Fantasy
Date Published: 09-27-2022
Publisher: Wolf Publishing
“My name is Ineluki. I come from past the mountains and ice. It took
me many days to reach here. All I know are dead. Will you take me
in?”
And so begins a calamitous year at the edge of the world.
Chief for the year, Aukul’s life has never been better. His people respect
him, he spends his nights with the love of his life, and his skills as a
butcher and chef improve every day. Then Ineluki, a young stranger, wanders
into town with nothing but an empty book. He begins telling stories of the
world beyond the one they know. His stories challenge their reality and lead
to a summer of unprecedented disasters.
One by one, the villagers begin dancing. Dancing tirelessly, as if in a
trance, until they die. Believing Ineluki is to blame, Aukul confronts him
on the worst night of his life.
Glossolalia Excerpt
by e rathke
I
Umok was the first to see the boy. There was nothing special about the boy except that he wasn’t one of us and didn’t seem to be an Uummanuq. Not that anyone really knew, then, what the Uummanuq looked like. Not really. But he was too tall to be one of them and much too short to be one of us. Maybe strangest of all, he was dressed as a woman. One of ours, not the Uummanuq women, assuming anyone knew, then, what the Uummanuq looked like when they weren’t smashing our homes down. But he wore a loose, open vest, his trousers tight and reaching just past his knees. In his hands, a hidebound book.
It was a clear day, just past spring, and though the edge of the world is known for its deathly cold, our summers are quite warm. Warm enough to wade out into the sea and gather crabs or lobster. Or even to swim out to where the leviathans burst through the water, spraying the skies with their misted breath.
Umok was so distracted by the boy that she dropped her arm, accidentally flinging her gyrfalcon, Feo, to the ground. When Feo shrieked the way she does, the boy turned to Umok and smiled a big toothy grin. To hear Umok tell it later, the boy had fangs like a wolf and eyes that glowed with menace.
We’re not prone to superstition, but much changed that summer and especially come winter, when the days last barely a blink and the nameless ones call out to us in the long night, and mothers wake to missing children, never to be seen again.
But the boy didn’t stop when he saw Umok. It was like he had a set destination. Like he knew where we were. And maybe that’s the most shocking of all. That he just wandered out from the dark green summer mountains and walked right to our little village at the edge of the world with nothing but the clothes he was wearing, an empty book, and a mouthful of words that would change the shape of all our lives.
II
It was summer, which meant just about everyone was in the sea, either swimming or fishing or on lookout for the Uummanuq or the fishers recently set out. Nearly everyone else was on the beach relaxing. So when the boy walked into the village, there wasn’t much to see.
Umok kept an eye on him, though, and circled round town to warn everyone at the beach.
It’s a strange thing, having strangers at the edge of the world. Besides the Uummanuq, it had been generations since anyone had been seen at our little village. So this was news. Not unwelcome, but unexpected, which made it a bit frightening.
Umok sent Feo into the air and ran through the beach hollering for anyone who could hear, “Someone’s here! A boy, dressed like a woman!”
At first we ignored Umok, but her persistence caused us to give in and follow her back to the village. Umok wasn’t known as a liar, but it all sounded too ridiculous. How would someone just arrive here? There’s only ocean and mountain and sky.
But those lounging on the beach made their way up to town. Those already out to sea or looking out for the Uummanuq kept about their business. Idle chatter and friendly laughter brought them up the beach and past the chief’s hall to the town square.
And who waited for them but Aukul and the boy. Just sitting there, smiling.
III
Aukul was chief that year. A young man, tall and well built, who always seemed to be smiling, at least until he met this boy. Many have blamed Aukul’s age or poor judgment for what happened, saying that he was little more than a large boy, too young for such responsibilities, which had some truth to it. He had only seen seventeen winters by the time his turn came to be chief. It’s strange now to think we had ever let someone so young spend a year as chief, but it wasn’t so unusual then. And the truth is that he was just unlucky to be chief that year. Probably none of us would’ve done better, and had he served the year before or the year after, he would be remembered differently. But this was his year to serve us as chief.
So it goes.
Aukul turned to us and smiled, waved, said, “Come on over and sit with us.”
Umok near choked from shock at Aukul’s reaction, and it’s possible that we all would’ve reacted similarly had we seen the boy alone, as Umok had. But all of us together as we were, it made it hard to fear this unassuming boy, especially with Aukul smiling the way he was. And so we just walked up and sat, forming a circle of sorts around Aukul and the boy. All of us except Umok, that is. She shook her head and chewed her lips and grunted at every breath.
