Many moons ago, long before we
learned the plow, our clan was watched over by a shaman of great power. In that
time, the shaman’s role was far greater than the mere storyteller of today,
tending to the ill, guiding the people in their times of need, and mediating
disputes. In his great mastery of the magicks of the world he crafted a
powerful potion that, after passing his lips, granted him an eternity of life.
Arrowheads would split and shatter against his breast, illness and corruption
evaded him, and age refused to draw near to him. Under his unwavering watch,
our clan flourished. No others dared raid our camps, and his wise council kept
the people of our clan united in harmony. For many generations, our people were
happy and our bellies were full. But even for the immortal, good times do not
last forever. Traders who once frequently came to them from the north, stopped suddenly
and entirely. The wise and weary shaman sent his fastest scouts to learn of the
cause. They returned with a strange and dreadful tale; they discovered a
massive mountain of pale, misty blue ice that peered over the horizon of their
narrow canyon valley. The path out of the valley was now blocked by this ice,
ice that the eldest of the scouts promised rested atop the mountains only weeks
prior.
The shaman did not worry at first.
He had known that, at times, mountains shed their ice in a calamity not unlike
a dust-storm. Though trade with the northerners enriched the clan for as long
as even the shaman could remember, he knew that with their abundant resources
and his careful leadership, they would outlast this slinking ice. It was not
until the appearance of the old oracle of the wood that the shaman grew to
worry. She was brought before the shaman roughly, as she had approached from
the woodland of the south, home to the hostile and primitive tribes that once
raided the storehouses of our people. When he realized who was before him, he
bade his guards to leave and apologized to her profusely. Unaffected, or
perhaps uncaring, the oracle-hermit delivered her message without regard for
his apologies. She foretold of doom. The gods and the spirits of the land had
taken notice of the shaman’s obscene undeath and set into place events to
return things to balance. “The mountains will descend upon your people,” She
told him, “The warnings were clear. The southern clans have all found ways to
flee, but you in your arrogance ignored the signs. You chose to separate from bosom
of the land and now, you and your progeny will pay the price. The gods do not
take well to being cheated, nor do they know mercy for those they catch.”
Perhaps a long time ago, the shaman
would have felt anger, or even fear at the grim messenger before him, but in
his age he knew to heed the words of oracles. Her accusations were true. Long
ago he ceased to be affected by the unpredictable tides of fate and since then
he had allowed his attention of their omens to slip. He only asked her, “What
can I do?”
Her response was somehow clear, but
cryptic. “You must flee, as those you call primitive did before you. The
children of your clan did not choose to defy fate. It was you who chose this
for them. Lead them away from this valley and pray your redemption will
come from theirs.”
“How can we flee?” He asked, “The
mountains at our flanks are uncrossable. The forests to our south are foreign
to us. The trees will devour us. And now the valley is blocked by ice.”
“Your trial has begun.” She said
with a sorrowful look in her eyes, “You must hurry before the gods take their
revenge in full.” They sat in silence for a few moments before she stood and
spoke her final words, words that our clan repeats to this day whenever the
fates take one of us away, “The Earth demands balance, and so it demands that
men must die.” She left his tent. The shaman sat in silent thought. It was time
to move again.
At that time, our clan hadn’t moved
any significant distance in generations. The valley had been incredibly plentiful
when they found it, and the shaman’s wisdom allowed them to keep it so. He
thought that this would be the balance that would redeem his disobedience to fate.
Due to the near-sedentary state of his people, they took the news of their need
to move with difficulty. They gathered their things slowly, many struggling to
leave behind the luxuries they couldn’t carry. While they dallied, the shaman
made his way to the mountain of ice that seemed to loom closer to them with
each passing day. He did not have to walk long to find it. The looming plateau
was a massive block of stone and ice as wide as the mouth of the valley. It was
almost gently sloped with the exception of the ice that reached up to his
knees, which was sheer. The shaman listened carefully. The ice moaned faintly
against his ear. He could sense it was moving towards them.
The shaman returned to our people
and gathered the strongest men and the strongest clubs and hammers. The shaman
brought his bronze adze, the only such metal implement in the clan, brought
long ago by far-travelling merchants. The men marched to the ice and began the
work of carving a set of crude steps into the largely gentle slope. They worked
until the sun set, and again for the entirety of the next day. The shaman cut
the last steps himself, his bronze pick the only tool able to shape the
stone-like ice at the top of the plateau. When they were done, a roughly hewn
staircase adorned the side of the icy mountain. At the top, he looked over the
horizon and saw the ice stretching far as he could see. This journey will be
hard. He shivered. This mountain seemed to draw cold air from high in the sky
and send it cruelly cascading downwards.
The people of our clan loaded up
their backs with supplies. Many carried their children in their arms. The
mountain sent cold spirits into the anxious village, bringing with them an unnatural
chill that most of our people had never experienced. Our clan followed the shaman
to the mountain of ice with little resistance, as they were accustomed to
following his orders and trusting his judgement. He, of course, was the first
to set his foot on top of the ice again, followed closely by the young, strong
men of the tribe. As our clan reached the summit, they saw that their journey
had only begun and many began to despair. The cold was harsh and unfamiliar to
the clan. As they regrouped atop the mountain, dark clouds began to brew above
them as thin, frozen flakes gently fell to their feet.
