Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

by Michelle Paver

  He rolled over and swam upside-down, and found to his astonishment that he could see far down into the dark, to where purple starfish made their prickly way across the bottom. He could hear the tiny, hard, biting sounds of fish nibbling kelp; the brittle clink of crabs feeling their way over rocks.

  But most of all, he could feel through his whiskers. His whiskers were so keen that they could pick up the rippling tracks of the smallest fish as it darted through the water. The Sea was webbed and criss-crossed with thousands of invisible fish trails. And he felt, too, the strong, slow tremors which the kelp sent back through the water; and the waves echoing off the rocks. He hung upside-down, trying to make sense of this bewilderment of trails.

  Then – faint and far away, he heard singing.

  Long, eerie shrieks; a furious hailstorm of clicks. A song of anger and loss, coming to him from the open Sea.

  A shudder ran through him from the tips of his whiskers to the end of his stubby tail. And now he felt the huge disturbance in the water as the creature came closer at incredible speed . . .

  His mind flooded with dreadful certainty.

  The Hunter is coming.

  Another sickening jolt – another sharp pain in his gut – and suddenly he was Torak. He was bitterly cold and desperate for air, and he couldn’t see much at all, he was too far down – but out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of silver flippers as the guardian fled for the shelter of the deeps.

  The Hunter is coming!

  With all his might, Torak kicked for the surface. His limbs were dream-heavy and he moved with infuriating slowness, but at last he broke free of the waves.

  Gasping, coughing, he got a choppy view of limpet-crusted boulders – and saw with enormous relief that the current had carried him close to the claw of rock which jutted from the cliffs. Desperately he struck out for it. Maybe he could reach it before the Hunter . . .

  Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Asrif had managed to get down off the cliffs, and was jumping up and down, shouting frantically. Then, to Torak’s horror, he saw Bale and Detlan setting out in their skinboats – setting out to rescue him. Didn’t they know that they were far more at risk than he? He at least had a chance of reaching the claw – but in their boats they would be utterly exposed to the wrath of the Hunter.

  ‘No!’ he yelled. ‘Get back! Get out of the water!’

  They couldn’t hear. Or did they think he was calling for help?

  Swimming as fast as he could, he yelled again. ‘Get out of the water! The Hunter’s coming! The Hunter’s coming!’

  This time Bale heard him – but instead of turning his skinboat about, he paddled faster towards Torak, shaking his head in puzzlement. And Torak saw with consternation that the Sea around him was treacherously calm, with not a black fin in sight. Bale didn’t understand the warning – because he couldn’t see the Hunter. He didn’t know it was coming.

  ‘Get back!’ yelled Torak again. ‘The Hunter is coming!’

  Now Bale understood – and plunged in his paddle and brought his skinboat about, shouting at Detlan to do the same. ‘Back! Back!’

  The waves threw Torak against the claw, and he grabbed seaweed and hauled himself out – just as a loud, throaty ‘kwoosh!’ erupted behind him, and a shower of spray shot high into the air.

  As he collapsed on the rocks he caught a fleeting glimpse of a great black back arching out of the water – then a towering, notched fin. He was so close that he saw the wave curling back from its edge; and as the huge blunt head powered past him, he met the dark, unknowable eye of the Hunter. Then it was gone, sweeping past him, making straight for the skinboats.

  They had heeded his warning too late. Bale was nearly at the rocks, where Asrif was reaching out to him and yelling encouragement – but Detlan was further behind, and Notched Fin was gaining on him.

  Torak scrambled to his feet and ran towards them, leaping over skinboats, slipping on seaweed. But the Hunter was many times faster than him, and he watched in horror as it closed in on Detlan – swerved, and slammed its enormous tail, catching the stern of the skinboat and sending it flying.

  Detlan landed with a scream on the rocks, then slid back into the water. Asrif and Bale ran to his aid as the black fin raced towards him – then, at the last moment, twisted round and disappeared beneath the waves.

  Asrif and Bale pulled Detlan’s limp body from the water and laid him on the rocks.

  Breathless and shaken, Torak scanned the Sea – but saw nothing. Only white foam rocking on the waves where the Hunter had been, moments before.

