Trickster's Girl (The Raven Duet)

by Hilari Bell

  The truck rose gently, startling her. Kelsa had been so astonished by Raven's feat she hadn't heard the driver arrive.

  "How will you get across?" she asked. "Do you still have whatshisname, Robert's ID?"

  "No." The plastic tarp rattled as the truck's speed increased, and Raven had to raise his voice to compensate. "I managed to drop it into the trash bin at the garage before the police arrived. I'll fly over."

  Kelsa nodded. They'd turned onto the highway now, and the noise from the wind-lashed plastic was so loud she couldn't hear anything softer than a shout.

  Raven lay down in the flat space between the crated bronze shapes and held out his arms. After a moment's hesitation Kelsa accepted the invitation. His shoulder made a softer pillow than the edge of the crate, and the warmth of his body helped fight the cold breeze that flowed beneath the tarp. With the plastic rattling like a hailstorm and sunlight flashing as the wind tugged at the torn seam, there was no way she would fall asleep. She might as well be comfortable.

  ***

  Kelsa woke stiff, groggy, and very confused till she remembered where she was. She sat up and looked out through the vibrating gap in the plastic. They were driving along the shore of a deep blue lake.

  "What time is it? Where are we?"

  "What?" Raven shouted.

  He too had sat up, looking almost as stiff and cross as she felt.

  Kelsa put her mouth near his ear and repeated her questions.

  "It's about noon." With his mouth next to her ear he didn't have to shout. "And we're heading north on Highway One. Haven't reached Whitehorse yet, but if that's Teslin Lake we will in a few more hours. We've been driving beside it for almost an hour, so I think it has to be."

  Kelsa's brows rose. She crawled out to the tarp and looked through the gap, ignoring the wind that whipped her hair. The lake was only a mile or so across, but it stretched out before and behind them as far as she could see.

  Driving beside it for an hour?

  "How long is this lake?" she shouted.

  "Ninety miles."

  "What? I thought you said—"

  Raven was nodding. "Ninety miles. The first humans here called it Long Water."

  No kidding. Kelsa crouched in front of the rattling gap and stared in fascination as the lake went on and on. Eventually she moved back to sit more comfortably against one of the braces, but another half-hour passed before the lake finally narrowed to a rushing river.

  Otter Woman was probably awake by now. But surely it would take their enemies a while to find them and then to catch up with them. And which of the shapeshifters were enemies, and which were allies?

  They passed through Whitehorse, slowing down enough that they might have conversed, but there were people on the streets, and Kelsa didn't dare risk it.

  She sat on her jacket to ease the growing ache where her butt rested on the hard truck bed, until she got cold and had to put the jacket back on. Then she took out all the squashable energy bars and sat on her pack.

  The driver must have been peeing in a bottle or something, because they were several hours out of Whitehorse, and Kelsa's bladder was about to burst, when Raven suddenly gripped her arm.

  "What?" she half shouted in his ear. "I'm going to have to piss on the floor if we don't—"

  "Be quiet." His grip tightened. "There's something up ahead. I don't know what they're doing this far south, but I think I can coax them ... Hang on!"

  The truck's drop brakes squealed on asphalt as the truck skidded to a stop. It was a good thing Raven had warned her. Kelsa was almost thrown into the next crate, despite his grip on her arm.

  Another set of brakes screamed as the car behind them stopped, then another.

  "What on earth? Never mind! I'm getting out. Now."

  Kelsa crawled to the back of the truck, and despite her urgent need, peered out to make sure the driver who'd parked on their bumper wasn't watching. But the middle-aged woman had climbed out of her car, leaving the door open behind her, and now hurried past the truck, setting her com pod to "record" as she ran.

  Kelsa climbed down from the truck and turned to look. For a moment she didn't recognize the circle of hairy brown lumps that blocked the road; then she saw the big curved horns and a round half-buried eye, and gasped with astonished delight.

  Raven swung down to stand beside her, staring, and another car added itself to the growing line behind them.

  "What are they doing here?" he asked. "I've never seen them this far south."

