Seekers #6: Spirits in the Stars (19 page)

We’ll eat well for once,
Toklo thought with satisfaction as he headed back to his friends, his jaws full of warm prey.
Maybe it’s a sign that the spirits want us to go this way.

This time, as they shared the prey, Toklo chewed some of the meat into a pulp and set it down in front of Kissimi. “Try that,” he suggested, trying to make his voice gentle. Maybe the cub would like ptarmigan better when it was thoroughly chewed up. “It’s easy to eat.”

The cub sniffed the pulp doubtfully, then managed to eat a few mouthfuls. Toklo noticed that Kallik was looking at him with warmth in her eyes. “Thanks, Toklo,” she said.

When they were all crouched in the shelter of the bushes, their bellies comfortably full, Toklo rose to his paws again. “Time to be on our way.”

“I’m worried that we might get lost,” Kallik said, gazing uneasily at the land in front of them. “Ujurak, why don’t you turn into a bird and fly up to see where we have to go.”

“No.” Toklo was surprised at the determination in Ujurak’s voice; he could tell there would be no point trying to persuade him. “The end of our journey is very close now. I know that I have to be a bear when we reach it.”

As they set off again, Toklo wondered whether there was something Ujurak wasn’t telling them.
He’s not usually this quiet. And there’s a look in his eyes . . . as if he sees something the rest of us can’t.

Now the land began to rise ahead of them into a ridge of low mountains: jagged, snow-covered peaks standing out against a sky that was growing dark and thunderous. A few flakes of snow began to drift down, rapidly thickening, and soon the snow whirled on the wind so that the bears had to battle on with their heads lowered into the storm. Ice crystals formed around Toklo’s eyes and lodged between his claws; every step was an effort.

We’ll all be ice bears if this goes on,
he grumbled silently.

Kallik slipped on a frozen patch of ground, jostling Toklo and dislodging Kissimi from her shoulders. The cub let out a wail, though the snow was too soft for the fall to have hurt him.

“Shall I take him for a bit?” Toklo offered, as Kallik nudged the little cub to his paws and gave him a comforting lick on the snout.

Kallik turned to him, her eyes surprised and grateful. “Thanks, Toklo.”

“Come on, then, small one.” Toklo crouched down to let the cub scramble into his fur, finding that he liked the warm weight lodged on his shoulders. “Make sure you hang on tight.”
I’ll look after you, little one,
he promised silently.

As they continued, the ground began to slope more steeply up to the ridge.

“Maybe we should stop for the night,” Lusa suggested, weariness in her voice. “The storm might be over by tomorrow.”

“No.” Again that strange tone from Ujurak. “It’s not much farther.”

There’s something driving him,
Toklo thought, trying to crush down his anxiety for his friend.
Something more pressing than usual. I wish I knew what.

At last the bears reached the crest of the ridge and stood there, frozen and exhausted, looking down into the valley beyond. Toklo could see nothing but snow and broken rock, but Ujurak plunged unhesitatingly downward.

“Come on! We’re almost there!”

Once they were a few bearlengths down from the summit, the wind dropped, and the falling snow dwindled to almost nothing. But the going wasn’t much easier. Sliding in the soft, fresh snow, Toklo felt that scrambling down was even harder than climbing up. He kept an eye on his companions, giving them a nudge when they needed help. Lusa’s short legs kept sinking into the snow, leaving her trying to wade through it.

“Thanks!” she gasped as Toklo grabbed her scruff and hauled her out for the third time. “Even you can’t blame me for falling into snowdrifts here!”

Toklo had hardly set off again when the snow shifted unexpectedly under his paws, and he found himself sliding down the mountain on his rump. He let out a roar of surprise, which was joined by a squeal from Kissimi as the cub lost his grip and was flung off his shoulders into a snowbank.

“Kissimi!” Kallik exclaimed, scrambling over to the spot where he had disappeared and digging frantically with her forepaws. “Kissimi, I’m coming!”

