Fire in the Sky

by Erin Hunter

  When he woke up again, his head was aching. The sky was starting to lighten, a pale line of honey-colored fur glowing on the edge of the sky.

  He had the strange feeling that something had woken him. A sound, perhaps—and then it came again. Scuffling and crunching on the snow. Someone was coming toward him! He took in a deep breath and recognized the musty, furry scent of bears.

  Growling, Toklo leaped to his paws and burst out of the snow. He bared his teeth, ready to fight off any white bear, no matter how big it was.

  But to his shock, the first face he saw belonged to a brown bear, who stared back at him with equally startled dark eyes. And then, finally, he recognized the scents.

  “Ujurak!” Toklo gasped. He spotted the white bear behind his shape-shifting friend. “Kallik!”

  “Toklo!” Ujurak barked. He peered around and then gave Toklo a worried look.

  Toklo didn’t know what to say. Yes, I lost Lusa. I couldn’t protect her or take her back to safety after all. The weight of his guilt pressed down on his shoulders, and for a moment he couldn’t speak.

  “Oh, no,” Kallik said, sniffing the air and looking horrified. “We were right. Something has happened to Lusa!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Lusa

  Lusa couldn’t tell whether it was day or night inside the flat-face den. There were lights around her and above her when she opened her eyes, and she saw flat-faces awake and moving around through the cages.

  But she thought it was dawn when she woke up for real the second time. The green walls of the den seemed paler, as if sunlight was trying to sneak through from the other side. Lusa sat up in her cage, rubbing her eyes with her paws. She felt much more alert than she had the day before. And she was very hungry.

  She peered out through the bars and realized that she wasn’t the only one who was hungry. A seal flopped in a cage only a few bearlengths from her, barking pitifully. Seabirds were squawking and flapping their wings in cages all over the den. She could hear whimpers and growls that sounded unfamiliar; she couldn’t even guess what animals they might be coming from.

  To her surprise, as she looked around, she spotted another bear! He must have been brought in during the night, while she was asleep. She edged closer to the bars to peer at him. His cage was much bigger than hers, because he was a full-sized white bear. He was still asleep—or unconscious—his chest rising and falling with a ragged snorting sound. She thought she should be afraid of him, but the truth was that he reminded her of Qopuk, the frail old bear they’d met not far from Great Bear Lake.

  Like Qopuk, this bear looked too weak to stand on his own paws. Just in case, though, the flat-faces had tied him down securely, binding his paws together so he couldn’t claw anyone. His fur was streaked with sticky black oil, although Lusa guessed that the flat-faces had already washed some of it off, as they had for her.

  She wriggled around to sniff herself and check her pelt. It felt much cleaner and glossier than it had when she was first hauled out of the sticky, black-stained water. She could still smell the oil, but that scent was heavy in the air all the time, so she wasn’t sure if it was lingering in her fur as well.

  A clatter from a nearby cage caught her attention. She saw a flat-face pushing a silver bowl into the seal’s cage. They were being fed! That meant food should be coming her way, too. She tried to stand on her hind paws to see better and bumped her head against the top of the cage.

  A flat-face voice murmured something soothing above her, although Lusa had no idea what the words meant. A young female flat-face crouched beside her cage and used a stick to push a container in through a gap at the bottom.

  Lusa rushed over and buried her nose in the bowl. To her enormous disappointment, it was filled with meaty, fatty brown stuff—not what she really wanted at all. She poked the bowl with her nose, scooting it along the floor of the cage. When she had it stuck in the corner, she tried to nibble at the meat, but it was so rich and heavy that her stomach churned before she could swallow her first mouthful. She pawed at her face, then sat down and looked up at the flat-face mournfully.

  The female was standing there, watching her. She made a noise like “Hmmm,” then called another flat-face over. They pointed at the meat in the bowl and chattered to each other for a moment. The second flat-face nodded and walked away.

  A few moments passed, and Lusa began to lose hope. Maybe they were just watching her. Maybe they were only curious; maybe they didn’t understand or care that she didn’t want any meat right now. She sniffed at the meat again, but couldn’t bring herself to eat any more.

