by Paton, Chris
“Tulugaq, my husband,” said the woman that had so tugged at Nissimaaq’s feelings. “You have nothing to be ashamed of,” she drew close to her husband. The little girl in the shaman’s arms placed both hands on his cheeks. The woman turned to the hunter. “My name is Arnannguaq,” she said. “I ask that you help us find my cousin and my nephews. Help us discover them, recover them, love them again, once more before they are gone.”
The hunter nodded and squeezed once more Aaviak’s hand. Releasing her he stood. As the Greenlanders made space he stooped beneath the low roof and moved to grasp the shaman with a firm hand upon each shoulder.
“Shaman,” he said with a gentle voice. “I fear too my powers are weaker than you imagine. In this matter we are both at a loss.” The Greenlanders sighed as Aaviak sobbed quietly once more. The hunter turned his head quickly. Releasing the shaman he smiled broadly and, with a twitch of his mouth, he filled the room with such a delightful light from above that it was as if the Northern Lights danced within the very turf hut within which they gathered. “Cheer, my friends and be cheered,” he said. “For where the shaman and I may fail, others may prevail.”
As the Greenlanders looked upon him the hunter smoothed his sealskin smock, brushing the silver bells offhandedly as he turned to leave the room. Hearing a quiet giggle behind him Nissimaaq looked once more upon the little girl. “Paní?” he said with a glance at Arnannguaq. Arnannguaq nodded.
“Paní or Panínguak,” she said.
“May I?” The hunter reached out both arms. Before her parents could answer Panínguak leaped into the hunter’s arms. She giggled again as her feet caught the bells in the hunter’s smock. “You are a curious little girl,” said Nissimaaq. Panínguak smiled broadly. Nissimaaq returned the girl to the shaman’s arms. Moving to Aaviak and Iikkila he crouched before them. “I will find your children, and your brother,” he said. “I know the beings and the ways of them in these parts. Do not expect to see me again,” he said, “not before the eve of winter. But look for the children and the young hunter upon the ice two moons from today. They will be weary, and they will need your help.”
The hunter smiled broadly and walked out into the polar night.
҉
Even before the polar night had begun Mikissok was out foraging beneath the darkening polar sky. He was running out of kindling and he needed to check his fox and hare traps. The fox traps were empty and the bait was gone. Mikissok frowned and glanced quickly at the raven hovering nearby.
“Was this you?” Mikissok scowled. The raven croaked and flew on. “Humph,” said Mikissok. “I’ll never know I guess.”
The hare trap was more successful. Lying broken beneath a great weight of medium-sized rocks was a brilliant white snow hare. The dark blood circling its nose was frozen. Mikissok retrieved the hare from beneath the rocks and reset the trap. For bait he sprinkled the ground with frozen black berries gathered before the snows.
Kindling was proving to be difficult to find and Mikissok was worried that he might have to venture further afield.
“I needs it,” he said to himself. “Humph.”
As the dwarf made his way back down to the qaarusuk the raven joined him. She landed and then waddled by his side. Mikissok had a few berries spare and he threw several onto the ground. Cupping the last berries to his mouth, he swallowed them. The raven pecked greedily at the berries. As they ate the snow around them changed colour. A strong red light from above turned their world pink. Both the raven and the dwarf stopped in wonder. In the distance they saw a large sledge coming their way. Mikissok shrank to his knees and watched as the raven flew into the distance.
“Wish I could fly,” he whispered. “It would save my poor knees.”
The sledge grated towards him and Mikissok began to wonder as to how well he was hidden. The sledge ground to a halt on the snow before the beginnings of the steep terrain within which Mikissok hoped he was hidden. The dwarf watched as the hunter stepped off the sledge, stretched his legs and walked purposefully towards where Mikissok was hidden. The hunter’s dogs lay flat on the snow.
Not a stone’s throw in front of the dwarf, the hunter stopped. He drew back his hood and revealed a pleasant face. The hunter carried no weapons that Mikissok could see. The hunter stared directly at the dwarf. Mikissok resisted his gaze as best he could. The hunter did not move. He smiled. Mikissok rolled his eyes. He waited a moment more and then shook off his useless disguise.
“All right,” he spoke gruffly, “who are you?”
“I am a friend,” replied the hunter. “You know my name, dwarf.”
“Humph,” said Mikissok. “You’re not just a hunter. I know that much.” The hunter smiled. “Bugger,” said the dwarf. “You’re that Nissimaaq fellow. Aren’t you?”
