by Ken Altabef
Strewn about the floor were countless fragments of cracked crystal, blasted apart and melted into slag.
“No,” muttered Alaana as she swept through the pile of lifeless rubble. “This can’t be.”
“It is,” said a small, tremulous voice.
Alaana uncovered a fist-sized portion of the scarlet crystal nestled amid the debris. The ancient entity still glowed with its own diffuse light, though only a crimson shadow of its former self.
“What happened here?” asked Alaana.
“He happened. The Tunrit.”
Alaana didn’t need to be told, but hearing this in the quavering voice of the shattered crystal broke her heart. It all seemed so senseless.
“Little big soul,” said the crystal, “You’ve come back to us.”
“I came back many times,” said Alaana. “Always the doorway was closed to me. No one would answer my calls.”
“You surprised us the first time. We recognized in you someone who did not recognize himself.”
“Tsungi.”
“Yes. An ancient spirit. An old friend, a powerful force. When you first came we thought he had come to call us home, so we opened our forever door. We revealed ourselves. It was a mistake.”
“I didn’t even know. I was deceived.”
“Yes. By Tsungi himself.”
“And made a fool,” said Alaana bitterly. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth?”
“You were only an initiate. And not even your father Old Manatook knew the truth of it. How could you do what was necessary to become a shaman, how could you ever humble yourself before the spirits, if you knew you held the power of Tsungi?”
“You knew all along, but you never told me, in all the years that followed. I came back. The door was always closed.”
“We held council. We did what we always do. We watched and waited. Judging the time not yet right, we stayed out of it.”
“Keeping your secrets,” spat Alaana. “Well, now look what it’s got you.”
“Alaana!” cautioned Nunavik. “You don’t play with spirits such as these, nor speak to them in such manner.”
“Such as we are now,” said the crystal sadly, “what does it matter, good walrus? We are all but destroyed.”
“Why?” Alaana asked. “Why does he seek to destroy everything?”
“We don’t know,” said the crystal.
“Why did you let him in?”
“We thought the stone that guards us, a mighty arm of the very earth itself, could protect us. But the sorcerer has grown so powerful now he bends the world to his own whims. We stood defenseless.”
“He has a great deal of power,” agreed Alaana, “gathered from the shamans and turgats he’s killed.”
“It may be impossible to stop him,” noted the crystal.
“Now you tell me,” Alaana chuckled sadly. “And yet he’s afraid of me. Of all people, he’s afraid of me.”
“Don’t be so full of yourself, little harpoon,” said Nunavik. “If he’s afraid of anything, it’s Tsungi.”
“That’s what I meant,” she said. “It’s all a joke. Doesn’t Vithrok know Tsungi doesn’t care about me?”
“Do you know it?” snapped Nunavik. “Remember, Tsungi helped you before — the first time you faced the sorcerer.”
“He offers help only when I’m on the point of ruin. If Tsungi wants to be rid of Vithrok, why not do it himself? And leave me out of it.”
“Maybe he can’t,” said the scarlet crystal. “Tsungi is way down below. We believe he’s trapped there.”
“Tsungi trapped below,” mused Alaana. “And Vithrok always in hiding. Maybe I should take a lesson from everyone else and just stay out of the whole thing after all. Maybe I should just live my life, whatever wrecked bits of it they have left me.”
“So we thought,” said the crystal. “And, as you’ve said, look at us now. If Tsungi can not help you, perhaps we four can still be of use. Stand back, little big soul.”
There was the sound of grinding stone, the echoes of voices resounding from the very core of the world itself, voices in discord, the deep rumble of rock upon rock, creaking, straining, dissonant voices finally joining into a blinding burst of multicolored light. A fine green mist blew away from the rubble. Where the crystal shard had been there now lay a slender dagger, fashioned of the same scarlet gem.
“All that is left of us is here,” said the voice of the scarlet crystal. Its tone sounded even weaker than before as if it were passing away into a great distance. “Perhaps we may yet help destroy that Tunrit sorcerer. He took us by surprise before, but this time we will see him coming.”
