The Shadow of Everything Existing

by Ken Altabef

  Alaana nodded toward the graves.

  Of the seven spiritual planes, five were arranged in a stack, each set one atop the other. At the lowest level lay the Underworld, home to demons and other twisted, malicious spirits. Above that was the Lowerworld, a vast cavern beneath the surface of the physical world, wherein existed a forest that served as home to many animal spirits and their guardians. The middle plane was the physical world itself, where Alaana sat now before the grave of her daughter. Next above was the Upperworld, a realm of winds and flying spirits and the Morning Dawn. Crowning them all was the Celestial plane, home to the Moon and stars.

  Two more spiritual worlds existed parallel to the other five, connected to them at every point. The dreamlands were often visited by ordinary people when their spirits wandered from their bodies in sleep. The shadow lands were also closely linked to the physical plane, intersecting wherever light cast dark shadow on a lost or lonely spirit. It was a place only very rarely visited by men in their utmost extremes, and never by those who held the shaman’s light.

  “Travel to the shadowlands is easy,” Alaana said. “All it takes is just one step to the side. One miserable, hopeless step.”

  She thought of Tama, her youngest daughter who had been stolen from her by the Whale-man. She thought of her dear husband who had been lured into a deadly game of the spirits by Vithrok. The sorcerer’s plan to use Ben and the shadows to destroy the Anatatook had failed, but Ben had suffered horribly and suffered still. He was plagued by voices from the other side, the hideous laments of the shadows as they suffered in darkness. His tender embrace had grown cautious, his bright, carefree smile always restrained. For ten years he had borne that curse, with no relief in sight. And all of it her fault. She did not need to strain to embrace despair; it fell heavily about her shoulders, smothering her like a shroud.

  She took a small step to the side.

  The shadow world was a place of eternal darkness, where the shades of living things dwelled in bitter cold and hunger. It existed only during daylight when the sun cast its shadows across the physical world.

  The shaman’s soul appeared in the shadow world as a figure of bright white light, sitting cross-legged on the inky ground. Tiki hopped off its master’s lap. The tupilaq’s hodge-podge soul was made up of spirit-fragments that remained clinging to its ragged animal skins and bones. They glowed faintly in the shadowlands.

  All was gloom in this world, but in the absence of light Alaana’s spirit glowed white hot, illuminating her immediate surroundings well enough. The ground beneath her feet felt gauzy and insubstantial, composed of wafting smoke. The ocean rolled into the bay as a thick fog. The shore was busy with living shadows. The shades of men and women walked the beach, but there was little for them to do but stalk the darkness.

  For the most part the shadows mirrored the migrations of their human counterparts. Where the living went the shadow must follow. So the shadow men assembled on the beach. They tinkered with their kayaks in a half-hearted way. The boats were made of smoke, ragged and full of holes that could never be sewn shut. But since the boats needed only to support the weightless shadows atop a sea of black smoke it didn’t much matter. The shadows took no joy in hunting caribou. The shades of animals were nearly useless as food, their meat so insubstantial it could never relieve the constant hunger.

  Alaana’s spectacular appearance did not go unnoticed. The shades glanced laconically at the shaman then looked away. No one acknowledged her presence. Alaana called out to the men, but received no answer. They continued their futile work amid the dark miasma of swirling gloom that was their birthright.

  “That’s strange,” Alaana said. “They’ve always been friendly to me on my visits before.”

  Tiki barked at the men from its seal’s mouth, but they didn’t respond to that either.

  “Leave them,” said the tupilaq, through the raven’s beak in its forehead.

  “Something’s different here,” said Alaana. “I can feel it.”

  “Despair and more despair,” said Tiki. “It seems all the same to me.”

  Alaana viewed the spirit-worlds through the purple tones of the spirit-vision, but the souls here had no lights of their own. She was almost blind as she picked her way among the smoky tents and flimsy structures of the shadow camp. The people stepped out of her way as she passed. She didn’t press them for a response.

