Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

by Michelle Paver

  Saeunn nodded. ‘One mind, but which? For days I’ve fasted and read the bones. The Oak Mage and the Eagle Owl Mage feel far away. The one who haunts the Forest – who draws the outcast to her – is Seshru the Viper Mage.’

  Fin-Kedinn bowed his head.

  Renn dug her fingernails into her palms.

  Bale was puzzled. ‘But – she’s only one woman. How much harm can she do?’

  ‘More than you could possibly imagine,’ said Fin-Kedinn.

  Saeunn turned to Renn. ‘You were the last to have seen her. Tell him what she is.’

  Renn couldn’t speak. She was back in the forest of stone, in the flickering torchlight and the stink of slaughter, watching the snake-haired mask of the Viper Mage whirling, hissing as she sought the Otherworld with dead gutskin eyes . . .

  ‘Renn,’ Fin-Kedinn said softly.

  She drew a breath. ‘She – she does everything sideways, like a snake. She lies all the time. She makes you see things that aren’t there. She makes you do things.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Bale. ‘I spoke to some Vipers at the clan meet, and they told me they’ve never had a Mage who turned Soul-Eater. So how can this Seshru be – ’

  ‘Like a snake,’ said Fin-Kedinn, ‘she sheds one self and becomes another.’

  Bale was aghast. ‘She changed her name? But no-one would do that, it’s a kind of death!’

  ‘That’s what it means to be a Soul-Eater,’ said Renn. ‘You sacrifice all that you were. You live only for power.’

  Bale stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.

  Fin-Kedinn picked up the bones and poured them slowly from palm to palm. ‘So now we know. Torak is soul-sick – and at the mercy of the Viper Mage.’

  ‘The Viper Mage has no mercy,’ said Saeunn.

  Next morning, Renn woke early, and went to see Fin-Kedinn.

  She found him fishing for pike in the shallows where a brook flowed into the Axehandle. When he saw her, he drew in his line. The hook was empty.

  ‘What is it, Renn?’ His face was grave. He had guessed why she’d come.

  ‘I don’t want to lie to you,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to sneak away. But I have to try to find – ’

  ‘No, don’t say it,’ he warned. ‘Don’t tell me anything you couldn’t tell the Leader of any other clan.’

  She bit her lip. ‘He’s out there. Alone. Soul-sick.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Then why don’t you come with me?’

  ‘I can’t be seen to break clan law.’ He met her eyes. ‘You of all people mustn’t do this. What if he’s already in her power? A spirit walker in the hands of a Soul-Eater. I can’t think of anything more dangerous.’

  ‘He’s my friend. I’ve got to try. You understand, don’t you?’

  Fin-Kedinn did not reply.

  ‘Fin-Kedinn? You do understand?’

  Suddenly he looked tired. ‘You’re no longer a child, Renn. You’re old enough to make your own choices.’

  No I’m not! she wanted to say. I need you to help me! Tell me what to do!

  That night, Renn sat by a smoky little fire on the banks of the Axehandle, feeling lonely and scared.

  Breaking clan law had been even worse than she’d feared. By doing so, she’d cut herself off from her clan and from Fin-Kedinn.

  Huddling closer to the flames, she blew on her grouse-bone whistle, but got no answer. Torak and Wolf were far away.

  She could feel her power churning inside her; the secrets rising to the surface, like splinters working their way through her flesh. She didn’t want to do Magecraft, she hated it, but she had a feeling that to help Torak, she might be forced to try. Because Seshru was out here somewhere.

  Hatred flared in her heart, and she perceived the Soul-Eater’s plan so clearly that it could have been her own. Seshru was hunting Torak in the same way that her clan-creature hunted its quarry. The viper sinks its poisoned fangs into its prey, then follows it through the Forest as it wanders, slowly weakening. The viper is patient. It waits till the prey falls. Only then does it feed.

  Renn was woken by the sizzle of water on fire.

  Bale stood over her, his dripping skinboat balanced on his shoulder.

  She sat up, annoyed that he’d caught her dozing. ‘I thought you went back to your island,’ she said crossly.

  He ignored that. ‘I was wrong and you were right. Torak is soul-sick. But it’s worse than we thought.’

