by Ken Altabef
“Perhaps you remember your childhood, when you were the daughter of the two giants, Anguta and Angata? Certainly it was not your fault that you, like all of the giants, felt such an uncontrollable urge for flesh that you crept above your parents’ bed one night and tried to devour them in their sleep? Do you remember the taste of your father’s flesh between your teeth, his salty blood running down your chin?”
Terror alit in Sedna’s green eyes. “I do!”
“Your father was so angry he took you out to sea in his gigantic kayak and threw you over the side. As you scrabbled to climb back in, he chewed your fingers away.”
She began to feel sick. She remembered drifting down below the water, her bestial father leaning over the gunwales, watching as she fell.
“Or perhaps you remember your husband the bird? You were such a young beauty weren’t you? And forced to marry an elderly hunter from another camp. He wore elegant furs and showered gifts upon your relatives. You were nervous, especially because he wouldn’t let you, or anyone, see his face. He took you away to his island, your new home. But there was no fancy house, no furs, no meat. Your husband lived—”
“On a rocky cliff by the sea,” she said.
“Yes, and when he pulled back his hood you saw it was Raven.”
“I screamed and tried to run, but he dragged me away to his home in the cliffs, a nest of cold, wet stone covered with filthy guano. He fed me worms straight out of his mouth. I remember.” She began to gag.
“And your father tried to rescue you in his kayak, but the Raven came after, flying through the air, his dark wings flapping so violently they caused a wild storm at sea. And to save himself your father cast you over the side—”
“Stop! It’s too terrible. I tried to climb back in, but he struck my fingers with the paddle and, frozen, they fell away into the sea. I remember. I remember all of them.” Once again she shook off the Tunrit’s ministrations and turned to face him, a frantic look in her sea-green eyes. “How is that possible?”
“Because they are all true. In the Beforetime everything was true. Everything. You lived those lives and countless others. But when the big trouble came we were each trapped in a single form and so it was this one for you, poor orphan girl with no fingers.”
“What do you know of the Beforetime?” she asked angrily. “You’re just a Tunrit.”
He smiled. “And you’re just a fingerless woman at the bottom of the sea.”
Sedna turned away. She began walking slowly down along the slope, small fish circling around her shoulders as she descended into deeper water. This visitor was more than a simple Tunrit and he knew too many things for her tastes.
Vithrok followed along. “Yes, the Beforetime. Surely you haven’t forgotten? All of the spirits ran free, free of form, free from individual identities and free to play our games and indulge our richest fantasies, free to enjoy, free to create. There was no conflict, no petty misunderstanding, no darkness. It was a time of enlightenment, a time of perfect understanding and boundless love. A perfect, unending bliss. I was there. Don’t you remember?”
Sedna could not really remember. Her mind snatched at vague hints, stray bits and pieces that didn’t fit together in any rational way. It had been a very, very long time ago. Who was this Tunrit to claim he had been there? How could he remember the unknowable with such certain clarity?
“Who are you?” she asked, still walking ahead.
“I am the Truth.”
Sedna shook her head, setting her long kelp-like locks to wavering in the water. She could not remember. There were too many conflicting stories, warring ideas, too many possibilities.
“Do you remember those wondrous things you created in the Before? Do you remember the taste of cinnamon? That was your favorite, wasn’t it?”
Cinnamon. He had only to speak the word and there it was, dancing on her tongue. Buried here beneath the waves, she had not tasted cinnamon in an eternity. Yes she had created that spice and many others.
“Your favorite color?” asked Vithrok. “There were so many, but above all else I think you did prefer cobalt blue. Hmm, so similar to the deep sea, now I think of it. And the smells. Honeysuckle and wildflower. The smell of fresh rain, and vanilla, and strawberries. Remember the strawberries? Now men pass around a slice of blubber or a cup of water and think it a delight. They have nothing. And you are trapped down here, with water up your nose.”
A cavalcade of vivid sensations tumbled across her mind. She turned to face Vithrok. She searched his face but didn’t see anything familiar.
