Talons seized him in the darkness, making him throb with pain; Jamukha twisted in their grip. “I sense disloyalty,” Teb-Tenggeri’s thoughts whispered. “There is something inside you–”
Jamukha allowed a wisp of thought to escape. “You think that you can wait,” he murmured, “that you have all of the power you need over Temujin for now. But if you don’t move quickly against those who resent your growing influence, the Khan may come to doubt you.”
“He will not doubt me as long as he can hear your voice through me, as long as he can speak to the ghost of his sworn brother.”
“But you don’t want him to listen to too many other voices. You don’t want to give others the chance to rouse his suspicions against you.”
The invisible talons released him. The shaman was silent, his thoughts hidden; he would now be turning his attention to the feast and to the honors being parceled out by Temujin to his men. Jamukha suddenly feared that Teb-Tenggeri would never release his soul. How could the shaman risk losing the strongest hold he would ever have over his Khan?
“Move against Khasar first,” Jamukha said inside Teb-Tenggeri. “If you can bring Temujin to doubt his favorite brother, it will be easier to rouse his suspicions against others.”
“Khasar is too close to him still.” Teb-Tenggeri’s voice seemed more distant. “I can wait. It is enough for the moment that I’m the Khan’s chief advisor, that he listens to me above all others.”
“He may turn to Khasar again,” Jamukha said. “I was the ally of Toghril, the Kereit Khan, when Khasar was living in Toghril’s camp. Many said that Khasar was a prisoner there, but Toghril treated him well and wanted Khasar to ride with him against Temujin, and it was said that Khasar nearly agreed to do so.”
“Yet he finally escaped from the Kereits and returned to Temujin.”
“True,” Jamukha said, “but some whispered that was only so that he could spy on his brother for the Kereits, and that Khasar was waiting to see whether Toghril or Temujin would win out. Temujin was aware of such rumors, I’m sure. You should remind him of them.”
A sudden wave of heat seared Jamukha; the darkness surrounding him was as hot as fire. He had not sensed the depth of Teb-Tenggeri’s hatred for Khasar, and the force of it startled him.
“Temujin may fear me,” Teb-Tenggeri’s thoughts murmured, “but Khasar does not. I’ve even heard tales that he mocks me behind my back. He doesn’t know that I can sometimes sense unspoken thoughts in others, that I know what he thinks of me.”
He had to be cautious now. He had not understood the intensity of the shaman’s enmity toward Khasar, and it frightened him.
“And what does Khasar think of you?” Jamukha asked.
“That I use my spells to satisfy certain urges.” The darkness around Jamukha throbbed. “That I bring boys and men, and not only women, to my bed, and that they use me as a woman. That may be the way of some other shamans, but it has never attracted me.” The flood of anger and loathing nearly overwhelmed Jamukha. “I’ve hated Khasar for whispering such things. I would happily see him dead for uttering them.”
“Then why have you not moved against him before?”
“Because he still enjoys Temujin’s great favor. Because others fear me too much to believe such tales. I have told myself that it’s better to wait, that to act too soon against Khasar might only give more credence to his lies.”
The shaman’s pain and rage flared up once more. Jamukha struggled to shield himself against the onslaught. Teb-Tenggeri had not yet sensed the true nature of the bond between Jamukha and Temujin; perhaps he could not even allow himself to glimpse it. To be trapped inside such a man, one who loathed and feared what Jamukha had been – Jamukha buried that thought.
“To let Khasar spread such rumors,” Jamukha murmured cautiously, “only makes it more likely that some will come to believe them. Others may begin to doubt that you’re as mighty a shaman as they thought. They’ll whisper that if you had the powers you claim to have, you would have punished Khasar for his lies long ago.”
He could feel Teb-Tenggeri weighing this possibility. “Perhaps you are right, Jamukha,” and another surge of loathing and disgust nearly flooded into him. “Maybe I’ve been too patient with Khasar.”
He does not allow himself to know what I was to Temujin. Why would he fear that so much? Jamukha wondered. Perhaps Teb-Tenggeri longed to be what Jamukha had once been to the Khan, even while despising such feelings.
Jamukha clutched that bit of knowledge to himself. It was a weapon that he might be able to use against the shaman.
