The Tiger-Headed Horseman (6 page)

Domestic produce in Ongolium, or Mongolia, had always been more than a little thin on the ground. Most people lived off mutton, dumplings and fat-based stews. The weather forbade all bar a few vegetables or fruits from being grown and these were normally given to the more well-to-do families. Given the diet and harsh weather conditions, a person's fortieth birthday was greeted with enormous festivity and a considerable measure of thankfulness. If someone lived till they were fifty, even the Fun Brigade were impressed and stopped using their sticks on them. It was felt by the age of fifty people didn't need to be encouraged to have fun; it simply happened. On reaching sixty people were deemed witches and most were normally burned to death on a barbecue.

‘Why would he act like the common people?’ asked Odval. ‘If I were empress, I would wear only the finest finery, eat only the tastiest foods and wouldn't look at the common people, let alone speak to them, if I could possibly help it.’

This annoyed Tengis who had always considered himself high-minded. It annoyed him because, although he, and his mother, loved Chinggis to the point of worship, he actually felt the same way as Odval. He couldn't understand why someone with power wouldn't wield their will and lord it over others. He banished this thought. He
was
Chinggis; he just needed to find out how.

‘Don't be petty,’ said Tengis. ‘Chinggis was the greatest man ever to walk this land.’

Odval looked at him aghast. ‘How can you say that? You'd better not let anyone else hear you saying things like this. Khad is our beloved emperor, no other has ever lived that is as good, kind or wise as he.’

Tengis could tell from her tone that Odval didn't really
believe this. She was of the same opinion as he. Eventually they started to giggle.

‘House of Fun!’ said Tengis through his laughter. ‘Who would come up with something quite so ridiculous!’ Odval and he laughed hard until tears rolled down their faces and they crumpled next to one another on the dusty bridge. They looked at one another through dampened faces and for a second there was more than friendship.

‘We,’ said Tengis, suddenly standing up, ‘had better get back. School will be starting soon and we don't want to be late; people might become suspicious.’ He closed the door on his emotions, locked it, put the key in a padlocked box and threw it into the river. He helped Odval to her feet and the pair walked back towards school as though nothing had happened.

So it was that Tengis and Odval spent their time together. Neither had or needed any other friend. Their relationship was based on intellect, or at least mostly, and they deemed themselves to be above the other pupils at their school. The other pupils in turn didn't want anything to do with the kids that they referred to as ‘weirdos’ either. Tengis and Odval were a closed unit. They didn't blanch or react when their peers shouted insults at them. ‘Chinggishites’ was not an insult in their opinion. They knew better. It made them stronger.

6

Lily dismounted Lucky and pulled the bags and boxes from his back. It was nearly night-time and she needed to set up camp. She lit a small campfire and sat down with the box the group elders had given in front of her. She ignored it; instead she prised open a tin of beans and poured them into a pot, balancing them near the fire to heat them through. The box shone and sparkled in the firelight. Lily delicately placed a blanket over the top of it. Moving away from the fire, she left her illuminated sanctuary and walked out into the darkness.

Staring at the vast starry expanse, Lily immediately felt claustrophobic. Something about the fire was drawing her back towards it. Not being near the fire felt stiflingly uncomfortable. Lily knew what it was. It was the box the group elders had given her but something about it forced her to stay away from it. The box felt as though it carried a weighty responsibility with it. Lily was used to responsibility. All of her life she had been responsible for helping her group overcome adversity. When she had accepted the role of group leader she had not expected it to carry the additional burden she now felt.

She moved back towards the fire and circled the box warily, never getting too close to it. Lucky watched on intently and gave an equine snort that sounded more of a chortle to Lily. She knew she was being stupid but there was something about this box that would change her life. Once it had been opened, Lily sensed that a chain of events would begin that would forever
change the world, if not the worlds, she had known. She backed away from the box and sat at the other side of the fire from it. As she ate her beans she stared through the flames towards it. Even though it was covered by a blanket it shone brightly in her mind. Lucky snorted again. Lily finished her beans and threw the used pot aside. Standing erect, she breathed deeply. Her eyes never once left the box. Lucky snorted twice. Striding around the fire Lily pulled away the blanket that had been keeping the box warm. Kneeling down beside it, she fumbled in her pocket for the key. Having placed it in the lavishly designed lock, she hesitated. Was she really sure that she wanted to do this?