She hauled the cub out, wet and wailing but otherwise unhurt, and nudged him back into her own fur. “I’ll take over for a while, Toklo,” she said with a nod of gratitude. “You’ve been a big help.”

Trudging on again, Toklo began to wonder if they were right to go on. He was exhausted from keeping watch over everyone and leaping to their rescue every time they fell into the snow.
If the spirits wanted us to find this cave, wouldn’t they make it a bit easier?

Then he realized that Ujurak had halted and was staring ahead at an overhanging ledge on the side of the valley a little lower down. “This is the place!” he exclaimed.

Toklo let his gaze travel down the valley and then up the opposite slope. At the very top he could just make out a strange flat-face structure that looked as if it were made of sticks. It was wide at the bottom, but higher up it grew narrower, until it tapered to a point, outlined against the sky. There was something sinister about the way it seemed to be peering over the shoulder of the hill.

“What’s that?” he asked, jerking his head toward it.

“The oil rig,” Ujurak replied tersely.

“It looks so small,” Lusa said.

Toklo grunted agreement. Ujurak had worried so much about destroying it, but it looked as if he could reach out and smash it with one paw.

“There’s a lot more to it than that,” Ujurak told them. “You’ll see, but for now we have to go down here.”

He led the way slowly forward; Toklo and the others followed. A sense of awe crept over Toklo at the silence and the glimmering whiteness of the snow; he guessed that the others felt the same, for they all padded on without a sound. Even Kissimi’s whimpering died away.

As they drew closer to the ledge, Toklo heard more pawsteps nearby; he whirled around, expecting to see the white bears tracking them down the slope, but the slope was empty, the snow undisturbed except for their own tracks.

Now I’m imagining things!

But as he trudged on, he heard the pawsteps again, and this time shapes brushed past him: the huge furred bodies of white bears; caribou and musk oxen; even the scrawny bodies of flat-faces. Toklo screwed his eyes tight shut, then opened them again: The shapes were still there, but shadowy, as if something blurred his vision so he couldn’t see them clearly

An Arctic hare hopped by at his paws; Toklo reached out to swipe it and found with a thrill of fear that his claws went right through it, and he could see the snowy ground through its white pelt. He blinked, wondering if he was going crazy or just dreaming.

Then he heard Kallik’s whisper. “Do you see them, too?”

Lusa nodded, her eyes wide with awe. “There are so many of them!”

Ujurak glanced over his shoulder. His voice was strong and certain, and very calm. “These are our ancestors, the ancestors of the wild, and this is their place.”

Still feeling as if he were in a dream, Toklo walked with the others among the spirits of all the birds and creatures of the Endless Ice, hunter and prey together, joined in one company and purpose.

Climbing the slope beneath the overhang, Ujurak led the way to the mouth of a cave. Peering over the smaller bear’s shoulder, Toklo saw a wide tunnel leading back into thick darkness. Every hair on his pelt stood on end; curiosity was driving him on, and yet he wanted to get away from this strange place that belonged to so many different creatures.

How can this place be safe if flat-faces come here?

And yet the only scents he could smell were warm and comforting, seeming to beckon him inside.

While he was still hesitating, Lusa padded up to the cave entrance and peered inside. “Hello?” she called. “Anyone there?”

Her voice echoed on and on, reverberating in the darkness.

“Wow, this is a big cave!” Kallik exclaimed.

“Come on,” said Ujurak. Striding forward, he led the way inside.

The half-seen creatures halted at the edge of the cave and watched as Ujurak and the others headed deeper in. Toklo felt safe with them standing there, as if they were guarding the entrance from enemies.

Nothing can harm us here,
he realized.

Darkness gathered around them as they left the entrance behind. Toklo wondered what would happen when it became too dark to see anything. Then a faint white glow woke in the depths of the darkness ahead. Toklo and the others hurried forward and halted in amazement as the stone tunnel led into a vast cavern with a roof far above their heads.

