Thief Eyes (15 page)

How long ago was that, though?
I’m content to live and die by Gunnar’s side
. Maybe Hallgerd wouldn’t do anything after all.

Or maybe she would. I drew my arms around myself. It was nearly full dark now. Through the thinning clouds, a huge yellow moon rose over the water. I still didn’t want to give anything back to Hallgerd, but this wasn’t just about what I wanted.

Svan stepped toward me. Ari stepped toward him, teeth bared.

“Stop!” I told them both. “I—I need to think!”

Svan halted. “I need to get my courage up,” I said, thinking fast. Ari returned to my side. Fire or no fire, neither of us was stronger than Svan. That meant we had to delay him and get away—but how? The knife lay a few yards behind us, by the bowl. I wasn’t sure I could get to it faster than Svan could. All I had in my backpack were some chocolate malt balls, a bottle of water, and—a skin of mead. Mead that wasn’t drugged, but that was too strong for mortals to handle.

“Let’s have a drink,” I said—too quickly, but Svan didn’t seem to notice. “To help with that courage.”

Ari gave me a puzzled look, but the hardness left
Svan’s eyes. “You did not say you had drink with you, Haley. The world can wait a short time more. Where is this drink?”

“In my pack.” I glanced at the overhang, lit by moonlight, half-covered by the boulder. I knew it wasn’t safe to go into buildings after earthquakes. Was a rocky outcrop any different?

Svan didn’t seem concerned—he grinned and headed for the overhang, his feet crunching through half-frozen puddles. As he dove beneath the stones, Ari whispered in English, “Do you really think that is wise?”

“Trust me,” I said, also in English.
This had better work
, I thought.

Svan returned and handed me the pack, which was still a little damp. He’d brought the last few pieces of driftwood as well, and he set them down on the beach. He slid a few pieces of papery wood beneath them, made a motion with his hands, and whispered words I couldn’t hear. A small flame caught beneath the wood. The fire in me rose in response.

With a whoosh the wood burst into brighter flame. I burst into flame, too, into fire reaching for the sky, even as the earth shook beneath me—

No!
With a wrench I forced the flames down, down, down. I staggered back, sweat pouring down my face, knowing that I hadn’t really been burning, not on the outside. Svan’s fire kept going, not so brightly now. The earth
was still. Ari caught me as I fell to my knees. “Sorry,” I whispered.

Svan gave me a long look. “This had better be strong drink.”

“It is. I promise.” I got to my feet, rummaged through the bag, and pulled out Freki’s wineskin. I pulled out the malt balls, too, inhaled a mouthful, and offered the bag to Ari, who did the same. Somehow we’d have to get real food eventually. I sat cross-legged beside Svan and handed him the mead.

Ari offered Svan the malt balls as well—less than a handful was left—as he sat beside me. The sorcerer shook his head and uncorked the skin.
Please, please let this work
.

Svan drew the skin toward his lips, stopped, and sniffed it. His eyes narrowed.
Shit
.

“What treachery is this?” Svan’s voice was low, like Dad’s voice when he got angry. “Do you think me a fool, who does not know what you offer me?”

“Umm.”
Now what?

Ari looked back and forth between us. “The mead of poetry,” Svan said, answering his unasked question. “Haven’t I rested in Muninn’s mountain long enough, Haley?” Svan’s voice dripped disdain as he handed the skin back to me, still open.

“Wait—that’s the mead of poetry?” Ari’s eyes grew wide by the firelight. He reached toward the skin.

“Don’t.” I drew it away. “It’ll make you sleep—”

“Yeah, but—”

“But
what
?”

“If I could write a decent poem for once—a decent song …” He reached for the skin again, then hesitated.

“Oh no, you don’t!” I pulled the thing out of his reach. “I
need
you here.” I turned the skin upside down. No way was I taking a chance on Ari going unconscious on me.

The mead steamed as it hit the sand. The wind died, all at once.

Svan grabbed the skin from my hands and righted it. The remaining liquid sloshed inside. “You
are
a fool,” he muttered.

The earth trembled, ever-so-slightly, less like an earthquake than someone shivering at a too-gentle touch. Svan gestured down the beach. A fog bank moved toward us, silver gray in the moonlight. Within that fog a man ambled toward us with a slow rolling gait. His broad-brimmed hat covered one eye; his cloak was the same color as the fog.

Do not spill that. My master would not like it
. How stupid
was
I? I hadn’t thought about Freki’s warning, though. I’d thought only about Ari.

Yet the man didn’t seem angry. He didn’t seem in any hurry to reach us, either. He smiled as he made his way down the beach. Then he saw me watching him, and he winked, though I should have been too far away to see. The trembling of the earth moved down beneath my skin. I started shivering and couldn’t stop. I looked at Ari and saw
that he trembled, too, even as he cursed slowly and steadily under his breath.

My sight blurred, and I saw only fog, but the shivering went on. The fire in me burned hot, hot, hot, even as I shivered.

Svan corked the mead and tossed it into my backpack. “You must go.” He began putting other things in the pack as well: the wooden bowl, the knife in its sheath.

Leaving sounded awfully good to me, only—“Wait, if that’s Freki and Muninn’s master, can’t
he
destroy the coin?” Destroy it without killing anything in the process?

“Haley.” Svan spoke slowly, as if to a small child. “Muninn’s master does not fear the end of the world. He will fight it, to be sure—he and the fire spirits are old enemies—but he will throw everything he has into that fighting. You hesitate to kill a single fox; to him we’re all less than foxes. He won’t hesitate to sacrifice us.”

