‘It’s your first true kill, Larka,’ he grinned rather stupidly.
‘We saw you from the wood. Don’t you want it?’ Larka shook her head angrily.
‘What’s wrong, Larka?’ asked Kar softly.
‘I can’t explain.’
‘Tell us what happened.’
Larka had managed to calm down a little, but when she told them they were both appalled.
‘But, Larka,’ growled Fell, ‘I thought the first power of the Sight was to look through the eyes of birds, not other Lera. And to feel the pain of your own kill...’
Larka shook her head helplessly.
‘Morgra said the Sight had cursed her all her life, Fell,’ she whispered bitterly. ‘Well, the curse is chasing me and it’ll follow you too, if you have anything at all to do with me.’
‘Perhaps Bran is right,’ nodded Kar mournfully, dropping his tail. ‘He said any one of us could be next.’
Fell was staring down at the hare, thinking what a pity it would be to waste it, but he lifted his muzzle immediately and snapped at Kar.
‘You’re not part of the pack,’ he snorted, ‘so it stands to reason Morgra didn’t mean you when she cursed us. You at least have nothing to fear.’
Kar looked as though he had been bitten. Not part of the pack. Kar dropped his muzzle and he suddenly thought bitterly of his dead parents and how Skop had so recently abandoned him.
‘I’ll go away,’ said Larka with a sudden resolution, not noticing Kar’s distress. ‘Maybe then you’ll be safe.’
‘Go where?’ growled Fell.
‘Perhaps to Morgra. She and I are the same,’ muttered Larka, though she hardly knew what she was saying.
‘Perhaps I can persuade her to lift the curse from the pack.’
‘No, Larka. We’ll find Tsinga and learn how you can use your powers to help us.’
‘But ... I’m frightened, Fell,’ growled Larka, hanging her head.
Kar had lifted his muzzle.
‘No need,’ he whispered suddenly. ‘We’ll protect you, won’t we, Fell?’
‘You?’ snorted Fell thoughtlessly. ‘You’re no better than Bran.’
Kar was looking up and he caught sight of a bird wheeling high above their heads.
‘Come on, Larka,’ he cried, delighted with his own idea.
‘Wolfbane made a pact with the birds, but we’ll make a pact too. The three of us. To fight for each other, come what may. To fight fear itself. If anything happens to the grown-ups we’ll always have each other. No curse and no stupid talk of Wolfbane or a Man Varg can beat that.’
‘Fight for a Sikla?’ growled Fell unkindly. But Larka looked tenderly at Kar, and Fell suddenly wished that he had had the idea himself.
‘Come on, you two,’ said Kar. ‘Swear it. We’ll need something to swear by though. I know. We’ll swear by the Stone Spores. Come on, Fell. Swear it.’
Fell lifted his tail and bared his teeth.
‘All right, then. I swear it. By the Stone Spores.’
‘And so do I. Larka?’
‘By the Stone Spores,’ nodded Larka gravely.
‘Then the pact is made,’ growled Kar, a little too gravely for his age. ‘And nothing in the world can break it. Now we should be getting back to the others.’
The three young wolves walked side by side up the hill in the sunshine. Larka had been reassured and, for the first time since he had arrived with Huttser’s pack, Kar felt truly proud of himself.
That night the pups felt a little less nervous as they lay around their parents, and the darkness seemed to comfort rather than frighten them. But as they listened to the adults, a terror stole into their thoughts once more.
‘She really tells the future?’ asked Bran, licking his paws and blinking at Palla as they discussed the fortune-teller. They all knew that her Valley could not be far off now.
‘They used to say Tsinga had that power,’ nodded Palla, ‘though she would always talk in riddles, as far as I remember.’
‘To know the future...’ muttered Bran, peering about him into the trees and suddenly thinking of Kipcha and his own fall into the grave. ‘If we have a future.’
Huttser glared at Bran.
‘And we must be careful when we approach,’ said Palla, ‘for there was always a madness in her.’
That following sun they came to the edge of a high white mountain. The mountain Brassa had spoken of. Its great cliffs were streaked with ribs of pure marble. Bran was at his wits’ end as they walked beneath its shadow. He was certain the curse would never release them now and that Wolfbane himself was stalking them through the forests. He kept wondering whose turn it would be next as he fled, but the spectre of actually meeting Tsinga slowed his steps.
