The Tiger-Headed Horseman Page 5

  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 t
he 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.

  In so doing, another thought came to her that caused her to blush even more. She wondered if Chinggis had any relatives who were alive somewhere in Ongolium and whether they might be about the same age as she was. She stood up and ran from the firelight hiding her face from Lucky as she fought back her embarrassment. She took several deep breaths and began to compose herself. She was horrified that she was even able to entertain such melodramatic, improper and outlandish thoughts. She had always been a sensible, if slightly abnormal, girl. Although she hadn't attended class, she would almost certainly have been top of it in every subject. It was this damned womanhood thing that was changing the way she thought about life. It made her think about things differently. . .

  Where a man used to be merely someone who could carry heavier things than her or run faster than her, he was now more besides. Rather than watch the heavy boxes he was carrying, she would admire his muscle definition. Rather than be annoyed that the man had overtaken her running, she would now marvel at the tone of his thighs and other . . . parts. All the stories had said that Chinggis was more manly than any other. It set her imagination alight. Lily turned red again. She turned her head and looked back at the fire. Lucky was staring at her. She was sure he was mocking her. She returned to her deep breathing exercises – they usually worked.

  Presently she had calmed herself enough to return to the fire. Sitting beside the items that now no longer seemed so silly, she shook the dirt from them and delicately placed them in some semblance of order. She examined each in turn repeatedly. Each examination ended with Lily staring longingly at the name Chinggis. She fought back her reddening cheeks. There was something in these items that Lily was not getting. Perhaps she did understand a little about what the words meant. There had to be a deeper meaning that Lily was as yet unable to comprehend. Why had Chinggis written them, though? Had Chinggis even written them at all? It could easily have been someone else – who could possibly know otherwise? The words had been written so long ago, there was no possible record to verify their authenticity. There was no proof and Lily knew that people liked proof. However, somehow Lily knew they were Chinggis's words. They had to be. When she had read his name, something had stirred in the depths of her belly. When she had run her fingers across the writing, her entire body had shaken with anticipation. There was something more to the words that the group elders had directed her towards and she needed to know what it was. Chinggis was speaking to her directly, and she, Lily, had a duty to listen. She knew that it was easier to catch an escaped horse than to pluck back an escaped word, but for the time being Chinggis's word had slipped away into the night air.

  7

  ‘Tengis and Odval up a tree,’ chanted their classmates. ‘C-H-I-N-G-I-N-G. First comes love, then baby Ching, then comes the worship of a fallen king!’

  The children blew raspberries at Tengis and Odval before running off into the playground. The school day often began like this for Tengis and Odval. It didn't bother either of them. They knew they were far better than the rest of their school mates. Odval, simply because she was; her family was among the wealthiest in Baatarulaan. Tengis because he knew he was Chinggis Khaan; he just hadn't been able to prove it yet. He knew that eventually he would, though, and that then the other children would be sorry, or so he hoped. A small part of him feared that when he did discover the reason he was Chinggis Khaan, he might be wholly ostracised or even banished from the city he knew was rightly his. He was a very confused young man. Still, he was in his final year of school. He would soon be free.

  The allure of university didn't appeal. He had little interest in the various sham courses on offer at Baatarulaan University for Khadists and Other Future Reprobates. Tengis could not ascertain what advantage he could gleam from studying for a degree in ‘Banking Irregularities and Financial Fraud’, ‘Home Economics and the Art of Effective Burglary’ or ‘Anthropological Gambling’. Even he, a mere high school pupil, pulled his hair out at the way education in Baatarulaan was heading. The traditional courses were being overrun by too many students of poor ability. Access to university was a norm, no longer for the exceptional few. The number of people electing to go to university had risen dramatically in recent years. The Khadist bureaucrats supported the rising numbers, since it meant there was less scope for free spirit or entrepreneurism and they could maintain full control over people for longer. The proliferation of new-fangled courses made Tengis nauseous. Surely th
ere was no place for degrees in ‘Celebrity Worship’, ‘Junk Food Cuisine’ or ‘Immoral Politics’. A university education was no longer necessarily a good thing. Tengis wanted to stand out from the crowd not be part of it.

  By the time he was sixteen Tengis had already determined that he wanted to make a difference with his life. He was smarter, better-looking, wittier and quicker-witted than any of his peers. He wanted to instigate change. He was not happy with the status quo in his home city. He was appalled that the select few could gorge while the remainder fought over scraps and were reduced to Khem to escape their sorrows. He knew the person closest to him in the world, apart from his mother, was part of that select few. Odval understood him, though. Their relationship transcended class or wealth. The pair had talked long and often about how best to harness his talents. Many a good night's sleep had been lost trying to single-mindedly unstitch Tengis's abilities and weave them into a pattern that would unleash his potential.

  During one such discourse they arrived at a conclusion. To make a difference Tengis would have to enter politics. He might abhor the political parties currently at work in his country but he could implement his will once he was inside. As for Odval, she had spent the last ten years trying to keep up with Tengis's intellect. She was keen to stay by his side, purely on a platonic basis. Tengis's mother was equally exuberant about her son's ambition to move into politics. Tengis was a driven young man. He had a vision. He would see Chinggis's power reinstated and he might even throw in a few twists of his own.

  Without a university education, however, he would need another means of getting himself into a position whereby he would be deemed credible to work with, for and, secretly, against the Khadists. That means was simple and straightforward. He was Chinggis Khaan – once he could prove that, what more would matter?