Kids on Fire: A Free Excerpt From The 5-Star Touching the Mystery (Way of the Shaman)

In the frozen North, a land of deadly weather and unforgiving spirits, the shaman is all that stands in the way of disaster.

Ulruk, a twelve-year-old Inuit boy, is thrust into the uncertain and frightening realm of Inuit mysticism when Sila, an imposing Wind spirit, calls upon him to become a shaman among the Anatatook people. Ulruk discovers a kaleidoscopic world where everything is alive, where the tent skins whisper at night and even the soapstone cooking pot has a tale to tell.

His teacher is a man of many secrets who cannot let his true nature be known to anyone. He enlists the aid of Nunavik, a golden walrus spirit with an acerbic wit, and Weyahok, a naive but loyal lump of soapstone to help teach Ulruk.

Over the course of a series of adventures Ulruk discovers the spirit world’s many wonders and horrors. He faces vengeful ghosts, an insatiable fever demon, a wily rival shaman and, worst of all, self-doubt as he travels the dangerous path to becoming a shaman.

“The secret to flying,” his grandfather’s ghost tells him, “is simple. It is the same as the secret to everything else. You mustn’t be afraid.”

Ken Altabef’s short fiction has twice appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, most recently with the novelette The Lost Elephants of Kenyisha in the July 2010 issue. Touching the Mystery is the first of an epic 5-part fantasy series that takes a grand tour of Inuit mythology and sees Ulruk fulfilling a destiny that ultimately involves the fate of the entire world beyond the Arctic Circle.

This book will be enjoyed by both teens and adults, with the exotic setting and Inuit mythology offering something new for even the most jaded fantasy reader.

 

And here, for your reading pleasure, is our free excerpt:

CHAPTER 1

 

A DEMON AMONG US

 

The sight of his sister’s body lying so pale and motionless on the sleeping platform made Ulruk’s heart suddenly feel heavy as a stone.  His father stepped back, his expression frightful, and the stone twisted slowly in Ulruk’s chest.

Ulruk had never seen his father afraid.  Kigiuna was a strong man, a successful hunter and a good provider for the family.  Even during winter’s long unbroken darkness when helplessness settled over them all, when there was little to do but sleep and tell stories in the dim glow of the soapstone lamp awaiting spring’s dawn, he was never afraid.  Framed by shoulder-length hair, wavy and black, and the sparse, curly beard that hung from his chin, Kigiuna’s face was usually quick with a smile.  But now his voice sounded strangely high-pitched and his eyes were wild in their sockets.

“The snow has already melted,” whispered Amauraq, her voice wavering.  In contrast to her husband, Mother’s fears were well known to the entire family.  She feared that her children would not have enough to eat, and she feared that her husband might die out on the hunt, victim to a treacherous stretch of ice floe or the mauling attack of an enraged bull walrus or the inexorable pull of the ever-present, numbing cold.  She was afraid when the storms blew against their tents, and she was afraid when the blubber in the lamps ran low.

She stretched out a finger, indicating a little puddle pooling atop the ledge where the melt had trickled down from Avaalaaqiaq’s forehead.  Despite a thick layer of sleeping furs, a violent shiver wracked the child’s body as she lay asleep on the driftwood platform.

“Melted already?” asked Kigiuna.  He lay a hand along Avaalaaqiaq’s face.  “She’s burning from the inside.  Look at her skin.  It burns.”

Ulruk squeezed in for a closer look but his father’s words had not been meant for him.  He and his brothers were quickly shoved away, although not before Ulruk had a glimpse of the oozing blisters that riddled Avaa’s face.

“We need the shaman,” said Amauraq in a tone so heavy with desperation it broke Ulruk’s heart.

Kigiuna turned to Ulruk’s eldest brother.  “Maguan,” he said, “The house of the angatkok is not far.  Bring him quickly.”

“Ulruk, you go with him,” added Amauraq.

Relieved at finally having something to do Ulruk raced out the tent flap, close behind his first brother.

“Maguan!” he called out, but his brother did neither hesitate nor turn back.  Ulruk wanted to ask if Maguan thought Avaa was going to die, but was glad the opportunity passed.  To give voice to such a fear would surely bring an ill omen to the family.  The idea was too painful to even think about.  Not Avaalaaqiaq.  At thirteen, Avaa was only two winters older than Ulruk, and being so close in age the two were nearly inseparable.  They were forever running races along the beach and wrestling in the snow, and Avaa had promised to teach Ulruk to use the slingshot just as soon as Maguan had finished teaching her.

Ulruk was not swift enough to keep pace with his eldest brother, who was already a man.  It felt good to push himself.

Chasing the goal of Maguan’s fleeing backside left him less time to worry about Avaalaaqiaq.  Weaving a path through the Anatatook encampment, he darted between sod houses and tents of stretched caribou skin.  The chill of spring’s evening had hardened the day’s melt into an uneven surface that stabbed against the soles of his mukluks, threatening to turn an ankle at any careless step.

