Ghost Hunter

by Michelle Paver

  "Yes, lots of bones," said Dark. "From the old times, when the Mountain was more awake. It drowned many creatures."

  As they went deeper, Renn heard water trickling.

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  She felt cold air from unseen tunnels. She glimpsed wet gray pillars clustered together. As she passed, shadows darted. She averted her eyes from the Hidden People of the Mountain.

  "Careful, that's deep," warned the boy.

  She stepped over a crevice, and caught a whisper of water far below.

  Dark stopped so abruptly that she walked into him.

  "What is it?" she said.

  "It's shut," he said blankly.

  A boulder blocked the tunnel. On it, an image had been daubed in gypsum, so that it glowed sickly white. An enormous owl. Its body was turned away--Renn saw its wings folded over its back--but its head was twisted around to glare at them. The meaning was plain. Eostra sees all.

  "She knows we're here," said Renn.

  "Of course she knows," said Dark.

  He moved aside, taking the light with him, and the owl sank into shadow. Renn still felt its glare.

  "I think there's another tunnel," murmured Dark, trailing his long pale fingers over the rocks, as if feeling their message. "Ah. That's it!"

  He led her over a rock pile, then down into a clammy hole. This tunnel was narrower--they squeezed sideways--but to Renn's relief, it soon opened out.

  Again Dark halted. "I don't remember this."

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  Raising the torch, he showed Renn a cavern roofed with folds of yellowish rock. Three tunnels yawned. The left one was low, fringed with dripping stone teeth. The middle one opened above a reddish stump like a severed limb. The third was the biggest, cut in two by a spear of stone jutting from the floor.

  "Which one?" said Renn.

  "I don't know. They all feel wrong. I think--"

  "You don't know?" Pushing past him, Renn ran to the first tunnel and placed her hands on the edge, avoiding the stone teeth. The rock throbbed beneath her palms with the unclean heat of the Otherworld.

  She ran to the tunnel with the stone spear. She felt the same pulsing demon heat.

  Desperate, she scrambled up the stump and groped for the third opening. For a moment, the rock seemed to buckle under her fingers as demons jaws gaped to bite.

  She pulled back. "All three have demons behind them."

  "That's what I was going to tell you," said Dark.

  "So which one do we take?"

  "Don't move," he said in an altered voice.

  "What?"

  "Sh!" He jerked the torch upward. In a crack above her head, Renn made out another stone owl. Its eyes were shut, its tufted ears erect. "Climb down as quietly as you can," said Dark.

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  The owl opened its eyes and hissed at her.

  With a cry Renn fell, knocking Dark backward. The torch went flying. Just before the blackness came down, Renn saw the eagle owl spread its wings and glide away.

  Silence. A distant splash.

  "That's the torch," said Dark.

  "Have you got another?"

  "No."

  Panting, Renn got to her feet. "What do we do now?"

  "I don't know."

  Renn jammed her knuckles in her mouth. Somewhere in this terrible Mountain, Torak was facing Eostra alone. A cold hand touched her wrist. "Is that you?" she whispered. "What?" said Dark, some paces away. A chill finger touched her cheek. "Stop it!" she cried. "I didn't do anything!"

  Renn screwed her eyes shut. She opened them. She saw. It wasn't possible in this darkness, and yet--she saw. "Do you see it too?" she breathed.

  "I see it," Dark said softly. "But I don't know who it is."

  Renn did. It was indistinct, as if in a mist, yet it seemed to hold its own light, as spirits do. Renn's fear drained away, leaving only a distant sense of loss.

  Before her stood the wizened figure against whom she had rebelled all her life. For the last time she took in

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  the flinty gaze; the lipless mouth which had never been known to smile.

  Noiselessly, it extended one frail arm and pointed at the tunnel of the stone spear.

  "Thank you," murmured Renn. "Thank you ... And may the guardian fly with you." With both hands on her clan-creature feathers, she bowed to the spirit of the Raven Mage.

  When she straightened up, it was gone.

  Renn hoisted her quiver and bow higher on her shoulder. Then she reached out and took Dark's hand. "Come," she told him. "We know the way now."