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘Aki was barely alive,’ said Bale. ‘Somehow he’d crawled out of the water and collapsed in a thicket. The Wolf Clan found him a couple of days later.’

  ‘A couple of days?’ said Renn. ‘He’s been missing nearly a moon.’

  ‘No. The Boar Clan just didn’t bother to send us word.’

  ‘Typical,’ she said in disgust. ‘But what were the Wolf Clan doing so far east?’

  Bale looked grim. ‘Tracking Torak. To “wipe out the dishonour once and for all”.’

  Renn shook her head. ‘Did they say where his trail led?’

  ‘East. They lost him in the reed-beds on Lake Axehead.’

  She went cold. ‘Lake Axehead? Why?’

  Bale brushed that aside. ‘Don’t you see what this means? Torak left Aki to die!’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t know Aki was there.’

  ‘Oh, he knew. Aki says he saw Torak looking down at him from the ridge. Then he turned and walked away.’ He rubbed his face. ‘I know Aki was hunting him, but to leave him to die . . . That’s not Torak!’

  Renn stared at the fire. Bale was right. But why Lake Axehead? There was a pattern to this, but she couldn’t fathom it. She only knew that of all places, the Lake was the one she was least eager to see. Her father had died on the ice river at its eastern edge. She’d promised herself she would never go back.

  Bale set down his skinboat and pulled off his gutskin parka. ‘You’re trying to find him too, aren’t you?’

  She didn’t reply.

  ‘Why now, when you weren’t before?’

  ‘I was.’ She told him about her searches in the Forest.

  ‘Me too,’ he said, surprising her.

  ‘You? I thought you were hunting with the Sea-eagles.’ He was affronted. ‘With Torak an outcast?’

  She thought for a moment. Then she said, ‘You do know that we’re breaking clan law? If you tell anyone . . . ’

  ‘Of course I know! But that goes for you too.’

  Warily they studied each other. Then Bale said, ‘I caught a fish. Can I cook it on your fire?’

  Renn shrugged.

  It was an impressively large bream, and Bale offered her a piece which she refused, then changed her mind when she smelt it cooking. In return she gave him some dried deer meat, and showed him how to spread it with juniper-berry and marrowfat paste.

  While they ate, they talked guardedly. Bale told her how he’d prepared his skinboat for its freshwater “ordeal” by coating it with seal blubber and burnt seaweed, and Renn showed him the seal-hide bow case she’d been given in the Far North. But she didn’t mention what she’d guessed of Seshru’s plans. Bale was Torak’s kin, but she didn’t know him very well, and if it came to a battle of wills between her and the Viper Mage, he would get in the way.

  On the other hand, he was strong, and he had a skinboat.

  She was pondering this when Bale rose to his feet, picked up his pack, and hoisted his boat on his shoulder.

  She asked him where he was going.

  ‘Lake Axehead. You go back to your clan. I’ll find Torak.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well you’re not coming in my skinboat.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to,’ she lied.

  ‘And if you went overland, you’d never keep up.’ Seeing her expression, he sighed. ‘Where I come from, women stay on land. The men do the hunting and the fighting.’

  Renn snorted. ‘Not in the Forest.’

  ‘Maybe. But I’m Seal Clan and that’s my way. Go ba
ck to camp, Renn. You’re not coming with me.’

  In disbelief she watched him make for the shallows. ‘Even if you do reach the Lake,’ she called after him, ‘what are you going to do? You don’t know anything about it, or the Otters!’

  ‘I’ll take my chances,’ he replied.

  ‘Fine! But I’ll tell you this. You’re not going to beat the Soul-Eaters by being good with a paddle!’

  ‘We’ll see about that!’

  ‘We shall indeed,’ snarled Renn as she battled through the brambles.

  There was no trail along this part of the Axehandle – at least, not that she could find – and she was hot, scratched and furious. It didn’t help that she kept picturing Bale speeding serenely upriver.

  Above the rapids she rested, then struggled through a stand of soggy alders. The river here formed pools where many clans came to fish. Renn noticed that someone had set lines and fish traps in several of the pools. She was wondering who it was when she caught a flash of fair hair by the water’s edge.

