The Shadow of Everything Existing

by Ken Altabef

  The Yupikut recognized the bears as their main threat and turned their full attention upon them with volley after volley, bullet and spear. Orfik took a couple of bullet wounds to the thigh and the foreleg, and a spear pierced Oktolik high in the chest. As fearsome as the polar bears were, as ferocious as they could be, they were sure to fall. The Yupikut had hunted many bears over the years. After their initial surprise, they resorted to old, well-tested tactics. The bears retreated, circling back around for another attack.

  Alaana looked for Aquppak among the sleds but couldn’t find him. That was surprising. She thought the Yupikut headman, thirsty for vengeance, would be at the head of the battle lines. She spotted Kritlaq, still wearing the body of Khahoutek. The shaman was impossible to miss. He dismounted from one of the sleds and drifted toward Alaana, his feet several paces off the ground. It was as if he were walking on air, a strangely rapturous look on his face, arms outstretched. He wore a ceremonial parka made of grizzly bear fur that had been stained blood-red and richly embellished with the long eye-teeth of the same. It was an impressive sight. Alaana knew he was not actually flying, but manipulating the currents of the air around him by force of will.

  Kritlaq made himself an easy target but didn’t seem to care. A few Anatatook men took shots at him. But the wooden arrows turned away from their target at the last minute. Kritlaq’s sorcery commanded the spirits that remained within the wooden shafts to turn aside. Flint spearheads ran like melting like wax before they pierced his body, as Kritlaq overpowered the little rock souls within them. None could touch him.

  Kritlaq brought himself to ground directly in front of Alaana.

  “Your men will soon all be dead, and you will be too,” he said. Alaana could feel the enemy shaman testing her will and she steeled herself to resist.

  “Give me Kuanak and Civiliaq,” demanded Kritlaq. “I know you are sheltering them here, my traitorous shaman sons. Give them to me now. Where are they?”

  Alaana’s will was strong but the malicious nature of this man’s spirit began to win out. His soul was so repulsive, so cold and heartless. Alaana shivered as it touched her own.

  “Civiliaq is gone. He’s crossed the great divide. But Kuanak is still here. I’ll bring him now if you want him,” said Alaana. “All I ask is that you spare me. I’ve never raised my hand against you.”

  Kritlaq sneered. “Give me what I want, dog, before I kill you just as I killed your pet bear Manatook. At least he looked like a bear anyway, but I can tell you he died like a dog.”

  Alaana bowed her head. “I’m opening the portal now.”

  Despair was full upon her. Her friends and family were being wounded and killed right before her eyes. Everyone was going to die, all was lost.

  And all of this pain and horror was necessary for her to do what she must. It was no small thing to open a portal to the shadow world.

  “What portal?” asked Kritlaq.

  CHAPTER 38

  A BATTLE WON AND LOST

  Alaana was overwhelmed by sadness and desperation, a painful cramping twisting her bowels, her head pounding. She grunted with effort.

  “This portal,” she said.

  A swirling vortex of midnight dark appeared beside her as if the air had suddenly been turned to living darkness.

  Then, with a seething roar full of bluster and rage, the shadow warriors poured forth. These creatures, as black as pitch, had the distorted shapes of men, stretched and elongated as they surged through the portal.

  These living shadows were extremely dangerous to living souls. Years ago, Ben had released a pair of such shadows into the daylight world. They were drawn inexorably toward their living counterparts and when the two sides met they incinerated each other. In the same way Alaana had brought an overdue death to Old Higilak not long ago.

  And these shades, the shadows of men of the Anatatook from the other side, would have come to the same bad end except for the fact that Alaana had already prepared her own people for their arrival. She had tattooed each of her Anatatook men with the Tungus symbols she had learned from the shaman Kaokortok, the runes that were able to conceal a man’s soul. In the same way Kaokortok’s sigils had shielded Nunavik’s soul from the eyes of the Sea Witch and kept the other shamans safely hidden in the tusk fragment in Alaana’s pocket. The Anatatook’s living souls were shielded from their shadow counterparts. These shadow warriors were free to take the fight to the Yupikut raiders, with their living counterparts fighting right beside them.

