She glanced at Minna. “Need to ask favor.”
“From me?” Arion was barely able to sit up and feed herself. “What?”
The wind fluttered the lamp again. Suri glanced at it, then continued, “Going with the mother of the child to a bear den. Not to fight, too powerful. Only hope is to drive demon out. Will have mother call to child. Bear knows mother, sort of knows me, too. Not taking others. Morvyn would attack. That includes Minna.” She paused to scratch behind the wolf’s ears. “Hoping to leave Minna here. Door is only thing that stop her from following.”
The idea of being trapped alone with an angry wolf was only marginally better than the idea of the village executing her. “This doesn’t sound at all wise to me. Forgive me for saying this, but you can’t tell the future from bones, and demons don’t possess children and turn them into murderous bears. It all sounds like tribal myths, silly stories to frighten children.”
“Can leave Minna?”
Maybe it was the way Suri acted like a Fhrey by playing with string. Or perhaps it was because she watched over Arion every night. Most likely it was the mournful look on the girl’s face while asking. Regardless of the reasons, Arion said, “Yes.”
She regretted it immediately. Arion opened her mouth to take it back when the wind gusted again. This time the lamp blew out, leaving them both in darkness.
Arion could still see; the moon was nearly full and its light spilled in through the window. As such, there was no mistaking what happened next. Suri looked at the lamp, which sat on the table across the room. She rubbed her hands together briskly, murmured a few faint words, and then clapped.
The lamp flared to life.
“How did you do that?” Arion asked, stunned. She put her emphasis on the pronoun again, but this time it had nothing to do with language lessons. Arion knew exactly how Suri had lit the lamp, and until recently she would have done the same thing in much the same manner. But this girl was a Rhune. She repeated the question. “How did you do that?”
“Asked a fire spirit to light lamp. Should have asked wind to stop playing around, but wind doesn’t listen.”
Hearing nothing that made sense, Arion continued to stare in shock. “You’re a Rhune.”
“You’re a Fhrey. You play that game, too?”
Arion had no idea what game Suri was talking about and didn’t care. “What else can you do?”
The girl shrugged. “Eat, sleep, run, jump—”
“I meant like that.” She pointed at the lamp.
Suri looked puzzled.
“You don’t see a difference?”
Suri continued to look puzzled.
“Can everyone light lamps at a distance?”
Suri thought about this. “Different people do different things. Tura sang good. Padera cooks tasty soup. Gifford makes pretty clay cups. Sarah is good making blankets. Minna runs fast. You make swords stop.”
“Can you make swords stop?”
Suri shook her head.
“Can you make it rain?” Arion asked.
Suri chuckled.
“Can you open the door to this room without touching it?” Arion asked.
“Can you?” the girl shot back.
Arion glanced over her shoulder at the closed door and sighed. “Not at the moment.”
Suri smiled, and Arion caught something odd in her expression, a playful mischievousness. But then Arion knew so little about Rhunes, and Suri was the strangest of them all.
“How did you learn to make fire? Did someone teach you?”
“How you learn to walk?” Suri asked. “How you learn to talk? Someone teach you?”
Arion found she was smiling. What a perfect answer. Not just the point being made but the way she made it—an answer in the form of a question. Statements were ends, and there was nothing closed or final in the Art. This girl, this Rhune, was doing the impossible, thinking and acting like a second-tier Miralyith, and she wasn’t even a Fhrey.
Suri left the chair and came over to Arion’s bedside. The wolf followed. “If don’t…” Suri glanced at the wolf and then leaned over and whispered in Arion’s ear, “If not come back, explain to Minna. Tell her me had to go.”
Suri pulled back, and Arion saw tears in the girl’s eyes. Suri bent down and hugged Minna’s neck, saying something in her crude language. Suri sniffled and wiped her face.
“No,” Arion said. “Suri, don’t go.”
The girl looked up, surprised.
“Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t do anything dangerous. You’re…you’re…special.”
“You special, too.” Suri smiled.
