The Ice-Shirt

by William T. Vollmann

  Their Mother. - The Two grew up together, and often They quarreled, in scenes no more loud than unmanly (for Their blood-ties prohibited Them from striking one another).

  "Tell me, KLUSKAP, said the Twin. "How can You be killed?" "With a sharp blow to My head with a cattail flag," said KLUSKAP. But He lied. - Then He said, "And You, brother, how can You be killed?"

  "With a handful of bird's down," said the Twin. "I wish You long life, brother!" Then He laughed, and disappeared into the forest. KLUSKAP saw that He was walking in the direction of the marshes, where the Cattail People lived; so He prepared Himself Presently the Twin crept behind Him and smote Him with a cattail flag so hard that He was stunned. -"Ha, ha!" laughed the Twin. "Now I am the eldest!" He left His brother for dead, and went capering along the seashore. - But KLUSKAP soon came to His senses again, and rose and gathered down from the Duck People and the Swan People. He squeezed the down tightly in His hand to make a ball, and then He stalked His Twin in the shadows; He found Him, he threw that hard-packed ball at His head, and the Twin fell down dead. - "Now I am the eldest again, it seems," said KLUSKAP.

  The Invitation

  Freydis shook her head stupidly; she slapped her cheeks and pinched herself, and at last she remembered the Word that the Skraelings had taught her and shouted it out in GLOOSKAP's face: ''MOOSKOONAMOOKSOODEr - He grimaced and stepped back from her. A wind began to blow from the north. It blew all night; it blew so hard that the stars seemed to be carried along in it like daisy-heads in a stream. At dawn, as KLUSKAP stood waiting on the headland, a mist sprang up on the sea and He saw the silhouette of an immense iceberg coming closer and closer to Him through the fog and Someone was breathing cold-breath on Him and the iceberg ground slowly against the beach with a crunching sound and Someone strode ashore. -KLUSKAP knew exactly what would happen as soon as Freydis uttered the Name. - How He wanted to blot her out! But she fell under a diflferent jurisdiction. He must wait. So He did not become a grove of flowering stars to blind her with His sparkling light; He did not seize her and kill her. - For her part, no longer did she desire to love Him, for He did not seem powerful to her. Then she remembered that anyhow she had never

  loved Him, nor desired to love Him; she desired to kill Piim ... but when she looked for her knife it was gone.

  "Well, granddaughter, you vdll hear from Me or from Him in a dream," said Glooskap graciously. "Have a safe journey back, and know that My People have been commanded to follow you unseen and protect you from panthers."

  How the Brothers Greeted Each Other

  Chuckling, Blue-Shirt strode into Kluskap's country. He wore a studded mailcoat. The ocean froze behind Him; the grass went rime-white under His boots. "My whore called upon Me in Your presence," He said with a sneer (and His familiars followed behind Him in a sleet-cloud). "Now at last I can throw You down and tread You underfoot. With a curse I greet You!"

  "Well, brother," said KlusKAP quietly, "welcome back from the land of the dead. I would greet You as You greeted me, but there is no need, because You will curse Yourself no matter what You do."

  Now Blue-Shirt grinned like a great crack in the ice and ripped up four great pine trees by the roots. He paced off a square a hundred ells on a side and marked each comer by thrusting one of his tree-poles deep into the earth. (Black crows flocked to the branches from all over the world; there they sat silently, waiting for blood to drink.) - "Let this be Our playing-field," He said, and KLUSKAP replied that it would be as He wished.

  To Kluskap, Blue-Shirt seemed like the man who had feared death, who had been afraid to take off his shirt and become anything different; that was why Kluskap was determined to make Blue-Shirt's chest naked. - ''Kwe! Yal Kwe! Yal Kwel YaF' sang KLUSKAP fiercely. - Old Grandmother whispered her luck-wish in His ear; she painted red and yellow stripes of Power on His face; she brought Him a basket of smoked moose intestines stuffed with fat, meat and berries; and little Marten brought Him a kettle of the fattest stew to give Him strength; but AmortortaK watched Him eat with ill grace, for no one offered any to that foul King of Trolls. Sullenly He strode to the sea and caught a dozen seals; He ate their meat and crunched their bones in His teeth and rubbed Himself vdth their fat to make Himself more supple and slippery in His armor if KLUSKAP should chance to wrestle with Him. (And the clams, Kluskap's enemies, sang Him songs of their hatred for KLUSKAP, but because Blue-Shirt wore only His own shirt He did not understand.) Now He somewhat repented of the contest between Them, for He remembered

  that KLUSKAP had bested Him once before. But He was lustful and greedy of extending His dominions; the frost seethed inside Him in swirling storms, and He longed to impregnate the world with it, to raise great snow-mounds for His treasures, to send the glaciers creeping, rending, grinding down the fells and hills to blot out the green grape-vines that He hated so. For rage had long ago enlarged His heart. So He stepped onto the trial-field, and KLUSKAP did likewise.

