"Black Bubble" And the Athenian Cleric ((Revised/Reedited 3/2008)(Arctic Adventure))

Black Bubble


Black Bubble
[And the Athenian Cleric]



Introductory Chapter (with the complete three Parts)

(1897 to 1911— Pseudo -archaeology)


Part One


The Restless

A monotonous restlessness, likened to hunger of a great bear coming out of two year hyphenation came over Professor Robert Spellvice. He was famished for adventure; and his objective was a hidden archeological site in the upper Yukon region. He could not harden himself to call Lowell, his good friend from a few previous trips, to join him, rather he quickly ran over to his house and presented him with the offer face to face—ecstatically (as always), with all expenses paid, and bonus’, should he keep him company in the Yukon, and beyond—into—the Arctic. And as usual, Lowell McWilliams agreed, some hastily. Thus, they spent long hours in preparation for the trip: checking maps and getting all the information they could on the region, and the “Lost Mound City,” they had heard about, and tried to find twice before on preceding trips; but this time he seemed to have a clearer vision of where it might be—that is, Professor Spellvice, had this mental picture.

It was the summer of 1897, I watched my wife’s passive face as I prepared with the Professor to go on our journey. She said, putting her hand upon my shoulder as I crossed the room, “It would be nice, very nice if you asked Robert for a bonus ahead of time so I have some extra money while you are gone?“
I said with a trying voice, “Shauna (post given name: Arachne, in ancient days), naturally,” adding, “I’ll ask tomorrow. He’ll be more open to it then.”
It all involved discussing things the Professor didn’t care to at such a late date—prior to any trip that is, but he knew my wife quite well, very well, and knew she’d stop me from going should he not give in to her whims for an advance of the money.
She added, “Let him know there is always the secure job at the University…!”
I answered, “And all the books of reference I would have to go through, this is a good leave of absence for me.”
Our eyes met, as I stammered in my attempts to avoid her, she had hypnotic eyes; our marriage had belonged to the foolish whims of the city’s societies; which I deplored, detested. But like always she got her way. Her influence over me was steeped so high I felt captured inside her somber doctrine, crushed inside a book. It was a blessing to get away for four or five months, or possibly longer. Our eyes now made pretence, stupidly pretences, she was unexpressed. Then out of some kind of nervousness I laughed, turning my face, I thought, what a beautify but mysterious woman she was.


Returning from the Site

[The site] Upon their return that summer, both Lowell and Professor Spellvice had a most interesting story to tell the media, but it wasn’t taken seriously. Let me explain. They said: they had discovered in the thick of a wooded area in the upper region of the Yukon this mound city, and sketched outlines of a modest, but multiple and permanent structure, one Lowell had drawn. It was much more than a temple site, the Professor proclaimed, and one mound alone was over forty-feet high, with a flat top. Another one was not so high but consumed twice its square footage. And there were several other smaller mounds, with roads that led in-between them. Their maps had been destroyed for the most part, during the trip, their boat overturned, going down river on their way back to the lower states; thus making their story a bit ambiguous at best.
He [He being: Professor Spellvice] told the archeological society, that in the City of the Bones (in which he referred to his discovery, at this juncture) he had found bones from: passenger pigeons, humans, animals; and in the pits, of which he felt were used for storing food— he found grains and so forth; hence, it showed ‘a domestic routine,’ for the most part; as a result, he told the onlookers in the theatre.
He also explained he had found cooking utensils and seeds; sandstone saws, and bone needles, all lost of course during the submerging of the boat in the river.
They had excavated the site for a month, and then had to head on back before the winter freeze came down from the arctic…as a result, locking them in. He proclaimed the sites middle age was perhaps AD 300. And wherein he did find a few rare dishes in the shapes of sharks and bison, feeling this village had some contact in trade with the lower southern states, like Florida. No one gave him a once of credence of course, thereafter, He told Lowell, year after year, “I had my day in the sun I suppose that will have to do, even if they do not believe me, it is a fact and someone in future time will have to uncover it—again; when people are more open minded.”




