“How did you try to heal your grandmother?”
“I reached out to her soul, and felt poison inside her. She had swallowed it deliberately, to make herself die.”
Nachin inhaled sharply and made a sign. “The ghost of such a person can never find rest.” He stood up. “I must think of what we can do.” He glanced at the images of household spirits on the small table near her doorway. “I only hope your spirits can give us some protection.”
* * * *
Jirghadai rode out to her the next morning. She sat with him outside the yurt, wanting to bring him inside and feed him, wishing to caress him, longing to lie with him, all things that the shaman had forbidden her to do.
“How long will you be under this ban?” he asked.
“Nachin didn't say.”
“You're my wife, Erdeni. I won't abandon you.”
“Is there a chance of that?” she said angrily. “Is he saying that Dei and his people should leave me here?”
Jirghadai shook his head. “And if it came to that, I would choose to stay with you anyway.”
“There would be other girls for you to marry.” She looked away from him. “There will always be a woman to ride in your cart.”
“You are the woman I want there.” He reached for her hand. She drew back so that he would not violate the ban by touching her. They sat together in silence. The longing in his eyes made her feel that he was embracing her, refusing to let the shaman bar him from reaching out to her soul.
At last he left her to ride back to the camp. She could still watch him from this distance as he went to help the men who were milking the mares tethered near Dei Sechen's circle.
In the afternoon, several of the cattle drinking upriver began to wander toward Erdeni's yurt. Bortai ran after them, a willow stick in her hands, her long black braids flapping against her back. She slowed as she neared Erdeni, then strode up to her and sat down.
Bortai said, “I must stay here and look out for the cattle. You don't mind if I sit with you, do you?”
“You could leave them,” Erdeni said. “They'd find their way back by themselves.”
“I wanted to speak to you anyway, Erdeni.” Bortai shook back her masses of braids. “It's cruel, putting you under a ban. You couldn't do any evil to us—I know it.”
“It's only for a while. If nothing happens, if the shaman finds that the curse has been lifted, I'll come back to my husband's circle and everything will be as it was.” Erdeni wanted to believe that.
“I heard Nachin talking with Father,” Bortai said. “They were arguing. Father said that he didn't believe you had any evil intent toward us, and Nachin said that you have to stay outside the camp until he learns more about what you might have brought here. I think—” Bortai lowered her eyes. “I think the shaman is afraid of you.”
“That can't be so.” But she was already remembering how he had spoken to her, as though wishing to be rid of her.
Bortai went on to chatter of her friend Goa's fall from a horse earlier that morning, a lapse that had brought much mockery from the other girls, and of plans for the feast they would soon have to mark the sixteenth day of the summer's first moon. Anchar, Bortai's brother, would have a new bow then, a man's bow that Arasen the bowmaker had been working on for years. Anchar was fourteen now, and it would not be long before he rode out to look for a wife. Erdeni listened, saying little, sensing that Bortai was trying to distract her from her troubles for a while.
Bortai left when the stray cattle began to make their way back along to the river toward the camp. Erdeni felt a pang of loneliness as she saw people going inside their yurts to prepare for the evening meal. A few men near Dei Sechen's tent were churning mare's milk into kumiss, pushing long sticks into large leather sacks; their guttural songs drifted toward her on the gentle evening wind.
She untied her horse, walked it for a while, then hitched the mare to the cart once more and went inside. She had some dried curds left, and strips of meat, but did not feel like eating. The glow of her hearth fire had faded. She took some fuel from the basket of argal near the doorway and fed it to the fire.
The drumming sound of a horse's hooves grew louder, then ceased. Someone was dismounting near her tent. “Erdeni Ujin,” Nachin's voice said outside the doorway.
“You may enter,” she replied.
The shaman came inside the tent. He had brought his drum with him. Three small pouches hung from his belt, and she heard the bones inside them rattle as they swayed. On his head, Nachin wore a hat of eagle feathers, and his pale fur robe was made of the pelts of snow leopards. He had come here, she saw, to work magic, to ferret out the ghost of her grandmother. She knew what he would do if he found that he would have to wound her to subdue the ghost.