Alaana lifted the blade, noting a multifaceted crystal eye buried in the top of the hilt. Surrounding the eye were little grains of gemstone in amethyst and white and emerald, although the bulk of the weapon was made of a single ruby crystal. The eye roved slightly in its gem-encrusted socket. Alaana thought it a good weapon, and one she hoped might do Vithrok grievous harm.
Alaana’s heart was heavy and she was eager to be away from this place. A glance at the stone archway of the cave returned a startling sight. A tall, dark figure in silhouette and shadow, with an oversized head hidden beneath a faceless hood. Two smoldering embers for eyes.
“It’s him!” shouted Alaana.
An uncontrollable rage filled Alaana’s heart and, clamping the dagger in her hand, she rushed into action. “Let’s see what this knife can do. Let’s end this one way or the other. Right now!”
She charged across the cavern.
“The cracks!” warned Nunavik.
Before Alaana had a chance to answer, the floor gave way and she stumbled, her spirit-kamik sinking down to the ankle in the gap. And then a black, skeletal hand reached up from the abyss, grabbed her ankle, and yanked her down.
“I warned her!” said Nunavik. “But why should she ever listen to me?”
CHAPTER 40
SWEET VENGEANCE
In the short dusk between day and day, the Yupikut returned. Aquppak, safe within his craggy shelter, watched as the band of raiders set up their camp. The mood of the men seemed peculiarly restrained. How many of their number they had lost on the most recent raid, Aquppak couldn’t tell. The men went quickly about their business, raising the tents, stowing their supplies and tying up the dogs. The headman, resplendent in a brand new brown bear fur jacket, sent weary men to their perimeter posts as sentries. The sentries would not find Aquppak; he was already inside the camp.
Aquppak watched Guolna settle into his tent for sleep. He considered using a typical method of ambush, collapsing the headman’s tent while he lay sleeping and, taking advantage as he struggled to get out from under, stabbing blindly through the tent skin until he was dead. He dismissed the idea. Such an anonymous method would never do. The other men would retaliate quickly and in numbers. Besides, he might kill the girl by mistake.
Instead Aquppak waited. Silent and motionless among the rocks, he waited.
In the morning, with all the Yupikut men well-rested and their breakfast simmering in the pot, Aquppak emerged from his rocky crevasse. He stepped boldly into the center of the camp. Shouts of alarm cut through the morning air as the raiders scrambled to surround him. Aquppak realized he had no means by which to summon aid from his mystical patron. It didn’t really matter. With help or without, his actions would be exactly the same.
“Who’s there?”
Despite the fact that someone had either snuck past their sentries or appeared all of a sudden magically in the center of the camp, the men retained their air of confidence. One lone man could pose no real threat against the entire armed camp.
“I am Aquppak of the Anatatook.”
The Yupikut continued to circle suspiciously around him. Nobody seemed particularly afraid until they got a good look at his face.
“It’s impossible!”
“Back from the dead!”
The Lapp was called for, and Guolna emerged from his tent, still half-dazed w
ith sleep. He woke up quickly when he saw the intruder.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“You know me. I am Aquppak, come for my vengeance.”
Guolna stepped up close, betraying no fear. As he recognized his opponent, a quizzical look passed across his features. Aquppak had been restored to perfect health. How was it possible?
Guolna quickly replaced his startled expression with a grim glower. “Just like that, eh? Your vengeance?” He spoke with an unnatural calm. “I killed you once, and I will do it again.”
“And I will rise again!” returned Aquppak boldly. “Death has no power over me. Can you say the same?”
Guolna took a half step backward, his hawkish eyes suddenly not so resolute. It was not so much the stranger’s words that unnerved him, but the boldness with which he uttered them.
“Risen from the dead?” he said. “This is work for the shaman. Let Khahoutek handle it.”