1


The Decision
And the Journey


The Witch Speaketh

Once witches danced
To plenilunal magic
With weak souls to molest—;
Ah! Yes—way back when?
When—witches robbed men
Of virtue and piousness…


[July, AD 1909] I’m over fifty, and Shauna, over forty, she’s more on the order of being, so-so in her ways than I, so-so meaning, you never know, and can be very stern if not given her way. My illness is of a peculiar order—I’ve thought possibly she gave it to me—my wife, if in deed, one can give illnesses to another, I’d not put it past her; and the question is: could I go there without becoming fragmented and hurting someone in a panic state as I now often get because of the darn illness? This illness no one has a name for but is of some neurological makings, with side effects that disturb the emotional makeup of a person; she thought I’d be fine; should I become panic stricken; that I’d not hurt myself intentionally. I even mentioned—fruitlessly mentioned—even death by a hundred different ways could occur. Again I repeat myself: she was indifferent to these worries of mine. My work used to be rather trying, as I spent much time in the Yukon years ago, now a professor at the University, with cross-cultural clients from every walk of life. I teach psychology.
“Robert doesn’t mention anyone but you, Lowell,” was Shauna’s rejoinder.
“I gather he’s lonely for travel, or so I expect?” said I in return.
Incidentally, she looked at me as if I was out of my mind, turning toward the window; it was obvious she was dumbfounded in my lack of interest in joining him again on a surprise journey to the Yukon—it was fifteen-years since we had last been there. She didn’t push the menu, I might add, but she wanted me to take the invitation, she was acting timid, and that is not her statuette. Robert has what I would call—a not worth mentioning, personality. But he has money, influence, and it pays the bills; or used to. He also has blood-shot eyes most of the time, likes to drink you know, like a fish out of water; his expression is dull, dim and flat, and he’s sixty-one years on earth, too old for such nonsense.
I think of the barren and spacious Yukon, it’s a cold roomy country, one of the ten wings of the devil. It’s a land where you can’t find much to eat, hard to sleep, and it does not have hot baths. I’ve been in the Yukon, as well as the far Arctic, it is no dream trip at our ages, or so I feel.
Wealth flashed across my wife’s face, and to enticed her, the unscrupulous professor made it worth her time to intimidate me: the fine things of life it would buy is what he shoved in front of her enigmatic, paranormal face; after the expedition she’d be the queen of the city, sort of speaking; and the truth of the matter is, I could rest for a year or two, in a quiet work-room and just write poetry, with a perfect cup of coffee, or tea each day, instead of that same old, same old crap. Sure, there is a good point about this, I admit, and not many people would be demanding my every minute once I got back, and it would only be a four month endeavor, but again I say, it is too demanding; and so the Professor asked me to go along with him, Professor Robert Spellvice; ‘why?’ to look for old bones, old mammal bones, in the Yukon, and perhaps that old archeological site: “The Lost Mound City”; this is not my cup of tea at fifty-seven years old; not anymore anyhow. But if I stay around here, it will be a long winter with my wife, and I can tell you, short in days can be long in months with her, if she doesn’t make me into a toad in the mean time. Like I said, there are points to this, I admit.

