Primal Fear (4 page)

“Really?”

“Really.  And that’s what I saw when I looked at you.  It’s not denial, not exactly, but it’s something pretty damn close.”

John held his tongue for a moment, still on the verge of protest, but already seeing the futility of it.  “I think you’re right,” he finally admitted.  “In a way, I think I still feel that way.”

“Why is that?  I’m not sure I understand.”

John shrugged, feeling cornered.  He knew Dr. Morris fairly well, that was true, but this seemed a bit too personal to him.  He knew on some level the doctor would hear him out, listen to everything he had to say.  More than that, he would probably even offer some kind of advice, sharing the benefit of his experience with a friend in need.

But where should he begin?  How should he go about telling him the real roots of the problem?  That was the hardest part.  In the end, while John wrestled the issue in silence, Dr. Morris cleared his throat and suddenly made the decision very easy for both of them.

“If we step back for a minute,” he said, “if we take a good look at the real question here, it all becomes pretty clear.  The real question is what’s best for Mahuk.  If what you have to say will help explain what an old man like him was doing out on the streets in the dead of winter, then please tell me.  Because the bottom line is, if I can’t understand him, I’m worried that I can’t help him.”

John considered that, admiring the doctor’s professionalism.  Not once had he raised his voice, and despite the weight of his words, not once had his tone become threatening.

“You’re right,” John said.  He took a deep breath, followed it with a long pull from his beer, and started to explain.  “You already know where I grew up, from my talks at the university . . .”

“That’s right.  The fishing village.”

“Yes.  An Aleut fishing village.  Northern Canada.  I was taught how to fish, how to trap, how to skin, you name it.  If it was important to the village and to our family, then I could do it.  I learned how to live off the land, how to work with my hands . . . it was all just second-nature to me by the time I was ten years old.

“What I don’t touch on in my talks is the fact that I also had a spiritual upbringing.  My mother passed away when I was very young, so I learned the ropes from the tribal elders, from the tribal shaman, and from my father.  He was completely in tune with the beliefs of our people.  Completely devoted to them.  To my father, the stories of Mauna the Earth-Maker weren’t just legends.  To him they were facts.  The spirits of the sky were real, nothing to question, not even for an instant.

“And I believed them, too.  Every word they told me about the old stories . . . I took as the gospel truth.  Ten years old and I could recite the stories as well as my father.  I never questioned them, never felt the need to.  But then when I was fourteen years old, a businessman came to visit our village.  An American.  Clean-shaven, no dirt under his fingernails, suit and tie, the whole nine yards.  He spent a lot of time talking to the village elders, and then with the heads of every family.  He had supper at our house one night, to talk to my father about his fishing business, and how he wanted to expand his resources.”

“Into your territory.”

“Exactly.  He wanted to make a deal with all the local fishermen, a percentage of their catch for a portion of his export cut . . . something along those lines, anyway, I don’t know.  Like I said, I was only a kid, completely uneducated as far as business and finance were concerned.  But I listened to the whole conversation, blown away by the way this guy talked, by the way he presented himself.  He was a very educated man, knew exactly what to say and how to make his pitch.”

“What was your father’s reaction?”

“My father?  Man, he hated everything about him.  He was a city-man, and that was the end of it.”  John paused, taking a moment to drain the rest of his beer.  “But I guess I kind of respected the guy.  For the first time in my life, it was like my attention was turned to something outside of our village, something that represented a whole new way of life.  It opened my eyes to other possibilities.

“It was like . . . overnight, all of a sudden I wanted to learn everything I could about the world, and I started to read anything I could get my hands on.  And then it wasn’t long before I started to want a different life for myself.  I wanted to, you know, break away from the village mentality and see the world.  So, when I was eighteen, I left.” 

“Is that when you started at the university?”

“More or less.  I moved down to Montreal, got a job, landed a grant to attend college.  It wasn’t easy.  I mean, I worked my ass off to keep my apartment and maintain my grades.  But I loved every second of it.  Sooner or later I got hooked up with the social sciences group, the whole anthropology thing.  And that’s when it all seemed to click for me.  My past was important again, everything I learned growing up became a part of what I was studying.  And that was it.

“I studied the mythologies behind the legends, the roots of the belief system that I’d been taught, the one my father still followed.  It was like a moment of perfect clarity.”

“How do you mean?”

John shrugged.  “It was like . . . suddenly I had a way to view everything I’d been brought up to believe as a . . . a tool, I guess, to learn about my people, and about the world.”

“What about your father?  How did he feel about all of this?”

“I’m sure he was proud of me, on some level, the way a father has to feel if his son is doing well.  But, you know . . . he was never happy about it.  I think he was always disappointed about the path I chose.  I think he saw it as a kind of betrayal, like I turned my back on my people, kind of like I was . . .” 

