Thief Eyes

Chapter 7

Light bloomed from niches in the walls. Ari and I whirled around, racing for the stairs, but then we heard wingbeats down below.

Right. No going back that way. We turned to face the man. His brown beard was streaked with gray. His wool cloak hung open over a belted shirt and baggy pants wrapped with strips of leather. His eyes swept quickly over Ari and took on a calculating look as they focused on me.

“That one is no friend to foxes,” Freki whispered at my feet. I guessed that meant the man wasn’t Freki’s master. The little fox nudged my leg with his nose, then slipped back into the shadows.

The man stepped toward us. Ari edged closer to me. Behind us the sound of wings beat on. “And who might you two be?” The man’s voice was lazy and slow, as if he were used to having all the time in the world. He glanced back at Ari. “Your hair is white for one so young.”

Ari straightened beside me, though his hand was sweating in mine. “I am Ari, Katrin’s son. This is Haley, Gabriel’s daughter.” Gabriel—my father? “Who are you?”

“Svan is my name. Bjorn’s son. I guard this place in return for my lodging here.” He took another step toward us. I stepped back and nearly stumbled over the top stair. Ari grabbed my arm, steadying me.

He looked at the man. “Svan like in the saga? Surely not.”

The man laughed, though his gaze didn’t leave us. “Do they yet remember this old sorcerer out in the wide world?”

“Remember is one way of putting it,” Ari said.

Behind us, the wingbeats grew louder. My heart pounded. We had to get out of here. I stepped toward the door, not that I expected it to be that easy.

Svan grabbed his staff and stepped in front of me, blocking the way. He poked my chest with his free hand. I shoved him away, glaring.

Svan laughed again. “Haley. Are you sure we haven’t met before?”

I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t about to tell him so. Try that again and you’re going to get kicked where it hurts. Ari made a low sound that reminded me of his bear’s growl. “Haley is an American. A—a Vinlander, you might say.”

I couldn’t tell whether the words—American or Vinlander, whatever that was—meant anything to Svan. A pair of terns flew chittering into the room, landed on Svan’s desk, and watched us.

“Please,” Ari said, the politeness obviously forced. “We need to leave this place.”

The sorcerer chuckled. “I can see you are the sort of man who would rather bargain than fight, Ari, Katrin’s son.” Was that an insult? “Tell me what gift you would offer in return for your freedom.”

Ari hesitated, then squared his shoulders and stepped forward. “A poem,” he said.

I looked at Ari. He shrugged uneasily. “It works in the sagas,” he said in English.

If Svan understood English he gave no sign. He tilted his head as if intrigued. “Very well. Let’s hear your poem, boy.”

Two more small birds swooped into the room and perched in niches in the wall. Ari switched back to Icelandic, looking right at Svan as he recited:

Images flashed through my head at Ari’s words: feet running over gravel, a raven crying out, the rush of water. Svan stared at Ari, as if considering his poem, but then he threw back his head and laughed. “You price your words too high, boy. You’ll have to do better than that!”

I glared at Svan. “I liked it,” I said.

Ari looked down, and his neck flushed red. “I don’t have anything else to bargain with.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” A slow smile crossed Svan’s face. He reached out and grabbed my arm.

I tried to pull away, but he was stronger than he looked. I kneed him in the groin, hard.

Svan grunted and let go, doubling over. His staff clattered to the floor, but he didn’t stop smiling. “A strong woman. I like that.” He winked at Ari. “What do you say? A gift for a lonely old man? Long have I been in this mountain. She’ll more than buy your freedom.”

I tensed, ready to kick him, even as my eyes scanned the room for a weapon. The sorcerer straightened.

Ari shone the flashlight right into his eyes. Svan threw a hand up over his face and staggered back. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “You’re only a boy, whatever the color of your hair. You wouldn’t know what to do with her!”

Ari growled softly. In my pocket, the coin flared with heat, burning through the denim. Heat was a weapon—I grabbed the coin. Memory washed over me.

A golden-haired girl and a man—Svan—sitting together on a black beach. The man drew circles and arcs and lines in the dark sand, and the girl carefully copied each symbol—each rune—in turn.

“See, Uncle, I can learn.”

“Yes, Hallgerd. Now do it again.”

“I already understand! Don’t you trust me?”

The coin burned hotter. I flinched, and it fell clattering to the stones.

“I do know you.” Svan’s voice brought me back to the present. He looked at me through slitted eyes, then held his hands out in front of him, as if to show he meant no harm. A bit late for that. “Your eyes are wrong, but you are surely Hallgerd’s kin.”

