by Ken Altabef
The bear charged with its head held low, and Vithrok could not use his war-spear to advantage. He raised a fist, gauntleted in a shell of Beforetime. As the bear closed, Vithrok stepped to the side with the trained reflexes of the Tunrit hunter, and smashed down on the bear with his fist. The huge bear barreling toward him weighed at least as much as three Tunrit, but the Beforetime was solid as steel, as quick as lightning, and heavy as an island at sea. It was hot as lava, forceful as an avalanche, as unstoppable as a wave crashing against the shore. Its possibilities were endless.
The powerful blow smashed the bear’s forehead right between the eyes. The bear went down, not killed, but knocked senseless. In no time at all it rolled over, snarling viciously and ready to charge again. At such close range Vithrok still couldn’t use the spear, but there was no need. He directed one of his maguruq to clamp its huge jaw on the back of the bear’s neck. The bear seemed like a plaything to the gigantic maguruq. It continued worrying the bear from side to side as it clamped down. It would have liked to toss the bear but not even the massive neck muscles of a maguruq were up to such a task. Instead it simply ground down, ripping through the thick muscles of the bear’s neck and crunching spine. Finally it dropped the bear to the ground, its head nearly ripped off.
The first bear had regained its feet and came charging back at them, ready for the fight. But it faltered, seeing the Tunrit and the two maguruq awaiting its approach. It turned suddenly to head back to the Ice Mountain.
Vithrok launched his spear, throwing from the shoulder with great heft. The throw missed the kill point which would have sent its tip through the heart, but it caught the fleeing bear at the back of its shoulder. The spear tip went clean through, emerging out in front to strike the ground. Driven forward by its own momentum the bear found itself impaled on the ground. The two maguruq made short, bloody work of it.
Vithrok commanded the spear, which was composed of Beforetime, to fly back to his hand. He strode toward the Ice Mountain. The stronghold of the bears was built directly into the face of the berg. He marveled at the carvings that adorned the permanent ice wall depicting the various natural wonders of Nunatsiaq and the glories of Tornarssuk, master of all the white bears. The skill and intricacy of the carvings was unlike anything he had ever seen. They were truly beautiful.
The mouth of the cave was sealed up tight with a mass of ice not even the maguruq would be able to smash. There was no way for anyone to get in.
So the bears are content to hide, thought Vithrok, sealed away in their cavern of ice. He laughed softly.
He would have liked to command the ice to shatter but no one — not even Vithrok — could do that. The spirit of the ice was so incredibly vast as it lay sleeping across all of Nunatsiaq. Such a spirit could never be forced to do anything.
Rocks and stones, however, were a different matter entirely. Vithrok reached out with the power of his mind, seizing several large stones which lay strewn about the icy plain. He told the spirits within the stones to rise up. The inua within the stones were dull and sleepy.
“Get up!” he commanded as he squeezed and stabbed at them with his mind. “Fling yourselves against the ice. Do it! Now!”
And so he set at the barrier with flying rocks. The heavy, jagged stones swirled around the sorcerer, who added more and more to their number, as they chipped away at the ice blockade in a whirlwind of destruction. The delicate and beautiful carvings on the façade of the berg suffered in equal measure. Soon the glories of Tornarssuk, carved upon that place ages ago and so carefully preserved, were worn away from the face of the mountain.
Once it became obvious Vithrok was going to smash his way through, polar bears came boiling out like hornets rushing forth from a hive. There were at least a dozen large males, and Vithrok was surprised at the ferocity of their attack.
He stepped back so the fight could be played out on the wide plain in front of the Ice Mountain where his maguruq would have room to maneuver. Vithrok didn’t like retreating, he did not ever retreat, but this move was just a strategy only. It was not a real retreat. Nothing would stop him from getting into that place.
Even as he backed away one of the bears leapt at him, a huge wonderfully-built male — the largest bear Vithrok had ever seen. It was a beautiful thing; a juggernaut of noble fury. But of course it must still die.
