The Grave Robbers of Genghis Khan

by P. B. Kerr

  Philippa had really taken to the idea of being a camel, and Nimrod said he was pleased because camels were of great historical importance to the Marid, which was the tribe of djinn to which she belonged. And she wondered if there was more to that apparently innocent experience than, at the time, she had supposed. Was there some extra purpose behind the Marid affinity with camels that even Nimrod had not realized? Was that visit to Mr. Huamai an important preparation for what was happening now? Perhaps. But only time would tell. And there was little enough of that now. She was wasting precious minutes, surely. Except to say that this little moment of reverie had brought her closer to her own deep subconscious, which seemed to overlap the camel’s, and swiftly, she set about plunging herself into the Well of ancestor memory that seemed more like the camel’s than her own.

  Meanwhile, John felt very strange. Indeed, it was the strangest feeling John had ever had. The memories he was experiencing — of his life as a calf, of his camel mother, of her untimely death at the hands of an Australian farmer (she’d been shot as part of a camel cull) — these felt like his own memories; of course, John knew they weren’t his memories, not really, but they were no less painful for all of that.

  Whatever kind of mammal you are, losing your mother is the worst thing that can ever happen to you.

  These strong emotions now gave way to something more broadly ungulate in character, which is to say that he now encountered feelings and things and ideas that were about camels in general rather than one camel in particular. Among camels as a species there were habits, customs, even myths, and artifacts, which meant that there was a lot more to being a camel: more than just life as an even-toed ungulate, bearing a distinctive fatty deposit known as a hump on your back. John could now see that to be a camel was to be a thing of beauty, as the Arab word for camel, (pronounced ğml, which means “beauty”), surely recognized.

  Perceiving that he now stood within the animal’s subconscious and at the very edge of the Well of ancestor memory, John gave himself up to it and found that he was now remembering things long forgotten: of building roads in the Australian outback; of serving with the British Army in Egypt, and before that on India’s North-West Frontier; of being part of a Persian baggage train; of fighting as part of a Roman army force in the eastern Roman Empire; of the Egyptian Ptolemies; and even the time of Philip of Macedon.

  He had gone too far back. Surely, he thought, the Romans were from a time long before the Mongols. It was the Mongol Empire he was looking for, not the Roman Empire and certainly not the Ptolemies. And thinking that Persia was at least geographically closer to Mongolia, he returned to those memories and, carrying them into the future like a camel laden with a merchant’s silks and spices, he tried to find his way through a cornucopia of history to those of his ungulate ancestors that had lived in the early thirteenth century.

  Suddenly, John encountered a vivid memory whose details he recognized: ancient Kandahar. There was no mistaking the plain on which it stood, the ancient citadel, that distant mountain range, and there was a man, who strikingly resembled Mr. Bilharzia, buying him from a thief, except that he wasn’t a him anymore, but a her — a female camel. Then John felt the saddle he/she was wearing and the beautiful bridle with which he/she was adorned. Yes. There could be no mistaking that bridle. Surely, he/she, whatever he was, had found Dunbelchin at last.

  But the pain of this discovery was intense, for was there not a great grief here? The grief of the loss of a child. This was an easy memory to track down and find. It was like a piece of jagged bone sticking out of a broken leg….

  How could anyone do such an evil thing to something so young and defenseless and innocent? The little gray-white baby camel with spindle-thin, unsteady legs that was taken away from me when it was just an hour old; when it had just stood up; before it had even been suckled. Those soft brown eyes. The most beautiful baby I had ever seen.

  To bury it alive was beyond all monstrosity. I can still hear the calf’s plaintive, high-pitched cries. These were almost human, which ought to have made it harder for the cruel tribesmen to take the calf from me. But the Mongols, who were not known for their soft hearts, took it, anyway, and tied its legs and placed it into the mausoleum with all of the khan’s treasures, and then sealed it up while I, the calf’s mother, tethered to a post, was forced to look on in appalled horror. How long did they leave me there bellowing in distress after the grave was sealed? It seemed like several days. And long enough to know that when they took me away, the calf was still alive and crying for its mother. Long enough for me to remember that spot for all eternity. Yes, I could have found that grave from the other side of the world, with my eyes closed. Just by smell. It was etched indelibly on my memory as if by very strong acid.

  How could anyone ever have forgotten this terrible site where so many others — not just my own calf — had died, thousands of them, just to keep the secret of the great Lord Temujin’s grave?

  I pictured the remote spot carefully in my mind’s eye: Burkhan Khaldun, also called Khan Khentii, a small and insignificant but carefully chosen mountain about 124 miles from the modern capital city of Mongolia, Ulan Bator, a spot so close to Genghis Khan’s birthplace at Deluun Boldog; a trackless waste close to the confluence of three tributaries of the River Kherlen and west of the River Onon; north of the Blue Lake and the ancient Mongol capital of Anurag; near a shoulder of reddish rock, a high plateau that was a forbidding place of mist and permafrost.

