Shadows

by Ken Altabef

  ALAANA’S WAY

  BOOK THREE:

  SHADOWS

  ALSO BY KEN ALTABEF:

  ALAANA’S WAY

  Book One: The Calling

  Book Two: Secrets

  Book Three: Shadows

  Book Four: The Tundra Shall Burn!

  Book Five: The Shadow of Everything Existing

  FORTUNE’S FANTASY: 13 excursions into the unknown

  GIANT SLAYERS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ken Altabef is a medical doctor who lives on Long Island. As a SFWA member, his stories frequently appear in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and have been published in Interzone, BuzzyMag, Abyss & Apex, Daily Science Fiction and others. His first short story collection “Fortune’s Fantasy” is also published by Cat’s Cradle press.

  Please visit the author’s website

  www.KenAltabef.com

  SHADOWS

  Ken Altabef

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 Ken Altabef

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  ISBN: 150296211

  ISBN-13: 978-1502962119

  CHARACTER LIST:

  Author’s note: One of the things readers comment about most regarding this series are the character names. Some readers appreciate that they are (mostly) authentic Inuit names. Other readers lament they have a hard time keeping track of the characters. In hopes of making it a bit easier, I’ve added this list.

  Author’s other helpful note: There is a glossary of Inuit terms at the end of the book.

  THE FAMILY:

  Kigiuna………..Alaana’s father

  Amauraq……..Alaana’s mother

  Maguan……….Alaana’s eldest brother

  Pilarqaq……….Maguan’s bride

  Itoriksak……….Alaana’s second brother

  Agruta………….Itoriksak’s wife

  Avalaaqiaq……Alaana’s sister, deceased

  Ben Thompson……Alaana’s husband

  Noona………………..Alaana’s daughter

  Kinak………………….Alaana’s son

  Tamuanuaq………..Alaana’s daughter,

  also called Tama

  Anaktuvik Kigiuna’s brother, Alaana’s uncle

  Makaartunghak….Alaana’s big dog

  Yipyip…………………Alaana’s little dog

  FRIENDS:

  Mikisork……..Alaana’s friend, also called Miki

  Iggianguaq…Alaana’s friend, also called Iggy,

  also called Big Mountain

  Aquppak….Alaana’s friend, from poor family

  Ivalu…………Aquppak’s wife

  Manik……….Aquppak’s son

  Choobuk……Aquppak’s son

  THE ANATATOOK:

  Old Manatook… shaman with polar bear

  guardian

  Higilak ………Old Manatook’s wife, also

  the storyteller

  Tugtutsiak…..the headman, Miki’s father

  Aolajut………..Tugtutsiak’s wife, Miki’s mother

  Tookymingia..Tugtutsiak’s second wife,

  also called Tooky

  Talliituk…….Tugtutsiak’s eldest son

  Nuralak… head of powerful family

  NOT FRIENDS

  Klah Kritlaq……..a rival shaman

  THE TUNRIT:

  Vithrok…..…the leader, turned sorcerer

  Tugto…..shaman with mammoth guardian

  Oogloon….shaman with snow sight

  Tulunigraq….birdlike shaman

  Makite……….a warrior

  Uivvaq……….an artist

  SPIRITUAL CHARACTERS:

  Tikiqaq………..Alaana’s tupilaq

  Balikqi…………A polar bear shaman

  Orfik…………...young polar bear shaman

  Oktolik…………young polar bear shaman

  Sila……………..great wind spirit

  Tekkeitsertok…guardian spirit of caribou

  Tornarsssuk……guardian spirit of polar bears

  Tulukkugraq…..great raven spirit

  Sedna…………….the Sea Mother

  Kktakaluk………Sedna’s mate, a sea scorpion

  Punnik…………..guardian of mammoths

  Savikkigut…..guardian of sabre-tooth tigers

  Usinuagaaluk……...the Whale Man

  PROLOGUE

  “The Beforetime.” Higilak smiled, showing a row of teeth all worn down from a lifetime of chewing the skins. “Always it’s the Beforetime. Why not hear the story of the woman who married the Moon?”

  “No,” chimed the ring of children.

  “What about Okpialiq, who used magic against the storm?”

  “Oh, please tell us about the Beforetime.”

  “Ah, so it goes,” said Higilak, drawing a good, long breath in the way that let the children know she was ready to begin in earnest. “The Beforetime.”

  Their eager faces warmed her heart, filling the vast empty space left by the death of her husband Old Manatook. Childless, widowed, it seemed only the children sparked her to life.

  Her tent was full of them, their smell, their gap-toothed smiles, their fidgety movements and chatter. She paused to drink in the sight of them, sealing the memory of this precious moment. Now that the sun had finally peeked above the horizon, making its light and warmth known once again, they would soon have little use for her. They would be outside wrestling and playing with sticks and hoops and little toy bows. Her stories, fanciful tales of the thunder spirits, and brave Noatak who passed into the land of ghosts and back again, and the noble white bears and their secrets, all these had done their part, feeding tender imaginations to see them through the monotony of winter’s long darkness. And only now when she could finally see their faces by daylight again, they would be gone. It seemed unfair.

