'I want to make love to you.'

He kissed her, and stripped away the barriers between them, and touched her with the roots of his being, overflowing like a well-spring upon the earth. She had not the strength to resist him, and soon lost all desire to do so. He led her to his bed, and together they breathed deeper air than they had for many days.

Later that night, as they slept side by side, Kalus dreamed that he rode across a vast expanse on the back of a great horse, its silver mane flying in the wind of its speed. Then as the sun set the land became dark and he walked alone, till in the dense and shadowed underbrush there was a rustle of movement, and a great cat called his name.

And waking, he heard the sound again. He pulled aside the patchwork of furs and moved across the room, afraid the sound would fade into unreality. He threw a log quickly on the dying fire, and went to the door. And opened it.

The snow tiger stood before him, a fierce storm howling all around it. Leg bleeding and weak from hunger, it remained motionless. But still it stood, and wanted to come in.

'What is it?' asked his lover, peering out from the canopy of stone.

'A miracle,' he p.r.o.nounced, blinded by the water in his eyes and in his heart. 'The tiger has come back.' It lumbered in woozily, and he closed the door behind it.

Chapter 27

Thus began a period of relative calm for the reshaped company. Slowly the tiger's wounds healed, and slowly, as he became wiser and more proficient at setting them, Kalus' traps became more productive. The reserves were emptied and there was never much to spare. Their existence was strictly one day at a time, and face tomorrow when it comes. But what was absolutely needed, the bare-bone necessities, were through constant effort and exertion, one way or another obtained.

And though Winter was hardly on the wane, neither could it increase or outdo the storms it had already hurled against them. The fortress they had made of Skither's cave, as well as the yet dearer fortresses of mind and body, continued to withstand and endure. And their collective will remained unvanquished.

And in late afternoons and evenings, when the day's work was done and nothing more could be bought by their labors, there was time for reading, conversation and quiet thought. The tiger, once it learned it was free to do so, often went out into the night, if only to rest just beyond the safety of the lair; and this, along with Akar's absence, left a natural void which must be filled with more human pursuits. Even the cub would turn peaceful, either tired out by the day's doings, or engaged in some quiet pursuit of its own, chewing at a bone or piece of leather, or simply working out in dream the wonders and perils of its world.

For Sylviana it was both comforting and painful to recall herself through books, and to reveal to Kalus for the first time, the beauty and torment of Man's elevated walk upon the Earth. That it should now be all but extinguished was to her an unspeakable and inexpressible tragedy. Yet she had learned from Ursula LeGuin years before (though at the time she had not understood it), that the only way to deal with the horror of a shattered past was to face it, and call it by its true name.

And she told herself that in her heart, if nowhere else, lived the memory of much that was n.o.ble and good.

For Kalus the various narratives, histories and philosophies, continued to open a whole new world before him. And though it was at times a pleasant and enlightening escape, on the whole his reactions to modern society were not unlike the woman's first impressions of the violent world outside their door. It held wonders, yes, and on occasion, profound beauty and wisdom. But the accounts of civil war, totalitarian regimes, torture, famine, real and effectual slavery, environmental pollution and industrial greed, excited in him the same horror that the imagined swarm of giant ants had once roused in Sylviana.

Sometimes these responses troubled her, and she felt called upon to correct his deficiencies in perspective and defend her race. But at other times his naive and disbelieving comments cut frighteningly close to the truth. He accepted and took for granted none of the vast pretenses and self-important doctrines in which humanity clothed itself, and was therefore able to see a larger picture, or certainly a different one, than that which she was accustomed to.

For to him Man was not the only, or even the most important species on the planet, let alone the center of the Universe, and sole concern of the Nameless. It was perhaps for this reason that he had not been shocked when Sylviana told him that the Earth revolved around the Sun, and not the other way around, or that the stars were themselves suns, parenting similar worlds of their own. To him Man was not the separate creation of a G.o.d unhappy or impatient with Nature. To his mind, if she understood him correctly, evolution was quite miraculous enough, and brought him closer to, rather than farther from, believing in a Universal being. And he a.s.sured her that nearly every animal was capable of some measure of thought and feeling, as real and meaningful to its existence, as the painful dreams and aspirations of men.

