Icebones

by Stephen Baxter

  Icebones said, "They have been dead a long time. See how the skin of this one is dried out, shrunken on the bone. If not for the height here, the wolves and other scavengers would surely—"

  "They were trying to leave," the Ragged One blurted. "Perhaps they were the last. And they died when they spilled out of the warmth of their pod onto this cold Mountain."

  "Where were they going?"

  "I don't know. How can I know?"

  "We should Remember them," Icebones said.

  But the Ragged One snapped harshly, "No. It is not their way."

  The shrunken sun was approaching the western horizon, and its light was spreading into a broad pale band across the sky. The light glimmered from the ice line of the distant ocean, and the tangled thread of the wrecked Sky Trail, and the tusks of the mammoths. Soon it would be dark.

  Icebones said, "Listen to me. The Lost are gone or dead, and we cannot follow them. And we cannot stay on this Fire Mountain."

  The Ragged One growled and stamped her feet, making the hard rock ring.

  Icebones felt immensely tired. "I don't want to fight you. I have no wish to lead. You lead. But you must lead us to a place we can live. You must lead us down from this Mountain of death. Down to where the air pools, like morning mist in a hollow."

  The Ragged One stood silently. Then she said reluctantly, "You don't understand. I am afraid. I have lived my whole life on this Mountain. I have lived my whole life with the Lost. I don't know how else life can be."

  Impulsively Icebones grabbed her trunk. "You are not alone. We are all Cousins, and we are bound by the ancient Oath of Kilukpuk, one to the other..."

  But the Ragged One had never heard of Kilukpuk, or the vows that bound her descendants, whether they climbed the trees or swam the ocean or walked the land with heavy tusks dangling. She pulled away from Icebones's touch.

  Still suffused by that deep physical revulsion, Icebones nevertheless felt oddly bound to this pale, malformed creature. For all her strangeness, the Ragged One seemed to have more in common with Icebones than any of the other mammoths here. Only the Ragged One seemed to understand that Icebones was truly different — had come from a different place, perhaps even a different time. Only the Ragged One seemed to understand that the world had not always been the same as this — that there were other ways for mammoths to live.

  And yet the Ragged One seemed intent on becoming Icebones's enemy.

  The Ragged One dropped her head dolefully, emitting a slow, sad murmur. She was clearly unwilling to leave these sad remains, all that was left of the Lost.

  Alone, Icebones trudged further up the shallow slope.

  THE ICE THINNED. Higher up the slope it began to break up and dissipate altogether, as if she had come so high that even the ice could not survive, and there was only the bare rock. The texture of the rock itself was austere and beautiful, if deadly; it was a bony ground of red and crimson and orange, with not a scrap of white or green, no water or life, not an ice crystal or the smallest patch of lichen.

  From here she could see that the eastern flank of the Mountain was a swathe of smooth crimson rock, marked here and there by the black cracks of gullies, or by narrow white threads that were frozen streams. But to the west she saw the white stripes of huge glaciers spilling down toward the lower plains from great bowls of ice.

  The ground flattened out to afford her broadening views of the landscape: that gleaming white of ocean ice, the gray-green land below, the Fire Mountain's twin sisters. The land had been distorted and broken by the vast uplift that had created the volcanoes here. In places the rock was wrinkled, covered with sharp ridges that ran around the base of the Mountain, and even cracked open like dried-out skin. The greatest crack of all, running directly to the east away from the Mountain, was that immense valley that stretched far to the horizon, extending around the curve of the world.

  And soon she could see the caldera at the very summit of this Mountain-continent, the crater from which burning rock had so recently gushed. It was no simple pit, but a vast walled landscape of pits and craters. On its complex floor molten rock pooled, glowing bright red. The far side of the caldera was a long flat-topped cliff marked by layers, some black, some brown, some pinkish red. Immense caverns had worn into the softer rock, between harder, protective layers.

  It was a pit big enough itself to swallow a mountain.

