Icebones

by Stephen Baxter

  The Mother of the Swamp-Mammoths looked up at Boaster with small black eyes and burped proudly. Boaster trumpeted, startled, and he backed away from the stubby form.

  Chaser-Of-Frogs said, "Without me, you know, these clumsy oafs would be blundering around that Gouge still." She reached up with her trunk and probed at Icebones's belly. "But your journey was hard too. You are a bag of skin. And," she said more gently, probing at Icebones's dry dugs, "you have other problems, I fear."

  Icebones gave a brief rumble of regret. But she insisted, "What of you, Chaser-Of-Frogs? I thought you would never leave that muddy pond."

  "My Family has found a new pond now." She raised her trunk toward a shallow lake nearby.

  Icebones heard and smelled more Swamp-Mammoths burrowing gratefully into the muddy pond floor. Their wet backs gleamed in the sun like logs, and their protruding eyes blinked slowly. Mammoths stood around these new arrivals, trunks raised in curiosity, and a clutch of ducks swam away indignantly.

  There were perhaps a dozen Swamp-Mammoths in the lake.

  Icebones said softly, "This is all?"

  Chaser-Of-Frogs said grimly, "We both knew how it would be, Bones-Of-Ice. Most would not follow. Of those who set out, those who died first were the old and the young, our calves... It was hard, Bones-Of-Ice. So hard."

  Autumn rumbled, "We faced the same choice — and failed — and our bones would now be scoured by the dust storms of the high plain, our line extinct, if not for good fortune..."

  "The mammoth dies, but mammoths live on," Icebones said softly.

  But now Boaster stiffened. He was looking to the north, his tusks raised, and he trumpeted.

  There was a sound of feet, purposefully walking. And on the northern horizon a black cloud hugged the ground, like the approach of a storm.

  Icebones, with deep reluctance, turned that way. When she raised her trunk she could smell a tang of blood and staleness.

  It was no storm. It was mammoth: a great herd of them, and they walked through the billowing crimson dust raised by their own powerful footfalls.

  Calves ran squealing in search of their mothers. Bulls broke off from their jousting and backed away, grumbling. Even Breeze's consort circle was broken up.

  "It is as if a cloud has come across the sun," Autumn said.

  But Icebones stood straight. For, in the lead of the marching mammoths, gray hair flying wispy in the wind, was the Ragged One.

  It was time. Relief flooded Icebones.

  One more trial, Icebones. Just one more. Then you can rest.

  She gathered her strength.

  THE RAGGED ONE TRUMPETED, her loose hair wafting around her strange gray-pink face. She was gaunt, her ribs protruding beneath her sparse hair. Her face was scarred, her tusks badly chipped.

  "So, Icebones," the Ragged One said, "you survived. And you did not kill any more mammoths on your journey."

  Before Icebones could reply, Autumn raised her trunk. "Spiral," she said softly. "Daughter — is that you?"

  From behind the Ragged One, Spiral stepped forward, head held high, her beautiful tusks gleaming.

  Autumn rumbled her dismay.

  Icebones growled to the Ragged One, "Say what it is you want here. And say what you have promised these mammoths who follow you."

  "That is simple," the Ragged One said. "I have told them I will bring back the Lost."

  Icebones immediately sensed the hopeful, longing mood of the mass of mammoths who had followed the Ragged One — and, to her shock, she even sensed a stirring of doubt in Boaster, who stood at her side.

  For a heartbeat she felt giddy, weak, as if she might fall. This was a dangerous moment indeed: a moment that could decide the future of the species, here on this rocky steppe — and all that she could bring to bear was her own failing strength.

  Spiral called thinly, "The Lost gave us life, Icebones. What have you to offer us but a jumble of myths, suffering and death — as my own sister died, as we nearly died?"

  There was a great rumbling from the mass of mammoths behind her.

  "I have nothing to offer you," Icebones said. "Nothing but the truth, and dignity."

  The Ragged One snorted contempt. "I cannot eat truth. I cannot drink dignity."

  Autumn demanded, "How do you imagine you will call back the Lost from the sky?"

  The Ragged One walked up to the giant Breathing Tree. Its mottled bark loomed above her like a wall. Grunting, she slashed at the bark with her tusks.