Beyond the mountain they started to climb another hill and, as they looked back over the terrain they had traversed, they realized that they could see the familiar castle on the most distant mountaintop. It looked tiny now and its human contours had faded back, making it almost indistinguishable from the natural terrain around it. It might have been nothing more than a boulder, and it was only the memory of their strange journey that gave it any dark meaning for the pack.
Twilight was coming in as they saw a wooded valley below them and they were wondering if this was Tsinga’s home when Bran pulled up in horror.
‘Look,’ he gasped.
There were two tall trees ahead of them, well-spaced, and between them there seemed to be a path. It might have been a goat or a deer track, but it wasn’t the path that Bran was trying to draw their attention to. It was the trees. Hanging upside down from the branches in each, on either side of the track, was a dead blackbird. Their beaks were missing and blood had streaked the bark.
‘It must be the entrance.’ Palla shuddered.
‘At least it means one thing,’ growled Huttser. ‘The fortune-teller is still alive.’
They passed between the birds and began to descend the track. The wolves were even more nervous than before as they threaded through the dense trees. But as the pack came down those slopes, the evening and the forest were strangely beautiful. If this place was the Vale of Shadows, apart from those grim little tokens, it hardly lived up to its name. The valley bottom was thick with fallen leaves and those that remained on the spiky branches glowed a deep auburn in the fading light. The wood echoed with noises of Lera and birds, and thrummed mournfully with the hollow knocking of a woodpecker. Huttser was leading the pack in a straight line again when he suddenly stopped and began to scent the ground. The scent marking was faint but not that old.
Huttser howled and for a moment the noises of the forest fell silent, its secret, watching creatures startled into fear by the voice of the wolf. Huttser called again but no answer came, so he led them on. Quickly, the trees began to dwindle now and the little valley opened. They saw a wide earth clearing at its bottom and, as they went, they began to notice that the ground was littered with bones. They were all small animals. The skeletons of rabbits and mice, and voles. The bones were yellowing and well-chewed and they had long been sucked clean of their wholesome marrow.
‘Stick by my side, Larka,’ growled Palla, as the wolf pack stopped. Palla had noticed how desperately nervous Bran and the cubs were becoming. Huttser called once more and suddenly there was an answering growl. It came from behind a heavy thicket between two pitted rocks.
‘Tsinga,’ cried Palla, stepping forwards immediately, ‘is that you, Tsinga? We ask Tratto’s Blessing to enter your territory.’
There was another dark growl from behind the bushes.
‘Tratto?’ snorted a voice suddenly. ‘That old fool is long dead and the Varg respect nothing any more. Morgra and her Balkar Draggas see to that. Nothing. Except perhaps the freedom to kill.’
Suddenly a shape rose from behind the thicket. The fortune-teller was staring straight at them. Larka and Fell gasped and began to back away. The old she-wolf had her muzzle in the air as she scented and her eyes were open, but they were white
with the filmy cataracts that had sent her stone blind.
‘It’s Palla, Tsinga,’ whispered the Drappa nervously, trying to turn the wolf’s head with her voice.
Tsinga swung up her muzzle and growled, sniffing around like a weasel and swaying her sightless eyes back and forth.
‘I remember a Palla from long ago,’ she muttered.
‘Before I stumbled, and before I truly saw. It is gratifying that so many of the Varg seek me out these suns, to ease me in my loneliness. Not even my trophies or the rumours I spread about my valley can keep them out any more.’ Tsinga’s voice was deep and hard but sharp with bitterness, too, and Bran was reminded of Morgra above the ravine.
‘Then they are just stories,’ growled Huttser, ‘about a Vale of—’
‘Stories,’ chuckled Tsinga, ‘yes, they are stories. But they have truth too. For is not life itself a Vale of Shadows? But you are welcome, if yours is really the family.’
‘Then you know of us already?’ growled Huttser with surprise.
‘Oh yes. The rebels told me a rumour of it, though I refused to answer their foolish questions and I drove them away. I know, Palla, that you and Morgra were born beneath the Stone Den and that your daughter’s coat is white. She was born there too, born at the same moment as the human.’
