Beyond the Sea of Ice

by neetha Napew

  The dream dissolved. He opened his eyes. He stared into darkness. Karana had been wrong to speak so rudely to the headman. Galeena would have been well within his rights to banish the child from the cave as punishment for such behavior. If it had come to that, Torka knew that there would have been a confrontation between himself and the headman. He would no more allow Karana to be put at risk than he would stand aside and allow Lonit or Umak to come to harm. It was for their sake that he bore Galeena’s filthy ways. It was for their sake that he had not turned his back upon the conniving Ai. And it was for Karana’s own good that he had given him such a severe tongue-lashing. He would have done no less if the boy had been his own son.

  The thought brought a revelation. In Kipu he had lost a son. In Karana he had gained another. If Lonit bore a male child, it could mean no more to him than Karana. They would be as brothers, and Torka would name them both as his sons. Surely the boy must know this!

  But how could he know if Torka had not told him? He had only to recall the hurt, angry expression upon Karana’s little face and to remember the look of despair in Lonit’s eyes before the plaku had begun to know that neither of them understood what drove him or the depth of his feelings for them. It was not the way of the People to speak such thoughts to others.

  In new times men must learn new ways.

  Umak was right. Torka would go to them now. He would hold Lonit close and assure her that Ai was nothing to him. Nothing. He would look Karana in the face, his eyes focusing directly into those of the boy so that Karana would have no doubt that he spoke with a true spirit, and he would name him son.

  In the thinning darkness, Torka rose and stepped quietly over the sleeping bodies of yesterday’s plaku dancers. Predictably, Galeena had the most women around him. Any of the females of the band would gain status by coupling with its headman. He had not gone back to his own fire circle. Ai slept there alone while her man lay on his back with sleeping women entangled around him, their arms and legs entwined like a clutch of worms.

  He was disgusted by the sight of them. When the time of the long dark has passed, when Lonit is strong again after the birth of our child, if Galeena has not changed, then Torka will leave this place. There are other bands out there. They are bound to be better than this one.

  He walked around a hairy mound that he knew was Umak. Two naked women lay snuggled close beneath his “wings.” The head of the great bear seemed to smile up at him as he passed. Torka smiled back, thinking that the old man truly was a spirit master; he had mastered his own spirit and willed it to function as a young man’s again in his old age.

  His smile vanished when he reached his own fire circle. The weather baffle sheltered Lonit’s sleeping form, but Karana was not there. Nor were his sleeping furs, his clothes, or the spear that Torka had made for him.

  Karana had been gone for hours, and all that time snow had been falling steadily, covering his trail. The wind was bitter, and the mountain sheathed in ice.

  Galeena declared that a search was impossible, and his hunters agreed. Although Umak was visibly distraught, one look at the mountain wall forced him to agree with the headman. Yet Torka decided to follow Karana.

  He dressed, then lowered himself on the sling controlled by ropes of twisted rawhide, as Karana had done. Even though it was more difficult and more dangerous for a grown man, Torka was so concerned about Karana, he did not think about his own safety. He searched for hours, plodding eastward, certain that Karana would be seeking his people where Galeena claimed to have seen them. He would be heading toward the distant mountains, making his way across the savage, unknown land toward the place that was called the Corridor of Storms . where Big Spirit walked the world, destroying the lives of men and crushing small, vulnerable boys who dared to walk alone because they believed themselves to have been abandoned by their friends. Across the endless miles, he shouted Karana’s name. The wind blew his voice back into his face along with stinging particles of hard, pellet like snow, which reduced visibility so much that, for a short while, he lost his sense of direction.

  As darkness gathered beyond the swirling, howling, wind driven white, he suddenly thought of Lonit and his unborn child. If he were to die, they would be at Galeena’s mercy with only a frail old man to protect them. Torka’s sense of frustration was absolute. For their sake, he must return to the mountain, but to turn his back on Karana now meant abandoning the boy to certain death.

  His grief was unassuageable when, at last, he committed himself to the homeward trek. When he reached the base of the mountain, Manaak was waiting for him.

