Riverkeep Read online

  “’S right, we was headin’ right into your cave here.”

  Applying the flame to the herbs, the Bootmunch cupped them and encouraged their quick glow with a puff from his cracked lips.

  “I rather think I found you,” he said. “I’d been watching you for quite some time, you know, hiding in the bushes, listening to the trees whisper your passing. They know what you are too. Trees are of nature, not of magic—of nature. But it’s absolutely all right, everything is going to be all right, because you see, Mr. Tillinghast, one of the magical beings I’ve learned to spot in my time here”—his eyes met Tillinghast’s—“is the man of straw.”

  “Oh, wait . . .” said Tillinghast.

  “HOMUNCULUS! HOMUNCULUS! STRAW MAN! DEMON! DEVIL!” shouted the Bootmunch, thrusting the burning bundle in Tillinghast’s face.

  Wull took the smoke burst in his eyes and staggered back, spluttering, knives in his throat and flames in his nose. He tripped over the log and continued to spin backward, his mind tipping round and round, an unliftable weight at the back of his skull, pulling the darkness behind his lids in looping, sick-making turns that rolled as he stood, his stone head dropping forward, his open eyes flooding with waves of color and light that wracked him with nausea and hurt his skin.

  He saw Tillinghast run from the cave, the Bootmunch roaring in pursuit, and reached a hand for Pappa but found only empty space where he should be.

  “Pappa?” he said. “Pappa? Pappa? Where are you? Mix? Are you there?”

  He looked around. The grays and oranges and browns and reds of the empty cave smeared against his eyes like oil, mixing and blurring in a dreadful light—acid that burned from within, dripping out in tears of molten lead that burned his cheeks and bled upward into his brain.

  Wull pressed his hands to his skull and closed his eyes.

  With a huge effort he grabbed Tillinghast’s lantern and fled into the blissful, ice-dripping cool of the forest. Out here all was still, and the muted colors of nature stayed where they were, glowing in the starlight and guiding his path.

  “Pappa?” he said again. “Pappa?”

  The trees leaned over him, their cold, faceless bark peering with timeless patience. Wull walked, directionless and slow.

  In the moonlit glow of winter, the forest pressed in on him—ranked trunks as far as he could see, twisting above his head and shrinking the world around him like a boiled skin. His ears filled with the sound of his own breath and the cacophonic crunch of his boots as they ground snow and slipped on the exposed ribs of black roots.

  He walked for a minute, then a minute more and a minute more, the forest unchanging, empty, and still—its bough-rustling wind and animal chitter silenced by the hermetic calm that surrounded him like unseen mist.

  “Pappa?” he shouted, desperation on the edge of his voice. “Pappa?”

  “Ah’m here, Wulliam,” said Pappa, stepping out from behind a tree. “C’mere to me, son.”

  Wull ran, the ground unfelt beneath his feet, and threw himself into Pappa’s arms. He allowed himself to be held, gripped against the round muscle of Pappa’s chest, the weight of the thick arms on his back, and felt tears, cool and salty, leak from his eyes.

  “Pappa, I thought you’d gone. I thought that thing had taken you over,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  “Gone! Ah’ve been here all along—we’re rowin’ the Danék, aren’t we? An’ if there’s anythin’ in this world that’s mine besides my big strip of a boy, it’s this river. Ah’m still the keep; these’re my waters. I am these waters. There’s not a chance ah’ll be goin’ anywhere until this ol’ thing dries up for good. Let’s walk awhile.”

  “I couldn’t light the lanterns,” said Wull, hurrying after him. He craned to see the broad, jowly face, but Pappa turned his head.

  “It’s all right,” said Pappa. “The river survives all, an’ it always will. It changes all the time, but it’s constant, too. It’s a special thing, that.”

  “I know, but it’s locked up for winter now. I didn’t know what else to do. The river’ll survive, but you might not. I had to try an’ fix you.”

  “To keep the keep?” said Pappa, chuckling.

  As Wull moved to see his face, Pappa turned again, big hand clasped on the trunk of a tree to spin away, deeper into the woods.

