Glossolalia - out today!

the first twelve chapters

Sep 27, 2022

Well, kids, today is the day that we’ve all been waiting for.

Glossolalia is out! Go to that link and you can order the audiobook or physical copy as well as the kindle version. If you’re one of those beautiful and kind souls who pre-ordered it, you should have it on your kindle right now.

Below, I’ve posted the first twelve chapters of the novella. So get a taste and then buy it, if you’d prefer.

It will take you about the length of a Marvel movie to read the entire book and I know you’ve watched one of those absurdly long movies—maybe even in theatres—so I know you have the patience to sit in a chair and enjoy yourself.

I love this book a great deal. I started it without any idea what I was doing and somehow it ended up being exactly what I wanted it to be, while consistently surprising me with the directions it drifted in.

I suppose I should try to sell you on it…

Glossolalia is for fans of Ursula K Le Guin and China Mieville, but also for those of you who remember being up in the middle of the night and turning on your TV to the weirdest Japanese movie you’d ever even heard of but that you’ve never talked with anyone about.

It’s about love and friendship. It’s about failure and loss. It’s about the nameless fears and the permanent dread that settles on a community.

It’s about violence and hope and myths that come to life before you, that close their teeth into your skin.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it. I hope you review it. I hope you tell everyone you know about it.

Here are the first twelve chapters. Read to the very end for a recommendation.

Umok was the first to see the boy. There was nothing special about the boy except that he wasn’t one of us and didn’t seem to be an Uummanuq. Not that anyone really knew, then, what the Uummanuq looked like. Not really. But he was too tall to be one of them and much too short to be one of us. Maybe strangest of all, he was dressed as a woman. One of ours, not the Uummanuq women, assuming anyone knew, then, what the Uummanuq looked like when they weren’t smashing our homes down. But he wore a loose, open vest, his trousers tight and reaching just past his knees. In his hands, a hidebound book.

It was a clear day, just past spring, and though the edge of the world is known for its deathly cold, our summers are quite warm. Warm enough to wade out into the sea and gather crabs or lobster. Or even to swim out to where the leviathans burst through the water, spraying the skies with their misted breath.

Umok was so distracted by the boy that she dropped her arm, accidentally flinging her gyrfalcon, Feo, to the ground. When Feo shrieked the way she does, the boy turned to Umok and smiled a big toothy grin. To hear Umok tell it later, the boy had fangs like a wolf and eyes that glowed with menace.

We’re not prone to superstition, but much changed that summer and especially come winter, when the days last barely a blink and the nameless ones call out to us in the long night, and mothers wake to missing children, never to be seen again.

But the boy didn’t stop when he saw Umok. It was like he had a set destination. Like he knew where we were. And maybe that’s the most shocking of all. That he just wandered out from the dark green summer mountains and walked right to our little village at the edge of the world with nothing but the clothes he was wearing, an empty book, and a mouthful of words that would change the shape of all our lives.

It was summer, which meant just about everyone was in the sea, either swimming or fishing or on lookout for the Uummanuq or the fishers recently set out. Nearly everyone else was on the beach relaxing. So when the boy walked into the village, there wasn’t much to see.

Umok kept an eye on him, though, and circled round town to warn everyone at the beach.

It’s a strange thing, having strangers at the edge of the world. Besides the Uummanuq, it had been generations since anyone had been seen at our little village. So this was news. Not unwelcome, but unexpected, which made it a bit frightening.

Umok sent Feo into the air and ran through the beach hollering for anyone who could hear, “Someone’s here! A boy, dressed like a woman!”

At first we ignored Umok, but her persistence caused us to give in and follow her back to the village. Umok wasn’t known as a liar, but it all sounded too ridiculous. How would someone just arrive here? There’s only ocean and mountain and sky.

But those lounging on the beach made their way up to town. Those already out to sea or looking out for the Uummanuq kept about their business. Idle chatter and friendly laughter brought them up the beach and past the chief’s hall to the town square.

And who waited for them but Aukul and the boy. Just sitting there, smiling.

