Cold.
Chapter One
Lumik Dreams
Cold.
Body's cold.
Can't see...what shape?
Shape. Blurry dark spot. Tall, thin...it's a Dak'teiun, a
bird-man, it's getting closer...
"!!!"
Fight air with fists, roll around on the ground, the ground is
cold with snow, body's cold.... Can't see.
No, wait.... I'm somewhere else now....
An aiûrish boy in a dark forest, the night seeping in through the
trees, cold and walking down a hill, small and alone, looks at the slope
across from him:
...the stone garden....
Creeping in the evening mist, past stone after stone, words carved
into the stone, trees with long boughs keeping guard.
I've been here before... but it feels like the first time....
I'm young again....
He walks to the very center of the place, to where the jarulis bush is
planted, a wide, thick-leaved bush with a pear-like fruit: he plucks one
from the thorny branches and widens his mouth around the prickly fruit.
The jarulis juice dribbles down his young, round face.
Cold.
Body's cold, he rolls around on the ground, scattering snow, a
hard object, the ground is —
Cold. Walking again, somewhere else now: walking through the
forest, but this time not to the stone garden, this time far away from
there.
...older now....
He is carrying a bow, watching the tree limbs sway in rhythm with the
wind, listening to the birds and the beasts of the cold mountain forest.
The birds are especially talkative, they direct him errlessly to the very
spot, to where the chaamcat is hiding, hanging onto a limb and crouching,
keeping its membranous skin tucked between its legs, not wanting to glide
here, not here, not now.... Lumik readies his bow, glaring at the very
spot, slowly advancing to get a better angle —
...rolling around on the ground, something hard beneath me —
— aiming the arrowtip to meet his target, not thinking about the wind
in the trees, not remembering his parents and grandparents at home,
preparing for a feast, his feet not noticing the loose, slick rock, the
steep slope beneath him beckoning quietly: the rock is not meant to stay at
the top of the slope, it wiggles beneath the aiûr's hooves and tumbles,
rolling around on the ground —
A shape. Dark and bright shapes swim in the bowl where his eyes
are, he's rolling, tumbling, bruising, scraping, sliding by trees and
rocks and brush and sliding, rolling around, till —
A shape, a dark blur on the ground.
"Lumik... where are you, Lumik?" Another voice calls to him, he
spins around on the ground, an object beneath him. The light from the
forest canopy makes the ground seem alive, writhing in life-lust: his
sister's hair, reddish, unusual for an aiûr, is glinting in the sunlight.
"I'm over here!" he cries to her, waving his bow. His hooves, his
hooves and his short legs, covered in black, coarse, curly hair, they click
against the rock where he stands, on the tallest stone in the middle of a
small rock garden but not the stone garden, no, not there, Sibal
wouldn't go out there — Sibal the bee queen — she thinks it's disurbing the
dead....
She doesn't notice him, running through the mottled leaves and bushes,
a ripple of sunlight through the treetops like underwater pyrotechnics:
"Luuuumiiik..." her voice begins to fade as her image sinks into the
forest.
A dark blur. Suddenly, he hears her screaming, her fright piercing
the wood, she's crying, he rolls around on the ground, bumping, bruising,
sliding... A dark shape approaches, tall and thin, nearly twice his
height, its face like that of a bird, an evil bird, with blackish blue
feather-like fur, blood red eyes, bright round eyes, like that of a bird,
except for the snout, the scaly dark snout, with rows of tiny sharp
teeth, like an evil lizard. The Dak'teiun is approaching cautiously, it
stops, hides in the shadow of a yellownut tree, pauses, looks, approaches
cautiously, misplaced desires shining in its eyes. Lumik rolls over, the
crunch of winter beneath him.
"Well, well, what have we here," the lizard tongue hisses, the
bird eye glaring down suspiciously. "A sssqueaky little
mousssepig..."
A hard object beneath his back. Lumik groans, and then chuckles, a
nervous, friendly laugh, a laugh at the edge. Words begin to fall from his
mouth, "I'm fine — really — just slippped and..." tumbling, scraping,
sliding, "...just a little fall, nothing really...." He groans, and
laughs. The evil bird hisses.
