The Quest Begins

by Erin Hunter

  Suddenly Nisa raised her head, her fur bristling. Kallik tensed and sniffed the air. A large male white bear was lumbering out of the fog toward them. His yellowish fur was matted with snow and his paws were as big as Kallik’s head. He headed straight for their seal, hissing and rumbling.

  Taqqiq bristled, but Nisa shoved him back with her paw. “Stay close to me,” she warned. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She turned to run, nudging her cubs ahead of her. Kallik sprinted as fast as she could, her heart pounding. What if the seal wasn’t enough for the strange bear? What if he came after her next? As they raced up the slope, Kallik glanced back and saw that the bear wasn’t chasing them. Instead, he was bent over the dead seal, tearing into it.

  “It’s not fair!” she wailed. “That was our seal!”

  “I know,” Nisa said with a sigh. Her paws seemed heavy as she slowed down to a walk.

  “Why should that lazy bear get our meal, when you did all the work of catching it?” Kallik insisted.

  “That bear needs to eat as much as we do,” Nisa said. “When seals are scarce, you have to get used to fighting for every meal. You can’t trust any other bears, my cubs. We must stick together, because we are the only ones who will look after one another.”

  Kallik and Taqqiq exchanged glances. Kallik knew she would do anything to take care of her mother and her brother. She hadn’t seen many other bears, but when she had, they had been big and fierce and scary, just like the one that had stolen their seal. Maybe white bears weren’t meant to have friends. Maybe the ice didn’t allow it.

  “We’ll be all right if we stay together,” Nisa promised. “There’s food to be found if you know where to look, and if you’re patient enough to catch it. So don’t get your head all matted with snow about it. I’ll be here to look after you until you’re strong enough to hunt on your own.”

  She swung her head around to the left. “Can you smell that?”

  Kallik sniffed. She did smell something! But it wasn’t seal…it was something else. Something fishier, but not exactly fish. She didn’t recognize it.

  “What do you think it is?” she asked Taqqiq. He was crouched down as if he was stalking something, and as she spoke, he leaped forward, pinning down a snowflake that had drifted to the ground. Kallik looked up and saw that it was snowing again. Her brother was happily batting at the snowflakes. It didn’t look as if he’d even tried to sniff for what her mother had scented.

  “Taqqiq, pay attention,” Kallik said. “You’ll have to hunt for yourself one day, too.”

  “All right, bossy paws,” Taqqiq said, twitching his nose dramatically from side to side.

  “Come along, quickly,” Nisa said. “Try not to make too much noise.” They followed their mother across the ice, padding as quietly as possible. The scent didn’t seem to be moving away.

  “Is it staying still?” Kallik asked. “Does that mean it doesn’t know we’re coming?”

  “One way to throw off your prey is to hide your scent,” Nisa said. “Like this—follow me.” She led them to a channel of melted water in the ice and they swam across one by one.

  “Blech, now my fur’s all wet,” Taqqiq complained, shaking himself as they climbed out the other side.

  “That should make it harder to smell us coming,” Nisa said.

  “And that big, old bear back there won’t be able to follow our trail, either, right?” Kallik said.

  “Hopefully,” Nisa said, touching Kallik’s muzzle with hers.

  As they got closer, the fishy scent got stronger, and Kallik could smell salt and blood and faraway ocean scents mingled with it. Soon she saw a dark shape lying on the ice. At first she thought it must be a giant seal, from the way the flippers were splayed out, but then she saw that it was the carcass of a whale. Huge chunks had been torn off it, and there were large bite marks and claw slashes in its side. The snow around it was covered in blood.

  “It’s a gray whale,” Nisa explained. “Another bear must have killed it and dragged it onto the ice.”

  Kallik stared at the carcass in awe. It must have been a very strong bear to overpower something so big and pull it all the way out of the water. Even with the large bites taken out of it, there was still plenty for the three of them to eat. Hungrily, she stretched out her muzzle and tugged a piece of meat free.