  Then, far in the distance, he saw a black fin heading out to Sea. Whatever – whoever – Notched Fin was seeking, it hadn’t found them here. Torak turned and ran towards the others.

  Asrif was on his knees, wrenching out the plug of a waterskin with his teeth. Bale was shaking the contents of a medicine pouch onto the rocks. Detlan lay with his eyes closed. His face was frighteningly pale, his lips blue with shock; but as Torak got nearer, he saw to his relief that the Seal boy was breathing.

  Bale shot Torak a glance. ‘You all right?’ he said.

  Torak nodded. Then to Asrif, ‘Do you still have the root?’

  Asrif touched his jerkin, but didn’t speak.

  Detlan’s skinboat was shattered, and so was his leg. Torak could see the white gleam of shinbone poking through bloody flesh.

  ‘Why me?’ gasped Detlan. ‘Why was it after me?’

  Bale put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I don’t think it was,’ he said. ‘If it had been, you’d be dead by now.’

  ‘The Cormorants were right about one thing, though,’ muttered Asrif, putting the waterskin to Detlan’s lips. ‘It’s after someone.’

  ‘But who?’ said Bale.

  Then he turned to Torak, and asked the question that Torak was already asking himself. ‘And how in the name of the Sea Mother did you know it was coming?’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Renn thought Torak looked pale as he knelt by the injured boy.

  Hiding among the boulders thirty paces away, she trilled her signal: the song of a redstart. She’d chosen a redstart because they are Forest birds, so he’d be sure to notice.

  He didn’t. That astonished her. For Torak not to notice something like that – he must be shaken indeed.

  It was a hot, sticky night, with the breathless feel that comes before a storm, and she’d been sweating by the time she’d found her way through the rowans and boulders at the foot of the cliffs. She’d arrived just after the Hunter had attacked.

  Neither Torak nor the Seal boys seemed to know why it had attacked; but she did. She could still smell the carrion stink, still hear Wolf’s famished champing. He’d been so intent on his food that when she’d left the beach, he’d hardly glanced up.

  As the sun sank lower and the blue midsummer glow descended, she waited among the boulders, desperate to tell Torak about the slaughtered Hunter – but almost as desperate not to be seen by the Seals.

  Then another Seal arrived in a skinboat: a man in a gutskin parka with a terribly burnt face, who took charge of everything. The short, slight Seal boy drew something from inside his jerkin, and the man put it carefully in a little pouch at his neck; Renn guessed it must be the selik root. Then, using pieces of the wrecked skinboat, the man splinted the wounded boy’s leg, while giving orders to the others.

  Renn was surprised at how Torak’s face lit up when the burnt man came; and she felt a small stab of jealousy when the man told him to fetch wood for a fire, and he instantly obeyed.

  ‘Is it all right if it’s from ordinary trees instead of driftwood?’ he asked, his voice carrying over the rocks.

  The burnt man nodded, and Torak started moving across the rocks.

  Renn forgot her jealousy. Maybe he’d heard her signal after all.

  She watched him stoop for a stick of driftwood, then wander down to the Sea; then turn and start towards the boulders.

  ‘Where are you?’ he said soft
ly.

  ‘The rowan trees,’ she whispered. ‘Up here – no, further along.’

  When he got within reach, she grabbed his jerkin and pulled him behind a spur which cut them off from the others. ‘At last!’ she breathed. ‘I’ve been waiting and waiting -’

  ‘Where’s Wolf?’ he said abruptly.

  ‘In the next bay, feeding. That’s what I -’

  ‘You’d better gather some wood too,’ he muttered, ‘I can’t go back empty-handed.’

  ‘What? Oh. Yes, of course.’ Close up, she saw that he was still pale, and not meeting her eyes. ‘Torak, are you all right?’

  He shook his head. ‘What about you?’

  She brushed that aside. ‘Listen. I know why the Hunter attacked.’ She told him about the murdered young one, and the tracks of the fair-haired skinboater. ‘No wonder it’s angry,’ she said. ‘That young one must have been its kin, and the skinboater trapped it and cut out its teeth, then left it to rot.’

  ‘But – why would anyone do that?’ said Torak.

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s got to be some kind of spell. Although who would dare do anything that evil. To break clan law – to kill a Hunter . . .’

