Fell (The Sight 2) (31 page)

“Very well,” said Vladeran. “You may leave.”

Landu nodded and led his men from the room, and Vladeran did not notice the tapestry over the secret stairs stir.

“So, Cascu,” said Vladeran, when they were gone, “your reward.”

He strode over to a chest and, opening it, drew out a heavy bag of gold. Much heavier than the one Catalin had carried.

“I must use your services more often,” he said coldly, throwing it to the Helgra traitor, “if you’re so willing to betray your own people. Your own family.” Vladeran was looking at Cascu with amusement.

“My people are superstitious fools,” said Cascu with a scornful snort, as he caught the gold and weighed it in his hands, “with no learning and even less thought. They believe in fables and dreams, and the blind wonderings of … of a man who was strong once, but who has grown weak and old.”

“It’s strange that you talk so coldly of superstition, Cascu,” whispered Vladeran, “when it was you that taught me the Helgra art of mixing blood with water to summon visions of the wolf. Taught me the words. When I sought out the truth of what had happened to Elu.”

“Taught you?” said Cascu, raising an eyebrow. “I told you something of the silly stories I’d been told as a little boy, my lord, nothing more.”

Vladeran smiled knowingly. He was holding his scarred hand in its glove. It now had many cuts across the palm.

“You don’t believe in the power?”

“Of course not, my lord. Too long my people have sweated in superstition and ignorance, and I will trust to the reality of power and of gold,” answered Cascu, wondering why Vladeran was looking at him so strangely, “and take my rightful place in the world.”

“There’s plenty more gold where that came from, Cascu,” said Vladeran.

The Helgra stepped forwards.

“You’re not frightened then, my lord?”

Vladeran looked back at him.

“Come with me,” he said suddenly, striding over to the corner of the room. He led Cascu to a window, and they looked out onto a field beside the palace that ran far along the edge of a great river, which protected it from the plain beyond. There Cascu saw hundreds and hundreds of heavily armoured soldiers with bright new weapons. Vladeran’s army was in training.

“I raised them to fight the Turk,” whispered Vladeran with satisfaction, “but now they shall crush the Helgra. But come, we were speaking of gold.”

“It’s not even gold that I truly seek, my lord.”

“No? Then tell me. Perhaps, if it’s in my means—”

“I seek my rightful place, my lord, as Helgra elder. No more.”

Vladeran turned and smiled.

“Ah yes, and it shall be so. A younger brother shall step up indeed.”

Vladeran was thinking that after he had finished with them, there would be no Helgra left alive for Cascu to command at all, and the first death would be this Helgra woman.

“But first I would prove my strength and loyalty to you,” said Cascu. “In your palace, my lord, as captain of the Shield Guard. I know the place lies open.”

Vladeran looked at him doubtfully, thinking of Vlascan’s death.

“You would take the oaths of the New Order, Helgra?”

“I would.”

“The place is open indeed, with Vlascan gone, though Landu has his eyes on it, and he is loyal and strong.”

Vladeran paused, weighing the benefits and possibilities in his clever mind.

“Very well then. But you must earn this honour, first.”

“Earn it? Have I not already—”

“My soldiers shall prepare to meet these rebels, Cascu, and my spies ride out again, but you alone are Helgra, and so may walk freely amongst them still. Go back to them now and get to her, Cascu, somehow.”

“They allow no weapon in her presence, as I said. All are searched. For many come to marvel at the storytellers. They think it is magic.”

“Then use your mind, damn it. I want to know all they do.”

Vladeran was thinking not of Alina suddenly, but of the wolf.

“Then I shall kill her, my lord?” said Cascu.

“No.” Vladeran hesitated. “Now the Helgra rise, I’ve a better plan. Bring her to me somehow, Cascu, and in their eagerness to free her the Helgra shall walk straight into my trap. If you do so, you’ll have your heart’s desire.”

Cascu paused and then he nodded.

“And Cascu. Any that speak of it must die. It must not be rumoured abroad that Alina Sculcuvant has returned from the dead, to seek vengeance.”

“They have returned?” asked the man with the kingly bearing, in that throne room far away. The man who, like the mythical Guardian, kept his identity a secret. The leader of the Order of the Griffin. The armoured knight he had addressed before was in front of him again in the great hall.

“Yes, but found nothing.”

The man bowed his head in the chair.