  Clang! Lusa jumped as a bowl collided with her cage. The second flat-face had returned, carrying a new bowl. She ducked and shoved it through the gap toward Lusa. Eagerly Lusa hurried over. What now?

  It was fruit! Real fruit, although not the fresh kind she used to get in the Bear Bowl. This fruit tasted like the kind she and Toklo had found in the silver containers back on the giant floating firebeast. But that was still better than no fruit, and much better than meat! Lusa gobbled it up, slurping the last of the juice from the bottom of the bowl. She licked her lips and her paws, then gave the flat-faces a hopeful glance.

  The younger one laughed and said something. The second one nodded and went off again. Lusa hoped she was going to get more fruit. Her instincts told her these were good flat-faces, and they still seemed to be acting like it. Cleaning up sick animals, feeding her fruit…those were kind things to do.

  On the other hand, she was trapped in a cage. She paced around the narrow space, sniffing the bars anxiously. Surely they weren’t going to keep her locked up for very long. Right?

  But then…what were they planning to do with her?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Kallik

  Kallik didn’t know whether to be relieved or alarmed when she heard about Lusa being trapped inside the pelt-den with the no-claws. Lusa was in trouble, but at least she was probably still alive. Kallik turned her nose into the wind.

  “I knew I could still smell her,” she said. “But it’s so faint—all muddled up with other scents.”

  The sun was stretching its long rays over the snow, warming Kallik’s pelt and turning Ujurak and Toklo’s brown fur golden. She could see the pelt-den Toklo was talking about, nearly a skylength away, over the peaks of snowdrifts in between.

  “I tried to get inside,” Toklo said, “but the flat-faces clearly don’t want any bears around. Unless they’ve already caught them, I mean.”

  “Maybe that’s what we should do!” Kallik suggested, standing up. Her paws itched to be doing something. Lusa needed their help! The cries of distress from her dream still rang in Kallik’s ears. “Maybe if we let them catch us, we’ll be able to fight our way out from the inside, with Lusa.”

  Toklo hunched his shoulders. “I don’t want any flat-faces touching me,” he muttered.

  “But if it’s the only way in—” Kallik started to say. She realized that Ujurak was shaking his head.

  “It might be a way in,” he said, “but it’s not a good way out. The flat-faces will kill us if we hurt them, and trying to fight our way out of the pelt-den means we’d almost certainly have to hurt some of them.”

  “Yeah, Lusa would never agree to that,” Toklo said. “She still thinks some of them are actually good.” He snorted, shooting an angry glance at the tower in the distance.

  Kallik wanted to argue about it, but she realized that they were both right. It wouldn’t do any good if they got captured and weren’t able to get out again. She sat down, frustration prickling through her pelt. Lusa was so close, and yet so far away.

  “I wish I could just walk into that pelt-den and set her free,” she sighed.

  Suddenly she had an idea. Her fur tingled with excitement. She looked up and met Toklo’s eyes. He looked as if he’d had the same thought. They both turned to Ujurak.

  He had his head down, licking up some melted snow from his paws, so it took him a moment to realize t
hey were both staring at him. He blinked, then rocked back on his hindquarters.

  “What?” he asked. “What are you—don’t even—”

  “You have to,” Kallik said. “It’s the only way, Ujurak.”

  Toklo nodded.

  “You have to turn into a no-claw,” Kallik insisted. “Then you really could just walk in there and set her free.”

  “No!” Ujurak said, wriggling as if he was trying to plant himself deeper into the snow. “No, I’m a brown bear! That’s what I am, and I’m going to stay that way!”

  “Stop being a baby,” Toklo growled. “You’ve been whining about this since I met you. I think it’s a stupid power, too, but as long as you have it, you might as well use it when it can actually be helpful.”

