Trickster's Girl (The Raven Duet)

by Hilari Bell

  She'd gone only a few miles when a huge black bird swooped across the road in front of her.

  Kelsa turned off at the next side road, and kept going till a low hill concealed her from the highway's teeming traffic.

  There were no trees nearby.

  Raven flapped down and perched on the bike's handlebars. His beady black gaze was too intelligent for a bird. He was almost two feet long from tail tip to beak, and his talons looked sharp and formidable.

  "This is too weird," Kelsa told him.

  He let out a squawk, which could have meant anything, and hopped down to the ground.

  Kelsa unpacked his clothes, peeking surreptitiously as the black form began to grow in ungainly bulges and spurts. The feathers flattened, melting into oily-looking skin that slowly faded from black to warm tan. The strong beak receded into a lipless gaping mouth before the lips ballooned and a human nose sprouted above them.

  By the time the transformation was complete goose flesh had broken out all over Kelsa's body. "I've got to stop watching that. Doesn't it hurt?"

  "Not much. It's not pleasant though, and it takes a lot of energy." He picked up his clothing and began to put it on.

  Distracted from trying not to notice his body, Kelsa saw that the golden skin was paler than usual, and there was a hint of strain around his eyes.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I'll try to avoid making you do that in the future. But unless you can get a PID, which you can't—"

  "Don't worry about it." The charming smile flashed. "You do your part. I'll take care of everything else."

  "Sure you will. How does this magic of yours work, anyway?"

  "It's different from yours," Raven told her. "Do you have anything to eat in that pack?"

  "I don't have any magic at all. Different how?"

  "I'm not sure I could explain it," Raven said. "It's like ... like a cat trying to tell you how to purr. You don't have the ability to do it, so—"

  "That doesn't mean I couldn't understand what it ... Wait a minute. Have you been a cat?"

  "I can be," he said. "But one thing I can tell you about magic is that it uses energy. So I really hope you packed something to eat, because I'm starving!"

  ***

  They ate breakfast there, breaking into Kelsa's packed supply of apples, crackers, and peanut butter, then returned to the main road. They reached Pocatello too early for lunch, but stopped and ate anyway, and on Raven's advice picked up some sandwiches and energy bars for dinner.

  Kelsa saw his point when they turned off the highway onto the state road. She'd been on many roads like it, and food and charge ports were few and far between.

  "This used to be near the Shoshone-Bannock Reservation, didn't it?" Raven half shouted over the wind of their passage.

  Since there wasn't anyone behind her, Kelsa slowed the bike to answer him. "I don't know. The reservations were disbanded about twenty years ago."

  "They were?"

  He sounded startled. It had probably been a big deal, back when he was learning words like tarnation.

  "The government said it was time for Native Americans to become first-class citizens," she told him. "The Native Americans called it the final land grab, and are still furious about it, even though the government did pay them for the land. My father said it was because the casinos were making so much money, the government wanted to tax them."

  Raven asked no more questions, so after a moment she kicked the bike back up to speed.

  Away from the bustle of the highway, the silence of the empty places began to seep into her soul, soothing the raw anguish that had been with her, she realized, ever since the doctor had pronounced her father's illness incurable. It wrapped her in a fragile bubble of peace that wasn't disturbed even when the huge motor homes lurched past, though the wash from their jets made the bike swerve, and Raven's arms tightened around her waist.

  They were nearing the monument, the long dark snakes of lava ridges disrupting the flatness of the plains, when an old-fashioned painted sign with a boxy building a few blocks behind it caught her attention.

  "ERB-1?" Kelsa let the bike slow to a crawl so she wouldn't whisk past the sign before she could read the smaller print. "What's ERB ... Oh."

  ERB-1 had been the first nuclear power plant built in North America. The arms around her waist fell away, but Kelsa could feel the angry stiffness in Raven's body.

  "You people really are lousy stewards." His voice was calm and very cold. "Only a handful of miles from a major nexus too."

