The Calling

by Ken Altabef

  The shaman stretched his legs with a weary groan. He went to the rock ledge where he had stowed their food and supplies out of reach of the dogs, and came back with one of the tent skins.

  “How did you first come to know him?” asked Alaana. She arranged the broad tent skin over herself and the two dogs like a blanket.

  “He has been with me as long as I can remember. Many times I have visited the crystal palace which is his lair deep within the earth. He has always helped me, walked with me. He is my friend. He is my guardian. As a shaman, all my power is but a small fragment of his own; I am less than a child to him. But he is kindly, he smiles broadly. His attack is swift and brutal when need be, yes, but he seeks always for harmony. Not just for the bears, but for all things. That is the measure of his great wisdom.”

  Alaana felt her eyes begin to close. It had been a very long journey. “Sila…” she said sleepily.

  “Yes?”

  “He spoke to me,” said Alaana in a hopeful tone. “He called me by name.”

  Old Manatook was unimpressed. “The dawn has come many times since then. The sky has turned half a year. Has he come to you since? Or does he remain unseen? I worry that your relationship with Sila is not as clear or strong as should be.”

  “I have the spirit-vision, his gift to me.”

  “Yes. Growing dimmer all the time.”

  “As you said it would.”

  “I did.”

  “And I have the allaruk…” The spirit trance. That haunting moment of clarity was still strong within her.

  Old Manatook said nothing more. Alaana turned away, annoyed at having to justify her relationship with Sila to Old Manatook when she hardly held much faith in it herself. If Old Manatook didn’t believe in her connection to the Walker In The Wind, then why the training? Why were they here?

  “This is a test, isn’t it?” she asked. “A test to see if Sila will come to me?”

  “Yes, yes. It’s not an easy thing. It’s not a fair test, but few tests are fair. In any case, you will succeed. Sila will come when you call, most certainly.”

  Now it was Alaana’s turn for an angry silence.

  “If you truly reach out to him,” said Old Manatook. “If there is need. Yes, he will come if there is need. Of that you can be sure.”

  “But what if I’m not strong enough? What if I can’t? I’m not like you.”

  Old Manatook snickered dryly. “Silly girl, even I’m not like me.”

  “Manatook, what do you—”

  “Hooo,” said Old Manatook, as if silencing the dogs. “You’re tired. Go to sleep.”

  With Alaana fast asleep in the cave, Manatook cocked an ear to the sounds of the night. There was surprisingly little noise outside. Naked, he stepped over the shaggy form of Makaartunghak where the dog slept at the cavern entrance.

  The old shaman sniffed at the frosty air. The wolverines had been and gone, perhaps seeking out some careless snow hare or other nighttime creature. A gentle breeze drifted down from the northland, carrying the traces of a distant cooking fire. Yupikut raiders most likely, he thought, as he caught the scent of freshly cured bearskin, which that band most often used as garments. And what was it they were roasting? He sniffed again. Fresh-caught fox.

  He bowed his head, arms outstretched, palms forward. He settled into the one-pointedness of mind necessary for receiving messages on the wind. The pulse of his heart slowed, his breath stilled to a whisper.

  A distant voice spoke to him in the secret language of the shamans. “You are sorely needed,” it said. “You are called and yet you do not come.”

  Old Manatook felt his heart skip a beat, almost losing the concentration of the trance.

  “I am teaching the girl,” he sent back. “It doesn’t go well.”

  “You are called,” insisted the voice from the north.

  “I thought you would understand,” said Old Manatook. “It was you who taught me the Way. And now I teach her. I thought you would be pleased.”

  “There is no time to waste,” insisted the other. “Our Great Work must go ahead.”

  Old Manatook growled softly in the back of his throat. “But the Anatatook have no one else.”

  “Let them fend for themselves. You waste too much time with those men. Your own kind need you now.”

  “I understand,” sent back Manatook. “I will come as soon as I am able, Father.”

