Secrets Page 6

  “This is not Manatook,” said another man.

  “This is the angatkok!” insisted the giant. “There was no other.”

  One of the men reached down, grabbing Alaana’s ceremonial parka roughly by the front panel and yanked it apart. A few of the attached caribou ear amulets went flying. Alaana noticed her belt, which had been strung with a row of tiny flint knives and her ceremonial dagger, was gone. Sila’s amulet hung between Alaana’s breasts, with its paired owl and eagle feathers.

  The Yupikut hardly noticed the amulet.

  “Look, you fool. It’s a woman!” said one of the men. He snorted disdainfully at Garagos. For this insult the warrior was knocked to the floor of the ice house, brought down by the big man’s fist.

  “What do you want?” demanded Alaana, weakly. “Why are you—”

  Alaana’s answer was a split lip. Towering above her, Garagos struck down at an awkward angle but what he lacked in leverage he made up for with ferocity.

  The giant glowered at her. “I will speak slowly,” he said, “because you are so backward and stupid. You are Manatook’s student? A girl?”

  “Manatook is dead,” spat Alaana.

  “So I’ve been told. We have also been told that he possessed great skill at the rolang.”

  “The rolang?” she asked, unsure of the giant’s usage. “The Corpse Who Dances?”

  Garagos made his meaning clear by lifting Alaana up and spinning her around. In that dizzying motion, the thing that lay on the pallet behind her was revealed.

  Alaana recoiled from a face that was a horror of sunken cheeks and blackened lips pulled back in death’s grimace. Bulging eyes lay scarcely concealed by lids grown thin and translucent. The corpse’s head arched sharply backward in its rictus, the corded neck stretched as tense as a loaded bowstring. The withered skin was a particular blend of sallow and pale, much like snow marked by the territorial piss of wolves. The scalp had released its hold on most of the hair, which had fallen in clumps along the block of ice which served as pallet.

  The figure lay completely naked on the snow ledge, a thin rime of ice crusting the brow and extremities. Alaana noticed there was no aura at all. The breath of life had blown out. How long? More than two days at least. The corpse didn’t stink much of decay, just a subtle whiff, but the man’s name and soul had already fled its mortal shell.

  “Can you do it?”

  Alaana didn’t answer, her mind working feverishly. If they were asking her to reanimate the corpse, most certainly she could not do it.

  “This is the brother of our headman, Verlag,” said Garagos. “He is dead two days. Can you do it?”

  “Have your own shaman work your sorcery,”she replied.

  As she had half expected, Garagos jumped at the bait. “We have none. He was killed in the same raid.” Again the giant motioned toward the corpse on its bed of ice. “Bring him back to us!”

  “I won’t,” said Alaana forcefully.

  A thick-bladed hunting knife appeared in Garagos’ fist.

  The giant’s hand was yanked backward, the attack stayed by a sharp rebuke from one of the other men. “Not here.”

  Garagos glanced at the corpse, and said, “Outside, then.”

  Two men hauled Alaana to her feet and shoved her through the low doorway of the ice house. They dragged her in front of a small fire and pushed her down to her knees.

  She had a brief moment to take in the layout of the Yupikut camp. The shelters were all hastily constructed tents of walrus skin and other hides strung along juts of rotten timber and long bones. A vast array of sleds and dogs were arranged at the far end of the camp in a straight line, ready for travel. Groups of men sat tending small fires on low stone platforms, but she saw few women and no children.

  More importantly, she noticed the camp was set into the mouth of a frozen fjord. The water had been stopped up by blocks of ice carried down by the current and frozen in place. On either side of the riverbed rose towering cliffs of crystalline ice. The Yupikut had hidden themselves well. Although the hue of the failing light told Alaana they must be within a few hours ride of the Anatatook camp, it was unlikely her friends or family would ever find this place.

  Garagos stood menacingly before Alaana. Now illuminated by the smoldering open flame, his face took on a demonic cast. He reached one gigantic hand forward and grabbed her right ear, pinching it painfully between his fingers. The other two men knelt behind her, pressing her down.

