Now It Will Be Fine

       Onni thought the fear for his family was dead. The Silent World was locked outside the Keuruu walls; Lalli and Tuuri would never cross that barrier. Still, they tried, silly kids. At first, Lalli kept asking what the matter was and sleeping as bidden. Then his questioning grew louder and more insistent, both in the wake world and in dreams, by the walled-up passage to the dream sea. Onni kept replying that he noticed the kade outside, in the dreamsea. And it wasn’t a lie. He was relieved to see that he had hidden Lalli in time. But Lalli did not believe him and was trying to leave his dreamspace. Of course, he failed. After that, he started attacking Onni in both worlds, unsuccessfully. The difference in power, weight, and experience was not to his advantage. After three or four assaults, Lalli stopped any resistance and did not talk to Onni anymore. Tuuri did her best, too. She was not a mechanic for nothing. Somehow, she reached the lamp in the cellar ceiling and removed it without getting burned or electrocuted, and used the wires and contacts as a pick-lock. And she chose time wisely, at the beginning of her brother’s shift, but it took her too long in the dark, and she didn’t reckon with the magical alarm. Onni nearly fainted when the containment alarm triggered and buzzed at the back of his mind. Fear must have let him claim a sudden sickness convincingly enough. The hardest part was refusing a referral to the hospital. He coped and got permission to take a day off. And at home, Tuuri was already shifting the trapdoor bolt with the hard cover of a book left to her for entertainment. She appeared from the trapdoor already, glared at her brother, and tried to call for help. He just started a lullaby runo. Afterwards, he had to take extra measures. Later, Tuuri’s anger was long and loud (where did she learn such expressions?) when she woke up and found herself chained to the metal bars by an improvised handcuff out of a metal clamp and boat lock and soft leather winding to prevent skin abrasion. And he removed all small, hard items from her reach, up to shoelace aglets and bra hooks. From now on, he’d only let her flex and walk or visit a bucket in his presence since she managed to turn even such a limited freedom into harm. Once again, Onni tried to explain to her that he was doing all of that for her own safety, but in vain. Tuuri refused to understand him, just as she did before the missed trip. Words are a strange thing; Onni could summon spirits and plead with gods but failed to reach his own sister. And of course, he could not rely on unrelated people. He had to conceal everything. It would not be impossible if he never let his guard down. If anything else happened at the wrong time, he wouldn’t be able to ask for leave under the pretence of feeling unwell. I would look too suspicious. His commanders should not doubt his proficiency, or they might transfer him to another, less stressful base or dismiss him altogether. Which would be a catastrophe. The cottage he shared with his sister was state-issued, and moving with two people in the baggage seemed next to impossible. And he still had to make his living, and not just his but for two more people. Onni was always thinking several steps ahead where he could out himself, to take measures ahead of time, but still, he perceived suspicions in the eyes of people around him. Shopkeepers and canteen handlers seemed to wonder why he needed so much food. And Onni tried to procure food by little from everywhere, by stealth or outright stealing (in undetectable amounts), and yearned for summer to begin, when he’d have mushrooms, berries, and other natural resources available. He even pretended to find an interest in fishing. The skald in charge of archives leered suspiciously whenever he flipped through records of other mages with runos for domestic use, or medical literature (he needed to know if the basement conditions might harm his kids). Neighbours were watching, too. Keuruu was a small settlement; people knew each other and could drop by at any moment to ask for some salt, share a pie, or just walk by and see through the windows that he’s making lunch or drying clothes that were clearly not his. Onni kept the curtains closed all days long and met any guests on the porch without letting anyone in. While in office, he found it ever harder to stop thinking about his charges at home. Despite all sorts of alarms installed. Something strange was glimpsing in the glances of his colleagues. Onni had never been eager to stay after work for a drink or join a sauna party, and now he made a point of keeping everyone from chatting with him. Gloomy looks and a dying voice sufficed for the first several weeks, while people chalked it up to shock after the death of his family. Then the attempts to pry into his mind