The Tiger-Headed Horseman (3 page)

Upon taking control of Ulaanbaatar, or Baatarulaan as he immediately renamed it, Khad had sought to eradicate any means of tracing his vindictiveness back to him. Anyone who had been at the camp with Bold and Khasar was beheaded, as were their horses just in case they could retrace footsteps or pick up certain smells (Khad was sure he had read somewhere that horses were able to follow scents for hundreds of miles). Wiping the slate clean of his crime against Chinggis was more
straightforward. He had employed Vaandals from the far northeastern borders of his empire. After they had toppled the true emperor the Vaandals had been ordered to take his body to a secret place known only by Khad buried deep within the Ongolian mountains. Once there, they were commanded to entomb Chinggis's body in ice and bury him deep inside a glacier. It was Khad's way of returning a favour to his cousin. If Chinggis had been happy to make Khad spend time in the icy north, then Khad would gladly help his cousin spend all eternity enjoying the same hospitality. After the Vaandals had disposed of Chinggis's body they had set off to return home. Khad had sent his closest men after them, pursuing them secretly across the plains to the ice bridge that separated Khad's domain from that of the Vaandals. As the hired executioners had ridden halfway across, Khad's men started a fire at their side of the ice bridge and fired a barrage of flaming tar-covered arrows to the other. The Vaandals’ breath simply melted away with the bridge into the icy Strait of Anian.

A prat Khad may have been but he was far from stupid. Having been, in his eyes, duped by his aggressively peace-making older cousin, his mind was bent on ensuring he and his legend lasted for all times. When Khad assumed his role as emperor, Ulaanbaatar still held Chinggis close to its bosom. Not a bad word could be said against Chinggis; there simply were no bad words to say against Chinggis. He had been a great man who had made a great city and an even greater empire out of little more than dust and a healthy herd of overzealous horses (he would always hold that it was the horses themselves and not their riders that had won him his empire). Changing names was not going to be enough for Khad to convince the people to forget about his cousin. Khad had to be more cunning. Fortunately, Khad had been born with plentiful amounts of cunning and at which he excelled. A lesser man might have
pulled down all the statues, paintings and billboards that exalted their enemy. Not so Khad. He had something far more ugly in mind. He wanted to help his people turn and truly hate their beloved Chinggis. He wanted them to spit every time they said his name. He wanted children to call the ugly weird kids Chinggis in the playground. He wanted Chinggis's name to become synonymous with bad things so that people in the future would say ‘Don't be a complete-and-utter Chinggis’ whenever they wanted to be rude.

In order to attain the badness he craved, Khad would employ his preferred weapons of choice – bureaucracy and fear. He had already created the Fun Brigade, who were not having nearly enough fun in his view. Khad wanted to encourage them to have more enjoyment by having them force anyone overheard saying anything nice about Chinggis to dance in circles on one leg for an hour while reciting all of the procreative thoughts they had had over the previous week. This was sure to provide the citizens of Ulaanbaatar, or Baatarulaan, with copious amounts of hilarity. Mongolians, or Ongolians, were exceedingly wanton in the bedroom department and enjoyed days on end of frolicking pleasure with their partners. They were also adventurous, so upon hearing the threat made by the Fun Brigade they suddenly fell silent. Not only did they stop saying how fine a fellow Chinggis had been, they stopped saying just about anything. Having to recite the details of their parlour panderings was not a task to be taken lightly. They didn't mind being forced to dance – that would be real fun – but having to let their mother-in-law know exactly what they'd been doing with their son or daughter (or both) was enough to fill even the toughest Mongol, or Ongol, with abject terror.

