'- so why not a Seal in a forest?' said Torak with a smile.
Bale grinned. 'Why not indeed, kinsman?' Then with a nod to Renn and Wolf, he was back in his skinboat and heading off into the west, his fair hair flying behind him, and the Sea around him turning to gold in the sun.
That night, Torak and Renn built a real Forest shelter of living birch saplings in a glade filled with green ferns and the deep pink flowers of willowherb. They had a real Forest meal of stewed goosefoot leaves and baked hawkbit roots, with some early raspberries which Torak found by the bog where he'd decoyed Detlan and Asrif. 'And not a juniper berry in sight,' said Renn with a sigh of satisfaction.
Afterwards they sat by the fire, smelling the tang of pine-smoke and listening to the full-throated warbling of the Forest birds. For the first time in days, they were in half-darkness beneath whispering trees. They could even see a few pale stars between the branches.
Wolf trotted off on one of his nightly hunts, and Renn gave a huge yawn. 'Do you realise,' she said, 'it'll soon be the Cloudberry Moon? I like cloudberries.'
Torak did not reply. He couldn't put it off any longer. Ever since Bale had left, he'd been working up the courage to tell Renn about who what he was.
'Renn,' he said, frowning at the fire. 'There's something I've got to tell you.'
'What,' said Renn, rolling out her sleeping-sack.
He took a breath. 'When we were at the Eagle Heights, the Seal Mage told me something. Something about me.'
Renn stopped what she was doing. 'You're a spirit walker,' she said quietly.
He stared at her. 'How long have you known?'
'Since he told you.' She picked at a loose stitch on her leggings. 'That night after we had the fight, I was worried, so I followed you. I heard everything.'
He thought about that. Then he said, 'Do you mind?'
'What do you mean?'
'About what I am.'
To his surprise, she grinned. 'Torak, you're a who, not a what! You're still a person.'
There was silence for a while. Then Renn said, 'When I found out, I wasn't really that surprised. I've always known you were different.'
Torak tried to smile, but couldn't manage it.
'Don't be sad,' she said. 'After all, maybe it's why you can talk to Wolf.'
'What do you mean?'
'Well it's always bothered me,' she said, renewing her attack on the stitching. 'You were just a baby when your father put you in the wolf den; much too small to learn person talk, let alone wolf talk. So how come you did?' She put her head on one side. 'Maybe your souls slipped into one of the wolves, or something. Don't you think?'
Torak chewed his lower lip. 'I never thought of that.'
Wolf came back from his hunt, his muzzle tinged with red. He wiped it off on the ferns, and sniffed the fire, then padded over to Torak and nosed his chin.
'Do you think he knows?' said Renn.
'About me?' said Torak, scratching behind Wolf's ears. 'How could he? And I couldn't begin to say it in wolf talk.'
Renn wriggled into her sleeping-sack and curled up. 'But he's still your friend,' she said.
Torak nodded. Somehow that didn't make him feel any less cut off.
Again Renn yawned. 'Get some sleep, Torak.'
Torak got into his sleeping-sack, and lay on his back. He was tired, but he didn't think he would sleep.
Wolf slumped against him with a 'humph', and was soon twitching in his dreams.
Torak lay wide-eyed, staring at the fire.
Much later, Renn said, 'Torak? Are you awake?'
'Yes,' he said.
'At the end, when you were both in the water, the Seal Mage shouted something. What was it?'
Torak had been hoping she wouldn't ask. 'I can't tell you,' he said. 'At least, not yet. First I've got to talk to Fin-Kedinn.'
THIRTY-FIVE.
'Tell me the truth,' Torak said to Fin-Kedinn seven days later.
It had taken him and Renn four days to reach the Raven camp, making their way through a Forest where the sickness was slowly ebbing, and the smell of burning juniper berries hung heavy in the air. Islinn's messengers had done their work swiftly. It was made easier by the fact that Fin-Kedinn had persuaded the Open Forest Clans to stay together, and help one another through the sickness. Many of the afflicted were now recovering. But the Ravens had lost five of their people.
