Now Breeze came crowding forward. "It is not a forest," she said. "Icebones, can’t you see? Can’t you feel its roots? It is a tree — a single, mighty tree!"

Icebones walked forward and peered at the "forest," and she saw that Breeze was right. There were no gaps to be seen in that dense mass of wood. Its single tremendous trunk was supported by huge buttress-like roots. And when she looked up, she saw that the trunk ran tall and clean far beyond the reach of any mammoth, and the tree’s foliage was lost, high above her — lost in a wisp of low cloud, she realized, shocked.

"It is a tree higher than the sky," she said. "All the trees here grow tall. But this is the mightiest of all."

Boaster growled. "If it could talk, it might be called Boaster too — what do you think, Icebones? But this is a special tree. Its fruit draws in air."

"It is a breathing tree." She described the trees they had encountered on the High Plain.

"Yes," Boaster said. "But this is their giant cousin. This Breathing Tree is a mammoth among trees." He touched her trunk. "I know how hard your journey was. But this Tree shows that the mightiest of living things can prosper here… If the Tree survives, so will we."

She moved closer to him and wrapped his trunk in hers. "The journey was hard. But you gave me strength when I had none left."

He pulled away, puzzled. "I inspired you? Come with me." He tugged at her trunk. "Come, come and see."

They walked a little away around the Tree’s vast cylindrical trunk. It was like walking around a huge rock formation.

And suddenly, before her, there were mammoths.

There were huge old Bulls with chipped tusks, bits of grass clinging to the hairs of their faces, giant scars crossing their flanks and backs. And fat, slow Cows, round-faced calves running at their feet. And young Bulls, their adult tusks just beginning to show like gleams of ice in rock folds. And leaner, loose-haired mammoths whose journey here looked as if it had been as hard as Icebones’s.

Around her was the sound of mammoths: the click of tusks, the dry rustle of intertwined trunks, the hiss of their hair and tails — many, many mammoths.

"Can you smell them?" Boaster asked gently. "Can you hear them?"

Icebones was stunned. "Where do they come from?"

"They came from all over this little world. They were abandoned by the Lost, and they were helpless, just as your Family was. If they had stayed in their Lost cages, they would have starved or submitted to the cold — but they didn’t know what else to do.

"But your Family was different. They had you. And when you made your decision to bring them here to the Footfall, I knew I had to follow you, with my bachelor herd. Not that I didn’t have to crack a few tusks to make them see sense…

"And then, with our calls and stamping, we spread the word to all the mammoths who can hear. Some were reluctant to come, some didn’t understand, and some were simply frightened. But none of them faced so hard a journey as you.

"And one by one, Family by Family, they began the great walk, from north, south, west, east…"

"All of these mammoths are here because of me?"

Autumn was at her side. "Because of you, Icebones, Matriarch. Your achievement was mighty. You walked your mammoths around the world. You walked them from the highest place of all, the peak of the Fire Mountain, to the deepest place, this Footfall. It is an achievement that will live forever in the songs of the Cycle."

Weak, overtired, hungry, thirsty, Icebones tried to take in all this — and failed. She wished Silverhair could see her now. She would, at last, be proud.

But there was room in her heart for a stab of doubt. She recalled the fringe of the crater basin, the dried mud there where the tide of life had receded. Could it be that she had drawn these mammoths here on a promise of life and security that, in the end, would not be fulfilled? Perhaps what she had achieved was not an inspiration — but a betrayal.

But now Breeze came trotting up to her, her manner urgent and tense. "Thunder is calling from the edge of the steppe. Can you hear him? Icebones, he says she is coming."

Icebones immediately knew who she meant. And she realized that, whatever her triumph in bringing the mammoths here to the navel of the world, she must gather up her strength for one more challenge.

For, out of the harsh High Plains, the Ragged One was approaching.

6

The Breathing Tree

Icebones — still limping, still favoring the shoulder she now suspected would never properly heal — liked to walk beside the Tree. Around it the air was dense with the life of the long summer. A great misty fog of aerial plankton, ballooning spiders and delicate larvae drifted over the land in search of places to live.

She stroked the Tree’s deep brown bark and listened to the currents of sap that ran within it, considering its mysteries. She sensed how this Tree was dragging heat and water up from the world’s depths.

And, slowly, as she began to understand its purpose, she came to believe that this vast Tree was the core of everything…

It took many days for the Ragged One to cross the Footfall.

And she was not alone. She had entered the crater with a mysterious herd of her own. And as she crossed the plain more mammoths were joining her. A determined force was trekking steadily toward the Tree, and Icebones.

Autumn and Boaster stayed with her, her closest companions.

Boaster said, "You do not have to face this Ragged One, little Icebones. Let me drive her off with a thrust of my tusks." And he dipped his head and lunged at an imaginary opponent.

She stroked his face fondly. She knew that though she was slowly regaining some of her health, she would never be as strong as she had been before. She had left her strength and youth, it seemed, up on the High Plains.

But she knew it was her duty to face the Ragged One.

Autumn and Boaster knew it too, of course.

Autumn growled, "It would be help if we knew what that wretched creature wanted. I’m sure it has nothing to do with being mammoth."

Boaster rumbled, "It is disturbing how many here think back nostalgically to the days when the Lost ran our lives for us. That is why those addled fools follow her."

Icebones said, "But the way of the Cycle is often harsh. Even we, on the High Plains, turned back from confronting the final truth… I cannot blame these others."

She spotted Breeze, who had come into oestrus. She was walking fast, holding her head tall. Her eyes were wide amber drops. She was being pursued by a large, grizzled Bull, his tusks scarred and chipped. Dark fluid leaked from his musth glands and down his face, and he dribbled urine as he walked.

A little further away, two younger Bulls were challenging each other, raising their tusks and shaking their heads. But they both must know that whoever won their battle would not gain access to Breeze while the battered old tusker claimed her.

Breeze and the victorious tusker began a kind of dance. She would walk away, glancing over her shoulder, and he would follow, rumbling. But then he would hold back, as if testing her willingness and desire, and in response she slowed.

Beyond this central pair and the two young competing Bulls was a ring of more males, eight or ten of them — some of them massive, many sporting savage scars and shattered tusks. Further away still more Bulls watched the central couple jealously, standing still as rocks.

The whole circle of Bulls, young and old, was held in place around Breeze, trapped by invisible forces of lust and jealousy and fear.

"It is the consort," Autumn observed. "So the ancient dance continues."

"As it should," Icebones said.