The Melting Sea Page 9

  “Yes, but I don’t mind hearing the stories again,” Yakone replied. His eyes sparkled. “The Melting Sea isn’t just your home,” he added. “It will be mine now, too.”

  The land began to slope gradually upward, and Kallik caught sight of long, dark shapes standing upright across their path. She stared at them, puzzled, for a heartbeat, until she realized that they were pine trees.

  It’s been so long since I’ve seen a tree....

  Lusa quickened her pace, still limping, and stumbled up to the nearest tree, pressing her face against the trunk. Kallik caught up to her in time to hear her murmur, “I’ve come home.”

  Yakone gave a start of surprise. Hardly able to wrench his gaze away from the pines, he asked Kallik, “Lusa doesn’t come from here, does she?”

  Kallik shook her head. “No, but she has a really strong connection with trees. Black bears believe that their spirits live inside trees after they die, and the patterns in their bark are the faces of their ancestors.”

  Yakone nodded slowly. “Lusa told me about that.” Giving the pine trunks an intense stare, he added, “Now that I have seen trees, I can tell it would be easy to believe. I feel like I’m being watched.”

  Kallik saw that Yakone remained uneasy as they headed into the belt of trees, constantly looking up at the sky. “I feel trapped,” he confessed to Kallik. “I know the trees aren’t thick, but … how does any bear know where it’s going?”

  In contrast, Toklo was clearly at home, striding confidently through the pines. He paused to sharpen his claws on a trunk, then gave Lusa a boost to the lower branches so that she could nibble some pine needles.

  Leaving them to follow, Kallik led Yakone onward.

  “Are you sure this is the right way?” Yakone asked. “I can’t smell the sea anymore. I can’t smell anything except for these pines!”

  “I’m sure,” Kallik replied. Though the heavy, resinous scent of the pines was all around her, she could still distinguish the sharp scent of the sea, drawing her inexorably toward it.

  Then, before she had expected it, Kallik broke out of the trees and found herself at the top of a slope that led down gently to a sweep of shoreline.

  The Melting Sea!

  “I’m home!” Kallik gasped. Suddenly she felt a warm presence near her. She felt sure that she could hear her mother whispering, Welcome home, little one.

  Feeling as if she had wings on her paws, Kallik ran down the slope to the edge of the sea and gazed out. Close to the shore, the ice had melted.

  That’s okay, she told herself. The weather is getting warmer; the bears won’t be out on the ice for much longer, anyway.

  Still, a fierce longing swept over her to swim out to the ice she could see in the distance bobbing on the black waves. She could smell seals and fresh snow and the salty tang of sea ice.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Kallik started with surprise as she realized that Yakone was standing by her side. Lusa and Toklo were at the top of the slope, just emerging from the trees.

  “Come on!” Kallik called to them. “Come and see my home!”

  A harsh clattering noise drowned her last few words. The distinctive clack-clack of a metal bird sliced through the air. Kallik flinched and looked up, seeing the familiar shape in the distance, heading straight for her.

  Yakone gave Kallik a shove, back toward the trees. “We need to get under cover,” he said urgently. “There might be no-claws with firesticks planning to shoot at us.”

  Kallik bounded beside him, up to the line of trees where Toklo and Lusa were waiting. But before they plunged into shelter, something made her turn back. As the metal bird drew closer, she spotted something dangling underneath it.

  “What is that?” Lusa asked curiously.

  Kallik’s belly lurched with horror as she realized that the metal bird was carrying a net with white bears inside, just like the one that had carried her and Nanuk. A wave of bile gushed into her throat and she stood still, frozen to the spot as she watched. She was sure that the metal bird was going to crash.

  “Kallik, what’s wrong?” Yakone asked anxiously.

  Kallik barely heard him. Instead, she was filled with memories of her own terrifying flight, crushed against Nanuk, her paws snagged in the meshes of the net, hardly able to breathe through the freezing, rushing air. Then the clacking sound had changed, becoming sharper and more irregular, until the last dreadful plummet to the ground....

