by Ken Altabef
Maguan cut loose one of the dogs, dead and frozen in the traces. He hated to leave any meat behind, even dog meat, but the bones and the snow-laden pelt made the body too heavy to waste precious space on the sled. He had not the time nor dexterity to skin and butcher the animal. From the cache they would take solid slabs of meat, and pack the sled full.
He trudged back to the stanchion. The knee-deep drifted snow made each step a torturous effort. The kabloona’s sled had a sturdy wooden frame and metal-clad runners. But the dogs, the dogs. They had brought eight dogs together from various teams and controlling them was a problem. Dog commands varied from man to man, each having trained his own team to react to his individual style. And Maguan’s voice was all but swallowed up by the wind.
Still, the order to start was universal — a harsh, loud expulsion of breath from the throat. There was nothing for it but to bark out the command and let the rest of the details sort themselves. But which way?
Which way?
That was the question. And no good answer. The swirling snow blew this way and that, obscuring all landmarks. Maguan had no way to keep them straight on course for Forked River. It was all swirling snow and cutting wind. Snow and wind. Hard to stand up, hard to move
A hand on his shoulder. Talliituk.
Maguan turned to face him.
“What happened?” asked Talliituk.
“Another dog dead,” said Maguan. “And I can’t see which way to go.”
“Can’t see at all?” asked Talliituk, worried that snow blindness had come over his friend.
“I can see,” Maguan assured him, “but it’s no good. It’s all the same.” He clawed his hand at the air in front of him, a wall of white powder.
“Keep your eye on the sled,” said Talliituk. “The brown sled against the white snow.”
Maguan grunted. Tears came to his eyes. Of course. He knew that. He had learned that lesson as a little boy. Was he losing his mind? Was this the pibloktoq, the madness that came upon a man at the limit of endurance?
No, he told himself. They were simply lost, trudging helplessly across the featureless plain.
“The brown sled against the snow,” reminded Talliituk, “and the silhouettes of the mountains and the bergs against the horizon.”
“I know,” shot back Maguan. “But which way? Which way?” He squinted into the distance but couldn’t see anything but white. The snow beat at his face, tearing at his hood to get at the soft skin inside; the intense cold making it hard to breathe.
“On one of these ridges there sits an inuksiut,” said Talliituk. “My father built it. I was with him that day, a small boy tugging at his trouser leg, shivering with cold and wanting to go back home. That stone figure points the way. From a certain angle it makes a face — we used to call it the Old Man. It’s still there.”
“In this blow who can be certain?”
“It will never fall. Tugtutsiak put it there.” Talliituk sighed. “My father is gone but his Old Man still stands. We have to find that craggy stone face up on the ridge. The profile of the Old Man points the way. I think it’s that way. I came here many times with my father.”
Maguan looked where he was pointing, but couldn’t see anything.
“You need to rest your eyes,” said Talliituk. “Take your turn under the tarp.”
To emphasize his point another gust of wind assaulted them, slashing at Maguan’s cheeks. Talliituk took the harness lines.
Maguan climbed up onto the sled. A few minutes sleep out of the storm was all he needed. The first rule of survival, he reminded himself, keep down out of the wind. He lay down on the sled, pulling the tarp quickly over.
Talliituk barked out the call and the sled lurched forward.
Although Maguan was exhausted, it was a hard thing to sleep in this cold. Sleep was the half-brother of death in this storm, as dangerous as the wind or the snow. It was too easy to fall asleep and never wake up. What would you dream at the end, he wondered? Would you dream of warmer climes, of happier days of spring, of childhood? Did he dare take that chance?
It’s all right, he told himself. He could let himself go. Talliituk was there. Talliituk would wake him up before he froze solid.
***
“Saugssat!” called out Talliituk gleefully. “Saugssat!”
Maguan opened his eyes. What was that noise? Some new disaster? Talliituk in trouble?
He groaned loudly, flexing stiff limbs back to life. Arms and legs, shoulders, neck. Each portion of his body had to be awakened separately by direct intent. Now, what was Talliituk yelling about?
The tarp had frozen over him, taking on the contours of a sleeping man. Or a funeral shroud. Maguan battered at it for a moment before he got it loose, and slid out from under.
Talliituk stood a little in front of the sled, moving hurriedly back and forth.
“Saugssat!” he called again. Maguan trudged over to his friend. And it was true, there was a white whale caught in the ice. Its outline seemed eerie and strange, a bloated white beast frozen beneath the clear river ice. Baby belugas often traveled through the ice breaks close to shore, seeking out the best feeding places. This one, trapped when the leads suddenly froze under the freak storm, had been caught unable to reach open water. With just the air left inside its lungs, the beluga had drowned. It was a sizeable whale, dead and frozen in the new ice.
“Oh!” exclaimed Maguan. “Enough food to feed us all. Right here at arm’s length.”
“And no way to get it,” said Talliituk. “We can’t dig it out. Or haul it away.”
“Ahh, I can taste it,” said Maguan.
“We’ll come back later,” said Talliituk. He turned away, now seeming embarrassed by his gleeful outburst at finding the whale. Maguan didn’t think it strange, just a typical reaction to what was usually a joyous find.
