The Book of Dreams (37 page)

Brendan took the gifts from his satchel and placed them before her, naming each and their origin.

“Four rods of yew with prophecies cut in ogham. They come from the branches of the lone tree that grows on Inis Subai, the Island of Joy. And in a land where the mountains glow like fire, these gold-and-silver leaves were forged by giant smiths. And the fruits of summer,
toirthe samruid
, were gathered on the island that is the Paradise of the Birds.”

As the old woman accepted each gift, she held it to her forehead and bowed toward Brendan. Each time she did, he bowed in return.

When the greeting ritual was completed, the shaman addressed them frankly.

“Why have you come to me? I am the Angakuk of the People. When the Inummariit have a question they want answered—Where is the seal? Where is the polar bear? Where is the caribou?—they come to me. I journey to Adlivun to see the Goddess. She knows where all the animals are. They are her children and her gift to us. She tells me where they are and I, in turn, tell the hunter. What animal do you seek?”

An uncomfortable silence fell in the cave. Jean looked to Dana, his eyebrow raised. She looked toward Brendan, but he didn’t speak. The question was obviously for her alone.

“Must it be an animal?” she asked, uncertainly.

Her voice was barely audible. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. That she didn’t belong here. Though she was awed by the shaman, she was already doubting that the
angakuk
could help her. The old woman’s magic belonged to the Inuit. Dana was a stranger and not of the People.

“The spirit of an animal is in everything you seek,” the shaman said sternly. “If you cannot see this, you are blind. You will never find what you are looking for.”

Dana blanched at the reprimand. She felt cornered. Apparently the
angakuk
wasn’t going to let her off easily, stranger or no. Dana thought back over her quest. The angakuk was right, many animals were involved! The wolf that both she and Jean were kin to; the ravens who were Grandfather and Roy; the deer she had chased in the Medicine Lodge; the throng of caribou that showed her the secret language; the Cailleach who was a cormorant and her sister, the crane; the whales in the sea … Were there others? She was still reviewing her mission, when she found herself staring at the shaman’s feathered cloak.
Of course!
It was like a burst of light in her head. There was one creature who had followed her throughout the quest, whose role eluded her, who seemed to convey some hidden significance she couldn’t fathom.

“The white birds!” she cried. “The soul-birds! They keep showing up, but I don’t know what they mean.”

The
angakuk
cackled with glee and rubbed her hands. “You are not so blind after all. I will go to Adlivun. I will ask Taluliyuk about your birds. She knows a lot about birds.”

Dana was overwhelmed by the offer. “But I’m not one of your people.”

The old woman’s response was immediate.

“We are all family.”

No sooner had the shaman spoken than the stone lamp in front of her lit up of its own accord.

“It begins,” she announced. “I go.”

Closing her eyes, the
angakuk
began to shake her head till the long beads of her headdress swayed back and forth. A low humming came from under her breath. With mesmeric slowness, she rose to her feet and began to turn like a spinning top, twirling with ever-increasing speed. As she spun, she chanted. The high-pitched notes sounded like birdsong and the sigh of the sea.

Dana and Jean glanced at each other nervously. Brendan stood as still as a statue.

The air in the cave was dimming quickly till only the lamp shed light. The cave flickered with shadows, the greatest of which was the dancing shaman, cast upon the back wall. She seemed to tower over them. At first her song was unintelligible, arcane speech known only to her; but eventually words took shape to form a story and the story itself took shape in their minds.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful woman named Taluliyuk, who spurned all the suitors who sought her love. Then one day a handsome young man came over the waters from a land far away. He wore gray and white clothing; his eyes were dark. His voice was as sweet as a bird’s as he wooed her with promises.

O lady, come with me

To the land of my people

There you will dwell

In comfort and light.

It is a land without sorrow

Without sickness or death

A land without hunger

Without darkness or night.

Of course she went with him. He had promised so much. But when she arrived in his land in the North, she discovered his deception. He was not a king of the other world, but a king of the birds. For he was a fulmar who had taken human form in order to court her. He brought her to his tent of fish skins. It was all torn and tattered and the wind blew through it constantly. She was always cold. There was no oil in her lamps. He fed her raw fish. After a year and a day of misery, Taluliyuk sent for her father to take her home.

Aja, her father, came in the season when the ice broke in the water. He grew angry when he saw the plight of his daughter, and he attacked his son-in-law. They fought long with each other till Aja killed the King of the Fulmars.

“You can come home with me now,” he told his daughter.

Taluliyuk and her father were on the sea when the birds discovered the fate of their king. They cried and lamented till they raised a storm to kill Aja.

Afraid for his life, Aja relented. Crying out to the fulmars that they could have his daughter back, he threw her into the sea.

Taluliyuk clung to the side of the boat with all her might. Though Aja cut off the tips of her fingers with his knife, she still held on. The bits of her fingers turned into whales. Now he cut the middle joints of her fingers and they turned into seals. When the fulmars saw the animals in the water, they were appeased and they departed with the storm. The death of their king had been ransomed with new life.

Then the sea opened to swallow Taluliyuk and she sank down into the Underworld.

There she dwells to this very day, in Adlivun that lies under the waves.

• • •

The story ended, but the shaman’s song did not. It seemed the tale was only the prologue, the antechamber to the throne room. Now they entered the dark heart of the matter. The
angakuk
’s voice rose higher still and she screeched out shrilly.

That woman down there beneath the sea,

She wants to hide the animals from us,

These hunters in the ice house,

They cannot mend matters,

Into the spirit world,

I will go,

Where no humans dwell,

Set matters right will I.

