Trickster's Girl (The Raven Duet) Page 13

  "What about that?" Raven gestured to their left. Several hundred yards down the glacier's front, a dip in the ground swallowed the tape for a while before it emerged on the other side. "If you were down there the ranger couldn't see you."

  "Assuming it's more than three feet deep," Kelsa said. "Assuming there's not another ranger posted there."

  "She's only here to keep people off the ice," Raven replied, in the confident tone that usually meant he was bluffing. "If we got up on the ice she could see that from here. I'll distract her."

  He strolled toward a group of tourists, who were already distracting the ranger with questions.

  Kelsa looked over the muddy debris field the glacier had left in its wake. Several other tourists were hiking along the glacier's face. They were another set of witnesses who might rat her out to the ranger, but their presence meant that people were allowed to wander in that area.

  Swearing under her breath, Kelsa switched her com pod to record mode and made like a tourist, taking pictures of the glacier as she hiked over the rugged silty rocks.

  Like the glacier itself, the dip was bigger than it had looked from a distance. Kelsa stared curiously, for this shallow trench was nothing like the water-cut gullies and canyons she was accustomed to, just a slightly deeper groove amid hundreds of others the glacier had carved into the mountain's stone. She couldn't see the ranger anymore, and no one else was in sight.

  Heart pounding, since she was usually a law-abiding person, Kelsa scurried under the orange tape and up the glacier. Clearly others had taken advantage of this dip in the landscape, for there were words scratched in the dirty melting snow that covered the glacier's face: Burt was here. Nicklaus and Gretta 2094.

  Kelsa could see nothing now but a wall of white curling away, for its top was far higher than her head. It didn't look very inspiring, but this dirty snowbank was just one branch of an ice field that could be seen from space, and that even now was carving away the peaks that towered around her.

  Kelsa pulled out the medicine bag and untied the neck, then folded the top down to prevent it from spilling as she put it in her pocket. She stepped forward, trying to keep her feet out of the trickling stream that undercut the glacier's lip, and laid her hands in the half-melted snow that covered the ice.

  She stilled her thoughts, pushing aside the embarrassment discovery would bring. Slowly her awareness stretched beyond the icy wall, into the immense depth and weight that lay behind this lacy outlier. The words welled sluggishly out of her subconscious.

  "Carver of mountains. Source of rivers. Ice that carries the memories of our planet, carry this healing from the peaks you cut to the seas—be strong!"

  Keeping one cold hand pressed against the ice, she pulled the bag from her pocket and dashed a wisp of sand onto the glacier.

  The hard wall beneath her palm was still, but Kelsa felt the slow grinding power roll through her and shuddered with terror and joy.

  Boom. Boom. Boom. The deep hollow voice of the cracking glacier echoed off granite peaks like cannon fire. Boom. Boom. More cracking, fainter, and then more, finally fading into the distance.

  Kelsa pulled her hand away, smiling at the sight of the prints she'd left, at the knowledge that her mark on the glacier's face would do more good than Burt's had.

  In moments she was back under the tape, clambering up the muddy rise till the ranger and the others came into view.

  The tourists were exclaiming and waving their arms, much as they had in Craters. The ranger was explaining that it wasn't uncommon for glaciers to crack on a warm, rainy day, even multiple fracturing when the atmospheric conditions were right.

  Raven stood at the edge of the crowd, grinning with the same delight Kelsa felt. In that moment, she could almost forgive him for the lies, for all the information his people had withheld.

  Whatever the danger, surely this was worth it.

  ***

  They'd been on the road that led down toward Jasper for only a few minutes when a traffic jam, caused by drivers on both sides of the road stopping to take pictures of a mother bear and her cub, brought the bike to a halt.

  "The rangers say you shouldn't stop like that," Kelsa told Raven, watching the furry brown lumps. "The bears become accustomed to people and cars, and that endangers both them and the people."

  In her heart she found it hard to blame the drivers. If she'd been closer, she'd be taking pictures too.

  "You did well back there," Raven said. "I didn't think a human could have that kind of aptitude for calling."

