Secrets

by Ken Altabef

  The horrible dream was still fresh with her, its talons rooted deep within her soul. She couldn’t imagine why she would have such a violent vision. She crawled out the low entranceway of the ice house into the chill night. A northern gale was making its long sweep across the ice pack, sending a fine pelting of snow into her face. Now, fully awake, she was more disturbed than ever. Dreams, she knew, often made a reality for themselves.

  There was a certain truth to that dream. A clear message. What she should do was abandon her northerly quest, return to the Anatatook and take what she wanted. It was a simple thing.

  “Who are you?” she whispered into the teeth of the gale. There was no answer except for a faceful of flying white powder.

  She turned her gaze inward. “Who are you?”

  “Manatook,” was the reply.

  “Of course,” said Alaana, seeing the truth at last. Of course. She whispered an incantation in the language of the shamans, urging the spirit to appear. Slowly a man’s form materialized before her in shades of blue and gray, seemingly drawn out of the frost and flying snow. Manatook. It had to be.

  “Murder!” said the ghost. “Foul murder.”

  Alaana cursed herself for being so foolish. How could she not have realized this earlier? In order for Old Manatook’s transformational magic to work, in order to make the bear appear as a man, the spirit of the skin’s original owner must still be trapped inside the skin. It suffered the same fate as the spirits of the wolves trapped in the wolfskins. There was no other way.

  “Don’t ever try that again,” she said.

  “And why not?” asked the ghost. “You wear my skin. You’ll do what I say. Abandon this foolish journey. Go back to the village.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” said Alaana. Now alerted to the existence and identity of the spirit, she felt confident she could keep its foul urges at bay.

  “You’re just like the other one,” spat Manatook’s ghost.

  “The bear?”

  “Yes the bear. The devil that killed me and stole my wife.”

  Alaana studied the misty apparition standing before her. It was Manatook, at least in all outward appearances. The same body, the same face, but the mannerisms were all wrong, his expression so twisted and bitter. Such a malicious expression Old Manatook never wore.

  For sixty years the spirit of the real Manatook had remained within the skin, trapped by Old Manatook’s binding spell. Alaana shuddered. Old Manatook had forever kept the vengeful spirit in check, but did she possess strength enough to do the same? She resolved from now on to remove the skin when sleeping. She had a fair idea of what would happen if the real Manatook ever took control of her.

  “Was Higilak your wife?” she asked. “Did you try to kill her?”

  “It wasn’t my fault. She wouldn’t do the things I asked. The things I wanted. I only tried to break her, but never kill her. She was so stubborn. I can’t stand a back-talking wife.”

  Manatook’s ghost, floating in the air before Alaana, loomed suddenly larger. His eyes, bulging with hatred and malice, struck a menacing note.

  Alaana could see it all clearly. This man, the real Manatook, had been a cruel husband. Ostracized from his own people after ill-treatment of his first wife, he had traveled the country alone. He had come upon the abandoned summer house and the girl within. She had assumed him to be her shy suitor, the unseen person who had been caring for her all along, providing food and supplies. He had no qualms about taking credit for what her mysterious benefactor had done, and also for accepting the gifts of food which continued to arrive.

  He was happy in the house. He didn’t have to hunt or work, and he eagerly took the young girl to wife.

  “And then one day,” said Manatook’s ghost, “when I left the house to go for a walk, the bear was there. It was like a demon. A blazing, red-eyed demon.” The misty contours of Manatook’s face winced at the memory of events that had happened so very long ago. “Demon bear,” he spat. “It was so damned quiet about it, when it was killing me. It didn’t even make a sound. It broke me in half, just like that. It was so careful about it — the way it killed me. You see, it didn’t want to damage the skin.”

  Manatook snickered. “Clever, for a bear. And after I was dead, it wouldn’t let me go! It trapped me in my own skin, bound me here, helpless. And then it took my place.”

  The ghost’s voice became a growl of frustrated rage. “And then I was made to watch while that thing lived my life.”