“No, you don’t understand. You have talent, real talent. And you’re a Rhune. Do you know what that means?”
“Know if don’t stop Grin the Brown before sunrise tomorrow, everyone dies. Know same way know how to light lamp.” She stood up and looked at the flickering light. “Sure not want me to go?”
Arion bit her lip.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Curse of the Brown Bear
When the dead betray the living, the victims are memories.
—THE BOOK OF BRIN
One look at the old woman and Suri knew the trip would take forever; she just didn’t think forever would take so long. They left before dawn, but the sun was past midday by the time they reached the Third Step. That was Suri’s name for the shelf of rock that jutted out from the cliff just up from the base of Talon Rock, which was what Tura always called the mountain. The Crescent Forest had many hills but only one mountain, a steep climb of rocky ledges. The forest was different there, less undergrowth but darker and denser. Trees did what they could to survive among the cliffs, resulting in acrobatic growth around boulders as they reached for sunlight. There were about fourteen steps in all, but that was to the summit, and luckily Grin the Brown made her home in a cave on the eighth step. This was still plenty high, well above the tree line, but not too much of a hardship for a normal person. For Maeve the climb was an epic feat.
Although the two had walked well enough when in the forest, as soon as they hit the incline, the old woman started needing rest stops. Suri gave her Tura’s staff to lean on, but she still moved at a creep. Maeve could have lost a race with a tree. Now the path was as vertical as the stairs in the lodge, and Maeve was panting like Minna after a late-summer run. Suri didn’t think it was possible, but Maeve’s face looked even more like melted wax than before. It drooped, sagged, dripped with sweat, and had a flushed rose color. They would make it in time, and that was all that mattered. Suri was pleased with her foresight in starting as early as they had.
Unlike many of the other bears, Grin hunted during the day—another sign of a morvyn Suri couldn’t believe she’d missed all these years. They had plenty of time before Grin returned, and it wouldn’t take long to set a trap. Suri just needed to get to where the morvyn slept before it came home.
“This is all my fault,” Maeve said as she sat on the rocky shelf of the Third Step. The Keeper of Ways had babbled nonstop as they walked. Suri hadn’t paid attention, but sitting still there wasn’t anything to do but listen.
“Why did you abandon your baby?” Suri asked. “Was it ugly? Was it like Gifford? I heard people wanted to throw him in the forest when he was born.”
“No!” the old woman yelled. “I never wanted to give her up. She was taken from me.”
“Someone took your child? Was it a crimbal?”
“No.” The old woman shook her head. “Chieftain Reglan ordered Konniger to take her away. I was weak. I should have stood against him. I should have made him kill me first.”
Wiping the sweat from her face with a white cloth kept in the wrist of her sleeve, she said, “I should have fought. That’s the whole of it. I let my little girl down. You know Padera, don’t you?”
Suri nodded as she sat cross-legged on the dirt. She could tell this was going to be a longer-than-usual rest.
“I hate her. Oh, Mari, how good it feels to say it aloud. I hat
e her!”
This surprised Suri, who thought the toothless woman with the humpback was one of the nicer inhabitants of Dahl Rhen.
“Do you know why?” Maeve didn’t wait for an answer. “Because that old hag raised six children—six! All dead now, including the grandchildren, because she outlives everyone, but each survived to maturity. She saw to that. Padera is a good mother. No, she’s a great mother. That little troll is a perfect mother. Nearly bald under her scarf, did you know that? That’s why she never takes the wrap off. She has a face like a goat stepped in a melon but is too embarrassed to let people see she has no hair. Honestly, who cares?”
Suri felt completely unnecessary in the conversation. Maeve wasn’t even looking at her. The old woman just stared at the ground between her knees.
“Padera wouldn’t have let Konniger take one of her daughters into the forest.”
“Is Shayla Konniger’s daughter, then?”