  But children must grow up. Then they must busy themselves with the hunts and the dog teams, or sewing for their husbands. And then they would have children of their own. If her old bones could hang together for a little while longer, she should welcome some new faces next spring.

  “Things were better in the old days,” she began, “in the time before time. There wasn’t any need for food, for one thing. People didn’t have to hunt and always worry and go hungry in the winter. There were no such things as empty bellies. And there wasn’t ever any darkness. It was light all the time.”

  The old woman watched the ring of eyes grow wide at the thought, knowing that these children had just recently suffered through a seemingly endless night with no sunlight at all for two full turnings of the Moon. The idea that there could be no darkness both shocked and amazed.

  “Everything was made out of light,” she said.

  “And tell us about the people,” said one bright-faced little boy.

  “People, animals, ice and stones, it was all one and the same in the Beforetime. A person could become a walrus or an eagle, or perhaps a mountain or a snowflake. There was no difference. It was a time of magic. Anything people wanted to happen could happen. Not like it is now, with everything stuck in one shape or another.”

  The children broke into excited chatter, wondering what it would have been like, and what adventures they would have had, changing their shape and color on a whim and flying free. Higilak waited patiently, listening to whatever delightful snippets of conversation that caught her ear. There really was no hurry.

  When the clamor died down Noona, who was the daughter of Alaana, the shaman of the Ana
tatook people, asked, “But what happened? What caused it to end?” Her sweet face, lips puckered and serious, exhibited a depth of expression that struck Higilak as well beyond her tender age of ten winters. She wore her straight black hair in a mature style, parted in the middle and tied in back. Her younger sister sat fidgeting in her lap, wide-eyed, with long bangs and rosy cheeks.

  “Ah, well, no one really knows,” answered Higilak. She paused, smoothing down the front of her anorak.

  “Something happened,” said one of the older boys, “The Thing. It was the Thing.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Higilak, pretending as if she had just suddenly remembered. “It was during the Beforetime that one of the spirits rose up, the one which we now call The Thing That Was Cast Into The Outer Darkness.” She stopped again, to allow a collective shudder at mention of the name. “And caused some great trouble. Another came up to battle it, and that one we call the Long-ago Shaman. The battle was long and furious, surely one to rock the heavens themselves, and the end of it saw the Great Rift, the scattering, the Aviktuqaluk.”

  “But what happened to The Thing?” asked the boy.

  “It’s still out there in the sky. You can’t see it, for it is made of darkness itself. But it’s there, still drifting outward and away, never to return.”

  “It’s horrible.”

  “Yes, it is horrible when the great spirits make war with one another. It’s nothing we can understand. But still the effects of that battle created the world. After that, all the spirit-people had to take one shape only. Some became the great turgats that we know, the spirits that control the animals, while others became merely a stone or a lake. Maybe even a pebble.”

  “What was Nunatsiaq in the Beforetime?” Noona asked, referring to the land that the Anatatook called home. The girl’s younger sister Tamuanuaq, sitting on her lap, reached up and sent a finger questing into her nose but Noona shook it off.

  “That’s a good question, Noona, because everything was something else. I think it must have been a whale. The shape of it tells me so. The curve of the bay is just like a whale’s belly. The Great Basin follows the arch of its forehead, the Black Cliffs the craggy curve of its back, and Raven Point makes the tip of the fluke.” She made the shape with one of her slender hands. “Yes, it was definitely a whale. Maybe that’s why so many of its old friends come by to visit this place during the whaling season.”

  Higilak watched the change in the children’s expression as the idea solidified in their thoughts, like water hardening into ice.

  “And the Tunrit?” asked one boy.

  “The Tunrit were the first people in the wake of the Great Rift,” said Higilak. “It is said they came forth out of the mud of the earth. They knew nothing of death in those days, such a long, long time ago when the world was new. Neither did they know the sun, for the world was cold and everdark. No day ever dawned.

  “The Tunrit people lived in darkness. Born in magic, they were better than us in every way. It is said that even the tallest Anatatook man might stand only to a Tunrit’s shoulder. Where a hunter of today has only to deal with an enraged bull walrus or a solitary white bear, the Tunrit faced a world where the animals were giant beasts full of rage, with skin as rough as stone and teeth like daggers as long as your arm.” She paused to allow an assortment of oohs and ahhs from the children. “The wild spirits were more powerful then, and more deadly as well. The Tunrit had need of great strength and cleverness in order to survive at all.”

  “But what became of them?” asked the shaman’s daughter.

  “So many questions, Noona,” said Higilak with a smile. “No one knows. No one can say. The mighty Tunrit all died off. Maybe they went to a better place. Perhaps they became the stars in the sky. Gone. All gone. But before they went they gave us their gifts to help us survive. All the great inventions and ideas come from them. The fishing weirs, the kayak and the bow, and all the secrets of nature. These things they taught us. They opened for us the world of the spirits so that our shamans might heal and protect us.”

  CHAPTER 1

  THE OLD AGREEMENT

  Alaana’s spirit-woman gasped. The sight of this place always stunned her with a crushing sense of admiration and wonder. Luckily she was present in spirit only, having left her physical body with her father in the karigi, or her gaping mouth would have been treated to a mouthful of icy salt water.

