Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars (18 page)

Tulugaq closed his eyes. “The lights have departed before this, but they have never stayed away so long.” He gave a long sigh. “Yes, I am troubled. In my dreams I have tried to look for them, but I am old and tired. It is time for someone else to look.”

“I’m trying!” Ujurak assured him. “But I don’t know what to do next.”

The old man gazed at him for a moment from his bird-bright eyes. “Would you like to travel with me?” he asked.

“Yes!” Ujurak’s excitement welled up again, and he turned toward the entrance tunnel.

“No, not like that. Lie down here.”

As Tulugaq motioned to the space beside him on the sleeping area, he was shaken by a fit of coughing, scarcely able to get his breath. Ujurak wasn’t sure what to do. Fighting back panic, he looked around and spotted a container made of skins. The scent of water came from it; Ujurak picked it up and held it for Tulugaq to sip.

“Shall I fetch Eva?” he asked as the old man’s coughing died away.

“No.” Tulugaq’s voice was rough and breathy. “She’ll only worry. And I shall be joining the Selamiut soon, wherever they are. . . .” He motioned to Ujurak to lie down beside him, then fumbled out a small bunch of herbs from somewhere among his furs and reached up to sprinkle them on the lamp. Finally he settled himself back, closed his eyes, and began to chant in a thin, reedy voice.

Ujurak lay down and pulled the furs around himself. The warmth and the scent of burning herbs lulled him into a half sleep. Tulugaq’s chanting seemed to become more resonant, wreathing around Ujurak like smoke.

Spirits, we’re coming to find you,
Ujurak thought muzzily.
Show us what you want us to do.

Chapter Nineteen

Ujurak

Ujurak jerked awake to see the
tall, imposing man from his earlier dream standing by the entrance to the igloo. He was enveloped in the cloak of feathers.

“Tulugaq?” Ujurak asked uncertainly.

The man nodded, beckoning. “Come.”

Ujurak followed him outside into the dim light of early dawn. Tulugaq walked away from the igloos, quickening his pace as he went, until the cloak was billowing out around him like a pair of vast wings. Suddenly his shape flickered; his feet left the ground, and a raven soared into the air, wheeling over Ujurak’s head.

Quickly Ujurak willed himself to change, letting black feathers grow from his flat-face arms while he felt his legs shrink into the sticklike limbs and claws of a bird. Spreading his wings, he felt a beak sprout from his face, and he let out an answering caw as he mounted into the air: younger and smaller than Tulugaq, but a raven just like him.

Tulugaq rose higher and higher into the air, until the igloos vanished into the snowy ground around them. Gazing around him, Ujurak could see the whole island, and other islands dotted in the frozen sea around it. The flat-face denning area near the poisoned cove stood out stark against the snow on the far side.

Swooping lower again, Tulugaq and Ujurak flew over the new bay, where Ujurak spotted several white bears crouched beside breathing holes, waiting for seals.
Good,
he thought.
They’ve moved to their new hunting ground.
He recognized Yakone from his reddish pelt, and wondered what the white bear would think if he knew who was flying overhead.

A little farther on, the snow was churned up by a caribou trail, heading inland. Tulugaq swerved to follow it, past the flat-face denning area and toward the inner part of the island, where steep mountains reared up into the sky. At last they passed the caribou herd; the powerful bodies of the creatures looked tiny as Ujurak flew above them.

Then Tulugaq led him into a deep fold in the ground, flanked by jagged hills all covered in snow. He swooped down into the valley and perched on a wind-carved point of snow halfway up the slope. “Down there,” he cawed as Ujurak alighted beside him, “is a cave where our ancestors met.”

My ancestors? Or yours?
Ujurak wondered.

“It is known as the Place of the Selamiut,” Tulugaq told him.

“Are we going inside?” Ujurak asked eagerly.

The raven shook his head. “There is something else I want you to see,” he cawed.

Tulugaq flew on, and Ujurak sprang into the sky and followed him. At the end of the valley a flat-face structure came into view: It was made of dark poles tapering into the sky and flanked by brown machinery.

Tulugaq flew down and perched on top of the tall structure. As Ujurak joined him, he picked up a stench that reminded him of the creatures soaked in oil that he had helped Sally rescue, and of the oilfield he had visited at the edge of the Last Great Wilderness.

