The Sight (26 page)

Time and again Skart had returned to watch Larka, for only he could travel with speed above the trees.  As she looked into the eagle’s yellow-black eyes she felt greatly relieved, for at least it was he and not Wolfbane, or the Searchers that she had sensed in the forest.  But Larka still trembled, too, as she remembered the wolves who had appeared and then vanished again in the snow.

‘Now you have found your way to us, Larka,’ said Tsarr as he finished his tale, ‘you must learn to wield the Sight and help us to fight Morgra.  There are rumours that Wolfbane has returned.’

‘Wolfbane is just a story,’ growled Larka.

‘Which Morgra could use to control the animals,’ nodded Tsarr, ‘and if they follow the Evil  One’s ways, does it really matter if it’s true or not? Besides, the ancient verse says only that he must be dreamt of by the Varg, not that the Evil  One must really come.’

Larka shook her head.

‘Is this my destiny, then?’ she whispered bitterly.  ‘Is there no one else to fight Morgra?’

‘The rebels are gathering,’ said the eagle beside them, ‘but that only makes me fear all the more.’

‘Why, Skart?’

‘Because they would kill the child for one, and because the untamed are being tamed, Larka, as the verse warns.  The wild spirit of the wolf is being tamed throughout the land beyond the forests.’

‘But what are you going to do with this creature?’ growled Larka.

Tsarr’s wolf eyes flickered suddenly and for a moment he looked at Skart almost guiltily.  Larka remembered what Brassa had told the pack of their quarrel all those years before, their quarrel about what the Sight was really for.

Tsarr was about to speak when Skart interrupted him.

‘You must decide, Larka,’ he said, ‘but in the meantime you must help us to protect it.’

As soon as Skart used the word Larka’s eyes blazed like the forge.  She swung round to face the eagle.

‘Protect it?’ cried Larka in disgust.  ‘Why should I protect it, Skart? Why should I help this creature? Humans are nothing but killers, with no respect for the wolf.  And I do not want this Vision.  The vision of the Man Varg.  A power that will enslave all the Lera, for ever.’

There was such an anger in Larka that her whole body began shaking almost uncontrollably.  In that moment Larka hardly knew what to do but suddenly, powerless with rage, she turned and sprang away through the clearing.

‘No, Tsarr,’ screeched Skart, as the wolf rose to follow her.  ‘She’ll return.  Remember the legend.  Larka and the infant already have a connection.  She saw this place in the water.  And the legend, Tsarr, think of the legend.’

There was a desperate fury in Larka as she ran past the rock.  That whole sun she kept on the move, but by evening her tread had slowed.  Time and again Larka thought back to the human.  The she-wolf wanted to take revenge for Kar and Khaz.  To take revenge for everything that had happened to her.  She wanted to tear into its throat and drink its blood.

But as Larka prowled through the wood, although she knew she hated the humans, she could not stop dwelling on the strange destiny unfolding around her.  She remembered again what Tsinga had said about not being able to escape a legend, and, as she looked around her at the snows glistening malevolently about her, she thought fearfully of Wolfbane’s winter.

Larka lay down to sleep.  Her tail was hurting again and as she looked round she saw that the skin where the fur had been singed away was raw.  That night her dreams were full of the shadows of the village and Kar and the human cub’s strange eyes.  The next sun when Larka tried to hunt, something kept nagging at her, as though that voice were calling her back.

‘I cannot escape, can I?’ Larka kept saying to herself desperately.  ‘I can never escape.’

Larka suddenly remembered what poor Kar had cried out as the flames consumed him.

‘Very well, then, Kar, my friend,’ she whispered coldly, ‘for life itself.’

It was mid-afternoon when Larka returned to the stream to find Skart standing on the rock.  The Steppe eagle’s back was to her as she padded up.  He was standing on one leg and his head kept jabbing forwards in curious little jerks.  Larka’s hackles rose.

Skart’s feathers looked so tempting as she caught his scent Larka suddenly imagined herself snapping him up.  The she- wolf prowled round the side of Skart.  The eagle was holding a dead chick in one talon, and in that moment his beak cracked into it like a shell.  Skart snapped his mouth shut, but a few desultory feathers remained, poking from his beak.

‘So you really are Putnar,’ thought Larka gravely, and the wolf suddenly realized how much she preferred this bird to the ravens.

