Stephen Baxter: Icebones

And — where was she? This strange place of pink mountains was like nowhere she had ever heard of, nowhere spoken of even in the Cycle, the mammoths’ great and ancient body of lore…

Nowhere, except one place.

"The Sky Steppe. That’s where we are, isn’t it?" The Sky Steppe, the Island in the sky where — according to the Cycle — mammoths would one day find a world of their own, far from the predations and cruelty of the Lost, a world of calm and plenty.

But this place of barren rock and smoky air didn’t seem so plentiful to her, nor was it calm.

The Bull ignored her questions. "I’m hungry," he repeated.

She turned her back on him deliberately.

She heard him grunt and snort, the soft uncertain pads of his footsteps recede. She felt relief — then renewed anxiety.

I’m hungry too, she realized. And I’m thirsty. And, after all, the strange, infuriating Bull was the only mammoth she had seen here.

She turned. His broad back, long guard hairs shining, was still visible over a blue-black ridge that poked like a bone out of the hard ground.

She hurried after him.

Walking was difficult. The hard ground crumpled into folds, as if it had once flowed like congealing ice, and great gullies had been raked out of the side of the Mountain.

Her strength seemed sapped. She struggled to climb the ridges, and slithered on her splayed feet down slopes where she could not get a purchase. The air was smoky and thin, and her chest heaved at it.

She found a gully that was roofed over by a layer of rock. She probed with brief curiosity into a kind of cave, much taller than she was, that receded into the darkness like a vast nostril. Perhaps all the gullies here had once been long tubular caves like this, but their rocky roofs had collapsed.

In one place the ground had cracked open, like burned skin, and steam billowed. Mud, gray and liquid, boiled inside the crack, and it built up tall, skinny vents, like trunks sticking out of the ground. The air around the mud pool was hot and dense with smoke and ash, making it even harder to draw a breath.

Grit settled on her eyes, making them weep. She longed for the soft earth of the Island in summer, for grass and herbs and bushes.

But the Bull was striding on, his gait still languidly slow to her eyes. He was confident, used to the vagaries of the ground where she was uncertain, healthy and strong where she still felt stiff and disoriented. She hurried after him.

And now, as she came over a last ridge, she saw that he had joined a group of mammoths.

They were all Cows, she saw instantly. She felt a surge of relief to see a Family here — even if it was not her Family. She hurried forward, trumpeting a greeting.

They turned, sniffing the air. The mammoths stood close together, and the wind made their long guard hairs swirl around them in a single wave, like a curtain of falling water.

There were three young-looking Cows, so similar they must have been sisters. One appeared to be carrying a calf: her belly was heavy and low, and her dugs were swollen. An older Cow might have been their mother — her posture was tense and uncertain — and a still older Cow, moving stiffly as if her bones ached, might be her mother, grandmother to the sisters — and so, surely, the Matriarch of the Family. Icebones thought they all seemed agitated, uncertain.

Icebones watched as the Cow she had tagged as the mother lumbered over to the Bull and cuffed his scalp affectionately with her trunk… And the mother towered over the Bull.

That didn’t make sense, Icebones thought, bewildered. Adult Bulls were taller than Cows. This Bull had been much taller than Icebones, and Icebones, at fifteen years old, was nearly her full adult height. So how could this older Cow tower over him as if he was a calf?

There was one more Cow here, Icebones saw now, standing a little way away from the clustered Family. This Cow was different. Her hair was very fine — so fine that in places Icebones could see her skin, which was pale gray, mottled pink. Her tusks were short and straight, lacking the usual curling sweep of mammoth tusks, and her ears were large and floppy.

This Cow was staring straight at Icebones as she approached, her trunk held high as she sniffed the air. Her posture was hard and still, as if she were a musth Bull challenging a younger rival.

"I am Icebones," she said.

The others did not reply. She walked forward.

The mammoths seemed to grow taller and taller, their legs extending like shadows cast by a setting sun, until they loomed over her, as if she too was reduced to the dimensions of a calf.

Icebones felt reluctant, increasingly nervous. Must everything be strange here?

She approached the grandmother. Though she too was much taller than Icebones, this old one’s hair was discolored black and gray and her head was lean, the skin and hair sunken around her eyes and temples, so that the shape of the skull was clearly visible. Icebones reached out and slipped her trunk into the grandmother’s mouth, and tasted staleness and blood. She is very old, Icebones realized with dismay.

She said, "You are the Matriarch. My Matriarch is Silverhair. But my Family is far from here…"

"Matriarch," said the grandmother. "Family." She gazed at Icebones. "Silverhair. These are old words, words buried deep in our heads, our bellies. I am no Matriarch, child."

Icebones was confused. "Every Family has a Matriarch."

The grandmother growled. "This is my daughter. These are her children, these three Cows. And this one carries a calf of her own — another generation, if I live to see it… But we are not a Family." She sneezed, her limp trunk flexing, and bloodstained mucus splashed over the rock at her feet.

Icebones shrank back. "I never heard of mammoths without names, a Family that wasn’t a Family, Cows without a Matriarch."

One of the three tall sisters approached Icebones curiously. Her tusks were handsome symmetrical spirals before her face. Her legs were skinny and extended. Even her head was large, Icebones saw, the delicate skull expansive above the fringe of hair that draped down from her chin.

She reached out with her trunk and probed at Icebones’s hair and mouth and ears, just as if Icebones was a calf. "I know who you are."

Icebones recoiled.

But now the others were all around her — the other sisters, the mother, the Bull.

"We were told you would come."

"I am thirsty. I want water."

"My baby is stirring. I am hungry."

The strange, tall mammoths clamored at her, like calves seeking dugs to suckle, plucking at the hair on her back and legs, even the clumps on her stubby tail.

She trumpeted, backing off. "Get away from me!"

The other — the Ragged One, stub-tusked, pink-spotted — came lumbering over the rocky slope to stand close to Icebones. "You mustn’t mind them. They think you might be the Matriarch, you see. That’s what they’ve been promised."

Now the Bull-calf came loping toward her, oddly slow, ungainly. He said to Icebones, "Show us how to find food. That’s what Matriarchs are supposed to do."

I’m no Matriarch, she thought. I’ve never even had a calf. I’ve never mated. I’m little older than you are, for all your size… "You must find food for yourself," she said.

"But he can’t," the Ragged One said slyly. "Let me show you."

And she turned and began to follow a trail, lightly worn into the hard rock, that led over a further ridge.

Confused, apprehensive, Icebones followed.

The Ragged One brought her to a shallow pit that had been sliced into the flank of the Mountain. At the back of the pit was a vertical wall, like a cliff face, into which sockets had been cut, showing dark and empty spaces beyond.