Shadows

by Ken Altabef

  “It’s true,” said Nuralak, “As far as I know. Even an arrow fired at them may change its course.” He fingered the white fringe of beard along his jaw line. His eyes reflected the rising arctic sun with an orange glow, set deep in his weathered face. “It’s no easy thing to kill a shaman. And dangerous to try.”

  Aquppak surveyed the waking Anatatook camp. From where they sat in front of Nuralak’s tent they could see down the long line of skin-houses that fringed the lake. He lowered his voice to a sullen whisper. “She won’t let us deal with the kabloonas. She wants to be rid of them. But there’s so much they can give us. They have all sorts of things we can use. Like the guns. And all they want for it is a few furs and fox pelts.”

  “Tugtutsiak always kept them away.”

  “He was afraid of them. But did he ever take the time to meet them, like I have? Did he ever bring them among us so that we could look at them with a close eye?”

  Nuralak shook his head.

  “They’re just like us, even if they look a little different. They’re just men. Even weaker than us. You’ve seen them — all they do is complain about the cold and worry over the condition of their toes. They sleep so soundly in my tent, I could slit their throats right now if I wanted. But it’s hardly worth the trouble. And they’re stupid too. They’ll give us everything they have, just for a few furs they might easily get themselves, if they only knew how to hunt.”

  “And then there’s the shaman.”

  “She stands in the way,” said Aquppak. Though he and Alaana had been childhood friends, a wedge had been thrust between them when Ben came to the village. The strange black man had considerable charm and Alaana had fallen under his spell. Aquppak had proposed marriage in a bid to draw Alaana to his side and consolidate his power with her own. But she had spurned him for the other, a slight he could never forgive. Aquppak had been forced to settle for Ivalu. But now he was the headman and things had changed. He saw the trouble that had recently come between Alaana and her husband, the shaman’s growing weakness. He might finally take what he had long desired.

  Now he needed her allegiance even more than before. The whaling families were the most traditional. Talliituk, Kigiuna and Maguan, they all resisted his plans. They might even oppose him with force. But Alaana had a lot of influence with them. Maybe he could still turn her to his cause. If not…

  “Maybe Alaana can turn aside a spear or an arrow,” mused Aquppak, “But she can’t stop the bullets. The bullets have no soul with which to barter or plead.”

  Nuralak made an uncertain noise. “A shaman is not so easy to kill. I once heard of a shaman in the south country. Someone had the idea to shoot him dead, but it was not so simple. You see, this shaman carried a small hole in the center of his chest. He was afraid of nothing.

  “This shaman once had an argument with a man named Kaormik, who was born among the Tanaina but cast out for having a rotten temper. My father knew his father. This is a true story. Kaormik was not the type to bear an insult from anyone, not even the shaman. He had a gun, smaller than that one you have, the type a man can hold with one hand.”

  “A pistol, they call it,” said Aquppak.

  “A pistol,” said Nuralak, tasting the word. “It doesn’t matter what you call it. Kaormik pointed his gun at the shaman. The shaman just laughed. He stepped forward, coming even closer. Kaormik held the gun up. They were standing so close he couldn’t possibly have missed even with the way his hand was shaking.

  “ ‘Do it!’ shouted the shaman boldly, ‘Kill me if you can!’

  “Kaormik was clever. He aimed his gun at the shaman’s head. With a loud clap the weapon fired. Kaormik could not have missed — they stood only a few paces apart and in fact everyone saw the tent pole behind the shaman where it was blown apart by the ball.”

  Nuralak shook his head coyly. “Again the shaman laughed. The ball had gone right through. You see, he could move that little hole around, that shaman, sending it to any part of his body he wished. There’s no way to shoot a man like that.”

  Aquppak snickered, “That’s just a story.”

  “Is it?” Nuralak regarded Aquppak with wide eyes, blazing with the sunrise. “Only a shaman can kill another shaman. And besides, even if an ordinary man could kill a shaman they don’t stay dead. Within a few days he returns to life and, you can be sure, he takes bloody revenge on the one who laid him low.”

