Outcast by Michelle Paver Page B

snake-haired mask of the Viper Mage whirling, hissing as she sought the Otherworld with dead gutskin eyes....
    "Renn," Fin-Kedinn said softly.
She drew a breath. "She--she does everything sideways, like a snake. She lies all the time. She makes you see things that aren't there. She makes you do things." "I don't understand," said Bale. "I spoke to some Vipers at the clan meet, and they told me they've never
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    had a Mage who turned Soul-Eater. So how can this Seshru be--"
"Like a snake," said Fin-Kedinn, "she sheds one self and becomes another."
Bale was aghast. "She changed her name? But no one would do that--it's a kind of death!"
"That's what it means, to be a Soul-Eater," said Renn. "You sacrifice all that you were. You live only for power."
Bale stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.
Fin-Kedinn picked up the bones and poured them slowly from palm to palm. "So now we know. Torak is soul-sick--and at the mercy of the Viper Mage." "The Viper Mage has no mercy," said Saeunn.
Next morning Renn woke early and went to see Fin-Kedinn.
She found him fishing for pike in the shallows where a brook flowed into the Axehandle. When he saw her, he drew in his line. The hook was empty. "What is it, Renn?" His face was grave. He had guessed why she'd come.
"I don't want to lie to you," she said. "I don't want to sneak away. But I have to try to find--"
"No, don't say it," he warned. "Don't tell me anything you couldn't tell the Leader of any other clan."
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She bit her lip. "He's out there. Alone. Soul-sick."
"I know."
"Then why don't you come with me?"
"I can't be seen to break clan law." He met her eyes. "You of all people mustn't do this. What if he's already in her power? A spirit walker in the hands of a Soul-Eater. I can't think of anything more dangerous."
    "He's my friend. I've got to try. You understand, don't you?"
Fin-Kedinn did not reply. "Fin-Kedinn? You do understand?" Suddenly he looked tired. "You're no longer a child, Renn. You're old enough to make your own choices." No I'm not! she wanted to say. I need you to help me! Tell me what to do!
That night Renn sat by a smoky little fire on the banks of the Axehandle, feeling lonely and scared.
Breaking clan law had been even worse than she'd feared. By doing so, she'd cut herself off from her clan and from Fin-Kedinn.
Huddling closer to the flames, she blew on her grouse-bone whistle but got no answer. Torak and Wolf were far away.
She could feel her power churning inside her; the secrets rising to the surface, like splinters working their way through her flesh. She didn't want to do Magecraft, 146
she hated it, but she had a feeling that to help Torak, she might be forced to try. Because Seshru was out here somewhere.
    Hatred flared in her heart, and she perceived the Soul-Eater's plan so clearly that it could have been her own. Seshru was hunting Torak in the same way that her clancreature hunted its quarry. The viper sinks its poisoned fangs into its prey, then follows it through the Forest as it wanders, slowly weakening. The viper is patient. It waits till the prey falls. Only then does it feed.
    Renn was awakened by the sizzle of water on fire.
Bale stood over her, his dripping skinboat balanced on his shoulder.
She sat up, annoyed that he'd caught her dozing. "I thought you went back to your island," she said crossly.
He ignored that. "I was wrong and you were right. Torak is soul-sick. But it's worse than we thought."
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SEVENTEEN
    "Aki was barely alive," said Bale. "Somehow he'd crawled out of the water and collapsed in a thicket. The Wolf Clan found him a couple of days later." "A couple of days?" said Renn. "He's been missing nearly a moon." "No. The Boar Clan just didn't bother to send us word."
"Typical," she said in disgust. "But what were the Wolf Clan doing so far east?"
Bale looked grim. "Tracking Torak. To 'wipe out the dishonor once and for all.'"
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Renn shook her head. "Did they say where his trail led?"
"East. They lost him in the