The Sight

by David Clement-Davies

‘Don’t be a fool, Huttser,’ snarled Palla angrily, swinging round to challenge her mate. ‘Larka’s coat is white. She had a vision at the hunt. Our daughter has the Sight. Whether Khaz has anything to do with this or not, can’t you see what it means?’

  Huttser sprang to his feet and snarled at Palla too.

  ‘Please, Father,’ cried Larka desperately between them, ‘please don’t fight. Not because of me.’

  Her parents dropped their eyes guiltily. Fell’s gaze was turned on his sister, though he wouldn’t catch her eye either and Kar was trying to look as brave as he could. Poor Kipcha’s eyes were blank with pain and Bran flattened his ears and whimpered.

  ‘But this legend,’ Huttser growled suddenly, reaching at straws, ‘Skop said it can only begin in a place where there has been some great injustice. We have done nothing wrong.’ Brassa was trembling as she lay watching him and she seemed to reach a decision at last. She sprang up and her voice was suddenly commanding the pack.

  ‘Huttser,’ she cried, ‘enough of this. You must believe it, for all your sakes. And, Huttser, a great injustice was committed below the Stone Den.’

  Huttser stopped dead in his tracks. Bran was peering into the wood. He fancied for a moment that he had seen a glint of yellow-black through the branches and he suddenly thought of the colour of Wolfbane’s eyes.

  ‘What in Fenris’s name do you mean, Brassa?’ Huttser cried, swinging round to face down the nurse. ‘You think we should have taken Morgra in?’

  Brassa dropped her gaze.

  ‘Huttser,’ she whispered shamefully, ‘I committed the injustice. I betrayed Morgra, long ago.’

  The pack all turned their startled eyes on Brassa.

  She was looking down the river towards the boulder and the den.

  ‘May the past that’s dark with crimes,’ she whispered gravely, ‘bring revenge in future times.’

  ‘You, Brassa?’ cried Palla. ‘But how?’

  ‘I saw Morgra the night the runt was taken. She wasn’t trying to steal it at all, Palla – she was trying to save it. The cub had crawled outside the den and a vixen was nosing nearby. But Morgra was in such a panic to protect it that when she picked it up she bit too hard.’

  The pack listened silently under the immense heavens, but a shadow of terror was spreading through their hearts.

  ‘She was so distraught she travelled for a whole sun, and then she buried it and howled for so long I thought her heart might crack open. When they found her they thought she had been trying to make a den for the cub she had stolen. But she didn’t say a word in her own defence. The pack had already isolated her because they knew she was different, and I think pride and pure resentment shut her mouth.’

  ‘But, Brassa,’ said Palla imploringly, ‘not you. Why on earth didn’t you tell them?

  ‘Once she had killed the cub, even by mistake, I thought it was too dangerous to have her around the pups. For your sake, Palla, and for Skop’s,’ said Brassa coldly. ‘Besides, I knew from the first Morgra had the gift and I was a young wolf then, and inexperienced. I too thought it would bring misfortune on us all.’

  Brassa shook her greying muzzle. The misfortune she had feared all those years ago had returned to haunt her. Had returned to haunt them all.

  ‘It was wrong of me, I know that now. But after they drove her out I swore an oath to Tor. I promised I would dedicate my whole life to cubs. To the future.’

  As Palla thought of Morgra and how they had driven her away a second time, something very like shame stirred inside her, and with the shame came a terrible weakness. But with it came fear too, fear of the legend and the verse she had overheard, fear of what Morgra had threatened that night too, about the past. Above all fear for her daughter.

  ‘Then you knew everything all along,’ growled Palla accusingly. ‘But for pity’s sake why didn’t you tell us the truth sooner?’

  ‘The truth?’ said Brassa helplessly. ‘I wanted to tell you about Morgra, I did. I tried to several times. Yet I was ashamed. I wanted to forget the past. And I didn’t know it all, Palla, I swear it. I knew of the legend, yes, and I guessed that Morgra was trying to fulfil it as soon as I heard a child had been stolen. After Morgra came I suspected something in the den too, about the cubs. At first I thought it was...’

  Brassa shook her head.

  ‘I couldn’t believe another with the Sight could be born so soon even though the tales tell of it coming to more than one. But what Skop said about a great injustice terrified me. When Morgra cursed us I tried to tell you, Palla, to leave then.’

