Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

by Michelle Paver

  He stumbled on, with Wolf padding after him.

  They hadn’t gone far when the walkway forked. Both ways were marked by a post. The left-hand post had been beheaded; the right-hand one bore a green clay head, but the eyes had been plucked out, leaving blind hollows. Tied around the brow was a viper’s shed skin. Skewered to it by a bone needle was a tiny, shrivelled heart.

  Seshru the Viper Mage.

  Torak wiped icy sweat from his face.

  Behind him he caught a flash of movement vanishing into the reeds. There, among the leaves. White eyes.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he said.

  The eyes blinked – then reappeared on the other side of the walkway: blue-white, flickering like flame.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Torak whispered.

  Eyes glowed all around him. The humming rose to an ear-splitting whine.

  Whimpering, Torak ran for the nearest walkway, the one with the viper skin. The log shuddered – tipped – and threw him off. The murky waters of the Lake closed over his head.

  Down he went, groping for reeds, walkway, anything. Couldn’t find it, couldn’t tell up from down.

  A splash and a flurry of bubbles as Wolf leapt in after him. Desperately Torak swam for the flailing paws – but Wolf had disappeared.

  Wolf! he screamed in his mind. But his pack-brother was gone.

  Frantically, he swam through a slippery mass of reeds.

  Suddenly there were no more reeds and the water was freezing and he was swimming over bottomless dark.

  FIFTEEN

  Torak was woken by something slithering over his face.

  With a shudder he started up – and glimpsed a scaly tail vanishing into the undergrowth.

  He was lying on a pile of rotting pine-needles at the edge of a silent forest. Below him, a beach of charcoal-coloured pebbles sloped down to the flinty waters of the Lake.

  How had he got here? He couldn’t remember.

  The east wind whistled over the stones, making him shiver. His clothes felt gritty and damp, and there was a humming in his ears. He was hungry and he missed Wolf, but he didn’t dare howl. He wasn’t even sure if he could.

  The mist had cleared, but an ashen haze robbed the sun of warmth. At the south end of the beach, the reeds stood sentinel. Below him the Lake stretched to the edge of sight, opaque and forbidding.

  He got to his feet. The pine-needles were strewn along the shore in broad swathes, as if washed up by a great flood. And the trees, he noticed uneasily, leaned back from the Lake.

  He ran into the Forest.

  There was no birdsong, and the trees watched him sullenly. He found a stream of muddy water and drank; spotted a few shrivelled lingonberries left over from last autumn, and gobbled them up. In the mud he saw tracks: webbed, with a tail drag. He scowled. He knew this creature, but he couldn’t bring it to mind. That frightened him. Once, he had known every sign of every creature in the Forest.

  He wondered how he was going to survive. He had no sleeping-sack, no bow, no arrows, no food. Only an axe, a knife, a half-empty medicine horn and a pouch of sodden tinder. And he’d forgotten how to hunt.

  The ground climbed, and he reached a small, windy lake where the sun stabbed his eyes and the clamour of frogs hurt his head. He stumbled back into the trees, but they tripped him and scratched his face. Even the Forest had turned against him.

  The trees ended. He was back at the reed-bed. He staggered north along the edge of the Forest, till he came to a place where the reeds narrowed to a stretch an arrowshot across.

  Beyond them rose a granite rockface. It looked strangely enticing. Rowans and juniper clung to cracks, while ferns and orchids trembled in the spray from a waterfall. Above it swallows swooped and ravens wheeled, and on either side, Torak saw carvings of fish, elk, people: hammer-etched into the rock and painted green. He guessed that the water flowed from the Otters’ healing spring. If only he could reach it.

  The reeds rattled, warning him back.

  The sun began to sink, the trail veered south, and he found himself by the Lake, wading through pine-needles on a charcoal-coloured beach.

  He halted. He recognized this beach. He was back where he’d started.

  A horrible thought occurred to him.

  To test it, he headed back into the Forest and retraced his steps till he reached the reed-bed – except this time he turned south instead of north. Dusk was coming on when he finally stumbled onto the beach. Same beach. Same tracks. His own.

  An island. The Lake had spewed him onto an island, where even the Otters feared to come. He was trapped: his escape cut off by the Lake to the east, the reeds to the west.

  The wind stirred the trees. He stared at them. What were their names? ‘Pine,’ he said haltingly. ‘Birch. Juniper?’

