River of Shadows

by Karina Halle

  “You mean you don’t know?” I ask as I take a sip. The tea smells invigorating, like a cedar forest on a crisp snowy day, and tastes just as good.

  His brows come together. “No. I can’t pick up on your thoughts anymore.”

  Good, I think, though I hide my smile behind the cup.

  Chapter 8

  The Trade

  A rustling sound wakes me up. My eyes fly open, the towering birch tree branches coming into focus overhead, low clouds behind them. It’s daylight. Another gray morning. And I know I’m not alone.

  I sit up and gasp.

  There’s a woman with long copper-red hair crouched down, her back to me, rifling through Rasmus’ backpack.

  The woman jumps, startled, and whirls around with preternatural grace.

  “I’m sorry,” she says in a breathy voice. “I thought you were sleeping.”

  I stare at her slack-jawed for a moment. Her bright green eyes, pale skin, and dress made of leaves, flowers and twigs make her look fairy-like, as do the small smooth antlers growing out of her head.

  “Who are you?” I ask, my heart pounding like a jackhammer. “Where’s Rasmus?”

  She shakes her head, eyes impossibly big. I look down at her hands and see she’s clutching a Cliff bar, the sight of something so plastic and mundane in the hands of something earthy and ethereal is throwing my mind into a tizzy.

  “The trees told me he needed help,” she says. “He may have been trying to summon my father, Tapio. I’m his daughter, Tellervo, but you can call me Telly.” She points off into the forest with the Cliff bar. “I came from there, but I didn’t see or smell your friend. He is mortal, is he not?”

  “Yes.” I say, sitting up straighter, my back killing me from having passed out on the forest floor like I did. “A shaman.”

  “I figured,” she says. “Not many mortals believe in the Gods enough to call on us. I do hope he’s all right.”

  “Well, considering he left his backpack behind, I don’t think he was planning on running out on me,” I say, easing up to my feet.

  “That would be your first thought?” Telly asks, getting to her feet as well. She’s nearly as tall as I am. “Doesn’t sound like much of a friend.”

  “He’s helping me find my father,” I tell her. “We’re heading to Shadow’s End.”

  Telly shudders. “I don’t think you want to do that.”

  “It’s where my father is imprisoned.”

  She nods slowly, her brows furrowing comically. “And I suppose your father isn’t a God, is he?”

  “No. Another shaman.”

  All this time I’m talking to Telly, I’ve been thinking that Rasmus is off taking a shit in the woods and will be back soon, but there’s a creeping, hollow feeling in my chest that says he might actually be in trouble.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to her as I notice her stuff the Cliff bar into a satchel made of moss attached to her hip, “but did you say the trees told you he was in trouble?”

  She nods. “The birch have eyes to see and mouths to whisper.” She clears her throat, a flush appearing on her cheeks. “But of course being a Goddess of the Forest helps.”

  “We’ve already met Vellamo,” I tell her, and her eyes brighten appreciatively. “She said that if we ever needed help, Rasmus would summon your father…Tapio, was it?”

  “Yes, Tapio. My father might have heard him, he might not. But I was out in the aspen grove when the trees said to come here. So I’m afraid this might be the best you can get. Do you want me to help you find him?”

  I look around the campsite. Everything looks as it did last night, though the flame ferns have burned down to nothing. It seems like he’s coming right back and I know the best thing to do in these situations is just to stay put (I got lost in LAX when I was eight and that’s all I remember from the ordeal).

  “What do you think?” I ask her.

  “About what?” She looks puzzled.

  “What I should do?

  “I guess it helps to know your name.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, feeling flustered. I don’t feel appropriate shaking the hand of a Goddess, so I do a half bow, half curtsey thing that’s totally awkward. “I’m Hanna.”

  And Telly does the awkward curtsey bow right back to me in earnest. “Pleased to meet you. So you want to know where your supposed friend Rasmus is and you’re not sure whether to go find him or stay where you are?”

  I nod.