resumed. Some girls, especially... The alarm went off again when he was returning at dusk after his shift. External intrusion, this time. Onni walked faster and found a visitor on the porch of the closed backyard terrace. A glimpse of moonlight through the fleeting clouds lit her up. Tuuri’s friend, three years older than her. Kiira, if he remembered right. He never understood why she had taken an interest in him and tried to get acquainted closer, with Tuuri’s blunt help. He had no time for romantic stuff back then, and now any attention was outright dangerous. She noticed him, too, and stammered with a small smile that she wanted to give away an odd jar of jam. And maybe to make some tea with jam and make a fire so that he didn’t have to wait till his cottage was warm again. She just failed to get inside. The said jar was really standing on the doorstep. Indeed. The girl must’ve decided she could insinuate herself into his heart with compassion and small favours. The alarm had been triggered, meaning she had tried to open the terrace door and was exposed to the second line of protection, an attention-diverting spell. An idle visitor would have forgotten the visit and its purpose and walked away. But since she was still there, it meant she was very focused on getting inside and thus returned after walking out of the spell range. Maybe even not once; the moon hid behind the clouds again, and darkness concealed any traces around the cottage. It didn’t matter. Skalds of the central military base are required to be smart. She should notice that something was wrong, even if she wasn’t a mage. She could even recognise the type of barrier and ask herself why he needed such heavy security within a safe, friendly settlement. Onni invited her inside with a nod. He didn’t trust his voice, it could be too shaky with fear. He had to do something right now, or Tuuri and Lalli would be in danger again! His eyes scanned the terrace for any prompts. The only light was coming through thin curtains—brief moonlight reflected by the snow. It was enough for a mage. The girl loomed between him and a rack with baskets and other summer junk. Then she reached for the handle of the inner door. Fear was taut like a spring and lashed out as anger; this was what Grandma Ensi taught him to do in the dreamspace with evil spirits. And he hit her. A fist blow into the temple from a tough, grown-up man sent the girl into the corner of the wooden rack. While he was locking the doors and raking through a box with fishing gear, she was still alive. But that’s not for long. Only until he pulled a fishing line tight around her throat and held it, watching the faint glow of her henki, a vitality-soul, fade and a shivering lump of luonto flee and dissipate while fleeing. And a noita like him wouldn’t have any problems with ushering a personality soul, itse, out. Even if it was not ready or willing to leave. Under the black sky of dreamsea, an eagle owl was carrying a translucent bird up to the Bird’s Path where a red swan was already soaring. “I saw you, human.” The Swan of Tuonela pierced him with a yellow stare before the other bird stopped fluttering and flew meekly up and away under the red wing. “I despise those who think they can govern others’ lifespans. So, when I get a hold of you—" But Onni was already fading into the wake world. He didn’t care what became of him after his death. He just had to make sure the Warden of Tuonela didn’t get Tuuri and Lalli for as long as magely possible. The waking world held another problem ready for him. Solvable, of course. While it was dark, he could raise a blizzard, take the body to water holes in the bay, and make it drown at a distance from the usual fishing or water intake spots. Onni wound the fishing line back. Fishing… The next idea was simple and logical. He leaned down to undo the skald’s coat while her body was still supple. Tuuri would need new clothes sooner or later, so why should he throw away what he wouldn’t procure easily later? Sure, Tuuri was shorter and wider than Kiira, but the cut was rather loose. And besides. Onni left the terrace door open for a crack to make the terrace into a freezer for a stock of meat and byproducts. Grandma Ensi had taught him to skin various game. And a jar of jam would not be one too many. Vitamins never were. The moon did not glimpse anymore. Low drifting snow did as bidden and covered all the traces. The next day, Tuuri was eating the stew heartily. Onni said it was a gift from her friend… Kiira, right. Hare meat. Her father was a military Hunter, after all, and did bring some game now and then. After Tuuri went to bed (not voluntary, of course), it was Lalli’s turn to wake up for lunch. He was eyeing and sniffing at the plate for quite some time, and then knocked it down and recoiled into a corner, hissing, “Are you out of your