The Quest Begins (13 page)

Kallik was walking at the foot
of a low cliff, watching the tide creeping up the beach. She knew she needed to turn inland before long. She reached a place where the cliffs had crumbled down onto the shore, and scrambled up. Blasts of foul-smelling wind flattened her fur and stung her eyes.

From here she could see down to a flat gray path with straight edges that stretched in either direction to the edge of the sky. Beyond it was a cluster of dens like the one she had seen several days ago, propped on squat legs with flat walls and pointed roofs.

As she lay there, a roar came from the distance, and in a moment a loud, smelly creature came galloping along the path. It shot past her with a blaring noise and a blast of smoky air. Kallik coughed and coughed, trying to breathe although her nose was filled with the horrible scent. Her mother had told her that the only creatures bigger than white bears were something called “firebeasts.” Nisa had said that they didn't
eat bears…but Kallik shivered, wondering if that was true.

On a patch of grass in front of one of the dens, three creatures were playing. They walked on two legs and had rainbow furs in many colors, like birds. Kallik thought they looked too small to be dangerous, although they were too big to be prey. She wondered if they were more like bears or birds, and she wished she was brave enough to go over and sniff them more closely. They were wrestling and chasing something, and once again she felt a pang of missing her family.

Underneath the horrid smoky smell, Kallik picked up faint traces of other scents that smelled fatty and salty, like food. They were coming from the other side of the stone path. She pushed herself to her paws and trotted down the slope to the path, her ears twitching and her nose held high. It was hard to tell which scents were old and which were new; the smell of the path overwhelmed them all.

Kallik took a deep breath and bounded onto the path. It felt strange beneath her paws, pebbly and smooth at the same time. She raced for the other side as fast as she could, but she was still a few bearlengths away when a terrifying rumble shook the ground. She glanced to the left and saw one of the firebeasts bearing down on her much faster than she could run.

With a howl of terror, Kallik picked up speed and threw herself to the grass on the far side of the path. She hit the ground and tumbled head over claws into a thorny bush as the firebeast shot past behind her. Still terrified, Kallik sprang to her paws again and kept running, blundering through bushes and thickets until she crashed into a new kind of barrier, short
and white and made of wood, like a series of tiny identical leafless trees growing next to one another. In her panic, she knocked over a whole section of these wooden trees and floundered into an enclosed space of peculiarly short, even grass.

A high-pitched scream sounded from inside the nearest den. Kallik ran back through the hole she had made, following the smell of trees. She blundered into an overgrown patch of woods behind the dens and found a large bush with branches hanging low to the ground. Kallik crawled underneath and lay there, panting, until she was sure that nothing was chasing her.

She rested her muzzle on her paws. She was shaking all over and her fur felt as if it had been dragged through an ice storm. It took her a long time to fall asleep, and when she did, strange creatures chased her through her nightmares, yowling and roaring. Through the chaos of noise and color, Kallik spotted her mother, pale as snow, on the far side of the stone path. Nisa looked into Kallik's eyes, then turned and walked away. As she walked, the ground beneath her turned to ice, and the cool blue stillness spread out from her paws, rippling to the edge of the sky. Unable to move, Kallik watched helplessly as her mother walked farther and farther away across the ice.

The path seemed quieter when she woke in the early morning. Kallik sniffed the air, braced herself, and sprinted across at full speed. This time she was lucky: No firebeasts sprang out of hiding to attack her. She made it across and kept
running uphill past lone scattered trees until she reached the top of the cliff that looked out over the water.

Her paws were sore and bleeding from the harsh surface of the stone path, and her coat was gray with the dirt that seemed to hang in the air around it, filling her nostrils with its scent. Her throat hurt from the scratchy air, and the bright sun beat down on her fur, scorching her nose and overheating her body.

