Fire in the Sky (5 page)

Kallik and Lusa buried their noses
in Toklo’s freezing wet fur. Long shadows like flat spiky trees stretched over the ice and the blue-gray mounds of snow around them. Darkness was falling, Ujurak was still gone, and Toklo had been lying unconscious since he’d been shoved out of the water by Ujurak’s gigantic white flippers.

Kallik rubbed Toklo’s back and sides with her paws, trying to warm him up. Snow was melting into her belly fur and she could feel the bone-chilling cold of the ice shelf underneath the snow creeping up through her paws. On the other side of Toklo, Lusa was shivering; Kallik could feel the tremors through Toklo’s fur.

“What did Ujurak turn into?” Lusa whispered to Kallik over Toklo’s back. “I’ve never seen a fish that big before.”

“That was a kind of whale,” Kallik said, remembering the belugas she had played with a long time ago, back when she first left the ice to search for her brother. “I met some while I was traveling by myself. They were friendlier than I thought
they would be. I guess they don’t eat bears.” She looked at the dark hole in the ice where Ujurak had disappeared. He’d been gone for a terribly long time. “Why hasn’t he come back yet?”

“I don’t know.” Lusa licked Toklo’s ear. “I hope he comes back soon. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now.”

Kallik lifted her head and looked up at the deep purple-blue sky, where a few small stars were already twinkling. Even though she was worried about Ujurak, she felt comforted by the sight of the ice spirits watching over them. “We’ll wait for him,” she said. “He’s always come back before.”

“Unless he was in trouble,” Lusa reminded her. “What if he’s hurt? How long should we wait?”

Toklo made a guttural sound deep in his throat and Kallik jumped, startled. Lusa snuggled in as close to him as she could. “Toklo?” she whispered in his ear. “Are you all right?”

Toklo let out a harsh cough that racked his whole body. Over and over he rasped, spitting up saltwater and a strand of damp green weed. Finally he stopped and turned his head toward Lusa. In a low growl, he muttered, “I’m fine.”

A rush of relief washed over Kallik. She should never have quarreled with Toklo like that, taunting him into trying to prove that he could hunt here on his own. That wasn’t taking care of him; that was putting him in greater danger than starvation or the cold.

“I just lost my footing,” Toklo went on gruffly. “Stupid ice. This is no place for brown bears.” He gave her a fierce look. “Or black bears, for that matter.”

“There are dangerous parts of the ice,” Kallik agreed. “You
have to learn to watch for them.” She wanted to go on and scold him for not listening to her, for rushing ahead without waiting for her to tell him which way was safe, but she held her tongue, unwilling to start that fight again.

“I guess so,” Toklo muttered. “Maybe there’s some stuff I still have to learn.”

Kallik figured that was as close to an apology as she’d ever get. She ducked her head, acknowledging it.

“I thought you were gone forever,” Lusa whimpered, nudging her nose under his chin. “When you vanished under the ice I didn’t know how we’d ever find you or get you back, but then Ujurak changed into something—Kallik called it a whale, but it looked like a really,
really
big fish—and he pushed you out and then all we saw was this huge white tail flipping up and then he swam back down and he still hasn’t come back, but oh, I’m so glad you’re all right!”

Toklo squinted at the crack in the ice, then pushed himself a little farther away from it, as if it might stretch of its own accord and suck him back in.

“Don’t worry, Ujurak will come back,” Kallik reassured them.

“He’d better!” Toklo snapped. “He made us come on this squirrel-brained mission into the world’s most horrible place—if he leaves us here without a word, I swear I will eat him when I find him, no matter how big a fish he is!”

Kallik swallowed her anger at his description of her home. She could hear the worry in his voice, and she knew he was as anxious about Ujurak as she was.

“What do we do if he doesn’t come back?” Lusa asked in a small voice. “I mean—we have no idea where to go without him, or how to save the wild.”

They were all silent for a moment.

“We’d have to go back to the land,” Toklo said at last. “You and me, I mean, Lusa. It wouldn’t make sense for us to stay out here without Ujurak.”

Lusa gave Kallik a nervous look. “I know you can take care of us, Kallik, but…I think Toklo might be right.”

Kallik scraped her front paw across the snow. “Right. I know. There’s no quest without Ujurak.” She leaned over and nuzzled Lusa’s tufty ear. “But I would miss you.”

“I’d miss you, too,” Lusa agreed. “You’d probably be better off without us, though.”

I’d certainly be less worried,
Kallik thought. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Ujurak will be back. I’m sure of it. And in the meantime, he said I’m supposed to lead us out here. So I think we should do what we did last night—find somewhere to sleep where we’ll be safe and warm.”