“But you believe the little girl’s story?”

“Yes.”

There was silence.

“What will you do?” asked the knight respectfully.

“Do what I should have done long ago. Set out.”

“Don’t blame yourself. The wound was very deep, even when you came.”

The leader of the Order felt a wound now, but in his heart.

“Yes. And I’ve worked hard and long to sit where I do. Yet what use is my power if …”

He paused and shook his head bitterly.

“Justice means nothing in the land beyond the forest,” he whispered, “and men set their eyes only on gold and war, thinking them an end in themselves.”

“Lord Vladeran,” said the knight, and his master grasped the arm of his throne. “He grows worse by the day. Vladeran breaks all our laws now. He’s as bad as Draculea. And both are of the Order. Or were.”

The man in the throne looked up, and his eyes glittered angrily.

“Since King Sigismund’s death our Order has fallen into neglect,” he said sadly. “Men, with their dreams and madness and fear, turn it to things dark and occult, as they always do when they feel powerless themselves. They think of the Griffin as a beast, and do not know what an ancient symbol it is. A symbol of sleeping power, that always guarded the lands beyond the forest.”

“Still, I ask. What will you do?”

It sounded like a rebuke, and there was guilt in his master’s eyes.

“For too long the Griffin has been eating its own tail,” he answered.

“You shall summon the Order then? With so much fighting it will take time indeed for them to gather.”

“Yes, but the Griffin’s claws have wings,” came the voice from the throne. “Summon them indeed. Send out secret word. The Griffin must awake.”

AS FELL RAN, THE HUMANS AND ALINA WovenWord seemed to recede in his mind, and the wolf’s thoughts turned more and more to Huttser. Would he be in time to reach his father and speak with him, before he went to the Red Meadow?

Fell thought of Morgra as he wondered, and it suddenly made him glad to have left his friend, for he knew that while he was away from Alina, at least she would be safe from his anger, and the vision the Sight had shown him.

He had seen her death at his teeth, and Fell wished to protect her, to protect nature too perhaps, although what that really meant he could not fathom. But he feared that every moment he was with her he was a danger to her.

Yet Fell felt the pain of separation from Alina like an ache in his mind. For it was as if it was only with her that Fell’s mind opened to the full powers of the Sight.
Why?
he asked himself. Because the storyteller, because all humans, were further along in their journey than most of the uncomprehending Lera? At Alina’s side Fell felt connected to something even deeper than the wild instincts of the wolf; he felt connected to the whole world.

He climbed into the mountains and plunged down into deep wooded valleys. He was alone again, but he did not feel so alone now, for at least Fell had a purpose. He knew the valley his brother Kar and the Vengerid had spoken of, and it was not too far, though there was no time to delay.

Day and night he ran, using the eyes of the wolf to see in the dark, as Catalin worked in the forge, and Alina began to train the Helgra at balance and swordplay, and they wandered the hills collecting their antlers and listening to Catalin’s and Alina’s stories. At last the wolf reached the Great Waterfall. It fell in a mighty cataract, nearly a hundred feet down the side of the mountain, and it sang in Fell’s ears like a glorious cry. He felt the air on his fur like a great wind, and saw sunlight broken into a seemingly endless ribbon of colour around the cataract’s churning waters.

The rich, green mouth of the valley, where he knew his parents were, lay beyond the falls and the river, and Fell felt nervous at the thought of seeing them again. But on he hurried along the river, which now began to fall in dangerous rapids down the slopes. Fell already knew a place to cross lower down, where seven great boulders made a kind of bridge through the water, and soon he had sprung onto the first, as fearfully as ever, now he was so close to water again.

At his side was a smaller waterfall, or at least a drop of some twenty feet, where the river banked steeply, creating a kind of curtain of fast-flowing water, and as Fell sprang onto the second boulder, he froze. Two faces had appeared in the river, fine young Alpha wolves. Their muzzles were strong and proud, and Fell recognised them immediately. It was Huttser and Palla. The Sight was showing him the past. They seemed to look back imploringly at him, but suddenly the image of a huge wolf was behind them, with a great streak of silver down his back, and he was snarling angrily. It was Jalgan. Fell felt a jolt of fear, but something silver flashed in the side of his vision, and the images disappeared. With a great splash the shape came again, bursting out of the river, flying straight towards that curtain of water.

