by Diane Wilson
I kicked my tired mount into a reluctant trot, turning my head this way and that. Suddenly the saddle dropped from under me. The gray, snorting and scrambling in alarm, was sliding on his haunches into a mud-slickened gorge. I could only sit deep and hope we safely reached bottom.
But the scare was worth it. For as I gathered the reins, patting the frightened horse on the neck, my eye caught something white moving within some large bushes. There, even though hobbled and tied to a branch, pranced my lovely white mare, Bayan. So beautiful was she just then—eyes black and alive, neck arching with pride, mane falling upon her shoulders like a silken robe. I practically tumbled out of the saddle in my eagerness to reach her; I ran my hands down her fine legs, slender as a gazelle’s, to unfasten the coarse hobbles, then quickly untied her head and threw my arms around her fuzzy neck. Bayan nickered and rubbed her face against my shoulder.
Bator, too, was rubbing against me, still meowing, and I knew we had to hurry.
Leading the still-panting gray beside Bayan, I tied him to the branch in her place and slipped the hobbles upon his legs. Then I lifted the saddle from his back and fastened it upon Bayan’s. I draped the Khan’s heavy bags across it. After fitting the bridle into Bayan’s mouth, I was ready.
This time when I called Bator into the saddle, he scrambled up my leg and balanced, crouched, in my lap. Giving Bayan her head, I let her pick an easy way up and out of the gorge. She moved willingly, with no hint of lameness, and shortly we were back climbing beside the tumbling stream.
So Genma had lied to me, I thought. She had hoped that if she took Bayan from me I would give up my dreams and stay and marry her son. But I won’t give up my dreams, I said to myself. And, silently, I prayed that Delger would not give up his.
20
Our Heads Brush the Skies
We threw ourselves at the mountains—Bayan, Bator, and I. Climbed enthusiastically toward the heavens: mystic realm of the shamans, home to the gods, opening to the otherworld. And to my mother. That thought rippled my spine with a shiver.
Bayan’s furry white shoulders tirelessly bunched and released beneath me, grabbing at the steep slope and pushing it behind us. Head low, breath rhythmic, she poured her energy into gaining the top before nightfall. I was awed by her smooth power.
Bator, on the other hand, was all playfulness: springing recklessly through the undergrowth, pouncing upon bugs, crouching and wriggling before dashing madly ahead, then sitting and meowing, waiting for Bayan and me to catch up.
We had resumed our journey south. Its adventure filled the two animals with excitement. But I—I was full of dread. Trailing my fingers across my hip, I laid a hand upon the empty place where the Khan’s gold paiza, my guarantee of safe passage, was missing. In my haste to escape with the goatskin bags, I had forgotten to take both the message pouch and the gold paiza. Now I was just another person riding through the land; no longer did I carry the protection of the Khan as his arrow rider.
Nor did I carry with me any food, or any sure directions—other than a hint to follow the stream—to lead me to the city of Khanbaliq. How was I ever going to find Kublai Khan and my swift horse?
And there was something else, something that made me flinch with each thorny bush that snatched at my trousers, made me jump with each twig that snapped beneath Bayan’s hooves. The bad luck. My bad luck. I was sure I could feel its icy breath skimming the back of my neck.
When my knife had cut through Genma’s fire, it and the arrow station had become unclean. She had been right. We should have stopped and sent for the shaman. But no. I had boldly kicked the tainted knife from the fire and, holding it close to me, raised it as a weapon.
I had been trying to ignore it all afternoon, certain we could outclimb it, but now, glancing over my shoulder for the hundredth time, I saw my bad luck chasing after us in the form of angry gray storm clouds. At that moment, a flash of lightning lit the rapidly darkening sky. Thunder rumbled up the mountainside, nipping at our heels. I shrank in the saddle. Maybe an offering to the mountain spirit would save us. Reaching trembling fingers inside my boot, I lifted the small iron knife away from me and let it drop. The slope’s webby undergrowth swallowed the tainted weapon and Bayan’s powerful pace quickly carried us past it. But that wasn’t enough.