  Palla dropped her own head now. It was true.

  ‘But even then I hoped and prayed it might all pass us by. That it was only a curse we had to fear.’

  ‘Only a curse?’ growled Palla.

  ‘There is something even greater at work,’ said Brassa, ‘as Morgra warned us that night. Now your daughter has the Sight, just as the verse prophecies and the legend is here, the legend of the Man Varg, the legend of the Sight.’

  ‘The verse,’ growled Palla, ‘oh, the things it said, Huttser.’ But as Palla tried to recall what she had overheard in the forest she hardly remembered a tenth part of it. The words were all jumbled up strangely together, but what registered in her mind were the very things that Morgra had spoken of as she had cursed them.

  ‘It tells of Wolfbane’s return, as Morgra warned,’ Palla growled, ‘and the Shape Changer’s pact with the flying scavengers.’

  Suddenly Morgra’s voice seemed to be crying out over the pack again.

  ‘It speaks of an altar too,’ said Palla, straining to remember, ‘and the Searchers and a summoning howl. What is it, Brassa, this summoning howl?’

  Brassa shivered and lay down before the pack.

  ‘It is the very spirit of the Sight, Palla,’ she growled.

  ‘Tell us. Tell us everything you know. Hide nothing. We shan’t be angry.’

  Brassa nodded gravely.

  ‘The first power of the Sight is to see through the eyes of birds, as Larka did at the hunt. And the second to look into water and see things there of far off realities. Of past, present and even future.’

  Larka felt her stomach clench.

  ‘But the third power, to touch minds and control thoughts and even actions. None have ever reached it before, Palla, because it can only enter the world if the Searchers are summoned, by the summoning howl, the ancient howl that can call them back down the Pathways of Death.’

  A cold breeze quivered across the river to the Meeting Place and only Kipcha looked up hopefully, for she was thinking of Khaz. She felt as if something had just padded across her grave.

  ‘Some say the Searchers are nothing more than memories, traces of what has been, others that they are the dead themselves.’

  Even Huttser shuddered now.

  ‘If they are ever called back into this world,’ trembled Brassa, ‘then the summoner can command them to do her bidding.’

  ‘Morgra,’ growled Palla fearfully.

  ‘Others believe that the howl allows the living themselves to journey into the realms of the dead,’ whispered Brassa.

  ‘Anger and hate give the Searchers form and shape in this world, but only the howl shall release them.’

  The pack was truly petrified now.

  ‘And this altar?’ growled Palla. ‘Is the human child some kind of sacrifice?’

  ‘Now I have told you all I know of the legend,’ answered Brassa, ‘but one thing is for certain. Morgra is trying to fulfil it. That’s why she really wanted to join our pack. Not to protect us or help us against Man. But to get to Larka. She seeks the final power of the Man Varg.’

  Larka’s mind was ringing with terror. For the first time in her life she felt Morgra not as the shadow of fear that had haunted her parent’s pack, but as a physical threat. The whole pack too felt the danger that was closing, like teeth, around them.

  ‘Final power,’ snorted Huttser, ‘what is this final power?’ Brassa shook her head.
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br />   ‘I don’t know, Huttser.’

  ‘Whatever it is,’ shuddered Bran, ‘it is evil. Like Morgra and Wolfbane. Like Man himself.’

  ‘Evil,’ muttered Palla, and the word stirred her memory.

  ‘And are we this family to fight it?’

  ‘I think that’s what Morgra must have believed when we drove her away,’ growled Brassa. ‘Yet there is nothing I know of in the legend that says Larka’s is the family. Her birth heralds the arrival of the human alone, nothing more. But maybe there is one who might tell you.’

  The wolves looked up hopefully. ‘Who?’ whispered Palla.

  ‘Tsinga, the old fortune-teller. The journey will be dangerous, for there are dark stories about the Vale of Shadows and Tsinga is a Kerl. But her Valley lies beyond the great rapids and a human camp, over the brow of the white mountain. It lies close to the river that Huttser says now ends the pack’s eastern boundary. Once you have sought her out, found out if yours is this family and what she knows of this final power, then you must get beyond the boundaries as fast as you can.’

  Still Huttser was shaking his head.

  ‘But if you are at the heart of this legend there is time,’ said Brassa, ‘if Tsarr has the child.’

  ‘Tsarr?’ said Palla. ‘But that was the name Morgra used.’