“I spoke with him yesterday, and he really wants you to go Lowell, he said: he wanted your answer today, and not a ‘no,’ informing me he’d give you three times your wages you now get at the university, along with a big bonus once completed; and he can acquire a leave of absence for you without any issues raised…?”
I found myself gazing in the dullness of my library: eyes in a pause, looking at my wife, but not saying a word. I hesitated a moment, then spoke at length with her about how long we’d be gone—feeling it was too long of a time, and no matter how much was he offering, was not worth it, and the books that would be written thereafter, and the royalties, would creative a massive pile of more work to be done—implying: it was not as simply as she was making it out to be, and I wanted to retire for the most part, I had written twenty-nine books (for god sake how many more must a man write to prove his worth?).
On the other hand, sometimes too many hands spoil the pudding, and Shauna did not budge from her insistence in that I should go, nor move from the archway of our library, as I expected she wouldn’t. She kept her dark green eyes on me, a mist formed around her, like a black bubble, it often did when she was thinking hard, thinking and not wanting anyone un-expectantly into her safety zone, for some reason, as if I could, or someone might be able to, read her thoughts; it was her compilation of hidden knowledge in witchcraft (I assumed) I was witnessing, and skeptical about (she often seemed to be portraying some Athenian Goddess): should I not agree to do it, I might end up doing it anyhow as it may appear to me—with her art of magic—she might make it look like I wanted to in the first place, and by the time the spell would fade, I’d be in the Yukon nevertheless; you can’t fight them odds.
I didn’t know she was a witch when I married her, if indeed that is what they call such women, I did hear once of a sect called the Athenian Cleric, she had mentioned it in passing with a girlfriend; it also came out when she healed me with some herb from a stupid shrub from scurvy, or whatever I had back then, back in l886, if I recall right; it was some kind of divine magic, with a healing spell. In any case, I fought it, but it didn’t’ do much good until I returned and she hurled on me her unexplained, delightful enchantment, along with that herb from the shrub. Oh, that isn’t all, in the Yukon, there are deep dizzy mountains, deathlike, and graves here and there of those before you that tired to find their fortune in it. I scrabbled and mucked like a slave them days. It is the cruelest land that I know. Yes, there is beauty also, the big husky sun, the stars tumble about at night; the caribou run in the wild, it is fresh, silent, a magical kind of stillness to it also, and a good portion of it is un-peopled; but there are hardships that nobody reckons; keep it, I will take a hot bath and think about those who wish to go back to that world, should I have such a pleasure in making the decision not to, but I fear not
instead of me inviting it hopefully, as an alternative, I told her I’d try to look forward to it, but I only did so in the mist of despair, a kind of creeping one at that. Here I was to enter a world of fog and slush, gloom and cold; these melancholy thoughts I must put aside. Now she went into her room, with that impassive face, an evil woman, she can be—

[Interlude I] Lowell’s mind was now free for the moment, having Shauna’s spell and demand packed away, thus he lost the fearfulness that was lingering within his stomach, his intestines, his head and spine—the uneasiness she could provoke upon and within his system, make it endure should he defy her. Now he committed himself to the irretrievable blunder to be, which lay ahead of him: or so he felt it would turn out to be; he devoted long hours to getting in shape the following two months, for the September trip. He lost over ten pounds, put on some muscle in its place. Found new maps of the Yukon, and Arctic regions, for they’d be in both areas before their trip was over, he expected; he was never losing hope that the Professor would cancel the trip suddenly, and perhaps go in the summer months, but he didn’t. He packed away for the trip a few books, one by Gertrude Stein, Ambrose Bierce (concerning the civil war) and another by Henry W. Longfellow, and George Sterling, both on poetry.
It seemed to him, Professor Spellvice had not done any extraordinary preparation for the long enduring trip that lay ahead of them, which required specialization for the most part, hence, Lowell was baffled. His head was whirling with conflict and contradiction of this idleness. Did he think the Yukon, or the Arctic was summer year round? I mean, he wasn’t the man he was fifteen-years ago, or twenty-five years ago when they had made their first of several trips to the enduring North. Perhaps the Professor had bones and artifacts in general on his mind so much he forgot that it gets sixty to eighty below zero up there, should they not make it back before winter; and he was playing a most dangerous game trying to beat the cold and freezing up of the lakes and rivers by going in late September. So these were Lowell’s thoughts. In addition, He felt the Professor could lose twenty-pounds, minimum, which would do him well; scrap off that pot belly of his; he was only five foot six inches tall, and his belly lapped over his belt like rolls on a pigs back, he must had been 190-pounds. He also had a black beard and his back, arms, and legs all were hairy like an ape.

By and large, Lowell McWilliams was in a state of exasperation when he met the day when he and the professor were to take the train from Minnesota to the Canadian boarder; and then onto the Yukon, to Dawson to get supplies, and all the way to the Arctic, and perhaps even to Mackenzie Bay [which was not on the agenda, but in the back of the professor’s mind which would add another four or five months to the trip back and forth, but should he had told Lowell, it would have only made matters worse. Both Lowell and Professor Spellvice were aware Peary had made it to the North Pole [April 6, 1909] by sledge, and it may have had inspired Spellvice to make the trip before winter, and not the summer of the following year, or at least that is what came to mind for Lowell. But Lowell was more interested in the possibility of the fight that was to take place with Jack Johnson, come the summer of next year [1910], on July 4th, thus leaving in August of 1910, would had been excellent for him.


2


The Yukon,
Arctic: Lake and Glacier


The Raw Arctic

I have seen its vastness—
A lonely land to know
Deep within its silent splendor
Lays its beauty, and its soul!...