III

Aukul was chief that year. A young man, tall and well built, who always seemed to be smiling, at least until he met this boy. Many have blamed Aukul’s age or poor judgment for what happened, saying that he was little more than a large boy, too young for such responsibilities, which had some truth to it. He had only seen seventeen winters by the time his turn came to be chief. It’s strange now to think we had ever let someone so young spend a year as chief, but it wasn’t so unusual then. And the truth is that he was just unlucky to be chief that year. Probably none of us would’ve done better, and had he served the year before or the year after, he would be remembered differently. But this was his year to serve us as chief.

So it goes.

Aukul turned to us and smiled, waved, said, “Come on over and sit with us.”

Umok near choked from shock at Aukul’s reaction, and it’s possible that we all would’ve reacted similarly had we seen the boy alone, as Umok had. But all of us together as we were, it made it hard to fear this unassuming boy, especially with Aukul smiling the way he was. And so we just walked up and sat, forming a circle of sorts around Aukul and the boy. All of us except Umok, that is. She shook her head and chewed her lips and grunted at every breath.

The truth is, none of us wanted to take the lead with this stranger. We were happy to have Aukul sitting across from him and talking so we could just observe. Responsibility slid off our shoulders and landed firmly on Aukul, but he didn’t seem to mind.

When we were all settled, Aukul turned back to the boy, “Tell them what you told me.”

That was the first time we would hear the boy’s voice. Husky and masculine, like he held more years than his face told. The first time we heard his name and why he came to us here at the edge of the world. There was some kind of otherworldly touch to his words, to his voice. Something that made us cling to his words and follow the shapes his lips made as he formed them. We should’ve been surprised that he spoke our language, but at the time it seemed the most natural thing in the world. We had little concept, then, of other languages. Of other people. Of other places.

It was also the first time we truly got to look at the stranger, when he stood tall and smiled at all of us. That big book in his tiny hands. He had soft features and smooth skin, like a child, untouched by the tattoos he would have collected through adolescence to mark his past. For our skin is like a book, recording our lives. His hair was a wild nest of curls and kinks tumbling white from his head. This, along with him dressing like a woman, made him immediately strange. He looked so much like us, like he could be any of our sons, but for these two details. And his size, but many boys don’t grow to their man’s height till they’re quite a bit older. But then there was his eye.

One was black, like all of us. But the other was green. Not a bright green, but the green of our valleys and mountains. Dark and beautiful and oddly radiant, that green eye.

And then he spoke.

“My name is Ineluki. I come from past the mountains and ice. It took me many days to reach here. All I know are dead. Will you take me in?”

Aukul stood then, his summer dress wrinkled from sitting and bunched up around his right knee. He smiled big and clapped the boy on the back, “Welcome, Ineluki. We’ll be your people now.”

And that settled it. This boy was brought into the village. Welcomed by everyone in turn. But it was old Malu who took the boy in to be her new son. We all thought that was well and good. A boy to keep them company and care for them in their final years. Kiilk, Malu’s man, was happy to have the boy, too. Though they were old, they were spry and lively, always ready with a dance or a tune. Umaal just shrugged with a smile and embraced him as her new brother. She was a winterchild to Malu and Kiilk, born to them when they were well past an age to have children. Malu had weathered nearly fifty winters and Kiilk had seen at least as many, if not many more, by the time Umaal was born, and Umaal was coming an age to take up with her own man and leave them alone. The child was seen as a blessing to two lovers who had dreamt so long of having a boy to watch over them and care for them through their winter years.

And simple as that, Ineluki became one of us with not a person speaking against this. Not even Umok, though, to hear her tell it now, she was screaming her lungs out in warning.

It took three men to butcher the seal. Though Aukul was chief, he still had much to learn as a cook. Paakuq directed him and the other assistants in hooking up the seal. Then Paakuq took a sharp knife, cut the seal from the throat down to the tail. Aukul dug his fingers into that slit and pulled it open while Manook pulled the other side open. Paakuq reached in, harvesting each organ and handing it to one of the younger boys who wouldn’t even be able to touch the seal’s meat till he’d seen a few more winters.