Of the three shamans who served the Anatatook, Civiliaq was closest at hand.  He sat perched atop a large rock at the bend of the river, giving himself a tattoo with a slender ivory needle and a pot of ash.  His clean-shaven face betrayed no pain as he dragged the needle, dipped in the black soot, under the skin of his forearm.  Thin streams of blood trickled from the many punctures he had already made.  Despite the cold Civiliaq always went bare-chested and barefoot.  He enjoyed showing off both his natural ability to generate heat and the impressive tattoos that covered his upper body and arms.

“Angatkok!  Angatkok!” shouted Maguan.

Civiliaq acted as if he could not hear them, taking up his clay pipe.  As he put the long stem to his mouth the bowl sparked to life and the shaman drew a short puff of thick black smoke.

“Does one hear some little bird calling one’s name?” he said as if to himself.

“Please,” shouted Maguan, “My little sister is sick.  I think she’s going to—” Maguan stopped short, but although he had not said it, his words confirmed Ulruk’s dread.  He too thought Avaa might die.  “She’s on fire!”

As Civiliaq stood up, the many charms strung about his neck tinkled to life.   He gazed down at the two worried boys.  “On fire?”

“Father said she’s burning up.  Snow placed on her forehead melts faster than in the pot.  Please come.”

Civiliaq took one last puff of the pipe.  He then wound it around his forehead just below the ornate black-feathered headpiece he wore.  The rigid stem somehow went around his head without breaking.  This was one of Civiliaq’s favorite tricks for impressing the children but Ulruk had no time for it now.

In his hand Civiliaq held one long black crow feather which he pointed toward Maguan.  “It is good you came to me,” he said.  “Was that your idea, boy?”

“My father’s,” replied Maguan.  He held back from adding that the choice seemed to be based on the fact that of the three shamans who served the Anatatook, Civiliaq had simply appeared to be the closest at hand.

“Ah, Kigiuna,” said Civiliaq nodding thoughtfully.  “Let’s go then.”  He gathered up his medicine bundle and the things he had been using for the tattoo, moving much too slowly for Ulruk’s liking.

“Hurry, please,” Ulruk whispered.

With his gangly, long-legged stride the shaman followed them back to their tent, stopping only for a moment at his house to pick up a small round drum.

 

***

“We’ve done nothing wrong,” said Kigiuna plaintively.

“Someone must have,” returned Civiliaq.  He bent over Avaalaaqiaq with an intent look upon his face.

Kigiuna flushed at the shaman’s rebuke.  But then his anger slowly dissolved into a look of sincere reflection as he pondered the awful question as to whether he might have broken one of the taboos after all.

Civiliaq gently stroked Avaa’s cheek, then pulled his fingers quickly away as if they had been burned by the blisters.  He cocked his head and sniffed, drawing attention to an odd smell in the tent, sickly sweet, much like the cloying scent of the red poppy.

The shaman shook out the contents of his medicine pouch, emptying a small clutter of objects onto the packed snow floor beside the sleeping platform.  The soapstone lamp had been turned out by Amauraq, Ulruk’s mother, as she thought to help cool Avaalaaqiaq.  Civiliaq reached for the lamp.  As he tapped the end of the wick it immediately sparked to life.  He sprinkled some dried herb into the simmering pool of seal oil and a mellow woody scent began to overwhelm the sickly odor in the tent.

Sitting cross-legged before the shelf, Civiliaq began to sing.  He beat a tiny drum in rhythm to his chant, gently at first, then more forcefully as the cryptic words of the song came faster and faster.  His eyes closed, his face set in deep concentration, his breath came quick and strident between the lyrics.  His slender neck and shoulders trembled wildly, setting the many necklaces and amulets to a jangling accompaniment of his healing song.

His eyes popped open, and Ulruk noted a deep look passing from the shaman to the unconscious girl on the slab.  This was the look, he knew, which shamans used to see into the spirit world.

Suddenly Civiliaq leapt straight up and began dancing about the little room, jumping and thrusting his legs out to the sides, knocking Mother’s cooking things from their places, and tumbling the lamp onto its side.  Whooping, he spun around three times and launched himself at Avaalaaqiaq.  With the tiny drum held tightly to the child’s forehead, the shaman pressed his lips against the drumhead.  He came up with a mouthful of black ichor.  He spewed the ghastly liquid at Kigiuna’s feet.

He also spat out a small stone, sending it rolling across the floor.  It came to rest close to where Ulruk was standing.

“The evil is drawn out,” announced Civiliaq.  “I can not yet say whether she will live.  There is still more to be done after we discover the cause of this malady.  But that is for later.”

Ulruk stared down at the little stone.  Where it was not splotched with the black ooze he saw a distinctive shade of brown lined with reddish streaks.  He remembered playing with that very stone the day before.  Furthermore, he had seen Civiliaq pick it up just as he was entering the tent.