With the bear hurtling through the air toward him, Vithrok bore down his will. In a flash he commanded the muscle of the great beast’s heart to burst, popping its pump like a rotten grape.
The bear’s eyes went dead instantly. Its body, still carried on the momentum of the charge, continued soaring toward Vithrok. The deadly mass of the bear, if it were to hit him, would probably break him in half. Vithrok grabbed the shaggy corpse at the side of the neck and used the momentum of the thing, its downward plunge, to swivel around to the side. The dead bear went crashing down to earth, flinging up a cloud of loose snow.
Vithrok had dropped his war-spear and now he caused it to leap up again, reforming it into a long, sharp scythe of silvery Beforetime. The weapon met his hand just in time to swing it at his next attacker. Not enough force to cut through, but the swing chopped into the thick muscle of the bear’s neck, severing the key arteries there. Blood rained down, warm and thick.
The bear continued to come at him as it died, swinging a paw that hit Vithrok in the shoulder. Vithrok’s Beforetime armor held, although the impact was enough to knock him back a pace.
Another bear had already clamped his other arm in its teeth, biting down hard. It could not penetrate the armor but would soon wrench his arm from its socket. Vithrok seized the bear’s inua, forcing it to jerk away from him, and held it motionless for a moment.
The sorcerer commanded the skin to part from the underlying muscle, flaying it alive. Its blood sprayed in a fine mist over everything in a wide area, painting the other bears red. Gory gobbets of shredded skin and fur whirled about in the air like a swarm of crazed bats. The inhuman scream of the dying bear was a terrible, agonized thing. The other bears were horrified by the sound; they couldn’t imagine such a thing happening. They had underestimated their foe.
Their momentary hesitation bought Vithrok enough time to bring his maguruq wheeling into the fray. Those beasts, so large and savage, could not be ignored. The defenders of the Ice Mountain immediately sent four or five of their number against each monster.
As powerful as the maguruq might be, they were only as effective as their puppet master could make them. One of the bears immediately went down under the cloven hooves, a deadly combination of big, dull bludgeons that ended in two very long, sharp points like deadly spikes.
But before the maguruq’s stomping feet could bash the brains out of any others, a bear reared up to its full height in front of the monster. The bear stood twice as tall as a man, and stretched its shaggy arms, its frothing mouth gaping wide with long, sharp teeth. The maguruq, on four legs, stood eye to eye with its challenger. Its head whipped forward, taking the bear’s entire shoulder in one ferocious bite. The other bears set upon it from the rear, ripping and tearing at the maguruq’s tough hide. With so many bears attacking at once, the maguruq’s oily blood, thick and black and clotted for centuries, began to spill.
The mainstay of the maguruq’s attack was its powerful head and gigantic jaws and teeth. It whipped from side to side, catching some part of a bear, be it the haunch, the neck, or the leg, and demolishing whatever it had caught. The bears had teeth of their own, well used to shredding flesh, and not entirely useless against the thick hide. But clearly the maguruq’s weakest points were its legs and the bears made a concerted effort to bite and slash at them. One of Vithrok’s pets went down under such an attack, and once on the ground the bears swarmed over it, tossing chunks of meat and oily strands of blood into the air.
Vithrok kept the other maguruq beside him. He was hard-pressed to coordinate the movements of both beasts and those of his own body at the same time. He was besieged on too many fron
ts. He used the nearby maguruq as a shield, ignoring the one that had fallen to the oncoming press of the attack. He drove the beast to circle around, using its massive body to ward off the bears as they snapped and lunged at him. He made sure the maguruq moved quickly, protecting its legs. But the creature could only block one side at a time. A charging bear hit Vithrok from the opposite direction and knocked him down. It fell directly on top of him, and Vithrok had just enough time to rip it apart, commanding its arms and legs to fly from its body in four separate directions, to avoid being crushed.
