The Tundra Shall Burn!

by Ken Altabef

  Kaokortok listened to Nunavik’s tale as he stuffed raw filets of tomcod into his mouth. Chewing, for him, was a particularly laborious process as more than half his teeth had gone missing over the years. Suddenly a light went on behind his one good eye, and he announced that he had an idea. “I can help you! I can help!” he said, as if he could hardly believe it himself. “I have the remedy to your problem. It’s true! I know a way to hide your soul, so that…” He looked far and wide and whispered her name as if almost expecting some great sea-slap of retribution, “…Sedna…will not be able to see it.”

  Nunavik held little faith in this ridiculous Tungus shaman, but would not say as much. “And just what is involved in this miracle cure?”

  “Certain sigils and signs known only to the Tungus, passed down to me from my father and his father’s father.” Kaokortok spoke so excitedly the fish eye popped right out of his head.

  Nunavik hoped that Kaokortok’s father’s father knew what he had been doing at least, for this stupid lout seemed to have no clue. But really, at this point he had nothing to lose.

  “Lay down and sit still,” directed the shaman. “I must carve the signs into your tusk.”

  With the belt knife dangling above him, held in the Tungus’ shaky hand, Nunavik wondered if Kaokortok considered himself clever in tricking his dinner to sit still for having its head cut off so that he might feast upon it.

  In the end, the one-eyed idiot had proved himself to be worth some little something after all, and the two of them had become friends. With the use of the sigils inscribed into his left tusk Nunavik was able to keep his soul there, temporarily hidden from Sedna’s prying eyes.

  “Just so long as you don’t go into sea water,” warned the shaman. “If you enter her domain, there’s no keeping it from her. She’ll see through that shabby disguise in an instant.”

  And so it had been a solitary existence for Nunavik from that point forward. He haunted the floes and the base of the mountains near the shore, eating only what mussels and shellfish he could catch in the tidal pools and the sea-greens the tides cast upon the rocks. He had no dealings with any other creatures of the sea and feared that, alone and perpetually exposed on the ice, the hunters would eventually catch him. He retreated into the depths of a musty cave near shore, a pathetic creature more monster than walrus, living out a solitary life in the darkness.

  And now it had come to this. Trapped within the spirit-tusk at the bottom of the sea. This was infinitely worse than the cave, as he was alone inside his soul, which appeared to him as a great white room devoid of any trappings whatsoever. He had no one to criticize or annoy, no one to pester except himself. It was intolerable. If this kept on much longer, there was no doubt he would soon go mad.

  CHAPTER 20

  VITHROK’S SHADOW

  Kigiuna squinted down at the bare kayak frame.

  “It looks alright,” he said, “but we’d better test the balance before we put the skins on. Help me get it into the water.”

  Ben glanced at the sunlight shimmering off the surface of the river and felt a shiver of apprehension. It was a very sunny day, and sunny days were worst of all. Too many shadows. Too many voices. Out in the open he felt relatively safe, but there was always a certain background muttering on sunny days wherever he went. He stood at the pointed prow and, taking the front of the boat with both hands, began dragging it into the river. Without its sealskin sheath the kayak was in no condition to float and the driftwood and willow frame was difficult to maneuver. Kigiuna strained at his end as he pushed it off the gravel beach.

  Waist-deep in the cold water, Ben shivered. “The lashings seem to be holding.”

  “I’m not worried about the knots,” said Kigiuna. “It’s the balance I’m not sure about.”

  Balance was critical. Once a hunter was seated within the small round opening of the skins he was at the mercy of his own construction. An unstable craft might well leave its pilot face-down in the water.

  Of course the expert on boat construction was Maguan but he had gone out scouting the herd, so Kigiuna had asked Ben to help. Wading deeper, Ben thought of the rivers of his youth in the Louisiana bayous. As a child of slaves he hadn’t had much time for frolic but there were a few afternoons when the older children had been sent looking for crawdads at the river. And there had been sweet, stolen moments full of splashing and swimming with the others. Warm, happy times.