  Kelsa's tentative forgiveness vanished in a wave of annoyance. "Do you have any idea how condescending that sounds? Maybe humans have more going for them than you think they do."

  His species might have some abilities hers didn't, but they weren't better people. In some ways they were worse!

  "I don't think so," Raven said. "There have always been a handful of humans who could work the leys, but never more than a few. It took me forever to find you. You're quite astonishing, for a human."

  Was this his way of trying to be nice? Kelsa sighed.

  "It was harder with the glacier," she admitted. "I know it's bigger than the part I could see, but it didn't look very inspiring. I mean, it's really just a big chunk of ice."

  Raven snorted. "Look back."

  Kelsa turned to look at the mountains behind her, and her breath caught. Three gleaming rivers of ice poured down the rugged slope. Kelsa knew glaciers were one of the heaviest forces on the planet, but they seemed to float above the roughness of the earth, white and ethereal.

  She didn't turn away till the cars behind her began to honk, because now she was the one blocking traffic. She stopped smiling, for the fragile, ephemeral beauty of something so solid that it ground mountains to dust had sobered her.

  Humans had almost destroyed the great glaciers, though they were growing again, and the sea level was coming back down. Raven's contempt for humanity might not be so misplaced. And right or wrong, his enemies now knew exactly where Kelsa had been.

  It was time to move on. Her hands were cold again as she put the bike in motion.

  CHAPTER 9

  THERE WAS A TRAIN IN Jasper. It was a bigger town than Lake Louise, and even more beautiful, but once a late lunch had satisfied his teen-boy appetite, Raven was interested only in leaving.

  "It's perfect," he told Kelsa. "We can take the train all the way to"—he peered at the schedule board—"Prince Rupert. It's the last thing they'd expect us to do because all that steel and the magnetic current will take us out of contact with both nature and the ley."

  "We can't take the train," Kelsa said. "Even in Canada they'll check our PID cards before they sell us a ticket. A PID that, in case you haven't noticed, you don't have. And officially, I'm not even in this country!"

  "I know." He sounded insufferably smug. "That's why I picked this up."

  He held out a Canadian ID card belonging to Robert Winslow, who judging by the photo, was a heavyset man in his forties.

  "You stole..." Of course he'd stolen it. And it wouldn't do any good to protest, because he wouldn't care. "But you don't look..." And that didn't matter either. He'd look just like Robert Winslow when he bought the ticket. "What will you do when Robert reports his card stolen? The police can stop this train, and there you'll be, stuck."

  He could abandon her and fly, but she'd prefer not to be abandoned now that his enemies knew where she was. The bikers might not be able to get here for several days, but who knew what other human tools they could use.

  "He won't report it stolen until it disappears," Raven said. "If he tried to use it, the scanner strip wouldn't work. It only looks like it should, which is why I kept the real card. But Robert Winslow lives here, so he won't have to use it. We've got three or four days before it vanishes, and by that time—"

  "We'll be in Prince Rupert. But what about me?"

  "Robert can buy a ticket for his niece, as well."

  Kelsa scowled. In the U.S. that would
n't work, but Canadians were so casual about security that here it might.

  "I can't afford it," Kelsa told him. "No matter what the tickets cost. Not to mention shipping my bike along with us."

  "I can." Raven pulled out his wad of bills. "This will last a few more days, and when it goes I'll make more."

  "But that's..." Kelsa didn't want to use the counterfeit money herself. Even if it only hurt some bank that could easily take the loss, it was stealing.

  But her debit account was almost empty. If she was going to reach Alaska, she had to use Raven's money. Surely healing the planet, preventing the tree plague's destruction of the northern forests, was more important?

  Her father had hated that kind of argument. He'd said that worse evils were committed by people who believed that the end justified the means than by people who were flat-out evil.

  Kelsa's father was dead. Dead of a growing cancer epidemic that the doctors couldn't explain. If healing the leys kept that from happening again, to anyone, then she didn't give a damn about some bank's balance sheet.

  She let Raven purchase her ticket and shipping for her bike in silence.

