When the first heavy snows blanketed the tundra, the tribe began their great seasonal migration. It was a tradition as old as the people themselves. Once the caribou herds started their long trek southward, the Tribe of the Wolf would pack their tents, load the sleds, and follow. The hunt was not just survival but a vital part of their way of life, the time when the meat, hides, bones, and sinews that would sustain them through the long winter were gathered.

  As they struck camp, Kharg watched the practiced efficiency of the tribe. The women and older children bundled furs and supplies, while the hunters inspected their spears, bows, and sleds. Dogs barked eagerly, sensing the coming journey, and the air was alive with movement and purpose.

  During the first day’s march, Hrafun walked beside Kharg a little apart from the others, his heavy cloak dusted white by the falling snow. “Each of the twenty tribes has its own lands,” he said in passing, gesturing toward the endless horizon. “These herds belong to us as much as they do to the earth, and all tribes know it. To hunt beyond your own land is to invite trouble, and more than one feud has started over stolen game.” His tone was calm, as though he spoke of an undeniable fact rather than a threat.

  The journey itself was a lesson in endurance. Kharg learned how to secure the sleds so they would not topple in deep snow, how to pitch tents swiftly in a gale, and how to ration food for dogs and people alike. He absorbed every detail—the way seasoned hunters read the snow-laden sky for signs of coming storms, how they tracked animals by faint trails in the frost, and found water in the frozen land, and the silent hand signals they used when stalking game. The lessons hardened him, but they also tied him closer to the tribe in ways he had not expected.

  As they walked, Hrafun never let the days pass in silence. Each stretch of open tundra became a classroom, the crunch of snow underfoot punctuated by the old shaman’s low voice as he taught Kharg the ancient invocations. Some words carried reverence, honoring the unseen forces that shaped the world. Others called upon the great compacts, ancient agreements made with spirits that still lingered in the land. Hrafun made him repeat the phrases until the syllables rolled naturally from his tongue, testing his memory and focus as the cold wind stung their faces. “A shaman must know these as surely as he knows his own breath,” Hrafun told him. “The compacts are older than any tribe. They are the bridge by which we speak to the powers that dwell unseen.”

  When the first herd was sighted on the tenth day, it proved to be a modest one, barely a few dozen animals moving steadily across the snow-swept plain. The hunters observed in silence as the caribou grazed and shifted, weighing which animals could be taken without harming the herd’s strength. Hrafun murmured to Kharg that the herds must always be left able to thrive, and that taking too many would invite famine in the years to come.

  At a silent signal, the hunters fanned out in a crescent, driving only a handful of the weaker and older animals toward the waiting spearmen. The chosen caribou were felled cleanly and swiftly, each kill deliberate and precise. Nothing was wasted. The meat was sliced thin and set on racks to freeze in the open air, the hides scraped clean and bundled for tanning, and the bones set aside for tools, weapons, and carvings. Even the sinews were gathered, destined to become bowstrings and stitching thread.

  Kharg joined in the work, learning through practice as much as by instruction. He watched the hunters’ steady hands as they field-dressed carcasses and tried his own hand at scraping hides until his arms ached. The women showed him how to pack the meat for travel, how to lash bundles to the sleds without unbalancing the dogs. Even the children carried small loads, darting about with laughter as they gathered branches for the campfires. His hands grew numb from scraping hides, and more than once he earned quiet laughter from the hunters as he fumbled with the rawhide lashings. Yet he persevered, gaining the quiet nods of approval that were the tribe’s way of showing respect.

  Through it all, Hrafun ensured that Kharg’s studies continued. “A shaman must know the life of his people,” he said one evening as they sat by the fire, drying strips of meat on wooden racks. “These skills will root you in the land you serve. Without them, you will never truly understand the people you protect.”

  Each night, after the day’s march and labor were done, Hrafun set Kharg apart from the others to continue his training. These sessions were not about words or chants. Instead, they were about silence, stillness, and listening.

  Kharg sat cross-legged by the dying embers of the fire, the chill of the tundra creeping in around him. Hrafun would speak only a few guiding words, “Breathe. Feel. Let the world come to you.” Then he would fall silent, leaving Kharg alone with the crackle of the fire and the vast night stretching endlessly above.

  At first, Kharg felt nothing but the cold and the ache of his tired body. Yet as the nights passed, a subtle shift began to take hold. He started to sense something beyond himself, a faint resonance in the stillness, like the trembling of a string just barely touched. It was not sight or sound, but a quiet awareness that seemed to hum at the edge of thought.

  Hrafun explained that this was the essence of Spiritism. “It is not about command,” he said softly one night. “It is about presence. The spirits are not beasts to be tamed, nor forces to be harnessed. They are echoes of the world’s own memory. To touch them, you must first quiet your own mind until it mirrors theirs.”

