Ivory Carver 02 - My Sister the Moon (37 page)

But Amgigh could not tell Samiq the truth. Samiq had always been the one to help Amgigh, to wait for him, to teach him. Now it was Amgigh's place to fight, to be the man. 

Amgigh walked the beach, the sand marred with footprints above the tide line, smooth below, his prints something new on the unmarked sand. He waited until he saw some movement in the shelter where Ice Hunter and Raven stayed. Then he walked over, stood outside the door flap until Raven came out. 

Raven wore only his aprons, front and back. He was a tall man, taller than Kayugh and as wide as Samiq. For a moment he stood without speaking, then he called to someone in the shelter. Ice Hunter emerged. 

"Amgigh," Ice Hunter called. "He asks if you still want to fight." 

"Ask him if he will leave this beach, will leave my wife and my sons." 

Ice Hunter spoke to Raven in the Walrus tongue and Raven laughed, said something and turned to Amgigh, one brow raised. 

"He asks if you want to fight here or somewhere else," Ice Hunter said. 

"On the beach, where it is flat," Amgigh answered, and without turning from Raven, gestured back toward the beach where the water had left the sand smooth. 

Raven nodded and both men walked slowly to the place, then Amgigh, his left hand on his amulet, pulled his knife slowly from its sheath, let the blade move to catch light from its translucent facets. 

Raven should know what he fought against. He should know that there was more here than the spirit of one man. 

Amgigh saw the surprise in Raven's face, then a slow smile, and Amgigh watched as Raven drew out his knife, the blade longer than the blade of Amgigh's knife. Then Amgigh once more felt the fingers of some spirit clasp his heart. And the squeezing slowed Amgigh's heartbeat, pulled Amgigh's own spirit from his hands and feet, so his arms and legs were suddenly slow and weak. 

It was Amgigh's obsidian knife, the mate to Samiq's knife. Qakan must have stolen it when he stole Kiin, stolen it and traded it to Raven. 

Raven held the knife and laughed, but Amgigh thought, Perhaps the spirit of the knife will remember me, will remember its true owner. 

Slowly Amgigh lifted his knife, slowly he began to circle. 

A light mist had begun to fall, soaking the skins and mats of their shelter. Kiin was cold and hungry. In the night, Three Fish had eaten all the food Amgigh had brought them, and now the woman would not stop talking. Words flowed from her mouth like water from a spring, bubbling, pushing, frothing, until finally the shelter was so full of noise that Kiin wondered how there was room for the rivulets of water that squeezed between skins and mats to drip into her hair and run down her neck. 

She pulled Takha from her suk. Maybe if Three Fish were holding him, she would be quiet. Kiin wrapped him in one of the few dry furs from her bed and handed him to Three Fish. The baby opened his eyes, looked solemnly at Kiin, then turned his head toward Three Fish and smiled. Three Fish laughed and again began to babble, this time to the baby. 

Kiin sighed and looked down inside her suk at Shuku. Then suddenly she heard what Three Fish was saying, heard her say, "Your father will fight and you will be safe. Safe. Do not worry. He is strong." 

Kiin clasped Three Fish by both arms. "What did you say?" Kiin asked. 

"Only what Amgigh told me, that we must stay here because there are men on the beach who want to trade for women." 

"And Amgigh will fight them?" 

Three Fish pulled away from Kiin's hands and scooted herself back against the damp wall of their shelter. "He said he might," she answered. 

"All I know is that I saw one of them," Three Fish said. "One with a black blanket over his shoulders. Even his face was black. I think Samiq and Amgigh were afraid he would want us." 

"The Raven," Kiin whispered. And when she spoke the name, she felt as if her spirit shattered, as if its sharp edges were cutting into the outside walls of her heart. 

Three Fish was talking again, her face close to Takha's face, but Kiin crawled over to the woman and waited until Three Fish looked up. Three Fish's smile faded and Kiin took one of Three Fish's hands into her own. 

"Our husbands are brothers," Kiin said, and forced her words to be slow, to be gentle, so Three Fish would understand. "Our husbands are brothers so we are sisters." 

"Yes," Three Fish said. 