"Lisssten, you sssqueaky creature... I'm misssing
sssomething, and if you find it, you will give it to me, do you
underssssstand?" His hissing voice becomes louder as he brings his face
closer to the ground, a hard object, brings his scaly dark snout closer
to Lumik's face, closer to his eyes' bowl, piercing the mist "...if you
find it, you will give it to me, underssssstand?"
He rolls around on the ground, he is walking home, empty-handed,
knowing his family will be disappointed. His body is bruised and tired and
the sky is dark. The day is beginning to fade after only six hours, the
night is sovereign here, the night and the cold. Body's cold, the ground
is hard, dusted with a light coating of powdery white, he rolls off of the
hard object, pulls at it, seeing first that the bird-man has gone, pulls at
it and brings it to his face. A stone. An unusual stone, black,
uncompromisingly black, shiny, opaque. Unfamiliar stone. He keeps it.
He is walking home, and then he is leaving home, leaving what used to
be his home. He left seven days ago, or left seven weeks ago, or left
seven years ago, it all happens at the same time — wandering and falling
and rolling around on the ground. He is sliding down a steep slope onto a
hard object, he keeps it.
"Underssssstand?"
His sister is sobbing in his arms, they have already begun to move the
bodies towards the stone garden. He is screaming, destroying — she is
screaming and sobbing. Finally there is darkness, but only for a brief
sleep. He wakes on the cold ground, awake, yet still asleep, dreaming.
The stone seems warm in his pocket, his bow next to him, neither
chaamcat nor squirrel in his pouch. The shape is ovoid, roughly chiseled,
larger than his fist, but not much. It feels warm in his pocket. Awake,
but still sleeping. An opaque, black, shiny, chiseled egg. Larger than
his fist.
The sky is darkened, the night is sovereign here, the days are getting
shorter, the nights colder. He is walking home. Then he is leaving home.
There is nothing in between and there is nothing afterwards.
The sky is light, it is gray, as always in the late fall,
and in the winter and most of spring; it is day, it has rained and
snowed, freezing, the ground crunches beneath his face, lying in the
mud, curled up like a ball:
He opens his eyes, startled, the light confuses him, he quickly
unclasps his body and jumps up into a tree limb, ten feet high, his legs
suddenly strong with adrenaline. He clings to the branch and scans the
area quickly. Awake but still sleeping. The mist is creeping into the
forest. Moss is wet, the bark is wet, but he clings, with long, bony
fingers, with long, hard claws.
His head swims. Swinging back and forth, he sees a younger time:
He is five years old, still quite young for an aiûr. He is playing
at the edge of a serene pool, pulling up grass, one strand at a time,
playing with the blade carefully until it becomes too damaged, then pulling
up one more strand: his glance is suddenly caught, he looks again, and
catches his own eye, sees his own face in the mirror-pool —
He swings his head back and forth, shakes it, tries to shake the
memories. He jumps to the ground, looking for any sort of puddle or pool. He
finds a small depression in the ground, muddy and frozen, with muddy water, no
larger than his face, but with the gray light still covering the forest, he is
just able to see a dim reflection: his face is caked with mud. His wispy,
v-shaped beard has been clogged with dirt, his enormous mouse-like ears are
brown with many days' grime; his eyes are sunken, and there is blood crusted up
on the bridge of his nose. Pain spreads from his nose across the landscape of
his face; but how....
No, he can't remember that yet. He quickly looks around, looking for
food, hungry. He hasn't eaten in an uncounted number of days. Is
this today? His search takes him to a needlebough tree, to find a
needlenut; he's done this many times before. Before, and since. Finds the
nut, scrapes away the rind, eats the fleshy woody pulp. If he doesn't
drink some water within an hour, the nut will make him sick; he needs
water.
Lumik searches the area for water. His mind begins to wander as
he searches, wandering through the trees and brush, listening to the
birds and beasts... they are saying little, and what they are saying sounds
frightened. Lumik feels the stone in his pocket, warm. He tries to
remember how he came upon it:
Oh, yes, I fell. Slipped, slid down a steep hill, landed
hard onto the stone. He hid it from the Dak'teiun, the bird-man.
