by Ken Altabef
Having reached safety, the whales had no idea what to do with their orange-skinned guests and no way of communicating with them. The three lake children usually spoke in a series of clicks and whistles which they all mutually understood, but the whales did not know this language, just as the lake children could make no sense of the whines and low groans of the whales.
“What should we do?” asked Uuna.
“I just want to catch my breath,” replied Siqi.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” asked Uuna.
“I’m just as big as they are,” added Ikik. “Did you notice? Just as big.”
Uuna laughed. “Yes, brother.”
“Heya,” remarked Siqi. “There’s a walrus up there.”
She had noticed the familiar outline of rounded belly, expansive chest, and powerful tail they all knew so well. She angled herself up to the surface. Breaking the water, she found a large pocket of air in the cavern. She called out to the walrus and it turned around. Siqi saw that it had two heads, joined at the neck at a peculiar angle. Startled, she backpedalled in the water. The walrus made an odd noise, a groan such as Nunavik had never uttered, both its mouths gaping.
Frightened, Siqi ducked back below the water. She collided with Ikik, accidentally poking him in one of his twelve eyes.
“Go back!” she said.
The lakespawn gathered together in a protective circle in the middle of the grotto. A handful of bowheads swam around them lazily and unconcerned, occasionally going to the surface for air.
“I guess we just have to wait,” said Uuna.
“Wait for what?” asked Siqi.
The answer came almost immediately, as all the whales suddenly froze in place, turning toward the entrance of the grotto, dipping their heads.
The water at the opening blazed a brilliant sky blue for a moment, as the Whale-Man entered the pool.
“Oh!” remarked Uuna.
The massive spirit was resplendent with blue light. It shimmered off his sleek black skin in waves and ripples, bringing the entire cavern to the brilliance of a summer sky. His massive form filled half the grotto. The gigantic bowhead rolled slowly, leveling his great eye toward the lake children. In that eye Siqi thought she saw an abundance of kindness and wisdom.
“For the life of me,” he said, “I can’t figure out what you three are.”
His voice was deep and resonant and as melodic as the whalesong. The lakespawn could understand him the same way they understood Nunavik. Like the shamans, the great spirits spoke directly to the soul.
“You’re shaped almost like a whale,” he continued, “Do you breathe air or water?”
“I don’t know,” said Ikik. “We just breathe.”
“Water,” said the Whale-Man. “No, I’d have to say you are definitely not whales. By the color of your skin I would have guessed a squid.”
“I’m an octopus,” said Siqi.
The Whale-Man’s laughter shook the entire grotto, a merry sound indeed.
“You aren’t an octopus,” he said. “That’s an octopus just over there.”
Siqi turned her head, and yes there was an octopus gliding along the bow of the sunken ship. It must have sensed their attention because it became suddenly energized and spun away out of sight.
“Ooooooh!” said Siqi, amazed at the sinewy way it moved its many tentacles.
“They’re not usually blue,” said the Whale-Man. “That one is… an oddity.”
Siqi didn’t know the word but having seen the grotesque two-headed walrus she thought she understood its meaning.
“Is that what we are?” she asked. “Oddities?”
“For now.”
“And what… what do you do with them?” asked Uuna.
The Whale-Man smiled. It was reassuring to watch his mouth upturn at the ends, revealing a pearly strip of baleen within. “I take care of them. I keep them secret from her. You’ll stay here for now. You’ll be safe.”
CHAPTER 28
THREE HUNDRED PACES
Guolna handed Aquppak the rifle.
“One shot,” he said.
Niak stood three hundred paces distant, lashed to an upright pole on the plain. It was late in the day, and the light was hazy at best. Aquppak could hardly make out Niak’s features. His friend would not make this easy; he struggled against his bonds, his cries for help muffled by the dirty rag stuffed in his mouth.
“One shot,” repeated Guolna. “If you hit him in the head, that’s good enough for me.”
Aquppak wasn’t familiar with this particular design of rifle. He assumed it was loaded already, but fumbled with the trigger guard. The latch didn’t swing like the guns he was used to, but eventually he got it to slide into the correct position. Guolna snickered.
