The Sight (51 page)

‘And though she may have tasted pain and injustice, she has become evil.  Evil because of her lies and hate.  Palla gave birth to us in the den.  We slept curled beneath her belly.  She gave us life and warmth and love.  Remember, Fell.’

Fell was shaking furiously.  His eyes were lost and empty.

‘Palla?’ he whispered faintly.

‘Yes, Fell.  Palla and Huttser.  Your family.  Come to them.’ Fell was staring at the white she-wolf as though looking into his own faint memories.  Larka had stepped forward and now the she-wolf stood facing him on the strange mosaic.  There they stood.  Black facing white.  Brother facing sister, as the eerie moonlight shimmered in the chamber.

Fell dropped his head and bared his glittering white teeth.  Larka was quite unable to spring.  But suddenly there was a noise behind them.

‘Tsarr,’ cried Larka, half turning her head, but not taking her eyes from her brother, ‘Tsarr.  Get to the entrance.  Get to our parents.’

Fell growled savagely, but he too kept his eyes on Larka as Tsarr slunk forwards.  But as Tsarr edged round the mosaic, Fell suddenly turned his head.  With the very turn of his muzzle Tsarr was flung sideways.

‘You see, Larka,’ whispered Fell coldly, ‘the third power has entered the world.  It is as strong as a wind.’

‘Yes, Fell,’ cried Larka immediately, ‘you named me.  I am Larka.  Your sister, Larka.  Huttser’s daughter.  The pact, Fell, remember the pact we made with Kar, by the Stone Spores.’

For a moment Fell’s eyes seemed to clear.

‘He told me,’ muttered Fell bitterly, ‘on the ice.  He told me it was safe.  He lied.  He is the Betrayer.’

‘Oh, Fell.  Dear Fell.  Huttser could not see, from where we were standing.  He did what he thought was right.’

‘You do not know me any more.  I have been so lonely,’ cried Fell.  ‘There is nothing, but darkness.’

Fell tried to turn away, but now Larka thought of what Skart had said of healing the mind, and she held him.

‘No, Fell,’ she cried, ‘for I have you in my eye.’

For the first time ever the wolves were glaring deep into each other’s eyes without flinching.  But something held them in check as they strained forwards.  It was as if their very thoughts were trying to touch.  Closer they came and closer, and now they were looking at each other’s foreheads.  Suddenly there was a flash in their minds’ eye.  In front of Tsarr they stood motionless on the mosaic, held in check by their own confusion, but in their minds they found themselves in another place.  The poppies around them were quivering red and everywhere there were spectral wolves staring at them.  Waiting.  Watching and judging silently.

‘Fell,’ whispered Larka, and her voice drifted through the meadow.  ‘The Sight.  It is not for evil.  It can heal.’

‘I am Wolfbane.  The hunter.  The friend of the dead.’

‘No,’ cried Larka, ‘Look around you.  Those faces.  Brassa and Bran.  Khaz and Kipcha.  That is truth.’

But Larka’s mind thrilled with doubt.  She had seen her brother here before.  Yet what had the Searchers said? ‘We are like your memories.’ That was it.  Larka had thought Fell dead.  What she had seen had been nothing but her own memory of her brother, as he had been before the ice.  So even the Sight could lie.

The shapes around them stepped forward now, summoned by their names.  As Fell looked about him in the red meadow, he saw the faces from his childhood.  The spectres of his past.

Fell felt his mind beginning to race.  Other memories were flashing into his head.  Of the Night Hunters.  Of the terrible journey beneath the ice.  Everywhere he saw death and violence and pain.  He saw his own part in it all, and it could never stop.

‘Remember,’ snarled Larka, ‘but remember right, Fell.’ Larka’s mind, too, was on fire and a terrible darkness surrounded her.  A yawning emptiness filled her heart.  But suddenly Larka thought of Kar, standing between her parents.  His face made her heart thunder, but Fell was staring at his sister’s throat.

‘I died,’ he cried, ‘you left me.  Left me to the water and the cold.  Huttser and Palla, all of you, you all betrayed me.  There is nothing but death, death and fear and betrayal.’

‘No, we thought you were gone.’

But the darkness was surrounding Larka too.  Death.  It was waiting for her, on the mountain.  So close she could almost smell it.  What did it really matter then, any of it, if it was only death that lay at the end? It was all meaningless.  Let Morgra win, for she had suffered too.  Everything suffered and nothing was better than anything else.  The Putnar, the Lera, the humans, it was all one.  Larka felt a desperate longing to be free of it all, to break the bonds of her own misery.

