Onward beneath the shaded canopy of the heavily wooded mountainside underneath the growing night sky I moved, cautiously; upward, ever upward into the mountain, toward the stars I hoped would greet me at the summit. My instincts would have told me to travel downhill toward water instead of uphill, and further from it. My mind however, told me otherwise because I did not know where I was, and had no notion of my surroundings, other than knowing that I sure as hell didn't want to be anywhere near the area that I'd fled from only the day before. I needed a better view of my surroundings by daylight so that I was familiar with the lay of the land, any further movements without that knowledge would be ill advised. If there was any luck remaining to me, Id find a suitable place to shelter for the coming day, with a good view of the area. I had surmised that I was in an arboreal forest, either in a mild latitude, or a mild season. There was no chill in the air, my breath did not condense, and there was no snow underfoot; being naked and barefooted, I found the current environmental conditions to be completely suitable at the moment.

My pace slowed as the incline grew steeper, my posture grew more subhuman in response to the terrain that soon I was moving solely with four limbs instead of two, the ascent becoming nearly vertical. As the darkness gathered my eyes began to adjust, the tone of my surroundings began to change, shapes became clearer while the colors faded. trees and stones became more well defined as the darkness took on a milder, more grey hue. I didn't know why the change had come over me, only that it had first started all those ages ago when I was living among the T'atsaot'ine tribe, a Dene nation, the Copper people in the Northwest Territories. Many things had changed for me then, things which I could not explain, things which the Yellowknives in close proximity explained as Nakani medicine. I did not know then what exactly the Nakani were, and that too had changed along with my senses, shortly after I had arrogantly claimed ownership of that accursed golden snakelike band. 

I had been fortunate to have survived the onslaught, I had been lucky to have killed the gigantic beast with my last defense, and I had been foolish enough to take a deceptively beautiful thing that should have been left alone. In my youthful pride it had been a mark of recognition; a battle trophy, a spoil of war which belonged to the victor, the same as a tooth, or claw, a fine knife, or a venerable musket, a spirited horse, or a fresh scalp might belong to another man. It was mine by right of the blood spilled, and of the life taken. An older, and wiser man would have left the damned thing where it was, around the arm of its rightful owner for them to wear on their journey into the Spirit World. I had robbed their honored dead, stripped him of his glory, desecrated the passage of one of their own kind as he began his journey to their sacred lands; and for this arrogant transgression, the Nakani of the Nahanni Valley had chosen to visit the power of their magic upon me.

In vain I shook my head from side to side, as if by the effort alone I could shake the memories of it all from my mind. My breathing became deeper and more rapid as my lungs strained to supply the oxygen level needed to sustain the endeavor of the ascent; this too had changed from as of the old, it had became an automatic response. Instinct told me to climb, to climb, climb, and climb. Reason took command and bade me stop, to listen, to smell, to rest and to check my feet and hands for cuts which might leave a sign of blood to betray my path to those with sharp eyes and keen noses. My heightened senses told me that, so far, I was alone; other than some minor local populations of nightbirds and insects; no sign of anything concerning came to my ears, or nose. Of all things within my immediate vicinity, only my own stomach growled; and this simple thing betrayed my mind to another all too vivid memory of my own making; a time of feasting.

I remembered the exactness of my own deeds all too well. I recalled the singing, the dancing, the boasting and the feasting beneath the endless night sky; acts which I believe only served to seal my fate. I had broken taboo, and by this had been brought down. In an moment of foolish youth, I had challenged powers beyond my kin; and for this I was to be shown the error of my ways. It was not that I had killed the beast that mattered, death is only the other end of a life after having also been born. It was how I had treated the body, defiling it by stealing a prized possession from it; claiming the thing as my own after having fought the beast honorably. If only I had walked away after the fight, satisfied by leaving with my own life still yet to live, but no. 

No, I had taken from its left arm a marvelously intricate band of finely braided golden strands; it was a large, thick band, and wide, yet seemed as if fashioned from pure gold; it shone with a light all its own. It was much too large for my arm, yet that it where I placed it, and indeed loosely it did reside there as I bathed, then slept, then ate and drank, and sang and danced. These were normal celebrations of living and offered no offense to the Nakani, or the Spirits; it was the boasting. They were content to let us live our lives our way, so long as it did not offend them, and I had offended them both with vain glory. The band, tightened. Like hundreds of slithering snakes, the band moved tightening itself around my arm; then, like hundreds of slithering snakes it bit; thousands of searing fangs sank deeply into my skin, and soon after the changes had begun.
 
Now I could not remember my last good meal; and by good I mean something fresh, and filling, something clean, and well cooked. This too had changed, for now I would eat things less fresh than is advisable, and less appealing than is normal; now my stomach gave no revolt to that which might be spoilt, might be raw, or might be alive and wriggling. This had been both an adaptation, and an absolute necessity; Nakani captives were not well fed, we were starved to the point of learning to eat as they ate, indeed it was their scraps that we ate, if we ate. I could now eat unmentionable things, which long ago would have repulsed my senses, causing a revolt in my bowels as well as in my conscious. Now, I was capable and willing to eat things that bit, and clawed, that thrashed, and squealed as well as those things that hit, and kicked, cursed and screamed. I had done so more than once, to survive; and if the need arose, I would unquestioningly do so again.

With no remedy at hand for the current hunger, I resumed my trek toward the sky with the hope that nothing more than dawn waited to greet me at the summit. Counted time, once lost track of, becomes meaningless; only the most basic metronomes of life remain; hunger and eating, thirst and drinking, waking and sleeping, and night and day become the usual measurements of passing time. I could hardly have imagined the climb to the summit would to take another three weeks, or the perplexing events that I would watch unfold during the remainder of the ascent. Try as I might, I could not shake the past from my mind with physical exertion alone; nor could I with mental recitations of the old songs. I remember the day the Nakani elder had ripped the band from my arm, it had come away with incredible pain; pulling from my flesh a long, blood slickened tangle of what seemed to be a thousand golden roots.