The Tundra Shall Burn!

by Ken Altabef

  “The secret to flying,” Kaokortok said, “is simple. Put aside all doubt and fear.”

  “And?”

  “And that’s it,” said the shaman. Nunavik, who put little faith in Kaokortok’s advice, felt certain it could not be quite so easy as that. He remarked, “There must be something else, something you are forgetting to mention?”

  Kaokortok shook his head. “I don’t think so. At least that’s how I do it. Just the way the Great Vole showed me.”

  “Great Vole…” muttered Nunavik. “My blood, that method might be good enough for voles and crazy Tungus,” said Nunavik, “but as it happens I already have no doubts, and I’m not afraid of anything!”

  “Then fly!”

  Nunavik settled himself out on the ice, head down, flippers spread apart. “Well, if nothing else, I’ll get some nice warm sun on my backside,” he said.

  “Empty your mind…” suggested Kaokortok.

  “Oh. Of course you forgot to mention that before,” quipped the walrus, “but then again, for you such an empty-headed state must be completely natural.”

  Nunavik struggled to forget all his worries and cares. There were so very many of them. Sedna’s rage, his exile from the sea, the murders of his family and friends, and not least of all his lost love. All these he had suffered because he had dared dive too deep. So what madness was he doing now, reaching for the skies?

  He concentrated his thoughts on the ice. So late in winter the sea was completely frozen and perfectly smooth. An unbroken expanse of white on white, cool, hard, carefree. The soul of the ice was vast and peaceful, pleasantly sleeping. The occasional cries from the gulls on the cliffs did their best to distract him, but Nunavik persevered. What would it be like, he wondered, to set spirit free from mortal shell and fly as they did?

  He imagined his soul rising straight up, straight up, its only destination the blue, blue sky. More than anything else, this was exactly what he wanted, to forget everything and just let go.

  The shore gulls, panicked from their roosts by his surge of spirit, squawked and wheeled as he passed. Their fluttering filled the sky with a vast confusion of beak and wing. SQUEEEEEEeeeeeee! WAWK WAWK WAWK! They rattled their beaks and careened out of his way.

  Nunavik ignored them, lost in the exhilaration of his soul flight. He rose higher and higher, leaving the noisome gulls behind. The air, the clouds, the sky — all were his.

  He continued shooting upward, destination unknown, the shore and the bergs visible in sharp relief below. His only sight was pure spirit-vision now, all purple and blue. He saw Kaokortok waving up at him as he stood over his abandoned body still lying on the floe.

  The higher he went, the lighter his spirit felt. He thought there would be no end to it, that he might continue drifting up and up and up, feeling more wonderful every minute for eternity. And that was just fine with him.

  Suddenly he was caught in a brisk cross current. A wind of pure spirit gusting from the east collided with his soaring soul. This wind spirit carried a series of strange new impressions — of Northmen with long ragged beards and roasted venison on their breath and horned helmets atop their heads. Nunavik sensed a great bloodlust on these winds, fierce passions, and a powerful greed. Dragon-prowed ships and sharp, bloodied blades. The sensations were strange and uncomfortable and Nunavik struggled to escape, pivoting ungracefully, then floundering in the air until he was caught in another spirit-wind, this one blowing from the south. The impressions these gusts carried were even more extraordinary. They told of a strange land, a seething jungle of trees and creeping vine and of creatures so bizarre Nunavik had no idea what to call them. Later in life he would learn all their names — zebra, antelope, rhinoceros. And the people of this strange place, whose dreams and aspirations were carried on the wind, were tall, proud warriors with exotic customs and incomprehensible names.

  “What’s this?” said the African wind spirit. “You’re like no hippopotamus I ever saw! Get off!”

  Nunavik would have liked nothing more than to have obliged, but his inept struggles to break free only wreaked havoc on the course of the wind. The African wind spirit went crashing into the Norse, which took great offense. The Viking wind would not tolerate such clumsiness and the two spirits began to tussle with Nunavik caught between.