  A lone figure came toward her through the darkness. Hunched over, moving slowly, Alaana recognized it as the shadow of Old Higilak. As the old woman neared, Alaana’s light illuminated her more clearly.

  When Higilak approached close enough she was temporarily rendered solid. The old woman gasped. She wasn’t used to feeling the ache of weary bones and grinding joints, the pains of a spine bent nearly double back upon itself. She could come no closer.

  “I’m hurting you?” asked Alaana.

  “You hurt us all,” she said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “They don’t want you here,” she said, with a gesture toward the others. “When you first came, your light was a revelation. We welcomed it. It made us feel alive. We had dreams of crossing over then, of living a real life in your world.”

  “That was only Vithrok tricking you,” said Alaana. “Leading you to your doom.”

  “We know. We know. And now we don’t want to be real any more. We don’t want to feel that pain again. We spit out your false hope. So they thank you to keep your distance.”

  “And you?”

  “I wanted to speak with you. I wanted to ask. I notice the Moon is gone.”

  “Murdered by Vithrok,” said Alaana. The more times she said it, she still couldn’t believe it.

  The old woman nodded her head, though even that slightest movement seemed to cause her intense pain.

  “How is it you notice the Moon, Old Mother?” asked Alaana. “At night you don’t exist.”

  “Not gone,” she said. “At night we suffer most of all. Sometimes we sense the Moon’s light at night. It only increases our suffering. But now it is gone and we don’t miss it. We don’t lament its passing. And it’s got some of us to thinking. Vithrok created us by bringing the light. I know all the old stories. I know it’s true. He brought the sun here and the shadow world was born. But you see, now he’s putting out the lights on the other side. The Moon, the great spirits, the shamans. And we think we know what he’s doing. He wants us to be at peace.”

  “You’re wrong,” Alaana said. “Vithrok is not doing anything to benefit the shadows. He would have killed you all without a thought.”

  “Then why?”

  Alaana sighed. “I don’t know.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you know, or what I know. When he puts out all the lights, the shadows will be gone. We who should never have existed in the first place. Our suffering will be over.”

  “All the lights?” asked Alaana, wondering if the old woman had finally been driven mad by torment.

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Higilak. “I welcome death. I pray for it. I’ve lived too long and don’t die. There’s a woman on the other side who shares my fate. I hear her sobs of pain through the link we share, but she is as helpless to do anything about it as I am. I’ve no one to beg except the Light-Bringer, though I know he does not hear me.”

  “Be careful who you pray to,” warned Alaana. “Maybe he used to be a hero, but he’s been proven false. He’s a monster now.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” repeated Higilak. “A monster can put us out of our misery just the same.”

  The old woman bowed politely and stepped back. “Aquppak is looking for you. You will find him in his tent.”

  Alaana watched the shade shuffle away, becoming less substantial with every step until at last she melded once again into the shadows.

  “Shadows and more shadows,” she said. “I can’t see hardly anything, even with my second sight. How are we going to find Aquppak’s tent?”

  Tiki sniffed greedily at the du
sky air. “There’s not enough to these shadows to even leave a scent.”

  Alaana didn’t relish the idea of stumbling around among, or through, the shadow tents. She felt unwelcome enough as it was. “Aquppak!” she called out over and over, but her shouts were lost in the general murmur of the shadow world. There was never quiet in this place, but a constant chorus of laments and wails of the suffering.

  “You’d think he would notice us,” remarked Tikiqaq. “You’re bright enough to sting the eyes.”

  “That’s true,” said a voice behind them, “but a welcome sight all the same.”

  It was Aquppak. “I’ve been waiting for you!” he said. “Alaana, I’ve found him!”

  Illuminated by the shaman’s light, the shadow of Aquppak was smiling. In that way he looked to Alaana like the young boy she had known in her youth, the boy who had been her truest friend when all others abandoned her. Unlike the Aquppak of the physical world, this man was a leader among his people, a man both noble and honest.

