by Ken Altabef
“Killing the caribou like that will violate the Old Agreement,” she continued. “It will anger the spirits.”
Some murmured in support, others remained silent. A few looked at Alaana with questioning eyes. It was an odd thing to see their shaman’s face reddened with sunburn after one of the coldest storms of all time.
Maguan had returned from his trip in the opposite condition, his skin burned by the cold. He had stumbled into the cave two days earlier, barely alive, his sled full of meat. By a sudden stroke of luck, the freak storm had ended soon after his encounter at the cairn. If not, he would never have survived the return trip to Black Face. Alaana, sunburn and all, had been waiting to greet him and rub salve onto his cheeks.
“We don’t need the Old Agreement any more, not with the weapons,” said Aquppak. “We don’t need you, Alaana.”
“Foolishness,” shouted Kigiuna. “What about what happened out there? Alaana saved our lives.” He jerked his thumb toward the cave entrance.
“Actually I didn’t see it that way at all,” returned Aquppak. “Did you see that Nuralak?”
The old man didn’t answer.
“I saw only a freak storm,” said Aquppak, “and our shaman, helpless and weak, asleep by the fire.”
“I told you,” said Maguan. “Alaana came to me out on the tundra. She put down the ice demons.”
Aquppak chuckled slightly, shaking his head. “You love your sister very well, Maguan. But you are too modest. If not for your bravery we would all be dead. Whatever you think you saw out in the storm, whatever tricks the wind and the cold played on your senses, no one can say.”
Maguan started to object but Aquppak cut him off. “If Alaana has had any part in this, it was to bring the storm upon us!”
Several of the men objected, including Kigiuna and Anaktuvik. An argument broke out, fueled from both sides.
Nuralak said, “Too many things have happened this year. Too many things to simply accept. Tugtutsiak’s death, and the whale hunt gone wrong. It was Alaana who promised us a big fat agvisugruk, as I recall. But we got nothing, except our headman cut in half. Then the caribou hunt…” He shook his head. “Not many, not enough. And then the storm. In all my years I’ve never seen a storm like that. None of us have. And Alaana unable to do anything about it. The deaths at the camp, Asatsiak, Koonooyah, and my dear friend Massautsiaq. Our camp ruined, our tents gone, no food but what little Maguan has brought back for us.”
“Clearly, we can not depend on our shaman,” concluded Aquppak. He raised the rifle once more. “This is our answer.”
“And the spirits?” asked Alaana.
“Maybe I will shoot the spirits,” suggested Aquppak. He cocked the gun and squinted as if taking aim, “if I ever see one.”
He was joined in laughter by Patloq and some of the others. Alaana could think of nothing else to say. She might proclaim her side of it louder and louder, but still they wouldn’t listen. Such protestations would only make her look foolish, or raise further discord among the men.
“And there’s another thing I’ve been thinking about,” said Aquppak. “When McPearson brings back the weapons, we can make a raid on another band. Take what we want. The Tanaina aren’t far to the south.”
One man objected, “I know some of them. They’re my friends.”
Another said, “My son-by-marriage lives among them.”
“We won’t hurt him,” assured Aquppak.
“What if they choose to fight?”
Aquppak smiled. “It will be easy — we’ll have the guns.”
Maguan stepped forward. He stood face to face with the headman. “Raids? Killing? That’s not our way, not the Anatatook way.”
“That has been our shortcoming, Maguan, our weakness. For as long as I can remember we’ve run from the Yupikut raiders like cowards. That’s why we’ve starved and suffered through lean years. I say never again. Now we can take what we want. This winter is going to be hard. Should we just bear it? Look at all that’s happened. That storm wrecking all of our things, burying them. Will we ever find them again? With the guns we can take what they have. Stock up on supplies for the winter. Otherwise it will be lean times. People will die. Who will it be? Your wife? Your children?”
These statements found a great deal of support.
