by neetha Napew
A lump formed at the back of the boy’s throat. His mother had perished the winter he had been abandoned. Her reasons for distrusting the magic man had died with her, and Karana was certain that if he were to tell Supnah the truth about his parentage, the headman would never believe him. Since the death of their parents, Supnah had been like a father to his much younger brother. To speak against Navahk to the headman had always been like shouting into the north wind at the height of a gale.
So it was that now Karana stared at Supnah, then at Navahk, incredulous. The headman’s words struck the magic man like a well-placed spear, actually making him stagger. Supnah had never challenged Navahk, not even when the magic man had told the headman to abandon his own son.
A dark, intense warning sparked within Karana each time his eyes met his father’s. He chafed each time the headman drew him close and called him son. Torka is my father now. Torka will always be my father! he wanted to shout. Loyalty and love made them father and son, not blood; blood was a thin, red thing that dried and blew away on the wind.
Karana knew that all too well, for he had watched the other children slowly starve and freeze to death, one by one, crying for mothers and fathers who never came. He had been unable to help them, for he, too, was starving and dying—and all because Supnah had not been bold enough to challenge the spirits of the storms that spoke to him through his brother’s mouth.
Karana wished he could spring to his feet and flee into the night. This was a bad camp, filled with bad people, and nothing good could come to any who stayed within it.
“Again I ask, who has seen the wanawut except Navahk in his clouded dreams?” Supnah’s voice cut the night with an angry edge. The question settled heavily.
Navahk had regained his composure. He picked up Supnah’s question and hurled it back at his brother. “Has Supnah walked the world of spirits that he may challenge what Navahk, magic man, has seen in his dreams? Or would the headman of this band listen to Torka, a stranger, before heeding the warnings of his own brother?”
“Torka has said that he has seen good hunting grounds to the east. Why should we doubt him? He has led us well against the Ghost Band, has brought women into our camp, and has twice faced Thunder Speaker, the great mammoth. Torka has given to us the knowledge of making and using the spear hurler. Torka has returned my son, when Navahk had sworn before all that Karana was dead. Torka has proved himself to be a man of unclouded dreams. So Supnah says yes to Navahk’s question. Supnah will listen when Torka speaks.”
Navahk stood dead still for a moment.
Supnah took the moment and shook his brother’s world with it. “Perhaps it is time for the people of Supnah to name a new magic man. Perhaps it is time for Navahk—like the children of the people whose life spirits were eaten by his dreams—to walk away upon the wind, out of his band forever!”
“No!” Torka’s declaration reverberated like the crack of thunder. He was on his feet, looking grimly at Supnah, then Navahk. They were like a pair of bull elk in deadly rut, antlers locked in competition for control of the band. Whatever the cause of their enmity, Torka wanted no part of it, nor would he take sides. He had his woman and infant to think of, and although he had instinctively recoiled from the magic man the first time he had seen him, he had no desire to undercut the man’s status. His own grandfather had been what his people had called a spirit master—a magic man by this band’s terms—and he knew the weight of the responsibility that went along with the title. The last thing he wanted was to assume the burden of such authority. If Supnah wished to deprive his brother of his rank, let him name another man to fill it. “This man is no magic man,” he said.
The headman glowered at him. “This man says that you are. Have we not seen you do all that Supnah has just said? You faced the great mammoth Thunder Speaker before our very eyes, and when we fled in fear and Karana fell before the charging mammoth, was it not Torka who put himself between Karana and the beast? And did Death not turn away, gentled by the magic power of your will?”
Torka could not argue with the truth or allow it to be unchallenged. “It is so. But this man wonders if it was magic. The great mammoth once fell upon Torka’s people because we had eaten of the flesh of its kindred. We are not strangers, Thunder Speaker and I. That one carries the head of one of my spears embedded within its shoulder. And this man carries the scars of its tusks across his belly. Across many miles Torka has carried the hope to kill the beast that killed his people. But perhaps, in the end, we are merely two bulls who are much alike, both of us willing to stand in defense of our own, and both of us so weary of killing that we are willing to walk away when there is no need for it.”
