by Ken Altabef
“You are a good soul, Kuanak. You have served your people faithfully in life, you perished for them, and even now you seek to help. But you overvalue my power. In this my sister and I will do what we have always done. We will wait out the storm, take care of our own. Don’t expect help from us.”
Kuanak tumbled on the brink of lost hope, a crisis of confidence for a shaman. “Have I lost my guardian?”
“I will keep faith with you. I will be your stinger and I will be your wings as always. But that is all. Leave now, and do not return to this place.”
The thunder roiled again, loudly.
Civiliaq, standing at the edge of the ledge, gazed down at all the buzzing activity of Upperworld. The fabulous blue lattice glittered as it stretched, the busy bird spirits going about their duties or just frolicking in the air among the winds and clouds. It seemed he was always standing at the brink of one abyss or another, always one step away from doom. He wondered why he’d even bothered to come on this journey? What good could he possibly do?
“Caww!”
Startled, Civiliaq nearly toppled from the ledge. One foot slipped from the rubbery cloud stuff, and he had to throw himself onto his knees to keep from tumbling over the edge. He looked up to see a dark man standing over him.
“Oh stop groveling,” said the Raven, “We’re old friends.”
Tulukkaruq, the Raven, had chosen to appear to Civiliaq in his guise of man. This man looked completely at odds with his surroundings. The clouds shone brilliant white, but the Raven was a man of coal-black skin, eyes and hair. He wore an ebon parka partly obscured by a thin, dark fog which surrounded him.
Civiliaq remained kneeling on the ground. Making full use of his submissive position he said, “Aid me Lord Tulukkaruq! Dark bird that stalks the wastes, heed my call! Great Raven, lord of the wild and master of men, I have always served you without question. Take me back!”
Raven yawned, flashing his brilliant white teeth.
Civiliaq would not give up. “Take me again unto your breast, great spirit. Give me back my wings!”
“What need have you of wings?” asked Raven. “You seem to have got up here on your own, easily enough.” Raven leaned forward to peer over the edge of the abyss. “My, how little it would take. Helpless, clinging to a cloud. One push to knock him off, one flap of the wing, and he would fall.”
“Do it then!” begged Civiliaq. “Kill me! If the end came from your hand I could well accept it. I don’t want to exist without your blessing. Restore me or destroy me, I beg of you.”
Raven cocked his head in contemplation. “Hmmm,” he purred, “How can I decide? How can I decide?”
Civiliaq didn’t dare look at his master directly. Spirit-tears fell from his eyes, and rained down onto the world below.
“This bores me,” said Raven. “And I think it’s better if you decide for yourself.”
“I’ve already decided,” said Civiliaq. “I want to be back in your good graces.”
“Well it’s not that easy, you know. You’ll have to earn it back.”
“I’ll do anything…”
“Tsssk,” said Raven. “Don’t be so easy. Where’s the fun in that? Stand up. Enough with the pitiful groveling. I’m trying to have a conversation.”
Civiliaq stood up. At the same time, Raven enlarged his form to twice its previous size so that he towered over the Anatatook shaman again.
“That’s better,” he said. “Oh, I’m hungry. I’m hungry.” Though he wore a human face, he pecked at the air in front of him. “I eat only the dead. I have a taste for destruction. You know that?”
Civiliaq nodded agreement. He didn’t like the direction this conversation was taking. When he served the Anatatook as shaman there was always the difficulty of Raven. He was a tricky tornaq, and often caused Civiliaq’s plans to backfire just for fun. This talk of death and destruction chilled his bones.
“In order to fly with me,” said Raven, “you, Civiliaq, need to make a decision. You must embrace destruction.” Raven laughed, a dry, throaty sound. “No, no, no. I’m not talking about a little death. I mean destruction!” He waved his hands, fingers hooked into claws, in the air.
