Dance of the Tiger

by Bjorn Kurten

  His story told, Goshawk was sent to headquarters at Caribou Lake in the company of a messenger who had strict orders not to lose the prisoner. It was not a pleasant journey. Goshawk was out of shape, and in the beginning he felt he would probably drop dead soon. In addition he had to spend the nights bound hand and foot, which really was superfluous, as he would not have had the strength to flee. But he had a healthy constitution, and his strength returned gradually. When he arrived at the Caribou Lake camp, he had lost a great deal of weight, and was in better shape than he could remember being for a long time.

  Here he was amazed to find himself in front of Shelk again, and it took him some time to realize that it was not the same man. They looked alike, dressed alike; even their ornaments were identical. Each man wore the same magnificent amber necklace. In spite of the similarity, though, Goshawk found that this was a very different man indeed. Their interview was long, and he left it with many things to think about. He told no one what had been said until much later, when he shared his story with Tiger.

  After a day’s rest, the messenger was dispatched back to Blue Lake; but he never got there, and no news came back to Caribou Lake. After a long wait, another messenger was sent. He, too, was never heard of again.

  Then, at last, news came through. The runner had been attacked and wounded on his way. His story was that Shelk (Right Hand) had been making ready to set out for the island, when the camp at Blue Lake was suddenly attacked by a strong group of Blacks. It was thought that they were led by Wolf, the former chief of Big Lake, who had managed to escape with some of his men when their settlement was taken. The attack had been repulsed easily enough, because the enemy, though unquestionably brave, was badly organized. Still, the expedition had to be postponed for a while. Now it was to set out. Viper would be in charge at Blue Lake, while Right Hand went to the island with Lynx and his company.

  The story gave Left Hand a clue to the fate of the other runners. They had probably been intercepted by Wolf and his gang. The route would have to be changed.

  That was the last Left Hand had heard until Fox came with his bad news.

  “Everything has gone wrong since Goshawk came here,” Fox cried. “Enemies attacking, messengers intercepted in the woods, and now this disaster!”

  “Tell me more about it, Fox.”

  “The last message—as you remember, Left Hand—was that Right Hand was taking Lynx and his company to the island, leaving Viper in charge. Since then—nothing. But now Viper is here!”

  “Viper!” said Shelk startled.

  “He is here with all his men and the village people, too. After hearing Lynx’s tale, he thought it necessary. Blue Lake has been abandoned.”

  “Temporarily,” interposed Shelk sternly.

  “As you say, Left Hand. But Lynx was the only man who came back from the island; and he is dead, too, these five days. He was found by Viper’s scouts near the shore. They had to carry him back to Blue Lake, for he could not walk. He cried for water all the time, and his thirst could never be quenched. He pointed right and left in his terror, and said that there were mammoths and tigers coming at him, and that the moon was pursuing him in the daytime, and that the light was that of the northern lights—red, green, blue—not the light of our father the Sun—”

  “Yes,” murmured Shelk, “I saw it, too. I should have taken heed.”

  “Lynx told his story to Viper, but sometimes he had to stop and cover his eyes, for the ghosts were crowding in on him all the time—so terrible is the magic of Tiger! He said that the Trolls had taken refuge on a hill with their leader. Lynx actually saw him. He threw a javelin at Tiger, but the magic was working already, dimming his sight, and he failed to strike his target. He felt himself going blind, and he crawled away and hid in the thicket. There his sight came back, and he could see the Black sorcerer standing over Right Hand’s prostrate body, his spear raised. That was all he could remember. After that he must have escaped in a coracle, which the scouts found by the shore.

  “He told us this. Then he could speak no more, and died at sunrise. After hearing Lynx’s tale, Viper decided to abandon the camp at Blue Lake and come back to Caribou Lake, for he did not feel safe so close to that terrible shaman.”

  There was a long silence while Shelk gazed into the dying fire. Then he rose and said, “It must be done now.”

  Fox burst into tears. “Please, Left Hand,” he begged, “let me do it. You said just now that I have been as a brother to you both.”