It was a fairly ordinary-looking box by Baatarulaan standards. For the nomadic people, though, it was a marvel. Carved ornately in the ancient Ongolian style, it was covered in a shiny metallic leaf and studded with jewels of a kind she had never seen before. The lid rose towards the middle giving the box the look of a Buddhist temple. The lavish lock to the front of the box mimicked a front door. The panels on either side and to the rear depicted gardens long since overgrown and birds long since caged.

Lily held the box up in the firelight to examine it more clearly. She turned it over and over in her hands; even the bottom of the box with its four corner feet was more elaborate than anything she had seen before. She mused that the box must have been in her camp since before she was born. The elders had certainly implied as much. She wondered how such a possession could have been in her camp without her knowing about it. Her father had been leader until his capture, which meant it had probably been in her ger every day of her life. She had never seen it, though she had often helped her father pack up the family ger before moving on. She had spent too many icy-cold winter days cooped up in the ger examining every inch
of it, yet somehow the box had evaded her. It must have been there!

As she gazed more intently upon it, she was reminded of her father. She hadn't wondered about him very much since his capture. He wasn't much more than simply another man in the camp other than the fact that he was leader. Affections were hard to come by in such a harsh environment, and even harder to come by in her family. But now she found herself fearful for him. She could sense that he was still alive. He had to be – she would have felt something if he had been killed, surely? She hoped that he was being treated favourably wherever he was, although she doubted this as quickly as the thought had entered her head. A sense of injustice began to sew itself into her thoughts. What had her father, her leader, done to deserve capture? Why were the city dwellers so quick to feel hatred towards the nomadic groups? All of the stories she had heard from the group elders talked about the city dwellers as a group larger than any other on the Steppe; more disgusting, more unlaw-abiding and more disrespectful than any Ongolium had ever given sanctuary to; so sickeningly riddled with greed and self-interest that even the infamous Khad would have taken time to approve of them; and ever closer to destroying the old ways of life for ever. Lily knew that this also meant destroying her group. While she had always harboured a degree of fear towards the city dwellers since her father had been taken, these feelings had been replaced by anger, repulsion and an overwhelming urge for justice. Why should her people live in fear of those lesser than they? Why should the city dwellers have so much power over Ongolium? She didn't know the answers but felt sure that whatever was in the box she was holding would certainly lead her to them.

Carefully she turned the key ninety degrees clockwise. A soft click announced that the box was now open. As she slowly
began to lift the lid all sense of place disappeared. Lily felt a rush of cold air flow from the box and drift through her hair. The light from the fire had dwindled almost to nothing but Lily could see better than she had been able to earlier. There was no sound. Even Lucky remained silently motionless.

Inside the box was a piece of old and dusty material folded over on itself. Lily took the package out and carefully placed the box on the ground. She eyed the shroud suspiciously. She was embarrassed to admit it to herself but Lily felt it was a bit of a let-down after the elaborate casing. She carefully unwrapped the material. She could feel something deep inside it. As she unravelled the material she noticed worn and faded markings on it. It also held remnants of colour embedded in its fading threads. Reaching inside the material, Lily grasped the object it contained. It was a cylinder of sorts. Like the box it was carefully crafted and ornately decorated.