“Let me paint a picture for you,” said Raven, adopting a storyteller’s pose, chin on fist. “If someone were to, say, bring the Thing That Was Cast Out back to this world… if someone were to use the Thing to, say, blot out the sun from the sky… words don’t do this idea justice. Let’s just focus on the sound… the sound of everything on this world screaming at once, for surely they would all cry out as they die. And they would all die. That’s the type of thing I mean. A really big scream. You get the idea.”
Civiliaq’s mouth went dry. He couldn’t think of anything to say.
“You’re dead already,” pointed out the Raven, “so it could hardly matter to you. Though you do still have a wife and children among them, hmmm? But they all die one day anyway I’d guess. So what do you think? You want to get on board with that plan or not?”
Civiliaq stammered uselessly. “Blot out the sun?” He could hardly comprehend what he was being asked.
“Well, you don’t have to do that part,” said Raven. “That part is taken care of by someone else, quite obviously. No, all I want you to do is kill one person. One single, human being. Do you think you could do that?”
“I suppose…”
“Oh, not so sure-fire, hell-bent-for-leather now, are you?”
Civiliaq didn’t understand the reference. “Who do you want me to kill?”
“Does it matter?” asked Raven. “Does it matter?” He laughed again. “Of course it matters! I’ll tell you straight out — the person that you need to kill is Alaana the shaman. Do that and you’ll have back your wings.”
Raven’s ebony finger pressed against Civiliaq’s lips.
“Don’t answer all at once, my dear friend. Think on it for a bit. Let the suspense hang in the air for a while. Such things are best left well-considered. It’s your choice. I will come again for the favor of your reply.”
Raven sprouted a luxurious pair of feathered wings, midnight black. He flapped them once, powerfully. But instead of taking off in flight, the dark turgat simply disappeared, leaving only one lone wingfeather to flutter at Civiliaq’s feet. In days long gone, when the Anatatook shaman had still been alive, he had often carried such a feather. He used it to make his points when teaching the children a lesson or accusing someone of breaking taboo. His raven feather used to transform into an obsidian dagger when carried to other spirit-realms. Civiliaq wondered if this feather would do the same. He felt no connection to it, as of old. It was not a talisman of power now, simply a detached wingfeather. Nothing more.
As he watched, the feather crumbled away to ash. Another trick. He let it fall from the ledge.
CHAPTER 9
AISAAC
Old Manatook preferred to travel alone. This had long been his way. Polar bears were solitary creatures after all. The difference now was that as a ghost he need not actually walk; he might just as easily drift, floating above the surface snow. But there was something familiar and soothing about the view from ground level, about placing one foot in front of the other, even if he could no longer feel the firm ground beneath his four feet or the fresh air cool in his chest.
He had always loved a long walk in isolation, the solitude of the far north, the endless white landscape bounded by brooding bergs glistening silently at the horizon. How many quiet days had he passed this way? Alone with his thoughts, circling a seal hole for hours, keeping totally quiet in order not to startle his prey and lose the meal. He was perfectly at home with himself; he needed little else.
The only exception to his love of solitude were the bears of the Ice Mountain, the chosen of Tornarssuk. Manatook had been called Aisaac when he lived among them. Born deep in the ice caverns of the mountain, he knew little of his father, a solitary bear, who wandered off and never returned. The bears of the far north took their turns serving at the Ice Moun
tain, caring for that strange artifact which they called the Heart, a gigantic ice sculpture in which everything could be seen. The origins of that magnificent sculpture were unknown even to the wisest of the bears, even the shamans.
When it became apparent that young Aisaac had the light and would someday be a shaman himself he was brought into its presence. Presence because he always felt the Heart was more than just a sculpture. He thought it was alive. He thought it had a soul unlike anything else on this world, so alien it couldn’t be clearly seen by the shamans except in the glimpses the Heart chose to show them. He always believed that one day it would speak to him, telling secrets no one else had ever heard. It never did.