  While he ducked into a men's room to change back into himself, Kelsa stowed her bike in the baggage compartment, strapping it to the rack the porter showed her. Then she went to find their seats, claiming the window before Raven returned. The seats in this car were intended for overnight occupation—wide, comfortable, and fully reclining. Looking at her ticket Kelsa saw that they would reach Prince Rupert at midafternoon tomorrow.

  "You should have told me we'd be on the train all night. I'd have gotten my toothbrush off the bike, and some other things too."

  "You'll survive," Raven said. The train car shuddered and began to move. "And this will throw anyone trying to trace us by magic completely off our trail. By human means as well," he added. "Though it should take some time before your bikers can catch up with us."

  Kelsa glanced around. There weren't many other passengers, and no one was sitting near them. Still...

  "You might not want to use that m-word quite so freely. And they're not my bikers. I can't believe the clerk didn't insist on seeing my PID at the ticket center. Or at the province border, or even when—"

  Her com pod chirped. Kelsa jumped and pulled it out of her shirt, along with the medicine bag.

  Her home com address. Her mother. Kelsa hadn't checked in for ... how long now? Thank goodness her mother hadn't called Aunt Sarabeth's apartment! She might yet if Kelsa didn't pick up.

  She cast a furious glance behind her. A train was a train, and her aunt was always talking about taking Chicago's famous L. Kelsa narrowed the focus so her mother wouldn't be able to see much except her face and opened on the fifth chirp.

  "Hi, Mom."

  "Kelsa!" Her mother's face appeared on the small screen. She looked tidy and relaxed, better than she had when Kelsa had seen her last. Her life probably was easier, since she didn't have to fight with her daughter all the time.

  "How are you doing with Sarabeth?" her mother asked. "Are you having a good time?"

  "I'm doing better than I expected," Kelsa said truthfully—sort of. "It's been interesting."

  Her mother squinted. "Are you on a bus? It doesn't—"

  "The L," Kelsa said, abandoning the truth. "I'm going downtown to meet Aunt Sarabeth, and she's going to take me around some museums. Art and ... and stuff."

  She knew Chicago had an art museum. It was another of the things her aunt had talked about.

  "That doesn't sound like something you'd care for," her mother said curiously. "But you look good. Better than when you left."

  "I'm checking out the city lifestyle," Kelsa said uncomfortably. "It's different, but interesting. Museums are part of it. Or at least, that's what Aunt'S. says."

  Her mother was squinting again. "What's that around your neck? It doesn't look like something Sarabeth would buy you."

  Kelsa's hand rose guiltily toward the medicine pouch, and she forced it down. "There was a folk art show when we first got here. I ... uh, my stop's coming up. I'll call you in a week or so. I'd like to stay here longer, if that's OK?"

  "Of course. I'm glad you're enjoying yourself."

  Was that relief flashing over her mother's face?

  "I am," Kelsa told her. "I'll call you again in a few days. Say hi to Joby for me. Bye."

  Her mother barely had time to say "Bye" before Kelsa cut the connection. Her stomach was quaking. Her heart ached too. Someday, she and her mother would have to get past this ... this wall between them. Because even now, lying to her mother made her feel worse than defrauding the bank.

  "Excellent," said Raven, who'd had the sense to keep silent. "You'll need at least another two weeks to finish the healing."

  "Yeah," said Kelsa grimly. "I'm doing great. I'm lying to my family. I'm in Canada..." There had to be some security in the train cars, even in Canada, and illegally was the kind of word security computers screened for. "And a bunch of angry people are chasing me. I'm fabulous."

  "You're also helping to save your planet, making up for centuries of human folly. Doesn't that matter more?"

  "Yes." But her heart still ached.

  The train had left the town behind while she talked to her mother, and Kelsa gazed out the window as a curving mountain canyon gave way to a long straight river canyon, and eventually to rolling hills.

  The new forests, replacing those that had been destroyed in the beetle epidemics at the beginning of the century, teemed with life. Kelsa spotted five bears grazing on the grasses and roots that grew beside the tracks, and deer, and a pair of geese trailed by half a dozen fluffy goslings.

