Blackwater Lights
Page 22
His uncle removed a small flask from his coat, and told him to take a small sip.
Jimmy’s nose wrinkled at the pungent smell of the flask and he took a tiny, tentative sip. It tasted like smoke and burned his throat. He coughed in loud and rasping hacks as his uncle retrieved the flask. Jimmy then felt a small burst of warmth in his belly, and he felt alert, strong.
His uncle clasped his small shoulders.
“One day,” he said, his voice low and full of gravity, “I will be gone, and our people will look to you. You will heal the sick, and guide fish to the hooks and nets. You will cast out spirits and find those lost on the ice. But nothing, nothing you learn from me will ever be as important as what I show you today. Keep it with you always, and never forget. Do you understand?”
Jimmy nodded, more out of fear than understanding.
His uncle pointed to the mouth of the cave, his expression grave. Jimmy looked at him for a moment, then realized his uncle wanted him to go in alone. He started to pull back, but his uncle gripped him fiercely. Jimmy whimpered, but there was a terrible fire in his uncle’s eyes.
“I cannot take you, you must see alone.”
Jimmy fought his desire to run away, thought it seemed preferable to be lost in these trackless wastes or ravaged by a bear than see what lay beyond the small carved stone sentries and their collection of unwitting sacrifices.
“You are my nephew, Mouse, and you are stronger than you realize. Our people will depend on you - this is not a duty you can shrug off like a wet coat. You must see. You must understand.”
Jimmy looked in Uncle Will’s eyes, and saw the fierce love that his uncle had for him. He realized that he would do almost anything save disappoint the old man. Slowly, he nodded.
His uncle clapped him on the back, a gesture among adults, and the hard blow seemed to strengthen rather than pain him. Taking a breath, he stooped slightly and entered the cave.
Inside, it seemed warm rather than cool, and the air was redolent with the scents of cinnamon and leather, the smells of the long dead. The floor was rough and jagged, heading down in a gentle slope. Along the walls were dozens of skulls, both animal and human, each one painted and decorated with beadwork or feathers. Beast and man, they were grouped together as if they had been allies in some great conflict. The boy knew enough to recognize that these were not trophies, but sentinels from the Land of the Dead, guardians from across the seas that had been entrusted with some sacred task. Indeed, the air was heavy with decades of ritual and ceremony. Although he was frightened, he dared not utter a sound, lest those hollow eyes turn on him.
As he moved down, the light from outside faded, and the air turned chill, a frigid cold that increased in severity, a cruel and icy state without respite. The skulls along the wall became more massive, some of them with fangs nearly a foot long, cruel scimitars in predatory jaws. Just as the light all but disappeared, he saw massive skulls with huge curving tusks as large as himself. Inverted, their great ivory arcs formed a portal. There was a dim light ahead, and he made for it, conscious of the grinning skulls flanking his progress, their empty eyes retaining the visions of millennia past.
Jimmy Kalmaku was filled with both terror and exhilaration. He knew that what he was about to see was only for the most wise.
He stepped into a vast chamber; its walls covered with ice colored a deep blue by the centuries. Long ago the cave had been a dwelling, and a vent had been laboriously carved in the ceiling for the fire pit. This makeshift chimney now served as a sort of skylight, allowing the spring sun to partially illuminate the chamber.
To his left, walls were bare. There were no skulls, no carvings, no painted figures or masks. To his right, a wall of ice, the light from above illuminating it, its interior filled with a soft, golden glow. Rather than smell musty, there was a clean smell to the place, and the hint of spice like his mother sometimes used in cooking.
In the center, obscured and distorted by thick blue ice, something was suspended.
It was very dark, and roughly circular. The object looked to be about the size of a large dinner plate, but it was hard to tell given the distortion of the ice. As he tried to puzzle out what it was, he saw a glimmer of gold around its outer edge.
Suddenly, it saw him.
There was no change in the object, no opening of eyes or shifting of position. It remained suspended in the ice as it surely had for hundreds of years. But he knew it saw him. He knew with absolute certainty that it was hungry for him, jealous of his life and warmth.
hello, boy
Jimmy stared at it. The voice was in his head, and all around him.
are you cold? i am cold
It was the sound of gusts around their roof at night, when the wind scrabbles and claws at the eaves searching for a way into the snug warm room. It was the sound a man makes when he is trapped under thick ice, his fellows above watching helplessly as he is claimed by the cold sea.
let me out
The voice seemed to tear into him with needle-like claws. He backed up, striking the opposite wall and letting out a strangled gasp.
let me out
The voice was sliding around his mind, an eel that left a viscous and foul-smelling ooze on his thoughts. Jimmy felt at any moment he might throw up or faint.
let me out, jimmy. i can teach you more than the old man
At the mention of his name, a low moan escaped him. It knew him. Now he would never be free of it. No matter where he went, it would find him.
let me out
Would that be so terrible? To let it out? Perhaps it was a mistake, imprisoning it here. What creature deserved such a lonely and terrible existence? He could dig it out with tusks from the animal skulls, and he had the knife his uncle had given him …
“Tread lightly, Mouse.”
It was the voice of his uncle, deep in his mind, and it brought both comfort and sanity. It lifted the thick veil that seemed to have wrapped his mind and heart only seconds before.
He shook his head, trying to clear it further. The ice before him seemed to thrum with the power of the thing. If he were to let it out, what terrible things might be unleashed? His uncle said he must not forget what was here, that he must protect their people. It belonged here, shrouded in ice and shut away from the lives of Men.
Let Me Out
It was growing angry now, realizing its hold on him was weakening.
LET ME OUT
Its voice rose to a scream in his head, a sound that seemed to strike the ice like a mallet.
Jimmy ran then, unable to control himself. He blundered into one of the large skulls outside of the chamber and opened a gash on his forehead. Disoriented, he started down a side tunnel, into the darkness. The screaming continued inside his head, followed by laughter that seemed to promise an eternity of misery, a suffering beyond anything he could imagine.
Feeling hopelessly lost now, he collapsed on the stone floor and wept, knowing he would never see his mother or father again. The young boy prayed for death, prayed for anything that might bring silence.
Something pricked the back of his right hand, and the sharp pain made him look up, sure the thing had found him.
A raven, as white as the first snow of winter, regarded him quizzically. It hopped up, then pecked at his hand again, more gently this time. He could still hear the screaming of the thing in the chamber, but it seemed distant now, a wind that rocks the eaves of the house, but cannot enter.
The raven hopped away from him, and he could see now that the tips of its feathers and beak were a burnished gold. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It moved away from him, slightly luminous in the dark side tunnel.
Jimmy followed it, and it led him quickly past the skull sentries and to the tunnel leading up to the cave entrance. The screaming of the thing in the chamber was little more than a whisper now, and he shut it out of his head with thoughts of his mother’s smile and his father carrying him on his broad shoulders through town.
&nb
sp; When he reached the entrance, he looked for the raven, but it had disappeared. He stepped out into the sunlight, and its warmth was like a welcome caress.
His uncle hugged him, then dressed the wound on his forehead before they made the hike back to the truck.
He wondered if his uncle would have come after him, if the raven had not. Then he wondered if his uncle had sent the raven, if indeed he had been the raven. He had many questions, but they could wait.
“Tell me about the thing in the cave,” Jimmy Kalmaku said.
As they drove back to the village of Yanut, his uncle told him about The Faceless One.