Ursus of Ultima Thule (6 page)

The wind brought the river sound stronger, nearer, to his ears; the wind brought a scent of flowers, too. He was on a downward slope and in a moment, following the land contours, he found himself wading through the blossoms — first they were under his feet, then around his ankles; then they touched the calves of his legs, his knee — and he brushed them away from his face. Glancing at his hands, he saw blood.

Astonished, he looked around. Each clump of flowers grew from a fleshy green pod. Pod? Paw? There had been a wild catton in the village once, though not for long. Taking amiss being prodded with a stick as it lay stretching with paws outthrust, out from those paws it thrust its claws and struck — once — twice — at its tormentor. Who in one moment more had crushed its skull with a rock. So now, even as he half-halted his movements he saw a cluster of flowers dip down toward him, thrust out a sheaf of thorns and rake his chest with them. And then another. And then another. His arms, his legs, his back — he cried out, looked back, was struck again, flung his arms up before his eyes and staggered forward, raked with thorns and racked with pain. Then vinelets wrapped around his ankles —

And then, for a long moment, nothing.

• • •

Cautiously he opened his eyes. At once his ears seemed to open, too. There was a deep, intent humoring in the air. He saw the thorn-paws of the thickets sway and waver. He saw them droop. He saw a swarm of bees spread out, circle; saw, one by one, the thorns draw back into their pods; saw the flowers open wider. Saw each bee select its first flower, mount, and enter, heard the bumbledrone alter in pitch and quicken. Saw each plant stretch itself taut, then begin a slow undulant motion.

Saw himself utterly forgotten and ignored.

Once again had the wary feeling of being watched.

Saw nothing.

Made his way unvexed to the water, kneeled and drank.

Here the water rushed noisily over the rocks, there it eddied and circled silently into pools, out farther it glided with a joyful clamor along its main channel; then paused and murmured thoughtfully among the reeds. Everywhere it sparkled — in his cupped hands as he lifted it to his mouth, as it fell in droplets from his face, spun around sunken logs, made the reeds rustle. Something was trying to tell him — what? The reeds nodded.

Reeds
.

With a movement so quick and unstudied that he sank one foot into water, he stood up, spun around and unslung his witchery-bundle — or, more exactly, the witchery-bundle supposedly left by his father — and spread out its contents in the sunshine. Fingers trembling, he unsheathed the knife and cut a fresh reed and laid it down beside the one in the bundle. Except that one was dry and one was fresh, they were identical.

Surely it was a sign.

The medicine objects restored to their coverings, he considered long what he should do. It seemed somehow natural that he should continue along the river; there, where he had found the first sign, might he not find at least a second?

At first he splattered along on the sand flats and gravel beds, the mudbanks and shallows of the shore. The river looked so wild, so wide, full of mystery (and, perhaps, menace). Here presently the salmon would come surging upstream, that was certain, but not now. What else might lie beneath those sounding waters was uncertain indeed. Sometimes the forest came right down to the brim and barm as though the trees would dip and drink. Sometimes he walked beneath towering banks and bluffs. After a while he saw the river divide and flow around an island, the main channel to the far side, the hither side forming a quiet pool, the shore of which was a sandy beach. On impulse he stopped, scooped out a hollow, placed into it his bundle and his basket with the perry thing, covered all with his leathern kilt, heaped sand over it. Then he turned and walked into the water.

• • •

The shallows had been sunwarmed, but now the deeper and cooler waters began to lap against his legs, higher and higher, and he saw and felt the flesh about each hair creep into a tiny mound. He saw that hair was now growing thicker about his man-parts. Abruptly, with a slight gasp, he slipped deliberately beneath the surface and for a moment squatted on the bottom like a frog. His breath heaved against his chest. He opened his eyes. All was strange in this new world. Then something was suddenly familiar; he opened his mouth and only the sudden burst of bubbles reminded him that water and not air was his surrounding. He surfaced, took another breath, slid down once more. In the curious light he exchanged quick glances with a small fish, then bent his eyes to the river bottom. Green light wavered in the green water and rippled over the green stones.

Reed in his medicine bag, reed beside the water.