A blue-white bolt of lightning crashed directly overhead, firing the sky. In its blinding glare I saw the stiff, waxy face of my mother lying in the mud. Fear gnawed my bones. My mother had died because of her daughter’s bad luck. Was I leading Bayan and Bator into the same fate?
Again I heard thunder roar louder and louder until its deafening boom shook the mountain. At our backs this time hissed another bolt of lightning; I cringed. Squeezing shut my eyes, I hunkered over Bayan’s neck.
And then the heavens split open, drenching us in a pounding rain. Bator gave up his games to crawl, sodden and shivering, into my lap. Though she had to pick her way more carefully now, Bayan kept climbing. The mucky sound of hooves sloshing through mud changed to the clacking sound of hooves striking upon stone. We were working our way higher. An occasional misstep upon the slick rock caused Bayan’s hip to slump, nearly unseating both Bator and me, but still the determined white mare climbed on.
The rain grew heavier and colder with nightfall. The hard drops pelleted my bare head, stung the burning tops of my ears. They turned to ice in my hair and began forming thick snakes of ice in Bayan’s mane. I had long ago lost any feeling in my toes. And though, blinking the water from my eyes, I could see the reins entwined around my fingers, I could not feel their leather. I was as wet as if I had plunged into a river, fully clothed. Shivering without control, my knees banged weakly against the sides of the saddle.
Rain and night slowly engulfed the mountain. Finally I could not see an arm’s length in front of me. The path ahead, if there was one, swam in darkness. For all I knew we were climbing straight into the murky other world of the dead.
I felt Bayan twist sharply beneath me and suddenly a rocky wall was scraping my knee, ripping at my trousers. Sucking in my breath, I tried to flatten my leg, but the pressure kept building. Even Bayan was acting nervous now. She stopped and started in fitful leaps, hooves scrambling on loose pebbles. Then she would pause, swinging her nose this way and that against the black veil of rain, snorting, before frantically jumping again into the void. A useless passenger, I could only clutch the clawing, ear-flattened Bator to my lap and trust the instincts of my white mare. Tree branches no longer brushed my cheeks and shoulders. And even before the mind-numbing rain, I had lost the stream’s reassuring babble. A dizziness in my head joined a sickness in my stomach to warn that we balanced high upon the mountain slope. But with the blackness all around us I could see nothing. Nothing!
Bayan lunged forward again. But this time her hooves scrambled helplessly as her weight lurched sideways. I suddenly felt myself being pulled down as she stumbled to her knees, plunged onto her shoulder. My leg was pinned beneath the mare and the rocky slope as we began sliding—fast—the mountain ripping through my skin as easily as it ripped through my del, searching for bone. Amid the drumming blows to my head, my elbow, my hip, I somehow knew Bator leaped free. But I was pinned beneath a crushing weight—and falling, falling, falling into darkness.
How long it was before I knew the mountain had stopped sliding beneath my fingernails, I don’t know. The rain had ceased, and when I became aware of the cold mud painting my cheek, the grit lodged under my tongue, I tried to rise. Stabbing pains, like ice into flesh, pierced my ribs and ankle. I exhaled in brief, gasping breaths, clawing the wet earth and wondering at the bits of light twirling overhead. Gradually the white dots slowed, floating, then stuck hard in the raven’s wing pressed so close to my face. I remember putting up my hand, wanting to touch the silky blackness. Instead, a whiteness pushed away the night, a warm softness blew upon my upstretched fingers.
Bayan! She was standing over me, nu
dging my hand with her soft muzzle. I felt my fingers trace the puckering lips, find the curving jawbone, climb to the cheekbone, stumble into the lashes and the liquid eye. Startled, Bayan jerked away. My hand dropped to the ground, limp, and I let the black wing fall across me once more.
How long I lay, eyes unseeing a second time, I still don’t know. Gradually I became aware of a buzzing in my ear, like that of a winged bug, prodding me awake. Yet before I opened my eyes, the buzzing turned to sounds, the sounds to words.
“It is not done.”
I blinked my eyes open. Again the stars slowed and stuck. Bayan stretched her neck down and blew warm gusts across my face.
“It is not done.”
I heard the words again. Or thought I heard them. Frowning, I looked into Bayan’s dark eyes. Then other words flooded my mind. I heard Echenkorlo talking: “Every living thing has a voice…This white mare has spoken to you because she knew you would hear her. And you must listen.”