  "They're all shut down now," Kelsa said defensively. "Even in Europe, finally."

  It was a hard thing to defend. Her father had described nuclear waste as "an ecological catastrophe in the making that would make global warming look like a child's prank."

  "The ice sheets are beginning to refreeze," she added. "They say that in as little as a century the Florida islands might be land again. But you're right. We were lousy ... Wait. Is this why the first nexus to be healed has to be here? Because of that?" She gestured to the utilitarian building and the chunky machines crouched beside it.

  "In part. A large part. It will be late for the nexus ritual by the time we get in. You'll have to camp there tonight."

  The angry tension had left his body, and Kelsa decided to take the hint and set her bike in motion.

  Soon the winding lava ridges drew closer to the road, and a volcanic cone loomed off to the left. The sun was getting low when she entered the monument, and she decided to pick out a campsite first, but at the campground entrance Kelsa stopped the bike to stare.

  "This is surreal."

  Everything was black. The flowing stone had crumpled and cracked like drying mud, breaking into ragged heaps and plates and piles. The campsites had been carved out of the bends in the stone's flow, each site a separate alcove with walls of stone that were often higher than Kelsa's head.

  Blotches of lichen discolored the dark basalt, but it was also being colonized by the hardy desert scrub and a few gallant pines.

  "Does it bother you?" Raven asked. "It makes a lot of people nervous."

  "I'm not sure," Kelsa admitted, gazing over the blasted landscape. "But ... I know it's Saturday, but the parking lot by the ranger station was almost full. Isn't this an awfully public place for a nexus?"

  "A lot of them are," Raven told her. "The power of a nexus sometimes manifests itself in natural phenomena. The old shamans considered many of them sacred sites and made sure their beauty was protected."

  Kelsa laughed. "That's pretty much what the Park Service does."

  About half of the campsites were occupied. Kelsa chose a site, and after unpacking her gear she rode the bike back to the ranger station to pay for the night and to plug her bike into one of the slow charge ports available in the lot behind the building.

  The trails tempted her. This ecosystem was unlike anything she'd ever seen. But by the time she got her tent inflated and camp set up, the sun was going down, and she had no desire to risk those rocks in the dark.

  The unearthly landscape still looked strange to her, but her subconscious must have known that there was nothing to hurt or threaten her in this sea of twisted stone. She slept peacefully, until the light of the rising sun on the walls of her tent teased her awake.

  Raven rejoined her for another breakfast of peanut-butter crackers, then they went back to the ranger station and picked up a trail map.

  "This is a nexus of earth." Raven sounded like he was trying not to seem nervous. "You'll have to be completely surrounded by earth for the magic to work. That's what makes these lava tunnels so perfect."

  An older woman coming out of the restroom stared at him, and Kelsa took his arm and dragged him out of the building. "Keep your voice down. I can't believe there are this many people here at nine thirty!"

  "They aren't kidding about your needing a flashlight either," Raven went on. "It's going to be dark down there."

  Leading him around the building to the charging rack, Kelsa checked to
make sure there was no one within earshot before asking, "Don't you think it's time you told me what I'm supposed to be doing?"

  "It's simple," said Raven. "All you have to do is go into one of the lava caves till you're completely surrounded by earth, then drop a pinch of dust from the medicine bag and say the words that will activate the interaction between its magic and the ley."

  Kelsa blinked. "You couldn't have done that?"

  "I told you, a human—"

  "I know, I know." She unplugged her bike and punched in the start code. "A human has to fix it. That's the rule, right?"

  He swung himself onto the bike behind her. "It's more than that. The dust in that pouch is your magic, not ours. I'm not even sure I could activate it."

  "Activate." Kelsa swung them out of the parking lot and started back to her camp. "You sound more like a scientist than a ... what are you, anyway?"

  "Raven."

  She waited.

  "That's the truth, as much as you can understand it. I've never lied to you."

  She wondered if he heard the unspoken "yet" as clearly as she did.