They sat down across from each other. He stared at her for a long time with his sharp eagle's eyes, then began to beat on his drum with the heel of his hand. He swayed, chanting words she did not know, casting his spells, and soon she was swaying with him, feeling the drumbeat within herself.
Something was near them, hiding in the shadows. She saw it from the corner of her eye, glimmering in the darkness beyond the light. A shriek pierced the silence; Erdeni tensed. A cat was outside; she heard the slap of its paws against the ground. The tiger shrieked again.
The shaman would kill her. She knew that now, she sensed it in his thoughts. He was drawing her grandmother's spirit to the tent, and waiting for it to take possession of her, so that he could be rid of both of them and dispel the curse.
Nachin abruptly stopped beating his drum. His head fell back; his body was suddenly wracked by convulsions as his arms flapped at his sides. He stiffened and then grew still, and the dark eyes gazing at her were no longer his.
“This mad bone-rattler troubles me greatly.” Nachin's lips moved, but the voice was Kuan's. “He is trying to overcome me with his spells.”
Erdeni drew back, terrified. “Go away, Grandmother,” she managed to say. “Leave these people in peace—they've done nothing to you.”
“Nothing? I have wandered far along this trail, and there is a branching here, in the camp of these barbarians. One branch leads to peace for my people and your Tatar tribes. The other has shown me suffering and death for those in my lands and extermination for the Tatars. If you saw what I have seen, you would be aiding me, not shrinking from me.”
Erdeni whispered, “Go away.”
Nachin's body twisted. He was struggling with the ghost inside him. She felt the tendrils of his mind with her own and realized that he needed her help to subdue Kuan. How had her grandmother's spirit gained such power?
“Hatred feeds me,” Kuan said inside her. “Contempt is a cloak that warms me. I am condemned to wander because I took my own life, because I could not bear to be a captive of barbarians any longer. The spirits force me to roam because I chose my end and did not wait for the death they might have brought me. By compelling me to wander, they have allowed me to see their future intentions. They should have granted me peace, and I would not now be haunting you.”
Nachin fell forward and writhed, nearly knocking over the metal hearth. Erdeni threw herself across him, knowing that he was her only hope now. “Nachin!” she cried out. “How can I help you? What can I do?”
“Nothing,” Kuan's voice replied. Nachin showed his teeth, his face contorting into a demon's grin.
Erdeni tried to push her spirit outside herself. She could feel the shaman struggling with the ghost. Hands closed around her throat; she gasped for air.
“Let me be,” Kuan said. “Let me have what I want from these people, and I shall no longer haunt you. Try to stop me, and you will suffer in ways I cannot describe.”
Erdeni could not breathe. She lay across Nachin's heaving body, panting for breath, unable to move and feeling faint. He shook under her, and then his arms were lifting her, holding her over his head.
He threw her against one of her trunks. Her head struck the lid, stunning her. Somehow she got to her feet. Sparks dance
d before her eyes; she pushed back her scarf, touched the throbbing spot at her left temple, and felt blood.
“You cannot stop me,” Kuan said through Nachin. “You are too weak, too afraid.”
A flame leaped from Nachin's open palm; he shaped a spear from the fire and hurled it at her. Erdeni screamed as the blazing weapon seared her, then fainted.
She came to herself in darkness. The fire of her hearth was still glowing faintly. Erdeni sat up slowly and saw that she was alone.
I must stay here, she told herself. Perhaps Nachin has won, and found a spell that will keep the ghost from us. He may still be struggling with Grandmother, or she may have defeated him at last. I can do nothing about any of it. Her hands shook; she wrapped her arms around herself.
“Erdeni!” That was Nachin's voice. She got up and scurried to the doorway. The shaman was standing near his horse. Feathers had been torn from his headdress; his face glowed, as if a fire burned within him. “I can't stop her by myself,” he said. “Help me, woman. Help me. Reach out to my mind and give me some of the power I know you have. I'll do the rest.”
