Jytte slid down the ice spine onto the slope of the volcano. Safe at last. Stellan cried out with happiness and swept her into his arms. Third clung to her knees, his face wet with tears. They stood back to look at one another and stared gasping in disbelief. The agony of separation was over. They pawed one another’s fur as if to confirm that this was real, that these were not apparitions. That they were together again.
“Uluk Uluk betrayed us,” Jytte said, her voice ragged. “Uluk Uluk drove us toward the Roguers. Look at this place—volcanoes. It’s far from the sea. Why would our father be hunting here?” She paused and inhaled deeply, trying to catch her breath. “And that!” Jytte said, pointing to the Ice Clock, which was clearly visible now. “That is an evil place. I’m sure of it.”
They looked up at the monster clock that radiated a brutal glittering light, a fiendish wrath, as if it were waiting to devour the world.
The cubs breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the first signs of trees. They were rather small, wispy things, but they meant the cubs were approaching the tree line and heading south.
But for Third, the relief did not last long. As soon as they began winding their way through a thin forest with stunted trees, he felt a sickening apprehension. He said nothing at first, though Stellan sensed Third’s anxiety. Silence fell upon all of them as a vaporous mist began to swirl through the dwarf trees.
“Are these really trees?” Stellan asked. “Remember that tree Mum showed us? It was huge. These look more like weeds.”
“And these don’t have bark. Their trunks and branches look like bones,” Jytte replied. She reached out and touched the silvery-gray trunk of the closest tree. “Oh, Ursus, like gillys! It’s a gillygaskin forest.”
Third looked around. “Hush!” he whispered.
Stellan and Jytte stopped abruptly. The little cub sensed things the other two never could, not even with their gifts of being an ice gazer and a riddler.
“What’s wrong?” Stellan asked.
“Something is following us,” Third replied.
“A Roguer?” Jytte asked, and tried to block the image of that net printed against the sky.
“No … It’s a different sound.” Stellan and Jytte both cocked their heads. “It moves much differently from any bear.”
“A wolf?” Jytte asked nervously.
“No. Bigger but quiet, sly.”
Jytte and Stellan exchanged glances. They were not relieved.
The three cubs continued haltingly, pausing every time Third stopped to look around.
“I hear it and then I don’t. It moves when we’re moving and stays still when we are still. It’s as if a shadow is following us.”
A shadow? Jytte thought. This isn’t good. Are we being stalked? Perhaps it was Uluk Uluk himself. Jytte felt a flash of fear and turned to Stellan. She was about to speak the terrible bear’s name, but she dared not. To name him was to make him come to life here in this gillygaskin forest.
They continued on for a good stretch before Third paused again. “I think it’s stopped following us,” he said tentatively.
“Look, a sign,” Jytte whispered. It was propped against a large pile of brush. “Syvert Hansen’s Dry Goods, since 1862.”
Third scampered closer. “Syvert. Is that close to your father’s name?”
“You mean Svern. Yes, he—”
“Hello there,” a deep but calm voice interrupted. It was unlike any voice they had ever heard. Not bear. Not seal. Not wolf. The three cubs stopped in their tracks.
A creature stepped forward from behind the brush pile. He was lithe and moved with an ineffably supple grace. His fur sheathed him in a frosty radiance of silver and mystery.
“I am Skagen. You have never seen my like?”
“Never!” Stellan finally managed.
The cubs could have never even imagined such an animal. He was solidly build but seemed to flow like water over the ground. His eyes were a strange, luminous green with flecks of gold. “I am a snow leopard.”
The cubs were mesmerized as they watched the creature draw closer. He fixed the three cubs in the blue-green light of his tilting eyes.
“Follow me,” Skagen said, and then with his mouth he pulled away a rusted sheet of metal, then kicked aside some boards.