  Shelk smiled at him sadly. “You know better,” he said. “This belongs to me, and to me only. And I have no sons, Fox. I absolve your sons.”

  “If you would only let me—”

  “No, Fox. I must do what has to be done, and I must do it alone.” Shelk threw a handful of sticks on the fire and watched it blaze up merrily. “Your place is down with the men.”

  Fox sighed, then got up and went out. Shelk watched him go down the path and vanish out of sight.

  When he was gone, Shelk started to work. He did it methodically, but with an abstracted air; his thoughts were far afield. He searched the ground for some time, until he found a boulder that suited him. It was easy enough for a man of his strength to lift it, and it had one sharp edge, which he studied carefully. Then he nodded, almost as if performing to an audience. But there was no one to see him, not even the sun, for the sky was still grey with heavy clouds. He looked up as if waiting for a sign, but no sign came, and Shelk, with a powerful heave, lifted the rock and carried it to the door of the hut.

  Inside, he placed it with the sharp edge facing upward, and moved it several times before he was satisfied. With a stick he raked some of the embers from the fire and left them glowing on the floor. Then he went out again, to start on a new search. This took longer, and he hesitated often. At last he held a big, smooth stone in his hand. He lifted it and swung it easily. Again, he nodded.

  Shelk went back to the hut with the stone in his left hand. In the open doorway he stopped and stood for a while, looking down at both his hands: the left, with the big, smooth stone; the right, empty. Somehow the empty hand seemed to be no longer a part of him. He moved his fingers. They obeyed his will. He looked at the fingers, one by one, stretching and flexing them.

  “Right Hand,” he said aloud, marveling at it. It was supple and firm. It looked just like the other. He dropped the stone from his left hand and held both hands out in front of him. So similar. Yet his left hand was his work hand. But the right! It was the hand of pleasure, the hand that knew the softness of a woman’s body, the luxuriance of a sable’s skin, the roughness of the pine’s bark, the smoothness of a stag-antler’s velvet.

  For a long time, he collected himself. He had decided, but his hands were unwilling. Yet they would obey. He flexed his fingers once more, then bent down to retrieve the stone.

  He stepped firmly into the hut, dropped on his knees before the boulder, and carefully positioned his right index finger across the sharp edge. His left hand rose with the stone and came down in a gigantic blow. Reeling with the shock, he pushed the finger-stump against the glowing embers on the floor, and the reek of burned flesh filled the hut. Then his strong body jerked back, and he fell on the floor.

  Outside, there was a black flutter in the wind. A raven alighted, took a few steps toward the door, turned its great beak to the side, and cocked an eye into the hut.

  “Son of the Sun, Guardian of birds,” said the raven chattily.

  GREYLAG

  Each day they walk the sky

  And measure time for man.

  —Vaftrudnesmál

  Once more he was looking into the eyes of the old man. The intensity of their gaze was heightened by the halo of white hair around the thin, wrinkled face.

  “Uncle Greylag! Uncle Greylag!” he said. As always in his hour of need, the apparition had come to comfort him. There were no further words, and the apparition faded away, but a sense of Tightness, of an ordeal passed, slowly filled him, as if everything
was fitting into place. That shadow from the past had been with him before.

  The man who called himself Shelk had grown up nameless. His mother, who had lost her husband, returned to her father’s house with her two newborn children. There she renounced her old name.

  “Under that name I was married to the hateful man you chose as my husband,” she said. “Now I am free, and I am the mother of two sons. I choose my own name, and so shall they when they become men. From now on you shall call me Skylark, for I feel as if I have wings and could rise straight into the sky, singing.” But she never told anyone the real reason for her new name.

  Her parents were astonished at the change in her. From a submissive girl, she had turned into a proud, self-willed woman. She soon took command of the house, for her mother was ailing; and four years passed by in this way. She refused to give names to the two boys, but they came to be called Left Hand and Right Hand, because they were mirror images of each other, and the firstborn was left-handed. The boys grew up with the marks of their father’s race in their faces, and Skylark knew well what was said about them behind her back; but no one dared say anything to her face, for her anger was quick. She chose her lovers now among the young men, who stood in awe of her because of her beauty and strength of will. Only one of the young men she spurned, and he hated her for that, for the ridicule it brought on him; his name was Stag.

