The Sight

by David Clement-Davies

  Larka meanwhile had gone to speak quietly to Slavka and tried to convince her that her hatred of the Sight was misplaced. As she told Slavka of her own journeys with Skart and what she could see in the water, Slavka’s eyes had grown as large as they had done when she had seen the Searchers come. But as Slavka listened to Larka, again that voice crept into her mind. Just as it had done the night before she made Huttser and Palla fight. This time the words were different though.

  ‘So,’ they had whispered, ‘now we have the child too. Wait, Slavka. Wait and watch.’

  Larka got to her feet and smiled down fondly at her parents.

  ‘I must leave you now,’ she said. ‘Tsarr and Skart must tell me more of the rite – of howling to the dead.’

  ‘But when you return,’ growled Palla, trying to reassure her daughter, ‘at least then we shall face Morgra together, as a family once more.’

  A bitter claw gripped at Larka’s heart. ‘Together,’ she thought sadly. ‘Oh, Mother, if only you knew what I have foreseen.’ As Larka turned and looked out on the beautiful day, she suddenly trembled – not with fear this time, but with a strange, tender passion. A passion carried on the breeze stirring around her, for the trees and the grass, for the air and the clouds. For all the things of this world. For all the things that her vision had told her she must lose.

  In that moment Larka’s heart stirred and beat faster and she longed to know if the Sight could carry her to the truth of everything, to a union with all, not just the Lera but the insects and flowers, the plants and the trees and the earth. Even the stones themselves. Did they have a nature she could touch, too? But even as she reached out with her senses and looked out through the trees, Larka felt afraid. But not of Morgra. Not of Wolfbane or the Searchers. She was afraid because somehow to look out on the world like this, and to love it so very much, wounded Larka to her soul.

  That night Larka slept near Tsarr and Skart, and dreamt of her vision on the bridge. But as she dreamt something strange happened. Larka fancied, as she lay there, that she could hear real voices in her head. Not one voice but twenty, thirty voices whispering through the trees. They muttered of the legend, of the Searchers and the citadel. They whispered of hope and victory. It was as though the rebel pack were talking to her as one mind.

  ‘You are touching the third power, Larka,’ growled Tsarr as light began to rib the trees. ‘You were listening to the rebels’ thoughts. It has entered the world with the Searchers. It is time, Larka.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Skart, ‘and you must carry hope with you as you go. But your parents are here to help you return.’

  ‘What point is there in returning,’ growled Larka suddenly, her voice was full of bitterness, ‘even if I can close them, even if I can call back the Searchers? I have seen my own death at the citadel. The Sight has shown me my future.’

  ‘Larka,’ said Tsarr softly. ‘There may be a way to change the future too.’

  Larka lifted her searching eyes, but she shook her head sadly.

  ‘Then it is not the future, Tsarr. Then the Sight lies.’

  ‘Now it is the future,’ insisted Tsarr. ‘All that happens to us Larka, all that marks our journey through Fenris’s forests, has it not been made by what has gone before? But if we could return to the past, affect it in some way, then perhaps the future could be different as well. Perhaps they may tell you there how to alter what is to come, in the realms of death.’

  Larka lifted her muzzle and she remembered something Karma had once said about breaking patterns.

  ‘Return to the past?’ said Larka sadly. ‘Before Morgra ever came, Tsarr, or before my mother’s parents ever drove her out? Before the legend ever began?’

  But for a moment hope flickered across Larka’s face.

  ‘So you must come back to us,’ whispered Skart, ‘and listen to those who love you if they call. Huttser and Palla.’

  But Larka was suddenly thinking of another wolf.

  ‘Kar,’ she whispered, ‘I wish Kar was with me now.’ Tsarr and Skart began to tell Larka more of the ancient rite of howling to the dead. Tsarr’s fur began to bristle as he described the most important part of Larka’s preparation. She must attempt her journey after a kill and lay fresh meat at her side as she howled, for its shadow would follow her beyond, and then the dead Putnar would catch its scent and come at her bidding. Tsarr told Larka that she must allow only one spectre to eat, and only after she had commanded it to answer her questions. Then Larka could demand to know how she might affect her own fate and how the Searchers could be recalled. How the Pathways of Death could be sealed once more.

