Fire in the Sky

by Erin Hunter

  Ujurak’s mind felt fuzzy, as if he’d forgotten something, but he was too distracted by the beauty of the undersea world to focus on remembering. He swam on, noticing how the light around him grew dimmer and brighter like sunlight striking through trees. He guessed it depended on how thick the ice was over his head. Where the water was filled with pale light, the ice must be dangerously thin. He wondered how thick the ice had been before. A flickering hole of bright white caught his eye. A seal’s breathing hole was directly above him. Ujurak swam toward it, wondering if he could learn anything about hunting by seeing the hole from the other side.

  A large dark shadow lay unmoving on the ice beside the hole. It took Ujurak a moment to realize it was a full-grown white bear waiting for a seal to surface. Ujurak considered popping up and giving the bear a shock: a huge white whale instead of the seal it was waiting for! But then Ujurak thought how sharp the bear’s claws must be, and how it would probably be just as happy to eat a whale as a seal, and he quickly turned to swim away.

  Gigantic pale bulks appeared out of the shadows ahead, hanging in the water like smooth-edged clouds. With a start, Ujurak realized they were beluga whales like him. He slowed down, not wanting to provoke a conflict. But the whales just blinked at him as he approached, twitching their flippers to stay in line with the current.

  One of them opened its huge mouth, letting out a stream of bubbles. “Seen any prey?” he asked in a series of clicks and squeals.

  “Sorry, no,” Ujurak replied, flicking his tail to propel himself past. He couldn’t exactly remember what he’d been doing a few moments ago, but he felt hungry, so he assumed he hadn’t found anything to eat. The other whales bobbed slightly in the wave he’d created below the surface. Part of him wanted to stop and talk, but he was running out of air and needed to find somewhere to breathe…preferably somewhere without a white bear waiting for prey!

  His squeaks bounced off the ice overhead and told him there was a patch of open water nearby. Ujurak twitched his flippers and angled up toward it, feeling the water whirl past him as he swam to the surface. He nudged his way into the air and inhaled through his blowhole, blinking at the glaring whiteness of the ice. The patch of open water he’d found was small, no longer than two of him, but it was enough to give him room to breathe for a moment. Jagged pieces of broken ice around the hole hinted that something had smashed its way up from below.

  He blew out a spurt of water and inhaled again, preparing to dive. His stomach was demanding food, and something told him he could find it on the ocean floor. With a flip of his tail, he dove into the water and spiraled into the depths.

  He still felt as if he was missing something—as if he’d been in the middle of something and had forgotten to go back and finish it. Or as if he’d left something important behind. But he had no idea what it could be. The blue shadows turned black the farther down he swam, and sometimes he could rely only on his squeaks bouncing clearly back to tell him there were no obstacles in his way, since he couldn’t see anything with his eyes in the pitch darkness. Swerving up to a lighter patch of water, he found a shallower area where a sandy shelf was just visible below him.

  Ujurak sucked seawater into his mouth and puffed a strong jet of water at the sandy bottom. Sand flew up in a whoosh, clouding the water around him, but he could see crabs and shrimp that he’d dislodged from the seafloor scrambling for cover. Feeling a thrill of satisfaction, he gobbled up as many as he could fit into his mouth in one swoop, swallowing them whole.

  This kind of hunting was fun! Easier than chasing after fast, wriggly little fish like the seals had to. Ujurak swam a little farther and did it again, blasting more crustaceans out of the sand and bolting them down.

  When his belly felt full, he flicked his tail and rose to the surface again for air. He felt quite pleased with himself, but there was also a sense of unease prickling along his skin. Something was wrong. Something was missing. He wasn’t supposed to be alone. Where was his pod? Shouldn’t he be traveling with other whales? How had he lost them?

  He searched his memory, trying to remember who he’d been with, but he couldn’t recall any other whales. That was strange. He knew he should be surrounded by others; he had a definite memory of warmth and friendship, but he couldn’t attach any faces to it. He floated in the open water for a moment, breathing in and out, and then dove back down. Perhaps if he kept swimming around, he’d find his pod around here somewhere. They couldn’t have gone far.

