Corridor of Storms

by neetha Napew

  Torka was amazed, grateful, and amused by the blustering apology. He could find no words except: “Yes, Torka will let it be so. Yes.”

  “Good thing!” proclaimed Zinkh, clearing his throat. He breathed deeply, decisively, and turned his gaze to Karana. “You. Lion Killer Karana. Zinkh brings to you something that you have left behind. Here:

  This man thinks that you have not been lucky these past days. Perhaps now you will believe Zinkh and wear this hat, and as brothers of one band, it will bring luck to us all!”

  Karana met the eyes of the brave and stubborn little headman and understood for the first time that a man’s size was best measured in the depth of his loyalty and the amount of his courage, not in the height of his head above the ground.

  “I will wear the hat of Zinkh with pride,” he said, and bent to allow Zinkh to set the hat upon his head.

  The little headman looked around, eyeing the valley and the precipitous, ominously overhanging walls of ice. The way the earth had been shifting, those walls could jar loose and crash down to kill them all. “This is not such a good place for people to stay for one long time, I think.”

  “No,” Torka agreed. “We cannot stay here. We must go on.”

  Navahk awoke. Buried within his sleeping skins, smothering in furs and hides, he fought for air, until at last, his face was free of them. He lay on his back, gasping in a world of suffocating black mist. Each breath was a burning agony as he slowly became aware of a low, constant, earth-shaking rumbling far to the west.

  He sat upright, clutching at his burning throat and looking at the huddled forms of sleeping people around him. Suddenly he realized that most of them were not sleeping; they were dead. There was something deadly in the mist that had been loosed in the trembling night to sear the lungs and lull the brain into a lethargy that shrank the spirit until it was no more.

  He had felt it the previous night but had not been aware of its incipient danger. As always, he had walked the dark tundra alone, unable to sleep, thinking of how it would be when at last he brought death to Torka and his people, wishing that the wanawut would come close so he could kill her and flaunt her skin before those who had begun to doubt him. At last fatigue drove him back to camp for fitful slumber; but last night he had returned early with a pounding headache and an uncharacteristic desire simply to lie down, close his eyes, and sleep .. . sleep. As he had slept, he dreamed that the world beneath him shook and roared, until now, fighting for every breath, he realized that he had not been dreaming.

  He staggered to his feet, shaking his aching head to clear it of a thick, unnatural dizziness. His eye teared as though someone had tossed hot ashes into it. He looked around. Ashes were falling from the sky. He looked to the east. The sky was gray, as livid as a yellowing bruise, unlike any sky that he had ever seen.

  It was not until he turned and looked west that panic bit deep within his gut and caused him to cry out. Above and beyond the soaring walls of the Mountains That Walk, the sky was black, and against it, the Mountain That Smokes was haloed in fire. From gaping rifts in its sides oozing rivers of molten mud poured out across the sea of grass, sending columns of steam high. The mud buried the snowy tundra, blocking the way back into the world of men.

  Navahk’s eye grew wide with incredulity. From the broken summit of the volcano an enormous cloud boiled upward for miles, its top torn by high winds that were dispersing its substance across the western sky, while lower winds skeined portions from its belly southeastward in long, thin strands of—Navahk’s hand covered his mouth and nostrils as understanding dawned—poisoned air.

  He stared, unable to move. Never had he seen anything like it. It was from the heart of the mountain that the rumbling came. And from the cloud, fragments of fire rained upon the land while bits of rock exploded upward. Although small when observed from this distance, the debris were the size of boulders as they hurtled upward into the cloud and then fell great distances—to hit the earth and the Mountains That Walk with devastating force. The magic man calculated. Fourteen times had the sun risen since he had walked beneath the shadow of that mountain, but even at this distance he felt the impact of the boulders’ landings shake the permafrost beneath him.

