The Spirit Eater (15 page)

Eli started to say something, but the bear kept going. “Every year my bears grow smaller, stupider, and weaker,” he growled. “The mountains, our neighbors and friends since time began, sleep and do not wake while the dark hunger they were assigned to guard sends its seeds into the world unhindered and unchecked.”

Nico swallowed and pulled herself deeper than ever into her coat.

“But I am a Great Spirit,” the bear went on. “I do my duty. All of this I brought to the Lady’s attention again and again, but I never heard a word back from her. For years this went on, and not knowing what to do, we kept living as we always had. Then the darkness took one of my greatest sons.”

All around the room, the bears bowed their heads in sadness. “Gredeth,” they rumbled.

“Yes, Gredeth.” The great bear’s voice was thick with loss. “Greatest bear of his generation. It was Gredeth who found the human wandering in our woods, its soul already half eaten by a seed of the thing that lives below the Dead Mountain.” The bear made a disgusted sound. “Blindness and power are a reckless combination, and putting them together in one creature was the Shepherdess’s greatest folly. The blind human, infected and mad, wandered into our territory, and brave Gredeth did what needed to be done. He fought the monster and won, devouring it so the black seed would not destroy our lands. But his bravery was his undoing. The seed survived the devouring and took root in Gredeth himself.”

The great bear’s good eye grew sad and distant. “I could do nothing,” he rumbled. “I tried. I sent word to the Shepherdess. I threw away my pride. I begged, human. Begged her for aid as I have never done before, and received nothing. Gredeth continued to decline. The seed ate him until he was only a shell. That was when Slorn appeared. He was wise for a human, and very knowledgeable about the ways of the demon. We put our trust in him, but Gredeth was too far gone, and in the end, all Slorn managed was to slow the seed’s growth.”

The bear heaved a great sigh. “I was grateful that the human had tried and bade him go with my thanks. But Slorn had not given up. He proposed a radical plan. He would take what was left of Gredeth into himself. Just as he mixed metals, he would meld human and bear spirits into a new soul. I would have forbade it, but Gredeth asked me to change my mind. He wanted to live, proud bear, not die to the hungry dark. With no answer still from the White Lady, I did what I deemed best. I helped Slorn take Gredeth’s soul and body into his own. The result was neither man nor bear, but he was Gredeth just as much as he was Slorn, and my dear son still to this day.”

The bear’s voice faded to a low rumble as the story ended, and the cave fell silent. In the stillness, Eli stepped forward. “If that’s how you feel,” he said softly, “help me help him. Tell me where he is.”

The great bear’s glare grew cold as iced stone. “I will help you on one condition. You, the favorite, must call Benehime down. The great Shepherdess was deaf to my begging. Now let’s see if her deafness extends to you. Call her and ask, favorite, why, if she is guardian of all spirits, does she not kill the thing under the mountain? Why does she allow her world to stagnate unattended while she wastes her time with favorites? Why did she create humans and give them power over every true spirit, yet make them so blind they can do nothing but fight and enslave the world around them?”

With a great creaking of bones, the lord of bears stood up, towering over them. “Bring her down to finally answer for her negligence!” he roared. “I will not cower before her as all the others do! Call her down, favorite! Bring her before me and I will make her answer!”

His booming voice rang through the cave, and all the bears began to cower. Nico felt like cowering as well. She could feel the ancient Great Spirit’s anger in her bones. Yet Eli did not step back. He just stood there, looking the raging bear straight in the face as he spoke one word.

“No.”

The great bear’s snarl shook the stone, but Eli did not move.

“I am no one’s dog,” Eli said. “I’m the greatest thief in the world. Benehime may call me her favorite, but that was her choice. My life is my own, not hers, and not yours. I sympathize with your plight, I really do, and I hope you get the chance to call her out for every spirit she’s ignored. But you’ll have to find someone else to tempt her down because I won’t ask her for anything ever again.”

The bear sat down again with a great crash. “Then find Slorn yourself.”

“Come on,” Eli said, a little more desperately. “You just said Slorn was like your son. How—”

“He is my son, as much as any bear,” Gredit growled. “If he wished for my help, he would have asked for it, not sent you. But no message have I received, no cry for aid. You are the one asking, not Slorn, so you must pay the price.” He tilted his enormous head. “I will tell you that Slorn is far from here. If he’s in as much danger as you seem to think, he will certainly die before you can find him on your own. I’m your only chance.”

