Below is Book One in an epic fantasy series with a unique arctic setting.
I am told all fans of fantasy will enjoy these five novels.
Title: The Calling
Series: Alaana's Way
Author: Ken Altabef
Publisher: Cats Cradle Press
Release Date: 30th October 2014
BLURB from Goodreads
An insatiable fever demon...
A restless Wind spirit...
A treacherous shaman...
A golden walrus...
And one courageous young girl.
.
In the frozen north, a land of deadly weather and unforgiving spirits, the shaman is all that stands in the way of disaster. When Alaana is called upon to become shaman for the Anatatook people she discovers a kaleidoscopic world where everything is alive, where the tent skins whisper at night and even the soapstone pot has tales to tell. She faces vengeful ghosts and hungry demons as she travels the dangerous path to becoming a shaman.
And there's just one other problem. Girls aren't allowed to be shamans.
A restless Wind spirit...
A treacherous shaman...
A golden walrus...
And one courageous young girl.
.
In the frozen north, a land of deadly weather and unforgiving spirits, the shaman is all that stands in the way of disaster. When Alaana is called upon to become shaman for the Anatatook people she discovers a kaleidoscopic world where everything is alive, where the tent skins whisper at night and even the soapstone pot has tales to tell. She faces vengeful ghosts and hungry demons as she travels the dangerous path to becoming a shaman.
And there's just one other problem. Girls aren't allowed to be shamans.
PURCHASE LINKS
EXCERPT
The
sight of her sister’s body lying so pale and motionless on the sleeping
platform made Alaana’s heart twist slowly in her chest. Her father stepped back, his expression
frightful, and the world suddenly turned colder than ever before.
Alaana
had never seen her father afraid.
Kigiuna was a strong man, a successful hunter and a good provider for
the family. Even during winter’s long
unbroken darkness when a sense of helplessness settled over them all, when
there was little to do but sleep and tell stories in the dim glow of the
soapstone lamp awaiting spring’s dawn, he was never afraid. Framed by shoulder-length hair, wavy and
black, and the sparse, curly beard that hung from his chin, Kigiuna’s face was
usually quick with a smile. But now his
voice sounded strangely high-pitched and his eyes were wild in their sockets.
“The
snow has already melted,” whispered Amauraq, indicating a little puddle pooling
on the ledge where the melt had trickled down from Avalaaqiaq’s forehead. In contrast to her husband, Mother’s fears
were well known to the entire family.
She feared that her children wouldn’t have enough to eat, and she feared
that her husband might die out on the hunt, victim to a treacherous stretch of
ice floe or the mauling attack of an enraged bull walrus or the inexorable pull
of the ever-present, numbing cold. She
was afraid when the storms blew against their tents, and she was afraid when
the blubber in the lamps ran low.
“Melted
already?” asked Kigiuna. He placed a
hand along Avalaaqiaq’s cheek. Despite a
thick layer of sleeping furs, a violent shiver wracked the child’s body as she
slept on the driftwood platform. “She’s
burning from the inside. Look at her
skin.”
Alaana
squeezed in for a closer look. Her
father’s words had not been meant for her.
She and her brothers were quickly shoved away. Alaana had only a fleeting glimpse of the
oozing blisters that riddled Ava’s face.
“We need
the shaman,” said Amauraq in a tone so heavy with desperation it broke Alaana’s
heart.
Kigiuna
turned to Alaana’s eldest brother.
“Maguan,” he said, “The house of the angatkok is not far. Bring him quickly.”
“Alaana,
you go with him,” added Amauraq.
Relieved
at finally having something to do, Alaana raced out the tent flap, close behind
her brother.
“Maguan!”
she called out, but her brother neither hesitated nor turned back. Alaana wanted to ask if Maguan thought Ava
was going to die, but was glad the opportunity passed. To give voice to such a fear would surely
bring an ill omen to the family. The
idea was too painful to even think about.
Not Avalaaqiaq. At eleven, Alaana
was only two winters younger than Ava, and being so close in age the two were
nearly inseparable. They were forever
running races along the beach and wrestling in the snow, and Ava had promised
to teach Alaana to use the slingshot just as soon as Maguan had finished
teaching her.
Alaana
was not swift enough to keep pace with her eldest brother, who was already a
man, but it felt good to push herself.
The exertion left her less time to worry about Ava. Weaving a path through the Anatatook
encampment, she darted between sod houses and tents of stretched caribou
skin. The chill of spring’s evening had
hardened the day’s melt into an uneven surface that stabbed against the soles
of her mukluks, threatening to turn an ankle at any careless step.
Of the
three shamans who served the Anatatook, Civiliaq was closest at hand. He sat perched atop a large rock at the bend
of the river, giving himself a tattoo with a slender ivory needle and a pot of
ash. His clean-shaven face betrayed no
pain as he dragged the needle, dipped in the black soot, under the skin of his
forearm. Thin streams of blood trickled
from the many punctures he had already made.
