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Micro-fiction 030 – Shaman (Echoes Series)


On a blue planet, somewhere in the region of Barnard’s Star, in someone’s future, and somebody else’s past.


In the dark mountains the chanting beat at the walls of the red cave. It had echoed through the catacombs for days, and would continue for more than a hundred years.

That night the moon had wept blood. A dark stain red stain had spread across the face of the ancient watcher of the night. The wolves of the desert howled, and scatted, fearful of the break in nature. The shaman spoke with the mountains, and chattered with each other through the echo chambers deep within, consulting their eagles and coyotes.

But now, the small dark lake at the top of the mountain had risen, and in it, the body of the first shaman, his eyes open, his mouth slack, his ears ripped and bloody appeared.

“Father, come.” A young boy, no more than ten years old had ran down the mountain path to find his adopted father, in the tent at the foothills, on the edges of the village. He had burst in noisily.

He didn’t need to hear his father’s words to know what he would say, “What is it Undatu? I am instructing your sister.” His father sat cross legged, opposite his daughter, holding her hands, a cup of sacred water smoking between them. The air was thick with fragrance, and visions.

Undatu look resentfully at his sibling Ahyoka, she was older and named by his mother in celebration of her unexpected arrival. But for Undatu, she was just a girl and he could not understand why his father spent so much time teaching her the ways of the ancients.

“Nothing.” He pouted, knowing his father would doubt him, as always.

“Go then. We will be finished at nightfall. Return then.”

“I might not,” he muttered to himself, closed the flap and walked disconsolately further down the valley. He nodded at his friends, rather than joining them he kicked at the stones on the path, and ran on.

At such times he sought the company of the dogs, or wandered off to his older cousins to catch fish and hunt bears. He loved the thrill of their company, and had learnt much subtlety by watching them track and tackle their prey.

Today though, he reached the great river without any sign of them. The sun was high so they must have left. He looked across the flat stones of the wide river and knew they would be deep in the forest on the other side. He frowned. He practised breathing silently through his nose, and watched the fish clicking through the water. He stood up and headed for the stone ford when he remembered why he had raced down to his father. The shaman, in the dark waters. He had seen the ancient, the first of his kind. Some sort of vision, no doubt.

“No-one will believe me.”

He stopped in the middle of the flow of water, the flat stones passing over to boulders, then a fallen tree providing the path to the other side of the river. He breathed there, fresh, tumbling air, and saw down the length of the water, to the bend far off, close to the end of the valley where the mountains rose again, reaching for the skies.

The sun was bright now, brutal even, and he shielded his eyes. From an early age he had been taught about the gods of the natural world, how they watched and tricked the humans, played with the sight, and laughed at their awkwardness. He saw a bear, brown, burly poised on the other side of the river, its paw raised, its head still, facing the water, watching the foaming rush. Undatu was fascinated by the power and grace of the animal, its capacity for silence amongst the noise of the river.

It’s paw shot into the water, and a fish leaped. The bear’s teeth grinned, its eyes intent on the motion of its prey. Its other paw, claws poised flicked out sought through the spray, and batted the fish high into the air, and skewered it, flinging it onto the bank were it struggled with the slippery stones, flopping up, its gills flapping, and tail jerking in anguish. The bear leapt, but somehow the fish slithered out of the bear’s grasp, and found a channel, wriggled through the stones, and, with the bear thrashing its limbs into the water, evaded the burly predator and headed for mid-river.

The bear roared. The creature and Undatu watched the fish slip away, a faint trail of blood marking its watering path.

“Better luck next time, great one.” Undatu was respectful, perhaps sympathetic to the bear’s plight, understanding its disappointment in the face of fate. It made him think of his clever sister, she who took so much time from his parents, time they should spend with him. He had grown more angry over the last year, spent more time alone, in the woods, joining his cousins occasionally but watching, walking silently, creeping up on others, laughing grimly at their faces when they realised he was there, and had been for some time.

The bear looked back, and bared its teeth, then settled for a moment on its front paws, half sitting, half standing, in some sort of supplication. It made Undatu laugh. His gentle tones gathered the sound from all around, played with the leaves on the other side of the forest, spun the bright reflections from the sun and rung loud across the rippling waters of the river. The bear seemed startled, and jumped back, paused for a moment, staring at Undatu before shambling off, ashamed perhaps.

The boy sighed, the sun had slipped past its highest point and he felt the need to return to the mountains. He wandered back up the path through his village, watching his friends and their families, then up to his father’s tent, contemplated looking in again, but resisted the temptation and continued up the path, all the way to the top.

It was hot. He reached the dark pool, smiled at the smooth inviting surface, the reflections of the grand mountains all around, and the clouds, upside down, and slipped quietly under the waters, seeking its cool comforts.

* * *

“Father?”

“Yes Ahyoka?”

“Can I get ready for tonight? The sun is nearly at rest.”

“Of course. We can finish for today.” Her father smiled. She could feel his sadness, but his dark eyes held such sorrow she could not bear to return his gaze.

“We shall celebrate Undaduti life tonight father, not his passing.”

“Of course. One year. Sometimes, I think he is still with us.”

“Oh yes, me too. He was here today.”

The dark mountains shivered under the stars.

[end]

Text, image, audio © 2020 Jake Jackson, thesefantasticworlds.com. Thanks to Frances Bodiam and Elise Wells,  Logic ProX, Sound Studio, the Twisted Wave Recorder App, Apogee Condenser microphone, and Alfons Schmidt’s fantastic Notebook app.

Part of a new series of micro-fiction stories, released as These Fantastic Worlds SF & Fantasy Fiction Podcast on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, and Stitcher  and more. Also on this blog, These Fantastic Worlds.


More Tales

There are many other great stories in this series, including:

And a carousel of 10 audio stories from the podcast.

Here’s a related post, 5 Steps to the SF and Fantasy Podcasts.