For the first several weeks nobody spoke unless there was an absolute need to, and Lowell chopped ice as they shifted through the waters, his ores heavy with ice, cliffs all about him. Lowell wanted to turn about a hundred times, but his will refused his mind and his body’s better judgment.
As for Professor Spellvice, he never swore, nor learned how to for some reason, but during this trip, as the river became more dangerous, he became more exhausted and he learned quickly.

Lowell got thinking about this time, while on the trip: ‘…for some odd reason, it would seem each man wants to prove something in his life before he dies, and thus, puts life and limb in harms way if need be, heart and soul into it also, at the pain of putting others in harms way, and this was one of those times for the professor.’
It seemed that, each man had reached his breaking-point during this journey, but jerked back from pulling their revolvers out and shooting the other.
During the evenings in camp, each would take their turns with some kind of hesitated and short hysterical laugh, and a few hours later they’d both be fast asleep; a way of releasing the pressure of the long hatchet struggle in the Yukon. One blamed the other for whatever anguish had rested on their soul, that day, but by nightfall it usually was forgotten, and by morning after a cup of coffee, it was time to loosen-up the stiffen muscles and the ache of moving from the sleep of fatigue of the night before.

[The Glacier]


As we trudged on through and over the frozen ocean below us, with islands all around us, the Arctic gulls overhead, the ravens and White-Tailed Eagles, from European stock, perched on rocks unreachable, we were spellbound with the marvelous sightings that were taking place. During our first stages of the trip we were typically searching for anything and everything that caught our eyes, we found the beaver hard at work; we spotted many lemmings, and other small mammals. As we got deeper into our trip, wondering over ice, and ice covered by snow we spotted the magnificent polar bears; a few raised their heads to sniff the air for danger, we were their prey on a few occasions, and set our adrenalin in high mode, but a few shots in the air with our guns, scared them off, and allowed my shivering spine to settle…

—[Lowell was now lost in a day-dreaming mode]… it was some years ago, I and the professor had taken a trip up to the Chuck chi sea, by Barrow, Alaska, the unique and massive walrus’ were plentiful in that area. They walk on their front flippers, like seals. They prefer shallow water and we were up there in June, when everything is opened up for about six weeks, before the ice starts setting in again. In any case, they lounge on the land or ice in the Arctic all twenty-feet of them, and 1500 pounds. I know they like clams, I saw them trying to suck them dry. And by Point Lay, where we stopped for a few days—a mail stop; I had purchased an old whale bone cut into the shape of a walrus. But there, nearby, was also a gravesite I’ll never forget; it was full of dead walruses. Their tusks still protruding from their heads; ah, yes, both male and females have tusks…


[‘…wake up…!’ someone said…’] and then it came upon me, a glacier, we’re on a damn glacier…needed to cross this glacier: four hundred feet of thick ice here: a frozen river you might say. I heard a whisper behind me, a strained voice, and tense: like it was gasping for air, it must have been Robert who woke me up. The sun was out this day, and it touched the chilled stiff snow around us: it was welcomed; it warmed my clogged, thick flowing blood. As I looked in the back of me, I could see Robert tugging along, the sleigh tracks, dog tracks, and foot steps in the snow. They all looked lonely being left behind as we went forward.
My glance was almost over when I saw Robert’s face, it was twisted somewhat, as if he had a stroke, or it was frozen in place. His nausea on his countenance told me he was sick, not well at all, and getting sicker. He was not geared for this trip; it was all too much for him. But what can you say when you’re in the middle of a hurricane, it is too late, you got to do the best you can.
Now being on the glacier, I heard a crackling sound. All around us were deep crevices, fissures that went a hundred-feet deep, if not farther. Everything on this glacier seemed to have an endless bulk to it; a ruptured face.
“Are you ok professor?” I asked. I calculated in the back of my mind, he’d not last this trip, if at all another month, or even a week; it was too much, too trying for him. The sweat from his brow, he wiped off with his bandana tied around his neck. We were now at a standstill.
“I’m good for a few more miles, let’s get off this glacier and camp…!” he puffed out with all the reserved energy and wind he had left in his stomach.
“Get moving…” I screamed at the dogs, as we both pushed the sleigh to help them; I pulled in the slack I had allowed when we had stopped.
As we neared the edge of the glacier, it got jerky under our feet, and then some of its edge crumbled into the water below us—that is, some three hundred yards now in front of us. I held my fingers tight on the leather reins and steered the sleigh to the shore line some one hundred yards to the side of us.
“I didn’t think I’d make it…” said the professor. It was difficult work, these several minutes it took to shift the sleigh around, and run with the dogs and the sleigh over the rough terrain of this glacier while the thunder of its edges breaking off and falling some two hundred feet below us: shook our spines to a heighten state. But now we were on shore, and this looked like a good place to make camp, and we did.

