Beyond the Sea of Ice

by neetha Napew

  Lonit cringed, certain that they were going to strike Karana dead for his action. They laughed instead and pushed the boy as though he had pleased them. The man he had bitten sucked blood from his wound, loosed a snare line from his belt with his free hand, and while two others held Karana, he looped the sinew cord and slipped it around the boy’s neck.

  “Shliank!” he exclaimed, and jerked the tether hard, pulling Karana close.

  Lonit did not have to speak his language to know that he had just announced to all that Karana was now his. For the first time, she noted that this man’s labrets were more elaborately carved and twice as long as those of his kinsmen. In his dark, shaggy bison skins, he was a grotesque but undeniably powerful man. Fanged like a beast, his face was so darkened by the swirling black patterns of his tattoos that, even in the light of the torches, she could see nothing but the pure, dangerous savagery of his features. When he commanded the others to move on, not a man among them hesitated, and when Karana strained against his lead, the man only jerked it harder. Strangling, the boy was forced to follow.

  Toward the light.

  It was an eye glaring at them from the side of a narrow, elongated mound that rose at the base of the foothills. And then, slowly, the eye opened. Men emerged from it.

  Fear crawled within Lonit’s belly as she balked and was prodded onward across broad stretches of snow free talus that would never hold the tracks of men. Karana walked ahead of her, choking as he fought against the pull of the tether. On and on they walked, up the side of the embankment, into the eye.

  Lonit cried out in terror. Behind her, for the first time since lana had been forced to endure rape for the sake of her child, Manaak’s woman made a sound. It was a soft, squirming, mewling exhalation that begged for mercy. For herself. For her baby. For Lonit and Karana.

  But there was to be no mercy for any of them. This was the destination toward which they had been driven. There would be no turning away from it now. Hard, unyielding hands gripped Lonit from behind, shoved her forward onto the mound, then upward toward the eye. She saw at last that it was only a gaping hole within the shoulder of the embankment. From deep within the earth, light shone, and a hideous, animalistic, fanged face grinned up at her as, against her will, she was lifted up by the back of her armpits and handed down, down, into the eye, to waiting hands.

  She nearly fainted as heat and stench and light enveloped her. Placed onto her feet upon moist and slippery ground, she was surrounded by leering, naked men with oiled bodies that were tat toed from their foreheads to their toes, including their genitals.

  Again she was handled, her garments invaded, her belly touched. She tried to break away but was mocked for her efforts, turned around and around, pressed against, then pushed forward, deeper into the eye, down along a stinking, slippery-floored corridor that ran deep and then laterally beneath the surface of the mound. It opened into another passage, with a short, nearly vertical stairway with a framework of bones, which led into a small, skin-lined room in which many spears were stacked, and out of which several torchlit tunnels branched.

  Disoriented, Lonit, for the first time, succumbed to despair. Behind her, lana was weeping. Karana was nowhere to be seen. As Manaak’s woman was forced into one tunnel and Ijonit was pushed ahead into another, her thoughts were like frightened birds flying into a storm. Karana was right. These men are of flesh, but also are ghosts. Not even a tracker as skilled as Torka will ever find us here.

  It was Aar who first picked up the scent of Man and ran in circles, snuffling, nose to ground, tail wagging madly while the female dog cocked her head with curiosity and watched him. When Torka found the first of the tracks nearby and recognized the bootprints of Lonit and Karana, he whooped with joy. The female dog cocked her head in the other direction and whimpered softly, thoroughly confused by the behavior of the males of her pack.

  “Torka will find his woman,” he vowed grimly. “And in stealth, with bludgeon and blade and spear hurler, this one man will make many men pay for what they have done.”