  “I suppose,” said Wull.

  “An’ a fine job yer doin’. ’S not easy lookin’ after someone who doesn’t want it. I know. My dad didn’t know me from a stranger by the end, but I still tended his bedside an’ kept him safe. An’ yer doin’ the same. Yer a good boy, an’ ye’ll make a fine Riverkeep once yer back home.”

  Wull trotted a little to keep up. He stumbled, reached for Pappa’s hand, and found only cold air.

  “Pappa?” he said. “How do I light the lanterns? You have to tell me. The wicks are all black and useless—how do I do it?”

  Pappa kept walking, face turned away.

  “Ye’ll manage,” he said. “We all manage, the keeps, once it’s our turn at the oars. By gods, they’re heavy at first! But the river’ll speak to ye when she’s ready, whisper her secrets, give ye her strength, an’ when it’s time ye’ll feel it an’ know it’s yers, my boy . . . my boy . . . stinking, my stinking, stinking, it that speaks, it that speaks!”

  Pappa spun to face him, his flesh melting away, eyes clouding, milk-filled and unseeing. The sharp-lipped mouth was sunk with drawn cheeks, their thin skin ribbed by the teeth inside.

  Wull felt the world fall away from him, and the cold rush back to his feet and hands.

  “It that speaks!” shouted Pappa. “Untie the arms! Untie the arms!”

  “Pappa?” said Wull. “What happened to you? What . . . where did you go?”

  “Stinking boy it!” shouted Pappa, lunging at him, teeth bared.

  Wull dodged, tripped on a mound of earth, and fell to the ground. He looked up to see Pappa running into the distance, hair flying around his head.

  Wull shook himself against his skull’s rolling weight. The colors of the woods were still glowing faintly, a false glimmer of starlight from the fog in his head. His limbs felt heavy, reluctant, his boots an inch short of where he needed them to be.

  He tried to gather himself, move forward, waving the lantern with exaggerated swings to guide his missing feet.

  Footsteps snapped ahead of him, and a figure swam in the cloud of his breath, darting through the trees.

  “Pappa?” he said. “Pappa? Is that you? Why are you trying to get away from me?”

  Wull felt his head lighten, his vision clear with an almost audible crack of released pressure.

  “Mix? Tillinghast?”

  The figure came into focus: a woman running toward him. Fast.

  The weight of the ground returned against his feet, pulling him back to himself, lifting the fog, and as his head cleared, Wull saw the light was different—darker, gloomier. He looked around at the trees, a cage of ghostly, inhospitable pillars, then up at the sky.

  There was no moon.

  12

  Oh, the beast leaps free of the endless sea,

  The prison that’s caged him within;

  He’s had his rest on the ocean’s breast,

  And longs for the sun on his skin!

  The howling gale, as it fills the sail,

  Is music to lull him to sleep,

  And he scatters the spray in his boisterous play,

  As he dashes—the king of the deep!

  —Traditional deep-sea hunting song

  Wull’s heart hammered: they’d hardly been in the Bootmunch’s cave ten minutes. Where had the time gone?

  The running woman burst through the trees, skirts billowing behind her, infant bundle on her chest, and a broad stick in her spare hand.

  “Run, boy!” she shouted. “Ursa!”
/>   A roar filled the woods. The sound was louder than anything Wull had ever heard, a force that was both deep and high, vibrating his guts and buckling his knees.

  “Where?” he said, pointlessly.

  The woman ran past him, striking his shoulder with her stick.

  “Behind me!” she shouted. “Run!”

  The ursa roared again, and this time Wull saw it: bigger than sense, bigger than bone and blood could ever be, the size of three horses, four, five; long and broad and bulging with ropes of muscle that were threaded by nets of coiled veins. Its skin, shimmering sheets of wet leather, shone white in the dark. It was all the pain and fury in the world, and as it roared again, Wull saw the rows of shining teeth in its huge, spit-hung mouth, the loose pink flesh of its lips shaking with the force of its breath.

  He felt himself turn to water, naked against the power of the animal.

