by Ken Altabef
Gekko and Noona met at the bowsprit once a day for a bit of hasty conversation and the occasional nose-rubbing.
The only other living soul braving the icy winds on the foredeck just then was Chancey Duggan, one of the ships two ice-masters. Duggan was not much concerned with the pair of young lovers and continued peering through his brass telescope, seeking natural breaks in the near-solid sea of ice which they might exploit to speed their progress to the pole.
Gekko was annoyed that they’d been forced into complete celibacy on ship, and only caught sight of each other for a few minutes every day. And with this precious time, Noona preoccupied herself with playing ipiitaq aularuq, the string game of cat’s cradle.
He tried in vain to paint a slightly more romantic picture, nodding his head toward the bow of the ship as it smashed its way through the ice. “Beautiful, in its own way. Don’t you think?”
Noona struggled with her little line of seal gut. Her wind-bitten fingers were slow to form the shape of Moon Rising. She glanced from her string dance to the sky above, looking for the shadow of the dead Moon.
Gekko chuckled softly. “Love? What are you doing there?”
If she looked up from the string, it was impossible to tell within the wide hood. “I was thinking of Tatqeq, the Moon Maid. I haven’t yet been able to thank her for having found love.”
“Oh, I see.” Gekko inferred that among the Anatatook, like many primitive cultures, the moon signified love or romance in some way. He hoped it had nothing at all to do with fertility. “I guess I should be flattered…”
“Sometimes she speaks to me. At least she used to. But not since the Moon was killed.”
Gekko glanced up at the sky. In the bright sunlight of summer he didn’t expect to see the moon. Noona said they would never see it again, that it had somehow been murdered by sorcery. He didn’t contradict her.
While he watched, a thin streak of silver light, almost like a shooting star, flashed down from the sky.
“Was that a moonbeam?”
Noona’s eyes went wide. The hood carelessly flung back, she looked at Gekko with a near-panic on her face.
“She’s there! She spoke to me!”
She glanced down at the string in her hands, then swept it into the pocket of her coat. “She’s in great danger.”
Gekko didn’t know what to think. He turned Noona slightly so that her face didn’t stand directly in the path of the icy wind. “What… what do you mean, darling?”
Noona smiled at the romantic nickname, then her face became serious again. “It’s Tatqeq. She’s trapped there in the darkness. Up on the dead Moon, the corpse of her father. She’s blind. She can’t see. It’s horrible. She has to keep running. She has to hide.”
“Hide from what?”
“It’s her brother, whom we call The Dark. A strange creature, created by the Moon Man out of ash. He has no soul. He’s supposed to sit in judgment of lost souls, in the dark part of the Moon, and send them on their way. But he’s changed things now, with his father gone. He’s grown even more hideous than before. He doesn’t care for the lost souls anymore, he tortures them. The madness of the king knows no mercy. Tatqeq is hunted. Parts of the living Dark chase her — they look like… like bats. She can’t imagine what her brother intends if he catches her, what he’ll do to her…”
Suddenly terrified, Noona had gone quite pale. Gekko wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. He nestled her face under the curve of his muffled jaw. “We should go back inside…”
“There’s something else,” she said. “Something important. Something Tatqeq discovered on the Moon before her eyes went out. She felt the pull, the strain, she wanted to see where it might be coming from. And she saw a flicker of light, directly beneath the Never Moves. Don’t you see? That’s the location of the sorcerer my mother’s been looking for!”
“Right,” said Sir Gekko, noncommittally. He had seen many strange things in his life. Voodoo in the West Indies, witchcraft in New Hebrides, a gentleman ghost in a house on Paddington Road. And the moon had gone dark with no real explanation. A man in the moon? Killed by a sorcerer? “That’s one geezer I’d hate to meet,” he said. “What’s he like, this sorcerer? Is he Russian? Does he wear a kossack?”
Noona didn’t understand. “I don’t know anything more. But this is important news! We’re heading right for him. We should turn the boat away.”
Gekko grunted. “I don’t think that’s going to be possible.”
“You believe? You believe?”
“I do. But I can’t tell the men a story like that.”