  Suddenly he began to regret this soul flight, and thought to drop back down. But he had left the icy plains of Nunatsiaq so far below they could no longer be seen, and he didn’t know what to do. The warring winds tossed him about at dangerous angles which threatened to break even a walrus’ thick neck. He eventually slipped free, his soul swaying drunkenly in the misty air.

  The wild winds had exhausted and exhilarated him; Nunavik crashed down on an airy ledge that existed at the lowermost limits of the Upperworld. He struggled to catch his breath, then realized that as a creature of spirit only, he did not need to breathe.

  A flock of strange creatures surrounded him. These Gull People flapped impressive wings, stretching so far that the feathers at the tips seemed to devolve into the very mists of the Upperworld itself. Unlike the dull lifeless grays of Nunatsiaq, these spirits instead shone with a strange and delightful rainbow shimmer, as if each downy feather held a slightly different tint along an infinite spectrum of gray.

  One lofty spirit pecked softly at the back of Nunavik’s head.

  “What’s this?” she asked her mate, “Have you ever seen the like? I’ve never seen anything like this at all. Never. Have you? Have you?”

  Her mate squawked softly. “Never. Never. And look at those pitiful excuses for wings. Such misshapen stubs, I’ve never seen.”

  “They don’t even seem to have feathers. He’d never fly. Do you think he could fly? Do you?”

  “It got here,” said another. “And if the winds carried it, who’s to say that isn’t flying?”

  A large gull bent closer, nudging Nunavik gently with her beak. She had a long neck and a graceful bearing that was distinctly female. Her feathers were mostly yellow in color though hints of crimson, orange and mauve showed through, especially about the eyes. Her elegantly feathered head offered a flash of yellow beak as it tapped his rounded cheek. Her touch felt electric; she smelled of coriander. Delightful.

  “I’m a walrus,” Nunavik said.

  She squawked tentatively at him, drawing back.

  “Do you think the cloud people would know?” she asked. She fired questions up at the clouds above. “What is this thing? Where does it come from? Tell us.”

  “Tell us, tell us,” echoed another of the Gull People, a huge spirit with expansive black-tipped wings and a luxuriously fanned tail. At last he looked away, “I don’t know why we ask them anything, they never bother to answer.”

  ‘Walrus,” said Nunavik. He felt every bit a fish out of water.

  “Well, I don’t know what to make of him,” said the large male. “Do you know? I don’t know.”

  “It’s so beautiful,” said the female, “Don’t you think it’s beautiful? That golden color, so rare and fine.”

  “Maybe it belongs to the Morning Dawn,” suggested someone.

  Most of the others were inclined to agree. They went into a sudden frenzy, squawking “The Morning Dawn” and “Golden Dawn” and nodding their feathered heads.

  “Oh yes, that’s it,” said the yellow female. “That’s the thing to do. Let’s take him to the Palace of the Dawn!”

  Nunavik could hardly object as his spirit-form was lifted up and carted away into the sky.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE MORNING DAWN

  Nunavik, still trapped helplessly at the bottom of the sea, remembered the palace of the Morning Dawn.

  The palace turned out to be nothing more than a simple hut that sat atop a peak of rippling cloudstuff. It was made of humble wooden boards and capped with a thatched roof. The Gulls set Nunavik down on the far side of the roof, on a balcony that looked out upon the realm of the sky from all sides. A woman sat there, alone, at a little table
set for two. She held an oversized acorn cup in her hand, from which she sipped tea.

  “We found this!” said the Gulls. “Look! Look!”

  The Morning Dawn was a human woman of middle age. Her hair, which had lost most of its youthful luster and now prominently streaked with gray, was tied up in the manner of a common housewife. She wore a simple linen housecoat of a plain, off-white color, belted loosely about the waist, calfskin leggings and birchwood sandals. She glanced casually over as Nunavik’s golden spirit was laid out on her roof.

  “Why do you bring this spirit here?” she asked of the Gull People, her tone more playful than angry.

  “What else were we to do?” asked the yellow one. “It’s the color of Dawn so we thought it must belong to you. Is it yours? Is it?”

  “Is it a fish?” asked another. “It’s a fish, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve never seen a fish,” commented another.

  “It’s a walrus,” said the Dawn, “A sort of a fish, but it breathes air.”

