‘Hush,’ growled Slavka angrily, ‘they’ll hear you. Climb on my back or I will snap through your throat.’
Still Bran went on crying.
‘Come now,’ Slavka whispered suddenly, and her tone changed as she licked Bran’s face, ‘trust me, child. You must trust me now. We’ll steal away from this place. I’ll take you to those who would care for you properly. Who can really love you.’
Bran’s sobs began to subside, and Slavka tilted her body closer. For a moment the child’s eyes were filled with an instinctive doubt, but so similar were Larka and Slavka that he was confused. Suddenly he turned and started to scramble on to Slavka’s back. Slavka shuddered as she felt him clutching at her fur, but she rose. Her eyes were completely lost.
‘Now, Larka,’ she hissed, and it was as though the voice was not her own, ‘now we shall truly see.’
Larka was in a dark place, like a tunnel or a pathway walled with shadows; like the stairway that, in her youth, she had looked up with her brother to the strange castle. She was walking slowly, and around her pine trees tore into the sky. The meat from her kill was in her mouth and the air was cold and still.
As she walked, her eyes began to grow accustomed to the darkness and she realized, instinctively at first, that there were other wolves in the trees with her, silvery ghosts that haunted the wood. As she saw them, a petrifying fear came on her. At first they did not attempt to approach, but more and more seemed to be following her, drifting after her through the trees.
‘Courage,’ whispered Larka to herself. ‘I must have courage.’
It felt to Larka as if she was holding on to some blind hope, or to a truth that the whole world was trying to deny.
Light began to come, but as it grew Larka shivered, for there was no heat in it. It seemed to make the wood even more fearful as the air took on a yellowy pallor, while the objects that it lit seemed drained of colour, grey and lifeless.
Larka felt a terrible gloom enter her mind and her legs began to tremble. The trees around her were thinning, and Larka saw more of the spectral wolves. Then, suddenly, the avenue came to an end and Larka gasped.
She was on the edge of a huge meadow, ringed by giant trees. The trees’ shapes were as dim and grey as the spectres and, at a distance, they might have been forms glimpsed in sleep. The sky was pallid and sickly, and even the grass looked colourless and white, like straw bleached by the sun. Yet there was colour here, as shocking as a wound, for the whole meadow was filled with poppies and, though their stalks were grey, their fragile tops, like the wings of mingling butterflies, were a bright and brilliant red.
Larka dipped her head as she looked on that great sea of blood-red flowers, splashed against the grey. She felt confused, for the meadow was both beautiful and terrible. Then, as Tsarr had told her, Larka threw the mutton in her mouth on the grass and howled. The sound that lifted from her own mouth across that strange field made the she-wolf quake. It was muffled and dull, like a cry lost against the wind. But as she howled Larka realized that shapes were suddenly moving towards her through the flowers.
From every side of the meadow came the spectres, drifting through the poppies, their flanks brushing against the velvety flowers. They had the same shadowy quality as the wolves in the trees and they all looked grey and pale.
Larka trembled as she saw the armies of the dead trooping towards her, for now she made out their eyes and, though they were not red as they had been in Kosov, they all had the same lost and glassy look. Yet in those empty orbs Larka saw something else, a look of hunger, and she realized that they were all scenting the cold air. They were being summoned to her by the meat.
‘Come,’ cried Larka in a commanding voice. Her parents, watching her lying there in the hollow below the rebel camp, saw her lift her sleeping head again.
On came the flow of spectral wolves, and soon the meadow was entirely filled, but still they came. But as they drew closer Larka began to growl. As the nearest of the wolves drew close to the meat, Larka howled again and cried out, ‘Stop, you may come no further. The living commands you.’
The wolves all stopped. Their eyes seemed to look through her as they too began to growl. A whispering went up through the poppies, and Larka realized they were speaking as one.
‘Meat,’ they murmured like a wind, ‘meat.’
Larka shivered again, but she fought back the terrible fear.
‘Yes, I bring meat,’ she stammered, ‘from the other side. But only one may come.’