At the top of the cliff was a stretch of dry ground covered in scraggly grass and tiny, leafless bushes. Kallik tried to eat some of the grass, but the spiky leaves hurt her tongue and throat. She sniffed the air for any scent of fresh water and was relieved to find a trace that seemed close by. Kallik padded across the bare earth to a gully, where she found a stream running along the bottom. She scrambled down the side of the gully and raced to the edge of the stream. There she stopped short in dismay.

Only a few bearlengths away, sprawled in the water, was another white bear.

He was older than her, but still young, probably only one or two burn-skies old. He was not as large as some of the bears Kallik had seen, but he was a lot bigger than her, although he looked thin and starving like she was. He was lying on his belly, letting the flowing water cool him off. Kallik took a step back, hoping he hadn't seen her yet. There was a snap beneath her paws as she stepped on a twig, and she froze.

The other bear raised his head and stared at her with small dark eyes. She took another step back, and he stood
up, shaking himself so drops flew in all directions. Kallik was wondering if it would be wise to run when he spoke.

“It's all right,” he said gruffly. “You can have a drink. I won't eat you.”

“Oh,” Kallik said. Her voice sounded strange because she hadn't spoken in so long. “Thank you.” She padded to the edge of the stream, keeping her eyes on the other bear. When he didn't move, she ducked her head and drank quickly.

The bear was still standing there when she stepped back. Kallik didn't know if it was really safe to talk to him, but he hadn't attacked her yet, and maybe if he was friendly, he'd help her find her brother.

“Hello,” she said cautiously. “My name's Kallik.”

“Hmm,”
grunted the other bear. She waited. After a long pause, he said, “I'm Purnaq.”

“Are you all alone?” Kallik asked. It was such a relief to be talking to another white bear that she couldn't stop the words tumbling out, quicker than water. “I am. My mother was killed by orcas and I lost my brother—I don't know where he is, but I'm looking for him—he ran off into the snow and I've been trying to find him.” Purnaq cocked his head, listening. “It was so horrible,” Kallik went on. “I was in the water with my mother when the whales attacked, and she pushed me onto the ice but they pulled her under. And my brother is out there somewhere, all alone, and I have to find him….”

“It's a sad story,” Purnaq agreed with a shrug. “But things are tough all over right now. Most bears have stories like that to tell.”

“Most bears?” Kallik echoed. “Have you seen a lot of other bears, then?”

Purnaq looked surprised. “Don't you know where you are? Just look up there.” He nodded to the far side of the gully. Kallik splashed through the water and pulled herself up the dusty slope to the top.

The sparse, dry ground stretching in front of her was covered with white bears! More bears than she had ever seen in her life, more than all the claws on her paws. They were standing well away from one another, but most of them were close to the sea, which she could see glittering ahead of her. All of them looked thin and wretched.

She had done it…. She had reached the gathering place. “Taqqiq!” she cried.

It was a warm morning in
leaftime, almost a moon after Oka's arrival. There were a lot of flat-faces clustered at the top of the wall, watching the bears in the Bowl. Lusa was in the Bear Tree, listening to them chatter. She lay on a branch, stretching her paws and feeling the sun warm her fur. The flat-faces sounded noisier than usual.

The doors in the wall on the other side of the Fence started to clank open. Lusa turned her head to look down into the grizzly enclosure. Oka had been clawing at her tree all day, roaring now and then with rage. She'd frightened Grumps off to the far corner, where Lusa could hear him grumbling about the damage to his poor tree. She wasn't sure if there was anything making Oka angrier than usual, but the she-bear seemed very upset.

One of the feeders stepped through the door, carrying a bucket of fish. Lusa recognized the flat-face; he often brought her food and when she was very little he had
sometimes play-wrestled with her.

Oka spun around when she heard the door clang shut. Her ears twitched and her eyes narrowed. She looked like she had just spotted a juicy piece of prey. Lusa sat up, sensing something was wrong. She barked, trying to warn the feeder, but he had his back to Oka and was setting the bucket down on the ground.