“It’s not a story.”
Gekko nodded. “They won’t believe, of that you can be sure. And a tale like that won’t get them to turn the ship around either. We’ll get word to your mother whenever we can. That’s the best we can do.”
For a moment neither of them spoke. The cracking ice filled their ears with its snapping roar, its rumbling and its screams.
“Come now,” said Gekko. “Let’s go below decks.”
Gekko thought of the wireless set in the Captain’s cabin. He didn’t suppose it would do much good as far as contacting the Anatatook shaman was concerned. And what could he report to London? That there was a sorcerer at the north pole? Could it be true? No use, thought Gekko. Nothing had changed. They were headed for the pole in any case. When we get there we’ll face whatever monster we find, he thought, be it Tsar or sorcerer or atom bomb.
CHAPTER 22
SEA TITANS CLASH
Here, in the deepest of the depths, the water pressure was so intense it nagged even at Sedna’s ears. All was impenetrable darkness but the Sea Mother could see by virtue of her spirit-vision. A myriad of little souls lit up her surroundings. She saw the sparkle of inua within every grain of coral clinging to the cave walls, the little things scrabbling among the sands, and the stunted kelp standing flattened and still against the immense pressure. Strange creatures of the depths, some of her most bizarre creations, raced to the scene to have a rare look at their mother. Bloated, gape-mouthed, they came forth from their slimy beds to peek at her with blind eyes.
A pair of gargoyle-fish accompanied their mistress on this far journey. They were each as long as a small beluga whale, though much more sleek, and covered with barnacles and sharp, glistening scales. Their eyes bulged, round and pale, recessed deep in their cavernous sockets. Each had a gaping mouth in its armored head, and snapped a full set of needle teeth at anything that dared approach Sedna too closely.
Sedna drifted across the sea bottom until she found the entrance to her vault. All was deathly quiet and still. Hardly anything could move under the weight of water bearing down on this place. Her keen eyes searched for the keeper, but didn’t see him.
“Keeper!” she called out.
There came no answer. For a moment she thought he might have abandoned his post. When was the last time she’d set eyes on him? A thousand years ago? If he had died down here and turned to stone she wouldn’t even know.
“Keeper!”
A slight movement on the floor raised a tiny cloud of sea dust. The keeper blended so perfectly into its surroundings that even Sedna could barely detect its presence. It appeared as a flat lump, so crusted with coral and barnacles that she couldn’t even remember its original shape. Some type of octopus, wasn’t it?
The ancient creature shambled up out of the clinging silt. It spoke with a low sepulchral voice, saying, “I am here, Mistress.”
“Good. I do not wish to be kept waiting any longer. Open the chamber.”
The keeper bowed its head. This was an almost imperceptible motion as its head, which was already flat, lay pressed so close to the sea bed as to be barely distinguishable. A subtle shifting of the sands took place as the barnacled keeper slid along the bottom, broadening its many arms until it rested squarely above the vault. Its movements were ponderous, and much too slow for Sedna’s tastes.
“Go ahead! Open it!”
The k
eeper strained at its task, letting forth a low guttural groan with the effort. Bits of coral popped off its flattened muscles as they bulged. The cover of the vault began to lift and move aside. With by a seismic crack that shook the entire sea bed, the cover faltered and fell clumsily back down again. It rested slightly off-kilter, leaving an opening only a few paces wide.
“Oh! You fool!” roared Sedna.
The keeper shuddered. “One moment…” it said. “I will… do it…”
Sedna watched as a dark shadow emerged from the opening of the vault. The point of a gigantic tentacle surged forth from the chamber below, its tip writhing questioningly as if it had eyes to see.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Sedna whirled around to see the Whale-Man standing behind her. Usinuagaaluk, the guardian spirit of the whales, had chosen to appear in his form of man.
Sedna had the size and shape of an elderly woman, wearing a loose-fitting gown of ragged sea kelp. This was Dreadful Sedna, sharp-boned, high-cheeked, hawk-nosed. Her hair was wild and dark, still a tousled mess, weighed down with the accumulated sins of men. Her flesh shone a scaly green, slick with sea slime. Her eyes were like knives, her mouth cruel, her lips thin and blue, forming a crusty cave in which resided the dagger-teeth of a barracuda.
