Secrets

by Ken Altabef

  The occupants of the ice house were never far from Verlag’s thoughts either, as the headman cast frequent glances toward the illuviga.

  In the absence of a shaman, the headman attempted to commune with the slain bear. He spent some time at it, whispering in the carcass’ ear and then lifting the head to test its weight after each question. Alaana became nervous. The great brown bear so freshly killed would have a close link to the spirit world, perhaps strong enough to divine what she intended to do. She hurried to the center of the ice house and sat in calm repose, clearing her mind of all thoughts that might reveal her plan.

  In time, Verlag approached the illuviga. He stepped inside the entrance, flanked by the bristling guardsmen.

  “My patience reaches its end,” he growled. “Do it now.”

  Alaana maintained her attitude of concentration. “Dawn is the time of birth and renewal. I must wait for first light.”

  Verlag bent close and applied his penetrating stare. Alaana didn’t know what the headman saw in her face, but noted the way his eyes were glossed over with strong drink.

  “If you play false with me, little shaman, it’s your bladder I’ll have hanging from this rafter!” he roared, with a drunken wave toward the grisly trophies strung up above their heads.

  In a rare display of sentimentality, the headman visited for a short time at the funerary pallet. Alaana watched him stare silently down at his brother’s body, which had begun to give off the sickly, unmistakable odor of death. Verlag sighed heavily. His hand fidgeted at his side, but was unwilling to bridge the gap to touch the corpse.

  They came at dawn, with the first streak of orange at the horizon. Both Garagos and Verlag, along with several of their men. Looking haggard from their revels of the night before, they crowded into the illuviga.

  Alaana was ready for them.

  During the night she had raised the corpse from its pallet by means of a sturdy line of sinew bound around its neck. The noose was laced with brass bells and attached to a long pole standing up in the ice. She sat cross-legged before the pole with drum and rattle in hand. At the approach of the men, Alaana used the pole to lever the corpse up and brace it atop her back, the bells jangling their call for the dead man’s spirit to return.

  Beating the shaman’s drum in alternating raps on the rim and belly, Alaana produced a pulsating rhythm. The noise was loud enough, she hoped, to cover her low chant. An invocation which bore the name not of the Disemboweler, lord of the rolang, but of Tekkeitsertok, the barrel-chested turgat who controlled the supply of game animals.

  “Tekkeitsertok, spirit of the wild caribou, heed my call.”

  This time she must not fail. She made obeisance with the braid of sweet prairie grass, waving it carefully before her in a pattern of east, west, north and south, skyward and earthward. She’d been unable to light the root inside the ice house, but it wouldn’t matter.

  She shifted the weight of the corpse. The dead man was precariously balanced in a squatting position on her shoulders, its bony chest resting against the back of her head, the spindly arms draped stiffly around her neck. The bells jangled.

  Alaana spread some dried star anise across the ice in front of her, bringing a powdered index finger up to her nose. “Heed my call,” she said softly. There was no desperation in her voice, just grim determination and faith. This was the decisive moment.

  Her mind was surprisingly clear as she fell into the ecstasy of the allaruk, and her soul was carried away on the spirit wind. Alaana’s spirit flew across the mystic plane, to a place that rested high above worldly concerns. Snow and ice gave way to pine and conifer and heather.

  On previous occasions Alaana had only glimpsed Tekkeitsertok’s great willow bower at the heart of the Wild Wood, but now she stood squarely in the center of the earthy sanctuary. The air, thick with the scent of woodsmoke and green flowering plants, swirled with fluffy white willow heads. The arboreal canopy overhead was so densely woven it blotted out the stars, leaving only a pale celestial light that seemed to infuse air itself. A silvery glow emanated from the broad leaves and floating willow tufts, the speckled dew, the myriad luminescent buzzing things, and most of all from the great and proud creature at the heart of the bower.

  Loudly clacking its hooves together, the turgat slowly lifted its great horned head. It turned its soft caribou eyes, such a deep, deep brown, upon Alaana. The unending nature of the circle of life swirled within those limitless depths — birth, conflict, death, rebirth — spinning and turning until they became dizzying whirlpools.