  Swathes of inky blackness flew across the plain. The Yupikut men screamed. They thrashed this way and that, toppling from sleds as they tried to shake off the roiling shadows swarming over them. Their weapons were useless against the shadows clinging to their faces and hands, dissolving away their clothes with an acid touch, burning them. The raiders kept shrieking, spinning madly around, unable to do anything to defend themselves as lapping tendrils of black smoke boiled away their skin.

  “You lie!” wailed Kritlaq in disbelief. “You’re no shaman in the Way.”

  “Call me what you like, sorcerer. Who is more corrupt than you?”

  Kritlaq’s eyes bulged from the deep recesses of Khahoutek’s face. They glowed with the malicious yellowed glint of their reputation. When they manifested that way, it was said Kritlaq had the power to cut another shaman in half.

  “I’ll kill you!” he raged.

  Alaana could not disagree.

  Then Aquppak suddenly stepped forward, appearing from behind Kritlaq. In an instant he raked his meteor blade across the shaman’s throat. Kritlaq had only a split second to recognize that he was being attacked. He directed his will against the blade, commanding it to melt harmlessly away. But the meteor blade was unlike other weapons. It had been gifted to Aquppak many years earlier by the famous Anatatook hunter named Kanak. Kanak had carved the weapon from a peculiar rock that had fallen sizzling from the sky. It was not of this world. The stone of the meteor blade had no soul for the sorcerer to command.

  Having slashed Kritlaq full across the neck, Aquppak plunged his knife directly into the shaman’s chest. With a savage fury he threw the dead body aside.

  “Dog!”

  Khahoutek died at the hands of Aquppak for a second time.

  Kritlaq’s name-soul surged immediately from the dead body. He had not been ready for either of these new developments and his moment of startled indecision was a moment of weakness.

  “I didn’t lie,” hissed Alaana as she withdrew Nunavik’s tusk from her pocket. “Here’s your son.”

  Kuanak emerged from his concealment within the tusk. Two of the other ancient shaman souls were with him, one from the Tungus and one of the Chukchee. The three spirit-men laid hands on Kritlaq’s name-soul and, exploiting his moment of weakness, were able to hold dominion over him. Kritlaq’s corrupted name-soul screamed as Wolf Head dragged it down to the Underworld to receive its final punishment.

  Alaana stared dumbly at Aquppak for an instant. Her old friend looked so different than when she had last set eyes on him. It was as if she gazed on the Aquppak of the past, the great hunter and one-time headman of the Anatatook. The handsome good looks of his youth had somehow been restored, though now splashed with Khahoutek’s blood. That same wild, stray lock of long black hair fell over his left eye. The frost scars were gone from his cheeks, the age-lines worn away. The only flaw remained his left ear, which had been chewed away by bitter frost before, but was now sheared in half, quite cleanly, most likely from an old knife wound. Alaana didn’t understand.

  But she knew he wouldn’t kill her.

  “You have to leave,” she said in a rising panic. “You have to go! Now!”

  “No. I’m staying. I’m not Yupikut. I’m Anatatook. I’ve come back.”

  “I know. But you’ll die!”

  Aquppak shook his head.

  It was already too late. There was nothing Alaana could do. It was impossible to run or hide from the shadows. They moved too quickly. And Aquppak, lacking
the protective tattoo, was doomed.

  The shadow of Aquppak had come through the portal with the rest. The shade was drawn inexorably toward his counterpart. When the shadow met Aquppak’s living soul they both died screaming at Alaana’s feet. There was nothing she could do. Aquppak, her friend and enemy, was gone.

  The last of the Yupikut men died screaming. And then it was over. The dark silhouettes of the shadows had begun to take a more full-bodied shape under the effects of the summer sun. Their sharp edges softened and rounded to more human contours. Their skin color lightened from sooty black to a dusky gray.

  Maguan heartily embraced his sister.

  “You saved us! You saved us all. I knew you would. You’re the best shaman ever!”

  Alaana was in no mood for her brother’s ebullient praise. “No,” she said. She couldn’t take her eyes off the smoldering corpse of Aquppak.