“The same,” replied the hunter.
“I owe you nothing, Nissimaaq,” Mikissok briefly clenched his fists hidden within his deep cuffs. “My kind and your kind,” Mikissok paused. “Well, we have never bothered one another. Have we?”
“No,” replied the hunter. “But I bring news if you will hear it?”
“News?”
“Yes, from your kindred in the north.”
“Bah,” said the dwarf. “It has been many a winter since I last heard from them.”
“Are you not curious?”
Mikissok looked at the hunter and scowled. He chewed his lip for a moment before answering. “I might be a tad interested,” he said. “What do you know?”
“Your brother toils in the far north. He and I are friends of a fashion. He gave me this to give to you.” The hunter reached inside his smock and withdrew a small clay pot. “Will you take it?”
Mikissok held out his hands and caught the clay pot as the hunter threw it to him. It was roughly made with a crude series of runes scratched around the lip of the pot. Mikissok smiled. “There’s no lid,” he said.
“Here,” the hunter threw a second item up to the dwarf. Mikissok caught it and placed the lid onto the pot. It fit snugly. From inside his own skins Mikissok withdrew a long length of thin sealskin cord. He attached it around the pot, securing the lid. Mikissok hid the pot within his inner furs and returned his gaze to the hunter.
“How is he then? My brother?”
“He is well, although he has lost a hand to the cold. He spent too many days without a fire to warm him.” The hunter paused. “He ran out of kindling, you know?”
Mikissok grunted. “He’s not the only one.”
“I helped your brother then. Perhaps I can help you now?” The raven croaked. Flapping down to the hunter she waddled around him as if sizing him up.
“Perhaps,” said the dwarf. “But nothing’s for free in these parts, is it Nissimaaq?”
“No,” replied the hunter. “I do need your help.”
Mikissok shuffled. He glanced at the raven. She blinked and stopped her waddling. “Very well then,” Mikissok relented. “What do you want Nissimaaq?”
The hunter negotiated the rocks and boulders and stood closer to the dwarf, the raven following at his snowy heels. The hunter towered briefly above the dwarf before sitting upon a boulder before him. “You know of Amâgaiat?”
Mikissok nodded. “I saw her just the other day,” he said.
The hunter nodded. “I have been following her tracks this very day, although the wind does its very best to hide them.” Nissimaaq reached into his smock and withdrew three pieces of dried whale meat, tossing one piece to the raven he handed another to the dwarf. As they chewed the hunter related his tale from his visit to Nugatsiaq.
“A sad tale to be sure,” said the dwarf when the hunter was finished. “I saw that old troll when she passed me just yesterday. Her amauten was full and them as were inside were alive when they passed me, though I doubt it is that way now.” Mikissok looked longingly at the piece of whale meat the hunter seemed to have forgotten. Nissimaaq handed it to him with a smile.
“They are alive,” he said. “Amâgaiat won’t eat before s
he has collected enough for a feast.”
“Three humans is not enough for a feast?” wondered the dwarf.
“She has a terrible hunger,” said the hunter. “I have followed many tracks this past day and I can see she has yet to rest. Her path grows deeper in the snow with the movement of the moon.”
“Then they as is in the bottom of the amauten will be crushed,” said the dwarf.
“That is true.” The hunter shook his head sadly. “Some will perish and she will likely eat them first.”
Mikissok paused for a moment as he finished chewing. Swallowing, he regarded the hunter. “Nissimaaq?” The hunter nodded. “I am but a dwarf and you are a great hunter. How can I, a humble northern dwarf, how can I rescue the Greenlanders from Amâgaiat? For that is what you want is it not?”
Nissimaaq smiled once more. He leaned forwards. “Mikissok, you and your kin have hidden from Amâgaiat all these years, for as many winters as her kind have terrorised the people of Greenland. She has never seen you or your brethren; she knows not how you taste nor how you smell. You are invisible to her. That is how you can help.”
Mikissok was silent for a moment. He looked up at the hunter. “How do you know my name?”
“I know your brother?” replied the hunter.
“Has he truly lost one hand?”
Nissimaaq nodded.
“And you helped him?”
“He will never grow cold again.”
The dwarf rubbed his stubby fingers together. “I too wish to be warm. Will you do the same for me?”
“I will.”
“And if I find these Greenlanders and pull them out of the amauten. What will I do with them then?”
“You can give them to me and I will return them to the winter settlement.”
“And what is to prevent her from taking them again?” asked Mikissok.