  The gouged wood leaked a blood-red sap.

  "I am one mammoth, with a single pair of tusks. But I can cut and slash. And when I am exhausted, another will come and cut after me, and then another, and another... It might take a season, a whole year. But we are mammoths, and we are strong. And we will destroy this Tree, as we can destroy any other."

  "You are a fool," said Autumn. "How will that help you bring back the Lost?"

  "You are old and your mind is addled," said the Ragged One. "You are the fool. Look at this Tree. Smell it. Hear its roots worming into the earth. Is there another such Tree in the whole of the world? No, there is not. Because this Tree is a creation of the Lost — their mightiest work, destined to outlive the Nests, and the beetle things that toil and burn. And if we destroy the Tree, the Lost will wish to restore it — and they will return."

  A wave of excited trumpeting rippled through the crowd of her followers, and the noise was briefly deafening.

  Before the Ragged One's intense anger and determination, Icebones felt weak, like a figure in a dissolving dream. But she knew she must act. "I will stop you."

  "And if you try," hissed the Ragged One, "I will kill you."

  "Then that is what you will have to do, for I will oppose you to my last breath."

  "Why?" Autumn asked. "Icebones, it is only a tree."

  "No," Icebones said. "I have thought deeply on this, and I believe I understand the Tree's true importance — as do you, Cold-As-Sky. Show yourself now."

  Out from the crowd beyond Spiral, a squat, rounded form shouldered her way: mammoth, yes, but with a hump and covered in black, sticky hair, and with small feet and tiny pointed ears, and a pair of eyes that glowed orange.

  The mammoths around her recoiled, rumbling uncertainly.

  "I am here, Icebones," said the Matriarch of the Ice Mammoths. "I followed your Ragged One. I come here despite the thickness of the air, and the stench of water and your fat green growing things..."

  Icebones said, "Cousin. You saved my Family on the High Plains. And yet now you seek to destroy a world."

  Cold-As-Sky said harshly, "I come not to destroy, but to make the world as it once was."

  "I don't understand any of this," Autumn said.

  Icebones spoke loudly enough for every mammoth in the Footfall to hear.

  "This one is right, that the Tree is a gift of the Lost — their last gift to this world. But the Lost have gone, and the Tree remains. And now its meaning has nothing to do with the Lost, but with the Cycle — with us.

  "When Longtusk led his Family away from the advancing Lost and over the great bridge, he reached a land of ice, where nothing could live. But Longtusk had heard of a place called a nunatak. It was a refuge, a place where heat bubbled from the ground, keeping back the ice, and green things lived, even in the depth of winter. There the mammoths survived."

  "These are fables for calves," said the Ragged One sourly.

  Icebones walked up to the Breathing Tree and stroked its cut-through bark. "Like Longtusk's Family, we are stranded in a world of ice. But this Footfall is our nunatak." She stamped her feet, challenging the mammoths. "Listen to the song of the rocks. Feel how the ground is shattered and compressed. This is the deepest pit in the world, where the rock has been pushed far down — so far that the inner heat of the world, which lives beneath the plants and soil and rocks, is close. Can you feel it? Can you hear the mud that bubbles, the liquid water that gurgles?"

  There were rumbles of doubt and surprise among the gath
ered mammoths. Icebones could hear them pawing at the ground, listening for the secret songs that welled there.

  "The heat is deeper than any of us could reach," said Icebones. "But the roots of this Tree will reach deeper than any mammoth's trunk. Even yours, Cold-As-Sky. One day this Tree will draw up the heat of the world. It will breathe rich air, and weep water — and the world will live."

  "One day?" Boaster asked wistfully.

  "Not yet," Icebones said gently. "This Tree, mighty as it towers over us poor mammoths, is but a sapling. Can't you tell, Boaster?"

  The Ragged One trumpeted desperately, "If we destroy the Tree, the Lost will return."

  "No," Icebones said. "You showed me yourself how the Lost abandoned this world. Wherever they have gone, it has nothing to do with us. But if you destroy the Tree, you destroy yourselves — and your calves, and their calves after them." She raised her tusks. "This is the truth. If I am the only one opposed, then you must kill me first."

  There was an expectant silence, a forest of raised trunks.