Oil! The flat-faces have even come here to find it!

He looked down at the flat-faces moving around the area, dressed in bright yellow pelts. Some of them were driving past in firebeasts; others were on foot, carrying long rods or chunky bits of machinery that Ujurak didn’t recognize.

As he gazed down, his vision seemed to blur, and when it cleared again, he saw more structures sprouting from the ground, more flat-faces and firebeasts, appearing like the eruptions of some horrible disease, until the whole island was covered, as far as Ujurak could see.

The sounds of dying animals huddled below him invaded his head: cubs whimpering with hunger, birds cawing feebly, white bears roaring in anger that there were no seals left. The suffering of starving creatures filled the whole world, shaking Ujurak on his perch.

Dark, sticky oil started to well up from the ground, a black tide spreading across the snow, swallowing the whiteness and the dying creatures. Wave after wave of it flowed out around him, covering the frozen sea and encroaching on the other islands until there was nothing but stinking oil from horizon to horizon. Ujurak gagged on the stench as he breathed in the tainted air.

“Tulugaq, what—?” he began. Ujurak broke off as he turned to look at the raven and saw the gloss on his feathers covered with thick black oil. The bird was choking, his beak opening and closing silently.

Tulugaq is dying!

Ujurak couldn’t think where the oil had come from, but he knew there was no way of banishing it, nothing that he could do here. They had to get back to the igloos.

“Tulugaq, you must fly with me!” he urged.

The older raven turned his head and fixed Ujurak with a despairing gaze, but he spread his wings and lurched into the sky. Ujurak flew close beside him as they struggled over the hills, beginning to panic again as he realized that he didn’t know which way to head.

Tulugaq was losing height, his oil-soaked wings laboring. Ujurak swooped to follow him. Suddenly he felt a jolt as if he had slammed into the ground, and for a moment everything went dark. Then he opened his eyes and found himself in flat-face form, wrapped in furs and lying in Tulugaq’s igloo.

The reek of oil still filled the air, and Ujurak gasped for breath as he thrust away the furs and scrambled to Tulugaq’s side. The old man was clean, the smothering oil vanished, but he lay on his back, his chest heaving as he drew in each rasping breath. His eyes were closed, and he didn’t rouse when Ujurak spoke his name.

His hands shaking, Ujurak grabbed the water bottle and raised the old man’s head so that he could take a sip.

Tulugaq’s eyes flickered open, and he fixed them on Ujurak as he pushed the water bottle away. “The wild is dying, and I am dying with it,” he whispered. “The time has come.”

“No!” Ujurak exclaimed.

The old man ignored his protest, feebly trying to raise himself among the enveloping furs. “Turn back the tide to save the island,” he gasped, “and perhaps the wild will survive.”

Ujurak nodded. “I will, I promise.”
Anything, if it will keep Tulugaq alive!
“I’ll fetch Eva,” he added.

The old man’s hand, thin and bony like the talon of a bird, reached out and gripped Ujurak’s wrist with surprising strength. Ujurak looked down to see that his eyes were brimming with tears.

“It’s all right,” he murmured to the old man, compassion making his voice quiver. “I will do what I can.”

Tulugaq shook his head. “It is your time, too,” he whispered. “I wish it were not so.” Gathering his strength, he added, “Look for me where the Selamiut are, and I will find you among the stars.”

His grip tightened on Ujurak’s wrist, then went limp. He let out his breath in a long sigh. His eyes were still fixed on Ujurak’s face, but the light within them was gone. Shock froze Ujurak for a moment before he managed to control himself.

“Good-bye, Tulugaq.” Ujurak reached out and gently closed the old man’s eyes. Then he bowed his head over the body and gave himself up to grief.

Movement inside the igloo roused him some unknown time later; he looked up and saw Eva. She stood behind him, her eyes full of sorrow as she gazed down at the body of her grandfather. “I knew he was dying,” she whispered. “But I thought he would stay with us a little longer.”

“I’m so sorry!” Ujurak blurted out. “I tried to help him.”

Eva nodded, resting a hand on his shoulder. “I know. He was an old, old man. I’m glad he went peacefully.”

But he didn’t,
Ujurak thought.
He knew that something terrible is happening on the island, and he wanted me to stop it. But how? I had so many more questions to ask!

