Ghost Hunter (13 page)

121

NINETEEN

Krukoslik laid more peat on the fire, releasing a bitter tang of earth. Renn glanced from him to Torak. In the red gloom, their faces were shadowed and unfamiliar.

"We who live at the edge of the world," said Krukoslik, "call two mountains sacred. The Mountain of the North, which is home to the World Spirit, and the Mountain of the South: the Mountain of Ghosts. But no matter how far we hunt from the Mountain of Ghosts, it's mother and father to us. It makes the rivers and the snow. It holds up the sky. It sends the sun, the bringer of all life. It takes the spirits of the antlered ones and gives them new

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bodies. And it shelters our ghosts, the souls of the dead who have lost their way."

Renn said softly, "Souls' Night. What happens on Souls' Night?"

"Souls' Night?" Torak turned to her. "You think that's what she's waiting for?"

She signed him to silence.

"On Souls' Night," said Krukoslik, "the Mountain gives up its dead. When the wind howls, we hear them: the thundering hooves of the antlered spirits, and the lonely cries of the hungry ghosts." His face softened. "We comfort them. We put out piles of lichen for the antlered spirits, and for our ghosts we build a shelter. We fill it with warm clothes, their favorite foods, toys for the young ones. And a fire to banish the dark."

He smiled. "Oh, it's a good time! For a day and a night we keep them company, singing songs, telling stories. Then it ends, as it must, and we send them from us. Many of them find their way to peace"--he pointed to the smoke-hole--"and join the ancestors, hunting the great herds which trek across the sky. Others don't, and go back to the Mountain. But they'll try again next winter, and we'll help them. We'll never let them down."

Torak said what Renn was thinking. "But this winter..."

Krukoslik's face darkened. He reached out and touched one of the painted guardians. "It began the spring before

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last. We lost children. They vanished without trace. Dog sleds went missing. The wreckage turned up far away. Then the moths came, and the shadow sickness. Yes, Renn, we've had them too. Now ice starves the antlered ones. And yet it was less than a moon ago that our Mages began to suspect where the evil one had made her lair."

"But what does she
want?"
said Renn. "What will happen on Souls' Night?"

"No one knows," said Krukoslik. "Terrible cries have been heard in the foothills. Small, owl-eyed demons have been glimpsed flitting among the stones. Our Mages see visions: the gray terror gnawing the innards of the Mountain." He swallowed. "We fear that she has taken it for her own. This--this was always her way."

"You
knew
her?" said Torak.

"Even the evil one was young once. When I was a boy, some of the Eagle Owl Clan still lived. Good people. We used to see them at clan meets. Eostra was different. Hungry for the secrets of the dead." He glanced about him. The Mages had moved on to another shelter; everyone else was asleep. "It's said," he went on, "that when she became a Mage, she carried out the forbidden rite."

Renn gasped. "She did that?"

"What?" said Torak. "What did she do?" Krukoslik leaned forward. "One of her clan had been killed in a rockfall: a boy of ten summers. They say that

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on Souls' Night, in the moon's dark, she went to the cairn where the body lay. To raise the dead ..."

Renn put her hand to her clan-creature feathers. She shut her eyes. She saw a windswept hillside, a tall woman with long dark hair standing before a cairn.

The cairn heaves. Rocks fall away. Eostra peels back her sleeve and draws her knife across her forearm, anointing the lifeless flesh with blood. The dead boy sits up. His head turns. His clouded eyes meet hers. From his mouth bubbles the froth of decay. Like a lover, Eostra stoops. Her long hair caresses his face as she brings her head close, close--as she licks the corpse-froth from his moldering lips....

With a start, Renn opened her eyes. Torak's hand was on her shoulder. "Renn," he whispered.

She wiped her mouth with her hand.

Krukoslik was scowling at the fire. "She'd got what she wanted," he said. "Henceforth, she could talk to them. Soon after, sickness took the rest of her clan. And Eostra disappeared."

"And joined the Soul-Eaters," said Torak.

"She
became
a Soul-Eater," said Krukoslik with peculiar intensity. "This is what you must understand, Torak. People say the Soul-Eaters took that name merely to frighten, but with Eostra, it's true."

"What do you mean?" said Renn.

"The Swan Clan frequents the high passes.

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Sometimes they venture near the Gorge of the Hidden People. They've seen her. They say she walks with a three-pronged spear for snaring souls. They say that if you hear her cry, you're lost."

Lost----Renn's fingers tightened on her clan-creature

feathers.

"That cry," said Krukoslik, "rips the souls from your marrow. With her spear she snares them. She
devours
them. Eostra truly is an eater of souls."

Torak placed his hands on his knees. "But I have to find her," he said.

Renn shot him a glance. "You said 'I.' Not 'we.'"