  Kallik winced and shut her eyes, then opened them again, compelled to watch the destruction she was sure would happen. But the metal bird didn’t crash. Instead, it swooped low and the net that carried the bears dropped to the ground. The metal bird hovered for a moment, then rose and flew away. The net unwrapped, leaving the white bears lying on the ground a few bearlengths away from the shore.

  As the clattering noise of the metal bird died away, Kallik ran down the slope toward the white bears.

  “Kallik, wait!” Toklo shouted.

  “Be careful!” Yakone added.

  Kallik ignored her friends. As she drew closer, she saw there were three white bears huddled on the shore: a mother and two cubs. She halted as she reached them, almost unendurable pain coursing through her. She felt like she was seeing herself with her mother and Taqqiq. She felt like she was seeing herself and Nanuk. Or it was like she was seeing Ujurak, lying dead in the snow. All the death and pain she had seen in her life washed over her in a wave of horror, choking her so that she could hardly breathe.

  “Kallik?” She heard Yakone calling to her.

  Kallik wrenched her head around to face him. “They’re dead.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Toklo

  Toklo halted at Kallik’s side and stared at the white she-bear and the two cubs. Almost at once, he realized Kallik was wrong. The bears weren’t dead; already they were beginning to stir. Something was wrong, though: They seemed muzzy and confused, struggling to lift their heads and making strange patting motions at the ground with their paws, as if they wanted to get up but were too weak to manage it.

  He nudged Kallik in the side. “It’s okay,” he reassured her. “They’re not dead. Look, they’re moving.”

  Kallik didn’t seem to hear him. She went on staring at the bears with an expression of horror on her face. Then the she-bear grunted and rolled over; Kallik blinked and seemed to come out of her daze.

  “The metal bird brought them here,” she whispered.

  “Why?” Toklo asked. He had heard Kallik’s story many times, of how she had traveled beneath the metal bird that had fallen out of the sky, but he had never truly understood what it meant.

  Lusa and Yakone stood by, looking startled; Yakone in particular seemed frozen with shock.

  He doesn’t know how close flat-faces and bears can get sometimes, Toklo thought.

  While they were talking, the mother bear was waking up, blinking and licking her lips as she tried to sit up.

  Lusa stepped forward, dipping her head, obviously meaning to say hello, but before she could speak, the mother bear lurched to her paws, growling as she placed herself between Lusa and her cubs. Lusa took a pace back, flattening her ears with nervousness.

  “Who are you?” the she-bear demanded. “Where am I? How did I get here?”

  Toklo braced himself for a fight. The mother bear was clearly terrified, but aggressive in protecting her two cubs. “It’s okay,” he began. “You’re—”

  Another growl from the mother bear drowned his words. “Stay away from us. Touch my cubs and I’ll rip your pelt off!”

  “Toklo, back off.” Kallik pushed past him. “Your color is scaring her. She probably hasn’t seen brown or black bears before.” Facing the mother bear, she spoke gently. “We won’t hurt you. The metal bird brought you here. Do you remember?”

  The she-bear stared at Kallik for a moment without replying. Toklo could see that the sight of a bear of her own kind was calming her. “I remember no-claw dens....” she murmured at last. “A firebeas
t came roaring up … I felt a sharp pain, and then everything went black.”

  “Yes!” Kallik said. “And then you woke up in a huge white stone den, with other bears?”

  “That’s right … we were stuck behind gray columns. No-claws came and looked at us.”

  “I was there once, too, trapped behind the columns,” Kallik told her. “They put sticky stuff all over my fur. It smelled terrible.”

  The she-bear looked confused. “I never had that.” Curiously, she added, “How did you escape?”

  “I didn’t. The no-claws made me sleep again, and when I woke up I was flying underneath a metal bird, with another she-bear called Nanuk. It’s the same way that you got here. But my metal bird crashed, and Nanuk died.”

  The she-bear looked startled. “Thank the stars that didn’t happen to us.”

  She turned to nuzzle her cubs. The two tiny bears weren’t entirely awake yet; Toklo thought they looked very young, much smaller than Kallik when he first met her.

  The she-bear nudged her cubs to their paws and helped them disentangle themselves from the net. “My name is Akna,” she said. “This is Iluq, and this is Kassuq.”