“You took that from outside,” Ulruk said, pointing to the stone.

“Don’t be ridiculous, boy,” said Civiliaq with a congenial smile.  “Everyone saw me draw it from your sister’s body.”   He began to gather up the feathers and dried herbs that went into his medicine bag.

“Ulruk!” shouted his mother.

“But I saw him pick it up outside!  I saw him!”

Civiliaq whirled around.  This time his face was anything but congenial.  “Does a little bird question his shaman’s methods?”

“He certainly does not,” said Amauraq.  She grabbed for her son’s arm, but he twisted away.

Ulruk was caught in a terrifying situation.  He knew what he had seen, but everyone wanted him to be quiet.  And yet he didn’t want his sister to die because of the shaman’s faulty healing magic.  This was too important.  For the first time in his life he didn’t care if he angered his parents.

“You lie!” he said.  Then his father was coming toward him, the angriest look in the world on his face.  Ulruk cast a final glance at poor Avaa, still lying insensate on the ledge, before he darted out of the tent.  He ran through the snow until he could go no farther.  By the time his father had finished apologizing to the shaman, he was long gone.

 

***

 

Crouched among the ice and rocks at the river’s elbow, Ulruk fought back the tears.  Except for Ipalook, who was seated atop an upright umiak at the bend of the river keeping watch for the salmon run, there was no one else in sight.

The rocks in the stream glistened with a stunning mosaic of spring color.  Patches of moss speckled the gray surfaces with delicate circles of orange, green and black.  The water sparkled in the sunlight, a joyous dance of spring, as it sent frothy bubbles in eddies and whirls about the stones.  A pair of old-squaw ducks called softly from the opposite bank.  The running water answered with a soothing whisper, a muffled conversation which dangled just beyond his realm of perception, speaking of age-old mysteries trickling down from the north.  To Ulruk, the river was both fascinating and profoundly beautiful.

He thought also that his sister Avaalaaqiaq was beautiful.  Her face was perfectly round when she smiled, her teeth perfectly crooked when she grinned, and her laugh an irresistible tickle that ran up and down the spine of anyone who heard it.  And now she lay dying.

Ulruk leaned forward so that his tears would plop down into the eddy pool between the toes of his mukluks.  He didn’t want Avaalaaqiaq to cross into the distant land, to leave and never come back.  But there was nothing he could do about it, and attacking the shaman hadn’t helped.  Ulruk knew his father must be furious with him; he cast a nervous glance over his shoulder.  He wasn’t afraid of his father’s anger; he was more upset that he had caused Kigiuna pain and embarrassment.  He had never meant to do that.

“We all make mistakes,” said an unnaturally deep rumble of a voice.

Ulruk turned to see Old Manatook standing just behind him.  The fact that he had observed no one approaching when he had looked over his shoulder just a moment ago did not seem strange.  That was the way with Old Manatook.

From his imposing height, Old Manatook’s gaze washed sternly down upon Ulruk.  The old shaman had an impressive beard as perfectly white and curly as his luxurious hair, a broad sloping nose, and dark sympathetic eyes.  He wore a hoary old parka whose caribou hide had faded almost completely to white and a luxurious set of trousers made from polar bear fur.

“But then again,” said Old Manatook.  “No one likes a disrespectful child.”

“I don’t care,” spat Ulruk.

“Sun and Moon, this one’s going to be trouble,” the shaman said, turning his head.  He had a strange habit of talking to his left shoulder.

“I saw him pick up that stone,” said Ulruk.  “I only told what I saw.”

“You shouldn’t question things you don’t understand.”

“Then how am I to learn anything?” asked Ulruk.

“Trouble,” said Old Manatook to his left shoulder.  He turned back to the boy.  “In matters of faith,” he said, “skepticism will get you nowhere.  There’s good reason a shaman uses such a stone.”

“To fool people?” asked Ulruk desperately.

Old Manatook cast a self-righteous glance at his left shoulder.  His mouth gaped open, then closed again as if he had decided not to speak at it this time.  He returned his stern gaze upon Ulruk.  “Certainly not.”

“Then why?”

“It’s not something I can explain.”

“You could if you wanted to,” said Ulruk.

Old Manatook huffed.  “It’s not something for you to know.”

 

***

 

“Well, now,” said the storyteller, “What shall it be today?”

Higilak ran her withered hands down the front of her parka as she always did when about to begin a tale, smoothing the folds in the blue fox trim.  She was the oldest woman Ulruk had ever seen.  Her hair, absolutely white and a perfect match to that of her husband Old Manatook, was carefully arranged in a bun atop her head.  Her face was a gentle nest of wrinkles, permanently tanned over the years by the sharp arctic winds.

She ran an expectant gaze across the circle of children gathered in the close confines of her tent.  It was her job keeping watch over the young ones while the adults were busy with their important spirit-calling at the karigi.