With the delicate work done, Paakuq motioned with his knife for Aukul and Manook to get to work. First they lowered the seal to the ground. Slick with blood, Aukul dug his fingers into the meat, knowing it’d take half the night to get it out from his fingernails, to remove the stink of death from his skin. His thoughts drifted for a moment to the soft breasts and wide hips the summer night promised, but he dug down.

Butchery’s a delicate business requiring close attention. Aukul’s fingers and arms had the scars to prove it. Pale slivers of memory selfcarved into his skin to mark every time he let his cock think instead of his eyes and hands. He sliced the blubber from the skin and meat, handing it to Paakuq, who commanded one of his many apprentices to either store it or set it aside for the night’s stew.

Aukul worked quickly and efficiently. He got the blubber out before Manook and stood up, stretching his back. Paakuq sighed and examined his work while Manook finished.

Paakuq was a man like a mountain. Patient and quiet and large, but Aukul had never seen anyone move as delicately as Paakuq did with a knife in one hand and a carcass in the other. Paakuq looked over the seal silently, pulling the skin this way and that.

Aukul’s heart raced the entire time. He watched Manook to keep from having a panic attack. Manook moved slow, taking his time. Aukul was already seeing how much cleaner his cuts were, how no blubber clung to the seal’s skin.

It wasn’t that Aukul thought speed was more important than accuracy. It’s that he could never seem to slow himself down. The moment his blade touched a carcass, everything made sense. It made so much sense that his hands and eyes worked without a single thought crossing through his head. Or, no thoughts beyond the women of the town. Their breasts bouncing as they ran in the sunlight. The curve of their cheeks when they laughed or smiled. The way their summer clothes revealed so much, yet somehow never enough to satiate his desire.

Paakuq looked back and grunted, his lips pulling back on one side for just an instant. Aukul came close and looked over the big man’s shoulder as Paakuq pointed with his knife to places Aukul missed or places where the skin was near ruined by his sawing at it. A tap here with the point of the blade, a poke there accompanied by a grunt and a shake of the head.

Aukul’s mouth went dry and he nodded along, not trusting his voice.

Then Paakuq stood straight and his lips pushed up high. He nodded at Aukul as Manook stood, his side now de-blubbered as well.

Aukul’s smile burst over his face. Though it seemed the slightest sign of approval, that was more than most got from Paakuq in a year.

Aukul went back into the seal to cut out the meat. Separating the ribs from the spine, carefully removing the cheeks, and cutting the rest out to be dried, smoked, roasted or stewed. He tried to go slow, but there was just no time for him to remind himself to do so. His hands knew what to do and the excitement of Paakuq’s approval flooded him, washing all other thoughts—even those of breasts—out of his skull.

When the butchery was finished, Paakuq motioned for Aukul to take the lead. Aukul’s jaw hung open for a moment and then a smile got stuck there and stayed the whole time he directed the younger boys to cut up the onions and potatoes, when he told them how much blubber and seal meat to add. He even had them toss in a few clams caught that morning.

Aukul didn’t mind being chief, but this was what he lived for. His smile remained while he watched everyone eat the meal he prepared. Not Paakuq’s meal, but his. He counted every smile, every grunt of approval, every time someone licked their bowl clean or slurped up the last bit of broth. And when he washed in the ocean afterwards, he couldn’t believe life could get any better than this.

VII

Aukul liked to listen to the loons sing at night. They only lived in the lake in the valley west of town, separated from the ocean by an unremarkable mountain leading to a sheer cliff-face that can be hiked up and back down in the time it takes tea to go from steaming to cold.

It was late and most slept, despite the excitement brought by Ineluki. The silent mountains and valleys held their breath. One moon smiled against the ocean, the other was wide-eyed above him. He pulled Umaal close to him and said, “Do you hear what they sing?”

“Kya,” Umaal scrunched up her face and elbowed him away. She was dressed in her summer clothes, just a loose, open vest and tight trousers. “This your move? Bring women out here to hear the loon’s lovesongs till they cream themselves? Kya,” she grimaced and folded her arms, “might work on Kaia or the cliffboys—what you smiling for?”