"Underssssstand? It'sss a gem, of sssortsss, and if you find it,
you will give it to me. Underssssstand? Sssqueaky mousssepig," derision
in his voice.
He laughed it off. He hid the stone, then left, went home. Went to
what used to be home.
No.
Not yet.
Dreivvs. I must speak with Dreivvs; the burrhic shaman. The
burrhs will know what to do with the stone.
I must speak with Dreivvs; the burrhic shaman. He will know
what to do. Dreivvs. The burrhic shaman. He will know. The night is
falling again, covering the sky after letting day peek in for a few hours.
The mist is creeping into the forest. I must see Dreivvs. He will
know. I need water.
Water, he repeats, twice and twice more. Then he stops,
listens, hears the tinkling plillups of a small brook, and rushes to
the source of the sound: he drinks long draughts. His stomach was
beginning to turn, but the water is calming, the water refreshes him, wakes
him up. He splashes it on his face and hands, cleans off the mud.
Cold.
The night has arrived, accompanied by the bitter cold: his face is
freezing, his hands and fingers: he puts them into his pocket, and finds
that it is warm, the stone is warm. He takes out the stone and places it
on his forehead, warming his face, rubbing it on his cheeks and nose: the
pain in his nose is sudden and stings, but it fades quickly: his face is
warm. There is no pain, only warmth. He curls his body around the stone
and closes his eyes.
No. I must find Dreivvs. He stands up, throws down the
stone — flings it to the ground — and springs toward a slope, heading
towards the higher regions, where the burrhs live. The burrhs do not
associate with most other races, but they tolerate the aiûrs: twice a
year, before and after the harshest winter months, the two races meet in
over a dozen small gatherings throughout the Grane Mountains, meet and
share and talk and trade. Establish territories. Settle differences, and
then rejoice, rejoice for an entire three days, sleep very little and sing
as much as possible, singing while weeping and weeping while singing —
Did I hear mourners? No —
No. Dreivvs. He reaches into his pocket, and it is warm. His
pocket is warm, the stone is warm, the stone in his pocket. How...?
He pulls it out, the same stone, the stone is unchanged and it is warm. He
throws it to the ground, springing even more quickly away from the
abandoned rock, up into the higher regions, to where the burrhs live, to
see Dreivvs, the burrhic shaman.
Dreivvs will know what to do. For the last three meets Dreivvs
has taken an interest in Lumik, allowed him to sit in on the counsels,
attend the rituals, observe the traditions of a shaman. In return, Lumik
was attentive, and honest.
He will know.
His pocket is warm, the stone is warm.
He throws the stone onto the ground again, and begins to think
of old memories, old faces and scenes, old things. Remembering seems to
keep the sleep off, keep the dreams off. Lumik never used to dream,
or perhaps only rarely did. Never like this.
He sees his dog's face, the miniature husky, Gretta, her face
serious and bright. He is walking through the woods, walking to
springmeet, walking alone this year, not with the other aiûr-pá, his
people; this year he is walking alone, wanting to test his skills and
stamina. The journey takes four days, just one man and one snowdog,
hunting and sleeping and eating and thinking in the wood, in the
mountains.
Gretta is more content than he has ever seen her, frolicking all
day long, chasing scents and shadows, and then collapsing before the fire
at night, exhausted, yet alert, listening to the night's sounds: the
chaamcats, the nightlarks, the chirrup of a toad or cricket: it's
spring, and the animals and plants are waking up again, the alarm has rung:
it's spring.
He is walking alone in the woods, alone with Gretta, the second
day of his journey, it is dusk, the shadows are lengthening, the trees are
reaching out further and further, until they cover the ground with
darkness: not night yet.
And then suddenly he is aware that he is being watched. The
birds have stopped chattering: are they settling in for the night already?
Or do they sense something? Gretta stops and stares. Lumik looks
far right and far left, behind him, ah, there it is, two winterboars, male
and female most likely. I've probably intruded upon their territory,
they're guarding their young, their nest.