mind?” His eyes darted from side to side, as if looking for ghosts. And he didn’t listen to any persuasions that proteins were necessary and that a liver was a source of many vitamins and microelements. At least he did crunch on a round of dry bread. Ghosts, duh! Onni knew all too well how to banish them, especially when he knew their origin. He had carved karsikko, an inscription of the dead's name reminding the lingering spirit to proceed to afterlife, on the inner door frame instead of a traditional dry pine tree. Well, he remembered only her first name at that time. He heard the last name in a couple of days, when the staff department started interrogations about the missing skald. Onni told a well-designed and rehearsed lie that he hadn’t seen her and added a drop of truth about a jar of jam found on the doorsteps. Just in case someone had noticed her walking down the street. The HQ officer seemed to believe him, but Onni planned reactions and answers for any further questions. What was worse, the interrogation took place at the regular briefing, and when afterwards the mages went to their posts, Onni’s former mentor, a senior defence officer, caught up with him, placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, and said that Onni could share anything with him at any time. Onni nodded; he didn’t dare to utter a sound and fled to his current assignment site. Fear, strong and vicious, like around the grosslings, gripped at his throat. Old Karviainen knew Onni, a scared sixteen-year-old boy, right from his first days in Keuruu. He completed Onni’s studies of magic, combat, human and troll spirits. It was next to impossible to hide any movements of a soul from him. The only way out, like in the Silent World, was to stay silent and hide. Well, Onni had already realised that humans can be enemies just like trolls, only much closer, right behind the porch of one’s home. Onni’s nerves were taut as ever, and a sudden signal from alarms shook him like an electric shock and made him stumble. This time it came from the dream space. Lalli chose the best moment for another escape attempt, though he should have lost a sense of time long ago. At least it didn’t overlap with the pre-shift briefing. And luckily, Onni had an assignment away from the headquarters, he was checking the main quarantine island barriers. He had already reached the place and could lean on the facility wall and dive into the dream. He gets there at the last moment. Lalli, in the form of a lynx, has almost climbed to the tops of barrier pines. When did he learn to take the shape of his luonto? Onni didn’t teach him that trick! A speck of pride for the cousin’s talent and skill is lost in a vortex of terror and anger. Why can’t Lalli understand! The most efficient way is to gather a gust of energy by beating the wings, and throw it into the opponent. Today, it doesn’t work. The claws of the lynx grip the smooth bark too fast. The lynx hisses, squeezes its ears, and sways a clawed paw at the bird. He has clearly gotten stronger in the past couple of months. Usually it takes experience, hard work, and some hardship. Sure, he had plenty of free time, but why are peace and safety so rough to Lalli that they temper his luonto with each passing day? There’s no time to search for an answer. Pine tops are one or two dashes away, and Lalli can get outside by the side branches. And wake up. And Onni will be too far away to get home in time and keep his cousin in place. He must do something, and quickly. The owl's wings are a perfect manoeuvring tool. He launches at the lynx straight from its back, claws at its scruff, pecks in the head, where undercoat hair is the thinnest. Lalli loses his concentration and turns human again. Onni barely manages to catch him by the shoulders; he hangs limp. Onni brings him down to the floating platform and sheds his luonto form, too. While a translucent eagle owl drives away a translucent lynx, Onni lays his cousin face down to have a look, but before that, he throws Lalli’s knife into the water again, just in case this faint is another stunt to get away. No, it is not a stunt. The hair on Lalli’s nape is sticky with blood, and red points left by the owl talons are blooming on the back of his shirt under the cape. Onni’s hands shake. In a dream, blood-stopping runos are useless, the bodies are not quite material, but the wound will be reflected in the wake world. The barrier is intact, meaning Lalli cannot break through it, and there is nothing Onni can do in the dreamspace right now. Onni reemerged into the wake world. Thank gods and spirits, his job involved sudden drops out of reality, and the officer in charge of the quarantine facility did not suspect anything criminal: a mage zoned out to do his mage business, nothing strange. It would be much harder to wait until the end of the shift. Onni