A wall of fire sprang up from the ground. Erdeni shrank back. “I can't!” she cried as the flames licked at her. The poison Kuan had swallowed was inside her once more, burning her.
Nachin was on his horse. Through the flames, she saw him ride toward the camp and disappear among the yurts. The fire suddenly vanished. Her insides still felt raw, scorched by the fire and poison.
She ran to her horse, loosed the reins from the cart, threw herself onto the mare's bare back, then galloped after Nachin, knowing that she could do nothing, that it was too late. She leaned forward, hugging the horse's barrel with her legs, urging the mount on.
The southernmost yurts lay ahead; she veered to the east, knowing that she would have to go around the circles of tents and wagons, that the men on watch would not let her into the camp. No one seemed to be on guard near the fires; she wondered why. She slowed, trying to catch her breath.
She was nearing Dei's tents, and now saw that several of the men had ridden to his circle. They stood in front of Dei's yurt, two of them holding torches; near one of the carts, Shotan held a weeping woman. Nachin's horse was next to a wagon, unhobbled and unrestrained, the shaman's saddle still on its back.
Erdeni reined in her horse, slid from its back, then stumbled toward the yurts. One man with a torch turned toward her; she recognized Arasen. “Stay away!” he shouted.
“No.” Dei Sechen pushed his way past the men. “Pass between the fires, Erdeni. You may enter this camp. There's no reason to keep you under a ban now.”
She walked between the banked fires just outside his circle, then hurried toward him. The men parted to let her pass. Bortai, clinging to her brother Anchar, was standing behind their father; a body in a feathered headdress and pale fur robe lay near the doorway of Dei's tent.
“Nachin,” Erdeni whispered, then covered her mouth, knowing that she should not speak his name aloud so soon after his death.
“The shaman came here,” Dei said. “Naturally, those on guard let him pass. He came to my tent and called out to me, saying that he had to speak to me about the curse on you.” She heard the sorrow in his voice; tears fell from his eyes as he looked down at the shaman's body.
“I told him to enter,” Dei went on. “He came through the door, and then, so swiftly that I couldn't stop him, he seized Bortai and dragged her from her bed. His knife was at her throat. He said he would kill her if we didn't stay back. The spirit inside him was babbling by then, saying that she had to die, that much misery would come to the world under Heaven if she didn't die now.” He sighed. “As he was backing out of the tent, Bortai jabbed him with her elbow. Then Anchar leaped at him and put his knife into him.”
The woman with Shotan wailed, and Erdeni saw that the weeping woman was Nachin's wife.
“I heard him whisper, ‘I never knew such power existed,’ and then he was gone.” Dei knelt by the body. “For a moment, just before he gave up his soul, I thought I saw the man who was my comrade and friend gazing at me once more from his eyes.”
Erdeni could not speak. She should be telling Dei about the shaman's struggle, about the ghost that had been too strong for him, about how she had failed to aid Nachin during his battle. These were evil omens—a shaman's blood spilled, and inside a chief's tent. She noticed then that all of the men were surreptitiously making signs against ill fortune.
“Wife.” A hand clasped hers; she looked up into Jirghadai's eyes. “There's been enough evil here for one night. Come with me. We'll mourn together, and you will put up your tent inside our camp again.” He led her away from the others.
* * * *
The shaman was buried on the slope of Mount Chegcher, where he had often gone to pray and to harden himself in isolation. Dei, hoping to appease those spirits that had been Nachin's allies, had insisted that the shaman be buried with honor. His widow became part of his younger brother's household, as was customary. The mysterious tiger no longer troubled the herds; the evil spirit that had afflicted Nachin had apparently been vanquished.
The Onggirats held their festival marking the summer's first moon. Such feasts were usually times of drunkenness and high spirits, but the people of Dei Sechen's camp were subdued as they gathered around the pits where the lambs were roasting. The men who went to Dei's fire to bow and pay homage by holding out scarves for their chief to touch did not linger there long to banter. The young men showing off their skill in wrestling, riding, and archery competed listlessly, as though it did not matter who won.