Despite the cold Civiliaq always went bare-chested and barefoot. He enjoyed showing off both his natural
ability to generate heat and the impressive tattoos that covered his upper body
and arms.
“Angatkok! Angatkok!” shouted Maguan.
Civiliaq
acted as if he could not hear them, taking up his clay pipe. As he put the long stem to his mouth the bowl
sparked to life. The shaman drew a short
puff of thick black smoke.
“Does
one hear some little bird calling one’s name?” he said as if to himself.
“Please,”
shouted Maguan, “My little sister is sick.
I think she’s going to—” Maguan stopped short, but although he had not
said it, his words confirmed Alaana’s dread.
He too thought Ava might die.
“She’s on fire!”
As
Civiliaq stood up, the many charms strung about his neck tinkled to life. He gazed down at his two worried
visitors. “On fire?”
“Father
said she’s burning up. Snow placed on
her forehead melts faster than in the pot.
Please come.”
Civiliaq
took one last puff of the pipe and wound it around his forehead just below the
ornate black-feathered headpiece he wore.
The rigid stem somehow went around his head without breaking. This was one of Civiliaq’s favorite tricks
for impressing the children but Alaana had no time for it now.
Civiliaq
pointed a long, black crow feather at Maguan.
“It’s good you came to me,” he said.
“Was that your idea, boy?”
“My
father’s,” replied Maguan. He held back
from adding that the choice was based on the fact that of the three shamans who
served the Anatatook, Civiliaq had simply been the closest at hand.
“Ah,
Kigiuna,” said Civiliaq, nodding thoughtfully.
“Let’s go then.” He gathered up
his medicine bundle and the things he had been using for the tattoo, moving
much too slowly for Alaana’s liking.
“Hurry,
please,” Alaana whispered.
With his
gangly, long-legged stride the shaman followed them back to their tent,
stopping only for a moment at his house to pick up a small round drum.
“We’ve
done nothing wrong,” said Kigiuna.
“Someone
must have,” returned Civiliaq. He bent
over Ava with an intent look on his face.
Kigiuna
flushed at the shaman’s rebuke. His
anger slowly dissolved into a look of sincere reflection as he pondered the
awful question as to whether he might have broken one of the taboos after all.
Civiliaq
gently stroked Ava’s cheek, then pulled his fingers quickly away as if they’d
been burned by the blisters. He cocked
his head and sniffed, drawing attention to an odd smell in the tent, sickly
sweet, much like the cloying scent of the red poppy.
The
shaman shook out the contents of his medicine pouch, emptying a small clutter
of objects onto the packed snow floor beside the sleeping platform. The soapstone lamp had been turned out by
Amauraq, Alaana’s mother, as she thought to help cool Ava. Civiliaq reached for the lamp. As he tapped the end of the wick it
immediately sparked to life. He
sprinkled some dried herb into the simmering pool of seal oil and a mellow
woody scent began to overwhelm the sickly odor in the tent.
Sitting
cross-legged before the shelf, Civiliaq began to sing. He beat a tiny drum in rhythm to his chant,
gently at first, then more forcefully as the cryptic words of the song came
faster and faster. His eyes closed, his
face set in deep concentration, his breath came quick and strident between the
lyrics. His slender neck and shoulders
trembled wildly, setting the many necklaces and amulets to a jangling
accompaniment of his healing song.
His eyes
popped open and Alaana noted a deep look passing from the shaman to the
unconscious girl on the slab. This was
the look, she knew, which shamans used to see into the spirit world.
Suddenly
Civiliaq leapt straight up and began dancing around the little room, jumping
and thrusting his legs out to the sides, knocking Mother’s cooking things from
their places and tumbling the lamp onto its side. Whooping, he spun around three times and launched
himself at Ava. With the tiny drum held
tightly to the child’s forehead, the shaman pressed his lips against the
drumhead. He came up with a mouthful of
black ichor. He spewed the ghastly
liquid at Kigiuna’s feet.
He also
spat out a small stone, sending it rolling across the floor. It came to rest close to where Alaana was
standing.
“The
evil is drawn out,” announced Civiliaq.
“I can’t yet say whether she will live.
We must still discover the cause of this malady. But that is for later.”
Alaana
stared down at the little stone. Where
it was not splotched with the black ooze she saw a distinctive shade of brown
lined with reddish streaks. She
remembered playing with that very stone the day before. She had seen Civiliaq pick it up just as he
was entering the tent.
“You
took that from outside,” Alaana said, pointing to the stone.