The winterboars are watching him. He turns, and stares back,
his dog mimicking him, her eyes full of intensity. The boars stand roughly
as tall as a grown aiûr man, three feet at the shoulder: pale gray,
bristly fur, diamond-shaped ears, pointing at right angles from the head,
vacant black slants for eyes, and two curved yellowing tusks — a death mask
on a live animal. They continue to walk forward, slowly, not stopping when
Lumik stops, but proceeding cautiously, hesitant, growling slightly under
their breath. Lumik slowly reaches for his bow, the bow which he fashioned
himself, takes an arrow and readies it: the boars stand twenty feet from
him. Lumik sees that there is a tree branch no more than 8 feet away from
him, a strong branch, one he could cling to. An aiûr's hooves make it
difficult to climb trees, but Lumik is skilled at jumping into them.
The winterboars stop. The male is growling in a strange tongue,
saying things Lumik doesn't understand. He aims his arrow straight for the
male's forehead, right between the ears. Gretta's ears prick up and she
stops breathing.
They pace, as if they could stay there forever, never moving
forward, but never giving in, an occasional growl; eventually the female
looks back, worried, her attention being drawn away by some other force;
she turns, the male looks at her, looks at the aiûr, then turns as well.
They quickly trot to the right, into the wood, quickly vanished.
Lumik breathes a sigh of relief, lowers his bow.
...the stone is warm in my pocket....
At springmeet, he sees his family, his parents and grandparents;
his sister, Sibal, who speaks to Lumik with a sting in her tongue, jealous
of her older brother: he is allowed to stay at the other side
of the compound. Lumik talks as little as possible with old friends, old
acquaintances, stopping here and there, heading straight to the place where
he spent several hours last fallmeet: to the shaman's cave, the sooty,
smelly, damp cave, with painted walls, soot-covered paintings, bones on the
floor. Dreivvs sits here for the entire meet and discusses things with
anyone that needs his advice. He allowed Lumik to sit in with him one day
last year; Lumik intends to spend the entire meet there this year.
He finds the cave and enters. Gretta follows behind, they both
stop quietly and listen. The cave is large, a forty-foot circle, low
stony ceiling, sooty black. There is a fire near the entrance of the
cave, the smoke billowing out, some of it entering the cave and flavoring
it; they burn the red bark from a certain tree, a spicy odor, sweet and
pungent.
The cave walls are covered in paintings of clay pigment and
soot, roughly drawn symbols representing trees and the mountains, the sun
and the rivers, and the animals and people who live among them, deer and
goats, a bear and an enormous, long-nosed, woolly pig. Burrhs are drawn in
the trees, tall, brown people with antlers, observing the world around
them.
There are three aiûrs seated in the middle of the cave, across
from Dreivvs and two other burrhs. The aiûrs are unfamiliar, men from
another clan: a father with his two sons, both sons older than Lumik. The
burrhs are roughly twice as tall as the aiûrs, not counting their horns.
One burrh, who is female, has straight, shortish horns; the male's are
short and spiralling. Dreivvs is taller than the others, a long, thin neck
raising his head a foot above them, with long, gracefully arched, twisted
horns, yellowed with age. His face is old, wide with wisdom, a long
mammalian muzzle with round eyes, large spatulated ears and a wet, black
nose. The skin covering his body is taut, revealing the contours of his
bony arms; his legs, which are fur-covered, end in hooves. He is listening
to one of the aiûrs speak.
"...his son is asking for my daughter's hand..." the eldest
aiûr is saying. "...and I don't know what to do. I've argued
with this man for the last twenty-five years, he's constantly trying to
take over parts of my tract; I've even thought of putting up a fence,
although I know that's offensive to nature, and to you... to the
burrhs.... But I don't know what to do. My daughter won't speak to me
about it, but I can see that she loves him. His son, I mean." His voice
trails off, hesitant. Dreivvs sits, listening, eyes staring down at a
pile of bones.
"If I consent to the marriage, then I'm obliged to give my
daughter and her husband a part of my land, and possibly even my house, and
all of my land when I die.... To him...."
