Nevertheless, Silverhair looked forward to the summer, when open puddles of water would be available, and she would be able to wallow comfortably in mud, cooling and washing out ticks and fleas and lice.

"…I wonder if Owlheart guessed where we were going," Lop-ear was saying as he scratched. "Did you see her talking to Eggtusk?"

"No. But after that lecture I’m surprised she’s letting me out of the sight of the calf."

Lop-ear raised his trunk to sniff at the frosty air. "She was right. Raising the young is the most important thing of all. But she’s obviously making an exception for you."

"Why?"

"Perhaps because — to Owlheart — this may be more important than anything else you can do — even more important than learning about calves." Lop-ear rested his trunk on his tusks. "Owlheart is wise," he said. "She listens with more than ears. She listens with her heart and mind. That’s why she’s Matriarch."

"And why," said Silverhair miserably, "I could never be Matriarch, if I live until the Earth spins itself to dust." She told Lop-ear what Owlheart had said: that it was her destiny to be Matriarch.

"She’s probably right," he said. "There aren’t too many candidates."

"Foxeye—"

"Your sister is a fine mother. But she’s weak, Silverhair. You know that. Other than that, there is only Snagtooth."

Silverhair’s fur bristled. "I would leave the Family if she were ever Matriarch. She’s mean-spirited, vindictive…"

"Then who else is there?"

When she thought it through like that, he was, of course, right. His logic was relentless. But it was all utterly depressing.

"I don’t want to be a Matriarch," she said miserably. "I don’t want all that responsibility."

"Perhaps you really do have the spirit of Longtusk inside you."

"That’s ridiculous," she said. But she was pleased to hear him say it.

Lop-ear lifted his trunk and rubbed her snow-white scalp with affection, a gentle touch that thrilled her. "Like Longtusk, you’re a wanderer," said Lop-ear. "Perhaps you too could lead us to places no one else could even dream of. And, like Longtusk, you’re perverse. After all, Longtusk had to fight to win the command of his Family, didn’t he? The story goes, the other Bulls all but killed him, rather than accept his orders."

"But I don’t want to fight anybody."

"Maybe not. But you fight yourself, Silverhair. How typical it is of you that you should choose to model yourself on the one Cycle hero who you could never be, Longtusk the Bull!"

He was right.

In all the great tundra of time reflected in the Cycle, there is only one Bull hero: Longtusk.

When the world warmed, and the ice fell back into the north, the Lost — the mammoths’ only true enemy — had come pushing into the mammoth tundra from the south, butchering and murdering. All over the planet, mammoths had died, Families and Clans falling together.

All, that is, save the Family of Longtusk: for Longtusk had somehow brought his people across the cold sea waters here, to the Island. Nobody knew how he had done this. Some said he had flown like a bird, carrying his Family on his mighty back; some said he stamped his mighty foot and caused the sea to roar from the ground. At any rate, the Lost had never followed, and the mammoths had been safe.

But Longtusk had given his life…

They found a deep puddle with only a thin layer of ice on top. Lop-ear broke through this easily with his tusk, and they plunged their trunks into the water. When Lop-ear had taken a trunkful he closed the trunk by clenching its fingers, lifted the end, and curled it into his mouth. Then he tilted his head back, opened his trunk, and let the water gush into his mouth, a delicious and cooling stream.

They soon drained the puddle. It was a rare treat: standing water had been scarce this winter, and the Family was counting on an early spring thaw. Mammoths need much fresh water each day. They can eat snow, but have to sacrifice precious body heat to melt it.

"Of course," said Lop-ear, "even if you were to become Matriarch, I’m not at all sure where you could lead us."

"What do you mean?"

He led her to a patch of frost overlying harder, older ice. Lop-ear picked up a twig with his trunk and began to scrape at the frost.

"Here is the Island," he said. It was a rough oval. "It is surrounded by sea, which we can’t cross. To the north, there are the Mountains at the End of the World. And to the south, there is the spruce forest." More scratchings.

Silverhair watched him, baffled. "What are you doing?"

He looked up. "I’m…" He had no word for it. "Imagine you’re a bird," he said at last. "A guillemot, flying high over the Island."

"But I’m not a bird."

"In Kilukpuk’s name, Silverhair, if you can imagine yourself as Longtusk you can surely stretch your mind that far!"

She stretched out her ears and spun, pretending to wheel like a bird. "Look at me! Caw! Caw!"

"All right, Silverhair the gull. Now, you’re looking down at the Island. You see it sitting in the middle of the sea, like a lump of dung in a pond. Yes?"

"Yes…"

"Look — now!" With his trunk, he pointed to the frost scrapings he had made.

And — looking down as if she were a mammoth-gull, concentrating hard — for a heartbeat, yes, she could see the Island, see it through his scrapings, just as if she really were a gull, balanced on the winds high above.

To Silverhair, the simple drawing was a kind of magic; she had never seen anything like it.

"Every time the Earth spins around the sun, the summer is a little longer, the winter a little less harsh. And the forest encroaches a little more on the tundra." Absently Lop-ear dug in the soil with his tusks, burrowed with his trunk, and produced a scraping of grass. "You know, Wolfnose remembers a time — when she was only a calf herself — when the spruce forest was just a few straggling saplings clinging to the coast. And now look how far it has spread." With his twig, he pointed to the middle of the Island. "You see? We are contained in this strip of the Island, between forest and mountains, like a calf that has fallen in a mudhole. And the strip is narrowing."

"So what do we do?"

"I don’t know. This Island is all we have. We have absolutely nowhere else to go."

She admired Lop-ear’s unusual mind, the clarity and depth of thinking he was capable of. But his logic was chilling. "It can’t be true," she said. "What about the Sky Steppe?"

Lop-ear said, "Do you really believe that?"

Silverhair was scandalized. "Lop-ear, it’s in the Cycle."

The Cycle contains tales of a mysterious Steppe that floats in the sky, where — the story goes — mammoths will one day roam free.

But Lop-ear was growling. "Look — we can know the past because we remember it, and we can tell it to our calves, who remember it in turn… Through the Cycle, and the memories of our mothers, we can ‘remember’ all the way back to Kilukpuk’s Swamp. That’s all sensible. But as to the future—" He tossed his twig in the air. "We can no more know the future than we can say how that twig will fall."

The stick rattled to the bone-hard ground, out of her sight.

"And besides," he said, "there might soon be nobody to go to the Sky Steppe anyhow."

"What do you mean?"

He looked at her mournfully. "Think about it. When was the last time you heard a contact rumble from my Family — or any other Family, come to that? How many mammoths have we seen on this trek? We haven’t even found footprints or fresh dung—"

The thought was chilling; she turned away from it. "You think too much."

"I wish I could stop," he said quietly.

They moved on, through cloudy day and Moonlit night.

They came to a place they knew was good for salty soil. It was frozen over, but they set to scraping at the ice with their tusks until they had exposed some of the bone-hard soil. Then they dug out a little of the soil and tucked it into their mouths; the soil was dry and dusty, but it contained salt and other minerals otherwise missing from the mammoths’ diet.