Fell (The Sight 2) (19 page)

Fell, in turn, heard of his parents, Huttser and Palla, who had survived longer than any wild wolves in those parts, and the cubs that had been given the names of lost members of the old pack. He felt odd as he listened, for at Kar’s words about these grown Varg, he almost felt the stirrings of tenderness.

But it was like a story for Fell, rather than real events, and he felt a wall of resistance, almost darkness, between himself and this little family. Although he knew their names, he could not see or sense them in his mind’s eye, and he knew that he was blocking his own heart.

Why had Fell really gone away and left them? Was it simply because he had to find his own meaning amongst man? Or was it because of what he himself had done when he had thought that he was evil, and how he had betrayed them, what he was capable of doing and thinking and feeling, which meant he was a danger to his family. So in a way Fell had gone out, a lone Kerl, to protect them from himself.

The wolves heard the approach of morning in the chattering of waking birds, and Kar said, “We must be gone now, brother. I shall tell them that you are…are well.”

“And tell them…” Fell looked hard at Kar. “Tell them that I’m sorry too. It’s not because I fear it.”

“I know it, Fell. And you’re always welcome amongst us,” said his brother softly. “The pack lives now in the valley beyond the Great Waterfall near the Stone Den. It would be easy to find us.”

“It shall not be, Kar,” growled Fell, looking at Tarlar again.

“I’m sad,” whispered Kar, “for I have not the strength to save them from Jalgan, or to accept his challenge. But we give you Larka’s Blessing.”

With that Kar and the beautiful grey wolf Tarlar were gone, although as they left Tarlar turned just once and looked back fondly at Fell.

Fell began to run, and felt loneliness about him again, but strangely it was Tarlar more than Kar that he missed. But he began to think of Skart’s strange words. The Helpers had the gift of prophecy, and some things Skart had said seemed to echo Fell’s journey. He had touched fire and ice and risen from the earth to kill Malduk. Things had been turned about indeed. But the rest seemed mad. How could a wolf sprout two heads?

For two days and nights Fell roamed through the trees, torn between two calls now, the call of his old family, somewhere in the mountains, threatened by the Vengerid, and the pact that he had made with the human, now sleeping safe in a human den. It brought Fell pain and confusion.

Part of him wanted to help Alina, part to help his family, and part to go as far away as possible, to be free of it all, of any ties or responsibilities, and live, alone and wild again, away from wolf and man, away from the Sight. As he ran, his pace quickened and he gloried once more in the feeling of the ground beneath his pads and the scent of game on the air. But Fell came to a clearing and sensed the danger almost before it happened. He saw the strangely mounded leaves before him, and smelt the presence of man.

Suddenly, with a startled yelp, Fell was falling. His body twisted with an angry howl and leaves rose in a swirl into the air, as earth walls and darkness swallowed him up.

“IT'S A MIRACULOUS ESCAPE,” SAID LESCA THE blacksmith cheerfully, yet with doubt sparking in his eyes. “A wonder too that such a blizzard didn’t finish you off completely on that ice field, WovenWord.”

Alina had just told father and son something of her life near Moldov, and then the story of the cave, where she had fallen and sprained her leg, walking on the mountain. She had mentioned nothing of the reason she had been up there though, or of Fell and the Sight, saying that she had simply escaped through a tunnel in the ice. She had hardly known where to start her story, certainly not until she knew she could trust them.

She looked a deal better as she sat at the simple table—her now clean red hair shining—and plunged a great spoon into the bowl of delicious stew in front of her. Alina felt almost human again. Lescu sat opposite and Catalin stood gawping at her in utter astonishment.

It was as if a whole world, new and brave, had opened before Catalin’s blue green eyes. He was a handsome lad, strong and tall, a great teller of stories himself and much feted amongst the village girls in the district. He had often walked with them and kissed them too, but most he found rather silly and foolish, and in his heart he was much more interested in riding and swimming, and learning the arts of the blacksmith. He kept looking across at Alina now. She had come out of the wild, dressed as a boy, and had survived so many terrible dangers already. Catalin had never seen anything so extraordinary in his life.

“It must have been freezing down there, Alina,” he whispered, with warmth and sympathy in his eyes, thinking of the cave, “and you must have been horribly hungry.”

Alina remembered the raw goat meat that Fell had brought her with the root, but she just smiled.

“But why did you try to cross the ice field in winter?” asked Catalin.

Alina paused and shrugged again.

“It wasn’t much of a life in Moldov. It was time to set out.”

“Then you’ve been trapping all the way across the mountains?” asked Lescu, fixing Alina with his steady eyes. The blacksmith already knew that the girl was lying about something, or leaving a part of her tale out, and now Lescu wanted to know what.

“Yes,” answered Alina quickly, looking away, “and eating berries.”

“Then you’ve a skill indeed, Alina, but whatever the truth of it, if you’re a friend of Ivan’s, you’re welcome here. Isn’t she, Catalin?”