  In his cage of flesh Manatook’s ghost watched the other do all the right things to make Higilak happy. The bear begged forgiveness for the despicable things that Manatook had done and, weeping tears of joy, Higilak forgave him. He pledged to be kind and loving always, and then spent every day making up for Manatook’s cruelty, selflessly atoning for sins for which he was not the least bit responsible.

  “He truly loved her,” said Alaana.

  “I know,” said Manatook’s ghost. “I felt its perversions well enough. It made my skin crawl.”

  “He was a better husband, a better man than you could ever be.”

  “That thing bedded my wife! Part of me was still there, but I could feel none of it. I couldn’t feel anything. Except hate. Only a clawing emptiness as it touched her. It deceived her. It used her worse than I ever did.”

  “His love for her was no lie,” said Alaana.

  “It was perverse and unnatural. It murdered me and used me like a puppet. How can that be right? I loved her too, you know.”

  This statement gave Alaana pause. Love, it seemed, took on so many varied shapes and designs. She had such little experience with any of them. Perhaps this man had indeed loved Higilak, despite his deplorable actions.

  “Because of him, you were forgiven,” she said. “Isn’t that enough?”

  “Not nearly enough. I’ve been waiting so long. You can help me. Make an end to my suffering and let me cross into the distant land.” The spirit implored her with wide, desperate eyes and outspread hands. “That’s all I want. Release me. Let me go!”

  Alaana wanted to release him very much, but there was still the mysterious summons from the north, that desperate call for help. She needed his disguise. “I can’t do that just yet,” she said. “You’ll earn your release with one more task.”

  “I shouldn’t have to earn it! You’re just as bad as it was, using me like a coat.”

  “Not really,” said Alaana. “In a short time I will set you free.”

  “Perhaps sooner than you think. Remember this, little devil,” said Manatook’s ghost, “You’re not nearly as strong as the bear.”

  CHAPTER 15

  JOURNEY NORTH

  Higilak plodded slowly along the wet trail. Her sealskin mukluks seemed to sink deeper into the marshy tundra with every step. Her knees ached, her back ached, her legs hurt. But she kept on walking.

  Alaana had taken their little sled, and she’d had to pile their belongings onto a spare bear skin for the journey. It was fortunate they didn’t have too many possessions between them. Even so, she sorely missed Makaartunghak, as the massive dog usually carried two heavy pouches on each side.

  Ben had fastened sealskin traces to the front of the bear skin as a harness for dragging. Higilak liked him very much; she found him generous and good-natured.

  Behind them stretched a long line of nomads, yapping dogs and their heavily burdened sleds. For his part Ben spent more time gazing wistfully to the north than paying attention to the task at hand, seeming unconcerned with the heavy pulling along the slushy trail.

  “She’ll be back,” whispered Higilak, smiling. “It’s only been a handful of days.”

  Ben frowned. “Yes, but gone without so much as one word as to where she went.”

  “Well, she’s the shaman after all.”

  “Anything might’ve happened to her. We wouldn’t know.”

  “Manatook did the same,” said Higilak reassuringly. “I never knew where he was half of the time. He was a
good man. A great shaman for the people. He often went away. He always returned.”

  Ben made a small noise from the back of his throat and Higilak realized he’d stifled an urge to point out that, on his last such voyage, Old Manatook had not returned. Instead Ben said, “Gone away? To do what?”

  Higilak shrugged. “Shaman things, I suppose. He never told me.”

  “I guess you get used to that, being the shaman’s wife.”

  “No. I hated that,” said Higilak a little too quickly. Then she let out a small chuckle so as not to defeat her own purposes, and said, “It’s a matter of trust. If he didn’t tell me, he had his reasons.”

  Higilak thought perhaps a romance between Alaana and Ben was fated never to be. Higilak had suffered her own doubts about Old Manatook’s double life and secret obligations, but she had never become embittered by them. Despite his strength of character, Ben was a vulnerable soul. The harsh treatment he had received at the hands of his captors had left its marks on him, tiny cracks in his bold temperament, leaving him possibly too damaged to ever trust anyone again. And the shaman had more secrets than anyone. Secrets! Higilak had had enough of them.