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  THIRTY-FIVE

  Torak was tumbling down a waterfall of stone. The ground rushed to meet him. Pain exploded in his shoulder and skull.

  He lay still. His cheekbone hurt savagely, but he could move his arms and legs. Somehow, he'd kept hold of his knife.

  Above him the stone waterfall disappeared into the dark. Unclimbable. No getting back. He thought, at least Wolf isn't here. At least he's got a chance of getting out.

  He had a sense of a vast, shadowy cavern. Stone had once flowed like honey: dripping, pooling, then freezing hard. Twisted fangs of rock hung down; others jutted from

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  the floor to meet them. Like teeth, thought Torak. Oldest of all, the stone bite. I'm in the jaws of the Mountain.

  Firelight glimmered. He caught the whisper of water far below. Closer, he heard the rhythmic clink of bones. A voice chanted.

  By power of bone

  By power of stone

  By power of demon eye

  Eostra summons the Unquiet Dead

  Eostra binds them to her!

  Torak stumbled toward the light. No point trying to hide. She knew he was there. Then he saw it.

  In some ancient catastrophe, rocks had fallen in a pile as tall as two tall men. On the pile rested a slab of black stone, where a fire burned. Behind this altar, flanked by a pair of tokoroths rattling bones, stood the Eagle Owl Mage.

  Her feathered robe seemed to gather the darkness to it, but her mask glowed ghastly white. In one corpse hand she grasped the mace which bore the fire-opal; in the other, the three-pronged spear for snaring souls.

  By power of bone

  By power of stone

  By power of demon eye .

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  Torak tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry.

  The arms of the Masked One rose, and her winged shadow engulfed the cavern. The tokoroths groveled, their evil child-faces alight with terror and adoration.

  "You know I'm here," panted Torak. "You know I'll stop you."

  The Masked One never faltered in her chant, but her spear swung around and pointed at him. At the foot of the rock pile, seven pairs of eyes lit up. Dark shapes sped toward him.

  Jamming his knife into its sheath, Torak kicked off his boots and scrambled up the nearest fang of rock. The pack was almost upon him. Heaving himself onto a ledge a few fingers wide, he drew up his legs. The dogs swarmed about his refuge, leaping, snapping. Their breath scorched his bare feet, their jaws clashed empty air. Snarling, they fell back and sprang again, their hatred sucking at his souls.

  An arm's length above him, his rock fused unevenly with a hanging tooth. He could climb higher. But then, a tokoroth could climb down. A shadow swept toward him. He lashed out with his knife. The eagle owl veered and flew back to its mistress.

  Streaming sweat, Torak clung on. The fire's bitter smoke was making his head spin. Through it he saw the Soul-Eater set aside her spear and begin to wind a cord around the fire-opal. A sigh broke from the tokoroths.

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  With frenzied lust they rattled their bones.

  Firelight struck glints of russet and gold in Eostra's cord, which was braided, like hair. As Torak watched her wind it about the stone, he felt himself drawn deep into the heart of the fire-opal.

  It was the terrible scarlet of a lethal wound. It was beauty and suffering and mad desire. It was the glare of the Great Auroch in the winter sky, and it blazed with all
the pain it had ever created.

  Suddenly, the Soul-Eater ceased her chant. In a grating whisper, she uttered, one by one, the names of the Unquiet Dead.

  The shock was so great that Torak nearly fell. At last he understood what she meant to do. And he couldn't stop her. He could only huddle on his perch like a pigeon about to be snatched by a hawk.

  His medicine pouch dug into his hip. The horn was empty, it couldn't help him now.

  And yet.

  At the cost of her life, his mother had made a pact with the World Spirit. The World Spirit had made him the spirit walker. He owed it to her to use his gift one final time.

  Dashing the sweat from his eyes, he called to the Soul-Eater. "You think you've got me! You think I can't reach you! You're wrong!" His voice sounded reedy and frightened.

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  Climbing to where the upward and downward fangs fused, Torak straddled the join. Now, though his legs hung down, the pack couldn't reach. Swiftly, he lashed himself to the stone with his belt. Then he took Saeunn's black root from his pouch and crammed it in his mouth.

  Pain clawed his innards. He cried out...... and his voice was the rasp of the Soul-Eater, summoning the Unquiet Dead.