  As he paddled swiftly along under the ice, the sound-pictures in his mind told him that there was something large up ahead—much, much larger than a whale. He couldn’t imagine a creature that big, but it was moving, so it must be alive. It seemed to be making odd pinging and creaking and humming noises. Ujurak swam toward it, sending out squeaks to find out more.

  The closer he got, the more he was aware of a noisy thrumming vibrating through the water. It stung against his skin and made his head ache. Tense with alarm, Ujurak was about to turn back, when a vast gray shape loomed out of the water, charging straight toward him.

  It was an underwater firebeast! It had the smell of firebeasts and the fierce glow of their eyes and the same hard shiny skin, but it was long and sleek like a fish without flippers or paws. A short, spiky tail spun at the back to keep it moving forward, thrusting it through the water much faster than Ujurak could swim. Hurling himself sideways, he bounced through a storm of bubbles as he veered out of the way just before it sliced through the water where he had been swimming.

  The rush of water as it went past tossed Ujurak over and over, leaving him disoriented and confused. He flailed his huge body as hard as he could, trying to swim away from the rotating tail before it caught him and churned him into pieces. Finally the firebeast disappeared into the dark, leaving a gritty, foamy wake that lashed against Ujurak’s skin and tasted like oil.

  Stunned, Ujurak drifted for a moment. Had that firebeast taken him on in a fight, and won? Or had it not even noticed that he was there? Whatever that monster was, it would have killed him without a sideways glance—not for prey, not for territory, but purely by accident, because he was in its way.

  Even far below the ice, there was death and danger pulsing in the shadows, tasting of oil and flat-faces, and churning animals and fish out of the way as easily as Ujurak had snorted the tiny crabs out of the sand. Ujurak thought he would never feel safe again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Kallik

  Kallik and Lusa buried their noses in Toklo’s freezing wet fur. Long shadows like flat spiky trees stretched over the ice and the blue-gray mounds of snow around them. Darkness was falling, Ujurak was still gone, and Toklo had been lying unconscious since he’d been shoved out of the water by Ujurak’s gigantic white flippers.

  Kallik rubbed Toklo’s back and sides with her paws, trying to warm him up. Snow was melting into her belly fur and she could feel the bone-chilling cold of the ice shelf underneath the snow creeping up through her paws. On the other side of Toklo, Lusa was shivering; Kallik could feel the tremors through Toklo’s fur.

  “What did Ujurak turn into?” Lusa whispered to Kallik over Toklo’s back. “I’ve never seen a fish that big before.”

  “That was a kind of whale,” Kallik said, remembering the belugas she had played with a long time ago, back when she first left the ice to search for her brother. “I met some while I was traveling by myself. They were friendlier than I thought they would be. I guess they don’t eat bears.” She looked at the dark hole in the ice where Ujurak had disappeared. He’d been gone for a terribly long time. “Why hasn’t he come back yet?”

  “I don’t know.” Lusa licked Toklo’s ear. “I hope he comes back soon. I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now.”

  Kallik lifted her head and looked up at the deep purple-blue sky, where a few small stars were already twinkling. Even though she was worried about Ujurak, she felt comforted by the sight of the ice spirits watching over them. “We’ll wait for him,” she said. “
He’s always come back before.”

  “Unless he was in trouble,” Lusa reminded her. “What if he’s hurt? How long should we wait?”

  Toklo made a guttural sound deep in his throat and Kallik jumped, startled. Lusa snuggled in as close to him as she could. “Toklo?” she whispered in his ear. “Are you all right?”

  Toklo let out a harsh cough that racked his whole body. Over and over he rasped, spitting up saltwater and a strand of damp green weed. Finally he stopped and turned his head toward Lusa. In a low growl, he muttered, “I’m fine.”

  A rush of relief washed over Kallik. She should never have quarreled with Toklo like that, taunting him into trying to prove that he could hunt here on his own. That wasn’t taking care of him; that was putting him in greater danger than starvation or the cold.

  “I just lost my footing,” Toklo went on gruffly. “Stupid ice. This is no place for brown bears.” He gave her a fierce look. “Or black bears, for that matter.”