  Listen to what the Forest is telling you, Fa used to say. But the Forest no longer spoke to him.

  Gathering sticks and tinder, he blundered onto the beach and laid them in the lee of a boulder, so the Otters wouldn’t see. At first his strike-fire refused to make sparks, but at last he managed it. Muttering, he hunched over the fire.

  On the Lake, a lonely cry echoed. The red-eyed bird that had betrayed him in the reeds.

  More voices joined in. Not birds. Wolves.

  Leaping to his feet, Torak drew his knife. He’d always loved wolf song. But it struck terror in him now.

  Another wolf called to the pack. Torak knew that howl. It was Wolf, his Wolf – and yet he couldn’t make out what Wolf was saying. The familiar voice had become as incomprehensible as the yowl of a lynx.

  ‘Wolf!’ cried Torak. ‘Come back!’

  But Wolf didn’t come.

  Wolf had forsaken him.

  Torak’s fists clenched at his sides. So be it.

  Wolf raced through the Forest. Where was Tall Tailless?

  One moment they’d been together, fighting the Big Wet, and then he was gone! Wolf had tried to howl, but the Wet had come roaring into his gullet and he’d panicked. He’d forgotten Tall Tailless, forgotten everything except lashing out with his paws – until at last he’d struck land.

  Now he ran this way and that, snuffing for scents. He smelt bracken and beaver, otter and lingonberry; he heard the taillesses on their floating reeds, and the Hidden Ones slithering in and out of the Wet. Worry gnawed him. Maybe Tall Tailless had become Not-Breath.

  A cry rang through the trees: a desperate tailless yowl. Wolf halted, swivelling his ears, lifting his muzzle. He caught the scent. Tall Tailless!

  Wolf flew along the scent trail. He wove between trees, leapt over bracken – and there at last was his pack-brother, crouching behind a boulder at the edge of the Big Wet, by a small Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot.

  Wolf burst from the trees, and Tall Tailless turned and stared.

  Wolf loped over the black stones and threw himself at his pack-brother, pawing his chest and snuffle-licking his muzzle.

  Tall Tailless pushed him away. Then he waved his great claw at Wolf.

  Wolf jumped back.

  Again Tall Tailless lashed out, yowling in tailless talk.

  Wolf heard the terror in his yowl, he saw it in the beautiful silver eyes. How could this be? Tall Tailless couldn’t be scared of him?

  Bewildered, Wolf sat down. He felt a whine beginning in his chest.

  Suddenly, Tall Tailless grabbed a limb of the Bright Beast and lunged at Wolf – lunged at him with the Bright Beast! Wolf leapt sideways, but the Bright Beast bit him on the muzzle and he yelped.

  Tall Tailless bared his teeth in a snarl and attacked again. Wolf couldn’t understand the yowls, but he knew what they meant. Go away! You’re no longer my pack-brother! Go away!

  Wild with pain and terror, Wolf fled.

  After Wolf had gone, Torak stayed shivering on the beach.

  He was exhausted but he didn’t dare sleep. If he slept, they would come for him. The wolves. The Otter Clan. The Hidden People. The Soul-Eaters. All, all were against him.

  Clutching axe and
knife, he rocked back and forth, staring at the flames. He was hungry. He ought to set snares and fishing lines, but he couldn’t remember how.

  He began to nod.

  Red eyes came at him. He woke with a cry. The eyes were real. Not red, but yellow. Wolf eyes.

  Seizing a burning branch, he lashed out, etching the shadows with a glittering trail of sparks.

  The wolves drew back. Their eyes were blank and terrible. They made no sound.

  Wolf was among them. Wolf who had been his pack-brother, but had forsaken him.

  With head lowered and tail lashing, Wolf moved menacingly forwards.

  Torak’s heart twisted. Wolf had come to taunt him. See, I have a new pack! I don’t need you!

  ‘Get away from me,’ whispered Torak.

  Wolf’s ears twitched. His tail went still.

  ‘Get back!’ snarled Torak. He swung the branch at Wolf, who leapt out of the way.

  The wolves watched in unblinking silence. Then, one by one, they trotted into the Forest.

  Wolf was the last to go. For a moment he glanced back at Torak. Then he too vanished like mist.

  It was very quiet after he’d gone.