  Alaana felt herself quaver and begin to sink away, losing herself in that rich, mesmeric gaze. “Dear spirit,” she managed to choke out, “Heed my call. Hear my plea.”

  Struggling with the words, Alaana invoked the Old Agreement. Made when the world was young, the Old Agreement was a bargain ancient and inviolable, by which the souls of the game animals willingly offered themselves up so long as the shaman made appropriate offering and respect to their guardian spirit in return.

  Tekkeitsertok was unmoved. It offered only a dismissive snort as it looked away. Alaana recalled what Garagos had said, that the great spirits did not heed the prayers of women, but she was determined that this time this spirit would hear her.

  “Don’t look away, noble spirit. See me as I stand before you. See my father, so gentle and proud, a man who has never harmed any person in his entire life. Look at my brother Maguan so tall and strong and handsome. Here is Ipalook’s wife, tending to her sewing. Now I fear her husband is dead. Look at the children, see them laugh and dance as they play. See them also as they cry out in their hunger. I beg of you, spare just one soul to help save us all.”

  The great turgat shook the golden flies from its furried shoulders and clacked its hooves sharply together.

  Alaana’s eyes snapped open. The willow bower was gone. Only the ice prison remained, the pungent star anise thick in her nostrils. Verlag stood glowering at her from the entrance. She couldn’t meet the headman’s icy gaze.

  She felt the weight of the corpse on her shoulders shift slightly as her shiver of hopeless panic shook the bells. She had been foolish to play at such deceptive magic, and she would surely die for it. The image of the children at play lingered in her mind. They would all die.

  And then she felt a twitch, a shudder that came not from her shoulders but from the dead man perched upon them.

  Alaana launched into the mock rolang. The rite was meant to be performed in solitude, forbearing any watchers. But it didn’t matter. Let them see, she thought. After all, she could not perform the genuine rolang and they needed to be convinced. From what he had said, Verlag was at least familiar with the ceremony at some basic level. She would follow the form.

  She used the pole and the noose to lever the corpse around, swinging it to face her. With one smooth motion she stood up, taking the body in a grotesque embrace. Alaana pressed her mouth to that of the corpse, unable to stifle a gag as the dry husks that were its lips rasped against her own. The rancid smell unavoidable in her nostrils, she tasted death.

  She mimicked breathing into the mouth in the controlled fashion necessary for the rolang. As she didn’t know the proper invocation for the ritual she mumbled words of her own devising, a prayer to spirits of wind and air to grant her strength to bear out this ordeal. The chant didn’t matter; she did not need to call the dead man’s soul. Another had already taken its place.

  The corpse’s eyes opened, revealing milky orbs, crusted with yellow death.

  As the corpse began to shake and move, Alaana heard startled gasps erupt behind her from the men waiting by the door. She clung firmly as the corpse struggled, keeping her lips pressed to the mouth of the monster. With great concentration she fought to subdue the awakening fire in those glazed eyes. As the body gathered strength and awareness it writhed and jerked with increasing ferocity.

  The spirit within was the soul of a mature musk ox, and a strong one at that, probably the leader of its herd. Plucked
from its body by Tekkeitsertok and imprisoned in this foul cage of dried flesh, the beast was shocked and disoriented. But it was fast regaining its sense of will. Alaana held on with all her strength. There was no stopping now; she must control its wild bucking until the final moment, or perish in the attempt.

  And so, The Corpse Who Dances.

  At last the tongue of the corpse protruded, sliding past the seal of her lips and into her mouth. Alaana bit it off.

  She kicked the pole from the ground and released her charge onto the ice. The headman’s brother scrambled mindlessly on the ground.

  The Yupikut men shrank back, voicing their terror with startled grunts. Verlag rushed forward. He bent to remove the noose and the bells, struggling against his brother’s dull, idiotic movements. The corpse’s milky eyes went wide, looking pathetic and confused. Its pitiful attempts at speech were lost in ghastly gurgles of black blood.

  “He has journeyed far,” said Alaana. “He will be confused at first.”

