12 Henry Reaps Ice
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"Maybe that's what happens to some souls. Maybe they get lost. Maybe they have to wander because they're not quite at peace yet. Maybe there's some kind of unfinished business with these kinds of souls…like they're holding onto something - holding their breath. And when the business is done they can finally let go, exhale, and sleep." - Georgia Lass
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He was a speaker with the dead with no spirits to talk to. He couldn't see much with the strong winds and snow blowing all around and through him. He was on a low hill overlooking a wooded hollow - one of a great many like it within a day's walk. He sensed the movement of something alive down below and this stirred him to a higher awareness. The blowing snow had created drifts, in places as tall as a tree, and these drifts crawled across the white surface like slow moving waves on a great lake as the winds shifted carving new profiles and moving these mammoth size snow walls from one place to another. The prevailing wind had shifted last night and moved the snow so that the hut down below was visible in part - the whole of the top and most of one side. Three gaunt wolves digging to get into the exposed side of the hut were in his line of sight.
It was a good place to build a final refuge, a last effort to survive, to make it to a spring that never came. He had picked the site. Underneath the snow nearby there was a spring and the wooded hollow kept the hut out of sight from predators and supplied with wood. After the second failed summer he had revealed something of his true nature to his children when he had stopped eating food. He had a foreboding of what was to come and could not bring himself to take away what he could endure without. But...in the end they had all died...and he had entered the spirit world to wait on this hill. He had no reason to stay here, but then he had no reason to go elsewhere. He had no need for food nor did he feel the cold nor have any need for sleep. What pained him and what he lacked…he missed his people. They were his children. And he missed the unspoken words telling him who was to be passing over. After the last had gone over he had expected new words. Always before when all his people had died, and it had happened before over the many lifetimes he had been a speaker with the dead, words would come and he would go where he was directed...to a new place...a new people. This time he wondered. The snows had continued for yet another season instead of the summer warmth returning. By his reckoning summer had failed three times, or was it four? Each year of failure he spoke with many and sent them into their lights. The deaths far outnumbered the births. Maybe there were no people left anywhere. He could feel none within several days journey - had felt none for a very long time.
The wolves had scratched and chewed an opening into the frozen hides blocking the entrance and one was pushing its head through into the hut. Soon it would be inside and start working on the frozen meat of the last few who had taken refuge here. Ahh. They had all been sent into their lights and wouldn't need the bodies. This wolf clan looked to him not far from their own passings, as gaunt as they were each was equal in size and weight to two men.
He had cheated and that's the only reason his last few had made it this long. When the great cold and snow had returned. He knew how to survive, to thrive within it because he was a long time ago born, lived, and died in such cold. His brief time of life had been when the ice and cold were everywhere. And most of his time as a speaker had been with people living in such cold. But the great warmth had come and the warm summers had tempted people out of their old ways. People lived so short a time and they were like small children who forgot a morning's lesson by the late afternoon's sun. The winters were still cold, but they had several lifetimes of warm summers, and the great ice mountains to the North had begun melting covering the land with many rivers and lakes...and life became easy, too easy. Their numbers grew and there were many more speakers made like him. The people forgot the old ways of surviving on the ice year around. He cheated telling his people how and what to do, but he could not force them to take his advice. Ahh, well, these few people had survived longer than the others.
He looked below to the hut. The wolves had all entered. His last few peoples' bodies would allow these three to live on.
And then something more. Words...directions came to him. Four people were to die to the east...and one was not to go into the lights. Maybe there were more people, and that another speaker was to be made said that perhaps the Great Cold would end soon. He started moving towards these four whose spirits would be delivered soon into his care. They were several days walk away...not far for him moving in the spirit world.
