The Glaciermen #28: Tribunal (Part 2)

Early access prepublication manuscripts of "The Glaciermen"

Hello Dear Readers!

I’m excited today, because it’s time for some good ol’ fashioned villian-y stuff. Not as in villainy, the noun, but rather as a made-up adverb, like the way kids make up words to fill gaps. This segment is villian-y, as in villian-ish, villian-having, villian-containing. Villian-y. Get it?

Plus, you can get excited too, because I’ve been holding onto a many secrets for a very long time, and now a few more of them get revealed.

So let’s jump in—enjoy!

(Here’s the previous segment if you missed it, and the first chapter and index, if you’re new).

---

Recap: After his completing the Second Trial and bringing back the head of the polar bear, Lee is brought before the shaman, who sits on an antler throne atop an icy pyramid of the frozen corpses of the dead from the plane crash. Four more bodies hang from the ceiling above sinister cauldrons. The shaman removes his caribou skull, which was a mask all along, revealing the tattooed face of an old man underneath.

Tribunal (Part 2)

The shaman set the caribou skull mask next to his antler throne, careful not to snag its antlers on those that made up the craggy chair. He tapped his fingertips together in a musing way, then leaned back and threw a leg over his knee.

“I know Aguta brought you from above, but you don’t look like the people I normally encounter on the surface. That means you came from the flying machine. Tell me, what is it like to swim in the sky?”

Lee was shocked by the civility of the question and the shaman’s gentle tone. He had climbed the stairs with growing anger, but somehow the shaman had turned the tables. Now he was just a curious old man, asking questions as if he had accidentally bumped into Lee at the park. Lee wanted to be angry at him, but his emotions were wriggling out of his control. Why couldn’t he hate him? 

“Ah, you must mistake me for some savage, no?” the shaman continued. “It is a necessary diversion, a symbol of power, if you will, something to keep the Sikanuk in line. They respond well to fear. They are so much more useful when terrified. Fear keeps them servile. Once they are no longer afraid, they think they can fight, and we have to wipe out a whole batch. Such a waste…”

Lee only grew more confused. What was this old man talking about? Symbols? Batches? None of it made any sense. The shaman leaned forward on his throne, locking eyes with Lee for a moment before squinting and looking him up and down.

“You’re wondering why I am telling you this. Let me put an end to your confusion. I respect one thing. The tunlaq respect one thing. Strength. You have impressed me with your Trial. Killing the great predator of the ice is no small feat, and furthermore, your ability to withstand the hunger of the godseye spirits is like none I have ever seen. Most grown men would have lost themselves putting it on an open wound like that, yet here you are, a mere boy, alive and with your mind intact.”

The shaman’s explanation was not explaining anything. Lee was getting fed up with having to listen to him rambling.

“Just tell me what you want,” he said firmly, clenching his fists and trying to look brave.

The shaman’s face flashed with anger for a moment at the interruption, but then his friendly demeanor returned.

“Where do you think the tunlaq come from boy?”

Lee shrugged. 

“We are not the children of a tupilaq spirit as that tattooed old fool said in the pit.”

How does he know about that? Lee thought.

“He was not completely incorrect, though. We are the children of spirits, in a way, just different spirits: the ones who bless us with their power through the gifts of the godseye. The ones who share secrets in the visions. You have met them already, and you are still here—with a great prize no less. Thus, I must assume they have given you their approval, and so I will honor their wishes.

“Unlike the story you were told, we are not born, but chosen, selected from among the weak by those who have come before us. What do you think is the purpose of these Trials, and the Offering? It is not some right of passage, as if the Sikanuk could earn their right to live to adulthood. No, it is a test to find the strong. A test to find those who are blessed by the spirits of the godseye. Those who can see into the beyond and bear its weight. Aguta did not give you the godseye by accident, but rather by the rules of the Trial. Are you beginning to understand now, boy?”

Lee nodded, though he was still not fully clear on what the point was.

“Good. You are still too young for what is to come, but at the very least I will have you initiated.” The shaman turned his attention to the guards and said, “Bring me the beast’s head.”

A few moments later the polar bear head was set at his feet by a bowing guard who quickly retreated down the steps. The shaman drew a long knife from a sheath in his belt, then he picked up the polar bear’s head with his free hand. Lee’s eyes went wide—he had struggled to lift the head with both arms. The shaman then stabbed the knife deep into the bottom of its neck. He maneuvered the knife for a few moments, stabbed it in even deeper, then jerked it in a hard twist. A loud crack came from within the head. He moved the knife again, then sawed in a circle around the inside of the neck. When he was finished, he pulled out the blade and stabbed it into the arm of the throne. Then he plunged his hand up into the neck, searched around for a few seconds, paused, and jerked it back out.

In his hand, now dripping with gore, was the brain of the bear. He held it out to Lee. 

“Normally we use the heart for this, but the brain will do. Now eat it.”

Lee blinked. What did he just say?

“Eat, boy,” the shaman said more firmly, his voice rising for the first time since removing the mask, “Eat and receive the strength of the bear! Without it you prove that you are nothing to the spirits, and I will have to kill not only you, but all of those pathetic slaves who have been contaminated with your weakness. Prove that you are worthy—I said eat!”

Lee was startled by the sudden change in temper, but he was present enough to know these were not empty threats, so he reached out and took the brain. It was cold in his hand, and slimy. He held it to his mouth, and, ignoring the gag in his throat, he sunk his teeth into the soft, fatty flesh.

