Beyond the Sea of Ice

by neetha Napew

  Foxes and hares, ptarmigan and owls lost the last of their winter-white coloring. They were brown now, or red or gray, or mottled combinations of all three. Along the wide, stony outwash plain that lay at the base of the mountain, a herd of blocky, short-maned horses paused to drink, caught the scent of man, nickered nervously, and moved on. Not far away, in the now-luxuriant scrub growth of a meadow on the fringes of the tundra, a winter-weakened yak fell to the predations of a ravenous short-faced bear and its cubs. A rusty-gold pride of shaggy-coated lions dozed in the long grass downwind of a small herd of musk ox that grazed the mountain’s southern flank.

  And in the deep, spruce-shaded canyon below the aerie of Torka, Umak, Lonit, and Karana, Umak followed cloven footprints along the hard-packed spine of a still-existing snowbank. Within a grove of stunted birch trees, he sighted his prey and brought down the bud-antlered bull moose with one throw of his spear. Struck through its heart, the animal dropped to its knees, woofed once, then keeled over, dead.

  The old man’s cry of triumph echoed up the mountain walls to set vibrations running deep into the silt underpinnings of the summit ice pack. Somewhere deep within the glacier, an enormous lateral fracture cracked lengthwise and stressed the masses of ice on either side of it. Imperceptibly, the lower mass slipped just a little; but the entire glacier groaned, cracked open into fissures along its surface, and stretched subtly downward to accommodate the changes within itself.

  The movements and sounds had been no more and no less than the usual erratic shiftings that the old man had grown used to over the past weeks, so he paid no heed to them now. High above him, where the sun struck the south face of the ice mass, a lobe of white a quarter of a mile thick oozed forward to overlay its stony, vertical foundations. A family of large white sheep, which had been feeding on the green tufts of a sky-high meadow, leaped into thin air and skittered down the mountain wall. A tera tom circling in the blue, clear vault of the sky, cast its shadow on the gaping, mile-long mouth of a thousand-foot-deep crevasse that had not been there a moment before.

  At the back of the canyon, a thin avalanche of small stones and bits and pieces of glacial ice clattered and rolled for thousands of feet before landing not far from where Umak stood. But the old man had seen many such rockfalls since he and the others had come to the mountain.

  Torka was coming toward him, his own spears in hand. Umak uttered a little whoop of pride. He had beaten Torka to the kill! Aar was already sniffing at the carcass and lapping blood from the wound. Umak raised his arms and shook them to show his victory, knowing that the bull moose he had slain was in its prime. Coupled with the many antelope that they had taken, plus the sloth and the woman meat that Lonit had snared with her traps and bola, the ton and a half of meat that the moose would yield would be more than enough to feed them all for the rest of the summer, through the fall, and on into the time of the long dark and beyond. If they wished, they need not hunt again but could spend their time at leisure while Lonit worked at the endless tasks that times of plenty presented to those of her gender.

  When Torka came near to appraise the kill, Umak spoke his thoughts to him, adding: “Lonit is one woman. There is much meat. In this new place, it may be that the spirits who give power to the hunter will not mind if these two help Only Woman In The World.”

  “Lonit is not the only woman in the world.”

  “When Umak sees others, then he will believe that there are others. In the meantime, there is much meat to butcher, many hides to work—too much for Only Woman In The World.”

  Torka sighed, doing his best to restrain annoyance with his grandfather. Umak had not referred to Lonit as Almost A Woman since he had awakened to see Torka and the girl sharing the same sleeping skins on the morning that they had discovered Karana. Torka did not like to be reminded of that morning or of the night that had preceded it. He avoided Lonit when he could. She stirred memories of their coupling and the feelings toward her that he had never felt for anyone but Kipu and his grandfather. It disturbed him to have to admit that, in retrospect, he remembered feeling no such tenderness for Egatsop. Passion? Yes. Possessiveness? Yes. Pride in knowing that the most beautiful woman in the band had accepted him? Yes. But lately, when he looked at Lonit’s tall, slender figure bent over her drying frames, or sewing, or cooking, he found loveliness in her every move and gesture.

