“We’re going to get out of here,” Jytte said firmly.
“How? Where are we going?”
“Not in circles, that’s for sure.” Stellan felt he could almost see her brain working. “The crystals should change as we get closer to the sea, closer to the tickle.”
“Are there crystals that point north to the hunting grounds?”
“Maybe. I’ll learn the difference.” She’d always used her gift to look for the good snow or ice for slides, or packing snowballs to hurl at her brother, or fragments from a jumble to build a lookout tower. But now she would use this gift to go north to the hunting grounds. North to Da!
And so they continued, very slowly. As they trudged across the snow, Stellan began to sense something shadowing them. He could not pick up a scent, but there was something out there. Was it an Other?
“Jytte, I think something is following us. Maybe an Other.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The Others are gone. They died. Died even before the Great Melting.”
“Something is following us.”
“Well, it’s not an Other, Stellan.”
“Maybe not. But still, something is tracking us. I feel it.”
“Feel it?” Jytte turned to look at her brother. “Where do you feel it?”
“In my head. It’s … it’s … picking at my brain.”
Jytte shivered. She didn’t like it when something picked at her brother’s brain. It was often something sad, and never good.
Uluk Uluk chuckled to himself. They think I’m an Other. My my! But who are these cubs? Uncommonly bright, that’s for sure! The old bear guessed that the she-cub was an ice gazer, for the endless fogs of Winston were normally unnavigable, and she somehow knew that studying the ice and snow crystals would yield more information than peering into the nothingness of the fog. And the other cub, the brother called Stellan, had sensed Uluk Uluk’s presence. That cub was a riddler! He could riddle the mind and pick out a creature’s thoughts. A stunning pair they made. Could Uluk Uluk bend them to his task? A task that he’d had in mind ever since he had fled the Ice Cap?
He had to hurry back. He would be there to welcome them! These two young cubs might be the ones he’d been looking for all these long years
The old bear Uluk Uluk had lived in this forsaken place for years. He had fled the Ublunkyn and the Ice Cap at its very top because he saw the clock’s noble purpose being perverted. Svree and the owls had built the clock to help predict the next Great Melting. The clock was meant to be a tool, and nothing more. But the Grand Patek had encouraged the bears to do more than study the clock; he’d taught them to worship it. The Timekeepers had been turned into idolaters, worshipping a mechanical creation—a wondrous one indeed, but not a living one. And what was happening in the name of this false god was horrifying. When he saw the blood on the wheel, the blood of young cubs, he left. His journey had been long and arduous. For some years he went from place to place, settling for only a few moons so the Roguers couldn’t find him.
Most creatures avoided these old settlements from the time of the Others, for they were thought to be cursed. But as soon as he stumbled into Winston, he felt safe and knew he would never be found here. He could pursue his dream of destroying the clock. He now circled back the way he had come. He did not want the cubs to be too nervous and would be sure to put out something to lure them. He still had a haunch of caribou left. With the wind blowing from the east, the scent would carry directly to them.
“Jytte!” Stellan blurted suddenly. “Jytte, get your snout out of the snow.”
She lifted her head, then gave a small, gleeful bark. “Boo boo meat!”
“Yes, caribou. You smell it too?”
With the east wind, the fog began to rapidly dissolve, revealing a black night spiked with stars. And there was Nevermoves. Uncountable gifts had suddenly rained down upon the cubs all at the same time. Stars, caribou, even a trace of cod. And just ahead was another den. And another sign. BEAR Containment Facility.
The cubs were curious and began to trot toward the den. There were openings, as there had been in the others, but these had sticks with spaces in between.
“What are those?” Jytte exclaimed.
“Bear paws,” whispered Stellan, skidding to a stop. “There’s a bear behind those bars!”
Two enormous paws were gripping the sticks in one of the openings.
A voice rang out. The whole den seemed to tremble.
“Welcome to jail!”
The cubs froze in their footprints, then clung to each other and rolled into a ball. Maybe, thought Stellan, we’ll look like a large lump of snow.