  Though captive and at the mercy of the ruthless Yupikut, Alaana believed she must still hold onto some small shred of hope. The fact that they thought her a powerful shaman might be played against them. She considered threatening to bring down some magical destruction on their band if they didn’t release her immediately, but thought better of it. The ice-like sparkle in the giant’s eyes seemed to say that such a plan would meet with a spear-haft thrust through the ribs without delay. No, she must be careful.

  “Again,” said Garagos, twisting the ear painfully. “Can you perform the rolang?”

  “You’ll get nothing from me,” she said.

  “Not so.” In a blink the knife flashed down and Alaana felt the painful pressure on her ear replaced by a sharp stinging pain.

  The scene swam before her eyes in a flush of bewilderment as the pain strove to convince her of what had just happened. Smiling broadly, Garagos held up the top half of her ear. A lone drop of blood dangled from the rim, then spattered into the snow. Garagos wagged the severed organ in Alaana’s face and then, laughing, tossed it onto the fire.

  Alaana smelled her flesh burning.

  A tremendous crack echoed down from one of the massive chunks of ice inside the fjord as it settled in place. The Yupikut, accustomed to such monumental forces, did not acknowledge the sound. To Alaana, it tolled the end of her life.

  All thoughts of bluffing her opponents fled with the departure of her ear. Since she could not possibly do what they asked, she resolved to go to her death defying them.

  The knife appeared directly in front of her face. Alaana had a good look at the handle, which was carved from the jawbone of a bear, as the flat of the thick metal blade was laid directly across her eyes. Garagos leaned down on the weapon with just enough pressure to crease the skin at the bridge of her nose, drawing blood.

  “I’ll carve your face away, piece by piece,” he growled.

  Alaana said nothing. She was already dead.

  “Hold!”

  The knife was lifted away and Alaana saw another man moving into the fire’s ominous glow. A scowling face bent close, a glittering pair of obsidian eyes carefully measuring her own. Three shiny earrings, golden hoops in various sizes, dangled from the left ear. Long strands of deep black hair hung down well past the shoulder, elaborately fanned out in greasy folds along the back of the man’s fur collar. Despite the cold, his bearskin cloak was open at the front to reveal a deep chest matted with thick black fur. This was Verlag.

  Garagos backed slowly away, making deference to his headman.

  “I don’t fear death,” said Alaana.

  “I see that,” replied Verlag. He paced in front of the fire for a moment, before turning back again to face the young woman.

  “Understand me. We will raze your village. Every man, woman and child will be killed. And from each one of them…” Verlag spat each word directly into her face. “From each one of them, I shall squeeze your name from their throats before I slit them open. They will curse you before they die.”

  Alaana withdrew from Verlag’s probing stare, before the headman could read the helplessness and horror on her face. She drew a deep breath of the chill air, letting the world fill her with its icy calm. She held that breath as if it were to be her last. Quite likely it would be.

  Alaana painted a mask of confidence across her face and said, “Your brother will lose his tongue. Such is the rolang. It can’t be avoided.”

  “So I’ve heard,” returned Verlag. He gestured toward the fire. “A tongue for a
n ear. It’s a fair bargain.”

  “She’s lying,” raged Garagos. “Look at her – she’s no shaman. The spirits won’t answer a woman, you know that.”

  “Either she can do it, or she can’t,” said Verlag. He straightened himself, placing his hands on his hips. “We’ll know soon enough.”

  “I’ll need owl’s blood and lancaster root,” said Alaana.

  “Owl’s blood?” chuckled Verlag. “Ha! We have the blood of the brown bear, freshly killed. There is no more powerful magic. You will use that.”

  “Drum and rattle,” continued Alaana, but Verlag cut her off with a wave of his hand.

  “Yes, yes,” said the headman, “All you need will be provided.”

  “What you ask is powerful magic,” said Alaana sharply. “It will take a full day to prepare.”

  Verlag turned away.

  “Don’t take too long. You sleep in the ice house tonight.”

