Icebones

by Stephen Baxter

  And, tentatively, Spiral wrapped her trunk around the little calf's small, smooth head.

  THE PITS IN THE GROUND became deeper and more fragmented, and began to merge. Soon Icebones was walking through a deepening gully. The walls grew steadily steeper around her, and the floor, littered with broken rocks, tilted downward sharply. Soon Icebones's front legs were aching, and her foot pads and trunk tip were scratched raw by the hard-edged rocks.

  The gully gave way to a more complex landscape still, a place of branching chasms and tall cliffs. It was the cracked land she had sensed from afar, and dreaded.

  Icebones found herself walking through a flat-bottomed valley so deep and sheer-walled that she was immersed in cold shadow, even though she could see a stripe of pinkish daylight sky far above her. The walls, steep above her, were heavily eroded. They were made of layers of hard red-gray sandstone and blue-black lava, and here and there they had slumped tiredly into landslides.

  In some places the walls had collapsed altogether, leaving spires and isolated mesas, so that she wandered through a forest of rock, carved into eerie, spindly shapes by the endless wind.

  In the weak light the mammoths were rounded, indistinct forms, shuffling gloomily. The ground was littered with sand dunes and rock from the crumbled walls, so the going was difficult and slow. They were all unhappy: mammoths were creatures of the open steppe, and it was against their instincts to be enclosed by high walls.

  But the chasm was short. Soon it opened out — but only into a branching array of more deep gorges, separated by tall, sharp-edged walls. Icebones stamped her feet and rumbled. But the walls of this increasingly complex maze sent back only muddled and confusing echoes.

  The nights were the worst. The stars and disconcerting moons crossed the sky, but the mammoths were stranded in a deep shadowed darkness.

  Icebones tried to keep them moving. But because of the calf's weariness that proved to be impossible, and they were forced to endure the dark huddled closely around Breeze, while her calf napped peacefully in the forest of her legs.

  In the darkest night, Icebones heard deep, brooding rumbles. All the mammoths heard it, she thought, but none would speak of it, as if fearful of making it real.

  In the daytime Icebones, weary and befuddled, strove to keep moving east.

  This maze of chasms was a pattern of grooves cut deep into the land, as if by the claws of some great predator, so that the plain high above their heads was cut into sunlit islands, each separate from the others.

  Spiral said, "I have become a creature of the ground like a lemming, able only to peer up at the sunlight above." And her grumble was joined by the others.

  It was as if it was somehow Icebones's fault that they were having such difficulties. It was utterly unfair, of course. But then, she thought gloomily, nobody had promised her that being a Matriarch was anything to do with fairness.

  "I will tell you stories from the Cycle."

  That met with a general groan.

  But Icebones said, "The Cycle is our story — your story. This Cracked Land is difficult. But the Cycle is full of stories of mammoths who faced difficulties, for it is the times of hardship that shape us." And she began to tell them the story of Longtusk. "It is said that when Longtusk was a calf the mammoths roamed free, great Clans of them, all across the northern steppes. But Longtusk's Family was forced to flee, northward, ever north, for the Lost were encroaching from the south, breeding and squabbling and building..."

  The mammoths still grumbled, but the noise was subdued, and suffused by the soft pads of their feet, the growls of their bellies, gentle burps and farts. Even the little calf trotting at Icebones's side listened intently. Woodsmoke was still too young to understand much of what she said. But he was responding to the rhythm of her language, as she hoped they all would.

  The Ragged One continued to keep apart.

  "At last," Icebones went on, "the mammoths had nowhere else to go. The land gave way to a great frozen ocean where nothing could live but seals and other ugly creatures. It seemed that soon the mammoths would be overwhelmed by the Lost.

  "But Longtusk found a way. There was a bridge of land that spanned the ocean, from one great steppe to another. And, on the far side of the bridge, there were no Lost — only open steppe, where the mammoths could grow and breed and live. So Longtusk gathered the mammoths of his Clan, and said to them—"

  Something dropped before her, huge and heavy and dark. It opened a cavernous mouth and screamed. She glimpsed rows of sharp teeth.