The men called out for their shaman and Khahoutek came quickly upon the scene. He was still wearing the wooden face mask ringed by bear teeth. Instead of the common dress he wore a ceremonial parka fashioned of grizzly bear fur that had been stained blood-red and richly embellished with the long eye-teeth of the same. His mittens were each studded with three long bear claws, though these were made of metal rather than actual bone and wickedly hooked.
The shaman began to prance in his bird-like fashion as he approached, hopping from one foot to the other, the claws singing in the air as he swung them in menacingly wide arcs.
“What does he say?” the shaman asked the sky. “What does he want?” He spread his arms wide, bird-walking around Aquppak and muttering, “Ajaja, back from the dead? Dead but not dead! I don’t see the answer. I don’t see.”
Aquppak drew out the meteor blade. “Maybe you’ll under-stand better once I’ve killed you too.”
“Not so easy,” said Khahoutek. “First the skin and then the bone. Aaaaa?”
The shaman reached one clawed hand to the wakening sky of dawn. “Akka-ah, the lord of the brown bears, is my patron! He is never far from me. I call to him now. Reach down, great aklaq of the earth and stone! Reach down your claw and smite this dead man away and gone!”
Khahoutek grinned widely beneath his wooden face. Only his eyes could be seen, but they told the story, brimming with confidence and twisted merriment.
Aquppak forced laughter. “The brown bear can’t help you. He rests now in the cave of Vithrok, who has beaten him to a bloody pulp. He is no more.”
“Lies, lies!” Khahoutek continued wrangling his clawed hand at the sky in increasingly desperate movements. “Akka-ah, take this man as a snack to your cave and crunch his bones. What did you say? A snack, a snack.” The light in the shaman’s eyes slowly melted from confident to ever more desperate.
Aquppak laughed in earnest. “No use, angatkok. Vithrok has made a snack of him. Now you die.” He held the knife ready for a strike.
Khahoutek yelped, “What did he say? The sky above, the ground below. No matter.” He stood straight, confidence returning. “Strike then, if you think you can.”
Aquppak knew what the shaman was thinking. It was an old trick of the shamans to communicate with whatever remnant of an animal’s soul lay within a knife of carved bone or whatever rock spirit resided in a stone knife. Khahoutek intended to bargain, or command, Aquppak’s blade to dissolve or turn aside at the last. But Aquppak also knew that this knife, given to him years ago by the great hunter Kanak, had fallen from the sky. This stone, dark brown and flecked with strange crimson sparkles, was unlike any other type of rock he had ever known. It did not belong to this world. The meteor blade had no soul with which to barter.
Aquppak stepped into his attack, swinging the knife low to slash across the belly, parting the shaman’s parka. The cut barely scratched the vulnerable skin beneath, just enough to draw blood, but the shaman was so badly shaken he lost all composure.
“Aaiiii,” he muttered. Finding his powers useless, his limbs went suddenly slack, as if drained of all energy and control. He flapped his flaccid arms like impotent bird wings. “Akka-ah! Akka-ah!”
Khahoutek bent halfway over, taking up the craven posture of a low animal. “Sky above...”
The shaman suddenly sprang forward, swinging out with the metal claws. Aquppak managed to deflect most of the blow, but one of the claws caught the lower portion of his left ear, shearing away strips of flesh.
Aquppak stepped inside, whirling close under Khahoutek’s guard. He plunged the blade deep. Khahoutek’s eyes bulged.
Aquppak twisted the thin stone knife, knowing it wouldn’t break. “What does he say?” he asked. “What does he say?”
The shaman’s answer was a death rattle as Aquppak continued to carve away at his insides. When he pulled the blade out, it was followed by a torrent of crimson ooze.
Blood poured from the wound as the shaman staggered back. His clawed mittens discarded, he was hard-pressed to keep his intestines to their proper place as they wriggled between his blood-soaked fingers. The men gasped in surprise to see their shaman brought so low.
Aquppak turned to face Guolna. The headman held a knife of his own, a short blade that would require close quarters to make a kill. He didn’t look so supremely confident now, but there was still no fear in his cold, blue eyes. He stepped slowly to the side, circling his opponent.
