by Spoor, Garry
“It’s nothing to do with domination.” Morgan countered. “It’s control through influence, a blending of the minds.”
Kaza landed on Kile’s shoulder.
-He means you must dominate the rabbit’s will. Control, command and dominate.-
“That's horrible.” She replied as she looked at the rabbit still huddling in the cage.
-Free?-
It whispered to her and she could feel the cool winds of the meadow, the warmth of the sunshine and the smell of the clove surrounding that one word.
“We have to let him go, he doesn’t want to be here.” She said as she reached for the cage.
“Nobody wants to be here, but it’s only a simple test.” Morgan assured her. “After the test I promise I will release him where I caught him.”
“You promise?” She asked as she looked at the small white rabbit still curled up under the large piece of parchment.
-Command, control, dominate.-
Kaza repeated.
“Just this one test.” She told Morgan and then turned to the rabbit “Nobody’s going to hurt you little one. We’re just going to do a simple test and then you can go free.”
-Free?-
“Yes, you can go free after the test… okay?”
-Free.-
She wasn’t sure if the rabbit understood her, some of the wildest animals that Morgan had brought in for her to communicate with often didn’t. Only those that were around humans, whether by choice or by accident, were the ones she could truly communicate with.
“You shouldn’t converse too much with it Kile.” Morgan said as he directed her away from the cage. “I don’t want it to get too attached. This experiment must be controlled. I have to know if you can influence it by your edge and not you kindest towards it.”
She didn’t like the way Morgan kept referring to the rabbit as an “it”, it was a he and a young he at that, although she couldn’t get his name. The mystic had often regarded the animals they used for the experiments as objects and not living, breathing creatures. She would have thought that Morgan would have understood by now, but he appeared to be more driven by the results than the actual tests.
“What do I have to do?” She asked reluctantly.
“Well, it’s quite simple actually. You have to concentrate on the subject until your mind is locked with theirs and then command it to do something.”
It seemed simple enough, she thought.
-It’s the domination of the will.-
Kaza added.
“It’s only a test.” She told the crow, but she was trying more to convince herself. The whole idea just didn’t sit right with her. The sooner she started the test, the sooner it would be over for both of them.
She turned to look at the cage and tried to focus on the small white rabbit, but she was quickly overcome with fear and confusion.
“I can’t do this.” She said as she broke off the initial connection.
-Good for you.-
Kaza crowed from her shoulder.
Morgan didn’t have to understand what Kaza said to know that the crow was against the test from the start. He just gave the bird a dirty look before turning his attention to Kile.
“It's a simple test to see the limits of your edge.” He told her. “You may be protesting for no reason, you may not even be able to do it in the first place, but we shall never know if we do not try.”
As much as she hated to admit it, Morgan had a point. Without knowing the full extent of her edge, how could she use it effectively, and he might be right, she might not even be able to dominate the will of an animal, of course she really didn’t believe that either.
She pushed the thoughts out of her head and fell into her edge like Daniel had showed her. She wasn’t sure if it was the same for her as it was for him but it did help clear her mind and focus. She reached out to the rabbit again, and again she felt his fear, but this time she pushed passed it until she was in the recesses of his mind. From here she could see many things, although seeing wasn’t exactly the right word, feeling was closer to the mark. She could feel his life, his home, his family. She could feel the ground beneath his feet, smell the spring air, and taste the clover. She could hear the wind blowing through the grass. Every sensation she experienced was a memory, a memory that they both shared. It was deeper than the connection she had made with Vesper, so deep that she was finding it hard to tell her life from that of the rabbits.
It was the rabbit that shot Master West in the ass with a crossbow as she was running through the field in search of clover. It was the rabbit that took the entry examination when she was snuggled up with her brothers and sisters in a dark, warm hole. It was the rabbit that broke the feed grain lever in the old barn while she was running from a fox that had gotten too close. It was the rabbit that was told he was useless by her father; she was lying in the sun beside her mate. As much as she loved the idea of escaping her life, she also felt that this was not the way to do it, this was wrong.
“That’s it Kile, you have control, now command the rabbit.” She heard Morgan whisper in all four of her ears.
She could feel black tendrils, like sticky molasses reaching out between her and the rabbit.
“What do I command him to do?” She struggled to ask.
There was a momentary pause before Morgan answered.
“I don’t know, I didn’t think that far ahead, I wasn’t even sure you could do it. Why don’t you try something unusual… make it dance.”
Dance she thought, that would be unusual since she didn’t even know how to dance, but she sent the command and the black tendrils got thicker and the rabbit slowly got up on his hind legs and began to dance, and it made her sick. She tried to break the connection, but the more she did, the more the rabbit danced as it moved quickly around the cage on his hind legs until he and the cage came crashing to the ground. His quick and unnatural movements had rocked the cage off the edge of the table and now it lay broken upon the floor. The rabbit, seizing its opportunity, made his escape and probably could have if it wasn’t for the thick black strings of molasses that connected him to Kile.