“What if Ujurak comes back looking for us?” Toklo asked, glancing at the open water with a shudder.

“There’s enough snow over there for me to make a cave,” Kallik said, pointing with her nose. “It’s close enough that we’ll see him. Come on, we’ll feel better when we’re warm.”

Toklo pushed himself to his paws and winced. He picked up each of his front paws and licked them gingerly. Kallik noticed cuts on his pads, and she remembered the blood on the ice where Toklo had tried to pound his way through to
reach the seals. She hoped that it wouldn’t attract unwanted attention from full-grown white bears—they’d be able to smell his blood from skylengths away.

“Will you be able to walk?” Lusa asked.

“Of course I will!” Toklo said irritably. “I can’t even feel my paws, let alone these tiny little scratches.” He hunched his shoulders as Kallik took the lead.

After a moment, she heard him mutter to Lusa, “I will catch a seal next time, you know. I almost had it.”

“I don’t care
who
catches a seal,” Lusa replied in a low voice, “as long as
someone
does…and
soon
!”

Guilt flooded through Kallik again. What kind of white bear couldn’t even catch a seal? Maybe she couldn’t take care of her friends after all. At the same time, she felt a flash of irritation with both Toklo and Lusa. They just needed to give her a chance! She’d followed them trustingly enough on land, even when Toklo failed to catch the prey he went after. He wasn’t exactly perfect, either!

She tried to remember how she’d felt among the trees and the grasslands at first—hot, dirty, out of place, and uncomfortable. That must be how they were feeling now. She knew Lusa must miss trees, which made Kallik feel trapped and weighted to the ground. She felt freer here, where she could run in any direction with nothing to block her way…but Lusa and Toklo must feel as exposed as a snail on a rock, with nowhere to escape to. It was no wonder they felt so confused and lost.

As she dug into the snow with her paws, Kallik glanced at
the endless horizon and felt comfort in how much wide space there was. The moon was rising, glittering off the ice. They bounced the silvery glow between them, from the sky to the frozen ocean and back again. Moonlight shimmered on the hillocks of snow around them and sparkled on the broken ice where Ujurak had disappeared. Toklo and Lusa had had their time of feeling at home while they’d traveled on land. It was Kallik’s turn now.

She stepped back from the cave she’d dug, feeling satisfied. At least that was one thing she could do right. Toklo scrambled inside with a grunt that she decided to accept as a thank-you.

“Go on in and rest,” Kallik said, nudging Lusa’s side. “You look worn out.”

“I feel worn out,” Lusa mumbled. Kallik peered at her. Lusa really looked more tired than Kallik had ever seen her, but they hadn’t even traveled very far that day. Was she all right? Was she getting sick?

Lusa saw the look on Kallik’s face and poked her with her nose. “Don’t worry, Kallik, we’ll be all right. We’re just getting used to the ice, that’s all.”

“Sure,” Kallik said, ducking her head.

“And look!” Lusa barked, spotting the colorful lights in the sky over Kallik’s shoulder. “The bear spirits! See, Kallik? They’re watching us—they want us to be here.”

The two bears leaned against each other for a moment, watching the green and gold lights dance around one another, flaring brilliantly across the darkness. But Kallik’s fur prickled. The lights were paler tonight, the colors more dim. Did
that mean they were farther away? Were the spirits leaving them?

Maybe they’re just sleeping
, she told herself, and yawned hugely. Maybe once she’d slept for a while, too, then everything would seem better.

“Pukak!” a bubbling voice called. “Pukak!
Is that you?”

Ujurak twisted around in the water. His head still throbbed from his encounter with the firebeast, so it took him a moment to focus on the female beluga whale who was swimming up to him. She didn’t look familiar, but her eyes shone with hope. She nudged him away from the churned-up path of the firebeast, into calmer waters. The sound of its thrumming was fading away, but the ocean still stank of oil and prickled with heat that didn’t belong there.

“Pukak?” the whale asked again, swimming around him.

“No, I’m sorry,” Ujurak said, realizing that she was saying a name. “I am called Ujurak.”

“Oh,” she said, drifting a short distance away from him. “Well. Don’t you know you shouldn’t be here? This is where they always come.”

“Who?”

“Who?” she snorted. “The poisonbeasts! This is their territory. Everybody knows that.”

Ujurak blinked, puzzled. “You mean—” He tried to say “firebeast,” and then realized there was no word for “fire” in his language. He could sense the word in his head, but he couldn’t say it out loud.
So how do I know it at all?
He was a whale, wasn’t he? “Poisonbeast,” he said instead. “That giant thing that just went by?”