“It’s not a toothwalker,” Jytte whispered.
“But what is it?”
“Don’t know.” Jytte’s voice was still trembling, and she clutched her brother even harder.
“Be my guest,” the voice called out. “We have a vacancy in cell block number four. Please read the rules before entering the confinement area.” The voice paused. They still could not see the entire bear, just his paws on the sticks. His paws were huge, but the claws appeared rather small, as if they had been filed down to splinters.
A sliver of a claw was now pointing. “Can’t read them? I’ll help you out.
“DO NOT ENTER.
DO NOT COME NEAR THE BEARS.
DO NOT TEASE THE BEARS EVEN FROM A DISTANCE.
VIOLATORS OF THE ABOVE RULES WILL BE PROSECUTED TO THE FULL EXTENT OF THE LAW, WITH FINES UP TO FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS.
“In short”—the bear shook a claw at them—“scram! But that doesn’t apply to you cubs. It was meant for the Others. They’re long gone, of course.”
Stellan pressed his muzzle to his sister’s ear. “Jytte, he could be one of those … those Roguer bears.”
The bear now revealed himself as he lowered to all fours and ambled through a large opening where part of the wall had collapsed.
Jytte and Stellan were stunned. Never in their short lives had they seen a more raggedy bear. He was tall but painfully thin, so thin that his pelt puddled around his feet like white, curling waves breaking on a beach. He seemed very frail and walked with a decided limp. But the oddest thing of all was that over one eye there was a circular piece of issen blauen, the kind that had been packed into Moon Eyes’s sockets. But this piece was attached to a delicate chain that the bear wore around his neck. It magnified his one eye to nearly twice its size. And when he peered at the cubs, they felt as if the reflections of that eye dug into their deepest beings. It was as if he could see to their very souls.
“Follow me,” the bear repeated. “And I’ll show you cell block four.”
Jytte dug her claws into the ice. “We’re not going anywhere, unless it’s north.”
The odd bear looked at them narrowly. For an instant there was a flash in the piece of glass that distorted his eye. “Why do you need to go north?” he asked.
“Why do you want to know?” Jytte said rather boldly.
“We think,” Stellan said, “that if we go to the northern hunting grounds, we might find our da.”
“Really now?” The bear paused thoughtfully. “I might be able to help you if you follow me.”
“Oh!” Jytte exclaimed, her suspicion giving way to excitement.
Stellan hesitated, but Jytte started nudging him forward.
“C’mon, Stellan. He’s a bear, not a toothwalker. And he might be able to lead us to Da!”
“Jytte, this is not a hunting ground. It’s a jail. Why would our father be in a jail?”
“I have no idea. I don’t even know what a jail is. But we’ll never know if you don’t move.”
“I’m not sure this is such a good idea, Jytte.”
The bear took a few steps, then glanced back over his shoulder. “Coming? I have an instrument that could help you find your father.”
Jytte looked at Stellan as if to say, See! Nothing to fear. Quit worrying.
But Stellan was more worried than ever. He had the uncann
y feeling that this bear was playing them for fools. But it was too late to convince Jytte to run away, not when she thought this bear could help them find their da. With growing apprehension, Stellan walked slower and slower, lagging behind his sister until he finally stopped short. Jytte turned to him.
“What’s wrong?” she hissed.
“I don’t know. I just have a feeling. I don’t think this is good.”
The strange bear turned again. “Are you coming or not?”
“This is very different from the other dens we passed,” Stellan whispered. Those dens had offered shelter, respite for creatures. But these dens called cells offered no peace. There were long claw marks along the walls made by enraged bears, and the bars in the openings had been torn out or bent. Whatever living creature had been here—bear or other—had not denned here willingly but had tried to break out. The air seemed to reek of desperation from a long time ago.
The bear stopped short and swung his massive head around. The glass no longer covered his eye, and they could see his face clearly. The cubs tried not to gasp. His face was crisscrossed with black lines, fighting scars that revealed the black skin underneath the fur.