Gazing upward, Toklo saw white light filtering down through snow that covered a hole in the cavern roof. In the middle of the floor was a pile of snow that had fallen in through the hole, but the edges of the cave were dry stone.

Toklo drew in a breath of wonder as he looked down at pawprints on the ground—as many pawprints as there were stars in the sky. All the creatures who had been in the cave had left their marks; Toklo even spotted the weird pawprints of flat-faces.

And how they manage to balance on those two skinny paws, I’ll never know!

He started at a shout from Kallik. “Look over here!”

Bounding over to her side, Toklo saw that she was staring at markings on the walls: lines and blotches drawn in different colors.

“What in the world are those?” he asked, not expecting an answer.

Ujurak and Lusa came to join them, staring at the marks; Ujurak frowned as he gazed at them, deep in thought.

“I think flat-faces made them,” he announced at last. “When I was with Sally, I saw her holding a stick that left a blue trail on something flat and white.”

“What did she do that for?” Lusa asked.

Ujurak shrugged. “They obviously mean something to flat-faces.”

Lusa had padded closer to the lines and blotches, gazing at them with a puzzled look. “I think I see . . .” she murmured after a few moments. “Look, those shapes there, and that curved line . . . They look like a caribou.”

“You’re right!” Ujurak exclaimed. “And there’s another, and another!”

At first Toklo was doubtful, but after a moment he had to admit that the marks did seem to take the shape of caribou. “And these others,” he pointed out. “They look like flat-faces hunting. One of them has a spear, or maybe it’s a firestick.”

“And there’s a caribou they’ve killed.” Kallik pointed to the cave wall with one paw. “There’s the spear sticking out of its side. They’ve even put red blobs for the blood coming out.”

Toklo didn’t see why flat-faces would come here to make marks on the walls, but he marveled at the different scenes that he could see. There were flat-face dens made out of brown pelts, and flat-faces of all different sizes milling around them.

“Look at those streaks,” Ujurak said, pointing to marks above the flat-faces. “I think they must be the spirits in the sky, the Iqniq, the ancestors of all the creatures.”

“And look over here!” Lusa called out, nodding toward a different section of the wall. “There are white bears! I wonder if one of them is Aga?”

Kallik and Toklo padded over to look; Kallik let out a rumble of pleasure at seeing her own kind pictured on the wall.

Toklo leaned forward and gave the markings a good sniff. “There’s no scent,” he said. “They must have been here a long time.”
Longer than even Aga has been alive,
he thought with an inward shiver.

“Come here! Come and look!” Ujurak called from a distant corner of the cave.

Toklo thought Ujurak’s voice sounded tense and strange, and he quickened his pace as he went to join him. “What have you found now?” he asked.

Ujurak pointed in silence at the cave wall. Toklo gaped in astonishment as he saw four tiny bear shapes: two brown, one black, and one white. Above their heads were white markings that looked like stars in the shape of Ursa.

“It’s us,” Ujurak whispered, as Lusa and Kallik padded up behind. “All the time we have been here, in this cave. This is where we’re meant to be.”

Toklo’s belly lurched; he felt strange and prickly under his fur.
Flat-faces left an image of me, here in this cave! Possibly even before I was born!

He grew dizzy, and the cave swirled around him. “We have reached the end of our journey,” he choked out. “So what happens now?”

“We have to save the island,” Ujurak muttered, his gaze still fixed on the tiny bear shapes. “If the oil drilling destroys this cave, everything is lost. This island has been waiting for us; it must know that we can help it.”

Lusa moved away abruptly, her shoulders hunched; Toklo thought that something about finding the bear shapes there had upset her. When she spoke, her voice was sharp. “How?” she demanded. “I’ve done what I was supposed to do, figuring out that the seals were sick, and moving them. What else can we do? We’re just bears!”

To Toklo’s amazement Ujurak rounded on her. The fire in his eyes made Toklo take a pace back, and when he looked more closely, he realized it was as if the brown bear’s eyes were filled with stars.