Joanne Harris - Runemarks

As he’d intended, his cry alerted the sleeping men. (His uncle had promised him a shilling if he would stay awake.)

Dorian Scattergood opened one eye. At his side Jed Smith and Audun Briggs were already stirring. By the time the parson reached the foot of the Hill, all three looked as if they had been alert for hours.

It was then that they saw the white wolf. She had run ahead of the parson, breasting the Hill on the blind side, and so was upon them before they knew what was happening. A white snow wolf, brindled with gray, her dark muzzle folded in a velvet snarl displaying teeth as sharp and white as a row of icicles.

They panicked. Wolves were rare in the Strond Valley, and it was the first time any of them but Dorian had seen one so close. That experience saved his life; instinctively he faced it, spreading his arms with a loud cry, and Skadi veered away, catching the scent of an easier prey, leaped at Audun, who had gone for his pack (a knife dangled uselessly from his belt), and took out his throat as neatly as a boy bobs an apple.

It had been a trying night for the Huntress. The frustration of her plans, the weakness of her companion, the escape of her quarry, and the cumulative effect of having spent so much time in animal skin-all these things conspired to strengthen her wolf’s instincts, to urge her to hunt, to bite, to seek relief in blood.

Besides, she was hungry. She shook her quarry energetically, though by then Audun was almost certainly dead, and having sniffed delicately at the blood, she began to feed.

The other three stared in disbelief. Jed Smith, sagging with shock, went for the crossbow at his side. Dorian began to back away, very carefully, down the far hillside, without taking his eyes for one moment from the feeding wolf. (This too was to save his life.)

Adam, no hero, was violently sick.

And it was at this point that Nat reached them.

“Mr. Parson,” said Jed in a low voice.

Nat ignored him. He stood in a trance, head slightly lowered, eyes fixed on the opening in the Hill. The feeding wolf looked up for a second, bared her teeth, and returned to her kill. The parson seemed hardly to notice.

Adam Scattergood, who had never been given to fanciful thoughts, found himself thinking, He looks dead.

In fact, Nat had never felt so much alive. The sudden discovery in his mind of Examiner 4421974 had unexpectedly put things into perspective for him. He was not mad, as he’d feared. The voice was real. His initial terror and outrage at his mind’s invasion had settled; now he realized that there was nothing to be afraid of. His was the power. He was in control. And wasn’t it fine-wasn’t it right-to wield such power over the fellow who had snubbed him?

Your wolf is eating that man. I thought you should know.

Nat glanced at Skadi. Her muzzle, ruff, and forelegs were illuminated with blood. “Leave her,” he said. “She has to eat.”

Jed Smith, his crossbow raised, overheard and stared in horror. Since the roundhouse he’d been glad to give Skadi a wide berth, but tales of her powers had been whispered afar, and he was in no doubt that this was the same demon woman who had killed the Examiner and taken hold of the parson’s mind.

“Mr. Parson?” he said.

Eyes that seemed unnaturally bright fixed Jed in their gaze.

Jed swallowed. Turning, he saw that Dorian had fled; only he and Adam remained on the Hill. “She’ll need some clothes,” the parson said. “The other man’s are bloody.”

Jed Smith shook his head. His hand was trembling so much that the crossbow was a blur. “Don’t let her kill me,” he said. “I won’t say a word.”

Interesting, thought Nat Parson. He’d always thought Jed a lumpen fellow, good for hitting things and not much else. But here he was, showing signs of real intelligence. Of course, it was obvious: Nat could not expect even the most fervent of his flock to acquiesce to the murder of a villager. Without witnesses it would be clear that Audun had fallen victim to a prowling wolf. But if Jed talked…

Nat pondered with some surprise how easy it was to kill a man. Perhaps it was Ethel’s death that had hardened him to the fact, perhaps the Examiner’s experience in the field. A week ago Nat Parson would no more have contemplated murder than he would have held mass stark naked, but now he did, and realized with astonishment that he didn’t much care.

Good, said the Examiner. It takes courage to do what needs to be done.

“Then there is-” Nat broke off, consciously turning over the words in his mind. Then there is no sin attached to such an act?

Of course not, came the immediate reply. The only sin is to fail in one’s duty.

We think alike, said Nat in surprise.

Perhaps that is why our minds meshed as they did.

For a moment Nat was lost in thought. Was that the reason for what had happened? A meeting of like minds at a crucial moment, both striving for the same goal?

He smiled at Jed. “Very well,” he said. “But I’ll need your clothes. Come quickly, man. I don’t have all day.”

“Promise?” said Jed, who was still shaking so violently that he could hardly untie his bootlaces. “Promise you won’t let her kill me?”

“I promise,” said Nat, still smiling at Jed, who, reassured, began once more to unlace his boots.

It was almost the truth, after all, he told himself as he spoke the relevant canticle and Jed Smith fell heavily to the ground. Besides-he staggered a little as the aftershock of the Word slammed through the Hill-why should Seer-folk have all the fun? 339

Many roads lead to Hel. In fact, it could be argued that all roads lead eventually to Hel, the frictionless pivot between Order and Chaos, where neither holds sway and nothing-and no one-ever changes.

True Chaos, like Perfect Order, is mostly uninhabited. The many creatures that exist within its influence-demons, monsters, and the like-are simply satellites, basking in Chaos as the earth basks in the warmth of the sun, knowing full well the dangers of over-familiarity. Even Dream-which has its laws, though they are not necessarily the laws of elsewhere-is far too near Chaos for comfort, which is why so few dare to stay there long. And as for Netherworld-you’d have to be mad to even think about it.

Loki had been pondering this with increasing unease as he and Maddy followed the long, well-traveled road to Hel. Not a difficult road, for obvious reasons, though less worn than you might have expected. The dead leave fewer tracks than the living, but even so, the passageway was deeply rutted and its stone walls had been polished to a mirror-like glaze by the passing of a million million-perhaps more-world-weary travelers.

Not that Hel was to be their final destination. That, thought Loki, would have been far too easy. No, beyond the Underworld lay Netherworld, not so much a land in itself as an island among the many that spread out across the vast river that marks the boundary between World Below and World Beyond: the greatest, the Cauldron of all Rivers; eternal, lethal, even to the dead.

The Whisperer had been mercifully silent as they drew ever closer to the Underworld. But Loki sensed its excitement-as it sensed his fear-persistent enough to tax him to the limits as he struggled ahead. And it was a struggle; Loki’s glam was not at its strongest, and it was no comfort to him to know that the Whisperer could reach into his mind anytime it liked and twist it like a wet rag.

So far, however, it had left him alone, and Loki guessed that behind its silence lay a wariness that had not been present at the beginning of their expedition.