"I have to go to the beach now, Three Fish," Kiin said, 

"but you should stay here with Takha. Keep him from crying 
as long as you can. If he sleeps, that is good. But finally when 
| he is crying too hard for you to stop him, then take him to 
Red Berry. She has milk. She will feed him." 

Then Kiin untied the string of babiche that held the carving Chagak had given her and handed it to Three Fish. 

"A gift for you," Kiin said. Three Fish cupped the carving of man, woman and child in her hand. 

"Samiq told me about this," Three Fish said. "Shuganan made it. I cannot take it." 

But Kiin closed her hands over Three Fish's hand and said, "You must. We are sisters. You cannot refuse my gift." Then she unwrapped what she had finished the night before, during the long night when sleep would not come. It was the walrus tusk ikyak. After she finished carving the ivory ikyak, Kiin had cut it crosswise into two pieces. To protect her sons, Kiin had done what Woman of the Sky had said. Her sons would share one ikyak. She took two braided sinew cords and knotted one around the front half of the ikyak, knotted the other around the back half of the ikyak, hung one cord around Takha's neck, the other around Shuku's. 

"When I am not here, you are mother to Takha," Kiin said to Three Fish. "He is son to Amgigh, but also to Samiq. See, he has Samiq's wide hands, his thick hair. You are mother. Be sure Red Berry feeds him." 

Kiin packed her carving tools and sleeping furs and strapped them to her back. Three Fish looked up when Kiin pushed open the shelter's door flap. 

"Where are you going?" she asked. 

"To help Amgigh," Kiin answered. Then, though she had not meant to turn back, Kiin held her hands out toward Takha. 

Three Fish handed Kiin the baby and Kiin lifted him from his fur wrappings. She stroked her hands over his fat legs and arms, over his soft belly. She pressed him against her face, smelled the good oil smell of his skin. Then she handed him back to Three Fish and slipped out of the shelter into the rain. 

"I will see him again tonight," Kiin said to the wind and waited for an answer, but there was nothing. No answer, no whisper to pull away her doubts. 

Kiin tucked her arms around Shuku, alone in his carrying strap under her suk, and began to walk toward the beach. 

SAMIQ WAS NOT SURE WHY HE AWOKE. HE COULD remember no dreams, no whisperings from spirits, no sounds from the large room of the ulaq. Of course, Three Fish and Kiin were away, spending the night in the hills. Who could blame them? The noise and bother of the traders was not an easy thing to live with, especially for the women. Even Three Fish had traders following her, asking for a night of hospitality in her sleeping place. And what of Kiin, a beautiful woman known for her skills as a carver? Whoever heard of a woman who carved? Every man wanted her, wanted the chance to increase his own power by taking her to his bed. 

Samiq slipped from his sleeping robes and went out into the main room of the ulaq. All but one oil lamp was out, but gray light filtered down from the roof hole. Samiq went to Amgigh's sleeping curtain and called to his brother. 

"Lazy one, I go to fish. Come with me." 

When Amgigh did not answer, Samiq pulled aside the curtain. His brother was not there. Samiq shrugged and went to the food cache, but as he was pulling out a skin of dried walrus meat that Kiin's carvings had bought them, he stopped. 

Suddenly his heart was pounding, his chest full with a rush of blood. His hands trembled and when he clenched his fists, he felt the trembling move up into his arms. What foolishness was this? Samiq wondered. He was here in his own ulaq. There was no problem. Amgigh would have called him if there was. But again the trembling came, and again the pounding of his heart. Perhaps something had happened to Kiin, to one of her sons. Perhaps something had happened to Three Fish. 

He pulled on his parka and climbed out of the ulaq. A cold wind blew in from the sea and the sky was gray with a misty rain. Samiq looked up toward the hills, where Kiin and Three Fish had spent the night, but he could see no one, then he turned and looked toward the sea. The ulaq was high, giving good view of the sea and the beach. There were no ikyan on the water. 

It is early, Samiq thought. The traders have become lazy. But then he turned again, this time toward the flat sand near the line of high tide. And as he turned, his breath caught and he knew the reason his heart had raced while he was still in the ulaq. Amgigh's own spirit had called to his spirit, had called in pain, in fear. 