He didn't reply.

Krukoslik was shaking his head. "They say this is your destiny, Torak. But after what I've told you--"

"Krukoslik. Three winters ago, in the time of the bear, you helped me find a Mountain. Will you help me now?"

"This is no small thing you ask," said Krukoslik. "Our Mages used to go into the Mountain, but not anymore. There's only one way to reach it, and that's secret."

"You have to tell me."

They faced each other, while the wind moaned and the lake cried out to the Mountain.

Krukoslik sat straighter. Once again, he was the Clan Leader who must be obeyed. "We'll sleep now. I'll give you my answer in the morning."

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***

Renn woke to an unnatural silence that made her skin crawl.

The fire burned, but it made no sound. The walls of the shelter heaved in and out, but she couldn't hear them, or the moaning of the wind. Torak turned his head and muttered in his sleep. His lips moved noiselessly.

Slowly, Renn sat up.

At the far end of the shelter, in the dark of the doorway, someone stood.

Renn's heart began to pound.

The figure was tall. Its back was turned toward her. She saw ashen hair hanging in lank coils. From the shadowy head rose the spiked ears of an eagle owl.

Renn wanted to wake Torak, but she couldn't move. Her hands lay in her lap like stones.

The figure in the doorway must
not
turn around. If it did--if it faced her--her heart would stop.

Slowly, the figure turned.

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TWENTY

Eostra the Masked One, whom even the other Soul-Eaters had feared. Her carved mouth gaped on darkness. Her unblinking glare froze Renn's souls with dread.

A dead chill settled on the shelter. The fire sank to ash. Ice crusted the reindeer-hides and the faces of the sleepers. Renn's breath smoked.

Beside her, Torak slept with one arm flung above his head. Frost spiked his eyelashes and glittered on his skin. His lips were white.

Renn spoke his name. He didn't stir. She cried it

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aloud. Only a wisp of frosty breath showed that he was still alive.

"They hear nothing," said a voice like the rattle of bones. "They know nothing. Eostra wills it so."

"You're not real," said Renn.

"What Eostra wills shall be. Eostra commands the unquiet dead. Eostra rules Mountain and Forest, Ice and Sea." Her voice was barren of emotion. The Eagle Owl Mage was dead to all feeling save the hunger for power.

Renn told herself that she, too, was a Mage. She started to speak a charm of sending, to banish this evil from the shelter.

The Masked One never moved, but Renn felt icy fingers on her throat, choking off the spell.

"None may hinder Eostra."

"You're not real!" gasped Renn. "I'm not afraid of you!"

"All fear Eostra." Slowly, the feathered arms rose, and their shadows took wing. In an instant, the Masked One stood by the dead fire, looming over Renn.

Torak lay between them. Renn saw the unclean robe pooling about him. She saw the pulse beating in his throat. Exposed. Vulnerable.

"You can't have him," she said.

The terrible mask leaned toward her, unbearably close. Ashen hair slithered across her cheek. She caught the stench of rottenness.

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"The spirit walker,"
said Eostra,
"is already lost."

Renn stared into the pitiless, painted glare. Horror tightened its coils. Hope fled.

With a cry, she tore her gaze away. She saw the Soul-Eater's hand clenched on the head of a mace. Her flesh had the grainy density of granite; her talons were tinged blue, like those of a corpse. Between the fingers bled a fiery glow. The fire-opal.

"His time draws near," said the Masked One.

Terror hooked Renn's heart and jerked it like a fish. "You can't know that for sure."

"Eostra knows all. He cannot escape." One feathered arm reached out and she raked the ruins of the fire. She opened her talons. Ash fine as crumbled bones hissed down onto Torak's unprotected face: filling his mouth, covering his eyes.

"No," said Renn.

"Eostra shall suck the power from his marrow. She shall devour his world-soul and spew what remains into endless night."

"No!"

"From host to host, her souls shall spirit walk down the ages. Eostra shall conquer death. All shall cower before the undying one.
Eostra shall live forever!"

"No!"
screamed Renn.
"No no no no no!"

Men shouted. Dogs barked. The shelter was in an uproar.

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"Renn!" Torak was bending over her. "Wake up!"

She went on screaming. "No! You can't have him!"

The eagle owl glared down at her from the rim of the smoke-hole. Then it spread its wings and lifted into the dark.

"Was it a vision?" said Torak. "Renn? Was it one of your visions?"

"She was real."

"But she wasn't here, in the shelter."

"She was."

They sat with their backs against the peat-pile: Renn rigidly clutching her knees, Torak with one arm around her shoulders. Krukoslik had gone to the Swan Clan shelter to talk with their Leader. Most of the men were outside, calming the dogs. On the other side of the fire, women soothed children and cast fearful glances at Renn.