  ‘Revenge,’ murmured Torak to himself. ‘Yes, that would be it.’ He sounded sad as well as angry.

  Renn was puzzled. ‘Who did?’

  His face contracted as if in pain. ‘When I was in the water. It was so . . . I don’t – I can’t -’

  ‘Torak, don’t you see what this means?’ she broke in. ‘The skinboater who did this – he was a Seal!’

  ‘What? What are you saying?’

  ‘Something is terribly, terribly wrong – and the Seals are part of it! Who knows, maybe they’re even causing the sickness! Maybe that’s why he needed the teeth!’

  Torak took a step back from her. In disbelief he shook his head.

  ‘Haven’t you ever wondered,’ she went on, ‘why none of them has fallen sick, and yet you’ve been on the island for days, and so has the tokoroth?’

  ‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ he whispered.

  ‘Then why did they send only boys to fetch the root? If they really thought they were threatened, why not send men?’

  ‘Because Asrif is the best at climbing, and -’

  ‘And you believe that?’

  Torak hesitated, then shook himself. ‘Ever since they knew about the sickness, the Seals have been trying to help.’

  ‘Torak -’

  He turned on her. ‘Tenris kept me off the Rock! Asrif defended me from the eagles! Detlan and Bale were coming to rescue me when the Hunter attacked! Bale lost his brother to the sickness three summers ago!’

  ‘Why are you so keen to defend them?’

  ‘Why are you so keen to condemn them?’

  ‘Because the skinboater had fair hair! Because his tracks show that he was the one who murdered the Hunter!’

  ‘But almost everyone in the Sea clans has fair hair! Besides, you said yourself that you heard his paddle click against his skinboat! If you knew anything about Seals, you’d know they never make any noise! The man you saw could have been anyone. A Cormorant, or one of your friends the Sea-eagles -’

  ‘But not one of your friends the Seals,’ Renn said bitterly.

  ‘They’re not my friends,’ he retorted. ‘They’re my kin.’

  She flinched.

  Stonily he took the firewood she’d gathered and added it to his own. ‘I’ve got to go back,’ he said without looking at her.

  Renn was horrified. ‘Haven’t you been listening?’

  ‘Renn, it’s nearly Midsummer. We’ve only got a day to reach the camp.’

  ‘By Sea? With a storm coming, and a vengeful Hunter -’

  ‘Tenris has a masking charm, and he says -’

  ‘And Tenris is never wrong.’

  Torak did not reply.

  ‘If I’m right about this,’ said Renn, ‘you’re going back into danger, and putting the clans at risk – because you won’t listen.’

  Torak turned on his heel and left.

  It was much later, and on the cliffs, the seabirds were agitated. Many were leaving their roosts to fly inland. There was a storm on its way.

  Torak had woken after a brief, unrefreshing sleep. Soon he would set off with Tenris and Bale. The plan was to leave Asrif and Detlan here, so that the three of them could return to camp at speed; with luck they would reach it before the bad weather hit, and in time for Midsummer night and the preparation of the cure.

  On the other side of the fire, Detlan slept deeply, thanks to Tenris’s sleeping-potion, Asrif and Bale through sheer exhaustion. Tenris sat by the fire, smoking his crab-claw pipe.

  Blearily, Torak rubbed his face. He was tired, but he knew he wouldn’t get any more sleep. The fight with Renn had left him churned up inside. They’d had quarrels before, but never one this bitter. He felt cut off from her – and not only because of what had been said between them, but because of what had happened in the water.

  He had been a seal. He had heard things, felt things that only a seal could. But he had also been Torak . . .

  Tenris tapped his pipe on a stone, making him jump.

  A corner of the Mage’s mouth lifted in a slight smile; Torak tried to smile back. Tenris had arrived without warning, saying simply that he’d ‘felt he was needed’. Torak hadn’t been able to say just how glad he was. Now he watched the Mage frown as he refilled his pipe, holding it in his twisted hand, while with his good one he tamped in another wad of aromatic leaves.

  ‘Bale told me what happened out there in the water,’ he said. Lighting the pipe with a glowing brand, he took a few puffs, narrowing his eyes against the smoke. ‘Why don’t you tell me the rest? How did you know the Hunter was coming?’

