The Mantooth Part 17

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.

Then Sylviana climbed down and stood beside them, trying to be a part of, or at least to understand, what had happened.

'What did he say to you?'

'That he would not eat, or remain another hour. He seems determined to prove that he needs nothing and no one.'

Trying to think in the vernacular of that world, she put in timidly.

'He will be very strong someday.'

'If he lives.' She said nothing more.

As if in imitation, Kalus determined to begin the work at once. Using one of the poles from the neglected frame, he carved a handle for the rusty ax-head the girl had found. He sharpened its cutting edge as best he could, and with the sun at its height, set out to begin felling trees.

Sylviana went with him, along with Kamela, for warning and added protection. He cut and pieced an entire tree before he would let himself rest. Then together he and the girl carried a twelve-foot section back to the cave, he bearing most of the weight on his shoulder, asking only that the girl come behind and steady him.

And so the long toil began.

Sylviana's plan, which he modified only slightly, was to build a three-sided barrier of interlocking logs, like an open letter C. Its ends would rest just inside the arch, gradually narrowing as they rose, nearly flush, against the inner walls of the entrance. It was to be reinforced from within by stout beams, and by the strength of these, as well as by its own girth and weight, to form an impenetrable barrier against both the elements, and the fiercest predators. A single, windowless door would pierce the forward wall, and the entire structure be sealed inside and out with mortar, and at the edges, with bricks of stone. Sylviana had read a book as a child in which a family of pioneers had built a log cabin, using only the materials provided by Nature. And now the memory of it served her well.

So Kalus cut, and they both carried, till she thought her back would break and Kalus die, where he stood, of exertion. She could not know that what pained him far more than the ceaseless labor (he had worked as hard before) was the fact that he was using all his spiritual, as well as physical reserves.

Because a man can work as hard and diligently as he must, to the extreme limits that mind and body will endure, so long as he has a reason, and a need to do so. And when it is done to provide food and shelter for the lives entrusted to his care, he can work harder and more selflessly still. But take away his reason, his hope for some kind of betterment, however distant, and the strongest, most determined man becomes rootless and lethargic. Tasks and dangers he thought little of before, become as tedious and harrowing as a literal fight for life. Kalus continued because he knew, as every animal does, that he must continue. But as the work sapped his strength and the emotional wound caused by the death of Skither bled unchecked, he became first weary, then angry, then through the ceaseless, hopeless repet.i.tion, empty and indifferent.

Sometimes when he felt weakest he would look at the girl, and remember the beautiful thing they had shared. And for a time these memories of warmth and desire would sustain him. But soon all fantasies of a peaceful and prosperous future became nothing more to him than a carrot dangling at the end of a stick, though he possessed no such metaphor to help him understand. And he had no psychologist to tell him that by submerging his grief and distancing himself from the girl he was hurting himself, and stifling the healing forces of time and close companionship. He cut, and carried, and shaped and fitted, sometimes in blinding snow, stopping during daylight hours only to hunt, or to look over what had been done. Because he had no choice.

And slowly the shelter went up. Pine and birch and gnarled oak, he laid them down and made a refuge of their bones, as dark thoughts tormented him.

But the shelter went up. And the night the frame was completed, and all work done save the filling in of cracks, the heaviest storm of the season moved in and piled three feet of snow outside it, blocking them in with drifts up to twice that high. Without warning or ceremony, their new home had been christened.

The next morning Kalus had not the strength to force open the frozen door, and sat alone by the fire for hours, speaking to no one, feeling nothing but weak and shivery exhaustion. The Cold World, which he had said he loved, was upon them.