  She caught Ben gazing again to the north. “Where has she gone? How will she know to find us?”

  “She’ll know,” Higilak said firmly. “And if you keep staring off at that same iceberg, looking for Alaana, you’ll wear it out.” Deciding she’d had enough of secrets, she added, “Ben, you obviously care for her. Is there something holding you back?”

  He was silent for a moment, his eyes darting restlessly about. At last the battle was decided and he said, “I saw her do something. Something terrible.”

  “At the Yupikut camp?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, when you gave her that knife, what did you think she was going to do with it?”

  “It’s not the knife. She held the severed tongue of the headman’s brother in her hand. She’d done something to it, some sort of dark magic. She spoke a single word and the tongue burst into flame. The headman and some of the others, they died screaming.”

  “These were your enemies, the men who killed your mother, the men who mistreated you.”

  “I know. But I screamed the same way when Verlag’s shaman destroyed my arm. He didn’t use a knife, you know. He stared into my eyes. I couldn’t move. And I felt him rooting around inside of me. You’ll never understand how that felt. And just like that he took my arm. The pain was incredible. They were bad men, I know, but…”

  “They would have come here. They would have killed all of us.”

  “Just one word,” said Ben. “It was so quick, so unnatural. Anyone who could do something like that. I can’t ever be with such a woman.”

  Higilak placed her hand atop his shoulder. “You don’t understand. She’s not like that — she did it to save us.”

  “No, you don’t understand, Old Mother. When she did this thing, this horrible thing — when she burned those men to the ground, I felt it. Their pain, their terror.” He pulled away from Higilak.

  “You had reason to hate them,” said Higilak.

  “Hate I could understand,” returned Ben. With a heave of his shoulders he resumed pulling their makeshift sled along the trail. “Revenge I could understand. A knife in the belly is one thing. That’s a simple thing. But what Alaana did — there was a darkness in the air. It was so intense, so unclean. I won’t say any more.”

  “Neither will Alaana. She won’t speak of it to anyone. Not even to me.” Higilak wished for the hundredth time that her husband was still alive to provide guidance and reassurance to his young student, and maybe a little for his old wife as well. “But listen to me. I know it’s the first time she’s killed, with magic or without. It was hard for Alaana too. She’s deeply troubled by some of the things she’s called upon to do. But she’s our shaman.”

  “That’s the problem,” he said.

  “She went back for you,” said Higilak.

  “I didn’t expect her to come back for me. I just wanted to help her escape.”

  “But she did go back. She saved the Anatatook. And she rescued you. Doesn’t she deserve a second chance for that at least?”

  The two dogs were a mismatched pair running the sled. Yipyip seemed little more than a puppy next to Makaartunghak’s vast bulk and enormous strength. The big dog did his best to compensate the difference by making a zig-zag pattern as he hauled merrily along. Alaana was hard pressed to mind her balance, leaning to the left or the right in order to keep the narrow sled from tipping over. She had iced the whalebone runners with urine earlier in the day, enabling incredible speed as they slid along the smooth northern sea ice.

  Alaana enjoyed an immense feeling of freedom, making speed across the frozen sea, mirroring the flight of the snowy bird that led their course. But where was it leading her? To the end of the earth it seemed. In this intense cold there was no swirling fog to obscure the view. The ice mountains rose up on all sides, cut in sharp detail. Delicate patterns of light and shade played across their massive surfaces. The majestic spires and intricate peaks, etched in icy blues and highlighted in pink and purple where they caught the sun, thrilled her with their awesome beauty.

  Pure desolation was a form of nature Alaana had learned to appreciate. It seemed the most powerful insights on the meaning of life were those which came when she was alone on the tundra. At one point the tranquility erupted in beatific violence as the ice mountain came roaring to life. A huge amount of snow and ice cascaded down its length as a new iceberg, clear and blue, was calved from the glacier with a resounding boom.