It was Khasar who finally provoked a confrontation. He rode to Teb-Tenggeri’s camp one evening and demanded entrance to his yurt.
The shaman, who had grown more accustomed to the presence of the ghost he had captured, now often allowed Jamukha the use of his eyes and ears. Jamukha listened as Khasar raged outside, shouting to be admitted.
“Some of my men have left my ordu for yours,” Khasar cried, bursting through the doorway almost before a female slave had rolled up the flap to admit him. “They’ve ridden away with their households from my camp and say that they now want to serve you.” His words were slurred, his broad face flushed from drink.
“If they wish to join me,” Teb-Tenggeri said softly, “I can’t stop them. What does it matter, as long as they still serve our Khan?”
Men were shouting outside the tent. Jamukha heard the voices of Teb-Tenggeri’s brothers. This meeting was likely to turn into a brawl; he wondered if the shaman could control it. Perhaps, amid the shouting and the fighting, he could find a way to free himself.
No, Jamukha thought. The spirits had sent him to Teb-Tenggeri, and would not free him until he had accomplished their purpose.
“Those men were my followers.” Khasar took a step toward Teb-Tenggeri. “I demand that you send them back.”
Teb-Tenggeri shrugged. “If you’re such a poor leader that you can’t hold them, I see no reason why they shouldn’t choose another.”
Khasar cursed and lifted his right arm. Jamukha waited for the broad-shouldered man to strike the shaman. Khasar drew back and lowered his hand. A smile crossed Khasar’s face as he tugged at his mustaches, but his narrowed dark eyes were still angry.
“Did they choose you,” Khasar asked, “or did you bring them here with one of your spells? I’ve heard all about your spells, Kokochu.” Jamukha felt the shaman tense at this use of his childhood name. “I’ve heard of how you lure men to you, by bending over and parting your buttocks. That’s your kind of spell, telling them they can use you–”
Teb-Tenggeri’s fist caught Khasar on the jaw. The force of the shaman’s rage plunged Jamukha into darkness; the pounding of Teb-Tenggeri’s pulse nearly drowned out the sound of the commands being shouted to the shaman’s brothers.
“Drive this man from my camp!” Teb-Tenggeri screamed. “Beat him and the friends he brought here, and tell them never to show their faces here again!”
Jamukha hid himself in the darkness. This was exactly what he had wanted, to push the shaman into such a confrontation. Khasar would turn to his brother Temujin for justice, and the Khan would surely order Teb-Tenggeri to return Khasar’s followers to his camp. A few more such incidents, and Temujin might begin to doubt his shaman’s wisdom and loyalty.
Another thought came to him; Teb-Tenggeri had been much too angered by what was only a crude drunken jest. The shaman, he was sure now, secretly feared that he might be exactly what Khasar accused him of being. Perhaps he lusted for Temujin, and maybe he also feared that he would lose his hold on the Khan if Temujin ever glimpsed that hidden longing.
Jamukha held that thought closely. It was another weapon he might use.
Khasar appealed to his brother, the Khan, but Temujin gave him no justice. Instead, he sent him away with mocking words about how the mighty Khasar had allowed himself to be beaten. Rather than losing Temujin’s favor, Teb-Tenggeri had strengthened his position. Temujin had listened when Teb-T
enggeri went to him to say that Khasar had designs on his throne, that Khasar had been plotting against him, that some of his followers wanted Khasar to be their Khan.
Now Khasar was in disgrace, and even the pleas of the Khan’s old mother Hoelun had not swayed Temujin. He would not risk angering his shaman, and Jamukha knew why. Temujin could not bear the possibility that Jamukha might again be lost to him.
“I had come to doubt the spirits,” Temujin whispered. He had summoned the shaman to his camp and had sent everyone, even the slaves, away from his great tent, for he always spoke to Jamukha’s ghost in solitude. “I began to think that the dead would always be silent,” he continued, “that in truth there were no ghosts who haunted the world or who had flown to Heaven. I came to think that this world might be all men have, and now I can believe that isn’t so.”
“That my spirit is with you proves that,” Jamukha said through Teb-Tenggeri. The reins controlling him were looser now; the shaman allowed him to speak more freely when Jamukha’s talk seemed to be serving his end.
“More often now,” Temujin said, “I find myself thinking of the time you were my only friend, when we first swore our anda oath.”