  More than ten years ago Ben’s shadow had been stolen from the Anatatook and hidden away. The sorcerer’s plan called for Ben’s soul to visit the shadow world. But whenever a person’s soul-light met their shadow, the two were both instantly destroyed. If they both occupied the same plane of existence even for a moment, they were inexorably drawn toward each other to their mutual destruction. In order to grant Ben’s soul access to the shadow world, Vithrok had kidnapped his shadow and hidden it away.

  History had unfolded differently in the shadow world. When a person became a shaman, in order that his soul-light, the angakua of the shaman, burn brightly, his shadow was extinguished. To the shadow world, Alaana had died as a twelve year old girl. They knew no more of her. And in this world Ben had married Agruta. The same three children whom Alaana considered her own in the physical world, were born to Ben and Agruta.

  Over the past ten years Aquppak had undertaken a long and desperate search for Ben’s shadow. He was as a blind man rooting around in darkness. The task seemed impossible.

  Made real in her light, Aquppak took Alaana by both hands and squeezed them gently.

  “I found a cave,” he said. “And I know he is there.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s guarded by the strangest creatures I ever saw. Two of them. Shaggy beasts that walk on two legs. They have hands and feet like a man but the teeth of a bear. They guard the entrance of the cave. They don’t belong to this world. Who could have made them except for Vithrok?”

  “He’s there?”

  “He’s there! I went inside.”

  “You fought those beasts?”

  “No. I snuck past them, that’s all. Inside the cave I found a circle of light. Light in the shadow world. Hmm? Vithrok again, no doubt.”

  “Did you see Ben?” Alaana was even more excited than Aquppak.

  “No, but he must be there. Think about it. His shadow didn’t come rushing to meet his soul, like the others. Why? Because it can’t move. Well, how do you cage a shadow?”

  “Light,” said Tikiqaq.

  Aquppak nodded. “Yes light. The light keeps him trapped. He must be there.”

  “I think you’re right,” said Alaana.

  “That’s why I need you,” said Aquppak. “If I step inside that circle of light I’ll be trapped just as surely as Ben. But you can go there. You can help me save him.”

  Alaana was excited. She considered the suffering of Ben’s shadow, like every other misfortune caused by Vithrok, to be her own fault. She would leap at any chance to save him. But also she was energized at finding at last some trail of Vithrok. Who knew where this could lead? It was exactly what she had hoped for.

  “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 5

  SHADOW TRAP

  “They’re called gorillas,” whispered Tikiqaq.

  “Go-rill-as,” repeated Alaana. “How do you know this?”

  “I saw similar drawings in one of Sir Gekko’s picture books.”

  “Ah,” said Alaana. The most potent characteristic of her little tupilaq was its insatiable curiosity. It was eager to talk to anyone who visited the Anatatook settlement, and was most interested in the strange ways of the kabloonas. Tiki engaged in deep and lengthy philosophical conversations with a Russian missionary on the subject of religious thought. The white men didn’t quite know what to make of the little seal carcass. They were amused by the tupilaq, thinking it some shaman’s trick, like a puppet or a pet, and that it spoke with Alaana’s voice in a hidden way. Alaana played into their expectations. She made sure Tiki was never alone when it spoke with the white visitors and sometimes she moved her mouth a little when it spoke.

  The Europeans said they enjoyed similar entertainments in their own lands where people paid to see them. The missionary believed Alaana used her puppet to speak about matters the shaman felt uncomfortable otherwise discussing. Alaana didn’t feel the need to correct them on these points, nor did she charge them a fee for Tikiqaq’s performance. Meanwhile, they provided many new ideas to feed her tupilaq’s curiosity.

  “And what do we do about these gorillas?” she asked.

  The cavern’s guardians were monstrous beasts indeed. The dark outlines of their faces resembled something much more human in aspect than bear. Their shaggy bodies were continually in motion, shadows among the shadows, as they paced restlessly across the front of the cave on their short, powerful legs. They had arms with a very long reach, and barrel chests that grunted each breath. Occasionally their eyes glinted, keenly intelligent, and so nearly human, with the desperate look of starving creatures. No more at peace than any other shadow, a series of chilling sounds issued from the gorillas, guttural grunts, bursts of unintelligible gibberish and deep, low snorts of ferocious anger.