At first he offered few opinions of his own, only gut-level reactions when they would not be silenced, which the woman-child must then decipher on her own. Not only did he feel unqualified to do so---the very word ?philosophy' intimidated him, seeming a thing reserved for larger and more important persons---but also, some other sense told him that it was unwise to speak or pa.s.s judgment upon things he did not fully understand.

But after a time, having whole days to mull over what he had learned (when hunting, trapping and working did not require his full attention), he began to speak and question at a level which surprised her. Not only would she have believed him incapable of such subtle thought and inquiry, but she had always a.s.sumed that he would consider such pursuits frivolous, and beside the immediate point of survival. Such was not the case. His mind and spirit hungered, just as the body did, to be nourished and fulfilled. And in some ways this spiritual hunger was more acute, since it had been so long denied.

His two favorite writer/philosophers, to judge by the number of times he asked her to read them, were Ernest Hemingway and Lao Tsu. And this apparent contradiction puzzled her. She could not imagine two more directly opposed outlooks, or approaches to life. But when she asked him about this, he answered more simply and clearly than she would have believed possible. It was a cold night, but warm beside the fire, somewhere near the apex of winter. Even the tiger remained indoors, sleeping in its accustomed place just inside the barrier. The cub rested quietly beside the man-child, while he gently stroked her chest and side. Life was all around him, and he felt it deeply.

'I think that the two ways, if I can call them that, are just the two sides of a man's life: like day and night, summer and winter. They both spring from the fountainhead of Life, both are necessary; they only seem different, as Lao Tsu said. He understood the need to yield to Nature, and Hemingway the need to fight back. They make me think of Skither and Barabbas. There are times when one is right, and times when the other---'

'To everything there is a season,' she broke in suddenly, understanding and taken back by the apparent ease with which he had arrived at one of man's profoundest insights. 'And a time to every purpose under Heaven.'

Upon hearing this he became so animated, and insisted so fervently that she read to him the entire pa.s.sage from which this was taken, that despite misgivings she brought out a tattered Gideon's Bible and read to him the verses from Ecclesiastes.

'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.'

Kalus was awe-struck. 'Are all the things in that book as true and wise?' he asked. 'Who is its author?'

This was exactly what she feared. More than one newly opened and vulnerable heart had fallen into the trap of blind acceptance of this, and other religious works. Whether Christianity was the true faith or not, whether one true faith existed, was not the point. The religious doctrines of humanity were simply too broad and powerful to impart to one in his position: sensitive, struggling and searching. And in this she showed wisdom or her own.

'I'm afraid not, Kalus. And it doesn't have one author, it has many. There are people who believed everything in it to be the truth, suppressing all other voices, even to the point of overriding their own experience and common sense. But I'm not one of them.'

'There are really people who would do that? Contradict the lessons that Nature has taught them? I don't understand.'

'That's because you don't know what was at stake to them, or how deep such feelings run.'

'What do you mean?'

'I'm afraid I can't say it in just a few words, and I don't want to try. If you really want to learn about different religions, I'll teach you what I can. But it really should be done slowly. Or you could be hurt.' She spoke now from first-hand experience.

He was silent for a time, his thought roused and his curiosity almost unbearable. But he too had learned caution, and he respected her judgment. One last question.

'Can you tell me one thing at least? How could any book make a man not listen to his heart?'

She took a deep breath. 'Well. What if I told you that you could live forever, and never be separated from the ones you love.

Wouldn't that make you willing to listen, and learn how if you could?'

'Of course! But no one lives forever..... DO THEY?' The gleam in his eyes was unmistakable.

'No one knows, Kalus. And that's why men cling to religion.

That, and the desire to do good. But that's enough for tonight, really. All right?'

At first her words had no effect, then. 'Yes,' he answered absently. For his mind was submerged in questions that had drowned far more learned souls than his.