The Whale-Man seemed almost a matched pair to the Sea Mother. He stood a head taller than the woman, deep-chested, broad at the shoulder. He had a long mane of flowing hair and full beard, both made of wild fronds of seaweed an identical dark green shade to Sedna’s flowing locks. He wore only a breachclout of clinging kelp to cover his nakedness. His proportions were powerful and perfect, his skin glittering with blue-green scales.
“Nothing that concerns you,” replied the Sea Mother. Her thin, blue lips down-turned with annoyance.
“This vault is my business, as much as it is yours,” he returned. “I thought we had an agreement on this.”
The Sea Mother’s fury was growing by the instant. Her hard, cold, fish-eyes glared. The milky-eyed, misshapen fish of the deep darted for cover among the crusted coral walls. “These beasts are mine!”
“They are our children. Both.” It was an ancient dispute. The great sea-beasts had been created by Raven when this world was first formed, but as they possessed characteristics of both fish and whales, it could not be decided who should have dominion over them. After heated arguments the two great turgats had eventually decided none should have them, and locked them away so neither might use them against the other and upset the delicate balance of power under the waves.
“Our children,” she snickered. “Pitiful! Don’t call them that. It presumes too much. It implies we have had a certain type of relationship, and I don’t like it.”
“I might have desired that,” said the Whale-Man sadly. “Once. But no longer.”
Sedna laughed, a merciless cutting sound. “Don’t lie.” She ran a hand, fingerless as it was, from her chin to the tip of one prodigious breast. “You still want me. You still ache for me as you lay alone on your bed at night.”
“No longer!” said the Whale-Man. “Now stand aside as I replace that stone.”
“No!” said Sedna. “No, we won’t allow you to do that.”
“We? Who have you allied yourself with?”
Her sea-green scales bristling, her eyes glowering, Sedna replied, “No one.”
She wouldn’t stand aside.
“I know who it is, and I don’t like it,” said Usinuagaaluk. “The Moon was my friend!”
Sedna’s mocking laughter rang out again. “Two lonely old men…”
“Step aside!” raged the Whale-Man.
The pair of gargoyle-fish darted forward. Before the Whale-Man could react, a powerful jaw clamped around one of his arms at the bicep and the other monster wrapped itself around his waist. The gargoyle-fish were each three times as long as the Whale-Man was tall.
“You bitch!” he roared.
A semi-circular ulu blade appeared in his hand. The weapon was made of blue light that shimmered as pearlescent shell. The Whale-Man slashed down with the blade, cutting one of the monster fish in half. The other still maintained its bite on his arm, worrying the scaly flesh with its long sharp teeth.
The ulu blade disappeared and the Whale-Man smashed a powerful fist down against the back of the fish’s head. The fish’s mouth gaped open and, struck dead, it drifted lifelessly in the water.
Sedna had taken the opportunity to swim upward. The Whale-Man was pleased to see her move away from the vault, thinking she had reconsidered and was backing off. He was enraged as never before and would not let this attack go unpunished. Sedna had much to answer for. He followed her upward and was glad to do so, feeling the immense pressure of the water subside. Here, at less depth, he had room to maneuver.
Sedna turned around.
“I think it’s time we settled things between us,” she said.
“It’s already been settled,” said the Whale-Man. “Those things stay in the vault.”
Sedna smiled. “My husband is dead. I need someone new.”
“Why don’t you try a sea slug this time?” Now it was Usinuagaaluk’s turn to laugh. But his mirth was cut unexpectedly short as he suffered a new attack.
The Sea Mother had called forth another handful of gargoyle-fish and these terrors of the deep surged forth as one, attacking the Whale-Man from behind. Razor-toothed mouths gaped wide and eel-like tails and fins wrapped both his legs. The Whale-Man’s blade flashed but he couldn’t fight them all off.