  She stood there, listening to the quiet subterranean murmur of the Mountain. The sky faded to a deep purple and then a blue-black above. In that huge blueness, even though the sun still lingered above the horizon, stars swam. The ground under her feet was red-black, cracked and smashed, as if it had been battered by mighty feet, over and over.

  She felt humbled by the immensity of this rock beast. The Lost had stolen the water that had lain frozen in its interior, and by doing so had woken its ancient rage. But the Lost's puny devices were no more than scrapes on the Mountain's mighty ancient bulk, the bite of an insect on a mammoth's broad flank.

  She returned, carefully, down the slope to where the Ragged One still stood beside the wreckage of the Lost seed pod.

  4

  The Descent

  THE SKY WAS CROSSED — not by one abnormal moon — but two.

  The twin moons climbed rapidly in the daylit sky. But without warning they would wink into darkness, as if entering some huge mouth. Or, just as unexpectedly, they flickered into brightness in the middle of the night sky. One of them, which moved more rapidly, had a lumpish shape, like a rock or a bit of dung, not like a real Moon at all. But the other moon was, if anything, stranger still: just a pinpoint of light, like a meandering star.

  The moons were eerie, unpredictable, and utterly strange. Icebones felt disturbed every time she glimpsed them.

  IT TOOK DAYS FOR the two of them to climb back down to the other mammoths.

  One cold dawn, longing for company, Icebones stepped away from the Ragged One, who browsed fitfully, still half-asleep.

  Icebones stamped hard. "Boaster! Boaster...!"

  I hear you, Icebones. It is bright day here.

  High on this Fire Mountain it was not yet morning. The pinkish light of the dawn had turned the Mountain's bulk into a deep black silhouette above her, and she could see the spreading plain at the foot of the Mountain as a jumble of shadows, lifeless, intimidating.

  This Boaster and his companions must be far away, far around the curve of the world. She felt a twinge of regret. It seemed impossible that she would ever meet her immodest friend.

  She said, "It is cold and dry."

  Here the land is flat but it is frozen. I am tall and strong, but even my great weight leaves no foot marks, and my heavy tusks will not scratch the ice. Nothing lives. Nothing but the carnivores, who stalk us. Their bellies brush the ground, for the pickings are easy for them in this harsh land... We seek deeper places.

  Yes, she thought, with new determination. Yes, that is what we must do.

  Boaster said now, Yesterday there was a duel. Neither Bull would back down. One was gored, the other's head was crushed.

  "Were they in musth?"

  Yes, both in musth, in deep musth.

  With no Cows, the rivalry battles in that isolated bachelor herd were futile, so must be all the more savage. Frustrated, the Bulls were fighting themselves to death.

  But now Boaster was saying, Be wary, little Icebones. Even as an infant I was mighty. My calf will weigh you down, like a boulder in the belly. Are you in oestrus yet?

  No, she thought. And when she probed that deep oceanic part of herself, she detected no sign that oestrus was near. She felt well enough. Perhaps it was simply not her time.

  When I am in musth, my dribble smells sweet. It will make you wonder, before I mount you.

  "If I permit you..."

  They talked on, as the planet turned.

  ICEBONES AND THE Ragged One returned, weary, to the group.

  It seemed to Icebones that in just a few days the air had grown distinctly colder
. And it was clear to all the mammoths that they couldn't stay here.

  But to Icebones dismay the mammoths bickered about what to do.

  The mother wanted them to descend from this high Mountain shoulder. Perhaps they should make for the sea, the mother suggested, for there at least they would find water.

  Icebones kept her counsel. To descend was in accord with her own instincts. She knew that the seas around the Island had been salty — no use for drinking — but perhaps here the seas were different, like so much else.

  The pregnant sister kept apart. Obsessed and worried about the dependent creature growing within her, she had turned inward. The Cow needed the support and guidance of her Family as at no other time in her life. But such support was not forthcoming, for her relatives did not know how to give it.

  Sometimes the infant kicked and murmured, and Icebones knew it was enduring bad dreams of its life to come.

