“You don’t understand yet. Abortion of a creature’s soul is also a sin. To kill a whale or a walrus without proper respect, this causes Sedna pain. Such sins breed in her scalp and hair and cause her misery. Then an angakok must visit her and soothe her and comb away the sins. Sedna can’t comb her own hair, you know.”
“But the New People fixed that. You taught the Eskimos the old ways again, right?”
“Yes,” Arctic Fox said bitterly. “Sedna was growing healthy. Then she grew sick again. Our children, they didn’t understand. How could they? We had no answers either! We prayed to the Raven, we tended Sedna, but Ahk-lut’s secret Cabal had a quicker answer. Now their magic prevents us from reaching Sedna at all.
“We left the Cabal alone. Some of us thought their way might be right-”
“What, freezing the world?” Orson was shrill, disbelieving. “How would that help anyone?”
“They hoped to end the sins by forcing you to learn our ways. We couldn’t fight them. They are too powerful, and they had the skyfall talisman. But then Ahk-lut demanded Snow Goose for his own. To take his sister in marriage would give him children who were closer to the blood of the Raven. They would found a new tribe, and rule the world.
“I refused. His forces clashed with mine. Ahk-lut used white man’s guns from the other side of the circle. I was not prepared for that. My… foolishness has killed what remained of our warriors.”
Max Sand leaned forward, hands on knees. “How can we help?”
Martin’s voice was grave. “We have already sent out warriors, our children, beyond the veil of Seelumkadchluk, and none have returned. You are young and strong-and Ahk-lut will not expect to find white men in the world of spirits. Perhaps you can succeed where we have repeatedly failed.
“We can do some of what needs doing, but we cannot do all. Sedna must be tended, but we can no longer reach her with our minds. Ahk-lut has imprisoned the Raven, and we must learn how and whether he can be freed.” Martin’s eyes were on the fire, and he seemed reluctant to speak. Did he have a plan, or was he only reaching out in desperation?
“There is your tribe and my tribe,” he said. “One tribe must spy on the Cabal. One must tend Sedna, remove the parasites, before famine takes all of the people of the white lands and half of us too. Which would you have?”
Hippogryph spoke. “What does tending Sedna involve?”
“You would have to travel to her, in the flesh, through the realm of spirit. Go to her in her home beneath the sea. Soothe her. Comb the parasites from her hair. Learn from her why she is sick, if she will speak, if she knows.”
“Fighting the Cabal sounds like more fun,” Max Sands said.
Eviane’s voice dripped daggers. “Fun? It has to be done, but killing people isn’t entertainment, Max.”
His mouth dropped open, but he didn’t speak. He remembered the Tar Pits Game, and the careful, single-minded way Eviane had gone after the key. She was a Gamer. He’d heard of the type. She had donned her persona like a second skin-like a body condom-and it wouldn’t come off until the Game was over.
Hippogryph was speaking. “We don’t know enough. We’ve learned as much as we’re going to here, haven’t we, Martin? Your skills have reached as far as they can?”
“Unfortunately true.”
“I’d say let’s find out what Sedna knows before we tackle the Cabal. She might know where the Raven went.”
Max shook his head. “But-can’t we follow Ahk-lut? He could take us right to the Raven. Free the Raven, he’ll kick ass! We’ve got guns.. do guns work in the spirit world, Martin?”
“Of course. Why would a tool stop working?”
“Vote!” Bowles cried. “Hands up for Sedna!”
Hippogryph and five others raised hands. Orson’s pudgy face was lined in concentration… and his hand went up to make seven.
“Hands to follow Ahk-lut!” Max’s and Eviane’s hands shot up. And Charlene’s, and three others. Bowles had abstained, and so had Trianna.
They would go to Sedna. Underwater. Claustrophobia and sea monsters…
The sober, round-faced men and women around the sweat lodge nodded their heads as if at a prearranged signal. They rattled segments of bone, seal-hide drums, whittled-ivory percussion instruments, strange musical devices that produced a flow of sound like nothing in the modern world. Rattling, lilting, now strident, now coaxing, but always seething with urgency.
“You,” Martin said, pointing to each of the refugees in turn. “You who are young must go, and right this terrible wrong.”
“What happened to your own men?” Max asked softly.
Martin’s eyes dropped. “They crossed the veil of Seelumkadchluk, where the sky meets the sea. Some went to Sedna and some followed the Cabal. The most powerful of our angakoks carried the most powerful of our talismans. None have returned. We do not know why.”
Kevin clucked, punching something into a little hand-held keyboard. “This bodes not well…”
Martin ignored him. “But your power is greater. You may find them as allies on the other side.”
Or not. Eviane looked around at her companions. Overweight and soft… and youthful, with the exception of Robin Bowles, the man who had saved their lives in San Francisco. But they looked inspired. Could a dozen chubby but game neophytes match the unknown powers of these renegade Raven-spawn?
The fire had nearly died. One by one the old Inuit rose and began to dance around the coals. The walls of the sweat lodge shuddered with the low chants as they circled, their miming at first cryptic and then discernible as hunting and fighting movements.
An old, old man hopped around the fire in a crouch, as if perched next to an ice hole, awaiting a fish. Behind him, another grandfather cast a spear, and another raised an imaginary rifle to his shoulder, squeezed the trigger, spun and rolled on the floor in simulated death-throes before springing up and repeating the ritual.
Martin threw a handful of powders onto the fire. It flared to new life, and threw a ghastly emerald light against the walls. A handful of dull green embers floated down, were borne up by air currents, and then settled down again.
One by one, the old people sat. Snow Goose stood, wearing only a thin undergarment that might have been stitched from gut. Her body under it, although zaftig, moved with practiced grace. Eviane’s hands touched her own body self-consciously. She wanted to move like that. She remembered… faintly… a time when she had.
The girl writhed beseechingly, beckoning to each of them. Max Sands jumped grinning to his feet and began to dance around the fire, too close behind Snow Goose for Eviane’s comfort.
Eviane stood, embarrassed in her underwear. She gritted her teeth and began to dance, moving with the flow of the pipes, the rattles and drums. Even though the musical implements seemed like relics from another, earlier time, they blended together in surprisingly complex and precise rhythm.
One at a time, the others stood. The pilot. Charlene. The Guardsman. Hebert the soldier. Half-naked they danced around the fire. And as they did, Eviane felt her body pulse to the music.
Her sense of self, of midcentury mid-America, began to fade. There was no formal ceremony, no verbal acknowledgment or speech, but she knew that the Inuit had accepted them, had welcomed the refugees into their family.
The long shadows played upon the walls, and the music, the exertion, and the swirling smoke began to weave their subtle magic. The refugees took their place around the fire, twisting and hopping. Eviane gasped heavily for breath, blind to her exhaustion, unmindful of her ungainly heaviness, lost in the sheer exhilaration of it all.
For Eviane it was total ecstasy, the very best that life had offered her in a long, long time.
Chapter Nine
The world was blind with snow as Max Sands crawled out of the qasgiq. The frozen ground was rough on hands and knees. Other Adventurers popped out of the tunnel to sprawl gracelessly on the snow.