The Burning Horizon (15 page)

Kallik halted, gulping in long breaths. Creaking noises drifted through the air, and a strange, eerie light filtered down through the ice, showing her the passage in front of her. At last there was space enough for her to turn around.

But I'm not going through there again!
she thought, glancing back the way she had come.

Her sides bruised and scraped, her paws splitting on the sharp stones, Kallik stumbled on. The path led upward, though at the same time she was aware that the walls were getting higher. A wave of despair and fear began to swell inside her.

I'm buried under the ice!

Kallik closed her eyes and steadied her breathing, focusing on images of stars and calm ice to see if she could communicate with the spirits, but there were no bubbles or patterns in the ice of the crevasse that might whisper to her of white bears from the past. All she could hear was the ominous creaking, the gigantic moans of a vast creature moving around her.

This isn't the sort of ice that I know. . . .

The sounds made Kallik feel very small and vulnerable. All her life the ice had been her home, her friend, the place where she knew she belonged. But this ice was indifferent and hostile, trapping her as if she was a seal without a hole to escape. She realized with a new feeling of dread that there were no spirits here, nothing to protect her from the malignant presence all around her. The ice moaned again.

It's like it's alive!

As she went on, she found herself setting her paws down as lightly as she could, hardly even daring to breathe, as if she might manage to avoid the attention of the huge being that surrounded her on all sides.

Panic surged up again inside Kallik. She wanted to run, to
batter a way out through the walls of ice. But before she lost all control, she felt a warm body pressing against hers, urging her to go on padding steadily upward.

“Ujurak?” she said, her voice quavering.

“Yes, I'm here.”

To her surprise, Kallik picked up fear in Ujurak's voice, as well as a slight tremble in the body that she felt but couldn't see. It was like he was a young, overwhelmed little bear again, perhaps because being underneath a glacier was so different from anything he had experienced before.

Strangely, the realization that her guide was frightened, too, helped to calm Kallik. She was reminded of how she had cared for the cub Kissimi on Star Island.

We can help each other.

“Does this path lead to the surface?” she asked Ujurak. “Is it much farther?”

“I don't know,” the smaller bear replied. “But it's the best hope we have, so we'd better keep going.”

“It's good to have you here,” Kallik said.

For a moment she felt Ujurak's body press more closely to her side. “I'm glad to be with you again.”

As the two bears stumbled on, Kallik noticed that the ice above her head was beginning to darken. Fresh terror crept over her as she realized that night was falling. “I'm so afraid,” she whispered. “I can't handle being trapped here in the dark, alone.”

Ujurak's voice was warm. “You're never alone.”

Together Kallik and Ujurak climbed and climbed up the
slope as the light grew dimmer. Kallik struggled to keep putting one aching paw in front of the other, covering bearlength after bearlength without any sign that they were coming closer to the surface.

Stumbling over a loose rock, Kallik lost her balance and fell. For a moment she lay still, unable to gather the strength to rise to her paws and carry on. “I just want to lie here and sleep for a while,” she murmured.

“No!” Ujurak gave her a hard shove. “You can't sleep here. If you do, you'll never wake.”

He gave Kallik another shove, urging her to her paws again. Kallik got up and staggered on, but her head was spinning and she struggled to cling to consciousness.

A few paces ahead, she realized that her sides were brushing the walls of the crevasse. “It's getting narrower again,” she choked out. “I'll get stuck!”

“No, you won't.” Ujurak's voice was reassuring. “Just keep going.”

Kallik pushed herself forward, wondering how Ujurak managed to stay by her side when there was hardly enough room for her to force herself through the narrow path.

Step by step they carried on. There was one horrible moment when Kallik became wedged in an angle of the passage. Sharp pain bit into her shoulder as she finally wrenched herself free. “Why is it so . . . hard?” she panted.

But the next section of the path was wider again, and the going became easier. Then Kallik realized that something felt different on her fur. Pausing to sniff the air, she realized a
breeze was flowing over her, cool and fresh, smelling of ice and mountains.

“We must be close to a way out!” she exclaimed.

Kallik mustered her last reserves of strength and hauled herself upward in the twilight. She could see the sky above her now. It was pale, and she could make out a few glimmering stars. “We're going to get out!” she told Ujurak, then realized that he wasn't with her anymore. Brief sadness passed over her like a gust of wind, followed by a boundless gratitude that he had stayed with her through the worst of her ordeal.

“Thank you, Ujurak,” she whispered.

The ice walls were lower now, though still higher than Kallik could reach if she balanced on her hindpaws. But with the surface so near, she pressed forward with new energy, certain she would be able to climb out soon.

At last Kallik heaved herself out of the crevasse, now no more than a shallow gully across the face of the glacier. She lay on the surface of the glacier, gasping for breath, with the mountain peaks looking down at her. Her head reeled, and the stars spun above her, but she could still make out the Pathway Star, and the blazing shapes of Ujurak and his mother.

“Thank you, Ujurak!” she breathed out once again.

Lusa lay on her side with
the sun beating down on her until her fur was uncomfortably hot and her mouth was dry with thirst. She had spent the whole day waiting by the mesh for the flat-faces to return.

I have to show them that I'm friendly! I wasn't trying to attack them!

But the flat-faces never came.

“Don't get your hopes up,” Taktuq advised her, a hint of amusement in his voice. “The flat-faces will let you out when they're ready. Besides, you're safe and well fed here. What's your problem?”

Lusa sprang to her paws and faced the old bear. “It's all wrong!” she snarled. “Bears should be wild.”

“In the wild, I would be dead by now,” Taktuq pointed out quietly.