  “Tomorrow,” said the scar-faced hunter. “This man will go out with you tomorrow. Perhaps two will find what one could not.”

  Faint but real hope stirred. “Tomorrow,” agreed Torka, and knew that in Manaak he had found a friend.

  They climbed the wall together in darkness, each man clutching the sling’s rawhide ropes and supporting the other. Manaak had poured ashes over the wall to lessen the slipperiness of the ascent. It did some good, although both climbers nearly fell several times. Only the ropes of the sling, steadied from above by Umak, kept them from losing their balance completely and allowed them to keep a reasonably firm grip on the wall. When they finally clambered onto the ledge, the hunters of Galeena’s band commented on the impressiveness of their climb—and on the foolishness of it.

  “It is not a good thing for a hunter to risk death for the sake of a child,” scoffed Galeena. “That Little Lame One has gone to feed his spirit to the storm. He is scrawny, but he will make meat for wolves and lions. He was not good for much else than that from the beginning, this man thinks. Torka must forget him now.”

  Torka pulled his ruff back and shook snow from his shoulders, then looked at Galeena out of tired eyes. The headman was obviously feeling cockier than ever since he had awakened after the plaku with several women in his arms and a passive Ai at his fire circle. He was a hard, arrogant man who had no understanding of compassion; but with the exception of Manaak, his hunters were loyal to him, not in spite of these qualities but because of them. With Galeena as their headman, they could live as soft and as indolent a life as their habitat allowed; and upon the mountain to which he had led them, life was soft indeed.

  Torka eyed them with contempt, knowing all too well that there was not a man among them who would hesitate to drive a spear through his heart if Galeena asked it. So, although he would have liked to strike the headman down for the words he had spoken so callously against Karana, he said quietly: “Among Torka’s people, it is not considered a good thing to abandon the dead before they are dead. The Little Lame One survived alone for many moons upon the tundra. His courage led him to this mountain and to this cave. He is still alive. In the warm new garments that Lonit has made for him, he will curl up like a fox against the wind, with his back to the storm. He will survive. Torka will find him. Torka will ask none of Galeena’s men to risk themselves.”

  Tomorrow came. The storm intensified into a driving blizzard that shook the very foundations of the world. Although Manaak said that he was ready to accompany Torka on another search for Karana despite the weather, Torka had only to look at the bereft expressions upon Lonit’s and lana’s faces to know that he dared not venture out this day. In frustration, feeling that he had to do something, he kindled a signal fire and hunkered down beside it.

  Ninip sauntered near. “Little Lame One is dead! Not even the beasts that gnaw his bones could see Torka’s fire through this storm!”

  Torka slapped out at him, missing but driving him off. The boy laughed belligerently. Torka ignored him and continued to nurture his fire, sheltering it from the wind, hoping against hope that somehow Karana was alive, that he could see the beacon and know that there were those upon the mountain who longed for his return.

  Hours passed. The storm raged on. Umak phrased an endless litany of chants, imploring the spirits of the wind and weather to turn away from this part of the world so that one small boy mi
ght be able to find his way home again; but the spirits that had obeyed his command on the night of the musk-ox hunt did not heed him now.

  The storm grew worse. Torka continued to feed his little fire as day became dark and Umak’s chants droned on. Exhausted, drained by the energy that it took to keep his hope alive, he stared out across the storm-riven world and thought of the tales that Galeena had told of other bands, of strange lands, of the Corridor of Storms, and of vast, rive ring herds of game moving back and forth across the world, vanishing at summer’s end, then returning out of the eternal night at the ending of the time of the long dark.

  Where did they go in that time when the darkness swallowed them? Why did they go? What force impelled them to begin to leave the tundra even before the first gauzing of frost turned the grasses brittle and caused the willow to turn gold? Did the spirits gift them with some secret that was withheld from Man? Did they journey to some far and shimmering plain beyond that place of horrors that Galeena called the Corridor of Storms? Did the sun hide there, warming that far and unknown land and bathing the herds in its precious, life-sustaining light while Torka’s world lay cold and dark beneath the storms of the time of the long dark?