Ulruk sat beside Mikisork, whose name meant The Little One.  The girl held his hand as she almost always did whenever they sat together.  Even though they were the same age, her hand was only about half the size of his own.  She truly was the little one.

Ulruk had no interest in the story, not with his sister lying so ill at home.  The comforting touch of Miki’s warm hand was the only thing keeping him from bolting out of the tent.

Higilak adjusted the two fussy infants balanced on her lap.  “The Beforetime?” she said, in response to Aquppak’s question.  “And why not?  It’s my favorite too.”

She smiled broadly, showing a tiny row of teeth, all worn down from a lifetime of chewing the skins.  With a deep expectant breath, she made sure all eyes were still fixed upon her, then began.

“In the time before time, all was beauty and light.  In the Beforetime, no one knew cold or hunger or darkness.  People and animals both lived on the world, but there was no difference between them.  They were free and interchangeable.  A person could become an animal, and an animal could become a human being.  Wolf, fox, owl, bear — it did not matter.  They were all the same.  They may have had different habits, but all spoke the same tongue, lived in the same kind of house, and lived and hunted in the same way.

“Life here on earth in the very earliest times, the Beforetime, was such that no one can understand it now.  That was the time when magic words were made.  A word spoken by chance would suddenly become powerful, and what people wanted to happen could happen, and nobody could explain how it was.  They could travel effortlessly in the sky, taking whatever form they wished.  Anyone could wander between the worlds.  For in those days heaven, earth and the underworld formed a whole.  Death was unknown; people lived in freedom from sickness and suffering.”

Higilak glanced at Ulruk, no doubt thinking of his sister’s plight at that moment.  She looked at a few of the other children who also had family members that had fallen prey to the same sickness.  In the past few days the fever had so spread among the Anatatook that there was not a family among them who did not see some person suffer.

“Today the unity is broken.  All things live separate from each other, their bonds severed, the connections shattered.  Now we have spirits and men, animals and human beings.  And such is the world that must be bargained with, by the few among us who can still walk between the worlds.  The shamans.”

“But how did it happen?” asked Aquppak.  “What caused the Great Scattering in the first place?”

“Ah, well, no one really knows,” said Higilak.  “It was during the Beforetime that one of the spirits rose up, the one which we now call The Thing That Was Cast Into The Outer Darkness, and caused some great trouble.  Another came up to battle it, and that one we call the Long-ago Shaman.  The battle was long and furious, surely one to rock the heavens themselves, and the end of it saw the Great Rift, the scattering, the Aviktuqaluk.”

One of the babes in her lap took to squealing.  Higilak bent to soothe the child and Ulruk found the opportunity he had been waiting for.  He took Mikisork by the hand and pulled her toward the back flap of the tent.  At first she resisted, but only a little, and he easily led her outside.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Going to the karigi,” he said.

“Ulruk, we shouldn’t!”

“Don’t you want to know what they’re doing in there?  I do.”

“I’m not going,” she said.

“We’re almost old enough,” Ulruk returned, “Besides, they’ll never even notice us.”  He released her hand and made for the karigi.   “Stay if you want.  I don’t need your help anyway.”

“My help?” she asked, but he was already too far ahead.  “Wait for me,” she hissed, running to keep up.

They approached the karigi, a gigantic tent erected in the center of camp for ceremonial purposes and community meetings.  Ulruk peered through one of the many small holes in the ragged tent skin that had been only roughly pulled together with sinew.  The feeble gleam of the lamplight was little improvement over evening’s murky dusk.  He could barely make out anyone’s face at all, and their voices were muffled by the sheet.

Ulruk shifted one of the round stones weighing down the bottom of the tent and stuck his head under the joint.  A moment later he was joined by Mikisork’s little head.  It was intensely warm inside with all the people packed closely together, and almost everyone was stripped bare to the waist.  Many of the women were crying, taking turns telling of their misfortune.  It seemed every family had someone who had fallen ill to the fever and the blisters on the face.  It looked as if his own mother might have just finished speaking, for she was weeping the loudest and a few of the others had stopped to offer her comfort.

Sitting before the people were the three shamans of the Anatatook.  Bare-chested Civiliaq sat tapping softly at a round flat-headed drum.  Next to him kneeled Old Manatook with his curly white beard, as grim and intense as ever.  Then came Kuanak —  sour-faced, dour, with a thin mustache and beard and one droopy eye looking sideways out of his creased face.  The hood of his parka sported bristly frills of gray wolf hair, and for this reason he was often called Wolf Head.  He clapped a small red rattle against the armored chest plate he wore to protect against the bad spirits.  His other arm, held raised to the heavens, shook with a palsy he had acquired during some previous encounter with a revengeful ghost.

Old Manatook and Kuanak began a soothing chant meant to quiet the sobbing women and the moaning men.  Civiliaq rattled a withered old sealskin in front of the people in order to blow away their troubles.  The rotten old leather made a peculiar crackling sound as he waved it about.

