Outcast

by Michelle Paver

  "Nothing you can give," said the Viper Mage, her face livid in the moonlight.

  "Then why are you here?" said Renn. "Haven't you done enough?" The black lips parted. "You disappoint me, daughter. I'd hoped for less passion. More control." "I hurt him. I hurt my best friend."

  Seshru tossed her head in scorn. "What a pity; you have your father's heart! Although"--her lip curled as she indicated the stolen boat--"you have your mother's courage." "I have nothingof yours!" spat Renn.

  "Ah, but we both know that isn't true. You have my

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  talent for Magecraft. You did well to help the spirit walker resist me. Perhaps I should be proud of you."

  Renn's chest felt tight with hatred.

  "He belongs to me, daughter," warned the Viper Mage. "He is my reward for the long winters of waiting."

  "He belongs to no one but himself."

  "Don't fight me. It would be fatal to pit your power against mine."

  "Maybe. But you're not invincible. Saeunn's power was less than yours, and yet she triumphed over you once." That struck its target. Renn saw the white fists clench. "Not in Magecraft," Seshru said thinly. "She was nothing but a thief. She stole you from me."

  "She saved me!" Renn flung back. "I was a baby, and you were going to sacrifice me!"

  "Is that what she told you?" Seshru drew herself up, like a snake recoiling to strike. "Why would I carry you for nine long moons, if only to kill you? No, you were destined for greater things." Her black mouth twisted. "You were to have been my finest creation--you were to have been my tokoroth!" Renn no longer heard the frogs or the lapping of the Lake.

  "I could have done it," said the Viper Mage. "The fire-opal would have drawn the mightiest demon--a

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  very elemental--and I would have trapped it in my newborn child!Mything,mycreature! With such power, what could we not have achieved!"

  For a moment she stared past Renn at visions of impossible glory. Then she dragged herself back and regarded her daughter with contempt. "Instead, the old crone 'saved' you. And there you sit: weak, powerless, wondering if you have the courage to kill me."

  "I could," said Renn between her teeth. "I could shoot you right now."

  Seshru laughed. "Never make a threat you can't carry out, daughter. Against me you have no power. You cannot vanquish me and you cannot kill me! Remember that." Stretching her arm toward the boat, she twisted her wrist so that her palm faced down. Renn jerked back as if she'd been struck, and nearly lost her balance. When she looked again, the Viper Mage was gone.

  The stink of Viper-Tongue bit Wolf's nose as he raced along the edge of the Big Wet. But the bad tailless was out of reach on the rocks, so he ran on, following the scent of the pack-sister.

  He passed the bay where the Hidden Ones gathered to drag things from the Wet. He loped through a stand of watchful pines and out the other side. As he ran, he caught the distant smell of the Great White Cold. He 274

  sensed its restlessness. He heard the Thunderer stirring in the Up.

  After many lopes he found the pack-sister. She was crouching by the Wet, near a floating hide which stank of Viper-Tongue--but to Wolf's astonishment, she didn't seem to care. She had her head in her forepaws and she was shaking and yowling as taillesses do when they ate very, very sad.

  Cautiously, Wolf padded toward her. Then he sat down and licked her knee.

  She raised her head and blinked. Then she said something miserable in tailless talk and flung her forepaws round his neck, and buried her face in his scruff. Wolf didn't like this much, but he let her do it, because he sensed that she was breaking inside.

  At last her yowls changed to snufflings, then gulps. To Wolf's relief, she let go of him. Leaning against each other, they sat, looking out over the Wet. This time, when Wolf licked her toes, she gently batted him away, and he knew she was feeling better. Raising his muzzle, he snuffed the air, but of Tall Tailless he caught no scent. Wolf was puzzled. His plan to find his pack-brother wasn't working. Renn hadn't cried like that since her father had died. It left her feeling empty and brittle as an eggshell.

  Wolf had helped a lot. He'd left as suddenly as he'd

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  come, but she could smell his strong, sweet wolf smell on her clothes and skin, and that was extremely comforting. She wasn't entirely without friends while she had Wolf. After washing her face in the Lake, she thought about what to do next.