  As Tsarr told her these strange secrets, Larka thought of her journey to the Stone Spores all those moons ago with Fell. Meeting him frightened her most of all. As soon as Larka mentioned her brother, Skart grew frantically nervous. It was by no means certain that he would come, but the eagle warned her that if she reached the place of the dead she must not let any spectre touch her, for then she risked being lost for ever. But of all the warnings they gave her, the one they stressed most was this: all the while she was among the spectres, she must listen for those who waited for her on this side and come as soon as they called her back. For to deny them would be to deny life itself.

  That sun, Larka padded off on her own to think and to prepare herself inwardly for her fearful journey. Below the camp a plain opened around a wide river and swept out towards the distant trees. The she-wolf could see the water glinting in the sunlight as she crept stealthily from the wood, looking about her all the while. The day was bright and fresh and Larka’s view ran clear into the shadow of the forests beyond. Larka suddenly stopped. As she looked out she realized there were no Balkar to be seen anywhere and only a pair of falcons were circling in the blue, as a flock of sheep grazed by the edges of the distant wood.

  ‘Morgra,’ whispered Larka, ‘why has she stopped hunting us?’

  The she-wolf paused and breathed in. She could scent summer powerfully on the breeze and the rich textures of swelling life quivered in her nostrils. As she thought of Bran in his cave and wondered what Morgra was doing, she suddenly felt a desperate pang for the child and Larka knew that she loved it too.

  Larka began to gulp at the river. She was staring into the water and as her head swung sideways the great sun, swelling with the season, sparked on the river. Larka growled furiously as the pain struck her eyes. As soon as she opened them again the vision came. As real as daylight, it seemed to rise from the river itself, but the sights were not on the surface of the water, but all around her now.

  Where before there had been open ground, Larka was confronted by the sight of vast dens that reared into the sky. Here and there, topless trees of stone rose among them like giant pines. The air above was dense with black smoke that climbed from their peaks and billowed into the sky, staining the clouds the colour of night.

  Between these dens the ground had turned to stone tracks that wove like unmoving rivers into the distance. Then, from the tops of the stone trees, came sudden flashes of angry fire. Their livid red tongues leapt into the sky and seemed to eat up the air itself, snarling at the edges of the blackened cloud. They looked like the flames that Kar had seen on the walls of the monastery, the flames of hell.

  Larka peered at the river. Before, the water had been clear and fresh. Now it was almost as black as the sky, and it had grown thick and sluggish. On its banks, where there was still grass, the ground was covered in a flaky black dust that clung to everything. Larka noticed that her tongue had grown dry and she could hardly breathe, that the air tasted hot and sooty. Here and there she also noticed great mounds of shiny black rocks that were heaped high between the dens. It was coal.

  But the sight that sent a shudder through the wolf lay to the right of her vision. On the edge of the plain, where the dens grew smaller again and seemed to be made of wood rather than stone or metal, Larka saw what looked like a human.

  It rose as high as a tree in front of her. Its giant metal
paws were held clenched above its head, and in their grip were held two great metal branches that forked like a shaft of lightning. Larka half expected it to move but it stood there, silent and motionless, guarding the burning dens behind it.

  Seeing the vast, flaming furnace, Larka gasped in horror. In that moment Larka knew she was seeing another vision of the future. Larka was looking out at a factory, which the mind and the hands of Man would one day build to harness the power of nature itself, to unleash the energy that dwells in all things and turn it to his service. As Larka looked on, she shuddered. The she-wolf had the strangest sense that she was looking on the image of a god. A god just as violent and tyrannical as any that had stalked the earth.

  Suddenly something did move. It came from the left, and Larka swung round. At the entrance to one of the wooden dens she saw three human cubs. Larka was reminded of the woodcutter, for they were all dressed in tattered skins and their hands were blue with cold. They gazed up at her and their eyes were dull and glassy, though filled now with an uncomprehending fear. Their skin was layered with the same soot that covered the ground and they were all shivering.