[The Lake]

It was on the fiftieth-day, they had woke up, finished with the coffee, it was a gray, almost ink dark mist of a morning, yet, Lowell rolled up the sagging tent, said to Robert, “Come on, we got to get across the lake before it freezes up; it was thirty-below, and as they started to cross the lake the wind started to freeze up Robert’s cheeks and nose, when he touched them, they were froze hard like an ice-cube. He stopped rowing, left the ore by itself as he pulled his gloves off to warm his face with his own fleshly hands, with warm circulating blood. Thus, as they floated down the swift river, shore-ice extended out into the lake and it was hitting the boat as it broke from its main sheet. Lowell didn’t see Robert, he was starting a fire in the little iron stove they had in the boat, for it was to be a six hour trip across the lake, and into the river; which would bring them to a landing point, just before the water falls; consequently, his back was turned to him. Professor Spellvice, was beyond fatigue, and was now rubbing his face, it was dead tissue he was rubbing, tissue that was frost bitten: turning white; his ore had slipped gently into the lake, there was one left, it remained connected to the boat on the other side, then all movement ceased—they hit a big rock in the middle of the lake, the professor fell forward onto Lowell’s back, he was in extreme anxiety: “I’ll sure go back now,” his eyes bulging out of their sockets: then apologized to Lowell for taking him into this ‘forsaken land,’ hunting for old bones and artifacts, and suchlike; then like a sack of potatoes, he fell limp: dead to the world. What had come over him, Lowell didn’t know there were no real signs that had forecasted such a quick expiration.
Lowell had food, some gold-dust they had traded for dollars in Dawson, just incase they needed to buy some camp items along the way, should they find someone willing to sell them, along with meat or other needed items, hence, dollars would not hold the value as gold would. He knew he had flour, some beef-jerky, a few tin goods; as he looked about the boat; then he noticed he had one ore. The shore was about a mile away; he’d turn the boat that way, but didn’t have to, it seemed somehow to turn by itself in that direction compelled to go that way he told himself, as if there was a current—“Why?” He then pulled out a bottle of whiskey, took a few drinks, after thawing out his mustache a bit, to get the bottle, under and up onto his lips, and in his mouth, finely pushing the remaining ice out of the way, to get on his way. He looked at old Professor Spellvice, “So-long, old chap!” he said with a regretful look, while his red-hot stove gave him new vitality.
It was getting colder, for he spit in the air and it froze before it hit the ice in the lake.
“It’s getting colder all the time…” he told the stove, as if it had a mind of its own, rubbing his bare hands to the warmth of its flames, turning now and then to the back of the boat looking at the Spellvice humped over like a lump of lard, chin on his chest.
“Ssh!” he said aloud. He heard a woman’s voice from the shore; he could see the shore now. “Huh!” said he, in a whisper to himself. For some reason, Shauna did not occur to him that the voice coming from the shore was hers, or could be; it was some other woman’s. As his boat oddly enough was being pulled to shore by some hidden force (which he mistook as a current), the snow in this areas was feet thick, deep snow he noticed. ‘Nobody could live up here,’ he told himself, the stove now dim, almost spark-less, ‘…only the devil,’ he added to his monologue. He felt his legs and knees, he knew his muscles were still strong with warm circulating blood, but a tinge numb; hence, he could trudge along the snow for a few days once ashore and thawed out, but he needed to find a log cabin—sooner or later—and wait out the winter (he had heard there were a few up in this area, in particular for moose hunters). There was no way of going back. He’d bury the old professor in spring, when he’d make his way back across the lake; it would freeze over soon—the lake that is, if not this evening, surely tomorrow or the following day.