  He watched in horror as entire mountains of ice collapsed and swept outward onto the tundra in roaring waves of white spume. Desperately he tried to gather his thoughts. He must get away, far from the Mountain That Smokes! Quickly! To the east, where the sky was clearer of the deadly exhalations of the volcano. Then, without warning, the earth rolled sharply beneath Navahk’s feet. He fell. To his relief, several of those whom he had believed dead now awoke and sat up, gasping, choking, holding their throats, grimacing against pain.

  Suddenly the earth was still.

  The few people who had survived the night of silent death gradually began to understand the extent of the devastating calamity. They could not rouse the others. All who had not slept with their heads fully buried under their skins were dead—women and children, young and old. The killing breath of the distant mountain had been impersonal and without compassion.

  Again the earth rolled. The survivors—five men, including Jub, and only one woman, Naiapi—stared at Navahk, their eyes wild with fear as they clutched their skins and furs to their nose and mouth.

  Panic bit his gut more deeply, but he tried to stand tall and bold. “Do not look at me! I did not bring this! Did this man not urge you to hurry?”

  One of the men, an elder named Earak, dropped to his knees, threw back his head, and keened like a woman. “All are dead! My women! My sons! Where is the magic of Spirit Killer? Why did he not protect us from this?”

  To the west the mountain continued to roar. A deadly silence settled as, for the first time, the absence of Zinkh, Cheanah, Ekoh, Simu, and the others was noticed. Oga’s man, a hunter named Rak, sank to his knees beside the corpses of his women and children. “Zinkh and his men have abandoned us! They have gone back. We should never have followed Navahk this far.”

  Naiapi was calm now. Her eyes flashing, she cut the hysterical words of the hunter. “The man Jub has brought us across this land, assuring Navahk that the way was good. If you would wail like a woman and fix blame for what has happened, do not blame Navahk, who has warned you all along of what must happen if you did not do as he commanded. Blame Torka for this black killing magic, and blame Jub. He is the one who has told us all that this was a good land!”

  Jub stepped away from the others, his expression that of a cornered animal. He met the glares of those who faced him. “This was a good land when I left it. Do you think I would have come with you if I thought that this-No! You will not lay the blame for this on me, woman! It is Navahk who has brought us to this, with his talk of the wanawut! His need to kill the people of Torka!”

  Jub saw his death in the faces of the others and would not stand still for it. He backed away, keeping them all in sight as he bent, picked up his spears, and slung his bedding over his shoulder. “I’m going back into the world of men! After Zinkh’s people and Cheanah. Anyone who wants to follow, they can please themselves.”

  “The sky is poison, and the land burns ahead of you. Fire rains from the clouds, and the mountains fall. You cannot go back!” Navahk thundered. “Nor will I continue on into the forbidden land!” Jub shouted, wheeling away and breaking into a run. The others watched him go, then looked at their dead. In silence, drained by their grief, they went to their loved ones, made their final good-byes, and laid them to look at the sky.

  “We will go on to the east.” Navahk spurred them with the insistence of his tone. “Look: The sky is clearer there. We will find the people of Man Who Walks With Dogs, and we shall kill them all for what they have done this day!”

  Rak looked at him with tired eyes. “No, Navahk. This man will walk with you no more.”

  His statement inspired the other hunters. To a man they proclaimed that they would walk west with Rak.

  “The wanawut is waiting to feed upon those who
challenge Spirit Killer!”

  Navahk threatened them.

  Rak slowly shook his head. “What is the wanawut to us now? We have lost women, children, brothers, and fathers in this camp. How could it hurt us more than this?”

  “It can kill you!”

  “Then we will die—but not in this land. We will die on our way back to the land of our people. This land is not for men; it is for spirits .. . bad spirits. Come with us, Navahk. Let Man Who Walks With Dogs go his way. He is welcome to this land.”

  “I will see him dead.”

  “Then you will see him dead alone. Unless the woman stays with you.”

  Naiapi’s head went up. “I am Navahk’s woman! I walk at his side unafraid!”

