Traitor's Son: The Raven Duet Book #2 (22 page)

Frog People was one of Raven’s allies. Raven’s enemies could assume any shape they chose. On the other hand, Jase needed all the help he could get. He turned and waded through the long grass to the edge of the pond. He didn’t have to wait long.

Frogs swam from every corner of the marsh; their heads emerged to make rippling circles in the water for a moment, before they ducked below the surface once more. They climbed on top of each other, in a squirming pile of green-brown skin and thrashing legs, and then began to melt and merge, not into human form, but into a giant frog. A human face emerged, like a mask pasted onto a wide, neckless head.

The bulging eyes opened and looked Jase over, and an expression of purely human skepticism brought the face to life.

“So you’re Raven’s boy. You don’t look like much.”

Jase didn’t care what he looked like.

“How do I know you’re not one of Raven’s enemies, assuming a frog shape?”

Frog People considered this. “You don’t. And I gotta say, there’s more chance of that now than there was at first. Used to be, everyone laughed when Raven said she could get humans to heal the ley. Now that ley’s flowing clear and clean and bright, almost to the node! One more healing would do it!”

The frog wiggled with enthusiasm, settling its feet and narrow rump deeper into the mud. “I tell you, the neutrals are looking at this different now. They’re saying if humans can fix the problem, why not let ’em? And some of the others, they’re beginning to drift into the neutral camp. ’Course, that only makes the enemies who’re left more stubborn. More desperate too. The girl was bad enough, but when that pouch was passed to you they said that was the end of it. That you could never use it, and Raven had failed, and we could all forget the matter. You proved ’em wrong. Made fools of them. They won’t forget.”

“Great,” said Jase. Unforgiving, humiliated enemies were just what he needed. “How do I get my grandmother out of here? I can’t go back to healing the ley until I do.”

Frog People’s shoulders weren’t designed to shrug, but they slid forward and back. “I don’t know how you get her out, but I know how they’re keeping her here. When Raven bound the catalyst to you, she also, inadvertent like, bound the people you’re linked to into that magic. That link, to magic they control, is what Otter Woman and the others are using to hold her.”

Dark green patches began to bloom on the skin of the human face, and Jase realized he didn’t have much time.

“How do I break that link?”

“Can’t.” The bulbous eyes blinked, and for a moment Jase thought he saw compassion in them. “You carry bits of her in every cell of your body. Even if you didn’t, and you could stop loving her, you can’t keep her from loving you. With the pouch in their control, that’s enough for them to bind her spirit.”

A small frog pulled itself out of the giant frog’s back as if extracting itself from a sticky mold. It wiggled the last webbed foot free and plopped into the water.

Jase couldn’t afford to be distracted. “What if I get the pouch back? If I control the dust, can I free her then?”

“Sure. Get that pouch into your hands, she’ll go scooting right out of here.”

More frogs were peeling away. He was running out of time.

“Where’s the pouch?” Jase asked urgently. “How do I get it?”

“No idea. Otter Woman and her frien’s hid it, and if they’re telling anyone where it is, they’re not tellin’ me.”

Frog People settled deeper into the pond as he disintegrated. “But it’s hiddun in your worl’. You’ll likely haffa free its magic here to fin’ it there. I wisssh oo . . .”

His face dissolved into a writhing mass of frogs before he finished, and Jase suppressed a grimace as he stepped away.

If that had been one of Raven’s enemies, disguising himself as Frog People, wouldn’t he have given Jase more “helpful” information than that? Something that would help him right off a cliff, instead of setting him to wander in circles.

Whether that was Frog People or not, one thing he’d said was true. Otter Woman had hidden the pouch, so she’d know where it was. And Otter Woman held Gima, so she’d know where his grandmother was and how to free her. Which meant the next logical step was for Jase to find Otter Woman, and see if he could learn anything from her.

He set off walking again, concentrating on Otter Woman and his grandmother. Though after what felt like hours of aimless wandering, he began to doubt that his finding-people-in-dreams-by-thinking-about-them theory was working as well as he’d hoped.

Jase pulled the canteen off his belt—which was still holding up his pants, here in this world—drank, then took out his com pod to check the time. When he thumbed it on, it turned into a giant beetle that wiggled its long antennae and bit his hand.

“Ow!” Jase shook it off, and watched it buzz away into the distance. This wasn’t his world. He’d do well to remember that. In fact, looking more closely, he saw that the filaments he’d taken for natural fiber in the center of the flowers to the right of his path were really a nest of fishhooks. The kind that had stuck in his fingers, and once hooked painfully through the top of his ear when his grandfather tried to teach him to fish.

Well, that was one direction he wouldn’t be go—

Jase stopped and stared at the hook-flowers. All of them grew on one side of the path, forming a barrier that herded him in the direction they wanted him to go. Just like the bramble patch had turned him onto this path. And that rock fall had kept him from climbing the slope, when he’d wanted to go up and look at the terrain.

Jase turned and walked directly into the flowers. He had to move slowly to keep the hooks from digging into his clothing, and despite his care, his fingers were pricked raw with extracting them by the time he came out of the flowers . . . and plunged into woods that grew so thickly he had to wade through them as if he were swimming.

Jase wasn’t even surprised when he came out of the woods and saw the glacier blocking his path—not the snow-capped sheets of ice they showed on d-vid, but its receding edge. The barren, plowed-up earth and jagged boulders looked like a bomb had been dropped there. He picked his way through the muddy rubble and climbed onto the ice. The places that weren’t studded with gravel were as slippery as he’d expected.