  CHAPTER 24

  DISCOVERING THE WAY

  Another half day’s travel brought them to the lower reaches of the basin. A mild snow had fallen all day, drifting gently down then blowing back up. Alaana spent the entire journey sitting on the sled, chilled to the bone. This type of weather was more exhausting than she had ever imagined, leaving her too tired to run after the sled to warm up.

  The dogs trotted down the slope at breakneck speed, joyously slipping and sliding as they went. Old Manatook tugged sharply at the traces. He seemed tireless for such an old man. At the bottom of the bowl they came to an ice-bound river. The river must have had broad shoulders in the summer as it gathered the run-off from the entire region. Even now it stubbornly continued to flow, oozing between the rocks in a slender tongue where the wild water defied the frost.

  Old Manatook punched a hole in the rim ice with the butt of his snow knife and cool water bubbled up for the dogs to drink. Alaana drank as well, filling her sealskin water bag. The water tasted fresh and satisfying, and not the least bit salty.

  “The spirit of the river is in good humor,” said Old Manatook. “Soon he lays down to sleep. But he will grant us a favor. He is willing to answer a question.”

  Alaana couldn’t see the inua of the river for all the ice, but river spirits were always better heard than seen. She listened intently for the master’s voice, but the sloshing of the water obliterated all other sound.

  “I can’t hear its voice.”

  “Concentrate,” suggested Old Manatook. “Use the tunraq. That’s what they’re for.”

  Alaana fished the small sphere of soapstone from the front pocket of her parka. “Weyahok, take a question to the river.”

  “Weyahok,” the stone replied.

  “Yes,” said Alaana softly, “I want you to ask the river: Why was I called to be the shaman?”

  Alaana felt the piece of stone shudder in her hand.

  “Ooort! Weyahok know not nothing! Never nothing knew never!”

  “There’s a mouthful,” chuckled Alaana. She gave the stone a reassuring squeeze. “Stay calm. Go and ask the water.” With that, she flung the stone into the center of the stream where the stretching fingers of ice had not yet clasped across.

  A moment later, Weyahok came rolling back along the surface of the ice. Alaana warmed the tunraq in her hands, awaiting its answer. Weyahok delivered a single word: “Justice.”

  “Justice?” she asked the little spirit. “Are you certain?” But Weyahok, struck uncharacteristically silent, would say no more.

  One word. Not much of an explanation. But Alaana thought she knew what it meant. The people in the south believed that Sila stood for justice. Maybe he didn’t think it was fair that women weren’t allowed to be shamans. She remembered what he’d said, that she would do great things, that she would restore the balance. Maybe he thought it was time for a woman to be the shaman.

  They crossed the river ice carefully. Alaana followed Old Manatook, who checked frequently for thin ice. A deadly drop could lurk beneath a deceptive covering of snow. Once across, they went back again, carrying the sledge between them and calling the dogs to follow.

  They had to climb a rough scramble of rocks on the far side of the basin, coaxing the dogs at every step. When they came to flat open spaces they hitched up the team again. Even then, the fresh fallen snow hindered their progress. Old Manatook had to dismount every so often to clear away the bunched-up snow clogging the runners.

  They arrived at Uwelen near dusk. The village was marked by a tall grave post looming above an old burial platform. T
he carven image of a grinning skull looked down on the passers-by. Remnants of crimson paint clung in the recesses, giving the impression that the face was both crying and dribbling blood. This represented Erlaveersinioq the Disemboweler, The Skeleton That Walks — a spirit who loved murder and death above all other things.

  Alaana felt a chill, remembering the vision Civiliaq had shown her. The towering figure with huge, dead eyes, that listened with the snouts of rabid dogs for ears, and spoke in women’s screams. The silent skull atop the post delivered its message clearly. This was a place not to be traveled by men.

  Not to be traveled by mortal men, thought Alaana, but shamans were required to pass. And she, not even a shaman yet, was expected to stumble blindly forward, armed with nothing but a chant.