  Verlag, visibly repulsed, stood the body up and shoved it toward the two servitors. “Take him to his tent. Tend to him.”

  Garagos surged forward. The bear-like giant shoved Alaana down, striking her behind the knees with the flat of his spear. In an instant the weapon was reversed, its point poised a short distance from her throat.

  “Not yet!” roared Verlag. “I may need further use of her.”

  Verlag spat. He motioned to the drum, the pole, the bells. “Clear these things out. All of it. This place reeks of foul magic.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “IKIRUQ”

  Alaana sat alone in the empty ice house. Even the rancid fur mat had now been taken away. Cross-legged on the bare ice, she strove to retain the calm center. But it was impossible to be calm.

  She had achieved very little. Somewhere, not far away, the body of the headman’s brother was being cosseted in his tent. It had life, it grunted and moved, but such a thing could never be mistaken as human for long.

  Mindful of the guard just outside the entrance, Alaana slid quietly along the wet floor. She began working her fingers between the igluksak at the far wall. There, in the hard packed snow between the blocks of ice, she had hidden her ceremonial blade.

  She drew the dagger from the ice pack wall, tasting with satisfaction the familiar feel of the carved ivory handle. The knife was largely ceremonial but did have a keen edge, honed by thousands of strokes at the sharpening stone and with each stroke she had offered up a prayer to ensure it would cut true when most needed.

  She would have to attempt her escape soon, though she could see no way past the two armed guards at the doorway. She wondered how the end would come. Would she be stabbed through, or beaten into unconsciousness? What would it be like when her spirit left her body for the final time? Would it feel any different than the many soul flights she had already taken? Such thoughts were not useful; fear and panic only clouded her ability to plan and prepare, and yet these dire ruminations were unavoidable. She struggled to settle herself, seeking the calm center.

  She waited.

  The circle of sky visible through the ring of human bladders marked the passage of time. When they finally came for her, the orange of dawn had been replaced by a pale gray-purple, the color of mid-day at winter. Alaana did not resist as she was dragged from the ice house and shoved face-first into the snow outside.

  She was hauled to her knees in front of a jeering ring of Yupikut men. Verlag hovered before her, his cruel mouth twisted by anger, eyes blazing pure hatred. He struck a backhand blow across her jaw that snapped her head back and stole all strength from her legs. She tumbled into the slush amid a mix of taunts and snickers from the men.

  Alaana shoved her hands into the snow in order to push herself up. She felt the ice pack tremble faintly, under a deep bass rumbling.

  Verlag pointed at the body of his brother, which was rutting about in the snow a few feet distant. From the thing’s bloody mouth came a low grunting noise that was completely inhuman. But Alaana was preoccupied with something else, a distant echo just at the level of perception, a sound which distinctly matched the vibration she felt on the ground.

  Verlag struck her again. “This thing is not my brother!” he raged.

  Alaana stared up at him. One side of her face was numb with clinging snow, the other burned from Verlag’s slap. A gob of blood pooled inside her lower lip. She spat it up at Verlag.

  “First she dies, then all her people!” roared Verlag, but his grave pronouncement was eclipsed by an uproar spreading suddenly throughout the settlement. The dogs went wild. The low bass rumbling, audible to them all now, was met by desperate shouts from the far end of the camp. A mass of solid thunder was rocketing down the length of the fjord, a herd of musk oxen stampeding along the chasm, brushing the Yupikut tents and equipment aside, smashing the sledges and scattering the dogs. In this instance the Yupikut’s cleverly concealed settlement worked against them, funneling the devastating animal charge between the cliffs of ice. Trapped in the narrow gorge, a handful of men went down among the onslaught of pummeling hooves before they were able to scramble aside.

  The force of the charge was aimed directly at her position, as the beasts sought to free the tormented soul imprisoned within the body of the headman’s brother. The oxen were enraged by the fate of their leader and driven completely wild by the unearthly powers at work.

  There was no protection against their mad rush. As the storm of destruction swept past the ice house the men confronting Alaana scattered. If ever there was a chance to make a break for it, the time had come. She dashed for the escarpment of rocky ice at the lip of the fjord. She was immediately bounced back, having run into a wall of flesh.