  The Mountain and the Hid

  How different They had become fi-om each other, those two Who once were twins, can scarcely be imagined, for the God-Shirt is a prison with heavier bars than any shirt we in our litde inconsistencies could ever don.

  - Blue-Shirt stood tall and black, like a crag. His limbs were hairy and icy. His beard was fi-ost, and there was snow on His shoulders. He was His own ice-mountain. His mail-shirt bristled with ice-spears. He seemed to embody everything heavy and hard and fixed, that even wind and sand must weary in wearing away. His eyes burned horribly in His blackish face, and He gnashed and gnashed His teeth. And no steam came firom His breath, but only mist.

  - KLUSKAP was somewhat more slender, and shorter by a head, but He was lighter and faster on His feet, and His black eyes were living and alert. On His shirt the catamounts hissed and arched their backs, the eagles darted their beaks fiercely at Blue-Shirt, the bears raised their great killing paws, the weasels and wolverines chattered their teeth angrily.

  The First Bout

  Now the two Powers circled round each other and took each other's measure. And KLUSKAP swore in His heart that He would not let His brother set His wicked mark upon the land. They swung Their fists at each other: and Amortortak creaked and splintered like spring ice: KLUSKAP groaned like an axe-bitten tree. AMORTORTAK bided His time, and when His enemy seemed least prepared He rushed upon Him like a wolf; He lifted Him off the ground and hurled Him down. - Then old Grandmother wailed, for she thought that KLUSKAP was dead. For a space He lay there, very pale, with blood trickling from His head, and the colored stripes that Grandmother had painted on His face were smeared with sweat and blood

  and dirt; and Blue-Shirt strode round and round Him, debating with Himself how best to end His life. At length He leaned down toward Him to strangle Him, but from that wondrous shirt of many creamres a marmot bared its httle teeth and chattered, and a falcon fluttered its wings in Blue-Shirt's face so that He grimaced in startlement and drew back, and Kluskap sprang to His feet. Then Grandmother clapped her hands, and Marten laughed aloud. - Kluskap pulled up one of the tree-poles, and hurled it into AmorTORTAK's chest. AmoRTORTAK staggered back growling; He wrenched the tree out of Himself and snapped it in two and threw both halves at KLUSKAP, but He stepped aside, and they flew harmlessly into the forest.

  The Armies

  Now Kluskap looked over His shoulder and saw Blue-Shirt's trolls swarming out of the sea. They were ice-caked; they were salt-caked. They shook themselves like rats; they bared their yellow teeth at Him; they came scurrying up to the field of battle. And Blue-Shirt laughed to see them come. - So KLUSKAP called to Marten, saying, "Go quickly! Bring my Thunders and Echoes! Bring Kewkw here; bring Coolpujot!" - And Marten rushed oflf on his way. He was back in a twinkling, and he did not come alone. So KLUSKAP and AMORTORTAK marshaled Their spirit-armies just as the boy-Kings Ingjald and Alf had done in Upsal so long before; -but these were real Spirits; their eyes shone like the MOON's eyes. - Here came Blue-Shirt's demons, with their wings and claws and webbed toes; here cam
e His trolls; here came His greatest house-carles, FELL, FROST and Glacier. - But here too came KLUSKAP's familiars. His THUNDERS and Echoes who lived in the storm-mountains and the rocky valleys; here came Kewkw, Whose other name was EARTHQUAKE, and here came faithful Marten rolling COOLPUJOT THE BONELESS along with a spear! Now the Thunders were puffy and stout and bluish-black in Their faces, but the Echoes had no faces, being invisible spirits. As for EARTHQUAKE, He was a great giant, who could pull the earth apart with His hands. He traveled as well under the ground as on it. - COOLPUJOT was but a sallow fellow; He could not sit up, or raise His head, or even twiddle His fingers. Medicine-roots grew underneath Him in His shade. Marten nibbled at these as he rolled Him, and COOLPUJOT laughed and wheezed. - "Look at that carle!" laughed Blue-Shirt to His army. "He's nothing but a lump of whale-puke!" - "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the trolls. - But KLUSKAP puffed at His pipe and said nothing.