Greenstone in his medicine bag, greenstones beneath the water.

It was the sought-for second sign.

The boy-frog squatted on the sand, sand clinging to him here and there, and looked at the other two small things in his budget of wonders: the beechnut and the bear claw. Certainly the last was the sign of the Bear himself, and by now it was plain that what the Bear was saying was,
Seek these others if you would seek me. Find these others and you will find me
. In the way a scout leaves signs along a trail so that those who follow may see and know what his message is, so the Bear had left these signs — not indeed in any sequence set apart by space — so that one who followed after might follow farther yet.

All clear, that. But what was the meaning of the beechnut? Beechnuts were good to eat, though perhaps not very good. The black swine of the woods were said to be fond of them. It wasn’t clear what connection the wild swine had with the bear. Perhaps none. He began to feel confused and set his thoughts to tracing their way as though through a forest path: Bear — black swine — beechnut — well enough, by working backward he had come at least to some certain thing — beechnut — forest — trees —

Beechnuts, whatever else they indicated, certainly indicated a beech tree.

Not bothering to brush the sand from his bare legs and bottom, not from the leather kilt he swiftly and absently donned, he slung on his gear once more and set off along the river. But this time he walked along the dry land and looked, not down, but up. And so, by and by, by its silver-gray bark and its pale green leaves, but most of all its height, he saw the trees he sought. Some long past storm or earthshake, or perhaps a hidden subsidence of the ground beneath its roots, had inclined it at a slight angle, for it was near enough the river for the stream in spate to have undercut and then covered up its excavating — or, perhaps the blow of a thunderstone had bent it; above the lowest branch, many times his own length high over his head a great scar was burned into the massive trunk.

Once again he had the feeling of being watched; the feeling ebbed again.

And there was certainly no sight nor sign of a bear.

• • •

His disappointment was great. It would have been easy to stumble or falter, only that day’s morning had he gotten up from a daze of illness which had lasted — he realized he did not know for how long — and he had barely paused for rest. He had drunk once. He had not eaten. Weakness rose inside him. What had he expected? To find his father and, in finding him, an end to all mystery and aloneness forever? Had he expected to find a father sitting at the bottom of the huge beech tree, ready to welcome him with warm embrace? Here he was, Arnten, and he was as alone, as hungry, as unknowing as he had ever been.

What then was he to do? Slump behind the shelter of a bush and sleep and die? Weakness vanished. The very force of its sensation became a strength that blazed up within him and made itself felt without. He felt his skin tingle with something close to rage against this curious father who had cost his mother’s life, had never come near to see what he had begotten, had left his cryptic messages with the nains alone. A father who might be dead, long dead.

Had he been pursuing a ghost? Had he himself perhaps died already under the blows of the Painted Man and was now himself but a ghost? Did ghosts hunger? He allowed himself a cry of anger and bafflement. Then, fiercely, he filled his bark basket with such nuts and berries and leaves and shoots of greenfood as were close to hand. At a small trickle on its way to join the stream, he filled the perryware flask, stopped its neck with a plug of fern. He arranged everything to hang behind him. Then, angry and hot-eyed, defiant and determined, he set his toes and fingers in the cracks and ridges of the beech tree’s bark and began to climb. For the first time he allowed himself to speak his thoughts aloud.

“I will go up!” he said, through his set teeth. “I-will-go-up!” He inched up. And up. “And I
will
find out!” The bundle and basket dangled, swung out, bumped back, grew heavier. “And until I find out” — he panted, dug in once more, advanced, advanced — “I will not come down — ”

He swung one leg over the lowermost branch, hoisted himself up, pressed his head to the rough bosom of the tree and hung on for very life against the wave of vertigo which threatened to plummet him to the ground. Slowly it passed and slowly he opened his eyes. The lazy wind swung into his face, laden with scents of the rich earth, of flowers and other growing things. He looked over leagues of land and the swelling and falling away of hills, the glittering serpentine length of the river, forest forever a great green roof. And far, far off, so distant that he could not be sure, he thought he saw thread-thin smoke. It might have been his village. He thrust forward his chin so suddenly that he felt a creak in his neck and, with all his force and might, spat in its direction. And then he allowed himself to realize that the lightning-burn upon the tree, just above the branch, was actually a tree-cave, a hollow.