Aisaac was tutored in the Way by the great old bear Balikqi, shaman of the Ice Mountain. Balikqi was a kind but strict teacher, and instilled in him the need to take spiritual matters very seriously. As expected, the great spirit Tornarssuk came to pledge support for the newly born shaman of the ice bears at his initiation. Tornarssuk appeared as a vision of the most gigantic, most beautiful bear anyone could ever imagine. Perfectly formed, rippling with powerful muscle. His glistening coat was made of brilliant light, white as starshine except for blue patches around the ears and eyes. And what magnificent eyes. From the first instant he saw them, Aisaac had been lost in their starry gaze.
So strong and wise, benevolent and ferocious, perfectly deadly when need be — such was Tornarssuk.
Aisaac had done his best as shaman for the Ice Mountain. He roamed the ice fields and drifting floes of the northlands, rescuing trapped bears, bringing lost cubs home to their mothers and hunting meals to feed the weak and infirm. When he met and fell in love with a human woman he took on responsibilities as shaman for her adopted people the Anatatook. He also took the human name Manatook.
Thinking of Higilak caused mixed emotions for him now. Foremost there was love, as always there had ever been. But now, more often than not his devotion was crowded out by feelings of pity. He had been watching her; he had never stopped watching her, even from the far-away sky of stars. Alaana was right — he couldn’t look away from Higilak.
He had been thirty years in the sky watching as she aged and suffered. But the distances were too vast for communication. Too far to do anything to help. So he watched. He witnessed her slow decline through the long years, he knew the pains she felt day and night, the joints that would move only grudgingly and with shrieks of fire, the betrayals of ears and eyes, the tempting call of the abyss as it whispered to her in the morning, as she struggled to get out of bed. Higilak didn’t complain; she did her best to hide her condition from those around her but Manatook could see it plainly. He knew her too well.
He thought back to those days when he was a young bear watching her out alone on the tundra after she had been exiled by her people. He had admired that beautiful young woman from afar, even providing food and fuel for her fires, working in secret until he eventually disguised himself as a man and made himself known. He had never regretted any of it, even when their marriage forced him to forsake his own kind in half-measure by undertaking the great chore of having to be the shaman of two worlds. He would do it all over again, without hesitation, because Higilak was his true love, a love that continued as they grew old together, and still persisted even after death. Even now, after she had been reduced to an ancient, misshapen creature, he loved her still.
Enough maudlin memories, he told himself. Enough walking and self-indulgent remembrances. There was work to be done. He was bound for the crystal cavern, the lair of his guardian spirit Tornarssuk.
It was no small thing to travel to the crystal cave, even for a ghost. His sharp eyes studied the landscape. These were the flats to the east of Big Basin, along the rocky escarpment that grew out from Black Face like a long outstretched arm. He followed the ridge to the east until he spotted a familiar rocky overhang. There was a cave here, which he had used for shelter on many occasions when alone and in need, and there was also a fissure, a deep crack which he could use to make passage to Lowerworld.
Looking for the crack, he thought, for an easy way in. He stopped to laugh at himself. He felt so diminished from what he once had been. In times past he would bore straight down with the drill of his imagination, straight down through the bedrock and stop for nothing until he reached the cavern of the Lowerworld. Now here he was looking for an easy way down. I’m old, he thought. I’m not what I used to be. Well, so it is.
As he neared the fissure he heard a whimpering cry. He sniffed the air and scented two distinct polar bears, and also traces of men. The men were gone, probably a day and a half. But there was a disturbance in the snow at the base of the rocky escarpment that had not yet blown smooth.
He heard again a whimpering cry for help. Someone else had been making use of his crack in the ground. Manatook bent and peered cautiously within, keeping his head to the side in case some claw or tooth should suddenly lash out.
Wedged into the crack he found one of the man traps, a small box about as large as the bear’s head. A small white bear cub was trapped inside. This type of trap was not meant for bears, but foxes. If the cub hadn’t been practically a newborn it wouldn’t have fit the cage.