Aquppak raised the rifle to his shoulder. Like other guns, it was sighted by a little fin down the end of the barrel. It was a long shot, and his hand still shook a little from lack of drink. Perhaps he would be able to graze the side of Niak’s scalp and spare his life under perfect conditions, but on this day he had his doubts. There was an unsteady wind blowing from the west, an important fact to keep in mind when hunting with the bow, but less important with these rifles.
Having delayed too long already, he squeezed the trigger.
The shot rang out along the flat plain of the campsite and echoed back from the surrounding bergs.
Niak’s body jerked, but he still lived. The bullet had skimmed his shoulder.
“That’s not the head,” growled Guolna.
He yanked the rifle from Aquppak’s hand, passing it to the man next to him for reload.
“To be fair, I’m not even certain I can make that shot,” said Guolna. “New bargain: if I miss, you get a second chance.”
He raised the rifle, obviously quite comfortable with the sight, the wind, the lighting. All of it.
His aim seemed dead on, and again Niak’s muffled protestations rang out across the plain.
“Squirming like a fish on the hook,” observed Guolna.
Aquppak thought it unlikely the headman would miss his shot. Guolna exuded the unflappable confidence of a born leader and the dead reckoning of a natural killer.
At the last, Guolna raised the tip of the rifle and squeezed off his shot, purposefully sending the ball well over Niak’s head.
The gun was reloaded and thrust back at Aquppak.
“Your turn.”
Guolna barked a command to one of the men who stood nearby, but not too close, to Niak. As instructed, the man pulled out the prisoner’s gag.
Niak started to beg. “I saved your life,” he reminded Aquppak, “when Kullabak would have killed you! I lifted you up from the garbage. I made you well again!”
His shout was shrill with extreme fear. What good did he think this was going to achieve?
“Don’t do it! Don’t shoot! Please! We can still get away!”
Aquppak sighted down along the barrel. Too late for any of that. He flipped the trigger guard aside and squeezed the trigger.
Niak’s head snapped back, and he slumped against his bonds.
“A perfect shot,” said Guolna. “Well, like I said, that’s good enough for me. We could use a few more like you. Now let’s see what the shaman has to say.”
Aquppak surrendered the rifle as another man came into view from behind. The Yupikut shaman was a tall man dressed in ceremonial robes of quilted doeskin with brown bear fur lacing the collar and running down along the front. His face was covered by a peculiar mask, carved in smooth yellow wood, which had the appearance of a man’s expressionless face. The face had small, deep-set eyeholes under high arching brows and a slit mouth framed by a painted mustache and beard. The shaman’s real beard, black and pointed, spilled out below the margin of the mask. A rim of bent wood was attached around the face, and inset with a full set of bear teeth on the upper and lower margins which gave the effect that the shaman’s wooden face was emerging from the open mouth of a gigantic brown bear.
Mo
re shamans, more trouble, thought Aquppak. He didn’t care for all their babble about spirits and omens. What was this shaman’s place in the power structure of the Yupikut? Having won the favor of the headman at such great cost, he didn’t want to be held helpless to some unknown fool’s personal agenda.
“I don’t care what your shaman says,” Aquppak said.
“That’s fine,” said Guolna evenly. “But I do.”
The shaman cocked his masked face at Aquppak, stalking around him, arms flapping to the sides, spine bent half over, moving with the jutting motions of some type of wild bird. He swung his attention between Aquppak’s sneering face and the open sky, whipping his head back and forth. “What does he say?” the shaman asked the sky. “What does he want?” He pumped his fist in the air three times, bird-walking around Aquppak and muttering, “Ajaja, they make great noise. Inland and inland again. What did you say? And none shall be lost, you say, you say, or gone forever.”
The man was crazy. The shaman pulled close, and Aquppak noted an intense gaze in the small cut-outs of the mask’s eye sockets. He thought he smelled whiskey. The rims of bronzed skin around the shaman’s eyes crinkled with concentration. His eyes were mostly brown, as the bear, with flecks of crimson around the edges.
“What do you see, Khahoutek?” asked Guolna.
The shaman leaned closer still, and now Aquppak recognized the intense concentration that marked the shaman’s soul stare. “What did you say? What did you say?” he asked Aquppak, who had said nothing.
The shaman’s gaze burned into him, and Aquppak didn’t dare turn away.