  By the time she packed up her tent and biked out to the lava field that held the tunnels, there were even more tourists.

  "This is crazy." Kelsa stared at the clumps of people wandering around the asphalt paths that covered the ragged dark rock. "A ... a magical ritual should take place in the wilderness. In private."

  It was Sunday morning, but three school buses were parked at the far end of the lot. A church group? Kelsa wondered if she was more afraid of being reported to the park police, or of looking like a total idiot.

  "Not many of them will go down into the caves," said Raven. "You'll manage."

  "The kids will go in the caves," Kelsa told him. But she set off down the trail, anyway.

  The black asphalt blended perfectly with the black basalt, and the informative signs weren't obvious. The wind was chilly, but the sun was bright. If Raven hadn't been so tense about the whole thing, she would have enjoyed it.

  Shortly after they left the parking lot, the trail split into two branches.

  "Which way?" Kelsa asked. "Indian Tunnel's that way, the other two are down there." She gestured to the longer of the two paths that twisted across the lava field.

  "I don't know," said Raven. "Whichever way works best for you."

  "All three caves are linked to the nexus?"

  "In a sense," said Raven, "every cave near this ley is linked. But it has to be a cave that you can use."

  "So which way do we go?"

  Raven shrugged, which was even more unhelpful than usual. His shoulders were hunched against the cold breeze, though Kelsa had offered to loan him her jacket. His expression was indrawn, and for once, unreadable.

  Kelsa, perfectly comfortable in long-sleeved therma knit, looked at the flock of kids scattered along the longer trail and took the path that led to Indian Tunnel.

  Most of the tourists they passed were retired couples, but there were a few families with toddlers in tow. Indian Tunnel, when they reached it, was accessed through a rugged break where the rock plate had collapsed into the tunnel beneath. A party of adults was climbing up the combination of rock and concrete steps, with a hand rail to assist them. The steps went down at least twenty feet, and probably more.

  Kelsa and Raven waited till the tourists had climbed up before they started down, and at the bottom Kelsa strode eagerly into the cave. It was much larger than she'd expected a lava tunnel to be, and rounder. The crumpled flowstone of the floor was amazingly level for a natural surface, but it was by no means smooth—a sprained ankle begging to happen. Kelsa kept her eyes on the ground when she was walking and stopped to look around.

  Ragged holes in the ceiling, almost thirty feet above her head, lit piles of rubble below them. They'd gone several hundred yards down the tunnel when they confronted a rock pile more than twice Kelsa's height that completely filled the lower half of the cave. No one else was in sight.

  "How about here?" Kelsa asked. "We're certainly surrounded by earth."

  Raven shook his head. "It's too open. There's too much of the world above."

  Kelsa looked around. She could hear pigeons cooing in a crack in the basalt where they'd nested. Water dripped. Although the light had dimmed in the middle of the tunnel, she hadn't turned on her flashlight—her night vision had more than compensated for the darkness.

  "Onward, then."

  Sunlight poured over the collapsed rock, showing the slightly worn places where other people had climbed the barrier. Kelsa chose a path and worked her way up the rock fall without much difficulty.

  "I can see the exit from here," she told Raven, who was clambering up behind her. "It gets even more open."

  "One of the other caves then."

  By the time they scrambled up the final slope and out the exit, Kelsa was feeling the pull in her calf muscles.

  "This is fun!"

  Raven scowled at her.

  "Oh, come on, there's no reason not to enjoy this. I'm on vacation!"

  She led him back to the fork in the trail. Hiking out the other branch, they passed several groups of children being herded back toward the buses by harried adults. Only a handful of tourists remained.

  "That helps," Raven commented. "A little bit."

  "What are you so nervous about?" Kelsa demanded.

  "Nothing. I'm certain this will work."

  He didn't sound certain. She raised her brows and waited.

  "Almost certain," he admitted. "This is more important than you know."