  Night after night, Kharg practiced, learning to sink deeper into this wordless communion. Sometimes the sensation felt warm and near, like a hand resting on his shoulder. Other times it was vast and distant, as though he stood at the edge of an endless plain, sensing presences just beyond the horizon.

  Through these meditations, Kharg began to grasp Spiritism not as a craft of spells but as a way of aligning his thoughts with something greater. It was an intuitive understanding, a recognition that power flowed not from control but from resonance between the shaman’s mind and the unseen world.

  The tribe continued its slow trek across the tundra, ever searching for more herds to see them through the harsh months ahead. Two weeks later, they found another band of caribou, this one larger and healthier than the first. After careful observation, the hunters again chose only as many animals as they needed, sparing the young and strong so that the herd could endure. This time, Kharg joined the spearmen in the final rush, heart pounding as the great beasts thundered past. When the hunt was done, he helped in the work that followed—skinning, butchering, and preparing the meat and hides for transport.

  Once they had secured enough food to last until spring, the tribe turned their thoughts to the long trek back to their winter grounds. But Hrafun’s teaching did not relent, even during these busy days.

  When Hrafun judged him ready, they began crafting a Spiritism totem, a slender rod of elk-bone. But before Kharg could carve the sacred runes, Hrafun drilled him relentlessly in the forms and meanings of the many runes tied to the spirit world. Days were spent carving practice pieces of wood until Kharg’s hands were sure and his cuts precise. Only then did he allow Kharg to carve the chosen symbols into the bone, the curved dagger awkward yet steady in his hand.

  When the final mark was cut, Kharg opened a shallow cut on his forearm, letting drops of blood fall into the grooves to link the totem to himself. That night, the rod was placed over a brazier filled with burning sagewort, sweet gale, and juniper berries, their fragrant smoke curling through the tent. As the smoke thickened, Kharg recited the invocations of Spiritism he had practiced for weeks. The rod thrummed faintly, drinking in the mingled essence of the herbs and his intent. When the chant ended, he sprinkled powdered citrine across the runes, sealing the power inside the totem.

  “It is done,” Hrafun said at last. “This rod is yours. Use it wisely, and it will open paths that few men can walk.”

  The return journey to the tribe’s winter grounds was slower, the sleds weighed down with meat, hides, and tools made from their successful hunts. Yet Hrafun’s teaching did not cease. As they journeyed, he taught Kharg the art of Spirit Traveling. He learned to peer briefly into the Dreamworld, glimpsing pale impressions of spirits that roamed the unseen. Under Hrafun’s guidance, he practiced the art of marking and finding other tribe members by their spiritual presence, a skill that left him awed at the invisible threads connecting all living things. They also began training in Spirit Warding. Hrafun showed him chants and gestures to anchor wards, compact phrases that called on ancient protections. Kharg learned to sense the faint barriers these wards created, as if invisible walls pressed lightly against the edges of his thoughts. Each night, they strengthened the lessons, weaving together practice and meditation until Kharg’s growing mastery of Spiritism was as much instinct as effort.

  When they eventually reached the shallow vale where they always made their winter hold, the work began at once. Tents rose in neat rows, their hide walls reinforced against the coming storms. Wooden racks were raised for drying meat, and the caribou hides were packed away for tanning during the long nights. Hrafun went to the ancient warding-pole at the center of the camp, its carved surface worn smooth by years of wind and snow. Placing both hands upon the wood, he murmured low chants, calling upon the spirits as a faint glow spread along the carved grooves. “Its power fades when I am gone too long,” he told Kharg, “but the spirits still remember this place. I renew its strength every other month.”

  By the time the tribe had settled fully into their winter hold, Hrafun deemed Kharg ready for the next step. One night, as the cold wind howled outside, the two of them sat cross-legged across from each other in Hrafun’s tent, a small brazier glowing between them.

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  “You have learned enough,” Hrafun said, his voice calm but weighty. “Tonight, we will step into the Dreamworld together. It mirrors our world, yet is never truly the same. As this tent is newly raised, only a few days in place, we will most likely find ourselves on open ground in the dream. Do not wander. Years ago, I placed a warding stone here, and I have strengthened it regularly. Its power will keep spirits at bay, so long as we remain near it.”

  He watched as Kharg quietly prepared the familiar warding incantations. “Good. Shield your mind first,” Hrafun instructed. “Some spirits can kill your mind as easily as a cave bear can kill your body.”

  Once Kharg had woven the mental ward, Hrafun reached for a small pouch at his side. He sprinkled sagewort, sweet gale, and juniper berries onto the brazier’s embers. The herbs hissed softly as fragrant smoke began to rise, filling the tent with a sharp, earthy aroma.

  “These are not required,” Hrafun explained, “but they help. The sweet gale strengthens the working, the juniper keeps ill spirits at bay as we cross the threshold, and the sagewort makes the trance come easier.”