  Rak shrugged. “The choice is yours. But this man goes now.” As one, the others muttered agreement and, without another word, took up their packs and spears and headed west.

  “You will die! You will all die!” Navahk raged after them. “And this time it is the power of Navahk that shall take your spirits. Such weak and cowardly men are not fit to live!”

  Shaking, he stood awash in a torrent of anger as he watched them hurry after Jub. They caught up with him. Without looking back, they strode westward.

  Navahk’s heart was afire, and his mind went round and round aimlessly, like a wolf biting after its own tail. The power of his life’s purpose was ebbing in him. They had ignored his threats! They no longer believed in his power! They no longer feared him! If, by some small chance, they should make it back to the country of other men, they would tell how Navahk had lost his magic in pursuit of one whose powers were greater than his had ever been.

  “They will not speak so of me,” he snarled, then stalked to his sleeping skins and snatched up his spears and spear hurler. “I will kill them all before I allow them to speak so of me!”

  Naiapi tried to clutch at him. “Navahk, come. We must go! Forget them! Look! The cloud from the west thickens, and we must go on ahead of it!”

  He barely heard Naiapi’s pleas. He shook her free, was loping out across the land, taking aim as he ran, until a wondrous feeling of calm slowly began to soothe his overwhelming sense of loss and betrayal. He stopped, stared ahead, and smiled. The power was still his.

  Jub had led the others into the leading edge of the cloud. He could barely see them, but what he could see was enough to make him shout with delight. One by one, starting with Jub, the hunters were slowing their steps and dropping to the ground, clutching their throats, and dying!

  He laughed aloud, and even though his throat still burned, he felt no pain. “I have killed them! Who will doubt the power of Navahk now?”

  Naiapi stared at him as he walked toward her. For the first time she saw the utter madness in his eye. But it was too late to turn away from him. She was his woman now. And for the first time since she had set eyes upon him, she wanted no part of him.

  Before leaving the Valley of Songs, they took the bones of the child from the fouled pool, and the women arranged them as best they could. All gathered near to say gently words to the spirit of the little boy who had known no kindness in his life.

  But the bones of the man, Tomo, were half buried in over thirty feet of glacial rubble that was an advancing frontal lobe of the white Mountains That Walk. There was no way they could have retrieved the body, even if they had wanted to.

  “It was either Tomo or Jub that smashed the little lame one’s head and then discarded him in the pool,” Torka said grimly. “If the spirits of the white mountains want the bones of either of those two, this man will not stand in their way.”

  They hefted their packs, the load lighter because it was distributed among many. As they left the valley, Lonit lingered, falling behind the others for one last look at the sweet, sheltering land that she had loved so much.

  “In my dreams I never imagined this.”

  She was startled to find that Karana had come to stand beside her. He looked so grave, so much older, so sad. She longed to touch his face with motherly empathy, but he was a man now, and with Zinkh and Cheanah and the others looking on, such a gesture would not be fitting. “Perhaps because you have not dared to see?”

  He frowned, recalling too many unwelcome dreams. Ice . fire .. . the white stallion ripping the skin of the sky to make it bleed .. . Yes, perhaps he had seen this, after all, but had not understood. “It was good for us in this place. We should never have left it.”

  Lonit could see the assembled people waiting at the ice choked neck of the valley: Mahnie standing close to lana, holding the hand of Summer Moon like a little mother and looking moon-eyed at Karana. A sweet realization, a deep sense of lightness filled Lonit. Mahnie would be Karana’s woman someday. She did not need the gift of Seeing to know that they had done the right thing. Life had been hard and cruel to them, but if they had never left the beloved valley, Mahnie would not be here, and Torka’s band would still be small and vulnerable before the forces of Creation. Now, in Grek, Simu, and Ekoh, in Cheanah and his sons, and even in bold, arrogant, preposterously vain little Zinkh, and the other hunters of his band, Torka had strong men to hunt beside him.