  Through her eyes and her slitted mask, Torak peered at the senseless body of the spirit walker. His flesh was gray; and gray the flames that leaped on the altar. All was gray, save the cold red heart of the fire-opal.

  Deep in her freezing marrow, Torak's spirit strove to make her grasp a rock and shatter it, but her will was the strongest he'd ever known. Her will turned his to stone. This was her strength: that she felt no pleasure, no pain, nothing save the hunger for eternal life. Her tokoroths were not tortured children possessed by demons, but creatures created to do her will. Her dogs were merely weapons to be used and flung aside like broken flints. The boy on the rock was the husk of the power she craved; tear away that husk and the power became hers. This was evil and it was cold, cold. Torak's spirit drowned in it.

  Abruptly, Eostra's voice ceased. The tokoroths' rattles stilled.

  In the silence, the Masked One cast a rawhide

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  shield across the fire, and its light was quenched. In the darkness, she spoke.

  Sleek as the seal... the cunning one,

  Tenris ... Come forth!

  Almost imperceptibly, the cavern filled with the lapping of waves. Behind the altar, smoke thickened-- coalesced--and formed the figure of a man. Through the eyes of the Soul-Eater, Torak perceived a handsome, ruined face; he heard a voice as smooth and strong as the Sea.

  Tenris is come.

  Chanting, the Masked One raised the rawhide from the altar. Smoke billowed, flames leaped. She quenched them again.

  Mighty as oak, the strongest one,

  Thiazzi... Come forth!

  A rustling of leaves. A hulking shadow loomed.

  Thiazzi is come.

  Again Eostra chanted. Again she quenched and revived the fire.

  Swift as the bat, the twisted one,

  Nef... Come forth!

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  The leathery rustle of bat wings. Swirling motes came together and made the limping one.

  Nef is come.

  Cowering in Eostra's marrow, Torak could only witness her summoning the Unquiet Dead; and they were hers to command, bound by the power of the fire-opal.

  In the darkness of her mind, Torak saw her vision of what was to be. On Mountain and Ice, in Forest and Lake and Sea, the clans cower in dread before Eostra, who rules the living and the dead... Eostra, who lives forever.

  Eostra was invincible. Everything Torak had fought for over three long winters had been for nothing.

  The Soul-Eaters were back.

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  THIRTY-SIX

  Deep in the Mountain, Wolf heard the rustling of leaves.

  Leaves?

  He slewed to a halt. That didn't fit.

  Was this another trick of the Hidden Ones? They hated him being here, they hated anyone in the Mountain, they kept scattering sounds and smells, so that he couldn't tell where they were coming from.

  Wolf raced on, though he didn't know where he was going. He'd been running forever through this terrible, winding Den. He'd lost the scent of the pack-sister; all he could smell was wet rock and frightened Wolf. He was

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  thirsty, his flanks hurt from the cub-demons' claws, and he still couldn't find Tall Tailless.

  He reached a place where the Den widened and the breath of the Mountain ruffled his fur. He found some Wet in a dip and snapped it up, ignoring the stone bones lying nearby. They were just another trick; he'd tried one before, and nearly broken a fang.

  Suddenly, he jerked up his head. A faint scent brushed his nose. Trembling with eagerness, he took deep sniffs to make sure. Yes! His pack-brother!

  The scent was trickling from above. Rising on his hind legs, Wolf placed his forepaws on the rock. Too dark to see, but he felt the breath of a tiny Den. He leaped-- scrabbled--he was in.

  The Den was so small he had to flatten his ears and crawl on his belly. It scraped his sides and squeezed till he couldn't breathe. Then it spat him out and he fell, bashing his nose on a rock.

  A torrent of smells whirled around him. The demon stink; the Not-Breath smell of the Stone-Faced One; the rich scent of the tailless whom Wolf now remembered from long ago. And the scent of his pack-brother.

  Wolf flew through the dark. The tunnel was narrow and twisty as guts, but he caught the snarls of the pack. They had a hollow sound which told Wolf he was heading for a very big Den indeed.

  He heard the familiar whine of the pack-sister's

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  Long-Claw-that-Flies, and the swish of owl wings. He quickened his pace. Hunting demons was what he was for.

