Suddenly Siros stopped pulling at Probos’s nose. She opened her jaws and slid back into the water, and Probos fell backwards.
Siros thrust her small, mean face out of the water, and glared up at Probos, laughing. "Look at you now! What a ridiculous nose. With that in the way, you will never be able to slide through the water and steal my reeds!"
And when Probos looked down at herself, she found her nose had grown so long it dangled between her legs, all the way to the ground.
She looked down at Siros sadly. "Why have you tricked me, sister? I didn’t want to share your reeds or your water."
But Siros wasn’t listening. She turned and wriggled away through the water, laughing at what she had done.
Kilukpuk saw this, but said nothing.
The years passed, and at last the day came when Kilukpuk called her Calves to her.
But the Calves had changed.
Siros had spent so long in the river and the sea that her skin had grown smooth, the hair flowing on it like water. And Hyros had spent so long in the trees that she had become small and agile, fast-moving and nervous.
As for Probos, she had a body like a boulder, and legs like mighty trees, and a nose she had learned to use as a trunk. Whereas Siros wriggled and flopped and Hyros skittered to and fro, Probos moved over the land as stately as the shadow of a cloud.
Kilukpuk hauled herself out of her Swamp. "My teeth grow soft," she said, "and soon I will not be here to be your Matriarch. I know that the question of which of you shall follow me as Matriarch has much vexed you — some of you, at least. Here is what I have decided."
And Hyros and Siros said together, "Which of us? Oh, tell us. Which of us?"
Probos said nothing, but merely wept tears of Swamp water for her mother.
Kilukpuk said, "You will all be Matriarch. And none of you will be Matriarch."
Hyros and Siros fell silent, puzzled.
Kilukpuk said, "You, Siros, are the Matriarch of the Water. But the water is not yours. Even close to the land there will be many who will compete with you for fish and weeds and will hunt you down. But it is what you have stolen from your sisters, and it is what you wanted, and it is what you will have. Go now."
And Siros squirmed around and flopped her way back to the water.
Now Kilukpuk said, "You, Hyros, are the Matriarch of the Trees. But the trees are not yours. You have made yourself small and weak and frightened, and that is how you will remain. Animals and birds will compete with you for leaves and bark and plants and will hunt you down. But it is what you have stolen from your sisters, and it is what you wanted, and it is what you will have. Go now."
And Hyros clambered nervously to the branches of the tall trees.
That left only Probos, who waited patiently for her mother to speak. But Kilukpuk was weakening now, and her great body sank deeper into the water of the Swamp. She spat out fragments of tooth — so huge, by the way, they became glaciers where they fell. And she said to Probos, "You stole nothing from your sisters. And yet what they stole from you has made you strong.
"Go, Probos. For the Earth is yours.
"With your great bulk you need fear no predator. With your strong and agile trunk you will become the cleverest animal in the world. Go now, Probos, Matriarch of the mammoths and all their Cousins who live on the land."
Probos was greatly saddened; but she was a good calf who obeyed her Matriarch.
(And what Kilukpuk prophesied would come to pass, for each of Probos’s Calves and their calves to come. But that was for the future.)
Kilukpuk raised herself from the Swamp and called to her Calves one last time. She said, "You will rarely meet again; nor will your calves, or your calves’ calves. But you will be Cousins forever. You must not fight or kill each other. If you meet your Cousins you will assist each other, without question or hesitation or limit. You will make your calves swear this binding oath."
Well, that was the end of the jealousy between the sisters. Hyros and Siros were remorseful, Probos was gladdened, and the three of them swore to hold true to Kilukpuk’s command.
And that is why, as soon as she is old enough to speak, every calf is taught the Oath of Kilukpuk.
But as Kilukpuk sank back into her Swamp and prepared for her journey back into the Earth, she was saddened. For she knew she had not told even Probos, the best of her Calves, the whole truth.
For, one day, there would be something for them all to fear — even mighty Probos.
8
The Plain of Bones
Arctic summer: the sun arced around the sky’s north pole, somehow aimlessly, and at midnight it rolled lazily along the horizon. It was a single day, long and crystalline, that would last for two months, an endless day of feeding and breeding and dying.
At midnight Silverhair, walking slowly with her Family across the thawing plain, saw that she cast a shadow, ice-sharp, that stretched to the horizon. She felt oddly weighed down by the shadow, as if it were some immense tail she must drag around with her. But the light turned everything to gold, and made the bedraggled mammoths, with their clouds of loose molting fur, glow as if on fire.
They reached an area of tundra new to Silverhair. The mammoths, exhausted by their adventures, spread slowly over the landscape. As the thaw arrived, they found enough to drink in the melt pools that gathered over the permafrost. On days that were excessively hot — because mammoths do not sweat — they would reduce heat by panting, or they would find patches of soft snow to stand in, sometimes eating mouthfuls of it.
The changes in the land were dramatic now. After a month of continuous daylight, the sun was high, and hot enough to melt ice. Rock began to protrude through the thawing hillsides, and blue meltwater glimmered on the frozen lakes. As snowbanks melted, drips became trickles, and gullies became streams, and rivers, marshes, and ponds reformed. In sheltered valleys there were already patches of sedge and grass, green and meadow-like. After months of frozen whiteness the land was becoming an intricate pattern of black and white. This emerging panorama — shimmering with moist light, draped in mist and fog — was still wreathed in silence. But already the haunting calls of Arctic loons echoed to the sky from the melt pools.
The mammoths slept and fed in comparative comfort, and time wore away, slowly and unmarked.
Croptail tried to play with his sister, Sunfire, and his antics pleased the slower-moving adults, who would reach down trunk or tusk to allow the Bull calf to wrestle. But despite her mother’s attention, Sunfire was feeding badly and did not seem to be putting on weight, and her coat remained shabby and tangled. She spent most of her time tucked under her mother’s belly hair, with her face clamped to one dug or other, while Foxeye whispered verses from the Cycle.
Still, it was, all things considered, a happy time. But Silverhair’s spirits did not rise. She took to keeping her distance from the others — even from Lop-ear. She sought out patches of higher ground, her trunk raised.
For something was carried to her by the wind off the sea — something that troubled her to the depths of her soul.
Wolfnose joined her. The old Cow stood alongside Silverhair, feeling with her trunk for rich patches of grass, then trapping tufts between her trunk and tusks and pulling it out.
Silverhair waited patiently. Wolfnose seemed to be moving more slowly than ever, and her rheumy eyes, constantly watering, must be almost blind. So worn were Wolfnose’s teeth, it took her a long time to consume her daily meals. And when she passed dung, Silverhair saw that it was thin and sour-smelling, and contained much unchewed grass and twigs, and even some indigestible soil that Wolfnose, in her gathering blindness, had scooped into her mouth.