He walked across the glacier for a long time, crawling when the footing was too treacherous, with meltwater soaking the knees of his jeans. He prayed no sudden crevasse would open up to swallow him, but the forest on the other side of the massive ice field grew nearer, and nearer. When he slithered down, a clear path awaited him.

Jase didn’t even try the path, plunging into the thickest tangle of scrub he could see. When he finally struggled out, rubbing his scratched face and hands, he emerged into a glade. Otter Woman stood at the other side with the two men he’d seen at the beach beside her. At least this time they were clothed. The men’s faces were hard, but Jase thought he saw a cruel pleasure in the Bee Man’s dark eyes. How could he ever have believed they were kids his own age?

Behind the three of them was a raven in a cage, and Jase’s grandmother.

She was smiling widely and Jase started to run forward, but the raven squawked and flapped frantically. The bars were so close it couldn’t spread its wings, and when one of them brushed the cage it cringed. But it didn’t take its eyes off him, or quit shrieking, until Jase stopped running and approached more cautiously.

He’d never seen his grandmother wearing makeup before. The ancient Ananut painted their bodies only for ceremony. Jase had heard modern Ananut girls joke that they were dedicating themselves to the hunt when they put on lipstick, but he’d never seen it on his grandmother.

“You surprise me, boy,” said Otter Woman. “I didn’t think you could come here without help.”

“I didn’t think you’d break your word,” said Jase. “So I guess we’re both stupid.”

Her lips tightened. “Would a human keep his word to a dog? That’s all you are to us. That’s all you are to Raven, no matter how sweetly she pleasures you.”

“Pleasures? We don’t . . . I mean, we haven’t . . .”

Jase dragged his mind from this conversational track with some difficulty. The last thing he wanted to discuss with Otter Woman was his sex life.

“OK, maybe we aren’t worth keeping your word to, but we don’t abuse our dogs. We don’t keep them prisoner while their bodies weaken, and their families suffer.”

Gima nodded, but she said nothing. Looking closely at her bright-colored lips, Jase saw that the smile had been painted on. Under the paint . . . were those stitches, holding her lips shut?

He shuddered, and prayed with all his heart that was just a metaphor produced by his dreaming mind—for there was no doubt his grandmother had been silenced. It might well be a metaphor, because it also looked as if her feet were growing roots into the ground. Gima wasn’t here, physically; this was her spirit. And how much of her spirit was her?

Her eyes, at least, were her own. Worried, angry, frightened, but bright with thought, they darted from one of her captors to another. She caught Jase’s gaze and reached up with both hands to either side of her neck, then ran her fingers down to close together, as if she was grasping something.

Seeing his fixed gaze, Otter Woman started to turn.

“I have some dust left,” Jase said quickly. “I can still heal the final part of the ley. And if I do, the neutrals are going to insist you let Raven finish the job. Since humans have proved we can heal them. Why not let us? And why do you get to keep Raven prisoner? I thought you weren’t allowed to interfere, directly.”

“I convinced Bear that with you stopped, and the catalyst in my hands, there was no way Raven could win. She vowed to go on fighting, and eventually Bear said, ‘Enough.’ Between them, the neutrals have the power to overcome any of us.”

The eagle man frowned at this, but Otter Woman didn’t even glance in his direction. These ageless warriors might look formidable, but Otter Woman was the brains.

“Just because a few of you, under our guidance, did one thing right, that doesn’t make up for centuries of spreading poison,” she went on. “And as for Raven”—she gestured at the caged bird and grinned nastily—“there are consequences for losing.”

“Losing what?” Jase demanded. “If I heal that last piece of the ley, Raven will have won!”

“And you’ll spend the next year or so watching your grandmother’s empty body die by inches,” said Otter Woman. “Is that a trade you’re willing to make, young Ananut?”

“No.” Jase didn’t even have to think about it.

Two tears ran down Gima’s face, but her gaze was intent. She put her hands up to her neck once more, ran them down to her breast and clasped something. A necklace? A—

“Then give us the catalyst,” Otter Woman said. “All of it, this time. And we’ll let your grandmother go.”

“We made that deal already,” said Jase. “And you broke it. If I give you the remaining dust, I’ve got no way to enforce the deal. I was stupid enough to take your word once, but not twice. Not without a guarantee. I want Bear to give his word, to stand surety for you. Then I’ll make the deal.”

The old woman’s furious hiss sounded more animal than human. “You have no right to dictate to me, boy!”

“You had no right to kidnap my grandmother,” Jase snapped back. “I’m not giving up a single speck of dust until I get a contract I can trust!”

“A contract. You’re an Ananut, all right.”

“Worse than that,” Jase told her. “My dad’s a lawyer.”

She snorted and turned to the bee man. “Get Bear. If he insists on representing the neutrals, he’s going to have to get off his fat butt and do it.”

Behind Otter Woman, his grandmother was shaking her head, making the sign for the medicine pouch over and over.

“I understand,” said Jase, looking directly into her eyes before he turned back to Otter Woman. “I understand there are more of the neutrals than people on your side, and more are moving to Raven’s side all the time. Why don’t you just let humans heal the leys? If we broke it, why not let us fix it?”

“Because it won’t stay fixed! I may not have dealt with your kind as much as Raven has, but the one thing you always are is human. Heedless, savage, careless of what you wreck on the way to what you want.”