  The snowy owl led them across the sea until even the indomitable Makaartunghak began to tire. Alaana let the dogs to run in the bear tracks that criss-crossed the area, but eventually she had to stop to rest them. Makaartunghak was content to sit and bite the ice out of his toes until Alaana tossed him a snack of walrus hide.

  Standing still, at the mercy of the shrill winds, Alaana was chilled to the bone. There was no means to light a fire in the unrelenting vista of snow and ice but Yipyip came close, eager enough to provide spirit-fire for the three of them.

  Alaana didn’t notice the approach of a bulky shape, monstrous in stature and white as the snowdrifts, until it was too late. The bear barked a sharp note of warning as it came on, settling into a four-legged loping gait that rapidly closed the distance. Alaana called out to Makaartunghak, thinking that with the gigantic dog’s help she might be able to frighten the bear off. It was the only hope she could see. On this journey, she carried no weapons.

  The bear ended its charge with an eerie bellow. The young shaman stood helpless. Manatook’s ghost shrieked with terror in her ear. To Alaana’s surprise Makaartunghak made no move to help at all, and then she realized the problem. These were Old Manatook’s dogs; they weren’t trained to go against a bear on instinct.

  Alaana took the brunt of the bear’s charge. As she lay suddenly on her back, the bear buried its muzzle in her belly. But instead of biting away at her innards, the creature only poked and nuzzled her. There was a reason, she reminded herself, that she had been wearing this disguise.

  The bear’s enthusiastic ministrations pushed Alaana several paces across the ice pack.

  Then it suddenly disengaged and made off again, resuming its solitary trek along the tundra. Alaana winced, discovering a dislocated shoulder when she bent to inspect the line of welts and bruises along her torso. She hoped she didn’t run into too many more of Old Manatook’s friends.

  Old Manatook had once shown her the way to yank a misplaced shoulder back into position. But alone on the tundra it proved a much more difficult, and painful, operation than she had imagined. She wedged her shoulder up against the corner of the sled and managed the feat, offering her own guttural howl to the vast echoes of the great white north.

  Their journey continued. Eventually they came to a sort of natural gateway — a twinned set of ice spires stretching skyward like a pair of arms upraised towar
d the sun. The massive spires were marked by intricate, lacy patterns cut deep into the glistening ice. Alaana thought the fantastic ice sculptures looked too perfect to have been shaped by the rough hand of wind and storm, but she couldn’t imagine how else they had come to be there.

  The snowy owl hooted sharply. She flew in circles above the pillars but would go no further. As Alaana watched, the bird drifted upward and away, to fade into the clouds themselves, white on white.

  “If you pass through, they’ll kill you,” warned Manatook’s ghost.

  “They?” asked Alaana.

  The ghost remained silent.

  “You must have passed this way many times,” she added. “You might have led us here as surely as the owl.”

  “You go beyond your depth, little devil,” said Manatook’s ghost. “It does me no good to see you killed. I’ve no wish to go from an overcoat to a discarded rug on the floor of some stinking bear cave. I want out of this skin.”

  Alaana took a deep, calming breath of the chill air. She had not come all this way to turn back. The plaintive call of the far off shaman still rang true in her ears. Someone needed her help. All of this couldn’t possibly be some sort of elaborate trap.

  She rubbed her loyal friend Makaartunghak between the ears. “Stay here. I won’t be too long. I hope.”

  Not far beyond the gate were a series of ice caves. Alaana sniffed at the frosty air, wishing she possessed Old Manatook’s sensitive nose in addition to the old shaman’s skin. She picked up traces of that particular odor which marked this place as a frequent resting place of the white bear. Good enough. She went inside.

  A series of openings in the dome of the caves allowed sunlight to enter. The natural layers of perpetual ice that made up the walls glistened blue-green in the reflected light. Dark passageways linked the ribbed caverns, giving the impression of a wondrous architecture older than anything Alaana had ever experienced or conceived.