For two days after they rejoined the clan, Torak couldn't get Fin-Kedinn alone. The Raven Leader was busy tending his clan, and making sure that every last hunting party in the Forest had been warned about the juniper berries.
But on the seventh day, things began to return to normal. Some of the Ravens went hunting, while others stayed by the river to spear trout. Renn sat with Saeunn, explaining how she'd freed the hidden souls of the tokoroth. Wolf, who had no liking for dogs, disappeared into the Forest.
Torak found the Raven Leader preparing lime bark on the banks of a stream which fed into the Widewater. It was a hot day, but the trees cast a cool green shade. The sweetness of late summer blossom filled the air, and the branches hummed with bees.
'So you want the truth,' said Fin-Kedinn, testing the edge of his axe with his thumb. 'About what?'
'Everything,' said Torak, seething with a frustration that had been building for days. 'Why didn't you tell me?'
With one stroke Fin-Kedinn cut a sucker from the base of a lime tree, and started peeling off the bark. 'What should I have told you?' he said.
'That I'm a spirit walker! That the Seal Mage was my father's brother! That the sickness was my fault!'
Fin-Kedinn stiffened. 'Don't ever say that.'
'He sent the sickness because of me,' said Torak. 'Because of me he killed Oslak and the others. It's my fault!'
'No!' The blue eyes blazed. 'You did nothing wrong! You cannot be blamed for the evil that man did. He was the one, Torak. Remember that.'
For a moment they faced each other, and the air crackled between them. Then the Raven Leader tossed the bark on a pile at his feet. 'And you're wrong. I did not know that you're a spirit walker, not till Renn told me last night. None of us knew.'
Torak frowned. 'But I thought Fa must have told Saeunn. When I was little, at the clan meet by the Sea.'
Fin-Kedinn shook his head. 'He told her he'd put you in a wolf den when you were a baby; and that you might some day be the one to vanquish the Soul-Eaters. He didn't say why.'
'Why would he keep that from her?'
'Who knows? He'd been a hunted man for a long time. He'd grown wary.'
Wary towards his own son, too, thought Torak. That was the worst of it: that sometimes he was angry with Fa. For not telling him . . .
'He did what he thought was best,' said Fin-Kedinn. 'He didn't want your boyhood darkened by destiny.'
Torak threw himself down on the bank and began pulling up grass. 'You knew them both, didn't you? My father and his brother.'
Fin-Kedinn did not reply.
'Tell me about them. Please.'
The Raven Leader stroked his beard and sighed. 'I first met them twenty-eight summers ago,' he said. 'I was eleven, your father was nine. Wolf Clan, like his father. His brother who was my age was Seal Clan, like their mother. We spent five moons together, fostered with the Wolf Clan.'
'With the Wolf Clan?' Torak said, surprised. 'But I've never even seen them, so how -'
'They weren't always as elusive as they are now. Times change. People grow mistrustful.' With a length of withe he tied the pile of bark into a bundle. 'The three of us became friends,' he went on. 'I lived for hunting; but with the others it was always Magecraft. Your father was eager to learn the ways of trees, hunters, prey. His brother . . .' He gave the knot a sharp tug. 'His brother wanted only to control. To dominate.'
Hoisting the bundle on his shoulder, he stepped down into the stream and set it to soak beneath a stone. 'Ten winters came and went, and we stayed good friends. The eleventh winter changed all that.' Water swirled round his calves as he bent to retrieve another bundle which had been soaking for days. 'Your father was named the Wolf Mage,' he said, tossing it on the bank. 'His brother although the older and some said the more skilled was not named the Seal Mage.' He shook his head. 'It was a bitter blow. None of us knew how bitter until it was too late. He left his clan, and wandered alone.'
'Where did he go?' asked Torak.
Sadness shadowed Fin-Kedinn's face. 'I don't know. I never saw him again. But six summers later, I heard from your father that his brother had reappeared. Joined a group of Mages called the Healers.'