  A large black bird flew overhead with a scornful cark! Torak tried to remember its name. Raven. Raven Clan . . . Renn. She’d been his friend. Hadn’t she? He couldn’t remember her face.

  He touched the oozing wound on his breastbone. There had been something he had to do . . .

  The Soul-Eaters. He’d been going to prove that he wasn’t one of them. Make the clans take him back.

  It all seemed very long ago.

  The sun dipped below the trees, and shadows crept down the beach as he sat by the dying fire. The buzzing in his head got worse. He sensed the Hidden People all around: watching, waiting. Feverishly, he fed the fire.

  The faint moon rose in the blue sky, and it occurred to him that tonight was Midsummer Night. His birthnight.

  ‘Fourteen,’ he muttered. His voice sound harsh and unfamiliar. ‘You’re fourteen summers old. Happy birthnight, Torak.’

  He started to laugh.

  Once he’d started, he couldn’t stop.

  SIXTEEN

  Fin-Kedinn plunged the spear into the fire, and a blizzard of sparks engulfed the antlers mounted on its head.

  The Ravens gave a joyful shout and the proud, happy trees rustled approval. It was Midsummer night, the night when the clans honoured the Forest by walking sunwise round the fire, garlanding the trees with necklaces of bone and berries.

  All except Renn.

  To have taken part would have felt as if she were betraying Torak. Tonight was his birthnight. How could she sit here enjoying salmon-liver stew and flame-blackened boar?

  It was nearly a moon since the clan meet; nearly two since he’d been cast out. She missed him all the time. The misery was always with her, like a stone in her chest.

  ‘What if something happens to him?’ she’d said to Fin-Kedinn that morning. ‘If he fell and broke his leg and couldn’t hunt.’

  ‘He’s tough,’ her uncle had said. ‘He’s survived on his own before, he can do it again.’

  ‘For how long?’

  To that, Fin-Kedinn had no answer.

  Since the clan meet, the Ravens had moved east up the Axehandle, and whenever she could, Renn had secretly combed the Forest for any trace of Torak. In vain. Sometimes she woke in the night and thought, what if he never comes back?

  She had no idea whether he’d done the rite, but she sensed that something was terribly wrong. The signs were bad. If only she knew what they meant.

  She fingered the scar where the elk’s antler had gashed her forearm. The wound had healed, but the memory was still raw. If that hunting party hadn’t heard her cries . . .

  Then, shortly after the clan meet, Aki had gone missing. His friends had found nothing but the remains of his boat. Renn had a dreadful feeling that Torak had been involved.

  And nobody seemed to care. Everyone seemed to be pretending he didn’t exist.

  On the other side of the fire, Bale was twisting bramble twine for more garlands. He’d tied back his hair with a strip of seal hide, and he looked very handsome. Renn resented him. He’d stayed with the Ravens when the rest of his clan had returned to the islands, but instead of trying to find Torak, he’d gone hunting on the coast in his precious skinboat. She was disappointed. She’d expected more of him.

  ‘May the World Spirit walk beneath your boughs,’ Fin-Kedinn told the Forest. ‘May you grow strong, and seed many saplings!’

  Suddenly, Renn couldn’t bear it. Leaping to her feet, she ran from the camp.

  The Raven Mage squatted on the riverbank like a toad. She’d left the celebrations to cast the bones. Now she regarded Renn without emotion. ‘So. You seek my help at last.’

  ‘No,’ said Renn. ‘I’ve never wanted your help.’

  ‘You seek it all the same.’

  Renn set her teeth. Throwing herself down in the bracken, she shredded a burdock leaf. ‘I’ve been seeing signs. I don’t know what they mean. Teach me how to read them.’

  ‘No,’ said Saeunn. ‘You’re not ready.’

  Renn stared at her. ‘You’re the one who’s always forcing me to learn Magecraft!’

  ‘If you tried to read the signs now, you could do great harm.’

  ‘Why,’ said Renn.

  With her staff, the Raven Mage drew a circle in the mud, and placed within it three dull white pebbles. ‘Your talent lies in linking signs to make a pattern. Until now, your dreams have done this for you. To do it at will, in your waking life, you would have to open your mind completely.’

  Renn raised her chin. ‘I could do that.’

  ‘Fool of a girl!’ Saeunn struck the earth with her staff. ‘Have you learned nothing? Your first moon bleed has brought a fearsome increase in your power – but it is raw, untried! To open your mind now could be fatal – to you and to others!’

