by Ken Altabef
Alaana was gripped by a sudden panic. “Is Avalaaqiaq here?”
“No. She is at Agneriartarfik. The Land of Day. The village one can always return to, located high in the sky, where great herds of caribou roam and there is always plenty of good things to eat.” Alaana was glad for that.
“Now walk away from them. And don’t go so close to the lumentin. Just get out into the open.”
It was only at that moment Alaana noticed the herd of enormous black lumentin lumbering in the distance. These bloated creatures were much more grotesque than the emaciated things she had glimpsed from the other side through the cracks in the Lowerworld. There was no lack of food for them here. They barely resembled caribou, enormously fat, moving slowly on tiny legs, with large rheumy eyes and spiked antlers that gleamed like carved obsidian. Even at this distance they exuded an air of extreme danger and menace. What were they grazing on? Alaana couldn’t see, but a chorus of horrific screams rang out whenever one of them lowered its head to the plain of low grass. Were those people?
“You have to see the Man Who Keeps The Skins.”
“But who is he?” asked Alaana. “How do I find him?” She wobbled on her legs, feeling disoriented and weak. Was she really in the Underworld or still asleep? She could hardly see the lumentin now, her spirit-vision had dimmed so much. Was she dying?
“Step forward a few more paces.”
“There is nothing here,” said Alaana desperately.
“Spin around three times and then jump as high as you can.”
Spin around? Alaana was reminded of the children’s game of playing at shaman. She could no longer play that game, the motion caused such painful flashes of light and darkness. More than anything else, she just wanted to lay down and sleep. But that was one temptation she must not indulge. She knew that would be the worst thing she could do.
She began to spin. The dizziness was extreme, the disorientation total.
“Push up! Jump!”
Push up, push up. Which way was up?
“Just jump as high as you can.”
Alaana jumped.
She found herself inside a strange room, curtained by hanging skins of various shapes and colors. The air of the smoke house was thick and heavy with soot, the floor littered with cracked bones and shredded skin. The Man stood in the center of the room working at a long, pale hide that hung from the thatched ceiling. Alaana had never seen a man so large and hairy, with teeth like a bear jutting forth from blackened lips. He wore a mottled patchwork of tattered and decaying skins, a peculiar garment that swayed and writhed independently of the movements of his body.
In one corner of the house his wife squatted, chewing on the skins. Her muffled grunts of satisfaction blended with odd sounds that came from the skin itself, shrieks and howls of torment. She paused to smile seductively at Alaana, if any display of such enormous teeth could be called seductive, gesturing for her to draw near. With blood and grease trickling down, she licked at her lips.
The Man’s clawed hand raked the skin before him, oozing fat and blood as he scraped it clean. Alaana thought perhaps he’d been too rough, having torn a hole in the hide. Looking closer she realized the round hole was a mouth. It was the skin of a human being. The lids flew open and the eyes rolled toward her, full of helpless misery.
“What do you want?” asked the Man. His voice rumbled through the smoke house, a terrifying combination of growl and cackle. His fiery gaze was full to brimming with pain and suffering.
“Ask for me by name,” said Civiliaq.
“I want to see Civiliaq the shaman,” said Alaana.
“And what will you barter?” demanded the Man.
“I don’t know.”
The Man took the skin of Alaana’s cheek between two of his long filthy fingernails. The pinch brought tears to her eyes. The Man shook his shaggy head, finding her skin unacceptable for some reason, and let go. His merciless eyes searched Alaana up and down, inspecting her from top to bottom.
“You’re a pathetic little specimen, aren’t you?” he snarled. “And much too brash coming in here like this. I’m going to strip you to the bone.”
Alaana shrank back in horror, but hadn’t the strength to make a run for it.
The Man grunted and cocked his head to the side appraisingly. “Perhaps plumped and stuffed you might make a passable seat cushion for my wife’s festering backside. I don’t see — wait. What’s that, and that?”
The Man ran the back of his clawed hand down along the air in front of Alaana. The motion caused a searing pain in the joints of her arms and legs, all the places that had hurt so much when she had passed down the tube to the Underworld.