  And where was Karana now? Was he following the herds, trekking ever eastward in search of his people? Would he find the father whose love meant so much to him that he would not admit that the man had abandoned him? Was he, even now, looking back toward the mountain, hating Torka for having shamed him before Galeena’s band? Or was he dead, in the belly of a beast, as Galeena claimed? Was he lying frozen and alone, perhaps, a tiny, forsaken figure looking at the sky forever?

  The thought was unbearable. Torka’s face was drawn with fatigue when he looked up, startled by Galeena. The headman had come to stand beside him. He was looking down, shaking his head.

  “Torka must forget the scrawny one. This fiah, it is waste of fuel. Little Lame One has chosen his path. The way was clear to him. Galeena says that he made the brave choice, asking no man’s pity, wanting no wuhman’s tears. Now that he is dead, Torka must admit that it is good thing.”

  Torka’s eyes were as cold as the storm. “When Torka with his own two hands has placed the bones of Karana to look at the sky, then and only then will Torka admit that Karana is dead. And even then, Torka will not forget one who was as a son to him. And never will Torka say that the death of a child is a good thing!”

  All that night the storm raged, and while her man slept, Lonit kept the beacon fire burning. When he awoke, she spoke no words that might cause him pain. She brought food to him and dragged her sleeping skins close to his side so that she might keep the vigil with him. Sometime before dawn, she fell into a deep, troubled sleep. She dreamed of wild dogs running out across a world of white. Land, mountain, and sky, all were as white as bones. She awoke with a start.

  Torka was gone. Like Karana who had vanished before him, he had gone in stealth. His heaviest, multilayered winter clothing was gone, and he had taken enough food from their provisions to sustain him on a long journey.

  “He has been gone for much time,” lana told her, coming close to offer comfort.

  “Why didn’t you wake me? Why hasn’t someone gone after him!”

  “Too much snow. Too much wind,” explained Manaak, obviously upset. “If he had told this man that he was going, Manaak would have gone with him.

  Togetheh we might have—“

  “Joined the lame one in the world of spirits!” interrupted Galeena. He came close to Lonit as she stood before her fire circle. He put a heavy hand upon her shoulder and smiled down at her; the smile was a leer. “Forget Torka. No man of this band will follow that one into this storm.

  Torka not come back. Lonit not worry. Galeena always care for wuhmen.”

  His hand curled around her shoulder.

  She twisted away and shrank back from him. “Torka will come back!”

  “Snow has buried his tracks,” informed Ninip, slurring his words vindictively as he grinned at Lonit’s misery. “No man could find him in this storm! No man would risk himself for a hunt eh so weak in his head that he throws away his life for a cripple!”

  “Karana is not a cripple!” Lonit would have slapped him had he been within striking distance. “And Torka is not weak! Would your father not search for you if you were lost in a storm?”

  The question caused the boy’s wide, dirty face to flame and twitch. The members of his band laughed as Galeena replied: “Not for Boy Who Falls On Face Before Oxen would this man put himself at risk in any weatheh!”

  For another day and night the storm blew and howled and spat snow at the world. As in Lonit’s dream, the land, mountain, and sky all turned white, part of a freezing, tattered cloud scape into which no man who wished to live to see another day would have set himself.

  And then, seemingly in a moment, the storm was over, and the sky cleared. The tundra lay white and still, buried beneath the frozen rubble of the storm. A cold sun shone, all warmth bled out of it, as all youth seemed to have been bled out of Umak. The once-proud spirit master stood on the ledge, in his bearskin robe, with the head of the beast balanced atop his own .. . but the skin was only a skin, and the head was only a skull, and within his own body, he felt like an old man again. For nearly a week the storm had raged, and for all that time, Umak had raged back at it.

  Why had the sky spirits ignored him? He had made such a show of his magic. The people of Galeena’s band would not have been surprised if he had flown off into the storm like some sort of a miraculous bear-bird that was fully capable of ripping the power from the heart of the storm, of plucking up both Karana and Torka with taloned feet and returning them both safely to the mountain.