Maeve looked up with an expression somewhere between appalled and the brink of laughter. “By Mari, no! Konniger was…well, much younger. And if it had been his child, if it had been anyone else’s…” She looked back down at the dirt. “Konniger was kind about it. Might not think it seeing him today, but back then he was a decent lad. He took Shayla gently. Said he would find a pretty place. A place where the gods would surely find her and keep my baby protected from harm. He did a good job. I owe him for that kindness. When he came back, he told me that after he’d set her down in the forest he’d only taken a few steps, and when he looked back, my sweet little girl was gone and in her place sat a bear cub.”
Suri was surprised. She’d never heard of a morvyn possessing and transforming a body so quickly. Her understanding was that it took days.
“When he told me, I went right out and looked. Weeks I hunted. Every day rooting through every miserable thicket, but I finally found her. The gods turned Shayla into a beautiful bundle of brown fur, but I could still tell she was mine. So cute, so perfect. And she needed someone to take care of her. I fed her. Milk at first, then I took some meat from the feasts. Just a little. But then she got bigger. I stole a goat, then another.”
Maeve wiped her face and squeezed her nose. “Soon Shayla learned to hunt on her own. That was a huge weight off my shoulders, but then…the Long Winter and the Great Famine came. There wasn’t any food, not for us on the dahl or for her in the forest. Everyone was thin; walking dead, we used to say. When people started to die, we stopped saying it. Even Padera’s children died. But I wasn’t going to let my baby perish, not after all I’d gone through, after all she’d gone through. My baby needed meat to live. All the goats were gone. And the sheep were guarded.”
Maeve stopped talking and just stared at the ground as if seeing ancient snow.
“You found meat?” Suri asked.
“Yes. I found meat. Frozen meat, but Shayla didn’t mind.” Maeve brought the cloth to her face again but this time wiped tears from her eyes. “They were just lying there, stacked in the hut near the south wall, near the gate. The ground was too frozen to bury the dead, so they just packed them in the snow to wait for the thaw. When spring came, everyone thought animals had stolen the missing bodies.” Maeve’s voice cracked and hitched. She held the cloth to her lips. “Padera’s children kept my Shayla alive.”
“As the morvyn’s strength grew, she craved more human flesh,” Suri said.
Maeve nodded, “I didn’t know. I didn’t…” She was crying too hard then to speak anymore.
“Let’s just hope Shayla still remembers the sound of her mother’s voice.” Suri held out Tura’s staff for Maeve again, and without another word the old woman got to her feet and began to climb once more.
—
That morning when Persephone entered the Great Hall to take her shift watching Arion, she was surprised to find Konniger. She hadn’t seen him in the lodge since Arion had moved in, and so it was odd seeing him in the First Chair, leaning slightly forward, staring out the door. He wore the chieftain’s fur over his shoulders but his leigh mor was wrapped in the summer style, pinned and belted at the waist, forming a skirt that revealed pale, hairy legs. The fire burned low; the room was quiet; Konniger was alone. This concerned Persephone. Konniger was never alone.
Since becoming chieftain, he traveled with an entourage. His drinking friends, cronies, and the growing number of men from Nadak were always around.
“Konniger,” she said, trying not to sound like a guilty kid caught coming home too late.
“Persephone,” he replied, slouching a bit to one side and resting his chin on a hand.
He knew she came there every morning to take over the next shift from Suri. No other reason for him to be sitting in that chair all alone. This was to be a showdown of sorts. He would chastise her for causing trouble, seek to bring her in line. She decided to get her words in first, state her case before the conversation got ugly.
“We’ve never really had a chance to talk since Reglan died,” she began in a gentle, empathetic tone. Although not exactly friends, they’d known each other for years, and she knew this was her best chance to reason with him. “I, well, I’m sorry if I’ve made things harder for you. I was only trying to help. It’s just that after twenty years of sitting up there, I guess it’s hard to let someone else take over—hard to stand by and watch rather than do. I want you to know I’m going to try to be better. You’re chieftain now. I respect that. I just hope you’ll let me contribute—that we can work together in some way. I mean, I have done this job for a long time, and I think I have some knowledge you could benefit from. It seems stupid to be at odds the way we’ve been.”