The headman considered. “Perhaps. But not many men would be brave enough to stand unmoving before Thunder Speaker. In such bravery there is magic.” “Your son has become as a son to me, Supnah. We have endured many hardships together. To save Karana I faced death. But had
you been at my side, you would have faced it in my place. A father’s love is a thing of magic. But you must look to Navahk for guidance and wisdom. If sometimes his dreams are clouded, that is not because his magic is weak. It is because that is the way of the spirit world. No man may see into it clearly. If Navahk says that he walks with the spirits in his dreams, who may say that that is not the truth? Not Torka. This man is only a hunter. I have walked the far hills that open into an unknown land and have seen much game on broad grasslands that stretch eastward between the Mountains That Walk. But if Navahk says that it is forbidden country and that in his dreams he has seen the wanawut-whatever this creature may be—waiting to prey upon Supnah’s band, then I would not go there. I would be content to follow Supnah, grateful for the protection that his people have offered to me, my woman, and my child.”
Navahk growled. His eyes swept the silent assembly. The man was magic. He spoke with an eloquence that Navahk knew he could not match. He felt no gratitude to Torka. He glared at him in hate-engorged silence. Then, grasping at his sullied authority, he made the best of the moment.
“Torka has spoken wisely. One who has not seen the wanawut cannot be a magic man.”
Torka seemed relieved, yet he felt obliged to reply lest he offend the headman. “As Navahk says, this man is no magic man. But if the wanawut is what my people call a wind spirit, then Torka has heard it cry in the long nights of the winter dark. It dwells in the land of the People, in the mists and clouds of high places. We are in as much danger from the wanawut here as in the unknown land that lies to the east.”
A murmuring went through the gathering.
Supnah was pleased; Navahk was not. From his throat came a great cry and then low, snarling sounds such as wolves make when they devour their prey. He whirled and circled the fire, paused before the women’s side of the gathering, stared at the watching women, caused the few children to cower, and deliberately lingered before Torka’s woman until her unusually beautiful face blushed at the provocation in his eyes. Her reaction gratified him as much as it obviously angered Torka. When he turned back to face the men’s side of the circle, there was open hostility on Torka’s face. Navahk was glad. He would take Torka’s woman if he could, to demean the newcomer and to make him pay for this night of humiliation.
Now Navahk stood splay-legged, with his shoulders back and his arms thrown wide before the flames as the wind combed through his knee-length hair and drove the long fringes of his sleeves outward like skeining mists. His voice seemed to come from outside himself. It was wind. It was fire. It was the voice of the cold, black, star-strewn infinity of the night. “The wanawut is a wind spirit. Its flesh is the substance of clouds. Its cry is the wind’s. No man will ever find its spoor or follow its tracks! And no man who is not a magic man may see it until it leaps from the world of spirits to feed upon him!”
Again a murmuring sigh rippled through the gathering. Navahk had his people under his spell again.
“Karana has seen the wanawut.”
Navahk stiffened a
nd fixed the boy with eyes so filled with virulent hatred, anyone else might have withered away on the spot. But Karana did not flinch. His face was set, and hard for one who had lived to see the passing of only eleven summers. He was small and looked younger than his years in the multilayered, intricately stitched garments that Torka’s woman, Lonit, had made for him. His face still bore the ravages of a great ordeal, but a restless energy and bold, resilient spirit shone from his eyes. “Karana has seen the wanawut. He has seen it in the storm mists and has heard it howling in the winter dark. He has looked upon it as it stood upright like a man, stalked like a bear, hunted like a lion, and followed the abandoned children of this band to feed upon us after Navahk’s dreams sent us off to die.”
