In The Grip Of Old Winter Page 7

  The man spoke. “We are skin-walkers.”

  Peter gripped the tree’s rough bark. Images flickered through his mind of zombies and rattling skeletons from his computer games. Skin-walkers sounded scary and he wanted to run.

  “Fear fills you with an inability to speak,” the man intoned. “We are strange to you, but once menfolk revered our wisdom and our craft. Our skills have long since passed out of men’s memories, yet we did not diminish or turn away. It is the sadness at the passing of long Ages that we are now forgotten.”

  Peter didn’t know what to say. He thought, without being able to express it, that he understood, that somewhere deep within his memory the meaning of what he heard must be true, but it proved impossible to attempt to apply it to his knowledge.

  “It is seasons beyond count since menfolk have sought us out,” the skin-walker said. “And we wonder that you have come.”

  They kept so still that they might be stone. Peter peered into the shadows cast by their hoods. Just a glimpse of what they looked like might stop the tingling shudder that ran up and down his spine, or confirm his resolve to run. What did they mean by menfolk? Weren’t they human too?

  “What is your need?” the skin-walker asked.

  Different fantasy races battled against each other in his computer games. Dwarves and orcs and the undead and ... “Are you, elves?”

  A murmur rose from the skin-walkers and the one beside him sat straight and tall and his robes glistened with a purple shimmer.

  “The elves left these shores many moons ago. I wonder that the memory of their name is known. The elves that joined with menfolk stayed, but each generation that followed weakened the ways and customs that existed with their forefathers, until no remnant or will of that noble race remained. No, we are not elves.” He laid his hands in his lap. “I do not think that is the need for which you came.”

  Peter’s thrill that these strange people might be elves, evaporated. He liked the elves best in his games, their skill with bows, their ability to melt into the forests and disappear. If they had been elves he would have known what questions to ask, but now he sat tongue-tied and nervous that he might say something to cause offence. He pushed his hands into his pockets, scared and frustrated.

  The fingers of his right hand brushed against the seal-amulet. His heart thumped. ‘For the one who is waiting.’ Peter pulled it out and held it up by the chain. “Are you waiting for this?”

  ***

  A stillness, so tense and alert that Peter wondered if time slowed, flowed across the skin-walkers. Even the fire lost its ferocity and dimmed.

  The skin-walkers murmured. Peter didn’t hear specific words, though the tone of their murmurings suggested concern, even fear.

  A flame flicked sparks into the night and the fire resumed its roar.

  The skin-walker who sat beside him spoke. “This is a strange sight. I wonder that it is revealed once more. Did you search for it, or was it found?”

  Peter twisted the chain in his fingers and the seal-amulet spun from side to side and the dull surface gleamed in the firelight. “I didn’t find it. The carrier gave it to me and told ...”

  The skin-walker interrupted. “The carrier walks upon the land?”

  Peter pointed into the forest. “He... he gave it to me in Leonor’s time, by the charred branch. He told me to give it to the one who is waiting, but I don’t know who that is.”

  The skin-walker rose and the others parted before him as he strode towards the fire and gazed into the flames.

  Peter said, “Don’t you want it? Almina in my time wants it, but I don’t think she’s the one the carrier means. She tried to take it off me when she showed me a painting of Eorl Bosa. I saw him on a horse in Leonor’s time, but I didn’t ... I didn’t like him. Does the carrier mean I should give it to him?”

  The skin-walker’s voice rose above the fire’s noise. “No, that is not the one the carrier means.” He took long slow steps around the bonfire. “I did not think to see this again and I wonder at the meaning that you hold it now. That the carrier walks abroad is a sign that what was once brought low and sealed from sight, never to regain their former shape or form, might be free.”

  The skin-walkers cried as a flock of birds might when startled. Peter clasped the seal-amulet in his lap, alarmed by this sudden change in their quiet poise. He wished he didn’t have it.

