The Quest Begins (11 page)

Hunger gnawed at Kallik's belly and
her paws trembled with exhaustion. The long shadows of the night were slipping away across the wet grass as the sun peeked over the edge of the sky. Above her, there were streaks of clouds like long claw scratches.

She reached a scrawny tree, one of the few she could see in either direction, and sat down to rest for a moment. Kallik looked up at the Pathway Star, shining as brightly as it had all night. She'd been trying to follow it while staying close to the shore; even up on the ridge, or when she had to travel inland to get around boggy swamps, she made sure she could smell the bay not too far away.

The small spot of ice gleamed in the sky above her, reminding her of Nisa and Taqqiq. Maybe her brother was looking at the same star right now. She felt the strong pull of the star, almost as if she could smell the place of never-ending ice already. She knew she had to find it, because Taqqiq would be
looking for it, too. She got up to walk again, drawn by the fading light of the star. Her paws made a squishing sound as she stepped onto an expanse of marshy grasses that stretched far in front of her. She felt mud squelching up between her claws and she shuddered, wishing all over again that she could be back on the clean ice and snow over the frozen sea.

As she slipped and stumbled through the marsh, she stopped to try and eat some of the grass, but it did almost nothing to ease her hunger. She nearly walked straight past the small lump of brown fur, half hidden by the long grasses. But the breeze whisked by at just the right moment, parting the stems so she could spot it.

Kallik pounced, realizing as her claws hit the flesh that it was a rabbit, and it was already dead. She couldn't tell how it had died, but she was too hungry to care. “Thank you, ice spirits,” she whispered, ripping off the skin with her claws. “Wherever you are, thank you.”

She devoured the rabbit in a few bites, feeling strength return to her legs. When she was finished, she padded toward the shore, following the sound of shrieking. There were birds everywhere now—birds sailing through the air, birds floating in the water, birds darting along the sand, leaving tiny three-clawed tracks behind them. Kallik had never seen so many living things in one place. She knew some of them were ducks and some were plover; from her mother's stories, she guessed the long-necked ones were geese.

Shortly before sunhigh, she emerged from the marsh onto pebbly sand. The sea was going out and she spotted five
plovers fighting over a small fish. The silver scrap of food was lying on the sand, with birds diving at it and squawking at one another. One of them was standing over it, attacking any others that came near, but another was able to dive in and grab it before a third seized the tail and tried to yank it away.

Kallik dropped into a crouch, then lunged forward. With a yelp of satisfaction, she pounced on one of the plovers, pinning it to the ground.

She couldn't believe it! Live prey, and she'd caught it herself! Kallik bit down quickly before the bird could flap its way free of her paws. With her claws she sliced away the feathers and then chewed her way through the meat of the plover, its tiny bones crunching in her teeth.

Even the bright heat of sunhigh didn't bother her as much when there was food in her stomach. Feeling triumphant, she padded through the sand, watching the masses of birds whirl and flap and dive for fish in the bay. Hints of green were starting to appear on the bushes along the shore and Kallik could see more trees again, farther inland.

She stopped and sniffed the air. The smell was almost overpowering, like all the rain in the world. She started trotting toward it, drinking in the scents it carried of mud, reeds, and tree roots. She threaded her way through some bushes and skidded to a halt. Ahead of her was a tongue of brown water flowing into the bay. She stared across to the other side.

The brown water was half a skylength wide!

More swimming? The water looked deep, with a fast current. She started shivering, remembering her mother crying
out and the whales attacking.

There had to be a way around it.

She turned her back on the bay and trotted along the brown water's pebbly shore.

The brown water twisted and turned through scrubby trees and long grasses. Every time she rounded a bend, hoping to reach its end, she saw it stretching away even farther. She felt she might travel forever and never get to the end.

When her feet started to hurt she made her decision to try and swim across. Although the brown water was deep, she was thankful that it was moving more slowly now.

She climbed down its muddy side and stepped tentatively into the water. It was cold and refreshing. In a few more steps she was up to her nose.
Silaluk, please help me to the other side,
she whispered and fell forward into the current. She pulled with her front paws and let her back legs hang behind, steering her.

