Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 68

'Stop whining,' growled the Soul-Eater, 'and keep up! If you get lost down here, we'll never find you again.'

More tunnels, until Torak's head whirled. He wondered if the Soul-Eater had chosen a winding route on purpose, to make him lose his bearings. Behind that sharp face, he sensed a quick mind. Twisted legs, flying thoughts. That was what the Walker had said.

They emerged into a vast cavern and Torak faltered. Before him loomed a forest. A forest of stone.

Shadowy thickets reached upwards, seeking sunlight they would never find. Stone waterfalls froze in an endless winter. As Torak followed the lurching torchlight, a sickly warmth made the sweat start out on his brow. He heard a furtive trickling; glimpsed still pools and twisted roots. He caught nightmare flashes of figures draped in stone: some crouching above him, some half-hidden in water. When he looked again, they were gone, but he felt their presence: the Hidden People of the Rocks.

The Soul-Eater led him to a ma.s.sive trunk of greenish stone that looked as if it had been hacked to a stump by some act of unimaginable violence. He heard movement, and knew he was being watched.

His foot caught on a root, and he tripped and fell. Laughter rang through the cavern.

'What's this, Nef?' said a woman's mocking voice. 'Have you brought us your fosterling at last?'

Torak's heart began to pound. He'd managed to deceive one Soul-Eater. He'd need all his wits to deceive the others.

Grovelling where he lay, he began to whine. 'No, no, don't make me look upon the face of power!'

'Not that again!' grunted Nef. 'He won't even dare look at me!'

Torak felt a flicker of hope. If they hadn't seen the White Fox boy's face . . .

A cold finger slid down his cheek, making him flinch. 'If he daren't look at Nef the Bat Mage,' a woman whispered in his ear, 'dare he look upon Seshru, the Viper Mage?'

She drew back his hood, and he found himself staring into the most perfect face he'd ever seen. Slanting lynx eyes of fathomless blue; a mouth of daunting beauty. Dark hair, drawn back from a high white brow, revealed a stark black line of tattooed arrowheads, like the markings on a snake.

Fascinated yet repelled, he met the peerless gaze, while the Viper Mage studied him as a hunter regards its kill.

Her lovely features tightened with contempt but nothing more. She didn't know who he was. 'He's thin for a White Fox,' she said. 'Nef, you disappoint me. You've found us a runt.' Her chill fingers slid inside the neck of his parka, and she smiled. 'What's this? He has a knife!'

'A knife?' said the Bat Mage.

The knife which Fin-Kedinn had made for him hung in its sheath from a thong about his neck. Now it was gone: lifted over his head and tossed to Nef.

'He has a knife!' jeered a man's voice as rich and deep as an oak wood. An enormous figure loomed from the darkness, and before Torak could resist, he was seized, and his arms twisted so viciously that he screamed.

More laughter, blasting him with the eye-stinging tang of spruce-blood. 'Should I be frightened, Seshru?' mocked the man. In his bulky reindeer-hide clothes, he seemed to fill the cavern. 'Does he mean to threaten the Oak Mage?'

Torak stared into a face as hard as sun-cracked earth. The beard was a twiggy thicket, the mane a russet tangle. The eyes that bore into his were a fierce leaf-green. 'Does he mean to threaten?' repeated the Oak Mage in a tone of menacing softness.

Torak felt as helpless as a lemming trapped by a lynx.

'Thiazzi, leave him!' snapped the Bat Mage. 'We need him alive, not dead of fright!'

The Viper Mage arched her white throat and laughed. 'Poor Nef! Always so eager to play the mother!'

'What would you know about mothering?' Nef threw back at her.

Seshru's beautiful lips thinned.

'Let's see what it's brought us, shall we?' said Thiazzi, grabbing the pouch from Torak's hand. He pulled out a small, half-grown white owl, and shook it until its eyes darkened with shock. From that moment, Torak hated Thiazzi the Oak Mage, who delighted in tormenting creatures weaker than himself.

The Bat Mage didn't seem to like it either. Shambling forwards, she s.n.a.t.c.hed the owl from the Oak Mage and stuffed it back in the pouch. 'We need this one alive, too,' she muttered. Then she turned to Torak, indicated a birchbark bowl on the floor, and told him to eat.