“He’s a killer,” said Khahoutek.
“We know that already,” said Guolna. “What else?”
Khahoutek’s head swiveled in an erratic arc from sky to tundra, then back up to the heavens, then down to his booted feet. “Trouble,” he whispered.
The shaman stood straight and, speaking in a calm voice, said to Guolna, “He hides many things, but he can not hide his ambition. He wants to be headman.”
Khahoutek offered one more tern-like flick of his shoulders and stepped to the side.
“Now that is trouble,” said Guolna.
“He has a knife in his coat,” added Khahoutek.
Two men had already grabbed Aquppak before he had a chance to react. Strong arms pinned him from behind.
Guolna ripped Aquppak’s parka open and, finding the concealed weapon, hefted the meteor blade in his hand. He inspected the knife’s edge briefly, then used it to slash Aquppak’s undershirt.
“He’s wrong! I will serve you well!” said Aquppak.
Guolna stuck the meteor knife into his waistband, drawing out his own weapon, a long hunting knife with a thin, metal blade.
“I’ll pay any price,” said Aquppak. “I will be loyal.”
The headman met Aquppak’s gaze once more. The Lapp’s blue eyes softened only slightly, as if he wished he could possibly take Aquppak up on his offer. He glanced at Khahoutek, standing back where Aquppak couldn’t see, and shook his head.
“He lies!” shouted Aquppak. “He fears me!”
Guolna dug the point of the knife into Aquppak’s left shoulder joint, going straight in. Aquppak grunted in pain but wouldn’t cry out so as not to fail this new test of his endurance and will. Guolna looked carefully at the shoulder, keeping the point of the blade in place. Aquppak bit back on the pain, saying nothing. Guolna twisted the blade. The pain was incredible as the headman cut deep into Aquppak’s shoulder socket. Aquppak grunted like an animal, going weak at the knees but two men held him up.
The knife twisted again, setting Aquppak’s entire shoulder on fire as Guolna deftly cut away at the sinew holding the shoulder joint in place. Without any further ado, he withdrew the blade. Even in his haze of pain Aquppak realized Guolna pulled the blade straight out, a technique that made sure to cause as little bleeding as possible. This indicated to him that this must really be some type of test or Yupikut ritual. He still had a chance.
The men let Aquppak slump to the ground. His shoulder and left arm had been rendered completely useless. Even if he could ignore the extreme pain, he couldn’t move the arm. The socket had been destroyed. If this was a test for him it was a poor one, for what good was ruining the good arm of a man you might still use?
The answer was clear. They would not use him.
His arm hung loose, too painful to move, stripped from its socket, useless.
“I’ll kill you!” he raged, cursing Guolna. The headman, saying nothing, turned away.
The men forced him down. Aquppak’s face went into the slush. Several men were needed to hold him still, for he struggled as mightily, and as futilely, as any man ever did. His legs were held straight and a blade was run across the back of each, expertly cutting the tendons behind the knee. Aquppak was familiar with such a punishment. Hamstrung, the tendons pulled back and away from the leg like cut bowstrings. Such a wound could never heal. He would never walk again.
The men released him. Aquppak squirmed in agony on the cool, wet ground. He could move his legs at the hips only, his left arm useless.
Without another word, the men walked away.
CHAPTER 29
BAD NEWS AND A BIGGER PROBLEM
Qo’tirgin had arranged a full reception for Alaana. She had sent word ahead, in the way the shamans sent messages along on the spirit of the wind, to say that she’d be visiting.
A large party met her approaching sled. Most of the M’gipsu men had an acquaintance with the Anatatook shaman and took time away from mending their kayaks and fishing gear to cheer her arrival. Such an important visitor did not come often. Their summer chores could wait.
Qo’tirgin was the first to reach Alaana’s sled. He wore a light summer parka whose collar was trimmed with long brown owl feathers and six little dolls dangling from caribou leather straps. The dolls represented the heavenly maidens who served his guardian spirit Ukpiq, the great brown owl. Little brass bells were sewn to each of the dolls so that when he danced the ringing of the bells might call the spirit of the owl to descend and empower him. He had a cylindrical cap set atop his head, sewn from brown owl skin, dyed red around the rim, crested by a stand of tall tail feathers sticking up at the top.