  “Hello,” Kallik responded, dipping her head. Her gaze lingered on the cubs, and Toklo heard her whisper, “Just like Kissimi …” Then she continued, “I’m Kallik, and this is Yakone. The brown bear is Toklo, and the black one is Lusa.”

  Akna shot an uneasy glance at Toklo and Lusa; Toklo remembered how peculiar white bears had looked to him the first time he had seen them.

  The two cubs were whimpering softly; Iluq, who was a she-cub, bigger than her brother, tottered up to her mother and pummeled her with her forepaws. “I’m hungry!” she wailed. “I want to feed!”

  “Me too!” Kassuq added.

  With a sigh, Akna sat and drew the two cubs into the curve of her belly. “I haven’t enough milk for them,” she confessed to Kallik. “And I’m hungry, too. I have to find food.”

  “Why did you leave the ice?” Kallik asked, surprise in her voice. “There’s plenty of food out there.”

  Akna shook her head. “The ice started melting very early this year,” she explained. “Almost as soon as my cubs were old enough to leave their den. I had to take them straight to land.”

  “That must have been so hard!” Kallik said sympathetically.

  “It was. I had to swim with them on my back. And when we reached land, there were so many other white bears, forced off the ice, just like us. It was a real struggle to find food.”

  Kallik’s eyes stretched wide with dismay. “That’s terrible!” She paused for a moment, then added, “Akna, did you ever meet a bear called Taqqiq? He’s my brother; I’m looking for him.”

  “No.” Akna’s response was definite, and Toklo could sense Kallik’s disappointment. “I stayed away from the other bears, to keep my cubs safe. You know that male bears will sometimes eat cubs, if there’s no other food.” She shuddered.

  “We can hunt together,” Toklo said, stepping forward.

  Akna swung her head around to gaze at him, her expression terrified. Does she think I’m one of these cub-eaters? Toklo wondered.

  “What kind of bear is he?” Akna asked Kallik, her voice nervous. “Are there any more of him?”

  “Er … it’s a long story …” Toklo began, before Kallik could reply.

  “We’ve been on a journey!” Lusa announced eagerly, bouncing forward. “We’ve been all the way to Star Island on the Endless Ice, and now we’re going home.”

  Akna gave her a shocked look. “The Endless Ice doesn’t exist! It’s just a tale for cubs.”

  “It does exist,” Kallik assured her. “We’ve seen it. But it’s too far for you to walk to with your cubs. You need to learn how to survive here. Let Toklo and Lusa teach you how to find food on land.”

  A faint growl came from Akna’s throat. “What do a brown bear and a black bear know about white bear hunting? That little black bear is only the size of a seal!”

  “That’s not the point,” Toklo began, struggling hard to keep his temper. “We—”

  “You should listen to them.” To Toklo’s surprise, Yakone stepped forward and spoke to Akna. “Kallik and I wouldn’t have survived without them.”

  Akna still looked unconvinced. “My cubs belong on the ice!”

  Toklo didn’t know what he could say to the she-bear to make her understand that he and Lusa could help. “Come here a moment,” he said to his friends, jerking his head to signal them to follow him a few bearlengths away.

  “I hope you’re not going to tell us we have to leave Akna and her cubs to take care of themselves!” Kallik began before Toklo could speak. “I won’t do it!”

  “That’s not what I was going to say,” Toklo growled. Kallik has bees in her brain because she keeps thinking about her mother and Taqqiq. “I’ve got a different idea. You and Yakone should swim out to the nearest ice and see if it’s worth helping Akna and the cubs to get out there. Maybe you could hunt for her while you’re there. Meanwhile Lusa and I will find some food for all of us onshore.”

  Kallik blinked in surprise. “That’s a great idea! Thank you, Toklo!”

  Toklo cleared his throat in embarrassment. “Strangers have helped us often enough,” he said brusquely. “I’m not going to leave Akna and her cubs to starve, and she’s in no state to hunt on her own.”

  “Oh, Toklo, thank you!” Kallik repeated, stepping forward as if she was going to give him a grateful nudge, but Toklo backed off. He didn’t want a fuss. “Come on, Yakone,” Kallik continued, her eyes shining with excitement. “Let’s tell Akna what we’re going to do.”