  If they had never left the valley, lana would still be a mournful mute. Now she walked with a new joy in life, a willingness to face whatever came. Her beauty shone once more, and all who looked at her were warmed by her bright smile.

  If they had never left the valley, Lonit would never have found a friend in Wallah, nor would she ever have been fully assured of her own sense of worth. That had been a gift of the wondrous and wise Sondahr.

  “We should go on now, Lonit,” urged Karana, eyeing the soaring walls of ice that crouched upon the once soft and lovely hills. “It is not safe to linger here.”

  She lay her hand upon his forearm. “I must speak to you before we rejoin the others. You must not fear your dreams, Karana. You must face them. You must learn to use the gift of Seeing. It has always been a channel that allows the spirits to enter you, and through you, to speak to us all.”

  He shook his head. “The channel is forked and twisted in many places. It is too hard to see. Mists of blood and ice are everywhere beneath a sky that rains fire. It is not something that I want to see.” Her hand tightened on his arm. “Sondahr told me—a lifetime ago it seems to me now—that I must be a guide to you, Karana. But I know nothing of the way of dreams or of the Seeing gift. I only know my heart—my own feelings and my love for you, as though you were brother or son to me. I have seen the Seeing gift growing in you. Even when you were a small boy living by your wits on a distant mountain, you knew when the storms of life would come to us, and had we believed you, many of our trials might not have befallen us. Even this woman who has no Seeing gift has learned that many things are not what they seem and that those who look beyond the obvious—in life or in dreams—will find the truth if they really wish to see it.”

  Solemnly he confessed his fears. “The truth that underlies my dreams is not something that I want to see, Lonit, because when the dreams come to me, I am not a man but that same little boy living by his wits in a mountain cave, howling in loneliness at the moon, in fear of a world that is much too big and frightening for him.”

  She forgot that they were not alone and reached to hug him hard. “The time of the long dark will be upon us soon, Karana, even if we do not dream of it. Then the sun will rise, and the days of light will come. But only by dealing with the dark may we endure it to live to see those days of sun again.” She drew away and, with both hands on his shoulders, looked at him squarely, wanting him to see her spirit, hoping that her newfound strength would also be his in the days to come. “Sondahr and Umak are dead, Karana. They have been your teachers. But they cannot walk with you now. For them and for us, you must be all that they believed you could be—Karana, spirit master, a shaman such as your father could never have been!”

  The words jarred him, struck him as though a lightning bolt had scorched him where her hands lay. He stepped back, shook his head wonderi
ngly. She had looked to the west and believed that Navahk and all of those who had followed with him must be dead. All morning Zinkh and his people had been saying as much. The clouds, the smoke, and the foul, fetid wind—it did not seem as though any man or animal could live in such a tortured world. Karana’s main concern had been not for the life of his hated father, but the life of the great mammoth—Thunder Speaker, Life Giver-who had first led them to this land and who had raised his massively tusked head, lifted his trunk, and trumpeted in what had seemed a sad farewell, as though begging them to stay. Since entering the Corridor of Storms they had seen no mammoth sign at all, not even close to the dark, fragrant spruce forests where the herds were always found before.

  Suddenly, within Karana, there was no thought of mammoth. The channel of Seeing abruptly opened wide for him, running beneath black mists and burning mountains, through narrow corridors of ice that pierced the sky.

  Under the sky the fanged, white stallion ran, with a woman on his back, a beast howling in his shadow, and his one eye spurting blood as he pawed the air with daggered hooves. Two black swans fell to earth, their bloodied wings entwined. Lost beneath the black mist and the burning mountains, they were Torka and Lonit, always and forever.

  Karana gasped. “No!” he shouted.

  Lonit was frightened by his sudden pallor. “What is it? What have I said?”

  He drew near and held her close, uncaring that others witnessed his affection for her. “Navahk lives. He follows. We must go. Now!”