  “There are dangerous parts of the ice,” Kallik agreed. “You have to learn to watch for them.” She wanted to go on and scold him for not listening to her, for rushing ahead without waiting for her to tell him which way was safe, but she held her tongue, unwilling to start that fight again.

  “I guess so,” Toklo muttered. “Maybe there’s some stuff I still have to learn.”

  Kallik figured that was as close to an apology as she’d ever get. She ducked her head, acknowledging it.

  “I thought you were gone forever,” Lusa whimpered, nudging her nose under his chin. “When you vanished under the ice I didn’t know how we’d ever find you or get you back, but then Ujurak changed into something—Kallik called it a whale, but it looked like a really, really big fish—and he pushed you out and then all we saw was this huge white tail flipping up and then he swam back down and he still hasn’t come back, but oh, I’m so glad you’re all right!”

  Toklo squinted at the crack in the ice, then pushed himself a little farther away from it, as if it might stretch of its own accord and suck him back in.

  “Don’t worry, Ujurak will come back,” Kallik reassured them.

  “He’d better!” Toklo snapped. “He made us come on this squirrel-brained mission into the world’s most horrible place—if he leaves us here without a word, I swear I will eat him when I find him, no matter how big a fish he is!”

  Kallik swallowed her anger at his description of her home. She could hear the worry in his voice, and she knew he was as anxious about Ujurak as she was.

  “What do we do if he doesn’t come back?” Lusa asked in a small voice. “I mean—we have no idea where to go without him, or how to save the wild.”

  They were all silent for a moment.

  “We’d have to go back to the land,” Toklo said at last. “You and me, I mean, Lusa. It wouldn’t make sense for us to stay out here without Ujurak.”

  Lusa gave Kallik a nervous look. “I know you can take care of us, Kallik, but…I think Toklo might be right.”

  Kallik scraped her front paw across the snow. “Right. I know. There’s no quest without Ujurak.” She leaned over and nuzzled Lusa’s tufty ear. “But I would miss you.”

  “I’d miss you, too,” Lusa agreed. “You’d probably be better off without us, though.”

  I’d certainly be less worried, Kallik thought. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Ujurak will be back. I’m sure of it. And in the meantime, he said I’m supposed to lead us out here. So I think we should do what we did last night—find somewhere to sleep where we’ll be safe and warm.”

  “What if Ujurak comes back looking for us?” Toklo asked, glancing at the open water with a shudder.

  “There’s enough snow over there for me to make a cave,” Kallik said, pointing with her nose. “It’s close enough that we’ll see him. Come on, we’ll feel better when we’re warm.”

  Toklo pushed himself to his paws and winced. He picked up each of his front paws and licked them gingerly. Kallik noticed cuts on his pads, and she remembered the blood on the ice where Toklo had tried to pound his way through to reach the seals. She hoped that it wouldn’t attract unwanted attention from full-grown white bears—they’d be able to smell his blood from skylengths away.

  “Will you be able to walk?” Lusa asked.

  “Of course I will!” Toklo said irritably. “I can’t even feel my paws, let alone these tiny little scratches.” He hunched his shoulders as Kallik took the lead.

  After a moment, she heard him mutter to Lusa, “I will catch a seal next time, you know. I almost had it.”

  “I don’t care who catches a seal,” Lusa replied in a low voice, “as long as someone does…and soon!”

  Guilt flooded through Kallik again. What kind of white bear couldn’t even catch a seal? Maybe she couldn’t take care of her friends after all. At the same time, she felt a flash of irritation with both Toklo and Lusa. They just needed to give her a chance! She’d followed them trustingly enough on land, even when Toklo failed to catch the prey he went after. He wasn’t exactly perfect, either!

  She tried to remember how she’d felt among the trees and the grasslands at first—hot, dirty, out of place, and uncomfortable. That must be how they were feeling now. She knew Lusa must miss trees, which made Kallik feel trapped and weighted to the ground. She felt freer here, where she could run in any direction with nothing to block her way…but Lusa and Toklo must feel as exposed as a snail on a rock, with nowhere to escape to. It was no wonder they felt so confused and lost.