Dreivvs sits, and stares into the bones. The cave is silent,
no one appearing to have noticed Lumik's entrance, Lumik sitting, next to
him his dog Gretta. Dreivvs stares into the bones, stares intently, and
Lumik can feel the energy in the cave shift slightly. He feels an
unnatural force buzzing in the air, concentrated on the burrhic shaman, who
is focusing his eyes intently on the bones. The bones begin to smoke and
darken, burning from the inside somehow, charred on the outside, producing
a noxious, thick, dark smoke. The smoke twists into a large plume,
steadying a foot or two above the pile of bones, billowing and changing
constantly, hanging in the air. The older aiûrish man looks into the
smoke, and an image begins to form. They see an image of a young girl
forming in the smoke, a young aiûrish girl, floating in a pool of water;
as the image becomes clearer, the shock of recognition taints the oldest
aiûr's face, and Lumik sees that she is dead, drowned.
The stone is warm in my pocket, and the smoke suddenly stops,
carried upwards and shredded into tiny wisps. The bones exist no longer,
they have become ash. Dreivvs says nothing.
The girl's father looks down into the ash, stares blankly, not
focusing, but looking inward. Dreivvs eyes become vacant as well, resting.
The aiûr looks up at the shaman, stands, turns, and leaves the cave. The
two younger aiûrs pause for a moment, then follow, one of them nodding
respectfully at Dreivvs as he leaves.
But this has already happened, already passed....
The stone is warm in his pocket. He has been walking for some
time now, an unknown length of time, days...? He is heading
towards the site of the meets, springmeet and fallmeet, but this time he
is alone: fallmeet has already taken place, several weeks ago, in the
early part of the season; springmeet won't happen again for several
months, after the snows have come and begun to recede. He has been
wandering for days, lost track of time, wandering alone. Except now he
is aware that someone, or something, is following him. Someone very
stealthy. He only occasionally hears a slight rustle of leaves, a small
twig crunch; he sees nothing. He continues up the mountain, alert, but
unaware; awake, but still sleeping.
The stone is warm, and he keeps it, keeps his hands around it and
tries to draw strength from it. It is night again, and cold; he has
somehow managed to reach Silvertarn, a small crystal lake, surrounded by
trees and tall grass, chirps and buzzes and plashes. He is nearly there,
nearing the meet site: will Dreivvs even be there? He tries not to
think of that, tries to think of nothing, but can't avoid the memories and
images of his past, clouding the bowl in which his eyes swim. He avoids
recent memories, concentrating instead on his childhood.
The pain in his face has subsided: Raal punched me in the nose,
probably broke it, my father's best friend — But now his nose is
healing. He doesn't know how, he pays very little attention to it, tries
to remain alert, watching the forest and listening to what the animals say.
The lake is quiet and still. He decides to walk down the bank
and rest against the trunk and roots of an old, gnarled tree, watch the
water and catch his breath. An occasional chirrup tells him that
nothing is seriously wrong, although nothing is completely right either.
He sits down against the tree, and stretches his legs out, resting. His
breathing slows, and his hands are warm inside the pocket of his cloth
tunic. The squirrel fur coat which he wears over his tunic is filthy,
mud-caked, and stinks of grime. The lake smells earthy, fresh and fetid
at the same time. He closes his eyes and relaxes.
The person or creature following him never shows itself, not even when
Lumik finds himself unwillingly tired, unwittingly sleepy. The stone warms
him and keeps him safe, undisturbed, as he drifts off. When he sleeps, he
has dreams, visions that terrify and fascinate him: he remembers things.
He has landed on a hard object, hidden it from the bird-man, the
Dak'teiun who is breathing in his face.
"Sssome kind of gem, you sssee? If you find it..." His eyes
burn red, his teeth are small, but sharp. He wears a full-length cloak,
concealing thin arms, a slight and frail body, towering over the aiûr,
threatening him with his height, but carrying no weapons. He bends down
and hisses through his teeth, his foul breath coming out in clouds.
Suddenly, Lumik is aware that he is being watched, he sits up, alert,
and looks around, the sleep still clouding his mind. He catches sight of a
quick motion, a blur of white and gray fur, a tail... is it a fox?
He thinks it must be a curious winter fox, observing the motionless aiûr.