“Of course, Father,” answered the boy warmly. “It’ll be so good to have company.”

The blacksmith smiled at his son. They had a good life together, but after his wife’s death a few years before, and with the isolation of the place, so far from the village, and no other children in the house, he knew how lonely Catalin would often get.

“What do you mean ‘the truth of it?’” asked Alina nervously, realising she had no reason to feel indignant at the challenge.

The blacksmith leaned forwards gravely across the table.

“You can’t fool me, WovenWord, as you’ve fooled many,” he said, although not unkindly. “A good name they gave you in that village—Sculcuvant. But by the sounds of your story, you were running away from something.”

Alina felt her cheeks flush. Instantly she began to weave another lie in her head, but then remembered what Ivan had told her about truth being her greatest ally. Lescu was staring hard at her, and something else made her tell the truth. Fell had been able to look into her thoughts. Perhaps the blacksmith could too.

“Who really goes for a stroll on an ice field?” he said. “Tell us the rest of it.”

Suddenly, like water breaching a dam, it all came out, as Alina told them her true tale. Almost all of it. The blacksmith and his son listened in even greater amazement as she told them of the life she remembered, from the day she had been found by Malduk as a changeling in the snows, to that terrible night that Mia had shown her the parchment and they had overheard Malduk and Ranna plotting her death. As she spoke, she wondered if they believed her. Father and son didn’t say a single word until she had finished.

“Ivan helped me escape Malduk,” she concluded, “and told me to find you. So here I am.”

Alina sat back and smiled awkwardly. It had been marvellous to tell the truth. Or most of it anyway. She still hadn’t mentioned Fell, or Malduk’s death.

“And I’m glad you did, changeling,” said Lescu, looking warily at his son. Catalin’s mouth was hanging open, thinking the whole thing like one of his own stories. “The winter turns our valleys and villages into little islands, and no news has come to us yet of this, but if you’d approached some of the others with tales of Lord Vladeran, I doubt you would be sitting eating stew with friends.”

Alina smiled meekly. She was desperately relieved the adult believed her.

“But it’s a strange tale to take in, and you must be careful to whom you tell it, Alina WovenWord.”

“Yes, Lescu. I will.”

“But you think your own parents wanted you dead?” said Catalin in horror, sitting down heavily at the table.

“I … yes … I don’t know. I have dreams.”

“The mark you saw on the parchment,” said Lescu, “show it to me.”

Alina rolled up her sleeve. They saw that little eagle there, with opening wings.

“Well, it’s no mark of Castelu,” said the blacksmith.

Alina was surprised and her heart beat faster. She had already begun to associate that bird and the parchment with Vladeran and Castelu, and suddenly wondered if she had been wrong and perhaps Vladeran and his wife really weren’t her parents at all. Perhaps she didn’t belong to Castelu at all.

“Stay here with us awhile,” said the blacksmith kindly, “until I can find out about this mark, and whether they’re still hunting for a changeling.”

“Thank you,” said Alina, shivering. “But what does Vladeran look like, Lescu?”

“Look like? I’ve never seen him, child.”

“But he lives in a village, below a great castle on the mountaintop?”

The blacksmith laughed out loud.

“Heavens, no. The likes of Vladeran live in a village, Alina? You’ll have King Stefan living in a manger next, or Draculea in a church. Good Lord Vladeran clothes himself in rich furs, and shields his power with high walls.”

“The castle then? I once thought it floated in the clouds.”

The blacksmith shook his head.

“That empty place, if it’s the one I think it is, is the home of the grasht, or so they say,” answered Lescu. “Vladeran’s great palace and fortress lie beyond, across another mountain, and approached by a narrow pass, defended by a mighty river. That’s the distant region of Castelu, although the hand of Vladeran extends much further.”

Alina felt something stir in her. Castelu. It sounded a fearful place. Was that where her destiny really lay? And were Vladeran and Romana her parents? Yet if it was, and they were, then why had Alina been in a village with her baby brother that night the wolves had come? It didn’t make sense. But then very little did.

“We can find out more of this when the snows thaw,” said Lescu, seeing the changing emotions on the pretty girl’s face. “Let’s speak now of your own story. You say Ranna killed Bogdan? Alina, are you listening to me?”

“What?” Alina looked up sharply from her own dark thoughts. “Oh. Yes, yes, she did. I know it.”

“And Malduk wants your death, too, more badly than ever?”

“Wanted,” sputtered Alina, and she wished she hadn’t. She blushed furiously.

“What do you mean ‘wanted’?” asked Lescu sternly, his eyes narrowing as he leaned forwards again. Alina didn’t know what to do. It had to come out at last, what had happened on the ice field, yet the girl suddenly feared that it would turn Lescu and Catalin against her, and she felt as if she was walking into a trap.

“Malduk’s dead,” she whispered, dropping her eyes.

“Dead? How, girl?”

“He … I … I killed him,” lied Alina. “With my knife, up there on the mountain.”