“Surely we can come to some other arrangement,” Eli said. “I have many other talents besides being the favorite.”

The great bear tossed his head. “This is not a negotiation, human. The only reason you are still alive right now is because you are the favorite.”

Eli took another step forward. “But—”

“Call down the White Lady or get out.”

Nico shrank back at the menace in Gredit’s voice. All through the cave, bears were growling through clenched teeth. The open menace was clear enough that even spirit-deaf Josef went for his sword, but Eli’s hand stopped him before he could draw.

“It seems we are at an impasse,” Eli said, stepping back again. “Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Bear, but your price is too rich for my blood.

We’ll find Slorn on our own.”

“So you say.” The great bear was grinning now. “But you’ll be back. I’m your only path to saving Slorn, and you don’t seem like a human who takes failure on the chin.” The other bears laughed at that, which only made Gredit grin wider. “See you soon, favorite of the Shepherdess.”

Eli gave him a polite smile and a half bow before turning on his heel and marching toward the cave mouth. Josef and Nico fell in behind him, keeping right on his heels as the sound of laughing bears followed them out into the sunlight.

Eli marched down the valley, fists clenched. When he reached the bottom, he jumped over the stream and started up the other side, climbing with a singleness of focus that was hard to keep up with. Nico was covered in sweat by the time they cleared the valley’s edge, and even Josef was breathing hard. Eli took no notice. He simply flung himself down on a sunny bit of crumbled stone and glared as hard as he could down the valley at the cave now hidden by thick trees.

“Stupid, presumptuous, stubborn bears.”

Josef crossed his arms over his chest. “You want to translate all that growling for me so I know what you’re talking about?”

“Oh”—Eli flung his hands out in frustration—“spirit politics. He knows where Slorn is, but he won’t tell me unless I do something I swore never to do again.”

“Uh-huh.” Josef scowled down at him. “And what is that?”

“Something I’m not going to talk about,” Eli said. “My plan didn’t work out, alright? Let’s just leave it at that.”

“No,” Josef said, and Nico cowered at the anger in his voice. “Don’t treat me like an idiot just because I could only hear half the conversation. The bear wanted something and you wouldn’t give it. Why? What’s more important than finding Slorn?”

“You care a lot about Slorn all of a sudden,” Eli said, glaring at the swordsman.

“Don’t change the subject,” Josef snarled, leaning menacingly forward. “Besides the fact that he’s always been a stand-up sort of guy by us, Slorn is the only man who can make Nico the tools she needs to fight off the seed inside her. If that bear knows where he is, then we need to give that bear what he wants.”

“You think it’s that simple?” Eli yelled. “How long have we been working together, Josef? Two years? Three? And how many times in those years have I passed up an opportunity to do things the easy way?”

“Every time,” Josef said.

“Never,” Eli snapped back. “If I could just give the bear what he wants and walk off happy, I would, but I can’t. Not this time. So let’s just move on.”

“No,” Josef said again, louder than before. “How can I trust you to do the right thing when you won’t even tell me why? For all I know this is the easy way out for you. You tried to find Slorn, it didn’t work out, oh well, back to thievery.” He stared at Eli’s suddenly downcast eyes. “That’s it, isn’t it?

You’re just going to let him go, aren’t you?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Eli shouted. “The bears won’t help me. I can’t find Slorn on my own, and in any case, Heinricht didn’t even directly ask for my help. For all I know Pele’s overreacting and Slorn has the situation well in hand. I tried my best, alright? We’ve spent three muddy, profitless, fameless weeks on this nonsense. I think even Slorn would agree we gave it our best shot. But it’s over. We lost. Slorn could be anywhere. He could be on the other side of the world and we wouldn’t know. We’d have a better chance of convincing the Spirit Court to give me Spiritualist of the Year than of finding our bear man at this point.”

Eli was flailing his arms by the end, but Josef didn’t even flinch. “That’s still not an answer,” he said. “As I see it, you’re the one making this difficult.

Why won’t you give them what they want?”

“What part of ‘I can’t’ don’t you understand?” Eli shouted.