But the cubs stood rooted to the ground. They had been deceived once. Why should they trust this snow leopard? They looked at one another desperately. Each had the same thought. Behind them were the Roguers. Ahead of them was this unimaginable creature. He was certainly as frightening as any Roguer. Muscles rippled beneath his sleek pelt. His fangs were long and sharp as any bear’s.
“Come. You’ll be Roguer bait out here. They’ll never find you if you follow me.”
“It’s a trick,” Jytte cautioned the other cubs hoarsely.
“A trick? If I wanted to kill you, I could do it right here. Now come along. Follow me. Concealment is crucial. Kindly pass ahead and stop at the first kapunquat.”
Jytte looked at Stellan as if to say, Should we? Stellan tipped his head and nodded almost imperceptibly, but she saw assurance in his eyes.
They followed Skagen. The cave was combed with ice spears that glittered and reflected different colors as light seeped in from some invisible source. The path twisted and sometimes dipped steeply, then would begin to rise again. At times there were spaces that opened up off the narrow path into coves that pooled with water. But there were also overhangs that nearly obscured the cave’s ceiling. It was a curious place indeed, with crystal formations that often towered over them, and despite the dimness it seemed to glow as if it had captured its own sun. It wasn’t quite night or full day. They felt as if they had entered a different world. The cubs followed, mesmerized by the rhythmic sway of the snow leopard’s tail and the sleek elegance of his motions.
Third said quietly, “I dreamed of this place a few days before we climbed out at Oddsvall. I didn’t know what it was then. And now … now I do.”
“What is it?” Stellan asked.
“The Cave of Lost Time,” Third whispered.
“Not exactly,” the snow leopard said, twisting his head around to look at them.
“What, then?” Third asked.
“You’re a bold cub for one so small.” Skagen stopped and turned about.
Third wrinkled his brow. He knew he was much smaller than Jytte and Stellan, but it seemed unnecessary to comment on it.
“Sorry,” the snow leopard replied. “Size has nothing to do with it.” Third nodded. “But to answer your question, time cannot be lost. It can be unaccounted for, but not really lost. And of all places to call lost or to associate with lost time, this is the last one. For indeed time has been found here. This, young’uns, is the Cave of Svree.”
“Svree?” Jytte repeated, as the word echoed as if from afar. That a creature who was not a bear should speak it seemed strange and yet wonderful.
“Who is Svree?” Third asked.
Svree. Jytte and Stellan looked at each other as the meaning of that name burned brightly in their minds. They remembered what their mum had told them, that the pointer star in the paw of the constellation shared the same name as their great-great-grandfather Svree.
“He was a bear of Nunquivik like yourselves,” Skagen said. “And he wanted to stop the murder of innocents.”
Stellan shivered as he saw what was in Skagen’s mind—cubs. Cubs that were bleeding and mangled and missing paws and legs. Cubs that were dying on a wheel spiked with teeth.
“They call them Tick Tocks,” Skagen continued quietly.
“I saw them!” Third squealed in horror. “I saw them in Taaka’s dreams. Tick Tocks. I was to be a Tick Tock.”
“Aaah!” The sound rumbled up from deep within the snow leopard. “So you have the hidden eye, cub!” He paused. “Or perhaps the dream eye, and some might call it the third eye.”
Jytte glared at Skagen. “Don’t try to flatter us. That’s what Uluk Uluk did. He told us we were special. We’re not
going to fall for that again.”
The snow leopard stared at her, a sudden flash of anger illuminating his green eyes. “You know Uluk Uluk?”
Stellan nodded, recoiling slightly at Skagen’s expression. “He told us he would help us find our father. But instead, he sent us far off course. That’s how the Roguers almost captured us.”
Skagen sighed, his eyes softening. “You are right about Uluk Uluk. You were merely his tool. Nothing more. He cared not a whit about you finding your mum or your father. He is not evil, but he has no heart left. It was shattered many years ago.”
The passageways became more tangled as they followed Skagen. The strange frost spears, kapunquats, descended from the ceiling and erupted from the floor.
