The World Above the Sky (35 page)

Athol watched his canoe, which he'd left untethered, fall away in Verum's wake.

“My pipes!” he called.

“Never mind your blessed pipes, Athol,” Henry yelled across the growing distance. “Where's the New Holy Grail!”

In the dense grey cloud surrounding the star travellers, the curtains of light from the Great Spirit's eye that had formed the canoe gave way to earthly ribs of ash, panels of bark stitched with spruce root, sealed with pitch. Its passengers' matted human hair dripped icy water. Their exposed skin summoned warm blood up to its shivering surface. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk and Eugainia bent their backs, hefted their paddles, steadied the fragile craft. Keswalqw stood upright mid-canoe, arms stretched wide. She raised her arms above her head, flexed her knees and dove from the canoe into the heart of the cloud. As she plunged earthward, she called to her sister in the World Below the Sea. “
E'ee
!” she called, hurtling arrow-straight down through whorls of snow, up-welling vapour and patches of freezing rain. “
E'eee-e-e-e
!” Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk and Eugainia steadied the craft, dug deep into the fog, making their way home.

Garathia repeated the call from the Sky World. She ordered the great families
Phocedea
and
Catecea
—the multitudes of seals, dolphins and whales awaiting her command—to circle Antonio Zeno's fleet and, in their manner of driving prey, force a tight, contained circle.

Athol knew the ray of light that shot from the base of the cloud was not born of the sun but of the moon. “Glory be. It's Keswalqw. She's back!” he called to Henry. “I say, glory be!”

The canoe paused in the calm heart of the cloud. Eugainia plucked the star-stone from the bow, handed it to Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk. He raised the stone above his head. Tutji'j Jipijka'maq, the little serpent sleeping between the layers of his skin, asleep in the green and blue tattoo, opened her eyes. Tutji'j Jipijka'maq crawled down his arm, unhinged her jaws, received the star-stone from her master, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk the Serpent King. As she slipped off his flexed wrist, her serpent form became rigid. The shaft of the Spear of Destiny, Tooth of Wolverine, re-emerged, the star-stone head secure in place. The weapon of the Gods had, like those who bore it, been revitalized; it would fly of its own accord to the heart of those who would harm Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk, Eugainia or the Child of the Two Made One.

Keswalqw plunged into the sea. Beneath the surface, the white-beaked dolphin shadowing Garathia, the second of the matched pair, rolled to her belly. Grateful for the dolphin's body warmth, Keswalqw slipped inside, thanked her hostess who, like her gracious Delphinidae sister, remained present but subdued and unharmed.

Antonio heard the splash and scanned the water at
Reclamation
's bow. Flippers and flukes rose in the air and beat the surface in a clamorous two-world tattoo. At the sisters' command, creatures of the sea and air began their work in tandem. Antonio looked to the sails and rigging, their edges a blur of beating wings. Below the water pooled and curled forward, instead of slipping past on either side.
Reclamation
and the eleven ships of his fleet were being drawn stern first into the heart of a rising vortex.

Henry looked astern, expecting an unruffled wake. Athol looked up and then aft to
Reconcilio
. Neither
Verum
nor
Reconcilio
was being dragged to safety by the outflow; the tide had not yet turned. The sails of both were bowed back where they should be puffed, full-bellied, forward. The waters foamed in turmoil. Both ships were being dragged—not blown, not carried on the falling tide—by innumerable beating wings.

The canoe broke the cloud and hovered north and a little east of the summer island, Apekwit. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk stood in the stern of the canoe, Eugainia knelt in the bow.

Garathia and Keswalqw urged dolphins, seals and whales to circle the fleet at peak velocity. In the centre of the vortex, Antonio's vessels drew together as if magnetized, adhering without benefit of ropes or lines. The birds in their thousands on sails and rigging remained still, awaiting their signal.

The Sky Canoe descended slowly. Eugainia raised her arms to shoulder height. She looked past her right arm to the north. Beating wings aligned
Reconcilio
's bow to nor'ward. Eugainia sighted past her left thumb.
Verum
's bow swung due south. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk sighted along the shaft of Destiny/Wolverine. He traced a line along the shore of Claw of Spirit Bird Bay.