Aquppak continued, nodding his head, “We can take their supplies, their women if we want too. Iggy, you can finally get a wife.” He waved a dismissive hand at Tooky and Tikiqaq. “A proper wife. Not one with a curse trailing after her and that horrible little thing that follows her around. We’ll put that little witch out in the snow.”
“Are we to become raiders like the Yupikut?” asked Iggy in disgust.
“Yes,” answered Aquppak boldly. “We’ve suffered their raids long enough. Now it’s our turn.”
“If we start raiding the other bands, the Yupikut will come after us,” said Anaktuvik.
“Let them come,” said Aquppak. “We’ll have the guns! The Yupikut will fear us! They’ll be the first to fall. We’ll suffer them no more. We will rule Nunatsiaq!”
Alaana noted too much support for that position among the Anatatook’s hunter clans. Times were changing under the hand of Aquppak and not for the better.
Some others did not have much appetite for war. Anaktuvik and Kigiuna refused go along. Aquppak dismissed them.
“Let them stay home,” said Aquppak. “We don’t need their numbers if we have the weapons. But we’ll remember their stance when it comes time to divide the spoils. We’ll have enough men and guns without them. We’ll take whatever we want!”
Aquppak glanced toward the fire pit where the women were cutting up chunks of seal meat.
“The Tanaina are just to the south,” continued Aquppak. “They have been spared the ravages of this storm. Everyone seems to have been spared except for us. Isn’t that right, Alaana?
Alaana smarted under the attack, but couldn’t deny it. “It’s not our way,” was all she could say but that argument had already seemed to have lost the day.
“No choice!” said Aquppak. “Our stores are too low. We won’t last out the winter like this.”
“I know where there is a whale trapped in ice,” said Maguan. “A beluga, as long as this cave and twice as wide. The whale will feed us all winter.”
The men cheered uproariously. Some began to chant Maguan’s name.
“Not for me,” said Maguan. “Not for me. It was Talliituk who spotted the saugssat. Talliituk got first harpoon.”
A cheer for Talliituk.
“With all that whale meat and blubber we can shelter here for a while,” suggested Kigiuna, “Then, after the snow hardens, we can go to the bay and build snow houses again and hunt seal. Like we’ve always done.”
All talk of weapons and raids was lost in the excitement of Maguan’s revelation. The circle of men broke up; all were eager to make plans for the trip. A whale caught in the ice was simply too good to pass up.
“Show us the way, Maguan,” said Aquppak. “We’ll settle the rest of this later.”
Aquppak turned away. He took a moment to recount to himself the names of those who had supported him, and those who had not. Ten guns. He would see they were distributed exactly the way he wanted. And then he would suffer no more arguments.
CHAPTER 41
QUIXAARAGON
Alaana stepped outside of Black Face. She didn’t like being stuck in the cave with that painting of the Tunrit sorcerer looking at her, staring, watching.
The effects of the future’s fire had left her weak and dizzy. She had vomited up all of her food and quite a bit of blood over the past few days. Old Higilak suggested she chew black claw root. The bitter herb did make her feel stronger, but the dizziness persisted.
The land rolled gently away from Black Face in a tumble of snow-covered rocks and scree leading down to the lip of a huge river basin. She filled her lungs with the sweet air of Nunatsiaq. Nothing was better than a good breath of cool air, that’s
what she’d once told Old Manatook. A nice brisk lungful, a sharp reminder that one was still alive and kicking, and everything felt all right. But today it seemed not to help at all.
The men had gone after the whale. In no condition to travel, she stayed behind to watch over the women and children. The children however, fell mostly under Old Higilak’s tender care. She had stories enough to last them until they were old and gray. By the time the men hauled the whale out of the river, the wind would have packed the snow hard enough to make iglus. Then they would all go to the bay and struggle through the winter, as ever, waiting for the seal to come up. She could see no harm in taking this whale, as it had been freely given. Saugssat was probably the only way they would get a whale again, given the Whale-Man’s current disfavor toward Alaana.