  "Could they be shapeshifters?" Kelsa asked in some alarm. "Trying to stop us?"

  "No. I got a good sense of them when I called them onto the road. But they're a long way from their usual territory."

  "That's because of the climate change," Kelsa told him. "Muskoxen were endangered by the warming, but they've been doing pretty well for the last fifty years, spreading beyond their original habitat now that they're protected. But they're shy in the wild. I never thought I'd see one, because they only live in the very far ... north."

  She was in the Yukon. In a part of the world where Ice Age survivors roamed wild, and the sun hardly set all summer long. Kelsa had been so busy running for her life and breaking people out of jail, she hadn't had time to realize how far she'd traveled, how much she'd accomplished.

  But even the shock of that realization was overshadowed by her mounting physical need. Kelsa hiked into the trees till she couldn't see the road—which fortunately didn't take long—and attended to nature's demand.

  The muskoxen were still there when she returned, and the traffic jam on both sides of the road was growing. A man and a couple of teenagers raced past her, pulling out their cameras.

  Kelsa was reaching for her own com pod when she remembered she'd left it with the bike.

  "Here, take this." Raven crawled onto the truck's tailgate and held out their pack. A truck ahead of them sounded its horn, and several more followed suit. It was hard to see much reaction under all that hair, but Kelsa thought the circle of oxen drew tighter.

  They were shorter than she'd imagined, the adults only a bit over four feet. The calves in the center, from what little she could see of them, looked like giant, furry exercise balls.

  "They're so cute!"

  The pack bounced off her shoulder and fell to the road, and Raven climbed down.

  Kelsa picked up the pack, frowning. "Are we getting off ? I thought we were taking this truck all the way."

  "We still might," said Raven, "if our fuzzy friends can hold the traffic long enough. But I've been listening to the ley for the last few hours, and it needs healing."

  Startled, Kelsa took her gaze off the oxen to look at him. "Is there a nexus here?"

  "No." Raven's face was sober. "It would be better if there was. Maybe it's damage from the beetle kill, but the ley has gone very deep here, spread wide, and running slow. Sluggish. Hard to reach. It needs to be healed in many places at once, raised higher to flow more strongly. I think this is where you need to call on animal life."

  "Animals?" Kelsa didn't know why she was surprised. Living organisms were a part of nature too. She gazed dubiously at the tight circle of oxen. They were tremendously cute, but their attitude was pugnacious. The tourists who gathered around them, frantically recording, were keeping their distance.

  "I suppose I might get close enough to throw some dust over them, but with so many people—"

  "Not them," Raven interrupted. "And you can't just sprinkle them with dust, anyway. You need to blow it into the nose of the creature you summon. That's why we're going up there," he added, pointing to the hillside that loomed above the road.

  The sign said Glacier Rock Trail, and beyond the trees Kelsa saw a huge ridge of glacial debris.

  "How am I supposed to get near enough to any wild creature to blow dust in its face? Especially on that rock field? I won't be able to move fast enough to catch even a butterfly, and I won't be able to move quietly, either."

  And if her victim didn't like havin
g sand blown into its nose, she wouldn't be able to run.

  "You aren't going to chase it down." Raven's tone was a bit too patient. "You call it with the incantation, and when something comes you blow the dust into its face."

  "Something comes? I can't call for a small animal, like a mouse or a bird?"

  This was bear country.

  "You're not afraid of animals, are you?"

  "I'm sensibly cautious of wild animals," Kelsa told him. "Especially ones that are bigger than me. Like a moose. Or a bear. Even a deer will fight if it's frightened enough, and they can do a lot of damage."

  "Whatever comes to your calling should know you for a friend." Raven took the pack with one hand and grasped her arm with the other, steering her toward the trailhead. "But candidly, that's one of the reasons I want you on the rock field when you call. I'm hoping you'll get a wild sheep—there are several species around here. That way, when the calling ends, it will probably just bound off."