With the Fun Brigade patrolling the streets, Khad set about installing various practices and processes that would help further his cause. He drew up a list of ‘Chinggis crimes’ that
included not only mention of his name but all things that were deemed to have been fit and proper during the rule of Chinggis. These included virtue, charity, pleasantry and gallantry. Offenders would eventually find themselves in the newly built House of Fun. The House of Fun was a large four-storey building constructed at the highest point in Baatarulaan. It could be seen from most corners of the city and, just in case anyone couldn't see it, large red neon bulbs flashed its name into the night sky accompanied by barrel-organ music. There wasn't a whole lot of fun to be had at the House of Fun other than by the wardens. The wardens, who wore brightly garish clown costumes, were handpicked for their sickly psychopathic tendencies and relished every opportunity to correct the behaviour of their guests. By the time Khad's rule came to an end no guest who had been entertained at the House of Fun had ever wanted to leave because they were ‘having so much fun’, or at least that was what was written in the letters received by the families of ‘guests’.

Khad secretly admired the city his cousin had constructed. He privately adored wonderful architecture. He harboured feelings of adoration for open public parklands, particularly the flower beds. He even felt inwardly positive about the wide avenues that were lined by busy shops and businesses; even the statues of his deceased cousin were in his view sculpted magnificently. He refused to have any of the buildings that had been constructed during the time of Chinggis destroyed. After all, good builders were hard to come by when you needed them and there was no guarantee they would do the job you wanted even if you did find them. Instead, Khad determined to change the meaning of Chinggis's city. All schools and places of study were closed; when they reopened the interiors had been ripped out and replaced by enormous vodka and karaoke bars complete with a labyrinth of ‘private rooms’. History and geography
went out the window and teachers were instructed to teach people a set of altogether more carnal lessons instead.

Indeed, Khad completely overhauled the education system. Libraries were emptied of the classic texts and theological tomes to be replaced by thinner, more photographically oriented publications that had until then been kept under the counter or on the top shelves of less savoury shopping establishments. He pardoned all of the non-dangerous prisoners that Chinggis had put away. Mostly they were burglars, bank robbers and fraudsters, just the sort of people who would be loyal to him and help him re-educate his people. Given their understanding of how to get from A to B with minimal effort and without attracting attention, burglars were appointed as neogeography teachers, bank robbers were selected to instruct their pupils in arithmetic and business studies. Courses in faith, drama and politics were to be given by the fraudsters. Khad knew that, within a generation, two at the most, he would rule people so ruthlessly mercenary that everything his goodietwo-shoes cousin had stood for would be rendered despicable.

The number of bureaucratic buildings quadrupled. They absorbed all of the splendid palaces built by Chinggis and many of the larger private homes. The wealthy families who had lived there were deemed not to have laughed enough and sent to the House of Fun accordingly. The number of bureaucrats employed by Khad increased six-fold. Khad knew the surest way to slow a system down and make it far more ineffective was to employ more bureaucrats. There were now three people employed to check every application made for anything by anybody. Three times as many checks were made for anyone applying to start a business to ensure that they were credit-unworthy enough. It took three years to apply for a passport so as to discourage any cross-border movement. Khad instigated monthly censuses so that he could keep tabs on exactly what
everyone was doing at any particular time. The results were inscribed on hefty stone tablets and kept in a cave that was guarded by fifty burly Fun Brigade members. Khad had inadvertently invented the world's first database. He would later lose various versions of the database as they were transported between the secret cave and his office in Baatarulaan. Although the lost tablets showed exactly how much money the city's inhabitants had in savings, and where it was stored, he was able to ensure that his incompetence was soon forgotten; in a large part due to threats made to anyone who mentioned it. Khad was an insecure little man. His view was that this knowledge he was creating would lead to power. Observers wondered how he had any time to do his day job what with all this silly and pointless bureaucratic posturing.

Faith was not outlawed. Instead, Khad set about altering what it was that his people had faith in. He made it illegal not to laugh at designated times during the day. During laughing time people were instructed to think of nothing other than how wonderful their new country was and how much of a jolly good chap their new emperor was. All other acts of faith or worship were strictly forbidden. The decree read: ‘Every day people must laugh at exactly 0500, 0730, 1200, 1700 and 2100 without exception.’ Chinggis's temples were reformatted as ‘Laughter Houses’ where the people of Baatarulaan could gather together and laugh. The Laughter Houses were manned by the Fun Brigade. The Fun Brigade had a list of everyone who lived in Baatarulaan. If somebody missed a laughing session, a member of the brigade would pay them a visit and, unless a very convincing excuse was offered, or a large amount of money, the missing somebody would go missing on a more permanent basis in the House of Fun. Laughing was one thing; people enjoyed laughing. What people didn't enjoy was being told
when
and
where
to laugh. Managing one laughter session a day was
enough of a chore. Laughing five times a day upon command was nigh on impossible. Yet Khad persisted. Failure was not an option. Failure would not be tolerated. A whole industry had developed around this law. It offered any number of means to induce laughter from clowns and puppets, tickling sticks and feather dusters to gas and other chemical intoxications.