was checking facility alarms and barriers mechanically, paying more attention to keeping his hands and voice steady in front of witnesses or to scrolling through his options. But all the ways to get home earlier could have consequences. He was dropping into his dreamspace now and then all through his shift; Lalli’s swamp was in place, Lalli himself curled on the platform boards, squinting and hissing at every visit of his cousin. Never before had a shift seemed so long. Never before had Onni filled out the day’s report so fast. And it took all his control not to break into a run on his way home. In the basement, Tuuri greeted him with a cry for help and told him on the verge of tears that Lalli, all of a sudden and without waking, got a seizure so severe that he had fallen off the cot onto the concrete floor and even bruised a nape. Onni hurried to calm her down, saying that their cousin was alive, that it was just a bruise and concussion, and that he would get well really soon. Tuuri kept silent while her brother was cleaning and patching Lalli’s head, applying band aids to the bruises on his back—the form the owl’s talon wounds took in the wake world. Only after that, when Onni brought her clean clothes and dinner, she looked up at him, her gaze dark and intense. “Onni, it can’t go on forever, don’t you understand? You’re killing us!” “It’s you who don’t understand a thing!” he snapped back. Tuuri recoiled, raising a free arm as if to shield herself from a blow. Onni sighed. Why on earth did she think he could hurt her?! He just wanted to talk to her for the hundredth time, to convince her... “I am protecting you! From your own stupidity. It is lethal in our world. Maybe I did too good a job of protecting you since you can’t even grasp the danger. You know the world through your books, and it is not enough. I won’t let you go outside and die there.” “Protecting from life, you mean?” As usual, Tuuri didn’t hear him. “I will leave this place—both the house and Keuruu, I swear! I’d better go to trolls than... this!” She stamped a knitted mat on the concrete floor. “It’s not a life! All we do here is sleeping and suffering! Even Tuonela sounds better in comparison, at least the dreams will be peaceful over there.” Onni froze. Realisation gripped him like a thousand hands of Iku-Turso, darkened his sight for a second. It was really hopeless. His darlings were humans, and thus enemies to themselves. How could he protect them from themselves? Put them to sleep forever? Their bodies would not allow for that, even Lalli’s. The boy had been in an artificial sleep for two days already, and with his luonto gone, who knew when he’d wake up? Usually, a comatose military mage was transferred to the hospital for IV feeding after two to three days, depending on the general health status. For ever-skinny Lalli, the period had always been shorter. But an IV line is not a loaf of bread; they are all inventoried, and a loss of one will be noticed by all means. And then, nutrient solutions must be procured. And Onni had never had to install an IV line; he just knew it required sterility and skill. It would be too complex and risky. And the shirt of a leaner friend fit Tuuri snugly, as if she had lost some weight despite her brother’s best efforts and her own normal appetite. Why did she think that even Tuonela would be better? No, the Swan would never have his remaining family, but... “You are right,” he said, and stretched out a hand to her, slowly, like to a feral animal. Tuuri did not shift anymore. The tufts of hair on her headtop grew longer and tickled his palm. “You are absolutely right. We must try another way.” Tuuri watched him in astonishment. Tuonela sounds better? A place where the personality-soul, itse, sleeps in peace, separated from fragile henki and body, from luonto providing powers for crazy acts. If one’s itse is torn away from the other two souls here on earth, so that it doesn’t need warmth, or food, or sun, and is always at hand and never goes... Onni stroked his sister’s head once more and cringed, imagining her eyes dim, her body cold and bereft of life's shimmer. With an effort, he drove the nausea away. It was irrational. A person without a hand still retains his or her self and would retain it without a body because it’s itse that determines a self. And then— then he would not need to hide and lie, to take risks procuring resources, waste time and effort on domestic issues. He would not even have to stay in the military service here in Keuruu, in Finland. He might travel to cleared Sweden, or to safe Iceland. Right, Iceland would be better; he knew the language and could get any job, no matter how menial. Sheep herding? Fine. Alone, he did not need much for living. He just had to find a way to pull it off. Onni knew how to banish a soul of a grossling or help a human soul