Water poured from marshes and tidal rivers at Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's command. Their exposed beds flapped with fish. The People, wicker baskets at hand, rushed to the harvest. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk directed the spear to the centre of the gyre. He raised the spearhead skyward. Silence blanketed the Earth World. All was still in the World Below the Sea. The wind ceased to blow in the Sky World. The spirit birds took their ease, folded their wings. The People, baskets filled with fish, made their way back to high ground. The canoe bearing their Shaman Chief, Star King, and the White Goddess, Queen of Heaven, descended to the surface where it rested at the landward edge of the gyre. It held its place, though the waters beneath circled away with increasing velocity.

The matched pair of white-beaked dolphins broke the surface, arced up and over in opposite directions, easily clearing the mid-section of the canoe. Keswalqw positioned herself off the bow. Her powerful tail sculled the waves, keeping her perfectly upright. Garathia mirrored her sister's position at the stern. Henry unfurled His Lady's Standard on
Reconcilio
's mast. It hung limp in the dearth of wind until industrious spirit birds grasped its edges in their beaks where it rippled horizontal beneath their wings. On
Verum
, Athol unfurled the Standard of the Holy Grail, and wondered not at the fate of the New Grail, The Birchbark Grail itself, but at the fate of his pipes.

Eugainia pursed her lips; a gentle flow of breath escaped. Forty thousand times forty thousand wings fluttered back to life. Keswalqw and Garathia slipped below the surface. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk raised his spear. Antonio's fleet rose higher, four times the height of the tallest masts, then higher still. The waters bubbled and roiled beneath. Eugainia blew a stream of breath toward the base of the cloud. It tuned to ashen grey then charcoal black. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk pointed Destiny/Wolverine toward the Smoking Mountain. Smoke poured forth with a fiery hail of stones, all rattling down to the deck of
Reclamation
, stones no bigger than quail eggs meant to warn but not destroy.

The People raised a chant when Eugainia caused the cloud, now black and oily as pitch, to swirl above Antonio's head, Antonio who had ravaged the burial grounds of their sacred dead, Antonio who had stripped the rivers of its yellow stones without revealing their value, Antonio who had cursed their friends. Antonio who had stolen their children. Antonio who would break their spirits, burn their bones, and make them slaves to the scarlet-robed wolves of Rome.

The dolphin sisters broke the surface. At the apex of mirrored arcs, they cried their final orders. A hundred times a hundred whales beat the surface. The dome at the centre of the vortex lost coherence. The waters below Antonio's fleet poured seaward. Seals and dolphins rode the great cascade. Wings in the sails and rigging beat with clockwork fury. Antonio's fleet sped down the collapsing cataract.

Reclamation
was bound due east, back across the sea.

Henry had never seen a wake as wide or deep as that trailing
Reconcilio
. He felt the rush of wind perfumed with the scents of hyacinths and roses. He looked to the stern. His ship sped east nor'east, then veered toward the north. Henry stood at the rail looking back toward the shore. “Farewell,” he said, knowing his words were lost in the sea-feathered wind. “May the Great Spirit bless and keep you.”

Athol felt
Verum
veer southward. Chatter in the rigging pulled his attention to the sails. The little spirit birds, flapping and squawking, their job done, lifted off and wheeled to the west. Their bellies shone like that of a single creature, flashed once in the sun and disappeared.

Apekwit soon slipped from sight as Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk and Eugainia took their bearings, bound for the mouth of the Great River. They found a common rhythm, their strokes set by the beating heart in Eugainia's belly. The canoe sped north and west with Power, grace and purpose. A pair of bounding dolphins led the way.

On the south shore of Apekwit, the Summer Island, Athol Gunn's rogue canoe nudged the red sand beach. A small brown hand, a girl-child's hand, lifted the square of canvas concealing the Bear Man's bagpipes.

Beside them unmolested sat the Birchbark Holy Grail.

The End

EUROPEAN NAMES

Eugainia:
Eu gain ia (hard g, as in good)

Morgase:
More gaze

Igidia:
Ee gide (soft g) ee ah

MI'KMAQ NAMES

Mimkɨtawo'qu'sk:

This is a very beautiful word, from Ruth Whitehead's book Stories from the Six Worlds. Say it at a moderate pace with fairly even emphasis on each syllable and you've got it!