  She taps her delicate fingers against her chin in thought. “Hmmm. Well, if you were another Goddess, I would tell you not to worry because no matter what he’s probably fine. But since you’re mortal and he’s mortal, and the trees told me he was in trouble, well, I’m definitely going to set out after him. If you choose to, that’s up to you.”

  I don’t even have to think. I grab the backpack and swing it on, then pick up the sword and give Telly a determined nod. “Lead the way.”

  Telly takes me through the forest, past the cedar grove where I collected the flame ferns, through mossy glens of red berries and bushes of purple and blue hydrangeas, along rows of tall pine trees whose trunks resemble iron, and where vibrant orange poppies grow in the underbrush.

  At some point I let her know that Vellamo said we shouldn’t stray far from the river, but Telly pays me no mind and keeps going.

  Finally she comes to a stop in an old growth forest, where a babbling brook runs beneath the relics of dead cedars, the trunks split open and charred like they’ve all been decimated by lightning.

  “You get any big storms here?” I whisper to her as she looks around. Whispering seems appropriate in this place.

  Her expressive face looks incredulous. “Yes. Depending on Death’s mood.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t know his moods control the weather in Tuonela?” she asks so solemnly that I feel like a real idiot.

  I decide to embrace my mortal idiot status. “I did not. In fact, I don’t know much.”

  She looks me up and down with those innocent eyes. “I can see that,” she says, but it’s hard to take offense. She starts walking again and I’m right behind her, the dead forest giving me the creeps.

  “That’s why it’s always cloudy,” she goes on. “Because he’s always in a foul mood. The only time the sky clears is when he’s either happy, which is never, when he’s drunk, which is sometimes, or when he’s asleep. Hence why you can usually see the moon and stars and planets at night. There are a few times each year where we’ll get a few days of sunshine and clear nights in a row, but my father says that’s when Death is on a bender. I believe that’s a mortal term that means drinking alcohol for too many days in a row and acting foolish.”

  “Sounds lovely,” I mumble.

  “Who? Death or my father?”

  “I was being sarcastic,” I quickly point out. “About Death. I’m sure your father truly is a lovely man. Um, I mean God.”

  She shoots me a charming smile over her shoulder. “Thank you. He is. And your father must be too, if you’re going after him. I would do the same.” She pauses. “And Death, well, everyone has an opinion about him. He does rule this land after all, and the other Gods don’t always agree with him. But I think he’s just misunderstood.”

  My brows go up. “You think Death is misunderstood?”

  She nods. “Yes. He’s just doing his job. And to hear my father talk about it, things were much worse here before Death came along. People had died, of course, but there was no proper afterlife. They called it Kaaos. There was no justice, no rhyme or reason to anything, just pain.” She shivers, her red hair rippling down her back. “The Old Gods just wanted the mortals to suffer.”

  Telly suddenly stops and I nearly run into her back. She slowly holds her finger to her lips and holds still. I do the same, trying not to breathe, listening.

  Then I hear it.

  In the distance, behind the charred trees, is a sound that can only be described as both giggling and snarling
. Gurgling, maybe, but with sinister tones. Either way it makes every single hair on my body stand on end, my bones vibrating with uneasiness.

  “Hiisi,” Telly says in a low voice. Then she raises her chin and yells into the forest, “Come out, come out, I know you’re there. I have a mortal under my protection, so there’s no use trying anything.”

  The gurgling noise gets high-pitched and at any moment I expect Gollum to come out from behind the cedars.

  Instead, a small sickly green creature with large black eyes, no nose, and a line of teeth comes crawling out on all fours, ram-like horns curling back from a bald head. So it’s not Gollum, but it’s pretty damn close. For a brief moment I’m wondering if Tolkien actually did stumble upon Tuonela at some point, but then the creature hisses at us and my mind goes blank with fear.

  “I’m Goddess of the Forest,” Telly says to me, not taking her eyes off the creature. “But this is the Hiisi, and this part of the forest is allotted to them. I don’t interfere with their games and torture, and they leave my family alone. They know we can take it all back from them at any moment.”