Kallik swam farther into the brown water. It felt wonderful, the cold water tugging her fur and soothing her muscles. Soon she was far from shore. She was wondering if she was over halfway when something bumped against her legs.

She pushed her head beneath the surface and, although it was too murky to see anything, she could hear strange sounds. The water was making clicking, whistling and clanging noises. She lifted up her face to see smooth gray bodies swimming all around her. There were so many of them! It was like the pebbles on the bed of the brown water had come to life. Panic shot through her. She remembered the black fins and sharp teeth of the orca that had taken away her mother.
Save me, spir
its of the ice!
she thought.

A spout of water shot into the air, dousing her head with salty spray. The next moment, a head popped out of the water, and Kallik saw that the swimmers weren't killer whales at all. These were small gray whales. The one looking at her had a chubby white head and short flapping fins. It squeaked cheerfully, and another small whale broke off to join it. They both clicked and whistled at Kallik, and she wondered what they were saying.

One of them ducked under, came back up, and spat water at Kallik. The other swam around her, flapping its fins and spinning slowly. For such peculiar-looking animals, they moved with an odd grace in the water. Kallik felt clumsy and awkward beside them.

They splashed around her as she swam toward the shore, and a light giddiness welled inside her. She'd been too terrified to notice before, but the icy water was a relief after so much mud and dust and rocky ground under her paws. Kallik rolled in the water, ducking her head under and sending splashes into the air that made the whales whistle. She felt cooler and lighter, the dirt and grime of many days' travel washing out of her fur. The water tasted of ice: freezing and sharp and full of promises. But there was no ice to be seen—the waves stretched on and on, all the way to the edge of the sky.

Kallik felt sand under her paws and she dug in, pushing herself out of the water up onto the shore. A loud whistle sounded from a larger whale swimming by, and the two little whales flipped over and dove away, swimming rapidly to catch up to
the others. Kallik watched them go with a deep pang of loneliness. They had one another to play with, and lots of other whales to keep them company. She never got to play anymore, not without Taqqiq, and she had no one to look after her.

Kallik was too tired and wet to go any farther today. A short way along the shore she found a hollowed-out rock sticking out of the sand. She crawled underneath it, digging through the sand until she'd created a space big enough for her to curl up in. From here she could see and smell the sea. It made her think of the spirits in the ice, and she drifted off to sleep wondering how long they stayed around when the ice melted. Was her mother's spirit out in the water somewhere? Or had she already splashed up into the sky, to become a star looking down on Kallik?

 

The shore of the bay started to change the next day as Kallik kept walking. There were more stones underpaw here, the sand giving way to pebbles and larger round rocks. Soon after the sun came up she saw a large cliff cutting across the beach far ahead of her, blocking her view of the shore beyond.

As she got closer to the rocky wall, a dank, heavy smell hit her nose almost at the same time as she heard grumbling and snorting from up ahead. She slowed down, wondering what it was and whether it was safe to go any closer. It sounded a bit like thunder, or many bears bellowing in pain.

Kallik crept up to the edge of the cliff that cut in close to the sea. She peered around it to the strip of land beyond, where the shore curved into a miniature bay enclosed by rocks.

All along the sandy beach, huge, fat animals were lying on their stomachs. Walruses, so many and so packed together that Kallik couldn't see the ground underneath them. They were the ugliest creatures Kallik had ever seen. Two long yellow teeth jutted straight down from their top lips. Tiny eyes peered out of the folds around their faces, and their muzzles were squashed and bushy.

Kallik padded out from behind the wall and trotted along the curve of the small bay. As she got closer, a few of the walruses swung their heads around to look at her.

Suddenly the closest one charged at her, barking, its brown flesh wobbling. Its teeth sliced through the air only whiskers away from Kallik's nose. With a yelp of fear, Kallik fled back the way she came, terror giving extra speed to her paws. She skidded around the end of the rocky cliff and raced inland. She would go as far as she could while keeping the smell of the sea in her nose.

She trotted faster, fear spurring her paws along. Visions flashed through her mind of those long, sharp tusks stabbing into her fur. Had her brother run into walruses on his journey? She looked up at the sky, knowing the Pathway Star was out there, even if she couldn't see it in the daylight.
Please, spirits of the ice, if you can hear me,
she whispered,
please protect Taqqiq. Help him to follow the Pathway Star. Tell him I'm coming for him. Tell him to stay alive until I find him. Please.

