Stephen Baxter - Icebones

But now Boaster stiffened. He was looking to the north, his tusks raised, and he trumpeted.

There was a sound of feet, purposefully walking. And on the northern horizon a black cloud hugged the ground, like the approach of a storm.

Icebones, with deep reluctance, turned that way. When she raised her trunk she could smell a tang of blood and staleness.

It was no storm. It was mammoth: a great herd of them, and they walked through the billowing crimson dust raised by their own powerful footfalls.

Calves ran squealing in search of their mothers. Bulls broke off from their jousting and backed away, grumbling. Even Breeze’s consort circle was broken up.

"It is as if a cloud has come across the sun," Autumn said.

But Icebones stood straight. For, in the lead of the marching mammoths, gray hair flying wispy in the wind, was the Ragged One.

It was time. Relief flooded Icebones.

One more trial, Icebones. Just one more. Then you can rest.

She gathered her strength.

The Ragged One trumpeted, her loose hair wafting around her strange gray-pink face. She was gaunt, her ribs protruding beneath her sparse hair. Her face was scarred, her tusks badly chipped.

"So, Icebones," the Ragged One said, "you survived. And you did not kill any more mammoths on your journey."

Before Icebones could reply, Autumn raised her trunk. "Spiral," she said softly. "Daughter — is that you?"

From behind the Ragged One, Spiral stepped forward, head held high, her beautiful tusks gleaming.

Autumn rumbled her dismay.

Icebones growled to the Ragged One, "Say what it is you want here. And say what you have promised these mammoths who follow you."

"That is simple," the Ragged One said. "I have told them I will bring back the Lost."

Icebones immediately sensed the hopeful, longing mood of the mass of mammoths who had followed the Ragged One — and, to her shock, she even sensed a stirring of doubt in Boaster, who stood at her side.

For a heartbeat she felt giddy, weak, as if she might fall. This was a dangerous moment indeed: a moment that could decide the future of the species, here on this rocky steppe — and all that she could bring to bear was her own failing strength.

Spiral called thinly, "The Lost gave us life, Icebones. What have you to offer us but a jumble of myths, suffering and death — as my own sister died, as we nearly died?"

There was a great rumbling from the mass of mammoths behind her.

"I have nothing to offer you," Icebones said. "Nothing but the truth, and dignity."

The Ragged One snorted contempt. "I cannot eat truth. I cannot drink dignity."

Autumn demanded, "How do you imagine you will call back the Lost from the sky?"

The Ragged One walked up to the giant Breathing Tree. Its mottled bark loomed above her like a wall. Grunting, she slashed at the bark with her tusks.

The gouged wood leaked a blood-red sap.

"I am one mammoth, with a single pair of tusks. But I can cut and slash. And when I am exhausted, another will come and cut after me, and then another, and another… It might take a season, a whole year. But we are mammoths, and we are strong. And we will destroy this Tree, as we can destroy any other."

"You are a fool," said Autumn. "How will that help you bring back the Lost?"

"You are old and your mind is addled," said the Ragged One. "You are the fool. Look at this Tree. Smell it. Hear its roots worming into the earth. Is there another such Tree in the whole of the world? No, there is not. Because this Tree is a creation of the Lost — their mightiest work, destined to outlive the Nests, and the beetle things that toil and burn. And if we destroy the Tree, the Lost will wish to restore it — and they will return."

A wave of excited trumpeting rippled through the crowd of her followers, and the noise was briefly deafening.

Before the Ragged One’s intense anger and determination, Icebones felt weak, like a figure in a dissolving dream. But she knew she must act. "I will stop you."

"And if you try," hissed the Ragged One, "I will kill you."

"Then that is what you will have to do, for I will oppose you to my last breath."

"Why?" Autumn asked. "Icebones, it is only a tree."

"No," Icebones said. "I have thought deeply on this, and I believe I understand the Tree’s true importance — as do you, Cold-As-Sky. Show yourself now."

Out from the crowd beyond Spiral, a squat, rounded form shouldered her way: mammoth, yes, but with a hump and covered in black, sticky hair, and with small feet and tiny pointed ears, and a pair of eyes that glowed orange.

The mammoths around her recoiled, rumbling uncertainly.

"I am here, Icebones," said the Matriarch of the Ice Mammoths. "I followed your Ragged One. I come here despite the thickness of the air, and the stench of water and your fat green growing things…"

Icebones said, "Cousin. You saved my Family on the High Plains. And yet now you seek to destroy a world."

Cold-As-Sky said harshly, "I come not to destroy, but to make the world as it once was."

"I don’t understand any of this," Autumn said.

Icebones spoke loudly enough for every mammoth in the Footfall to hear.

"This one is right, that the Tree is a gift of the Lost — their last gift to this world. But the Lost have gone, and the Tree remains. And now its meaning has nothing to do with the Lost, but with the Cycle — with us.

"When Longtusk led his Family away from the advancing Lost and over the great bridge, he reached a land of ice, where nothing could live. But Longtusk had heard of a place called a nunatak. It was a refuge, a place where heat bubbled from the ground, keeping back the ice, and green things lived, even in the depth of winter. There the mammoths survived."

"These are fables for calves," said the Ragged One sourly.

Icebones walked up to the Breathing Tree and stroked its cut-through bark. "Like Longtusk’s Family, we are stranded in a world of ice. But this Footfall is our nunatak." She stamped her feet, challenging the mammoths. "Listen to the song of the rocks. Feel how the ground is shattered and compressed. This is the deepest pit in the world, where the rock has been pushed far down — so far that the inner heat of the world, which lives beneath the plants and soil and rocks, is close. Can you feel it? Can you hear the mud that bubbles, the liquid water that gurgles?"

There were rumbles of doubt and surprise among the gathered mammoths. Icebones could hear them pawing at the ground, listening for the secret songs that welled there.

"The heat is deeper than any of us could reach," said Icebones. "But the roots of this Tree will reach deeper than any mammoth’s trunk. Even yours, Cold-As-Sky. One day this Tree will draw up the heat of the world. It will breathe rich air, and weep water — and the world will live."

"One day?" Boaster asked wistfully.

"Not yet," Icebones said gently. "This Tree, mighty as it towers over us poor mammoths, is but a sapling. Can’t you tell, Boaster?"

The Ragged One trumpeted desperately, "If we destroy the Tree, the Lost will return."

"No," Icebones said. "You showed me yourself how the Lost abandoned this world. Wherever they have gone, it has nothing to do with us. But if you destroy the Tree, you destroy yourselves — and your calves, and their calves after them." She raised her tusks. "This is the truth. If I am the only one opposed, then you must kill me first."

There was an expectant silence, a forest of raised trunks.

Icebones stood alone. She had done all she could. And so she waited in the thin, high sunlight, with the tang of red dust strong in her nostrils.

The small world spun around her, and heat gathered in her head.