  Beyond the marker lay a pitiless desert of snow. Low tussocks of black rock, where there might have been a marshy expanse in summer, were now locked with pools of dirty gray ice. Straggly reeds had tried to grow up and caught in the ice, grimy under a coat of frozen slime. In the midst of this barren, gloomy plain a mournful rampart of stone rose, bare and bony, as a watchtower above the desolation. That stony pillar, said Old Manatook, was Alaana’s destination.

  Their visit had been timed poorly. The sky was already growing dark. A distant wind gusted across the plain, carrying the stench of decay and the hissing and snarling voices of the long dead.

  Old Manatook pressed the palm of his hand to Alaana’s nose, which had gone dangerously white with frost. Alaana felt the shaman’s warmth spread across her face, flushing her cheeks.

  “Are your ears troubled by the conversations of the dead?”

  Alaana nodded.

  “A shaman’s greatest weapons are courage and determination,” said Old Manatook, “but above all he must have faith. Do you believe you can do this thing?”

  Alaana looked deeply into her teacher’s eyes. She knew that to balk now would mean more than simple embarrassment and disgrace. Her fate was out of her own hands or even those of Old Manatook. This was no time to turn back. There were things required of her, by forces greater than any human being. She could not deny the will of the spirits, the sacrifice of Avalaaqiaq, the needs of her friends and loved ones.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll do it,” she said.

  Old Manatook’s lips drew into a thin line between the folds of his beard, an expression which for him might be considered a smile. “Here dwell wrathful and dangerous spirits. Tread lightly and travel with half-closed eye. Make a straight line, placing one foot directly in front of the other. Heed not the laments of the dead. When you reach the pillar, do what you must. You go alone.”

  Alone? Alaana hadn’t realized this was for her to do alone. The old shaman’s bushy white eyebrows raised slightly. Alaana realized how openly her own face must have betrayed her fear. She straightened her bearing, composing her features into her best imitation of her master’s grim resolve. Old Manatook wouldn’t have brought her this far just to die. Clearly he believed she could accomplish this task, and so she would.

  She stepped forward, treading carefully among the jagged black rocks. Nightfall brought a gray fog, drifting in twists and curls as it flowed in the low places between the tussocks. The Moon, now only two or three nights from the full, was high in the sky and lent an eerie silver glow to the surface of the roving mists.

  The air grew decidedly colder and sharper. It bore a bitter reek, here one moment, gone the next. As Alaana passed over the wide flats of ice, she heard lingering traces of what had once existed here — the familiar sounds of camp life now strangled and twisted, the voices of children whose play echoed only in joyless laughter and spates of ominous giggling. In the gaps where no gray twilight fell on black stone, tent posts and buildings could be glimpsed in the shadows. A meat rack, a kennel, standing for a moment then gone.

  Pressed by a growing fear, Alaana marched onward. Mindful of Old Manatook’s instructions she squinted her eyes, but it did no good. The crawling mists lurched upward here and there to outline eerie burial mounds clogging the plain in endless rows, an obscene phantom graveyard amid the desolation of Uwelen. There was no doubt of some great nightmare lurking close. Alaana couldn’t shake the feeling of an invisible hand, cold and dead, clutching at her throat. What wicked horror awaited her at the end of that shaggy arm?

  At the rampart’s base lay a flat stone the size of a spread tent-cover. As she stepped on it Alaana felt a glimmer of relief and newfound confidence. The choking grip relaxed and drifted away. Her throat was dry, but she dared not moisten it with the cursed snow that rested here.

  She braced her back to the stone tower, quelled her thundering heartbeat, and began the chant.

  “Those from Uwelen, how they sang,

  Those from Uwelen, how they danced.”

  Even as she spoke, she knew the chant wouldn’t be enough. Old Manatook had made it clear she must call on Sila for aid. That was the true point of the test. But now it came to it, she resisted reaching out to the great spirit for help. Sila had first appeared to her as a kindly old man but that wizened face which had bestowed upon her the gifts of the shaman had never reappeared. Having turned her life upside down, Sila had left her quite alone. And that made her angry.