The wolves that ringed Larka began to growl again, for they were wrestling with their hunger, but it was plain that they were frightened too. Suddenly one of the spectres stepped forward. His face was scarred and Larka realized, with amazement that she had seen him among the rebel dead in the valley of Kosov. Around him now she began to see other rebels, and the Night Hunters that had died too, standing calmly at their sides.
‘I will answer you,’ he growled, scenting the air hungrily. The wolf’s hollow eyes were staring at the meat, as bright and red as the poppies.
‘Tell me, then,’ whispered Larka, ‘what is this place?’
‘This place? We do not really know. Some call it the Red Meadow and some call it the Field of the Dead.’
In the foothills above Kosov, Kar was running. Over the past suns he had hardly slept and had kept constantly on the move, running as long as his stamina held out, never once pausing to hunt or scavenge. Instinct told Kar to hurry, but he hardly knew why or where. A voice inside kept whispering to him, like the voices he had heard in the cave.
Kar rested that night in a wide clearing, and as he woke to the dawn, he suddenly heard a cry high above. Among the shifting clouds he saw a tiny shape wheeling in distant circles. Round it went and round, and as he watched it grew larger and larger. It was coming towards him.
The bird sailed straight into the clearing and settled on the ground in front of him. Kar was amazed; he had never known such a large bird of prey approach a wolf before. Its huge eyes seemed to be examining Kar’s features, looking for a sign, and then it nodded and hopped forward. There was something in its beak, which it dropped on the grass in front of Kar. The wolf wanted to pounce on the eagle, but he stopped as he realized that what the bird had brought him was fur.
Kar cocked his ears. Slowly he pushed his muzzle towards the fur and sniffed at it. In an instant he was on his feet as her scent filled his nostrils.
‘Larka,’ he gasped. ‘Larka.’
Skart nodded frantically and suddenly took to the air again. As Kar looked up, Skart began to swoop over his head and Kar realized that the eagle wanted him to follow. Kar leapt after him, running as fast as his paws could carry him.
‘Larka,’ he cried frantically, ‘Larka is in danger.’
‘And you are the dead?’ Larka trembled in the meadow.
The wolf paused and looked up.
‘Not as you might understand it, Larka,’ he answered quietly. ‘We are the Searchers. Spectres of the dead, shadows.’ As he said it, it was as though Larka was talking to herself, so distant was that lifeless voice.
‘Then... then you are not real?’
‘Perhaps we are as real as your memories, Larka. Or your dreams.’
Larka’s eyes opened as she stared back. She remembered something Tsinga had said about the power of memories.
‘Then this is not where the dead go?’ she whispered.
‘Oh no, this is not where the dead go,’ answered the wolf, turning his head wistfully towards the forest. He paused.
‘But of that I may not speak. Of that none may speak.’
‘But tell me where you come from. Is it like this? Are Tor and Fenris—’
‘Peace,’ snarled the wolf, beginning to back away fearfully. ‘This you may not know. This the living can never know.’
The spectral wolves around him had also begun to retreat.
‘But what are you?’ said Larka.
‘I have told you. We are the shadows of the dead, the dead yo
u have seen. Like your memories.’
‘But if you are no more than memories you cannot help me.’
‘No more?’ said the wolf looking at her strangely. ‘Have you learnt nothing on your journey, Larka? We may help you to know the world of the living, but there your questions must cease.’
‘Very well,’ said Larka. ‘The Pathways of Death. May I seal them again? May I call those that have crossed into our world back into the realm of shadows?’
The spectral wolf looked grave.
‘The pathways are open and, with the Searchers, the true power of the Sight has entered your world. To touch minds and control wills. Morgra has used it to send our kind out to do her bidding already. But only once the altar has tasted blood can they be commanded again. Then the pathways can be sealed.’
Larka shivered.
‘Then tell me. I have had visions. But the things I see – are they real? Can I really see the future? The Stone Chimneys?’
‘That will come about, Larka,’ growled the wolf sadly.
‘But not in your lifetime.’
‘And the bridge and the ruins that I saw. Do they exist?’