  “Pfft! Now that, I know, is just a story.” Aquppak spoke boldly. He had never known any shaman killed by an ordinary man, nor if any had ever returned.

  “That trick with the little hole,” he said. “Do you think Alaana knows that trick?”

  Ben woke with a start. A familiar stab of misery followed. Morning after morning it was the same. He woke to the memory that his child was gone. But today, he thought, things would be different. Today there was hope.

  He had laid awake most of the night in anticipation, wanting to be ready at first light.

  Kinak still snuggled warmly beside him. Setting the boy aside Ben realized how cold it felt in the tent. Alaana had already gone, taking her warmth from the platform. He sat up and looked around.

  Noona looked back.

  “Oh, Noona! You’re awake.” Ben felt another chill. He glanced quickly down as if he’d been caught out at something devious. “Where’s your mother?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Good, he thought. Half of his worry the night before had been in wondering how he might avoid his wife in the morning.

  “Look,” said Noona, “I made the Two Brown Bears.” The girl held up her hands, fingers entwined in an intricate pattern of fishing line. She was quite fond of the game of ipiitaq aularuq, the string dancing.

  “That’s very good Noona, but we’ve work to do. Clean up this mess while I fix some tea and warm up a little soup.” Ben indicated the debris that lay strewn along the floor of the tent. He shrugged on his undershirt and calveskin pants. Still feeling a chill, he put on his winter parka.

  His daughter continued making the string dance.

  “Noona,” he said firmly, “I asked you to put this mess away.”

  Ben brought out the uqsuutaattiaq, a seal flipper skin which contained fuel for the lamps. The seal oil was thick and half-frozen and he warmed the container against his belly for a few moments.

  “You eat,” he said flatly. “I’m going out for a walk.”

  He poured the seal oil into the base of the lamp. The flame burned only narrowly, and Ben adjusted the little stick that regulated the flow. It flared in response and he put up the water for tea.

  “Can’t we come with you?” asked Noona.

  “No. It’s getting too cold.”

  “Not cold enough to stay inside.”

  Ben filled a cooking pot with water from the slush basin, then heaped in the frozen fish slop, caribou meat and tallow.

  “Maybe you can help your aunt Agruta sewing the skins.”

  “The children are going to play at sleds.”

  “Then play,” Ben said. “But take Kinak with you. Keep an eye on him. Don’t let him get too near the lake.”

  Ben gave the soup a taste. Its warmth felt good, but he had no appetite for more than a sip.

  “There’s plenty of soup,” he said. “And don’t forget to trim the lamp when you go out.”

  Alaana shivered. The morning air carried an unusual chill. Tiny snowflakes drifted in from the north, so small they seemed to be forming and dissolving right before her eyes. The surface of the lake had frozen nearly solid in a single night, creating a grainy-faced mirror. Her image was there, broken into so many little pieces, straining for the shore then pulled away again as the shattered ice bobbed and shifted.

  Higilak pulled her parka close. She sighed, the frosted air trailing away from her mouth as she turned her head from the view of the lake to face the woman who stood beside her.

  “He has lost a child. His heart is broken.”

  “I know,” replied Alaana, “How do I
mend it?”

  “With little touches and long, tender looks.”

  “But he pulls away…”

  The old woman frowned. “Now, that is a problem.”

  “He blames me. I’ve lost him.”

  Higilak hissed out a narrow puff of steam. “You blame yourself.”

  “I do.”

  “It’s not your fault. Remember the things Old Manatook taught you. You can’t compel others to action, you may only advise them. They make their own choices. You can’t force them — that is the way of the sorcerer. If they disregard your advice the fault is not always your own.”

  Alaana shook her head. “My daughter was taken from me–”

  “Because of Tugtutsiak’s mistake. You suffer for it, yes. You suffer for it, but it is not your fault. You are like a bird on broken wing. You want to know how to help your husband? Mend yourself!”

  Alaana smarted under the rebuke. Higilak was right, of course. But what she asked seemed impossible.

  The tortured lake sent a wave lapping toward them. As they watched, the crest of water crystallized in the air before it could smack the frozen shore.