  This was a bit different. This water would freeze your legs off, even in springtime. But at least there weren’t any gators.

  Kigiuna ran his palm along the length of the twenty-foot craft. “We’ll have to stand it up. That’s the only way to tell.”

  The two men struggled to haul the long craft upright in the water. One on each side, the boat was not easy to balance. Kigiuna clucked his tongue unhappily.

  The boat cast a tall shadow across the water. Long and dark. Voices, voices. They came from the other side, from the shadow world, a place of misery and darkness that lurked just behind every shadow in daytime. The voices called out to Ben, nagging at him. Help me, they begged. Help me.

  Ever since his traumatic experiences in the shadow world, his torture at the hands of Vithrok, they would not let him alone. Ben began to feel dizzy. He tried to look away from the shadow but it loomed so large in front of him, he couldn’t turn away. It seemed it might swallow him up. He didn’t want to go back. Not to that god-forsaken place. But it was pulling at him, the whispered voices insisting.

  The boat, forgotten, began to sway in Kigiuna’s grip.

  “Help me!” said Kigiuna. “Ben, what are you doing?”

  Ben looked up just in time to see the full length of the boat crashing down.

  “You’re supposed to be holding it!”

  Ben threw up his hands to block most of the weight but still suffered a blow to the head. He fell, his face full into the water. He couldn’t see anything but shadow. Had he fallen into the shadow of the boat? He was disoriented, swimming in blackness, the shadows screaming at him. Help, help. It was so cold and dark, just like the shadow world.

  “Help me!” he said. His panicked cry was nothing more than bubbles in cold water, a shout in darkness, muffled by the cold hand of the river. He felt water in his lungs. Coughing, sputtering, lost, alone. Helpless.

  He struck out. His fist collided with something wet and firm. A dull thunk.

  “Stop struggling,” said Kigiuna. “I’m trying to pulling you out.”

  Ben was no longer able to struggle. He floated in the darkness, the desperate laments of the shadows ringing in his ears. Calling him home.

  The gravel bit into his spine as Kigiuna lay him down on the beach. Still he could see nothing. Kigiuna pushed hard on his chest as he had been taught to do.

  Ben rolled over, spitting out water.

  He took a cold, juttery breath. The shadows were gone. Receding into the background noise, the rush of the water, the rasp of his tortured breath. Ben opened his eyes. Sunlight. Kigiuna.

  “What happened?” his father-by-marriage asked.

  “Lost my grip, that’s all.”

  Kigiuna knew he was lying, but he didn’t say anything. His blue eyes flashed for a moment and his jaw tightened. “All right. Rest here for a bit. I’ve got to go get the boat.”

  Ben forced a few deep breaths and coughed out the last of the water. If he hadn’t already been shivering from the chill he would have flushed with embarrassment. He didn’t like Kigiuna to see him this way. But there was nothing he could do about it. At these moments Ben truly felt like an outsider, a strange dark-skinned man who had come upon these people as a teen, battered and abused. Kigiuna had accepted him easily, possibly because he had faced derision in his own youth because of his blue eyes. But now Kigiuna knew that Ben was cursed. Everyone in the family knew. In the ten years since he had returned from the shadow world there had been far too many incidents like this one. If he hadn’t been the shaman’s husband, the Anatatook would surely have sent
him away.

  A bad luck, black man, Ben thought. That’s what I am.

  The Anatatook were no strangers to hardship. They suffered the harsh weather, lack of food and the cruel whims of the spirits. But they bore those burdens together, as a group, as one extended family. Ben had faced a different type of hardship, a misery borne of oppression. Humans had been his devils all his life. From the plantation owners in the States, to the arctic raiders who had abused him and his mother, to the wicked Yupikut shaman who had delighted in torturing him. Through Alaana he had finally learned to trust people again, and he’d found a certain peace among the Anatatook, even in this icy foreign land. Vithrok had destroyed all that, luring Ben into the shadow world in a plot to destroy his adopted people, his wife and his family. Alaana had rescued him again. She was always his savior. But it had been a long road, recovering from the traumas of the shadows, and their lingering voices tortured him still.