  Like the Ragged One, the other sisters seemed intent on seeking out the vanished Lost. The older of them — a tall, vain creature with tightly spiraling tusks — demanded they roam around the Mountain. Her younger sister, dominated by the vain one, rumbled eager agreement. It was the younger who had been scorched by the Mountain's falling rock, and she still bore a pink, hairless patch of healing skin.

  As for the Bull, he seemed intent only on adventure. He charged back and forth across the bleak rock slope, trumpeting and brandishing his tusks, in pursuit of imaginary enemies and rivals.

  Icebones growled her frustration. In a true Family at a time of decision making, all would be entitled to their say, but all would know their place. A good Matriarch would listen calmly, and then make her decision — or rather, speak the Family's decision for them.

  In a Family everybody knew what to do, from instinct and a lifetime's training. Here, it seemed, nobody knew their roles, or how to behave. And as Icebones listened to the bickering she heard a deeper truth: without the cocoon of Lost which had protected them all their lives, these mammoths were bewildered, all but helpless, and very, very afraid.

  She drew the mother aside. "You must lead them."

  The mother raised her trunk sorrowfully and probed at Icebones's scalp hairs. Her scent was rich and smoky, like the last leaves of autumn. "You want me to be a Matriarch."

  "You must make them into a Family. A Family is always there — from the day you are born, to the day you die..." Icebones recalled wistfully how her own mother, Silverhair, had been with her as she grew up, with her for every heartbeat of her young life. "And without a Family—" Without my Family, she thought, I am not complete. She quoted the Cycle. "In the Family, I becomes We."

  The mother said wistfully, "We don't have Families here. The Lost saw to that."

  Icebones said harshly, "The Lost are gone now. I saw them up on that mountainside — the last of them, their dried-out corpses. They cannot help you. You are the mother of these squabbling calves. Tell them what you have decided, and then lead them."

  The mother seemed dubious. But she stood before the younger mammoths and slapped the ground with her trunk.

  The sisters and the Bull turned, rumbling in soft alarm.

  The mother said, "We must go down to the lower places. There will be warmth, and grass to eat. We will go to the shore of the great northern sea, and drink its water."

  For a frozen moment the mammoths fell silent. The sisters regarded their mother. The Bull pawed the ground and growled softly.

  The Ragged One stood aloof, head turned away, the thin wind raising the loose hairs of her back. She said; "Which way?"

  Icebones saw the mother was hesitating. It wasn't a trivial question: Icebones had seen from the summit that this dome-shaped Mountain was surrounded by a scarp of tall, impassable cliffs. But she knew there was a way through.

  She stepped up to the mother. As if she was addressing a true Matriarch, she said respectfully, "If we follow the Sky Trail down the Mountain, we will find a way through the cliffs."

  The mother, with relief, replied, "Yes. We will follow the Sky Trail. It will be many days' walk. The sooner we begin, the sooner we will reach the sea." And she stepped forward with confidence.

  Grumbling, resentful — but perhaps inwardly relieved that somebody was taking the lead — her daughters fell in behind her. Icebones took the rear of the little line, while the Bull ran alongside, keeping his separation from the group of Cows, as a growing Bull should.

  At least we are trying, Icebones thought. And, wherever I die, at least it will not be here, on this dismal rocky slope.

  As the little group made its way down the Mountain, following the strange straight-line shadow of the shining Sky Trail, the Ragged One followed them, distant, silent.

  THE ROCK BENEATH THEIR feet was unyielding. Sometimes, when the land was gouged and scarred by ancient flows of molten rock, they had to detour far from the Sky Trail.

  The only water was to be found in hollows where rain or snow had gathered. Most of these puddles were frozen to their bases, but as they descended they found a few larger ponds where some liquid water persisted beneath a thick shell of ice. Gratefully the mammoths cracked the ice lids with their tusks or feet and sucked up the dirty, brackish water.

  But the taller, spiral-tusked sister complained about the foul stink of the pond water compared to the cool, clean stuff the Lost used to provide for them.

  At night, when the shrunken sun had fallen away and the cold clear stars emerged from the purple sky, they mostly kept walking, their trunks seeking out water and scraps of vegetation. They would pause only briefly to sleep, and Icebones encouraged them to gather close together, the pregnant one at the center, so that they shared and trapped the warmth of their bodies.