Bayan nuzzled me again, gently butting my shoulder with her muzzle. And then Bator was there as well, licking my nose with his scratchy tongue, walking across my chest and meowing.
I didn’t want to get up. I wanted to give up. Yet by some will stronger than my own I rolled onto my side, nearly screaming in pain and, panting shakily, managed to rise onto one knee.
My eyes remained tightly shut, for the wounds were gnashing their teeth into me with frightening fury. Still, I could hear Bayan’s hooves step closer. The leather stirrup bumped my head. Gritting my teeth, I strung an arm through it and pulled myself off the ground. Then, trying not to think about blood and broken bones and spiritless bodies shriveled upon the ground, I continued pulling myself up and into the saddle, finally collapsing with a groan over its arching front. Carrying little more than a crumpled carcass then, Bayan moved off into the darkness. I thought I heard Bator’s faint mew, though it sounded very far away.
And then we were climbing again. Each rhythmic lunge upward stabbed fresh torture into my broken body. Bayan moved with confidence now, no more blind leaps into a dark downpour. A newborn moon peeked through silver-edged clouds, shedding a wet light upon rock washed clean of twigs and leaves.
At last we were up. So long had we been climbing that Bayan’s first steps upon flat ground felt as if we floated upon air. With a fog drifting at our feet, I thought with a shiver that perhaps we had climbed right through the clouds into the heavens.
Bayan halted. A thick silence hung over the dampened mountaintop. In its eerie emptiness Bayan stamped a hoof and snorted. Then she shook all over, almost unseating me. Ears pricked into the darkness, she whinnied loudly. I cocked an ear as well, but the mare’s call, shrouded by the fog, went unanswered.
A fresh spattering of rain blew across my face. I had to find shelter, I thought. Chilled, aching all over, and soaked to the skin, I wouldn’t survive another storm. But when my heels nudged Bayan, she refused to move. Was she injured, too? Or scared? Or just plain exhausted?
Out of the dark, Bator joined us again, his green eyes glinting in the moonlight. Bayan lowered her neck and touched her muzzle to his nose. They exchanged breaths. Then, lifting her head, the tired white mare took a confident step forward, following Bator through a sparse stand of pine trees. I remained the helpless passenger, doubled over her outstretched neck, clutching the saddle with icy hands.
I must have fallen asleep, for an unexpected crash of lightning jolted me awake. My heart boomed in my chest, more than matching the next rolling clap of thunder. No! Not again, I thought. I looked wildly around me. Another lightning bolt slashed through the sky, briefly throwing the mountaintop into stark silhouette. In that instant I caught sight of an oxcart, empty shafts resting upon the ground. Behind it—a small cave. I threw aside any apprehensions of the strangers crouching inside; at least I wouldn’t spend the night alone!
Drumming Bayan’s sides with my heels, I prodded her close to the cave entrance.
“Hello?” I called. “Hello?” There was no answer from within. Perhaps they were asleep, I thought. I called again, louder, and waited. Still no answer. Perhaps they had gone hunting. Should I, uninvited, enter the shelter of a stranger? Another bolt of lightning, hissing above my head, made the decision clear. I leaped from the saddle and scrambled just inside the cave’s mouth.
The cavern yawned widely enough to shelter Bayan as well, so when the echoing thunder died down, I darted out to tug at the reins. Strangely, the white mare braced her full weight against them, refusing to take another step. So I forced my fingers, clumsy with cold, to pull the goatskin bags to the wet ground and unfasten the saddle and bridle. Bayan immediately ambled away, head to the ground, searching for grasses.
In two pain-filled trips I dragged the saddle, rug, bridle, and the Khan’s twin bags inside the cave, still calling out in case someone slept within. No voice answered. Bator already huddled silently in the dirt, thin moonlight reflecting off the raindrops beading his coat.
Suddenly the tiring day and long, frightening night beat me to the ground. Bracing my bruised body against the cold rock wall, I shifted uncomfortably from one hip to the other, trying to ease the pain. The saddle rug was wet, but its thickness held Bayan’s warmth and I pulled it over my legs. Bator climbed up my chest, licking my nose before curling upon my lap. In the next breath his purring reached my ears.