The distant wingbeats fell silent. Ari still held the flashlight, aimed just below Svan’s eyes now. A listening silence filled the room.

The sorcerer reached for the coin. I snapped it up—it was still warm, but not as hot as before—and shoved it into my pocket.

“The runes inscribed there are clearly my niece’s work,” Svan said. “How did it come to be yours?”

Damn good question. “Who’s Hallgerd?” Even as I asked, I knew: The other one, who Muninn wouldn’t name.

“Hallgerd was a bitch.” Ari’s eyes never left Svan—Hallgerd’s uncle. “She’s also someone you don’t want to mess with.”

“Aye, she is that.” A strange sadness crossed Svan’s features. He picked up his staff. “Teaching Hallgerd was a mistake. She combined the runes in ways I never intended, and in so doing called on fires that yet threaten the land beyond these stones. I think it is not by chance that you’ve come to me now.” He nodded. “It is time to undo my mistake. I will leave with you, Haley, and teach you the sorcery with which to end Hallgerd’s spell.”

“Hell no,” Ari said.

Muninn hadn’t seemed sure the spell could be ended. “You’d let us both leave if we let you come with us?” I said. That seemed way too easy.

Svan glanced sidelong at Ari, and I knew there’d been no both in his original bargain. He nodded. “Yes.”

“It’s the best chance we’re likely to get,” I told Ari in English, though I didn’t want Svan hanging around any more than Ari did.

“You’ll keep your hands to yourself,” Ari told the sorcerer in Icelandic.

“She is my kin!” Svan looked offended. He gestured at Ari with his staff. “What do you take me for, boy?”

“I do not think you want me to answer that,” Ari muttered darkly in English.

Svan laughed and strode across the room, ignoring the birds perched on the table. He fastened his cloak closed with a round silver pin—a snake eating its own tail—then wrapped a strip of leather inscribed with more runes around his staff.

He walked up to the door and pounded the floor three times. The sound echoed through my chest, loud as Ari’s polar bear roar. The sorcerer chanted:

Svan blew softly over the staff. The door swung silently inward, revealing a patch of gray sky beyond.

Wingbeats burst into the air. The little birds launched themselves right at us.

“Run!” Svan said.

I grabbed Ari’s hand and raced across the room, ignoring the pack slamming against my back and the bird claws grabbing at my hair. A darker shadow swooped into the room. The little birds flew away. Ari and I kept running, through the open doorway. Icy air hit us, way colder than in the cave. We skittered to a stop.

We stood on a stone ledge only a few yards across. To our right the ledge quickly narrowed and disappeared, leaving only a vertical stone cliff. To our left the ledge wound around the curve of a towering black mountain.

Ahead of us, where the ledge fell away, there was only gray swirling fog. I stepped back, fighting dizziness. Ari grabbed a stone from the ground and threw it into the fog. It disappeared silently into the mist, but I didn’t hear it hit bottom. Ari’s eyes widened, and he moved back, too. Svan stepped out to join us, his staff in hand and a leather sack slung over his back. The drop into nowhere didn’t seem to bother him.

“Not wise, Haley.” Muninn’s wingbeats were slow and rhythmic behind me. The raven swooped through the doorway and turned to hover before me in the mist. As I looked into his shiny eyes, my hands fell limp by my sides, even as some small part of me kept thinking about that drop. Fear shuddered through me. I was falling, arms flailing for a hold, knowing when I landed I would die—I wrenched my thoughts away from that memory.

“You do not want to remember.” Muninn’s wings kept pumping the air. “You do not want to return to the world that nearly destroyed you. I cannot bind you, but I can give you one more chance. Turn back before the door closes.”

Maybe Muninn was right. Maybe it was better to forget. I stepped back into the doorway. My thoughts felt fuzzy and strange. Another step and I’d be inside.

Ari grabbed my hand. “Don’t.” He held on so tightly, as if all by himself he could keep me from taking that step. His palm felt warm against mine. I wanted to remember him, even if we only had a day together for me to remember. If I turned back, what he meant to me would always be a mystery.

I walked back out of the doorway. Ari let out a breath, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

Muninn screeched his anger. “I cannot bind you, yet I will do what I can to keep you from acting in the wide world. Know this, Haley, Amanda and Gabriel’s daughter, and Ari, Katrin and Thorolf’s son: None shall remember you, beyond these stones. None shall see you, comfort you, aid you.”

