Great Bear Lake

by Erin Hunter

  Lusa and Ujurak were waiting for him by the edge of the river; the water was thick and black now, and Toklo pushed down a bolt of terror that tried to choke him. I’m not going near it, he reminded himself. Oka won’t be able to grab me.

  Ujurak was letting out huffs of anxiety. “Toklo, we have to go!”

  “Okay.” Toklo scrambled back up the bank and to the edge of the BlackPath. The dazzling eyes of the firebeasts sliced through the dusk; a line of the huge creatures was still roaring across the bridge.

  “I thought you said the firebeasts would have gone back to their dens?” Ujurak said, blinking in the glare.

  Lusa twitched her ears. “It’s quieter than it was.”

  “We’ll be okay if we keep to the edge,” Toklo told them. “Come on. Follow me.”

  Keeping a cautious eye on the firebeasts as they approached, then roared away in both directions, he padded onto the bridge. Lusa pushed Ujurak into place behind Toklo and brought up the rear. Beside the BlackPath was a shiny wall, like thin silver saplings joined together. Through the gaps between the uprights Toklo could see the river below, foaming white as it churned around the supports of the bridge. It was a long way to fall; even though the uprights were too close together for a bear to slip through, Toklo felt dizzy when he looked down. After that first glance he kept his gaze firmly fixed on the BlackPath.

  The ground at the edge of the BlackPath was filthy with greasy puddles and flat-face trash. The cubs splashed along; Toklo was blinded by the glaring eyes of the firebeasts that bore down on him, and flinched at the showers of filthy water their round black paws sprayed over him as they passed. Their wind buffeted his fur and made the air taste of grit and their choking fumes.

  They had almost reached the halfway point when Toklo heard a deeper roar than before. A vast firebeast was heading right for him, its bulk blocking out the night sky. His gaze locked with its glaring eye-beams; he couldn’t look away. He crouched down, trembling, convinced that the massive creature would charge straight over him, leaving his broken body behind. Lusa and Ujurak huddled beside him.

  Then it was gone; Toklo glanced up to see two pairs of eyes gleaming as Lusa and Ujurak gazed at him, horrified. The red eyes in the vast firebeast’s hindquarters were receding rapidly.

  Toklo took a deep breath, trying to stop his heart pounding its way out of his chest. “Come on,” he urged. “It didn’t hurt us.”

  Lusa had overtaken Ujurak, who stood still, gazing down at the surging river through the gaps in the shiny wall. “Ujurak!” she urged. “We can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.”

  When he was sure the smaller cub was following, Toklo set off again, hearing the pawsteps of his companions splashing behind. The firebeasts ruffled his fur and filled his nostrils with their stink. Toklo could see the flat-faces inside staring out at him and his companions. Haven’t you ever seen a bear before?

  One of the firebeasts slowed to a crawl, and a bright flash came from inside its belly. Toklo saw one of the flat-faces inside holding up a small black creature with a single huge eye. He bared his teeth and snarled; the bright flash came again, but the creature didn’t dare leap out to attack him, and at once the firebeast roared away.

  Scared, huh?

  He felt as if he had been wading through trash and dirty puddles forever, but at last the far bank was only a few bearlengths away. The shiny wall came to an end; the bank beyond, covered with bushes, sloped steeply down to the water’s edge. Toklo scrambled off the bridge, digging his claws into earth and roots to keep his balance as he climbed a bearlength down. Lusa followed him and turned back to wait for Ujurak.

  As the small cub drew closer to the end of the bridge, another huge firebeast came roaring up behind him, its glaring eye-beams spilling over him.

  “Look out!” Toklo barked.

  Ujurak broke into a run, but his legs couldn’t carry him faster than the firebeast’s huge black paws, hissing nearer and nearer. The corner of the firebeast clipped his flank, tossing him up into the air. Ujurak let out a squeal. He hurtled onto the bank, his paws flailing, and slid downward until the branches of a bush brought him crashing to a halt.

  “Ujurak!” Lusa cried, flinging herself down the slope to Ujurak’s side.

  For a few heartbeats Toklo stood frozen, gazing at the unmoving brown shape. He was thinking of another small cub who would never move again. Would they have to listen to Ujurak’s breath growing slower and slower until it stopped? Would they have to cover him with leaves and moss, like Tobi? He remembered Oka’s howls when she discovered that the cub she loved best was dead.

