Allan and the Ice Gods (37 page)

rock. “Now tell me, O People—what is your will with me and mine?”

Then out of the shadows answered the piping voice of N’gae the

Diviner, the Priest, the Weaver of spells, saying:

“This is our will, Chief: That you choose for sacrifice one of your

household that the gods of our fathers may smell the blood and lift

from off us the curse that has been brought upon us by Laleela, the

Witch-from-the-Sea, whom against your oath you have taken to wife.”

“On that matter I have answered you already,” cried Wi across the

gulf, “but let it be. Now do you, O People, put up your prayer to your

gods, and when that prayer is finished, if to it no answer comes, I

will name the sacrifice.”

Then N’gae in his thin, piping voice began to pray to the gods out of

the shadows:

“O Ice-dwellers,” he said, “ye whom our fathers have worshipped from

of old, hearken to our tale. A while ago, he who is our chief made new

laws, and because the women among us were very few, decreed that no

man should take more than one wife. Also he swore that he himself

would keep his own law, and should he break it, he called down your

curse upon his head and upon those of all the tribe.

“O ye ancient gods, there rose out of the sea a very fair witch whom

this chief of ours has taken to wife, breaking his oath. Therefore the

curse that he created in your names is fallen upon us; therefore the

seasons have changed, the seals and the fish do not come, there are no

fowl and no deer in the woods, and where there should be grass and

flowers, there is naught but ice and snow. Therefore, too, we starve

and die and must fill ourselves with the flesh of our own children

because you, O gods, are wroth with us.

“Now hearken, O ye gods. It has come to us from the former days,

father telling the tale to son through many generations, that in the

far past such evils have happened to those who begat us, and are now

forgotten. For then, too, you were wroth with us because of the

wickedness of those who ruled over us, turning their backs on you, ye

gods. Yet afterward that wrath of yours was appeased by a sacrifice

chosen from among the household of the chief, and thus the curse was

lifted from us, and again we were full of food. But never did any

chief of ours sin so greatly against you as does this Wi who rules

over us to-day and who is so mighty a man that none of us may stand

against him to fight and kill him. Thus has he sinned, O ye gods from

of old. Not only has he broken his oath, but, led of the Witch-from-the-Sea, he has rejected you and reviled you, saying that ye are no

gods, but devils, and that he worships another power without a name,

to whose feet he has been led by the magic of the Witch-from-the-Sea.

Therefore we, your servants from the beginning, have made known and

declared to him that no common sacrifice will satisfy his sin, but

that the blood to be shed must be that of one of his own family, aye,

the blood of a wife, or that of his son. Such is the case that we lay

before ye, O ye gods, we, your servants of old. Now let Wi the mighty

man, our chief who rejects you, make answer to it if he is able. And

then let the sacrifice be offered that your curse may be lifted from

off us, and that we who perish with cold and hunger, may live again.”

The piping voice of N’gae died and for a while there was silence.

Then, standing on a rock, Wi made answer:

“O ye Ice-dwellers whom once I worshipped as good gods, but whom now I

know to be devils and bearers of evil, hear my words. Your priest said

that I have sworn an oath, and it is so. Yet he is a liar, for that

oath I have not broken. True it is that a curse has fallen upon us

because the seasons have changed their course, yet that curse began to

fall ere ever the woman whom they name Witch-from-the-Sea set foot

upon our shore. Now the tribe demands a sacrifice of blood to be named

by me from among my household, believing that, by virtue of this shed

blood, the curse will be lifted from them and spring and summer will

return as aforetime, bringing plenty.

“O ye Ice-dwellers, that sacrifice is ready to be offered. /I, Wi, am

that sacrifice!/ I, Wi, name myself as the victim whose blood must

flow. Yet first, ere I fall upon my spear, or stretch out my throat to

the Priest, I make prayer to that which is above both you and me. Hear

me now, O Power without a name, O Power in whom I have learned to

trust, is it your will that I should die as an offering to these

devils, the Dwellers in the ice? Answer, for I am ready. The people

are in misery; they are mad. I blame them not, I into whose hand they

were given to feed and guide. If by the shedding of my blood their

woes can be washed away, then let it be outpoured. Judge then, O

Power, between me and the people, for whom I have laboured vainly, and

the evil gods they worship who rejoice in misery and desire death.

Judge, O Power without a name. Turn the hearts of these men, if they

can be turned, and break the bonds that bind them. But if this may not

be, if, having heard me, still the people desire sacrifice, or by my

blood their miseries can be washed away, then let me die for them.”

Thus prayed Wi to the Strength that dwelt above and to the folk whom

he had cherished here upon the earth, asking for no sign nor for any

vengeance, putting up no plea for pity, yet hoping that this Strength

might find a way to turn them from their bloody purpose, so that no

longer in the name of their gods they should demand the life of him or

his. As he prayed, the light of the dying sun faded from him standing

there in the bay of the cliff, so that his last words were spoken out

of the deep gloom, while the light of the rising moon grew and

gathered upon the glacier’s face and upon the savage horde beneath who

stared up toward him upon the rock.

He ceased, and for a while there was a great silence, and through that

silence there came home to the heart of Wi the Hunter, Wi the wild

man, knowledge that he played his part in a war of gods, yes, in the

eternal fight between the Evil and the Good. Suddenly he knew that

those Ice-dwellers whom the people worshipped, as once he had done,

were naught but the evil in their own hearts given form and name, and

that the Unknown One whom now he worshipped was the Good in their

hearts, and his heart of which Laleela had opened the doors so that it

might enter there, the Good which now he saw and felt but which as yet

they did not understand. Which, then, would prevail, he wondered to

himself—yes, wondered calmly, even coldly, as though he judged

another’s case, and in that great wonder all fear left him, and with

it the thought of the agony of death and of the loves that he must

leave behind.