  Only when he was quite certain that he knew exactly where the burial place of Genghis Khan was to be found did John withdraw from the eight-hundred-year-old memories of Dunbelchin, and make his way up through the Well of ancestor memory and back into the conscious mind of the Australian feral camel.

  But once there, possessed of the wild camel’s own sight, sound, and smell, John was in for an unpleasant surprise.

  CHAPTER 31

  DON’T LOOK NOW

  It was dark and it was raining very heavily. Water bounced off John’s furry head and ran down his hill-shaped body; his two-toed feet were already several inches deep in an ever-widening puddle. A flash of white light as bright as a rolling artillery bombardment illuminated the black sky and a twisting fork of electricity split a gum tree in two; this was quickly followed by a clap of thunder as loud as Krakatoa — or so it seemed to John — and the next thing he knew the whole herd of camels, himself included, was fleeing the burning tree in terror. John ran, too, because when he tried to stop, other camels ran into him and since there were almost ten thousand of them, he knew that not to run was to risk being trampled to death. After a few hundred yards, the stampede ended but this was immediately followed by another loud thunderclap that set them all running again. This happened at least a dozen times in an hour before finally the storm passed overhead where, to John’s acute discomfort, there was now no sign of Nimrod and the flying carpet. Unlike the rest of the camels that were now gulping up as much water as they could — gallons of it — John was the only camel staring up at the already brightening sky. He brayed loudly in the hope that he would attract some attention, but there were only a few straggler clouds heading southeast in pursuit of the rest of the storm.

  “This is not good,” he told himself. “This is not good at all.”

  He considered his choices. Either he could remain inside the camel for a while longer, which seemed like the sensible option. Or he could leave the camel’s body, float above the herd a bit to see if he could spot the others, but that meant he would have to risk getting lost. The right thing to do, he knew, was to remain in the camel’s body and wait for Nimrod to come back and find him. Probably, they had been forced to seek shelter from the storm.

  And yet he also had to consider the possibility that they might have been hit by lightning, like the gum tree. Which wouldn’t have been good. And John began to patrol the area just in case Nimrod and the others were lying stunned on the ground, or more accurately, in a pool of water, for the ground was now entirel
y waterlogged. None of his surroundings seemed at all familiar. The billabong was gone. Now everything was one huge water hole.

  Half an hour passed in this way, before finally, John spied a small object approaching on the horizon and, realizing with a loud belch of relief that it was them, he flew out of the camel and headed quickly their way.

  A minute or two later, John was back in his own body, which was very cold and wet, but otherwise he was quite unharmed. Sitting up, he spat several times over the side of the damp carpet, to try to rid himself of the horrible taste of the wattle flowers. Groanin handed him a packet of mints, and a small bottle of eau de cologne. But of Philippa, there was still no sign. Her body lay motionless, exactly where she had left it, beside his own, awaiting the return of her own life’s spirit. Moby, the duck she had befriended, was waiting for her, too. He was the only one on the carpet who looked not to have minded the heavy rain. Not a bit.

  “When the storm broke,” explained Nimrod, “the camels ran every which way. We had no idea of which ones to follow. So we flew a bit higher, above the rain clouds, and waited for it to pass.”

  “What do we do now?” John looked anxiously at his sister.

  “Keep looking for her,” said Nimrod. “There’s nothing else we can do for now. I expect she’ll turn up, before long. But look here, how did you get on? Were you successful? Did you find what we’re looking for? The location of the secret tomb of Genghis Khan?”

  “Yes,” said John. “I found it.”

  “Excellent. Well done, my boy. Where is it?”

  John told him the geographical details as best he was able. “But I’ll certainly recognize the place when we see it.”

  “As soon as Phil shows up,” said Nimrod, “we’ll head to Mongolia. To see what clues we find inside the tomb. You’ll like Mongolia. I always did.”

  But after another hour, Philippa still hadn’t returned and Nimrod was worried.

  “If she was down there,” he said, pointing at the herd of camels, “surely she would have seen us by now.” He winced as he thought of something.

  “What?” asked Groanin.

  “Nothing,” said Nimrod.

  “What?” repeated Groanin, only more loudly this time. “Spit it out, man.”

  Nimrod glanced at his niece’s silent body.

  “Well, it’s just that if she left the body of any camel she’d previously taken possession of when the air was full of lightning, the electricity in the air might have stunned her spirit. Left her disorientated and floating around with no sense of where and what she is. In those circumstances, she might never find her way back to her body.”

  “What can we do?” asked John.

  “I’d go looking for her myself,” said Nimrod, “but I daren’t land this thing anywhere near those camels. Not with them being so nervous. Also it’s important that I stay aloft, where she can see us, just in case she does show up.”

  “Then I’ll go myself,” said John, pulling on his duffle coat.

  “Can you go?” asked Nimrod. “Look at you. You’re freezing, John.”

  John felt within himself and shook his head. “Yes, you’re right,” he said. “My body’s much too cold for my djinn power to work.”

