Aenir Read online

  "How do you know that's what I was saying?" asked Tal.

  The two Storm Shepherds nodded, as if he'd asked a good question.

  "I have heard it," said Milla, her voice low. "Five times. The last was only a half-circling ago, when Olof Snowswimmer slew Ifrim No-Nose in his sleep. Olof would not accept the judgment of the Crone Mother, and she had to say the prayer."

  "What happened?" growled the smaller Storm Shepherd. All the lightning that it had held in its hand was gone now, and its eyes sparked more brightly.

  "The Crone Mother called on Asteyr, and she made Olof walk into the Living Sea," said Milla. "He was not crushed by the Selski, but caught on a fluke, and dragged for many stretches across the Ice before he died."

  "Tal was silent.

  Asteyr was one of the words in the binding spell, repeated several times. But how could the Chosen's binding spell be the same as the Icecarl's Prayer to Asteyr?

  "This is all very interesting," grumbled the larger Storm Shepherd. "But you still have to decide. Which of you is to die?"

  CHAPTER THREE

  As the Storm Shepherd finished speaking, Milla suddenly struck at the one holding her down, plunging her bone knife into the creature's middle finger. The knife sank hilt-deep into the cloud-flesh and then bounced out again, the cloud reforming.

  "Don't do that," said the Storm Shepherd. "It tickles."

  Milla slid her knife back into her sleeve and took a deep breath.

  "I will be the one to die," she announced. "But only if Tal promises to take my Sunstone to the Far Raiders, and tell the Crone Mother of the Ship everything I have seen."

  "Hold on!" said Tal. He'd been thinking about the Storm Shepherds' curious reluctance to actually go ahead and kill one of them. "I don't think either of us has to die."

  "Blood has been offered on Old Hrigga Hill!" roared the larger Storm Shepherd. "A life must be given, and a gift granted. The girl has offered her life, and we will take it!"

  "No, take mine," said Tal quickly. "I'm offering as well. But only if Milla helps find the Codex and takes it back to Ebbitt so he can find Gref."

  "Two lives…" muttered the larger Storm Shepherd. It sounded confused. "This is not the way of things. One life, one gift. That is the rule of the hill."

  "What if we don't ask for a gift?" questioned Tal. "Say we gave you a gift instead of a life?"

  "No," grumbled the Storm Shepherd, shaking its head. "Never before has this happened on Old Hrigga Hill. One life is taken, one gift given!"

  "I would like a gift, Adras," said the other Storm Shepherd. "No one has ever given us a gift."

  "There is no choice, Odris," said the larger Storm Shepherd. "We are bound to the hill, and must serve its wants."

  "Adras and Odris," said Milla. "I am Milla of the Far Raiders, and that is Tal."

  "Of the Chosen," added Tal. The pressure on his chest was lightening. The Storm Shepherds obviously found it harder to crush people they'd been introduced to.

  Now that he knew their names, Tal could see differences between the two Storm Shepherds. Adras was taller by several stretches and wider, and had more lightning running along its puffy arms and hands. Odris was slighter and there were many more sparks in its eyes. From their shapes, Tal could tell Adras was male and Odris female.

  "One must die," repeated Adras. He was stuck on that.

  "But we have to decide, don't we?" asked Tal. "That's the nature of the binding, isn't it?"

  Tal knew that the great majority of the creatures of Aenir were bound to particular places, or to follow certain paths, or to roam within severely limited boundaries. Within these bounds, they were also constrained to follow age-old spells and rituals.

  If Tal could work out the exact nature of the binding, he might be able to save himself and Milla.

  Adras didn't answer, but Tal saw Odris wink.

  "Let us up so we can talk about it," said Tal. "After all, you can catch us if we try to run away."

  The Storm Shepherds looked at each other. Then they lifted their hands and billowed back. Tal and Milia stood up and wiped the mud off their bodies. Most of it was on their backs. After a moment's hesitation, they helped each other get the worst of it off.

  "Now, let me get this straight," said Tal. "You two are bound to this hill. If blood is spilled here, hen you must come and ask for a life and give a gift in return."