  In the boys’ fifth year, the Great Illness swept through the little community on the coast of the Salt Sea and killed more than half of its members. No one knew whence it came or why, but some of the older people muttered that it was the doing of Trolls, and that nothing good ever came of bringing up Troll imps among men. Whatever the cause, the twin boys never caught the disease, but their mother and grandparents died from it.

  The two orphans were then taken care of by their great-uncle, old Greylag the Shaman, a brother of Skylark’s mother. He lived well away from the village with his wife, Hobby, and a small adopted boy called Fox. The parentage of little Fox was unknown, but it was said that he was a foundling.

  The Shaman was a learned man, who had spent many years of his youth wandering and picking up the secrets of his trade. It was said that he had lived with the Trolls and spoke their language. He taught the boys a strange and secret tongue, which he later told them was indeed that of the White people. His powers were great: he could stare down an aggressive stranger and bend him to his will; he knew all about healing herbs and berries; he could cast a spell and send sickness or death to his enemies. As he noticed the quick intelligence of his two wards, he was pleased, and they soon became his disciples. Fox, one winter younger, was only able to learn the simpler tricks of the shaman’s trade, but Left Hand made great progress and became old Greylag’s favorite. Right Hand, though full of promise, was too often torn away by his passion for hunting and trapping.

  Shelk’s earliest memories were of the Shaman’s wife. Her own children had long ago grown up and left their home, and the loss of them had affected Hobby’s reason. She spent most of her waking life talking, as if every impression she received through her senses must immediately pass out again between her lips. Sometimes it was a monotonous mumbling, sometimes a series of interjections. She kept up a tireless commentary on every aspect of her daily life; every moment, every detail, duly registered.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh! the firewood’s gone, now I have to get some more, and the boys are away, skylarking like their mother, would they had been squirrels instead, bringing things home, and Oh! but was that a thunderclap, and Oh! Oh! Oh! the good old sun is coming out, yes he comes out, our good old Father the Sun, and just feel now how he warms me up, good and warm all into my bones, and look there, the tree pipit, he soars upward, there will be a song right away, yes there he is singing and coming down just like a falling leaf, and perches in the top of that pine, just think of sitting up there and seeing everything, bless his little heart, he sees all but he tells nothing, he just goes on singing, and Oh! that tern, she took her fish, what a splash she made, and now she flies back to her rock, what a swift! swift! thing she is, and Oh! the cloud is before the sun again, and the chill comes into my bones, but no matter, our Father the Sun will be out again soon, he comes back every day, and blessed are we to have him, Ouch! that was a sharp rock, should look where I am going, and now I must have a pee, seems I do nothing else all day long these days, sssss: many ants flooded I’m sure, and yes that was thunder that was, we’ll have a storm soon, it’s that way these hot summer days, our Father Sun knows we all need the water before the chives go all woody, here’s a bunch and now let me try it, mmmm…yes I can still feel the taste, there’s life in this old body still, good thing I keep spry, that’s needed with these wild young things having to be looked after, and old Father Greylag just as bad as they with his spells and sorcery, but Oh! Oh! Oh! look at the buzzard and all the small birds mobbing it, you’d think they’d be afraid but no, plucky little things they are Oh! you startled me taking off like that, don’t fret, little eider duck, I’m not out for your eggs today, and there’s the redshank whistling and whistling, round and round he goes, legs trailing, I’m not out for your eggs either so calm yourself, now here is a good piece of driftwood: my, my, that will burn merrily, I wonder how it gets so smooth and beautiful, maybe the fish nibble off the bark, and Yes! here is old Father Sun again, welcome to you, and here are some good sticks, yes lovely sticks they are, Oh! there goes the tree pipit again, bless his little heart for that song, and keep him safe from the hawk, funny thing he’s been back every summer and always sits in that tree, but Oh! I wonder if young Falcon will bring us some game soon, you’d think Father Greylag might do some trapping but he leaves that to Right Hand and Fox, well they are good at it bless them, and that capercaillie yesterday was wonderful, fowl and fish and oysters are the best for me with my poor teeth, here’s another good piece of wood, I think I have all I can carry now, so back home it is, Oh! how fine the house looks from here, I have to hand it to Greylag he keeps it up, and that Sun Pillar is a noble thing, well I remember him carving away at it, yes we were younger then, Oh! that was a flash of lightning, we’ll have rain soon, better get home while the wood is dry, now they’ll be back soon and want a dry shelter…” And so the old woman would hobble back toward the house, words pouring from her mouth.