  Torak no longer wanted her for a friend, but maybe she could still find a way to help him. "So think," she said out loud. "What does the Viper Mage want?" She wanted Torak and the fire-opal. And she'd thought she had him, until the ravens came. That made Renn feel better. After all, her Magecrafthadworked. She was the one who'd sent the ravens.

  She began to pace the pebbles. The night was breathless and sticky, and a ring around the moon told her that the World Spirit was not at peace. There was a storm on the way. For now, though, the Lake was quiet, except for a pair of diverbirds skimming the water. Thoughtfully, she followed their flight. All of a sudden, they swerved and headed straight for her. Startled, she ducked.

  They sped overhead, so close that she heard the whisper of wings, and caught the glint of a scarlet eye. With earsplitting cries they veered and vanished into the reeds. Renn stayed where she was on the pebbles. This

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  was another sign, she was sure of it. Twin fawns. A two-headed fish. The Otter twins. Two birds. Everything in pairs. For a long time now, the spirits had been trying to tell her something. If only she could see the pattern. Slowly Renn got to her feet.

  To read the signs, she would have to open her mind completely. No matter what the cost.

  The moon had fled across the sky and still Renn sat, grinding the white pebble on the black as Saeunn had taught her. All night she had rocked back and forth, grinding the pebbles, working herself deeper into the trance.

  The juniper smoke made her head spin, and the alder juice stung her eyes, forcing them shut. That was part of it. She had to remove herself from the outer world, to see with her inner eye. She had to empty her mind so that the answer would come. Her muscles ached. The scrape of stone on stone filled her thoughts, drawing her into darkness.

  "Spirits of Lake and Mountain," she breathed, "spirits of Forest and Ice, I ask for guidance. You've sent me signs and I thank you. Now help me find their meaning." Suddenly she felt a strong will buffeting hers. Frightened, she nearly opened her eyes.

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  Seshru.

  Gritting her teeth, Renn went on grinding, retreating behind the shell of sound.

  I see you.... Seshru's mind reached for hers.I know the limits of your power.... The pebble in her hand was heavy as a boulder; she could hardly lift it. She forced herself to keep going, shutting out the Viper Mage. I am the reed and the storm, the thunder and the wind.... You cannot prevail.... Her muscles burned, her head swam. She felt Seshru's will surging toward her: stronger than the tempest which fells the mightiest oak.

  The grinding of stones grew louder. And now it was a buzzing like bees, many bees, and she was floating on the sound and traveling down, down into the deep of the Lake. Far away in the upper world, a howl of fury faded as she sank deeper. Cowering at the bottom of the Lake, she felt its pain soughing through her, its unimaginable age. Now she was hovering above the healing spring, watching the hands of the Viper Mage clawing the sacred clay. Now she was bobbing on the water at the edge of the ice river, craning her neck at the ice wall glittering in the sun: such a fierce, hard, cruel blue. Soblue ... 278 With a cry, Renn awoke. Her cramped muscles screamed as she lurched to her feet and staggered to the water's edge. "I've got it wrong," she whispered. "It's not Seshru. It's theLakethat kills!"

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  THIRTY-FOUR

  The moon had set when Torak and Bale put in at a bay on the north shore of the Lake. Three staring posts warded them off, and only the hope of finding some trace of Renn made them risk going ashore--after Bale had first offered a scr
ap of dried duck meat on his paddle.

  Searching the island by night had proved hard even for Torak, and the only sign they'd found had been one of Renn's prints near the reeds, and another on the Lake's northern shore. At the eastern end of the bay, he found more. It was Renn's--he would know her footprint anywhere--but she hadn't been alone. Another track overlaid hers: slender, high-arched, the same shape as Renn's--but longer. Seshru. Torak rubbed a hand over his face. Renn had confronted the Viper Mage alone and at night, in this haunted place. "What happened to her?" said Bale in a low voice. "Did Seshru--" "I don't know," snapped Torak. "Let me think!"

  They'd hardly spoken all night, except for brusque exchanges to determine where to search next, but Torak could feel Bale blaming him. He forced himself to concentrate on the tracks.

  The trail of the Viper Mage led back into the Forest, then disappeared. More encouragingly, the upper part of the shore was crisscrossed with paw prints. From the look of it, Wolf had been casting for scents. "Wolf was with her," said Bale. "That must be a good sign."