Lily examined it further and noted representations of the herder life she knew fashioned on to the tube. A representation of a ger complete with the familial stove. Images of horsemen riding across the Steppe. Herder families sitting taking a meal and laughing with their friends. An eagle soaring overhead protecting the group. Lily felt an odd affinity with this pictorial portrayal of the life she had lived. It both calmed and soothed the confusion and trepidation that had begun to take root deep within her. Larger than the other images, a Mongolian horse stood proudly, its head turned leftwards. She held the cylinder to her ear and shook it gently. Something moved softly inside. Lily looked for a means to open the container. She ran her nail under the ornamental ends of the tube. Nothing obvious presented itself. She held the cylinder tightly and tried to turn one end. Nothing moved. She turned her attention to the other end. Again there was nothing. She let out a frustrated sigh. Lucky came closer and gently brushed his head against her
hair. Lily had always been able to rely on her beloved steed. She returned her attention to the cylinder. Exerting a little more pressure Lily gasped quietly as one end began to slowly ease and turn. Delicately, she turned the cylinder until she loosed the stopper. She removed it completely and placed it next to the loosened material. Peering inside, she could see a parchment of dry paper. She turned the tube slowly upside down to allow the paper to present itself. Lily cautiously removed the paper and placed the cylinder on the ground. She was bemused. What on earth can this be? she thought.

Lily laid the paper next to its container. With both hands she removed any stones and smoothed out an area of earth to be used as a workspace. Returning to the paper, she nervously began to unravel the scroll. It was so dry that it felt it would surely crumble at any moment but Lily simply had to know what it contained. At full length it measured the same distance as between her wrist and elbow. It was roughly half as wide as it was long. Although it was weathered and dirty, she could make out some writing ingrained into the paper. Despite her youth she still needed to peer hard in the fading firelight to make out what the words were saying:

‘A tiger wearing a bell will starve and a cat that likes to eat fresh fish will not go into the water; however, the distance between Heaven and Earth is no greater than one thought.’

‘Well, that's a lot of blinking use,’ said Lily to Lucky. ‘What on earth is that supposed to mean?’ Lucky neighed softly in response. She sat down haughtily on the dirt. She knew that the stories warned humans never to trust cats. That was obvious. She had been scratched ferociously each time she had spent too long stroking a cat, particularly if she went too close to its stomach. This was annoyingly cryptic, though. Lily did not know what to make of it. As for the second part, she knew from her
time in the spirit world that she could jump between them as she desired.

‘So,’ said Lily to Lucky, ‘cats are silly untrustworthy creatures and the real and spirit worlds are joined together by people like me. Duh. I so didn't need some overly luxurious cryptic box to tell me that.’

Lily was grumpy and disappointed. She regretted being so excited in anticipation of what the box contained. She should have known better. What on earth could the old people in her group know, let alone teach her? Lily was angry; she felt she deserved something more magical than something she already knew. She cast the items aside.

Lucky approached her again and nudged her shoulder.

‘Go away, will you,’ said Lily.

Lucky again pushed his hairy head into her armpit, this time with a little more gusto. Lily was momentarily unbalanced. Lucky licked her face with his massive tongue as she sought to steady herself.

‘You silly beast!’ cried Lily, although she didn't mean it. She knew better than to be angry with her horse; that was just silly. Lily took a deep breath and collected herself before returning to the items scattered around her.

She scanned the parchment for any clues or further pearls of wisdom. She could see none. Turning the page over she glimpsed what looked like a smudge at the foot of the sheet. She drew her face closer to try and decipher what the smudge was. It appeared to be what looked like writing but it was far too small to be legible. Lily put a couple of logs on the fire and stoked it up. She needed all the light she could muster. Returning to the page, she kneeled and bent over it, her face merely centimetres from the smudged writing. She squinted her eyes, trying desperately to see what the tiny words on the page said. She hooked her fingers under the page and drew it closer.
It took her several attempts before she was finally able to make out what the miniscule text read:

‘Chinggis Khaan, Ulaanbaatar – capital city of my beloved Mongolia.’

Lily dropped the parchment on to the ground and backed away aghast. She had heard about Chinggis Khaan. Everybody had. Reports of his life had been mixed. Depictions of him ranged from saviour to executioner, glorious to infamous. Ever since Lily had become a young woman she had secretly harboured a special love and adoration of him. She would think of Chinggis while she was riding out on the Steppe. She would wonder what the world would be like if Chinggis had not been killed by Khad. She had even dreamed of Chinggis at night. Lily blushed and pulled her clothing tight around her. She tried to push all thoughts of Chinggis from her mind.