John scowled.  “‘I’m sure he felt I was denouncing the old ways.’”

“Is he still alive?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He died about four years ago.  We kind of came to terms about a year or so before that, but never really, you know . . . clicked when it came to our beliefs.”

“Did you visit him very often?”

“Not at first, no.  But eventually, I started to feel it was more important to stay in touch than to, you know . . . let things get worse between us.  It’s one of the only lessons from my childhood that I actually still follow.  The importance of your family unit, your lineage.  So even if my father and I never saw eye to eye on a lot of issues, at least I can say I didn’t abandon my feelings for him.  Whenever I’d visit, we were just . . . I don’t know . . .” 

“You were just
really
careful what you talked about?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”  John smiled, but there was no real pleasure in it. 

Dr. Morris ordered them another round, and John took a small breather.  It was odd, unburdening himself in front of Sidney this way, but he also felt a great sense of relief.  He didn’t have many friends in the area, and his nearest family member—a brother who’d stayed behind in the village to keep the family’s small fishing business going—was hundreds of miles away.  If this was an opportunity to get a few things off of his chest, and to clear his thoughts, then he’d have to be a fool to let it pass by.  And so he pressed on, deciding to share the final bit of irony that had him so confused about what to do.

“Today, when I listened to Mahuk talk about the old stories, it was like . . . a flashback to my first years at college, to my arguments with my father.  And then to see evidence of those stories—”

John stopped short, realizing he had no idea how to continue.  He wasn’t even sure what he’d seen and felt; how would the doctor react to a story that verged on the impossible?

Dr. Morris set his glass down on the bar and narrowed his eyes.  “What was that?”

John hesitated again.  “The things that Mahuk said to me, the warnings he gave me, they’re all a part of one of the old legends, something I haven’t thought about in years.  It was all very accurate, not something that just anybody would know.”

“But you said he was a shaman.  If that’s true, then it stands to reason he would have heard about the same legend.  This thing . . . what did you say he called it?”

“Wyh-heah Qui Waq.”

“Why He Ah Key Wah?”  Dr. Morris repeated the words, without accent or meaning, and John nodded at the phonetic pronunciation.  It was odd hearing the ancient name coming from the lips of a modern-day scientist.  “What is it exactly?  A ghost?”

John shook his head.  “More like . . . I guess it’s what most religions might describe as a demon.  Wyh-heah Qui Waq, according to the legends, was one of the old ones, one of the first beings made by the great spirits of nature that created the world and the sky, the stars, all of it.  The being was corrupted by its own strengths and the great spirits imprisoned it beyond the sky.”

“Beyond the sky?”

John looked away, embarrassed about how foolish the words sounded.  “Well, at least that’s how the original stories go.”

“But the name . . . what does it mean, in English?”

“Demon of the wind, that’s about as closely as I can translate it for you.”

“And that’s what Mahuk was warning you about?”

“Yes.  ‘Wyh-heah Qui Waq.  It is returning to us.’  That’s what he told me.”

“But, you know, he’s an old man.  He’s sick, he’s confused, he wakes up in an unfamiliar place . . .”

“That’s what I thought, at first.  Part of me still believes that, even now.”

John could feel the doctor’s gaze on him, could feel the weight of the questions he must want to ask.  And once more he felt ridiculous, like a superstitious old man.  True, he had seen something when he’d held the old man’s artifact, and he’d sensed a dread greater than he’d ever felt before.  But couldn’t that have been just a result of his own confusion, of the uneasiness he’d felt after talking to Mahuk?  He’d walked straight into a situation he’d never expected, that he could never have anticipated . . . wasn’t it possible that what he’d seen had been nothing more than his own imagination, stressed to the point of delusion?

He shook his head again.

No, he’d felt something.  He’d seen something.  He was sure about it.

He turned back to Dr. Morris.  “Here’s the thing, though: most of the things Mahuk had in his bag were strictly the tools of the trade for a village shaman, the trinkets and amulets he’d need to do what he believed to be his job.  But one of the items . . . something I found wrapped up in the bottom of the bag . . . it’s not something that anybody could have faked.  It’s an artifact, much older than Mahuk himself.”

“So it’s probably something his father passed onto him, right?  Just like—”

“It’s been passed on, all right, there’s no doubt in my mind about that.  But it’s not human.  It’s not man-made.  It’s not even natural.  If it’s what I think it is—what Mahuk must
believe
it is—then it’s not just an artifact from his father or grandfather.  It’s something that would have been passed down through the years all the way from Maku Jha Laman.  And if that’s true, then it’s a piece of the entire legend of Wyh-heah Qui Waq.”

“That’s what’s bothering you so much?  This artifact?”

“Yeah.”

“So you’re saying that you’re starting to believe in the same legends that you disproved in college.”