  "Well, that makes me feel better." In truth, she didn't much care. She would drop a pinch of dust, say the words he told her to say, and then he could go find another human to finish what's-his-name's quest. Preferably an adult who had the whole summer off and enough money to travel all the way to Alaska.

  The much narrower collapse of stone that led down into Boy Scout Cave was blocked with a neat sign, Closed Due to Ice/Snow Hazard.

  "Lovely," Kelsa said blankly. The brochure on the back of the trail map said that ice remained in some caves all year long, but this was the beginning of June!

  "We'll try the next cave" was all Raven said.

  Several hundred yards later the trail ended at the entrance to Beauty Cave. The opening was huge, but unlike the entrance to Indian Tunnel, there were no steps. And when Kelsa made her way to the bottom of the rock fall, there was no light in the tunnel beyond.

  "Better?" she asked.

  "We'll see."

  Kelsa wasn't ten yards into the tunnel when she switched on her flashlight. The cold made her grateful for therma knit. The tunnel was huge, the walls and ceiling beyond the reach of Kelsa's lolar-charged light. Without enhanced night vision, she could barely have seen the floor.

  She'd been in caves before, and should have expected it. Still..."This is dark."

  "According to the map, the tunnel curves up ahead." Raven's voice was hushed, as if he didn't want to disrupt the cave's stillness. "If we go around the bend, we shouldn't even be able to see the entrance."

  "Wonderful."

  Kelsa moved onward, both her light and her attention fixed on the rough floor. The glitter of crystals around its edge warned her about the first ice patch, but she slipped a little anyway.

  "To the right," Raven murmured. "The floor rises. There's no ice there."

  They picked their way between the frozen puddles for another dozen yards before a long stretch of floor coated with a thin gleaming skin brought Kelsa to a stop.

  "I can't see any way around it."

  "We haven't passed the bend yet," Raven protested. "We can still see light from the entrance."

  Kelsa looked back. The white circle behind them looked plenty far to her.

  "This is deep enough."

  Raven stirred restlessly, but made no further protest.

  Kelsa pulled the medicine bag out from under her shirt. Warm from the heat of her body, it felt as if it belonged to her—which was probably
why Raven had insisted she wear it.

  She sat the flashlight carefully on the floor and began untying the cord that closed the bag. "All right. What do I say?"

  She only hoped she could say it in English instead of Navajo, though if it had to be Navajo he could probably coach her through it.

  "You'll have to figure that out," said Raven. "It's your magic."

  "What? You said all I had to do was drop a pinch of dust and say the incantation to activate it."

  "That's exactly what you have to do." Raven's tone was utterly reasonable, though his teeth were beginning to chatter.

  "But I don't know any incantations! This is crazy! You—"

  "Don't get upset," Raven snapped, "or you won't be able to focus, and this is important! You were reaching out to the tree spirit when we first met. That's how I knew you could do this. Just reach out to the earth in the same way and tell it, persuade it, to heal!"

  He sounded all too serious. Kelsa gazed around in exasperation. Even with her night vision and the flashlight, she couldn't make out more than a small portion of the floor and a bit of the wall beside her. But she could sense the space around her and the rock enclosing it, old and solid. The bones of the earth itself.

  She didn't need to see. This wasn't a place of seeing.

  Taking care not to spill the pouch, Kelsa sank down to sit on the cave floor. The stone was rough and cold under her butt—not at all comfortable. But that was part of this place too.

  She let the cave seep into her senses: silent blackness and the scent of damp stone. It had a different aliveness from that of the trees, from anything in the world above. He'd been right. They hadn't been deep enough before.

  She took some time to assemble all the words, but they felt right. Real.

  "Bones of the earth, flowing liquid to the surface, crumbling to form the flesh of the world. You are so strong, nothing but time defeats you. Be strong now. Strong enough to forgive." ERB-1 loomed in her mind, in her heart. She'd been calling it dust, but what the pouch really held was sand, gritty between her fingers. Her father's ashes were mixed in with them. "Be strong enough to heal. Be strong!"