  The skin-walker paced. “Like mist that dissolves before the light’s advance and reveals the distant hilltops, the long turning of Time shows the slow passing of the Ages.” He halted. “The land stirs beneath our feet, seasons change and those yet to come draw near, while those that are forgotten will be revisited. I fear the meaning and cannot foretell the outcome, though the truth that this will be is upon us,” and he faced Peter. “This - Almina, is not a name I know.”

  Confused by what the skin-walker meant, Peter stuttered. “She’s - she’s my aunt. She’s staying in the house for Christmas.” The skin-walkers, their hooded heads faced to where he sat, stayed silent. “She does acting - and has a lot of make-up - and wears strange clothes ...” he faltered, for he guessed that the skin-walkers didn’t want to know this, but what did they want to hear? “She’s my grandma’s sister.”

  The skin-walker by the fire spoke. “She desires what you hold and she understands its purpose?”

  Peter gazed at the seal-amulet in his lap. “I don’t know. She just wants it. She thinks it’s valuable.”

  The fire crackled and sparks burned as bright as shooting stars, then went out in a trail of white smoke.

  The skin-walker came back to where Peter sat. “Let me see it once more.”

  Peter held up the seal-amulet for him to take, but he made no move to grasp its iron links. He sat upon the tree. “I cannot touch this,” he murmured. “It is as dangerous to me as fire is to water that is trapped within a bowl.”

  Peter peered into the shadows cast by the skin-walker’s hood, but saw no sign of eyes or a nose or a mouth.

  The skin-walker sat so close and the others around the fire stood so still, that Peter’s legs went stiff with tension. He wanted to shout and make a lot of noise to stop the silence.

  At last, the skin-walker said, “The marks are upon it, dormant but still ingrained.” He sat up straight. “They wait for the commands that will release their charms.”

  Peter peered hard at the seal-amulet’s dull surface, but he didn’t see anything except small surface scratches. “Where are the marks?”

  “Do not search, for to see them reveals their bearer’s allegiance.”

  Peter frowned. “What do you mean?”

  The fire flared with a roar and in the woods a branch splintered with a loud crack. The skin-walkers spun to face the trees and their robes slipped to the ground. Peter cowered with terror at the beasts now revealed by the fire’s light.

  The skin-walker beside him reared upon his hind legs as a huge bear. A fox, an eagle, a snake with diamond-patterned markings, a big cat with two long fangs, an enormous pig with tusks that dripped saliva and a rat, whose ribs protruded through the skin of its arched back, rushed into the trees with terrible speed.

  A figure raced towards him. The carrier!

  His agility defied his shape, for the long arms propelled the stocky body across the forest floor in a series of jumps. The lower limbs, little more than stumps, contained the momentum when he landed and gave him the ability to swerve left or right with the speed of a fish when it darts.

  Peter leapt up and jumped back.

  The carrier vaulted the log in one easy leap and reached out to snatch the seal-amulet. “Give it!”

  Peter doubled over with the seal-amulet held close against his chest.

  The carrier bowled into him and a terrible reek of mouldy earth and damp rags made Peter gag. They both crashed to the ground and the carrier’s stumpy fingers groped and wriggled and forced their way over Peter’s anorak towards his hands.

  With a sharp kick that hit the car
rier in the stomach and made him grunt, Peter curled up as small as possible and clasped the seal-amulet even tighter. Hot breath, that stank of decay, blew across his cheeks and the carrier wheezed as they struggled.

  “Give it! I break your fingers!”

  Peter squirmed onto his stomach. The carrier gripped his upper arms and wrenched them up and back. Pain shot across Peter’s chest and he screamed.

  The carrier screamed too, as his weight lifted from Peter’s body and then the cries of animals and birds shrieked and roared and the ground trembled from their noise and fury. Dead leaves and broken twigs pattered against Peter’s cheek. Wings beat the air and fanned his face and, like a wave that rushes up the beach and then recedes, the terrible sounds swept over him and he lay with his face pressed against the earth as he gasped for breath.

