The Tiger-Headed Horseman Read online

  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.

  Finding means for such humiliation took Khad to places his imagination had never sought to dwell. He was not by nature a man personally interested in physical love and lust but knew that it was a pastime enjoyed greatly by his subjects (in thought if not in action). Khad determined that, if he could somehow implicate Tsara as having been unfaithful to Chinggis, then this would produce a tarnish suitably tainted to irrevocably ruin her. Searching the nether regions of his city, Khad met a lowly Khem addict who would willingly be interviewed by Khad's media people and testify that for many years he and Tsara had been enjoying illicit Khem-fuelled rumpy-pumpy. It wouldn't matter that Tsara denied the accusations vehemently. What mattered was that doubt would be cast in the mind of Tsara's supporters. After all, these were minds that were becoming increasingly addled and reliant on Khem. They would be easily moved against Tsara.

  Khad's plan worked brilliantly. Within a year of killing Chinggis, Tsara had taken her own life. So it was that Khad managed to eradicate the remaining loyalty to Chinggis and in so doing wipe away the memory of Ulaanbaatar and replace it with his own visionary Baatarulaan. Khad lived far longer than anybody could have dreamed or wanted. One day he simply disappeared while out tending to his water geraniums. Rumours spread that he had drowned mysteriously in a bizarre gardening accident. Khad's body was never recovered.

  4

  Despite Khad having sold vast swathes of the country, Ongolium was still a large country by modern standards. There were far smaller countries, geographically, that punched far above their tectonic weight. Ongolium didn't pack a punch at all. Outside of Baatarulaan there were no towns as such. During the Terror of Khad people living outside the city had been forced to give up their way of life and move towards the centre. Khad had wanted to control everything and everyone. However, over the years those who had become disenfranchised by Baatarulaan and who longed for the old ways sneaked out of the city and into the mountains. The modern Fun Brigade still patrolled the countryside. They searched for anyone leaving the city while simultaneously ensuring that no Outsiders entered Ongolium. In order to evade the Fun Brigade small groups of escapees lived a nomadic life as herders, forever in search of peace and forever in search of solace. Living in white, round, canvassed gers, they were able to survive the harsh terrain and life on the Steppe. The gers were thickly quilted with felts and all aspects of family life took place within. Being some ten metres in diameter and with families usually being a minimum of six, people became very close and tolerant of one another very quickly. Central to the ger was the stove, a metallic fire-place with a flat top and a long chimney that snaked up two metres to the hole in the roof of the ger. Clothing, bedding, heirlooms and people clustered around the stove. The gers were very portable. They could
be taken down and packed on to the back of a camel within an hour. As such, every family had at least one camel in addition to their numerous horses. Ongolium had fifty-five horses per person. Given that most people lived in Baatarulaan, that left an awful lot of horses running wild in the countryside. Winters were harsh and summers stifling in Ongolium. People worked hard to keep things going. Meals were one of the few times that people gathered together, mostly for warmth. In summer they ate the few vegetables and fruits they were able to gather. Meat was exclusively the reserve of winter when it was cold enough to keep it fresh outside the ger. Life in the herder communities was not easy. There was little time for fun but when it was had it was intense. Song and vodka filled the air, as it had in the time of Chinggis.

  In one such herder population lived a young lady called Lily. Lily was fifteenth-generation nomad. Her fathers had led their group for centuries. Lily and her people had wholly rejected the ways of Baatarulaan. Stories of Chinggis had been kept alive by word of mouth passing from generation to generation. Lily knew of the faith and knowledge that had been the bedrock of Ulaanbaatar. Knowledge was kept alive through the stories told. Faith was kept alive through shamanism. Within the group one person was born with the gift of shamanism each generation. Lily was that person. Her father had been worried for her. He knew of the power such a gift held. He also knew that other people would always be slightly afraid of her.

  Despite this, when Lily's father was captured during a foraging expedition in the city, everyone in the group agreed that Lily was the right person to take over leadership of the group; at least until her father got back. Reluctantly, Lily agreed. She now found herself in the rare position of being the spiritual and political leader to her group of a hundred herders. A leader needed to produce an heir (or heiress). At the age of twenty-two, Lily had no intention of finding herself a partner. The thought of pregnancy and childbirth filled her with abject dread. Her mother had died giving birth to her and Lily had carried the emotional scar with her all her life. However, she knew she wouldn't have long before her people started making demands of her and sending eligible young men with fruit baskets to ask her to step out. However, she also knew that most men in the group were too scared to come anywhere near her with any romantic intention.

  Twenty-two years had not been long enough for Lily yet to come to terms with being a shaman (or shawoman). It was not as though she had asked for the ‘gift’ to be thrust upon her. Much as she enjoyed helping other people resolve issues and thwart illness, there were only so many drum sessions and psychological vacations that she could cope with. Visiting the spirit world on a daily basis was exhausting. It also made other people rather sceptical of Lily. Although everyone in her group had always been nice to Lily, she didn't have any real friends to speak of. People were simply too intimidated by her ability to ‘see things’ to allow themselves to get close to her. Even Lily's family felt uncomfortable spending any time with her.