  “The aching in my bones speaks to me of an early winter,” said Higilak. “There is a storm coming.”

  “I think your bones could be mistaken,” replied Alaana. She pointed toward the peaks to the south. “I don’t see any wind stirring up the snowcap on the mountains, and storms always come from the south this time of year.”

  “And still it comes. A fey wind, I fear. There is trouble coming, Alaana. There is something behind it all. Something… I can’t puzzle it out. But I do know we are going to need you. More than ever. Old Manatook put his faith in you. Don’t disappoint him.”

  “Did he put as much faith in you? Tell you everything?”

  “He kept his secrets.”

  Yes, thought Alaana, he certainly had. Old Manatook had been married to Higilak for longer than anyone could remember and in all that time he had never revealed to her that he was not a man at all, but a polar bear shaman wearing the skin of a human being as a cloak. He went to his grave with that one. A secret that had almost cost Higilak her life at the hands of a revengeful ghost.

  Higilak seemed to know what Alaana was thinking. “I was the shaman’s wife, I was used to Old Manatook keeping secrets.”

  “But you kept nothing from him?”

  “Nothing,” she said flatly. “It would have been dangerous.”

  “That’s my point. Ben is keeping things from me. He has too many secrets. It’s like poison.”

  “Not always,” said the old woman. “As the shaman, you don’t tell him everything.”

  “He doesn’t want to know. He’s wary of the spirits and mindful of the danger. As he should be.”

  “So you keep him in the dark to protect him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could he be doing the same? Trying to protect you? He loves you, Alaana.”

  “I know. I don’t doubt that. I can see it in his soul.”

  “How convenient,” muttered Higilak. “And yet when he’s able to keep things from you, you don’t like it.”

  “You said it yourself, Old Mother. That’s dangerous. How can I protect him if I don’t know what’s happening? What could he be keeping from me?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The frozen lake pushed forward, making an eerie crackling sound as the little plates of ice tightened against each other.

  “There are times,” Alaana said, “when I can see people in their dreams. The dream world isn’t that far removed from this one — it’s bridged by every sleeping soul who wonders what may be, or longs for what might have been. Sometimes now, when Ben lies asleep, I can’t see his soul in the dreamlands.”

  “Ahh,” remarked Higilak. “What you don’t see can tell you something. Where can his spirit go walking, that you don’t see?”

  A veil was pulled from Alaana’s eyes. She’d been so stupid. “The seventh world, the one that is always in the dark,” she said. “The hidden world.”

  Higilak’s face soured. “Hmmm. Dangerous. That same thought gnaws on me as well. No one can see into the shadow lands.”

  “Old Manatook didn’t speak of that world very often,” said Alaana. “What do you know about it? What did he tell you?”

  “That it is a place of misery and desolation. How can it be otherwise?”

  “I don’t know how to travel there,” Alaana pointed out. “He didn’t show me.”

  “There wasn’t enough time and more important lessons for you to learn I suppose. Maybe you can ask someone else,” suggested Higilak. “One can not hunt whale all alone, you know.”

  Alaana sighed. The old woman was always right. “But there are so few shamans about. Much less than the old days. The Anatatook used to have three when I was a child.”

  “I remember,” snapped Higilak. One of the three had been her husband.

  Alaana wanted to tell her that she missed the old man still, but knew it wasn’t necessary. “And now there’s just me,” she said. “A poor excuse for a shaman at that.”

  Higilak groaned. “Old women do not waste their words idly. Why do mine so often fall on deaf ears?” To illustrate her point she made to tweak Alaana’s earlobe but, finding it missing, drew her hand back. “Deaf ear,” she corrected herself. “You have only one, but that’s still no excuse.”

  “Maybe when the freeze comes again I’ll journey south and ask Klah Kritlaq about it. And what about my husband until then?” Alaana kicked a small chunk of ice toward the lake. It skittered in a rough tumble across the newly frozen surface. “I fear I’m losing him. He’s closed himself to me. He listens to you, Old Mother. Can’t you talk to him?”