Lusa's nose twitched. There was something
new in the air—something that made her paws itch and her fur prickle. She could smell things growing and changing around her, although the Bear Bowl still looked the same. Every day more and more birds flew overhead. Sometimes she would sit and watch them and wish she could go wherever they were going.

“It's the seasons changing, little blackberry,” Stella explained. “Cold-earth is ending, and this is your first leaftime. This is the time when we would be searching for new kinds of food in the wild. But we don't have to do that here, because we haven't gone short of food during cold-earth. We're safe, and nothing's going to change. You'll get used to it. Now, go and play with Yogi. He's probably feeling just as restless as you are.”

Lusa didn't think so. Yogi couldn't even be bothered to climb to the top of the Bear Tree to see what was outside the Bowl. But she didn't want to be lonely as well as bored,
so she went to find him.

They were playing on the Mountains, jumping off and scampering around to climb back on again, when Lusa heard a whirring noise and doors rattling on the far side of the Fence, in the grizzly enclosure. She leaped off the rocks and galloped over to the Fence, pressing her nose against the cold web.

“Lusa!” Yogi cried. “Where are you going? What about our
game
?”

“Yogi, come see!” Lusa called. “Grumps is getting a friend!”

The burning smell of the firebeast filled her nose as it prowled into the center of the brown bear enclosure. It was pulling a cage, like the one Ashia had been taken away in. Inside, Lusa could see a large pile of shaggy brown fur.

She had never seen a new bear arrive in the Bowl before. She stood up on her hind legs and hooked her front claws in the Fence, stretching to get a better view. Two of the feeders came around to the back of the trailer, wearing extra pelts on their paws and faces. They unhooked the mesh door and reached in to pull out the shiny skin the new bear was resting on. They dragged it and the bear onto the ground, then slid the skin out from under her.

The new grizzly was sound asleep, her back rising and falling in an even rhythm. She was very thin, with patchy fur and scratches along her muzzle. Lusa wondered what had happened to make her look so battered. Had she been in a fight? If so, she'd lost, by the look of it.

Grumps ambled over from his corner. He sniffed the
newcomer with a grim look on his face, and then lumbered back to his corner, where he sat down with his back to her, grumbling.

“I don't think Grumps wants to share,” Lusa said to Yogi.

“Maybe he's worried she'll want to eat all his food,” Yogi said. “She's so thin—she must be starving!”

“Where do you think she comes from?” Lusa wondered. “Do you think she's a wild bear? Did she come from the forest and the mountain? Has she been out there her whole life? Do you think she's met tigers and elephants and flamingos?”

“How should I know?” Yogi said. “She's just a brown bear. It's not that interesting.” He turned and wandered over to the food bowl, searching for leftovers.

Lusa ran to the Bear Tree and clambered up. She pulled herself onto a long branch that stretched out close to the Fence, from where she had a clear view into the brown bear enclosure.

The she-bear kept sleeping. She seemed to sleep for a very long time. Lusa lay down on the branch and waited, watching her. She had so many questions! Especially if this was a wild bear. A real wild bear!

Ages later, the bear stirred. Lusa sat up on her branch. Was she awake? The grizzly rolled onto her side and twitched her paws. It looked like her eyes were still closed, but her mouth was moving as if she was talking to herself. Lusa scrambled down from the tree and ran back to the Fence. She strained her ears, keeping very still so she could hear.

It sounded like the grizzly was murmuring the word
Tobi
over and over again. Sometimes her voice was soft and sometimes fierce. Then the grizzly grunted in an unhappy way and whispered, “Toklo.”

Lusa didn't understand either of those words. Was the grizzly speaking another language—not bear language? It didn't sound like the flat-face language, either. Then she caught the word
mountain
. The she-bear's paws jerked and batted at the air, as if she was dreaming about running.

“River,” she whispered. “To the river. Careful. Toklo…Tobi.” Her murmurs trailed away and her paws went limp again. She'd fallen back into a deeper sleep.

Lusa was confused but also excited. If the bear was talking about mountains and rivers, surely that meant she'd come from the wild. Maybe when she woke up, Lusa would be able to find out more.