‘Skart,’ she whispered as he saw her, ‘I don’t know what I think about this human yet, or what we should do with it.  But will you teach me, at least? Teach me more of the Sight?’ Skart nodded approvingly as Larka lay down by the rock, but he was thinking how much she knew already.  For now, the eagle said he would concentrate on the power to look through a bird’s eyes.  But as soon as he spoke of it, Larka described bitterly what had happened to her when she had killed the rabbit, and after that the feelings that consumed her whenever she started to hunt.

‘It’s strange,’ Skart murmured immediately, opening his great wings almost fearfully. ‘I’ve never heard of it happening with other Lera before, Larka.  You have already looked into the water too.  It’s as though the laws of the Sight are bending in some way.’

Larka pawed the ground nervously.

‘What do I have to do, Skart?’

‘When you arrived here you sensed me before you even turned, Larka.  That is part of the Sight, the sense beyond your physical eyes.’

Larka began to growl.

‘But before you can control it properly,’ said Skart immediately, ‘you must use my eyes, and to do that you must look at me differently.  You must see the truth of what I am.’

‘The truth?’

‘Perhaps you think I am just a bird, Larka, but in this feathered body do I not have thoughts and feelings and desires just like you? I am energy, Larka, as you are.’

Suddenly Skart swivelled his beak round, and in a single jabbing movement he plucked a feather from his wing and let it flutter to the ground in front of her.

‘It will help you to sense me, Larka.  Now try and empty your mind, and imagine what it is like to be a bird.  To see as I see.’

Larka did as she was told but her head was so filled with all that had gone before that after a while nothing had happened at all.

‘You’re not trying, Larka,’ said Skart irritably.  ‘Concentrate.  Use your instincts to tell you what I am, nothing more.  Draw on the living power of nature all around you too.  Then look at me, but try to see beyond your eyes.  Through your forehead if you like.  Try to empty your mind completely and draw the energy that surrounds us all up through your paws.  Feel it bubbling up through the pads of your feet.  Then try to enter my body with your thoughts.’

Larka tried again and, as she let her mind empty and scented the feather, Larka felt a tingling in her paws and her whole body grew hot.  There was a sudden blinding flash of black and the she-wolf gasped as she found herself looking out at her own body lying in the grass.  Her head had slumped on her paws and her eyes closed.  As Skart turned his own head, Larka was amazed to see the stream and the clearing, Tsarr and Jarla and the human revolving before her.  Larka was seeing through Skart’s eyes.

Larka was trembling all over and she was quite exhausted by the effort, but the feeling was strangely exhilarating too.  It felt different to her experience on the hunt, more directed and in control.  She could see more clearly and, most importantly she felt no fear.  Instead, the she-wolf experienced a feeling of liberation, as though something in her was opening.  Larka opened her own eyes, and suddenly she was in her body again as Skart let out a screech.

‘There, Larka,’ cried the eagle, delighted.  But Larka seemed deeply troubled as she lay beside the bird.

‘Skart.  What is the Sight?’ she asked quietly.  Skart cocked his head as he looked at her.

‘It’s another way of being, Larka, of communicating.’

‘That’s why we can talk to each other?’

‘Yes,’ nodded Skart, impressed with his young pupil, ‘though some say that once all the Lera possessed the Sight, and that they could still talk to each other if they could only remember how.’

‘All the animals?’ said Larka with surprise.  Suddenly that voice she had heard in the forest seemed to be calling to her again, ‘Remember, Larka, remember.’

‘Yes, and that the instincts of the animals, to sense things before they happen, or feel a change in the weather, is a residue of the power.’

Larka nodded slowly.

‘There is an old story of a Herla, a red deer, who learnt how to do it.  His name was Rannoch and he lived on an island to the north-west.  But the Sight is linked to language, it is a kind of language, just like touch or taste or smell, and that’s how those Lera possessed by the gift can understand each other naturally.’

It was as though Larka had entered an almost unfathomable world.  The wolf noticed a tiny spider in the bushes nearby weaving busily across its web, and she found herself suddenly trying to imagine what the spider was thinking and feeling as it worked towards a struggling fly.  But every time she tried she failed.

‘But why is it connected with so much evil, Skart?’

‘Evil?’ said the eagle.

‘Wolfbane.  Man.  The Searchers.’