  For a moment they glared at each other, the crone and the girl, linked only by the unforgiving bond of Magecraft.

  Renn was the first to look away. ‘Why didn’t you tell him he was clanless?’

  ‘The time wasn’t right.’

  ‘How could you keep that from him?’

  ‘You’ve kept things from him too.’

  Renn flinched.

  ‘He has a destiny,’ declared the Raven Mage. ‘This is part of it. So is being cast out.’

  Renn was about to ask more when Bale came into view on the path. She told him to go away. He ignored her.

  ‘If this is about Torak,’ he said to Saeunn, ‘I’ve a right to hear. I’m his kin.’

  ‘Then why don’t you act like it,’ said Renn, ‘and try to help him?’

  ‘Why don’t you?’ he shot back.

  ‘No-one may help the outcast,’ Saeunn reminded them.

  ‘And squabbling won’t help anyone,’ said Fin-Kedinn, appearing behind Bale.

  Saeunn indicated Renn. ‘She says she sees signs.’

  Renn bridled. She wasn’t ready to speak of this to Fin-Kedinn, let alone Bale.

  ‘What signs?’ said Fin-Kedinn, sitting on the bank and motioning Bale to do the same.

  Renn picked at a hole in the knee of her legging. ‘He took your axe. He went into my medicine pouch and took a pebble he’d left me last summer. He spirit walked in the elk and he – he attacked me.’

  ‘I’ll never believe that was Torak,’ said Bale.

  ‘Well I’m not making it up!’ snapped Renn.

  ‘The pebble,’ Saeunn cut in. ‘Why wasn’t I told?’

  ‘Why should I tell you?’ muttered Renn.

  ‘Tell me now,’ said the Raven Mage.

  Renn swallowed. ‘He’d put his mark on it. In alder juice.’

  ‘His mark?’ said Saeunn. ‘His clan-tattoo?’

  ‘Right down to the scar on his cheek.’

  ‘Ah,’ breathed the Raven Mage.

  Renn felt a prickle of unease. ‘I – I kept it safe. But a
t the clan meet, he took it.’ And I know why, she thought miserably. He took it to tell me that he isn’t coming back.

  ‘Ah.’ Saeunn picked up one of the white stones and turned it in her fingers. ‘Now it becomes clear.’

  ‘What does?’ said Renn.

  The Raven Mage leaned close, and Renn saw the threads of spittle webbing her toothless gums. ‘The outcast,’ said the Raven Mage, ‘has fallen prey to the soul-sickness. ’

  For a moment there was silence. Then both Renn and Bale spoke at once.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Bale.

  ‘Is it because of the Soul-Eater tattoo?’ said Renn. ‘Did he try to cut it out and it didn’t work and it made him sick?’

  ‘Tattoos?’ Saeunn spat. ‘No! Even without tattoos, souls get sick, as well as bodies! They fall prey to demons. Spells.’

  From her medicine pouch she shook three small, mottled bones and set them on the black earth. She touched the first with her knotted forefinger. ‘If your name-soul falls sick, you forget who you are. You become like a ghost.’ She touched the second. ‘If the canker attacks your clan-soul, you lose your sense of good and evil. You become as a demon.’ Her horny talon moved to the last bone. ‘If your world-soul becomes palsied, you lose your link with other living things – hunter, prey, Forest. You become as a Lost One.’ Tilting her palm, she dropped the stone, and it struck the world-soul bone, which jumped as if it were alive. ‘If his name-pebble fell into the wrong hands . . . ’

  Renn shut her eyes.

  Bale said, ‘I don’t believe this. Torak isn’t sick, he’s furious. I would be too, if I’d been cast out for something that wasn’t my fault.’

  Saeunn bristled like an angry raven, but Fin-Kedinn said, ‘I think Saeunn’s right, Torak is soul-sick. But who did this to him? Which of the three?’

  ‘You mean the Soul-Eaters,’ said Renn.

  ‘Three survived the battle on the ice,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘Thiazzi. Eostra. Seshru. At the clan meet I spoke to people from all over the Forest and beyond, seeking clues as to where they might have gone. No-one’s seen any trace of them.’ He paused. ‘And yet it seems to me that the manner in which Torak’s tattoo was revealed, and his spirit walking in the elk – these bear the print of a single mind, working alone.’