  The gulls squawked and flapped, very satisfied that the Dawn had solved their mystery.

  “Not a fish,” said Nunavik, sitting up. “I’m quite warm-blooded and I don’t lay eggs, thank you.”

  “No eggs?” asked the yellow gull. “Then how do you make children?”

  Nunavik looked her appraisingly in the eye, then said, “Better you don’t know.”

  The Dawn laughed. “Oh, I like this one. Very much.”

  The Gulls backed away.

  “Kind sir,” said the Dawn, “may I invite you to tea? I happen to have an extra place and it’s been so very long since I’ve had a visitor from the world below.”

  Nunavik dipped his tusks politely, saying, “Certainly.” Truth be told, he’d already had more than enough of winds, clouds, gulls and everything in between. He wanted to find out how to get back home but decided it might not be a good idea to refuse such a heartfelt show of hospitality.

  “Fly away home!” said the Morning Dawn to the gulls. She fluttered her hands in the air. “I’ll give you a full recounting later on, I promise.”

  After the great, gabby commotion of the gull’s departure, she poured the tea. “You’re very far from home, sir walrus. So how do you come to be here?”

  “I flew,” said Nunavik. “I don’t do anything half-way it seems. For me, it’s either all the way down, or all the way up.”

  “Very impressive,” she said, with a wry grin.

  “Actually,” he admitted. “It’s my first soul flight. And, errr, I was wondering what might be the best way to get back down. Ummm, there are so many ways and…”

  “A lost soul that does not belong,” she observed. “Of course I will be happy to help. Oh, but not yet. Stay awhile. First drink some tea and let me tell you a story, a story about a woman named Alakrasina — the woman who married the Moon. Fair enough?”

  Nunavik nodded his acquiescence.

  “Alakrasina,” said the Dawn, “was the most beautiful girl in her entire village. Everyone told her so. She was quite clever and a terrific seamstress — she could sew rings around all the married women and the old women too. So, as you might suppose, many men wanted her for their wife. And many suitors came to her father’s house, and none ever left without offering a formal proposition. Aqioq was young and handsome, all furtive glances and shy smiles, but Alakrasina refused. What use was a man who was merely good-looking? Ivaiarak was well-established, a supreme hunter with a hundred dogs and a mountain of fresh skins, but still Alakrasina refused. What good were all those material things? Migalliq was the most well-liked man in all the band, and by all accounts would have been a devoted husband and an excellent father to her children, but again Alakrasina said ‘No.’

  “To her father, this was maddening. Sometimes frustrated suitors tried to carry her away, and the frustrated father would have let them, but she fought them off. She was a strong woman.

  “Her poor beleaguered father worried she would never marry. He berated her night and day, saying he hadn’t raised her to be so haughty, thinking herself too good for all of the men in the village.

  “In fact, there was only one creature in all the world good enough in her eyes — and it happened to be the Moon. At night she would gaze up at its light, marveling at its size and splendor. She saw a face in its shadows, a face both kind and beautiful, and she imagined it smiling down at her. So Alakrasina began to spend her nights gazing at the Moon. She lay naked on the beach, turning herself so that she might always face its silvery light. She imagined what it would be like to make love to the Moon. When she went about between the tents, claiming the Moon as her husband, they thought her mad and possessed of demons. Her father, in great distress, brought her to the shaman.”

  The Morning Dawn paused in her narrative for a sip of cold tea.

  “I’m a shaman,” said Nunavik proudly.

  “Oh?” she said, smiling. “A walrus shaman. How wonderful.”

  “Actually,” said Nunavik softly, “for the starfish.”

  The Dawn chuckled sweetly. “How odd. Well, this was a human shaman I was talking about. The shaman could find nothing wrong with Alakrasina except perhaps a case of extreme conceit, and quickly sought to dismiss her and her father. The girl took the opportunity to ask him for advice. Since he had taken flight to the Moon on several occasions, she asked how he did it. Of course the shaman was not about to reveal his secrets to her, but Alakrasina gathered it had to do with the Moon mask he kept in his tent, which bore a large, round, white face.