Ulruk felt awfully warm with his head tucked into the sweltering karigi, but didn’t dare pull away.  He had to see what would happen next.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” whispered Mikisork.  “What if we anger the spirits?”

“You sound like my mother.”

“Then maybe you should listen to your mother more often.  It’s dangerous to spy on the shamans.”

“You’re probably right,” he admitted, though his father would have argued the opposite and what he had seen at Avaa’s bedside still troubled him.  “But I don’t care.  I have to find out what they’re planning to do about Avaalaaqiaq.”

Civiliaq stood up and the three angatkuit broke off their chant.

“This trouble came here,” Civiliaq said solemnly.  “Someone has brought this trouble here.”

The people said nothing.  They looked warily about, exchanging suspicious glances.

“We must find the cause,” said Civiliaq.  In his hand he held a solitary black feather which he twirled three times in a tiny circle.  He pointed the feather at Kanak, one of the most successful hunters among the Anatatook.

“Is it you, Kanak?” Civiliaq asked.

Kanak, looking both surprised and offended, shook his head.  “It’s not me.”

The accusatory crow feather did not waver.  “Did you do something?”

Kanak’s eyes roved about the room though his head remained absolutely still.  “Nothing.”

“You did do something.  You did something and we will have it out!” insisted Civiliaq.  “Did you look at your brother’s wife?”

Kanak’s eyes sought out the ventilation hole at the top of the karigi.  His head moved from one side to the other as he made up his mind what to do.  “Yes,” he said unconvincingly.  “Yes, I did look at my brother’s wife.”

The black crow feather tapped Kanak atop his head.  “It is but a small offense,” Civiliaq said.  “A minor trespass, and now that it is come out, it is meaningless.”  His feather jutted out towards Kanak’s brother, whose name was Mequsaq.  “Is it not meaningless, Mequsaq?”

“It matters not,” said the brother.

“That is good.  And now we move on.”  Civiliaq sent the point of the black feather questing out around the great expanse of the tent, carefully examining the faces of the people who sat all in a tangled mass on the floor.  “The spirits are angry and this sickness is their sign.  What about you, Amauraq?  What did you do?”

Ulruk gasped.  Civiliaq had indicated his mother.  His face flushed; suddenly it felt difficult to breathe.  It was so hot in the tent, especially with the rest of his body still outside in the evening cool.

Amauraq put her hand to her face, covering her eyes.  “I may have scraped some skins while the caribou hunt was on.”

“I thought as much,” said Civiliaq.  “It’s no wonder these troubles have come.”  He addressed this comment to the roof of the karigi, and perhaps to the spirits beyond.  “When we have so many among us who are careless and stupid.”

“Enough,” cried Wolf Head.  “The spirits are angry, but we must give them what they need.  And what they need is the truth.”

Civiliaq turned to face him.

“You know as well as I what caused this,” said Kuanak.  There was no mistaking his angry tone.  He stood up.  “What brought the evil here?   Somebody did something.  We shamans did it.  A lapse of friendship, a rivalry, a jealousy.  Civiliaq and I distrusted each other.”

All fell silent in the wake of Kuanak’s confession, but Ulruk had begun to hear a buzzing in his ears which blurred the shaman’s words.  His head felt like it had somehow blown up to twice its normal size and weight.  He reached for Mikisork’s little hand where their bodies lay still outside the tent.

She pulled away.  “Ulruk,” she whispered.  “Your hand feels hot.”

“Distrust between shamans is an ugly thing, and certain to anger the spirits,” said Wolf Head.  “Civiliaq considered himself a superior shaman to me.  He challenged me.  Foolishly we took our quarrel onto the spiritual plane.  In one such contest, he blew himself up to the size of a mountain ridge, and dared me to push him aside if I were strong enough.  Of course the real mountain became offended.”

Wolf Head’s typically grave countenance was particularly evident as he detailed these disgraceful breaches.  His thorny eyebrows drooped further still; the corners of his mouth down-turned into a grimace of guilt.  “Another time we burrowed under the glacier to see who could get the farthest through, but the glacier took offense and tried to swallow us up.  We argued, and I left him there to die.”

“But I forced my way out anyway,” Civiliaq was quick to point out.

“Indeed,” Wolf Head barked at him.   “We were distracted from our duties, we should have been protecting the people, not bickering over who was perceived to be the greater.  The fault is our own.”

The villagers erupted into a wild clamor.  The noise filled Ulruk’s ears with a roar that set his head to pounding.  That was the last thing he heard before the entire scene faded to white.

 

 

CHAPTER 2

 

THE THREE SHAMANS

The familiar contours of his father’s face loomed above him, mist-shrouded and uncertain.  Ulruk could hear nothing but a wild rushing in his ears as if he was under water.  But water would feel blessedly cool and he was intolerably hot.  So weak and tired he could hardly move, he was lost, swimming in a doughy heat that smelled of the slop as would feed the dogs.