“A fair trade,” said the Man. “Come along.”
Alaana stood gasping. Trade? What kind of trade?
The Man led her into a back room of the smoke house, an area partitioned off by thick black skins. As they passed, the wife reached out for Alaana but the Man cuffed her hand away. There were rows and rows of skins, rolled and tied with sinew and ranked along the walls. The Man dug roughly through the piles, carelessly tossing a few on the floor to be immediately trampled underfoot by his thick hairy legs. One of the bundles squealed pitifully as it was stomped.
“Here it is.” The Man unrolled a thick black lumentin hide, crawling with ticks and lice. He carelessly stretched the lumpy skin across a table.
“This is the one. Be off and hurry up about it.”
He pointed to the navel on the skin, and the tiny opening began to expand. The Man dug a long, cracked fingernail into the opening and stretched the navel until it was the size of Alaana’s hand.
“Well, go on!” roared the Man Who Keeps The Skins.
Alaana took hold of the greasy skin with both hands and pulled the navel open. The danger was irrelevant. Any fate would be preferable to another moment under the Man’s hateful eye. In she went.
Civiliaq’s prison was a tiny cavern, barely large enough to contain the spirits of both the man and the girl. The chamber had no exit that Alaana could see, and certainly none that Civiliaq might use. The room was teeming with large black flies. Though they swarmed all over Civiliaq, they paid no attention to Alaana.
Alaana was now certain she had indeed traveled to the Underworld, for Civiliaq’s appearance was entirely different from the dream-self he had projected earlier. His skin was blackened and burned, and continuously flaking off into the air around him. Again his impressive tattoos stood out in stark relief, this time white against the blackened skin of his chest and arms. Upon closer inspection Alaana saw the tattoos writhed with tiny bottle-fly maggots. As the larvae traced the lines of his magical inscriptions Civiliaq twitched and shifted uncomfortably.
“Yes,” he said, “Look closely little bird. See what happens when a shaman is brought low.”
Most of his hair had been burned away. The blackened skin sagged lifelessly down from his face. Only the whites of his eyes and teeth, and the pink inner folds of his lower eyelids were visible against the dark. He was naked, except for the tattered rags that had been his pants.
“But how did this happen?”
“That’s not your concern,” snapped Civiliaq. His bitter expression softened quickly. “How do you think? Through weakness. Through ignorance. We must not let that happen to you.”
Civiliaq jerked his head forward, snapping his jaws at a black fly crossing in front of his face. Alaana noticed his hands were held behind his back.
“Your arms are bound?” she asked.
“You won’t be able to release them.” Civiliaq turned his body so that Alaana could see. Behind his back his forearms were fused together, the bones twisted and melded like the vines on a tree.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Civiliaq. “I have what I need to accomplish our journey.”
“Journey?”
Civiliaq snapped unsuccessfully at another fly. “What I know is this: You, my dear, are not a true shaman.”
“I don’t understand,” said Alaan
a weakly. Feeling as if she could stand up no longer, she sat on the ground opposite the shaman.
“Your power comes from below the Underworld.”
“Below? What lies below the Underworld?”
“I don’t know. No one knows. But your power comes from the other side of the ocean, from the very center of the world.”
“Is that what you saw? Up there on Dog-Ear Ridge? Is that what you saw when you looked at my inua?”
“Perhaps,” said Civiliaq with a malicious shrug. “Feel it for yourself. Put your hand to the ground. You can feel it from here.”
Alaana pressed her spirit-hands along the floor of the cavern. Civiliaq was right. She could feel a strength, her strength, calling out to her from far below. It was true. But as far as she knew, there was no world below the Underworld. There was nothing down there.
“Is it Sila, down there?” Alaana asked. “Is that why he hasn’t come to me?”
“I can’t say, but I doubt very much the wild wind blows all the way down there. We’ll have to go and see.”
“You keep saying that. But how?”
“I will—” Civiliaq stopped short. With a successful jerk of his head he managed to get a passing fly into his mouth. He chewed carefully for a moment then spit out the wings onto a considerable pile that lay beside him.
“Just so,” he said. “I have a method of transport. I will lead you there. Then you will know the answers you seek.”