  By the standards of the People, he knew that she should not seem beautiful to him, but she did. When watching her patience with the wounded child or her devotion to Umak, Torka always found himself thinking that Egatsop would never have been so patient with another woman’s child or as devoted to an old man who had need of his pride. Although Umak did his best to pretend otherwise, there was no mistaking the fact that he was strong in the morning and tired and stiff-jointed each afternoon. Egatsop would not have understood why Torka would stand back and allow Umak to stalk and make a kill that he could easily have made in half the time, but somehow he knew that Lonit would understand. He had seen her listen to the old man’s tales, pretending that he had not dozed off midway through a story only to awake with a start and repeat it all over again from the beginning, unaware that he had been asleep at all. He had seen her surreptitiously pound Umak’s meat before roasting it, and he had known that she did this to spare the old man’s teeth, which must be growing brittle. So many little things, all done when she thought herself unobserved. It was impossible to despise such a girl.

  He knew now that he had completely misjudged her. He had come to care for her deeply, but he did not want to care. The caring could cripple his resolve to find and slay the beast that had destroyed his band. Each time he looked at Karana, he saw his lost, beloved little boy and knew that before he could allow himself to care for anyone or anything again, he must drive his spear into the eye and brain of World Shaker and see the monster fall and breathe its last.

  “Umak says that he will help Lonit. Only Woman In The World will be glad to have another pair of hands to work the hides and cure the sinew and prepare the meat.”

  The old man’s statement drew Torka from his reverie. He looked at his grandfather and knew that he had been right to mislead him into thinking that he had beaten him to the kill. He looked vibrant, arrogant, almost young again. The placement of his spear in the moose told Torka that, despite the encroaching infirmities of old age, he was still a hunter to be reckoned with. Coupled with his powers as a spirit master, Umak would be an asset to any band. The thought was steadying.

  Torka repeated the compliment aloud, then went on: “When Karana’s people come, it will be a good thing to share our meat with them. They will welcome us. And Lonit will have the hands of many women to help her with her work.”

  “If Karana’s people come!”

  “They will come. They would not abandon such a son as Karana. Torka says that the boy was lost in the storms of the time of the long dark. Even now, hunters are coming in search of him.”

  “The time of the long dark was longer and darker than any that this old man can ever remember. Never has Umak seen such storms or felt such cold. If the boy was lost, his people will think him dead. They will send no one to search for him.”

  “If Karana were Torka’s son, Torka would not stop searching until he found the bones of his little one and placed them with his own hands to look at the sky. Only then would Torka believe that his son had given his spirit to walk upon the wind.”

  “Hrmmph! Torka would not have lost his son in the first place, no matter how fierce the storm, no matter how white the wind. It took a crooked spirit to tear the life from Kipu’s heart. But Umak says that Karana has been abandoned. His people will not come!”

  Torka rose, impatient with the conversation. He knew that Umak must have his doubts about joining with a new band; he must be worrying about his age. “You will do well with a new people, Father of my father. You are Umak! You are spirit master! You will be strong. You will follow the game again. Life will be good. You will have women again. You wil
l be proud again. You must not be afraid.”

  The old man’s face frowned in righteous indignation. “Umak does not fear for Umak!” His arms went wide, then up and out as though to encompass the entire hunting range that lay at the base of the great mountain. “Torka has brought Umak and Lonit to a good place. We have made a safe encampment. We have much meat. We do not need others to help us survive. In this place, we could stay forever!”

  The impassioned outpouring of the old man was contagious. Torka responded with equal intensity. “Forever is how long Torka will take, if that is what he must take to find and kill the Destroyer!”