“Don’t tell me you can’t remember me,” he said. His inua dissolved away from the form of a Tunrit, melting into a chaotic shape of multicolored light. “Don’t tell me you don’t remember all the times we made love?”
Sedna stared into the shifting colors and she did remember. She did remember. Their two souls had met before, had shared a blissful state of complete communion of spirit, as only the unfettered Beforetime could allow. Deep in the heart of a spouting volcano they had joined, sparks and lava breaking above as they watched from the fiery depths. Two souls united with each other, knowing each other so intimately as to meld in consciousness and spirit entire, sharing the supreme ecstasy of total communion.
“You remember,” he said. “Now tell me you don’t miss it.”
Sedna reeled dizzily. The fish, agitated, circled around them, unsure whether to peck at this stranger or flee. “Why have you done this to me?”
“To set you free,” he said. “To set everyone free. I have a plan to put it all back the way it was. But I need your help.”
They had reached Sedna’s house, a palace of glittering coral at the bottom of the trench. The entrance, a swirling whirlpool of dark water guarded by a pair of monstrous gargoyle-fish, parted before them. The interior was an immense coral cavern, greened with wavering kelp and habituated by sea creatures of all kinds, the very bedchamber of Sedna herself. The walls, towering structures of multicolored coral, were alive with tiny fish, curious crustaceans, and sea worms. The palace had no ceiling or roof, allowing the Mistress of the Sea to keep watch on all the sin of the men above.
Lounging on their bed of fish skins and loose silvery scales was Sedna’s husband, Kktakaluk, a giant sea scorpion. He spied them immediately. Brushing aside the bedclothes, he reared up to full height — twice as tall as Vithrok.
“What’s this?” he raged. “Why do you bring him here?” The sea-scorpion was a hideous creature, blood red in color and covered with spines and armor plating.
Sedna waved a fingerless hand in a dismissive gesture. “Leave us, Kktakaluk.”
The scorpion grew agitated. His beady black eyes waggled frantically on their stalks, his antennae whipping dangerously. With a snap of his great tail he closed the distance, reaching out a giant claw to menace the Tunrit shaman.
“I smell something,” he said. A thorny set of mandibles wavered as he spoke. “What have you two been doing? I don’t like it!”
“Don’t make a jealous fool of yourself,” said Sedna.
Kktakaluk flew into a murderous rage. “I’ll kill him. Kill!”
The scorpion lunged at Vithrok, but the Sea Mother was quicker still. Snatching some thorny protuberance or other, she seized him from behind and bent her mouth to the back of his neck, flashing a set of barracuda’s pointy teeth. With a muffled crunch, she bit off his head.
The scorpion’s blood, a thick black ichor, swirled into the dark water.
Sedna turned to Vithrok and asked, “What do you want me to do?”
CHAPTER 21
A BURDEN LIFTED
With the summer sun high in the sky there were plenty of deep shadows out on the tundra. But Alaana didn’t think it right to do such a thing among the rocks, or out in the cold. The only place for it, she thought, was inside the karigi.
With one painful step after another, Higilak fought her way across the camp, knees straining, her lower spine on fire. On one side she leaned against Alaa
na’s shoulder, on the other she steadied herself with her walking stick, a heavy length of petrified wood her husband had found many years ago during one of his long journeys. Use of the stick kept her from toppling over, to be sure, but caused burning pain in her elbow and shoulder. So be it.
The karigi was not far. One step after the other. With bent head and quivering step, the old woman muttered softly as she went, carrying on one-sided conversations with those who had left her many years ago — her husband Manatook, and her great old friend Massautsicq.
As a woman, Higilak was not allowed within the shaman’s ceremonial tent, but she had served a lifetime as shaman’s wife for Old Manatook. Besides at a certain age, what did it matter? Alaana had heard stories of women who suddenly manifested the light in later years, after their menstruations had ceased, and Higilak’s maidenhood lay so far in the past she didn’t think it could possibly disturb the masks or drums.
