Chapter Twenty-Three
When he goes back inside the tent to check on the boy, Unaleq can see right away that the amulets have done him no good at all.
In fact, he’s much worse now than he was before—he’s glistening with sweat, his shallow breath stinks like a grave site, and he can’t bear any bright light or loud noises.
Whatever evil spirit is living inside him is evidently gaining strength by the hour, so when dusk arrives, Unaleq tells Hekwaw and T?glik to call the rest of the village together for the song-feast. As soon as everyone is gathered, he forms them into a tight circle with Yaha lying in the center and the parents and grandparents standing in the front, then tells them to sing.
“If you sing loud and long enough,” he explains, “the evil spirit will flee from Yaha’s body and then I’ll be able to chase after it and, with luck and help from my own Protectors, either kill it or drive it away forever.”
As the singing starts, the red sun dips down into the lake and the darkening sky is scarred and lesioned by long screeds of pink and purple cloud.
Unaleq crouches beside the ailing boy and whispers some of his best, most secret incantations into his hot ear, then stands and lets the voices of the Ox Lake band fill his heart and wash away all mundane and evil thoughts.
They sing the old songs about the caribou and musk oxen, about the ptarmigan, the weasel, and the long-tailed duck—all the good and pleasant things of the earth—because they know that the sound of such praising and happiness will be painful to the ears of the evil spirit and will drive it to distraction.
After a while, as Unaleq listens and watches, he senses something within the circle starting to move and transform.
Inside the child there is a shimmering and a flashing; pools of shadow that were loose and indistinct before are tightening into lines and ropes, and the ropes are twisting about, turning on themselves, knotting and unknotting, quicker and quicker as the song’s power grows and grows.
“Don’t stop now!” he shouts to the others. “Sing stronger! Sing louder!”
And they do as he asks. The voices rise in a chorus; men and women, young and old together, sing songs of hunting and friendship, songs of birth and death, of lust and derision, hate and love—all the varied, contradictory parts of life from its beginning to its end described without fear or shame, exposed and laid bare so the evil spirit has nowhere to hide or take shelter, no secret places to cling to.
The songs pulse through the shaman; his heart knocks in time to their tune, and when he closes his eyes he’s suddenly weightless and afloat, wafting and twisting in the air like smoke from a fire, all his edges blurry and unclear, all his hopes and memories dissolved away to nothing.
The boy is still lying as he was at the center of the circle, but poking out of his mouth Unaleq sees a hand or a claw and then as the lips are pushed wider apart, an eyeball and a nose.
The evil spirit is as blue-black and bristled as a deerfly.
He calls down to it and shakes his sacred staff.
When the spirit sees him, it flinches and retreats at first, like a fox going back into its den, but then, driven to distraction by the people’s song, unable to endure such a fierce expression of hope and fellowship, it hurtles forth squealing and roaring and baring its sharp, wet teeth.
The force as it rushes past him throws the shaman backward and stirs him from his trance.
He opens his eyes and sees the moon crusted over with thick cloud and feels a cool damp wind blowing against his face.
The chant is still rising and falling all around like waves lapping against a shore, and Hekwaw and T?glik are by his side helping him back to his feet.
“All is well,” he tells them. “All is well. Take heart, my dear friends. The foul spirit has been scared away and now I must give chase and kill it.”
They look astonished and bewildered, but Unaleq knows that there is no time to waste on any further explanations, so he picks up his staff and his shaman’s belt, kneels down to bless the boy a final time, then wheels about and, offering a silent prayer to the Great Protectors, departs the human circle and plunges into the ghost-filled dark.
A moment later—or perhaps it is an hour—ahead of him, in the blackness, Unaleq hears a doggish panting and smells on the breeze the foul and claggy death-stench that tells him he’s getting close.
He crests a low hill, then drops down into another shallow, smooth-sided valley with a narrow stream gurgling through its center.
As he steps across the water, lightning flashes over to the east, and in the brief bright glare of it, before the thunder crashes down, he sees a ghastly figure exposed before him—a squat, low-browed Indian fellow with enormous eagle wings sprouting from his back.
For a moment, Unaleq’s courage fails him and he hesitates.
I’ve grappled with plenty of devils and ghosts in my time, he thinks, but I’ve never seen such a fearful vision as this one before.
If the evil spirit who sickened the child can take on this strange, unnatural, half-human form, then what does that suggest about his powers?
Will my magic work or will it be quickly overpowered, rendered useless by the counterforce of this abomination?
Should I stand and fight, or should I run away?
In such a moment of crisis, when a man feels his faith faltering, he knows there is only one place to turn, so he looks up to the star-strewn sky and calls upon the Great Protectors for guidance.
“Help me, oh wise ones,” he says. “Tell me what I must do now. Can I face down this dreadful demon all alone? Is that truly possible? Or should I conserve my power for other battles yet to come?”
As he stands there open-mouthed, trembling and expectant, the eastern sky splits apart once more and then the thunder breaks and crumbles and, deep inside the roar of it, like birdsong in the forest, Unaleq hears a voice, clear and kind, proclaiming: Take courage, Unaleq.
Be brave and remember what you truly are.
Of course, he thinks, of course. How could I ever forget myself?
I am just a messenger, a vehicle of the higher powers.
For me, a man with eagle wings may be a dreadful thing, but the guardians who act through me have lived for eons and seen much worse, so I have no cause to be alarmed.
The foul creature is still standing where he was, staring ferociously back, a musket in his hand, but why should I care about that?
What difference can it make? I am the messenger, the conduit, the open gate through which the great eternal forces enter and depart.
Knowing what I know, remembering who I am, there’s no need to be afraid.
Strengthened by these vivid recollections, feeling newly cleansed and purifed, Unaleq raises the sacred staff high above his head and, howling out the shaman’s war cry, hurls himself upon the enemy.