  The Hiisi thing lets out a snarl and comes bounding toward us, only to stop a few feet away. At this close distance, it’s a lot more disgusting than I originally thought, with its skin peeling away in slices like the cedar trunks, black fungus collecting on its long fingers and toes, and a row of branches poking out of its spine. Gooey centipedes slither from its ears to its mouth to its eyes and then back again and it takes everything in me not to vomit up the corned beef from last night.

  Telly doesn’t seem bothered. She crosses her arms. “We shall be out of your way in a moment, if only you’d tell us if you’ve seen a mortal. A shaman, to be more precise.”

  The Hiisi opens its mouth and big, thick black flies come crawling out, taking flight and coming right for us.

  Before I can both scream and run, Telly puts her palm out flat and the flies land in it. Then she makes a fist over them and opens her palm and tiny little glowing pink dragonflies fly off into the sky, having been transformed.

  “Well?” Telly asks, impatiently.

  The Hiisi snarls something else, saliva going everywhere, then eventually nods its gruesome head in the direction we were walking.

  “I see,” Telly says gravely. She eyes me with trepidation. “The Hiisi says that Rasmus went that way.”

  “Was he alone?” I ask.

  Telly looks back to the Hiisi but it just shakes its head before turning its back to us and scampering away into the forest.

  “Come on, we better hurry if we want to save your friend.”

  We keep walking. Along the way there are groves of roses where metallic gold bees swarm, sweet-water marshes where silver loons dive for sparkling fish, white deer with their fawns resting in meadows of roses, and large black owls swooping above the willows, but for all the fantastical, beautiful sights, all I can think about is getting Rasmus back. I can’t rescue my father without him. I don’t know the way to Shadow’s End, I don’t know what will kill you here and what won’t. I like Telly a lot, but I don’t know how loyal she is, or if she can even leave the forest.

  I’m pondering all of this in a flurry of agonizing thoughts, the grip on my sword growing tighter and tighter, when suddenly the forest begins to open up. The green fades to brown, the leaves are dying on the branches and in front of us appears a long flat desert beneath an oppressively low cloud-covered sky. All is silent except for a chilling wail that sounds from the distance. It’s both human and not, and I’m pretty sure it’s not Rasmus.

  Telly and I come to a stop by a few fallen willows, their leaves dead, the water gone long ago. Beyond this point there is nothing.

  “Where are we now?” I ask her.

  “The Liekkiö Plains,” she says. “And as far as I will go.”

  I knew this was coming. “You can’t leave the forest?”

  “I can,” she says slowly. “But I don’t think it’s wise. I would be no use in this situation. You’re the one that they want, the one they’ve been waiting for.”

  I blink at her. “The one that who’s been waiting for?”

  She points out at the desert. “Death.”

  I stare again. It’s so dry and desolate out there that I can’t imagine a single living thing ever setting foot on it, and the way that the sun glows through the mist, creating a land of orange haze, is strangely disturbing. Seems a place that death would lurk at every corner, literally and figuratively.

  But then the mist starts to clear a little, as if helping with a dramatic entrance, and I can see shadowy figures emerging from the orange haze, three men on horseback and one man on foot.

  The closer they get, the faster my heart races, until they come to a stop about fifty feet away. When Rasmus told me that Death rode a unicorn, for some reason I was expecting a gorgeous, serene, magical-looking creature, even though Rasmus had told me otherwise. But now that I see it in person, the sight of it makes my skin crawl. Their versions of unicorns are big, moose-sized, and like so many of the animals in this world, mostly skin and bones. Their horns look made of metal, three or four feet long, protruding from a boney skull, and spooky, watchful eyes that vary in shades of black, white, or pale blue.

  The unicorn in the middle is the largest, black as a moonless night, and sitting atop him is Death. While the other two men are equally scary, they don’t hold a candle to this guy. He makes the unicorn look small beneath him, which is no easy feat, and everything he’s wearing is both luxurious and sinister, from the elaborate spikes on his armored shoulders, to his metal gloves, to his iron boots. Underneath the dark velvet hood of his cape his face is in shadows.