  Bale hadn’t seen her. He was kneeling by his overturned skinboat, patching a small tear in its hull.

  ‘Having problems?’ she called.

  ‘Snagged on a fish trap,’ he said without looking round.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Renn unfeelingly.

  ‘It’s not right!’ he burst out. ‘Leaving them there for anyone to run into! They should’ve put some kind of marker!’

  ‘They did. Those strips of willow bark tied to the branches? That’s what Forest people leave as a warning when they’re fishing.’

  Bale set his jaw.

  ‘Well, good luck,’ said Renn with a cheery smile. ‘Hope it doesn’t slow you down too much!’

  Bale threw her a thunderous look.

  She was still grinning as she left the pools.

  Her grin didn’t last. Across the river, she saw the mouth of the gully where she and Torak had first encountered the Walker, the autumn before last. Wolf had been a cub. When his pads got sore, Torak had carried him in his arms.

  A fierce longing for them swept over her.

  The pines gave way to towering oaks, and the Forest turned watchful. Renn wished Bale would sweep by in his skinboat. Surely it couldn’t have taken this long to sew on a patch?

  A little further on, two red deer fawns peeped from the bracken, then wobbled towards her on tiny hooves. They were almost within reach before they took fright and fled.

  Renn put her hand to her raven feathers. When a creature goes out of its way to attract your attention, it’s often a sign. What did this mean?

  It was late afternoon when she climbed the ridge the clans call the Hogback, and stood gazing over the Lake.

  The low sun turned the water a dazzling gold. She saw islands scattered across it, fragile as leaves, and below her, the great reed-bed which guarded the western shore. Far to the south, she made out the black dots of the Otter camp, and to the east, the cruel white slash of the ice river.

  She’d been eight summers old when she last stood here: bewildered, unable to understand why her Fa was never coming back. The Otters had found his body, and Fin-Kedinn and Saeunn had gone to rescue his scattered souls. Fin-Kedinn had insisted that Renn should come too. They’d stood on the Hogback, staring at this vast inland Sea.

  ‘Why did he go all that way?’ Renn asks her uncle. ‘There isn’t any prey on the ice river.’

  ‘He wasn’t hunting prey,’ murmurs Fin-Kedinn.

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘I’ll tell you when you’re older.’ He takes her hand in his warm, strong grip, and she clings on fiercely.

  Now she was back on the Hogback; but there was no Fin-Kedinn to cling to.

  By the time she had made her way down the ridge, she’d begun to see the hopelessness of her task. She had no idea where Torak had gone, and there was no-one to ask. No trail led along the shore – the Otters didn’t need one, they always travelled by water – and even if she reached their camp on foot, what then?

  She’d started picking her way south when she heard a stirring in the reeds.

  ‘Bale?’ she said uncertainly.

  No answer. Only the creak and crunch of reeds, as if something were pushing its way towards her.

  She stumbled backwards over the tussocky ground. ‘Bale!’ she whispered. ‘If that’s you, come out now, it isn’t funny!’

  The wind veered round, engulfing her in a stink that made her gag.

  The reeds trembled – parted – and a boat slid towards her. From it stared a green man made of mouldy reeds.

  Renn sprang back – and collided with something solid.

  ‘What is that?’ said Bale, behind her.

  ‘What was that?’ he said again, when they’d retreated a safe distance to a bay at the southern edge of the reeds.

  ‘I think the Otters made it,’ said Renn, ‘to honour the Lake. They put food in it and leave it to go where it will. It’s sacred. We shouldn’t even have seen it.’

  Bale bit his lip. ‘I’m glad I found you. This place. I don’t know its ways.’

  Renn shrugged. ‘Well, I need a boat, so I’m glad you found me, too.’ That didn’t sound as friendly as she’d intended, so she went on quickly, ‘Before we do anything, we must honour the Lake. The Otters ask its permission for everything.’

  Bale nodded. ‘What do we do?’

  Feeling a bit self-conscious, Renn left an offering of salmon cakes near the reeds. Then she made a paste of earthblood and Lake water and daubed a little on her forehead and her bow, asking the Lake to let them go in peace. Bale let her daub some on his forehead, and – after some persuasion – on his skinboat. After that they had a meal of dried deer meat, and he made a fish trap out of willow withes, and set it in the water.