The shaman’s eyes rolled back, his blackened and crusted lips drew apart, and he began a power song. He used some other dialect of the secret language than that with which Alaana was familiar. It was a potent spell in any case, and she could sense shifting energies within the tiny cavern. Civiliaq chanted quickly and with great intensity, seeming rushed and desperate. As his intonations rose in pitch, all the tiny wings of the blackflies drew up off the floor. They skirled about the cavern, miraculously knitting themselves into sheets and planks which surrounded the two of them, creating an ethereal kayak.
Alaana watched the spirit-kayak take shape, afraid to touch its delicate surface and cause it to crumble in her hands. The floor of the kayak formed beneath them. It shifted uncertainly but seemed solid enough.
“Don’t worry, little bird,” said Civiliaq. “All will be made clear in a moment. In this way we make rock as to water and pass through. Nothing can hold us.”
Alaana’s side of the kayak began to tip downward and she saw that the shaman was true to his word. It settled into the stony floor of the cavern as if it were lakewater. There was a sense of great strain, the terrible sound of reality tearing apart. Suddenly the kayak broke into two separate parts and Alaana’s half went speeding through the rock, bearing her down.
A panicked inner voice, speaking in the familiar sarcastic tones of Nunavik, warned her that this was one journey too many, one that would take her too far from the world she knew to ever return. It was already too late. Too weak, too tired, she had fallen for Civiliaq’s trap.
With a sudden lurch, the kayak stopped. The fragile craft trembled and hissed and began to move backward, retracing the path it had traveled.
When her end of the boat re-entered the prison, Alaana saw the room had been transformed into a much larger cavern. She was met by a friendly, if dour, face.
Kuanak was there, grabbing her half of the kayak with both hands, pulling it back. Alaana had never beheld Wolf Head’s spirit-form before. Despite the feral sharpening of teeth and nose, and the frill of coarse gray fur along the chin and mouth, she easily recognized the features of the long-lost Anatatook shaman. Above, toward the upper reaches of the cavern was Civiliaq’s half of the boat. It was being pulled back down by three radiant spirit-wolves with brilliant white fur.
Civiliaq crashed to the ground. The spirit-kayak dissolved away, becoming bottle fly wings once more. The three large white wolves stood against him snarling and snapping. Alaana saw that Civiliaq’s arms were unbound, his hands free, now resembling the blackened claws of the lumentin.
“You pathetic wretch!” fumed Kuanak. “Is this how you would buy your freedom? With the soul of this girl?”
Civiliaq stood up. Ignoring the frustrated yapping of the wolves, he stepped toward Kuanak, his hands balled into fists. “What does a man unjustly imprisoned care about fairness? About balance? There is no balance for me.”
Kuanak leveled his long pole of narwhal tusk at Civiliaq. “You would sacrifice this child, when it was your own doubt and fear that put you here.”
“And I suppose you had nothing to do with it? I could’ve beaten that demon, if you would’ve helped.”
“You rushed ahead.”
“You lagged behind! Manatook came flying to your aid when you were hurt, but the two of you were perfectly content to leave me behind, to leave me here to rot. This is your fault Kuanak. You didn’t appreciate my abilities, you lured me into petty competitions. You brought that demon down on us. And Manatook rushed to your side, abandoning me.”
Kuanak slowly shook his head. “Humility is a lesson slow in the learning, especially for you,” he said. “If you continue to blame others for your own mistakes, you will be stuck here for a long time.”
Wolf Head glanced upward and frowned, drawing Alaana’s attention to the ceiling of the cavern. The rock face was descending rapidly as the cage shrank back to its previous dimensions. Alaana realized that in a few more moments it wouldn’t be large enough to hold all three of them.
Civiliaq saw it too. He took a half step forward, his eyes locked on the power staff.
A tiny blue spark danced along the ivory surface of Kuanak’s weapon. Civiliaq backed down. A twisted smile crossed his bitter lips. He knew he was beaten. “My own mistake, yes. A minor transgression, to which any man might succumb. I doubted myself. But I’ve learned my lesson, I tell you. I’ve had much time to think.” Civiliaq lifted his chin and spoke confidently. “And I realize that I am good enough. I always was. I’ve put aside all doubt and fear. If I only had the chance to show you—”
“I have seen enough,” said Kuanak.
