Secrets

by Ken Altabef

  ALAANA’S WAY

  BOOK TWO:

  SECRETS

  ALSO BY KEN ALTABEF:

  ALAANA’S WAY

  Book One: The Calling

  Book Two: Secrets

  Book Three: Shadows

  Book Four: The Tundra Shall Burn!

  Book Five: The Shadow of Everything Existing

  FORTUNE’S FANTASY: 13 excursions into the unknown

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ken Altabef is a medical doctor who lives on Long Island. As a SFWA member, his stories frequently appear in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and have been published in Interzone, BuzzyMag, Abyss & Apex, Daily Science Fiction and others. His first short story collection “Fortune’s Fantasy” is also published by Cat’s Cradle press.

  Please visit the author’s website

  www.KenAltabef.com

  SECRETS

  Ken Altabef

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 Ken Altabef

  All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  ISBN: 1502975335

  ISBN-13: 978-1502975331

  CHARACTER LIST:

  Author’s note: One of the things readers comment about most regarding this series are the character names. Some readers appreciate that they are (mostly) authentic Inuit names. Other readers lament they have a hard time keeping track of the characters. In hopes of making it a bit easier, I’ve added this list.

  Author’s other helpful note: There is a glossary of Inuit terms at the end of the book.

  THE FAMILY:

  Kigiuna………..Alaana’s father

  Amauraq……..Alaana’s mother

  Maguan……….Alaana’s eldest brother

  Pilarqaq……….Maguan’s bride

  Itoriksak……….Alaana’s second brother

  Avalaaqiaq……Alaana’s sister, deceased

  Anaktuvik Kigiuna’s brother, Alaana’s uncle

  Makaartunghak….Alaana’s big dog

  Yipyip…………………Alaana’s little dog

  FRIENDS:

  Mikisork……..Alaana’s friend, a handsome boy,

  also called Miki

  Iggianguaq…Alaana’s friend, an overweight

  boy, also called Iggy

  Aquppak….Alaana’s friend, from poor family

  Ipalook………Maguan’s best friend

  Ivalu………….Ipalook’s wife

  THE ANATATOOK:

  Old Manatook… shaman with polar bear

  guardian

  Higilak ………Old Manatook’s wife, also

  the storyteller

  Kanak……..best hunter among Anatatook

  Tugtutsiak…..the headman, Miki’s father

  Aolajut……..Tugtutsiak’s wife, Miki’s mother

  Talliituk…….Tugtutsiak’s eldest son

  Putuguk…….Aquppak’s grandfather

  Tikiquatta….Aquppak’s aunt,

  also called Tiki

  SPIRITUAL CHARACTERS:

  Balikqi………….A polar bear shaman

  Orfik…………….young polar bear shaman

  Oktolik………….young polar bear shaman

  Sila………………..great wind spirit

  Tekkeitsertok…guardian spirit of caribou

  Tornarsssuk……guardian spirit of polar bears

  Tulukkugraq……great raven spirit

  Sedna…………….the Sea Mother

  Kktakaluk………Sedna’s mate, a sea scorpion

  PROLOGUE

  Alaana squeezed into the crowded tent. People moved aside so she might step up next to her teacher Old Manatook.

  Kanak lay on his sleeping platform, the furs pulled down midway across his lean, muscular belly. His naked chest bobbed up and down with the rapid breaths of poorly-controlled panic. Both arms were straight at his sides under the covers. He dared not move any part of his body except for his eyes which darted wildly about the tent, touching first upon one wife and then the other. Finally they came to rest upon Old Manatook, the shaman.

  Old Manatook, the tallest among the Anatatook people, leaned carefully over the sleeping platform. He was a study in white from the lush white mane atop his head to the curly white beard, faded caribou-skin parka and trousers of shaggy polar bear fur.

  “Do something!” Kanak hissed through stiffened lips.