‘And now Morgra has cursed our family,’ growled Palla.
‘Curses,’ hissed Tsinga scornfully, ‘poor little Morgra. She has power, but it was always weak. That’s what she hated and feared the most. Why else throw around her curses? Why else seek out the Balkar and try to hypnotize them? Why else murder Tratto?’
Huttser and Palla could hardly believe their ears, but Bran had heard it in Morgra’s voice that sun. Tratto had been respected and even loved among the free wolves, and few understood why he had chosen Morgra to succeed him. But now they knew. Morgra had murdered the leader and usurped his power.
Palla stepped closer.
‘Tsinga,’ she said softly, ‘Brassa is dead.’
The fortune-teller hardly seemed to react at all.
‘Dead,’ she muttered, shaking her head slightly, but the years had made Tsinga hard. ‘Well, there may be time for private sorrow, but now the legend comes. Some say it has all happened before, but perhaps everything comes again. For generations now fortune-tellers like I have waited, passing the story from wolf to wolf. Now, at last, it is here.’
‘Then you must help us,’ cried Palla. ‘We have come to ask you to teach Larka of the Sight, Tsinga. To lift the curse.’
‘Is that all?’ said Tsinga scornfully. ‘You have a far greater journey, Palla, if you dare make it. If you are really the ones.’ As the she-wolf stood there between the pitted rocks and spoke of a greater journey, to other eyes she might have looked like some blind storyteller, standing on the shore of a far-off land, as a band of soldiers listened in the firelight, weaving tales of desperate loves and godlike wars.
‘You mean if we are this family,’ whispered Palla, ‘to fight the evil of the Sight. Can you tell us, Tsinga?’
Tsinga was smiling coldly. She lifted her head and her voice quivered around the clearing, but the words that came to them now seemed to return a strength and a power to the blind wolf.
‘And only a family both loving and true,
May conquer the evil, so ancient, so new.
As they fight to uncover what secrets they share
And behold in their journey how painful is care.
Their faith shall be tried by the makers of life,
Beware the Betrayer, whose meaning is strife.
For who shall divine, in the dead of the night,
The lies from the truth, the darkness from light?
Like the cry of the scavenger, torn through the air
A courage is needed, as deep as despair.’
As Tsinga recited the strange words Kar and Larka began to back away.
‘It’s all right, children,’ whispered Palla, ‘don’t be frightened.’
‘There are other cubs apart from the she-wolf?’ cried Tsinga immediately, beginning to sniff again and letting her tongue loll from her mouth. ‘Bring them to me.’
Kar looked terrified and Fell growled nervously. Palla was going to nudge Fell on, when Huttser stepped forward slightly.
‘No, Palla,’ he said, his eyes glittering cunningly. ‘Let Kar go. Then we’ll see.’
Kar glared at the Dragga, but Kar was still young and the grey wolf padded obediently towards Tsinga. As soon as he did so she snarled.
‘Would you test me?’ she cried, lifting her nose. ‘This one is not of Palla’s blood.’
‘How did she know?’ whispered Huttser in amazement.
‘Does she have the Sight, then?’
‘Fool,’ snapped Tsinga. ‘Do you think I do not know a scent when I smell it? For there are more ways of seeing than with the eyes. Ways we must never forget, as we must never forget what we are. With the tongue and ears, the paws and nose. And I have a good nose. Oh, yes. I smell out children and thieves. I sniff out legends and lies. The wolves run and Wolfbane waits to return.’
A madness seemed to have entered Tsinga and Kar backed away, trembling.
‘But he has a destiny too,’ dribbled the fortune-teller, as she sensed Kar go. ‘Perhaps as important as any. Everything has a destiny.’
‘Then you can see things?’ whispered Palla. Tsinga seemed to misunderstand Palla’s question.
‘See things, Palla? With such old and evil eyes? How I long to see things again. To see the forest and the streams. To watch the sun blazing on the mountaintops and the giant clouds ribbed with breathing fire.’
Tsinga lifted her muzzle to the heavens.