  He had reached a new accord with Alaana. He would not be used against her again. He told her everything. And she told him nothing. She kept her dealings with the spirit world close and secret. She never spoke about spirits, ghosts, devils. Or sorcerers. But he knew. He knew more about Vithrok than anyone; he had seen that hideous mask, those smoldering eyes, the clawed hands. He knew the sorcerer haunted Alaana too. And their children were also affected. Kinak heard strange voices and his sleep was plagued by malicious visions in the night. The irony was not lost on Ben, for at night there were no shadows and his own voices were silenced. He was haunted by day, his son by night. There was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do about any of it. Helplessness.

  No, not helpless. They had Alaana. All he had to do was trust in her. And he did.

  Iggy arrived on the beach. The big man threw a big shadow. Ben rolled out of the way.

  “Maguan and the others are back,” Iggy said. He grabbed hold of the kayak frame and helped Kigiuna haul it onto the sand, adding, “No hurry with the boats. They didn’t find anything.”

  CHAPTER 21

  ORFIK AND OKTOLIK

  Alaana could barely keep up as Baataeq rushed them through the caves of blue-green ice lining the mountain lair. Bears could usually be found all over the place, males lazing about along the ice shelves, mothers feeding their cubs or preening their mates, but now only a few could be seen. Alaana found the empty, ribbed chambers of the lair disturbing.

  They rushed forward through caverns whose walls were graced by a delicate filigree of carved ice and lit by secret openings in their glistening domes. Darkened tunnels linked the caverns, marking their passage in a flurry of light and darkness and light, until they finally reached the large central cavern of the lair.

  Every adult male and most of the females were gathered around. The musky scent of polar bear was thick in Alaana’s nostrils. Tikiqaq reacted badly to it, letting out a little screech from its raven beak. The patchwork creature was still subject to the natural fear which all seals, be they dead or alive, held for the fierce white hunters of the north. Though she sympathized with Tiki’s discomfort, Alaana couldn’t be concerned with the tupilaq right now. The sight she beheld in the main cavern was too startling.

  Orfik and Oktolik, the two young shamans of the ice bears, faced each other in the center of the room. A spear, having pointed tips at both ends, hovered between them. The white bears stood very still, deep concentration creasing their frosty brows. They were down on all fours, facing each other, heads straight forward, snouts pointed, ears laid back. The spear hovered in mid-air, occasionally moving one way or the other in this deadly game of tug of war. Both were communicating frantically in the secret language, imploring the spirit within the wooden shaft to move, to pierce the other through the head. Alaana heard this tumultuous conversation ringing between her ears. The wooden spirit was torn and confused. It yelped in helpless desperation.

  Alaana couldn’t believe what she was seeing. These bears were twin brothers, closer than any she had ever met, engaged in a deadly game. She wanted to cry out but dare not shatter the concentration of one and not the other. If she did, a spear would thrust into the bone of forehead, and one of her friends would die.

  She turned toward Baataeq, saying, “Why do you allow this?”

  Baataeq just shrugged his massive shoulders as if to say, ‘They don’t listen.’

  The desperate urgings of the two bears became more forceful, the power of their entreaties rising almost to a command. The poor misused spirit within the wooden shaft roiled in torment. Alaana could bear it no longer. She would not have her charges descend into sorcery.

  “No,” she transmitted in the secret language. “No no! Stop that!”

  Both bears turned to look. The shaft remained balanced in mid-air.

  “What you’re doing is not good!” she said sternly, speaking to them as if they were still the little bear cubs she used to know.

  Remarkably, the bears turned away and continued what they had been doing, urging the spear shaft to kill each other.

  “I won’t allow it!” raged Alaana.