  Brassa nodded slowly.

  ‘I realized it was he who had really stolen it as soon as Morgra spoke Tsarr’s name. That too reassured me a little, though I should never have let it,’ added Brassa bitterly.

  ‘But who is this Tsarr?’ said Larka.

  ‘In my life I have only heard of two to possess the Sight, until you, Larka,’ Brassa whispered and Larka cowered.

  ‘There was Morgra and there was Tsarr. The power was weak in them both and now I believe it has faded in Tsarr almost entirely. But Tsinga taught them all she knew and she helped them to find their Helpers.’

  ‘Helpers?’ said Huttser.

  ‘Birds,’ growled Brassa almost irritably, ‘birds to help the gifted use the first power of the Sight. Morgra’s helper is the raven. His name is Kraar, a filthy little flying scavenger.’ The pack thought of the night they had seen the creature flapping away from the den behind Morgra. Larka shuddered, for it was Kraar’s eyes then that she had been seeing through at the hunt.

  ‘Tsarr’s Helper though is a Steppe eagle called Skart,’ Brassa went on. ‘He is a proud bird and one of the true flying Putnar.’

  Larka liked the sound of Skart immediately, especially since she had been thinking of Kraar and Wolfbane’s terrible blood pact with the birds.

  ‘At first they shared their knowledge and their training with Tsinga,’ Brassa went on gravely, ‘but when Tsinga saw how black Morgra’s heart had become, how she thirsted for power alone, she drove her away. But although Tsarr was always fascinated with the legend, too, his heart was cleaner, and Skart was always determined to use the Sight for good. At one point they quarrelled bitterly over the legend and what the Sight was for. But they must have made up their differences. It calms me that they have the child.’

  Brassa seemed suddenly to recollect herself.

  ‘But you must be gone from here. Find Tsinga. She will tell you more if she is still alive.’

  ‘Brassa,’ growled Palla suddenly, ‘how do you know so much about the fortune-teller?’

  The nurse raised her head and in that moment it seemed all the old wolf was were her memories.

  ‘Because,’ whispered Brassa, ‘Tsinga is my sister.’

  Palla and Skop looked up at the nurse in amazement. None of them had had the slightest inkling that Brassa had a sister, let alone a sister like this; a Kerl and a fortune-teller. But Kar was suddenly thinking how many secrets grown-ups seemed to have.

  ‘We quarrelled long ago,’ said Brassa sadly, ‘but unlike Tsarr and Skart, I never made up my differences with Tsinga. I wish now I had not let so many moons rise on my anger.’

  ‘But, Brassa, you never even told me,’ growled Palla, though now she remembered that her father had told her that Brassa had only joined their pack shortly before Morgra had been born.

  ‘I would often visit her as you were growing, Palla, for I wanted to know about the stories of the Sight. It is stories that have always fascinated me. But Tsinga would never really trust me, for we were never close as cubs. She told me bits and pieces, threw me snippets to scavenge at and appease my appetite. But never the verse or the deeper secrets of the Sight. At last I grew infuriated with her and we argued bitterly.’

  Brassa dropped her head.

  ‘After that I kept hearing rumours about her. About Morgra and Tsarr and their Helpers. About the Vale of Shadows where she settled. Where you must now go.’

  ‘Brassa,’ growled Skop suddenly, ‘why do speak as if you aren’t coming with us.’

  ‘Because there is something else I must tell you all.’

  ‘Something else,’ cried Huttser.

  Brassa lowered her old grey head on to her paws.

  ‘I cannot help any of you. My time has come, my friends. I am dying.’

  From some distant eyrie an owl screeched in the night. Huttser felt his legs go weak and he sagged visibly. This news drove out any real doubts he could muster.

  ‘Dying?’ cried Palla.

  ‘Then we’re surely cursed,’ whispered Bran sadly, covering his ears with his paws and letting his muzzle sink into the grass, ‘Morgra warned that she would break the pack, one by one.’

  ‘A lump has been growing in my belly for many suns now,’ muttered Brassa mournfully. ‘But now Morgra has had her revenge for my crime, perhaps my death can make amends.’

  Fell had sprung to his feet though and he came running towards Brassa. He began scratching the ground in front of her and whining. His eyes were full of pain and incomprehension.

  ‘Please, Brassa. Not you,’ growled the young black wolf.