“I remember.” They had sworn their oath by the iced-over Onon River in winter, both of them fatherless boys. “I had only a brass die to offer you as a gift to mark that promise.”
“And I had only my knucklebone dice.” Temujin leaned forward, reciting the words he had said so many years ago. “When we ride together, no one will come between us. I will cherish you and love your sons as my own. Our bond will last for all our lives.”
“Our two lives will be one,” Jamukha said. “I will always defend you, and will never raise my hand to you – I swear it now. May my promise live in my heart.”
“All that I have now was only a dream then.” Temujin’s hands gripped Teb-Tenggeri’s shoulders. “Sometimes I think that my old dreams of glory brought me more joy than the actual conquests, those old dreams I shared with you.” His face seemed more youthful in the soft glow cast by the hearth. “My comrades, my brothers, my sons – I value all of them, but none has ever taken your place. You were–”
Temujin fell silent, searching Teb-Tenggeri’s face. Jamukha knew what he could say, which words would bring Temujin under Teb-Tenggeri’s sway forever: You were my other self, Temujin. You shared yourself with me as you did with no one else. I have not forgotten our nights under the tree in the Khorkhonagh Valley, the nights under my tent, the nights out on the steppe when we were guarding the horses. Temujin would expect to hear such words, which would prove that Jamukha’s spirit was speaking to him. Teb-Tenggeri would be given everything he desired, because he had restored Jamukha to his sworn brother the Khan.
Jamukha cloaked his thoughts quickly, then sensed that the shaman’s mind was elsewhere. Teb-Tenggeri was relishing his growing influence, taking pride in how easily he had divided the Khan from his favorite brother Khasar, of how he would soon become the true ruler of Temujin’s realm. But would he be so willing to use Jamukha’s ghost to further his ends once he saw the hidden part of Jamukha’s bond with Temujin? Jamukha recalled the rage and shame that had torn at Teb-Tenggeri during Khasar’s coarse joke, of how fearful he had been that Khasar might have glimpsed something inside him that he could not acknowledge.
To bring such things out of the dark pools inside Teb-Tenggeri into the light would be risky. The shaman’s rage and fear might destroy both his soul and Jamukha’s.
Temujin was gazing intently into Teb-Tenggeri’s eyes, clearly waiting for Jamukha to speak of the deeper love they had kept hidden from everyone. “You were my comrade in battle,” Jamukha murmured, “my companion during the hunt, my sworn brother. There can be no stronger bond than that.”
Temujin glanced down, looking disappointed. He lifted his head and, for an instant, Jamukha thought that he saw doubt in the Khan’s pale eyes. That uncertainty might grow, might become another weapon to use against the shaman. If Temujin came to believe that no ghost truly lived inside Teb-Tenggeri, the shaman would lose his hold over him.
Temujin sighed, then slowly got to his feet, and Jamukha realized that the shaman had missed the flicker of doubt in the Khan’s eyes. Jamukha now had all the weapons he needed in order to work the will of the spirits, to destroy Teb-Tenggeri and allow Temujin to be the ruler Heaven had chosen.
Hoelun, the Khan’s mother, was ailing; some whispered that the old woman was dying. Others murmured that the shaman Teb-Tenggeri had put a curse on Hoelun because she had confronted Temujin, demanding justice for her son Khasar and uttering harsh words about Teb-Tenggeri. To affront the Khan’s chief shaman, who had brought the Khan so many victories with his spells, was dangerous; he would summon the powerful spirits he commanded and bring ruin upon his enemies.
Those seeking to ingratiate themselves with the shaman carried such rumors to him, and Jamukha saw that the tales only fed Teb-Tenggeri’s growing arrogance.
Jamukha had, while haunting the Earth, recalled the times his own passions and ambitions had been his undoing. His hungers and longings were gone, burned away at last by Teb-Tenggeri’s imprisonment of his spirit. But the shaman was still driven by his desire for power, which had grown even greater after his capture of Jamukha’s ghost. Now, spurred on by his triumph over Khasar, Teb-Tenggeri sought to tighten his grip on the Khan.
