Fire Bringer (28 page)

‘You?’ said the startled otter.

‘Yes. If you tell me how to get there.’

‘There’s nothing to it,’ said the otter. ‘And the grass grows all over the sea.’

‘Well, then,’ said Rannoch.

The otter eyed the deer carefully.

‘You really mean it?’

‘Of course I do,’ said Rannoch. ’Just tell me where to go.’

‘Go north-west and you’ll strike a large loch. It’s a sea lake. Follow its southern shores due west. You’ll soon hit the sea. The grass grows on its banks.’

Rannoch nodded and he set off, promising to be as quick as he could.

‘By the way, my name’s Keela,’ cried the otter, as he watched him go. ‘I’ll be waiting for you.’

It took Rannoch three suns to reach the loch Keela had mentioned and as he travelled the landscape became wilder and wilder. He traversed a high mountain and again felt the wind stirring the gorse grass. The contours of the land rose and fell more and more dramatically around him, and at last Rannoch saw it. The loch was huge, much bigger than the lake where Tharn lived, and north from its tip a river ran into the hills. As the otter had told him, Rannoch swung south along its edge before striking due west. He travelled for another sun, hardly pausing to sleep, stopping only to graze a while.

When the next sun was high, Rannoch scented something on the wind. It came to his nostrils, strange and bitter. The loch suddenly opened, the land fell away, the trees on the southern edge came to an end and Rannoch’s eyes opened wide in wonder. Before him was a vast sweep of water that suddenly swallowed up the lake. The wind tore at it, shaking its surface into curls of foam, so that it seemed for a moment to Rannoch that a herd of white deer was running ahead of him.

It stretched to the north, where Rannoch saw land floating on its surface and beyond, great mountains rising into the sky. To the south Rannoch saw yet more land, for he was looking down the stretch of water that today is known as the Firth of Lorn and out towards the Island of Mull, but beyond that there was nothing – just water as far as the deer could see. Rannoch stood stock-still and felt the wind that hit him fill his nostrils with spume. He suddenly felt alive and strong. It seemed as though he were touching the edge of a great mystery.

‘So, this is the sea,’ he said to himself as he gazed and gazed at the moving water. Then he came down the slopes of the hill and Rannoch felt the ground turn from earth and grass to a strange, soft powder that his hoofs sank into as he walked. Rannoch stopped on the edge of the shore, scented the air for danger and then began to run forward across the beach.

Gulls were circling high overhead, screeching on the ragged wind, riding the currents of air or diving suddenly into the foaming waves. As Rannoch went he noticed strange coloured rocks on the sand that were cupped or long and thin, with spirals on their sides. Then he saw that the sand was covered in snails, like the ones that lived on the trees in the forest. But when he turned them over with his nose he found they were empty or full of sand and when he stepped on them they shattered under his hoofs.

Rannoch approached the edge of the water gingerly and saw it foam and fizz and crash against the beach. Many times the deer had seen the wind work on the face of the loch, making it move and spray and flurry, but this mighty loch seemed to be moving on its own, shrugging its shoulders against the land. As Rannoch came nearer, the scent that had hit him so powerfully before came again and he could taste it on his lips.

Then Rannoch began to see brown stems, like weed, thrown up on the beach or washing back and forth on the waves. Some of this was thick and rubbery with long stalks like the stems of giant mushrooms, while some was thinner with no stem at all. Where it had been thrown up high on the sand where the water could no longer reach it, it had dried and it crackled underfoot. The deer sniffed it and it smelt like the wind.

He nibbled at it and it tasted bitter but not altogether unpleasant. Rannoch knew immediately that there was something strong and wholesome in it that he sensed came from the water. But while the stag was standing there he suddenly heard a strange barking sound. He realized that the noise was coming towards him across the waves. It came from a large rock, lapped by the surf. The rock was covered with long grey stones and, as the deer looked on, one of these stones began to move forward and fell into the sea. It popped up again and Rannoch realized that the stone had eyes and whiskers. Rannoch stepped into the surf as the water foamed around his hoofs.

‘Are you a seal?’ he called above the wind.

The seal’s head disappeared under the water again before re-emerging closer by. Rannoch nodded politely to it but the seal said nothing. At first Rannoch thought that it must be frightened of him.