  "Maybe," muttered Torak. He scanned the shore. Oh, Wolf, where are you?

  He didn't dare howl, for fear of drawing Seshru. Her presence hung in the air, like the smell of smoke which lingers after a fire.

  "But if Renn was here," said Bale, "where did she go?"

  Head down, Torak traced her trail from the trees at

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  the eastern end of the bay to where it ended. Then he did it again. Same result. The trail ended in the Lake.

  Shutting his mind to the worst, he continued his search.

  Over here something had scraped through the mud into the shallows. Near it he found an alder sapling, its bark slightly worn in a narrow band, as if by rope. "A boat. She found a boat moored to this tree."

  Bale blew out a long breath. "That means she could be anywhere." He flexed his shoulders. "We need to rest. Start again when it's light. Otherwise we'll make mistakes."

  I started doing that a while back, thought Torak.

  To get away from the guardian posts, they took the skinboat around a spur of pines and put in at the next bay, then carried the boat a good distance up the wooded slope beyond the shore. Bale shared out a few strips of dried duck meat, and they ate in prickly silence.

  Dawn wasn't far off, but the Forest was strangely hushed. No frogs, no crickets. And no birds, thought Torak uneasily. Only Rip and Rek, who were making nuisances of themselves picking at his gear.

  From where he sat, he saw the flicker of campfires on the western shore. He guessed that the Raven Clan would be among them. Fin-Kedinn would have come in search of Renn. 282

  "Torak," said Bale, cutting across his thoughts. "What," he replied.

  "I know she should've told you sooner."

  Torak set his teeth. For Bale to mention Renn was like ripping off a scab.

  "But the fact that her mother is ... I mean, it doesn't change that she's your friend."

  "What changes everything," said Torak, "is that she didn't tell me." But inside, he was finding that harder and harder to believe.

  "To carry such a secret." Bale shook his head. "What a burden."

  Torak picked up a stone and threw it at a tree-trunk. He missed. The ravens raised their heads and gave him reproachful stares.

  "Although," Bale went on, relentless, "she's tough. Brave, too."

  Torak turned on him. "Allright!You've said what you want--now leave me in peace!" Snatching up his things, he moved off a few paces, then threw himself down with his back to Bale.

  Wisely, the Seal boy left him alone.

  Torak wasn't hungry anymore, and although he was exhausted, he knew he wouldn't sleep. To make matters worse, Rip and Rek were being particularly annoying. Rek kept fluttering her wings, pretending to be a fledgling in desperate need of food, and Rip was 283

  pecking at his knife-hilt.

  "Stop it," Torak told him. Of course that didn't work.

  He tossed Rip a scrap of meat. The raven ignored it and made another attack on the knife.

  "Stop it!" said Torak in a hoarse whisper. "What's the matter?" Bale called softly. Torak didn't reply. Rip was staring up at him: not asking for food, just staring. His eyes were black as the Beginning, and his raven souls reached out to Torak's. Torak glanced from Rip to the sinew binding on the hilt of his knife, then back to Rip. He turned his head and stared at Bale. He tried to speak, but no sound came. The Seal boy saw his expression and came toward him.

  Still without speaking, Torak drew the knife from its sheath and picked feverishly at the binding. It was tight--Fa had renewed it the summer before he was killed--and not even raven beaks had made much impression. Without asking for an explanation, Bale handed him his own knife. "Gut it," he said. Once the sinew was cut, it was easier to unpick. Torak's heart raced as he peeled back the final layer. The trees stilled. 284 The Lake held its breath.

  Sweat streamed down Torak's sides as he beheld the thing which had lain concealed for so many summers in the hilt of his father's knife. He tilted the knife, and out it fell onto his palm, from the hollow which Fa had cut to hold it. As Torak stared at it--at this thing which was no bigger than a robin's egg, yet possessed the power to enthrall the demons of the Otherworld--the sun crested the ice river and a blazing shaft of light struck deep into the cold red heart of the fire-opal.

  Bale drew in his breath with a hiss. "All this time."

  Torak did not reply. He was twelve summers old again, kneeling beside Fa.

  "Torak," gasped Fa, "I'm dying. I'll be dead by sunrise."