Samiq ran toward the beach, toward his brother, toward the circle of traders who had gathered to watch. Samiq pushed through to the inside edge of the circle. One of the Walrus People was fighting Amgigh. The man's chest was bare and glistened with sweat. Amgigh stood before him, one hand 

clasping his amulet. The other hand, bleeding, held no knife, and Samiq saw that the Walrus man had cut through one of Amgigh's fingers and that the knife and finger lay together in the sand. 

The Walrus man held up one hand, palm out. 

He spoke, said something in the Walrus tongue, and by the tightness of his breathing, Samiq knew the two had been fighting a long time. He pointed at Samiq. 

One of the men watching the fight held his hands out toward Samiq and said, 'T am Ice Hunter. The one who fights is Raven. He asks if you are Samiq, Amgigh's brother." 

"Yes," Samiq answered. "But how does he know who lam?" 

"His wife, Kiin, she told him about you." 

"Raven," Samiq said and Ice Hunter nodded. The one who had bought Kiin from Qakan. So he was here to claim Kiin, perhaps to claim her sons. 

"You should have spoken to Kiin," Samiq's spirit whispered. "You could have helped her; kept a watch for this man; prevented the fight." But it had seemed enough that Kiin had been alive, that she had given Samiq a son. If he would have let himself speak to her, could he have kept from taking her into his arms, could he have kept from claiming her again as wife? She belonged to him. The belonging was in her eyes each time he looked at her. If he had taken time to ask the questions he wanted to ask, to speak to her, man to woman, how could he have kept from betraying Amgigh, from betraying Three Fish? 

The man beside Samiq still held his hands out, still waited for Samiq's answer. "Tell your friend that if he kills my brother Amgigh, he should be ready to fight me also, for I will kill him." 

Samiq glanced at Amgigh and saw his brother's arms drop, saw his eyes leave Raven to glance at Samiq. "Do not fight him," Amgigh called. "He has killed many men. What do you know of fighting?" 

Almost Samiq said the same to Amgigh, but then stopped himself. Why pull away Amgigh's confidence? 

Then Samiq had his own knife out, the one Amgigh had made him. He tossed the knife to Amgigh and Amgigh caught it with his uninjured left hand. He smiled at Samiq, but the smile was grim, edged in bitterness. 

Then suddenly Raven thrust forward, catching Amgigh before Amgigh could bring Samiq's knife forward. Raven's knife cut deep along Amgigh's left arm. Samiq groaned, and his sleeve knife was in his hand before he knew what he did. But then Ice Hunter was beside Samiq, his hand tight around Samiq's wrist. "What is fair is fair," Ice Hunter said. "Who are you to say which man is right? Let the spirits decide." 

Amgigh clamped his teeth tight, and Samiq knew he did so to keep the spirits that bring pain from entering in through his mouth. Then Amgigh lunged forward and drew his knife across Raven's bare chest. A line of blood beaded from the cut and dripped into the sand. 

Then again, the knives were thrust, and again. Raven's knife drew blood, then Amgigh's. Both men backed away, stood for a moment, hands on knees, breaths drawn long and hard. Then Raven lunged again, and this time his knife hit Amgigh's knife. Amgigh's knife blade snapped, and the point of the blade flew in a wide arc, first up like a bird casting toward the sky, then down, to bury itself in the sand. 

Then Samiq saw the fear in Amgigh's face, and with a sickness that pulled at his stomach, Samiq realized what Amgigh had known when Samiq threw him the knife. But Samiq let his eyes hold his brother's eyes, let his brother see that Amgigh's fear was his own fear, that spirit to spirit they were still brothers. 

Then also for the first time, Samiq saw the line of Kiin's carvings that stood on Raven's side of the circle. The carvings were the ones that Samiq and Amgigh had helped her trade for food and skins, life for their people this winter. 

Raven stepped back, rested his hands on his bent knees and breathed deeply. Amgigh, too, stood, blood running in hard rivers from the stump of his finger into the sand. 

"The animals," Samiq whispered to the Walrus man beside him, "they belong to Raven?" 

"He traded for them. For all of them." 

Ten and another ten, Samiq counted. Kiin's animals. Now they were giving power to the man who would kill her husband. Then Samiq felt a hand on his arm, turned and saw that Kiin was beside him. 