The beluga stared at him. “You really don’t know about them? You must come from very far away.” She blew out a stream of bubbles. “I wouldn’t mind living where there aren’t any poisonbeasts. Anyway, just be more careful from now on.” She turned and started to swim away.

“Wait!” Ujurak called. “I want to know more about them!” He hurried after her, flicking his long tail. “Are there lots of poisonbeasts down here?” he puffed as he caught up to her.

“Too many,” she said bitterly.

Ujurak’s squeaks bounced off something large to their left. He turned his head, trying to figure out what it was. It wasn’t moving, so it couldn’t be a poisonbeast, but it was just as large—perhaps even larger.

“What is that?” he asked the female whale. He didn’t want to swim any closer to it; he’d learned his lesson with the poisonbeast, but he could sense it looming in the distance. Something vast and ominous, humming with the same terrible vibrations as the poisonbeast.

The whale shuddered. “We don’t know what to call it. It’s a giant, rock-eating beast that burrows into the ocean floor and makes all the water around it sick. It stands on four giant legs and we stay as far away from it as we can.”

A small school of fish swam slowly past, their silver scales dull in the smoky water. The female whale waved them away from Ujurak with her tail. “Don’t eat those,” she warned, although he hadn’t been planning to. “All the fish around here will make you sick if you eat them.”

“I feel dizzy,” Ujurak wheezed. “The poison—”

She peered at him closely. “You probably just need air. How long has it been since you breathed?”

He realized she was right and felt foolish. The poisonbeast had frightened him so much, he’d forgotten about needing to surface to breathe.

“Come on,” she said, swimming up toward the light that shone dimly far over their heads. Ujurak followed her, happy to leave the poisoned water and distant thrumming.

“Uglu! Uglu!” Ujurak heard clicking and squeaking up ahead. It sounded like a crowd of beluga whales, all of them calling the same name. “Uglu!”

The female put on a burst of speed and led him up through the water, breaking the surface at a breathing hole in the ice. This one was much larger than the holes the seals used, and there was a whole pod of whales resting in it. Endless stretches of ice glittered around the hole, curving into tall frozen shapes and covered in a light dusting of snow. The sparkly, hard-edged, nearly blue whiteness was striking against the soft, squeaky, gray whiteness of the whales.

Ujurak blew out a spout of water and took a breath of cold air. He saw an old, painfully thin whale flopped halfway onto a floating chunk of ice, basking in the last rays of the
sunset, and he realized that it was nearly nightfall. The silvery moon was already sneaking over the edge of the sky. He had a strange feeling he was supposed to be somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where.

“He was all alone!” his new friend was telling the other whales in squeaks and whistles. “The poisonbeast was about to attack him! But I saved him. He didn’t even know about them.”

“Wow,” said one of the younger whales. “You’re a hero, Uglu!”

Uglu flicked her tail. “I’d better get back down there. Pukak might need my help, too.” She took a deep breath, nodded good-bye to Ujurak, and dove back into the ocean.

Ujurak saw a pair of older whales exchange mournful glances. Several whales crowded around him, clicking and whistling curiously. Three young whales that had been spitting water at one another stopped playing and hurried over to prod and peer at him. He was surprised to find he liked their playful poking; it felt friendly and comforting instead of intrusive.

“Were you really that close to a poisonbeast?” one of them asked. “Wasn’t it so scary?”

“Oh, yes,” Ujurak replied. “They’re horrible.”

“Where are you from?” a male beluga squeaked nosily. “What’s the hunting like where you’ve been swimming?”

“Where’s the rest of your pod?” a young female chimed in.

“I…I’m not sure,” Ujurak stammered, trying to think. He couldn’t remember anything before the poisonbeast. Would
the whales believe him if he told them that?

“I’ve come a long way,” he said finally. “I let a current bring me here, because the hunting was not so great where I was…uh, before.”

“Well, it’s not much better here!” said the same male. “You’d probably be better off going back there!”

“Oh, don’t be rude,” said one of the older whales, nudging the young male aside. “Let the poor thing rest. You can pester him with your questions later, if he’ll let you.”

“Whatever,” said the young beluga, splashing Ujurak with his tail as he swam away. The others drifted away as well, whispering to one another and peeking at him curiously over their tails.

“Don’t mind the young ’uns,” said the old whale. “Their world is different from the one I grew up in. I’m Kassuk, by the way.”

“I’m Ujurak,” answered Ujurak, grateful to be spared any more awkward questions. “Why did Uglu leave so quickly?”