  Torak saw the pain convulse his father's lean brown face. He saw the tiny scarlet veins in the light-gray eyes, and at their centers, the fathomless dark. "Swap knives," Fa told him.

  Torak was aghast. "Not your knife! You'll need it!"

  "You'll need it more."

  Torak didn't want to swap knives. That would make it final. But his father was watching him with an intensity that allowed no refusal....

  "Oh, Fa," whispered Torak. He felt the fire-opal burning his palm with a searing cold. He stared into its fiery, pulsing heart.

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  Bale's brown hand covered the stone, shattering the spell. "Torak! Cover it up!" Torak blinked.

  "She'll see it!" hissed Bale."Cover it up!"

  Roused from his daze, Torak replaced the fire-opal in its nest and wound his headband around the hilt to hold it in place. Only when it was safely concealed did they breathe again. At last Bale said, "How do we destroy it?"

  Torak frowned. How could he think of destroying something so beautiful?

  "Torak! How?"

  Of course Bale was right. "You've got to bury it," Torak said in a cracked voice, "but only earth or stone will do. And--" He broke off.

  "Yes?" said Bale.

  "It needs a life buried with it. Or it won't stay dead."

  They didn't meet each other's eyes.

  Torak thought about Renn, and how, in the Far North, she had been ready to give her life so that the fire-opal would be destroyed. He wondered if he would ever find the courage to do that. He thought about all the times she'd risked her life to help him.

  Suddenly Rek gave a loudkek kek,and both ravens lifted into the sky with a clatter of wings.

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  Torak leaped to his feet.

  "Listen!" whispered Bale. "There's something down by the Lake!"

  Straining his ears, Torak caught a faint trickling of water. Then a dragging sound, as if something were crawling out of the Lake--then a squelching, stumbling tread. Clutching their knives, they crept through the trees.

  There, twenty paces below them in a shadowy clump of alders, something moved.

  Torak felt Bale grip his arm as the thing lurched to its full height. Weeds dripped from its limbs and its streaming hair.

  Bale turned to Torak, his lips bloodless. "What is it?"

  Torak glimpsed the pale arms hanging limp at the creature's sides. The band of rowanberries on one wrist. He rose to his feet.
"It's Renn!"

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Renn saw them running toward her, shouting her - name. Her knees buckled and she went down. Bale caught her by the shoulders. Torak took her quiver and bow. "It's coming!" she gasped. A spasm of coughing seized her, and she sicked up swampy Lake water. "Where've you been?" said Bale.

  She tried to reply, but more coughing took hold. No time to tell of that terrible moment when she'd foreseen the disaster which threatened them all; of her frantic dash to warn the clans, while the boat did its best to thwart her: spinning, bucking, finally pitching her

  288 overboard. And now Bale was kneeling beside her with no idea of the danger, while Torak was drying her bow with a handful of grass, and avoiding her eyes. "You're safe now," said Bale.

  "Nobody's safe!" She clutched his arm. "Listen to me!The flood is coming!"They stared at her. "The ice river," she panted. "All spring it's been keeping back the meltwater! That'swhy the ice wall was so blue,that'swhy the Lake is sinking!" Again she broke off to cough. "I kept seeing twins.Twolakes, do you see? This Lake--and the onebehind the ice!Seshru stole the sacred clay; she made the Lake sick. And now there's a storm coming, and the World Spirit's going to shatter the ice wall! The flood will take us all!"

  She turned to Torak. "Whatever you think of me, you've got to believe me! You've got to warn the Otters! Get them into the hills, or they'll never stand a chance!" Still without meeting her eyes, Torak set down her bow. "It's not just the Otters."

  "What do you mean?" she said.

  "Campfires on the western shore," said Bale. "We think it's the Boar Clan, after Torak. Maybe other clans too."

  Renn bit her knuckle. "The Ravens. Fin-Kedinn will have come to find me. They'll be drowned."

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  Torak spoke to Bale. "We'll take the skinboat. It's the quickest way to reach them."

  Bale nodded. "But not all of us--that'd slow it down; besides, Renn couldn't make it."

  "Yes I could!" cried Renn.

  "No you couldn't," said Bale. Then to Torak, "This slope's not too steep. I can get her up to higher ground; we'll be safe there. You take the boat. You warn them." "Me, take your boat? You never let anyone--"