He went to the basin, and as the water splashed across him, felt both body and spirit cleansed. From here forward, he vowed, he would choose life over spiritual death, love over fear. This life was the only one he knew, his mind and heart the only guides he would ever have in it. And as he half-tearfully dried himself, he felt moved as he rarely had been. He went down on his knees, clutched his hands before him, and said to the nameless God.
'Thank you for my life.'
Again the two made love, and for Kalus the beauty and release were no less than on their first such communion. Sylviana knew only warmth and pleasure and affection, and as she drew him near, rejoiced to feel the life and strength that were in him, even now.
And in the heart and essence of their love, was the essence of true God: the Universal, and unnamable spirit within all Life.
Chapter 29
The tiger padded silently through the forest, eyes and ears keen for any sign of game. The hunger in his stomach drove him, as well as the hunger of his heart. His hind leg, he knew, was not up to an extended chase. But stalk he could, and hunt he must. The man-child fed him and gave him shelter, but more and more his restlessness grew. For he was a creature of the wild forests, and he heard their primal call. Even now, amidst the cover of thickening pine and mottled oak, he felt yet too exposed, and longed to plunge into some limitless wood where clearing and field were the exception, and not the rule. Such a place had once been his home, and must be again.
A black bear he had already passed, but this was neither prey nor foe. If it had confronted him he would have fought it, and almost surely have won. Yet he was glad when it saw him coming and moved away. This forest was not his: there was no need to stake a claim. And seeing it he recalled his fight with the grizzly, when in youthful ignorance he had stood his ground against a more powerful foe, then been a step too slow, or too proud, in retreating.
It had nearly cost him his life, as wounded and almost lame he had been pursued by the raging beast for miles on end. In his crippled state he could barely keep ahead of it, and this seemed to goad it on. Till at last he gained an unknown, freezing river and half stumbled, half swam his way across it. Even now the sounds of cracking ice, the final break and splash into the death-like waters, swimming desperately, clawing out again and scrambling forward….. Without his broad, padded feet to spread his weight upon the ice, without his clinging claws, alive with the frightened desire of youth, he would surely have perished.
But now that the brush with death was past, he was not afraid. Those who learned fear from such a trial quickly lost the will they needed to live. Those who learned caution and still greater determination, these were the hunters, the great cats who survived.
Coming to the crest of a long hill, he looked down upon a gentle valley, at the center of which lay a clearing along both sides of a swirling stream. Just at the edge of it on the far shore, beyond which the forests rose once more to dominate, stood a tall buck and his troop, three females and their half-grown young. Engaged in eating bark and pawing through the snow for saplings, at that distance and with their eyes they could not have seen him.