"What have I done?" Kiin whispered. "What have I done to my husband?" And Samiq saw that her eyes, too, were fixed on the animals, on the ring of carvings that watched: soft gray of wood, hard yellow of ivory, the shine of many eyes, many spirits on the ground giving power to Raven. 

Then suddenly Amgigh looked at Kiin, and Samiq felt the pull of their spirits, one to the other, and the sorrow in Kiin's eyes was so strong that Samiq felt it crash against him like the power of the sea, wave after wave. 

Again Samiq drew out his sleeve knife. He held it up for the Walrus men to see. It was a small knife, but sharp with a hard andesite blade. He tossed it to Amgigh, but as Amgigh reached to catch it, Raven sprang forward and thrust his knife into Amgigh's belly. Amgigh staggered back and the sleeve knife fell to the ground. Amgigh dropped to his hands and knees, his blood staining the sand. He grabbed the sleeve knife, but Raven aimed a kick into Amgigh's side, kicked twice, and then again. Amgigh drove the short blade of the sleeve knife into Raven's leg, but Raven kicked again, this time into Amgigh's face. 

Amgigh's head jerked back and Samiq heard the snap of bone. Amgigh collapsed, and Raven was suddenly on top of him. He turned Amgigh over then drove his knife into Amgigh's chest. Samiq ran to his brother's side. Raven stood, moved back, let Samiq kneel beside Amgigh. 

Samiq pushed his hands against the wounds, but his fingers would not hold the blood, could not stop the flow. 

Then Kiin, too, was beside them, her arms over Amgigh's chest, her hair turning red with Amgigh's blood. She clasped her amulet, rubbed it over Amgigh's forehead, over his cheeks. 

Amgigh took one long breath, tried to speak, but his words were lost in the blood that bubbled from his mouth. He took 
another breath, choked. Then his eyes rolled back, widened to release his spirit. 

Kiin moved to cradle Amgigh's head in her arms, and softly, softly, Samiq heard the words of a song, not a mourning song, but one of Kiin's own songs—words asking spirits to act, words that begged Amgigh's forgiveness, that cursed the animals Kiin had carved. 

Finally Kiin stood, wiped one hand over her eyes. "He is gone," Kiin said. "I should have come sooner. I should have known he would fight the Raven. It is my fault; I.. ." 

But Samiq pressed his fingers against her lips, shook his head. "You could not have stopped him," he said. "I will not let Raven take you." 

"No, Samiq," said Kiin. "You are not strong enough to kill him." 

But anger burned in Samiq's chest, in his throat, in the spaces behind his eyes. "A knife," he said and turned to the men gathered around him. 

Someone handed him a knife, poorly made, the edge blunt, but Samiq grabbed it, his anger making him see the knife as something stronger than it was. 

Raven clenched his teeth, screamed at him in the Walrus tongue. 

"He does not want to fight you," Kiin said, her breath coming in sobs. "Samiq, please. You are not strong enough. He will kill you." 

But Samiq lunged forward, wrist cocked so the longest edge of the blade was toward Raven. Raven crouched, and Samiq heard him mumbling—words spoken in anger, words coming from between clenched teeth. Samiq drew close, slashed his knife in an arc toward Raven, close enough to catch the back of Raven's hand, to rip the skin open, draw blood, but still Raven did not move. 

The man called out to Kiin, something in Walrus words that Samiq did not understand, and he heard Kiin answering also in the Walrus tongue, Kiin's voice coming from the circle of her carved animals. For a moment Samiq looked toward her, for a moment he turned his head. Kiin was 
pushing her animals into the ground, heaping sand over them. 

But in that moment of looking, Samiq felt Raven's knife. It slashed across the top of his right wrist, the obsidian blade biting through his skin into tendons and muscle. Samiq felt the strength leave his hand, as though Raven's knife pulled the power out through the wound. Samiq tried to open his fingers, to release his own small knife into his left hand, but he could not. 

Then Kiin was beside him, standing between him and Raven. "No," she said. "Please, no." And then Small Knife was there also, his hands gripping Samiq's. 

"You cannot win," Small Knife said. "Look at your hand." 