  Larka was terrified, appalled as she watched, but as she stood there a human cub bent down and picked up one of the pieces of coal scattered about their feet. With an angry cry he hurled the coal through the air. Larka winced and blinked as it sped towards her, but in that split second, when she opened her eyes again, they were gone; the burning dens, the fire-spitting stone trees, the ragged cubs, the giant metal man. Once again Larka was gazing on the open plain and the sparkling river, the fir trees rustling in the wind, the falcons weaving peacefully through the clear, clean sky.

  ‘Man,’ gasped the she-wolf. ‘I have seen Man’s future too.’

  That night the rebels muttered amongst themselves. They too wondered why Morgra was no longer hunting them, and the rumour had spread of what Larka was about to do. Skart became more and more anxious as he perched in the trees watching Larka with his hard yellow-black eyes. Both he and Tsarr had been terrified by Larka’s vision, and now they believed that the laws of the Sight were indeed bending.

  Larka was almost ready to begin her journey, but first she went to see Slavka. The rebels looked at Larka hopefully as she padded through camp, growling a greeting or wagging their tails, but there was little cheer in Larka’s heart. She found Slavka lying by a beech tree, guarded by two rebels and by Keeka and Karma.

  ‘Slavka,’ Larka growled as she padded up.

  As the older wolf looked up Larka was surprised to see that there seemed a new openness in Slavka’s look.

  ‘Slavka. I must learn what you know of these human dens in the mountains. Morgra seems to have stopped hunting and, if those dens are Harja—’

  But Slavka interrupted Larka immediately.

  ‘Larka,’ she growled and her eyes narrowed. ‘First I have something to tell you.’

  Larka’s thoughts were too consumed with Morgra and her fearful journey to notice the glitter of cunning in Slavka’s eyes.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I doubted the Sight, Larka,’ growled the rebel leader, shaking her head, ‘and I was a fool to do so. Even after you came I wanted to kill the child.’

  Larka looked up the slope to the cave where little Bran was sleeping. Rar was standing outside, waving his tail proudly as he protected their charge. The child was safe.

  ‘But now, Larka,’ Slavka went on, ‘now I see that there is real danger of the legend coming to pass. You are this white wolf the legend foretold. And your parents, Huttser and Palla. ..’

  Slavka lowered her eyes.

  ‘I am bitterly sorry for what I nearly made them do. I would serve you, Larka. I offer you the greatest gift I have. My loyalty.’

  Larka hesitated, but Keeka had got to her feet and her tail was wagging delightedly.

  ‘I would have you on my side, Slavka,’ nodded Larka sadly, ‘as would your rebel pack. They never wanted to betray you.’

  ‘Then let me help you. There are still a few rebels who doubt you. Let me talk to them, Larka. Let us fight side by side.’

  Larka shivered, but she needed friends more than ever and Slavka’s bold face, so like her own, suddenly filled her with hope.

  ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘you are free to wander through camp, Slavka. To talk to the rebels.’

  Slavka nodded gravely.

  ‘Thank you. You will not be sorry.’

  As Slavka prowled away none of them saw that her face was bright with scorn. But, as she went, Karma turned suddenly to Larka.

  ‘Larka,’ she growled in her deep, rich voice, ‘you mustn’t trust her.’

  ‘You’re wrong, Karma,’ said Larka softly. ‘We must all trust, and have faith in each other.’

  Darkness had descended over Transylvania, weaving its fingers through the trees and stroking the meadows with night, when Larka made her kill. She found a spot away from the rebels in a sheltered hollow, ringed by oak trees, and lay the meat from an old ewe in front of her. Tsarr and her parents stood watching her gravely as she lay down in the hollow, and Skart’s hard eyes were watching Larka more intensely than ever.

  ‘This may take suns,’ whispered Tsarr to Palla and Huttser, ‘but if they try to keep her, if that time ever comes you must call to her. Call to her with all your love and never give up.’

  ‘I would give anything to save my daughter,’ growled Palla, thinking back to everything Tsinga had said in the Vale of Shadows, ‘even if it means my own death.’

  ‘It is not your death we need now, Palla,’ growled Tsarr, ‘but your life.’