He turned his gaze to Svan and I stumbled, released from the raven’s hold. “As for you, sorcerer,” Muninn said, “you know well enough the price for failing to guard the door. No more will you wander these tunnels, listening to the past and learning its magic. In the human world you shall age and die, like the mortal you are. Now go!”

Muninn gave one final sharp beat of his wings. A bitter wind began to blow. The raven swooped past us and disappeared into the cave, his wingbeats echoing. “I leave you alone, alone, alone.”

“Not so alone as all that.” I felt fur brush against my jeans. I looked down, wind biting my cheeks, and Freki looked up at me. “Thank you for the mead, Haley. Good fortune go with you.” I reached down to scratch the fox behind the ears. He slipped out of reach through the wooden door. It swung shut as it had opened, without a sound.

I searched my thoughts, but still found only darkness in place of my memories. Amanda and Gabriel—my parents—when I searched for images to go with them, I saw only the lifeless pictures in my wallet. Leaving Muninn’s mountain hadn’t changed anything.

“So,” Svan said. “That went better than expected.” Staff in hand, he brushed past us, following the ledge like a trail away from Muninn’s door.

“I don’t trust him,” Ari whispered.

Neither did I, but what choice did we have? It wasn’t like there was anyplace else we could go. I followed Svan. Still holding my hand, Ari walked by my side, only a couple of feet from the edge. Looking at the fog made me all trembly. I forced my gaze away. To my left, the mountain rose steeply, a solid, comforting presence.

The wind picked up. Icy raindrops blew into my face. Svan disappeared around the mountain’s curve. Ari and I walked faster. The sorcerer glanced back as we came into view. “What do you wait for? The mountain will not remain in the mortal realm for long.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ari asked.

Svan looked at him like he couldn’t believe how stupid Ari was. “Now that would depend on the realm, wouldn’t it? In the realm of fire, your flesh will melt and boil; in the realm of ice, it will freeze and shatter; in the realm of light, you will turn to sunbeams and disappear. In other realms, other things. I suggest we not wait around to recite them.” He walked on, his staff tapping the ledge, which had begun to slope downhill.

The cold rain fell harder. I pulled up my hood, but the wind blew the rain right into it. More rain dripped from Ari’s hat. I glanced past him, toward the foggy emptiness—and quickly wrenched my gaze away, breathing hard.

“Haley?” Ari squeezed my hand, and I realized I’d stopped walking. I looked up at the mountain. The vertical rock wall stretched up and up—that made me dizzy, too. I squeezed my eyes closed. When I opened them Ari was looking at me, his own eyes wide with concern.

“I fell, didn’t I?” I said.

Ari frowned and began walking again. I followed, keeping my gaze firmly on the stone beneath my feet. Svan had disappeared out of sight once more.

“Were you there when I fell? Did you see?”

Ari pulled his cap down over his ears. “Yeah. I tried to stop you, but I messed it up. So Muninn saved your life instead and I got pulled along for the ride.”

Ari wasn’t the one who’d fallen. He couldn’t have messed up half as much as me. “Why did I fall?” It seemed suddenly important to know.

Ari walked faster. I hurried to keep up, still keeping my eyes on the ledge. “You climbed too high,” Ari said. “And then you let go. I don’t know why.”

The ledge grew slippery as the rain continued. I glanced at my scarred palm. I couldn’t have let go on purpose, could I?

Svan had stopped walking. A couple dozen paces ahead of him, the ledge ended abruptly, giving way to more fog. A few cold tendrils drifted toward us.

“Now what?” I said.

“Now we jump,” Svan said, as if that should have been obvious. He broke into a run, his leather shoes slapping the stone. As he reached the edge he held his arms out wide—one hand holding his staff, the other his leather bag—and leaped into the fog. It swallowed him at once, leaving no sign he’d been there.

In the silence that followed, Ari and I stared at each other. Dizziness washed over me, stronger than before. I began backing away, only Ari still held my hand. After a few steps I came to a halt.

The blowing rain stung my cheeks. I can’t, I thought, but I had no choice. I looked up at Ari. “You go first,” I said.

“And give you the chance to change your mind? No way.”

My hand trembled in Ari’s grasp. “Someone has to go first,” I said reasonably.

“We’ll jump together,” Ari said.

We wouldn’t jump as far together. Ari was risking his own life just to make sure I didn’t risk mine. I adjusted the backpack on my shoulders, knowing I was stalling. “We’ll have to run first. We should count. But you don’t have to—”

“One!” Ari ran, dragging me along.

I stumbled, then matched his pace. “Two!” I said. I can’t do this.