  It was very disturbing to Icebones to walk over new land: land where there were no mammoth trails, no memories in her head, nobody to lead. It was the mammoths' way to learn the land, to build it into their memories and wisdom, and to teach it to their young. That way the land's perils could be avoided and its riches sought. That learning had never happened here. And it troubled her that every step she took was into strangeness — and unknown danger.

  AFTER A FEW DAYS they reached the terminus of the Sky Trail. The shining line sank into a kind of cave, a place of hard straight lines and smooth walls. Icebones shrank from it. But the others clumped forward eagerly and explored every cold surface and every sharp straight edge, as if saying goodbye.

  They walked on.

  Below the Sky Trail terminus, the rock was just as barren and sparse of life as it had been at higher altitude. But Icebones felt her spirits lift subtly, as if the looming Sky Trial, the mark of the Lost, had been weighing on her spirit.

  The Bull came to walk with her. His coat was glossy and thick, and he held his growing tusks high. "Why must we call you Icebones?"

  "Because it is my name."

  He thought about that. "Very well. But why not Boulder, or Snowflake, or Pond?"

  "My mother said I was heavy and cold in her womb. As if she'd swallowed a lump of ice, she told me. And so she called me Icebones. A name is part of a mammoth — "

  "I have no name," he said.

  "I know."

  "Will you give me a name?"

  Intrigued, she asked, "What kind of name?"

  "I am strong and fierce," he said, illustrating this with a comically deep growl. "I will be a brave hero, and I will mate all the Cows in the world. Silverhair was brave and strong. Perhaps my name should be Silverhair."

  She snorted her amusement. "That was the name of my mother. She was indeed brave and strong. But you are a Bull, and you need the name of a Bull."

  "I don't know the names of any Bulls."

  "The Cycle tells of the bravest and strongest Bull who ever lived. His name was Longtusk. He lived long ago, in a time when the steppe was full of mammoths. He lived alone among the animals, and he even lived among the Lost — for it is the fate of Bulls, you know, to leave their Families and travel far. But then at last he found his
Clan and led them on a great journey, to a place where they could live without fear. In the end he gave his life to save them."

  The Bull trumpeted his appreciation. "I would like to be called Longtusk," he growled. "But I am no hero. Not yet, anyway."

  She pondered. "Your voice is deep and carries far, like the thunder. Longtusk had a faithful companion called Walks With Thunder. Thunder. There. That shall be your name."

  "Thunder, Thunder!" The towering Bull, with his spindly legs and thin, immature tusks, ran after the Cows to tell them his exciting news.

  The next morning, the Cow with the spiral-shaped tusks came up to Icebones, trailed, as always, by her smaller sister. The older one said diffidently, "That fool of a Bull says you have given him a name."

  "He has found his name," Icebones said.

  The Cow snorted. "I have no need of a name — not from a mammoth. The Lost liked me, you see. They used to admire my tusks and my long hair. Their cubs would brush my belly hairs with their paws, and I would let the older ones climb on my back while I walked."

  Icebones tried not to show her revulsion.

  "They would talk to me all the time," said the Cow. "Not the way a mammoth talks, of course. They had a funny jabber they made with their mouths, and they didn't use their bellies or feet or foreheads at all. But you could tell they were talking even so." She walked oddly as she said this, as if showing off her hair and fine muscles for an invisible audience of Lost. "So I am quite sure the Lost had their own name for me."

  Icebones stayed silent, watching her.

  At length the Cow said, "But if you were to give me a name — a mammoth name, I mean — what would it be?"

  Most mammoth names reflected a deep characteristic of their holder: an attribute of her body, her smell or taste or noise — even her weight, like Icebones's. Few were to do with the way a mammoth looked: Silverhair, yes, for that lank of gray on her forehead had been such a startling characteristic. But Icebones knew that sight was the most important sense of all for the Lost. And so for this one, the way she had looked in the eyes of the Lost was the key to her character.