  Nisa nudged her, making her drop the meat. “Don’t forget to express gratitude to the spirits of the ice,” Kallik’s mother said gently. “You must always remember that you are part of a bigger world.” She bowed her head and touched her nose to the ice. “We thank you, spirits of the ice, for guiding us to this meal,” she murmured. Kallik imitated her mother, whispering the same words, and Taqqiq followed. Then, with happy rumbles, they began to eat.

  The fog had rolled away by the time night fell, and the stars shone brightly in a clear sky. Kallik sprawled on the ice, her full belly keeping her warm. Next to her were her mother and brother. Not a hint of a breeze stirred the fur on their shoulders; for once, the wind had died down and the sea far beneath the ice was silent.

  “Mother?” Kallik asked. “Please tell me again about the spirits under the ice.”

  Taqqiq gave a little huff of laughter, but Nisa touched her nose to her daughter’s side with a serious expression.

  “When a white bear dies,” she said, “its spirit sinks into the ice, lower and lower, until all you can see is a shadow under the ice. But you shouldn’t be frightened of them, little star. The spirits are there to guide you. If you are a good bear, they will always be there to take care of you and help you find food or shelter.”

  “I’d rather you took care of me,” Kallik said with a shiver.

  “I’ll take care of you, too,” her mother promised.

  “What about the ice spots in the sky?” Kallik said, pointing her muzzle upward. “Aren’t those the spirits of bears, too?”

  “When the ice melts,” Nisa explained, “the bear spirits escape and drift up to the sky on the snow-winds, light as snowflakes, where they become stars. Those spirits are watching you, too, only from farther away.”

  “What about that star over there?” Taqqiq asked. “The one that’s really bright. I’ve even seen it in the daytime, once, and it never moves like the others do.”

  “That’s the Pathway Star,” Nisa said.

  “Why is it called the Pathway Star?” Taqqiq prompted.

  “Because if you follow it,” Nisa said solemnly, “it will lead you to a place far, far away where the ice never melts.”

  “Never?” Kallik gasped. “You mean there’s no burn-sky? We could hunt all the time?”

  “No burn-sky, no melting ice, no eating berries or living on the land,” Nisa said. “The bear spirits dance for joy across the sky, all in different colors.”

  “Why don’t we go there?” Taqqiq asked. “If it’s so wonderful?” Kallik nodded. She felt a tingling in her paws, as if she could run all the way to this place where they would be safe forever.

  “It is a long way away,” Nisa rumbled. “Much too far for us to travel.” Her black eyes stared into the distance, silvery glints of the moon swimming in their depths. “But perhaps we may have to make the journey…one day.”

  “Really? When?” Kallik demanded, but her mother rested her head on her paws and fell silent. She obviously didn’t want to answer any more questions. Kallik curled into a ball in the curve of her mother’s side and watched the ice shimmering under the moon until she fell asleep. In her dreams, bear spirits rose from the ice and began to dance, their paws light as fur as they romped and slid across the frozen landscape.

  A strange creaking noise woke Kallik the next morning. It sounded like a bear yawning loudly, or the wind howling from underwater, but the air was still, and the noise came from the ice, not the sky. Her mother was already awake, padding in a circle around them with her nose lifted.

  Kallik scrambled to her paws and shook herself. Her coat felt heavy with moisture, and the air was damp and soft i
nstead of crisp and clear like it had been the night before. She turned to her brother, who was lying on the ice beside her, apparently still asleep. She nudged him with her muzzle.

  “Walrus attack!” Taqqiq bellowed, suddenly leaping to his paws and knocking her over. Nisa spun around with a snarl, but stopped when she saw that her cubs were just playing.

  “Quiet,” she growled. “Taqqiq, stop acting like a wild goose. There is no time for playing. We have to get moving.” She started across the ice without looking back. Kallik and Taqqiq scrambled to catch up. Nisa’s grouchiness made Kallik nervous. Why would she scold them for playing now, when she’d let them roll around having fun the day before?

  The creaking began again as they traveled across the ice. Nisa paused and swung her head around to listen. It seemed like the sound of the ice groaning and yawning underpaw was getting louder. Kallik could tell that her mother knew what this sound was—and that it meant something very bad.