From the women’s side of the circle low moans of grief escaped a dozen mouths as hands flew to faces, and heads went down, unable to look at Karana. From across the circle hunters grunted against memories that they had long ago tried to bury deep within themselves. Karana’s words had called unwelcome ghosts to the gathering, little ghosts in winter boots, toddling ghosts in coats of fur, brave tiny figures with hands lost in enormous mittens and chapped faces hidden within hoods ruffed all around with fur. The ghosts of abandoned children walked through the assembly, as they had once walked from a starving encampment into the endless night, into the ravenous storms of winter to become food for beasts while their mothers and fathers turned their backs in anguish.
Because Navahk, magic man of their band, had assured them that they must do so. And because Supnah, regardless of his professed love for his only son and his concern for the fate of the little ones, had not dared to challenge him.
“Karana has seen the wanawut,” he repeated with the stern, unforgiving emphasis of one who, like Torka, had lived too long and seen too much of danger to allow it to intimidate him. “And he sees it now .. . standing before us all ... in the skin of Navahk!”
“Karana!” Torka’s voice was low, his tone sharp with unmistakable admonition. The boy ignored it. He snapped to his feet, staring at the fire-burnished faces that stared back at him in shock. It was forbidden for children to speak openly at gatherings, and it was unheard of for them to challenge their elders at any time. He did not care. Nor did he cower as he saw that Navahk was advancing toward him slowly, wearing a malicious smile that was somehow not a smile at all but a malignant leer. Karana glared and smiled back at him.
Suddenly he could not breathe. Try as he might, he could not look away. It was as though Navahk were somehow sucking his spirit out of his body through his eyes and drawing it into himself. In black, bottomless sinks, the boy’s mind waded through the dark suffocating depths of Navahk’s murderous, mind-numbing hatred. He felt himself drowning in it, choking, fighting for breath as, within the strangling darkness, light exploded—the light of vision.
Karana willed himself into it. Within himself a voice whispered, promised, warned. He will kill you if he can, as he has tried to kill you in the past, because he is your father .. . because he knows that the gift of true Seeing is yours .. . because he knows you will grow to be a man who will make him small within your shadow .. . because he knows that someday you will be a greater magic man than he has ever been.
Karana shook his head. The light of vision faded. The voice of warning fell silent. He drew in a deep breath, and the spell of the magic man was broken.
Navahk stopped in his tracks. His smile twisted, and his eyes narrowed. He knew he had lost the battle of wills that he had initiated between himself and the boy.
Karana raised an arm and pointed accusingly at the magic man. “He is the one to fear, not the wanawut. He is the beast that will prey upon this band, as he preyed upon its children in the past and as he preys upon the spirit of its people now, making you weak and indecisive and afraid. In your fear lies the power, and his power is a bad thing because it serves his people only as long as it serves himself!”
Karana did not wait for Navahk’s reaction. The night engulfed him as he turned and walked into it imperiously, eager to put the gathering behind him.
Voices called to him—Torka’s, Supnah’s, and a high, female voice that he did not recognize. Darkness surrounded him, and he wrapped himself in it as though it were a cloak that could hide him from the watching eyes that followed his bold steps from the encampment.
“Hrmmph!” He sneered and thought: Let them stare! Let them gape! I have my dagger at my side. I am not afraid of the night. Thanks to them, I have lived in it alone and have learned to be wary of its dangers!
He put the last of the conical, hide-covered pit huts behind him and skirted the last of the drying frames, where thin, wide fillets of a giant ground sloth were streaming stiffly in the wind like bloodred banners. He saw Grek, guardian of the meat, sitting cross-legged in the darkness. Karana, jogging past, startled the man, who was even more startled when the lean, wolflike shadow of a wild dog leaped over him in pursuit of the boy. “Come back, you!”
Karana smiled, ignoring Grek’s command, glad that the dog was following and that the hunter had not chosen to rise and give chase. Grek was no youth, but he was strong and agile; only Torka and Supnah could outrun him. And Aar.
The dog fell into step now with Karana, looking up at him in the darkness with blue eyes that reflected the starlight out of a wolfish, black-masked head.
