Napiw's Prison. Creature Features 11/25

Some beginnings are lost in time; others are all around us.

          The sun was a weary eye, sliding shut behind the jagged teeth of the Rocky Mountains. In the camp of the Blackfoot, the last of the cookfires were winking out, their orange light yielding to the deep indigo of dusk. Within his lodge, Kicking Horse, the Medicine Man, lay on his buffalo robes. His breath was a soft, even rhythm in the quiet space. His hands, usually busy grinding herbs or shaping incantations, were still at his sides. To ignore the people was a sin for a Medicine Man, but to ignore the needs of one's own spirit was a greater folly. He was not ignoring them; he was gathering strength. He had healed a child's fever, set a broken bone, and counseled a grieving widow that day. His rest was earned.

          But from a high ridge overlooking the encampment, a different judgment was passed.

          Napiw, the Old Man, the shape-shifting heartbeat of the world, watched from the shadows of a whispering pine. He saw the closed flap of the Medicine Man's tepee. He saw the people moving quietly, respectfully around it. But Napiw, in his eternal, mischievous essence, did not see a man replenishing his power. He saw a shaman neglecting his duty. A sly grin split Napiw's ancient face. Here was a worthy subject for some instructive mischief.

          His first lesson was a whisper. He called upon the West Wind, his swift and silent ally. "Cousin," he murmured into the gathering dark, "visit that camp. But visit only one lodge." The wind, always eager for sport, swept down from the peaks. It did not rustle a single leaf on the cottonwoods. It did not stir the hair of the women gathering their last bundles of firewood. It slid, a single focused breath, under the hem of Kicking Horse's tepee and blew with pinpoint precision onto the central fire pit. The carefully banked coals, which should have smoldered until dawn, sighed and went cold, leaving only a pile of grey ash.

          Kicking Horse woke shivering in the deep of night, the chill of the earth seeping through his robes. It was an oddity, a slight frustration. He rebuilt the fire from a neighbor's ember, his tired mind dismissing it as a fluke.

          Napiw watched, his grin widening. The lesson needed reinforcement.

          His next trick was one of decay. He sought out the lowly, the countless, the worms that turn the soil. "Little brothers," he cooed to them in the damp dark beneath the earth. "A great feast awaits you. The meat of the proud Medicine Man. Taste it. Make it yours." That night, as Kicking Horse slept, the worms heard the Old Man's call. They did not swarm the entire camp's drying racks, for that would be a true calamity and an unfair punishment to the people. No, they converged only on the choice of buffalo cuts that belonged to Kicking Horse. By morning, the rich, dark meat was webbed with a foul gray fur, its scent turned sour and rotten.

          Annoyance, cold and sharp, began to replace the Medicine Man's fatigue. This was no coincidence. The dead fire, the spoiled meat, it was a pattern, a harassment. He said nothing, his pride stung. He would endure.

          Napiw, however, was beginning to enjoy himself. For his final stroke, he summoned the coyotes. As the moon rose, a silver coin in the black vault of sky, he found the pack on the outskirts of the camp. "Sing for me, cousins!" Napiw cried, his voice taking on the yip and howl of the creatures. "Sing your most joyful, your most discordant songs! Sing all night long for the one who sleeps while the world is awake!"

          The coyotes, ever playful, obliged. Their chorus was not the typical, sporadic call-and-response of the prairie, but a relentless, cacophonous opera aimed directly at Kicking Horse's lodge. It was a sound that pierced the ears and clawed at the mind. That night, the Medicine Man did not sleep at all. He lay on his robes, eyes wide, jaw clenched, as the manic singing sawed at his nerves.

          At dawn, hollow-eyed and with a fury burning in his chest to match his dead fire, Kicking Horse left his lodge. He stood in the cool morning air, listening to the fading coyote songs. It was then that a small, brown Prairie Sparrow, a creature known for knowing the secrets of the earth and sky, landed on a nearby stake. It chirped, a series of rapid, urgent notes.

          Kicking Horse, whose medicine included understanding the language of all creatures, went still. He listened. The sparrow told him of the trickster on the ridge, of the call to the West Wind, the summons to the worms, the command to the coyotes. It told him of Napiw's grinning delight.

          The Medicine Man's anger, once a hot coal, was now forged in the cold fire of purpose. Napiw wanted a lesson taught? Very well. He would receive one.