To his surprise, he saw that the bowl contained a strip of dried horse meat and some hazelnuts.

'Go on,' urged Seshru with a curious sideways smile. 'Eat. You have to keep up your strength.' Her glance slid to Thiazzi, and Torak caught a flicker of amus.e.m.e.nt between them.

He pretended to eat, but his throat had closed. It seemed as if only a moment ago, he'd been out in the snow with Renn. Now he was in the bowels of the earth with the Soul-Eaters.

The Soul-Eaters. They had haunted his dreams. They had killed his father. Now, at last, here they were: mysterious, unknowable and yet more real than he could ever have imagined.

Thiazzi the Oak Mage sprawled on the rocks, chewing spruce-blood, flecking his beard with golden crumbs. He could have been any hunter in the Forest; except that he tortured for pleasure.

Seshru the Viper Mage moved to lean against him: slender, graceful, her supple seal-hide tunic shimmering like moonlight on a lake. The emptiness of her smile made Torak shudder. When she licked her lips, he glimpsed a little, pointed black tongue.

Nef the Bat Mage puzzled him most of all. Her small eyes darted suspiciously from Thiazzi to Seshru, and she seemed at odds with them both and with herself.

Far away, an owl hooted.

Seshru's smile faltered.

Thiazzi went still.

Nef murmured under her breath, and put her hand to the dusky clan-creature fur on her shoulder.

The torchlight dipped.

With a start of terror, Torak saw that a fourth Soul-Eater sat in the deep of the cave where before there had been only shadow.

'Behold,' whispered Seshru, 'the Masked One is come.'

'Eostra,' said Thiazzi hoa.r.s.ely, 'the Eagle Owl Mage.'

Nef grasped a stone sapling and rose to her feet, hauling Torak with her.

The Masked One, thought Torak. He remembered the pain in the Walker's face. Cruellest of the cruel.

Through the gloom he made out a tall grey mask. From it glared the unblinking eyes of the greatest of owls. Owl feathers covered the head, from which rose two sharp owl ears. Long coils of ashen hair hung about a feathered robe. Only the hands could be seen. The nails were hooked, and tinged with blue, like those of a corpse. The flesh had the pale-green sheen of rotting meat.

'Bring it close,' said a voice as harsh as a death-rattle.

Torak was pushed nearer, and thrown to his knees. He caught a whiff of decay, like the smell of the Raven bone-grounds. Dread froze his heart.

With appalling slowness, the owl mask bent over him, and he felt a fierce and evil will beating at his mind.

Just when he could bear it no longer, the mask withdrew. 'It is well,' it said. 'Take it away.'

Torak breathed out shakily, and crawled back towards the light. The torches flared. When he dared look again, Eostra the Eagle Owl Mage was gone.

But the change in the cave was palpable. The Oak Mage and the Viper Mage moved with sharpened purpose among the stone trees, fetching baskets and pouches whose contents Torak couldn't see.

'Come, boy,' said Nef. 'Help me feed and water the offerings. Then you and I will make the first sacrifice.'

EIGHTEEN.

The dread of Eostra's presence clung to Torak as he followed the Bat Mage through the forest of stone.

Nef handed him the pouch that held the owl. 'Put it there,' she said, indicating a ledge near the altar, 'and follow me.'

As he set down the pouch, Torak loosened the neck a little, to give the owl some air. Nef barked mirthlessly. 'It makes you uneasy to harm a hunter. You'll have to do worse if you want to be a Soul-Eater.' s.n.a.t.c.hing a torch, she set off through the twisting tunnels. 'You'll have to take on the burden of sin for the good of the many. Could you do that, boy?'

' Yes,' Torak said doubtfully.

'We'll find out,' said Nef. 'Tell me. How old are you?'

He blinked. 'Thirteen summers.'

'Thirteen.' Her brow furrowed. 'My son would have been fifteen, if he'd lived.'

For a moment, Torak almost felt sorry for her.

'Thirteen summers,' repeated the Bat Mage. With a faraway look, she reached into a pouch at her belt and brought out a handful of dead flies. On her shoulder the clan-creature fur stirred stretched its neck and snapped them up. 'There, my beauty,' she murmured. She caught Torak staring. 'Well go on,' she said, 'let her sniff you!'