He tried to call out to Kigiuna but his tongue stuck in his mouth.  He wanted to say he was sorry for all the wrong he had done.  He had questioned the shaman.  He had embarrassed his father.  He had violated the karigi.  He’d been so worried after his sister’s life, he had ruined everything.

With eyelids half crusted shut, he could not raise his hand to clean them.  Ulruk tried to make out the expression on his father’s face, but it wasn’t his father’s face anymore.  The features dissolved away but the stern expression remained, now filtered through the bristly beard and eyebrows, the long sloping nose of Old Manatook.

Could he help?  Would the old shaman be willing to help?  The shaman hadn’t done much good for his poor sister, but that had been Civiliaq.  Old Manatook had always seemed bigger and stronger than his brash younger counterpart.  Still, Ulruk didn’t want to see Old Manatook’s pale face looking disdainfully down upon him.  He pleaded with the swirling mists to bring his father back, smiling and happy.

The mist surged forward, blending with Old Manatook’s white hair and beard.  As Ulruk watched through half-closed lids it began to swirl in a new pattern.  A pair of savage eyes appeared dead center as the mist resolved itself into the wickedly leering face of a pale old woman.  If eyes could be said to speak, these uttered one word with deadly force.  Hunger.

The hag reached a withered claw toward his face.  Ulruk wriggled away.  He wanted to scream out at the top of his lungs but only a small cry emerged from his throat.

The horrible old woman smiled, showing rotten pegs in blackened gums.  Ulruk had never seen anything so loathsome as the inside of her mouth, which was alive with a mass of writhing worms embedded in rotting flesh.

Panic seized Ulruk.  He was alone.  Where were the shamans?  Where was his father?  Most of all he wanted his father.

As she leaned down, the tip of a slimy gray tongue emerged from dry, cracked lips.  Its touch was like fire, burning a track along Ulruk’s cheek and jaw.  The wicked old hag laughed again, bringing a withered breast toward his face.  She pushed the greasy flesh at him as if to suckle him at her vile teat.  He turned his head away in desperate revulsion.  She shoved the nipple at his mouth, smothering him, but he refused it.  Undaunted, she gave the breast a squeeze, releasing a spurt of putrid black slime which splashed thickly against his face.  Ulruk choked and gagged as that rotten mother’s milk dribbled into his mouth.  His heart raced at the horror of it, but he was helpless to do anything to stop it.

 

***

 

Looking down at Ulruk, Old Manatook saw the demon leering over the boy’s shoulder.  Ulruk tossed fitfully in sleep, his short black hair plastered across his damp forehead.  He was an odd-looking boy with a quirky fullness to the lips and a squat, round button-nose, but to the old shaman all children were equally beautiful.

The cloying scent of red poppy stung at Manatook’s nostrils.  He recognized that smell.  This particular fever demon was old and virulent, having burned long and consumed many.  This disease, sometimes called the Red Ke’le, had but recently raged in the south, where the fever and the blisters had wiped out several bands completely.  She traveled hidden among the white traders the Anatatook so fervently avoided, passed along freely with their tobacco and sugar.  If allowed to run unchecked she would devastate the entire settlement.

The withered old hag did not return his gaze, reserving her attentions solely for the boy asleep on the platform.  The depraved ministrations she was heaping upon the child kindled a furious anger in Manatook.  Although tempted to recklessly engage the demon, wisdom and experience held him back.

Kigiuna perceived none of this.  He saw only his youngest son in grave danger, burning with the fever.  Pushing a sweat-soaked clump of black hair from Ulruk’s forehead, his fingers gently skimmed the tiny blisters that had begun to form across Ulruk’s brow.  It pained him to witness his son’s formerly carefree, gap-toothed smile transformed into a grimace of fear and discomfort.  He gazed contemptuously at the old shaman.  “Can’t you help?” he demanded.

“Not directly,” said Old Manatook.  “This fever demon is a strong one.  She has killed many in the southlands.”

“There must be something…”

“We are all of a piece here.  This family, your brother’s family, all the others.  What befalls one befalls us all.”

Anger blazed from Kigiuna’s cold blue eyes.  He grabbed the front of the shaman’s parka.  “Listen to me.  I’ve lost one child already.  I won’t lose another!”

Old Manatook brought his gaze slowly down to the front of his parka.  “This does not help,” he said in a surprisingly even tone.

Kigiuna released his hold and turned away.

Old Manatook glanced over at where Avaalaaqiaq lay bundled up at the far end of the tent.  Amauraq knelt weeping beside her daughter’s lifeless body.

“We shamans shall make things right,” he said.  “Trust in us.”

 

***

 

The three shamans, dressed in blood red parkas, sat in front of the karigi.  A protective circle had been set up to safeguard the spectators, an invisible net in which the demon would become hopelessly entangled should it try to escape the conflict.  The circle was represented in this reality by a thin line of black soot poured out along the snow.  Kuanak’s idea, Old Manatook considered the gesture a useless waste of time.  As revealed by his spirit vision, the fever demon already had its hooks and tendrils into at least half of the people gathered around them.  If the angatkuit should fail this day, the entire village would be consumed before winter’s night once again darkened the arctic wastes.