“You call those dens?” he said. “They’re shacks. The Others built them. This is a gilly town.”
“Gilly town?” Jytte asked. “You mean like ghosts?”
“Yes, like ghosts from when the Others were here.”
“You mean there are gillygaskins of the Others here?” Stellan asked.
“No, no ghosts of the Others. Not one, I promise you. Just their silly shacks. No decent bear would spend a minute, not a second in them!”
But, thought Stellan, you don’t mind living where decent bears never would.
The older bear fiddled with the chain a bit. Stellan sensed the bear’s mind creaking to life, but what he was thinking was impossible to know. It was as if a scrim of fog ice had formed over the bear’s thoughts.
However, behind that scrim, the bear’s mind was working feverishly. Uluk Uluk couldn’t quite believe his fortune. These cubs, in addition to their natural gifts, had betrayed rare intelligence. It was true that they had no knowledge of the Ice Clock, but they had the imagination to ask the right questions.
The bear nodded toward Stellan. “Are you First or Second?”
“Neither,” Stellan replied. For some reason, he was not eager to share his new name with this bear.
“Oh good, so your mother named you before she went off.”
How does he know she left us? Stellan wondered.
“We named ourselves,” Jytte replied. “I’m Jytte and my brother’s name is Stellan.”
“You named yourselves?” said the bear. “I’m very impressed.”
“What’s your name?” Jytte asked.
The bear looked down and shuffled uneasily. It almost seemed as if he had forgotten his own name. “I am Uluk Uluk. Now follow me into the horology laboratory, cell block six.”
“I thought we were going to cell block four,” Jytte said.
“Changed my mind. Cell block six suits you better.”
“And the instrument that will help us find our father?”
“Trust me. To cell block six. Slightly east of north.” He paused, then crouched down and peered into both their eyes. “You trust me, don’t you, Stellan and Jytte?” The splinter of the rising moon flashed in the glass eyepiece and appeared to fracture his black eye into shards of light. For Jytte, there was no choice. He had an instrument that could lead her to their father.
The cubs, standing upright, reached for each other’s paws as they followed the bear called Uluk Uluk. Heart grit, Stellan thought. Heart grit! But do I trust him?
Svenna was at her desk in the Numera, working on her calculations, when she heard Hanne’s lumbering gate. The sound was distinctive, as Hanne had somehow lost half of one foot. Svenna started sliding the teeth on her abacus. She mustn’t be found moping, as she sensed that Hanne had been asked to spy on her, report any … any what? Natural behavior such as missing her cubs? Anything that would distract her from her work at the Ice Clock?
“Ah! Working on the arc calcs, are you?” Hanne asked.
“Yes,” Svenna muttered as a meaningless set of numbers swirled in her head. How long do I have to do this? How long can I stand it? She derived absolutely no pleasure from finding the correct value, the equations solved.
“I see you’re progressing nicely.”
“But what am I progressing toward?”
Hanne stared at her blankly. “I don’t quite understand your meaning.”
“How long will my service last? Am I progressing toward a completion?”
“Completion?” The black sheen in Hanne’s eyes dulled with a fog of confusion.
“Completion of my service.”
“But you do not want to be complete, you want to advance.”
“So what do I advance to?”
“Well, there are many roles here. Who knows, Master Udo might promote you to a grade two in the Oscillaria. Many would be envious. It took me forever just to get into the Oscillaria.” She scratched her head. “I can’t even remember how many years I spent on the very lowest level.”
A chill mist crept through her. “But my cubs, Hanne!” Hanne looked blank, as if the word hadn’t even registered.
“Cubs?” Hanne asked. “Why should you care about cubs when you are working at the clock? We are servants of the Ice Clock. We are members of the Gilraan, the Holy Order of the Timekeepers’ Authority. At the rate you’re going, you might advance all the way to the Court of Chimes.”