Konniger cleared his throat and took a breath. “You know, Tressa had been so excited to move in here.” Konniger pointed at the rafters with a lazy finger. “She’d dreamed of it all her life. That woman knew I’d be chieftain one day, believed it even when I didn’t. That’s what a good wife does, keeps your dreams alive even when you don’t believe anymore.” He pulled himself up a bit in the chair, a seat in which he didn’t look comfortable.
“All this heavy timber, solid roof, and this fine fire was so much nicer than the dumpy roundhouse we shared with my mother, my sister, and her husband, Fig. Can’t forget old Fig. Bastard snores as loud as a thunderstorm. I swear he was the cause of the thatch coming off the roof each spring. And, of course, their brood of kids: four god-awful brats who are always crying or shouting. All of us crammed in on top of one another, which wasn’t so bad in winter. Cold blew right through that thatch, you know? But in the heat of summer—brutal.” He shook his head with a you-have-no-idea expression.
“I slept outside most nights starting around this time of year. Sometimes Tressa joined me.” He smiled then and looked into the glowing coals before his feet. “We rarely slept those nights. She likes it outside. Enjoys the freedom that lying on grass gives. I couldn’t wait to see what it’d be like here in the lodge surrounded by thick log walls, the comfort of fur, and the warmth of our own private fire.”
Persephone nodded. “It’s a grand house, this is. I remember being shocked when Reglan first showed me the bedroom. I thought so much luxury was obscene. I figured no one could ever be unhappy living in such a place, sleeping on a fancy bed all to ourselves, but I cried rivers within these walls.”
A breeze blew in through the open door, stirring the flames between them. Konniger sat up fully and pulled the black bear fur tighter over his shoulders. From overhead came the faint sound of intermittent scratching accompanied by an occasional doglike whimper.
Minna, Persephone thought. Why is she scratching?
“I always thought I was destined for greatness,” the chieftain said. “Out of eight kids I was the only one to survive to adulthood.”
“Your sister Autumn is—”
“My sister Autumn isn’t worth mentioning. I’m talking about men. She’s only good for churning out—well, I mentioned the screaming brats already, didn’t I?” He sighed and shook his head. “Eight ki
ds. It was easy to believe that the gods had chosen me for some greatness. Why else did they send sickness, famine, and in the case of my brother Kerannon a gust of wind to kill them while sparing me? As I got older, I realized I was wrong. It wasn’t that I was being spared; they just did a piss-poor job of slaughtering us. Gods can be just as lazy and sloppy as anyone else, I suppose. When Wogan dropped that tree on my father, I knew the gods didn’t care for us. The man was a warrior—Shield to the chieftain—and he died crushed by a lousy tree. No, the gods don’t like me and mine. Honestly, I don’t think they like any of us. But look who I’m talking to.” He laughed.
Persephone nodded. “It can seem that way at times.”
“Yep. The gods are jealous of even the few fleeting instances of joy we manage to sneak in. Laughter rankles them, makes them think we have it better than we should, and they can’t stand that.” He lowered his voice a bit, as if imparting a secret or trying to prevent the gods from hearing. “You can tell because terrible things always follow fortune. If there’s a birth, someone will die. If there’s a good harvest, the next year there’s a blight. Maybe the gods just love to see us suffer. That would explain why we still exist. We’re toys—toys that the gods break and reassemble so they can experience the pleasure of breaking us again. The trick is to avoid being the toy that’s smashed by being the toy that does the smashing.”
He stared at her then, a long hard study, then nodded with some approved decision. “You’re smarter than I expected. I admit I underestimated you. I bought the illusion that Reglan was brilliant; now I see it was all you. He tried to tell me once. Right after my father died, the day he asked me to be his Shield, Reglan told me you were the one that made everything work. I never thought he was serious. He was drunk at the time. We both were. People say stupid things when they’re toasting the dead. He said you were the heart of this dahl, the real chieftain. You were the one with all the ideas, the one with the courage, the one with the passion.” He paused, watching her.
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