  "So it has always been," rumbled Adras.

  "Since the Forgetting," added Odris.

  "The Forgetting?", asked Tal, curious. "What was that?"

  "We do not know," replied Odris. "There is only the time before the Forgetting, which we do not know, and the time after, which we do."

  "How is this going to help us?" whispered Milla to Tal. "Blind them with your Sunstone, and we will run. They have said they are bound here. Once off the hill we will be safe."

  "Their lightning isn't bound," Tal whispered back. "If we run they'll probably roast us both."

  "No whispering!" ordered Adras. He was getting impatient again. "Which one will die?"

  "If you weren't bound to this hill, you wouldn't have to take a life, would you?" asked Tal.

  His question surprised the Storm Shepherds. Thunder crackled around them, and they bowed their heads together. They obviously thought their whispers could not be heard, but even whispering, their voices were as loud as a human speaking normally.

  "Freedom?"

  "Can he free us?"

  "What will Hrigga do?"

  "I can free you," announced Tal. "Sort of, anyway."

  He hesitated before he continued. What he said next would seal his future and could not be unsaid. "How?" boomed Adras. "How?"

  "You will have to volunteer to become our Spiritshadows," Tal blurted out. He felt sick, knowing that he was giving up the future he'd dreamed about, of a dragon Spiritshadow like the Empress's, or a majestic maned cat like Ebbitt's. That made him feel guilty, too. How could he even temporarily value that more than Gref's freedom, or his mother's life?

  He'd also forgotten what it would mean to Milla.

  "What!" exploded Milla. She looked at Tal as if he had suddenly turned into a Merwin. "I cannot have a Spiritshadow!"

  "It's the only thing I can think of," explained Tal wretchedly. "Great-uncle Ebbitt told me once about an Aeniran creature who volunteered to be a Spiritshadow, instead of being forced. It bound itself freely to a Chosen, and so became free of the bonds that held it to a place. Of course, the Chosen who let it wasn't allowed to bring it back until it was rebound to be an actual servant, not a companion… anyway, if they volunteer, we don't have to Mark the Bounds or Speak the Words. We just Share the Shadow, which means giving them our natural shadows "

  "My shadow?" asked Milla, her voice as cold as the ice she came from. Her hand was on the hilt of her Merwin-horn sword. "We have shared much, Tal of the Chosen. But do not think you have made me like you. I will not give up my shadow. I would rather die."

  Tal shook as he held back angry words. He couldn't believe Milla was being so stubborn. Everything depended on this. Their own lives. His whole family.

  Besides, he was honoring her, giving her the opportunity to get a Spiritshadow, to become almost like a Chosen!

  He turned back to the Storm Shepherds, but Odris forestalled his next question.

  "Both of us must be freed from the hill. You must take both of us to be Spiritshadows."

  Milla shook her head.

  Tal stared at her. Their eyes met, but neither Chosen nor Icecarl blinked. It was a test of wills. Tal was sure that asking the Storm Shepherds to voluntarily join them as Spiritshadows was the only way to avoid either himself or Milla being sacrificed.

  They were still staring when the ground beneath their feet suddenly shook, dropping at least a stretch. Tal and Milla both fell over again. Milla went over backward, and struck her head on a stone.

  "Hrigga wakes!" roared Adras. "We accept your offer!"

  He reached forward and placed his hand around Tal's shadow, as if he would pick it up. But he did not close his fingers. Odris did the same to Milla's shadow. Tal expected the Icecarl to protest or move away, but Milla had struck her head sharply. She groggily tried to sit up, but her shadow didn't move enough to evade Odris's grasp.

  Both Storm Shepherds paused. The ground continued to quake under Tal's feet, and he saw thin cracks suddenly run through the mud. Then they grew wider and joined, till one huge crack ran under Tal and Milla.

  "Light!" boomed Odris. "We cannot take your shadows without your light!"

  Tal tore his attention away from the quickly widening crack under him. It was opening like a mouth, to swallow him up. He looked at Milla for an instant and made his decision.

  Look after your mother and the children, Tal. I'm depending upon you.