  “So you did kill him after all,” remarked Maguan.

  “No,” said Alaana. “It was a mistake. Another mistake.”

  It didn’t take Choobuk and Manik long to find their father’s body. Manik fell to his knees weeping. Choobuk stood resolute and Alaana thought she saw a hint of a sneer on the young man’s face.

  “I want you to know what happened,” she said. “Did you see?”

  Manik was inconsolable. Choobuk shook his head. No tear fell from his eye.

  Alaana spoke to Choobuk. “Your father saved my life. I think he saved us all.”

  “He didn’t want to… he didn’t want to attack us,” said Manik.

  “That’s right,” said Alaana, though she suspected it wasn’t entirely true. Aquppak had used the attack to get his vengeance after all. Only the target had not been the Anatatook shaman. The target had been Kritlaq.

  “Then why did he come?” asked Choobuk.

  Alaana spoke softly. “I want you to know his last words were ‘I am Anatatook.’ I think those words were meant for you, Choobuk.”

  The corner of Choobuk’s mouth twitched but he said nothing.

  “How many men did you kill today, Manik?” asked Maguan.

  “Only one.”

  Maguan nodded. “We’ll take your father’s body to the Tongue and bury him with all the rest. The best of us. And then we’ll have your manhood ceremony when we get back.”

  “But I haven’t killed a buck…”

  “There is more than one way to become a man.”

  Alaana walked over to the shadows. A group of twelve of them now stood looking at their human counterparts. Ben stared back in amazement at his own shadow. Alaana was worried for her husband, who had been tortured by Vithrok in the shadowlands and had suffered the after-effects for the past ten years, including the tormented voice of his own shadow calling out to him and nearly driving him mad. He was a strong man, but it must be a hard thing to look his greatest fear in the eyes.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Right as rain.”

  Alana supposed that was a good thing, though she had never in her life experienced rain.

  Ben smiled at his double. “A handsome fellow.”

  Alaana noticed the shades of Igguaniaq and Maguan among the others. The shadow of Iggy, half-starved, possessed only a slim waistline compared to her familiar, chubby friend. The shade of Maguan was a pale reflection of her brother on his worst day.

  “It’s time to go,” she told them.

  “Why should we go?” asked Maguan’s shade. “Why can’t we stay? The black mark that protects your men protects us just the same. We want to live in the light.”

  “I can’t make you real,” said Alaana. “You are still shadows.”

  “I can smell,” said the shadow Iggy. “I can taste.”

  Alaana smiled. The second of those qualities was probably the more important to Iggy by a long stretch.

  “It’s real enough,” said one of the other shadows. “This is what we’ve wanted all along, what Aquppak wanted for us. To live in the daylight world.”

  Alaana shook her head. “I don’t know what will happen when the sun goes down. When night comes again. I think you’ll die.”

  Women and children came boiling out of the large tents in the center of camp. Most rushed forth to embrace their fathers and husbands. A few crumpled to the ground in despair over the dead bodies of their fallen Anatatook men.

  Maguan’s wife interrupted the conversation by throwing her arms around her husband and nuzzling him openly. Pilarqaq was the most beautiful woman anyone had ever seen. The shadow of Maguan was married to the same woman on the other side, but for him this was the first time he had ever seen her in the light.

  He stared at the pair of lovers for a short time then said, “Alaana is right. There’s nothing for us here.”

  “Our lives are waiting for us on the other side,” said Iggy’s shadow. “Let’s go.”

  The rest of the shadows stood in agreement.

  Unlike the others, who were flush with their victory, Alaana viewed this entire episode as only one more disaster wreaked upon her people. So much senseless slaughter and loss. What else could she feel? She felt desolation enough to reopen the portal. She used a pile of deep shadow cast by the summer sun, the very one formed by the embracing figures of Maguan and Pilarqaq.

  After the shadows had all filed through, Alaana went with them.

  CHAPTER 39

  SHADOWS

  As Alaana entered the shadow world on the heels of the Anatatook shadow men, everything changed. She went from summer’s day into a night time world of mists and woe. She passed from light into darkness, from the jubilation of victory to unrelenting sadness.