As both shaman and headman of the M’gipsu, Qo’tirgin was an impressive figure. He was a big man, tall and squarely built, with deep-tanned skin and streaks of gray at his temples. More than ten years Alaana’s senior, he was closer in age and temperament to her father Kigiuna.
“Greetings, my friend. Greetings,” Qo’tirgin called out as Alaana brought her dogs to a halt. His careworn features melted into the smooth lines of pleasant rapture upon seeing her again.
“I bring bad news,” Alaana said right away, as she and her assistant stepped down from their small sled.
“So I see,” replied Qo’tirgin, looking askance at Tikiqaq. “Alaana, I didn’t think you the type of shaman to send out a tupilaq…” Qo’tirgin raised his empty palms. “Sister, I’ve done nothing.”
“It’s not for you, brother,” replied Alaana. All the shamans of Nunatsiaq regarded themselves as brothers, as their teachers were their fathers in the Way. Alaana was so far the only sister among them.
“Who is it for?” asked Qo’tirgin, still eying Tiki cautiously.
“A long story,” said Alaana. “It’s for Klah Kritlaq.”
“Kritlaq? Of the Tanaina people? But he’s dead ten — or is it twelve — winters ago.”
“And my hands are clean in the matter,” said Alaana. “I reconsidered the attack and kept my monster from him. This tupilaq serves me in other ways.”
“You’ve always been a little strange, at that,” said Qo’tirgin with a smile. “Not like your father Old Manatook. Now there was a man I could always understand. A solid, straightforward man.”
Alaana laughed to herself because Old Manatook had actually been a polar bear pretending to be a man, but of course Qo’tirgin didn’t know that, and never would. “A good man
,” she agreed.
She embraced her friend warmly.
“Come,” said Qo’tirgin, “I’ve already laid out a feast for weary travelers.” He paused, taking Alaana by the elbow so that they could walk and talk privately while the others saw to the sled and dogs. Tiki shuffled along behind the two shamans. “But first the news you spoke of,” reminded Qo’tirgin. “I won’t have bad omens hanging over our celebration.”
“In my recent travels,” said Alaana, “I’ve learned some terrible news. The shamans are dying out.”
“Well, certainly there seem to be less of us than before…”
“There are only a few of us left at all, scattered across Our Beautiful Land.”
“Only a few? What do you mean by a few?”
“Two hands at most,” said Alaana.
Qo’tirgin scoffed. He glanced out across the tundra as if he could see the shamans. “How can you know this?”
“By secret means,” said Alaana.
“Secret?” repeated the other. He glanced again down at the tupilaq and sighed. “Alaana, you try my patience. You do. But I trust you. Your soul is a good one. And this news… it seems not too unbelievable. I’ve heard things on the wind, and from passing tongues. Of shamans being murdered out on the flats by a powerful, killing spirit. A shaman from the Chukchee people, named Umiqluk was killed only two moons ago. The shaman and his wife were alone out on the pack ice. Suddenly a fearsome spirit came upon them. Lacking our sight, the wife couldn’t see anything but she swears she heard its footsteps pounding the snow cover down from the north--”
“The north?” asked Alaana.
Qo’tirgin nodded. “Yes. She heard his heavy step, she heard the ice cracking beneath his feet. She said his breaths were like thunder. Her husband called out, pushing her away, trying to protect her, and then he was seized and lifted up. Umiqluk was held aloft in the air, immobile. He cried out, asking ‘How can you be here?’ and ‘What do you want?’ but the wife heard no reply. The woman screamed as she watched her husband’s skin ooze and melt as if it were on fire, running down his face and the front of his parka. And then, still dangling in that unseen grip, he was ripped apart. One arm came off and flew to the side, the other went the other way and then the legs. In the end the malevolent spirit flung Umiqluk down like a child’s rag doll. The woman thought she would die just as horribly but she was left there, alone, unharmed. Who might do such a thing? The senselessness of the attack made me think it might be Erlaveersinioq the Disemboweler, the Skeleton Who Walks. He loves nothing so much as chaos and destruction. Anyway, that’s what I thought. But there are similar tales of other shamans being killed. Your Kritlaq ended the same way, if I recall.”