As he chewed, the shaman retrieved his mask. Lee forced himself to swallow. The tender brain meat slid down into his stomach. The shaman looked at him, caribou skull back in place, and gestured for him to keep going. Lee pressed the brain to his mouth for another bite. Blood smeared onto his face and he was struggling to fight against the nausea, but he chewed on.

The shaman grabbed his staff and lifted it over his head, then chanted a series of phrases in a dialect language Lee could not understand. The dozen tunlaq guards responded by beginning a rhythmic chant of their own, similar to the one in the killing pit, but more complex, with shifting tones and deep harmonies in rhythm with the stamping of their spears.

As the thump of their spears and their baritone voices filled the cavern, four of them broke away from the rest and went to the bodies hanging from the ceiling, one to each. In unison, they sprinkled dashes of powder onto the torches set up below the bodies. The normal red flames flashed and crackled until they burned a ghostly blue.

Moving in sync with the rhythm of the chant, the four tunlaq raised their spears to the bodies and stabbed into the sides of their necks. Dark blood streamed out. At first it poured in a wide arc, splattering onto the guards, but the stream drooped quickly and the blood began filling the cauldrons set up underneath the bodies. Where the blood had spattered the guards, the godseye glowed extra brightly.

Lee swallowed the second bite of brain. It went down easier than the first. Something about the ritual atmosphere was awakening an excitement within him, despite his revulsion at what was taking place. He took another bite, nausea forgotten, and continued to watch the ritual unfold, overcome with morbid curiosity.

More tunlaq began streaming into the cavern, drawn by the echoing chant and adding their voices until nothing else could be heard. They arranged themselves into four lines, one to each cauldron. The guard who had cut the throat of the body nearest the pyramid moved first, reaching into the cauldron and scooping out a handful of blood in a cupped hand. He threw it onto his chest and began spreading it over his torso and face until he was completely coated in a layer of red. Then he scooped a handful of the godseye gel from the stone bowl next to the cauldron and layered it over the blood until he was glowing bright blue. When he was finished, another took his place and repeated the process. And so it went with all four lines.

A voice in Lee’s ear startled him. It was the shaman, crouched next to him, speaking loudly to be heard over the chanting.

“Do you see now boy? The spirits demand blood, so we give it to them, and they reward us with more of their power. We feed the fungus with the blood of animals, but the sacred godseye in its most potent form must only be fed with the blood of the worthy! Only then does it give us their strength, blessing and enlivening us for the hunt ahead to find the next crop.

“It is a shame you are too young, and your seed is not yet ready, or I would bring you along for this hunt. Do not fret, I will return when you are of age, and lift you from among the ranks of those pathetic slaves to join your rightful place among the strong.”

The last of the tunlaq had finished with the blood ritual by the time the shaman was done speaking. He stood to his full height and raised his arms in the air, staff held high. All eyes turned to him, and the chanting lowered in volume. It was barely a whisper, but from the mouths of several dozen men, coated in blood and glowing blue, it chilled Lee to his core. This was an evil place.

The shaman processed down the pyramid of frozen corpses and across the cavern until he was centered between the four cauldrons. He stopped, handed his staff to a nearby guard, then sat on the ground and held out his hands. The cauldrons were lifted and brought close to him. He raised his hands to the ceiling and shouted above the whispered chanting, spittle flying from his lips as he invoked the spirits of the godseye. As he shouted, the guards heaved the cauldrons and showered him with the remaining blood, soaking him with it and leaving him sitting in a dark pool of red.

Then four of the guards went to him with the bowls of godseye. They proceeded to cover him with a thick layer of it, and when they were finished his skin shined a brilliant blue, brighter than any of the others.

He was handed his staff, then with a guttural cry, he pointed it toward the main tunnel leading out of the cavern. The tip of the staff crackled with energy, and the shaman convulsed violently. A bolt of energy lanced out from the staff and shot down the tunnel as the shaman cried out in ecstatic pain. Then he took off running. The rest of the tunlaq joined him in the shout and followed, flowing out of the cavern a mass of violent blue motion.

In a moment they were gone. Lee was left alone in silence, standing by himself atop a pile of corpses, with four more below, now drained and hanging limply above a pool of the last of the blood which had been stolen from their veins. After so much chanting and noise, the silence was oppressive

A bite of brain was still in Lee’s mouth. Suddenly, the nausea rushed back. Lee dropped to his knees and vomited down the side of the mound. When he was finished, he spat and wiped his mouth. The back of his hand came away smeared with blood and stomach acid. He wiped it on his pants.

His emotions were absent, despite the weight of the situation. Is this normal? He wondered for a moment, but normal had long been driven out of him by now, so he merely shrugged to himself, letting the traumatic event slide down into the repressed depths of his being, then started down the frozen stairway, trying to deduce which tunnel most likely led back to the chasm.

Lee would not come to fully understand the rite of passage he had just undergone for nearly a year, and during that time and beyond, the memory of the faces in the frozen mound would come to haunt him. There were faces had not wanted to see, but he had seen them nonetheless.

---

---

And that’s it for now folks

Thanks for reading! I’ll try to post another segment by next Tuesday, so keep an eye on your inbox.

If you wondered upon this, or were recommended by a friend, please subscribe to get the next update:

Thank You

If you want to lend some encouragement and help me out, the best thing you can do is share this story with a friend (if you’re on Substack, hitting the button below and sharing to Notes with a short, honest review is an awesome way to do so. If you have your own Substack, a recommendation would be truly appreciated).

I sincerely appreciate it.

– Xavier Macfarlane

©Xavier Macfarlane 2024. All rights reserved.