  ‘It is no real sadness, Fell,’ said the old she-wolf softly, trying to smile and touching his muzzle with her own. ‘I’m old and have lived a full life. It comes to us all, Fell. It is nature’s way. You know I will be almost glad when it comes.’

  Fell looked at her strangely.

  ‘Though I have one regret,’ she added, licking Fell’s ears.

  ‘I watched Palla and Skop grow and tended to them like my own. I wish I could see you too come to adulthood.’

  ‘I am an adult,’ said Fell furiously, pushing away from her, ‘and I can fight off anything. Wolfbane and legends and curses...’

  ‘Perhaps you can, my dear,’ said Brassa proudly. ‘But there is one thing in life not even you can fight. None of us can ever fight.’

  They all knew what Brassa meant and the wolf pack dropped their eyes.

  ‘When, Brassa?’ said Huttser quietly, staring at the ground. There was no anger left in the grey wolf now.

  ‘That is in Tor’s sight alone, Huttser, yet I do not think I shall make the winter. But you mustn’t worry for me. I will go into the woods on my own when it is time. You must set out as soon as you can. Some call the Sight a blight and some a blessing, but it will grow in Larka. Perhaps her powers will help you to fight Morgra’s words at least, as you flee the boundaries, for if it is mastered the Sight will help her draw on all the powers of the universe.’

  Fell looked up immediately. His ears twitched and there was suddenly an oddly jealous look in his eye. But Kar was thinking of the curse and how childish it made his motto seem now, ‘Stones are raw, they blunt my paw. But words can never harm me.’

  ‘But I don’t want the powers,’ muttered Larka miserably.

  ‘The Sight is not something you can choose, my dear,’ growled Brassa softly and she looked at Larka with great understanding. ‘You must accept it, not as a curse but a gift. But once you have found out all you can from Tsinga, then get beyond the pack boundaries. Before it’s too late.’

  Bran was looking up again at the castle and, though its walls were lost in night, it towered above them once more.


  ‘If Morgra believes you are really this family then you are a threat to all she seeks. So now, whether she gets her paws on the cubs or not, she will do everything she can to destroy you. You are cursed, but remember she has the Night Hunters at her back too and she will want to get to Larka again. Go. As soon as you can.’

  ‘Mother,’ Larka growled suddenly, ‘let me go on my own. Then you’ll all be safe. If it’s me Morgra really wants.’

  ‘Hush, my child,’ said Palla, licking her daughter’s forehead.

  ‘Brassa,’ growled Huttser suddenly, for the Dragga felt his authority was slipping too far beyond his reach. ‘We will not leave our territory. We will go into the mountains, yes, and perhaps find Tsinga. But we will mark the boundaries again with a clear, strong scent. We will live free as a pack and keep everything out. Curses. Wolfbane. Man. That is why the wolf marks its territory, so nothing may enter. But we shall not succumb to fear and we shall not run away.’

  But Huttser suddenly looked rather foolish as he stood there.

  ‘You must, Huttser. For all your sakes.’

  ‘But we won’t leave you, Brassa,’ said Palla. ‘The pack will not leave you to die alone.’

  ‘Palla. You must think of your cubs,’ insisted Brassa, ‘of the future.’

  But there was gratitude in Brassa’s eyes.

  ‘Oh, Brassa,’ cried Palla, bounding up to her old nurse, ‘what shall we ever do without you?’

  ‘Cleave to the law of the untamed wolf,’ answered Brassa gravely. ‘Survive, my dear, survive.’

  The pack watched helplessly as the old nurse grew weaker and weaker. The only thing that could rouse her from the painful lethargy that seemed to come over her so swiftly were the children – and especially Larka, who she would talk to quietly of the Sight.

  As Brassa spoke of it, Fell and Kar would shift nervously and stare in wonder at the white wolf. They hardly understood what it all meant but they were frightened for Larka and their fear grew as they realized that, as her winter coat began to grow, the colour of her pelt was getting lighter and lighter.

  Kar would ask Skop if the curse and the legend were really true, but Skop was much like Huttser and the evidence of what had already happened was beginning to wrestle with his doubting nature. He could do nothing but shake his head and look down gravely at his charge. But after he had seen Morgra that night above the ravine and heard her terrible words, a fury had stirred in Skop’s gut and his mind had long been turning back to thoughts of Slavka and these rebels, gathering somewhere near the high mountains.