  His chest ached, though the sting of pain diminished and he lifted his head.

  The skin-walkers, still beasts of the forest, grouped around the charred branch. No sign of the carrier and as he watched, they paced and flew, scampered and slithered, back to the fire. As each one reached their robe, the loose material enveloped them, so that they resumed their tall and stately figures once more. They gathered before him.

  The skin-walker who took the form of a bear spoke. “Are you hurt?”

  Peter sat up. “No... not really.” He rubbed his chest and glanced into the trees. “Has the carrier gone?”

  “He has fled, though I hoped to secure his capture.” The skin-walker came closer. “Do you have it still?”

  Peter uncurled his fingers from around the seal-amulet. “The carrier gave it to me. Why did he do that if he didn’t want me to have it? Why did he attack me?”

  “He gave it, I think, by mischance.” The skin-walker sat upon the fallen tree. “And now he will be punished by the one who desires its return with all her heart.”

  ***

  Peter turned the seal-amulet over and over in his hands. He wanted to give it away, to someone, anyone who didn’t care about what it might be used for, as long as they promised to keep it hidden and out of sight, for ever. It scared him, for everything he heard about it suggested danger.

  He glanced up at the skin-walker. “How did you - make yourselves - the animals and birds - it happened so fast?”

  The skin-walker gazed straight ahead. “It is our skill.” He faced Peter. “Do you have names for what you saw?”

  “What - boys’ and girls’ names do you mean?”

  The skin-walker sat silent for a moment. “Tell me the names you might use for what you saw.”

  Peter ran his finger around the seal-amulet’s edge. “You turned into a bear.”

  The skin-walker pointed to his nearest companion. “And this one?”

  “I can’t remember which was which.”

  “Show him.”

  One by one, the skin-walkers released their robes and revealed their creature’s form and Peter named them.

  “Fox - Eagle - Snake - Rat,” he took a guess at the pig and the big cat. “Boar and a... Sabre-Toothed Tiger?”

  Robed once more, they stood silent and still before him. “You may call us by these names - so I am, Bear.”

  “Bear,” repeated Peter.

  “By what name are you called?”

  “Peter - but how can I tell which is which when you’re all dressed the same?”

  “You will learn,” Bear said. “For though we seem alike, we reveal our different forms in subtle ways. The colours you glimpse upon our outward skin,” and he trailed his sleeve across his chest, “are not alike and observe each turn and step, for they are all different.”

  The fire spat and crackled and Peter wondered that though it burned so fast and fierce, it never diminished and the blackened wood didn’t turn to ash.

  “Once,” Bear said, “eight skin-walkers kept to this land, but one was lost.”

  “Lost?”

  Bear’s hooded face gazed down. “What you have in your hands possessed his heart and ripped him from our side. We did not know the means to halt the pain that such an object might wield. Never before had such charms been used against us, for they subdued our forms and bent our wills. They pulled us to a time where menfolk held no memory of our kind and the one who guided this talisman kept no love for those lands. She thought to conquer all, not from a desire to understand, but to dominate and not only in her time, but times past and times still to come.”

  Peter pressed his finger into the seal-amulet’s hard edge. “She?”

  “A spae-wife.”

  “What’s a spae-wife?”

  “A hedge witch. One who is practised in potions and balms, charms and lore, to aid the sick and weary and the sad at heart.”

  “She doesn’t sound like a bad witch,” said Peter.

  Bear paced. “They are simple creatures, it is true, but this one came, somehow, upon the seal-amulet. She learnt its ways, revelled in the charms that offered such strength of will over man and beast, that she soon dismissed the dull grinding of herbs and the boiling of flower petals for the new satisfactions that the seal-amulet offered. And the more she studied its arts, the more she wanted.

  “She came from lands across the seas where the ice advances and the long winter’s night freezes the air. She came with men who plundered and despoiled.” Bear’s voice lowered to a husky whisper. “She trod upon this isle of Albion and the earth trembled.”