  “Hah! So it is as Umak has said! Torka waits for Karana’s band so that he can walk away from this old man and from Lonit and from Karana and say to the great mammoth: “Torka comes to you now, across a far land, seeking one who has destroyed the People, seeking to kill one who cannot

  be killed! And if Torka dies now, it does not matter, because Umak and Lonit and Karana are safe in the care of another band!” “

  Torka stared at his grandfather. It never failed to amaze him that, just when he began to accept the fact that Umak was a man of failing faculties, the old man’s mind snapped and sparked and cut through to the very quick of his own thoughts. The image of a brittle-toothed, sinewy elder sitting stiff backed by the fire vanished. Before him was Umak, fiery temper’d wily tracker of beasts, slayer of bears, teacher of infinite wisdom.

  “Come with me, then!” he urged. “When Karana’s people come and Lonit and the boy are safe, we can go together. Together we will kill the Destroyer and return to tell the tale!”

  “Hmmph! Even if Karana’s band come, Thunder Speaker is far away, and this old man says that this is good. The memories of the Destroyer are bitter! Let them go, Torka. Forget what has been. Look at what is. Life is good now. And if this spirit master’s eyes have seen clearly, then Umak says this: When the time of the long dark has come and gone, when the first blue light rises with the setting of the starving moon, Lonit will bring forth new life, and the People will be reborn. Will Torka say then that his life does not matter? Will he then say to Umak: “Come, let us leave our woman and child to the care of those who lose or abandon their own?” Hmmph! Torka will do as he must. But Umak will stay with Lonit. To this old man, her life is worth more than the death of a mammoth.”

  The sun stood still in the sky. The world turned upside down. The northern lights shone by day, and the wind rose to transform their colors into rainbows that ran like rivers over the land.

  Only Torka saw these wonders. He was not certain why he saw them. He did not want to be happy over Umak’s revelation, but the more he thought about it, the more the sense of wonder grew within him. Perhaps it was because they had all been so close to death—the old man, the girl, the hunter, the boy, even the dog. In a sense, they had all walked upon the wind only to be rejected by the spirits, to be cast out of the world they had known, not to die but to be reborn in a new world; and now their rebirth was being confirmed in the promise of the new life that was growing within Lonit as surely as summer was ripening upon the land.

  Perhaps Umak was right. The Destroyer was far away, in a part of the world that they had left behind. Life was good on the mountain. For the first time, Torka realized that as long as his remnant little band held together, the People could not be destroyed. The People lived on in Umak and Torka. Through Lonit, they would be reborn to survive in generations yet to come. Perhaps it was time for Torka to release himself from the past and to send his memories of the great mammoth walking away upon the wind ... at least until Karana’s people came. Now he would think of other things. He would care for Lonit and their coming child. He would think about the future. And savor the renewed joy that he now found in the wonder of living. They acted so strangely toward her. Lonit could not understand why. She had made a clean, orderly encampment for them upon the ledge and had set much meat to dry and many hides to cure on the long, broad lip of the cornice. She was content with her woman’s work, but they insisted that they help her with it. She felt demeaned by the sight of her men scraping away at hides, cleaning and twisting sinew. Were they dissatisfied with the quality of her labor? Humiliated, she had applied herself with extra care and vigor, only to be scolded, told to rest, and ordered to stop working so hard.

  It was very confusing. What else was a woman to do? Men hunted; women worked. And how much rest could one female need? Ever since Umak had brought down the moose, and he and Torka had piled its meat into its own skin and devised a pulley to haul it up onto the ledge, they had treated her as though she, and not Karana, were injured and in need of special care. She would catch them watching her in the most curious ways, as though they waited for her to say something special, or as if they expected her to be sick.

  It was perplexing. Her appetite had never been better. She felt well and strong, although her breasts were tender, and she waited apprehensively to experience her time of blood. What would her men say when it came? Would they be content to banish her to the far reaches of the cave? Or would they send her away to sit out her time at the base of the mountain wall? The thought made her shiver with dread. She was glad when her time of blood did not come, although she wondered why it stayed away.