Hanne wandered off, leaving Svenna’s head swimming. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t stay here forever, performing meaningless calculations until she withered away. She cleared her throat. “Preceptor Ragvar, I have a question.”
The grizzled older bear grunted from his desk. Svenna took it as consent.
“I want to know how the clock has the power to prevent the next Great Melting. I don’t understand this at all. The clock is not a living … ”
The room fell silent. Preceptor Ragvar gave a sharp snarl and stood up. “How dare you question the power of our sacred clock!” He raised a large bone strung with the immense teeth of a toothwalker and began rattling it.
Two of the Issengards appeared at Svenna’s side, yanking her from the ice bench. She could smell the fresh beluga-whale blood on their chests. Normally she would have been salivating at the enticing odor, but her mouth was dry with fear.
One of the bears called out, “Violation number 106 of the Complication Code.”
“Oh dear,” Hanne mewled. “She’s off to solitary, the ice lock.”
“Sorry to lose her,” Preceptor Ragvar said. “She was turning into an excellent oscillator. Too smart for her own good. But not quite smart enough.”
Hanne watched as they hauled Svenna off. She had liked her new denmate. But she should have known from the start—Svenna asked too many questions. She wasn’t even sure how one went about such a thing. It had been so long since she had ever even thought of one, let alone actually asked a question, that she had nearly forgotten how.
It was a long walk to cell block six, especially because Uluk Uluk moved so slowly.
“Doesn’t it seem sort of strange to you, Jytte, that he didn’t seem to really know about the northern hunting grounds?” Stellan whispered. “I mean, he’s a male bear, you’d think he would know. Then all of a sudden he’s talking about this instrument that can help us find north.”
“It’s not strange at all. Look how skinny he is. I don’t think he’s been hunting, I mean real hunting, in ages.”
“Maybe.” Stellan sighed. “He looks pretty old. Old and frail.”
As the cubs followed, each wrestling with their anxieties and hopes, Uluk Uluk was having thoughts of his own. These two little cubs could right the wrongs of the past. Wrest the clock from the shameless Timekeepers and their vile beliefs. It was a long shot, of course. And if they failed, it’d m
ean certain death. But so many cubs had already been sacrificed, what would two more matter if it was for a truly righteous cause? To lie in service of a greater truth, was that really that bad? The truth was that the sheer evilness of the Ice Clock must end. And if only two might die to stop the slaughter of so many, well, so be it.
Uluk Uluk looked back over his shoulder. “Come along, cubs. We’re almost there. The moon is rising. A good angle tonight. You’ll see it all better.”
Jytte gasped as she and Stellan followed Uluk Uluk into cell block six. A soft radiance suffused the darkness. “Is this Ursulana?” Jytte whispered as she tipped back her head in amazement, looking up at the ceiling. “Ursulana with golden stars?”
Dangling from the ceiling were hundreds and hundreds of small metal pieces of varying shape—some were round notched discs, others were coiled springs. There were crescent-shaped pieces that reminded Jytte of the newest or the oldest moons, very polished moons at that. On a high table there were larger pieces of darker metals.
“You think this is our bear heaven, Ursulana, and that these are stars?” Uluk Uluk shook his head in disbelief. “It’s not Ursulana. It’s my laboratory. Where I do my work.”
“What kind of work?” Stellan asked, gazing at the table.
“Building blocks and repairing—and taking apart—all sorts of timepieces.” Uluk Uluk paused. “That is my work—time.”
“Time is your work?” Jytte turned from the dangling forest of little golden pieces that stirred above her head. The bear’s face, with its blackened scars, appeared ghastly in this light.
“I don’t like this, Jytte,” Stellan whispered. “I think we should leave.”
“The instrument, Stellan. With it we might be able to find Da.”
Their whispering was interrupted when Uluk Uluk took a step closer and pointed at the shiny objects dangling from the ceiling. “Yes, this is my laboratory. The sounds you hear are caused by the wind stirring the moving parts.”
The Quest of the Cubs Page 8
