saved one of your hunters! Forgive what I did and give me back my hunting luck!’

  Wolf flicked an ear and looked at Torak. Torak glanced to his right. Wolf slunk that way and disappeared over the ridge. Torak belly-crawled after him.

  Before him the mossy fell was speckled with goosedown and fat worm-like droppings – but the flock was a distant white blur at the feet of the mountains. No matter, he would wait for Wolf to drive them closer.

  The signs were good. The wind was in his face, so the geese wouldn’t smell him; and the moss was pitted with holes where they’d plucked it out by the roots. This meant they’d been grazing heavily, and with luck they’d be too full to fly high.

  Wolf had melted into the fells as only a wolf can. Torak pictured him slinking behind the flock so stealthily that no watchful gander could spot him.