But I didn’t share his content. I was hurt. I was hungry. Alone. And suddenly—more scared than I had ever been in my life.
***
“Grandmother?”
“Yes, child?”
“Were you very, very scared?”
“Yes, that night I was very, very scared.”
Within the darkness, the girl looked at her panting mare, again lying upon the dried grasses near her feet. She studied the sweat-beaded face. Absently she lifted a palm to her own warm forehead. Then, heaving a long, worried sigh, she nestled closer to her grandmother’s side and resumed twisting the knotted button of her del.
“What did you do?” the girl said after a moment. “I mean to say, you were lost and all alone in a dark cave in the mountains. How did you keep from screaming?”
A raspy chuckle rattled the old woman’s chest. “Well,” she answered, “to tell truth, the screaming came later. But that night, after I had done crying, and still hugging my cat upon my lap, I tried very hard to be cheerful.” She paused, thinking. “You see, the herdsman’s life is not an easy one. Weather swings from the heat of a fire to the cold of an ice storm, even in the same day. Always moving the animals in search of good grazing is difficult and lonely. Sickness and death arrive without warning.” The wrinkle-faced woman thought some more. “It is this way. When you walk next to a great chasm all the time, you dare not look down—only look to the sky with laughter.”
She squeezed her granddaughter’s arm. “But laughter left with the next sun.”
21
The Morning
Terror. Absolute, flesh-chilling terror choked me with its bony fingers. For when morning’s light first brushed my lids, I opened my eyes to look into dead, staring eyes. A gray hand stretched splintering claws toward my shoulder.
Again and again I screamed, until I thought my spirit would fly out of my mouth, leaving me lifeless within that stony grave. The shrill echoes banged around the damp walls like so many panic-stricken crows before fluttering into the cold mountain air.
Scrambling then, clawing the dirt, kicking at the saddle rug that suddenly entangled my legs, threatening to hold me captive, I fell back out of the cave. Kept pushing myself away from its dark mouth until I crouched, trembling, behind a massive boulder.
Panting, gasping—I couldn’t breathe! My stomach was shoving aside my lungs. An unseen fist buried its punch into my middle, and I doubled over, retching.
At the end I curled, weak and dampened, upon the grainy earth, hardly noticing its wetness seeping through
my clothing. Wrapping my arms around myself, I sobbed.
High on that mountaintop, my head brushing the heavens, I felt all had fallen away. I had nothing and no one, and death was reaching for me.
22
In the Grave of Echenkorlo
Sunshine buttered the mountaintop; a crisp breeze whistled through the pine boughs. Not more than an arrow’s flight away, I could hear Bayan snuffling through the forest growth. Calling her name, I listened to the thin sound of my voice get swept up by the wind and empty into the skies. In a moment I saw the mud-spattered body of my white mare weaving a path through the trees. But when her front hoof clattered upon the shale outcropping leading up to the cave, she halted. Stretching her neck, Bayan sucked in the air through flaring pink nostrils. She snorted it out just as quickly, almost with alarm. A strong shudder began at her ears and rippled to her tail, spraying clots of dried mud upon the wet ground. Judgment passed, Bayan turned and walked into the woods.
She knew the death. She had, I realized, known it last night when she would not set a hoof inside the cave.
Chin upon my hands, I thought grimly how I, a dull human lacking basic animal senses, had passed one whole night practically nose to nose with death. It was my turn to shudder. There was no fleeing it this time. I had been caught. And I was unclean.
Into this cheerless morning flitted a faint tinkling sound, decidedly cheerful. Curious, I made a move to stand. But with the first gathering of limbs, my body crumpled back to the ground in sharp pain, the cries of my ribs and my bad foot rising above the others. As gently as possible, I pulled off the felt boot. Wincing, my fingers probed the hot flesh stretching across an ankle puffed twice its size. Lifting my trouser leg higher, I cringed at the sight of angry green and purple bruises splotching my skin. I sank back with a sigh. But a wrenching, ripping pain beneath my ribs caught me up short. I groaned, holding my hand to my side and bracing myself against the earth.