He offered it his finger. The bat's crumpled ears quivered, delicate as new leaves, and he felt the brief warmth of a tiny tongue tasting his skin. Strange prey, he thought. He pictured how the bat would move over snow: its claws digging in, its elbows making tiny stump-like tracks. With a pang he thought how the ever-curious Wolf would have raced to investigate.

'She likes you,' growled Nef. 'Odd.' Abruptly she headed off again, and Torak had to run to keep up.

'How did your son die?' he asked.

'He starved,' said Nef. 'The prey fled our part of the Forest. We must have done something to displease the World Spirit.' Her scowl deepened. 'I wanted to die too. I tried to, but the Wolf Mage saved me.'

At the mention of his father, Torak nearly fell over.

'He saved my life,' Nef said bitterly. 'Now he's dead, and I can never repay him. Grat.i.tude is a terrible thing.'

Suddenly she seized Torak's hands and pressed them to the wall of the tunnel, crushing them under her own. 'That's why we're here, boy, to make things right with the World Spirit! Quick! Tell me what you feel!'

He struggled, but her hands imprisoned his. Beneath his palms the rock was clammy and warm. Deep within, he felt something squirm. 'It lives!' he whispered.

'What you feel,' said Nef, 'is the skin that separates our world from the Other. There are places under the earth where that skin has worn thin.'

Torak thought of a cave he'd once ventured into. He asked if there were such places in the Forest.

'There's one,' said Nef. 'We tried it, but the way was shut.'

'Why do you need it?' he said. 'Why are you here?'

The small eyes glinted. 'You know why.'

He licked his lips. 'But I need to learn more if I'm to be a Soul-Eater.'

Nef leaned closer, engulfing him in the acrid smell of bat. 'First we must find the Door,' she said. 'The place where the skin is thinnest. Then we must make the charm to protect us from what will come forth. Last,' her voice sank to a whisper, 'in the dark of the moon we must open the Door.'

Torak swallowed. Once again he heard the voice of the Walker. 'They are going to open the Door!'

'But why?' he breathed. 'Why do you '

'No more questions!' snarled Nef. 'We've got work to do!'

They hurried on, emerging after a time into the stinking cavern where Torak had heard the wolverine. He saw a stream that he'd missed before, pooling in a hollow before vanishing down a crevice. Beside it stood a birchbark pail and a wovenbark sack of dried cod.

Nef told him to take them both and follow her. Shambling to the first of the hollows, she shifted the slab that blocked it by a hand's width. She tossed in a sc.r.a.p of cod, drew out a small birchwood bowl, filled it, and pushed it in again.

Torak caught a gleam of eyes. An otter: the one whose joyful snow-slide he'd tracked in the Forest. Her sleek coat was matted, and she shrank from them. His pity for Nef drained away. If she could do this . . .

The Bat Mage pushed back the slab, leaving a narrow gap for air, and limped to the next hollow. Slowly they made their way through the cavern. Torak glimpsed a white fox curled in exhausted slumber. An eagle: all ruffled feathers and glaring yellow rage. A lynx so cramped that it couldn't turn round. The spitting fury of a wolverine.

Finally, in a deep pit almost completely sealed by an enormous slab of stone, he glimpsed the awesome, unmistakeable bulk of an ice bear.

'That one gets only water,' said Nef, taking the pail and splashing some into the hole. 'We need to keep it starved, or it'll be too strong.'

The bear gave a thunderous growl, and hurled itself against the slab. The slab held firm. Not even the power of an ice bear could move it.

'How did you catch it?' said Torak.

Nef snorted. 'Seshru has some skill with sleeping-potions. Thiazzi's strength has its uses.'

Torak turned, and took in the length of the cavern. He'd begun to realize that what the Soul-Eaters were doing went far beyond threatening Wolf. 'Hunters,' he said. 'They're all hunters.'

'Yes,' said the Bat Mage.

'Where's the wolf?'

Nef went still. 'How do you know there is one?'

He thought quickly. 'I heard it. A howl.'

The Bat Mage lurched back the way they'd come. 'The wolf will be brought in tomorrow, in the dark of the moon. When it's time.'

Covertly, Torak glanced about him to see if some hollow remained unexplored.