reach the Birds’ Path, but that was a different skill. “Will you let us out?” Tuuri asked again, in a very small voice free of animosity or cunning, as if she were afraid to shoo her hope. Onni took her hands in his just as gently. “Yes, sure. Just wait a little bit longer. I need to make some preparations. Okay?” She frowned slightly, and he added in haste, “I promise.” And Onni set to thinking. One of the best exorcists available around was his direct supervisor and former mentor, but asking him directly was out of the question. Indirect questioning would be dangerous, too. The old Karviainen would most certainly find it suspicious and see through any disguise. And most definitely, he would not let Onni flip through his archives, which must hold some useful information. Onni was scared even to come near him these days, almost as much as entering the Silent World long ago. But now Onni knew how to fight that crippling fear. He should strike first. On the next day, his scheduled duty was patrolling the outer walls. Onni was nervous, though everything seemed arranged perfectly. He could not fail. Self-persuasion was failing, though. An old noita was not a skald girl, and a monitored fortress wall in broad daylight was not night outskirts. After an hour for preparation and plausibility, Onni returned to the operation office of the military mages. Fortunately, his unrest made him sound more convincing when he reported suspicious activity from the eastern direction. On the dreamsea side, actually. And now the old mage in a fur cape stands on stones in shallow water and peers through the mists under a black sky. His wolverine luonto sniffs the air and senses danger from all directions. An eagle owl circles above them and then suddenly divebombs at the man from his back, pushes him into the deep water, and barely dodges the long talons of the wolverine. He flaps to fly higher. Wolverines do not fly even in dreams, and from a higher point, the owl gathers a squall of wind flapping his wings and throws it down to keep the man from scrambling onshore or chanting a word, and starts a soul expulsion runo. It is a common way to release the souls of dead beasts; why not use it on living people? The wolverine shields its master from an attack from above, and Onni alone would not be able to keep the mage underwater long enough to drown. But he is not alone. Dozens of black, snaky hands reach from the depths for the man, rings of a scaly body crawl around him and drag him to the bottom. Onni has specifically stood at the edge of his have with all barriers down to lure the sea creatures closer. And not just the sea creatures. A red glow in a cloud of darkness looms at the edge of perception. Even after eleven years, Onni recognises it and barely restrains himself from running away. No, he must focus on the other enemy, and if it is really the kade over there, the other mages on duty will arrive in a matter of minutes. They will chase it away, protect Onni from it, and think that it was the kade attacking two mages initially, while Iku-Turso has come attracted by the noise. But for that, the help must not come too early. This sielulintu is bigger and heavier, harder to corral to the Birds’ Path, but the Swan is already circling above, and no mage, no matter how strong, can resist that call. The red bird looks down at the eagle owl but doesn’t say anything this time. Verbally, that is. Its gaze promises no good. Help is near, and Onni attacks Iku-Turso. His colleagues drive the monster away, but it’s too late. Onni tells them about the kade, shifts the blame on it, and the mages seem to believe him. One of the mage hunters has glimpsed an evil shadow far away at sea. Sure, it might seem suspicious that an experienced mage succumbed to a medium-powered monster, but the moment was not suitable for thorough investigations, the officers had to restore all the barriers collapsed with the death of their anchor. Onni took up quite a large part of them, almost one-third of the Keuruu perimeters. Later, during a follow-up meeting, he shared his version that something weakening the old noita had happened in the wake world. Violent detachment of a soul should look like a stroke, so let them mistake a consequence for a cause. An autopsy confirmed his theory. And, while in the hospital, Onni borrowed an IV line in secret. He didn’t need it for long, and in winter, when grosslings were dormant, it might not be missed for a long time. Lalli should last for several more days, a couple of weeks at most. On to the next phase. The chief commanders knew the history of Onni’s home island and did not object to his plea to have the personal archives of Karviainen to find a more efficient way to destroy the kade. His former mentor and now-former commander had perfectly clear handwriting. Onni was flipping through yellowed