  A study of Kanak’s face could tell many stories. His sharp-bridged nose had scented prey both in summer and winter, out on the tundra or the frozen sea; his deeply tanned skin spoke of the limitless patience of the hunter; and the thin mustache and dab of hair on the point of his chin, both streaked with the stately gray of middle-age, proclaimed his many years on the hunt. But now his eyes told the tale. Usually sharp and alert, they stood wide with panic. Alaana thought it terrible to see fear in Kanak’s eyes. He was famous for his ferocious heroism on the hunt, risking his life with steely calm and at an instant’s notice if one of the other men were in danger.

  Alaana wondered what could have brought Kanak so low. He was a vigorous man, perhaps the most successful hunter among them, a skilled tracker who always managed to find the trails of game animals and could go without sleep longer than anyone else. There was never any lack of food in his house and his lamps always burned with enough blubber to keep a wide flame. Kanak was so successful he had two wives, both kept busy scraping and tanning the many skins he brought home. Even now his tent smelled comfortably of hot soup and lamp smoke.

  “Are you certain it’s an adder?” asked Old Manatook.

  “Yes I’m certain!” snapped Kanak. His head shook slightly with his fury, and he grew startled at the movement. His eyes gaped wider, running slowly down the length of the sleeping fur that covered the lower half of his body. Calming himself he added, “I was half-awake when it crawled in.”

  “He has trouble falling sleep in daylight,” added his second wife Tassiussak.

  “Tssst!” said Kanak, urging her to quiet. “I saw it slip under the fur. I saw the tail end of it. I know an adder when I see one.”

  In her thirteen years of life, Alaana had never seen one. Snakes were rare in the arctic wastes. But in springtime anything was possible.

  Spring was the most wonderful season on the tundra, hectic days filled with activity and surprises, an end to winter’s gloom and oppressive silence. Wading birds built their nests and lay eggs, jaegers and gulls called to each other as they skimmed over the thawing ocean, the rumble of distant thunder marked a pack of walrus crossing the bay. A torrent of brilliant wildflowers struggled through the surface crust, waiting to burst into view.

  With the world so full of life again, anything could happen. If it were truly an adder, wakened from its winter sleep to find its way into Kanak’s tent, it brought the threat of painful death. The bite of an adder proved almost certainly fatal. In her studies of the healing arts, Alaana had learned what would happen. First a fire spreads through the affected limb, burning the skin black; then comes a painful spasm throughout the entire body; then the shallow ‘snake-breathing’ as the breath of life is stolen away. Such a thing couldn’t be allowed to happen to Kanak.

  “Ohhhhh, I can feel its tongue…” Kanak said.

  His first wife screamed.

  “Quiet,” said Old Manatook, “unless you are eager to be rid of your husband.”

  At such a frightful thought, she screamed again.

  “Someone, take her outside,” suggested Alaana.

  “No, I won’t go,” the wife argued, although she di
d allow herself to be pulled over to the entrance flap.

  “Then remain quiet,” said Old Manatook.

  “Should we pull down the blanket?” asked Iggianguaq, Kanak’s adopted son.

  This suggestion sent the whole household into an uproar. Kanak’s two natural sons were also in favor, both wives opposed.

  Old Manatook waved them all to silence. “Touch nothing. Leave the sheet where it is.”

  “Do something, Manatook!” insisted Kanak. “Can’t you do something? Are you the shaman or aren’t you? Can’t you vanish it away?”

  A faint snicker came from the shaman’s dry lips. “If everyone will stand quiet for a moment,” he said with a stern gaze that raked across the crowded family, “I will do what I can.”

  Alaana watched a change come over Old Manatook’s face as he invoked the spirit-vision, the method by which a shaman could see the life force within everything in the world. His expression betrayed very little. As stiff as his personality, the old man’s face was never truly evocative. Under the beard, his well-tanned features sagged a little like an empty bag as he fell into deep concentration.

  “A baby snake seeking warmth,” said Old Manatook softly, “A deadly gift of spring.”

  “We know all that already,” muttered Kanak.

  Old Manatook spoke in the secret language of the shamans, saying, “Iqitquuraq, qieiyunaqtuq, iqitquuraq.”