As Eva bent over her grandfather’s body, covering his face and beginning to arrange herbs around him from a pouch beside the bed, Ujurak slipped out of the igloo. He retraced his steps to Akaka’s igloo, relieved to find that it was still empty. He stripped off the borrowed clothes and ventured out into the open again, shivering in the icy wind.

As he began to run, he transformed back into a brown bear, but for once there was no comfort in the familiar shape. Every nerve and muscle in his body felt the sickness of the raven, the anguish of the Inuit boy, the hunger of the white bears, and the confusion of the caribou as their feeding grounds were drowned under the stinking black tide of oil.

This is the place where the wild is dying faster than anywhere else!

Chapter Twenty

Toklo

Toklo plodded back to the makeshift
den with a ptarmigan, the chunky body with its ruffled white feathers hanging limply from his jaws. His scouting hadn’t found any trace of pursuing white bears, and on his way back he had practically tripped over the bird. He felt satisfied that he’d managed to achieve something.

The wretched creature is very small,
he thought,
but it’s better than nothing. Certainly better than those plants Lusa is always looking for!

When Toklo reached the edge of the den, he saw only Lusa, lying on her back and playing with Kissimi, who was dabbing at her paws. She scrambled up, gently pushing the cub to one side, when she spotted Toklo.

“Have you seen Ujurak and Kallik?” she asked anxiously.

Shaking his head, Toklo dropped the ptarmigan into the den. “Aren’t they here? I thought they’d be back by now.”

“No. I’m getting really worried.” Lusa stroked Kissimi with one soft black paw, as if she was trying to reassure him.

Toklo lowered himself into the den, pushing his prey toward Lusa so that they could share it. Tearing off a scrap, he set it down in front of Kissimi.

“Don’t stare at me!” he said gruffly, feeling Lusa’s gaze on him. “We’re running for our lives because of him. There’s no point if he dies.”

He glared at Kissimi as the little cub nosed at the meat, then set his teeth in one end of it and began chewing inexpertly. Suddenly Toklo blinked. Kissimi’s fine white fur faded in front of his eyes, to be replaced by the scrawny brown flanks of his brother, Tobi.

“Yuck!” he complained.

“But you’ve got to eat.” Toklo tried to persuade the cub, panic welling up inside him. “If you don’t, you’ll die.”

Still the cub only spat out the morsel of meat and turned his head away, letting out a weak, mewling cry.

Toklo’s fear was driven out by surging anger. “Eat!” he growled. “We’re risking our lives for you! Can’t you see that?” He loomed over the cub, who cringed away from him with a whimper of terror, and raised one paw ready to strike.

Before he could bring down his massive paw onto the cowering cub, a shower of snow descended from the edge of the den. Kallik hurled herself at Toklo, throwing aside an Arctic hare that she held clamped in her jaws. She looked wild-eyed and exhausted.

“What are you doing?” she snarled, rounding on Toklo and baring her teeth, ready for a fight. “Leave Kissimi alone!”

Overwhelmed by rage and frustration, Toklo advanced on her, but before he could come within striking distance, Lusa hurled herself between them.

“Stop this at once!” she snapped. “Toklo, get out. You’re scaring Kissimi.”

She thrust at Toklo with her shoulder, urging him to the edge of the den. Clumsily he stumbled out. His fury ebbed, and he shuddered as he came back to himself.
It wasn’t Tobi; it was Kissimi all along.
His belly churned with horror as he realized that he might have to watch another cub die.

Behind him he could hear Kallik as she fussed over her cub. “Kissimi! Are you all right? Don’t be afraid, dear one; the scary brown bear has gone.” She gave the cub’s fur a deep sniff. “Oh, you’ve eaten something! Thank you for sharing,” she added to Lusa.

“Well, of course we fed him!” Lusa responded indignantly. “It’s not his fault!”

Kallik muttered something inaudible; Toklo hoped she felt embarrassed about the danger she had brought down on them all, and the way she seemed to think they wanted her cub to die.

“Kallik, Kissimi is so clever.” Lusa was obviously trying to distract her friend and calm the tension between them all. “He knows all our names now. And he was pretending to crouch beside a seal hole. He kept so still!”