All of a sudden, Oka charged. In less than a heartbeat she had raced across the clearing and slammed into the flat-face. He fell over with a shout, and the grizzly pinned him to the ground with her paws. He reached up with his hands, trying to push her away, but her huge jaws yawned over his face and her claws ripped at his chest.

Lusa scrambled back to the tree trunk, wrapped her forepaws around it, and pressed her face into the bark. She could hear the flat-face visitors screaming and shouting from the wall. Even louder than them, she could hear the feeder howling in pain. The terrible sound seemed to go on and on and on.

Finally she heard the door clanking again, and she turned to see another feeder come running through, pointing a metal stick at Oka, which let out a loud
pop
. Oka reared up from the first feeder and turned to the new one, roaring and lashing out with her claws. For a moment Lusa was afraid that the other flat-face would be hurt as well, but then Oka stopped, swaying. She blinked, shaking her head, and then her eyes closed and she toppled to the ground with a crash that sent up a cloud of sand.

The second feeder ran to the flat-face on the ground, and more came running in behind him. They pressed what looked like white pelts over his wounds, but blood came welling up under their paws. All of them were shouting, and Lusa could see the flat-faces at the wall being herded away.

Lusa stayed in the crook of the trunk, trembling. She'd never seen a bear treat a flat-face like prey before. She didn't understand how any bear could be so savage and violent. Ashia and King must be right—there was something wrong with Oka.

The flat-faces moved the hurt feeder onto a tightly stretched white pelt and carried him out of the enclosure. Two of the feeders stayed behind, looking down at Oka's sleeping form, murmuring in their language and shaking their heads.

Lusa scrambled down the tree and ran over to Ashia and Stella, who were sitting on the Mountains looking shocked. “Why did she do that?” Lusa blurted out. She buried her face in Ashia's fur, and her mother patted her head with her paws.

“It's all right,” Ashia soothed. “It's over now.”

“I knew that bear was crazy,” Stella said, shaking her head sadly.

“Can the flat-faces make her better?” Lusa asked. “Like they fixed you, Mother?”

Stella and Ashia were quiet for a moment, exchanging a long look.

“I remember a white bear,” Stella said finally. “A long time ago, when I first came here. He clawed a feeder very badly.”

“What happened to him?” Lusa whispered.

“The flat-faces took him away,” Stella said. “And he never came back.”

Lusa whimpered.

“We don't know for sure that this will happen to Oka, though,” Ashia said quickly.

“Maybe they'll take her back to the wild,” Lusa said hopefully.

“I doubt it,” Stella said, her voice gentle. “You can see how unhappy and dangerous she is. She wouldn't be any better off out there, and they're probably worried that she would attack other flat-faces if they let her go.”

Lusa crept over to the back corner of the Fence and waited there for the rest of the day, watching Oka sleep. As the last of the daylight was fading, Oka grunted and woke up, staggering clumsily to her paws. She looked around the enclosure, and then her eyes turned to the Fence, where she saw Lusa waiting.

The grizzly dragged herself over and lay down with her muzzle on her paws. She sighed heavily. Lusa didn't know what to say.

After a long pause, Oka squinted up at Lusa and said, “It's all right. I know what I did.”

“You do?” Lusa said.

The brown bear flexed her claws, looking down at the dark, dry splashes of blood on her fur. “I was so angry—with myself for losing Toklo, with the flat-faces for keeping me here—just with everything. I don't even know why.” She stopped and
looked at Lusa again. “They're going to send me into the longsleep, aren't they?”

“I—I don't know,” Lusa whispered.

“It's all right,” Oka said again. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “There is nothing for me here anymore. At least now I can be with my Tobi.”

Lusa lay down on her side of the Fence. She wished she could reach through the web and press her nose into Oka's fur. “I'll stay with you,” she promised. “Until they come.”

“Thank you,” Oka said.

They lay for a while in silence. Lusa could hear King grumbling to Ashia, but she knew her mother would understand. She would let Lusa stay with the brown bear tonight.