  As she dug into the snow with her paws, Kallik glanced at the endless horizon and felt comfort in how much wide space there was. The moon was rising, glittering off the ice. They bounced the silvery glow between them, from the sky to the frozen ocean and back again. Moonlight shimmered on the hillocks of snow around them and sparkled on the broken ice where Ujurak had disappeared. Toklo and Lusa had had their time of feeling at home while they’d traveled on land. It was Kallik’s turn now.

  She stepped back from the cave she’d dug, feeling satisfied. At least that was one thing she could do right. Toklo scrambled inside with a grunt that she decided to accept as a thank-you.

  “Go on in and rest,” Kallik said, nudging Lusa’s side. “You look worn out.”

  “I feel worn out,” Lusa mumbled. Kallik peered at her. Lusa really looked more tired than Kallik had ever seen her, but they hadn’t even traveled very far that day. Was she all right? Was she getting sick?

  Lusa saw the look on Kallik’s face and poked her with her nose. “Don’t worry, Kallik, we’ll be all right. We’re just getting used to the ice, that’s all.”

  “Sure,” Kallik said, ducking her head.

  “And look!” Lusa barked, spotting the colorful lights in the sky over Kallik’s shoulder. “The bear spirits! See, Kallik? They’re watching us—they want us to be here.”

  The two bears leaned against each other for a moment, watching the green and gold lights dance around one another, flaring brilliantly across the darkness. But Kallik’s fur prickled. The lights were paler tonight, the colors more dim. Did that mean they were farther away? Were the spirits leaving them?

  Maybe they’re just sleeping, she told herself, and yawned hugely. Maybe once she’d slept for a while, too, then everything would seem better.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ujurak

  “Pukak!” a bubbling voice called. “Pukak! Is that you?”

  Ujurak twisted around in the water. His head still throbbed from his encounter with the firebeast, so it took him a moment to focus on the female beluga whale who was swimming up to him. She didn’t look familiar, but her eyes shone with hope. She nudged him away from the churned-up path of the firebeast, into calmer waters. The sound of its thrumming was fading away, but the ocean still stank of oil and prickled with heat that didn’t belong there.

  “Pukak?” the whale asked again, swimming around him.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Ujurak said, realizing that she was saying a name. “I am called Uju
rak.”

  “Oh,” she said, drifting a short distance away from him. “Well. Don’t you know you shouldn’t be here? This is where they always come.”

  “Who?”

  “Who?” she snorted. “The poisonbeasts! This is their territory. Everybody knows that.”

  Ujurak blinked, puzzled. “You mean—” He tried to say “firebeast,” and then realized there was no word for “fire” in his language. He could sense the word in his head, but he couldn’t say it out loud. So how do I know it at all? He was a whale, wasn’t he? “Poisonbeast,” he said instead. “That giant thing that just went by?”

  The beluga stared at him. “You really don’t know about them? You must come from very far away.” She blew out a stream of bubbles. “I wouldn’t mind living where there aren’t any poisonbeasts. Anyway, just be more careful from now on.” She turned and started to swim away.

  “Wait!” Ujurak called. “I want to know more about them!” He hurried after her, flicking his long tail. “Are there lots of poisonbeasts down here?” he puffed as he caught up to her.

  “Too many,” she said bitterly.

  Ujurak’s squeaks bounced off something large to their left. He turned his head, trying to figure out what it was. It wasn’t moving, so it couldn’t be a poisonbeast, but it was just as large—perhaps even larger.

  “What is that?” he asked the female whale. He didn’t want to swim any closer to it; he’d learned his lesson with the poisonbeast, but he could sense it looming in the distance. Something vast and ominous, humming with the same terrible vibrations as the poisonbeast.

  The whale shuddered. “We don’t know what to call it. It’s a giant, rock-eating beast that burrows into the ocean floor and makes all the water around it sick. It stands on four giant legs and we stay as far away from it as we can.”

  A small school of fish swam slowly past, their silver scales dull in the smoky water. The female whale waved them away from Ujurak with her tail. “Don’t eat those,” she warned, although he hadn’t been planning to. “All the fish around here will make you sick if you eat them.”