  Ujurak looked offended. “You don’t understand what it’s like! It’s much more complicated than—”

  “Blah blah blah,” Toklo interrupted him. He got up and stood nose to nose with Ujurak, snarling. “Oh, you’re so tortured, it’s so hard to be a shape-shifting bear, nobody understands you! Well, get over it. Do you honestly think that if there was anything I could do to get inside that den and free Lusa, that I wouldn’t do it? No matter how ‘complicated’ it was?”

  “Um,” Kallik said, trying to edge between the two brown bears. The last thing they needed was a fight! Ujurak’s claws were digging into the snow as though he was about to leap at Toklo’s throat. She’d never seen him so angry before; it was a bit terrifying to see the little bear so furious.

  “Wait, listen,” she begged. “Ujurak! Your mother gave you your powers, didn’t she? It’s something she taught you about. She never told you not to do it. She believed in you. It’s like your gift from her—the way Nisa taught me about hunting seals, or Oka taught Toklo about catching salmon.”

  Ujurak’s fur settled across his shoulders, as if the thought of his mother calmed him down.

  “So you can’t just ignore your powers,” Kallik went on, “or pretend they don’t exist, because they do. And maybe they’re an important part of what we’re out here to do. Isn’t that possible?”

  Ujurak looked down at his paws. Toklo took a step back and gave Kallik a grudging nod of approval.

  Encouraged, Kallik persevered, “Besides, it’s for Lusa. And you said we need her to save the wild.”

  Toklo looked less pleased at this, but Ujurak was nodding. He sighed a long, deep sigh. “I guess you’re right,” he said. He gave Kallik a sideways, head-tilted look. “How’d you get so wise?”

  “From listening to you yap all the time,” she said, nudging him affectionately.

  “I’m just worried,” he admitted in a small voice. He clawed a pile of snow into a ball and began rolling it back and forth. “Sometimes when I’m in another shape, I forget who I really am. And I think it’s getting worse. Last time I was a flat-face, I only remembered that I was really a bear because of those three little bears the healer gave me. What if I go into the pelt-den and forget why I’m there? What if I never become a bear again?”

  Kallik shivered. She couldn’t imagine giving up her bear life forever—especially if it meant replacing it with the body of a no-claw! They were so weak and furless. She’d hate having to live so close to firebeasts all the time, with their nasty burning smell. No, that wouldn’t be fun at all.

  “If you don’t come back,” Toklo growled, “then we’ll come tearing through the walls and get you. That ought to remind you about bears!”

  “Just think about your mother,” Kallik added quickly. “Now that you know where your power comes from, I’m sure she’ll help you remember your true self. Like Nisa is always with me, Silaluk will be watching over you.”

  Ujurak turned his gaze to the sky. The stars had all faded into the early dawn light, but Kallik hoped he could feel the presence of the bear spirits, just the way she could.

  “So it’s settled, then,” Toklo said, shifting impatiently. “You turn into a flat-face, walk into the pelt-den, and set Lusa free.” He turned and began to lead the way toward the no-claw den at a fast trot. Kallik and Ujurak hurried to keep up with him.

  “Um, just keep in mind that it might be more, uh—” Ujurak started to say.

  “Let me guess,” Toklo said, swinging his head around with a scornful look. “Complicated.”

  “Well, yes!” Ujurak said. “We don’t know what’s going on in there. It might be harder than it sounds. And besides, I want to free the other trapped animals, too.”

  “What?” Toklo roared. He skidded to a stop and spun around. “Are you out of your mind? There’s no time for that!”

  Ujurak stood his ground. “I will if I can,” he said. “That’s the deal. Otherwise I’m not changing shape at all.”

  Toklo pawed at the snow, growling deep in his throat.

  “I think it’s all right,” Kallik tried to interject. “What harm could it do if he frees some seals and birds?”

  “Fine,” Toklo said. “As long as he understands that I might eat them while they’re escaping.”

  Kallik let out a huff of amusement.

  Ujurak poked Toklo with his nose. “Give me at least a day before you come charging in with your roaring and bossiness, okay?”

  Toklo harrumphed. “Fine,” he said. “But you’d better act as fast as you can. I’m still afraid Lusa will go into the longsleep while she’s in there, if she hasn’t already.”