  Of all the people in the crowded room only Alaana understood his meaning. Speaking directly to its spirit, the shaman had called the snake ‘Little Finger’ and asked politely if it might be persuaded to go away.

  The snake was not as receptive to the shaman’s pleas as might have been desired. Old Manatook went on to point out that its presence put a good man in danger, that the man was harmless, and even should he move suddenly there was no reason to bite.

  “It does not want to go,” he said at last. “Apparently your thigh is a bit too comfortable Kanak, your blood nice and warm. Take note. It is young and easily frightened. Hold still.”

  “Is that your only advice?” asked Kanak, with eyes agog. “Hold still?”

  “It’s good advice,” muttered the shaman. He stood up. “I have something in my tent. A mixture of certain herbs and medicine. While I go to get it, Alaana will watch over you.”

  The shaman’s tall figure parted the tent flap, and all eyes fell upon Alaana. She was the newest shaman of the Anatatook people, having completed her initiation only the winter before. Both of the wives looked at her with something less than great expectation. Thirteen years old, perhaps they still saw the young girl they remembered playing recklessly among the sleds and who only recently said and did so many foolish things with the other children.

  The quiet in the tent became suddenly oppressive. No one had anything to say and certainly nobody was going to ask Alaana for help. Kanak lay silent, looking no longer the heroic hunter but more like a little boy, frightened and helpless under his sleeping blanket.

  Alaana kneeled before the palette. In the quiet of the tent she forced herself to enter the state of concentration required for the spirit-vision. Two deep steady breaths and the entire scene changed color, lighting up with the purple hues of her second sight. In this state she saw the inua, the inner spirit of everything laid bare. The soul-lights of the concerned relatives shouted at her in gold and orange. Kanak’s soul-light was a similarly brilliant fire which once again evoked the fabled hunter. No child now. The sleeping fur still held a fragment of the soul of the caribou it had once been part of, a gentle yellow light. The driftwood plank of the sleeping ledge also held a spirit, a remnant of a tree that had lived its life far away, had sheltered a beaver and a family of ground squirrels, and ultimately fallen to the hacksaws of the white men.

  The baby adder’s soul glowed with a stunning blue color, so fresh and new. Sensing Alaana’s gaze, the snake tensed uncertainly.

  Alaana spoke with the secret language of the shamans, a tongue that was understood by the souls of all things. She had an idea.

  “Brother snake,” she said. “Are you warm? Are you comfortable?”

  The snake didn’t answer. Alaana saw it coil under the blanket.

  “Brother snake, you must be tired from your long crawl. Why not rest a while? Settle down into sleep.”

  The snake’s inua dulled subtly at Alaana’s soothing words. “Sleep now,” she suggested. “Sleep, sleep.”

  Alaana broke trance.

  “Pull the sheet down. Slowly,” she said to Iggianguaq.

  “No don’t pull the sheet!” said both of the wives.

  “It’s safe,” said Alaana. “The snake is asleep.”

  Kanak cast the deciding vote. He nodded to Iggy. Everyone followed the edge of the fur with their eyes as it peeled slowly away. The baby adder was a thin black line against the pale of Kanak’s inner thigh.

  “There it is!” said several people at once.

  Kanak’s first wife, terrified at sight of the black ribbon cutting across her husband’s thigh said, “I can’t stand it. Oh, don’t move, Kanak!”

  “Iggy, use the scoop,” suggested Tassiussak.

  Iggy approached his father, holding a little snow shovel made from the shoulder blade of a caribou. He leaned forward, his hand shaking. Iggy was a heavy-set young man and his trembling fingers were thick with fat.

  “Don’t do it,” said Kanak. “What if you aren’t fast enough? I can feel its fangs sinking in just thinking about it.”

  Iggy stepped back, relieved of the burden of having his adopted father’s life in his shaking hands.

  “Get my knife,” Kanak said. Then, looking down at the snake, he added, “Oh what’s the use?” The irony of the situation was not lost on him. Of all the Anatatook there was only one hunter who had the sure hand to knock the snake off with no chance for it to bite, and that was Kanak himself. But there was no way he could reach down to get at the thing without waking it first.

