Wolfskin (51 page)

“Come,” Nessa whispered, and the two of them moved on again. Lone tree to solitary stone, small hollow to crumbling sheep pen, broken wall to clump of tattered grasses, they passed to the south of the settlement, and before the sun went down they reached a gentle hill amidst meadowland, a place of immense quiet, whose stillness was broken only by the peep and trill of inland birds, the mellow call of ewe to lamb, the soft rustle of a spring wind. Atop the hillock, a cairn had been raised; grasses were already creeping over its surface, where earth had been laid on the stones that formed its structure. Small flowers showed here and there, yellow, purple, white, a delicate quilt to shelter a good man's slumber. There was a long view to the west. From this resting place, the dreamer of dreams could see as far as the world's end. Nessa had heard it said Ulf's wife had chosen this spot. If that were so, it seemed Margaret had understood her husband well.

Nessa waited until it was quite dark, forcing down a cup of water, a crust of dry bread. When rabbits came out to forage in the dusk, Guard disappeared for a little and came back licking his lips. Both of them would need their strength, Guard to stay alert and keep watch for her, Nessa to dig.

Over the years of Rona's tutelage, growing from child to young woman, she had learned many rituals. There were high ceremonies for the year's great turning times, the stepping forward into light or darkness. There were those that acknowledged a man's or woman's journey in the world, birth, handfasting, death. There were observances to honor the powers that sustained life, the elements, the ancestors, the deep eternal beings. There were prayers for the hunt, prayers for the fishing boats, prayers for harvest. And
there were the most secret, the most enclosed and guarded rites, such as the Calling of an ancient voice, the summoning of one who might be woken only in times of direst need. Bone Mother, deep as the core of hard stone that held the earth's heart, old as the world itself and older, dark as the shadows of a prophetic dream, she was the one who had spoken. It was she who had sent Nessa here to this place of death alone. But Rona had taught no ritual for what must be done now. Nessa must pluck the words from moon and darkness, from mounded earth and the ash of memory, from her torn heart and the knowledge that truth is the sharpest knife of all. With her small voice in the darkness, with her faltering steps on the sward, she must speak the words and pace the circle to make this an act of power. With the strength of her own hands she must wrench bone from earth and make a new voice, sound a new song that could not be disregarded. It was dark and cold, and she was weary and heartsick beyond belief. She was the priestess of the Folk, the last of the royal line in the Light Isles. She would be strong.

Nessa loosed her hair from its binding to flow across her shoulders and down her back. From her little bag she took the tiny pot that held her ceremonial clay, blue as sea shadows. She sprinkled the powdery stuff into her cupped hand, damping it with moisture from the grass, and made the spiral on her brow, the spirit tracks of owl and otter on her cheeks. She made the bone-lines on her hands. No need for clear water or shining metal; this was a practice perfected through long seasons of discipline. The eye of the spirit needs no reflection; the hand of the priestess writes truth, even in darkness. Her ritual knife was of bronze, its handle finely carved bone patterned with animals of many kinds, her own signs of otter and owl, with dog, hare, and sea serpent. This had been Rona's gift at the time of her student's first bleeding, when she had become a woman: a reminder, perhaps, of where her true path must lie. Now the knife's point traced the circle widdershins, for this was a ritual of darkness. Under a waxing moon, Nessa acknowledged the spirits of the quarters and stood awhile in silent meditation, knowing this night to be a turning point, not just for herself, but for the islands and all who dwelt there. One way hatred, blood, and sacrifice: the other struggle, healing, hope.

“The circle holds,” Nessa whispered, “until my work is done here. Mother, watch over this task of darkness; know that I do not come to desecrate, to lay waste what should be left sleeping, but to seek the aid of this man named Ulf, untimely slain, a man who sought peace and light for these islands, but who brought only sickness, slaughter, and chaos. He must
lend his voice now in the only way he can, and so set all here on right paths. What I take this night, I take with reverent hands, knowing and accepting the power of the dark one who gathers us all to her in the end. That which I bear forth, I will return with solemn ceremony when my purpose is achieved. This I swear as your priestess. There has been enough loss in this place, enough sorrow. Let there be no more.”