  They went ever eastward, toward the mountains until they reached the talus slopes and lost the trail where the snowpack ended. Aar picked up the scent and ran in several directions, returning at last, as darkness claimed the world, to where Torka sat alone, hoping to sight the night fire by which he might be guided. But there was no light except that of the cold, distant stars. From the east, he heard the not-too distant sounds of mammoth. A calf calling, a cow’s reply, and then the voice of another calf, older than the first, but high with adolescence and quivering with distress. The dogs heard the mammoths’ cries, and their heads went up as they whimpered softly, as though in sympathy.

  Torka was suddenly struck by the realization that, like the dogs, he understood the communications of the mammoths as clearly as though they had spoken to one another in his own language:

  “Mother! Where are you? I am afraid!”

  “Child. Be still. I will come for you.”

  “Mother. My sibling is in trouble. Come quickly!”

  “Children. Be calm. Do not be afraid. By light or dark, I will stand with you.”

  Torka listened. The mammoths’ sounds continued, then stopped. The cow had comforted her little ones. His thoughts astounded him. How could this be? Mammoths were prey. They possessed the spirits of beasts, not men. Mammoths could not love or grieve or worry. Or seek vengeance against those who had brought their loved ones to grief or destruction. Or could they?

  Suddenly bitterly cold, Torka looked at the dogs lying curled one against the other. The female had abandoned her pack to be with Aar. Why, if she did not love him? His own love for Lonit was like a stone within his throat, choking him with his need to find her and Karana and to avenge the deaths of Manaak and Naknaktup and his beloved grandfather.

  Memories of a huge, hate-maddened red eye crowded in on him. The Destroyer’s attack had come as he and Nap and Aiinak were trying to butcher the fallen cow. Had the Destroyer been her mate? Could the great mammoth have loved her? Could an animal think like a man? Love like a man? Hate like a man?

  No! Torka was certain that it could not be so. In time, he would kill the Destroyer and drink its blood in the name of his lost band, Egatsop, Kipu, and his infant daughter, who had not lived long enough to know any of life’s joys.

  His mouth was set. His eyes stared out across the dark and savage land. Now he had other prey to hunt—murderous, woman-stealing, slave-taking men. And for one man alone, they would be every bit as dangerous and as difficult to kill as any mammoth. Lonit screamed, hut her voice was absorbed by the suffocating, airless confines of the tiny room in which she lay. It was one of several cubicles that were located at the end of the Ghost House’s innumerable warren like underground passageways. Like the tunnels, its walls and conical roof were braced with rib bones and mammoth tusks, then chinked with the same thick mud of human feces mixed with grass and refuse that covered the floors. The entire room oozed and stank and emanated heat like a festering wound.

  Lonit screamed again and gasped for air.

  Several tattooed women sat around her as she labored to give birth. They had placed her upon a bed composed of several thicknesses of mildewed furs lain across a mattress of moldy grass and lichen. Beneath the bed, a frame of mammoth ribs kept the mattress from spilling over onto the warm, fetid slime of the floor. In the dull, flickering glow given off by two oil lamps that burned on stands of caribou skulls propped onto bone posts, the women’s faces were a blur of oily, darkened sameness until one of them folded into a smile of empathy and understanding. She rose to see to Lonit’s plea.

  Naked except for a loincloth of feathers, the woman was nearly as tall as Lonit. She reached the apex of the room’s ceiling with no difficulty and removed a large sod from its center. The warm, stinking air rushed up and out, forming vapors as cold air entered.

  Lonit drank it in. It was sweet, it was clean; it was from the world above, where Torka lived and looked for her and, by now, must h
ave given up all hope of ever finding her. It took all of her effort to keep herself from calling his name. One of the women snapped a rebuke at the woman who had opened the air vent. The tall woman closed it, and the other women mumbled in appreciation. Lonit nearly retched as the stench of the room closed in on her again. The tall woman, seeing her discomfort, reopened the vent. The other women spoke to her sharply, in what sounded like several different dialects, but the tall woman merely glared at them, her tattooed hands resting on wide, tattooed hips. The others rose, one of them yelling a sentence that ended sharply with the word gu/ap. The tall woman responded with an even sharper sentence that ended with the same word. The others rose as one in a communal huff and left the cubicle by way of a low, hide-covered exit that was little more than a hole in the wall. The tall woman sighed, shook her head, and came to sit with Lonit.