It shot out from under the wreckage of the cage but couldn’t gain traction on the smooth floor of the tower. It slid from side to side taking out a candle stand, knocking over a few boxes of curiosities and scattering a stack of papers under one of the smaller tables. It wanted to get away, she wanted to get away.
She could hear Morgan cursing as he chased the rabbit, but even with no traction it was still faster than the old mystic.
“Kile you must control it.” Morgan told her.
It was difficult to actually focus on the rabbit now as his thoughts were stronger and the one thing on his mind was freedom, but when she finally did break down the outer defenses of the rabbit’s will, it felt worse than before. It was the same feeling she had when she connected with the cat that night she rescued Vesper. It was a sickening feeling and the thick sticky strings of molasses twisted around both of them this time. She could feel it attaching her mind to that of the rabbit’s as it tried to escape the tower.
“You must command it, you must control it”
You must dominate it. The words were unspoken, but they were there. They echoed in each black strand that joined them, command, control, dominate, and behind it all, way down in the darkness, she could hear laughter.
This wasn’t right she kept telling herself, this wasn’t how it was suppose to work.
“You must exert your will, you must learn control.” She heard Morgan yelling behind her, and the rabbit kept pulling at the strands and between them they kept getting more and more tangled until she wasn’t sure where she ended and the rabbit began.
“Kile stop, Kile what’s wrong?”
Now Morgan’s voice was frantic, more scared, and the tendrils kept getting more and more tangled, and the distant laughter got closer as it grew louder and louder until she realized she was the one that was laughing, she couldn’t bare it any longe
r.
“STOP!”
And it did, Morgan stopped, the stands of molasses stopped, the laughter stopped, and worse of all the rabbit stopped.
Her head was pounding as she fell to her knees. She watched as the mystic approached the rabbit that now lay motionless on the floor. He bent down and scooped it up in his hands, its head lolled to one side and Kile knew without even looking at it, that he was dead.
“Pity.” Was all Morgan said as he set the body of the rabbit on the table, but he still didn’t understand, he couldn’t understand. She had talked to it, she had heard it, she had felt it, and she had killed it and all the while, she laughed about it.
She slowly got to her feet and it felt as if her stomach had dropped, she wasn’t sure if her legs would even hold her as she moved to the table and placed her hand upon the rabbit’s side. There was no motion, no feeling, and no warmth. She ran her hand down the softness of its fur willing it to wake, praying that it would, but knowing that it was beyond anything she could do. Tears gently rolled down her cheek.
“I suppose next time we should pick something a little bit more… durable.” Morgan said as he jotted down a few more notes in that elusive book. She turned to look at him, and at that moment she hated him, but not as much as she hated herself.
“No.” She whispered and gently wrapped the rabbit in an old cloth that was lying by the table.
“No? Come now it was just a failed experiment, we learn from our mistakes…”
“No, I won’t do that again, never again.”
“You’re being unreasonable. It was just a rabbit…”
“I SAID NO.” She shouted as she turned on him, the old mystic must have seen something in her eyes, something in her face as he stumbled backward, bracing himself against the table. She held the rabbit to her chest and ran out of the tower.
“Kile wait.” She heard Morgan call, but she wasn’t going to listen to him again.
She wasn’t sure where she was going, where she was taking the rabbit, or even what she was going to do when she got there, all she knew was that she had to run because that was what he wanted to do, the only thing he wanted to do was to run.
She had to escape, not from Morgan, but from herself. She had to escape from the darkness and from that laughter she had heard from that darkness. She stopped when she reached the far north wall of the compound and there was no place else to run. There, under the shade of a young oak tree she fell to her knees and wept as she held the rabbit close to her chest. She had spoken to it, and the rabbit had spoken back. It was scared and she told him it would be alright, and now he was gone and it was her fault.
She laid the body gently upon the grass, in the clover. She didn’t have anything to dig with, only her hands. It seemed fitting she thought as she clawed at the hard dirt with her fingers, she was becoming an animal she might as well act like one.
Several minutes had passed before she heard the soft rustle of feathers. She didn’t look up as Kaza landed on a low branch above her. If Kaza had found her, Morgan wouldn’t be far behind she thought as she continued to dig.
-Kile… are you all right Kile?-
“I killed him Kaza.” She told the crow. “I told him everything would be okay, and then I killed him.”
-You didn’t mean to Kile, you know that, it was an accident.-
“Does it really make that much of a difference? I can’t tell him that, not anymore.” She said calmly, surprisingly more calm than she actually felt.
Kaza landed on the ground beside her and began to scratch at the dirt. He wasn’t making much headway but the sentiment was there and she was grateful for it.
“Kile.” Morgan called as he finally found her. He was out of shape and out of breath and as he stood behind her.
“Kile I’m sorry… I didn’t think.”
“I’m not doing that again, never.”