  The sun sank lower and the wind dropped. The Lake turned as smooth as polished basalt.

  ‘The Viper Mage,’ Bale said quietly. ‘She’s after Torak because he’s a spirit walker. Isn’t she?’

  ‘ – Yes,’ said Renn. She wished he hadn’t mentioned Seshru.

  ‘And she’s after the fire-opal, too.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said again. Lowering her voice, she added, ‘It’s the last piece left. One piece was lost in the black ice with the Bat Mage. One when the Seal Mage was taken by the Sea.’

  ‘The Seal Mage?’ Bale was startled. ‘He had a piece of the fire-opal?’

  ‘How else could he have made the tokoroths?’

  He frowned. Renn guessed that he was remembering the bad times on his island, when the Seal Mage had created the sickness. Bale’s little brother had been one of its victims.

  A lonely, wavering cry echoed over the Lake.

  Bale sprang to his feet. ‘What was that?’

  ‘A diverbird,’ said Renn. ‘They’re the best swimmers in the Lake. The Otters make offerings to them, too.’ She paused. ‘Fin-Kedinn says the Otters are like their clan-creature. Always leaving little piles of half-chewed fish at the water’s edge.’

  Somewhere a trout leapt, and they jumped.

  Bale shook himself, and went off to check his fish trap.

  Renn stayed, brooding, on the shore.

  ‘Renn,’ called Bale in an altered voice.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’d better come and see.’

  EIGHTEEN

  The big bream wriggled and gasped in the trap. It was a fine catch – except that it had two heads. Mouthless, misshapen, the second bulged like a canker, fighting its twin with horrible vigour.

  ‘What did this?’ said Bale with a grimace.

  ‘Kill it,’ said Renn.

  ‘No!’ ordered a voice behind them. ‘Throw it back. Don’t touch!’

  They turned to face a cluster of sharp green faces and sharper spears.

  Bale moved in front of Renn, but she stepped aside. With her fists on her heart, she addressed the woman who – to judge from her armlet of otter fur – was the Leader.

  ‘I’m Raven Clan,’ she said, ‘my friend is Seal. We mean no harm.�
��

  ‘No talk!’ admonished the woman. Then to the others, ‘Return that accursed thing to the Lake. We’re taking the strangers to camp.’

  ‘But Ananda, why?’ protested a man. ‘At a time like this – ’

  ‘At a time like this, Yolun,’ cut in the Leader, ‘we can’t let them go free, they’d only make it worse.’

  The man called Yolun lapsed into tight-lipped silence, while two others broke up the trap and set the monster free.

  After that, things happened fast. Renn and Bale were seized and bundled into a reed boat with Yolun and another man. When they tried to resist, knives were pressed against their spines. They could only watch as their gear was tossed in the skinboat, which was lashed to the stern of another craft and towed.

  They headed south. Beside her, Renn felt Bale shaking with rage. She threw him an urgent glance and shook her head. Fighting was useless. The Otters bristled with greenstone spears and arrows tipped with the beaks of diverbirds. Trying to escape would be futile. The only reason they hadn’t been tied up was because there was no need.

  Renn studied Yolun as he sat hunched in the prow, stabbing the water with his paddle. His fish-skin jerkin was fringed at neck and hem, evoking the reeds. His eyes were outlined with earthblood to imitate the red glare of the diverbird. He kept glancing resentfully over his shoulder; but beneath his hostility, Renn sensed something else.

  Bale bent and whispered in her ear. ‘Their craft are heavy and slow. If we could reach my skinboat, we could outrun them.’

  ‘And go where?’ she whispered back. ‘They know the Lake, we don’t. Besides, I don’t think they’re angry so much as frightened.’

  ‘That makes them even more dangerous.’

  He was right.

  The reed craft might not have the speed of a skinboat, but the Otters made steady progress, weaving unnerringly between the islands which dotted the Lake. As the light summer night wore on, their camp rose into view.

  Like Bale, Renn was seeing it for the first time. Like him, she gasped.