For a moment Skart’s eyes closed and he fluttered his feathers uncomfortably.  Larka was reminded strangely of Tsinga.  As she lay there, though, Larka remembered vividly the terrible feeling she had had with the snow hare.

‘What happened to me was evil.  The Sight makes the life of a Putnar impossible, Skart.  When I hunt.  It’s horrible.’

‘That is the pain the Sight can bring to the Putnar, Larka,’ said Skart.  ‘But you must not fear it, as you must never fear your own nature.  If you do that it will control you.  But you will learn.’

‘No,’ snarled Larka suddenly, ‘I wasn’t meant for this, Skart.  I am a she-wolf.  A Putnar must hunt and kill to survive.  Must use its instincts and its teeth.  This power is a terrible thing and it wounds me.’

‘The Wounded One,’ whispered Skart gravely.

Larka turned and licked the burnt skin on her tail, but her eyes were full of pain and a sudden, bitter self-pity.  As Skart looked at Larka lying there feebly his eyes grew colder and harder, though strangely clear too.

‘Larka,’ he snapped suddenly, ‘do you pity yourself more than other things? More than your pack, or Fell, or your parents?’

Larka dropped her head shamefully.

‘You have a power, Larka, and it is high time you used it.’

Larka raised her head.

‘Perhaps,’ said Skart, ‘you are ready to experience the wonder of the Sight.’

‘Wonder?’ whispered Larka sadly.

‘Oh yes, Larka,’ cried the eagle.  ‘Come into my eyes.’

 ‘How do you know but ev’ry bird that cuts the airy way, Is an immense world of delight, clos’d by your senses five.’ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Larka let her mind empty again and the energy bubble up through her feet.  Suddenly the wolf was looking through the eagle’s eyes once more.  Skart opened his great wings and lifted from the ground as Larka’s sightless body lay by the rock.  She gasped as the ground dropped away and her vision rose into the blue.  Higher and higher Skart flew, and Larka was surrounded by billowing white clouds.  A great calm suddenly suffused her mind.

Below her, as Skart glided on the currents of air, the ground opened like a dream. Larka could see everything with the sharpness of the eagle; the mountains and the forests, the rivers and the streams, the great land of Transylvania sweeping before and below her.  The cold sunlight sparkled on the water and quivered in the sea of white, and Larka felt her heart lighten and her fear drop away.

It was as though the she-wolf had suddenly been transported to the highest mountaintops, hurled into the clouds and with the glory of that vision, came feeling too.  She could feel the wind on Skart’s feathers, the swooping, rising pressure of the air.  She felt suddenly transported, gloriously elated and more alive and at one with the world around her than she had ever known.

‘See, Larka,’ whispered a voice in her head.

‘Skart?’

‘Yes, Larka.  It’s me.  Talk to me with your mind.’

‘But, Skart,’ cried Larka, as they flew, ‘it is wonderful.’

‘Yes,’ screeched the eagle, swerving and diving proudly on the air, ‘this is the glory of the Sight.  The wonder and the freedom that the Varg may share with the birds.  And it is strong in you, Larka.  That’s why you can hear me now and feel what I feel.’

As Skart soared amongst the clouds, his wings catching faint thermals or tilting to let them slide down the sky, Larka could feel the air ruffling the bird’s feathers and the glorious tension in his wings.  On and on they sailed, and this time Larka felt as though she was lost in a wonderful dream.

‘Skart,’ she cried, ‘where does the Sight come from?’

‘Where does anything come from, Larka?’ answered Skart.  ‘For the Sight is far older than even the oldest faiths.  Did your Tor and Fenris make the power of the Sight, or is it just there? You might as well ask where the sea or the wind or the stars come from, Larka.’

The snows were like a great shiftless sea below them.  The land lay as smooth as a sigh as they hurried through the air on Skart’s soaring wings and, as Skart’s head turned this way and that, Larka would suddenly spy a shape moving through the white and she felt as if, with the effortlessness of thought, she could open her paws and pounce on the Lera below her.  But she felt superior to the feeling too, there was no hunger in her now.  The wolf was as free as the wind.  On they soared, the wolf and the eagle together, looking down on the great winter tapestry.

‘Skart,’ whispered Larka as they flew, and she noticed that she could no longer feel the pain in her tail either, ‘I feel so light and free.  So is this what it’s like to be a bird?’