Alina sat there trembling and Catalin stepped forwards, and Lescu’s eyebrows knitted as he stood up.

“And how did you escape them after that?” asked the blacksmith quietly.

Alina felt her heart pounding, but something told her that even though she was lying, and dear Ivan had told her not to lie to Lescu, she was still doing the right thing not to betray Fell’s presence, or her promise to the wolf.

“I don’t know,” she stammered. “I must have been more used to running across that kind of ground. They were slow and eventually they gave up.”

“With an injured leg?

Alina simply shrugged again. Lescu looked long and hard at Alina WovenWord, as did Catalin, whose pleasure at seeing such a pretty girl in their home was suddenly overshadowed by the thought that a man had died at her hands. Yet it made him regard Alina with a kind of grim respect too, and at last the blacksmith spoke.

“And what should we do with you now, Sculcuvant? You’ve killed a man, by your own admission. Do you not think this a matter for the Courts?”

“The Courts?” gulped Alina, recalling tales she’d heard in Moldov of the cruel punishments of the Courts, in the lands beyond the forest. Both Alina and Catalin stared at the blacksmith, and Lescu suddenly shook his head and smiled.

“Don’t worry, child, I’ll not hand you over to the authorities. If all you say is true, then this Malduk has had his just deserts, all right. By the sounds of him, the world won’t miss his passing either, although he did save your life once. Besides, real justice has long been in danger in these lands.”

“Why, Lescu?” asked Alina, feeling greatly relieved, but smarting bitterly at all the injustice she had suffered already.

“Perhaps because men don’t know what true justice is anymore, and think might alone the right,” answered Lescu sadly. “Perhaps because the King cannot impose his authority easily, with lords like Tepesh in the land and your … Lord Vladeran. They engender fear and greed everywhere, and those hateful twins breed lies. When there’s no truth, Alina WovenWord, how can there be any justice, and what can grow fine and strong without that?”

Alina felt something stir in her heart. She thought of old Ranna’s plot to kill Bogdan and blame her, and how easily it might have worked, but she realised that Lescu was still looking closely at her. Much she had said had been true, but she hadn’t spoken of the strangest part of her story, and had just confessed to a crime she hadn’t even committed. Alina felt as if she were weaving a dangerous web about herself and she almost determined never to lie again.

“Well,” said Lescu at last, “you’re welcome for now in Baba Yaga’s valley.”

The girl’s eyes flickered.

“Why is it called that, Lescu?” she asked.

“Because they say that something lives in the forest,” said Catalin. “I’ll tell you the story if you like.”

“Not now, son,” said his father. “There’s been enough talk, and it’s time Alina was in bed, and resting.”

“Bed?” said Alina wearily, “but it’s the middle of the day.”

“And Catalin and I have work. With war coming, King Stefan calls for more swords to be sent daily, although they never know how to use such fine things properly. But you, young woman, look tired enough to sleep for a week. So you shall, under a roof where people care for you. Then perhaps we’ll put you to work about the place.”

Alina tried to argue, but the kind blacksmith would hear nothing of it, and soon the girl found herself in a neat little room, with snow flowers in a jug in the corner. She looked about in amazement, for until now she had thought a barn good enough for a changeling girl like her, and this was like heaven.

“Sleep well, child,” whispered Lescu, as he and his son stood attentively in the doorway. “Perhaps when you’re recovered, you can earn your keep by telling us some of your stories.”

Alina smiled and nodded.

“But will it be safe to sleep in our beds tonight, Catalin,” added the blacksmith with a wink to his son, “with one such as you in our home, Alina WovenWord?”

They smiled and Alina felt a rush of gratitude to these two men, as they closed the door softly. She climbed into bed happily, and as soon as her head hit the pillow, her weary body gave in completely. Alina could not remember sleeping in a proper bed before, and she remembered Lescu’s words about a house where people cared for her.

She found herself thinking of Fell, as she drifted off to sleep in her lovely warm bedding, wondering if he was all right in the forest, and if Baba Yaga was really out there too. But then she reassured herself with a smile that those were just stories, and that Fell was wild and certainly knew how to protect himself in the open, even from a witch, as dreams carried her away.

Alina was so tired that she slept for three whole days. Her sleep was interrupted only by the gentle knocks of Catalin, who would bring her food, and water to wash herself. She tried to get up several times, but each time the young man insisted that she stay and restore her strength. She had dark, fitful imaginings in her sleep, and it was the evening of the third night when Alina had her clearest dream. It was of that creature she had dreamt of in the ice cave, that human ape, and man’s role in the world. She woke feeling sad and terribly guilty, yet stronger than ever too.

A full moon was shining through the little window in her room, and Alina got up to dress. She saw that they had placed new clothes on a chair beside her bed. There was a plain white dress and a little shawl, and Alina felt strange as she slipped into it. Her hair was short like a boy’s, badly cut with the shears and rather spikey, but in the dress Alina suddenly wondered if she looked pretty.