It was a huge salmon, and for a moment it seemed held suspended there, as its quivering body fought to carry it upwards against the current. But the salmon could not make it over the top of the falls, and at last it was swept back down into the water below.

Fell had crossed to the third boulder when the fish jumped again and this time it fought even harder, dancing there for even longer. As Fell watched it, he thought he saw a dark recess in the rocks behind the water, but the salmon’s efforts to climb the river were in vain and it fell back again. Fell was in the very middle of the boulder bridge, when the salmon tried a third time, and something vaguely irritating in its fruitless battle made him swing his head and growl angrily at it.

“What are you doing, foolish fish?” he snarled.

To Fell’s amazement the salmon answered him, and its voice seemed to come not from the salmon alone, but from the whole river, echoing around the wolf like the Great Waterfall upstream.

“Doing, wolf? I’m going home.”

“Home?”

“
Home to the river that made me, home to the waters that gave me
,” sang the struggling salmon. “
Never be free, turn from the Sea. Fighting to sporn, dead by the morn
.”

“But why do you fight so hard, fish?” growled the wolf.

“
Because I must
,” sang the salmon, “
because I can. It’s the pattern of all I am. But if you could only help me, I would tell you the secret of the whole world
.”

The salmon fell backwards again with an even bigger splash, and Fell stared deep into the waters, suddenly aching to know. There was no possible way that a wolf could help a salmon, and no madder idea either, yet Fell wanted to help it indeed, and as he looked on wonderingly, he saw his own young features peering back at him.

With a splash the salmon came again, bursting out of the water with its splendid body.

“Tell me the secret, O Great Salmon, I beg of you,” cried the wolf, “even if I may not aid you.”

“And because you treat me with such respect I shall,” answered the leaping salmon. “
The secret is that nothing knows, the secret is that all life flows, the secret is that thoughts and hearts are different beings, split apart
.”

The whole river seemed to be singing now around the wolf’s quivering ears.

“
And though we change in skin and bone, each being has its truth alone, while dreams and wondering take you far, accept yourself in what you are, there comes the time when close to home, your self must please itself alone, then sing beneath the lovely sky, the earth asks simply that you try
.”

The salmon fell back again, exhausted by its fight and its strange song, and a groan seemed to come up from the water.

“But for me it’s over, wolf,” cried the river bitterly. “I cannot make it. I’m too tired.”

The voice seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper, and Fell sensed that the poor salmon was floating downwards into the murky, silent depths, and suddenly he gave a great growl.

“No, salmon,” he snarled furiously, “don’t give up yet. Try. One more time.”

“I cannot. My heart is too tired. I’ve seen the great world. I’ve swum through its mysteries. I’ve known its wondrous beauty, and its terrible ugliness. I’ve lost my own to predator and to hook.”

At this Fell growled at it angrily and it spoke again.

“You’ve been with man, have you not, wolf?” asked the salmon.

“Yes, fish.”

“Man, who thinks his mind knows everything. But what does man know of the great blue whale, moaning in the belly of the sea, or the flaring squid that show their anger and fear in their red skins, yet turn blue when you stroke them gently with your tail? Man cares only for himself, in his fear and hate.”

The voice was fading, and Fell suddenly felt guilty at having protected Alina.

“Fight, by Fenris,” he growled. “Fight.”

“No more fight, wolf, not even by the great fish god Carpan. Too much fighting. I go to the greatest sea.”

“But what you are,” cried Fell, hardly knowing where the thoughts were coming from, “all you know and all you’ve seen will be lost. Unless you continue now. Unless you pass that on to the future.”

“The future?” came the voice sadly, and it sounded closer to Fell. “And do we really pass anything on to the future, except mirrors of ourselves? What if the future is as painful as the past?”

“That we can never know,” answered the wolf angrily. “That’s for the future. But what we can know is the importance of what we owe to the present. Here and now, and nowhere else. For nothing else exists, except in our minds. What we owe to ourselves, and to those we’re bound to. And we can at least hope to make a better future, for everything. You sang the song. Told me the secret. So do it now. Try.”

There was silence, except for the churning waters, and in his mind’s eye Fell saw the once graceful salmon falling in the depths, turning on its side and sinking to the muddy river bottom. Its shining scales failing, its skin beginning to break apart like broken leaves, and the tiny creatures of the waters starting to take it for their own struggle. Fell’s great black tail came down sadly.
Death
, whispered his darkening thoughts.
There is nothing but death
.