Josef crossed his arms. “Maybe it would be easier to understand if you told me what it was?”

“So that’s it,” Eli scoffed. “You don’t trust me.”

“Oh, I trust you,” Josef said. “I trust you to be a con man, a liar, and a thief. That’s why I put up with you, because you’re the best at what you do. But that same stellar reputation makes it hard to take what you say at face value.”

Eli gave him a nasty look. “Do I ever ask you about your past, Josef? Do I ever pry? No, I respect and trust you to handle your affairs and do your job.” He whirled to face Nico, and she shrank back farther still. “Do I ever ask you how you got your seed? Have I pressed you at all about what happened in Gaol, or why you’ve suddenly become the weak little girl you always appeared to be?”

“That’s out of line!” Josef shouted, stepping between Nico and Eli.

“Is it?” Eli shouted back. “She’s just as much a part of this as either of us. Despite your mother-hen routine, she can speak for herself. We’re all thieves together in this.”

“This isn’t a heist, Eli!” Josef roared. “If Slorn dies because of your pride or whatever idiocy keeps you from going back in that cave and finding out what we need to know, we’re not losing some gold or risking imprisonment. If we can’t get Slorn, Nico’s the one who’s going to lose.” Josef reached out and grabbed Nico’s arm, dragging her between him and Eli. “Coats wear out,” he said, pulling her coat back to reveal her wrist, where the silver cuff danced against her thin arm. “So do manacles. If there’s no one there to replace them, then you’re sending her into battle naked. How could you do that to someone you claim to trust as one of your own?”

Eli glared at him around Nico’s upthrust hand. “I won’t call Benehime,” he said, his voice so quiet the words were more breath than sound.

Josef’s glare was cold and sharp. “So you won’t do what it takes to save Slorn?” he said. “You’ll break your trust with Nico, your trust with me, and you won’t even tell us why.”

“No,” Eli whispered. “But I will tell you this.” He leaned in until his cheek brushed Nico’s arm. “I will break every oath I have before I give up my freedom.”

Josef’s muscles tensed, and Nico could feel his fist closing, his fingers tightening on her arm. Eli went stiff as well, his blue eyes cold and guarded.

Nico could barely breathe from the tension in the air. She’d seen them fight many times, but never like this. Never seriously.

And it’s all your fault. The voice in her head was closer than ever, barbed and laughing. Josef wouldn’t even care about the bear if it wasn’t for you.

Now you’re about to break up one of the most enduring friendships of our age, and all because you’re too weak to live without props from your little missing Shaper bear.

A terrible chill went through Nico’s body. Eli and Josef were the only people who mattered to her, and they were fighting, destroying years of trust, all because of her. She had to stop it, but how?

You know how. An image filled Nico’s mind, a great black mountain where snow never fell and wind never blew. It was there for only an instant, but the old terror at seeing it nearly made her brain go numb.

You know how to find Sted, the voice said as the image faded. I showed you before. Find Sted and you find Slorn. This is your chance to be the solution instead of the problem. All you have to do is stop being a coward. But do it quickly, while you still have people left to worry about.

Another image flashed across her mind. It was there less than a second, but it was sharp enough to burn into her brain. Eli walking one way, Josef walking another, both of them looking over their shoulders at her in accusing hatred as they left her behind. Alone.

“Stop!” Nico shouted.

Her voice echoed across the valley, and both men jumped. Nico stared at them, horribly aware of the tears rolling down her face. She could still see the hatred in their eyes.

“Stop,” she said again, quietly now. Josef, alarmed and looking a bit surprised, carefully released her wrist and stepped back. Eli did as well.

“I know how to find Slorn,” she said, the words tumbling over one another in her rush to get them out. “All we have to do is find Sted. He’s the one Slorn’s after.”

“Find Sted?” Eli said, mulling it over. “How?”

Nico took a deep breath. After this, there was no turning back. “Sted has Nivel’s demonseed inside him. We can find it easily if we go to the place where all demonseed are connected.”

Josef gave her a guarded look. “Where?”

“The Dead Mountain.”

Josef sucked in a breath, but Eli’s eyes flashed at the possibility.

“Step into the demon hive itself,” he said thoughtfully. “Find the bear by finding the bait.” His eyebrows arched. “Sounds brilliant.”