“How do you know Uluk Uluk?” Jytte asked, her mind whirling with questions.
“Let’s wait until we’re all the way inside,” Skagen said. “Voices carry in this cave, and we don’t know who might be lingering outside.” He pointed toward a narrow passageway. Those are heligs, which means ‘death air.’ Very dangerous. Avoid them. The strange thing is that close to the heligs are tunnels with clear air. If you can get to a clear air passage quickly, you can recover.”
The three cubs followed silently. The cave contained a wondrous and mystical world. The crystal formations cast a radiance of colors—some shimmered quietly, some glowed, and some burst with vigor. It felt as if the dancing lights of the ahalikki had flowed from the sky deep into the earth.
They descended a series of polished white steps that led to an immense space. At one end they saw an ice bridge suspended over a pool. There was a familiar soft jingling sound. Dripping from the ceiling were clusters of very slender kapunquats. Their reflections stippled the water of the pool. But also reflected in the mirror of water were shapes they had seen before, the source of the jingling.
“Gears,” Stellan whispered. “This is like Uluk Uluk’s cell six, but much bigger.”
“Indeed.” Skagen stepped onto the ice bridge and looked down on them from above. “The escapement wheel—the beating heart of every clock. The one that too many cubs have died on. Too many Tick Tocks.”
Third began to tremble and pressed against Stellan’s leg.
The clock pieces quivered in the windless space, twinkling between the threads of the glowing worms. The snow leopard descended from the ice bridge, his shadow undulating across the spears he called kapunquats.
“Tell me how you encountered Uluk Uluk, and I’ll tell you all I know as well.” Jytte and Stellan exchanged a nervous glance. Something told them they could trust this creature, but they’d been betrayed so many times before. Stellan cleared his throat and told Skagen about their mum, how’d she left them with Taaka to go to the Den of Forever Frost. Then Jytte cut in and explained what happened with Uluk Uluk, how his directions had led them to the terrifying place where the Roguers lurked.
Skagen was silent for a long time before he spoke. “I think Uluk Uluk believed that you, Jytte and Stellan, have a gift. He sent you in the wrong direction for a good cause. He wanted you to break the clock and save the Tick Tocks from the tyranny of the Timekeepers. But it’s not worth risking your lives for such a difficult, dangerous mission. At least, I don’t think so. There is a better way.”
“But why has this happened? Why are they doing this to those poor cubs?” Stellan asked.
“A long time ago, the good bear Svree, that some called the Thief of Time, began his life’s work right here in this cave. Svree’s work was the creation of the Ice Clock. A clock that would help us calculate the next Great Melting, the greatest disaster of the Long Ago. Little would he dream that a worse disaster was coming, when bears would begin to sacrifice their own.”
“Svree! That’s our ancestor!” Jytte cut in.
Skagen gave her a strange look. “Indeed? What is your mother’s name, cub?”
“Our mother is Svenna and our father is Svern.”
“Svern … ,” Skagen whispered.
“It is!” Jytte said forcefully.
“Is … is something wrong?” Stellan asked.
“No … ,” Skagen said hoarsely. “Nothing … I just never … never … ”
“Never what?” asked Jytte.
The snow leopard shook his head as if to rid himself of whatever thoughts were troubling him. “As I was saying, years later, the bears of the Ice Cap began to ask things of the clock that were beyond its power. They could not accept that such a grand mechanical creation couldn’t answer all their questions, solve all their problems, and dispel all of their fears. The Timekeepers became superstitious and began to worry that they had wronged the clock in some way. So they started to worship the clock like a god. A false god. They thought this false god demanded sacrifice and tribute. And then and only then would it disclose the secrets it had kept from them. It is curious, but some creatures need their devils as much as their gods. Know this, cub.” The green light in his eyes glowed fiercely. “The divine and the evil often den together. Yes, strange denmates, but nonetheless they have a peculiar attraction for each other.”