  “Try…” said Orfik.

  “And stop us,” said Oktolik.

  Alaana stepped right up to Orfik, sidestepping the pointed spear. “Is this what I’ve taught you to do?” she said. She would have liked to bop Orfik lightly on the muzzle as she used to do in the bear’s early training but that no longer seemed a good idea.

  “Tornarssuk will be angry!” she added, invoking the name of the mighty guardian spirit of the polar bears.

  That did it. The spear haft wobbled and fell.

  Alaana bent quickly over the wooden shaft. “I apologize, dear brother spirit,” she told it, “for your rough treatment this day. Take some rest. You won’t be troubled again, I promise.”

  She turned toward Oktolik, “You mustn’t do that, ever again!”

  “Tell us then…” said Orfik.

  “Which one of us is the greater?” added Oktolik.

  “What?”

  “They are asking you to decide,” said Baataeq, “which of them is the greater shaman.”

  “It’s a stupid question,” said Alaana out loud. At least she was finally being put in charge. She launched a pejorative slap toward Orfik’s nose at last, but the bear ducked under the blow. She had first met these two as yearlings at the feet of Balikqi, the previous shaman here. Now they had grown into adulthood, each more than twice her size.

  The twins settled dejectedly down on their haunches, awaiting her answer. Alaana had instructed them in the Way as best she could. She had never been asked to choose between them, nor thought much about it. The twins were so similar, even to the point of finishing each other’s sentences, she hadn’t thought anything could come between them. Orfik had great skill at receiving and transmitting messages on the wind, and Alaana had often communicated with him at great distances. Oktolik was better at the astral flight, and could leave his body on an instant while his brother was still mustering the proper concentration. They possessed different abilities but the same affable, even jocular, spirit. She wasn’t going to choose between her two boys.

  “You are both powerful,” she said, “though neither very smart, I see.”

  “But mother…” said Orfik.

  Oktolik didn’t even get a chance to add anything more before Alaana cut in, asking, “What in the seven worlds is this all about?”

  The two bears looked dejectedly down, heads slunk low, taking up the attitude of embarrassment among polar bears.

  “It’s about Mellora,” explained Baataeq. “They each want her for a mate.” He also seemed a bit embarrassed, though Alaana hardly knew why. Baataeq had spent a lifetime riding the floes, travelling as far as the currents would take him. His own face was scarred by many a springtime battle over a female, duels fought in the years of his youth.

  “A girl?” said Alaana. She cast an admonishing glance at her charges. “A girl?”

  “It’s not just any girl,” said Oktolik.

  “She is
the most beautiful creature in the lair,” said Orfik, “The only one…”

  “For me,” added his brother.

  “For me!”

  The two bears took up snarling angrily at each other. Orfik’s hackles rose, his massive shoulders tensing for some kind of desperate charge. Alaana slapped him gamely on the back of the neck. “Enough!” she said.

  She caught a flash of guilt from one of the females present. When she turned to face her, the bear looked quickly away. She sat on her haunches between two other females, each with a yearling on her shoulder. Indeed, thought Alaana, Mellora did have a majestic character about her and a very pleasantly shaped face and snout.

  “She is silent on the matter,” added Baataeq.

  Alaana could relate to the bear cubs’ situation, recalling the way she had fallen in love with Ben, a teen-aged boy who wanted nothing to do with her at first. Alaana remembered the passionate feeling she had held in her heart, the yearning for the one whom she simply knew was the perfect mate for her.

  “She’s a lovely girl,” she said. “But really, a fight to the death? I forbid it!”

  “Fine,” said Orfik, “We’ll shed our bodies and burrow under the ice mountain, straight in and then straight up.”

  “I’ll even wait for Orfik to catch up before we start,” added his brother. “The first one out the top is…”

  “The greater!” they both agreed.

  “No. Absolutely not!” insisted Alaana. “I forbid it. That type of contest doomed my friends. My sister died because of it.”