While he was exercising his indomitable will against the soul of that bear, another bear took his throat out. Vithrok’s head sagged uselessly against his chest as he rolled to the side. Ignoring the pain, he forced his maguruq to intervene. Despite three bears clinging to its back, the monstrous snout darted in, taking Vithrok’s attacker full at the waist. The polar bear spat out the huge chunk of Vithrok’s flesh it had bitten off as its own spine snapped in half.
Vithrok commanded the sinews of his neck to stretch and tighten, regaining control of his head. He had no time for elegance, or to restore proper form or function. The hardened stump of his new neck at least held his head upright.
The maguruq spun helplessly before him, unable to shake off any of the three bears on its back. They had cleverly attached themselves where its head could not reach, where its deadly hooked toes could not reach. The maguruq screamed, a tortured sound that had not been heard on this planet for eons.
Vithrok seized the souls of the three bears fixed upon the maguruq’s back. “Burn!” he commanded them, “Burn!”
The three polar bears suddenly burst into flame. Again the horrified screams of dying bears pealed out across the tundra.
The maguruq flung their carcasses off with a mighty shrug of its gigantic shoulders. The other bears dodged away from their brethren, engulfed in flame and still writhing in torment, as they streaked through the air to land sizzling in the wet snow.
Gravely wounded but not dead yet, the maguruq turned with renewed ferocity to the attack.
From a diamond-shaped fenestration carved in the ice wall, high up on the mountain, Orfik and Oktolik watched the massacre on the ice plain.
“He’s burned them!” said Oktolik. “He’s set their souls aflame!”
“Great Bear…” said Orfik, “Great Bear…”
“We have to go down there and help them.”
“He set them aflame! Aflame!”
“I saw!” said Oktolik. “We must help them before--”
“He’ll kill them all. He’ll do the same to us. They… they are the chosen ones.” The young polar bear was panting furiously. “It’s… They are the first line. It’s their duty to protect…”
“And we are the shamans of the Ice Mountain. We have to do something.”
“No,” said Orfik. He could hardly watch the carnage below. “No, no.”
“Let us call Tornarssuk. He will answer our call. This is what we are meant to do.”
“No. No, no,” said his brother. “Don’t you see? It won’t work. The sorcerer will kill them all. He’ll kill Tornarssuk.”
“No one can kill Tornarssuk!”
“No one can kill the Moon! But he did! He did!”
“I won’t stay up here,” said Oktolik, “while our people fight and are killed. I’m going down there to fight. To die if need be--”
“Look at him down there!” said Orfik. “What is that armor he’s wearing? It’s not metal. See how it shines. It’s Beforetime! Pure power!”
“Maybe…”
“Look upon it with your special sight! It burns my eyes! What else could it be?”
Oktolik leaned forward, looking down at the fight below. Taking his brother at his word, he did not cast his special gaze upon Vithrok’s armor. He did not need to burn his eyes. Hope kindled in Oktolik’s heart for a moment as he watched one of the bears tear the throat from the Tunrit sorcerer, but then the sorcerer rose again, his neck clumsily repaired, and continue the fight.
“It’s too much!” wailed Orfik.
“Get ahold of yourself brother!” said Oktolik. “Please.”
“Those giant beasts…Killing our friends and family…”
“Tornarssuk…” said Oktolik.
“Tornarssuk will be killed and it will be our fault! Is that what you want? To be the shaman who lured the Great Bear into a trap? Who helped Vithrok destroy everything?”
Oktolik huffed, frustrated but not afraid. “We have to go out there and help.”
“No. No!”
“Is this cowardice? It is our responsibility to protect the Heart--”
“It’s not the Heart he’s after,” whined Orfik. “Think, brother. He’s after our souls. That’s… that’s what Alaana and the others said. He’s killing the shamans and taking their light.”
This idea gave Oktolik pause. It was the first sensible thing his brother had said so far.
“Just imagine what it would be like,” continued Orfik. “To be ripped, soul from body, to be devoured by Vithrok, to be added to his strength, to be manipulated by him, to be used in his mad cause. We can’t allow it.”