“You see, cubs”—he looked at Stellan and Jytte as he spoke—“it is my belief that the Roguers took your mum.” Jytte let out a gasp, but Stellan merely stared straight ahead. He realized that ever since he saw those Roguers at the ice spine, that notion had been buried deep in his mind. “She went in your place. That happens sometimes, especially if the mother is smart, as I’m sure your mother is.”
“Did they make her a Tick Tock?” The words seemed to almost strangle Jytte as she spoke. Terror filled her eyes. Stellan reached out and clutched her paw.
“Oh no, only cubs. They most likely put her to work as a numerator.”
“Would that be safe?” Stellan asked.
“No one is ever safe at the Ice Cap,” Skagen said grimly.
Stellan gripped Jytte’s paw tighter.
“How can we save her? Free her?” Stellan asked.
“You can’t free her until you save your own kind.” Skagen paused. “In order to save the bear world, you must break the clock. And to do this, you must find your father, Svern.”
The cubs stared at Skagen, dumbstruck. “Our father?” Jytte repeated hoarsely. “What does he have to do with the clock?”
“Everything!” Skagen replied. “You see, your father saw what was happening to the bear world. He attempted to end the tyranny of the clock, of the Timekeepers. He nearly succeeded in destroying the clock but was almost caught and had to flee to the Den of Forever Frost.”
“But our mum said he went north to hunt. She would have never lied to us,” Stellan said.
“I’m sure she didn’t. He might have told her that was his reason for heading north.”
“But it wasn’t?” Jytte asked weakly.
“No; you see, your father was the leader of the rebellion. Although the Bear Council had long been disbanded, a group of brave bears took it upon themselves to stand up to the Timekeepers, to demand that they release the Tick Tocks and the other captive creatures. When the Timekeepers refused, your father decided he had to break the clock, to prove it was only a false god. He sneaked into the Ice Cap undercover and nearly succeeded, but he was betrayed. He had to flee. He barely escaped with his life.”
“How do you know all this?” Jytte asked, narrowing her eyes.
“Because I too was part of the rebellion,” Skagen said, raising his chin. “Although I am a snow leopard, I was proud to fight for such a noble cause.”
“So you know our father? You know where to find him?” Jytte asked eagerly.
Skagen shook his head as the fierce light in his eyes dimmed slightly. “I knew him. I was honored to fight alongside him. But I haven’t seen him since he fled somewhere near the Den of Forever Frost. No one has seen him.”
“Is … is he okay? Is he hurt?” Stellan asked, afraid to look at his sister.
“I’m not sure. All I know is that, without him, the rebellion stands no chance. We need your father. And y
ou, cubs, have to be the ones to find him.”
“Us?” Jytte and Stellan exchanged startled looks.
“Yes. Only you, his cubs, can convince him to rejoin the fight.”
“But you’ll help us get there, right?” Stellan asked. He and Jytte had barely survived their journey from Nunquivik. How could they possibly go so much farther on their own?
He shook his head. “Only bears can enter the Den of Forever Frost. It would violate the long-standing treaty between the bears and the snow leopards, if I came with you. But I will give you a map to help you on your journey.”
“Teach us, then, Skagen,” Jytte said. “Teach us how to read the map so we can find the Den of Forever Frost and our father.”
“Come this way.”
They followed him to a long ice slab where maps had already been spread. “I had some visitors a few days ago. Bears who’ve been looking for your father. But I haven’t heard a word from them. It’s possible they were captured by the enemy.”
Skagen unfurled another map, this one very ancient in appearance. He anchored it with a small rock at each corner. “This is Ga’Hoole.” He pointed with a claw to a vast region that almost encircled a sea. “This land north of Ga’Hoole is the Northern Kingdoms. It used to be called the N’yrthghar in ancient times. The time of your ancestor Svree. You see how these kingdoms were separated from Ga’Hoole proper by straits—the ice narrows that run between the Sea of Hoolemere and that known as the Everwinter Sea. That is where the bear kingdoms of Ga’Hoole are.”