          For three days, Kicking Horse prepared. He gathered rare roots that grew only in the shadow of lightning-struck trees. He ground powders from the iridescent wings of blue beetles and the brittle bones of a long-dead, wise owl. He whispered incantations over them, spells of binding and transformation, weaving his will into the very substance of the magic.

          Napiw, arrogant in his power, did not bother to hide. He was curious to see what the mortal would do. He strode into the camp one afternoon in the form of a handsome, unknown warrior, a smirk playing on his lips.

          "Greetings, Healer," Napiw said, his voice dripping with false courtesy. "I hear you have had some troubles. Your medicine has grown weak."

          Kicking Horse looked up from his grinding stone, his eyes like chips of flint. "My medicine is just strong enough for the task at hand, Old Man."

          The use of his actual name froze the smirk on Napiw's face. In that moment of surprised recognition, Kicking Horse acted. He threw the enchanted powder into the air, and as it clouded around the false warrior, he spoke the words of power. The magic seized Napiw, not as a force to be resisted, but as a net made of a thousand threads of will, pulling him inward, compressing his vast, chaotic essence.

          There was a flash of light, not bright and explosive, but deep and orange. When it faded, the handsome warrior was gone. On the ground, where he had stood, was a perfect, round, bright orange gourd.

          A great fury raged within the gourd. Napiw, the creator of rivers and mountains, the shaper of beasts, was trapped! It was an indignity beyond measure. He focused on his immense power, drawing on the core of his trickster spirit. He would become a Nikski, a monstrous, evil spirit of the night. He would swell into a terrifying apparition of shadow and claw and teach this upstart mortal a lesson in fear he would never forget!

          But Kicking Horse had been wise. He had woven two spells, not one. The first was the transformation. The second was a mirror, a redirecting charm designed to catch and warp any magic Napiw might use from within his prison.

          Napiw's power surged outwards, intent on becoming a thing of nightmare. The secondary spell caught it, twisted it, and reflected it upon itself. Instead of growing fearsome claws, the surface of the gourd is indented. Instead of forming a gaping maw of sharp teeth, a jagged, toothy line was carved into its flesh. Instead of manifesting a fearsome, glaring visage, two triangular eyes and a foolish, grinning mouth were etched upon its surface.

          The raging Nikski spirit became a silly, carved face. The fury of a god was rendered absurd.

          "Kicking Horse picked up the gourd. He could feel the immense, impotent rage vibrating within it. He placed it on a tall stump in front of his tepee, a silent testament to his power. The people gathered, staring in awe at the strangely cheerful-looking object that contained the mighty Napiw.

          "What is it, Kicking Horse?" a young brave asked, his voice hushed.

          "It is a prison," the Medicine Man said. "And a warning."

          But a curious thing happened. The people, seeing the grotesque yet comical face, began to believe it held protective power. They reasoned that if such a thing could trap the Old Man himself, it could surely ward away lesser evil spirits. They saw not a defeated trickster, but a powerful guardian.

          "Make us one, Kicking Horse!" a woman pleaded. "My son is troubled by bad dreams. Let one of these stand guard before our lodge." Others took up the call. They saw the orange gourd not as a monument to a shaman's pride, but as a tool for their safety.

Kicking Horse understood. The lesson had been learned, but a new need had arisen. He could not explain the truth without diminishing the people's newfound sense of security. And so, using the same incantations and powders--though without a captured god to provide the core of the magic--he began to create more gourds. He carved the same silly, scowling, grinning faces into their sides, channeling protective blessings into each one.

          He distributed them among the lodges of his people. They placed them by their entrances, on their drying racks, believing they were shielded.

          One evening, as the tribe sat around a central fire, a child pointed to the growing collection of orange gourds guarding the camp. "Medicine Man," the child asked, "what are they called? These spirit-catchers?"

          Kicking Horse looked at the first gourd, the one on the stump outside his lodge. He could still feel the faint, simmering outrage emanating from within it. He had set out to teach Napiw a lesson, and in doing so, he had given his people a gift of hope and protection. A name was needed. A name for a thing of two natures: a prison for a troublemaker, and a protector for the people.

          He smiled, a faint, weary curve of his lips. "They are now called Pumpkins," he said.

          And inside the first pumpkin, Napiw, the Old Man, heard the name and raged against his ridiculous confines, a lesson learned but never, ever to be forgiven.

Words: 1,708
Prompt: Pumpkin