  Kelsa considered the implications. "So while I'm calling, it will know me for a friend and approach. But once I blow the dust in its face the spell ends, and then it's a wild animal who suddenly finds itself very close to a human who just—"

  "You'll do fine." Raven nudged her in the direction of the trail. "I'll stop here and delay anyone who wants to hike up after you. The animal might know you for a friend, but anyone else would frighten it off."

  That didn't sound so bad to Kelsa, but if the ley needed healing...

  "Couldn't I do trees here instead?"

  Raven shook his head. "Trees will work better if you're on top of a nexus. The healing will spread farther."

  "But—"

  "There are plenty of trees in Alaska. Animals here."

  He was the expert on leys, after all. Kelsa shrugged and started up the trail.

  Despite her misgivings, it felt wonderful to be off the truck, hiking in the sunshine. The pine and aspen wood was full of unfamiliar bird songs. Maybe she would get a bird with her summoning. A small one would be good.

  The trail emerged from the glade and onto the rock field. The Canadian park service had laid the jumbled stones flat, but Kelsa still had to pick her way over the uneven surface. She mostly ignored the informative signs—just looking around she could see that centuries after the glacier had dumped it, almost nothing had colonized this barren moraine.

  The trail zigzagged up, and up some more. Kelsa was panting when she reached the end of the trail and turned to look back.

  The great glacier-carved valley stretched before her, bordered by big round-topped mountains to the north and ragged peaks with fingers of ice still flowing through them to the east. A glowing, royal blue lake filled the long basin, light rippling on its surface.

  A chorus of honking rose from the trucks, their drivers more blasé about wildlife than the tourists who still clustered around the herd. From this height the muskoxen looked like dark tumbleweeds, and showed no sign of moving.

  What were the right words for connecting the ley to animals? So many species, such an abundant diversity of life. How to reach them all?

  Kelsa sat down on a bench the park service had provided, untied the medicine bag, and removed a generous pinch of dust. She closed her eyes, reaching out with her less tangible senses to this vast, open place in the world. She couldn't sense animals, but she'd always felt the life that hummed within the thin skin of atmosphere enclosing her planet. Life was what she was calling now.

  "Swift or slow, strong or subtle. Furred and feathered, scaled, shelled, or skinned. You who wander the surface of the world, forgive us, please, and carry this healing in all the places you go. Heal and be strong!"

  All her heart was in the words, and though her mind might question, she felt no surprise when she opened her eyes and found a pair of gleaming dark eyes staring back. Eyes framed by soft fur, quivering whiskers, and round, black-rimmed ears.

  Pika were notoriously shy, but this one gazed up at her with no fear at all.

  Kelsa almost picked it up, but sensible caution about wildlife intervened. Instead she bent down, opened her fingers, and blew the dust gently into the rodent's face.

  The whiskers whirred into overdrive.

  Then Kelsa's heart gave a great throb, as if it suddenly beat in tandem with thousands upon thousands of hearts. Some were big and slow, but many beat small and fast, faster than her heart could endure, and she gasped and pressed both hands against her chest to contain it.

  On the road below, the oxen threw up their heads and bellowed. The pika whisked into a crack in the rocks and vanished.

  Several minutes passed before her heart rate slowed to normal, and Kelsa rose and made her way back down the trail. Perhaps it was only in her imagination that with every footfall, every touch of her hand on rock, a pulse of healing energy sank into the earth. But wasn't she too part of the life of this world?

  Raven was sitting on the curb in the trail's parking lot when Kelsa emerged from the trees, a disgusted expression on his face.

  "I didn't think it through," he said.

  Still enveloped in a glorious daze of healing, Kelsa didn't care. "Think what through?"

  "The effect of what you were doing on our current situation." The disgust in his expression spread to his voice. "When you healed the animal life along this ley, the muskoxen suddenly felt strong and good, instead of threatened and fearful. Which might not have been enough, in itself," he added. "Their instinct to circle and hold in the face of danger runs pretty deep. Unfortunately, the truckers felt good too, so they stopped pounding their horns. And since that was what was frightening those furry idiots, they broke their circle and wandered away. So..."