  “Do you mean she came with the Vikings? But,” Peter tried to make sense of what Bear said. “That was such a long time ago. She must be dead by now. This...” and he held up the seal-amulet, “can’t be used for anything.”

  Bear shook his hooded head. “Some say she sailed the seas with the North men, concealed within a stone casket wound round with spells that hid her form from common sight. Others, that she flew across land and water like a bat at night. She kept allegiance with no man and walked alone. If she stirs, if even now she walks once more, it is certain that this,” and he pointed to the seal-amulet, “and the carrier are infused by her will. Her vengeance will be bitter now that the long veil of time has lifted.”

  Peter ran his fingertips across the seal-amulet’s smooth surface. “I don’t understand how she has been asleep for so long, because she must be so old and even if she was asleep, she would still die.”

  Bear gazed towards the fire. “Hatred sustained her spirit, her body wound round with charms that hid her in shadow and covered her will with night’s darkness. Her wrath, like bubbles, burst in anger and where the ripples spread, unease and confusion blossomed.

  “Our hunt failed to reveal her place of concealment. As a net with a tight mesh might hold fish of many different sizes, we worked a charm of our own and the air and the earth and the fire and the water entwined as one to keep her captive, wherever she might hide. She slumbered and the memory of that Age frayed and turned to dust and was forgotten. We did not think to see such a time again - yet,” Bear gazed down at him, “you bring this token. Proof of that Age as it stirs once more.”

  A cold lump, like ice, spread across Peter’s stomach. The words Bear spoke might be something out of a fairy story, though he knew that deep down, from the way Bear explained with such careful authority, that these words demanded serious consideration. The other skin-walkers stood alert, but still, their tall frames silhouetted against the fire.

  Bear said, “That which you hold, the spae-wife channelled and guided. None but she understood the tricks that bound the charms.” He rose and paced towards the fire. “There are shadows, black and secret, that hide its purpose from those that should not look too close.” He gazed into the flames. “I wonder in what dark place it lay hidden?”

  The more he heard, the more Peter trembled. A wild thought that he might run to the fire and throw the seal-amulet into the flames didn’t hold much chance of success, for the skin-walkers stood in his way and if the bonfire’s heat didn’t burn wood, then no way could it melt metal.

  As if Bear read his thoughts, he said, �
��You must keep it. It will take time for the purpose of its re-appearance to become clear.”

  Peter thrust the seal-amulet into his pocket. “But what am I supposed to do? What if the carrier attacks me again and you’re not there? I won’t stand a chance without your help. Who am I supposed to give it to?” He gulped and stopped talking, afraid that he might burst into tears.

  Bear paced back to the fallen tree and sat. “Do not give it to anyone.”

  Peter interrupted. “But the...”

  “The carrier gave it to you. Keep it. Ignore his instruction.” Bear’s hooded head peered closer. “There is - I cannot determine the source, nor can I see the meaning - something different that hints at some strange change that I have not seen in menfolk before. I cannot tell its purpose. I want to trust you, but it is wary to be cautious. It is curious that you understand the words spoken in Leonor’s time. I choose the words that I speak which I know you understand.”

  He lifted his hand as if he meant to stroke Peter’s head. “There is upon your brow an ancient light, of old stars and old ways, that mingles with many different Times and many different Ages. There is much upon you that is new that is born from the old.”

  Peter squirmed under Bear’s close scrutiny. “I’d better... I’d better go.” He slid off the tree. “Granddad will be wondering what’s happened to me.”

  Bear rose. “Search upon the land where Leonor and Eorl Bosa walk for the answers that you seek. For then, the charms worked at their strongest, strangest and with a terrible energy. Call one of our names when you touch the charred branch and we will be here. Do not be afraid, nor be reckless.” He returned to the fire and the skin-walkers stepped to either side of him until each stood an equal distance, one from another. “Take care of who you trust, for the seal-amulet and the one who guides it work in subtle ways.”

  But what am I supposed to do if I find something?