  All was well as long as she talked; she was then in a sunny mood, open to the world and reflecting its every facet, like a tranquil sheet of water. Sometimes she grew silent, and then nothing could reach her. She would sit cross-legged on the floor, an unusual position among the Blacks, rocking slowly from side to side and crying quietly. At these times, the household chores fell to Greylag. He would handle the necessities, such as tending the fire and cooking the food. Passing her by, he often stopped to stroke her tear-stained cheek. When he was unable to stand the dreadful silence, he would retreat out of doors, for a lesson with the boys perhaps, while Hobby wrestled with her demons in solitude.

  In a somber mood, Greylag would sit down beside the great Sun Pillar, one of the wonders of the boys’ world. It rose to the height of two men, its top crowned with the ochre-red Sun Globe, and its sides carved into animal designs.

  “Those who have little wisdom follow the Moon,” he explained, “but the wise man follows the Sun, who is our father, and takes little heed of the Moon, who is only his woman. This was known to the sages of the old times, but their teachings were forgotten until I called them back to life. For I have divined the ways of the Sun.”

  Greylag had devoted much effort toward understanding the sun. The crude astronomy of the moon-stick was for him a thing of the past. Based on observations throughout his long life, he could predict the days of summer and winter solstice. When he and his tribe moved to their new village, more than five winters before the orphans came into his care, he had carefully chosen the site of his house according to the sun’s decrees.

  As befitted the secrecy and power of his calling, he settled well outside the village. There he erect
ed his first sundial, a long stick that he drove into the ground, using a plumb line to make sure it was perpendicular. The length and direction of its shadow told him where true north was and the day of the solstice.

  On that midsummer evening, he looked forward to the setting of the sun in the northwest. Days before he had worked up to the right position, so that he could watch the sun set right behind the small island he called Summer Island, on the horizon. This gave him one of his sightings. For the other, he had to wait till mid-winter, when the sun set behind Winter Island. Where the two lines crossed, he erected the mighty pillar on which he had worked so long.

  “The animals come and go as the Sun bids them, and the flowers bloom as he decrees. But the Sun’s own cattle are the mammoth, the caribou, and the shelk. In the summer, the Sun goes north; you can see his glow up there at midnight, when he is beneath the land, and that is where the mammoth and the caribou are. You may see the majesty and power of the Sun in the mammoth, but do not forget that you see his gentleness and love in the caribou. In the winter, when the Sun comes south and the north is cold and dark, they follow him into our lands. Thus you see them at the base of the pillar, holding it up. Carried by them you see the hunters of mammoth and caribou with their gear: the mammoth-hunter with his fire and heavy spear; the caribou-hunter with his disguise and antlers.

  “Above them you see the shelk, for he is still closer to the Sun, and he shares the majesty of the mammoth and the gentleness of the caribou. He is the summer animal here, the mightiest and proudest of the antlered tribe. But in the winter he draws south like the Sun. Above him, you see the shelk-hunter with his atlatl.”

  Many other animals climbed the pillar in an intricate pattern, and near the top a snake wound around it; because snakes are only abroad in the summer, when the sun is closest to the earth. Higher still was the flaming globe of the sun itself, red as the blood of life, red with the true color of the sun when it enters and leaves the world. The boys looked up in awe at the magnificent structure.