Eye of Flame (25 page)

“Put it away,” she said, waving her hands at him. “You … you …” She shook her head. “Your eye of fire will put us all under a curse.”

The other women were too frightened to trade with him after that. The traders were fed that evening, given places to sleep inside the yurts in the chief’s camping circle, then left the next morning, and no one spoke again of the eye of flame that could make fire and summon lightning.

Why had she thought of that trader’s ornament now? Another memory came to her, of how she had fleetingly longed for the disk and its power before pushing that longing from herself. It was wrong to want such power. She would never have been able to make such a disk work its magic.

Once, she had felt the call to become a shamaness. She had heard the spirits as a child and had wandered from her camp one night to meet spirits that had torn her body apart, sent her wandering among the dead, and restored her to life once more. She had gone to Kadagen, the old shamaness who lived among her father’s people, to learn of herbs and spells and chants and how to beat on a small drum to summon spirits.

The training was not wasted. Khokakhchin learned ways to banish some of the evil spirits that brought illness and how to ease women in childbirth. But after a year, Kadagen had told her that she would teach her no more. “You are not an idughan, Khokakhchin.” She could still recall the old woman’s words. “I don’t know what it is that you are. There is power in you, and to have you nearby seems to aid my spells, but I sense that you are not a true shamaness. You cannot use whatever lies inside you.”

A dream had come to Kadagen, telling her that Khokakhchin should not follow the shaman’s path. The spirits had told her that Khokakhchin had much power, but that to use it would only bring evil. For her to learn any more from Kadagen would only tempt her to use powers that she could not control, powers that should have been given to only the most powerful of shamans. Hers might be a power that others could draw upon for good, yet if she summoned it herself, she risked losing it and bringing ruin to those she loved.

Kadagen did not know why the spirits would give a girl a great gift that she could not make use of herself, but it was not for her to know their purpose. The gift of great beauty could sometimes make a girl no more than a prize to be fought over by men, a captive with a succession of masters. The prize of great strength could be wasted by men in violent, drunken, pointless displays that ended in injury, death, and blood feuds. Gifts were not always the blessings they seemed to be.

Kadagen had been right. Khokakhchin’s gift had brought only suffering and death. She supposed that was why she had so easily accepted her captivity among the Tatars; it had been no more than she deserved.

A dog barked outside once, then was silent. Khokakhchin listened, then got up and moved to the doorway. Hoelun had left the flap partly rolled up. Yesugei’s tugh, the pole adorned with nine horse tails that was his standard, stood in the ground just outside the entrance. The Bahadur’s big black dog was stretched out under the tugh, head on his front paws, whimpering softly at Jali-gulug.

Khokakhchin tensed, surprised. The dog would snarl and bark at anyone approaching Yesugei’s dwellings, howling until his master hushed him. Temujin, brave child that he was, went out of his way to avoid the animal. No one else could do anything with the creature, yet he was cringing before Dobon’s son.

Jali-gulug motioned to Khokakhchin. She slipped outside, seeming to feel the pull of invisible cords. When she was closer to the boy, he said, “Something in you called to me.”

In the moonlight, she could make out his features. His hollow-cheeked face was calm, his dark eyes focused on her. She thought of all the times she had seen him prattling gibberish and the other times when he had rolled on the ground outside his father’s tent, his body shaking and twitching.

He beckoned to her again. She followed him to one of the wagons at the edge of the circle. He sank to the ground and motioned to her to sit.

Khokakhchin knelt, then sat back on her heels. The night was almost too quiet. The sheep resting near the yurts were still, the dogs chained near other yurts as silent as Yesugei’s.

“What do you want from me?” she asked.

“Why are you not a shamaness?” Jali-gulug said.

“Once, I thought the spirits had called to me,” Khokakhchin replied, “but I was wrong. The spirits decreed that I turn away from the idughan’s path.”