  “Run!” shouted the woman again.

  Instinct battered aside his fear, and Wull ran to the sound of trees smashing behind him, all the fog of confusion gone in a rush of terrible clarity.

  “Did you see a man?” he shouted, catching her. “A thin man?”

  “I’ve seen no one.” She gasped. “Don’t talk. Run.”

  The ursa roared again, closer, and Wull felt the sound like wind at his back, stripping away his defenses. They ran, the woman bashing aside leaves and low-hanging branches with her stick, the light of Wull’s lantern throwing the shadows around in flashing bursts as it swung madly in his hand. He ran faster than he knew how, legs flailing, cold whistling in his ears.

  The river came into view—the bäta at its edge, nudged into the bank, stern shifting gently in the swell.

  “Get into that boat!” he shouted.

  “They can swim!” said the woman.

  “It gives us a chance! What else can we do?”

  “Some chance,” she said, but she ran along the bank, her boots throwing up chunks of white turf.

  “Push off once you get there!” shouted Wull. “Don’t wait for me. I’m right with you!”

  The woman tripped as she reached the bäta—her swaddled infant falling, rolling noiselessly on the frozen grass. She caught her step, stumbled, and landed with her hands on the gunwale—six paces away.

  The ursa broke the forest’s edge behind them, the trunk of a small tree exploding out and landing on the ice at the bank’s edge. Its great head swung from side to side; then, picking up their scent, it dug the ground, ripping at the skin of the earth with its claws.

  “My baby!” the woman shouted.

  Wull darted past her.

  “Get into the boat,” he said, grabbing an oar from its rowlock, heaving against its awkward weight. He slung it across his chest and ran back to the baby.

  The ursa covered the ground with impossible speed, each enormous stride three times the length of the bäta. Wull had barely made two steps before it had reached him and reared up on its back legs: covering the moonless sky, filling the world.

  “Get back!” he shouted, hoisting the oar and jabbing at its chest.

  It roared again. Wull quaked deep in his belly but jabbed and stepped forward, the oar a blade of grass against the animal’s bulk.

  Wull connected with flesh, pushed, drew a confused growl. He pushed forward again, taking a step toward the baby.

  The ursa roared.

  Summoning every ounce of strength he had, all the despair he’d felt since Pappa had been taken by the river, all the bile that stewed in him, all the frustration—Wull roared back, a howl of blind rage that brought pain to his eyes and strength to his arms. He pushed with all his anger.

  The ursa, unbalanced, dropped onto all fours, its head still high above Wull’s. It regarded him, its bristled, orange eyes tight.

  Then it screamed.

  The wall of it hit Wull: breath and spit and the rotten, meat smell of its stomach, noise that was formless white deafness in his ears. It pounced, splintering the oar in his hand, twisting his wrist, and knocking him to the ground.

  “Boy!” shouted the woman.

  Wull scrambled backward, moving his legs just as a paw the size of his torso smashed down.

  “Here!” she said, throwing the other oar.

  The ursa batted it from the air, sending it twirling into the Danék, then turned and advanced on her.

  “No!” shouted Wull. “Here!”

  He kicked its leg.

  As it turned on him, Wull watched its bulk move in slow motion, the full, round swing of its paw starting far out on the end of its vast arm, needle claws clenched against the starlight, the tendons and sinews of the great limb tensing as they made to strike.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the impact.

  “You dirty big lump!” shouted Tillinghast.

  Wull opened his eyes as Tillinghast jumped over his shoulders, catching the huge paw on his elbow and kicking the ursa’s other leg from under it. He caught its head—half the size of his entire body—head-butted its nose, then punched its chest and throat with blows that Wull felt through the ground.

  “Bugger off! Pickin’ on little boys! Pick on me! Pick on me!”

  The ursa stepped back, screamed again in confusion and anger.

  “Gods, your breath reeks!” said Tillinghast.

  He reached in and grabbed its tongue. The ursa clamped its jaws shut.

  Tillinghast pulled his arm away and looked at the stump of his wrist, bits of straw and leaf sprouting from the handless wound.