Taking a new tactic the Whale-Man began to roll in the water. As he turned, his spirit-form expanded and grew. The demon-fish were cast helplessly aside as the Whale-Man assumed the proportions of a gigantic bowhead whale. His glistening black skin shone with starshine that matched the twinkling in his massive eyes.
He pointed his rostrum directly at Sedna. His mouth, full of glittering baleen, opened slightly. “This is how you want to play?”
In an instant the sea was thick with whales. Usinuagaaluk called forth bowheads and belugas, gray whales and massive blues. Sedna matched him strength for strength, calling forth her own flotilla of deadly pets. Sharks and barracudas flooded the scene. Though smaller, they harried the whales with an unrestrained ferocity and formidable sets of teeth. The Whale-Man unleashed his own toothsome harridans, a fleet of orcas, and soon blood ran thick in the water.
No sooner did a gigantic white shark appear, it was beset by a horde of orcas. The bigger whales operated in concert with their smaller brothers, battering foes into position for the orcas to kill. The waters were littered with the corpses of whale and shark alike but none paused to feed. Additional fighters poured into the area and it seemed, their ranks limitless, the battle might go on indefinitely.
Usinuagaaluk resolved himself into the form of a giant man, larger than any whale.
Not to be outdone, Sedna blew herself up to immense proportion and the king and queen of the sea faced each other with renewed wrath.
“This is what you want?” the Whale-Man asked, indicating the carnage all around them. “You care so little for your charges?”
“I’ll see every one of your whales floating belly-up before this day is done, unless you relent. Come now, Usinuagaaluk. We both know you don’t have the resolve to see this through. Go back to your cave and your lonely bed.”
The Whale-Man screamed with rage and, kicking out with mighty legs, he soon had his hands around Sedna’s throat. He began to squeeze, choking the life out of her. The Sea Mother had no fingers with which to break his grip and, not lacking in resolve in this, it looked as if he would soon throttle her to death.
Sedna mouthed a series of words in the secret language. She had no wind with which to speak them aloud but her spirit communicated to the souls of the sea creatures without need of air. In an instant, huge masses of seaweed wrapped themselves around the Whale-Man as tentacles, filling his mouth, nose and ears. Gigantic clouds of plankton coalesced in the water to smother and
clog his every pore.
“Choke me?” she said, after he had let go her neck. “You will choke first!”
Some of the belugas diverted from the battle in order to try and nibble away at the tentacles of the seaweed engulfing their master. These rescuers soon found themselves floundering, their lungs choked with the heavy conglomeration of plankton that clogged their airways as well.
The Whale-Man struggled, his arms thrashing the water, but he couldn’t fight so small a foe in such incredible numbers.
Sedna cackled.
So distracted was she that she didn’t notice one of the Whale-Man’s other charges, a gigantic white narwhal, as it swam up behind her. She didn’t notice until that creature’s powerful charge ended with its long spiral horn erupting from her breastbone. Sedna cried out, her control of the plankton disrupted, and the Whale-Man struck free.
Sedna glanced down at the tip of the horn protruding from her chest. The narwhal had already been killed by a horde of small fish which had pecked the meat from its bones in an instant.
“You fool!” she said, enraged. “You can not win out over me. I am the sea!”
Suddenly the entire scene was thrown out of kilter, the whales and sharks tossed about like inconsequential pieces of fluff. The waters of the ocean shifted, flowing upward in a crest.
Usinuagaaluk, breathless, battered and amazed, watched the sea water rise up and up until the tower of water seemed to extend halfway up into the sky. He had never imagined such a display of power. He had badly underestimated Sedna.
Then the gigantic wave crashed down.
The impact killed the Whale-Man instantly.
The tremendous shock-wave extended out across the sea, smashing the life out of whales, sharks, and orcas alike. Lifeless bodies floated toward the surface in droves.
Vithrok’s spirit-man, hovering above the waters, watched as the many corpses rose to float at the surface. He smiled. An instant later he absorbed the incredible gout of power released by the death of the Whale-Man. It surged into him, threatening to consume his very being. He could not hope to contain it all but served as conduit, directing the flow of Beforetime straight toward his citadel where it would join the rest.