Thief Eyes (7 page)

The fox looked at up me, small brown eyes bright in the lamplight. “Are you certain? Even my master never allowed me a sip of his sacred mead.”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Enjoy.”

Freki lowered his nose into the horn, making quiet lapping sounds as he drank. He was surprisingly tidy. He didn’t spill a single drop. He licked the last bits out with his long pink tongue, and I laughed.

Freki didn’t seem to mind. He nudged my hands with his warm nose. His breath smelled faintly of alcohol. “A most excellent gift. I will not forget it.” He turned and walked from the room, the tip of his bushy tail brushing the floor behind him. He didn’t seem sleepy, just a bit more careful in his steps than before.

I lay back on the stone bed, staring up into the shadows. “My name is Haley,” I whispered. How could everything I knew end there?

Freki padded back in a short time later, a small drinking skin hanging on a string from his neck. Behind him, two small birds flew in together, a plate piled with food hovering in the air between them. They flew to the bed, and the
plate gently set itself down beside me. The terns made squeaky clicking sounds as they left the room, and their long tail feathers fanned out behind them.

The smell of cooked meat made my stomach rumble. Freki bowed his neck so I could take the skin. It hovered above the ground a little, too. “For later,” Freki said. “In case you change your mind.”

“I won’t change my mind.” I set the skin down beside the bed. “You don’t have any water, do you?”

Freki’s white whiskers twitched. “What adult drinks water?”

“This one.” When you lived in the desert, water tasted better than coffee, better than soda.

The desert
. I wrenched that thought free from the mud of my thoughts.
I live in a desert
.

“I would not offend a guest with watered-down wine, let alone water itself. Do you require anything else?”

I shook my head and took the plate in my lap. Freki curled up beside me. I reached out to stroke his fur. The fox made a small contented sound and rolled over so that I could get his belly. The white fur there was just as soft.

Only after my hand was covered with fox fur did I realize Freki hadn’t brought a fork. I wiped my fingers on my jeans as best I could, took a slice of meat in my hands, and bit into it. It tasted like lamb, only sweeter. As I chewed, the sweetness grew stronger, making my whole body tingle.

Shit
. “You drugged the meat, too.” Already my voice sounded thick. I threw the plate across the room—too late. The cave blurred around me. I tried to stand but felt myself falling, toward stones that suddenly seemed soft as feathers.

“Can I have your meat, too?” a voice squeaked. I was asleep before I could answer.

Chapter 5

A
s I slept, the voices returned.

A girl’s voice:
“Teach me sorcery, Uncle. I promise I won’t tell.”

A man’s voice:
“Are you strong enough, Hallgerd? Stronger than the power you would command?”

The girl:
“You do not know me, Uncle, if you doubt my strength.”

The man, laughing:
“Oh, I know you well enough. Gladly I will teach you.”

I knew awful things would come from that teaching, and I tried to call out a warning. My lips wouldn’t move. I saw gray blocks tumbling down, flames consuming them as they fell.

A boy’s voice:
“Wake up, Haley. Please wake up!”
Someone shook my shoulder. I rolled away. I wanted to keep sleeping.

Light shone into my face. I cursed and blinked. Green eyes stared down at me—a boy in a black leather jacket, wool cap jammed over his ears. He had a backpack slung over one shoulder and a small blue LED keychain flashlight in his hand—the one he’d shone into my eyes. The lamps were still lit, the oil no lower than before. Where the boy’s light hit the stones, it seemed more green than blue.

“I found a way out of here.” His voice held a trace of an accent. I couldn’t tell from where. He grabbed my hand. I drew it away as I sat up.

“Do I know you?”

The boy scowled, as if he didn’t have time for this. There were weary circles around his eyes. “Yeah, I’m Luke Skywalker, and I’m here to rescue you.” I gave him a blank look, and he rolled his eyes. “Of course you know me. It’s Ari, remember?”

The name meant nothing to me. My breathing sped up. Panic hovered right behind. Just how much had I forgotten?

“Okay, maybe you’re angry at me, too,” the boy—Ari—said. “Why should you be different from anyone else? But we must leave while we can. I don’t think I am even supposed to be here, only when the birds came, I got swept along behind you. I’m still not sure how it happened—there were wings and wind, and then the dark and the cave.”

Was Ari a friend? Boyfriend? He was awfully cute, in a shaggy sort of way. We had to be important to each other or he wouldn’t want to rescue me, right? I stared at the way his brown hair fell into his face, but my memories remained lost in darkness. The darkness pulled at me, grasping for the few things I did remember. I pulled back, breathing hard, and got to my feet. Fear rippled through me. “I’m sorry. I can’t remember.”

“Can’t remember what?”

“Any of it.”

For a moment Ari didn’t seem to understand. Then his eyes went wide. “A raven. Yes, of course. There are stories about ravens.” He grabbed my hand again. This time, I let him. His grip felt comfortable in mine, like maybe we’d held hands before. “Please, Haley. We have to get out of here.”

“Where
are
we?” My throat was parched. I’d have killed for a drink of water.

“I am not sure. I have some ideas, but they’re even crazier than my mother’s ideas. All I know is we don’t belong here. Maybe you will remember once we leave?”

I brushed my other hand against my pocket, feeling the coin’s warmth through my jeans. Would Muninn accept my offer? “I’m making a bargain for my memories.”

Ari tugged at his hat. “I think there is no bargaining with the powers that live here. Not if they are real. And if they are not real, they cannot help us.”