  The palace of Usinuagaaluk, the Whale-Man, was a vast underwater citadel. The citadel’s smooth curves flowed gently along the lines of the sea. Seen through the eyes of the allaruk, the vision trance, Alaana found the architecture fascinating — gigantic arches lined the broad, gabled corridors and framed the leviathan-sized chambers. And all of it was made of nothing but streaks of bright blue light imbuing the dark water with its ethereal design.

  The ribbed halls echoed with distant whale song. And all around her the spiritual panorama of the ocean, acting as both backdrop and furnishing for the palace, were the soul-lights of every creature laid bare to the shaman’s eyes. They darted and swirled in multicolored motion, the spirits of cod in schools of yellow and green, those of the shark in amber, playful laternfish shining orange, undulating kelp in shimmering green and an occasional crab pausing in its trek through the muck to look her way. The timeless soul of the ocean itself, a dull luminescence of ghostly sea-green, not only surrounded each of the others but intermingled with the souls of every creature within its cool waters. The soul of the sea, vast beyond comprehension, shimmered before her eyes. What a sight, thought Alaana. What an incredible sight.

  The shaman had little time to pause and appreciate these wondrous new surroundings before she beheld the approach of the Whale-Man. As usual, the great turgat had taken the form of an immense and ancient whale. Although it was said his spirit was equally capable of walking like a man upon the ground, with thunderous footsteps that might cause even cliff and iceberg to tremble, such appearances were rare. He loved too much his flowing waters and the sea creatures under his dominion.

  The Whale-Man cruised through the broad avenue of his palace, becoming larger and larger to Alaana’s eyes. As he neared, he turned and tossed playfully, flapping his gigantic fins in sinuous motion.

  The slick black form of the turgat reared up atop his massive curling fluke. An irregular pattern of white skin splashed across the lower lip gave the impression of a beard suitable for such a venerable old spirit. The deep grooves which ran down along his throat and underbelly resembled in size and shape the rugged crevasses carved by time and heavy weather through the bedrock of the tundra. Usinuagaaluk was flanked by a pair of large white belugas which, although fully grown, appeared as babes alongside their massive guardian spirit.

  The Whale-Man let out a pair of dull clicking sounds that echoed through the deep waters and the two belugas flew away.

  As they departed, the great spirit gave out a low whine that struck Alaana as incredibly sad and lonely.

  The other whales had accompanied their turgat, but he was not one of them. His joyful flight through the water was illusion only, for he was bound to the service of the creatures under his protection.

  Although she could never dare compare herself with the greatness of one of the turgats, Alaana knew the feeling. The shaman walked alone. One of them but never one of them. She had support from the people, particularly when food was plentiful and the storms mild, but not understanding. That she could receive only from Old Higilak who had been married to a shaman for so long that she understood the depths of commitment necessary in order to safeguard the Anatatook. Higilak had shared in the sacrifice, both in the long absences of her husband while he performed his duties for the people and in his eventual death protecting them.

  If only Alaana’s husband Ben shared that attitude. Though married to the shaman, a position of great status among the Anatatook, he wanted nothing of it. He had known enough violence and conflict in his life, as a child of slaves in Louisiana and years of captivity among arctic raiders. Now
he sought only a quiet existence with his wife and three children. Alaana shared that sentiment exactly, but there were responsibilities.

  And there were wonders. What would Ben think, she asked herself, if he was called upon to traverse the spiritual plane and face down such a magnificent spirit as the Whale-Man? Alaana was as inconsequential as a speck of dust beside the immensely powerful turgat, a being who might just as easily snuff her out as look at her.

  “Usinuagaaluk,” Alaana intoned, “Spirit of the wild whale at sea, heed my call.”

  The Whale-Man advanced again, now coming so close that his immense, ululating body filled her entire field of vision. The great spirit turned to face Alaana, pointing his rostrum directly at her. His mouth, full of glittering baleen, was not turned down as typical of a bowhead whale, but slightly upturned at the corners giving the appearance of a friendly smile. His eyes were each larger than the largest iglu she had ever seen. Even though they were most definitely smiling, she was hard pressed to keep her nerve beneath their penetrating gaze. Alaana’s heart thudded in her chest.

  “Dear spirit,” she managed to choke out, “Hear my plea. Heed my call.”

  Struggling with the words, Alaana invoked the Old Agreement. Made when the world was young, the Old Agreement was a bargain ancient and inviolable.

  “My people have need,” she said. “We walk the world hungry, we shiver in the darkness. Please, great spirit, answer my call.”

  The bowhead’s glistening black head seemed to nod slightly. When the turgat spoke, his resonant tones rattled inside Alaana’s skull like rumbles of thunder sounding dangerously close at hand. “You have made obeisance, you have sung the songs and burned the charms. You have shown respect. Long ago, a voice out of the darkness spoke for people, and the turgats were made to understand. I will honor the agreement. One among us shall offer himself up in aid of the human folk, consenting to the hunt and the kill, so long as the shaman has made appropriate offering and respect in return.”