  “She asked what the Moon was like and the shaman described the Moon-Man, saying: ‘He is an ancient and kindly spirit, most wonderful and bright. He is humble too, for he is powerful enough to lift the weight of the oceans, but doesn’t use his power except to shift the tides twice a day. He is benign and generous, for he lights the way for the people to see at night and in the winter, asking nothing in return. These are all good things he does.’ Alakrasina knew at that moment that she was truly in love, for she found these feats much more impressive than a man bringing down a caribou with the bow, or spearing a whale.

  “So she decided to assay a flight up to the Moon. One night she stole the shaman’s Moon mask and put it on; she sat cross-legged in the snow as she had seen him do. And she concentrated all her desire on the Moon; she wanted it so badly.

  “And then she took flight. Oh, the exhilaration she felt as she sailed up through the night sky. Well, I don’t have to tell you. As a powerful shaman of the starfish, you must know the feeling well enough.”

  Nunavik mumbled something indistinct.

  “Alakrasina arrived at the great, shining iglu of the Moon-Man. He was not entirely surprised by her visit, for he had noticed her devotions on clear nights, looking down upon the world below. When she lifted the Moon mask, half of it stuck to her face and would not come off, but it was alright — he still thought her beautiful. And she found in him all the wonders the shaman had foretold.

  “Her father found her lifeless body and eventually buried it, thinking her a very beautiful but very foolish girl indeed. But Alakrasina was unaware of all earthly worries or cares. She and the Moon-Man were very happy together, living in the gigantic iglu and in time she brought forth a daughter, Tatqeq, whom we also call the Moon Maid. A beautiful girl with skin like ivory glittering with moonbeams at play. Such a lovely girl.”

  The Morning Dawn paused again, deep in thought. She looked out from her lofty porch across the blue skies of day, then continued:

  “Alakrasina should have been satisfied, but she wasn’t. From the vantage point of the Moon she had an even closer look at the sky and she found her gaze lingering upon the stars above, especially the Never Moves. The Moon-Man was out working most of the night, and she stared longingly at the Never Moves, so distant, so unreachable. If her husband was so great and wonderful, she thought, just imagine the power and majesty of that mighty star. She was sure he would love her as well. Eventually she made up her mind to take another soul
flight.

  “She told her husband her intentions and he was sorrowed. He pleaded with her to stay, for the Moon-Man was a level-headed sort and knew he would never find another woman like Alakrasina. It was no use. She was determined to go. She spread her arms and pointed her beautiful face up toward the star. The half-Moon mask dropped from her cheek. And nothing happened.

  “At last the Moon-Man revealed to her that she had never been able to fly at all. She had not flown up to him; rather it was the Moon, seeing how she loved and admired him, who reached down and brought her up. She could not fly to the Never Moves or anywhere else. She was only a ghost.

  “Of course he sent her away after that. He left her in the Upperworld, where she lives to this day. And that ends the story.”

  Nunavik shook his head. “A harsh judgment.”

  “Perhaps. But what else was there to do? The Moon-Man must have his pride. Otherwise he would never be bright and full again, and shine down on those below. It was fair.”

  “Speaking of the world below,” said Nunavik. He peered over the edge of the roof. “It really is a long way--”

  The Morning Dawn put up her hand, signaling him to hold, and turned toward the side. “Yes dear?” she said.

  A peculiar figure hovered near the roof’s edge, having arrived during the story. It had the form of a sparrow, slender and elegant, with an extraordinarily proud bearing. It was pretty much an ordinary-looking sparrow — with brown wings and a dark cap of feathers, a white breast fringed with yellow. But the amazing thing about the bird was the intense fire of its soul light. The sparrow seemed bursting with light, the brightest, purest light Nunavik had ever seen. He realized this was angakua, the special spirit light of the shamans. Does my soul look like that now, he wondered?

  “Qianarutuuq,” she introduced herself, noticing his stare, “But you may call me Qiana.” The sparrow turned her little beak toward the Morning Dawn. “More trouble, Milady. The owl-spirits have attacked my people again! It’s not fair. That sky was promised to us. It’s ours!”