  “Gulap will come anyway,” she said.

  Lonit was startled to hear her own language spoken.

  The tall woman smiled at her obvious recognition of their shared tongue. “You and Aliga, we talk same talk. Must come from same part of the world. Far away. To the west, yes?”

  “Yes!”

  Aliga’s smile thinned into wistfulness. “Times were good there. A long time back. It is best we forget. This place stinks like a corpse in summer, but it is good to know that in spite of all this stink, we are alive.”

  At that moment another contraction took control of Lonit’s senses—a pain so intense, so absolute, that for a moment nothing existed except the pain. A tide of excruciating pressure bore her down, down until .. . slowly ... it began to ease.

  Aliga lay a questing palm across her abdomen. “Your baby will come soon now.”

  “Where is lana? I would have her with me now.”

  “Your friend, she is with the men. She is new, so they will use her for a long time. Be glad you are here. After the baby comes, I will give you a drink if you want, to make bleeding last long time. No man will touch you while you bleed.”

  “What have they done with Tana’s baby?”

  “Strong boy, that baby! Many women here will be proud to suckle him. When he is bigger, Ghost Men will take him to the great gathering of mammoth hunters not far from here. Ghost Men will trade him for many good things, and for more women.”

  Lonit stared, afraid to ask the next question. “And Karana . will they trade him, too?”

  “Little one with limp? No, he is pretty like a girl. Ghost Men will use him like a woman. In some bands, such boys are valuable to hunters on long treks without their women.” She saw the expression of incomprehension upon Lonit’s face. “On long treks, boys do not bleed, boys do not get babies in belly. More valuable than women to some.” She sighed, with infinite sadness. “Your friend is lucky to have a boy baby. This woman hopes you have the same. Then Ghost Men will let your baby live ... if Gulap says the omens are good.”

  “Gulap?”

  “She is oldest sister of headman, the mother of his favorite sons. She is very old now, and very smart. Very clever to live so long in a band such as this.” Aliga grew suddenly quiet. Women’s voices could be heard approaching the blood room. Aliga put a warning hand on Lonit’s wrist. “Be brave, be strong, Woman Of The West, and say nothing to anger Gulap. The headman has said that you will belong to him when your bearing blood has ceased to flow. He has said that he will tattoo you himself. This is a great honor but has made Gulap very angry at you. Never again will her brother look at her as he has looked at you.”

  “But this woman is ugly! Why should he want me?”

  Aliga looked at Lonit as though she could not believe what she was hearing. “You have the eyes of the running doe. It is considered a mark of great beauty among many bands. It is as rare as the white lion, or the call of the loon whose back bears no stripes. The rare thing, the unusual thing, it is valued above all else. You are beautiful, Lonit, Woman Of The West. Can it be that no one has ever told you that?”

  “Only one. But it has been enough.... It has been everything....”

  All night long the mammoths cried sad sounds of mourning. Torka slept fitfully until dawn softly colored the tundra and an incredibly foul stench came to him on the back of the east wind. The dogs had smelled it, too. They had risen as one, turning toward the stink, and then away from it. They exhaled through their nostrils as though trying to cleanse them; then, suddenly restless, Aar began to circle and sniff again, whimpering to himself.

  Torka rose, recognizing the smell of Man in the wind. It was twice as foul with rotting refuse and offal as that of the ledge after Galeena had taken it over. It was undeniably the stench of an encampment. But although he scanned the horizon until his eyes teared and burned, he could see no signs of life at all ... until Aar turned, faced due north, and froze.

  Torka followed the eyes of the dog, and for a moment he too was unable to respond.