From down the hall, I heard the beating of wings. Ari stiffened, and his fingers tightened around mine. Was Muninn after his memories, too?

The raven swooped in and hovered before us. “Oh, I’m real enough, boy. More real than any human child.” Ari’s light wavered in his free hand. The raven’s feathers shone blue-black. “Did you think I did not know you were here?”

I pulled my hand free and put myself between Ari and the bird. Muninn had already said he wouldn’t take
my
life. A half dozen terns swooped into the room and arrayed themselves on the ledges.

“Don’t be stupid.” Ari stepped around to face the raven.

I moved to his side. “Leave him alone.”

Muninn landed on the floor—the top of his head was well past my knee—and stared up at me through tiny black eyes. I grew dizzy, stumbled, and cast my gaze to the floor. “You barely have coin enough to bargain for your own memories, yet you would bargain for his life as well? Humans change so little. Always you think to command more power than you have.” Muninn’s gaze shifted to Ari. “So what do you think, boy? Shall I hold your memories for the next thousand years?” The raven walked slowly around us, claws clacking against the stone. He reached out a wing to brush the edge of Ari’s jacket. “Or shall I make you remember instead?”

“You don’t scare me.” Ari’s voice shook—he
sounded
scared—but his accent was gone.

“You wish to know fear? That’s easy enough.” The raven raised his wings, then lowered them, hard and fast. Cold wind gusted through the chamber. I barely felt that wind, but Ari staggered back. His eyes grew large. I grabbed his arm, steadying him. He jerked away with surprising strength.

“Remember, boy. Remember why your father’s ancestors wore that bearskin coat long ago. Remember!” Muninn raised his wings a second time, and a third. Ari’s jacket began to melt, dripping down his legs like hot plastic. Again I reached for him. He scrambled away. Liquid leather flowed around his hands and feet, through his hair. He grabbed for his zipper, but suddenly it was gone, and his hands were too large, anyway, his fingers all the wrong shape.

“Ari!” The cry hurt my dry throat.

He fell to his hands and knees, backpack sliding to the floor. “Run,” he whispered, his accent back, his voice hoarse.

No way was I leaving him. “Stop it!” I told Muninn. The raven made a low clicking sound, like laughter, and kept flapping his wings.

The jacket had completely engulfed Ari. His body stretched like clay within it—nose pulling into a long snout,
ears shrinking back against his head, black claws sprouting from his strange flat hands and feet. My heart pounded. He’d tried to
rescue
me.

White fur sprouted from black leather. He was growing now, impossibly fast—impossibly large. He lifted his head and roared. The sound echoed off the stone walls and reverberated deep in my chest.

He was a bear. A huge white polar bear, his shoulders as tall as mine. Only his eyes were human, the same bright green as before. Nausea washed over me. I stepped toward him, then froze as polar bear facts flooded my brain. Polar bears were one of the few predators who wouldn’t hesitate to attack humans. Red blood stained their white fur when they fed on seals and walruses and other arctic prey, anything they could find.

I backed away, but I kept focusing on those human eyes. “Ari?”

The bear raised his enormous paws and leaped at the air. When he landed, he broke into a powerful loping run and disappeared down the hall into the dark. The small birds flew after him, squeaking and clicking all the way.

I ran at Muninn. The raven flew up out of my reach. “Turn him back!” Whoever Ari was, he didn’t deserve this.

Muninn landed on a ledge with a krawk, and I knew he was laughing at me and Ari both. His wings lazily beat the air. “Would you give me your silver coin in order to make the boy forget his warrior ancestors once more? Or
do you still seek to trade for your own memories? I have made my decision. I will accept your gift, but the coin will only buy so much. Decide, Haley.”

I couldn’t leave Ari trapped as a bear. Yet I couldn’t leave myself trapped forever without my memories, either. “Would you take the coin in exchange for just freeing us both?”

“You are not prisoners,” Muninn said. “I deal in memory, not bindings. I cannot hold you here without your consent. Yet I’ll not help you find a way out, not for a far greater gift than you offer. Time is fluid in this cave, not firmly bound to the outside world. As long as you remain here, the bond between you and the other one is muted. Should you leave, you would surely meet her again, though none can say when, in your life or hers. I will not risk seeing you harmed by that meeting. I’ll not risk seeing the fire set free.”

I reached into my pocket. The coin was warm. I remembered holding it as I stood by the edge of the sea—the memory slipped out of my reach as I grasped at it. I clutched the coin harder and remembered other things, bits and pieces with nothing to connect them.

Myself, running down a cactus-lined street, dusk smudging the sky and a hot desert wind brushing my skin. I ran for the joy of running, but also to forget
.

A man in an airport, walking toward me. His battered backpack was slung over his shoulders, and his face
looked as crumpled as his clothes. I looked past him, searching the crowd for someone else, though I knew I wouldn’t find her
.

A woman with long blond hair and a long red cloak
. “Haley,”
she whispered
. “Come here, Haley.”

A boy—Ari—throwing down a menu and opening his mouth to speak—

The coin flared hotter, burning me. I jerked my hand free, leaving the thing in my pocket. Whatever Ari had been about to say, I didn’t want to hear it.

“So you see,” Muninn said, “you do not wish to remember.”

Remembering hurt. I rubbed at my palm. Should I turn the coin over to Muninn? Tell the raven to turn Ari human again and leave my memories safely hidden away?

Yet my few broken memories told me that I could handle the hot desert wind. I could handle the pain of broken bones without crying out.