Tales of Wind and Fire: Giver

Chapter 30

Bennu's fingers were shaking so much that he couldn't get the stopper off his medicine horn.
Why had he left this to the last moment? Now Mystigan was padding restlessly up and down outside the shelter, and the Guild members were waiting to see him off, and he still couldn't get the stopper off the—
"Want some help?" Said Cybil from the doorway. Her face was pale, her eyes shadowed.
Bennu passed her the medicine horn, and she yanked out the black oak stopper with her teeth. "What's this for?" She asked, handing it back.
"Death Marks," he said, not looking at her.
She gasped. "Like the man on the ice river?"
He nodded.
"But he knew he was going to die. You might survive-"
"You don't know that. I don't want to risk my soul getting absorbed."
She stooped to stroke Mystigan's ears. "You're right." Bennu glanced past her into the clearing, where the dark-blue dawn was breaking. During night, clouds had rolled down from the Mountains, covering the forest in thick snow. He wondered if that would help or hinder him.
He tipped some red ochre onto his palm, and spat on it. But his mouth was too dry, and he couldn't make a paste. Cybil leaned over and spat into his palm. Then she scooped up some snow, warmed it in her hands, and added that.
"Thanks," he muttered. Shakily, he daubed the marks of Air, Water and Fire onto his face. He shut his eyes. The last time he'd done this had been for Ma.
Mystigan pressed against him, rubbing his scent into the new leggings. He put a paw on Bennu's forearm.
I'm with you.
Bennu bent and nosed his muzzle. I know.
"Here," said Cybil, holding out the ravenskin pouch. "I added more wormwood, and checked with Saeunn. The masking charm should work. The Phoenix won't sense the World-souls."
Bennu tied the pouch to his belt. Already, he could feel the Death Marks stiffening on his skin.
"You'd better take this, too." Cybil was holding out a little bundle wrapped in birch bast.
"What is it?"
She looked startled. "What you've asked for. What I sat up most of the night making."
He was appalled. He'd almost forgotten. If he'd left without it, what would have become of his plan?
"I've put in some purifying herbs as well," said Cybil.
"Why?"
"Well. If—If you kill the Phoenix, you'll be unclean. I mean, it's still a Phoenix, still another Spirit, even if there is a demon inside. You'll need to purify yourself."
How like Cybil to think ahead. How reassuring that she thought he had a chance.
Mystigan gave an impatient whine, and Bennu took a deep breath. Time to go.
As they started across the clearing, Bennu remembered the medicine horn left behind in the shelter, and ran back for it. As he came out, opening his medicine pouch with trembling fingers, the horn slipped from his grasp.
It was Kai who picked it up.
The FlashFire leader was on crutches. As he studied the medicine horn in his hand, the blood drained from his face.
"This was your mother's," he said.
Bennu blinked. "How did you know?"
Kai went silent and handed it back. He unhooked a beautiful green katana from his belt and offered it to Bennu. "Not leaving without a weapon are you? You have so much to learn... Never lose the medicine horn."
Bennu strapped the katana to his belt and stowed the medicine horn in his pouch. That seemed an odd thing to say, given where he was headed. As he was turning to go, Kai called him back. "Bennu—"
"Yes?"
"If you survive, there's a place for you here with us. If you want it."
Bennu was too surprised to speak. By the time he'd recovered, the FlashFire leader was moving away, his face as unyielding as ever.
The High Mountains were rimmed with gold as Bennu crunched through the snow towards the Guild. Mist handed him his sleeping sack and waterskin, Cybil his axe and shuriken. Surprisingly, Hord helped him on with his pack. He looked haggard, but seemed to have accepted that he wasn't the one who would be seeking the Mountain.
Saeunn made the sign of the hand over Bennu, and then over Mystigan. "May the Guardian watch over both of you." Said Cybil, trying to smile.
Bennu gave her a brief nod. He just wanted to be gone. The Guild watched in silence as he started through the snow, with Mystigan trotting in his tracks. He did not look back.