  Torak hesitated. ‘I can’t explain. I don’t understand it.’

  Tenris raised an eyebrow. ‘But you know more than you told Bale. Maybe I can help.’

  Torak put his chin on his knees and stared into the fiery valleys of the embers. ‘The seals,’ he murmured. ‘They feel it in their whiskers; the sounds coming through the water.’

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Tenris tense.

  ‘I was with the guardian,’ Torak went on. ‘She heard – no, she felt – the voice of the Hunter – from very far away.’ He swallowed. ‘That’s how I knew it was coming.’

  When Tenris still said nothing, Torak raised his head.

  The Seal Mage sat with his pipe forgotten in his hand. His face was open and aghast.

  ‘What does it mean?’ whispered Torak.

  The pipe slipped from the motionless fingers and rolled into the fire. Tenris made no move to retrieve it. Lurching to his feet, he staggered to the water’s edge, and stood with his back to Torak. He stayed there for a long time. When he returned to the fire, he looked older, but also strangely excited. ‘Tell me everything,’ he said.

  Torak took a deep breath – and did.

  It was a relief to tell someone. He hadn’t realised what a burden it had been, keeping it to himself. But the intensity in the Mage’s face was frightening.

  When he’d finished, there was silence between them.

  Tenris ran his good hand shakily over his beard. ‘Has this happened before?’

  ‘I – think so.’

  ‘You think so?’ Tenris spoke with unusual sharpness. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I – I fell in a seal net. There were some capelin . . . But only for a moment.’

  ‘For a moment? How long?’

  ‘A few heartbeats, I don’t know.’

  The grey eyes pierced his: as if trying to see into his souls.

  ‘What – what is it?’ faltered Torak. ‘What’s wrong with me?’

  Tenris did not reply at once. Then he said, ‘Nothing is – wrong with you.’ He glanced at the others to make sure they were still sleeping, then moved closer to Torak. ‘It is . . .’ he broke off, shaking his head.

  ‘It’s what? Tell me!’

&nb
sp; Tenris sighed. ‘Ah, how to explain?’ Picking up a stick, he probed the fire, sending sparks shooting skywards. ‘Everything in the world,’ he said at last, ‘has a spirit. Hunter, prey, river, tree. Not all of them can talk, but all can hear and think. You know this, of course.’

  Torak nodded, wondering what was coming next.

  ‘The three souls of every creature – the souls which make the spirit – these are rooted in the body.’ Again he probed the embers. ‘Maybe the name-soul might slip out from time to time, if you’re ill, or dreaming; but it rarely goes far, and it soon comes back.’ He cast aside the stick and put out his hands to the fire, as if to draw something out of the flames. ‘But once in every thousand winters, a creature is born who is – different.’

  Despite the heat, Torak began to feel cold.

  ‘This creature’s souls,’ Tenris went on, ‘can leave its body – leave it for much longer than any Mage ever achieves when he is curing the sick. This creature’s souls can travel further.’ He paused. ‘They can enter the bodies of others. And when that happens, this creature sees, and hears, and feels, just as the body into which it has strayed – and yet remains himself.’ His fists came to rest on his knees, and he turned and met Torak’s horrified gaze. ‘This creature,’ he whispered, ‘is a spirit walker.’

  Torak couldn’t breathe. ‘No,’ he said.

  The grey gaze never wavered.

  ‘No!’ said Torak. ‘It doesn’t make sense! If the souls leave, then the body is dead! I would have been dead, that’s what death is!’

  Tenris gave him a look full of pity and understanding. ‘But Torak. In spirit walking, not all the souls do leave the body. The Nanuak – the world-soul – always remains. It never leaves, not till the moment of death. It is only the name-soul and the clan-soul that walk.’

  Torak had begun to shake. He’d never even heard of spirit walking. He didn’t want to know anything about it.

  Tenris put his good hand on his shoulder and gave him a little shake. ‘You’re right to be frightened. Spirit walking is the deepest of mysteries. All we know about it has been passed down from Mage to Mage; garbled, half-understood.’ Again he paused, as if wondering how much more Torak could take. ‘What we do know is that even for the spirit walker, it is very hard, and very dangerous.’