  Panic slammed into Toklo’s chest. I can’t remember the marks Oka made in the earth! I can’t remember the words she said! He wanted to howl like his mother, blaming the spirits for taking Ujurak away. He didn’t dare follow Lusa down. While he waited here, he could try to tell himself that Ujurak would be okay. Guilt and anger churned inside him. He was the strong one; he should have protected Ujurak.

  They should have swum across the river.

  “Toklo!” Lusa called, looking up from where she crouched over Ujurak. “Come here!”

  Toklo forced his paws to move, and scrambled clumsily down the slope to where Ujurak lay scrunched up. “Is he dead?”

  “Don’t be such a squirrel-brain.” Lusa rested her paw on Ujurak’s flank, drawing Toklo’s attention to the faint rise and fall of his chest. “See? He’s still breathing.”

  For a moment Toklo couldn’t speak. He raised his head to stare out over the churning black water. He thought it looked hungry, swollen with the spirits of dead bears. But you won’t have another spirit tonight.

  Lusa bent over Ujurak again, swiping her tongue over his nose and around his muzzle. “Wake up, Ujurak. Please wake up,” she begged.

  Ujurak’s eyes stayed closed. Toklo couldn’t see any sign of injury on his body, except for a few scrapes on his fur, which probably came from roots and branches as he fell. He dug his claws hard into the ground. Ujurak had to wake soon, or he’d slip into death just as Tobi had. Leaning forward, Toklo sniffed Ujurak’s fur. He didn’t have the same sharp scent that had signaled Tobi’s approaching death. Perhaps he would be all right after all. Dizzy with thankfulness, he closed his eyes, only opening them again when Lusa exclaimed, “He’s waking up!”

  Ujurak’s chest heaved and his eyes flickered open.

  “Oh, Ujurak!” Lusa’s voice was husky with relief. “Can you stand up?”

  The young cub blinked in bewilderment. “What happened? Where—” He tried to scramble up and collapsed again, his words ending in a gasp of pain.

  “A firebeast hit you,” Toklo said.

  He wasn’t sure that Ujurak understood. The small cub’s eyes had closed again, and he kept whimpering as Lusa sniffed all over his body.

  “I don’t think you’ve broken any bones,” she murmured reassuringly, smoothing Ujurak’s fur with one paw. “Try to get up. We’ll find a place to shelter.”

  “I can’t,” Ujurak moaned.

  “Of course you can.” Lusa bent down and gave the little cub’s snout a comforting lick. “Remember when you were a goose, flying away on big, strong wings? You can do anything.”

  “…not a goose now,” Ujurak murmured, but he made a big effort and hauled himself to his paws.

  “Lean on me,” Lusa encouraged him, shoving her shoulder under Ujurak’s for support. “There’s a hollow not far away.”

  Staggering, paws weaving uncertainly, Ujurak let Lusa guide him down to a hollow just above the river, sheltered by a straggling berry bush.

  Toklo plodded after them. “Ujurak, tell me about the healing plants,” he urged. “I’ll find some for you.”

  “Can’t remember…” Ujurak breathed out the words, his eyes closing again.

  Lusa curled protectively beside him, her eyes soft with sympathy. “Let him be. We’ll ask him again in the morning.”

  Toklo nodded, and settled himself on the rim of the hollow. Ujurak had survived
this time, but what about the next? This wasn’t a place where bears should be. It was too dangerous.

  It’s all my fault, because I wouldn’t swim the river. He made himself remember what Lusa had told him about his mother. Was she right? Did Oka really love me?

  Toklo sighed. However he tried to excuse himself, he had been a coward. And his cowardice had nearly cost Ujurak his life. The young cub might forgive him, but Toklo knew he would never be able to forgive himself.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Kallik

  Kallik had lost track of time. She felt as if she’d been trekking across the empty landscape forever. The nights were so short; no sooner had the sun set than its glittering edge rose again from the flat horizon.

  When the sun was at its fiercest and the flies were most troublesome, Kallik tried to find shade to sleep. Then she began trudging again.