  Icebones stood alone. She had done all she could. And so she waited in the thin, high sunlight, with the tang of red dust strong in her nostrils.

  The small world spun around her, and heat gathered in her head.

  Autumn came to stand behind Icebones.

  Breeze joined her.

  And even the calf faced the crowd of mammoths, his tiny tusks upraised as if he was ready to take them all on.

  "We are your Family, Icebones," Autumn said. "On that long journey, I became We. And now we stand with you."

  "And me," growled Boaster, adding his massive presence. Icebones touched his trunk with affection and gratitude.

  Chaser-Of-Frogs came waddling up, scattering drying mud. "None of you is as handsome as me. But Bones-Of-Ice taught me we are all Cousins, and she spoke the truth — and that truth saved me. I am proud to be your Family, Bones-Of-Ice. I become We."

  Autumn trumpeted, "Spiral. Join us."

  But Spiral, standing close to the Ice Mammoths, postured and pranced, as if for an invisible audience of Lost.

  But now Thunder emerged from the crowd. He approached Spiral. Another young Bull followed him, unknown to Icebones.

  Thunder called, "I recall how it was for you on that distant Mountain, Spiral. The Lost pampered you and praised you — but they took away your calves."

  "It is true," Autumn said. "Daughter, you recall the Lost with affection. But in truth they hurt you as no mother should be hurt."

  Spiral trumpeted, "Leave me alone — oh, leave me alone!"

  The other Bull stepped forward. His tusks, though still immature, were long and smooth — and they made neat curls that were, Icebones saw, an exact match of Spiral's own. He walked awkwardly up to Spiral. He reached out with his trunk, and probed her mouth and trunk tip and breasts. "But I cannot leave you alone," he said thickly. "Have you forgotten me, mother?"

  Spiral stood stiff and silent, eyes wide. Then she cried out, pain mixed with joy, and wrapped her trunk around her son's face.

  Icebones pealed, "This is how it is to be mammoth: mother with calf, Families together, herds of Bulls strong and proud. We have no need of the Lost. All we need is each other. Join me now. Join my Clan."

  And, like an ice floe slowly melting, the group beyond the Ragged One lost its cohesion. One by one mammoths broke away from the disciplined mass, to join Icebones and her Family.

  Spiral came lumbering stiffly to her mother, her trunk still wrapped tightly around the head of the calf that had been taken from her long ago. Autumn embraced her daughter gruffly.

  A massive tusker came up, dribbling stinking musth. He tried to get closer to Breeze, whose oestrus smell was still powerful. Curtly Autumn shielded her daughter from his attention.

  A part of Icebones was amused that even now the deeper story of life went on.

  Thunder joined Icebones. She nuzzled his mouth affectionately. "Well done," she said. "You have made the difference, I think..."

  "I thought it would work," Thunder said softly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "I thought Spiral might have run off to join that ranting fool. I found the calf two days ago. I thought he might come in useful. So I kept him distracted until now."

  Icebones was astonished. "How can you think in such a devious way?"

  "Just be glad I am on your side," Thunder said modestly.

  Cold-As-Sky snorted. "But what of us, Icebones?" The Ice Mammoths were breathing fast, their blue tongues lolling. To them, Icebones recalled, the thin, clean air of the Footfall was dense and clammy and much, much too hot. Cold-As-Sky said, "If I join you, I die. If the Tree makes your world, it destroys ours."

  Autumn turned on the Ragged One. "You see why they followed you? Even these strange creatures cared nothing for the Lost, for your dreams. All they wanted was to smash the Tree, for they understood its importance, as Icebones did. You are a fool — you let them use you—"

  Icebones touched Autumn's trunk to still her.

  Thunder said unexpectedly, "But you need not die, Cold-As-Sky."

  The Ice Mammoths inspected him suspiciously.

  In brief phrases — illustrated with much stamping and growling — he told them of the Fire Mountain, where he had been born. "It is high," he said. "Higher than your High Plains, the highest place in all the world. No matter how hard this Tree breathes, that Mountain's summit will still be a place of cold and thinness and ice."

  Cold-As-Sky said to Icebones, "Is this true?"

  Icebones glanced at the Ragged One. "She knows it to be true. We walked to the summit, and saw breathing trees... Yes, you could live there, Cold-As-Sky."