Most of the day passed before the strange bear awoke. Lusa had given up watching her and was practicing climbing the tree again, digging her claws into the bark and experimenting to see if she could climb down headfirst, which didn't seem to work very well. Yogi was perched on a boulder, calling out unhelpful suggestions.

“Let go and jump!” he shouted. “Maybe you'll find out you can fly!”

Lusa ignored him. He wasn't as interested in climbing as she was, which meant she was already much better at it, even though he was moons older than her.

Suddenly an angry roar split the air. Startled, Lusa nearly lost her grip on the branch, but she dug her claws in before
she could tumble out of the tree. She clung to the trunk, panting. She'd never heard a roar with so much fury and outrage and pain in it before. King's roars were stern and commanding. Grumps sometimes roared in a grouchy, irritated way. But this roar was different. It had to be the new she-bear.

Lusa crept along the branch and peered down into the brown bear enclosure. The new grizzly was running around and around the Bowl, charging at the Fences. She reared up on her hind legs and scraped her front claws against the back wall, roaring furiously.

Grumps looked bewildered. He was up on his hind paws, looking from the she-bear to the wall where several flat-faces were watching.

Yogi came running over and scrambled up the tree beside Lusa. His eyes were enormous and he was shaking like the trees in a storm. “That bear is crazy!” he declared.

“I think she's sad,” Lusa said. The she-bear had
sounded
sad when she'd been whispering those odd words. “Maybe she's lonely.”

“Lonely?” Yogi snorted. “She's got a brain full of bees.”

“She needs a friend,” Lusa decided.

“She doesn't want to make friends!”

“How do you know?” Lusa challenged. “Maybe I'll be her friend.”

“Ha!” Yogi flicked his ears. “She won't talk to you. You'll just make her madder if you try.”

“We'll see,” Lusa said, lying down on the branch to watch the raging grizzly.

Finally the she-bear wore herself out. She stopped running and collapsed near the fence, breathing heavily with exhaustion.

“Here I go,” Lusa said, sitting up.

“You're going to get your nose clawed off,” Yogi growled.

Lusa climbed down the tree and padded over to the Fence near the new bear. She crept up carefully, trying not to make any sudden noises. The grizzly swung her head around and saw the black bear cub approaching. She lowered her head and barked, but Lusa couldn't tell if it was an unfriendly noise or not.

“Hello,” Lusa said, scratching the dirt nervously with her paws. “I'm Lusa. What's your name?”

The grizzly sighed and closed her eyes. Lusa waited for a moment, and then, disappointed, she turned to go back to the tree.

“It's Oka,” the brown bear growled. Lusa jumped. At least the bear wasn't speaking that strange language anymore.

Lusa pressed closer to the Fence. “Welcome to the Bear Bowl, Oka,” she said. Feeling bolder, she lifted herself onto her hind legs and sniffed the air, trying to figure out what she could smell in Oka's scent. “Where did you come from?” she asked. “Were you in the wild? Did you live on the mountain? Have you seen a forest?”

But Oka turned her massive head away and buried it between her paws.

“I
told
you she wouldn't want to make friends!” Yogi called from the tree.

“Maybe later?” Lusa said to Oka, backing away. “Whenever
you're feeling better, I'll be right here.” Of course, she had nowhere else to go.

Oka slept for the rest of the day, staying outside when night fell instead of going into the grizzly Caves with Grumps. Lusa came out the next morning to find Oka stomping around on the other side of the Fence, growling and muttering. Sometimes she would attack the tree that grew at the back of the grizzly enclosure, shredding its bark and snapping savagely at its branches. This worried Lusa a lot, because if there were bear spirits living in that tree, they wouldn't be very pleased. She hoped they were all right.

She stayed away from the Fence, playing with Yogi and rolling around to make the flat-faces laugh. It was the first really hot day of leaftime, and lots of flat-face cubs were visiting, chattering and pointing at her. Lusa was able to get three different feeders to throw her extra fruit, which made her feel very clever.

“It's going to rain tonight,” Stella announced as they ate their evening meal. “I can feel the air getting thicker and wetter.”