The truth is, none of us wanted to take the lead with this stranger. We were happy to have Aukul sitting across from him and talking so we could just observe. Responsibility slid off our shoulders and landed firmly on Aukul, but he didn’t seem to mind.
When we were all settled, Aukul turned back to the boy, “Tell them what you told me.”
That was the first time we would hear the boy’s voice. Husky and masculine, like he held more years than his face told. The first time we heard his name and why he came to us here at the edge of the world. There was some kind of otherworldly touch to his words, to his voice. Something that made us cling to his words and follow the shapes his lips made as he formed them. We should’ve been surprised that he spoke our language, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing in the world. We had little concept, then, of other languages. Of other people. Of other places.
It was also the first time we truly got to look at the stranger, when he stood tall and smiled at all of us. That big book in his tiny hands. He had soft features and smooth skin, like a child, untouched by the tattoos he would have collected through adolescence to mark his past. For our skin is like a book, recording our lives. His hair was a wild nest of curls and kinks tumbling white from his head. This, along with him dressing like a woman, made him immediately strange. He looked so much like us, like he could be any of our sons, but for these two details. And his size, but many boys don’t grow to their man’s height till they’re quite a bit older. But then there was his eye.
One was black, like all of us. But the other was green. Not a bright green, but the green of our valleys and mountains. Dark and beautiful and oddly radiant, that green eye.
And then he spoke.
IV
“My name is Ineluki. I come from past the mountains and ice. It took me many days to reach here. All I know are dead. Will you take me in?”
V
Aukul stood then, his summer dress wrinkled from sitting and bunched up around his right knee. He smiled big and clapped the boy on the back, “Welcome, Ineluki. We’ll be your people now.”
And that settled it. This boy was brought into the village. Welcomed by everyone in turn. But it was old Malu who took the boy in to be her new son. We all thought that was well and good. A boy to keep them company and care for them in their final years. Kiilk, Malu’s man, was happy to have the boy, too. Though they were old, they were spry and lively, always ready with a dance or a tune. Umaal just shrugged with a smile and embraced him as her new brother. She was a winterchild to Malu and Kiilk, born to them when they were well past an age to have children. Malu had weathered nearly fifty winters and Kiilk had seen at least as many, if not many more, by the time Umaal was born, and Umaal was coming an age to take up with her own man and leave them alone. The child was seen as a blessing to two lovers who had dreamt so long of having a boy to watch over them and care for them through their winter years.
And simple as that, Ineluki became one of us with not a person speaking against this. Not even Umok, though, to hear her tell it now, she was screaming her lungs out in warning.
VI
It took three men to butcher the seal. Though Aukul was chief, he still had much to learn as a cook. Paakuq directed him and the other assistants in hooking up the seal. Then Paakuq took a sharp knife, cut the seal from the throat down to the tail. Aukul dug his fingers into that slit and pulled it open while Manook pulled the other side open. Paakuq reached in, harvesting each organ and handing it to one of the younger boys who wouldn’t even be able to touch the seal’s meat till he’d seen a few more winters.
With the delicate work done, Paakuq motioned with his knife for Aukul and Manook to get to work. First they lowered the seal to the ground. Slick with blood, Aukul dug his fingers into the meat, knowing it’d take half the night to get it out from his fingernails, to remove the stink of death from his skin. His thoughts drifted for a moment to the soft breasts and wide hips the summer night promised, but he dug down.
Butchery’s a delicate business requiring close attention. Aukul’s fingers and arms had the scars to prove it. Pale slivers of memory selfcarved into his skin to mark every time he let his cock think instead of his eyes and hands. He sliced the blubber from the skin and meat, handing it to Paakuq, who commanded one of his many apprentices to either store it or set it aside for the night’s stew.
Aukul worked quickly and efficiently. He got the blubber out before Manook and stood up, stretching his back. Paakuq sighed and examined his work while Manook finished.
Paakuq was a man like a mountain. Patient and quiet and large, but Aukul had never seen anyone move as delicately as Paakuq did with a knife in one hand and a carcass in the other. Paakuq looked over the seal silently, pulling the skin this way and that.
Aukul’s heart raced the entire time. He watched Manook to keep from having a panic attack. Manook moved slow, taking his time. Aukul was already seeing how much cleaner his cuts were, how no blubber clung to the seal’s skin.