  But despite all that he looks like, it’s what he feels like, even from way over there. I know it’s Death because I know it’s Death. I think if anyone, human or not, were to be in his presence, they would react with fear, with panic, with a deep primal urge to run far, far away. Even now, even though I knew I might have to face him, let alone see him, I’m terrified to the bone with the unwavering sensation that I’m going to die.

  I don’t think many get to look Death in the face and live to talk about it.

  Of course, the others beside him are frightening as hell too, with their skull faces, hoods, and zombiecorns that paw the dry earth impatiently—they just pale in comparison on the holy fuck scale.

  Then there’s Rasmus. He’s off to the side, chains around his hands, attached to Death. Even though Rasmus is tall, he looks short compared to the others, and his wiry build seems weak. Too weak. He meets my eyes and I expect to see something pleading in them, like he’s asking for my help, or maybe embarrassment at getting caught. But I can’t read him at all.

  “There you are,” Death booms. His voice is unlike any I’ve heard before, rich and baritone, like the low bass behind a gloomy melody, and yet there’s a rasp to it, a huskiness that would sound sexy on anyone else but him. “Thank you for bringing her here, Tellervo. Make sure to pass my thanks on to your father. I enjoyed the black grouse the forest provided the other day.”

  I gasp and turn to look at the Forest Goddess. The traitor!

  But Tellervo’s green eyes are wide, like she’s surprised he said that, and when she looks at me for just a second, I see bewilderment in them.

  She clears her throat. “I will do so,” she says to Death and then quickly turns, avoiding my stare, and walks back into the forest. Now I don’t know if she brought me here on purpose or if Death is just toying with me, but there will be no relying on her anymore.

  I’m on my own.

  I tighten my grip on the sword.

  Death notices. I can’t even see his eyes but I know that he sees every single thing that I’m doing. I’m wondering if he’s like Rasmus, and can hear my thoughts as well.

  Fuck you, you fucking fuck, I think, hoping he can.

  He doesn’t show any reaction, just adjusts his position on the unicorn.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asks me, voi
ce like sinister silk.

  I don’t say anything. The sword pulsates against my palm, as if it’s trying to give me energy, or I’m trying to give it energy. I’ll take what I can get.

  “Because I know who you are, Hanna Heikkinen,” he goes on. “And I know your father quite well too.”

  I stiffen, my blood running cold.

  Papa!

  “Ah,” he says, after observing my face. “I figured that’s why you were here. Your friend Rasmus wouldn’t tell me much, even when we tortured him. But I knew.”

  My stomach twists and I look at Rasmus. He seems okay, maybe a bit dusty and tired, but otherwise like he was just yesterday. Maybe it was a mental torture thing, or the box of pain from Dune.

  “And I can understand why you’re so angry,” Death adds. “I’d be angry too if my father was dying and didn’t tell me. Then again, my father is a God and yours…very much isn’t. He’s barely even a shaman. Just a pathetic excuse for an old wizard.”

  “Fuck you,” I snarl at him, unable to keep quiet.

  Death chuckles. “Finally, she speaks!” He claps his armored hands together, the metal clanging, setting my teeth on edge. “The fairy speaks. Apparently she can hear as well. So let me tell you something, mortal one, while I have your attention. I’m angry too, perhaps as angry as you are. You see, I had heard a rumor that seemed outlandish, that you had kicked my dear daughter Lovia off her boat, stolen her sword, and then proceeded to murder the sacred Swan of Tuonela with it. I laughed it off at first, but now that I see Lovia’s sword in your hand, I’m starting to think the rumors might be true.”

  I press my lips together, not saying a word, just in case I incriminate myself.

  Death studies me, his eyes burning beneath the shadow of his hood. “Are you trying to take the Fifth Amendment? Don’t you know that what works as law in the Upper World, doesn’t work down here? Our laws are very, very different. They’re tailored to me. And what I want, what I decide, changes from day to day.”

  He tilts his head to look over at Rasmus, and in the orange misty glow I see the gleam of his forehead. It’s dark, like metallic tourmaline or some other polished black rock. A black skull.