  Toklo and Lusa followed more slowly as the two white bears hurried back to Akna. They came up in time to hear the end of Kallik’s explanation.

  “We’ll be back in no time. You’ll see!”

  She and Yakone ran down to the shore and swam out into the water. Toklo watched them go, fascinated to see how their bodies changed as they launched themselves into the sea. On land they lumbered, their pelts rolling awkwardly when they ran, but in the water they were as sleek and graceful as seals, hardly leaving a ripple as they struck out toward the distant sheet of ice.

  Akna, too, had turned her head to watch them, a mournful look in her eyes.

  “I know you want to go with them,” Lusa said sympathetically, “but you have to get your strength back first.”

  Akna’s two cubs had given up trying to feed. Instead, they were scrabbling around near their mother’s paws, nibbling at sticks and bits of debris scattered along the shore. They looked more awake now, half forgetting their hunger to tumble over each other with playful squeaks.

  “Why don’t I keep an eye on the cubs while you hunt?” Lusa suggested to Toklo. Turning to Akna, she added, “You can trust me to look after them. And you need to rest.”

  The white she-bear grunted agreement, though Toklo noticed she never took her eyes off the cubs.

  “Come on, Iluq, Kassuq,” Lusa said, determinedly cheerful. Seizing a stick, she added, “Which of you can pull this out of my jaws?”

  “I can!” Iluq squealed, throwing herself at the stick.

  Lusa has her paws full there, Toklo thought, as he headed up the slope, back into the belt of pine trees.

  Plunging into the shelter of the trees, Toklo spotted tracks in the snow almost at once, and picked up the scent of muskrat. Following the trail, he leaped through the woods, feeling strong and confident now that he was in more familiar territory. Weak sunlight sliced through the branches, and for a moment he felt as though he’d come home.

  This must be how Kallik feels when she gets back to the ice, he thought.

  “We’re all so different,” he murmured to himself. “It has to be a good thing that we’re all going back to our homes.”

  He tracked the muskrat to its den among the roots of a tree, killed it, and left it there while he searched for more prey. Soon he spotted a lemming skittering across the surface of the snow, and rem
embered how Tikaani, the white she-bear, had taught him to hunt lemmings on the Island of Shadows. Now he caught up to the tiny creature in a few bounds, and tossed it into the air before killing it with a hard blow of his paw.

  Where there’s one lemming, there might be more....

  Toklo settled down to wait in the shadow of a pine, and soon another lemming scuttled straight at him, trying to veer aside only when it was too late. Gripping both lemmings and the muskrat firmly in his jaws, he headed back to the shore.

  Lusa was lying on the ground with both cubs on top of her, battering at her with their soft paws. “Toklo, save me!” she gasped. “Save me from these fierce white bears!” Iluq and Kassuq burst out into squeaks of amusement.

  Toklo padded past her and dropped his catch in front of Akna, who was sleepily watching the antics of her cubs.

  “That’s amazing!” she exclaimed when she saw the prey. “When I first came off the ice, I hardly caught anything to eat.”

  “I can teach you what to do,” Toklo promised, glad that the mother bear seemed to have lost her hostility toward him and Lusa. “It’s not hard to hunt on land—catching a seal is much more difficult!”

  As Toklo spoke, he spotted Kallik and Yakone swimming strongly for shore. When they heaved themselves out of the water, he saw that they were carrying a seal between them.

  “Great catch!” he called out.

  Akna’s eyes lit up when she saw the seal. “Then there is good hunting ice out there,” she said to Kallik as Kallik and Yakone came up and deposited their prey in front of her.

  “Yes, but it’s melting like the rest of the sea,” Kallik told her. “You and the cubs can reach the ice once you’re strong enough to swim, but you wouldn’t be able to stay there for long. You’ll have to live on land until burn-sky is over.”

  Akna looked worried, glancing from Kallik to Yakone and back again as if she hoped they would be able to tell her something more hopeful.

  “You’ll be okay,” Lusa assured her, coming up with the cubs, who were giving the prey an interested sniff. “We can show you how to hunt on land.”