The forest was hushed, but as Mystigan took the lead, he seemed eager and unafraid. Bennu plodded behind him, his breath steaming. It was very cold, but thanks to Venda, he didn't feel it. While he was sleeping, she'd left the new things in his shelter. An under-jerkin of duckskin with the breast feathers soft against the skin; a hooded parka and leggings of warm winter reindeer hide; hare fur mittens on a thong threaded through the sleeves; and his old boots, deftly patched with tough reindeer skin-hide, lined with pine marten fur, and with bands of dogfish skin sewn to the outer soles to improve grip.
Mystigan swerved to investigate something, and Bennu was instantly alert. A squirrel's tracks: tiny and hand-like. Bennu followed the trail as it hopped along between snow-covered juniper bushes, then broke into long, startled leaps and disappeared up a pine tree.
Bennu threw back his hood and stared about him.
The Forest was utterly still. Whatever had frightened the squirrel had gone. But Bennu was angry with himself. He should have spotted those tracks, too. Stay alert. A jay followed them from tree to tree as they pushed on. The sun rose in a cloudless sky. Soon Bennu was panting as he laboured knee-deep in dazzling new snow. He'd decided against snowshoes: they'd make walking easier, but slow him down if he had to move fast.
Mystigan fared better, as his narrow chest cut the snow like a canoe slicing water. By mid-morning, though, even he was tiring. The land was climbing steadily, as Krukoslik had said it would. "My grandfather once got close to the Mountain," he'd explained when Bennu had woken him in the night. "So close that he could feel it. From here, you reach a lightning-struck spruce at the mouth of a ravine.
The ravine is steep: too steep to climb. But there's a trail that clings to its western side—"
"What kind of trail?" Bennu had asked. "Who made it?" "Nobody knows. Just take it. That lightning tree-it has power to protect. It guards the trail from evil. Maybe it will protect you, too."
"What then? Where do I go then?"
Krukoslik had spread his hands. "You follow the trail. Somewhere, at the end of the ravine, lies the Mountain."
"How far?"
"Nobody knows. My grandfather didn't get far before the Guardian stopped him. The Guardian always stops them. Maybe—maybe you will be different."
Maybe, though Bennu, trudging through the snow.
If his plan worked—if the Guardian answered his plea—the Phoenix would be destroyed and the World would survive. If not, there would be no second chances. For him or the world.
In front of him, Mystigan raised his head and sniffed. His hackles were up. What had he sensed?
A few paces on, Bennu noticed that the snow had been brushed off the tips of the branches at about shoulder height. Then he found a juniper sapling with several twigs raggedly bitten off. "Red deer," he murmured. A jumble of tracks confirmed it. By the look of them it was a single deer, probably a buck: they don't pick up their feet as high as hinds do, and Bennu saw drag marks in the snow.
But if it was only a deer, why were Mystigan's hackles up?
Bennu looked around. He could feel the Forest holding its breath.
The Phoenix tracks leapt out at him from the snow.
He hadn't seen them before, because they were so big that they formed part of the terrain.
Struggling for calm, Bennu forced himself to study the trail. They're fresh, he thought, but the edges are slightly rounding over. Although in this sun that wouldn't take long. . .
Mystigan walked forward, keen to press on.
Bennu followed more slowly. Every bush and boulder took on Phoenix form.
As they toiled up the slope, Mystigan became more and more excited: bounding ahead, then doubling back for Bennu and urging him on with little grunt-whines. Perhaps at last they were nearing the Mountain. Perhaps that was why Mystigan was eager rather than frightened. Bennu wished he could share that eagerness, but all he could feel was the weight of the World-Souls at his belt, and the menace of the Phoenix.
A distant cry split the Forest.
Bennu gripped the hilt of his katana so hard that it hurt.
How close? Where was it? He couldn't tell.
Mystigan was waiting for him to catch up: hackles raised, but tail held high. His meaning was clear.
Not yet.
As Bennu waded through the snow, he wondered what had happened to the Phoenix's own soul. After all, as Cybil had said, it was still a Phoenix; once it must have hunted salmon and chirped its song with the other forest birds. Was its soul still inside its body, with the demon?
Trapped, terrified?
He rounded a boulder— and there was the lightning-struck spruce.
His spirits quailed.
Above him, the High Mountains swept skywards, blindingly white. The ravine cut through them like a knife slash. On and on it wound into the Mountains, its end lost in impenetrable cloud. A narrow trail clung to its western side, snaking up from where Bennu stood. Who had made the trail? For what purpose? Who would dare set foot on it, and venture into that haunted place?
Suddenly, the clouds at the end of the ravine partnered, and Bennu saw what lay beyond. Storm clouds writhed about its flanks; a deep, windless cold flowed from its summit; unimaginably high, it pierced the sky: the Mountain of the Guardian.
Bennu shut his eyes, but he could still feel the power of the Guardian forcing him to his knees. He could feel its anger.
The Saviors had conjured a demon from the Otherworld; they had loosed a monster on the Forest. They had broken Magic Law. Why should the Guardian help the humans, when some among them had been so wicked?
Bennu bowed his head. He couldn't go on. He didn't belong here. This was the haunt of spirits, not of men.
When he opened his eyes, the Mountain was gone, once more shrouded in clouds.
Bennu sat back on his heels. I can't do it, he thought. I can't go up there.
Mystigan sat in front of him, his tear-shaped eyes as pure as water. Yes you can. I'm with you.
Bennu shook his head.
Mystigan gazed steadily back at him.
Bennu thought of Cybil and Kai and the FlashFire guild, and all of the other people he didn't even know about. He thought of the countless lives in the Forest. He thought of Ma: not Ma as she lay dying in the wreck of their wagon, but Ma as she'd been just before the Phoenix attacked: laughing at the joke Bennu had made.
Grief rose in his chest. He drew his katana from its scabbard. "You can't stop now," he said out loud. "You swore an oath. To Ma."
He unslung his pack and left it against the tree. He wouldn't need his axe, sleeping sack or waterskin, no, he only needed the Katana, the Ravenskin pouch and Cybil's little birch bast bundel in his medicine pouch.
With a last glare at the Forest, he followed Mystigan up the trail.