“There’s more power in you than in Bughu.” His voice usually shook, breaking when he pitched it too high, and often his tongue tripped over his words, but now Jali-gulug sounded like a man. “Bughu is a poor shaman. I might have learned more from you.”

“I know only a little of a shamaness’s lore. Whatever you may think of Bughu, he has more such learning than I do—he’ll teach you much of what you need to know. After that, you may have the power to learn more by yourself.”

“Your dream called to me,” Jali-gulug whispered. “I saw a wall of fire. I heard the cries of people.”

Did he have the power to touch thoughts and enter dreams? She thrust out her hand and made a sign. “If you can sense that much,” she said, “then you must know why I can’t use whatever power I have.”

“I know only that you somehow summoned the fire I saw in your dream.”

Khokakhchin bowed her head and pulled her scarf closer around her face. “I thought that I could help my people. Instead, I brought them terror and death.”

“Tell me of what you did.”

Jali-gulug seemed to be drawing the words from her. “I’ve always had sharp ears,” Khokakhchin murmured. “Those in my camp used to say that they couldn’t keep their secrets from me even if they whispered them.” She rested her hands against her knees. “It was late summer, a night much like this one. We had made camp to the west of Lake Kolen and the lands the Onggirats wander, hoping to find better grazing, because there had been so little rain that summer that even the watering holes were drying up. I woke while it was still dark. The air was too still, as if a storm was coming, and I thought I heard distant thunder, but the patch of sky above my smokehole was clear and black and filled with stars.” She found herself unable to speak for a moment.

“Go on,” Jali-gulug murmured.

“My children were asleep, my husband Bujur resting at my side. I left my bed without waking him, without even troubling to put on my boots, and went outside. I still sensed thunder, but the sound seemed to be coming from below instead of above me. I dropped to my knees and put my ear to the ground. Then I knew the sound for what it was, the sound of horses galloping in our direction.”

She paused to take a breath, remembering how fear had welled up inside her. “The Tatars were riding against us. It couldn’t be anyone else. The Merkits camped to the north of our pastures were on the move toward Lake Baikal, and the Onggirats and our people were at peace.” Her voice shook; she swallowed. “There had to be hundreds of them. The sound I heard was that of an army. We couldn’t fight them—our only chance was to get away.”

As she spoke, she saw herself back in her camp, outside her yurt on that last night. She had cried out to Bujur; in moments, everyone was awake. By then the wind was rising, blowing from the northwest to the southeast, toward the enemy. She ran into her yurt, pulled on her pants under her shift, and told her two daughters and young son to bring only their weapons and what food they could carry. She was running for the horses when she saw a spark leap from the watchfire just outside the camp to the grass.

“That flame died quickly,” Khokakhchin went on. “The men on guard by the fire put it out and mounted their horses. We still couldn’t see any Tatars, but others had put their ears to the ground and heard the enemy approaching.” She was silent for a bit. “The sight of that flame leaping into the dry grass had made me long desperately for another way to defend ourselves. The Kerulen River lay to the south of us. A few of the men could cross and set fire to the grass. The wind was blowing toward the Tatars—it would carry the fire toward them. We would have time to get safely away while the fire held them back.”

Jali-gulug recoiled.

“It was madness,” she continued, “the wish of a moment, the words of a malign spirit whispering inside me. To misuse fire is one of the gravest of sins.” She made a sign to ward off evil. “But my wish had roused the spirits. They granted my wish. Almost at once, lightning flashed from the sky and struck the ground to the south.”

Convinced that she had summoned the lightning, she fell to the ground and covered her face, terrified and yet fascinated by the power now flaring inside her. Flames danced where the lightning had struck. Her skin prickled. She looked up as another bolt hit the ground and knew that she had called it to Earth.

“People were flinging themselves to the ground, trying to hide from the lightning,” Khokakhchin said. “Thunder came, and more lightning flashed across Heaven, but no rain fell. The wind grew stronger, and the flames spread over the grass until a wall of fire was moving south.”