Aukul unfastened his flowing summer dress and let it drop like a puddle at his feet.

Umaal eyed him up and down, “Bit more direct.” She smiled and took a step towards him. Her left palm pressed against his chest, her fingers tracing the shape of his tattoos. The ways they spiraled over his well-muscled chest and abdomen and up his neck, to his thin jaw. The story of his life written deep into his skin. She brought her fingers down to his left nipple and felt it harden, and then she pinched it, but he made no reaction beyond exhaling through his nose. Her other hand grabbed his stiff cock and she laughed, “This what you came to show me?”

Aukul shrugged with his cock, moving it up and down in her warm hand.

She laughed from deep in her chest, then slapped his face. Hard. Much harder than Aukul expected, but she was smiling wide when he turned back to her. “Idiot,” she said and she pushed him down into the thick grass and pulled off her trousers.

The landscape rolled beyond them. Valleys and mountains spotted with grass, a green so dark it sometimes looked black. Mountains rose like the spine of a monster halfburied by time. Grey and white and beautiful against the open sky, the surrounding ocean. In the distance, Mount Qanaamonaq tore into the sky’s open mouth. A snowcapped dagger reaching higher than the moons. The loons sang and it sounded like love, echoing all around them and when Umaal grunted her hips into Aukul’s, he yelped like a wolfcub.

Had anyone ever felt so lucky?

VIII

While their daughter fucked in the hills, Malu and Kiilk couldn’t sleep. Malu’s cheeks hurt from smiling and Kiilk kept whispering, “I can’t believe it.”

Ineluki had eaten the day’s seal stew with the rest of the town. He listened to our stories and our songs but shared little of his own life that night. Inundated with questions, Malu and Kiilk had protected him as his new parents. They turned away inquiries, Malu saying things like, Don’t make him live his pain again, while Kiilk said things like, You can see the pain’s deep in him, and, Must be what turned his eye green. Not that that made sense, but it was a way to explain the unknowable, a way to divert attention.

And it worked. The questions ceased and Ineluki seemed almost like any other boy in town.

When Malu and Kiilk led him to their turf home, the one they built long before even Umaal was born, having given up the nomadic life of hunters to settle down into their age, Kiilk lay a hand on his new son’s head and said, “This is home now.” Then he looked the boy up and down and shook his head with a smile, “We need to get you some proper clothes.”

Ineluki raised an eyebrow over his green eye and looked down at his vest and trousers, then back to Malu, “They look like your clothes.”

“Kya,” Malu wagged a hand at him and Kiilk, “we can sort it out later. Come, come!” Her expression brightened, her voice almost girlish again, “come see your new home!”

Ineluki slept with his book as a pillow at the other end of the turf home, near the door that he had so recently come through. They listened to his even breathing. Each lung of air was a dizzying rush to their heads. A son. A beautiful boy, unlooked for and unexpected.

“I can’t believe it,” Kiilk said again.

Malu took Kiilk’s warm hand in hers and brought it to her breast.

Kiilk blinked rapidly, his expression: shock and desire. “You mean it?”

Malu nodded and rubbed her cheek against his.

Kiilk kept blinking, unable to swallow this idea in one go, “What about the boy?” He sat up slightly, “Did Umaal ever come in?”

“Kya,” Malu scoffed, “Umaal’s fine. Boy too. Think he never heard people fucking?”

“Maybe not some as old as us,” Kiilk laughed, “I almost forget the sound of it myself.”

“Chya,” Malu shook her head, “idiot,” and then she was on top of him.

Aukul wiped the sleep from his eyes and stretched, yawning. The sun was only just rising but he knew he had to get back to town. He had spent the previous two weeks in a skin tent wandering the mountains west and south of town. His shifting and stretching caused Umaal to whine and roll over, away from him. He smiled at the smoothness of her shoulders peeking out from the bearskin. He ran a finger along the feathery wings that dominated the back of her right shoulder.

“My falcon,” he whispered to her neck.