“Three!” Ari said. “Now!”

We jumped, our hands still clasped. Wind whistled past my ears as fog surrounded us. It blew my hood back, and my hair streamed out behind me.

The whistling turned to a roar. Icy rain gave way to burning wind. Somehow, impossibly, we were still jumping. The fog around us turned to roiling orange flames. Heat rolled over me, a physical thing. The realm of fire. Something reached for me out of the flames—a huge misshapen arm, made entirely of flame. Hot fingers stroked my cheek. Any second my skin would catch fire, and then there would be pain—

Another fiery arm reached for Ari. “Leave him alone!” I screamed, knowing they couldn’t hear me, knowing they wouldn’t listen if they could.

Yet in my head, through the roaring, I heard a rough, inhuman voice, crackling like dry paper. “What would you give us to leave him alone?” Burning eyes stared at me through the flames. A burning shudder ran through me.

“Anything!” I said, knowing I had less to offer the power here than I’d had to offer Muninn.

Fiery fingers brushed my hair. “Once before, we accepted such golden locks as a gift. We accept them now. We gift you our fire in turn. Nothing will stay our power this time. You will take our fire into your blood and not merely your hair. You will take our fire into your world, and in so doing, perhaps help us find our way free into that world at last. Do you accept?”

Hot wind scoured my skin like sandpaper. A sickening charred smell filled the air—my own skin melting away. The darkness in me burned away, too, replaced by light so bright it hurt my eyes. Another moment and I’d burn down to ash. I clutched Ari’s hand, though I could no longer see him through the burning. “Yes!” I said, knowing only that I wanted the heat to go away.

“Very good.” The voice in my head made a satisfied sound. The smell of burning hair filled the air.

I slammed into ice-cold water. It cooled the fire, leaving behind warm coals that settled down somewhere deep inside me. Water washed over me as my hands and knees hit wet sand. I sputtered to my feet, thigh-deep in salt water, my clothes and backpack soaked through and dripping. A hand grabbed mine—Ari. He must have landed on his feet; he was only wet to the thighs. “Haley, your hair …”

The fire was gone, my skin unburned. We were no longer on a mountain ledge, but in a bay beside a black sandy beach. Beyond the beach I saw a dirt-and-gravel road, beyond that, gray hills smudged with red and orange mosses.

Ari shivered—was he cold? His hat was gone. Rain dimpled the surface of the bay, and water soaked through my sneakers, but I wasn’t cold at all. Ari splashed out of the water, and I followed, still holding his hand. As we reached the shore, I stopped short and stared at him. “I know you,” I said.

Ari kept shivering. “Yes, we’ve been through this already. I’m Ari, Katrin’s son—”

“No. I remember you. I ran into your dog—” I reached around and touched my hair. It was short, barely touching my ears and the back of my neck. The ends were brittle—burned away—and the smell of burning hair lingered. The darkness over my memories had burned away, too. I was Haley, I went to Rincon High, I studied biology and wanted to work with animals and ran track, my father was Gabe, my mother was Amanda—

My mom—I released Ari’s hand, my fingernails digging for my palms. My mom had disappeared—no, she hadn’t disappeared, she’d been caught by a spell—it had to be a spell, because I knew magic was real now—only before the spell caught her she’d run, because she found out that Dad had—nails broke through my palms, the pain shoving other thoughts away. Smoke seemed to rise from the broken skin, but I could have imagined that. I knew only that I had one more chance to push the memories back, to bury them so deeply that only the stone halls of Muninn’s cave would ever remember them.

I forced my fingernails away from my skin. The pain receded, the smoke disappeared—if it had ever been there—and I faced the memory straight on. “My dad,” I said slowly, looking at Ari. “And your mom …” Katrin, who gave me her notebook, who told me not to run … “They had an affair. My mom found out, and she ran.” Ari looked down, as if my steady gaze hurt him. He rubbed his sleeves for warmth. His lips were pale, which should have worried me, but I just went on, “Mom’s been gone a year. I came to Iceland to find her. If Katrin’s right, there’s nothing left to find. Hallgerd’s spell—” Katrin said the spell had consumed Mom, as surely as the fire Ari and I had leaped through had almost consumed us.

The coals inside me grew hot at the thought. My jeans and jacket steamed in the damp air. I reached for the coin—its metal felt merely warm now—and closed my fingers around it.

The coin flared hotter. The ground shook beneath me, and I fell to my knees.

“Haley!” Hallgerd’s voice roared into my head. This time, I understood every word. “Where have you been?”