“She will never take another Greenlander. Not one.” The hunter paused in the still arctic night. “For she will be dead, Mikissok.”
“Oh,” said the dwarf.
҉
The dwarf and the raven found the troll’s trail in the teeth of a fierce arctic wind. It was not without effort that they had discovered the oversize footprints and now the wind was doing everything it could to disguise the last portion of her packed-snow trail. Wind-blown the unlikely pair forged ahead, the raven sometimes blown backwards, the dwarf sometimes forced to stop and turn his back to the wind. His beardless face stung in the bitter bite and blast of the persistent polar air.
“Nissimaaq promised me a lifetime of warmth, you know?” Mikissok shouted at the raven. His words were all but swallowed by the wind. Teeth chattering, the dwarf turned once more into the wind and toiled along the trail, the raven following in the lee of the dwarf’s short, stubby body.
They found the entrance to Amâgaiat’s cave at the base of an overhanging cliff face, sheltered from the wind and hidden from all but the most persistent eyes. Mikissok burrowed into a snow drift opposite the troll cave and settled in to think. Now that he had found Amâgaiat he had no idea how he was going to rescue the Greenlanders let alone kill the troll. The raven remained outside the snow burrow and Mikissok was left alone with his thoughts. Crouched within the burrow Mikissok felt the clay pot pressing upon his stomach. He retrieved it and could just make out the dwarf runes written around the lip. Removing the sealskin lashings Mikissok found the first rune and read aloud, his soft spoken tones absorbed by the snow.
“Long may the winter last, for the fire within does not wither. The wrath of Asiaq has met her match, for the fire within will last all winter.” Mikissok traced the runes with a finger.
“Asiaq,” he mused, “The weather goddess. What are you trying to tell me brother?”
Asiaq lived a hard life out on the pack ice far from land. Should the ice not crack in the summer, it was the shaman’s job to seek her out and pacify her so that she would release the warm winds and break up the sea ice. The shaman would then have a difficult time of it trying to return to his camp. The hunters would be looking for him in their qajaqs and the women would be ready with the umiaq to collect him. It was a dangerous time to be out among the chaos of breaking plates of sea ice in the wind. The shaman could easily drown.
“And if the shaman could drown,” Mikissok thought aloud, “then so could she.” The dwarf shrank in the sudden silence of the snow burrow. “I cannot do this alone,” he said.
҉
The raven circled above, cawing and croaking. The dwarf trampled upon the snow below, calling and bellowing. The polar night thinned before the dwarf and he grew impatient. The raven flapped down to his side and cocked her head.
“Well?” shrugged the dwarf.
The raven croaked and took off into the emerging twilight. As Mikissok followed her flight his eyes lighted upon a sledge in the distance. The sledge was broad and running smartly. Nissimaaq, the hunter, bounced along behind the dogs. It was not long before he drew to a halt beside the dwarf and the raven settled upon the uprights.
“I have found the troll,” Mikissok explained, “but I need the help of a shaman if I am going to get rid of Amâgaiat.”
“I know a shaman,” the hunter said as he plucked beads of ice from his thin beard. “He will wish to redeem himself, even though he has no need to do so.” Nissimaaq paused, “What do you require of the shaman?”
The dwarf smiled. “He must bring forth the summer in the depths of winter!”
҉
The dwarf hurried back along the trail as the hunter’s sledge retreated into the distance. The polar day had begun and Mikissok had to bury his natural mistrust of the twilight and get on with the task at hand. Strangely, he was not worried or even fearful of Amâgaiat. If a dwarf was afraid of everything that might kill or eat him in the wild wastes of winter, then he would not last very long indeed. Short and stout was the nature of the dwarf and solitary but for his own company. Indeed, it was more intriguing for the dwarf to consider his new found companion than it was to fear the coming encounter with the troll. As if hurrying him along the raven now flew ahead, they must reach the amauten before the troll opened it up to feast.
As the unlikely pair neared the entrance to the troll cave another idea crept into the dwarf’s mind. He would steal into the cave and then steal the amauten.
“Best not to think about it,” the dwarf cautioned himself. “Just get it done and worry about it later.”
The dwarf and the raven paused before the cave entrance. Mikissok had been running for some time already and he would needs must keep running until he dropped. It had been a long time since the dwarf had run until all his strength was exhausted, and while he did not relish the thought of doing so again, he would do what he must to finish his task. That was the final ‘s’ in the dwarf’s character: short, stout, solitary and stubborn. Mikissok smiled once at the raven and then he plunged into the cave.