pages, writing down necessary bits of information and interesting runo lines, adding lines or ideas of his own invention, and a general idea evolved. A sort of reversed karsikko, an opposite to the way a noita expels the soul of a dead animal or human from an object or place to which it has become attached too much in its lifetime. Bind a soul to an object, preferably a figure of the luonto animal, to reinforce semantic affinity. Somewhere in the cottage, Lalli’s old toy should remain: a lynx carved by Onni in replacement of a similar figurine left at Toivosaari. And making a hedgehog out of lime tree was not hard, either. Onni chose a convenient date and took leave for three days; he had plenty of comp days accumulated in the last years when his little ones had needed less control. The staff officer eyed him in a weird way but did grant leave and didn’t ask too many questions. First, Onni rested well and got enough sleep to reach the peak of power. The runo itself should not take much energy, but it required fine work and maximum accuracy and focus. So, in the morning, instead of breakfast, Onni drank a fly agaric tincture. His liver was not going to thank him later, but that ancient shamanic potion separated dream- and wake-selves, allowing them to act at variance simultaneously. It tasted kind of nice, nut-like, but Onni felt nausea at once and gulped it down with effort, squeezing his eyes shut until the back side of his eyelids flared with motley-coloured rings and lines. Then he opened his eyes... ... The sky above his haven is as bright and colourful as it should be. His luonto envelopes him, and in one powerful stroke of wings he reaches Lalli’s haven, cancelling the wall of pines, and lands on the wooden platform in human form. “Let’s go,” he says to his cousin, and gives him a hand. “I’ve found a way to protect us all forever.” Checking all the doors and barriers once more, he went down into the basement, to Lalli’s section. Not that Onni was not sure of the success, but still it would be better to test the method first with a mage, who was tougher by default. Lalli springs up and attacks his cousin as fiercely as his luonto would. He has his knife back. Onni dodges him with ease—everything, any movement of energy or dream-body, is breathtakingly easy under the effect of the potion. He catches Lalli’s wrist, wrangles the knife out, throws it into the water, then lifts his cousin, screaming and kicking, on his shoulder and carries him to the dreamsea shore outside of Lalli’s barriers to lure out his sielulintu. For a second, he thought he would not have the guts. It was his Lalli lying on a straw mattress and whimpered in sleep. His neck was flimsy like a chick’s. But the second passed, and resolve came back. Onni locked and disconnected the IV line. It was just a shell in front of him, and Tuuri was right. He could not keep their bodies safe and sound. Lalli’s clavicles and cheekbones were sticking out almost painfully, and the yellowish tint of his skin might be due to a metabolic disorder rather than electric light. When a translucent white bird the size of a thrush appears and flutters in the air, Onni grips the air in his fist as if catching a nagging fly. Lightnings close around the sielulintu like a cage, keeping it from fading back or merging with the host to carry his soul by the Birds’ Path because... Onni stroked Lalli’s head one last time (several hairs fell out under his touch), closed hands over that thin throat, and tightened the grip. As pressure grew, the body under his fingers tensed, shuddered once or twice, but lacked the physical strength to break away. Onni kept him in place with ease until the shimmer of the henki soul faded. There is a gap of some minutes between the death of a body and the departure of a soul, and Onni should wake Lalli up in the fake body within that gap. He releases his cousin at the shore and lifts up in the air by the scruff of his neck, so that his boots dangle above water. The entrance alarm hit him in the back of the scull like a hammer—damn, the senses intensified by the potion! Knocking on the front door was heard even in the basement. Who the hell was there?! Can it be ignored? Onni scanned the direction. Four humans on the porch, including two mages. Bad news. What sort of party was it? Did he mess up with anything? If he didn’t answer the call, they might scan the cottage and find a ridiculous concentration of barriers. So, he should go out and send them away. And anyway, his preparations in the wake world are almost done. Onni placed a lynx figurine on Lalli’s still chest and headed upstairs. He chants a binding runo. Lalli goes quiet and pale in his arms and vanishes into thin air. Fine, he’s awakened into the figurine. “Who’s there?” Onni mumbled as if just woken up by the ruckus. “Hotakainen, report to the headquarters