  He raised his Sunstone above his head and called the light that was used in the final part of a Spiritshadow binding, the light that moved through all seven colors, the light, that shared the shadow. in that strange rainbow flicker, both his and Milla's shadows appeared more solid, more real. The Storm Shepherds picked them up and thrust them into the middle of their cloud-bodies, where their hearts would be if they had them.

  Tal felt a wrench as his shadow disappeared, and a rush of cold air that seemed to pass through his head. Immediately he became more aware of the amount of moisture in the air, and of the wind and sky. Small sparks shot out of his fingers and around his Sunstone. On the ground, Milla was also briefly surrounded by crackling sparks.

  Then the hill split completely in two, revealing a deep, dark abyss.

  Tal teetered on the edge, flailing his arms as he tried to regain his balance. Milla, still half-unconscious, slid over the edge i
n a fountain of loose dirt, mud, and stone.

  Both fell into the dark earth.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  As Tal and Milla fell, the Storm Shepherds dived after them. Swooping down, they grabbed their new companions and shot back out of the crevasse. Just as they cleared the rim, the giant crack snapped shut, spraying earth, stones, and mud into the sky.

  "Free!" boomed Adras as he rose up into the sky, Tal dangling from one puffy hand. "Free!"

  "Free!" sang Odris. "Free at last, of the hateful hill!"

  "Well, not exactly," shouted Tal. "You are Spirit-shadows after all. Or you will be when we get back to the Castle."

  He wasn't sure what the procedure was now. If he'd bound Adras to him in the usual way, the

  Storm Shepherd would be a servant and would have to do what he was told. But he was a free companion.

  Somehow, Tal thought, every time he got himself out of trouble he created a whole lot more for himself as well. Nothing was ever simple.

  Thinking of trouble made Tal look across at Milla. She was hanging limply in Odris's grip, clearly still dazed by the blow to her head.

  "And you are my Chosen," answered Adras, which made Tal frown. "Where do we travel, Tal?"

  "Down, for a start," said Tal, suppressing a shiver. They'd gone up a long way very quickly and it was cold. Old Hrigga Hill was far below them, with the new lake surrounding it. He could see the forest, the one where the trees had walked away. They had stopped on higher ground, quite a long way south.

  The sun was almost down now. It had settled behind the line of hills to the west. The stars were quite clear above the hills, gleaming in the constellations of Aenir, many of them familiar to Tal from his early childhood. His family had always spent their first night in Aenir after the Day of Ascension looking at the stars. There was the many-starred cluster called the Jewel Box, and the triangular formation known as the Dragonhead, though Tal didn't think it really looked like one.

  They reminded him of his family so far away, beyond his grasp.

  It was easy to keep staring at the stars, but that would not help his mission. Tal looked away. He had to think of what to do next. He had to forget about his lost Spiritshadow and focus on finding the Codex.

  The Codex would help him find Gref. Gref was the first step toward reuniting his family.

  One step at a time.

  "Adras has not left the bounds since the Forgetting, and I have been bound all my life," said Odris, gliding closer and interrupting Tal's thoughts. "It is strange to do more than look upon distant lands. Where shall we alight?"

  Tal peered down. There was the lake, the forest, and wide patches of bare grassland. He could see a ring of standing stones, but that was probably best avoided, for strong magic and stronger creatures made such places their home.

  There were also some low hills, but Tal didn't like the look of them, after his experience with Old Hrigga. That was the trouble with Aenir, he thought. You could never tell when a hill was just a hill.

  "How about there?" he asked, pointing to an area of burnt-out grassland. It looked like a fire had raced through within the last few days. Hopefully this meant that the earth was just earth, and anything else that might have lurked there would have fled the fire.

  The Storm Shepherds began to drop down. Tal noticed that Adras got quite a lot colder as they fell, and that he kept looking across at Odris and adjusting his rate of fall to match her speed.

  Tal sighed. It was already clear that Adras who would be his Spiritshadow back in the Castle -was not the smartest of Storm Shepherds. Big and powerful, but a bit of a Dimmer when it came to brainpower. It was even worse than he feared. A smart Spiritshadow was of enormous help to an ambitious Chosen. A stupid one was quite the reverse.