  A long column of people was advancing toward him—too many people to constitute the marauding band for which he had been searching. He could see females bent beneath heavy loads, and men carrying spears and snow prods. If there were small children, he could not see them. A small group of hunters was trotting toward him, calling out, their spear arms raised. He stood his ground, with his own spear at the ready and Aar growling at his side.

  The men were dressed in finely worked skins, and as they approached, they bore the scent of those who did not live in squalor. The leader of the group paused just out of spear range, his arm raised. Another, younger, man came forward to stand beside him. He wore garments stitched entirely of the white belly skin of winter-killed caribou. He also raised an arm, and as he did, the hawk talons that were strung from the bottom seam of his medicine bag jangled in the wind.

  Torka did not move until the first man threw down his spear as a sign of peaceful intent. The man in white did the same, although Torka sensed a certain reluctance in his gesture.

  “We seek the great gathering of mammoth hunters at the entrance to the Corridor of Storms.” The voice of the first man was as clear and devoid of threat as a cloudless sky.

  “We have heard the call of mammoths in the night. We would hunt!” The second man’s voice was as lean and sharp as a well-knapped projectile. “Where is your band, Man Who Walks With Dogs?”

  It was not the tone of the men’s words that struck Torka. It was their dialect. He knew it as well as he knew his own—it was Karana’s tongue. As he took note of the number of the strangers and the lack of children among them, he knew instinctively that these were Karana’s people.

  With no further concern for his own safety, he threw down his spear. “I am Torka! I seek the Ghost Band that has stolen my woman and Karana, son of Supnah! If you are that man, then join with me. This day we will hunt men, not mammoth!”

  Within the Ghost House, Karana feigned sleep. Stripped of his clothes, he lay very still, afraid that movement would draw his tormentors back to resume their unnatural mauling of him. He could hear them now, sloshing urine over themselves in the adjoining sweat room. He had pretended not to understand them, even though his natural gift for unraveling the various threads that composed the markedly different tongue had served him well. Now that they had sated themselves upon him—and upon one another—they spoke of pursuing other prey.

  The sound of the mammoths had excited them almost as much as their manhandling of Karana. It was evident from the way the beasts were calling that one or more of them was mired. The others were staying close, trying to help or to offer comfort.

  The marauders spoke of how the headman had already led a large party of scouts from the Ghost House to determine the whereabouts of the mammoths and of the pleasure they would all soon take when the killing of the beasts began.

  Karana listened, hating them, hating the way they had bruised him deep inside his body where no man had the right to bruise another, let alone a half-grown boy. Their voices rose and fell. Karana’s hatred rose and congealed into an unswervable resolve.

  Go. And while yo
u hunt, I will take up my clothes and escape, upward like smoke through the vent of this room before anyone can catch me. I will find Torka and lead him here. Together we will see if Ghost Men bleed as easily as the men and women whom they kill for pleasure.

  The premise was invigorating, but it suddenly occurred to him that he had no idea what they had done with his clothes.

  His eyes strayed along the contours of the bone ladder that ed upward to the vent of the room. A cold and hostile world ay there, through the sod hatch. If he moved quickly, he could make his break for freedom now. Not one of the robust, well-fed Ghost Men could follow through the vent, but Karana was small and agile enough to wriggle through it if he tried.

  He trembled at the challenge, then at the realization that he had no hope of survival without his clothes—unless he found Torka immediately. And what were the chances of that? What if he had been mistaken about his sighting? What if the shadows that he had seen moving upon the tundra had only been tricks of the wind and the starlight?

  From off along one of the stinking, labyrinthine tunnels of the Ghost House, Karana heard Lonit cry out. He felt her pain and knew her fear. He closed his eyes tightly, commanding the spirit of courage to grow within him. Lonit was Torka’s woman. To Torka, he owed his life. Within the Ghost House, Karana, Lonit, lana, and little Ninipik were already dead to the world above.

  Perhaps a naked boy might survive, he thought as, slowly, he rose from the foul mattress of furs and lichens.