at once.” The voice was familiar: the deputy commander. “A commissary from Saimaa has some questions for you.” A military mage should yessir and come out. “Can it wait till evening?” Onni replied. “I— I feel unwell.” “In that case, you should report to the medical station, and we will continue our conversation over there.” That’s out of the question. Onni’s thoughts raced for a solution to refuse the order and get rid of his fellow officers. He had one ace up the sleeve, but it should be played out with care not to backfire. The eagle owl circles above the island in case the lynx returns. Onni proceeds with the final phase. A sielulintu is just a harmless, mindless auxiliary spirit. If it is destroyed, Lalli’s soul will never go. Never. Lightnings close around a small bird of light. “I will. In half an hour, after I shape up a bit. I don’t want to lose control and drop the security barriers at the base. One-third of. The breach in Keuruu security would be too large.” For a second or two, everything went silent behind the door. “Then drop it. We have duplicated the barriers at your share of the perimeter. Still, you’ve got to go with us. It’s an order.” ”Sooo. What do we see here.” Large red wings flap. The Swan comes down on mirror-smooth black water with a splash, moves between Onni and the captive soul-bird. Lightnings roll down its feathers with a hiss, without harm. “Some nerve you’ve got! First you boss other lives around, then steal the souls from under my beak, then try to break my agent. You’ve got a special place reserved for you in Tuoni’s land.” Fear flared up even under the potion-induced euphoria. Inner airiness turned into chaos, his thoughts tangled, and the feeling of power was pushing him to something grand and dire. With force and blood, and multiple lethal outcomes. It was really a pity that the next ferry to Sweden would depart in four days only; after the recent accident and loss of a vessel, the number of cruises to Pori and beyond was reduced. “Am I accused of anything?” He asked just to win some time. He unlocked the door and stepped back into the dark room. Let them go inside so that neighbours and passersby did not see what happened next. One against four is madness, and thus a chance. They’d hardly expect him to fight back, outnumbered so severely. They didn’t know he took stimulants. An x-factor was his. Not enough time to spell the sleeping runo, but if he just knocked them over in a heap with pure energy and flipped a knife... Onni summons his luonto to have all his resources at hand. Today, he is ready to fight the gods. And argue, first. “Nothing here belongs to you. Lalli is alive and sound, and even awake.” “Oh, is he? The Swan squints at him. Yellow, non-birdish eyes are as ice-cold as the water of Tuoni. "Only until he falls asleep. He still has his sielulintu. By the way, are you aware that a soul-bird cannot be destroyed? It’s not some puny spirit of a boulder, y’know. But that’s for dessert. And now I’ve come to collect you.” Onni smirks. “I’m alive, y’know.” The Swan could only kill him without an external cause, were he at her territory, in Tuonela. Gods can’t break their own rules. And he refuses to believe in unbreakable sielulintu. “Oh, are you? Look back.” He doesn’t look back and sends his luonto with a mere thought to attack Lalli’s soul-bird from above, skipping the Swan, and strikes the red bird with all the energy he’s got. He looked back—and in a split second, he noticed through the opened room that the door to the terrace flew open. Why did his alarms fail? Was there another mage? But the figure in the doorframe wore a Hunter’s coat, not a mage’s cape. Sharpened vision made out the black point of a rifle in the intruder’s hands, and then that point flashed fire, the world flashed black and crumbled on Onni’s head. The Swan beats its wings, sends spatter all around, knocks Onni down to the shallow stone bottom. In a moment, she is right up to him, her beak strikes him in the forehead, and the dream shatters and goes from under his feet. Small wings of yet another sielulintu flap while the Swan drags it away by the neck and finally disappears in the pitch-black sky. *** “What the hell, Kittilä?! I did specifically order to shoot for warning only, not to kill!” But the Hunter could not stop gripping his rifle or gritting his teeth. “Over there,” he replied, still holding his rifle trained at the body at the other end of the room. “At the terrace. Kiira’s coat—I know it for sure. Her name on the doorframe. Carved, and... a basket under the table, of—of what’s left. You must see—it’s him! He murdered her!” The officers exchanged glances. The deputy commander walked out to bring in help to calm down the irresponsive Hunter and take the body out. A grade A cat veered around a pool of blood skittishly. It did not sense any trolls and was