Samiq glanced down at the blood, at his fingers that would not straighten when he willed them to. 

"I have to fight," he hissed. "I cannot let him take Kiin." 

But Small Knife looked away, not meeting Samiq's eyes. 

"Do not fight," Kiin said again. "You have Small Knife. He is your son now. You have Three Fish. She is a good wife. Someday you will be strong enough to fight the Raven and win. Until then I will stay with him. I am not strong enough to stand against him, but I am strong enough to wait for you." 

Then Ice Hunter was beside Kiin, reaching for Samiq's arm, wrapping a strip of seal hide around the bleeding wrist, pulling it tight to stop the blood. "You have no reason to fight," Ice Hunter said, "The first fight was fair. The spirits decided. Why else would your brother's knife break?" 

Then it seemed to Samiq that not only the strength of his hand but the power he had left in his body flowed out with the blood from his wrist, and he had no words to argue with Small Knife or Ice Hunter, no promises to give to Kiin. 

Kiin pulled off the necklace Samiq had given her the night of her naming. Slowly she placed it over Samiq's head. "Someday you will fight him," she said. "You will fight him and then you will give this necklace back to me." 

She turned to Raven. "If I am to go with you, I must go now," she said, and she spoke in the First Men's language, then repeated the words in the Walrus tongue. 

Raven asked a question, and again Kiin answered, first in her people's language, then in Raven's. 

"I gave Takha to the spirit of the wind as the Grandmother said I must." 

Samiq's spirit, heavy with Amgigh's death, was shattered by her words. She had given Takha to the wind? His son, without telling him, without. .. 

Then Kiin lifted her suk, took Shuku from his carrying sling. She spoke to Raven in the Walrus tongue, then as though she still spoke only to him, said in the language of the First Men, "This is your son, but he is no longer Shuku. He is Amgigh." 

And Samiq saw the anger on Raven's face, the clouding of Raven's eyes until they were as black as the darkest obsidian. But Kiin did not look away, did not flinch, even when the man raised one hand as though to strike her. 

"Hit me," Kiin said to Raven. "Show these people that a shaman has only the power of anger against his wife, the power of his hands, the power of his knife." Then she dropped her voice to a whisper, "A man does not need a strong spirit when he has a large knife, a knife stolen from someone else." 

Then Raven threw the obsidian knife to the ground. Kiin picked it up, walked back to Samiq, placed it in his left hand. Her eyes locked with Samiq's eyes, and he saw her pain. "Always," she said, "I am your wife." 

Raven gestured toward the men who had come with him. One picked up Kiin's carvings; another brought Raven's ik to the water. 

"We will not return to this beach," Raven said, but Kiin bent down and picked up a handful of pebbles from the sand. Once more she looked at Samiq, then she turned and followed Raven to the ik, stepped in as he pushed the ik into the sea. 

Samiq raised his wounded hand to the necklace Kiin had given him. The shell beads were still warm from the heat of Kiin's neck. He watched as Raven's ik grew smaller on the water, watched hoping Kiin would look back once more, but some part of his spirit knew she would not. 

He lowered his wounded hand. Blood escaped from the sealskin wrap, and his fingers were still locked around the dull-bladed Walrus hunter's knife. In his left hand was Amgigh's obsidian knife, marked with Amgigh's blood. 

His mother and Crooked Nose were on the beach, his mother kneeling beside Amgigh, cradling Amgigh's head in her lap, her voice raised in mourning, and Three Fish, too, was there, her face marked with tears. 

"He took Kiin?" she asked. She wiped her eyes against her sleeve and also began a mourning song, a Whale Hunters' song, something different from Chagak's song. 

Samiq moved away from her. He needed to be alone, away from the noise of mourning, from the sight of his brother, the sorrow of his mother, but Three Fish followed him. still singing, her voice harsh. 

Then she thrust something toward him and Samiq looked down, saw his son, his and Kiin's, in Three Fish's arms. The baby looked into his eyes and Samiq felt a sudden power like the power of waves, spirit to spirit. 

He dropped Amgigh's knife and reached out to his son. The baby's hand closed around Samiq's fingers, gripped tight. The mourning songs rose around them, but were not strong enough to cover the sound of the sea.