  “Call for Aquppak,” he said.

  “Putuguk’s boy?” someone asked.

  “Go and get him,” hissed Kanak. “Yes, he can do it. He has the eye for it. I’ve seen him practice with the bow. Hurry up.”

  Iggy, going out to fetch the boy, crossed paths with Old Manatook coming back in. Old Manatook carried a delicate bone cup containing a thick brown syrup.

  “Drink this,” he said to Kanak. “It contains herbs to beat back the poison.” He held the cup over Kanak’s head but did not yet let him drink. In a loud voice he said again, “Drink this and you’ll be safe. The sting of the snake’s bite will not hurt you.”

  He locked eyes with the hunter, and Kanak nodded stiffly. His chin lifted slightly, and he allowed the shaman to pour the draught into his mouth.

  “Bitter,” he mumbled.

  “Drink all of it.” Old Manatook nodded soberly. “Now you’ll be safe, no matter what happens.”

  “Thank you, angatkok,” said Kanak. A miraculous change came over his face. The fear went instantly away, fled like a shadow that had never belonged there in the first place. His eyes narrowed again, the corners of his lips beginning to smile.

  He began to sit up, but Old Manatook pressed him down with one long forefinger. “Although the potion is sure to work, there is no need to suffer the bite.”

  Aquppak had arrived. He was a boy no older than Alaana, dressed in cast-off mukluks and a ragged dog skin parka. As his father was old and infirm and could no longer hunt, the boy was a common sight begging for food about the camp.

  “Let the boy try,” said Kanak. “Let him use the knife that fell from the sky.”

  Aquppak’s eyes gaped at the sight of the knife, recognizing it as one of Kanak’s most prized possessions. A knife cut from a piece of rock that fell from the sky, a rock unlike any they had ever seen. The knife edge had been honed to a keen blade of brown stone that glittered with shiny golden flecks.

  Aquppak stepped up to the palette without hesitation. He took a moment to test the weight of the knife in his han
d. The stone had a strange feel, heavier than he had imagined.

  The boy swung the meteor blade in a swift arc that grazed just above the skin of Kanak’s thigh, sending the little snake flying off the end of the bed.

  Kanak winced.

  “He’s stung!” cried Tassiussak from the doorway.

  “No, he was just nicked with the blade,” said Iggy.

  The crowd surged forward, intent on the little trickle of blood welling up against Kanak’s thigh.

  “He’ll be all right,” pronounced Old Manatook.

  “The leg feels warm,” said Kanak, a hint of worry having returned to his eye. “It burns!”

  “That’s the medicine at work,” said Old Manatook. “Have no doubt.”

  Kanak returned a tight nod. He swept the furs up over his naked body. He told Aquppak that he could keep the meteor blade as a gift. The boy reacted with an excited whoop of joy, and the rest of Kanak’s family joined in.

  “Let’s go,” Old Manatook said to Alaana, taking her by the shoulder.

  “Go? Now?”

  “He has no further need of us. The medicine will protect him in any case.”

  Outside the tent Alaana remarked that she should like to know the recipe of the snake medicine.

  Old Manatook snickered. “I didn’t have much time. It’s made of Lancaster root and whatever dirt I could scrape off the bottom of my boot, for taste.”

  “You lied,” whispered Alaana.

  “Hmmf. A lie in the service of good is not very much of a lie,” replied Old Manatook. “But what could I do? It was Kanak’s life.”

  “You told me a shaman must never lie,” said Alaana. Lies were poison on the shaman’s soul-light, easily visible to the spirits. And what spirit could be swayed by a shaman it could not trust?

  “Sun and Moon, girl, I did not lie,” said Old Manatook in an irritated tone. “I told him that if he drank the potion the snake’s bite would not be able to hurt him. Was it not so? Watch and see. We will not lose Kanak this day. Though he was bitten, he will walk among us as if nothing had happened. Because he believes, it will be so.”