  Every so often she came across bear prints and droppings, and some of them were almost fresh. Once she saw a large male far ahead of her. She followed at a distance until he drew ahead and she lost sight of him.

  As she trekked, she often thought about the family of bears she had seen set down by the metal bird. Kallik imagined playing with the she-cub and her brother, chasing them and scampering through the snow.

  But most often, she thought about her mother and brother. All kinds of things could spark her memories. She could be curled behind a rock, sheltering from the sun, and suddenly she’d remember being safe and warm, curled up with Nisa and Taqqiq in the birth den, listening to Nisa’s stories of Silaluk and how she was chased by Robin, Chickadee, and Moose Bird. Or she’d be clawing the hole of a mouse in the hard ground and she’d remember crouching next to Taqqiq beside an ice hole, while Nisa taught them how to catch a seal. Even in this sunburnt wilderness, Kallik’s paws tingled with excitement as she remembered how Nisa had dragged her prey up onto the ice; she could almost taste the rich fat as she sank her teeth into the meal her mother had provided.

  Then, one morning, the sun grew hazy and soon it vanished altogether in a misty white cloud. The cloud sank lower and lower, unrolling across the plain until Kallik could barely see her own paws, and the sound they made was muted, as if she were padding across a covering of feathers. It was cold, too: not the hard, bright cold of the ice, but a raw chill that sank into her pelt and invaded her body with every breath. It was spooky to set her paws down when she had no idea of what lay ahead. She was walking blind, more alone than she had ever been before.

  Kallik’s eyes began to ache from the bright sheen of the mist around her, dazzling in the light of a sun she couldn’t see. Gradually, the glare softened as the sun dropped in the sky, and then she felt like she was walking on the bottom of the sea. She must have slept, and she woke to see the same white mist, brightening then softening as the sun climbed and dropped in the sky for several days.

  Once, to break the deathly silence, she let out a bark, but her voice sounded feeble in the surrounding nothingness. Then she shivered as she wondered if something might have heard her, and be stalking her, creeping up on her unseen. From then on she padded as softly as she could, even trying to suppress the sound of her own breathing.

  All she could feel was the hard ground under her paws and the chill of the mist that crept into the depths of her pelt. The marshes around her, with the pools and reeds and buzzing insects, might have vanished altogether.

  Kallik wondered if she would spend the rest of her life padding through this unbroken whiteness.

  And then came the bad memories. They seemed so real that it was like they were happening all over again. She saw her mother, Nisa, being pulled under the water by the orca. She called to her brother, Taqqiq, through the white mist.

  “Taqqiq!” she cried.

  Kallik started running through the wall of mist, bounding over sharp stones and spiky bushes.

  “I’m coming, Taqqiq! I’ll save you!”

  Suddenly, she skidded to a halt. Ahead she could pick out two hazy shapes. White shapes, scarcely visible against the background, one much bigger than the other. A full-grown white bear was walking ahead of her, with a small cub at its side.

  The cub spoke. “I’m tired! Let me ride on your back, please.”

  Taqqiq!

  Kallik watched the mother bear crouch down to let the cub scramble up into her fur. Then they set off again, with the cub riding on his mother’s shoulders. Their scent trail drifted behind them, tickling Kallik’s nose. Scents she had thought she would never smell again.

  “Mother! Taqqiq! It’s me, Kallik! Wait for me!”

  She hurled herself forward, but however fast she ran, the mother and cub stayed the same distance ahead of her, even though they didn’t seem to be hurrying.

  How could Nisa be here, when Kallik had seen her slip beneath the waves, dragged down by the orca? How could Taqqiq be with her, unless he were dead, too?

  Kallik only knew that she had heard her brother speak, and she could pick up the familiar scents of Nisa and Taqqiq on the damp air. Her heart pounded as she raced along. But even when she put on an extra burst of speed, she knew she was dropping behind. Thicker mist surged between them, blotting her mother and brother from Kallik’s sight. She let out a wail of desperation.

  “Wait!” she begged. “I’m coming!”

  The mist swirled; the indistinct figures of the two bears appeared again, Taqqiq still crouched on Nisa’s back. They were even farther ahead now; they didn’t turn their heads to look at Kallik as she panted along behind them, as if they didn’t know that Kallik was there, or didn’t care. Her muscles ached and her heart thudded hard enough to burst out of her chest. But it was no use; the faint shapes of Nisa and Taqqiq melted back into the fog.