  Lonit knew only what she had been able to observe, that the time of blood came with some sort of mystic regularity that had something to do with the phases of the moon. But twice more the moon went through its cycle and her time of blood did not come. She was relieved. In the meantime, half of her wished that her men would stop treating her so strangely, while the other half rejoiced in incredulous disbelief. Torka was being kind to her. For reasons she did not understand and would not even think to question, he did not seem to hate her anymore.

  The sun stayed longer and longer in the sky. Then, one day, it did not set at all. Sunset came, but the sun did not disappear. Instead it hovered low upon the western horizon, like a lambent coal glowing softly in the blue fire pit of the sky, then slowly slid northward in the lingering twilight. At midnight, the sun began its slow descent toward the east. Hours later, a new day was born. Not once had the sun left the sky.

  And still Karana’s people did not come.

  Lonit saw that the boy was brooding. He barely touched his food. “Lonit will gather eggs for Karana,” she told him.

  The boy glowered. Lonit smiled. Karana still kept his silence and maintained a mask of hostility, but Lonit had seen subtle changes in his behavior over the past weeks. She had observed that fresh eggs, raw or cooked in the ashes of the fire pit, were his favorite food. His leg was healing nicely, although it would probably be many moons before the torn muscles would be as good as new. His fear of the spirit master had gradually become awe as Umak spent hours with the boy, telling him tales of the People, teaching him to play bone toss, and sharing with him much of the same knowledge that he had shared with Torka when Torka had been a boy. Not to be outdone, Torka also doted on the boy and took time out from the working of his own weapons to fashion a spear for Karana out of a long bone taken from the moose.

  “Soon Karana will hunt with Umak and Torka. This will be a good thing.”

  The boy had not replied, but he had taken the spear and hefted it, shaking it at an imaginary quarry. And then, for the first time, he had smiled.

  Lonit had watched the relationship of her men and the boy grow. Karana was gradually filling the void that Kipu had left in their lives. She was glad for this, but sorry for the child. No matter how kind and caring Umak and Torka were to him, it was obvious that he still longed for his own people. For all of his fierce bravado, he was still a lonely little boy. Sometimes, when the men slept or were off hunting, Lonit heard him whispering softly to the dog. In Aar, Karana had found a companion in whom he could confide his secret hopes and fears. Aar found an affinity and empathy with the child perhaps because the dog was, for all of its strength and voracity, little more than a lost pup itself. Boy and dog were always together now. They slept back to bac
k, actually touching, and when Karana sometimes whimpered in his sleep, the dog licked his face and whimpered soft encouragement back to him. Karana would throw a skinny little arm around Aar’s neck and cuddle close. The dog made no attempt to move away.

  The day was hot and windy. Torka volunteered to accompany her on her search for eggs. They went down the mountain together, with Lonit marveling at his open concern for her safety. He carried her gathering nets over his shoulder and went down first, reaching back to steady her descent as she followed.

  She had already gathered most of the eggs that were available near the mountain’s flank. One of the few lessons that her mother had taught her was to never take all of anything. This was the way of the band, Torka confirmed. A few eggs here, a few plants there, a few head of game or geese, and always there would be more to greet the hunters and gatherers in the following time of light.

  They went out onto the tundra, deep into the sedge marsh where the geese were now molting the last of their flight feathers. They would be bound to the earth while they raised their young. New feathers grew meanwhile to replace the old so the geese would be strong when they flew away into the face of the rising sun in the last lingering days of summer before the time of the long dark.

  Torka paused. It was very windy. The grasses hissed all around. The waters rippled and splashed as waterfowl, suddenly alerted to their presence, took to their wings in a cackling, honking, squawking hysteria. Since many were devoid of the long, strong feathers that allowed them to fly, many gained no altitude at all, instead crashing through green walls of grass to disappear without grace or dignity into another portion of the marsh.

  Torka laughed.

  It was such a rare sound, Lonit looked at him, startled and pleased. He was no longer the same man who had walked the wind and led her and Umak to the mountain. He had lost the gauntness of winter. The sun had bronzed his face. Her love for him was so intense that it nearly choked her. Despite the wind, the day was hot; she could barely breathe.