thus calm. But a trapdoor to the basement caught its interest for some reason. *** Ferries to Pori depart at dawn, and travellers should be at the pier by 6 a.m. Who but the closest relatives would see a traveller off in such wee hours? That’s why Tuuri stands alone, at a distance from the other passengers—a couple of officers on a business trip, a couple of vaguely familiar Cleansers. No one with whom she’d like to chat before departure. She has already spoken with her supervisors and colleagues, and not once. And not, she is dead set on leaving Keuruu. The morning breeze makes her shiver. She prods her bag at the ice-glazed boards of the pier. This time, she has prepared for the trip properly, but the memories of the previous attempt still grate at her heart. Here, those memories pursue her all the time. She had to retailor most of her clothes after losing quite some weight. There’s nowhere to hide from those memories. Also, she gets a stitch in her side and a simple rash often. She cringes every time the door to the skalds’ office opens, but it’s not Onni. She feels at a loss in the mornings because there’s no lines in Lalli’s block handwriting among the reports of the scouts. During meals, she keeps on checking under the table to prod Lalli so that he sits and eats properly. She turns at every glimpse of a mage’s cape at the other end of a street. Dozens of little things, every day, and the worst comes next, memories of another day. Waking up from a forced dream to gunshots and voices of strangers. Strangers tread on the ladder to the basement, and she sees human faces for the first time in so many days. Her joy fades when she looks back at the other cell and notices Lalli’s unseeing, open eyes. Clutching at the hand of a familiar officer, she climbs that stair on jelly legs. There are other servicemen in the house, and someone has cast a tablecloth on a body on the floor, and the white fabric is soaked with blood. Tuuri did not want to believe it to the last... And Lalli, the mages explained to her later. Technically, he was alive then, if only as a powerless presence. But he chose to go back into the dreamspace and the Swan’s embrace instead of living like that. Tuuri shakes her head to drop out those splinter thoughts. It doesn’t help, and her fringe gets into the eyes. But at least it’s a good reason to rub at her eyes as if taking the hair away. It is too sad. Tuuri hates being sad. She wants to believe she will be okay, like more than eleven years ago, that she will get used to looking around without starting, to sleeping through nights without crying, to laughing at jokes. If she goes far away, to an absolutely different place. Sure, her friends and supervisor have been telling her that she’s a valuable specialist and a good person and that she’s always welcome here. But there are others who just keep silent and turn away. To whom she is a constant reminder. Kiira’s father (Tuuri still has a hard time trying not to think of her friend’s fate). Onni’s colleagues, Karviainen’s friends. Families of those who boarded a similar ferry several months ago. Logically, she’s not the guilty party; she's just another victim. But she also realises that logic does not work here. And… Come to think of it, there is also a tiny part of her guilt. She understood perfectly well that Onni wouldn’t take easy her and Lalli’s departure, but disregarded her brother’s fears. Not the slightest thought that he could not take it at all. Silence is salted with waves splashing against the ferry board and pier pillars. Specks of light pave a path from here to Pori and further on, over the sea. Tuuri still has the names of the expedition organisers. Torbjörn and Siv Wästerström, Mora, Sweden. She’ll find out the exact address once she is there. She needs to ask them if they stage another expedition next season. She’ll make her living till then, mechanics and polyglot skalds don’t starve. Boarding is announced, five or so people cross the ramp, and Tuuri follows them. She wishes she could feel the same excitement as in the winter. She leaves Keuruu at last after eleven years, she will see seas and woods, and Sweden, and maybe the Silent World! Prodded by the prompts, joy flashes and goes out again. Lalli does not go with her, and Onni does not see her off. Two gravestones stay at the far end of the island because she has been too eager to escape from this tiny world. She makes her escape at last. Tuuri asks the fare inspector to let her stay on the deck until the ferry leaves the fenced water area of Keuru. In winter, she wouldn’t discern anything in the morning dusk, and now she sees a dark ribbon of forest with white notches of birches and smooth, hazy water. Tuuri tries her best to smile and get a lungful of fresh and free air of early spring. But there’s a lump in her throat, and freedom tastes bitter.