  “Don’t leave me!” Kallik shrieked.

  She ran on and on, calling for her mother, though now the fog was as blank and empty as before. Suddenly a mound of white rose up in front of her; unable to stop in time, she crashed into it and felt the softness of fur.

  “Mother?” she gasped.

  The next thing she felt was a stinging cuff around her ear. Yelping with pain and shock, Kallik looked up. A female bear stood glaring down at her, but it wasn’t Nisa.

  Disappointment surged over Kallik. “You’re not Nisa.”

  “No, I’m not, whoever she might be,” the she-bear growled. “Now go away and leave me alone.”

  “But there was a cub with you,” Kallik persisted. She might have been mistaken that she had seen her mother, but she had definitely heard Taqqiq’s voice. “Where is he?”

  “There’s no cub. Go away.”

  Kallik gazed around desperately, but Taqqiq’s shape had vanished into the mist. “He was here,” she insisted. “Did you see where he went?”

  “How many more times?” the she-bear snarled. “No.”

  Kallik stared down at her paws. She felt exhausted and confused.

  “Are you still here?” the bear asked bad-temperedly.

  Kallik crouched low to the ground. “I’m sorry I ran into you,” she said. As the bear turned and began to pad off, she added, “Are you going the same way as the other bears?”

  The she-bear paused and gave her a curt nod.

  “Do you know where the tracks lead?” Kallik burst out.

  The other bear let out a grunt of surprise. “You don’t know? Well, you’re only a cub, I suppose. This is the Claw Path. It leads to a lake where bears meet in peace on the Longest Day. No bear will raise claw against another while they stay beside that lake.”

  “Why not?” Kallik asked, trying to imagine somewhere she would be allowed to eat her kill without worrying that a bigger bear would steal it from her.

  “It’s the place where the white bears meet to call back the ice. We order the sun down from the sky so the cold can return and we can go out to feed once more.”

  Kallik stared at her in astonishment. “Can we really do that? Make the ice come back?”

  The she-bear nodded solemnly. “Once the lake was connec
ted to the everlasting ice,” she continued. “But the ice shrank and melted, cutting the lake off and trapping the bear spirits that live under the surface. Many bears gather there now, and pay respects to the deep, still water. We never forget that once, long ago, it was ice.”

  “The spirits are there?” Kallik’s belly lurched. Did that mean she would be able to see her mother again, as well as find her brother? Perhaps that was why she had seen Nisa and Taqqiq in the fog; they must be traveling toward that sacred place, too.

  The she-bear didn’t seem to have heard Kallik’s question. She was gazing into the mist, as if she could see something there that Kallik could not. “They say the lake is on the route that leads to the Place of Everlasting Ice.”

  “Oh!” Kallik exclaimed. “The Place of Everlasting Ice is real!”

  “Some bears say the place is nothing more than a legend. I know it is real, but it’s very far away—farther than your paws could take you.”

  “I have to get there,” Kallik insisted. “I’m looking for my brother.” Hopefully, she added, “May I travel with you? I’d help you find food.”

  The female grunted. “Eat all mine, more like. No, it’s best to travel alone. One mouth to feed, one pelt to protect.”

  Kallik’s heart sank. “But what about all the other bears?” she protested. “The ones who left tracks here?”

  “Just because many bears have passed this way doesn’t mean they were traveling together,” the other bear replied, beginning to pad away. Glancing over her shoulder, she added, “Didn’t your mother tell you that white bears live alone?”

  Only when they’re old enough, Kallik thought, digging her claws into the ground. She knew it would be no good to follow the she-bear; she wasn’t like Nanuk or the she-bear who had been dropped safely from the metal bird, willing to help a strange cub. So she sat and waited until the huge white shape melted into the mist.

  Loneliness flooded through Kallik, as cold and heavy as the fog. She was going the right way, but it seemed so unfair that she still had to be on her own. If she had really seen Nisa and Taqqiq traveling toward the lake, why hadn’t they waited for her? And if Taqqiq was with their mother now, that must mean he was dead. So what was the point of going to the Place of Everlasting Ice to look for him?