She had forced herself to her feet, crying out to the others. A few people stood up, then ran toward the pen where some of their horses were kept. Lightning was no longer flashing overhead, and the wind was dying. The fire spreading across the steppe on the other side of the river would hold off their enemies until they could escape.

Then the wind rose once more and shifted, shrieking past Khokakhchin as it blew north. She watched in horror as sparks flew across the narrow stream of the Kerulen and flared up in the grass along the river’s northern bank. She ran for her yurt, screaming for her children. Her son scurried through the doorway, clutching his child’s bow; she swept him up in her arms. The fire was upon the camp by the time Khokakhchin reached the horses; by then, she was praying, calling upon the spirits to forgive her for calling down the lightning.

She looked back. Her daughters were running toward her, their masses of long black braids whipping in the wind. She saw Bujur dart back inside their yurt for a moment, perhaps to get his bow or his sword. The wagon next to the yurt was beginning to burn; the wind quickly carried the flames to the tent’s felt panels, and then a curtain of fire hid the dwelling from view.

“A few people got away,” Khokakhchin murmured. “Others died in the flames. Tengri showed the land some mercy then by sending rain to douse the fire. By then, the Tatars were in sight. They killed most of the men they captured and raped the women and girls. I think no more than forty of us survived—our camp was small, much smaller than the Bahadur’s here. My daughters were taken away by one band of warriors, and I never saw them again. My son was put to the sword. He was only a child, no more than four, but the Tatars had sworn to kill all the men and boys of our chief’s family, and my husband was brother to our chief.”

“I weep with you, old woman,” Jali-gulug said. “I pity you.”

“One of the men who raped me took me under his tent as a wife, but he fell in battle before I could give him a son. His first wife made a slave of me.” Khokakhchin sighed. “I brought our fate upon us by wishing down the lightning, by treating fire so carelessly. I earned my suffering.” She covered her eyes for a moment. She could weep for all of them, her dead son and her husband and her lost daughters, even after all these years. “And that is more than I have said to anyone about this ever since that evil night.”

“I will not tell this tale to others.”

“I’m grateful for that.”

“You have suffered enough. Old Woman Khokakhchin. You don’t have to suffer more by hearing your story retold. It would also do no good to have others here know of your powers.”

She had heard the coldness in his voice even while he was speaking kindly to her. His concern was not for her, but for whatever abilities she might still possess. The shamaness Kadagen had told her that others might draw upon them for good. Perhaps a powerful shaman, the kind of shaman this boy might become, could use them to protect Yesugei’s people.

No, she told herself. She would not allow a moment’s arrogance to bring more ruin upon others.

Jali-gulug said, “The spirits will use us as they wish. What we want doesn’t matter.”

Khokakhchin got to her feet. “You have much power, young one. I saw that sooner than anyone here. Take care that you don’t make my mistake.”

2

Hoelun Ujin gave birth to her third son, Khachigun, in early autumn, just after Yesugei and his men rode off to raid their Merkit enemies. The birth went more quickly and easily than had those of Temujin and Khasar. Khokakhchin stayed with her mistress during her labor, summoned Bughu to bless the child, and nursed Hoelun during the days when the Ujin was confined to her tent with the infant.

Yesugei returned with little loot and tales of having to pursue Merkits into pine-covered hills and losing their trail there; someone had warned the enemy and given the Merkits time to escape. Hearing of his new son soon cheered him, and there was still the prospect of Toghril Khan’s reward for the foray against the Merkits. The Bahadur’s followers broke camp and moved south, to the Senggur River valley. From there, Yesugei, his two brothers, and his close comrade Charakha rode west to meet with Toghril and his Kereits and claim their payment.

The Bahadur came back from the Kereit Khan’s court with only a couple of gold goblets, a few trinkets, some goats, and three breeding mares past their prime. Toghril might be Yesugei’s sworn brother, bound to him by an anda oath, but he was apparently unwilling to give away any more of his great wealth until the Mongols had killed more Merkits.