  Suddenly there was a loud crack and a horrible sucking noise, and Kallik felt the ground tilt below her. She was thrown off her paws and found herself sliding along ice that was no longer flat but sloped down steeply toward dark water. With a terrified squeal, Kallik scrabbled on the ice, her claws sliding helplessly on the slick surface.

  A giant paw grabbed her and hauled her backward onto solid ice again. Kallik stumbled as Nisa bundled her away from the crack in the ice, where waves slapped hungrily against the new edge.

  “Wow!” Taqqiq yelped. “The ice just snapped in two! Kallik, I thought you’d be swallowed up by the sea and we’d never see you again!”

  Nisa hissed with frustration. Kallik peered around her mother’s legs and saw that the ice in front of them had broken into two large chunks that were drifting apart on the sea.

  “Already?” Nisa muttered. “But we’ve had no time at all on the ice! How are we supposed to survive on land if we can’t hunt for long enough before?” She paced along the jagged edge of the ice, snarling at the waves that lapped at her paws.

  “Mother?” Kallik whimpered. “What’s happening? Is it…is it burn-sky?”

  “It’s too early for burn-sky,” Nisa said. “But the ice-melt is coming earlier each season. We have less and less time to hunt.” She chuffed angrily. “It can’t go on like this.”

  “What do we do?” Kallik asked. “What’s going to happen to us if the ice melts too soon?”

  Nisa just growled, pawing the edge of the ice.

  “Should we move to land?” Taqqiq asked. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do when the ice melts?”

  “No,” Nisa said, lifting her muzzle. “We must continue to hunt, or else we shall not survive the long, hungry months of burn-sky.”

  “But—” Kallik started, glancing at the surging water and broken ice before them. What if the ice all melted before they could get to the land?

  “We must go on,” Nisa insisted. “We cannot go to the land yet—or we will all die.”

  She moved off across the ice, and Taqqiq followed her. Kallik paused for a moment on the jagged edge, the dark water lapping at her paws. She stared at the broken chunk of ice floating across the water from her. How far was it to land? Was there enough ice left for them to get there? And if there wasn’t…what would happen to them?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Lusa

  “And over there you can see Lusa, our youngest black bear, who is five months old. She was born right here in the zoo. Black bears actually come in a lot of different colors like cinnamon or gray, but Lusa’s name means ‘black’ in the Choctaw language, and if you look closely you won’t find one speck of another color on her coat. That’s her mother, Ashia, and her father, King.

  “All North American bears are suffering from the changes in their environment. For the most part, black bears are doing better than white bears and grizzlies, but we have had to rescue some of them when they run into trouble. We found King, for instance, wandering at the edge of the forest. He would have starved to death if we hadn’t brought him here. Lusa’s never known any other place, and she feels safe around humans, so she is certainly better off living in the zoo with us.”

  Patches of snow covered the bare rocks and grassy ground inside the Bear Bowl, but the smell of leaftime was in the air, and a few purple crocuses were already nudging their way through the dirt. Lusa stood on her hind legs and twitched her ears at the group of flat-faces on the upper ridge of the Bowl. Several flat-face cubs were leaning against the railing, pointing at her and chattering. They sounded like birds. She didn’t understand most of what the zoo guide was saying, but she knew her name in the flat-face language. Her feeders called her Lusa when they brought her food, so she could tell when the guides were talking about her to the visiting flat-faces. The wind brought a whiff of their strange scent to her—a warm, milky smell covered over by sharp, almost flowery scents. Their high-pitched voices made her ears hurt, but she liked the sound of their laughter.

  Dropping back down to her paws, she scrambled into the part of the Bowl where three tall trees grew next to a log that never rotted. Lusa called this the Forest. Raising herself onto her hind legs again, she batted her paws in the air, as if she were fighting a butterfly, to catch the attention of the flat-faces. When she was sure they were watching her, she jumped onto the log and ran along it, jumping down on all fours at the other end.

  As she’d hoped, the flat-faces made the quick huffing sound that meant they were pleased, and the guide leaned over the rail to give her some fruit. Lusa had to stand on her back legs and stretch as high as she could to reach the pear.