  Without thinking she lunged forward — she felt the rasp of fur on her tusks, the squelch of soft flesh breaking — and the creature screamed louder yet.

  And then, in an instant, it was gone, leaving her with the stink of blood in her nostrils, and the echo of that deadly scream rattling from the walls around her.

  SHE STOOD THERE, shaking like a frightened calf.

  The mammoths had scattered. The calf had been left alone, and he was turning back and forth, little trunk raised, mewling pitifully. "Scared... scared..."

  Icebones said, "We must stay together. That — thing — was probably after the calf."

  Spiral was stiff with rage and fear. "Enough of your talk," she said. "The Ragged One is right. This is not your world, Icebones. You did not know we would meet such a creature here, did you?"

  "If we squabble it will pick us off one by one." Icebones raised her tusks, which still dripped red blood. "Is that what you want?"

  At last Autumn rumbled, "She is right. The calf is probably its main target, for he is weakest, and slowest. Breeze, come to him."

  Breeze stepped forward and tucked her calf beneath her legs. Woodsmoke tried to suckle, but Breeze pushed him back. The rest of the mammoths clustered around mother and calf.

  "We will go on," insisted Icebones. "This warren of chasms will not last forever. If everyone keeps their trunk high, we will survive."

  They were reluctant, fretful, afraid. But nobody had a better suggestion. And so they began to move forward once more. The calf's mewling was muffled by the legs and belly fur of its mother, and the adult mammoths rumbled uneasily, their deep sounds echoing heavily from the sheer ravine walls.

  Thunder walked beside Icebones. "What do you think it was?"

  "Perhaps it was some kind of cat. There are stories of great cats in the Cycle — Longtusk himself fought such a beast. Perhaps it has grown fat by destroying everything else living here, like the whale in the Ocean of the North. But I have never seen a cat, for none lived on the Island. Many of the animals mentioned in the old Cycle stories are long gone..."

  Icebones saw that the stripe of sky visible far above her head was already fading to a deep orange-pink.

  "Soon it will be dark," the Ragged One said softly. "And then we will make a story of our own. Won't we, Matriarch?"

  They came to another branch in the chasm system. This time Icebones faced three intersecting ravines, each sheer-walled and littered with loose rock, each leading only to further complexity — and each empty, as far as she could see.

  We must continue east, she told herself. If we don't achieve that much, everything else is lost. She stepped forward and led them into the central chasm.

  There was a bellow. The mammoths stumbled back, trunks raised in alarm.

  This time the creature had dropped from above, onto Autumn's back. The mammoth was pawing the ground and trumpeting. She lifted her head in a vain effort to reach her tormentor with her tusks or trunk.

  The creature was only dimly visible in the shadows, but Icebones glimpsed hard, front-facing yellow eyes, that black bloody mouth, and claws that gleamed white and dug deep into Autumn's flesh, causing blood to well and drip down her heavy hair.

  Autumn blundered against the chasm wall. The cat creature yowled its protest. But it was ripped away from her back, its claws leaving a final set of gouges.

  Icebones lunged forward, trumpeting, tusks held high.

  The cat raised itself to its fu
ll height, yellow eyes fixed on Icebones. It was spindly, but its body was a sleek slab of muscle. It opened its huge mouth and hissed. And it leapt with astonishing agility up the chasm wall.

  Again the mammoths were left in sudden silence.

  "It lives on the walls," Shoot said, wondering.

  Spiral had her head dipped, her trunk wrapped over her forehead. "I can't stand it," she whimpered. "I am so afraid."

  Icebones herself was shaken to her core. Mammoths were used to facing predators, but as a creature of the open steppe, Icebones had no experience of threats dropping down on her from out of the sky.

  She walked up to Autumn. "Your back is hurt." She probed with her trunk fingers at the slash wounds. The covering hair was matted with blood. "We will find mud to bathe your wounds."

  "No," Autumn growled, pulling back. "We must get out of this place before dark."

  Thunder said softly, "Which way?"

  For a terrible moment Icebones realized that she did not know — the chasm looked identical before her and behind her — she had been turned around several times, and the stripe of pink sky above her gave no clues as to the direction of the sun.