  “You rotten blaggard!” he said, and punched it again. “My bloody hand! That’s my good bloody hand what I uses for recreation, an’ now you’ve bit it off! Give it back! C’mere, you white turd, give me my bloody hand!”

  The ursa began to back away. Then it turned and ran.

  “Oh no, you don’t!” said Tillinghast, grabbing the short stump of its tail with his remaining hand and pulling himself onto its back. Wull darted forward to grab the baby as the ursa sprinted, Tillinghast swinging from its loose skin, into the forest.

  “Be careful with my baby!” said the woman. “Is he hurt?”

  “He’s . . .” Wull lifted the infant and opened the swaddling. The baby, from its pristine bud-shaped mouth to its immaculate little fingernails, was perfectly white, still, and made of wood.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” said the woman, scooping it from Wull’s arms. “He’s unharmed—the gods are truly merciful in their wisdom.”

  She knelt on the grass, the wooden baby held tightly against her bosom, her lips moving in prayer. She looked at Wull.

  “And you, brave young man, are you hurt? What’s your name? Let me see you.”

  “I’m Wulliam, an’ I’m fine,” said Wull. He took in the baby’s still face again. “Is . . . he . . . all right then?”

  “Thanks to the gods.” She smiled, checking Wull’s face and body for injury. “And you. And your friend! Isn’t he wonderfully strong?”

  “I’ll say,” said Wull, eyes wide. “That’s Tillinghast. The ursa should have torn him apart.”

  “He gave it a real hiding! But it’s taken his poor hand, that’s for certain. I do hope he’s safe. He’s saved all our lives this night, hasn’t he, my little treasure?” She kissed the wooden baby on the nose. “What’s this wound on your face?”

  “Oh,” said Wull. His hand went to his bandage: one side had come loose, and the slash from the bradai’s dirk was exposed. “It’s jus’ a cut, it’s fine.”

  “That’s more than a cut—that’s a nasty one.” The woman touched her fingers to Wull’s cheek. “It’s so deep! Whatever were you doing to sustain such an injury?”

  “Rowing,” said Wull. He reaffixed the bandage to his face, its fabric like sandpaper. The cut was hot and itchy, and he felt the layers of it—the sharp scab on the surface and its deeper, heat-filled center—distor
ting and pulling the rest of his face.

  “I’d like to clean that injury if I may. I’d worry you might lose an eye if it turns on you. The ursa didn’t hurt you?”

  “Jus’ my wrist,” said Wull, moving it gingerly. “When it knocked the oar out my hand, it got my arm an’ all. It’s fine, though, I think.”

  She had wide, slightly maddened eyes, thought Wull. He thought of Pappa, running unseeing through the woods.

  “I need to go back for my pappa,” he said. “He got lost.”

  The woman took his hand in hers and squinted. She massaged the wrist’s round bones and watched Wull biting back a reaction.

  “It’s a bad sprain, I should think, but not broken. It must be very painful—you’ll need to rest it a few days.”

  “Well, that ’in’t happenin’,” said Wull. “I’m gettin’ down the coast in this boat an’ it’s not gettin’ there by itself. . . .”

  “You’re going to the coast?” she said. “Oh, how wonderful. I’m also on my way to the seafront—we can travel together! How the gods provide!”

  “Oh, wait, now, I didn’t—”

  “I’s got it!” Tillinghast emerged from the tree line, holding his hand above his head, his face split by an enormous grin. “Dirty big blaggard was startin’ to chew on it, would you believe, but I’s jus’ wedged his mouth open an’ kicked his unmentionables to send him on his way. An’ let me tell you, young Master Keep, these unmentionables is the size o’ your head.”

  “Thank you, sir, for your help—you’ve saved us all,” said the woman.

  Tillinghast smiled and dropped his eyelids. “Oh, you’s quite welcome, Mrs.—”

  “It’s Miss . . .” she began.

  “How splendid . . .” said Tillinghast in tones of honey.

  “Miss Remedie Cantwell. Is your hand badly hurt?” she said.