“Ng,” she curled up as if burrowing away from him.

“Remember watching you run though these mountains as a girl—”

Her whine interrupted him, “Tired.”

“Need to break this down and get back.”

“Why?” she rolled over and cracked open an eye to see him through her sleep.

Aukul smiled, “I’m chief.”

“Chya,” she closed her eye again, settling into the warm space beneath the bearskin, “don’t nobody need a chief this early.”

“The fishers’ll be back any day now. Maybe even Nala and Yaakal’ll have their first real kill. Maybe they’ll even bring back a leviathan. Feed us all for the rest of the year. Got to be ready for a feast when it comes.”

Umaal didn’t respond. Her expression serene and content. Aukul smiled down at her not believing his luck. His life. Already dreaming of the days when Umaal would be pregnant with his daughters. How he hoped they all were just like their mother. Passionate and indefatigable.

“Just a bit longer,” he said, though she didn’t respond. He settled back in beside her, curling his body round hers.

This she responded to, pushing her ass into his hips, and then giggling, “Someone’s awake.”

He heard the smile in her voice and reached a hand down to her hips, to the coarse hair between her legs. He slid a finger between her lips and she gasped, wet and warm. He rubbed her until the skin squelched and parted for him. Her breathing was hot and rapid, and he thought, once more, that life couldn’t get better than this.

The sun was already high when the town came into view. They walked past the homes of those who lived in the mountains and cliffs south of town but had split by the time they got to where most people lived. Umaal making her way to the beach, since it was a warm early summer day. Aukul made his way towards the chief’s hall but found everyone gathered together before he made it there.

Letting his pack drop to the ground, he stared into the center of the town square, where Ineluki was nodding his head, arms crossed over his book held against his chest, responding to some question from someone close by. His hair, white as snow, was now combed and fell flat, framing his face, and curling out against the top of his shoulders. His green eye seemed more piercing without the wildness of his hair to distract us. His smooth skin, now clean, seemed darker than the previous day. Drowning in the fabric of a man’s dress, he seemed even smaller and younger than before. It was one of Kiilk’s and though it was far too large for the boy, it was less distracting than seeing him in woman’s vest and trousers.

Ineluki raised his eyes and scanned the crowd, “Did all hear what was asked?”

He was beautiful. It was strange for us to see someone so beautiful, so otherworldly, so seemingly untouched by the rot of time. It made him appear younger still.

Some murmuring from up close and then, “No!” from someone standing near Aukul. Aukul took a few steps forward to stand beside this person. Umok. She acknowledged Aukul with a slight nod and then leaned in, conspiratorially, “That boy’s trouble.”

Her voice carried a bit loud for a whisper and several faces turned around to scowl at Aukul and Umok. Yuama even shooshed them.

“All right,” Ineluki said, “the question asked was, ‘Was it the nameless ones?’ The truth is, I do not know. I do not know what the nameless ones are. Perhaps one could explain this to me before I go on.”

“Where’s Feo?” Aukul motioned to Umok’s gloved hand.

“Kya,” Umok spat, ignoring Aukul’s question, “can’t believe this.” She turned to Aukul, “You hear him? Never heard of the nameless ones? Chya, if I—”

Yuama turned and snapped, “Shut the fuck up!” Her voice carried, interrupting Malu’s explanation of the nameless ones. Yuama blushed, and lowered her head, trying to go unnoticed, and all eyes were left to stare at Aukul and Umok standing behind everyone. Aukul only smiled in his disarming way. Some laughter followed this and Aukul shrugged and wagged his hands, as if to say that the outburst was unrelated.

Malu continued after a few breaths, “They’re why we leave the mountains in the long night of winter. They come for those who are left alone and sometimes we find them in spring. Sometimes we don’t. Those we find are grown into evil black twisted mockeries of trees.” She shuddered and made a moonsign. Most gathered made the same sign or more elaborate renditions of it. “We whisper their names to them, and then burn them. It’s the only thing to do.”