The boy frowned. There was more than starlight in the eyes of Aar. There was also rebuke. Like old Umak—Torka’s grandfather, who had used his powers as a spirit master to befriend the dog in a far land—Karana’s relationship with the animal was unique. There was an unspoken language between them, and understanding that bordered on the magical.
Again the boy harrumphed. “Karana will walk where he will! When he will. Better to be alone in the darkness than in the crowded firelight of an encampment with Navahk. There is less danger to this boy here. If Aar does not like it, he can go back to camp, to his pups and mate. This boy has not asked you to follow! This boy will not miss you if you go back!”
He knew it was a lie. Nevertheless, he lengthened his stride, glad that the dog ran with him but resentful that not even the companionship of the animal could brighten his mood. It seemed to Karana that somehow, impossibly, the eyes of Navahk were still watching him, following him, burning holes into his back.
“Karana!”
Within his multilayered fur tunic, beneath his undershirt of woman-chewed skins cut from the supple pelts of caribou fawns, hackles rose on his back. Navahk was calling his name. Navahk was coming after him.
Navahk will never catch me! Never! His thoughts were as black as the sky. Anger and frustration pricked him like the uncountable stars pricked the skin of the moonless night. He looked up for a moment and was dazzled by the shimmering beauty that lay above him. So many stars! Vast, swirling rivers of them, so thick that they formed blurred, cloudlike veils that, like the dog, ran with him as he loped across the world.
The beauty of the night took his breath away, then returned it to him as he tripped on a knee-high clump of tussock grass and looked down just in time to see the ground rush up to meet him.
Stunned, he lay flat on his belly while a bird squawked and, raining feathers, climbed for the stars on flapping wings. Something warm oozed beneath his palm, and he knew that he had been a fool to run so carelessly across the benighted tundra. He had come farther than he had realized. He could smell the pungent spruce groves in the not-too-distant hills and knew that he had blundered into the same expanse of tussocks that he and Torka had skirted earlier in the day. With Grek and a bandy-legged hunter named Stam, they had come out from the encampment to stand watch over the women as they went high-stepping among the mounded grasses to set snares for ptarmigan, the fat little partridge of the northlands that mated and nested in the tussock grasses. There were eggs to gather and snack upon, and this the men had done as they made certain that no predators would fall upon their females while they worked to make prey of the ptarmigans.
Now, levering up wit
h his ungloved hands, Karana frowned. He seated himself and lifted his right hand. It was slimed with egg and pebbled with fragile, membranous shell. Aar nosed close and started to lick it clean, but the boy beat him to it. He was sucking his fingers when, suddenly, hackles rose on his skin again. They ran upward along his spine, stinging him like insects as he realized that he and the dog were not alone.
Aar’s head went down. The dog made no sound; nevertheless, as Karana wrapped a slim arm about Aar’s neck, he could feel the animal’s tension as its hair bristled along its back and a growl began to form deep within its chest.
“Shhh .. he whispered imperatively, the sound audible only to the dog. Karana shifted his weight until he was balanced on the balls of his feet, left leg slightly forward, his right leg braced and ready to propel him outward into the night like a living spear if the need for flight arose. But for now, until the danger—if there was danger—was defined, his best defense was to hold his position and be as still as the night.
His right hand formed a fist around the bone handle of the nephrite dagger sheathed at his hip. It was a blade of many purposes. The greenish stone was beautifully flaked and sharp enough to lay open the toughest hide; but it was only a dagger, a working tool designed to flay dead meat, not to bring down living animals. For this a hunter needed a spear; especially when he was the one being hunted. With a tremulous, barely audible sigh of longing, Karana thought of his spears. He felt small and vulnerable and alone without them. For the second time he regretted his impetuosity.
Something was advancing toward him. Silhouetted against the starlight, the black form was the size of a mature bear. It hunched against the night, moving slowly, a hulking blur in the darkness. Was it man or beast? Still stunned by his fall, Karana’s usually acute senses failed him.