Part 24 (2/2)

There are no broken bones. Perhaps ten days, perhaps twenty. In any case, you see that I cannot let him die.'

'Yes.' She squeezed his arm, seeing that he was about to go. 'Be careful.'

'Yes. I will take the wolf. It is time she learned of the world beyond these walls.'

It felt strange to her to hear him speak of the pup as a wolf. She herself called it Alaska, and he had always before used pseudonyms such as ?cub' or ?pup'. But looking at her now, standing and watching them quizzically, she saw that the slight creature Kamela had brought them, was indeed a babe no longer. Her limbs had begun to grow long, ahead of the body, and her gaze, though still childish, was growing keener and more aware. And she remembered that this was in fact a wolf, and not a dog.

'When you come back, will you tell me why Akar didn't take her with him? If you know. I have an idea, but I'd like to know what you think.'

'When I return, I will be glad to speak of it.' He became suddenly shy. 'And to be with you.' He went to the door, called to the cub, and went out. Sylviana closed the door behind them.

His thoughts being thus absorbed, Kalus did not realize until he reached the end of the ledge and saw the broad, irregular tracks leading downward, that the tiger was gone. At first this upset him, both for his sake and its own. But as he entered the ravine and began to mentally prepare for the lands beyond, he had no choice but to let it go. It was beyond his control.

'So be it.' But this did not keep him from noting that its tracks went southward down the gorge, and that if they rose again to left or right, it was beyond the edge of his sight.

The cub stayed close to him instinctively, and they made their way first up the steep slope, then out across the rolling white and camel-hair lands.

Kalus returned to the gorge as the sky grew dark and ominous. There was no sign of the tiger, and his own time in the cold had been devoured.

He s.h.i.+vered and coughed in the growing wind, and the voices of caution would not be gainsaid. The rules of this new affliction he had learned the hard way. The rules of the Cold World he knew by heart. And as he lingered a moment, straining his senses for any sight or sound, even the cub seemed anxious, looking about it and at the threatening sky.

'All right,' he said gruffly, as much to the nameless as to anyone. 'Chase me back into my hole again. Tomorrow I'll be back.' He gained the ledge, and the doorway beyond.

Sylviana greeted him with an embrace that surprised him. He had not expected it, for one thing, and had forgotten how much this simple contact was worth. And he remembered too, for all the day's frustrations, his deep affection for her. If only he could bring them all to some safe place.....

'Are you well?' he asked her.

'Well enough, now. I don't like the look of that sky, though, or the sudden drop in temperature. I'm worried about Akar.'

'And I for the tiger. He's gone off, you know.'

'Yes. I'm sorry.'

He shrugged his shoulders unconvincingly. 'There's nothing I can do about it now. I couldn't make him a prisoner.'

He took off his warm wrappings, refitted the one-piece garment, then sat down on the steps of the altar and began sharpening his sword. But all at once he cast away the whet-stone, a hard and bitter edge on all his features.

'It's not fair,' he said. 'I wanted him to live..... I wanted him to be my friend.'

Sylviana studied him wordlessly, touched and taken back, as ever, by the power of his primal emotions. And when he looked up at her, she saw again the restless and hungry expression that so haunted her. She turned away, drawn to him as on a chain, yet afraid. Why did he move her so?

'I didn't want to lose Akar, either. Sometimes if you love someone, you have to let them go.' Now it was she who was unconvincing. And all at once, he wanted her.

Kalus rose, all his sorrows and reawakened desires now focused with total singularity upon the object, the living being of his love. He moved closer, and took her by the shoulders, and turned her towards him.

There was nothing else in all the world.

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