[Interlude II] Lowell loved natural beauty, be it in nature as it was in the North Country here, or in women, for his wife was most beautiful, or in poetry; and now, once more the great north had provided this beauty for him. He and the professor, if they had enjoyed anything together on this trip, it was in the gazing into the magic of its bountiful landscape, it silent nights, its overpowering vastness; it stirred within him, profoundly, within both of them. It seemed to fill the blank pages of Lowell’s mind, those that had been gathering for so many years. These past several weeks he had sung to himself aloud, something he had not done for a very long time. The landscape illuminated both the professor and him, although the professor seemed to have experienced his share of darkness on this trip, and now death, because of his avidly un-preparedness for the trip, he did find time to absorb its wondrous beauty up to this point. But now he was gone—forever, a sad case at best, thought Lowell. And what Lowell didn’t know was that: under all those cloths the professor’s had on, he was sweating out the stress and strain he had carried a thousand miles while on this trip; his shirt clung to his shoulders from the sweat.

3

Reaching Land

Fate beckoned Lowell McWilliams, one might say, for on the cold desert like sheet of ice came echoes sliding to his ears, echoes from a Polar Eskimo (Inuit), in this geographical isolated land. Oaassaaluk, a seer of sort whose husband was an Eskimo like her, and hunter and the master seer, was now alone with her children by her side, all waiting along the coast with their traditional sledge of: whalebone joined together with sealskin, no rivets or nails. They had journeyed a long way. She was now moving briskly with her dogs along side her—dogs which were restlessly guarding her, as well as useful for the sleigh. Now the shore passed quickly before Lowell’s eyes, catching the glimpse of the female Inuit. She had two young children by her side, along with the four dogs, he noticed; she was small framed, yet pretty—an eye catcher he told himself. Build strong with a round face, almost harmless looking, but for some odd reason, he knew she wasn’t; I mean, how could she be harmless and with two children in the frozen North like this, waiting by a shore of ice in ten below zero weather.
She had willed the boat over. He could now see the roof of her tent, plus she had been cooking something. The atmosphere looked good, he was hungry, more than hungry, he was next to starving, and he had a dead body to look after, which was becoming disheartening by the minute. Behind the tent was a fairly good size igloo, standing at the lips of a cliff, somewhat lost in the vastness of the almost all white, snowy landscape near the lake. He had never used his ore once, it was all by some hidden force that the boat found its way to the shoreline; some hidden force I say again, perhaps of this Eskimo woman, he guessed, whose name he’d fine out was Oaassaaluk: yes, the boat was brought to shore by her will—he confirmed.

—Lowell had learned as he met young Oaassaaluk, and her two children, that she was from an Inuit tribe from Greenland, a Thule tribe. When she scented the dead man in the boat, she was a bit fearful, hoping he was not ill-treated during his life, lest he come back to haunt them. She spoke the language of the Inuit’s from Greenland, and thus, performed a ritual that evening for the dead man. She circled him like a wolf, wondering if he was going to come back and haunt them, then like thunder in the middle of the night, as the fire was going down, somewhat flickering out, she ran outside of the tent with a sharp tooth for a knife in hand, a tooth from a huge bear, and stabbed him again and again through the heart, to insure he was dead, and would not come back and haunt her children and her children’s children; Lowell saw it all, as he had stayed by the fire, and the children in the igloo saw nothing. He was a bit paralyzed with shock over it all, but said nothing (he would learn later the reasoning).
She was well understood by/or to Lowell, he didn’t’ know why or how, but it seemed she had some supernatural power to make it so—accordingly they communicated without any difficulties. As he looked at his friends body, she had scalped him, turned his eyes, mouth, ears and genitals inside out, saying, “…it is better my new friend, to kill him once and for all, than to have him follow us at night.”
Lowell said not a word. He had thought his wife was dangerous, but Oaassaaluk was far more vicious should she want to be, more than Shauna had ever thought of being.