  These miserable creatures were chained by shadow. Lengths of thick mist kept them near their guard post. The apes struggled against them as if the tethers itched maddeningly.

  “You won’t be able to sneak past them, Alaana,” said Aquppak. “You’re much too obvious. Already they sense your light. It’s agitating them.”

  The three rescuers were concealed behind a rocky cliff that extended out of the side of the cavern. Alaana’s light made the shadow rock substantial enough for her to hide behind.

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Tikiqaq.

  “Tiki--” said Alaana but it was already too late. The tupilaq was a fierce fighter who had never been completely successful at quelling its urge for killing, but it could not hope to stand up against those two looming monsters. Still, Tiki made a good show of it. It shuffled along the ground at a rapid pace, barking and squawking at the same time as it made straight toward its adversaries. Alaana had never seen a seal move so fast.

  The gorillas reacted with a maddened roar. As they scrambled toward the intruder Alaana noticed how Tiki led them away to the side, hissing with its seal mouth and snapping its raven’s beak to keep them totally preoccupied.

  “Now,” said Alaana, “While they’re looking away.”

  Aquppak hesitated. “He doesn’t stand any chance against them.”

  “Don’t worry about my little tupilaq,” said Alaana.

  Tiki circled around beneath the monstrosities. Moving so fast, it gave them no choice but to drop to hands and feet and chase around after it. Balancing on their knuckles, the monsters had no free hands with which to make a strike.

  Caught by one of the stomping feet, Tiki took a heavy blow to the flank. It rolled over and over, squawking wildly. Completely out of control, but very useful as a distraction. At the end of its roll, Tiki saw one of the beasts rearing up above, using both hands as fists to pound down at it. The little tupilaq had no time to react. The strike caught Tiki in the middle with a thunderous crunch. The pain was tremendous. It knew that if it died in this world its physical body would suffer the same fate as it sat upon its master’s lap in the karigi. Tiki had very little life energy to begin with, having been animated only by a tiny drop of the sham
an’s own soul.

  Tiki rolled over, avoiding the next blow. The two monsters came charging to finish it off. One bumbled against the other, both took offense and the second took a swipe at its partner with a hairy fist. The two battled each other for a moment, tangling up their shadowy restraints before their attention came back to focus on Tiki.

  Tiki turned itself over, moving much more slowly now, but still trying to flop further away from the cavern entrance. It could not see what had happened to Alaana, and hoped she was safe. It would have liked one final glimpse of its master. The monsters closed the gap. First one kicked it, then the other. Tiki felt its life ebbing away.

  It looked helplessly up at the two gorillas. Then its raven beak squawked, “Idiots!”

  Tiki laughed one last bloody chortle, very faintly, then faded away.

  “There it is!” said Aquppak.

  A pulsating cylinder of yellow light rose from the inky ground in the center of the cavern. It stretched the full height of the cave to the ceiling. There was no way to see what might lie within.

  “A cage of light,” said Aquppak. “Ben must be there.”

  Alaana had never seen one of the shadows, whose lives were entirely lost in suffering and dread, appear so excited. She did not necessarily share his exuberance. She thought she might have trusted the shadow Aquppak too much. This entire adventure could very well be a trap, a trap meant for her. A trap set by Vithrok.

  Still there was nothing else for it. She must not hesitate. If Ben’s shadow might be trapped in there, she must go after it.

  She returned Aquppak’s expectant gaze with a half-smile. Then she stepped into the light. She couldn’t see anything inside the yellow glow. As her own spirit-form was made of white light, her outline appeared soft and indistinct like an egg lost in a sea of yolk.

  “Ben?”

  She cast about for any sign of her lost husband, but found none.

  “I’m here. It’s Alaana!”

  No answer. He’s not here, she thought. He’s still lost. I’ll never find him. Ordinarily such doubts might foul the whole enterprise, as a shaman is held powerless in the face of such skepticism. But in the shadow world doubts were like water to the ocean.