  “What you see Lusa doing here is similar to what bears like her would do in the wild—stretching up into the trees to reach food like fruit, nuts, berries, and honey,” the guide chattered.

  Lusa wrapped her paws around the piece of fruit and nibbled at it. Suddenly she felt a paw cuff her shoulder. She knew from its size that it wasn’t one of the bigger bears, so she had a good chance of defending her pear. With a snort, she tucked her paw around the fruit and turned to face Yogi, the other cub in the Bowl.

  Yogi was one season-circle old, but he hadn’t been born here. He talked sometimes about another zoo, where his mother lived, but he didn’t remember it very well. He was almost as black as Lusa, but he had a pale splash of white fur on his chest.

  With a huffing sound, he lifted himself onto his hind legs so he towered over her. “Lusa, share!” he demanded. “Give me some!”

  “No!” she said. “It’s mine!” She stuffed the fruit in her mouth and ran away across the enclosure. The flat-faces up above chattered and giggled as Yogi chased her.

  Lusa scrambled up onto the Mountains near the back of the Bowl. She was better than Yogi was at balancing on the four large boulders. He huffed and grunted as he climbed after her. With a playful snort, Lusa leaped off the last boulder and tumbled straight into her father, King, who was dozing in the sun.

  “Hrr—what?” her father mumbled. Then Yogi came bounding off the rocks after Lusa and crashed into King as well. This brought the giant black bear to his paws with a roar.

  “Get off!” he bellowed, swatting at them. “Go away!”

  Yogi fled to the Fence at the far end of the Bowl. On the other side of the Fence, Lusa could see the old grizzly rolling on his back, muttering to himself. Chuffing with laughter, Lusa followed Yogi.

  “How can you find that funny?” Yogi asked, his fur standing on end. “Your father is so scary!”

  “Oh, he’s a big furball,” Lusa said. “His bluster is worse than his bite.”

  “You don’t know that,” Yogi pointed out. “He’s never bitten you—yet!”

  “He wouldn’t!” Lusa protested. “He was just startled, that’s all. You know he’s a bit deaf. He probably didn’t hear us coming.” She was pleased to see that Yogi had forgotten about the fruit. She sat down and finished eating it, licking the juice off her paws with her long tongue.

  “Well, I’m not going to bother him again,” Yo
gi said. “I’m going to stay over here and watch the white bears through the Fence.” Lusa was glad that the bears in the Bowl were kept apart from one another by the cold gray webs of the Fences. She liked being with other black bears, but she was a little bit afraid of the big brown grizzly and the massive white bears. They were much, much bigger than she was, and their deafening roars sometimes kept her awake at night.

  “That sounds like a good idea to me.” Lusa turned and saw her mother, Ashia, lumbering toward them. “You two should learn not to disturb King, especially when he’s resting.”

  “We weren’t disturbing him,” Lusa objected.

  “Just stay out of his way and don’t cause trouble,” Ashia scolded.

  “I don’t want to watch the white bears,” Lusa said to Yogi. “They’re boring. Let’s go hide in the Caves.”

  They scampered off to the back corner of the Bowl, where a ledge of white stone hung over a rocky patch of ground hidden in shadow. Lusa and Yogi crowded into the shadows, each trying to keep their paws out of the sun. They crouched as low as they could get and held very still.

  “Shhh,” Lusa whispered. “There’s a grizzly crashing through the forest.”

  “It’s coming after us,” Yogi whispered. “It’s going to chase us with its giant hooked claws.”

  “But if we stay very still, it won’t know we’re here,” Lusa breathed.

  “Whoever moves first loses,” Yogi challenged.

  “All right,” Lusa said, pressing her muzzle to her paws. “I’m going to win.”

  They fell silent. Lusa willed every muscle in her body to stay perfectly still. She felt the wind tickling around her ears and nose. She could smell every other bear in her section of the Bowl: King dozing in the sun, Ashia snuffling around the bottom of the wall for anything the flat-faces had dropped, Stella scratching her side against one of the trees.