As the days and weeks passed, they both found themselves sleeping together in the tent as one—as one would feel to a wife or husband, and he learned many things of her, and she of him. They even taught each other their personal songs; as they would also sing them at night with her children around a bonfire.
She explained, Perlussuaq was their evil spirit, who could wish living creatures ill, and she believed his friend had met the evil spirit, and thus, he was doomed. Had Lowell continued down the river, his fate would had been the same she explained, but the evil spirit was lazy, and did not think she was close by and therefore felt it had time to squander, for the spirit was looking for her but her magic created kind of black bubble around her so he could not smell, or see her: detect her in anyway. But once she had used her powers, hence, she had opened herself up, coming out of her safety zone; in essence, she was open to his wickedness, it was why she had to insure the man was dead.
She had taught Lowell by this time, spoken charms, and to chant them softly. And about the taboos of food, and eating of meat: basically, the age mattered as did the kind of animal, and sex. Should he eat the heart, his vitality would diminish. He’d explain to her of his wife whom would use her skills in magic to insure he’d do as she wanted. But Oaassaaluk never said a word bad about his wife; she turned out to be a good listener. And as the days and months passed they become not only lovers, but soul mates. In the mornings she’d cook eggs, and have meat, coffee made, where she got those items, he never knew nor asked, but his supplies were almost depleted, and so he was thankful she had a resource, whatever it was. During these times, He would care for the children while she was gone and dogs as need be ((temporarily forgetting about his mission)(he had buried Robert, what was left of him)).
In her beliefs, she knew she had a soul [her breath], she told Lowell; matter of fact, she had three ‘breaths,’ if not more, so she indicated, and life was everlasting and She wore amulets, the skin of the upper jaw of a bear her recent husband was killed by, of which, she endowed with pride and courage. And she had in her tent, and in the igloo, skulls of foxes.

[Interlude III] Lowell, as time went by, found his new mate to be most desirable, and seemingly had all but forgotten Shauna, his wife. He now preferred the warmth of his new mate, of which she was more than willing to provide for him. She, Oaassaaluk had produced in him a swimming sensation of bliss he had never felt before; one that accepted death, before idealism. His face flushed when they met often; at the same time his hair became stimulated to its roots. Her gracious spirit drove him insanely excited.


Part Two



Evil Spirits


The Demon’s Ark

Born from the horns
Of a wingless archangel
With the pulse of
Perpetual night—
Lo, the demonic horizon:
Mortals jagged plight.


It was in January, of the year 1910, Lowell had been missing for months without any word to civilization, that he was alive or dead. And suddenly when Oaassaaluk had returned one morning back to the camp, she was ill, very ill. Oaassaaluk’s husband had been an ‘angakkoq,’ shaman, or priest, and she had learned much from him. He was the interpreter of the signs, and he was her precedence, and the evil spirit was mad at Oaassaaluk for saving the white man, taking Lowell away from him; whom would have been his next victim. As he was angry at Oaassaaluk’s husband previously; for they had been escaping, running away from it—the evil spirit, as to not have to give it respect, it wanted, respect in the form of worship, which it pleaded for, and swore it would get revenge should they not give it. In consequence, in fear and faith they had run a thousand miles, and then of course the evil spirit sent the bear to kill the husband, and she had been lonely and would not sleep with the evil spirit and hid from it; out of loneliness, isolation, and knowing the evil spirit was on a rampage, she helped Lowell escape its deadly intent, his unknowing it; hence, he evaded his fate of death; now she had taken him as her mate. She sang ‘ajajas,’ calling on the good spirits to help her. Her illness was unceasing though; she became mute and extremely violent at times, then temperate as a lamb, yet she held onto Lowell as if he was her mouthful of air, her breath, or part of it. As she lay dying day after day, Lowell had found himself much in love with her; he loved her dearly, so much so, he stayed with her night and day without eating, only preparing food for the children. He had also found out he did not want to return to his home in the lower states to face his bewitched wife whom kept him as a slave; life was less valuable than he had thought, if it was to be without his Oaassaaluk.


It was a deadly night when he sat in the igloo by her side as she was dying, when all of a sudden out of nowhere, people he had never met seemed to come in and out of the igloo, he knew they were ghosts or spirits of some sort, but he said nothing. They were having a feast of some kind, laughter, drums sounded, in the space of a few days; it looked like a village outside the igloo. It had become over populated, fifty people maybe. Despite the influx, the snow did not stop them or the cold, or the size of the igloo, the guests were puckered eyed, and talked in her concise language.