  It was impossible to see anything clearly. A smoky haze pervaded everything. The shadow men reverted back to their natural appearance of indistinct silhouettes. Wails of misery reached Alaana’s ears, striking notes of hunger and strife. She wished there didn’t have to be a shadow world but so long as there was the sun there would be shadow. Alaana herself blazed with the light of the shaman’s angakua. As the shadow people drew near to her they were temporarily rendered substantial by her light.

  The shadow of her brother Maguan said, “A good day for you--”

  “Not a good day,” said Alaana.

  “A good day for your people,” he corrected, “a terrible day for us.”

  She knew what he meant. It was the reason she had come. “I’m going to talk to Ivalu.”

  The others nodded their heads sadly and walked away.

  Alaana let them go. She proceeded through the shadow camp. Its current layout mirrored that of the Anatatook settlement in the daylight world, with one notable exception. The headman here was not Maguan, but the shadow of Aquppak. Alaana found Aquppak’s tent empty.

  She passed again out into the dim, swirling miasma of the shadow world. The Forked River was not far off; she could hear its baleful sloshing. She could see very little, as nothing in the shadow world contained the light of a living soul to spark her spirit-vision. But as she walked her own light went before her like a beacon illuminating her immediate surroundings. Children congregated along the river banks, playing at whatever games they could devise in the darkness. A clutch of women sat looking disinterestedly at them. Ivalu stood near the bank of the stream, her back turned away.

  Alaana went up to her. “Ivalu.”

  Ivalu faced away, but she must have known Alaana was there. Her light went before her. It was unmistakable.

  She turned around to face Alaana. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “He’s gone,” said Alaana. Two words that dropped like stones. Whenever a human soul met its end, the shadow was also extinguished. Aquppak’s counterpart among the shadows had been a dauntless spirit, a brave man who would never give up, nor lay down to die. He was similar to the living Aquppak in that.

  Alaana added, “I’m sorry. I told him to stay behind.”

  “How could you think he would stay? With the Anatatook fighting for their lives, for our lives? He wanted to help you. Once y
ou told us your trouble, he was ready to die for it. He always was.”

  “I didn’t want him to die for me.”

  “For you? No. Rest easy, shaman. He died for us. If your people are in danger our people are in danger.”

  “Well, that’s true…” said Alaana.

  “Usually we sit here helpless. When someone dies on the other side, however it may happen, that one’s shadow just suddenly disappears. Gone.”

  Alaana said, “Life in the daylight world isn’t safe and carefree either. People often die for no reason, by accident or sickness, or the mauling attack of some wild animal out on the flats. And we have our share of hunger and suffering too.”

  “But here it is different,” insisted Ivalu. “Here death comes without warning. We are helpless to do anything about it. No chance. Don’t say anything — that’s just the way it is. I understand that. But for Aquppak and the others this was a chance to fight, a chance to defend themselves. To do something. So, he would’ve had no regrets.”

  “And you?”

  She leaned in a bit closer. Aquppak’s wife was a gentle, quiet shadow. In the light of her angakua Alaana could see her face clearly. All the beauty, all the fierce and turbulent emotions, all the strength. It was all there, painted now with a wash of heartbreaking sadness. She could barely stand to look.

  “From wife to widow, in the blink of an eye. We’re no strangers to that burden here. I will continue. I have the children to think about.”

  Oh yes, thought Alaana, the children. Manik and Choobuk. “I will look after them. I will protect them,” she said, “on the other side.”

  “Thank you.”

  The widow’s words of gratitude stung Alaana more than any rebuke could have done.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “I know,” Ivalu said. “It’s not your fault. But there’s another problem. Ever since you revealed to us what Vithrok was planning — that he intended to blot out the sun, we’ve had nothing but trouble here. Vithrok created the shadow world by bringing the sun. Half of the people here think he’s putting out the light to finally give them peace. They don’t want to be real. They see it as a false hope. It can never be. So they want to be released. If Vithrok kills the sun, this place of misery and torment goes with it. They will not oppose Vithrok.