  As the smoke thickened, curling in slow, lazy tendrils around them, Hrafun nodded. “Now. Speak the words. Let your spirit slip free and follow mine.”

  Kharg took a slow breath, heart steady despite the nervous weight pressing in his chest. He began the incantation Hrafun had drilled into him, the words deep and resonant, each syllable vibrating in the smoke-filled air. The world around him seemed to blur, as if melting at the edges. The sensation was strange, like wading into deep, cold water. Each breath carried him further away from his body. The tent dimmed and stretched, its outlines flickering like reflections in a rippling pool. The light no longer came from the brazier but from nowhere at all, shadows stretching too long and shapes shimmering as if half-remembered. When Kharg opened his eyes fully, the Dreamworld had taken hold. The camp was gone, replaced by an endless expanse of pale mist that mirrored the world yet felt detached, as though the land itself breathed in slow, ponderous rhythm.

  Hrafun was already there, standing before him, more vivid and solid than anything else in this ghostly realm. “Welcome,” he said, his voice carrying as though it came from both near and far at once. “Stay close to the stone. The spirits will know we are here, but they will not cross the ward.”

  That night marked Kharg’s first true step into the Dreamworld, though it would not be his last. In the weeks that followed, Hrafun brought him back several times, each excursion brief and tightly controlled. The old shaman insisted on caution above all else, never allowing Kharg to wander far or linger long. “The longer you stay,” Hrafun warned, “the more likely a malignant spirit will take notice. And you are not yet ready to face such a thing if it can be avoided.”

  Kharg’s progress was steady but slow. Each time, he learned a little more about the strange resonance of the place, its shifting echoes of the waking world, and the ever-present sensation of unseen watchers. Yet Hrafun’s careful pace ensured that Kharg’s first steps into Spirit Travel were safe ones, foundations laid patiently for the greater trials that would come.

  As the winter deepened and Kharg grew more confident in his brief excursions into the Dreamworld, Hrafun began to broaden his training. One evening, after they had returned from another short foray beyond the veil, the old shaman regarded him thoughtfully across the dim glow of the brazier.

  “You are ready for the next step,” Hrafun said. “A shaman must know the spirits of beasts as well as those of the dead. To call upon them, you must first learn to know them, to understand them at their core.”

  Their lessons in Spirit Travel and Spirit Warding continued as before, but now Hrafun wove into them the first steps of Animal Mastery. One evening, as the last light of day bled across the snow, the two of them sat on a weathered log outside Hrafun’s tent, their breath rising in pale clouds. The camp around them was quiet save for the muted sounds of dogs shifting near the sleds and the crackle of distant fires.

  “It is time you also learn to work with animals,” Hrafun said, gazing out toward the darkening tundra. “Our art allows us to command beasts and bind them to do our bidding. We also have other spells to form bonds but I will teach you them once you have mastered the first steps on this.”

  He began to teach Kharg the ancient compacts used to summon animals and coax them closer to the shaman. “But words alone are not enough,” Hrafun cautioned. “These compacts will only answer one who knows the creature’s true name. A name carries its essence. Speak it without understanding, and it is as hollow as wind on stone.”

  At first, Kharg assumed learning these names would be no harder than memorizing a set of words. Yet he quickly realized how mistaken he was. The true names were not mere sounds. They carried an inborn power, a resonance that tied them to the essence of the animal itself. Even speaking them aloud felt weighty, as if the names resisted being voiced by one who did not yet fully understand them.

  Hrafun guided him through the process slowly. “Each name will take you days to learn,” he warned. “You cannot simply repeat it. You must feel its meaning, grasp the nature of the creature until the name no longer feels foreign in your mouth.”

  They began with the great herbivores of the tundra, elk, deer, and caribou. When he added horses Kharg raised a questioning eyebrow but Hrafun told him that there were some scattered herds of shaggy short horses and many tribes had some domesticated ones. Hrafun spoke of their patience, endurance, and quiet strength, and how these qualities gave shape to their spiritual essence. Kharg spent hours each day meditating on what he had learned, slowly attuning himself to the resonance of each name. When he finally managed to speak one with proper weight, the sound seemed to hum faintly in the air, as if the world itself acknowledged it.

  Once Kharg had begun to grasp the names of these larger beings, Hrafun turned him toward the smaller creatures that thrived in the snow, the rabbit, the mouse, the rat. “Do not dismiss them because they are small,” Hrafun cautioned. “Each has its own nature—its agility, its wit, its cunning. These are powers too, and no shaman is wise who ignores them.”

  Bit by bit, he progressed through the animal names. By day, Kharg struggled to memorize and understand each name while reciting the compacts that would one day let him call these creatures to him. By night, his meditations in the Dreamworld deepened as Hrafun showed him how the faint impressions of beasts sometimes drifted at the edges of that place, much as spirits of the dead did.