John nodded.  “It seems crazy when you just come right out and say it that way.  I know.”  He took a sip from his beer, more confused than ever, but at least his confusion was out in the open now.  “The worst part is, the one person that could help me understand this, the one person who could help me, is my father.  God, I wish I could talk to him right now.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, John’s thoughts already drifting back to the relic lying in the bottom of the satchel.  “I have to talk with Mahuk again.  If I don’t, I’ll never know the truth, one way or the other.”

Chapter Two

John stepped into the old man’s room. 

In his right hand he gripped the shaman’s bag, his knuckles white around its worn handle.  In his left he held a text book, one of his favorites on the subject of Eskimo mythology.  Bridging the gap between the two items would be the real challenge, and perhaps the only way to answer his questions.

Mahuk was awake this time, turning his head painfully in John’s direction.  He smiled weakly, his lined features brightening despite the severity of his condition.  His voice was hoarse, the words coming slowly and with effort.

“. . . c’lun jhente . . . itiu ka g’han . . .”

John understood him perfectly. 

Time is short.  We must prepare
.

He approached the bed, doing his best to appear confident, to put the old man’s fears to rest.  When he pulled up a chair to sit down beside the shaman, he placed his hand over Mahuk’s, offering as much comfort as he could.

“I’m here,” he said, speaking slowly in his native tongue, pleased that the words still came so easily to him.  “We must talk.”

Mahuk nodded, his good eye betraying his emotions.  John could see the fear in the shaman’s gaze, the dread that he was trying so hard to understand.

“Please,” he went on, “there are many questions—”

Mahuk stopped him.  “
There is not enough time.  You must believe.  You must help me.
”

John shook his head, shrugged his shoulders.  “I do not know how.  I do not know if I can be of service to you.  The old ways . . . I am familiar with them, but they are . . .”  He struggled for a moment with the right way to say what he felt, but then he forced the words out.  “The old ways hold no truth for me.”

Mahuk winced, whether from some stabbing pain within his ancient body or from the sting of John’s words, John couldn’t tell.  He wished he could simply conclude that the old man was senile, that his fears were nothing more than the ramblings he’d been taught as a child coming back to torment him now in his fading years.  But the total conviction in Mahuk’s expression bothered him.  His good eye was as clear as a summer sky; his stare was unwavering and filled with a strength his body didn’t have.

“Tell me,” John whispered.  “Tell the truth to me.”

And Mahuk complied, slowly filling in the gaps in the legend that John had never been able to uncover.  Thirty minutes passed that way, with John listening carefully to a tale that couldn’t be true, but one the old shaman insisted had indeed come to pass.  When it was over, when Mahuk had revealed his own part in the story, John sat back in his chair and breathed a long, trembling sigh.

Each turn of the story had confirmed the text book versions of the legend, point for point.  What he’d just heard was a linear account of a tale so obscure John had never found a single text that included each and every piece. 

“
The P’oh Tarhei…do you have it
?”

John looked up, confused, already reaching for Mahuk’s satchel.  “The what?”

“
The P’oh Tarhei.  The remnant of Wyh-heah Qui Waq.  It cannot be lost.  It must not be destroyed
.”

John opened the case, reaching in to retrieve the carefully wrapped artifact.  He could feel that crawling sensation again, the tips of his fingers tingling as he placed the bundle on Mahuk’s bed tray.

“
The P’oh Tarhei
,” Mahuk said, slowly unraveling the withered wrappings.  “
The thing that is most evil is also your best protection against it
.”

“I’m . . . I’m not sure I understand.”

“
You must believe completely before you can understand
.”

Mahuk picked up the relic and sighed, his brow furrowing into a hard line.  John wondered if the old man could feel its influence, its power, just as he had the night before when he’d first laid his own hands upon it.

“
Know what I know
,” Mahuk whispered.  “
See what my eyes see
.”

And before John could move away, he reached out and clamped one withered hand hard over John’s wrist, crushing it in a grip that was impossibly strong.

“
See the truths I see
. . .”

John tried to pull away, but couldn’t, his muscles locking, his mind reeling as Mahuk’s free hand once again closed around the shard of bone and wood.

The visions came at once, even more vivid than they’d been the night before, an onslaught of images that overwhelmed his senses and left him trembling in their wake.  He saw the towering shadow, moving stiffly through a blackened grove of trees, and he saw the destruction of its passing.  The feelings of dread returned, coiling into his own fears, feeding them, setting his nerve-endings on fire with the intensity of the emotion.

But he felt a mysterious strength as well, one that survived despite the oppressive sensation of dread, or perhaps because of it.  The paradox confused him, the mingled fear and elation, the feelings of defeat and superiority that raged within his mind.  He was powerless to question the feelings, or even to examine them further, because the visions continued to unfold too quickly to fully comprehend.