  When Lily was about to find her gift upon her she would start to tingle all over. It was always the same. The tingling would start in her hands and work up her arms. She would begin to feel warmth flowing upwards from the pit of her stomach. Although she never felt faint, a reeling sense of parting from her body swept across her. This would be followed by a lull, before suddenly her eyes shot into extreme focus and she was able to call herself into the spirit world. In the early days she had no choice but to be pulled into the spirit world but as she matured so did her ability to control the portal between worlds through breathing, chanting and mental focus. While she was able to hide preliminary symptoms, as the portal opened her inner feelings became apparent to those around her. It must have petrified her parents. It most definitely petrified Lily.

  By the time she was ten years old Lily had learned that taking meals sitting away from the central table on her own was a nicer experience than eating in silence while everybody else stared at you, waiting for the chanting to begin. She also enjoyed simply observing her family and hearing what real people did day by day. Having no mother she had to find her own way. Lily never felt she had been intended, she felt alone; she had no siblings and there was no one to help her understand the world around her or begin to understand, or believe in, her gift. Her father was simply too busy being the leader to have much time for her, though she craved his affection.

  Being a shaman she was excused any of the many manual tasks necessary to group survival. By fifteen she had schooled herself. Sitting out of sight behind the round canvas gers where the group elders lived, Lily soon realised that by listening to them telling, and retelling, their stories to one another year after year she learned pretty much all she would ever need to know. She learned that invisible eagles soared far above overhead watching out for her people. If enemies came close, the eagles would let the group know. Of course this had never happened. The group had no enemies. The elders also spoke about cats as their enemies. Lily couldn't quite understand this – she loved cats. Stories were told about bad duplicitous people who were reborn as cats. She had to confess that there weren't any cats in her camp and that any that ventured too close were soon chased away.

  Having few people close to her, Lily spent much of her time alone on the Steppe. Although the group was slightly afraid of her they did empathise with her solitude. Every birthday she would be given an animal, something with which she could spend her days: camels, marmots, hares . . . even birds of prey. For her fifth birthday Lily had received her first horse. Everybody in the group knew how to ride even before they took to a saddle. Lily was no exception. She loved to ride. The horses in Ongolium were far shorter and more hardy than their European cousins. The horses often only reached a man's chest but their size belied their ability. Whereas a European horse waited for its owner to dictate a course of action, the Ongolium horse knew what its master wanted the moment the two touched. The bond between Ongolian rider and their horse was almost as inexplicable as the spirit world where Lily was spending an increasing amount of her time.

  Lily's forays into the Steppe became longer and more distant. She was at home in the vast open spaces the Steppe offered and always yearned to be riding out beneath the eternal blue sky that was the hallmark of her country. She could not imagine any other place could offer such striking natural enormity. What had begun as the odd hour or so turned into whole days out on the Steppe or exploring nearby mountains. As she got older, her endurance levels grew and she was able to ride harder and further. By the time of her twentieth birthday she was spending several days at a time on horseback, by night sleeping nestled on her steed. The two became inseparable yet never more than horse and rider. The old Ongolian ways forbade people to name or become overly attached to their horses. One never knew, after all, when it would have to become dinner during a harsh winter. Secretly, Lily called her horse Lucky; it had saved her life on too many occasions not to be. Days spent away from the ger camp enabled Lily to come to terms with herself – who she was, what she wanted, how to fulfil herself.

  Lily was a robust girl and even more so now that she was maturing. Robust mentally from having to live in solitude and deal with her gift. Robust physically from the nomadic life her parents had chosen for her. Having spent so much time riding out on the Steppe she was naturally athletic. As tall as any man in the group, Lily knew that, if any of the boys in the group were brave enough to overstep the mark and make untoward romantic overtures, they would find themselves wiping a bloodied nose. Being the newest in a long line of herders of the Steppe, Lily had far darker skin than her compatriots living in Baatarulaan. Though a young woman, her muscles were more finely tuned and her stamina far greater than most men in that city, too. The outdoor life had heightened her senses. She could clearly identify a bird from over three kilometres away. She could sense when it was that rains were going to break periods of drought. At night, as the group rested around their stoves, Lily was always the first to hear a horse in distress or any other noise out of the ordinary. If a group elder was
nearing the end of their time, Lily would be the first to take their hand to ease them through the process. Hers was a blurred world of perception, empathy and just a little confusion.

  In her childhood Lily had enjoyed playing with her gift. She thought it was all a big game. Jumping into another world and speaking to people who weren't in the physical world felt exhilarating. As she became a young woman, the game ceased. She could begin to understand what it was people in both worlds were saying to her. She could understand how desperate both sets of people were for Lily to help them. It was a lot to ask of a girl who was only just coming to terms with being a young woman. The more time Lily spent in her other world, the more comfortable it became. There she met people who had long passed from her world but who were still forced to resolve, or were willing to resolve, issues and mysteries that existed in the physical world. Before long, Lily had befriended a young woman about the same age as herself. Lily's friend was also lonely and the two soon became as sisters. Lily's friend also had the gift, though she was more accomplished in wielding its power. She began to teach Lily how to manage and control the gift.

  The young Lily was finding herself spending more time in the spirit world than the physical. Had a stranger come across Lily's camp they would have been bemused. Sitting cross-legged beside a dying fire would be a young woman deep in meditation. Lily was so deep in meditation that she was not present to the physical world in any guise other than bodily. Nearby, Lucky stood guard, ever attentive and watchful for danger, protecting his human ward. Lucky cared for his mistress as much as she did for him. In Lucky's world Lily was known as ‘Dream Light’.