҉
Upon the pack ice northwest of Nugatsiaq, Tulugaq forced his way along the flat, frozen surface of the sea. Wary of polar bears, he carried a heavy ice staff with a harpoon head carved from the tooth of the narwhal for protection. Nissimaaq had explained his purpose and Tulugaq had readily accepted the challenge. To bring forth summer in the depths of winter was no small feat. The shaman’s failure to find the children of his wife’s aunt however, drove him onwards, further and further onto the great pack ice.
After half a day, Tulugaq had forced his brother-in-law to return to Nugatsiaq. The shaman did not want to put any more people at risk than necessary. His own fate would be decided by Asiaq. She was out here somewhere but Tulugaq knew not where. It was time to call upon the spirit of Amô.
Tulugaq stood on the ice, his ice staff he placed before him. Tulugaq removed his smock and laid it on the ice. Reaching into his skins he pulled forth a length of thin sealskin that he fashioned into a slipknot. Placing the knot over his hands he gripped the end between his teeth and tightened the loop. Already he could feel the pinch of the sealskin
cord. Tulugaq bent his knee and stepped through his knotted arms with his right leg. He did the same with his left leg until his hands were tied behind his back. Tulugaq knelt on the skin before him and forced all the remaining heat out of his body. What sweat he had left beaded upon his skin and rolled down his body, trickled through his beard, pooled at his feet. The shaman’s eyes frosted over and he regarded the spirit world through diamond-lidded eyes. Amô he felt hovering behind him, not too close, nor too far away. The great spirit would protect the shaman while he searched for Asiaq in the spiritworld. Tulugaq rocked gently upon the skin and called out for the weather goddess as the wind whirled about him and he began to freeze.
A lithe creature swayed in the distance before him. Tulugaq tried hard to see through his ice-encrusted eyes. It was too tall to be a polar bear, too thin to be a hunter. As the creature drew nearer Tulugaq could see it was painfully thin around the ribs with oddly sagging breasts. The lower body was bulbous and the thighs were hidden by fat. The head was large and twisted with uneven eyes and a drooping mouth. The nose, however, was perfectly formed, as were the hands, but for the long claw-like nails protruding from each finger and thumb. Amô, the spirit guardian, shrank from the shaman’s consciousness as the creature halted before Tulugaq. She was no beauty and yet the wind whipped up a purity from within her. The creature’s ribs sang as flaps of skin parted to let the wind pass between them.
The creature knelt awkwardly by the shaman’s side and slit his bonds with a single claw. Tulugaq shivered and what little heat was gained in such movement thawed his eyes. He nodded his thanks to the creature and she helped him into his smock, her body singing all the while.
“We...well met, Asiaq,” Tulugaq greeted the creature between chattering teeth.
The creature nodded and Tulugaq noticed her long, dark hair that twisted in the wind. It was matted and dirty, as was her skin. Tulugaq indicated her hair with shaking hands and she nodded. With gentle teasing and a few more forceful tugs Tulugaq worked at the creature’s hair. He combed her hair with his fingers and they became warmer. He licked his thumb and cleaned the spots of dirt from the creature’s face. Tulugaq massaged the creature’s belly and found the fat moved beneath his touch. He pushed mounds of fat from her belly upwards and, in exposing her thighs he added flesh to her ribs. Tulugaq looked down at the creature’s feet, they were misshapen and clawed. He massaged her toes and found the claws to retreat. The toes straightened and her nails shone when he buffed them with the sleeve of his smock. The shaman sculpted the creature before him. Where once there was an overhanging stomach there were now firmly-shaped thighs and a woman’s soft mound between them. Asiaq’s ribs were wholesome again and, hesitantly, the shaman placed his palms upon her breasts until they were even and pleasant to touch and pleasing to the eye. The woman behind the creature shone forth and Tulugaq focused his attention on her face. With moist palms he cleaned her cheeks and forehead. Gently he plied her eyes into a more natural position. Her button nose he avoided as one could not improve upon something so perfect. Tulugaq took a step back and Asiaq smiled a misshapen smile at the shaman’s work. Tulugaq at once saw what he had forgotten and he leaned forwards and kissed the creature full upon her lips. As they drew slowly apart the woman before him smiled shyly and twirled naked upon the sea ice. Tulugaq was so embarrassed by her sudden dark, wild Inuit beauty that he stripped off his smock, caught the woman around her waist and helped her into his sealskins.