'But he wasn't a Mage,' said Torak.
Fin-Kedinn's mouth curled. 'He was persuasive. You of all people should know that.' Climbing back onto the bank, he knelt by the bundle. 'I told you once how the Healers became the Soul-Eaters. How they brought terror to the Forest.' He paused. 'Then came the great fire that broke them. Some were terribly wounded. All were scattered, in hiding.'
'He was burned,' murmured Torak. 'On his face and down his side.'
'What none of us knew,' said Fin-Kedinn, 'was that he'd found his way back to his clan. All we knew was that the Seals had become separate. Ceased their dealings with the Open Forest, traded only with the Sea clans. And they had a new Mage.'
Torak tossed the grass in the stream, and watched it sucked under by the current. He thought of Tenris, dragged down into the deep. He said, 'He was after me because I'm a spirit walker. Because he wanted that power.' He stared into the water. 'The other Soul-Eaters will want it too.'
Fin-Kedinn hesitated. 'They may not know about you yet. Maybe the Seal Mage acted alone.'
'And maybe he didn't,' said Torak. 'Maybe he had help.'
Suddenly the Forest seemed to close in around him. The buzzing of the bees became strangely menacing. In his mind, Torak saw again the yellow eyes of Tenris the Seal Mage. He thought of the other Soul-Eaters the faceless ones whose names he didn't know, but who were out there somewhere. Waiting.
He said, 'They'll find out what I can do. They'll come after me.'
The Raven Leader nodded. 'You could make them more powerful than they ever dreamed. Or you could destroy them utterly.'
Torak met his eyes. 'Is that why you've never offered to foster me? Because I'm dangerous?'
Something flickered in the blue gaze. 'I must look to the safety of the clan, Torak. You could help us defeat them. Or you could be our ruin.'
'But I would never harm the Ravens!' cried Torak, leaping to his feet.
'You don't know that!' Fin-Kedinn said fiercely. 'You don't know what you will become. None of us does!'
'But -'
'Evil exists in us all, Torak. Some fight it. Some feed it. That's how it's always been.'
With a cry Torak turned away.
Fin-Kedinn made no move to comfort him. Instead he cut open the bundle, chose a strip of bark, and began peeling off the bast.
Torak felt giddy and frightened. He felt as if he stood at the edge of a cliff, about to jump off into the unknown.
Mustering his courage, he asked the question that had been eating away at him ever since Tenris had met his end. 'Last winter, when you told me about the Soul-Eaters, you said there were seven. But you only described five.'
The Raven Leader's strong hands stilled.
'The Seal Mage was the sixth,' said Torak. 'I need to know about the seventh.' His fists clenched. 'My father had a scar on his chest. Here.' He touched his breastbone. 'That made it hard when I when I put the Death Marks on him.' He tried to swallow. 'Something the Seal Mage said made me think that the seventh Soul-Eater . . .'
Fin-Kedinn rubbed a hand over his face. Then he laid the lime bast in the grass.
'My father,' said Torak. 'It was my father.'
A gust of wind shivered the branches, hazing the air with drifting sweetness. The trees were trying to soften the blow.
'No,' said Torak, sinking to his knees. 'No.'
He read his answer in the Raven Leader's eyes.
After a while, Fin-Kedinn came and sat beside him. 'Do you remember,' he said, 'when I told you that in the beginning they were not evil? Your father believed that. That's why he joined them. To heal the sick, to chase away demons.' His gaze became distant and full of pain. 'Your mother never believed it. She knew. But by the time he saw the truth, it was too late.' He spread his hands. 'He tried to leave. They wouldn't let him.'
'Is that why they killed him?' said Torak.
Slowly the Raven Leader nodded.
Torak sat with his head bowed to his knees, shaken by dry, wrenching sobs. Fin-Kedinn sat beside him: not touching, not speaking, but steadying by his presence alone.
At last the Raven Leader rose to his feet. 'I'm going back to camp now. You stay here. Peel the rest of this bundle. Wash the bast in the stream. Hang it up to dry.'