It wasn’t that Aukul thought speed was more important than accuracy. It’s that he could never seem to slow himself down. The moment his blade touched a carcass, everything made sense. It made so much sense that his hands and eyes worked without a single thought crossing through his head. Or, no thoughts beyond the women of the town. Their breasts bouncing as they ran in the sunlight. The curve of their cheeks when they laughed or smiled. The way their summer clothes revealed so much, yet somehow never enough to satiate his desire.
Paakuq looked back and grunted, his lips pulling back on one side for just an instant. Aukul came close and looked over the big man’s shoulder as Paakuq pointed with his knife to places Aukul missed or places where the skin was near ruined by his sawing at it. A tap here with the point of the blade, a poke there accompanied by a grunt and a shake of the head.
Aukul’s mouth went dry and he nodded along, not trusting his voice.
Then Paakuq stood straight and his lips pushed up high. He nodded at Aukul as Manook stood, his side now de-blubbered as well.
Aukul’s smile burst over his face. Though it seemed the slightest sign of approval, that was more than most got from Paakuq in a year.
Aukul went back into the seal to cut out the meat. Separating the ribs from the spine, carefully removing the cheeks, and cutting the rest out to be dried, smoked, roasted or stewed. He tried to go slow, but there was just no time for him to remind himself to do so. His hands knew what to do and the excitement of Paakuq’s approval flooded him, washing all other thoughts—even those of breasts—out of his skull.
When the butchery was finished, Paakuq motioned for Aukul to take the lead. Aukul’s jaw hung open for a moment and then a smile got stuck there and stayed the whole time he directed the younger boys to cut up the onions and potatoes, when he told them how much blubber and seal meat to add. He even had them toss in a few clams caught that morning.
Aukul didn’t mind being chief, but this was what he lived for. His smile remained while he watched everyone eat the meal he prepared. Not Paakuq’s meal, but his. He counted every smile, every grunt of approval, every time someone licked their bowl clean or slurped up the last bit of broth. And when he washed in the ocean afterwards, he couldn’t believe life could get any better than this.
VII
Aukul liked to listen to the loons sing at night. They only lived in the lake in the valley west of town, separated from the ocean by an unremarkable mountain leading to a sheer cliff-face that can be hiked up and back down in the time it takes tea to go from steaming to cold.
It was late and most slept, despite the excitement brought by Ineluki. The silent mountains and valleys held their breath. One moon smiled against the ocean, the other was wide-eyed above him. He pulled Umaal close to him and said, “Do you hear what they sing?”
“Kya,” Umaal scrunched up her face and elbowed him away. She was dressed in her summer clothes, just a loose, open vest and tight trousers. “This your move? Bring women out here to hear the loon’s lovesongs till they cream themselves? Kya,” she grimaced and folded her arms, “might work on Kaia or the cliffboys—what you smiling for?”
Aukul unfastened his flowing summer dress and let it drop like a puddle at his feet.
Umaal eyed him up and down, “Bit more direct.” She smiled and took a step towards him. Her left palm pressed against his chest, her fingers tracing the shape of his tattoos. The ways they spiraled over his well-muscled chest and abdomen and up his neck, to his thin jaw. The story of his life written deep into his skin. She brought her fingers down to his left nipple and felt it harden, and then she pinched it, but he made no reaction beyond exhaling through his nose. Her other hand grabbed his stiff cock and she laughed, “This what you came to show me?”
Aukul shrugged with his cock, moving it up and down in her warm hand.
She laughed from deep in her chest, then slapped his face. Hard. Much harder than Aukul expected, but she was smiling wide when he turned back to her. “Idiot,” she said and she pushed him down into the thick grass and pulled off her trousers.
The landscape rolled beyond them. Valleys and mountains spotted with grass, a green so dark it sometimes looked black. Mountains rose like the spine of a monster halfburied by time. Grey and white and beautiful against the open sky, the surrounding ocean. In the distance, Mount Qanaamonaq tore into the sky’s open mouth. A snowcapped dagger reaching higher than the moons. The loons sang and it sounded like love, echoing all around them and when Umaal grunted her hips into Aukul’s, he yelped like a wolfcub.
Had anyone ever felt so lucky?
About the Author
A finalist for the 2022 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award, e rathke is the
author of Glossolalia and several other forthcoming novellas. His short
fiction will appear in Queer Tales of Monumental Invention, Mysterion
Magazine, and elsewhere. He writes about books and games at
radicaledward.substack.com.
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