“Spearmen,” he said calmly, “Raise your weapons.”
The gathered men, several of whom held long bone pikes and harpoon-headed spears, readied their weapons.
“You need them?” asked Aquppak.
Guolna snickered. “I can kill you myself sure. But there is more to being the headman than being the best fighter. You’ve no defense against our spears and our number. Why struggle to pry open the oyster shell, cutting one’s hand with the blade, when one can smash it open without a fight?”
He took a step backward, confident that he need not even bloody his hands with this bit of killing.
As the men poised to strike, Khahoutek’s voice was once again heard. It sounded a hideous rattle, as if it must come from beyond the edge of death itself.
“Stay!” it said. “Hold your weapons. Don’t you see what’s happening?”
The men didn’t see much except Khahoutek rising to his feet, his intestines hanging from his open belly like a grisly apron, his blood-soaked hand pointing toward Aquppak. “This man can not be killed! The spirits protect him. Any who turn their weapons on him, shall die. I swear it is so!”
Confusion reigned over the scene. The men stared wide-eyed at their shaman, who had himself returned from the dark domain of death, as he issued this warning. They lowered their weapons, then raised them, then lowered them again.
“Aquppak is just a man,” said Guolna.
Khahoutek, his mouth dripping gore, spoke again. “A man who walks back across the divide, a man who was left trampled in the snow and broken, a man who strikes down a powerful shaman as if he were a pup? No. This man is a mirror. Any who turn their weapons against Aquppak will die.”
The raiders stood frozen in panic. The shaman’s warning was impossible to dispute. The mysterious power of Aquppak loomed large over them.
“It is Guolna who must die,” said the shaman. “He is cursed of the spirits!”
This last, dire pronouncement spurred Guolna to a desperate attack. He lunged at Aquppak, swinging his left arm wide as he faked a strike to that side, though he surreptitiously tossed the knife into his right hand to make a slashing attack from the right.
Aquppak had spent enough time among rough men to know this trick. His eye followed the knife, not the wielder’s arm. He dodged the cut easily.
Guolna was shaken and confused, unnerved by the loss of Khahoutek, fearful of losing his hold over the men. In contrast, Aquppak had never felt better. With the dead shaman suddenly turned ally, he suspected aid from his invisible patron. He had nothing but confidence as he blocked yet another knife attack.
The driving weight of Guolna, who was the bigger man by far, staggered Aquppak slightly. He managed to bring his knee up in time and strike the headman’s groin. Guolna fell to one knee.
Aquppak sized up his opponent. He already knew Guolna’s next move. Driven to even further desperation, the headman would immediately charge again. Aquppak need launch no offensive of his own, just wait and counter.
Guolna slapped some loose snow and ice up at Aquppak. Sensing another diversion, Aquppak stepped immediately to the side. Guolna charged, but his own sight was hindered by the cloud of white powder. With Aquppak already in motion, Guolna’s blade again missed its mark. The two men collided. Aquppak had no opportunity to use the meteor blade in his left hand as his left shoulder was trapped between them. He brought his right fist across the back of Guolna’s neck and the Lapp went down again.
Aquppak could easily have pressed his advantage and finished the fight, but he held back. Slaying Guolna might not be good enough. The headman must die as a dog.
“It is Guolna who must die,” croaked the shaman Khahoutek. The wooden mask had fallen from his face, revealing the slack features of a corpse.
Aquppak raised his hands to the heavens in a demonstration of victory. “Spearmen,” he said, “make ready your plunge.”
“Aquppak leads us,” said Khahoutek.
The circle of raiders closed in. Guolna looked up at them, defeat and confusion clouding his blue eyes. He would not plead with them.
“Strike!” said Aquppak.
When it was done, Aquppak gave new orders to his men, doubling the sentries and ordering a celebratory feast. He was in the mood for a good meal. He scooped a handful of snow and pressed it against the stump of his left ear to dull the pain. His new ear had not lasted very long, he thought.
Taking Khahoutek aside, he indicated the gaping belly wound and asked, “You have a problem there?”