On the plain below another bear burst into flame. Oktolik recognized him as Bellago, a strong male who had been like an uncle to them. Bellago had both a kind, gentle soul and a fierce warrior’s heart.
“Bellago!” screeched Orfik. “No. It’s no good, Oktolik. Tell them to come back. Tell them to come back. We can’t fight him.”
Orfik was in no state of mind to speak on the spirit of the air. It fell to Oktolik to call the retreat.
Orfik tore at his brother’s shoulder with a clawed paw. “It’s us he’s after. Let no one else die for us, brother. If we can just hide from Vithrok, then we win. That’s all we have to do.”
“Hide?” said Oktolik. “You really mean it?”
“It’s the only thing we can do. Look at it down there. Look at it! They can’t defeat him. The only way we can win is to keep our light from him. It’s no good, it’s no good. Tell them not to fight. Tell them to come back, protect the females and cubs and stay out of Vithrok’s way.”
“I already did,” said Oktolik. “They’re coming in.”
“We have to hide,” said Orfik.
“Yes, as you say, brother. We will hide.”
CHAPTER 13
THE HEART
Vithrok stood alone on the plain outside. The bears had all withdrawn or been killed. Fourteen corpses, five of them still smoldering, were all that remained to tell of the resistance. The maguruq both lay dead on the plain as well. Whatever little fragments of souls the bones had formerly retained had been consumed. With no spirit left to command he had no way to rouse them again.
He stood alone, surrounded by enough meat to feed a village for an entire year. The smoking ruins of the white bears left the smell of burning bear-flesh thick in the air. He recalled the days when he used to eat meat, or worse, when he sat shivering in the cold, starving in the darkness. No longer. He was on a path to set things right, to bring paradise back. He hadn’t come here just to kill stupid animals.
Vithrok entered the Ice Mountain. He walked purposely through its glistening corridors, lit from above by daylight streaking down through fenestrations in the ceiling. The history of the bears and their civilization, all their cares and woes, their triumphs and epiphanies, were written on the walls blue-on-blue in the form of fantastic ice carvings. As he passed, hidden facets in the translucent ice caused the figures on the walls to appear to move, playing out their pageants in juttering pantomime.
The maze of ribbed corridors and caverns lay empty and abandoned. Vithrok glanced warily from the domed ceiling, encrusted with dripping stalactites, to the ledges and floor, cluttered with gnawed bones and refuse. He wondered if there was a trap, perhaps around the next bend; he wondered if they would dare spring out against him again. Let them try, he thought. He’d burn down every last one of them.
A little bear cub skitter
ed out from among the debris. It whined softly and ran blindly forward, bouncing off one of Vithrok’s Beforetime-clad feet. The sorcerer did not bother with it. He hadn’t come here to kill stupid animals.
He had come here for the Heart.
He had been told the great sculpture required light to tell its tales, and so it must be located close to the top of the mountain. At each branching tunnel Vithrok chose the upward path.
The cavern of the Heart was a gigantic room that stretched deep into the mountain, every bit as large as his own Tunrit citadel of ebon stone at the top of the world. The dome arced far overhead, cut with circular apertures to let in the light.
Laid out in the center of the cavern was the vast sculpture of the Heart. Vithrok stood amazed for a moment. He had never imagined anything to match the grandeur of this device, even throughout the timeless time of the Beforetime. Once, so very long ago, he had created a gigantic palace of ice, large enough to accommodate all the host of the Beforetime, with towering balustrades and glittering spires and grand ballrooms, and he had held a party there. His own spirit had imbued every crystal of that ice palace; he was the ice and to enter that house was to enter his very soul. It had been an extraordinary party. But even that magnificent creation paled beside the majesty that was the sculpture of the Heart.
Vithrok was so stunned that if the bears had attacked at that moment they would have found him completely helpless. It was magnificent.
All of Nunatsiaq was represented in the shimmering, ancient, blue-green ice. Every landmark in the northland with which he was familiar was rendered in exquisite detail in the translucent ice.