But was the end of the journey, of any journey, just darkness, stretching out beyond the moon and the sun and the wolf trail? Part of Larka longed to be with Fell, to follow him wherever he chose to go.  Because of the loneliness.  For brotherhood.  But as she gazed at her dead brother her mind pulled away again.

‘No,’ she cried angrily.  ‘That is not love.’

The word sounded like a howl through her being.  Suddenly Larka saw another image, so startling in that place that her mind seemed to take on a crystal clarity.  It was a spider, weaving its web.  Larger and larger the web grew and flies were caught in its grip.  In that moment Larka knew the answer to a question she had asked long ago.  That the spider was not conscious of what it was doing, not in the way the Varg was conscious.  Not conscious and so, not to blame.  The flies were struggling for life, but without them the spider could not live and around the flies the web grew.  More and more complex, more and more beautiful.  It glittered brilliantly in the sunlight.

‘It only seems cruel and empty,’ cried Larka, ‘but we give our lives for each other, so that one sun perhaps one of us may know.  Perhaps a Lera may truly find an answer.  And I shall give my life.  Gladly.  For you, Fell, and for life itself.  Just as Sita gave up her life.  One sun your soul will find a true resting place.  Huttser never betrayed you.  There is love and light and courage.  I know now I was meant to prove it to you.’

‘I will blind you,’ snarled Fell.  ‘I will kill you.’

Suddenly Larka felt a great strength enter her, a strength that made her feel invulnerable.

‘You cannot, Fell,’ she whispered, ‘I am already dead.  For I know my own future.  But it does not matter.  You will not kill me.  You will live.  I give myself for you.’

‘No,’ growled Fell bitterly, ‘I am not worth that.’

In the chamber Tsarr was edging past Larka and Fell, but as he crept towards the moonlit entrance, his eyes opened in amazement.  Brother and sister still stood there, trembling and motionless, but between Larka and Kar a shape was glittering.  Tsarr blinked and growled and, at first, he thought it was a trick of the moonlight, for he had never seen such a thing before.  As he looked on he could see a grey Varg hovering between them.

‘You are not evil, Fell,’ whispered Larka in the meadow, ‘you have just been robbed of love.  Of light.’

Fell gave a terrible howl.  Larka sprang to meet him and they struck, rolling over and over in the field of poppies.

Palla’s legs were shaking uncontrollably as Morgra led her across the bridge.

‘Fell,’ she kept whispering, ‘my little Fell.’

The Night Hunters, as if held by an unspoken command, waited behind them, and with them was the bear that Morgra had tempted from the forests to be her servant.  Palla’s head reeled as she looked into the plunging chasm below them, but suddenly she heard a noise in the night ahead.  It roused her from her confusion.  It came, strange and mournful across the arched bridge, from the statue beyond.  It was the crying of a human child.

Bran was sitting below the stone she-wolf on the altar itself, gazing around it, and the sobs that came from his little body made him shake violently.  He was bathed in moonlight and Palla could see the tears glinting in his blue eyes.  Slavka was at his side and her eyes were blank and morbid.  Morgra was controlling her, too.

Morgra walked towards the altar.  She stopped and looked coldly at the human creature below its stone counterparts.  Then she turned to Palla.

‘Stand next to it, sister.’

Palla was helpless.  She was overcome by her sudden knowledge, by the moonlight and the citadel and the creature sobbing quietly to itself.  She felt as if she was in a dream, mesmerized by the giant moon, mesmerized by the human stones.

‘So, Palla,’ snarled Morgra, as she crept closer still, ‘now you know that I, too, have felt the Drappa’s care.  The love of a mother.  For your own son.’

‘You could not love him,’ whispered Palla bitterly.

 ‘You are wrong.  I love his hate,’ growled Morgra, staring down at the living child and thinking of how delighted she would be to kill it when it was over.  ‘But enough.  It is time.  The Man Varg waits.’

Palla lifted her throat meekly.

‘Finish it, Morgra.’

‘It is a pity, is it not, that you must die, Palla.  Just as your dear, betrayed sister fulfils her greatest dream.’

‘I have seen enough,’ whispered Palla sadly, and she felt terribly old.  ‘I have seen too much.’

Morgra’s eyes glittered with delight.

‘Would you not see me come to power, sister? Well, you shall,’ said Morgra quietly, ‘or at least you shall know of my victory.  For I would not slay my own blood.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘The legend,’ hissed Morgra, ‘it says that the altar must taste blood.  But not that you must die.  Not yet.  Very well.  It shall taste blood, and you shall have your wish, too.  You shall never see me fulfil the legend.’