‘Oh yes. And in your world too. It is the ancient place of pilgrimage. Harja. Where the altar lies. You will see it again very soon.’
‘So it is Harja,’ said Larka. ‘Father says it lies very close, in the higher mountains. Guarded by a stone face.’
‘That is true. But there are two ways in. The second is an entrance lost long ago. To the east of the face. A tunnel by a stream that leads right through the mountain. At Harja, the Vision will come if the child is placed on the altar, but only at the moment the moon reaches its zenith. For the legend, Larka, like Tor, is itself a thing of moonlight.’
Larka shivered, for again she was remembering her vision on the bridge and the giant moon that had illuminated it. That had illuminated her own death.
‘And is it really the gateway to heaven?’
‘Heaven,’ muttered the wolf strangely, and he seemed not to understand.
‘But am I to die there?’ Larka whispered, dropping her head.
‘If you have seen it,’ answered the spectre coldly, ‘it is almost certain.’
‘Almost?’
Larka’s head came up. The spectre hesitated. He was staring at the meat.
‘These are dark matters, Larka. For most a future is made by the things that have gone before. But for you... You alone have visited us. You have commanded us in the Red Meadow. You have made us real again. Perhaps that itself will change what is to come.’
‘Then there is hope?’
The wolf looked at her strangely.
‘For the living there is always hope. Must be hope, Larka. But remember. The path is narrow and the further you journey along it the narrower it may become.’
Larka nodded, and the spectre came further forward. His muzzle was straining towards the meat.
‘There is more I would ask. I must face Morgra. But there is one with her. One I fear. I see him only as a great darkness, a terrible evil. Wolfbane. I know he is waiting.’
‘Wolfbane is waiting,’ said the wolf coldly. ‘And you should fear him above all else. For he is more dangerous to you than any other. But to end it you must face him, and you must face him alone. None can aid you there.’
Larka growled.
‘One more thing,’ she said, ‘tell me of Man.’ The spectre backed away a little.
‘Does Man have a third eye, an eye that can see more than the Lera?’
The wolf nodded.
‘But his power. Where does it come from?’
‘The power of Man, beyond his hands and his machines,’ whispered the wolf gravely, ‘is the power of memory and of knowledge, and the power of imagination.’
Larka cocked her head in surprise.
‘To remember,’ she muttered, ‘to remember those we love and lose. To remember the horror?’
‘No, not just the memory of his life, but of all human lives that have been,’ growled the wolf, ‘and the memory that lies sleeping in all things. Not simply in Man’s memories but in the very force that makes up his being. For there lie the greatest secrets of the past, and so of the future too. Not just the past that seems to end in the Field of the Dead. But the ancient past!’
As Larka looked at the Field of the Dead before her she suddenly felt a great anguish.
‘You are called the Searchers...’ Larka hesitated. ‘But what is it you really seek?’
In the Red Meadow the spectral wolves lifted their heads as one.
‘Justice,’ they moaned, and their voices shook the poppies. ‘Justice and truth.’
‘Very well,’ Larka whispered to the rebel spectre, ‘you have earned your reward. You may eat.’
The other spectres looked jealously at the wolf, but as he stepped forward he stopped.
‘Listen to me,’ he growled suddenly, and as he did so a great longing entered his voice. ‘Wolfbane. You said that you see him as a darkness. An evil. Very well. He believes he knows of the black side of the Sight.’
Larka’s lips curled upwards.
‘But remember the nature of your world, Larka. Where there is colour and form, where there is warmth as well as cold. Remember this and, before you fight him, know that without night there is no day, without lies, no truth, without despair, no hope. Beware above all of hate, but call to its opposite too. For all things have an opposite and, if you choose it, with will and care, you may turn one thing into its reflection.’
Larka listened to the spectre but she did not understand what he was telling her.
‘Now,’ said the spectre, ‘stand back. For as I eat I must not touch you.’
‘Must not?’ said Larka quizzically. ‘But on the other side. On the other side I was told that you might try to keep me here.’