Lusa glared at him for a moment longer, then relaxed, letting out a sigh. “I know, I'm sorry,” she said. “But this life isn't for me.”

Taktuq shook his head, baffled. “I'll never understand what's so wonderful about living in the wild.”

Lusa drew in her breath for a hot protest.

“Okay, okay,” Taktuq added quickly. “I know I'm never going to change your mind.”

As the sun went down, Lusa heard movement from inside the den and picked up the scent of fruit drifting toward her. She realized that the flat-faces must have brought food to lure her back inside. The other animals had already retreated, even the coyote. Though every hair on her pelt wanted to stay in the open, she knew she needed to do whatever the flat-faces asked her to right now. She forced herself to go back in through the flap, looking as small and meek and unthreatening as she could.

But the flat-face—the gray-furred male—didn't speak to her or try to touch her. Frustrated, Lusa gazed at the fruit. She had no appetite for the sweet taste now, and although she told herself she had to eat to keep her strength up, the thought of it nauseated her. She slumped down in front of the bowl.

Taktuq lifted his head from his own bowl and turned his cloud-colored eyes toward her. “It will take time to win their trust,” he said sympathetically.

“I don't have time!” Lusa retorted.

The old bear didn't respond at first, only finished his food in a few swift gulps, then shuffled over to the bars that separated him from Lusa and flopped down.

“Come here,” he said. When Lusa didn't move, he added,
“Come on. I want you to talk to me.”

Lusa felt so weary and miserable, it was easier to give in to him than to start arguing. She stumbled across her cage and sank down next to Taktuq. The old bear pressed up against the bars so that their pelts brushed.

At the touch some of Lusa's misery began to dissolve. She felt safe and protected, as if she was a cub again.

“Tell me about these other bears,” Taktuq said gruffly.

Lusa sighed, deciding that she would tell Taktuq the truth after all. “At first I was with a brown bear and a . . . another brown bear,” she began. “And at Great Bear Lake we met a white bear.”

“What?” Outrage and surprise mingled in Taktuq's voice. “You mean you weren't traveling with
black
bears? Why in the name of Arcturus would you do that?”

“It just happened that way,” Lusa said. “They're really good friends, believe me.”

Taktuq gave a disbelieving snort.

“We've traveled so far together,” Lusa told him. “All the way to the Endless Ice, and then back again.”

“The Endless Ice really exists?” Taktuq asked, sounding astonished. “My mother used to tell me about it, but I thought it was just a story.”

“Oh yes—it goes on forever. I never knew there was so much space in the world . . . so much sky. I nearly froze and starved to death, and I wanted so much to fall into the long-sleep, but I knew if I did, I would never wake up.”

Taktuq poked his snout through the bars to nuzzle her
shoulder. “You must have been terrified.”

“I was,” Lusa responded. “But it was wonderful, too. We saw the spirits dancing in the sky, all the colors you could imagine, and the stars were so bright!” Suddenly she remembered Taktuq's blindness. “I'm sorry,” she added. “I forgot you'll never be able to see that.”

“That's not important,” Taktuq grunted. He paused for a moment, then added, “How did you get here?”

“One of the brown bears died there, on an island in the Endless Ice.” Fresh sadness swept over Lusa as she remembered Ujurak's small body, broken by the avalanche. “And another white bear joined us for this part of the journey. We were traveling to Great Bear Lake when I was injured by the mule, like I told you.”

Taktuq sniffed, but he made no other comments about her traveling companions. “So . . . why Great Bear Lake?”

“We were looking for our homes,” Lusa told him. “The others have all found theirs, but I haven't. Not yet.”

There was admiration in Taktuq's voice, though his tone was still gruff, as if he was reluctant to admit his awe for what Lusa and her friends had experienced. “You really have done some extraordinary things.”

“Yes,” Lusa responded. She realized for the first time that Taktuq was much like Toklo in his gruffness and the friendliness hidden beneath it. “But it will all have been for nothing if I can't find a place where I truly belong.”

Taktuq let out a sigh. “You can belong anywhere if you try hard enough,” he said quietly.

* * *

When the next morning came, Lusa continued her plan, eager to show the flat-faces how friendly she was. She pressed up against the bars of her cage, waiting for the first appearance of her captors.

As soon as they opened the door of the den, the other creatures set up their usual racket, flapping about or scrabbling at their bars. Lusa refused to let it bother her and just sat quietly, trying to make a show of looking gentle and safe. But the flat-faces paid her no attention, just checking the rows of cages.

Disappointed, Lusa told herself she would have a better chance of impressing them once she was allowed outside. Scuffling her paws impatiently, she heard a clinking sound from the outer flap and realized that must mean the flap had been opened.

She skipped outside and waited for the flat-faces to appear with the morning food.

What did I do when I was in the Bear Bowl?
she asked herself, trying to remember.
What made the flat-faces laugh?
Glancing around, she spotted the log she had clawed in her fit of rage the day before.
Maybe I could think of a game with that. . . .

Lusa felt stiff and awkward as she padded up to the log and gave it a prod. The days when she had been a carefree cub playing in the Bear Bowl seemed like they had happened to a different bear. But the flat-faces had appeared now, delivering food bowls to each enclosure, and she knew she had to think of something quickly.

I know! I'll pretend that it's a salmon, and I'm going to catch it!

Lusa skipped from side to side, making little pounces at the log. Then she pretended that the river had knocked her off her paws, and rolled over on her back, waving her paws in the air. Though she was careful not to look at the flat-faces, she was aware that they had stopped to watch and heard them let out cheerful barking sounds.