  The Ragged One was watching her, waiting for her to fail.

  At last Icebones spotted a small heap of mammoth dung, still steaming gently, a few paces away. "That is the way we have come. So we will go the other way — to the east."

  Thunder growled, "But that is the way the cat went."

  A high-pitched yowl echoed from the chasm walls. The mammoths peered that way fearfully, raising their trunks to sniff the air. "Where is it?" "Is it close?" "I think it came from that way." "No, that way..." But the echoes thrown by the complex walls of the chasm system masked the source of the call — as perhaps the cat intended, Icebones thought.

  The Ragged One stood before Icebones. "It can track us by our dung, and our footprints, and our scent. How can we throw it off? You don't know what to do, do you? You are no Matriarch. You have not told us the truth — not since the moment you woke up inside your cave of darkness. And now you have led us into deadly peril."

  Icebones, desperate, her head full of alarm, thought, Not now... But she was tired of strangeness, of unpredictable dangers, of dragging this recalcitrant group across a barren rocky world, of the Ragged One's unrelenting hostility.

  "All right," she said sharply. "You want the truth — then here it is. I am no Matriarch. I think my mother intended me to come here to this place and lead you someday... but not yet. Not until I was grown, and had calves of my own, and had become a true Matriarch. I don't know what happened — I don't know why I found myself here, now. I don't want to be here. But here I am."

  The mammoths rumbled, tense, unhappy.

  Thunder reached to her hesitantly. "You lied? But you named us, Icebones."

  She glared at them all. "Yes, I lied. I had no choice. If I hadn't, you would have died on the shore of that salt-filled ocean."

  Autumn's rumble was tinged with pain. "Enough of this. It won't make any difference if Icebones is a liar or not if we are all dead by sundown. Which way?"

  Two chasms led from this point. One was straight, its walls sheer and clean, but the other was a jumble of rocks.

  Icebones snapped, "We go down there." She meant the jumbled, difficult route.

  Autumn growled, "Are you sure? The other looks much easier."

  The Ragged One said, "What does it matter? Icebones is a fool. The cat can follow us wherever we go."

  Icebones said, "You must listen to me. Listen to me because I am Icebones — for who you know me to be, not for who you wish me to be. Go now, that way, as I told you."

  Slowly, sullenly, the mammoths began to move toward the more crowded chasm.

  But Icebones called Autumn back. "Wait, Autumn. Forgive me." And she dug into the wounds on Autumn's back, breaking open the clots and covering her trunk fingers with blood.

  Autumn bore this stoically. Perhaps she understood what Icebones intended.

  As the mammoths filed into the crowded chasm, Icebones set off, alone, into the other, cleaner defile. Where she trod she made sure she left clear footprints in the dust and scattered rock, and even squeezed out a little dung and urine. And she took care to smear Autumn's blood on the rocky walls.

  Then she backed out of the chasm, trying to step in the tracks she had already made.

  Just as she reached the junction of the chasm, she heard a cold yowl — glimpsed a black form shimmering over the rock above her head — saw yellow predator's eyes. The cat hurtled, black and lithe, into the chasm she had seeded, away from the mammoths.

  Quickly she ducked after the others. "Try not to drop dung for a while — I know that is hard — and try to be quiet..."

  Thunder asked, subdued, "How did you know what the cat would do?"

  "I hoped that blood would be a stronger lure than the smell of our waste and hair. The other chasm is long, and it will take a while for the cat to explore it. But soon enough it will know that we have tricked it, and come looking for us once more."

  So they proceeded through the shadowed complexity of the chasm, picking their way between huge fallen boulders and over smaller sharp-edged rocks.

  Icebones glanced at the Ragged One. But the Ragged One's posture spoke only of resentment and fury. Icebones knew that in the days to come the dynamics of her little band would be even more difficult, and that a final confrontation was yet to come.

  AFTER SEVERAL MORE DAYS — dismal days, frightening, bereft of food and water — the mammoths emerged at last from the Cracked Land.