Their wrecked, snowed-over camp reminded her of the foreboding vision she had experienced while facing the ice demon for the first time. At least the Anatatook had not wound up strewn across the snow in blood-red gobbets. Her people were mostly alive and well, and stoically picking up the pieces. At least there was that.
How had things gone so wrong? It seemed too easy to put the blame on Aquppak. Tugtutsiak used to direct them only in ways that were best for the band, but Aquppak cared only for himself. Aquppak, the one friend who had stood by Alaana when the other children ran away. “One day,” young Aquppak had said, with a childish grin, “I’ll be the headman and you’ll be the shaman. We’ll be in charge of everything.” The two children had laughed and laughed, not realizing that when it finally came to it, they would come to cross purposes. For Aquppak the man, it could not be both of them in power. Now it had to be one or the other.
And matters would only get worse when the weapons arrived. Half the band would go one way with guns in hand and face the wrath of the spirits. The second half would go the other way and most likely starve. Assuming, of course, there wasn’t a massacre first. It was the shaman’s duty to keep the people unified. Was there anything she could do or say to stop it? Where had she gone so wrong?
“That’s quite a mess you’ve made of everything, yourself included,” said a high-pitched but regal voice.
“Quixaaragon!”
The creature of white light dipped its head majestically. It hovered at eye-level a few paces away. The dragon’s slender neck craned to bring the head, an elegant bird-like thing crowned with a ring of small horns, directly in line with the shaman. Its leathern wings flapped playfully.
“You remember me?” it asked.
“Of course!” Alaana’s heart leapt at seeing Old Manatook’s familiar again.
“You were just a child then,” it said. “And children tend to forget dreams when they grow up, especially dreams that aren’t their own.”
“I thought I’d never see you again. When Manatook died…”
“I didn’t belong to him,” said Quixaaragon. “We found each other in the dreamlands remember? I was around long before that crusty old bear ever drew breath.” The dragon’s golden eyes narrowed. “The truth is I have always been drawn to you.”
“Me?”
“I saw something in you, Alaana, something that goes all the way back to the beginning.”
“That’s nonsense,” said Alaana. “I’m just an ordinary woman, nothing more.”
“You were an ordinary girl until someone put the light inside you. And I think,” said Quixaaragon with a thoughtful quirk of its head, “maybe we have the same master.”
“Old Manatook–”
“Not Old Manatook! No, it’s something a lot bigger than that.”
“My secret patron?”
“Yes.”
“But who is it? What is it?”
“I have no answer. I am only a dream, a fragment of a dream wandering lost. But the one who dreamt me is inside of you, my dear. It’s his light that shines in you. And so we are connected.”
“But what are you? Really?”
The dragon waggled its wings dramatically, still keeping its place in mid-air. “A dream. A weapon. A reflection.”
“Of who?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember. A funny pair we make, two creatures of light both stumbling blind.”
“Well, I’ve had just about enough of that,” said Alaana. “I want answers. Is there a plan? Are you part of it?”
“Part of it, or a wayward scrap fluttering in the breeze.”
Alaana clenched her fists. “He said I would put things right. He said I would restore the balance. But I don’t know what it means.”
Quixaaragon offered only a helpless sweep of wings. “Neither do I.”
The familiar settled on Alaana’s left shoulder, just like it had always done with her teacher.
“You may not want to make your perch on my shoulder,” said Alaana. “I’m not much of a shaman at all.”
“You may be counted the least among them or the greatest. Only time will tell.”
“Why did you come here? After all this time?”
“If I am a weapon,” Quixaaragon said, “then I must find my target. I have kept the watch for a long time. I have perched on many shoulders. I had almost given up looking. Finally I went up to the Moon, where all the dead things go. I was ready to give up, to surrender myself to the gentle breeze that blows up there, carrying abandoned dreams to the Outer Darkness. And then I saw it!”
“What?”