  “They fished under the blue sky,

  They slept in the black night—”

  A desperate howl rang out from somewhere on the twilight-frosted plain. This came from no phantom; it was a sound most definitely grounded in reality. A most dangerous sound. It was the call of the wolverine. A sudden wave of horror and uncertainty came crashing down on Alaana. Her chant could have no power over the living, only the dead.

  Puffs of mist shot upward here and there between the rocks, marking the passage of wolverines. How many?

  Wolverines were usually solitary creatures, only moving in packs when hunger drove them to ultimate desperation. How many? And what was she going to do? She had only a small hunting knife with which to fend them off. She fought the urge to run, for that would only bring certain death in the form of deadly claws digging into her back or a ravenous snout at her throat.

  The laments of the dead rose from the snow-covered ruins of the village, combining to form a nightmarish voice whose message was a cry of unending pain and suffering. There were ghosts here, that was certain. Even the wolverines knew it. The puffs of sooty mist picked their way around the phantom graves, approaching not in a direct line but in an uneven and faltering path, as if they too were frightened by the tortured presences which infested this place. But as Old Manatook had said, hunger spoke loudest of all.

  The mumbling of the dead grew more forceful but at this moment Alaana feared the living more than the dead. Tufts of brown fur revealed themselves between parting puffs of smoke. The wolverines would soon be upon her.

  Alaana drew her little hunting knife. If she killed the first one that charged, she wondered, was there a chance the others would flee?

  A black snout burst through the mist, followed by a pair of dark, ravenous eyes under a sloping gray brow as one of the wolverines came shooting toward the platform. Another cut through the mist and another, teeth bared, jaws slavering with anticipation. Alaana held out the blade, its tip quivering. The beasts snapped and snarled as they broke from the gray mist, gathering in numbers before they might strike. She could almost believe them a pack of malevolent demons bred in the ruin of Uwelen.

  Suddenly a low growl burst across the plain, louder and deeper than any wolverine could possibly muster. It was the roar of some huge predator protecting a kill. A luminescent figure rose up from the mist. The monster seemed to be made of gathering fingers of moonlight. It loomed large, a creature with the size and outlines of a polar bear. Moving quickly it passed in front of Alaana, cutting across the wolverines’ line of attack.

  The bear’s massive paws swept the mist, knocking aside one attacker and then the next. The hissing snarls of the wolverines gave way to terrified yelps. The mist danced and heaved, flung in stringy tendrils w
ith each killing stroke. Another terrific growl, even louder than the first, sent the last few wolverines darting away.

  Alaana’s fear was every bit as great as their own.

  The bear turned to face her. Its eyes were ablaze, reflecting some distant unworldly fire. Alaana felt lost in space and time, trapped alone in a vast sea of nothingness, empty except for those huge glowing eyes.

  The shape blurred, transforming into the figure of a man, tall and thin, dressed in a shabby white parka. What was this deadly wraith now come before her? Its face hung waxy and pale, stretched and sagging at the chin as if it were nothing more than empty skin, the eyes lifeless in their deep, craven sockets.

  “Those from Uwelen, how they danced,” rasped Alaana.

  “They fished under the blue sky,

  They slept in the black night.

  These poor souls, who stir around us,

  Let them not fall into sorrow.”

  As the phantom drew closer, Alaana fumbled with the remainder of the chant.

  The ghost’s life history reached out for her as surely as the long, bone-white fingers that groped toward her face. This man was a murderer, an outcast from his band, who had beaten his wife almost to death, an evil man who had been caught up for his sins and skinned alive.

  “Ituituq, Kajorsuq, Qanorme,

  Nerugalik, Nontak, Tassiussaq,

  Guide — guide your families to their rest.”

  Alaana stumbled again, her back pressed hard against the cold stone of the pillar. It was useless, she knew, because the last lines of the chant were all wrong. Old Manatook’s translation was indeed flawed and worthless, and would avail her nothing.

  She grabbed for her knife, but the ghastly spirit knocked it away. This then, was the end. She sank to her knees in total despair.

  “Hmmf,” said the ghost, “I had hoped the words I’ve been pouring into your ears these past few moons would have at least done you some good. I hate to think so much time and breath had all gone to waste.”