For most, the chemical solutions usually ended up being the medicine of choice, although they were exceedingly expensive. Khad's nephew's cousin's best friend's girlfriend, Khazza, ran a chemical cartel that produced, packaged and distributed chemical solutions throughout Ongolium. Khazza was a heartless wench with few friends, but she was a big lass and could pack a punch. Even her boyfriend was afraid of her. She seized the business opportunity that the Laughter Law presented. There was no law against chemical consumption, even though everybody knew it was bad for you. Khazza created an ingredient that made her special brand of laughter absolutely addictive. Within a matter of months the streets of Baatarulaan were literally littered with the less salubrious of the city's inhabitants lolling about horizontally on pavements laughing uncontrollably at some secret joke only their minds were able to fathom. Khem, as the chemical became known, was freely available and its price moved inexorably upwards.

Groups of Khazza's employees would persuade Baatarulaan residents to purchase their wares. They were generally very large men with intimidating faces and amazing powers of persuasion. Had the cartel worked on a commission-only basis, they would most certainly have received a far healthier salary than that fixed by their miserly, ambitious employer. Those residents who did decide against using Khem were reminded of their virtue by having their windows smashed and their pet dogs set alight; it was a sign of honour to be seen promenading
with a charred poodle. Khazza's cartel set up Khem houses where people could freely indulge in as much laughter as they were able before passing out (and being robbed). The chemical enhancement changed people's view of faith. New types of festivals emerged that involved pulsating rhythms and flashing lights. Khem users would sway in time with the beat and throw their arms in the air as if in praise of their new spiritual incarceration. The festivals attracted new users and grew as Khem usage spiralled. Khad rubbed his hands in glee and Khazza counted her pennies. Khazza's cartel forged an alliance with the Fun Brigade and between them they ruled Baatarulaan. What need did Khad have for democracy when he had a far more effective tool with which to reap immediate reward? Martial law became a permanent shadow. Very soon the loyal and virtuous subjects of Chinggis were slowly being turned into fearful zombies intoxicated by the greedy and self-important Khad. Baatarulaan was changing. Khad felt decidedly smug. He had created a city of vice and corruption that, while almost universally despised, had been emulated in many other desert regions throughout the world. ‘Oh, how I wish the golden child Chinggis could have seen this!’ mused Khad.

Khad saved his most devilish activities for Chinggis's beloved Tsara. Khad disliked women. He was a simple fellow and could not begin to understand the finer workings of the female mind. Instead, he undermined it whenever the opportunity arose. Many of the things he said and did he would never have done to a man; he saw women as weak and to be dominated. He was a very silly man in this respect. To Khad, Tsara represented the life of his nemesis. However, despite Khad's affected hatred, Tsara was as loved by the people as Chinggis had been while he had ruled. The people saw Chinggis's love for his lady as true romance. It had long been the talk of the bathhouses. When it was announced that Chinggis was dead, the people mourned as
much for the grief they knew Tsara would be experiencing as for the loss of their illustrious emperor. It infuriated Khad. ‘Why should this silly little woman who was born in a distant and barbarian country hold the affections of his people?’ he wondered. Khad thought long and hard, plotting for far longer than most people would deem sane. He had to bring her down. He couldn't kill her as he had her husband, his cousin. Khad needed to be more cunning. He knew that, although Tsara was immensely popular, and although the people of Baatarulaan were progressive as a result of Chinggis's advanced policies, were he able to humiliate and destroy Tsara's character then as a woman her reputation would be forever sullied and would never recover.