Suddenly the surface of the water erupted and Fell’s heart soared, as the salmon came bursting from the river for the final time. It’s jump was much higher this time, and it almost cleared the rapid. But still it hovered on the very edge, as if on a precipice, as if on the precipice of being that Larka herself had faced on a bridge up at Harja, when she had jumped to safety and, for a moment, she might have fallen or might have made it.

In that moment it had been as if the very thoughts of those that watched her, that followed her story, could have affected the outcome. As if that is always true, of everything that lives. That everything that exists, exists within its element, and so we all both influence and reflect one another all the time. The great interconnectedness of things.

Fell gave a great growl.

“Yes,” he cried, “yes.”

The very energy of Fell’s cry, the will to help the thing, seemed to give the salmon that last bit of strength, as though the unseen movement of the atoms in the air and water had made the difference, and it cleared the lip of the falls and was gone. Moving like a current itself, back to where its parents, themselves made and driven by their own mysterious, searching natures, had spawned it. Many had fallen in that race. Many would fall again. But this creature, touched by Fell’s strange journey, would continue for long enough to remake just a tiny part of the extraordinary, beautiful world.

Fell himself was already on the far side of the bank, racing towards the valley where his father might have reached the end of his own journey. As he went, he looked up and saw a huge group of starlings, which had been migrating from the Great Delta that formed a part of these strange lands to the south, and he stopped to watch them.

Evening was coming now, and as the lovely skies blushed purple, he saw the myriad birds darting and diving through the air, moving not as one, but like a great shoal of fish, a turning mass of black. Left and right the flock turned in the air, and up and down, swirling and winding and spiralling, like the currents of the river where Fell had seen the salmon, and it suddenly seemed to Fell the most beautiful sight he had ever seen.

Was it because, unlike the Kerl, these winged creatures were moving together, he wondered, as though some mind were directing them? And how did that great cloud of birds, each one a separate individual, form such a perfect organism? It seemed so purposeful, yet so instinctive, so beautiful and free. But had not each one somehow given up their wills to the whole?

Fell had will, and had learnt so much during his lone travelling. Yet all this knowledge, all this experience hurt him too. In that moment Fell wanted to be a part of that flock, to move unconsciously through that wondrous element, like the rivers that race to the seas, and the great waves that crash against the shores of the world.

Fell almost thought he heard a voice on the air, and suddenly he knew another great secret. Perhaps it was the Sight, or perhaps it was all he had seen and done. The secret was that Fell knew more than these birds and saw further, precisely because he had pulled away from the rhythms of nature and from the cycles that the world itself was caught up in.

Fell thought of man and of woman, and of their great journey through the world. So often with their wooden dens, and their weapons and their tools, they did all they could to separate themselves from nature. With their strange words too. Man sought to become more and more individual, and his very purpose, his mind’s purpose, seemed to be to manipulate the world about him, to name it and conjure it with his language and dominate it. And so he did, and so he learnt more and became more.

But in the end, thought Fell sadly, was that knowledge and that way of seeing any more useful to man? Did it make him any happier, especially if he threatened to destroy all, as the Lera had seen in the vision? Like the Lera, man faced the same struggle as all living organisms, and in the end he too had to face his own death.

Dawn was breaking, grey and heavy, as Fell crested the rise of a hill and came down into the first valley beyond the Great Waterfall. It was edged by tall trees on every side, and the sward of green was thick with the summer. Fell saw Kar first, sitting with two large male wolves in the sunshine and telling them a story, searching through its words as he spoke, to find its meaning and its purpose. Fell padded up behind them and heard a little of the strange tale.

“And it was long ago,” Kar was saying, “when Tor and Fenris themselves still walked the world and a beautiful Drappa, with a tail like white clouds and eyes of green gold, lived in a wondrous valley, where the birds sang all day long and no harm ever came to trouble the Varg or the Lera. So gentle and kind was this Drappa that even the butterflies loved her. But a creature lived in a cave on the mountain, and this beast was so angry and lonely that all kept away from him, for they feared him and said that Barl had cast a spell on him. So ferocious and ugly was he that he might have had human shape. Indeed, when he looked in the rivers and streams, he saw there such a terrible reflection that he appeared to be a monster, and thought that none could love him.”