But this was not true, for Rannoch was looking at Rurl. Rurl lived in the sea and had seen and heard of far stranger things than a deer who could talk to him. He had heard the mighty blue whales singing to one another from halfway across the world and knew of the giant turtles that bury their eggs in the sand by moonlight. He had heard stories of the narwhals jousting in the wastes of the arctic, watched by men in their great carved trees until they stood amazed and thought that unicorns had abandoned the earth and gone to live in the water. He knew of the sea cows that moan as they rock their children in their arms and the plankton that blooms like a million forests in the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. He himself had talked to the lobster and the dolphin, for the things of the sea have always understood one another’s song, carried in the waves and the wind and the currents that ride the world.

He knew about the land too, because he was partly of the land and had travelled far up the estuaries and chatted to the salmon returning to spawn and die in the rivers that bore them. They had told him about the valleys, the forests and the mountains, and about the creatures of the land too; the wolf, the bear and even the red deer. They had also told him something about man, with his bright hooks and his great nets that meant death to their kind.

But at this frightened talk of man Rurl had smiled a little inwardly, for he knew more of man than the salmon. He had seen him build his villages on the edge of the sea and cross the waves to settle on the islands that specked his home.

Rurl was an unusually inquisitive seal and he had circled the shores of Scotia from the mull of Arran to the Isle of May. He had basked in the sunlight on the Summer Isle and wrestled the storms around Cape Wrath. He had tasted the waters of the northern sea and lain in the sands off Burghhead Bay. Coming round Rattray Head he had seen one of their crafts dashed into splinters on the rocks and had listened to the men wail in terror as they went to their cold graves. In Lunan Bay he had seen men set out with their nets and had stolen fish from them, while on Bass Rock he had eaten his fill as boys came down to the sands to pluck mussels from the shore in their wicker baskets.

Rurl knew a little too about the crofters’ cold lives on the Islands of Lewis and Uist to the west, of their fires and their songs. Of the great carved trees that swept up the mighty Forth in the east to feed the settlements of Edwinburgh, and of the beacon lights that burned on the hills above Inverness. He also knew of the men from the north who came in their long crafts to Shetland, Orkney and the Western Isles. Sometimes they came to load and unload but at other times, when they came the sea would turn red with blood and men would die in the sand.

The seal knew now that more and more of them were journeying out of the cold lands and that something new was happening around the islets and coves where he slept on the slippery rocks or basked in the chill waters. But of this he cared little, for to him all men were the same. They were like whelks or molluscs that would cling to any rock they could find until the storms of life came once more to wash them away.

From the beach Rannoch called to the seal again but still he did not answer. Rurl was indeed a wise creature, but by nature he was also rather disdainful and he only spoke when he felt like it. Rannoch snorted and lowered his head to pick up some of the seaweed in his mouth. He gripped a long strand and shook it. The seal suddenly ducked under the water and shot towards the beach, flapped out of the surf, barking and snorting, and lumbered up the sand, waving his flippers awkwardly. It was such a peculiar sight that Rannoch dropped the seaweed and almost laughed.

‘What are you looking at?’ said Rurl haughtily. He knew just how foolish he looked on land.

‘Nothing,’ said Rannoch, trying to hide his amusement.

‘I’ve come to get some of the grass that grows in the sea. It’s for Keela, the otter. His mate is sick and I promised—’

‘The otter?’ snorted the seal. ‘What do you want to have to do with him? They’re all silly creatures. Anyway, that won’t do any good,’ he added, looking scornfully at the seaweed on the ground. ‘If she eats that it will only make her worse.’

‘Oh,’ said Rannoch.

‘You want the other kind,’ continued the seal, pointing his nose to the dry seaweed that Rannoch had tasted before.

‘Over there.’

‘Thank you. Thank you very much,’ said Rannoch. The seal snorted again and shrugged.

‘That’s all right,’ he answered. ‘If you’ll go out of your way to help a sick otter, I suppose it’s the least I can do.’

‘To tell you the truth,’ said Rannoch nervously, ‘that’s not the only reason I’m here.’

The seal eyed him suspiciously.

‘You see, I need your help,’ said Rannoch quietly.

‘My help?’