And she did not want it to be cold. As Alaana arranged some dried moss and twigs in a soapstone cistern full of seal-oil and begged them to flame, Higilak ran her eyes around the interior of the karigi, admiring many of the masks she had so often seen her husband wear in years long gone. Yes, thought Alaana, it had to be here.
“One moment, Old Mother,” she said. Alaana stepped outside the flap and raised a heavy sealskin mat. She tossed it over the top of the tent skin, covering the ventilation hole. A circle of deep shadow formed in the center of the tent.
Alaana donned her ceremonial parka, a loose white robe made of albino caribou hide. She sat cross-legged within the pool of shadow.
“Did you want anything to eat?” she asked.
Higilak smiled nervously, putting a withered old hand to her belly. “I couldn’t,” she said. “It’s better if I don’t, I think.”
Alaana sighed. “You’re right.”
The shaman spread her arms wide within the circle of darkness. “I’m going to open a portal to the other side, to the shadow world. Each of us has two parts — here a living soul, there a shadow.”
“I already know about that,” said Higilak impatiently.
“I will open a portal so that a shadow may cross over. It will be your shadow.”
She waited for another impatient rebuke, but the old woman simply stared querulously back at her. “When a shadow meets a living soul…”
“Yes? Tell me.”
“They both die.” Alaana sighed, having said it. She didn’t know if she would be able to do it. Even suggesting such a thing was painful.
Higilak nodded slightly. “And this shadow-woman, this other me, she has agreed to this?”
“For certain. She has lived a long time — the same ninety-three winters as you. All without Manatook. Shamans don’t exist on the other side. For her it has been a long life of torment and suffering, as it is for all the shadows. She is ready for release.”
Higilak nodded again, wincing at a small pain in her neck. “It’s a good plan, then.”
“Yes, I suppose,” said Alaana. “If only I’ve the heart to actually do it.” She glanced at Old Manatook’s ghost, which she could clearly see hovering over the old woman’s shoulder. Manatook said nothing. His face, with its proud features of a shaggy white bear, drooped with melancholy.
Higilak squeezed Alaana’s hand. “I’m glad it’s you. Of all the faces I could want to see at the end, of all the people to have beside me, I’m glad it’s you. I’ve loved you since you were born.”
Alaana wanted to say the same but her throat was all choked up. She couldn’t speak.
“I’ve watched you,” Higilak continued. “You aren’t like Manatook. He was a shaman, always meant to be, so tall and strong and confident.”
Old Manatook’s ghost hung his head and looked away.
Oblivious to her husband’s presence, Higilak went on. “But you weren’t meant for this sort of life, Alaana. Not any of it. It was thrust upon you. You didn’t want it and yet you never looked away. Oh I know, maybe you wanted to at times, but you never left us. You fought for us, and you suffered much for it. And you keep on fighting. You won’t stop. It’s cost you so much. A love, an ear, a child.” That last one almost broke her heart, for Higilak had loved Tamuanuaq as she loved all children.
“And now I lose you,” Alaana said.
“You had me longer than you should’ve. And you want to be rid of my snoring at night, I’m sure.” Higilak chuckled softly.
Alaana did not laugh.
“You’ll be all right,” the old woman said. “Now do what you have to do. I want to see my husband Manatook again. Oh, how I’ve dreamed of his embrace.”
“I think when it happens it will be very painful, but only for a moment.”
“I’ve lived with pain.”
“I know,” said Alaana. She lowered her head on her chest and closed her eyes.
To open the portal required a mental state of absolute desolation. Still it was not difficult. All Alaana had to do was just think of life without Higilak. She had known her all her life. Despite the vast age difference they could talk about anything and they knew how to make each other laugh without even trying. She was the one person in the world who actually understood Alaana in a way her parents didn’t, her husband couldn’t, and her children never would.
“What am I going to do when you’re gone?” she asked. “I don’t have any other friends who are ninety-three.”
“You’ll be all right,” Higilak said again.