  With relief they fanned out under a pale, open sky, over a shallow slope of scree and broken rock. There was even food to be had, tufts of grass and scrubby trees growing in the sudden flood of light.

  From here they should go south and east, for that was the direction to the Footfall. But when she looked that way, Icebones saw that the ground ended in a sharp line, much closer than the horizon, as if there was a dip beyond.

  Leaving the mammoths to feed, she walked that way. Soon she had reached the break in the ground — and she recoiled, shocked.

  It was a sheer drop.

  She was on the lip of a chasm. But this immense feature would have dwarfed the mazy ravines through which she had guided the mammoths.

  As if scoured out by a vast tusk, it was a mighty gouge in the land. And it was in her way.

  Part 2: Gouge

  The Story of the Family of Kilukpuk

  THIS IS A STORY Kilukpuk told Silverhair.

  Now, as you know, Kilukpuk was born at a time when the world belonged to the Reptiles. The Reptiles were the greatest beasts ever seen — so huge they made the land itself shake with their footfalls — and they were cunning and savage hunters.

  In those days our ancestors called themselves Hotbloods.

  The Hotbloods were small timid creatures who lived underground, in burrows, the way lemmings do. They had huge, frightened eyes, for they would only emerge from their burrows at night, a time when the Reptiles were less active and less able to hunt them. They all looked alike, and rarely even argued, for their world was dominated by the constant threat of the Reptiles.

  The ancestors of every warm-blooded creature you see today lived in those cramped dens: bear with seal, wolf with mammoth.

  It was into this world that Kilukpuk, the first of all Matriarchs, was born. If you could have seen her, small and cautious like the rest, you would never have imagined the mighty races which would one day spring from her loins. But, despite her smallness, Kilukpuk was destined to become the mother of us all.

  Kilukpuk had many brothers and sisters.

  One was called Aglu. Secretive and sly, his blood runs in the veins of all the creatures that eat the flesh of others, like the wolves.

  One was called Ursu. Fierce and aloof, she became the mother of all the bears.

  One was called Equu. Foolish and vain, she became the mother of all the horses.

  One was called Purga. Stran
ge and clever with paws that could grasp and manipulate, he...

  Yes, yes, there is a story here, and I will get to it!

  Now after the reptiles had gone, the Hotbloods emerged from their burrows. For a long time they were timid, as if they feared the Reptiles might return. But at last they grew confident, and their calves and cubs and foals grew fat and strong and tall.

  And by the time Longtusk was born, much later, a time when the ice crowded down from the north of the Old Steppe, there were many bears and horses and wolves, and many mammoths.

  But only mammoths, the Calves of Kilukpuk, had Families.

  NOW AT ONE TIME in his life Longtusk lived alone, and he wandered the land. Everywhere he went he won friendship and respect — naturally, since he was the greatest hero of all, and even other, stupid creatures could recognize that.

  One spring day Longtusk, wandering the land, happened to come by a snow bank. He saw a bear alone, mourning loudly.

  Now a cub of Ursu likes to live alone, in caves she digs out of snow banks with her paws. She will spend her winter in the snow, nursing her cubs, until they come out in the spring to play and hunt.

  Longtusk called, "What is wrong?"

  And the bear said, "My cub has grown sickly and died. My milk was sour, and I could not feed him."

  And Longtusk was saddened. But he knew that if a mammoth's milk soured, she would ask the others of her Family, her mother and sisters and aunts, to suckle the calf for her, and the calf would not die. But the bear lived alone, and had no Family to help care for her cubs.

  Longtusk stayed with the bear a day and a night, comforting her, and then he walked on.

  In the summer Longtusk, wandering the land, happened to come upon a horse as she cropped a stand of grass. She was mourning loudly.

  Now the foals of Equu like to run together in herds, but they have no Matriarch, and no true Family.

  Longtusk called, "What is wrong?"

  And the horse said, "I was running with my brothers and sisters and our foals when we ran into a bank of smoke. It was a fire, lit by the Lost. Well, we turned and ran, as fast as we could. But we ran to a cliff's edge and fell — all but me — and the Lost have taken the flesh and the skin of my brothers and sisters and foals, and I am alone."