‘Your advice. I was told that seals. . . well. . . that they know everything about everything.’

The seal looked rather pleased.

‘And there are things I need to know,’ said Rannoch.

‘About what?’

‘About this mark on my forehead.’

Rannoch stepped forward and dipped his head towards the seal.

‘Very pretty,’ said Rurl a little coldly, when he had finished examining the fawn mark.

‘No, you don’t understand,’ said Rannoch suddenly, feeling embarrassed. ‘There’s a prophecy.’

Rurl looked up at Rannoch. Any animal that has had a whale somersaulting over its head and lashing the sea to steam is very difficult to surprise and the seal wasn’t in the least bit thrown. But he loved to collect stories and the truth was he had seen so much of the world that he was often bored and a little lonely.

‘I think you’d better tell me everything,’ said the seal quietly.

So Rannoch began. He told Rurl all about the home herd and fleeing Sgorr and the Draila, at which Rurl nodded, for he too had heard of Sgorr. He told him of how they crossed the bridge and lost Bhreac and how they met the strange deer in the park and came at last to the loch and settled under Tharn’s protection. He told of the chase and the snarling dogs too. But it was only when Rannoch got to the part about the boy that Rurl opened his eyes in sheer amazement.

‘So you’ve spent time with man?’ he said quietly.

‘Yes.’ Rannoch nodded.

‘Very strange, very strange indeed. Were you frightened of him?’

‘Yes and no,’ answered Rannoch. ‘There were times when. . . when I felt a strange power there, a kind of. . .’ Rannoch paused. ‘Well, a kind of violence. But at other times, with the human fawn at least, I felt I almost understood him. Not his words, but what he was thinking.’

The seal was quiet for a moment and he looked very serious.

‘So I want to know if there’s any truth in the Prophecy,’ said Rannoch, ‘and if it’s better for my friends if I never return to them at all. Can you help me?’

‘I don’t know,’ answered the seal, shaking his head gravely. ‘You say you’re no changeling?’

‘No. But the other things. The feeling and the dreams and. . . well, none of the others can understand Lera.’

Rannoch was surprised at himself. This was the first time he had ever tried to convince anyone that there was something special about him. At this Rurl looked hard at Rannoch. He coughed and then slapped one of his flippers on the sand.

‘Ah now,’ he said, ‘I was coming to that. Now that does make you sort of different, but it doesn’t prove the Prophecy.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, how do you think I find out about the world? I’ve had conversations with dolphins that would make your fur stand on end. I’ve talked to penguins and kittiwakes. I’ve chatted to sharks – from the rocks, of course – and I’ve even had a long talk with an albatross, though I wouldn’t recommend it – they’ve really got very little to say for themselves.’

‘But I never learnt it,’ said Rannoch.

‘You don’t need to learn it; all Lera could do it if they wanted to. Or rather if they’d only stop thinking of themselves and being afraid all the time. Listen for a change.’

The seal’s tone had grown rather serious.

‘There was a time, in the old days, when all the animals conversed as a matter of course. But they lost the knack. Don’t ask me why. Most of the sea creatures can still do it but that’s the trouble with the land, I suppose. It cuts you off. Splits you up, if you know what I mean.’

Rannoch looked rather relieved.

‘But why couldn’t I understand the boy?’ he asked.

‘Ah. No animal can talk to man and no animal should,’ Rurl muttered.

‘But man is an animal too, isn’t he?’ The seal paused. He looked at a loss.

‘I suppose so,’ he said at last, ‘though even my knowledge of the world grows dark when it comes to man.’

Rannoch was disappointed.

‘Oh, I know certain things about man,’ said the seal. ‘I know that man is always fighting and killing. I know too that death is coming to the Great Land because of him.’

‘Death,’ whispered Rannoch.

‘The men from the north are at work again. They are coming across the water in their carved trees. Their king has even been in the west and one day when they come both man and Lera will bleed, for man is the bringer of violence.’ As Rannoch listened he thought of the boy again and how sometimes his eyes had seemed so kindly.

‘But look,’ said the seal suddenly, ‘I’m quite famished with all this talk. I’ll fish for a while and then I’ll dive for sea grass. It’s getting dark, but at least there’ll be a moon tonight. Then we can talk again.’