Part 17 (1/2)

Then all at once he felt the fullness of what he had learned, and knelt down and leaned forward against the cold indifferent stone. His arm gave his eyes no comfort.

Skither was dead.

Sylviana watched him with apprehension. She had felt an unreasoning terror as he stood before the wounded insect; but now a fear more akin to reality, and therefore duller and deeper, presented itself. She could not know what was said to him, but she knew him well enough to understand at least a part of what he was feeling. Some grim news (or threat) had been pa.s.sed on to him; and because he had been weak, because he had surrendered to emotion, because he had made love, he was being punished, and blamed himself. Such were the scars that his life had left upon him.

When at length he looked up at her, she knew that her fears had been realized. The closeness and love that had been in his eyes so few hours before, were gone. All feeling had left him, and he was again trapped in the world he did not understand.

His guiding star was gone.

Chapter 16

The next morning when Kalus woke, he felt, through the pain and loss, a resurgence (and need) of life and hope. The cold had crept beneath his fur while he slept, and all around him hung a chill moist air that called for action. He still cared for the girl, there were other lives linked to his own, and he knew he must continue. Skither had told him he must.

So he rose and walked out onto the parapet. Sylviana was there ahead of him, her eyes tearing from the cold and lack of sleep, wrapped in the same fur that now seemed more a refuge than a friend. And though he was sorry he couldn't, he did not touch her. She turned to him a face that understood, but hurt the more because of it. He pretended not to notice.

'Has the mantis come out yet?'

'No. Akar tried to go to him. I think he hurt his shoulder again.

You can see him---' She pointed just inside the larger entrance, to the place where the wolf waited on its haunches.

'Yes, but it was not done foolishly. We must move there anyway, and secure it for ourselves as soon as possible. We will have to work very hard, and you will have to help me.' Again his emotions had become an unreadable maze. Sylviana lowered her head and sighed, and the breath the wind blew back through her disheveled hair was clearly visible.

>From this, as well as other tokens, Kalus knew that the first real storms of winter were not far off, and tried to gird himself for the arduous labor to come. He was ready to break his back and his heart to construct the shelter Sylviana had described, but all pleasure had gone out of the thought.

It was still morning when the young mantis emerged, looking little better than it had the day before. From the long ripple in the underside of its abdomen, both Kalus (who had descended) and the wolf could see it had not eaten. But when Akar, as best he could, asked if he would not stay a day longer and partake of the food that Skither had left him, he was curt to the point of menace.

'I will not dishonor his memory in that way.'

'But surely---'

'I will not dishonor his memory!'

And so, without formality or warning cry, without perhaps the proper preparation, the creature opened its wings, raised itself into the air, and left them forever. Its form grew small and disappeared into the west like a drowning branch carried past by a river. And the river flowed on, unchanging.