  “You must learn to sense them as you do the spirits of men,” Hrafun told him during one of their meditations. “For when you can call an animal in both the waking world and the Dreamworld, then you will begin to understand the bond that ties all living things together.”

  Thus Kharg’s training grew more demanding, blending the arts of Spiritism and Animalism into a single, patient path forward. Progress was slow, but every lesson laid another stone in the foundation of the shaman he was becoming.

  One evening, as the campfires flickered low and the wind whispered over the snow, Hrafun turned to Kharg. They were seated on a log outside the old shaman’s tent, their breath misting in the frigid air.

  “It is time,” Hrafun said, his voice quiet but firm. “You have learned much of the spirits, and you have begun to understand the essence of the beasts of this land. Now you will create a new totem, one that draws upon both Spiritism and Animalism. With it, you will be able to reach out to the creatures of the tundra and have them heed you, if you know their true names.”

  Kharg nodded, a mixture of anticipation and unease settling over him.

  “Come,” Hrafun continued, rising to his feet. “Tonight, you will begin.”

  Inside the tent, Hrafun handed him the base of a great elk-horn. “Carve a rod from this,” he instructed. Kharg set to work, shaving and shaping the horn until it formed a short, roughly cylindrical rod about as thick as his wrist. When the surface was smooth, Hrafun sat beside him and slowly taught him additional runes of Animalism, symbols of calling, kinship, and guidance. These were to be inscribed alongside spirit runes for understanding, bonding, friendship, and control, along with half a dozen others that together would shape the totem’s purpose.

  Kharg carved them with care, each stroke slow and painstaking. By the time the last rune was etched, his hands were sore and his shoulders stiff, but the rod now bore the intricate patterns of both paths of shamanism.

  Hrafun placed a heavy clay bowl before him. “Now,” he said, “pour a pint of your own blood into it. This will forge the bond between you, the spirits, and the beasts of this land.”

  Kharg swallowed hard but obeyed, cutting a line along his forearm and letting the blood flow until the bowl was filled. The drain left him pale and lightheaded, but there was no hesitation in Hrafun’s eyes as he set down a series of small flasks.

  “One by one,” Hrafun instructed.

  Kharg opened each flask in turn, dripping a few drops of blood from every vessel into the bowl. The first flasks contained the blood of the great herbivores, elk, deer, and caribou, followed by smaller tundra creatures whose names Kharg had so recently labored to learn. Then came the hunters, beginning with the wolf. Hrafun paused as he handed Kharg the flask, his expression solemn. “The wolf is our guide and protector,” he said. “Its blood binds us to the spirit of our tribe as much as to the wild.” Kharg let the dark drops fall into the bowl with care, feeling the weight of the moment before continuing with the rest, wolverine, lynx, bear, and finally fox.

  Hrafun even produced blood from creatures of the tribe’s camp and settlements, cats and hounds. After that came the birds. There was the raven, the crow, the owl, the falcon, the hawk, the eagle, and the goose. Throughout the process, Kharg stirred the darkening mixture with a finger-thick wand of ancient, yellowed bone. When the last drops of blood had been added, Hrafun brought out several small jars filled with fine powders, the ground remains of dried insects. These, he explained, would bind the totem’s influence over each species they came from, just as the blood did with the animals. One by one, Kharg sprinkled them in: spider, wasp, mosquito, and louse, each lending its own subtle thread of control to the growing weave of the totem’s power.

  Once everything was ready, Hrafun began a deep, resonant chant. Kharg joined in as best he could, the two voices weaving together as the mixture thrummed with growing power. The chant combined the arts of Animalism and Spiritism, each word pulling the energies of the land and its creatures into the blood-filled bowl.

  By the time they were finished, Kharg felt dizzy and nauseous, but Hrafun only nodded at him. “Do not stop now. Place the rod in the bowl. Let it drink from what we have created.”

  Kharg obeyed, submerging the carved rod until most of it disappeared beneath the thick, crimson mixture.

  “Now go out into the snow,” Hrafun instructed. “Use your own body heat to melt enough snow and pour it in until the rod is fully covered. Once you are done, shield it with the cold ward I have taught you. Then leave it outside the tent and return so I may heal you.”

  Kharg staggered out into the bitter night, melting snow with his numbed hands and breath until the fluid covered the rod. He called upon his elemental powers, weaving the cold ward over it, then set it carefully in the snow by the tent flap before stumbling back inside.

  Hrafun examined him briefly, then healed the worst of his weakness. “Now we wait,” the old shaman said. “For the next few days, it will drink of the tundra and the night. When the winter solstice arrives, it will soak in the moon’s power—and then it will be ready for the final step.”