  Kelsa followed the sweep of his hand and looked at the road. One car whizzed by. After that, nothing. The traffic jam had dissolved. Their truck was gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  HIKING BESIDE A ROAD WAS nothing new to Kelsa. Even when the feeling that her every step healed the world began to fade, dandelions and fireweed glowed in the road's grassy verges, and magpies flashed their elegant plumage in the brush.

  "I still think we need to find someone to give us a ride," Raven grumbled, tramping along beside her. "Otter Woman has probably been awake most of the day. This is taking too long."

  Kelsa was worried about that too, but..."Otter Woman is almost twenty-four hours' travel behind us. And when your picture is on every newscast as a wanted fugitive, trying to hitch a ride is stupid. The sight of two kids hiking in the summer is so common, no one will think twice. And we don't look much like our pictures, especially with those streaks in your hair."

  The red and orange swatches matched the flames around the skull on his stretchie. They looked good on him, but Kelsa saw no need to tell him so.

  "But anyone who takes a close look at me will call the police," she went on firmly. "That would slow us a lot more than walking into town where we can rent ... Is that squirrel watching us?"

  "Maybe it is," said Raven. "But that doesn't mean it's a shapeshifter. It's almost four." He was looking at the sun, instead of her watch. "I hope your town comes along soon."

  Kelsa had to agree. Without her com pod she had no access to the maps of the net. She remembered the basic route—only one road led to the Alaskan border, after all—but she had only a vague memory of several small towns along the way. They were bound to reach one of them eventually.

  They still hadn't hit a town two hours later, when they came to a long curve in the road, and another beautiful north-country lake stretched before them.

  "Dinner," Raven decreed. It was his turn to carry the pack, so when he went over to a nearby boulder and began digging out energy bars, Kelsa had no choice but to join him. Even though...

  "I think I see some buildings on the shore." She squinted against the distance and the reflection off the waves.

  "We'll do a better job of negotiating for a vehicle after we've eaten." Raven was already peeling the wrapper off an energy bar, and in truth Kelsa was tired too.
<
br />   The lake was bordered by low tawny mountains, and the quiet emptiness of this rock-strewn valley seeped into Kelsa's soul. Even the cars that occasionally whooshed by had no power to disturb the silent, wild peace.

  "Is this valley connected to a nexus or something?" Kelsa asked.

  "No." Raven's voice disturbed the stillness no more than the cars did. "It simply is."

  Kelsa nodded, and let the silence fall once more.

  ***

  The cluster of buildings she'd seen beside the lake were farther away than they'd looked. It was past seven when they finally reached the turnoff and read the sign: Pinewood Cabins and R.V. Park. Fishing, boating, water sports, and bait were listed in the fine print. It said nothing about vehicles for rent.

  "We'd better keep going." But Kelsa couldn't stop the dismay from creeping into her voice. Her feet were tired. She'd have been happy to stop for the night, but Raven was right about losing time. Here in the Yukon it would be hours before the sun set.

  Raven looked as tired as she felt and even grumpier. "We'll check it out. Maybe they rent off-road vehicles or something."

  "If they did, wouldn't they put that on the sign?"

  He was already tramping down the driveway. Kelsa shrugged and followed. When he was in this mood, she was in no hurry to catch up with him. She was several yards behind him when he froze, then slipped into the bushes beside the road.

  Kelsa looked around. No animals that might be shapeshifters. At least, none that she could see. They were nearing the first building, and the RV lot, about two-thirds full, was off to the left. The tired chug of a washing machine came from the long building ahead and to the right. There was no reason to hide.

  Turning, she made her way into the brush and came up behind Raven, who was peering through a clump of willows.

  "What are we hiding from?"

  "Shh!" Kelsa followed his pointing finger to the back of the long building, to a three-wheeled ATV parked there. It clearly serviced the campground, with its open bins of tools and cleaning supplies strapped to both the front and back of the vehicle.

  "We can't take that!" she whispered. "The people who own this place use it all the time. They'd miss it in an instant."