As the sky darkened, Lusa lifted her head and searched for the Bear Watcher. There it was, shining fiercely in the dim orange-lit sky. “The Bear Watcher is looking down on us,” she said.

Oka followed her gaze to the bright star and snorted. “That is the saddest star in the sky.”

“Why?” Lusa asked.

“It is the spirit of a very bad bear—a bear who did terrible things. As a punishment, it was imprisoned in the coldest and most lonely place the spirits could find. It's all alone up there…like me.”

“The star isn't alone,” Lusa said, trying to sound reassuring. “There are other animals in the sky to keep it company. I know you can't see them very well from here, because of all the lights, but Stella says they're there. Like me—I'm here
with you, so you're not alone, either.”

Oka's voice softened. “I am glad you're here.”

“Do you think you'll be put up in the sky, too?” Lusa asked. “I thought the spirits of bears became trees. Maybe you'll become a tree. Maybe you'll grow on this side of the Fence and I can climb you and we can still be friends.”

“That's not what happens to brown bears,” Oka said. “My spirit will find its way to the Great Salmon River and be washed out to sea. Don't worry about me, little cub.” She sounded gentler than Lusa had ever heard her be. “I welcome the longsleep,” Oka murmured. “It will bring me peace at last.”

She fell silent again.

“What is salmon?” Lusa said, wanting to make Oka talk some more. Her silence made Lusa feel scared. “You said Great Salmon River—is it a place?”

“Salmon is a kind of fish,” Oka explained. “They're silver and slippery and they are the best food in the world.”

“Better than blueberries?”

Oka grunted with amusement. “Much better than blueberries.” She stared into the distance. “Toklo loved blueberries, too. But he would have loved salmon even more. If only I had been strong enough to stay with him.” She clawed at her muzzle with a sad whining sound.

“Tell me about Toklo,” Lusa prompted. This was her last chance to find out what had happened to Oka's missing cub.

“I abandoned him,” Oka said in a low, raspy voice. “I don't even know if he's still alive. He's so brave, and so strong…
such a good cub. He'll be a great bear one day, if he survives. But he's so young…and he's all alone, and it's all my fault.”

Her voice rose to a keening cry and she clawed at her face again, this time leaving deep scratches in her muzzle. “My cub!” she cried. “My poor cub. How could I leave you? How could I drive you away like that?”

Lusa didn't know what to say. Oka was crazed with sadness, and Lusa was afraid she might hurt herself badly. But what could she do? There was no way to help her.

“I'm sure Toklo will be fine,” Lusa said. “He sounds like he can take care of himself—he'll find food, I'm sure he will.”

“No, he won't,” Oka snarled. “He's too little—he's even younger than you are, and you could never survive in the forest.”

“Yes, I could!” Lusa cried.

Oka huffed and lay down. “You're better off here,” she said, “where it's safe, where there's enough food, and you have a mother to look after you—one who will never abandon you. You'll never know what it's like to live in the wild.”

“But I do know,” Lusa protested. Her mind filled with images from her dreams—endless dark trees, glimpses of sun through the branches, rain pattering on thick leaves. It was where she belonged, wasn't it?

“You'll never know, because you're shut in this place. While Toklo wanders alone, starving and helpless. I tried to find him, I really did. But what's the use? His spirit probably joined the Salmon River long ago. He'll never know that I'm sorry, that I loved him just as much as Tobi.”

Lusa couldn't bear the despair in Oka's voice. It wasn't fair she should go to the longsleep without being able to help her last surviving cub. And Toklo didn't even know she loved him. “Oka!” she cried, jumping up and pressing her muzzle to the Fence. “Oka, listen. I'll go to the wild. I'll find Toklo for you and make sure he's all right, and I'll tell him that you loved him. You can go to the Salmon River and find Tobi. I'll look after Toklo.”

The large brown bear met Lusa's eyes. For a moment they stared at each other. No words needed to be spoken. Lusa just nodded.

I will find Toklo for you. I promise.