  "Milla? Are you all right?" Tal called out as Adras dropped him the last few stretches down on the blackened earth. The fire had been recent, because he could still smell it. The odor of burnt grass was very strong.

  Odris hovered even lower than Adras and gently lay Milla down. The Icecarl didn't move.

  Tal hurried over. Milla must have hit her head harder than he'd thought. He knelt down beside her and mentally ran over the healing spells he could cast with his Sunstone. But if she had a really serious head injury there was nothing

  Suddenly he found himself on his back, with Milla's knee on his chest, and her bone knife at his throat. She leaned close, her eyes wild and her mouth set in an animal snarl.

  "Traitor!" she shouted and dug the point of her knife into his neck, hard enough to draw a thin trickle of blood. "You sold my shadow!"

  "But we had to " Tal tried to say. Milla was really going to kill him this time, he suddenly knew. The knife hurt and she would need to slide it in only a little bit more.

  "I

  should kill you," hissed Milla. "Shadow-stealer!"

  She returned the knife to her sleeve. Tal sighed in relief. But his sigh was cut off as Milla suddenly pushed her thumbs against two nerves on his neck. She pushed quickly three times. On the third push, Tal's eyes closed and his head fell back.

  Milla stood up. The two Storm Shepherds looked at her.

  "I suppose I should defend my companion," said

  Adras, looking down at Tal's unconscious form. "I felt that, too, you know."

  "But then you would have to fight me, brother," said Odris.

  Adras shrugged. "He seems to be unhurt."

  "Give me back my shadow!" Milla screamed. She drew her Merwin-horn sword and cut at Odris, but the sword just went straight through the cloud-flesh. The bright Merwin horn could cut shadow, but here in Aenir, Odris was not a shadow.

  "I can't," said Odris plaintively. "We are tied together now, until the end of our days. I will go with you to your "

  "No! No! No!" screamed Milla, hacking away at the Storm Shepherd. But her furious blows only exhausted her. Odris bore them without flinching. Adras merely watched Tal, crouching at his side like a huge statue carved from fog.

  Finally Milla stood back and took several very slow breaths. She was using a Rovkir exercise, to prevent the onset of berserk fury.

  "You'll get used to it," said Odris.

  "No I won't," said Milla. "I will give myself to the Ice."

  "There isn't much Ice on Aenir," said Odris.

  "There might not be any. It's a hot place, on the whole "

  "I will return to the Dark World," Milla stated coldly. "I will find the Chosen Enclave and force one of them to show me how to cross back.

  Then

  I will give myself to the Ice."

  "Why?" asked Odris.

  Milla stood staring into space for a moment, then she whispered, "I cannot be an Icecarl without my shadow. I cannot be a Shield Maiden without my shadow. I am no one without my shadow."

  "But I'll be your shadow when we " Odris started to say. Before the Storm Shepherd could continue, Milla turned and ran out into the star-flecked darkness.

  Odris sighed, a big sigh that swept up a cloud of charcoal dust that blew over Adras. He growled, and puffed himself up a few times to shake it off.

  "I have to goafter her," said Odris. She sounded a a bit surprised. "It feels very odd to be bound to a person rather than to a

  place."

  "It does, doesn't it?" agreed Adras. "I hope mine wakes up soon."

  "I will try to bring mine back," said Odris. "Make sure you tell the wind where you are, Adras, so I can find you. And don't go across to the Dark World without me."

  "I will - won't," replied Adras. "I mean, I will tell the wind and I won't cross."

  The two Storm Shepherds slowly billowed their arms out to touch palms. Then Odris leapt up into the sky. She drew the wind around her and set off after Milla.

  Adras sat back down and looked at Tal. Somehow he could feel that the boy was all right. He was only sleeping now.

  It was odd being bound to a person, Adras thought, as his own breathing matched Tal's, and he felt his lightning-charged eyes begin to close. Storm Shepherds rarely slept, but he felt like it now.

  As his eyes closed, his body lost its form, arms and legs spreading till they joined. The dark, threatening cloud in his middle smoothed into fluffy white.