I opened my mouth; no sound came out. Ari got to his feet, reached for my hand, and pulled me up as well.

The mead had soaked deep into the sand, but steam still rose from the spot. Svan dug a couple of other items out of his bag—a raven’s claw, a dull black stone—and tossed them into the backpack as well.

“I don’t need that stuff. I—”

Svan reached for my shoulder, thought better of it, and let his hand drop. His expression turned almost gentle. “You are my kinswoman. I will do what I can to protect you. I will
hold him off as long as I can. Only you must make it worth it. Destroy the coin. Not only for the land’s sake. I felt the fire within you—Hallgerd’s spell could consume you, too, if you do not end it.”

My fire didn’t come from Hallgerd’s spell, but even now I didn’t say so. “What about you?” What did I care about him, after the way he’d attacked me?

A sly smile crossed the sorcerer’s face. “I may be an old man, but I have a few tricks left in me.” He cast a wry look Ari’s way. “Perhaps I’ll see if my poems have more worth than yours. If nothing else, it should make a good story.”

The fog was closer now. I heard footsteps crunching over the sand. Svan thrust the bag at me and I zipped it shut. “Thank you.”

“Go!” the sorcerer said. He grabbed his staff and walked toward the fog. “Hello there!” he called, as if greeting an old friend.

Ari looked at me. “Now we run?” he said.

“No.” I remembered Katrin’s words.
You must never run from magic
.

So we walked away this time, even as Svan disappeared into the fog behind us.

Chapter 11

W
e followed the dirt road, while the earth stilled and our shivering eased. When I glanced back, I saw only fog, no sign of either Svan or Freki’s master. The fog disappeared into the distance as we walked on. The moon cast a bright path over the water to our left. To our right, boulders and jumbled rocks lay at the base of the dark hills.

A sudden roar made me jump. Ari and I scrambled off the road as bright lights blinded us. I backed toward the hills, knowing there was nowhere to hide—

A truck rumbled by, tires crunching over the gravel. Ari let out a nervous laugh. I laughed, too, though my legs felt like rubber. I’d forgotten there were cars. Did I think the entire world had disappeared when Muninn spirited me away?

Ari stopped laughing and ran into the road, chasing the truck and calling after the driver. It was some sort of emergency vehicle, blue lights silently flashing. The driver didn’t even slow down, and the truck quickly disappeared out of sight. “Ah, well,” Ari said as I caught up with him. “So much for our ride.”

“The man in the fog,” I said, because suddenly it seemed safe to talk again. “Who
was
he?” Aside from being someone who I knew, down to my bones, that I didn’t want to anger.

Ari looked uneasily back the way we’d come. “I’m not sure I should name him. Just in case that would—you know—attract his attention. Look him up when we get back. A one-eyed man with a floppy hat. Before this all happened, I’d have told you he wasn’t real, either.” Ari hesitated. “Speaking of getting back, where are we going, Haley?”

I swallowed hard. “To your mom.” I still didn’t want to go to Katrin, but even though Svan had bought us some time, no way was I casting his spell. “I’ll give your mom the coin. She can send it back to Hallgerd, like she wanted to before I ran.”

Ari nodded. The gravel crunched beneath our feet. He reached into his jacket and fished something out from an inner pocket. A cell phone.

“Wait—you have a phone?” I stared as Ari powered it up. The phone’s white light seemed as unnatural as the rumbling truck.

“I tried to call out while you were sleeping. Couldn’t get a signal.” Ari frowned at the display. “We’re still out of range. I’ll keep trying. If we can figure out where we are, Mom can pick us up.”

Whatever happens, you can always call me
. I hoped Katrin meant that, because right now we didn’t have much choice. I looked at the phone display over Ari’s shoulder. Once we got a signal, we’d know the time—the year. I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.

Ari powered down the phone. The wind started back up, but the coals deep inside me kept me warm.

Ari shivered, though. “I’m sorry about your mom,” he said.

“Yeah, me too.” We walked around a patch of slick ice that shone beneath the bright moon.

“Also, I’m sorry I was an idiot about the mead,” Ari said.

“I think that one’s more my fault than yours.” For all I knew, Ari wouldn’t really have drunk it. He’d only said he was thinking about it.

Ari glanced back the way we’d come. “There are more important things than writing good poems.” He gave a wry smile. “I should know.”

“Hey, I
liked
your poem!”

Ari laughed. “It’s good that someone does.”

“No, really. I think it’s cool you write poetry.” I’d never been much of a writer. Staring at a blank page or a blank
screen made me feel restless, like I should ditch the computer and go for a run instead.

Ari shrugged. “They’re more like songs than poems, anyway. And like the sorcerer said—they’re not very good.”

“You’re going to take
his
word for it?”

“No, here, I’ll show you.” Ari pulled a small notebook—the notebook he’d had at Thingvellir—from his back jeans pocket and handed it to me, along with his flashlight. He watched nervously as I opened it.

The pages were swollen and brittle, the words smudged with water. I realized it didn’t matter. I stared at the writing by the blue LED light, trying to make sense of it. “I can’t read Icelandic. I can only speak it.” I tried to keep the frustration out of my voice.
Getting to speak a whole new language is pretty cool by itself
. But I wanted to read Ari’s poetry.

“Heh. I bet no one was writing yet when that mead was brewed. I’m spared from you reading my terrible words, then.” Ari took the notebook back.

“I bet you’re good,” I said.

Ari tried to smooth down the pages, gave up, and shoved the notebook back into his pocket. “You’ll lose all your money making bets like that.”