The moon shone silver-white, cool, impartial. Stars grew brighter, a high arch of jewels on a blanket dark as a seal's eye, dark as winter sea-wrack, dark as deep cave shadows. Nessa fetched the shovel.

The burial mound was sealed tight; there was no easy entrance way. It came to her—as the night wore on and she felt the sweat drenching her body, and the pain creeping to lodge itself up and down her back and along her laboring arms—that an old tale was one thing, reality quite another. Old tales did not dwell on the practicalities of a task such as this, the backbreaking toil, the unbelievably slow progress, the growing fear as time passed and she had moved so little soil, shifted so few great slabs of flagstone. She started at the top, hoping this cairn was constructed in the old manner, its stones layered to form a gradual inward curve all the way up. She hoped they had not filled it in, blanketing the dead man in earth. If they had left space, she would reach him more easily. There must be enough time before morning; there had to be.

It was very quiet. Once or twice, Guard growled softly as some small creature rustled by in the grass on a nocturnal errand. Once or twice, an owl hooted overhead, passing by on the hunt. Nessa could hear the gasp of her own breathing, she could smell her own fear. One stone; another. She would not throw them down, that was to offend the earth, to disturb the sanctity of the place still further. They must be set aside each in its turn, ready to be laid back in place when the task was over. But they were heavy, each heavier than the last, monumental slabs that seemed weighed down by an ancient grief. Tears spilled down her cheeks now; she labored on, letting them flow. By all the powers, she was weary. How sweet it would be to lie down and feel her warrior's arm around her warm and strong, and his breath against her hair. Right now, she did not want to be a priestess.

She rested a moment, crouching as still as if she were herself another stone, an insignificant mark in this vast, quiet place under the star-pierced sky. It was so late; what if she could not achieve the task by dawn? What if she were still here, the cairn uncovered, her hands dark with soil, her tools by her in plain view? What then? She could not leave this half-completed
and seek a place of safety, for Somerled's men would pass by and see what she had done; such an act of sacrilege would ensure she was hunted down. Besides, tonight's work was only the first part of the task. She stirred; she set hands to stone again, tugging to free another slab, scraping at the soil, which had settled over and between the layers to anchor them ever more steadfastly to the earth. She strained, screwing up her eyes.
Please, please.
This one did not want to move; it fought against the weakening grip of her hands.
Please. Help me.

Guard growled again, an eldritch sound that spoke both challenge and terror. Nessa opened her eyes. There were lights, many lights across the fields around them, coming closer, moving in. Her heart lurched. Somerled's men. It was finished, then. But there was no sound save a kind of whispering, like a language almost past the edges of human hearing, and the lights were surely not those of torches, for they shone eerie blue, beacons of a kind found in the tales of wrinkled grandmothers, in the songs of ancient shepherds. Bobbing, weaving, they made their progress toward the cairn where Nessa sat staring, knowing the circle kept her safe, knowing the signs marked on her face protected her, but trembling all the same. Guard had moved in close to the mound's base; he was silent now, standing over the bag that held Nessa's small store of belongings. The moon caught the wild look in his eyes, the half-bared teeth, but he stood steady, true to the name she had given him.

They came through the circle she had cast, making a ring of their own around the burial mound. Still she could see little of them beyond those wavering blue lights, yet here and there she half-guessed shadow forms, dark opaque eyes, squat bodies marked with ritual scars, faces that might or might not be masked, for there was no telling if they were man or creature. There was no doubt in Nessa's mind that this was the Hidden Tribe of the tales. Most folk had seen the lights at night in the distance, gathered by some ancient cairn or weaving a pattern through the great stone circle in the south. One or two people claimed to have met them, and were half-believed. Every farmer had lost stored grain, or a bright cloth from a washing line; once, folk said, it had been a babe from the cradle, and nothing but a turnip in its place, with stones for eyes. Every farmer left out bowls of milk at full moon, and small sweet cakes at harvest time.