Lusa sniffed. She could see what Stella meant—clouds were rolling in and the sky seemed all crackly around the edges.

“Oka will sleep in the Caves if it's raining, won't she?” Lusa said.

“Who's Oka?” Stella asked.

“The new grizzly,” Lusa said, pointing toward the Fence with her muzzle. “She slept outside last night, but if there's a storm—”

“You shouldn't be worrying yourself about grizzlies, little blackberry,” Stella interrupted. “It's not your problem if she sleeps outside in the rain.”

But Lusa
was
worried about Oka. A heavy rain started shortly after dark, and as Lusa crept back under the shelter, she could see Oka's blurry hulking shape crouched in the corner near the Fence, away from the trees or anything that could shield her from the storm.

The rain pounded on the roof all night as Lusa dreamed about the sad, lonely bear outside. She woke up near dawn when the rain finally stopped. Yogi was sprawled across the den with one of his paws flopped over her head. Lusa climbed free carefully so she wouldn't wake him and went outside.

Birds were twittering in the trees, and the air had a fresh, newly washed feeling to it, like the best fruit the feeders brought before Yogi trampled on it. There were still piles of gray clouds in the sky, but light pink rays of sunlight were starting to peek through as the sun came up.

Oka was lying in the corner where she'd first met Lusa. Her wet fur was steaming in the cool early-morning air.

Hesitantly Lusa approached, but although Oka was watching her, the grizzly made no move to run away. Lusa sat down by the Fence and tilted her head, studying the brown bear. “Did you stay out here all night in the rain?” she asked. “Don't you mind getting wet?”

Oka closed her eyes and didn't respond.

“Maybe you're used to it,” Lusa guessed. “You must get rained on all the time in the wild. Right?”

Oka still didn't answer.

“I wish I could go into the wild,” Lusa went on. “I'd like to see a forest and catch my own prey.”

Oka snorted, making Lusa jump. “There is no prey,” the brown bear snarled. Her eyes were open now, black and fierce. “There's nothing to eat.”

“But you must have eaten something. I thought the wild was full of food.”

“It used to be,” Oka growled. “Fishing…finding fish in the rivers was what we used to do. Back…back then.”

“What's a river?” Lusa asked.

“It's a long tongue of water that rolls through the hills and mountains and forests, carrying fish.”

“I don't think I've ever eaten a fish,” Lusa admitted. “But I know they bring them for Grumps sometimes. And the white bears eat them, too, so I know what they smell like.” She wrinkled her nose.

“Fish is a brown bear's favorite food,” Oka said. She still had her eyes half closed. “Toklo would have liked fish. He would have been good at catching fish. Maybe he is now…but I'll never know.” She stopped abruptly.

“Who's Toklo?” Lusa prompted.

“Tobi,” Oka murmured, curling onto her side and resting her muzzle on the ground. “Why did you leave us? I'm sorry I couldn't feed you enough, but didn't I try? Couldn't you have held on?”

“Who are Tobi and Toklo?” Lusa begged, pulling herself up on her hind legs by hooking her claws in the fence. “Oka,
please tell me who they are.”

“You don't know what I've had to do, Tobi,” Oka whispered without looking up. “What I had to do to poor Toklo. What I was forced to do, just to stay alive. Scavenging from flat-face dens, eating scraps out of metal containers, running for my life from the firebeasts.” A violent shudder wracked her body. “Toklo,” she cried again. “I'm sorry, Toklo.”

She closed her eyes. Lusa stared at Oka in dismay. She hadn't meant to upset her. Quietly she dropped to all fours and backed away. Whatever had happened before Oka came to the Bear Bowl, it must have been truly terrible.

 

Lusa left Oka alone for a few days, worried that she'd upset the brown bear again if she tried to talk to her. But Oka stayed huddled by the Fence most of the time, and finally Lusa decided to try again. Maybe Oka needed a real bear to talk to instead of her sad memories. Perhaps telling Lusa about them would make her feel better.

The sun was high in the sky, and Yogi and Stella were lying in the Mountains being boring instead of playing. Lusa climbed out of her perch in the tree and padded close to the Fence. She passed by Oka's spot, waiting to see if the grizzly would respond. Nothing happened, so she turned around and walked past again.