  The three of them padded over to Larka and, as Tsarr settled a little way off, Huttser and Palla lay down in front of their daughter. They hardly noticed Skart ruffling his feathers next to them. His hooked beak had begun to bob up and down and his talons were digging into the ground.

  ‘Larka,’ said Palla softly, ‘if you go... if you go there and see ... him.’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’

  ‘Tell him we still...’

  Palla dropped her muzzle hopelessly, and Larka suddenly felt a burning tenderness for her parents.

  ‘Very well, then,’ she said. ‘It begins. And as everything begins, it begins in sleep.’

  Larka laid her head on her paws. The meat lay in the grass in front of her. She was falling deeper and deeper into sleep. Midnight had passed when Larka stirred and her nose twitched. Palla shivered as she heard Larka begin to growl. Suddenly Larka lifted her head. She was still asleep, for though her ears were pricked and her muzzle moved back and forth as though searching for something in the darkness, her eyes were clamped tightly shut.

  ‘It’s beginning,’ growled Tsarr.

  The fur on Larka’s coat began to bristle and she lifted her head higher. Her mother and father could see the fine white hairs rippling along her throat. Larka tipped back her muzzle and, though her eyes were still closed, she opened her mouth.

  ‘Fenris,’ she snarled, ‘Fenris.’

  The howl that suddenly rose into the air made the rebels start in their camp. It came from the depths of her belly and climbed angrily into the night. It shook through the trees and hovered in the air. Out of all the calls of the wolf it was like none that Huttser and Palla had ever heard, even that night when the Searchers had come. Rar heard it, too, and it was so strange that he prowled out of Bran’s cave and came down the slopes to listen.

  ‘Larka,’ he whispered to the breeze, ‘take care.’

  But suddenly Larka’s call seemed to stop. Larka’s throat was still moving, her head lifting, her muzzle opening to howl, but the sound had vanished into silence.

  ‘Now she’s really calling,’ growled Tsarr furiously. ‘Now she is howling to the dead.’

  Larka’s head slumped on to her paws. As it dropped, Skart did something extraordinary. He hopped forward and began to peck at Larka’s tail with his great clawed beak.

  ‘What are you doing, Skart?’ snarled Huttser angrily. Larka looked like car
rion as Skart pulled at the she-wolf’s fur, but the bird would not be distracted. He plucked and pecked at Larka’s tail, jabbing and pulling frantically. Tsarr was standing now, growling angrily too.

  ‘Have you gone mad, Skart?’ he cried, but as Tsarr thought of the legend a terrible notion sprang into his mind.

  ‘No, Skart, it can’t be, not you.’

  Those words were ringing in Tsarr’s ears. ‘Beware the Betrayer, whose meaning is strife.’ Still Skart went on and, when he turned to face the wolves, there were tufts of Larka’s fur sprouting from his beak. Suddenly, overcome with a fury for his helpless daughter, Huttser hurled himself at Skart.

  But the eagle opened his wings and lifted away. Into the air he rose and, as the wolves dwindled to specks beneath him, his anger beat the air. His mind was ringing with one thought alone as his piercing eagle eyes began to scour the land below.

  As Larka lay in the hollow Bran was huddled asleep in the cave. The shadow of a wolf suddenly fell across the child’s body. It growled and as it padded through the entrance towards the child the wolf licked its lips and its eyes glistened angrily. It prowled slowly round the human and its mouth dribbled as its hot breath stroked the human.

  ‘So,’ it whispered bitterly, ‘the greatest of all killers.’

  But even as Slavka opened her powerful jaws, remembering her cubs and feeling the hate burn in her belly, something new came into her eyes. An emptiness. The wolf seemed to be wrestling with herself, and her legs and tail quivered frantically. But at last the energy went out of her and she dropped her muzzle submissively.

  ‘Very well,’ she growled helplessly, ‘so be it.’

  Slavka was answering a distant voice. A voice that echoed in her brain. Bran opened his eyes and Slavka’s muzzle curled into a snarl again. Her ears flattened on her head as she dropped on her forepaws by the human.

  ‘Come, child,’ she whispered. ‘Travel with me.’

  As Bran felt the heat of hate in Slavka’s body he started to wail and great tears came rolling down his little cheeks.