  So they stood facing each other in two lines, those Spirits, while AmORTORTAK and KlUSKAP clapped Their hands.

  At first it almost seemed that those Two watched Their own contest like Gudrid's men and Freydis's men gathered in separate factions to see the swimming-bouts of their champions, sometimes cheering, sometimes merely waiting unsmiling with folded arms to see who might win the competition. In the same fashion stood the Brothers side by side. - COOLPUJOT lay gangling Himself in the grass; bloated and sickly-white He looked, for Blue-Shirt was nigh and it was winter, but COOLPUJOT was a Power of power nonetheless, as shall be seen. As for the trolls, their eyes goggled just above their long thin necks, and they rolled their rubbery tongues in their mouths.

  TfkSecomCBout

  Now, when EARTHQUAKE came the earthquake came, and AMORTORTAK screeched and fell down a great shaft into the maw of black rock, and the air hissed behind Him as if a tower had fallen; and EARTHQUAKE stamped His foot and the earth closed; and EARTHQUAKE walked upon the earth, and it trembled, and still KLUSKAP was silent, but He smiled and His eyes glittered. - Now the yellow trolls came swarming from between tree branches and dug into the earth with long fingernails to rescue their LORD. And He lay almost upright in the black earth, like a ruin, smiling horribly, and when His trolls had freed Him and ministered to Him He jumped up out of His grave-pit and the air whisded again and He breathed a breath of ice; and although EARTHQUAKE now stamped with all His might to make a great pit into which AMORTORTAK must fall, AMORTORTAK grinned and spat, and His spittle flew into the crack and froze so that the lips of that earth-wound could not pull any farther apart; and though EARTHQUAKE stamped and stamped He could not shatter that ice, and so He retired from the battle, swearing oaths as heavy as unburst stormclouds.

  The Third Bout

  Now KLUSKAP Stirred and took Marten's spear and rolled COOLPUJOT a little east, so that it was spring again - for COOLPUJOT was the Power of the seasons (and to the Greenlanders in Gudrid's country it seemed that the good weather would never end and they almost drowned in good greenness

  and the green grapes and red grapes burst with sweet juices that dribbled down their chins so that Gudrid's baby laughed for the first time, and the peat flowers sprang up higher than ever before); and all the trolls shielded their bulging froglike eyes and cried tears at the terribly sunny warmth of that spring; and the SUN brushed back Her golden hair and smiled down at Kluskap, happy to see Him so soon again; and Her brother the MoON chased after Her in the darkness over Greenland and the Jotuns trod the glorious mountains but they could not seduce Him fi-om His sister. - Feeling the warm sun-rays upon His brow, AmorTORTAK became somewhat wan, and drops of whitish sweat rolled down His face.

  Now Kluskap threw a handclap around a circle of THUNDERS and ECHOES; when it reached AMORTORTAK's hands it scorched Him and ice fell from His face. But He held it and grinned and hurled it back among His black trolls, and every troll added something to it as it went so that it got louder and more awful like rockslides and glacier-slides among His lonely mountains wdth the MOON circling round and round above as that great handclap rushed from hand to hand, until the last of those evil trolls clapped it full into KlusKAP's face and He grimaced for a moment and became very old and the wrinkles in His face were as the strands in the spider's web; but then He gently took the handclap in His palm and breathed on it and wiped away the foulnesses of it and returned it to His shirt where it became a lighming-bird singing among the other birds. (But the trolls threw spiteful hail-balls at KLUSKAP, and AMORTORTAK laughed.)

  The Fourth Bout

  Now the play began to get somewhat rougher. The faces of both were bloody and flushed. KLUSKAP was dismayed at how much His brother had grown in strength and cunning; as for AMORTORTAK, He felt nothing but fear and rage. AMORTORTAK would have liked nothing better than to be able to strip off KLUSKAP's shirt; because just as the wearer needs the garment, so the other way around; and if He could pull KLUSKAP's shirt off then the Plant People and Animal People would fade and die and Vinland would become a dull grey rock of lifeless neutrality, which He could then clothe in the Ice-Shirt. For this reason He stalked close to KLUSKAP and seized the shirt by the hem, grasping and pulling with all His power, but He could not rend it; He cursed and let go when the chattering squirrels bit His hand. Now KLUSKAP flung Him dovm upon the rocks; but He stood up

  and battered KluSKAP about the face; so KlusKAP leaped into the air and became a hot blue rain-cloud that showered itself down on AmortoRTAK, seeking to melt Him, but AMORTORTAK merely grinned and clapped His hands, and His servant, ugly wizened little FROST, climbed upon His back, and the rain became sleet and hail as it neared His face and shoulders; so it fortified His armor with another layer of rime, and KLUSKAP gave over the attempt.