Lumik keeps searching the trees which surround the lake, tries to spot the
creature again... there it is: not a fox, a dog; familiar markings on
the fur —
Gretta. Lumik pushes himself up and steps toward his long-lost
companion, arms spread out to welcome her. She stands stiffly away from
him, does not approach, looks cautiously, and then steps back. She, too,
is frozen, grime-covered, mud-caked, and exhausted. Lumik calls out her
name, shows the dog his open hands, and entreats her to come to him: Gretta
tenses at the sound of his voice, her tail stiffly curled above her back,
and lowers her head slightly and stares with her ears down, but does not
approach. Lumik drops his hands, then sits down again, feels darkness
begin to crowd out his eyes, and watches the dog as she watches him, and
then as she retreats into the bushes.
I can't blame her.... he thinks, his eyelids becoming heavier
with the thought. Eventually he cannot keep sleep off, it overtakes him,
and he sinks into a profound darkness and begins to dream again.
Gretta. She is still a young puppy now, not used to hunting, not
used to spending days at a time in the woods. She loves it and she hates
it. She has all of the vigor and energy of a young dog, but she still
whimpers occasionally, when she's hungry, or tired, or bored. Her eyes
are bright and she is curious about everything, chasing squirrels and
moles, barking at the chaamcats gliding from tree to tree
running across gravelly slopes, up onto a plateau, crossing the
plateau and sniffing at the flowers in the far side, then re-crossing the
plateau and skidding down the slope, sending pebbles and rocks and dust
and dirt down towards Lumik, Lumik who is carefully making his way up the
slopes
or frolicking through the trees of the less steep sections
of the mountains, always knowing where Lumik is, and always knowing where
his arrows are aimed, following the arrow and catching the falling prey,
or trying to at least, never really succeeding, but always finding the
pierced squirrel or chaamcat and faithfully retrieving it, carrying it
gently in her mouth back to Lumik, Lumik who listens to the animals
or curled up in a tight ball of fur next to the crackling,
hiss-popping fire, worn out, breathing heavily, occasionally whimpering
in her sleep for some unknown reason: chasing a squirrel? chased by a
mountain cat? by a woodwolf? She seemed to sleep for half-hour
periods, wake up, look around, then sleep again, always watching out for
Lumik, protecting him as if he were her young, she nearly his size
Gretta. He awakes to see that she has gone, or at least has hidden
herself in the bushes, in the shadows and mist, to watch him from a
distance. The sun is just rising, bringing light to his eyes and driving
away the sleep and dreams. He turns to the lake and pulls a handful of
water to his face, drinks deeply, then crouches down and splashes the water
onto his skin. He feels fully aware for the first time in... lost
all track of time. Must be nine days now, nine or ten. He doesn't need
to check that the stone is still in his pocket; he's sure of it. His nose
is completely healed, a miracle considering how hard Raal hit him....
Why did he hit me? Lumik senses that he knows the
reason, but can't bring himself to think about it. Raal was angry
with me; I don't blame him, I went mad. I deserved to have my nose
broken, to be humiliated and separated from my clan; I lost my honor. I
went mad and destroyed my....
The stone beneath his back, he rolls over, hides the stone, and
keeps it. The bird-man, looking for something, pierces Lumik's eyes with
his own: "...mousssssepig...."
He continues up the mountain, walking the whole day, walking with
a purpose and never flinching, knowing that somewhere behind him his
confused dog is following, watching, concerned but afraid. The terrain
is getting steeper, rockier, familiar. He keeps only the most basic
thoughts in his head: Dreivvs, walking, water, walking, food,
walking, Dreivvs, Dreivvs....
He finds a few greenberries, some deerroot, a few mushrooms. He
doesn't have the strength to hunt, not enough strength to concentrate, to
draw the arrow, to find the chaamcat and aim. Only strength to walk. He
walks the whole day, eating things when he finds them, drinking from a
small, cold stream heading down the mountain, knowing that his journey is
nearly over. He will soon reach the painted cave, the sooty, sweaty
cave.