Kassuk sighed. “Poor Uglu. She lost her calf, Pukak, not very long ago. He went out hunting and never came back, and now she goes out every day searching for him.” The old whale stirred the water with one of his flippers, looking sad. “We all know he must be dead by now. A young whale like him would never have survived on his own. He probably strayed too far into poisonbeast territory and one of them killed him. But Uglu won’t accept it. She doesn’t even hear us when we try to talk to her about it. She just keeps searching.”

“Pukak,” Ujurak echoed. “That’s what she called me when
she first saw me.” He was hit by a wave of grief for the mother endlessly searching for her lost calf.

“She’ll be back soon to sleep,” Kassuk assured him. “You can stay with us for the night if you want, and search for your own pod in the morning. Or if you need to, you can stay with us. You don’t look like you’d cause much trouble.” He flicked a small spray of water at Ujurak in a friendly way.

“Thank you,” Ujurak said. “I’d appreciate that.” He didn’t know where else he could go to sleep, and he felt safe here, surrounded by so many other whales.

In the glow of the moonlight, Ujurak saw Uglu come swimming up from the depths to join them. Her small round eyes were unreadable in the silvery light; she didn’t look as if she’d found anything to give her hope, but she didn’t look grief-stricken, either. Did she really believe her calf was still alive, somewhere in the distant black water?

The pod gathered into a close knot, huddled together on the surface of the water. Soon most of the whales were asleep. Ujurak stayed awake for a while longer, trying to pull something from his memory. The poisonbeast and the rock-eating creature had frightened him, but he felt as if there was something more he knew about them, if he could only dig it out of his mind.

Before he could, however, he felt his thoughts drift into calmness with the lapping waves, and soon he was asleep, too.

The next morning, Kassuk and a few of the young whales took Ujurak hunting with them. He felt bubbles of joy rising in his
chest as he helped them herd schools of silvery fish together. When there were so many fish trapped in one place by the other whales, it was easy to swoop in and catch at least a few of them in his mouth. Still, he could see why the pod was worried. It was difficult to find a school with enough fish for all of them, and several had that dull, sickly sheen he’d noticed in the ones near the rock-eating beast.

He asked Kassuk about it once they were back at the breathing hole, letting the early slanting sun soak into their pale skin. “Is it this hard to hunt everywhere?”

Kassuk sighed. “It is now. It wasn’t like this when I was a calf. You couldn’t move for fish then. Some of the whales think we will run out of food altogether soon. There’s a sickness in the water, thanks to the landwalkers.”

“No!” Ujurak cried, starting to panic. He twisted his body, sending a wave of water cascading onto the ice beside them. “There must be something we can do!”
He
had to stop these landwalkers, whatever they were; they had put his friends, his pod, his whole kind in danger! He had to save the water and the whales and everything that lived out here.

But how? There must be a way; he had known about it ever since he first dove into this water—whenever that was. How many seasons had he been here? He shook his head, trying to remember. There was someone to help him…wasn’t there? He had a feeling that he wasn’t alone, but that didn’t make sense. There weren’t any other belugas with him when the female found him. And even if he did have friends somewhere, what could they do against all the flat-faces and firebeasts and poisonbeasts and oil-sucking things in the world?

Kassuk gave him a confused look. “What do you mean, ‘do’?”

“We can’t change the tides,” put in another whale. “The sickness is like the currents—it just is. Whales will learn to live with it.”

“Or die,” an old male said gloomily.

But I’m not a whale,
Ujurak thought suddenly. A shiver of realization ran through his skin. He wasn’t a whale; he hadn’t swum here from a far-distant pod. All he could remember was that he should have fur and claws….

I’m a BEAR!

Maybe whales couldn’t do anything…but maybe bears could.

His flesh prickled as if fur might come bursting out of it at any moment. He needed to be back with his friends.
His friends
. Toklo, Lusa, and Kallik appeared in his mind like a bolt of lightning. He’d forgotten about them again!

“I’m sorry, I have to go,” Ujurak said to Kassuk, ducking away. “I left someone—they’re waiting for me. I’m sorry.” The old whale nodded, looking surprised, and Ujurak dove into the sea again, beating his tail to swim faster.

The dark cold water closed around him, and he tried to think of nothing but bears.
Don’t let me forget again. I have to get back to them before I forget…while I still know that I’m a bear
. He wished he could swim even faster. How long had he been gone? He couldn’t keep changing shape like this. One day he’d forget altogether, and end up trapped in some other animal’s body.

I’m a bear!
he roared inside his mind.
I won’t forget…. I won’t forget…. I won’t forget….