In the summer of 1911, the bodies of Oaassaaluk and Lowell were found, side by side, ugly in the sun, skin rotting as if they were a black puddle of flesh, harnessed to one another like a team of dogs. He had tied himself to her, and ordered the ghosts to tie him tighter, so tight, he’d not be able to get out; for it was said no one could have done it alone. And so as he had wished, they died together, arms and body entangled around one anther. From the edge of the cliff, where the igloo was, the two children were gone.



Nightmare

He lives within the deep
Where others never sleep—
Monstrous fathoms below,
Where Lava Rivers flow,
And crowding waters rush.

He is the nightmare demon
With a flat, untraversable form—
Lying in a bottomless tomb,
Haply awakened from doom
Thirsting diabolical ruin!...





Addendum to the Story

The Athenian Cleric
(And the Golden Bridle)


Part Three



The Hidden life of Professor Lowell McWilliams’ Wife
End Part to the story “Black Bubble” (Part Three)



Professor Lowell McWilliams’ wife Shauna was a strange bird, and Lowell knew it but as his personality would have it, he paid little attention to it until of course his trip into the Yukon, and back. But before all this the question comes up, where did she get her magic, and what kind was it, and where did she come from. So many mysteries in the life of Lowell’s wife, he never paid much attention to it as I have already mentioned, but I will now share this with you, thus, if you care to reread the story, “The Black Bubble,” written in 2005, you may have a better handle on things.
It wall started out with her life long ago, with Athena, the Greek Goddess. Shauna’s real name was Shamhat, when in a small village in the high ground near Thessaloniki, she learned the art of magic, Athenian Magic, and she changed her name, once she became a cleric of the order, to Arachne. She became a worshiper of Athena, and became a cleric of the LG, the highest form, and valued her wit and wisdom, her shrewdness over brawns. She was a shinning example to all who belonged to her sect, and learned Divine Magic (she became SPEAR to the 7th Level; she could cast a spear a thousand miles, so the villagers had said, and had proficiency in other weapons). In all major spheres she was excellent: to include: animal, astral, charm, combat, creation, divination, divination, guardian, healing, necromantic, protection, summoning, sun and weather; and, elemental and planets.
Furthermore, she knew the entire book of spells by heart: Anti Fear, Spiritual Hammer, prayer, and detection of lies, question and answering choice, heal spells, Succor (bringing one to safety).
She was of such a high quality, Athena herself appeared, and said she’d grant her any wish she desired.
She asked, knowing she was one of the few and gifted Athenian Clerics, to ride Poseidon’s horse, and with his golden bridle. Athena asked Poseidon for permission and because he wanted to keep his name in the minds of the dwellers of the land, as to not just the sea faring people, he agreed, plus it was a special favor for Athena, and the wish was granted.
Well, this young and beautiful Cleric took it upon herself to steal the golden bridle, and for some odd reason, no magic from Athena or Poseidon could uncover it. Athena liked her worshiper, but she would not return it the item she took, thus she stripped her of her honors, and humiliated her to the village people, and cast her off in despair to the world outside of Greece, never to return, that she could although pick another time in history she would like, and thus, she chose the 19th century.

And so good readers, this was the background of Arachne (or as we know her as: Shauna) McWilliams, whom now is the wife of Professor Lowell McWilliams, whom took that great adventure into the Yukon not so long ago, in 1897.



Note [making of the story]: originally the idea came from a dream; I called “The Prize,” 3/24/05, which was in a few fragments when I wrote it down. I had written about 50-words down to the dream. Then I wrote out the first part of the four part story on 3/28/05, it was only about a witch, whom was a wife to an unlucky party—a spouse. I had no ending, and I normally do not like starting with an ending. On the 29th I had another idea in the middle of the night for the ending, so I wrote down five ideas on a napkin half rolled out on my bed—turning on the light in the middle of the night, than falling back to sleep [I always keep a pen and pad of paper by my bedside]. Then I wrote parts two and three out. On 3/30/05, as I was going into the forth part, it came to me the ending—completely; 4/2/05. [#624]. Reedited 3/2008. The Author has spent time in the Arctic, Barrow, Alaska 1996, and up and around Juneau, Alaska, and on the Mendenhal Glacier. “The Athenian Cleric,” Written in the morning, 3-9-2008 at my home in Lima, Peru.