“Talliituk,” he announced. “You finally got your first whale.”
A dry laugh came from the other’s chapped lips. “Does this mean I’m headman now?”
“Good enough for me,” said Maguan. He wondered how long he had been asleep. Then he noticed Talliituk’s face. One of his lower eyelids had frozen to his cheek. The eye itself was covered with white frost.
“Your eye…” Maguan said.
Talliituk squinted his good eye, then shook his head. “I can’t see anything out of it.”
“Come under the tarp for a little while.”
Maguan glanced around. It was impossible to recognize the outline of the river. He had no idea where they were, but it was not the Forked River.
Under the tarp they huddled together with precious little warmth between them.
Maguan closed his mouth over Talliituk’s frozen eye but he feared it was already too late. The eye was ruined. They both knew that eye would never see again.
“Do you know what river that was?”
“No name,” replied Talliituk. “Just a little stream of white water usually. Swollen this year. Too bad for the whale.”
“Yes, but it shows us the way south. Does it feed the Forked River, you think?”
Talliituk didn’t answer and Maguan took that as a bad sign. There was a very good chance they would die together this day. If they found themselves lost, death was a certainty.
“I worry for Alaana,” said Maguan.
“Alaana?”
“We shouldn’t both have left her with Aquppak.”
“Kigiuna is there, and Ben,” said Talliituk.
“Alaana is a great shaman. I don’t like the way Aquppak talks about her. I don’t trust him.”
“Some headman,” muttered Talliituk. “He pits the families against each other.”
“Even you would have been better, I think.”
“Thanks,” laughed Talliituk. “Right now, I don’t care who’s the headman and who isn’t. Not anymore. I just want to be a good father to my boy. Like Tugtutsiak was for me.”
“Let’s hope you get that chance. My little ones — they’re the greatest joy a m
an can have.”
There was silence on that for a moment. Maguan had finished thawing Talliituk’s eye. The ball of it had partially collapsed, but at least the eyelid could once again close over. The men held their embrace, each with his head nestled on the other’s shoulder.
“I think I’m warm enough to go back out,” said Maguan. “But I don’t know how to get to Forked River.”
“It’s not far from here,” said Talliituk. “I remember. The shoreline reminds me of my father. The Old Man is not far. I can find it.” He sighed deeply. “I’m almost ready.”
“A few more moments then,” said Maguan.
“Years ago,” said Talliituk, “my father and Nuralak were caught in a storm like this. When they dug themselves into the hard pack they startled a sleeping white bear and her cubs. Hoo boy. Now that’s a story! I’ll tell you about it.”
CHAPTER 38
FUTURE’S FIRE
When Alaana opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was Ben.
For a moment she thought that everything must be all right. She closed her eyes and sank back, enjoying his familiar touch as he caressed her forehead. “See?” a faraway voice seemed to say. He still loved her. He hadn’t deserted her. And he never would. The gap widening between them would not consume them.
“Arrggh!” she cried out.
“What is it?”
She didn’t know. An icy hand, embedded in her chest, squeezing tight. The pain chilled her heart, slashing at her soul. Some remnant of the creature. The creature? Memory came flooding back. A monster out in the storm. And she, the shaman, dead and back again. A deep aching in her bones reminded her of every step of that tortured journey.
“Alaana?”
She shook her head and opened her eyes. More than anything else she wanted to see Ben’s handsome face looking down on her, the depth of his emotion written large in his eyes. She was not disappointed.
Ben’s strong hand caressed her forehead, thinning to the touch of one lone finger as it traced the red lines where the monster had cracked open the skin of her cheeks and jaw. “Does it hurt?”
“I’ll be all right.”
“Sorry, we don’t have any food to warm your belly,” he added.
She sat up. “Where are we?”
“Black Face. No food. Not much fuel. But don’t worry. Maguan went to the cache.”
The icy claw around her heart squeezed again. It’s not gone, she thought. It had left its mark on her, and it was still out there.
“Maguan?”
“And Talliituk.”
“How long have they been gone?”
Ben shrugged.
“It’s no good,” said Alaana. “They’ll be killed!”
“They know how to travel in heavy weather. They’ll make it.”
“Not the storm,” she said. “The demon. The ice demon is still out there. I have to go after them.”
“You can’t–”
She shook him off and rose unsteadily to her feet. Black Face. She knew this place; she had come here often over the years. It was a Tunrit place and the memories of its spirits went back a long, long time. Now, it seemed, it had become the last refuge of the Anatatook. The cave was crowded with people and from the looks of things, there was not much hope left among them.
She noticed Noona standing at the cave wall, calling to her.
“I’ll find you something to eat,” said Ben. “There must be something left.”
Alaana took a few tentative steps. Her head swam. She really did need something to eat.
“Mother!” called Noona again. “Here!”
Alaana stumbled over to her daughter.
“It’s here,” the girl said, pointing out one of the crumbling paintings.
Noona indicated an odd-shaped snowflake, light blue against the dull gray of the cave wall. Alaana had seen this drawing many times but, least among an impressive tableau of fabulous beasts and valiant men, had thought little of it.