And when the tide of images seemed like it would never end, when a part of John’s mind felt as though it would soon collapse against the strain, he caught a single, final glimpse of something he could identify without a moment’s hesitation.

His father’s face, watching him from a sea of shadows, his mouth moving slowly.  John tried to make out the words, but couldn’t hear them.  He tried to read the emotion in his father’s eyes, but couldn’t see them clearly enough.

Mahuk suddenly released him, relinquishing his grip on John’s wrist and breaking contact in a single fluid motion.

The visions ended then, retreating so quickly that at first the sudden sight of the hospital room was too much for his mind to bear, as if such familiar surroundings couldn’t be real after the barrage of images he’d just endured.  He squeezed his eyes shut, felt his body falling from the plastic chair to the cold tile floor. 

His skull felt as though it was about to crack wide open, filled to the brink with memories and feelings that he’d never had before.  Stars spun in the darkness behind his closed eyes, and deep in the back of his throat, he could feel his bile beginning to rise.

“Oh my God,” he croaked, pushing his clenched fists against the sides of his head. 

The feelings passed, but slowly, his own senses coming to the surface once again.  He let a full minute crawl by before he dared to open his eyes.  Reality swam back into focus, his nausea subsiding as he climbed carefully back into his chair. 

“What did . . . what did you do to me?”

“
I gave you my sight.  To make you understand
.”

John breathed deeply, squeezing the bridge of his nose as the last traces of pain faded away.  “Something’s wrong,” he muttered.  He touched his head, running a hand over the top of his skull.  “In here.  There’s . . . something
in
here.”

“
The truth
,” Mahuk said quietly.  “
It lives in you.  See it as I see it, and you will understand
.”

“But I don’t.  I still don’t.  And if this is supposed to help me understand this demon of yours—”

“
It is not the demon that you must fear.  It is what man has made of it that we have to face.  You must not forget that
.”

John staggered to his feet, wishing he hadn’t come, wishing he hadn’t convinced himself that Mahuk could solve his problems.  He didn’t feel any better off than he’d been the night before, and his doubts only seemed stronger now.

“I have to go,” he told Mahuk, struggling to find his balance now, the once familiar inflections of his native tongue lost to the confusion of his thoughts.  “I’ll come back tomorrow, maybe, and we’ll talk some more.”

Mahuk smiled, his expression filled with a knowledge that bothered John in some way he couldn’t name.  “
You will leave tomorrow.  I will not see you here again
.”

“That’s not true,” John said.  “I’m not going anywhere—”

“
This I know
,” Mahuk whispered, his eyes slowly closing as fatigue crept back into his withered body.  “
You will leave tomorrow.  You will find the truth.  And the truth will find you
.”

John lay awake for hours that night, frustrated by the shaman’s conviction, trying to sort out the old man’s cryptic messages.  The buzzing in his thoughts still hadn’t gone away, not completely.  He could feel it there, deep down inside, like that unnamable feeling of dread he’d felt in the grip of the vision.

When he’d made it back to his apartment, hoping another inspection of the old man’s belongings might provide some sort of insight, he’d spread them out on his kitchen table, examining each item in turn.  He’d handled them slowly and deliberately, searching for clues where he’d found nothing before.  Only the artifact remained untouched—what the old man had called the P’oh Tarhei—still secure in its faded wrappings.

John hadn’t felt the need to handle the relic again, wishing he’d never touched it in the first place.  So he’d laid it aside, and when he’d reached back into the bag to pull out the rest of Mahuk’s belongings, he’d found another item in one of the satchel’s inner pockets.  It was a small bag of black sand, finely powdered, and smelling slightly of oil.

Spirit Sand, just one more tool of the shaman, used in the legends to bind a spirit to the earth, or to separate it from its flesh.

With nothing more to go on, and with his feelings of frustration only growing stronger, John had finally given up and gone to bed, only to lie awake as sleep continued to elude him. 

With nowhere else to turn his thoughts, he replayed Mahuk’s story in his mind, over and over again.  And despite the story’s tragedy, despite the fear it inspired, John found a sense of peace in its soft tones, in the beauty of the old language.  It managed to soothe him, and—finally—to lull him into a deep sleep. 

Deep within that sleep, where the troubling thoughts of the day could not distract him, the answers began to come.  They came as memories, glimpses of a past he hadn’t lived, flashes of a truth Mahuk had instilled within his thoughts.

He dreamed them into being, his sense of reality already realigning itself to these new possibilities, his knowledge of his people and their culture merging at last with the strength of their beliefs.  The dreams continued into the early morning hours, filled with secret meaning, with the smells of burning wood and rotting meat, with the caress of cold bone and steel, and with the echo of distant gunfire . . .