“The storm.” The little dragon, still perched on Alaana’s shoulder, thrust its head in front of her face. “Oh yes! He’s a sneaky one, my enemy, very good at hiding. But he could not hope to keep something like that from me. I caught him out at last.”
And now Alaana saw it too. When she had used the Tunrit fire spell, she had sensed him. “The Tunrit sorcerer?”
“Yes. Now he’s gone again. Gone where I can’t see him. But I know him now. I am the weapon. He is the target.”
“You’re meant to kill him?”
“I don’t know, but it feels like it’s the right thing to do.”
“The sorcerer,” repeated Alaana. The one she had released from the Ring of Stones. But back then the sorcerer had seemed like just a shade, a weak and almost helpless echo of a spirit. The thing she had sensed during the fire spell was something so much more, something extremely powerful and dangerous. “So this is all my fault at last.”
“Is it?” asked Quixaaragon.
“It is,” said Alaana. “If you’re looking to do the right thing, then you may soon discover that I am your target and not him. Here is the story: When Old Manatook was young he took Higilak to wife. Her father killed a bear in an unjust manner and she was part of it. When the ghost of that bear — Beluga Killer was his name — when that ghost came for her, Old Manatook protected the girl. He moved one of the glaciers, trapping the vengeful spirit under a mountain of ice. But it was the wrong thing to do.
“The glacier cut off the flow of warm water to the Ice Mountains where the white bears live, threatening their home. Old Manatook’s teacher Balikqi, the shaman of the white bears, insisted that I make things right. We cast a spell, a weave of Balikqi’s design, that pulled the mountain back into its original place. The right thing to do, but it released the soul of Beluga Killer who had been trapped under the mountain.
“When the demon bear came calling for its vengeance I also protected Higilak, for she is like a grandmother to me. I called on spirits of Tunrit warriors from the past to settle the bear and prevent its vengeance. That’s when I set the sorcerer’s soul loose in Nunatsiaq. The wrong thing to do. I made the same mistake as Old Manatook. Higilak warned me there would come a reckoning, and now it has come. And everyone suffers.”
Quixaaragon clucked cheerfully, surprising Alaana. “I can’t quite picture Old Manatook as such a romantic fool,” it said.
“That’s all you have to say?” asked Alaana in disbelief.
“Come, Alaana. Aren’t you a bit too quick to place all the blame on yourself? You’re much changed from the carefree girl I used to know, that’s f
or certain.”
“I still have my moments.”
“Old Manatook protected the girl out of love, hardly the wrong thing to do.”
“But vengeance–”
“Hush! And you protected Old Higilak out of love as well. You’ve a good heart Alaana, and there’s no denying it. Could you have done otherwise? Could you really have turned your back on her?”
“No.”
“Then the story’s not over yet. That’s all. All that’s needed to set things right, it seems to me, is a weapon. So stop kicking yourself in your own hindquarters and help me find the target.”
When put that way it all seemed so simple. Aquppak had laid the blame for everything on her shoulders and Alaana had been too quick to accept it. Someone else had been arranging these misfortunes for them. Seeking to destroy the Anatatook. To destroy her. But not directly. The sorcerer had been hiding in the shadows, waging a war of shadows.
“He can’t be that difficult to find,” said Alaana.
“He hides,” said Quixaaragon, “very well.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere I can’t see.”
“Somewhere no one can see,” replied Alaana, “unless you know where to look. The hidden world. The shadow lands.”
“You could be right!” said Quixaaragon. “A place I can’t get to on my own. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m made entirely of light.”
“But you could be concealed,” suggested Alaana. “You could be carried. And you do know the way?”
Quixaaragon clucked again. “The sorcerer thinks he’s safe there, protected from attack by the shamans. Shamans have no connection to that realm because they cast no shadow there. They are dead to it. At his initiation, a shaman’s shadow dies so that his new light is unopposed by darkness. His soul is strong and bright. In order to work the will of the spirits he must clear his mind, he must put aside all disruptive thoughts. This is the Way, is it not?”