Palla could not understand what Morgra was telling her.  The moonlight seemed to swamp her vision.

‘I shall take the blood from around your eyes, Palla,’ whispered Morgra, ‘and let you live.  I shall watch the beading droplets fall from your eyes like tears, like the tears I shed all those years ago.’

Palla couldn’t speak.  Her eyes were wide now, staring into the ghastly distance.

‘Kraar,’ cried Morgra suddenly, ‘again I have need of you.  Of the tongue of the scavengers.’

There was a fluttering behind one of the statues and suddenly the raven hopped out into the open.  Kraar cocked his head and his little beady eyes peered viciously at Palla as she stood there in the moonlight.

 ‘Blind her,’ cried Morgra.  ‘Pluck out her eyes.’

Kraar opened his wings and lifted into the air as the human cub began to scream.

But suddenly it came.  The earth had begun to shake once more and Huttser felt it in the pit.  The Dragga sprang back.  The quake had dislodged one of the stone columns, and it crashed to the ground beside him.  In an instant Huttser was up and out.

‘Huttser.  Huttser!’

Huttser turned and, up the slopes, he saw Tsarr rushing towards him.

‘Tsarr,’ he snarled, ‘we must save Palla.’

As they sprang forward they were confronted by the Night Hunters and the bear, their jaws barring the way across the bridge.  The sky was filled with birds, driven into the air by the earth tremor.

‘Now, Kraar!’ cried Morgra from beyond the chasm.

The raven had fluttered up on top of one of the standing plinths and he was poised, glaring viciously at Palla’s eyes.

‘Do it,’ growled Morgra as she swung her head down towards the child.  It was still sobbing, but its cries had turned to stifled moans.

Morgra felt her whole body grow hot as she glared down at the human in the wash of moonlight.  She was summoning the third power of the Sight and waiting for the blood.  Only then could she reach the child’s mind.  Again Kraar opened his wings, snapping his beak furiously.

Palla felt the brush of wings on her trembling muzzle and braced herself for the searing pain.  But Palla sensed something else above her.  A heavy draught of air.  There was a furious screech and a shape was moving upwards, bearing the raven away in its claws.  Above the ancient city of Harja an eagle soared into the air.  In its great talons it clutched a raven.

‘Skart,’ cried Huttser.

The eagle was sailing higher, holding the raven fast.

‘Kraar,’ he cried as he flew, ‘now I shall answer your question.  You think the flying Putnar have no right to wield power over the scavengers.  That you are as good as us.  But the true Putnar, too, must pay a price for their strength and freedom, and that price is courage.’

Suddenly Skart’s talons were burying themselves deeper and deeper into Kraar’s feathered body.  Kraar screeched in terror and pain.  Skart’s great wings seemed to block out the moon as he wheeled in the sky and then, swooping low again, he opened his claws and let the raven drop to the ground in front of Morgra.  Kraar was dead.

Morgra swung round furiously.

‘Kill her, Slavka.  I command you.  Tear out her throat.’

‘No,’ snarled Huttser from beyond the chasm, but with the bear and the Night Hunters before them there was no way through.  Palla seemed to have woken from sleep and she began to growl, her hackles rising on her neck as Slavka and Morgra advanced.  Huttser’s courage deserted him.  He could not watch, but as he turned away there was a howl from lower down the mountain.  His heart beat faster as he saw where it came from.  The rebels were coming up the slope.  Gart was ahead of them, Keeka and Karma and Rar too, fighting as they ran, and at their side came Kar.

‘But how?’ cried Huttser.

‘Your son,’ growled Gart, ‘his fury broke us through.’ Huttser hardly had time to greet Kar as they locked with the Balkar in front of the bridge.  Huttser swung his jaws left and right, with Kar at his side.  The bear swiped at Tsarr and knocked him to the ground with a blow so vicious it opened his side.  But even as he fell they noticed that something strange was happening.  Some of the Balkar had begun to disengage and were swaying left and right, growling mournfully, like lost children.  But other Night Hunters were still fighting and Tsarr got to his feet again, his side dripping with blood.  Now Kar cried out.

‘Get to Palla, Father,’ he shouted.  ‘We’ll hold them off.’ Kar and the rebels plunged back into the fight and suddenly Huttser saw that the way to the bridge was clear.  He sprang across and, in spite of his wound, Tsarr managed to follow him.  Slavka had been disturbed by the sudden arrival of the rebels and she stood by Palla at the altar, doubt stealing through her mind.  Morgra snarled bitterly as she saw Huttser and Tsarr behind him.