  Lakes, no longer full of glacial silt, glowed royal blue. The flatter land between the hills was covered with meadows and hay fields.

  "This is the area where I'd intended for you to call on water," Raven told her. "As you see, there are plenty of lakes."

  Had he been here before? His expression, as he gazed at the sunset glow reflected on the shimmering waves, showed only appreciation for its beauty. No nostalgia. No regret.

  "What was the Native name for this area?" Kelsa asked.

  "In which language? There were a dozen names, though several of them translated to something like Land of Waters. Not very imaginative. What do they call it now?"

  Kelsa pulled out her com pod and brought up a map. "The Lake District."

  Raven laughed.

  It never got completely dark. Unaccustomed to sleeping on a train, Kelsa kept waking to look out the window. Even at 2 a.m. a dim gray light suffused the landscape.

  The sun rose as early as it had set late, and she woke with it, rumpled, stiff, and even more annoyed that she hadn't been warned to get her toothbrush out of her pack.

  "Excellent," said Raven, as she moved her seatback upright and glared at him. "We're almost there."

  Kelsa looked out the window. Snowcapped peaks reared up to the west and north. It didn't look like they were approaching the sea. Besides..."The ticket says we're not supposed to reach Prince Rupert till two thirty in the afternoon. It's only—"

  "It's Smithers," said Raven. "We're getting off here."

  ***

  Kelsa was still furious when they got the bike out of the luggage compartment. "I understand that you bought tickets for Prince Rupert to confuse anyone who tries to check up on us, but you should have told me."

  The compartment reeked of cheap perfume, as if someone had recently broken a full bottle. The strong scent made Kelsa sneeze, and Raven broke into a coughing fit and backed out of the car, leaving her to remove the bike on her own. Typical.

  "I realize that the truth means nothing to you," Kelsa went on grimly. "But I need to know where we're going. In case we get separated, if nothing else. Not to mention trust, or honesty, or respec—"

  "Can I drive?" Raven was breathing deeply in the fresh air. A single towering peak loomed over Smithers, and the sun gleamed on his dark hair.

  In his black biker ge
ar, he could have posed for the cover of a teen-girl flimsy, and despite all she knew about him Kelsa's will began to soften. "Do your powers give you the ability to do something without having to learn how?"

  He cocked one eyebrow. "Powers?"

  "You know what I mean. Do you have some magical way to know how to do something without learning to do it?"

  "I like that. Powers."

  Kelsa waited.

  "No," he admitted. "But I'm tired of—"

  "Under no circumstances are you driving."

  ***

  The road north from Smithers took them up the deep-carved granite of the Buckley River Gorge. The place where Kelsa pulled over so they could eat breakfast perched above a spot where several fallen boulders compressed the river into a rushing cataract.

  She brought out the peanut butter. "Next time we're going to remember to stop in town, and spend some of your counterfeit money on rolls and a sausage."

  Raven gazed down at the rocky platform with an odd, remembering expression.

  "The people who once lived here, they fished for salmon off those rocks. It was a huge gathering, drawing tribes, families, from miles around. They'd work like mad all day, catching, gutting, and curing fish, then feast and party around the fires."

  Kelsa looked down at the tumble of boulders. She could almost see a crowd of dark-haired people working there. People her cultural ancestors had wiped out.

  A pang of collective guilt struck her, and she sighed. "They were better guardians of the planet than we were."

  "Not really," said Raven. "They just didn't have enough technology to do serious damage. Humans are all—"

  He stopped, but it was too late.

  "Children? Idiots? I'm getting tired of this attitude of yours. I'll concede that we didn't do a great job taking care of things, but we had no way to know the leys existed! And your people did nothing to help. Instead of frolicking around, pretending to be spirits and saints and things, you should have—"

  "It's not our job to take care of your world." His face darkened with real anger—and maybe a hint of the same kind of guilt Kelsa had just been feeling? "You're the ones who had to half destroy this world's climate before you woke up and realized you could die too!"