Part 21 (2/2)

But here the words run out. It was not a single catastrophic event, nor a succession of smaller devastations, which led him to his moment of destruction, but a lifetime of endless conflict, broken dreams and dark, twisted, hopeless roads. There was nothing left to say or feel. He simply could not go on. As Sylviana read to him the last chapter of Hemingway, the futility of life congealed into a single, inescapable blade that no longer hovered at a distance, but stood poised like a needle above his heart. All was black, and like Kamela before him the very throbbing of his heart, with its surges of love and hope was the final, crus.h.i.+ng despair.

He waited until the girl was asleep, then put her knife into the soft flesh beneath his ear and began to cut downward, a sinister, sweeping smile.

But the pain was greater than he imagined, and something yet stronger stayed his hand. It wasn't that he lacked the courage. But if felt so very, very wrong. After all the battles he had fought and the hards.h.i.+ps endured, all the times that death had been beaten back. . .to be his own undoing..... The instinct to survive had been too deeply ingrained. He dropped weeping and bleeding on his face, writhing in unquenchable anguish.

He still might have bled to death, but for the constant miracle that lived on unnoticed in their midst: the blind desire and yearning of youth, embodied in the new and emerging life of the pup. His elbow landed hard on one of its paws as it slept, and knowing nothing of hopelessness and death, it simply did what its senses told it to. It cried out.

Roused by the sound the girl came closer, lifted aside the canopy, and after a moment of helpless terror, turned Kalus onto his back and with shaking hands worked to stop the bleeding.

But the damage had been done. With that last paroxysm of emotion, all feeling left him. He was not only resigned to death, he believed the process had already begun. As the girl watched helplessly, he became like a critically abused child, neither eating nor speaking, without expression or sorrow or movement. His spirit was already dead, and waited only for the body to follow. The girl wept openly on his chest, but the seeds of his heart refused to grow. His tale was over, a tragedy.

On the third day he asked for a sip of water, told the girl that he loved her, and asked her to forgive him. She said nothing and he went to sleep, expecting never to be wakened in this world again.

But just as the spirit is not slave to the body, neither does the body cease to function simply because the will commands it. Though he had given up on life, life had not yet given up on him. Death, if he truly desired it, wasn't going to be that easy.

Chapter 23

The night was bitter and stark, with hard stars like countless pin-p.r.i.c.ks staring lidless upon the Earth. The world itself was equally sharp, trees frozen, rocks cracking with the cold. But one creature, not yet versed in Night's supremacy, struggled on against the icy stillness.

The yearling tiger moved drunkenly forward, at intervals collapsing upon its injured hind leg. Weak from hunger and loss of blood, the dizziness was becoming chronic. It lay for a time where it had fallen, licking the hard snow and fighting, instinctively, to remain conscious. Though born to withstand the numbing cold there were other dangers, and death, a thing it did not understand but instinctively feared, was not far off.

Somehow it had wandered into a cleft between high walls. Forward or backward, it could not now recall. It regained its feet and struggled on. All bearing and sense of direction lost, it suddenly found itself confronted by a steep incline, rising darkly from the soft blur of white. Too young to know genuine despair, and too far gone to think otherwise, it began to climb. It sensed light, or warmth, or something ahead. All reason and strength slipped away as the world became level again, and it staggered forward unthinking, nothing more than a moth drawn by flame.

Something unyielding blocked its path, and now it smelled food. It scratched feebly and let out a mournful growl. Then all sense faded, and if fell into the drifting snow.

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