And Hyros and Siros said together, "Which of us? Oh, tell us. Which of us?"

Probos said nothing, but merely wept tears of Swamp water for her mother.

Kilukpuk said, "You will all be Matriarch. And none of you will be Matriarch."

Hyros and Siros fell silent, puzzled.

Kilukpuk said, "You, Siros, are the Matriarch of the Water. But the water is not yours. Even close to the land there will be many who will compete with you for fish and weeds and will hunt you down. But it is what you have stolen from your sisters, and it is what you wanted, and it is what you will have. Go now."

And Siros squirmed around and flopped her way back to the water.

Now Kilukpuk said, "You, Hyros, are the Matriarch of the Trees. But the trees are not yours. You have made yourself small and weak and frightened, and that is how you will remain. Animals and birds will compete with you for leaves and bark and plants and will hunt you down. But it is what you have stolen from your sisters, and it is what you wanted, and it is what you will have. Go now."

And Hyros clambered nervously to the branches of the tall trees.

That left only Probos, who waited patiently for her mother to speak. But Kilukpuk was weakening now, and her great body sank deeper into the water of the Swamp. She spat out fragments of tooth — so huge, by the way, they became glaciers where they fell. And she said to Probos, "You stole nothing from your sisters. And yet what they stole from you has made you strong.

"Go, Probos. For the Earth is yours.

"With your great bulk you need fear no predator. With your strong and agile trunk you will become the cleverest animal in the world. Go now, Probos, Matriarch of the mammoths and all their Cousins who live on the land."

Probos was greatly saddened; but she was a good calf who obeyed her Matriarch.

(And what Kilukpuk prophesied would come to pass, for each of Probos’s Calves and their calves to come. But that was for the future.)

Kilukpuk raised herself from the Swamp and called to her Calves one last time. She said, "You will rarely meet again; nor will your calves, or your calves’ calves. But you will be Cousins forever. You must not fight or kill each other. If you meet your Cousins you will assist each other, without question or hesitation or limit. You will make your calves swear this binding oath."

Well, that was the end of the jealousy between the sisters. Hyros and Siros were remorseful, Probos was gladdened, and the three of them swore to hold true to Kilukpuk’s command.

And that is why, as soon as she is old enough to speak, every calf is taught the Oath of Kilukpuk.

But as Kilukpuk sank back into her Swamp and prepared for her journey back into the Earth, she was saddened. For she knew she had not told even Probos, the best of her Calves, the whole truth.

For, one day, there would be something for them all to fear — even mighty Probos.

Arctic summer: the sun arced around the sky’s north pole, somehow aimlessly, and at midnight it rolled lazily along the horizon. It was a single day, long and crystalline, that would last for two months, an endless day of feeding and breeding and dying.

At midnight Silverhair, walking slowly with her Family across the thawing plain, saw that she cast a shadow, ice-sharp, that stretched to the horizon. She felt oddly weighed down by the shadow, as if it were some immense tail she must drag around with her. But the light turned everything to gold, and made the bedraggled mammoths, with their clouds of loose molting fur, glow as if on fire.

They reached an area of tundra new to Silverhair. The mammoths, exhausted by their adventures, spread slowly over the landscape. As the thaw arrived, they found enough to drink in the melt pools that gathered over the permafrost. On days that were excessively hot — because mammoths do not sweat — they would reduce heat by panting, or they would find patches of soft snow to stand in, sometimes eating mouthfuls of it.

The changes in the land were dramatic now. After a month of continuous daylight, the sun was high, and hot enough to melt ice. Rock began to protrude through the thawing hillsides, and blue meltwater glimmered on the frozen lakes. As snowbanks melted, drips became trickles, and gullies became streams, and rivers, marshes, and ponds reformed. In sheltered valleys there were already patches of sedge and grass, green and meadow-like. After months of frozen whiteness the land was becoming an intricate pattern of black and white. This emerging panorama — shimmering with moist light, draped in mist and fog — was still wreathed in silence. But already the haunting calls of Arctic loons echoed to the sky from the melt pools.

The mammoths slept and fed in comparative comfort, and time wore away, slowly and unmarked.

Croptail tried to play with his sister, Sunfire, and his antics pleased the slower-moving adults, who would reach down trunk or tusk to allow the Bull calf to wrestle. But despite her mother’s attention, Sunfire was feeding badly and did not seem to be putting on weight, and her coat remained shabby and tangled. She spent most of her time tucked under her mother’s belly hair, with her face clamped to one dug or other, while Foxeye whispered verses from the Cycle.

Still, it was, all things considered, a happy time. But Silverhair’s spirits did not rise. She took to keeping her distance from the others — even from Lop-ear. She sought out patches of higher ground, her trunk raised.

For something was carried to her by the wind off the sea — something that troubled her to the depths of her soul.

Wolfnose joined her. The old Cow stood alongside Silverhair, feeling with her trunk for rich patches of grass, then trapping tufts between her trunk and tusks and pulling it out.

Silverhair waited patiently. Wolfnose seemed to be moving more slowly than ever, and her rheumy eyes, constantly watering, must be almost blind. So worn were Wolfnose’s teeth, it took her a long time to consume her daily meals. And when she passed dung, Silverhair saw that it was thin and sour-smelling, and contained much unchewed grass and twigs, and even some indigestible soil that Wolfnose, in her gathering blindness, had scooped into her mouth.

But even as her body failed, Wolfnose seemed to be settling into a new contentment.

"This is a good time of year," Wolfnose rumbled at last. She quoted the Cycle: "When the day becomes endless, we shed our cares with our winter coats." She ground her grass contentedly, her great jaw moving back and forth. "But you are not happy, child. Even my old eyes can see that much. What troubles you? Is it Sunfire?"

"I know Foxeye is looking after her well."

"Sunfire was born in a difficult spring, a little too early. Now that summer is approaching, she will flourish like the tundra flowers—"

Silverhair blurted, "Wolfnose — what do you smell here?"

For answer, Wolfnose patiently finished her mouthful of grass. Then she raised her trunk and turned it this way and that.

She said at last, "There is the salt of the sea, to the west. There is the crisp fur of wolves, the sour droppings of lemmings, the stink of the guano of the gulls at the rocky coast…"

"But no mammoths." Silverhair meant the complex of smells that characterized mammoths to each other: the smells of moist hair, dung, mothers’ milk.

Wolfnose said, "No. But there is—"

Silverhair trembled. "There is the stink of death — of dead mammoths."

Wolfnose lowered her trunk and turned calmly to Silverhair. "It isn’t what you think."

Silverhair snapped, "I’ll tell you what I do think. I think that what I can smell is the stench of some other Family’s rotting corpses." She was trembling. She felt an unreasonable anger at Wolfnose’s calm patience.