Ineluki’s frown transformed his face. His skin still smooth and creaseless, yet there was some change. Some lengthening of his features. An expression in his eyes or the way he held his mouth that made him appear far older than he was. As if lifetimes of years fell upon him. “But what are the nameless ones?”

Malu and Kiilk exchanged looks and this same look was replicated by nearly everyone listening. Even Aukul and Umok shared this look before turning back to the boy who asked such a strange question.

Someone said, “Only the mountain girls can answer that.”

“Shall we ask them?” Ineluki persisted, as if oblivious to the deathly quiet descending all around us. And once more, that same look was exchanged by just about everyone. But this time accompanied by a few moonsigns.

Malu said, “No one makes demands of the mountain girls. They come when there is need. Not before and not after.” She forced a smile to her face, “You’ll learn, my boy. Now, go on with your story.”

And this is the story Ineluki told us.

“I was born far from here. Past mountains and lakes and rivers and days of ice. Where the sun goes to sleep every night. It is a town on the coast like this. We did not build into the mountains as you have here. We have no nearby cliffs either. It is a flat, long stretch of land embraced by the cold waters of the ocean.

“We were fewer than you are here. We survived by hunting the seals and caribou. We ate nothing else. Not plants, as you seem to here, and no fish or birds. We lived only on the souls of the seals and the caribou. For this, they were sacred to us. They gave us their flesh and we released their souls to the Sky Mother by cooking them. The smoke took them home, where we all someday go.

“Last winter, the bears did not sleep. And when the long night descended, they came for us. They surrounded our village and forced us into our homes. We do not make turfhomes as you do here. In truth, we are a people constantly in motion. Our homes are never permanent but are taken with us where the hunt leads. We wintered in an unfamiliar place. I believe it was a holy place to the bears.

“Our seers should have seen but they did not. Our hunters should have known but they did not. So we were trapped by a thousand bears.

“All my people were eaten. Many in front of me. Only I was left alive and only because I pretended they had already killed me. I rolled in the blood of the dead and hid under their bodies. It was only days after they left that the sun opened her eye once more. Since that day, I’ve walked towards where the sun wakes, and away from where she sleeps. This brought me here.

“I hope this answers your questions.”

XII

Silence settled among us. Ineluki continued standing, scanning our faces, looking for questions.

Aukul saw Umaal standing on the far end of the crowd. Her forehead knit in worry and maybe fear.

Umok snorted beside Aukul and spoke loudly, “How did you survive this long journey to see us? I don’t see any weapons or food with you and you don’t look scrawny enough to have starved the long way here.”

Ineluki cocked his head to one side and smiled, “You won’t believe me.”

“Kya,” the sound bursting from Umok as if uncontrollable. Umok turned her gaze upon all of us. “Don’t believe him now. And what’s with this book he’s holding?”

Ineluki’s eyebrows shot up on his head and he looked down at the book in his arm, as if surprised to find it there. “This?” He held it up and opened it, “There’s nothing in here.”

Sure enough, the pages he flipped through were blank. It was the first good look we’d gotten of the book. It was large. Nearly as big as Ineluki’s chest. The pages were thick enough that we could hear them as they turned. The color of cream.

“You believe this?” Umok spit. “He survives with nothing but an empty book and we just swallow it whole.”

Ineluki opened his mouth to respond but Malu rose to her feet, fury on her face. She stood beside Ineluki and put a hand on his shoulder, “He’s alive and that’s what counts.”

And it turned out that was true. We let the questions fall from our lips like snow drifting through the sky, forgotten and scattered. The crowd dispersed then and Ineluki walked with Malu and Kiilk standing at either side, as if protecting him.

Click here to buy a copy and read the rest.

As for me—I’m sick! And my internet is out! Can’t even play Castlevania on my switch because I need a dang internet connection because, years ago, we made Chelsea’s switch the primary one (though I guess I could play it on there…) because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Tim Rogers has a new gargantuan review of a game I’ve never heard of. When I get internet access, I’ll probably gobble all of it down. I recommend you do it too. Probably. I don’t know if this one is good yet, but it’s probably great.

This is relevant for an upcoming book project that I’ll announce in probably three months.

Until next time.