While Kallik nuzzled her cub, Toklo grumpily tried to block his ears from the she-bears’ chatter.
I know I was wrong to get angry with the cub. But for a moment there he looked just like Tobi . . . and I can’t stop thinking about him. Cubs die too easily!

Staring out across the snow, he wondered what had happened to Ujurak.

If he doesn’t come back soon, I’ll have to go and look for him. It would be just like that cloud-brained bear to get into trouble!

Then Toklo spotted movement, dark against the snowy landscape: Something was moving fast toward him. He tensed his muscles, only to relax as the creature drew closer and he recognized Ujurak, racing up with his ears pinned back.

Toklo sprang up and ran to meet him. “What happened?” he demanded, anxiety rushing through him at the smaller bear’s distraught look.

Ujurak skidded to a halt, spraying snow from his paws. “I’m fine,” he panted. “But I went traveling with a flat-face—he was a raven, too—and I saw more oil! It’s drowning the island, and everything wild!”

“Steady, steady.” Toklo rested a paw on his friend’s shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re babbling about. Calm down and tell me.”

Ujurak took in several great gulps of air; to Toklo’s relief the wild look in his eyes began to fade. “I met Tulugaq, a flat-face who could turn into a raven,” he began. “He showed me a place where oil is being dug up from the ground. It’s going to destroy the whole island unless we do something about it.”

“Do what?” Toklo asked, beginning to be irritated because he didn’t understand. “We need more direction than that.”

Ujurak’s eyes were suddenly flooded with grief. “Tulugaq died,” he whimpered. “I can’t ask him anything more.”

Gazing at him, Toklo was suddenly reminded of the young cub he had protected when they’d first begun to journey through the wild. He pushed his snout briefly into Ujurak’s fur. “Tulugaq must have given you some idea,” he said.

Ujurak just looked blank, shaking his head in bewilderment.

Before Toklo could say any more, he heard Lusa’s high-pitched squeal behind him. “Ujurak! You’re back!”

She burst out of the den and dashed up to Ujurak, pressing herself affectionately against his side. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “You look so sad!”

“Let’s go back to the den,” Toklo suggested, hunching his shoulders against the wind. “Then Ujurak can tell us everything from the beginning.”

The bears huddled together when they were all inside the den. Toklo noticed that Kissimi shrank behind Kallik when he entered, and he felt another stab of irritation with the feeble cub.

He’d be afraid of his own shadow!

Then he admitted to himself that Kissimi hadn’t really deserved to be scared like that, and he squeezed himself to the opposite side of the den, as far away from the cub as he could get. Kallik hesitated, then gave him a nod of thanks as she drew Kissimi close to her with one paw curled around him. She seemed to realize that Toklo hadn’t meant to frighten her cub.

Toklo made a conscious effort to relax in the warmth, listening to the sound of the wind whistling by overhead. “Okay,” he said to Ujurak. “Tell us everything.”

He listened in astonishment as Ujurak related how he had changed into a flat-face and then into a raven, flying with the old man Tulugaq. His eyes widened as he heard about the cave where the Selamiut, the spirits, gathered. And his heart sank as Ujurak described the spreading tide of oil, the whole island drowning in it as Tulugaq the raven had drowned.

“What about the white bears?” Kallik asked, her voice shaking with horror as she curled her paw even more protectively around Kissimi.

“Well, unless they can swim in oil, they’ll die!” Ujurak snapped. His voice was unusually sharp; Toklo guessed that he was feeling helpless and frustrated.

“From what Tulugaq told you, it sounds as if the spirits can give us the answer.” Lusa was frowning thoughtfully. “The flat-faces call the lights in the sky the Selamiut,” she went on, half to herself. “And the white bears here call them the Iqniq. Are all the ancestors in the world up there?”

Ujurak shook his head. “I don’t know. But the sky is very big,” he pointed out.

Since Kallik’s question about the white bears she had been silent, sunk deep in thought with her eyes narrowed. “So what should we do next?” she asked. “If the answers are in the stars, does that mean Ujurak has to go to the place where the Selamiut are?” Even as the words were coming out of her mouth, she realized,
But that’s impossible!

“In the stars?” Toklo scoffed, putting words to her thought. Even Ujurak couldn’t fly so high. “Good luck with that!”