He walks and walks and walks into a dream, the shadows pulling
up around him, the rhythm of his tread, hoof on dirt or stone, clallup,
clallup, scaling low stony faces, until he sees the face of Gretta,
only this time she's not dirty, she's clean and much younger: she's sitting
obediantly, chest pushed out, ears up, eyes alert and bright; her eyes are
steel blue, icy blue, but he knows how to read them. He's trying to teach
her to take food — any food, meat, or dried bread-ends which he's smoked
next to a broiling hare — to take it from his hand more gently, more slowly
and carefully, so that she won't take one of his fingers on accident. For
this purpose he has prepared over a dozen smoked bread-ends, storing them
in a grass sack, saving them up, until he could practice with her.
He takes a crust in his fingers, and tells Gretta to sit.
"Sit!...Gretta, sit. Good girl, good Gretta. Now Gretta:
...." shows the smoke-flavored bread-end to the dog "Easy. Gretta:
easy." The rambunctious snowdog pushes herself up on her hind legs and
leaps toward Lumik, snatching the crust from his right hand in mid-air
while simultaneously scraping away several layers of skin on the top of his
fingers, then bounding to the ground and on for several feet.
"No!!" Lumik pulls his hand to his mouth, inspects the
damage: nothing serious. But not good. He scolds Gretta firmly, causing
her to creep into the shadows and sulk, pretending to sleep but never fully
closing her eyes.
Later that same day, he tries it again: this time, she balances
on her hind legs, not leaping, just jumping up gently and balancing,
reaching for the crust with her nose, her mouth slightly open in
anticipation, saliva, and then leap! she leaps, snatching the treat, her
teeth only slightly poking into Lumik's fingers....
He decides to try again, reaching quickly into the grass sack
for a dried crust, only this time it goes differently: only this time,
things don't go as expected —
He is unaware that he is walking up the mountain, unaware of the
dangerous cliffs to his right, and then left, and then right again, not
sensing the stones and roots and cracks with his mind but with his legs,
walking up the mountain
— and reaching into the sack of woven grass, with only four
bread-ends left, and Lumik's hand reaching to find the next one —
unaware of the cat, not a chaamcat, but a mountain cat, a
goat-eater and doe-stalker, on the rock above him, hidden beneath a
withered, dying branch, a whitish pale cat, with a club of a tail
— but not finding the next bread-end, instead finding a
frightened house-mouse, a tiny furry rodent with intentions of nibbling
away at the smoky-scented crusts —
with intentions of pouncing, once the three and a half foot tall
creature comes close enough
— the tiny creature, without the tiniest mote of time in which
to think of how to react, tries to leap out of the grass sack, leaping
instead onto Lumik's arm, thinking it a road to escape, to freedom, and
Lumik suddenly frightened as well, a fur-covered, whisker-faced rodent, a
scavenger and bringer of illness climbing up his arm, he jerks his arm
out of the sack —
and she pounces:
leaping from the large stone, her arms and claws extended, her
voice raised in a snarling cry of blood and hunger
and Lumik unaware, asleep and walking, awake: even the impact,
the solid claws ripping across his back, flattening him to the powdery
ground without resistance, the fangs of a lion piercing his shoulder,
even the impact and snow in his face does not wake him: he is
pulling his arm out of a grass sack while a tiny house-mouse is flying up
into the air, making a graceful arc, then landing on the ground with a
slight bounce, and then a scurrying away:
only dimly aware of the massive amounts of pain, of tearing
muscles and lost blood
unaware of the familiar snarling, terrified growl of his former
friend and companion, as she darts after the mouse —
as she leaps onto the cat's back, trying to grab hold of the
cat's neck, the cat flipping over effortlessly, removing her claws from
Lumik's back and trying, successfully, to secure them into Gretta
Gretta ignoring the pain and digging deeper and deeper into the
cat's fur and throat, blood gushing into her mouth
and Lumik, unaware, instinctively reaching into his pocket for
warmth, pulling out the ovoid shape, a sudden flash of brilliant light in
his hands, crackling energy, sharp hyperactive energy drilling the air,
singeing fur and flesh, both cat and dog, and suddenly the mountain cat
tries to break free from the wolf-kin, spins around and leaps up a short
cliff face, scrambling around the bend and disappearing into the
darkness
— the mouse, somehow vanishing beneath all six of their feet.