The cub could neither see nor smell Manatook, but must have sensed his ghostly presence just the same because its whining intensified.
Manatook spoke directly to the little creature’s soul, using the secret language of the shamans. “Be still, little one,” he said. “I will help.”
“I fell,” thought the little bear soul. “I fell down.”
“I know. I will get you out.”
Manatook knew his disembodied voice could only go so far to settle the child down.
“Mother! Where is mother?”
“We’ll find her.”
The cub continued to full-blown panic. “Mother! Mother!”
It was clear to Manatook what had happened. The cub, seeking safety from the human hunters, had wriggled into the crack and fallen into their fox trap. If he were physical it would be a simple thing for Manatook to reach a paw into the fissure and drag the trap out. It was a relatively flimsy thing — thin bands of metal strung across a wooden frame. One swing of his paw would have shattered the box and freed the cub. But for a ghost such things were not quite so simple.
Luckily, the power of Tornarssuk was still with him. He was still a shaman and as a shaman, he could negotiate. The metal straps and the locking mechanism had no soul with which to barter, but the frame was made of wood and still held a small remnant of the tree from which they’d been made.
Manatook opened a dialogue with the little wood soul. He found the tree talkative and friendly. It had lived in warmer climes and missed drinking cool water and warm sunshine. Manatook pointed out the distress of the cub, and suggested the wood separate momentarily, just at the place where the metal screws were attached. “Only for a moment,” he added. “Just long enough to release the bear cub and set her free.”
“That sounds a very satisfactory idea,” said the wood, “as the clawing and scratching of this one is fairly irritating. I wonder why I had not thought of it sooner.”
“Shamans see things differently,” said Old Manatook. “Wood does not often think to change its shape.”
The wood parted temporarily, the trap popped open and the little cub began digging itself out of the hole. Its paws were small and delicate; the metal frame stood in the way. There was panic in its eyes. It thought it might still be trapped.
“Stuck! Stuck!” it thought.
“You will get free,” said Old Manatook. “Push with your legs. You will get free.”
The cub, sensing the shaman’s unabashed encouragement, settled down to the task. Eventually she got her head up through the crack, but the shoulders were still wedged.
“It hurts! Hurts!”
“Push through. Slowly, slowly. You can do it.”
The cub emerged from the fissure, its shoulders streaked with fresh blood. Manatook wanted to pick her
up and sling her over his back, but he could not. The cub spun around in place, whimpering miserably, looking this way and that.
“Lost lost lost. Mother!”
“I will find her,” said Manatook, “She can’t be far.”
He drifted up above the snowy plain. He could find no signs of any other animal to the east or the west, so he flew above the ridge. He spotted a she-bear on the other side, lying in the snow. There were streaks of red blood in a circle around her, but she was not dead.
Manatook returned to the other side. The little cub would never be able to climb the high ridge.
“Follow my voice. Mother here. Come. Come.”
Manatook led the cub the long way around, following the ice ridge near to its end, taking advantage of a more direct crossing which involved only a slight climb. He then led the cub back along the other side.
The cub caught sight of her mother and ran happily through the snow. The mother was nuzzled awake. Though she’d been shot in the leg, she was not badly wounded. She was a beautiful bear, perhaps seven or eight years old. She had a graceful, well-fed form, perfectly rounded shoulders, a long, sinewy neck and a pleasantly rounded bottom. Her face lit up at sight of her child. So beautiful. She reminded Manatook of Higilak.
He didn’t know this bear’s name or anything else about her. Used to be, as shaman, he knew them all, every single white bear from the mainland all the way out to the bay. Now he was like a stranger among them.
The young mother ignored the pain, so happy to have the cub back, and began the trek home. She didn’t even know Manatook was there. He preferred it that way. The entire episode recalled to mind the way he had anonymously provided for Higilak as a young woman during her exile. And now, having come full circle, he was thinking of Higilak again.
Enough, he told himself. There is work to do.
CHAPTER 10
THE CRYSTAL CAVERN