‘Keep you here?’ said the spectre almost sadly. ‘No. We would not do that, Larka, unless we touched you. For if we did that we would remember our lives and, feeling your warmth, long to have you with us for ever.’
A terrible pity entered Larka.
‘We could not help ourselves, as you cannot help yourself when you need to eat. You too, touching us, would long to be more than you are now, long to pass beyond the simple dualities of sun and moon, and step after us. To journey beyond the Field of the Dead and see what, if anything, lies on the other side.’
As he spoke, Larka did indeed feel that great longing, but still she stepped back from him. He dropped his head and, as soon as he touched the meat Larka shivered, for a fearful moan went up among the wolves in the meadow.
As the wolf ate, his pale fur quivered and colour seemed to flow back into his veins. His eyes glinted yellow and his tail was tinged with red. But as Larka watched him, her heart pounded, for she had suddenly seen a she-wolf standing behind him. She could hardly believe her eyes.
‘Brassa, is that really you?’
Larka’s heart was almost breaking. The feeding spectre lifted his head immediately. The feast had stained his mouth and his voice seemed stronger, more real.
‘No,’ he moaned, ‘you must not name us, you must never name us.’
It was too late. Larka was already calling to her old nurse.
‘Brassa,’ she cried. ‘It is you, Brassa.’
The she-wolf heard her and, as the spectre looked on, a light woke in her glassy eyes. She leapt forward and Larka, forgetting all that had just been told her, sprang forward too. In an instant their muzzles had met in greeting. They had touched.
Larka saw a flash like lightning and the whole field was suffused with light and colour. The still air was warmed by a breeze and the grass bloomed green around the poppies. The wolves were no longer spectres, the trees no longer grey and lifeless. It was as though Larka had suddenly woken, only the colour around her was ten times more brilliant and beautiful than anything she had known in life.
‘No!’ cried Tsarr in the hollow. Larka had suddenly dropped her head. Her breathing had grown sha
llow and pained as her muzzle lay next to the meat.
‘Call to her,’ cried Tsarr frantically, turning to Huttser and Palla, ‘call to her quickly. Command her.’
Huttser looked desperately at Palla.
In the trees beyond they did not know that another wolf was racing towards them, running with all his might, as Skart swooped through the summer air. Kar’s heart was fit to burst as he ran and his coat was drenched with sweat.
‘Hurry, Kar,’ screeched Skart from the skies. ‘Hurry!’ They did not see a shape stealing through the forests towards the mountains above them. The shape of a she-wolf and a child on her back.
‘Welcome, Larka,’ said Brassa softly in the red meadow, ‘it is good to see you again. You have grown up. But you still have so much to learn, so much to see. Come with us.’
Even as she spoke Larka gasped. Two wolves were coming towards her, side by side.
‘Khaz,’ she whispered, ‘Kipcha.’
As the pair drew nearer, their tails shaking, they looked as healthy as Larka had remembered them in life. Larka’s heart surged. She was suddenly a cub again. It was like coming home. Then, as they greeted her, she saw another wolf in the distance. It was Bran and he was wagging his tail too. Behind Bran came Skop.
‘Come, dear Larka,’ said Bran, ‘there is nothing to fear now.’
‘Is this true?’ whispered Larka dreamily. ‘Is this real?’
‘We cannot lie to you,’ answered Brassa. ‘The eyes cannot lie.’
‘And is ... is he here too?’
‘Come and see, Larka.’
Like a sleep-walker Larka nodded and, without another word, Brassa and the others turned to lead her away through the poppies.
‘Larka, Larka.’
Suddenly Larka paused. Those voices, disembodied on the breeze, were calling her back.
‘My parents,’ she said wearily as she listened. ‘They are calling to me.’
‘No matter, my dear,’ whispered Brassa. ‘No matter.’
‘Larka, come back.’
‘Does one such as you obey their parents?’ said Brassa as they listened to the distant, feeble voices. ‘Whatever they ask of you?’
‘But they need me.’
‘Yes, and they love you too. But such things are for their world. Here we are beyond love or hate. Beyond fear and betrayal. Now you have a greater journey. Let us go.’