  The mouth of the tunnel was drawing nearer, and Renn quickened her pace.

  "Not so fast!" warned Dark.

  She ignored him. She could hear the clink of bones and the death-rattle chant of the Soul-Eater.

  By power of bone

  By power of stone

  By power of demon eye

  Eostra summons the Unquiet Dead

  Eostra binds them to her!

  Renn tried to remember a severing charm to counter the spell, but Eostra's icy will froze her thoughts. None can hinder the Masked One.

  Renn reached the mouth of the tunnel.

  Dark yanked her back.

  The tunnel opened dizzyingly high, near the roof of the cave. There was no way down.

  Biting back a cry, Renn sank to her knees and peered over the edge. Through a thicket of huge stone teeth, she saw that the cave was split by a chasm that zigzagged across it like black lightning. On the near side, a fire

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  burned on an altar wreathed in smoke. Below this, shadows prowled at the base of a pillar whose top she couldn't see. Even from far away, she felt their hatred, and knew that this was Eostra's pack. There was no sign of Torak.

  Eostra summons the Unquiet Dead...

  Renn flung down her weapons. Her axe and bow were unhurt, but her quiver had been squashed when she'd squeezed through a gap, and only three arrows remained intact.

  Eostra binds them to her!

  The smoke parted, and Renn caught a fleeting glimpse of the Masked One. She saw a livid hand pass over the mace that held the fire-opal. She saw its scarlet light bleeding through a shadowy network of cords crisscrossing the crimson stone. She grabbed an arrow. Eostra sensed the threat and cloaked herself in smoke.

  "Can you feel them?" whispered Dark, kneeling beside her.

  "Feel what?"

  "Down there in the smoke. Something terrible."

  "I can't see anything."

  "Neither can I. But I feel them."

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  Renn felt them too. There was more in the Whispering Cave than Eostra and her minions.

  "It's the smoke," she breathed. "It's part of the spell. Don't look."

  But Dark couldn't tear his eyes away. Neither could
she.

  The Soul-Eater broke off her chant. Blackness descended on the cave. In the silence, she spoke.

  Subtle as snake, the seducer...

  Seshru ... Come forth!

  Renn's flesh crawled.

  The cave seemed to fill with a thin, echoing hissss. This can't be, Renn told herself. It cannot be. As she watched, the smoke swirled to form a sinuous shape....

  No. Seshru is dead. Your mother is dead. You put the Death Marks on her. You watched them lay her body to rest.

  The chanting resumed. After an endless time, it broke off again. Once more, the fire dimmed.

  ... Narrander... Come forth!

  From the far side of the cavern, a man's voice rang out. "Narrander comes."

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  Renn caught her breath. She knew that voice. "Your spell is flawed," it declared. "It holds the hair of a living man."

  No answer from Eostra. "Who is he?" said Dark.

  Renn didn't reply. The past was coming together like pack ice as she watched the man emerge from the shadows.

  The eagle owl swooped toward him. He warded it off with his axe. His gait was unsteady. Tattered hides flapped about his scrawny limbs. Renn knew that if she were closer, she would see a tangled beard glistening with slime. A filthy, one-eyed face as rough as bark.

  The seventh Soul-Eater. He had hinted as much at their first encounter. Before the flint bit him, he was a wise man....

  "Narrander died," rasped Eostra from the smoke. "He died in the great fire."

  "Another died!" bellowed the Walker. "He should have lived! The Walker ends it now!"

  "None can hinder the Masked One."

  The Walker roared and threw himself at the rock pile--but before he could reach it, he lurched to a halt. The chasm was too wide. He couldn't get across. "He should have lived! " His howl filled the cave with pain.

  Suddenly, Renn saw the small, hunched figures clinging to the rocks above his head. Desperately, she

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  took aim. Dark loaded his slingshot.

  They lowered their weapons. The tokoroths were way out of range.

  "Above you!" shouted Renn and Dark together.

  The Walker glanced up as the first rock struck. He sank to his knees. Another rock hit. He fell to the ground at the edge of the chasm. His axe dropped from his hand, and a moment later there came a distant splash. The Walker lay without moving. Renn had never hated Eostra as much as she did then.