  A brown-skinned young man, perhaps fifteen years old, was put in charge of bringing Alaana the various herbs she requested, apparently raiding the stores of the band’s former shaman for the supplies. The youth put pointed questions to Alaana, refusing to allow her anything which he considered irrelevant to the task at hand.

  He was extremely defensive, his movements nervous and quick. He wouldn’t answer questions about himself, saying only, “I know things, lots of things.” His knowledge of spiritual matters was obviously lacking, as he required detailed descriptions of every herb Alaana required. His left arm was useless and hung limply from the elbow. She thought he might have been handsome beneath the dirt and blackened bruises that lined his face, at least as far as she could tell in the silver moonlight reflected by the icy walls of the ice-house. She admired the hard line of his jaw and the fullness of his lips, both features that suggested a person of great inner strength.

  Alaana didn’t let her eyes linger long on his soul-light. One brief glimpse was enough. His inua was so blackened with misery and folded over upon itself as to be almost unrecognizable as a human soul. She had never seen someone so terribly abused.

  “Do you have the sight?” Alaana asked.

  “Never you mind,” he replied with a stiff lip, “You’re the prisoner, not me.” Alaana was not so sure about that.

  As the Yupikut would allow neither torch nor lamp within the ice house, it had already grown too dark to work. Alaana managed only to make a soothing poultice to staunch the bleeding where her ear had been cut away.

  The young man brought a warm meal of weak broth and bear meat. He took only one step inside, coming just close enough to deliver the bowl.

  Is he afraid of me? wondered Alaana.

  “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “I just bring the food.”

  She motioned to the bowl of salve she’d made. “Will you put some of this on my back?”

  He was loathe to meet her inquiring gaze and turned away, a move that brought him frightfully close to the thing on the pallet.

  The sight of it brought forth a clipped cry of pure terror. From just beyond the entrance of the illuviga, the night guard’s dry laughter echoed back.

  “Do not fear him,” said Alaana. “His spirit is already gone.”

  “And you?” he asked, throwing her a disdainful look.

  “You’ve nothing to fear from me,” she added. “I won’t lay a hand on you.”

  She shuddered with the cold as she lowered her tattered parka from her shoulders and turned away. The young man gasped as he caught sight of her ravaged back. She waited patiently, and after only a moment’s hesitation she felt the salve warm against her skin, soothing the raw cuts and scrapes. And she let out a sigh of relief.

  “Will you tell me your name?” she asked softly.

  “There is food,” he said. “You should eat.”

  When she turned around, he’d gone. The soup was spiced in a way that was foreign and distasteful. It didn’t matter. Alaana was hungry enough to gulp down walrus leather.

  After eating, she lay on the rotten bearskin mat gazing up at the night sky through the open dome of the illuviga. She was in terrible trouble, having gained only a brief respite from the murderous attentions of Garagos. Worse yet, the fate of her entire village now also hung in the balance. She would willingly die for them. She would shed her own blood down to the last drop to save their lives, but that would not be enough to stop the Yupikut.

  The cruelty of the marauders was beyond her understanding. The best way of survival was cooperation. If they had simply asked her to help, she would have told them she couldn’t do it. Instead they chose to attack. What had their violence gained them? Still their goal would not be achieved. And what of Kanak? What of Maguan? It seemed so senseless.

  She had seen Old Manatook perform the rolang only once and with disastrous results. The old shaman had rigorously refused Alaana any instruction in that area, insisting first she learn the basic arts — calling the animals to the hunt, seeing to the people’s needs, tending wounds and bracing broken bones, and listening to the messages on the wind. She had proven less than adept at those simple tasks and Old Manatook was gone too soon, leaving her to fend for herself and her people in the face of a woefully incomplete training. If she let them down again now, it would be for the final time.