‘To see the lark climb the morning skies and dance on the air and watch spring’s sap pressing green through the quivering grass, or old autumn licking the leaves with veins the colour of blood. To see the shape of a young deer, joyous with fear in the lush fields. To see the terror in its eyes.’
Larka was goggling at the fortune-teller. The sun had broken through the clouds and as its chill light fell on Tsinga’s eyes they looked empty and hard and cruel. But Tsinga’s voice, sharp with cunning as she spoke of the deer, was suddenly full of sadness.
‘But instead I must look into nothingness,’ she muttered grimly, saliva spattering the gnawed bones on the ground around her paws. ‘I must dream and talk to memories. Memories to make the gut churn with loss and longing. Yet, although the world is dark to me now, memories have power too, such power. Such power the past has over us all.’
Tsinga seemed very close to tears and the words of Morgra’s curse were suddenly echoing in the pack’s ears again, ‘May the past that’s dark with crimes bring revenge in future times.’ But a thought crossed Tsinga’s mind that threw off her sadness.
‘But the Pathways of Death, they are the true pathways of the past,’ she hissed. ‘If the ancient howl ever opens them and calls to the Searchers then the real power will begin. If the Searchers come you must never let them touch you.’
‘Why?’ growled Huttser.
‘Because they are the messengers of the third power, to touch minds and control wills and actions. They shall be the servants of the summoner and carry terror through the Lera. They shall tempt nature to turn on itself.’
Again the words of the verse came back to Palla, ‘And the Searchers tempt nature to prey on its own.’
Tsinga swung round her head as though looking for something in the shadows, and Larka thought of the times in the forest she had sensed something following her.
‘But come,’ she growled suddenly. ‘You spoke of children, Palla. There must be another.’
As soon as Fell came up Tsinga craned her head forwards and seemed to be testing the air. For a moment the pack fancied they could almost see a light in her dead eyes. Then, suddenly, the she-wolf started to shake.
‘No,’ she cried.
Tsinga’s jaws were beginning to foam with white froth as Fell backed away too.
‘I can’t . ..’ she gasped, ‘can’t breathe.’
‘What is it, Tsinga?’ cried Palla in horror. ‘Do you see anything?’
‘Stop it,’ growled Huttser suddenly. ‘Enough of these cubs’ fables. If it is true what you say then tell us simply how to defeat this evil. Tell us how to destroy Morgra.’
Tsinga whirled round towards Huttser, snapping at the air.
‘You think you know where evil really lies, Huttser?’ she snarled scornfully. ‘Because you believe that Morgra is evil? But was not a great injustice done to her? Perhaps the evil began there. Perhaps it is always with us, like the Searchers.’
Huttser growled boldly but again Tsinga’s gaze was blank and pitiless.
‘But, Tsinga. ..’
‘You believe too that I know what evil is,’ hissed Tsinga, ‘or how to fight it? But am I not blind? And does not my blindness make it hard for me to hunt and so make me all the more hungry? Tell me this, Huttser, when the time of the Putnar comes and the bloodlust is on you, can you look into the darkness and predict the future? Can you distinguish truth from lies, tell darkness from light?’
Tsinga suddenly swung her head towards the cubs who had all huddled together.
‘Beware the Betrayer,’ she hissed, ‘whose meaning is strife.’
Fell felt a queasy fear stealing through him. Larka was petrified, but as the fear threatened to swamp her she suddenly felt an anger bubbling up inside her too.
‘Tsinga,’ she cried, stepping forward boldly. ‘Tell me what this final power is then. The final power of the Sight.’
Tsinga stopped dead in her tracks as she heard Larka’s voice and she seemed to trying to read something in the sound.
‘No,’ she growled, ‘you are still too young. What does a mere cub know of the world? Nothing. Nothing but innocence and games.’
Her parents were watching Larka and they both wondered what she would do.
‘I do know things,’ Larka cried, furious at Tsinga’s scorn, and even Fell was impressed with her now, for she had suddenly grown in stature.
‘I know that Morgra is looking for the child but that Tsarr has it. Tsarr and his Helper, Skart, the proud Steppe eagle. I know that the Balkar are seeking out Harja and that Morgra would find this cub and take it to the ancient citadel, the gateway to heaven.’