  The Fifth Bout

  Now AMORTORTAK clapped His hands again, and His servant FELL, a big sullen fellow with rocky grey brows, ran across the trampled grass to KLUSKAP and embraced Him around His waist and became a great high cliff-well in which KLUSKAP was trapped. - He stood for a moment running His hand through His long black locks; He puffed His pipe and thought inside the dark mountain whose sides rose sky-sheer about Him, so sheer that even Blue-Shirt's trolls found it hard work to scrabble up the outer walls to get at Him; they were going to drop boulders down upon Him and crush Him. But KLUSKAP became a seagull and flew up, up, high above the mountain, and Fell retired to His master discomfited. - The next essay was made by great GLACIER, Who threw heavy slabs of ice at KLUSKAP and also crept behind His back like a snake of cold to ensnare Him. But KLUSKAP rolled COOLPUJOT a little farther east, so that GLACIER began to sweat and groan and grow faint, and the day grew brisk and warm, until at last poor GLACIER sank to the grass in a faint, and bled and sweated and melted Himself into a merry little stream. - Blue-Shirt heaved a rock into it in disgust. - He now turned Himself into a gruesome ice-bear and sprang upon KLUSKAP, but a grizzly bear charged out of Kluskap's shirt and hugged the ice-bear and worried Him with his fangs while KLUSKAP sat catching His breath, and then AMORTORTAK became Himself again and KLUSKAP threw boulders at Him and smashed the ice of His face so that He was even more trollish to look upon, and AMORTORTAK bellowed and His face was black with pain and rage and He seized KLUSKAP by the hair and raised His axe and chopped off Kluskap's arm so that He sank down fainting to the grass and Grandmother and Marten cried out and then AMORTORTAK stood gloating over Him, but KLUSKAP took back His arm to Himself and held it against Himself and it grew back whole in its place, and He leaped up, racing round

  and round like a greenish tornado, shouting: ''Kuskimtulmkunuhkwode! I have a hundred feet; I am a centipede!"

  The Sixth Bout

  Now KluSKAP called upon the SUN and cast a spear of burning goldness into the heart of His brother. Blood ran down Amortortak's chest and froze upon it, forming ice of a rich dark color like the red algae of Greenland (which makes what the explorer Ross called "crimson cliffs"); red ice glistened on His mail-shirt. He staggered; He glared at KLUSKAP with eyes of darkness; rocks and ice thundered down from His heaving shoulders. He called
upon the Moon and pierced KLUSKAP through His shirt with a spear of white ice-light, and KLUSKAP became pale again and trembled. Seeing how terribly this had molested Him, Amortortak laughed and prepared to cast another Moon-spear against Him, and as many more as it would take to destroy Him. But the Plant People on Kluskap's shirt took root wherever He bled and sent up green shoots that kissed Him with leaf-curls round His neck, and tobacco-leaves cooled His forehead and sweetflag leaves brushed against His lips so that He smiled at these His kin-friends and opened His mouth to chew their green medicine-leaves, so that a little more Power beat in His heart. His color returned somewhat; the red and yellow stripes glowed upon His face; He rallied Himself, and His breathing came fast. Yet it was still certain that Blue-Shirt would destroy Him, for He was shattered in His powers. He fought against Blue-Shirt with hands and feet, like a spider, He failed; He fell, and AMORTORTAK rushed to trample on His face with shoes of creaking ice .. . but as the wicked one crushed that bleeding body, smearing blood and paint upon the ground, KLUSKAP came sauntering out of the woods, wdth His pipe in His mouth, and He was fresh and full of strength, for He had not been there at all before; He had only sent a seeming of His shape: the Name "KLUSKAP" means "Liar."

  The Seventh Bout

  From His pipe KLUSKAP sucked in the smoky goodness of the Tobacco People. He thrust His shoulders wide. He seized AMORTORTAK, He shook Him and He struck Him. The rising moment came, the moment when

  everything must cover its face. KLUSKAP raised both His arms; He clenched His fists -

  . . . and the trolls scuttled away sidewise like a centipede's legs without the body,