  The Northern lights danced in the night sky above. Their haunting glow, shifting, shimmering, flashes and swirls in changing shades of green and purple, lightened the young woman’s spirit. These were the souls of dead children playing across the sky with a walrus skull for a ball. She whistled softly, drawing the spirits nearer, the gentle crackling sound that accompanied the display like their feet crunching ice. She begged the celestial children for help, but it was not to be. They had no advice for her tonight. Their dance brought to mind only a little song, most often sung by children during their game of hiding and seeking.

  And yet, she considered this something worthwhile to think about. Hide and seek. Could that be the answer?

  The open roof of the ice-house left Alaana no protection from the full intensity of the biting cold which settled over the fjord at night, but that at least was not a problem. One of the first skills Old Manatook had taught her was the method of warming without fire, necessary for extended forays into the wild that any shaman might be required to make.

  Sitting cross-legged on the mat, she set about generating tumo, the mystic warmth. With a series of deep breaths she woke up a tiny fire within her chest, and grew it to the size and shape of a little ball. Alaana imagined tiny suns on the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet, and with each deep breath of air these small fires expanded along the lines of her blood flow. The balls of heat joined in the center, filling her whole body with intense warmth. Soon each breath became as an exhalation of fire.

  The soothing warmth pushed aside her fear and desperation. It was time to sleep. Perhaps in dreams some inspiration might come.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE CORPSE WHO DANCES

  Alaana spent the better part of the morning crafting a large box-shaped drum from scraps of birch bark hoop and a stretched sealskin cover. On its face she painted in red and black, in soot and berry juice paste, a suitably terrifying portrait of Erlaveersinioq the Disemboweler, the Skeleton Who Walks.

  The nameless youth who was in charge of the supplies carefully inspected the drum. Alaana studied his reaction carefully and came away convinced that he was sufficiently distracted by the painting of the grisly tarrak that he hadn’t noticed the second portrait she’d hidden within the lines of the picture. Perhaps she was being too clever, she thought, secreting the image of Tekkeitsertok beneath that of the ghoul. She hoped the benevolent caribou spirit would not be offended too much at keeping such rough company.

  He brought some more soup, a gray stew of old walrus meat and bitter roots. Alaana didn’t doubt it was the same fare reserved for the dogs. She’d drawn near to the end of her welcome. He was careful to say nothing to her and, with an angry flash of his
eyes, seemed put out at having to bring the food. He shoved it at her from the doorway, but Alaana suspected he was merely playing to the Yupikut guard’s expectations. From within the sleeve of his ragged dogskin parka he passed Alaana her ceremonial blade. She didn’t acknowledge the gift, but thanked him for the food.

  Garagos and Verlag made their appearance late in the day when their hunting party returned with the carcass of a large brown bear in tow. A cheer rose up throughout the camp, drawing Alaana to the entranceway of her prison. A great deal of attention was paid to a slim young warrior in particular, presumably the lucky hunter who had brought down the big game.

  The bear carcass was given an even greater amount of bizarre adulation. A pair of women dutifully skinned the entire animal except for the head and paws. Their faces covered with cloth, they were careful not to look upon the creature’s face directly. Then the beast, a naked horror of glistening red sinew, was carefully propped up in a birch bark bower, its chin resting comfortably between the forepaws. Glittering rings were placed on its great black claws and a pair of silver coins laid across its eyes.

  A tremendous feast began. Greeting the carcass with a kiss on the snout, the men took turns addressing the bear in reverent tones and paying respect to the grinning bear-slayer who sat to the right of his trophy. The grim headman sat to the left. Verlag had mounted the bloody carcass of an ermine atop his head. Freshly killed, the creature was sliced open and inverted, its soft pelt resting against the headman’s scalp, the splayed ribs jutting upward, the grisly organs dangling. Crusted rivulets of dried blood traced their way down his hairy chest.

  The feast went on into the night with musicians playing, celebratory dancing and strong drink. Alaana hoped the revelry might allow her a chance at escape, but the guard at her doorway had been doubled. And having to miss the celebration had put them in a foul mood. They grumbled at each other in low tones, stamping the ends of their spears into the icepack outside the illuviga, eager for any excuse to kill the young Anatatook shaman and be done with it.