  “That I can do.”

  CHAPTER 28

  THE OTHER SIDE

  Ben slipped quietly behind the row of tents. He noticed Alaana standing at the shoreline with Higilak. Most of the women were already gathered in a gossip circle working their skins. With summer gone and the men no longer out chasing caribou, this was the best time for mending clothes. To work the skins during a hunt was to risk grave offense to Tekkeitsertok, the guardian spirit of the hoofed creatures.

  He hurried along the rear of the camp, not wanting to run into anyone and risk being drawn into polite conversation. He didn’t want to talk about the weather, or the quality of the lake fish, or Inaloo’s new baby, or anything at all. He had his own errands to tend to. He didn’t need anyone to see how his hands were shaking.

  As he crossed the lines of darkness thrown by the tents, the voices spoke again, fading in and out as he passed from shadow to light to shadow. The sorrowful wails had grown more insistent and direct. Now they seemed to be calling out to him by name. He couldn’t detect the measured tones of the Light-Bringer but that didn’t worry him. The Tunrit had made a promise to him, and he was certain he would abide by it.

  The vision of the Light-Bringer had fit the legends of the Tunrit exactly. A perfect vision of nobility, a sorrowful figure watching over the empty shadow lands. To the shadows, his name was only a distant whisper passed down and kept alive in the memory of old women. None had ever seen the Light-Bringer. Ben was lucky he had concerned himself with the safety of his daughter. And those eyes. Those bright silver eyes.

  Was that how people had looked in the time before the dawn? He wished he could talk about this with someone else. But not Alaana. His secrets must be kept, even from her. Possibly he might speak of it with Higilak, who had been a shaman’s wife. Did Higilak know she had her own living shadow? Did the old woman feel its suffering or hear its forlorn voice, whispering to her from one step to the side?

  It didn’t matter. The important thing was Tamuanuaq. His poor dear Tama.

  Ben stopped behind the meat rack, now empty, where he wouldn’t be seen by anyone. The snow near the rack had been trampled often and the outline of his shadow was rough and irregular in the well-worn tracks. He stared into the darkness, listening for his daughter’s
voice.

  Staring into the shadow, hope and anticipation raced within his heart. No, he told himself. You can’t get there like that. Not like that. Sadness was the doorway to shadow, not hope.

  He wasn’t a shaman who could leave his body to walk between the worlds on a whim. He didn’t really know anything about it at all. Nothing, except the sadness in his heart.

  The cries from the other side called to him louder than ever. Many voices, but not her voice.

  “Tama.”

  Sitting cross-legged in the snow Ben leaned forward, bending over his shadow. He sifted through the desperate voices, measuring every whisper.

  They were so close. He only had to turn and step to the side. Tears came down, burning his eyelids and freezing his cheeks. He heard a soft weeping sound.

  “Oh, please,” he said.

  Amid the babble Ben heard a sigh. One small, terrible sigh. Her sigh.

  His mouth went dry; his heart sank as if melting into the earth. His soul plunged sideways.

  The shock of transition rocked him, bringing a startled gasp from his soul’s parched lips. A dizzying sense of disorientation. Crouched behind the empty meat rack, Ben reached for a whalebone strut to pull himself up. The structure melted in his hand like smoke. He fell backward.

  The shadows rustled.

  Unlike the darkness in the tent or iglu at night, his eyes could not become accustomed to this swirling gloom, this living darkness, so liquid and thick.

  He worried that the movements of the Anatatook might have taken him far from the shadow camp, and he might never find it in the darkness. Did the shadow camp follow them? So many unanswered questions. The idea sort of made sense, he thought, since a shadow must always lie at the feet of the one who casts it.

  Bracing his hands on his thighs, he stood up. He recoiled for a moment at sight of his hands. Though he wore a spirit-parka composed of oily black smoke, his exposed skin looked as dark as night itself. Not brown, like his normal skin, but inky black. He touched his face but could tell nothing. There were no mirrors in this place, no light to reflect. What did his shadow-soul look like? If Tama should see him like this…