  He had been enchanted by his own spells. For a moment, when the boy had first disappeared, when Umak had first taken his place upon the ledge and spread his feathered arms up and out, he had almost believed that he could fly!

  Not until Torka had descended the wall had he been confronted by the truth. He had wanted to go, to lead his grandson boldly down from the heights in search of Karana. He had frozen where he stood, an old man in a bearskin robe, with a stiff leg and an absolute terror of the ice-sheathed wall that he had known he could not hope to conquer.

  So he had folded his legs, not like a bear but like a camel, and wrapped his body in the skin of the great short-faced bear. He had hidden within it for days, pretending to be what he knew he was not. He was glad for the bearskin; it made him seem large while, in truth, he felt very small.

  Gradually, the members of the band began to doubt him. Oklahnoo watched him with a jaundiced eye. Her sister, a kinder soul—or perhaps simply protective of her man and the child that she carried—continued to bring him food.

  “Umak is spirit mast eh she assured him. “Umak’s magic is strong. It is slow this time, that is all. This wuhman say, chant hard.”

  He was grateful for her encouragement. It helped to cut the sting of the slurs that he overheard the other women make. They were careful not to speak too loudly, just in case they were mistaken; but it was there, all the same. Deep within that part of himself where self-confidence was born, there was an expanding emptiness, where guilt had begun to take root.

  Why had Karana left the cave? Because an old man had been so taken with himself that he had ceased to care about one small boy?

  Umak shuddered in almost overwhelming remorse. Where was Torka? He had risked his life to go in search of Karana because a spirit master’s powers had failed to bring him home. Now the storm into which he had gone was over. Why had he not returned? “Please, Spirit Master, you must not stop your chanting!”

  He looked down, his attention drawn by Lonit.

  “The spirits of the mountain, of the wind and storm, they will listen to your words! They have always listened to Umak!”

  The girl’s expression of faith touched him but did little to restore his own faith in himself. He felt old and stiff-bodied.

  “This spirit master, he is tire
d,” he admitted to Lonit.

  Lonit sat beside him. “Torka must be tired. Karana, too.” She sighed and laid her head against his arm as though she were a child. They sat together in silence, looking across the miles, their faces illuminated but not warmed by the cold, late-autumn sun. Softly, Lonit spoke of the past: about the long, bitter way that they had traveled together since the Destroyer had come and gone from their lives; how an old man who had walked the wind had brought Torka and a frightened girl to a new life; how he had willed the desire to live into her; how he had stood against foxes and wolves and storms; and how always the spirits had listened when he spoke.

  “They will listen now,” she whispered, her eyes brimming as she looked up at him. “For Torka, for Karana, and for Lonit, they must listen. If Torka does not return, Galeena will take this woman to his fire circle. He will kick her until Torka’s baby dies. Then Torka will be truly dead.

  Forever. And Galeena will be glad.”

  He was so appalled by her statement that, for a moment, he could not speak. Then he stammered: “Why would Galeena kill Torka’s baby? These are not starving times.”

  “Ai has said that it is his way.”

  “Hrmmph! Not as long as Umak is spirit master!” He rose and readjusted the weight of the bearskin upon his bony frame and began to chant again. His voice was a rasping vibrato that did not quite rise above the occasional deep, barely audible reverberations that emanated from the heart of the mountain, but it was stronger than it had been for hours.

  Lonit brought food to him. He did not eat. She brought him water. This he sipped, to moisten his throat so that it would not fail him.

  At dusk, a rockfall clattered down from the heights. From his place upon the ledge, Umak observed it out of fatigue reddened eyes as it fell along the precipice to the left of the cornice. There was ice in it, and large discolored wedges of snow pebbled with detritus that must have broken loose from beneath the under layering of the summit ice pack. It was one of countless such slides that he had witnessed since first coming to dwell upon the mountain; yet there seemed to be something different about it. So much snow. So much detritus. Perhaps it was only the failing light. He could not be sure, nor did he care. He had more important things to occupy his thoughts at the moment.