Mim - like
sim
in
sim
ilar

k
ɨ
t - the barred
i
gives it a sound like the
e
in ros
é
, and shortens, almost halves, the value of the length of the vowel

a -
ah

wo' - long
o
, lengthened slightly in duration by the '

qu' - almost like
keh
, the soft
u
sound is extended slightly

sk - is as you'd expect

Keswalqw:

Another lovely word. Say it as you'd imagine, but with a little puff of wind at the end instead of a hard w.

Kes wall qw - as though you'd begun to say
awww
but changed your mind—again, very little difference in stress per syllable

For other Mi'kmaq words in the text, there are great resources online. It's a beautiful, gentle language to my eye and ear. I hope you'll enjoy it too.

• See a Mi'kmaq pronunciation and spelling guide at
www.native-languages.org/mikmaq_guide.htm

• Hear Mi'kmaq spoken at
www.mikmaqonline.org

• Find an extensive English/Mi'kmaq dictionary at
www.mikmaqonline.org

Before we both left Nova Scotia in the eighties, my friend Donna Anthony, historical sociologist, counsellor and feminist adventurer, handed me a book—Michael Bradley's provocative, speculative history
The Holy Grail Across the Atlantic
. I met with Michael and his partner in Toronto in the late nineties. The ideas, remarkable for their well-grounded, exhaustively researched vision of what might have been, set me on the much-forked path that has led to
The World Above the Sky
. At about the same time, Frederick Pohl's
Prince Henry Sinclair: His Expedition to the New World in 1398
came to my attention. These books, and those of Dr. Ruth Whitehead (see below), fuelled a slow-burning fire that erupted when Michael Fuller, artistic director of The Ship's Company Theatre in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, commissioned a play exploring the Sinclair voyage.

Kim McArthur liked the resulting play in two acts,
New Arcadia: A New World Grail Romance
, and asked me to reconsider the material as a piece of prose fiction. I thought it would take about eighteen months. Four years later, I'd completed my first novel:
The World Above the Sky
. I can't say which I appreciate more: Kim's vision or her patience. Or her great heart and keen eye.

The Writers' Trust of Canada helped with the writing of
The World Above the Sky
. I am indebted to their kindness and thank them for their financial assistance when assistance was badly needed. The Canada Council for the Arts supported research for this project with a generous project grant.

Candace Burley read the manuscript and had concise, thoughtful things to say. Her work for the Ontario Government with First Nations communities and her years at Canadian Stage Company in Toronto as dramaturge helped clarify my intent as I strove to honour the heart and soul of our country.

Wolfram von Eschenbach's twelfth-century Grail epic
Parzival
continues to beguile the Western imagination more than eight hundred years after its composition. Von Eschenbach's themes of decline and renewal, and the power of good to heal the wounded body and spirit, retain their acuity and their relevance.

Dr. Ruth Holmes Whitehead has given Canada's First, and subsequent and varied Nations, an enormous gift. Ruth is a world-renowned authority on pre-Columbian Mi'kmaq culture. She shares her life's work, conducted privately and as staff ethnologist and associate curator in history at the Nova Scotia Museum, with wit, charm and great respect for all people. Among her extensive publications, her wonderful collection
Stories from the Six Worlds
continues to delight, enlighten and defeat misconception. I'm profoundly grateful for Ruth's advice, friendship and encouragement.

“We don't have to control the Spirit,” John Joe Sark tells us, “we just have to let it work.” Born of the Lennox Island Mi'kmaq band, John Joe and I have enjoyed long discussions over several decades, many of a Saturday morning at the Farmer's Market in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. We met almost four decades ago. I represented the Opportunities for Youth program, he was recently returned from the United States. John Joe challenged my inherited suppositions and encouraged me to look not only backward and forward, but up. John Joe's work as an educator, social activist and keeper of the old ways continues to enlighten and inspire. John Joe is the recipient of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation's Award in Heritage and Spirituality, and I thank him for his vision, his patience and his fortitude.

I also want to thank Her Excellency, The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada. Madame Jean's impassioned, considered, gracefully articulated response to my question regarding the relationship between indigenous peoples and dominant cultures, ‘After insult and apology, what comes next?' caused me, as did John Joe Sark's wise counsel, to look forward and up. Where cosmologies blend, comprehension and compassion arise.

Kent Stetson

Montreal, March 2010