Most of the able-bodied Anatatook men and women had come to the karigi, forming a rough semicircle of nearly fifty adults and their children.  Old Manatook reached his consciousness out to them, drinking in their feelings of good will and support.  Their confidence was still not as high as he would have liked; fear and desperation posed major distractions.  Another day of chanting and drumming might bring them better into line, but the need was pressing and time was short.  Too many had already fallen ill.  The situation was spinning out of control and, as the shaman well knew, loss of control presaged the end of all things.

As he met their eyes each in turn Old Manatook felt their strength flow into him — the devotion of the hunters, the courage of the mothers, the innocent faith of the young.  These sentiments lent a welcome boost to his own weary soul.  He smiled confidently back at them, showing big white teeth.  The task ahead was a daunting one, the enemy formidable.  And yet there was no place for doubt.  He must believe in their ultimate success.

He did believe it.  Despite the foolish rivalry that had developed between the other two, and he would have much to say on that matter after this ordeal was done, the three shamans each possessed unique talents and abilities which complemented each other.  Working in concert they would meet this challenge.

Old Manatook continued to bind Kuanak, wrapping his torso in tight coils of harpoon line.  Kuanak wore his hair drawn up into a knot and his sleeves rolled back.  He preferred to be bound in order to attain the proper trance state.  Old Manatook yanked the sealskin cord tight as it wound around again.  The pain would help Kuanak focus on his journey to the Underworld.

“It was our transgression,” whispered Kuanak.  “This is our responsibility.  You don’t need to go with us.”

Old Manatook answered, “If we three don’t destroy it, we will all die.”  He motioned with his chin toward the assembled Anatatook so that his meaning would be clear.  “All of us.”

Seeing that his knots were good, Old Manatook took a square of walrus leather and placed it into Kuanak’s mouth.  The surly shaman bit down on the scrap, cutting off the conversation in favor of ritual words mumbled under his breath.

Since Kuanak’s arms were fastened tightly behind his back, Old Manatook laid Wolf Head’s weapon across his knees.  This was a long staff fashioned from a single narwhal horn, ornately carved with the signs and sigils of Kuanak’s spirit guardian Quammaixiqsuq, the master of lightning.

Old Manatook took his place between the other two, kneeling on a prayer mat woven from long strands of dark musk ox mane.

Civiliaq, for all his arrogance, possessed the ability to enter the trance state on demand.  Already his face had gone blank, his clean-shaven chin slumped against his bare chest.

Old Manatook huffed.  Headstrong fool.  He should have waited.

Closing his eyes, he took up his own power chant.  A quickening of his heartbeat, a blunting of his breathtaking — these alterations of the body helped prepare his mind for journeying and seeing in the realms beyond.  It was a familiar trip, a breach he had leapt in spirit many times before.

As his own spirit guardian Tornarssuk, who was the avatar of the polar bears, spent much time in the depths of the earth, the way was quickly opened before him.  Old Manatook envisioned the entrance as a swirling vortex just below his knees where they rested upon the woven mat.  To match his accelerated heartbeat, the vortex spun faster and faster.  The pack snow became soft and immaterial as it whirled, and the impenetrable ever-frost dissolved away, as did the solid rock of the world itself.

Old Manatook’s inuseq stepped out of his body and left it behind, an empty shell of flesh and blood and bone.  He went traveling down the tube created by the spinning vortex of his imagination, passing through concentric rings of rock and ice circling an endless void.

A barrage of new and unpleasant sensations, which came neither from ears nor eyes but from his outflung mind itself, assaulted the shaman’s soul as it entered the Underworld.

The scene was cast entirely in odd shades of gray that alternately shimmered, glowed, or shone with absolute darkness.  He entered a series of caves below the earth.   Some were dimly lit and others lay swathed in darkness; some had water running through them and others did not.  Seen up close the surfaces of the rock walls held weird textures that did not exist in ordinary reality; they were not smooth and glistening, but made of innumerable tiny spikes in agitated motion.  The water that trickled down was not water at all, but grainy particles of dust each with a will of its own, marking a chaotic pattern of movement, flowing down and up and in a sideways crawl along the rock.

Caught between the unfamiliar and the unknown, the mood of this place was as dangerous and dark as any he had ever experienced.  In this world without scent, his imagination supplied the pungent smell of scorched stone as lord over all.

Kuanak awaited him in a large dark cavern that rang with the howling of demons and the melancholy songs of dead men.  Wolf Head’s spirit form possessed a distinctly more feral character than his ordinary appearance.  His hair flew long and free, the gray folds of fur that lined his parka in the normal reality merged inseparably with the lines of his face.  His eyes shone with a strange golden tint.  In his unfettered hands he held the power staff.