  It was Garagos.

  “Now you die,” spat the giant. He punctuated his threat with a slash of the spearhead clenched in his left hand, the haft having broken off during his rush to sidestep the stampede. Alaana ducked under the blow, letting the big man’s arm pass overhead. With one smooth movement she drew her ceremonial blade from the broad sleeve of her parka and raked it across Garagos’ neck. The knife bit deep into the side of his throat drawing a torrent of blood, but still the giant came on.

  With the oxen hurtling by, Garagos trapped Alaana in his powerful grip. She felt her ribcage creak and begin to buckle as the giant squeezed the breath out of her. But as Garagos leered down at her his face grew chalky and confused, the bear-claw scarifications standing out in high relief against his whitening skin. His blood ran down the right side of Alaana’s parka, washing over the crimson stain of her own blood left when her ear had been severed.

  Alaana felt Garagos’ grip weaken, allowing just enough leeway to bring the ceremonial blade up. She drove the point into the big man’s belly. A moment later the Yupikut warrior’s body dropped into the snow with a dull thud.

  Alaana wasted no time in launching herself at one of the huge chunks of ice jamming up the fjord. She hoped to lose herself among the frozen caverns that made up the better part of the embankment.

  She picked her way along the cliff face on the far side of the fjord. The going was slow, the way cluttered with boulders and crags, all covered by sheets of ice that had run down from the summit. The rock surface was bearded with icicles of all sizes, from heavy trunks as thick as her arm to innumerable needle-sharp splinters, making the scramble treacherous. Any attempt to gain height along the wall was impossible.

  Alaana explored as many crevices as she could, seeking an outlet. Any of these caves could hold the lair of aklaq, the grizzly bear. She finally discovered a rift in the cliff wall large enough to squeeze through. On the other side she found a frozen stream that led to a stretch of open terrain. She tore out in a straight run across the ice. The surface cracked sharply as her mukluks slapped against it, but there was no time to worry if she might fall in. She didn’t know how soon the Yupikut would be able to muster their dogs to follow.

  There was little chance of concealing herself in the barren waste on
the other side. At last, exhausted from her desperate flight and the long trudge through the snow, she hid behind a large chunk of ice-encrusted rock. It was already growing late, and all the landmarks were unfamiliar in the dusky haze. She settled down to rest for a moment and drink of the snow.

  Her hands were trembling. In that quiet moment it finally dawned on her that she had just killed a man. She had acted so quickly, without hesitation, that it almost seemed unreal. It had not been difficult at all. Her way was clear. She would do anything — anything to save her people. She would die for them a hundred times over. And she would kill.

  Her main concern now was to warn the Anatatook of the impending attack, but it would be impossible to find her way in the dark. She wondered how Tugtutsiak had reacted to the attack. The Anatatook were not fighters. The headman might well have moved the camp further south, hoping to avoid confrontation. But even with all the men on alert, there was no escape from the overwhelming fury the Yupikut tribesmen would bring.

  And what of her family? She had watched Maguan fall to a Yupikut war club, but the fate of Kigiuna was unknown. Had her family given up on her?

  A mournful howl cut across the tundra. Peering out from behind the rock, Alaana saw a shaggy shape cross a rocky crest a few hundred paces away. A pointed snout swiveled above the outline of an oversized timberwolf. Alaana held her breath, searching the dusk for signs of any others. She might be able to frighten off one lone wolf, but not a half-starved pack in midwinter.

  The huge animal made straight for her. With a leap the big dog was on her in an instant, nearly bowling her over, eagerly licking at her face and hands.

  “Makaartunghak!” She embraced the gigantic huskie, hugging him close. She buried her face in the warmth of a thick white and gray coat which covered a chest twice as broad as that of a wolf.

  She saw the smaller silhouette of Yipyip as she lazed atop the very rock Alaana had just been hiding behind. Aloof as ever, the little dog’s short coal-black fur stood in sharp relief against the background of arctic white. She mewed casually as she stretched her forelegs along the crusted surface of the rock.