He looked down upon the people and, by the shimmering moonlight,

watched their faces. They were disturbed; they began to whisper one to

another, they grew sad-eyed and some of the women wept. He caught

snatches of their talk.

“He has been kind to us,” they said; “he has done all that man can do;

he is not the Lord of the seasons, he does not cause the birds to fly

or the seals to swim. Why should he not take another wife if it

pleases him? Can the gods demand his blood or that of his wives or

son? Why should he be sacrificed, leaving us leaderless?”

Such were the words that they murmured one to another.

“The Good conquers, the Ill goes down,” thought Wi, still judging of

the case as though it were not his own.

But N’gae, the Weaver of Spells, who hated him, also saw and heard. He

ran out from among them, he stood facing them with his back to the ice

slope; he cried in his thin, piercing voice:

“Hear me, the priest of the Ice-gods, as were my fathers before me;

hear me, ye people. Wi, the oath-breaker, Wi through whom the curse

has fallen on you, pleads with you for his life. If he is afraid to

die, then let him give another to the gods. Let him give Aaka the

proud, or the white Witch-from-the-Sea, or Foh his son. Did we ask for

his blood? Would we kill him, the chief? Not so. If he dies, it is by

his own choice and of his own will. Therefore, let not your hearts be

softened by his pleadings. Remember what he is. Out of his own mouth

he has declared himself a reviler of the gods. He has set up another

god and in their very presence makes prayer to it, naming them devils.

Surely for this he is worthy of death. Surely because of this

blasphemy the gods will be avenged. Yet we seek not his life. Let him

give to us one of the others; let him give to us that white Witch-from-the-Sea that we may bind her and cause her to die, here and now.

I tell you, People, I who am the priest and to whom the gods talk,

that if you go hence having robbed them of their sacrifice, you shall

starve. Yes, you shall die as many of us have died already, of

sickness and want and cold. More, you shall eat one another and kill

one another till at last none is left. Will you starve? Will you see

your children devoured? Look!” and he turned, pointing behind him at

the shadows which the moonlight caused to appear in the deep clear

ice, “The gods are moving; they gather, waiting for their feast. Will

you dare to rob them of their feast? Do so and you shall become, every

one of you, like that dead one who flies before the Sleeper. Do you

not see them moving?”

Now a groaning cry went up from the people.

“We see them! We see them!”

“And will you rob them of their feast?” asked the fierce-faced N’gae

again.

“Nay,” they shouted, taking fire. “Let the sacrifice be sacrificed.

Let us see the red blood flow! Let the Ice-gods whom our fathers

worshipped smell the red blood!”

“Wi, you have your answer,” piped N’gae, as the shouting died. “Now

come hither and die if you dare. Or, if you dare not, then send us one

of your household.”

Aaka, holding Foh by the hand, Laleela, Pag, Moananga and his wife

clustered together as though to take counsel. Wi prepared to descend

from his rock, perchance to fall upon his spear, perchance to give

himself up to be butchered by the people and their priest.

Then it was that something, at first none knew what, began to happen

that caused all to stand silent, each in his place, like men that had

been smitten to stone. From high up in the air, although no wind blew,

there came a moaning sound, as if out of sight countless great-winged

birds were flying. The air seemed to change; it grew more icy cold,

men’s breath froze upon it. The shadows in the ice shrank and grew in

the wavering moonbeams. They advanced; they flitted back quickly and

departed, only to appear again here and there, high above where they

had been.

The hairy man who stood before the Sleeper seemed to move a little.

Surely they saw him move!

The earth trembled as though it were filled with dread, and deeper and

deeper grew the silence, till, suddenly, it was broken by an awful

crack like to that of the fiercest thunder. As its echoes died away,

out of the bowels of the ice rushed the Sleeper and he whom it

appeared to hunt. Yea, the white-tusked Sleeper rushed like a charging

bull; it sped forward like a stone from a sling. The frozen man was

thrown far and vanished, but the mighty Sleeper fell full on N’gae the

priest who still stood staring upward, crushing him to powder, and

passing on, ploughed a red path through the folk beyond.

Again for a moment there was silence, and in that silence Wi said,

speaking out of the darkness as one who dreams:

“It would seem that the Ice-gods have taken their sacrifice!”

As the words died upon his lips, with an awful rending sound,

companioned by whirlwinds, the great glacier moved forward in a slow

and deadly march. It advanced down the valley, thrusting rocks in

front of it, heaving itself into waves like a tumultuous sea, digging

up the solid ground while before it great boulders leapt and danced.

The boulders danced through the people, and ice flowed over them. Yes,

as they turned to fly, it flowed over them, so that presently, where

they had been, there was nothing but a deep sea of tumbled, heaving

ice that travelled toward the beach.

Wi leapt from his rock. With those of his house, he huddled further

back into the little bay of the mountain side, and there, protected by

the walls of the cliff, watched the river of ice grind and thunder

past them. How long did they watch? None ever knew. They saw it flow.

They saw it creep into the sea and there break off in sharp-topped

hills of ice. Then, as suddenly as it had begun to move, it stopped

and the night was as the night had been, only now the valley of the

gods was a valley of ice, and where the glacier had been were slopes

and walls of smooth black rock.

When all was over, Wi spoke to the little company who clung to him,

saying:

“The Ice-gods have given birth. The old devil-gods have taken a great

sacrifice of all who served them, but that which I and another worship

has heard our prayer and preserved us alive. Let us go back to the