Dana found herself submerged in a heavy darkness at the bottom of the ocean. Around her moved two-dimensional creatures, flat eels and pseudopods and sleeping leviathans. Slowly she grew aware of something else in the depths, magnificent and misshapen, something so old and immense she could hardly comprehend it. At first she thought it was an idol from a giant city long lost underwater. Then came the beginning of terror when she saw it stir. The thing in the deep was alive.

Taluliyuk
.

Dana was glad that Brendan and Jean were beside her. It helped to ease her terror. The
angakuk
was there, too, singing and dancing in the water. With arms outstretched, she spun in the depths like a starfish. Slowly, reverently, the old woman approached the sleeping goddess. Taluliyuk’s green hair swayed like seaweed. The shaman took out a whalebone comb and gently raked the tangles of long hair, all the time singing like a mother to her child.

Close your eyes, here I am,

I’m right beside you,

I’ll close mine and together we’ll dream.

The lips of the goddess murmured with pleasure. Having lost her fingers, she couldn’t comb her own hair. In turn, she would reward any shaman who requested her help in this way. And now, in the strangest moment of that strange journey, Dana found herself with the
angakuk
inside Taluliyuk’s mind.

Inside her dreaming.

Dana felt she was here and there and everywhere at the same time. She was with every living thing that was upon the earth. She breathed, slept, hunted, and fed with countless numbers of animals. Every fish in the sea, every bird in the air, every creature great and small that walked, crawled, or flew. Wherever an animal was, there was Taluliyuk, living in them and with them and through them all their lives.

Subtly and courteously, the song of the
angakuk
changed inflection. A question was asked.

Where are the soul-birds?

In a dizzying ascension, like a plummet upward, Dana was hurled into the sky.

There! A great flock like a spread of clouds. A shining vista of white birds, brooding over the country with
ah! bright wings
.

Dana sensed the ripple of Taluliyuk’s surprise. These were not her children, not of her body. She called out to the strangers.

In a rush of wings and wind, a mellifluous sibilance, the birds answered her call. Dropping out of the skies toward the shaman’s cave, they alighted on the branches of the barren tree outside.

• • •

Even as the birds fell from the sky, so too did the shaman’s three visitors. Back in the cave, they opened their eyes. The
angakuk
lay on the floor, deep in a trance. Her mouth opened briefly to whistle a word.

“Go.”

It was only when they were in the tunnel and Dana looked back that she discovered the dream wasn’t over.

“Look!” she cried to the others. “Our bodies!”

There they were, the three of them, eyes closed in sleep, still seated near the
angakuk
.

“Tabernac!”
said Jean.

Brendan crossed himself hurriedly. “We are souls alone without their vessels. Another wonder to record! But we must take care. What happens to the soul, happens also to the body.”

The
angakuk
called out once more. Her tone was urgent.

“Go!”

The three hurried through the tunnel and out onto the ice. There, another marvel awaited them. The branching tree had grown immense, almost touching the sky. Its boughs were laden with birds, hundreds it seemed, all white and shining, of every kind. And all fast asleep, heads tucked under wing.

As she gazed upward into the haze of feathered white, Dana felt a deep thrill inside her. The thrill of recognition. The Faerie blood that enlightened her veins knew the truth. These birds were kin.

“They belong to Faerie!” she said breathlessly. “What are they doing here?”

A single white feather floated down from the tree toward her. She caught it gently, holding it to her cheek. Her face was wet with tears. A longing for home surged through her.

As Brendan regarded the birds, the silver rim of the Second Sight seeped into his eyes.

“The souls of the just in the Mystical Tree,” he murmured. He turned to Dana. “This flock of angel-birds hail from the Land of Promise. They came here for you. Hark to their message.”

It was as if a wind had shaken the great branches of the tree. All the birds began to move, ruffling and rustling as they stretched and preened. As soon as they opened their mouths to sing, Dana remembered. The song she had heard in the Medicine Lodge. The message that tantalized in stray thoughts and dreams. Though she tried to grasp it, to understand, it was too grand, too lofty to be fully taken in. She could only catch phrases, like glimpses, of the Grand Design, the Great Song.

Sleepers awake!

At the heart of the universe, we sing of a life lived in matter.

O nobly born, remember who you are!

She knew they were singing her truth out into the world; the knowledge that was hers from the dawn of time, lost and forgotten at birth. Her heart’s truth. Her soul’s knowledge.

“Do you understand what they’re saying?” Dana cried to the saint. “What are they trying to tell me?”

Brendan had closed his eyes as he listened to the choir of the birds. He was about to answer when Crowley struck.

• • •

In that moment, Dana realized her error. She had relaxed her guard. She had forgotten that her enemy was able to track her. She should have warned Brendan and also the
angakuk
.

They heard him first, an eerie howling in the wind, then they saw the white tornado that sped toward them. Over the glacier it flew, hoovering up snow, firn, ice, and debris, gaining in bulk as it approached. Before Dana could even attempt to flee, the whirlwind struck her.

Everything went white. The song of the soul-birds ceased abruptly. Dana was sucked into a blizzard of snow and ice. The sensation of cold was so intense, it burned her skin. At the cold heart of the flurry, she sensed her enemy, sensed also his hatred. It was mindless and implacable. It wouldn’t cease until she was dead. The malice itself began to erode her defenses, and she felt the touch of the deadly frost of despair. She, herself, was turning white and cold.

Then she heard it, high up in the air, the chant of the
angakuk
. The snow that was smothering her melted into water. The crystal flakes became bubbles as Dana sank down,