“I’m sorry, little one,” said Civiliaq. He glanced at Alaana and his downcast face, ruined and burned as it was, painfully demonstrated that he spoke the truth.
Kuanak looked sadly at Civiliaq. “I have little hope for you.”
“Hope? I don’t need your hope, Wolf Head. Nor your pity. I just need a second chance. Just one more chance.”
Kuanak sighed. “I have abandoned you once, my brother. And with good reason, I abandon you again.”
Kuanak called his wolves to his side. He turned to Alaana and said, “We have no more time here. I wish I could do more for you Alaana, but I too am constrained. The spirit of a dead shaman clings to the weak and unwary, and Civiliaq clings to you. I must use all my power now simply to keep him off of you. You must hurry back where you belong. Now, where is that damned bird?”
He cocked his head to listen, but apparently didn’t hear the sound he sought. “No matter,” he said. “There is more than one way to wake you up.”
So saying, he touched the tip of his staff gently to Alaana’s chest. The blue flame sparked through the spirit-parka and jolted her awake.
She opened her eyes. Itiqtuq lay beside her bed but the little amulet’s screeching had already been silenced. The auk skull had been crushed, the eyes pulped, the little tuft of feathers scattered. Itiqtuq had been destroyed, crushed by Civiliaq’s hand, she supposed.
She felt worse than ever. Pains in the head, an ache in the body, a weariness in her soul.
She took a moment to drink in the familiar surroundings of bed and home. But reassurance was not swift in coming. Had that been a true spirit journey or all just a dream? Such a question was irrelevant. Dreams were real. She had traveled and she had seen. The more important question was whether Civiliaq had been lying. The doomed shaman had become so malicious and twisted in his torment. The things he had said about Sila, her power and the center of the earth — had they all been
merely parts of his ruse?
Alaana feared she might not soon find out. Again Civiliaq had laid accusations at Old Manatook’s door. This was yet another dream she dared not reveal to the old shaman.
As she pulled her sleeping furs close Alaana noted with a small measure of satisfaction that the ghosts of Uwelen had been left behind. They had been taken as payment by the Man Who Keeps The Skins. A fair trade, the Man had said and Alaana heartily agreed. She might sleep a little more peacefully this night. She was so very tired.
CHAPTER 29
IN THE COLD AND DARK
“The break-up caught us on the ice,” said Old Manatook. “The sea swelled beneath our sled. With a tremendous crack the ice churned and broke apart.”
“Stranded on the ice like a wayward pup,” commented Nunavik. The ethereal walrus sat beside Alaana in the tiny practice iglu. It had been ten sleeps since his terrible experience in the Lowerworld, and his voice had finally regained its natural sarcastic tone. He looked no worse for wear with the exception of a slightly lopsided indentation along one side of his gloriously golden head.
“Hardly a pup.” Old Manatook was twenty paces away, his mindspeak message carried along the spirit of the air between the two practice iglus. “But the situation was desperate.”
The unbroken darkness of winter was the perfect setting for such a tale. Old Manatook had already related how, many years ago, he had embarked on a dangerous trip across Crescent Bay to help a dying friend.
His friend Muraoq had come to him, saying his hunting partner had fallen terribly ill at their winter camp in Big Basin. Muraoq thought Patagona might be going to die. His legs and knees had swollen so badly he could not move.
It was the time of sikuliqiruq at the beginning of spring, when the sea ice first begins to break up. Patagona’s situation was dire. They didn’t have enough time to trek all the way inland to the point where they could ford the Forked River, and still hope for any chance to save Patagona. They must risk the sea. The pair hitched up their dogs and set out by sled across the unsteady ice field covering the bay. Scudding along at top speed, they felt ice buckle and strain beneath the sled’s runners. The flats were already broken up but the floes were large enough for the dogs to leap from piece to piece. It was a harrowing journey, with the ice sheets bobbing in the water at every advance of the team.