To bring down the shaman who had captured him, to bring Temujin to see that Teb-Tenggeri thought of the Khan’s realm as his own, was now Jamukha’s only purpose and also the only way that he could free himself from the shaman. Temujin had become the greatest Khan of his people, chosen by Heaven to unite them and to make an army of them. Without Teb-Tenggeri, he might at last bring all of the world under his standard, but under his shaman’s influence, he might lose all that he had won.
Jamukha had done what he could to sow distrust and doubt in Temujin’s mind. Three times since Khasar’s banishment, Temujin had come to Teb-Tenggeri’s camp to commune with Jamukha’s spirit, and three times Jamukha had refused to utter the words of love that his anda clearly expected to hear, and Teb-Tenggeri’s suspicions had not been aroused. But Jamukha could not tell if Temujin’s doubts were growing, if the Khan was beginning to suspect that his shaman might only be mimicking Jamukha and pretending that he had captured his ghost.
More men joined Teb-Tenggeri’s camp and swore their oaths to him; better to ride with the man whom Genghis Khan favored above all than with another leader. Among those who came to the shaman were several comrades of Temuge, Temujin’s youngest brother. A more cautious man would have sent them away, would not have provoked another confrontation with one of the Khan’s brothers so soon. Instead Teb-Tenggeri, as Jamukha had expected, welcomed Temuge’s men to his camp.
“Kokochu!” a man was shouting outside Teb-Tenggeri’s yurt. “Come outside!”
Teb-Tenggeri was sitting with his brothers and other followers, picking over the remains of a feast. Before the shaman could rise, one of his brothers moved toward the tent’s entrance.
“Who are you,” the brother shouted through the open entrance, “and what is your business?”
“My name is Sokhur, and I rode here under the orders of Temuge Odchigin, brother of the Khan. Temuge demands that you return his followers to his camp.”
Sokhur came through the entrance then, ducking down and then straightening again as he approached the hearth and the men who were seated with the shaman on cushions in the back of the tent. Jamukha, peering through the haze that Teb-Tenggeri’s drunkenness had produced, saw a huge man with a wrestler’s massive build under his long belted tunic. Sokhur would be a match for any man in the tent, perhaps for all of them.
“If Temuge can’t hold his men himself,” one man called out, “then they should be free to choose another chief.”
Another of Teb-Tenggeri’s brothers was whispering to him. “Send the men back,” he murmured to the shaman. “They’ll return to your camp before long, and when they do, Te
muge will have to let them go.”
Good advice, Jamukha thought, but Teb-Tenggeri was beyond such wisdom, drunk on wine and kumiss and intoxicated with his ambitions. “Temuge’s men will stay here,” Teb-Tenggeri said as he got to his feet. “Leave now, or we’ll take a whip to you.”
Sokhur’s face reddened at the insult; to take a whip to a man was a grave offense. “The Khan will have something to say about this!” he bellowed.
“The Khan will say nothing.” Teb-Tenggeri drew himself up. “You know what happened to his brother Khasar. You’ll only bring the same fate upon your master Temuge.”
Sokhur lunged toward Teb-Tenggeri, but was quickly brought down by three other men. They dragged him toward the entrance as Teb-Tenggeri laughed. “Whip him out of the camp!” the shaman shouted after them. “Send him back to his master with his saddle tied to his back!”
Jamukha withdrew into the darkness. He did not need to hear more. Perhaps Temujin would finally act, would see that if his shaman could strike out at the Khan’s brothers, he might not shrink from eventually striking at his sons, even at the Khan himself. And if he did not act, but let Temuge suffer the disgrace that Khasar had – Jamukha refused to think of that.
“My power grows.” The voice whispering that thought of Teb-Tenggeri’s was so low that Jamukha could barely hear it. “Soon I may not need you at all, but don’t think I’ll release you so quickly. There are many ways to imprison a ghost, to keep it against a time when it may be needed again.”
Jamukha’s fate was still bound to Temujin’s. He hid in the blackness of Teb-Tenggeri’s soul, wondering what the Khan would do.
Teb-Tenggeri was summoned to the Khan’s ordu. His six brothers rode there with him, leaving their tents well before dawn. The shaman was certain that Temujin would not stand against him, but preferred to face him with his brothers at his side. Temuge had probably gone to the Khan to demand the return of his followers, but he would get no more satisfaction from Temujin than had his brother Khasar.
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