It was, he considered (with a shiver), too small to harbor either tiger or leopard; it even lacked the reek of a bird’s nest. Serpents would not go so high. Slowly, cautiously, he passed himself into it. Part of the bark still lay in place like a shell. And, patiently awaiting his discovery, wedged with splits of wood, protected from the worst assaults of the weather, was another hide-bound bag. Inside this was a box of carved wood. And in the box, padded with red-dyed fleece, was something that lay almost outside all his experience. Long he crouched in the dim light, half-afraid to touch it; then his fingers played over the intricate carvings. There was mammont-ivory and horn of wild ram, horn of elk; there was bear claw, there was — there were many things. Parts of it moved around, circle-wise, when he turned them. Parts moved up and down from holes, like little levers, when he touched them. Shapes of beasts and birds were carved into it. No man — nor nain — nor perry — had devised it. It was wizards’ work, and wizardry of witchery alone. It was a witch-horn, so huge and adorned and complex it could only be
the
witch-horn. Could only be All-caller, the great fey horn.

See then, in the late rays of the afternoon sun, while the great red circle still throws heat before descending for its slow journey through the Cavern Beneath The Earth whence it will rise again next morning, a small, a very small Something sticking out its head from the bole of the huge beech tree. After the head, an arm, at the end of the arm a hand and in the hand — what? It is needful to come closer. A shaggy boy, not quite a new young man, excitement and triumph and also fear upon its mold-smutched face. Carefully he holds the great horn in both his dirty hands. Carefully he examines it yet again, turning its turnable parts.

Ah. Ahah. So. Here is the bear claw, as like to the bear claw in his witchery-bundle to make one think they had come from the same bear-beast. As, perhaps, they had.

The boy’s full lips protrude, compressed in thought. So — here is the bear carved in ivory upon the horn band. Surely it was meant to come in apposition to the bear claw. He takes a deep breath, fills his dusty cheeks, lifts the horn to his lips. His eyes roll, his nostrils distend.

And below upon the mossy ground, while the echoes of the great cry, part growl, part roar, still send the birds whirling about and the leaves quivering, something comes into the open glade around the beech tree. Something comes as though the thicket were mere fern grass. Something comes crashing, comes trampling, comes on all fours, comes walking upright. Stands, stopping. Peering this way and that. Paws and head swaying. Issues a cry, part roar, part growl. Part challenge, part question. Puzzled. Vexed. Brute. Bewildered.

Bear
.

Bear
.

Bear
.

A moment passes, or does not pass; endures without end. Then the bear coughs, grunts, sighs, brushes at one ear. Gurgles deep within its shaggy chest. Ambles and shambles down to the river. Stands there without motion. Then makes gestures which no bear has ever before been seen to make — or so it seems to the watcher up high. Who has ever seen a bear take off its skin before? Who has ever seen a man inside a bear before? Who has ever seen a man stride into the water and leave an empty bearskin lying on the bank behind, gaping empty, eyeholes looking up, sightless, at the sky?

Has anyone — ?

• • •

Arnten plucked up his talisman and, though it was the familiar-most of any object he had with him, he studied it as though he had never seen it before. Almost, for that matter, he had never seen a bear before. Perhaps he had seen live bears one or two times — dead ones, before they had been all skinned and dismembered for food and hide, several times. The carving did not seem to have changed. The bear was still certainly a bear — except that it still certainly had man’s feet. He could not recall that he had ever observed the feet of living bears, these must have been concealed in grass or underbrush, or perhaps he had just not been looking; likelier he had had his eyes (as he crouched fearfully out of sight) on the paws of the forelimbs, on the fearsome jaws. Perhaps
all
bears had man’s feet. But then a clear picture came to him of the four paws of one dead bear, cut off for the pot — and all were
paws
, none truly feet. And yet, might it not be that bears, alive, had feet like men, and that these changed at death? As for the bear below? Truly, he had not noticed. He did not know.