He found them struggling through deep snow. The storm had paused here and a weak midday sun struggled to light the day through the heavy clouds. No wonder they were to die soon. If some bear or cat did not get them then the return of the storm would. They should be within shelter with a fire. A man of the Ice People in the lead carried a spear at the ready breaking a path through the deep snow. An older man also of the Ice People followed. The third was a giant dragging the bundled skins and poles for a small shelter. His black hair marked him apart. The last was a woman, who was to become a speaker with the dead. Odd because she too was of the Ice People. He would like to talk with them and learn what stories they knew. Why they were out forcing their way through the deep snows? Where were they going? They were not to die until later this evening at first dark. So much to learn and so little time. He stayed in the spirit world and followed them. The two in front and the woman bringing up the rear were of the Ice and Snow People with their white hair and eyes. There were never many of them, but it made sense that they would be among the last to die. His black haired children feared and envied them in equal measure even as they sometimes intermarried. They would say that the Snow People were born out of the ice and snow, and that they could see in the whiteness of the snow scape what was invisible to others. The great white bears could not so easily ambush these people. One of their shamans had confided in him that they could see the heat given off by animals against the snow. Sometimes this ability carried through into the mixed blood children. Maybe now he could learn more. He sensed he knew the eldest among them - he knew his spirit. He had met him...maybe 10 years before at a great summer gathering. Perhaps he would show himself to them...to the old man. He liked him and he would be gone so soon. And he would like to talk to someone again. If they died they would go quickly into the lights. They almost always did.
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Fuck it's cold. She hated the snow and the cold. She followed behind stepping into the path in the snow that the three ahead opened up. Her brother led the way plowing through the deep snow followed by her father and then her black haired husband. He was the biggest and dragging what skins they had tied to two long poles. She was losing feeling in her feet. She kept her eyes down and focused on the back end of the pack her husband was dragging. She didn't have to think, just put one foot in front of the other. If only her brother would shut up. If her shit for brains brother said one more time that they're Snow People. He had the wits of a porcupine. We live well in the cold when the dark haired blind ones die. Blah blah. She would knock him on his butt down in the deep snow and he could tell her then how he does so well in the cold. Her husband said nothing just focused on his pulling the hides for their shelter. She stumbled and fell. Fuck. She picked herself up and lurched forward. They needed someplace to hunker down and warm up. They needed something to eat. They needed something to try to eat them so her brother and husband could kill it. She wanted a nice warm fire inside a proper hut.
Yes, something to attack them. Her husband was a giant even among his own kind and handled a massive spear with ease. She had seen him strike down a great white bear with one spear. She had picked him at a gathering three summers ago and her father had nodded his approval. Her father persuaded him to join their family and live among the Snow People. He was easy in temperament. Their daughter had carried his black hair and eyes and his same easy good nature, but she had been blind in the same way as her father.
The pack stopped and she fell onto it. She looked up and then to the side to see a shaman standing just above them on a small rise poking above the snow. His hair was entangled with bear and wolf teeth and clusters of small bat bones marking him as a shaman and his ability to talk to the dead. The next moment he was skewered nicely through the chest by her brother's spear. He was always impulsive. She looked to her father. He said nothing. The shaman staggered but did not fall down. Stupid brother. Her husband and brother let out their whoops. The shaman regained his balance and then both the spear and the shaman disappeared. He reappeared with the spear in his hand standing there unharmed. Fuck. She raised her head to see her father looking her way locking eyes for a heartbeat and then another. He knew too this was not good. Her husband and brother stopped their whooping. The shaman was gone again. He appeared next to them holding the spear out to her brother. Her husband fell back into the snow. The shaman said in their tongue as if he had been born among them, "You are quick and of strong arm, and you will need this soon, my son." Her brother took back his spear and looked to their father. The shaman turned to her father and said, "You are strong after so many winters. Do you remember me old man?" The shaman raised his hand palm open.
Her father stood for a hand of heartbeats. Her husband stood up and waited for the old man's signal. She and her father knew that shamans would only show their true nature to those about to die. That this one showed himself and his ability to walk in the spirit world to all of them was an omen that they all would pass over and before they met any others of the living.
She paused and looked around...at this place that was no place, but that had new meaning. It looked the same as all the ground that they had covered these last few days. All that she could see was snow and more snow. The sun was setting soon enough. They did not have shelter yet. Her child was dead. Her mother and sisters, her people, all dead. They had tried. Let it come. Her father smiled and raised his hand palm open in a return greeting. He was never one to look away from Death. No, her father always said to look him in the eye and smile. And Death smiled back.