  Kallik shivered again and sped up, feeling the sunbeams on her shoulders and smelling the heavy, sticky scent of oil in the air. As the three bears bounded across the snow, Kallik sent a quiet prayer to Nisa and the other bear spirits.

  Please let this work. Please help us free Lusa. Please let her still be awake…and alive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Ujurak

  They stopped a few bearlengths from the pelt-den, near a flat area surrounded by tall chunks of ice. Ujurak could see flat-faces coming in and out of the pelt-den in a busy, urgent-looking way. Toklo nudged him and Kallik behind one of the large chunks of ice, out of sight of the flat-faces.

  “Good luck,” Kallik said, nosing Ujurak’s side. “I know you can do it.”

  “We’ll be ready to come in if you don’t,” Toklo added in his usual reassuring way.

  Ujurak nodded. He was too anxious to talk. He was frightened that this would be the last time he looked down at thick brown paws—the last time he sniffed the wind with a brown bear’s nose. But he had to be brave. He had to believe that his mother would be watching and protecting him.

  He took a deep breath and thought about flat-faces. He knew he needed to look older than he had the last time. None of the flat-faces here were young cubs, and he didn’t want to be sent away before he could do anything. He felt his body thinning and his fur shrinking back into his skin. Pale fingers appeared in place of his paws and bare toes replaced his paw-pads on the snow. He stopped being able to feel his hands and feet almost immediately. It was freezing out here. He’d forgotten about that part. If he didn’t hurry, he’d freeze to death, but on the other hand, he couldn’t exactly walk into the tent without a pelt on.

  Rubbing his arms, Ujurak stared around, dancing on the snow to keep his feet out of it as much as possible. He barely noted the two bears watching him in astonishment. He spotted an empty snow vehicle not far away. Glancing over at the tent to make sure no one could see him, Ujurak darted over to the truck and jumped inside. To his relief, not only were the doors unlocked, but there were bundles of stuff in the back, including a few bags of clothes.

  He pulled out a pair of thick gray wool trousers, a dark green work shirt, a warm black coat, thick brown socks, and a pair of solid brown boots. Everything was a little too big for him, which worried him. Was he old enough to fit in here?

  Old enough to…what? He stopped for a moment, thinking. What was he doing? Why was he here? He glanced out the window of the vehicle and saw the large tent set up on the snow. He wasn’t sure why, but he knew he needed to get in there. His gaze traveled on to
the giant tower in the water. He knew it was an oil rig, and he could tell from the smell and the look of the water that there must have been an accident, and that oil had spilled into the sea.

  Is that why I’m here? Something about the oil rig made his skin crawl. He instinctively wanted to get as far away from it as possible. That didn’t seem like a normal human way to feel. He had a strange memory of oil clinging to him, coating his fur, but that didn’t make any sense. For one thing, he didn’t have fur.

  Puzzled, Ujurak climbed out of the truck and headed toward the tent. He felt much warmer now; the clothes protected him comfortably from the freezing wind. Other people hurried by without really looking at him, dashing to their snowmobiles or carrying cages into the tent. He huddled into the coat, hoping none of them would recognize the clothes he had borrowed.

  He hesitated for a moment outside the entrance, then pushed back the flap and ducked inside. A wave of warmth and animal smells hit him, and he stood for a moment, feeling overwhelmed. The tent was full of cages, from one wall to the other, all of them occupied by sick-looking seals or birds, the occasional walrus, and a bear or two. People in green jackets were bent over tables, cleaning oil from feathers and fur and murmuring to one another.

  Something jolted inside him as he glanced at the nearest bear. It was huge and white, although streaked with oil stains through its matted fur. It looked old and feeble, and he felt a gnawing sense of pity that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his heart, as if he could identify with the sad old bear.

  Because I can, he thought. I’ve been a bear. And a seal. And a bird. I’ve been all of these animals. His head felt muddled, but certain memories stood out clearly. The smell of the oil brought back some truly horrible ones.