No, I won’t, thought Alaana. And then she felt herself consumed by utter despair, a blackness that flowed from the center of her soul. She directed the feeling just a bit to her right, reaching sideways to a spiritual world that intersected her own reality at every place where there existed a shadow.
The shadow Higilak was there, ready and waiting. Alaana felt her relief as she recognized Alaana’s mind reaching out to open the portal. This positive feeling almost ruined her spell, but she brushed it aside. She only needed a tiny opening, just enough to allow the insubstantial figure of the shadow to pass through.
It was over very quickly. The shadow crossed into the material world, drawn inextricably toward its living soul, without resistance. Higilak didn’t resist when the shadow engulfed her living body. As the two merged, the old woman let out a bone-chilling scream of agony.
Old Manatook’s ghost reacted badly, his eyes flaring with rage and terror. His black lips drew back over a fierce set of gritted teeth.
But it was over almost immediately. Higilak’s lifeless body slumped to the graveled floor of the karigi, looking little more than a pile of crumpled rags and bones.
“My little girl…,” whispered Manatook. “My love...”
Alaana stared silently.
“She isn’t gone?” asked Manatook. A momentary panic crossed his shaggy face. He couldn’t see her soul hovering over the body. “Not completely?”
“No,” said Alaana. “She has already crossed over the divide. I don’t know why, but when a shadow meets its soul the two fly away immediately. She is with the ancestors.”
“She will have to wait for that embrace,” said Manatook, “until this matter with Vithrok is done. I don’t have the strength…” He paused, realizing he had admitted perhaps too much to his old student, then went on. “It’s a far journey, as you know. There and back.”
Alaana smiled grimly. “For now I’m just glad her suffering is over.”
“I won’t be there when she gets there. But later… later, I will.”
As per their daily routine, Gekko and Noona met on the foredeck of the HMS Vengeance. The icebreaker was running on steam alone, its three main sails and upper rigging all taken down to prevent the danger of falling ice. The ship cut noisily through a jagged ice field, sailing against the tide of ice flowing down from the pole.
They stood at the stern’s icicle-sheathed bowsprit, the foremost point of the ship. A jumble of ice, forcibly parted by the cloven prow, piled up along the stern and fell away to each side like frozen waterfall
s in varying shades of blue. It was no great place for conversation. They had to speak loudly above the rumbling roar of the ice pack while also constantly moving in place on the icy deck to keep from freezing solid. There were at least ten inches of snow on the deck, as insulation for the inner decks against the merciless cold.
Gekko was dressed in new Navy issue cold-weather slops — a heavy waterproof greatcoat on top of his normal flannel jacket, a heavy watch cap with floppy ears atop his head, a thick woolen scarf across his lower face. Noona wore her usual clothing, a double parka, her face buried so far back in the hood only the tip of her nose and frosted breath were visible.
He had been billeted in the officer’s quarters, in a cubicle vacated as the mates all moved up a space following the demise of Captain Dicker. Not so simple, was the question of where to berth Noona. Officer’s country had a small empty cabin, six foot square, that she might have used but the first mate forbid rooming a young woman so close to the sleeping men. In addition, all of the men considered a woman on the ship to be bad luck, and she had been instructed to remain out of sight as much as possible. The lower deck stood at a temperature below freezing most of the time. Such cold was perfect for food storage but was considered no place for human habitation. Just the same, Gekko imagined Noona might have done well enough under such familiar conditions, even taking into account the stink of sewage and bilge.
Finally, the ship’s doctor had arranged a sleeping area for her among his medical stores in the sick bay at the ship’s forepeak. The sick bay was the warmest area of the ship, furnished with its very own coal-burning primus stove. Apparently the doctor, a grizzled sea veteran in his mid-sixties, was the only man who could be trusted with such a burden as a female boarder. Gekko didn’t particularly like the looks of the ship’s surgeon either but had no choice in the matter. Neither did Noona, who thought the sick bay a bit too warm for her comfort, especially as she was prohibited from sleeping in the nude.