Erdeni sat with her husband's mother by their fire. Even Doghuz, a woman with a hearty appetite, was not eating much of the food they had prepared. Two of Jirghadai's comrades rode to his fire to sample some of his mother's lamb; Doghuz barely smiled when the young men praised her cooking.
At last Erdeni got up and wandered to the small thicket of willows bordering the camp, slipped down her trousers, and squatted to relieve herself. Everyone here might believe that the evil spirit had departed after Nachin's passing, but they were acting as if they sensed that the danger was not yet past. This late in the day, most of the men and several of the women should have been very drunk, the women laughing and singing, the men dancing until their feet made ditches in the ground. There should have been people reeling among these trees, enjoying themselves, vomiting and pissing and passing out from their celebrations.
As she stood up, she saw Ardai and Goa coming toward the trees. “It's true,” Ardai was saying to the other girl. “What else could it be? The shaman just didn't want anyone else to have her.”
Erdeni stepped out from behind a willow. “Hush,” the girl with Ardai murmured. “You don't know what you're saying.”
Ardai looked a little drunk; she leaned against her companion for a moment. “Shut up, Goa,” she said. “A lot of people are whispering the same thing.”
“What are they whispering?” Erdeni asked.
Goa stared at her with bloodshot eyes; she looked even drunker than Ardai. “That the shaman wanted Bortai for himself,” Goa said.
“It's true.” Ardai took a step toward Erdeni. “He wanted her. But of course he couldn't have someone from his own clan, so he had to be certain no other man would ever claim her. That's why he tried to kill her.”
Erdeni reached for the embroidered borders of Ardai's short tunic and pulled the girl toward her. “What are you saying?”
“You were with the shaman,” Ardai said, “before he rode back to Uncle Dei's circle.” Goa was taking backward steps and making signs against evil with her hands. “He wanted Bortai, and he was only distracting us by making us think you were a danger, by putting a ban on you. You must have known he was up to something. Once he had us lulled, he could ride back and do as he liked with Bortai—take her or kill her—maybe both. He might have been hoping to escape after taking her, or maybe by then he didn't care what happened to him.”
“You poisonous bitch.”
Erdeni lifted her hand; Ardai shrank back. “How can you say such things about your cousin and about that brave man—” She steadied herself. “Where did you hear such talk?”
Ardai swayed unsteadily on her feet. Goa was still making signs and gaping at Erdeni. “It was whispered to me,” Ardai said softly. “A voice told me that Bortai had drawn the shaman to his death, that her beauty had made him—”
Goa spun around and ran away. “I knew it was true,” Ardai continued. “As soon as the voice whispered it, I knew that it was the truth.”
The ghost had whispered the words. The ghost had crept into Ardai's tent and murmured this venomous story, and Ardai had been all too ready to accept it.
Why? Why had her grandmother's ghost possessed Nachin's body and driven him to strike at Bortai? Why would the ghost now be whispering that Bortai's beauty had driven the shaman to the deed?
Erdeni took a step toward Ardai and grabbed her by the wrist. “Listen to me,” she said softly. “If you repeat this story, I'll put a curse on you. Do you understand? I can do it, I know some magic.”
Ardai squealed, then hastened away. Erdeni sank to the ground. The ghost was still a threat to these people, perhaps even more of a threat now. And, for reasons she did not understand, the ghost was trying to strike at Bortai.
* * * *
Jirghadai was sleeping deeply, his breathing even and deep. Erdeni lay at his side, drifting between sleep and wakefulness. She kept her eyes closed, longing for rest, then opened them.
The silvery light of the full moon was shining through the smokehole. As she watched, a man floated down through the beam, alighted near the hearth, and came toward the bed. He wore a hat of eagle feathers and a cloak as pale as the moonlight.
“Erdeni,” he said as he leaned over her, and his face was Nachin's.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Because that ghost is still a menace. You brought her here, Erdeni, she took possession of a part of you and is drawing on your power. She could not have come among us otherwise. Are you going to stand by and do nothing?”
Erdeni's Tiger Page 4