“Wait,” Lusa said, stretching out a paw to silence Toklo. “Ujurak, didn’t you say that the cave is called the Place of the Selamiut? What if the cave is the place where we’re meant to go?”

Ujurak gave her a doubtful look. “It’s a long way.”

“I think Lusa’s right.” Toklo hated to admit it, but what the little black bear said made sense. “Tulugaq mentioned the home of the Selamiut
and
looking for you in the stars, didn’t he? Which sounds like two different places. So one
must
be the cave! Besides, the flat-face couldn’t possibly have meant that Ujurak had to meet him in the
real
stars.” As he spoke, a chill sank deep into Toklo’s fur.
The only way a bear can get to the stars is by dying.
“He
didn’t
mean that,” he repeated aggressively. “So where else is there, except the cave?”

As his friends looked at one another, struck by his suggestion, Toklo’s paws tingled with longing to set off, to get back to the purpose of their journey.

I’ve had enough of white bears and sick seals and stolen cubs. They’re just distracting us from what’s really important.

He started as Kissimi scrambled up his shoulder, butting his tiny head into the hollow of his neck. A tiny spark of warmth woke inside him as he realized that the cub had forgiven him.

“Hey, get off,” he grunted, but he kept his paw gentle as he thrust the cub back toward Kallik.
I don’t want to scare him again.

“We can’t set out now,” Kallik said, nudging Kissimi into her fur. “It’s getting dark. We’ll start tomorrow at first light.”

Toklo wondered why she sounded so eager. Then he realized why. If the cave was a long way off, it was even farther away from the white bears. They would never get Kissimi back if Kallik journeyed to the cave with him.

“And now we’d better sleep,” Toklo said. “We’ll travel faster if we’ve had a good rest.”

Toklo woke in darkness, but when he raised his head above the level of the den, he managed to make out a faint milky line on the horizon. It was still too early to leave, so he watched the others as they slept, half ashamed of the affection he felt for them. He knew brown bears were supposed to live alone, but he found it hard to imagine being without his friends.

We’ve come so far together. Are we really near our destination at last? And what will happen then?
His sense of responsibility weighed on him as heavily as if the roof of the den had fallen in on him.
Who will keep them safe when I’m not around?

A dull pain settled in his belly at the thought of separating from his companions, but he pushed it away. Once they got moving, there would be no time to think of that, he decided, prodding Ujurak in the side to wake him.

Ujurak’s jaws gaped wide in a yawn as he heaved himself up, disturbing Lusa, who was curled up by his side. The little black bear wrapped her paws over her nose and muttered, “Go away. I was just eating some really tasty blueberries. . . .”

Kallik jerked awake, flexing her shoulders sleepily as she looked around for Kissimi. The tiny cub was still deeply asleep, curled into a ball. He roused briefly as Kallik rose to her paws; then he scrambled onto her back, snuggled into her neck fur, and closed his eyes again.

As Toklo followed Kallik out of the den, he wondered whether the Iqniq had intended that the cub would come with them on the last part of their journey.

He was born here on the island, so maybe he belongs here more than the rest of us.
Toklo stifled a huff of laughter at the thought.
I’m starting to sound like Ujurak,
he scolded himself.
I’ll be imagining oily ravens next!

“Let’s get moving,” he said aloud. “Ujurak, you know the way, so you take the lead. I’ll follow behind and keep a lookout for the white bears.”

The bears set off in the half-light of dawn, trudging over the snow into the unknown interior of the island. They kept on as the daylight strengthened around them; Toklo’s legs began to ache, and he noticed that Lusa was starting to stumble with tiredness.

“Let’s take a break,” he suggested as they toiled past a clump of thornbushes that gave some shelter from the wind. “I’ll see if I can find some prey.”

“You need to rest as well,” Lusa objected, though she had flopped down thankfully in the lee of the bushes.

“And we all need to eat,” Toklo responded, swinging around and trekking off into the snow-covered landscape.

He was barely out of sight of the bushes when he spotted an Arctic hare hopping across the landscape. It was moving away upwind of him; Toklo managed to sneak up to within a bearlength of it before it realized he was there, and he pinned it down and killed it as it tried to spring away.

On his way back with his catch he spotted two more ptarmigans huddled together in the snow. Dropping the hare, he launched himself toward them; one fluttered up out of reach, but he snagged a claw in the wing of the second and brought it down.