“It’s the demon,” Noona said.
“This is the thing you saw at the camp?”
Noona nodded enthusiastically.
“This creature has walked before. Long ago, in the time of the Tunrit.”
Alaana glanced down at the image of the hooded sorcerer. “He was their light and their strength. He defeated it, and saved his people. But how? What did he do?”
Noona’s slender fingers traced the larger picture, the image in the background, a giant mushroom drawn in orange and red.
“It’s a mushroom. But I don’t understand.”
“It’s fire,” she said.
“It could be. But what does it mean?”
“Maybe the wall knows,” said Noona.
“Maybe the wall knows,” repeated Alaana. She pulled Noona into a sweeping embrace, tilting down to lightly kiss the girl’s forehead. The abrupt movement made her feel suddenly dizzy again. “Maybe.”
She took a deep breath. Her eyes met those of her daughter. Alaana wondered for a moment how she must look. Only one step removed from death, her skin cracked where the ice demon had tried to flay her apart. But from the adoring gaze in Noona’s eyes you’d think nothing had happened at all.
Alaana cleared her mind, bracing the flat of her palm against the frigid stone wall. She had to act quickly. Her brother and Talliituk were in tremendous danger, if they were even still alive. The Anatatook were all in danger.
It was not nearly as difficult to clear her mind as she expected. She had so recently been dead, a state where all earthly concerns were stripped away and forgotten. The eternal peace of the grave was still fresh within her soul. Just let go, she told herself. Let everything go, except the need.
“Brother Stone. Wake up.” The ancient spirit was buried deep. So cold, so tired.
“Brother, I beg your help in one small thing. A tiny thing, but it means the whole world. Do you hear me?”
Alaana felt the ancient spirit stir.
“Shooo, fly,” it said.
“Brother Stone, you have guests. Look upon us, visitors in your house. One small favor, Brother Stone.”
“So. So it is,” said the Stone. “So many people.”
“Yes, and people worth knowing. People worth saving. But first answer a question for me. The walls of this cave have long memories. You lived beside the Tunrit. They came here often; you were privy to their secret counsels. Tell me, what did the sorcerer do to rid this world of the demon of ice? Do you remember?”
“Hmmmm. I remember,” said the stone in a slow sleepy way. “The weapon is time. A fire that burns in turns yet to be. Oh, look at the children! So small and new. Look at them all!”
“There are words,” said Alaana. “Words the sorcerer must use. I don’t know them. Words in a dead language that no one today could hope to understand. Do you know the way Brother Stone? Will you tell me?”
“So long ago.”
“Please try and remember. These good people are in danger. My brother is out there. Help us. I beg of you. I need the words. The Tunrit words.”
“There it is!” shouted Talliituk. “The Old Man’s face.”
Maguan squinted up at the ridge. Sure enough, the craggy outlines of a knitted brow and hawkish nose peered down at them. The rock cairn, erected by Tugtutsiak years ago, still marked the way to the Forked River.
“Not far now,” added Talliituk. “We’re going to make it.”
The dogs, working hard through snow so deep and fresh, whined their disapproval. It took both Maguan and Talliituk pulling with all their might to keep the mismatched team in line. It would be a little easier for them going back, thought Maguan since they’d already forged a deep trail through the drift. But on the return trip they would be hauling a heavy load as well.
The jagged shore of the Forked River appeared before them, materializing out of the blow like a sudden tear from a phantom’s eye.
“You found it!” remarked Maguan.
Talliituk nodded delightedly. His nose and cheeks were frozen whi
te. “Yes. As we drew near I began to smell him. I smelled my father. And I looked up, and I knew. We were here.”
“You found it!” roared Maguan again.
Talliituk rushed forward, throwing himself atop an indistinct mound of snow. “This is the spot,” he said. His chapped cheeks made his buck-toothed grin painful, but he grinned all the same.
Maguan didn’t need to ask if he was sure.
The two men attacked the snow pile, uncovering the cache. Several large round boulders sat on top to keep the bears out. It took the combined strength of both men, working with numbed fingers and happy hearts, to roll them off. They took turns banging on the smaller rocks to loosen the hoarfrost sticking them together, then tumbling them to the side.
The cache was a wide chamber of rock walls, loaded with stores of meat put up after last summer’s hunting. The slabs of frozen meat were separated by layers of sealskin and blubber which were still not too hard-frozen. Maguan dug in with his hunting knife.
“Big slabs of meat, and the blubber to burn,” he announced.
The men were too excited to pay much attention to an ominous buzzing sound that grew up around them as if a horde of mosquitoes had been suddenly called to the feast.
“Hurry up and let’s load up the sled,” said Talliituk. “It’s a long way back.”
The buzzing sound intensified and Talliituk stepped up out of the cache.
“No. Please, no!” he exclaimed, wide-eyed. “It can’t be all for nothing.”
“What is it? What’s that noise?” asked Maguan. He peered up over the lip of the cache.
Crystals of ice were dropping out of the storm. Born out of the cold itself, sprouting from seeds that held their place in defiance of the raging wind. A lattice of blue, sharp-edged snowflakes grew up around them.
“It’s a demon!” said Talliituk.