“No, I would never make you.” Morgan replied, she didn’t hear any real sentiment in his voice, but it could be because he wasn’t used to showing any. He set Vesper on the ground beside her. The yarrow said nothing, he never had to. She knew what he was thinking. She had scared him as much as she had scared herself, but he would always be there for her. He got between her hands and helped her dig.
Morgan got down on the ground beside her as well, and with his old hands, ones that had never seen hard labor, began to claw at the dirt. He could have used his arts, he could have opened up the entire hillside with a simple word but instead he knelt beside her and dug with his bare hands, and for that she wanted to thank him, but she could stop crying.
Kile slipped silently from her window sill onto the grass and looked out into the darkness of the compound. She stayed close to the walls so as not to alert the guards at the gate, not that they were very aware of what was happening inside the compound, their attention was focused outside the walls of the academy. She wasn’t exactly sure what the policy was for being outside the dorms after lights out. It might even be allowed and she was going through all this skullduggery for nothing.
When she was out of sight of the guards on the wall she was able to walk more freely as she crossed the List. On most nights she would just wander aimlessly about the dark moving from one location to another on little more than a whim, but tonight she had a destination. The thought of the little white rabbit haunted her through supper and she needed to see the small grave one more time. She realized that to anybody else, anybody normal that is, her reaction to the situation would appear to be over the top. She knew Morgan didn’t really understand, although he did aide her in digging the grave. He did it more because he felt bad for her, not for the rabbit. To him, as well as anyone else, it was just a rabbit. Rabbits die, they die every day. They get eaten, poisoned, run over by runaway carriages, the life of a rabbit it fraught with danger. People have seen dead rabbits lying in the road, or hanging in the butchers shop, and although they might think, oh what a shame and feel sorry for it, it lasts only until they turned the corner and can no longer see it. What if it had been a man lying in the road or hanging in the butchers shop, okay, that is a little gruesome, but that vision would stick with that person long after they turned the corner. Is it because they feel on the same lever as that man, they could have known him, they could have talked to him, they could have liked him or disliked him whereas the rabbit was just another dumb animal, and yet she spoke with the rabbit. She may not have carried on a conversation with it, but she knew him. She had seen where he lived, where he ate, who the members of his den were, she had gotten to know the rabbit, and in the brief time they shared, she liked him, and then she killed him. It was like meeting someone in the street for the first time, striking up a conversation with them and learning about all their likes and their dislikes, where they lived, what they did, talking about their family, and when the conversation ended, beat them over the head with a large club. Oh it was just an accident.
She must have been distracted because she almost stumbled over Gorum who was sitting in her path.
-Fine thief you would make.-
The low guttural voice echoed in her head.
“Sorry Gorum.” She told the dog. “I guess I was preoccupied.”
-I’ll say.-
Hunar added as she came up behind her.
-Been following. Never noticed.-
-You seemed troubled.-
Gorum said as he started to walk alongside her, Hunar followed, keeping her distance. She was not as sociable as Gorum or it could have been some kind of pack thing, Kile never really understood the social structures of a dog’s life.
“I killed a rabbit today.” She told Gorum.
-Way to go, how did it taste?-
Hunar asked from behind.
“I didn’t eat it.” She replied. “I buried it.”
-For later?-
Hunar asked.
-For Respect.-
Gorum answered for her, but was it the right answer. Did she do it for respect or to ease her own guilt?
Hunar mumbled to herself.
-Why does it trouble you so?-
Gorum asked.
“It shouldn’t have happened, I couldn’t control myself.”
-Did you do it because you wanted to?-
“No, of course not.”
-Because you had to?-
-Yeah right, like the rabbit tried to attack her, dangerous creatures those things.-
Hunar laughed and Gorum turned suddenly and gave her a loud bark. It didn’t carry words, but Kile could hear the meaning. Mind your place. Hunar backed down.
-If it wasn’t because you wanted to, and it wasn’t because you had to, then why did you kill it?-
“We were doing an experiment, and I told it to stop, and… it did.”
-It wasn’t your intention to kill it.-
“But that’s not the point; it was because of me that he died.”
-Did you know what you were doing would have killed it?-
“No, I didn’t think it would.” She replied, although she wasn’t entirely sure. She had a bad feeling about the entire experiment but she went along with it anyway. She could have stopped it before it started, but truth be told, she wanted to know as much about the Maligar as Morgan did.
-Then that is just the end of it.-
Kile stopped and shook her head. She would have thought Gorum would have understood.
“His death was pointless, it made no sense.”
-Sense has very little to do with death.-
Gorum replied as he turned around and sat in front of her.
-You place a lot of importance on yourself pup. You feel that you can manipulate life and death, but you have no control over the cycle. The cycle is life and death and life again, just like the seasons. Winter gives way to spring, without winter we can not have spring, without death we cannot have life. The cycle of the rabbit ended, whether it was sooner than nature had intended, you do not know that. Nature may have marked the cycle of that creature to end when it did, whether you had a hand in it or not. Now his body will return to the ground, and the cycle will continue, with his death, there will be life and he will live on in that new life.-