Kalus revived (or came to) the next morning, but could not at first
remember where he was. The events of the day before had struck so
suddenly..... Again he lay in the bed of cool moss, covered with furs,
his wounds being treated by the soothing hands of a woman-child. He
turned as if in a dream to look upon the face of his redeemer.
But no, that was long ago. Now the woman-child was his friend, his
mate. Was it possible? Why was the chamber so cold? And what of the
wolf-cub that lay nestled beside him? As the cloud of amnesia, like a
blow to the head which jarred him to another time, slowly cleared, he
remembered. And understood. The images of Kamela's death came back
to him with feverish clarity. He shivered, and a burst of physical
panic made him bolt upright, scattering the furs and startling the cub.
The girl took him by the shoulders and forced him back down.
Unprotected, his skin felt icy cold, and his body ached with a dull,
yellow pain.
One by one the furs were replaced on top of him. He did not fight, but
clung to them as if to life, and tucked the edges beneath him to block
out the cold. The need to struggle back to warmth was so great, and so
immediate, that his mind had no time for despair, or the full
realization of his plight. He shivered, and sucked his aching teeth and
thought of nothing. At length he slept, though fitfully and full of
dark dream.
He woke to find his worst fears come true. He was weak and ill, trapped
in Winter, physically unable to fight for his survival. There was
little food, and now no chance of getting more. The woman-child he
loved, and the pup whose life was now his responsibility, would perish
alongside him. All was ended. He had failed.
But all was not ended. That would have been too simple and absolute.
They still had the reserves, though tapping into them so soon went
against all his instincts, and roused the already powerful voices of
fear inside him. And though to one who has never had to survive,
literally, day to day, these emotions may seem mere words, to Kalus they
were as powerful and menacing as the physical threat of a lion. How
much more of this could his spirit endure? To rise, again and again,
from the decimations of this world, to go on without hope for so long,
never seeing the end of the tunnel.
Because a man who finds the tight-rope of his existence drawn so fine,
the abyss below him so deep and terrifying, can never see the natural
and benevolent forces that may (or may not) come to his aid. But the
dangers and possible means of his downfall, wrapped with fear and based
on past experience, are as clear to him as the struggling flesh he
inhabits. For truth and fear exist only inches apart, and fear, by its
very nature, will always seem the stronger voice. Men have faced this
same darkness for thousands of years, and many fallen before it. And
the darkness never ends.
Kalus felt, as he always had in times of deep struggle, the eternal
desire for life that calls a man to action in the face of danger, and
courage in the face of despair. But he also felt something altogether
new, or at least, never before felt at this level of intensity. He felt
a flat and empty indifference that told him all such effort was futile,
even laughable, in the eyes of the gods who tormented him. Just as a
laboratory animal that can endure no more torture will simply stop
eating and slowly die of shock, he too felt that he had been punished
long enough, that any reasonable bounds of endurance had been long since
passed, and that the hopeless games of this world no longer held any
meaning for him. He saw only death: his father mauled by a bear, Shama
torn open by Shar-hai and his guard, who had themselves been dragged
back to earth. Skither, who had died alone in a stinking hole at the
hands of mindless brutes, protecting others who were heedless. And at
the last, when his spirit had nothing left, Kamela, who had perished to
save his own, meaningless life.
The truth now seemed so clear to him that he was amazed he had not seen
it before. All the useless struggles ended in death, either quickly, or
in humiliating sickness and old age. All earthly bonds were passing,
torn asunder by the whims of Nature and uncaring Time. And therefore
all life was futile. Still worse, it was absurd. A man who possessed
real courage only wasted it in endlessly trying to continue. Let him
take that courage instead and say, 'Enough! This torture must not be
allowed to continue. If I cannot choose the manner of my life, I will
at least choose the manner, and time of my death.' Kalus knew nothing
of existentialism, or the other fashionable philosophies of men. He
knew nothing of the religious fears of mankind, or of his angry,
despairing pride in himself. He knew only that his heart was broken,
and he wanted to die. The dull and hopeless look that had fixed itself
in the eyes of Kamela, became his as well.
He no longer cared, and had lost all fear of death.