They climbed toward her from every side. Nessa shivered. What did they want? Who had sent them? She could not hide, she would not run. Instead, she set her hands to the stone again, grimacing with effort. Sweat
made her fingers slip, pain shot like fire across her shoulders. She gripped the rock anew, and now other hands set themselves by hers, hands as gnarled and knotted as dead roots, one pair, two pairs, three, and all heaved together, and the great stone freed itself from earth with a wrenching, rasping sound like a death rattle. Foul air arose from below; Nessa recoiled, her hands over her mouth and nose. There was movement around her now, stones shifting, rising, being passed down to the ground below, long hands scrabbling in the dirt, lights moving in total silence save for the constant, rustling whispering. The hole widened, the stench dispersed in the night air. Guard whined, looking up at her anxiously.

The cairn was open. Dark forms dropped down within, blue light shone up from the interior. Hands like bleached bone reached up toward her. It was at that moment that Nessa remembered how she had called for help; it was she who had summoned them. She moved, lowering herself, until the stretching hands caught her and their owners lifted her down inside as if she were no heavier than a single owl feather. She stood by the slab where Ulf the far-seeker lay on his bed of heather, covered by his brave red cloak, and the Hidden Tribe stood about her in a circle, waiting.

Lifting the stones, making the way in, had required strength, and she had found it, with a little help. What she must do now required an entirely different kind of strength. Every instinct shrank from the task; her thudding heart told her the fear she had felt before was nothing to this. She took a corner of the cloak between her fingers and peeled it back.

Time and the small creatures that dwelt within the earth had wrought their changes here. Decay had touched this chieftain's noble form, had shrunk and crumbled his fabric and painted him livid and gray and night-dark. The skull showed stark beneath the matter that still covered it, the body was collapsing within its shroud of fine clothing, braid-edged tunic, cape of close-woven wool, broad studded belt, fine soft boots. Ulf's weapons lay by him; a helm with gilded eyepiece, a long sword, a dagger whose hilt bore a pattern of waves and suns, as if to show the will to voyage, which had been so strong in this chieftain from the snow lands. His hair lay long and dark about head and shoulders; the band of braided cloth, which had kept it neat, still circled his skull above the empty sockets of once far-seeing eyes.

The hair: that was the easy part. She would start with that. Nessa's knife moved, sliced; the soft strands fell into her hand, a whisper against her blistered palm. Other hands reached out, ash-pale, and took the strange har
vest from her. She stepped across to stand by the dead man's right arm. In her mind, she pictured the thing that must be made. She lifted the knife, poised it in place, began to cut.

The sky was beginning to lighten by the time they were finished. The folk of the Hidden Tribe bore the hard-won burden forth from the chamber; they lifted Nessa out and set her back on the earth by Guard, and they passed the bones between them until she had packed them all safely away in the bag she had brought. She was feeling very odd indeed, as if she were not really here, as if it were some other girl who did these fearsome things and walked by these beings of story, and the real Nessa were still at home on the Whaleback, tucked up asleep by her sisters in a time when the world was to rights, and no blond giants had come across the sea to set their booted feet on this quiet shore. But she was here; she could feel the burning ache in her back, she could see the circle of shadowy figures in the darkness and hear their whispering. Oh, she was tired; she was so tired, and this was not yet finished.

“Cover up,” she managed. “We cannot leave him thus. The stones, the opening…”

Already, behind her on the mound, there were faint sounds of activity, and yet the strange companions of her moonlit endeavor stood here close by her, the blue light which shone about them fading slowly as dawn came closer. She ventured a glance over her shoulder and blinked in amazement. The Hidden Tribe, it seemed, was not the only force the islands had summoned to aid their priestess this night. Now small creatures of the dark crept forth—some on two legs, some on four; some furred, some feathered; some many-limbed in jewel-bright carapace—and as Nessa stared, the cairn was mended, grain by grain, pebble by pebble, the surface growing smooth and unbroken in the gray of early light. She had not seen the big stones move, but this was a place where the impossible happened every day, folk knew that; what about the woman who had once been a seal, what about the turnip baby, what about the monolith with a powerful thirst for lake water? Nessa looked away. Whatever had moved that weight so quickly, she thought, she would rather not look in its eyes. Still, she could see ferns rustling upward, creepers twining and binding to cover the earth she had bared, she could see spring's soft blanket moving up again to shelter Ulf's rest, until she might return to make him whole again.