Thief Eyes - Janni Lee Simner [24]
“Are you still in there?” I asked Ari. He kept staring at me. He was trembling—maybe he was as scared as I was. Yeah, but it’s not like being trapped with a scared polar bear is a good thing. I looked at his long black claws. My light wavered, shining off the walls. I saw images of bears in battle, tearing through warrior shields and chain vests as if they were paper.
“Any ideas?” I asked Freki.
Freki wrapped his tail around his legs. “I am no spellcaster, and even if I were, it is not my place to interfere.”
I remembered something from the notebook in my pack. Other useful spells follow. Freki was no spellcaster, but what about me?
The coin kept urging me on. I stuck it in my pocket, keeping only the handkerchief in my hand. The pulling continued. It wasn’t the coin that wanted to kill me—it was the handkerchief. I should drop it and run away. How could I make a bear remember who he really was when I didn’t know who I really was?
Was I the sort of person who would run away? I seemed pretty good at running. Was I the sort of person who’d abandon someone who had tried to rescue me? Who maybe cared about me, and who maybe I cared about in turn?
To hell with who I was. That’s not who I am.
The bear kept growling. I shoved the handkerchief into my pocket and pulled the notebook from my pack. Freki lay down and buried his nose beneath his fluffy tail, watching me all the while.
By the flashlight’s blue beam I flipped past the pages I’d already read. A spell for restoring one’s own memories, the next page said. I hesitated, but the spell required a raven’s feather. Maybe I could find some way to steal one from Muninn—later. I turned the page.
A spell for returning berserks to their true form, whether they will it or no. “Berserks?” I said aloud. “Like crazy people?”
Freki lifted his head. “Warriors with animal shapes. Very powerful. My master valued them. Fearsome in battle, ill suited to life outside of it.”
The bear didn’t look like a warrior, pressed against the wall like that. I quickly scanned the spell.
Berserks do not respond as readily to runes and chants as others do to magic. Still, you may try reciting these words and see if the shifter wishes to change back.
The words that followed were a mix of familiar and unfamiliar letters. I had no idea how to sound them out. There was a bit more English at the bottom of the page, though: Alternately, you may offer the berserk some item that belongs to him, and see if it reminds him of his human life.
I dropped the spellbook and yanked the charred, bloody handkerchief from my pocket. “Was this yours?” Was that why it had led me to him? Had my backpack led Ari to me, too? Did objects remember, in some strange way, who they belonged to?
I started toward him, holding the handkerchief out in front of me, while the birds on the ledge watched through tiny eyes.
“You have a warrior’s soul,” Freki said, but he made no move to follow me.
Here, kitty, kitty. I kept walking, fighting nervous giggles, until I was close enough to reach out and touch the bear’s nose—if I had a death wish. I reached toward him. Ari snarled. I dropped the handkerchief at his feet and skittered back.
With surprising care, the bear drew the thing between his paws. He sniffed it with his long nose, as if it were a book he was reading. He made a questioning sound and looked up.
“You still there, Ari?”
A ripple ran along his body, like wind on water. Fur retreated into black bear skin, claws into paws. Skin turned to clay once more, and beneath it the bear shrank, paws melting into human hands, snout into a human face. That skin drew away from legs and arms and face—
All at once Ari knelt gasping before me on hands and knees, wearing his leather jacket and jeans. He looked up at me, his eyes wild, his whole body shivering. The hair beneath his wool cap was bright white,