“Don’t
be ridiculous, girl,” said Civiliaq with a congenial smile. “Everyone saw me draw it from your sister’s
body.” He began gathering up the
feathers and dried herbs that went into his medicine bag.
“Alaana!”
shouted her mother.
“But I
saw him pick it up outside! I saw him!”
Civiliaq
whirled around. This time his face was
anything but congenial. “Does a little
bird question her shaman’s methods?”
“She
certainly does not,” said Amauraq. She
grabbed her daughter’s arm, but Alaana twisted away.
Alaana
was caught in a terrifying situation.
She knew what she had seen, but everyone wanted her to be quiet. And yet she didn’t want her sister to die
because of the shaman’s faulty healing magic.
This was too important. For the
first time in her life she didn’t care if she angered her parents.
“You
lie!” she said. Then her father was
coming toward her, the angriest look in the world on his face. Alaana cast a final glance at poor Ava, still
lying asleep on the ledge, before she darted out of the tent. She ran through the snow until she could go
no farther. By the time her father had
finished apologizing to the shaman, she was long gone.
Crouched
among the ice and rocks at the river’s elbow, Alaana fought back the
tears. Except for Ipalook, who was
seated atop an upright umiak at the bend of the river keeping watch for
the salmon run, there was no one else in sight.
The
rocks in the stream glistened with a stunning mosaic of spring color. Patches of moss speckled the gray surfaces
with delicate circles of orange, green and black. The water sparkled in the sunlight, a joyous
dance of spring, as it sent frothy bubbles in eddies and whirls about the
stones. A pair of old-squaw ducks called
softly from the opposite bank. The
running water answered with a soothing whisper, a muffled conversation which
dangled just beyond her realm of perception, telling of age-old mysteries trickling
down from the north. To Alaana, the
river was both fascinating and profoundly beautiful.
She
thought also that her sister Avalaaqiaq was beautiful. Her face was perfectly round when she smiled,
her teeth perfectly crooked when she grinned, and her laugh an irresistible
tickle that ran up and down the spine of anyone who heard it. And now she lay dying.
Alaana
leaned forward so that her tears would plop down into the eddy pool between the
toes of her mukluks. She didn’t want Ava
to cross into the distant land, to leave and never come back. But there was nothing she could do about it,
and attacking the shaman hadn’t helped.
Alaana knew her father must be furious with her; she cast a nervous
glance over her shoulder. She wasn’t
afraid of her father’s anger; she was more upset that she had caused Kigiuna
pain and embarrassment. She had never
meant to do that.
“We all
make mistakes,” said an unnaturally deep rumble of a voice.
Alaana
turned to see Old Manatook standing behind her.
The fact that she had observed no one approaching when she’d looked over
her shoulder just a moment ago did not seem strange. That was the way with Old Manatook.
From his
imposing height, Old Manatook’s gaze washed sternly down on Alaana like cold
water running down from an iceberg. The
old shaman had an impressive beard as perfectly white and curly as his
luxurious hair, a broad sloping nose, and dark sympathetic eyes. He wore a hoary old parka whose caribou hide
had faded almost completely white and a luxurious set of trousers made from
polar bear fur.
“But
then again,” said Old Manatook. “No one
likes a disrespectful child.”
“I don’t
care,” spat Alaana.
“Sun and
Moon, this one’s going to be trouble,” the shaman said, turning his head. He had a strange habit of talking to his left
shoulder.
“I saw
him pick up that stone,” said Alaana. “I
only told what I saw.”
“You
shouldn’t question things you don’t understand.”
“Then
how am I to learn anything?”
“Trouble,”
said Old Manatook to his left shoulder.
He turned back to the girl. “In
matters of faith,” he said, “skepticism will get you nowhere. There’s good reason a shaman uses such a
stone.”
“To fool
people?”
Old
Manatook cast a self-righteous glance at his left shoulder. His mouth gaped open then closed again as if
he had decided not to speak at it this time.
He returned his stern gaze to Alaana.
“Certainly not.”
“Then
why?”
“It’s
not something I can explain.”
“You could
if you wanted to,” said Alaana.
Old
Manatook huffed. “It’s not something for
girls to know.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
As a Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America member, my short fiction has frequently appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. I also had stories in Interzone, Buzzymag, Abyss & Apex, Unsettling Wonder and Ominous Realities.
ALAANA'S WAY, my 5-part series of epic fantasy novels is published by Cat's Cradle Press. Described as "cutting-edge fantasy from the top of the world" the arctic setting and unique characters will bring something new to even the most jaded fantasy enthusiast.
ALAANA'S WAY, my 5-part series of epic fantasy novels is published by Cat's Cradle Press. Described as "cutting-edge fantasy from the top of the world" the arctic setting and unique characters will bring something new to even the most jaded fantasy enthusiast.
You can preview this work and others at my website www.KenAltabef.com
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