  “I’m feeling rather cold and wet, as well,” admitted Nimrod. “It’s all I can do to keep this thing in the air.” He shook his head. “Besides. Even if your powers had returned, I couldn’t let you go. Not now that you know the location of the tomb, John. I can’t risk you both getting lost. What’s at stake here is far too important for you to go and look for her. Do you understand?”

  John nodded grimly. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  There was a long silence.

  “This is important, right?” said Charlie. “For the future of the world and our weather and all that?”

  “I can’t overstate just how important this is,” Nimrod said gravely. “If we don’t put a swift end to all these volcanic eruptions, the world is facing catastrophe.” He paused. “And I suspect my nephew and niece are the only ones who can put a stop to all of this.”

  John shrugged and, thinking his uncle was talking about his most recent adventure inside the body of a camel, he shrugged and said, “It was nothing.”

  Charlie thought for a moment.

  “Then I’ll do it,” he said brightly. “I’ll go and look for your niece.”

  “You?” said Nimrod. “How?”

  “You djinns aren’t the only ones who can get out of your heads,” said Charlie. “We have been doing it, too, since way back when. Believe me, I know what I’m doing. I’ve tracked more spirits than I care to remember.” He pointed at the ground that lay beneath the flying carpet. “Down there is a whole labyrinth of invisible songlines and pathways. But I reckon I can find her all right.”

  “He’s right,” said Jimmy. “If anyone can track your niece in the spirit world, mate, it’s Charlie here.”

  “You can track spirits?” Nimrod sounded surprised. “How?”

  “Charlie can track anything,” said Jimmy. “In this world or the next.”

  “Then, please,” said Nimrod. “I’d be very grateful if you would go and look for my niece, Charlie.”

  “Me, too,” admitted Groanin. “I say, me, too.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” asked Nimrod.

  Charlie shook his head.

  “Reckon all I need is a bit of a tune on Jimmy’s yirdaki, to put me in the proper mood, like,” he said. “That and a mask to stick on my mug, to disguise my true identity from the spirits. Just in case they get a bit annoyed with something I do and come looking for me afterward.”

  “We always wear a mask when we visit the spirit world,” explained Jimmy. “They can get a bit narked when you turn up unannounced, like.” He picked up the yirdaki and gave it a couple of experimental blows, like a man tuning up for a concert.

  “What kind of mask?” asked Nimrod.

  “I dunno,” said Charlie. “Black is best. But it doesn’t have to be too fancy like the ones we sell the tourists. Those masks are just for making money. So the more elaborate they are, the better. Nah, plain black is good enough, I reckon.”

  A smallish figure wearing a red duffle coat walked toward him. It was Professor Sturloson.

  “Will this do?” he said, and handed Charlie his own black face mask.

  Charlie’s jaw dropped several inches and his eyes widened as he stared hard at the professor for a long moment. And he wasn’t the only one staring. Anyone would have found it hard not to stare at the face framed by the hood of the red duffle coat. For the face was not one horribly burnt and blackened by a superhot pyroclastic flow; it was that of a child with rosy cheeks and a cute little dimple in its chin, a child not much younger than John or Philippa.

  “Blimey,” said Groanin, and looked away.

  “Blóðugur helvíti,” said Axel.

  Remembering his manners at last, Charlie looked sheepishly at the mask he now held in his hands. “Er, yes,” he said. “That’ll do nicely, mate. No worries. Cheers.”

  “It’s all right,” said the professor. “I don’t mind any of you looking. Not now, my friends. But perhaps I do owe you all an explanation. Especially you, Axel. Yes, especially you, my old friend.”

  “None of my business what you look like,” said Axel. “Seems to me that if a man wants to wear a mask, it’s his own affair.”

  “Don’t you want to know why?” asked the professor.

  Axel shrugged. “Not if you don’t want to tell me.”

  “I told you all I’d resisted having a face transplant,” said the professor. “When, in fact, the truth is I did have one. However, there was a mix-up at the Edvard Munch Memorial Hospital in Oslo, and the surgeon had taken off my face — or what remained of it — before he found out that the donor face came from an eleven-year-old girl. By then, it was too late to stop the operation and he was obliged to go ahead and give me this face you see now. Since then, I’ve been stuck with it. It must seem ridic
ulous to you, I know; but the fact is I wear the mask because, well, I was worried that no one would take me seriously with the face of an eleven-year-old girl; and in a field like volcanology, it’s always important that people take you very seriously. After all, who’s going to evacuate a whole city that’s threatened with a lava flow on the say-so of someone with a face like this?”

  John nodded. “I get it,” he said. “When you’re wearing a black mask, people can’t help but take you and your scientific field very seriously indeed.” He shrugged. “I mean, if Batman looked like some kid in elementary school, well, it just wouldn’t work, would it?”

  “Makes perfect sense to me,” admitted Groanin. “I say, that makes perfect sense to me, Professor.”

  The professor nodded and smiled an angelic smile. “I still wish that eventually I might be able to grow a beard or something.” He shrugged. “But, so far nothing.”