“Civiliaq?” asked Old Manatook.

“He’s gone ahead,” said Kuanak.   “I can sense him.  He’s not far but we must hurry.”

Old Manatook called out, in the way the shamans spoke through the air over distance.  “Civiliaq, wait!”

Civiliaq’s answer drifted back.  “Nonsense, I’ll have done with this long before either of you old men catch up.”

“Fool!” roared Old Manatook.

A grouping of ragged, bat-like creatures cut across the cavern.  Old Manatook recognized them as the corrupted souls of women who had died in childbirth.  Their acid guano spattered down at the two shamans, threatening to eat away at the skin of their soul-men with its unrelenting taint of remorse and bitter regret.

“Away!” shouted Old Manatook.  The fickle tatterdemalions proved more afraid of the shamans than intent on mischief.  They darted quickly away to their desolate caves and lonely roosts.

“Hurry,” said Kuanak.  He sidestepped a crumbling altar whose face depicted one of the foul, monstrous creatures who made their home in the Underworld.

The walls of the next chamber were composed of fleshy skin covered with shimmering gray scales.  Old Manatook balked  at the delay as he and Kuanak fought their way through vast congeries of psychic webs and tendrils that rang of guilt and shame and the sting of missed opportunities.  The going was slow, and Old Manatook kept a sharp eye along the shadows for the weaver of such a web, though no such monster presented itself.  It was too easy to fall into a trap here.  Too many evil and perverted things lay in wait in this wretched place.

As he batted the dusty obstructions from their path, Old Manatook’s deepest worries were realized.  He sensed Civiliaq had reached the enemy’s lair and had engaged the fever demon on his own.

According to his distant perceptions the monster was large and formidable, consisting of a vast and indistinct smoky haze, ragged sooty breathing, and a pervasive stench of rotting meat and piss and blood.

Civiliaq perhaps envisioned something else, for Old Manatook heard him think, cryptically, “Only a woman.”

“Don’t be a fool!”  Old Manatook projected the warning across the distance.  “Appearances may mislead.”

Civiliaq fearlessly stood his ground.  The younger shaman’s confidence was as much an asset as his overbearing arrogance was weakness.  The lone black feather with which he was so fond of pointing out the transgressions of others existed on this plane as an obsidian dagger.  He held the blade upright before him, in a steady hand.  The spirit helper within the dagger purred, showing itself hungry for demon blood.  Its name was Tuqutkaa, a fierce and loyal servant, having aided its master in slaying many a demon in days past.

With an arrogant chuckle Civiliaq unleashed a grouping of his spirit helpers at the monster.  These were airborne barbs made of parts of wild auks — each an odd mixture of clumped feathers and beak and claw — that squawked savagely as they darted forward.  The demon made short work of them, sending beaks and streamers of bloodied entrails buzzing about the cavern.

Tuqutkaa growled.  Civiliaq stepped forward with the dagger, but something within his foe must have struck a chord because his face ripened with doubt and wilted with fear.  Old Manatook and Kuanak, still rushing to the scene of the battle, both sensed Civiliaq’s fatal flaw.  His was an underlying fear that he wasn’t good enough.  A concern he had covered with flash and bravado, but never completely laid to rest.  Doubt and fear.

Old Manatook’s impressions of the scene were interrupted as, in the next cavern, a pack of itgitlit rushed to meet them.  These creatures, wild dogs with human heads and hands, were eager to attack Manatook, sensing an instinctual enemy.  But they hesitated in their charge, leery of the wolf-like Kuanak.  Hesitation most often proved fatal in the Underworld, and the same held true for the itgitlit.  In a fit of snarling rage, Kuanak kicked them out of the way.

They found Civiliaq’s inuseq where it lay on the floor of the next chamber.  Old Manatook bent to him, sensing immediately that the spirit was crushed, with little spark left to cling to life.  He instinctively turned to Kuanak for aid, thinking perhaps between the two of them they might be able to heal their friend.

“No use,” said Kuanak, “the strain would be too great.  To try and save him we must pull back, and all will be lost.”

Civiliaq’s spirit-man offered his familiar dry chuckle.  “Too late.  I have made the same mistake yet again.”

“You should know by now, you needn’t prove yourself to us,” said Old Manatook.

Civiliaq let out a heart-rending groan.  “Miserable pride.  And in the end, it proved me false.  I wasn’t good enough.”

Old Manatook felt a rising and dangerous panic.  “We must strike together, we three before it is too late.”

Civiliaq shook his head sadly.

“We must stand together,” repeated Old Manatook.

“Too late,” said Kuanak.

Civiliaq was dead.  His spirit-man shriveled up before their very eyes, shrinking away to the thin, dry consistency of a rind of shedded tree bark.  Trapped here forever, his soul would never know peace.

Old Manatook growled with rage.

Kuanak picked up the obsidian blade.

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