  "But it is half a world away."

  Now Breeze's calf stepped forward. "I will lead you," said Woodsmoke brightly. "I have walked half the world. I will show you how."

  Breeze cuffed him affectionately but proudly, for he stood tall and determined.

  Cold-As-Sky rumbled, and her Ice Mammoths clustered around her.

  Then, hesitantly, Cold-As-Sky stepped forward and stood behind Icebones. Her Family followed.

  The Ice Mammoths smelled of ice and iron.

  At last the Ragged One was left isolated.

  It is done, Icebones thought. Her sense of relief was overwhelming, leaving her weak.

  "You have defeated me," said the Ragged One bleakly.

  "No. We are not Bulls battling over a Cow. There is no defeat, no victory. Be with our Family."

  "You don't understand," said the Ragged One. "You have never understood. I cannot become part of your We."

  "That isn't true—"

  "But it is, in a way," said Chaser-Of-Frogs.

  "This muddy thing is right, Icebones," said Cold-As-Sky, ignoring Chaser-Of-Frogs's bristling. "She is mammoth, yet she is not — just as we are.

  "I told you we have our own legend, our own memories. We know we were set down on a world where nothing could live — nothing but ourselves, and the blood weed and other plants which feed us. And we recall the first of us all — for those first had no mothers."

  Chaser-Of-Frogs said grimly, "I hate to ally myself with one so ugly as this, but our memory is the same. In the beginning there were no mothers. There was no Cow, no oestrus, no consort dance, no mating..."

  "Then how did you come to be?"

  "The Lost made us," Cold-As-Sky said simply. "They took the bones of mammoths who died long ago, and ground them in the blood of others — remote Cousins called elephants who lived in the warm places. And, out of the mixing, came—"

  "Us," said Chaser-Of-Frogs sourly.

  "It was not enough for the Lost that they brought mammoths to this place," said Cold-As-Sky bitterly. "They had to make us into things of their own."

  Icebones asked, "But why? Why would they do this?"

  Autumn growled, "Perhaps they were in musth, and sought to impress their females."

  "No," said the Ragged One. "They loved us. They loved the idea of us. This is what I bel
ieve. They wanted to remake us, to bring us back from the extinction to which they almost drove us, to give us this new world where there would be room for us to browse."

  Autumn walked up to the Ragged One and ruffled her sparse, untidy hair. "If it was love, they loved us too much," she said gruffly.

  "And that is why you sought to wreck the world," Icebones said, understanding at last. "That is why you wanted the Lost back so badly. Because they made you."

  "Enough," said Autumn. "Give this up. Join us now."

  The Ragged One hesitated, agitated, distressed. She reached out to Autumn, raising her trunk — and, briefly, Icebones believed it might be possible.

  But then the Ragged One trumpeted wildly. She pushed past the Ice Mammoths and lumbered away.

  Icebones made to go after her, but Autumn held her back with her long, strong trunk. In a moment the Ragged One was lost among the mammoths — and Icebones sensed that she would never see her again.

  The mammoths began to disperse.

  "It is done, Icebones," Autumn said. "The shadow of the Lost is gone at last. This is our world now."

  "Yes. It is done..."

  And the last of Icebones's strength drained into the red dust. The colors leached out of the world, and her head filled with a sharp ringing. She would have fallen, if not for the support of her Family.

  A WATCHING HUMAN WOULD only have seen the mammoths gather, heard nothing but an intense and mysterious rumbling and growling and stamping and clicking of tusks.

  She would never have known that the destiny of a world had been tested, and determined.

  7

  The Dream of Kilukpuk

  THE SONG OF OESTRUS disturbed Icebones, startling her awake.

  She sniffed the air querulously.

  It was cold and damp. The sun was dim, or so it seemed to her. Perhaps another winter was coming, though it seemed no more than heartbeats since spring was done.

  But then the seasons were shorter on this hard little world. Or were they longer? She could not recall.

  Time flowed strangely here, like water, like blood. Sometimes it seemed that her life had fled as rapidly as the fleeting summers, for here she was, suddenly a last-molar, barely able to chew the softest grass anymore, her senses and her memories as eroded as her teeth.