The shaman led the group slowly,
hoping to keep our vast numbers together, but the gods would not allow his trial
to be so simple. The dark clouds above them turned from producers of benign
specks of snow to angry, howling beasts, blowing harsh white winds into the
eyes of our people. So long as the shaman’s voice boomed over the winds, the
hearts of our people kept strong, but as soon as the storm began to drown his
voice, panic began to set in. The quaver in the hearts of the masses broke into
full fear when the storm came to fruition, the winds taking a thick and milky
tone, stinging any exposed skin and soaking furs. No one could see further than
the distance of their hands from their faces. The shaman could feel his control
of the crowd slipping. He could feel the anarchy of fear brewing within our
clan.
He tried to give commands to the
young men around him to create a human perimeter around the tribe, to lend him
their voices to lead the people, to help him, but they could not hear his words.
The wind buffeted and fought each step forward, and screamed in the shaman’s
ears. The snows funneled around his body and froze him deeply and bitterly. He
turned to yell to his people, but found that they were no longer at
his back.
It is said he wandered atop that
mountain, lost in the storm meant just for him, for weeks, but the truth is, we
do not know. We do not know how long he was lost atop that cursed hill. Many of
our people became lost in that storm. Separated from the clan, either by bad
luck or by weakness, they died in the cold. It was those that, like today,
stood with the clan and held to the clan that survived and lived to tell this
cautionary tale. Those of us that were left eventually found the other side of
the mountain, at the mouth of the valley. At this end, it tapered off to the
earth below with a softly sloped hill. As we approached the end, the storm
cleared. We somber survivors climbed down the hill numbly and from our
dwindling numbers established a sort of council composed of those who had been
close to the shaman, surviving elders, and any who had useful skills or
knowledge, including a man who was my forefather. They led the clan to new
lands through clear and merciful weather.
In time, the clan settled in a
place that could sustain it for some time. We knew we would have to move
further soon, but the council wished to find the shaman, the man who had led
our clan well for generations. The mountain was strange. Every day its shape
changed ever so slightly and it moved little by little towards the heart of the
valley that our people once called home. It took many days of searching, but
one day, my own forefather heard a familiar call coming from the ice. Following
the call, he came to a slim opening in the ice from which the eternal voice of
the shaman bellowed. Blinded by the snow and thrown into confusion by the wind,
the shaman had fallen into a crevasse deep in the ice. His legs, the shaman explained,
were pinned, and he could not move. His hands could not grip. He complained of
the cold and my forefather slid his own furs down to the shaman.
Entire crews of young men tried
desperately to free the shaman from his trap, but their stone tools could not
stand up to the rock-hard ice on top of this plateau. As the days passed, the
shaman sunk deeper and deeper into the mountain, until he was all but invisible
to the world. Then, there came storms, rains that kept our clan busy moving to
higher ground and building better shelter. When the men returned to the shaman,
the rift that held him was nearly closed. They called to him, but he did not
answer. One by one, the men abandoned their former leader for dead, until only
my forefather remained. He listened to the ice for a long time. As the sun
began to set, my forefather called out one more time. To his surprise the
shaman spoke. His voice was surprisingly clear, though he was no longer even
visible through the ever-thinning entrance.
“This is my curse, trapped undying in
this unholy ice.” He said, “The eternal punishment for my eternal hubris. I
know and accept this now. I struggled against it when I fell, a struggle I’m
sure only doomed me more. I struggled again when I heard you return for me, yet,
since then the mountain has only pinned me further. Return to the others. Live
well and tell them my tale. Let them know that the earth always returns to
balance. The arrogant will of one man, no matter how great or just, will always
work to destroy the integrity of his people. Trust only in the clan, the whole.
Live together with this earth, or die in vain struggle against it. Remember this
if you remember only a single thing; the earth demands balance, and so it
demands that men must die.”
My forefather listened to these
words and waited for more to come. When none did, he waited still. Night fell
around him and the cold began to turn intolerable. The wind moaned for him to
leave. He tried to call again, but received no reply. And so, he left. He told
the clan of what he heard and they, in turn, bestowed upon him and his descendants
the role of shaman. But my forefather was a wise man, and he listened well. He
heeded the warning of the undying shaman trapped in the ice. He remembered his
tale and told it, like he did many other fables and stories. He did it for the
clan and only for the clan, never seeking glory, riches, or magic. He did this,
as did his son, and his son after him. And here I am, doing the same. It is my
humble service to our people. No longer do we seek to control this world, to
cheat nature of her harvest, or lead our people to greatness. Now we are tasked
with remembering. Remembering the warnings of our ancestors, the stories of our
people, the lessons we have learned living here. Heed my words. Balance will
always prevail no matter your power or your will. Always, it waits until the
time is right to correct our wrongs. Always, it wins.
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