Erdeni's Tiger

by Pamela Sargent

  Her father disappeared.

  Trapped inside her dream, Erdeni remembered that she had gone back to find her grandfather dead, his wives presiding at his funeral feast, and everyone in the camp gathering to carry his body to his final resting place, a slope in the Khingan foothills.

  Now she found herself lying in her father's yurt again, begging the spirits to stop tormenting her. Someone was beating a drum; she dimly recalled that Goghun had summoned Budjek, his favorite shaman, for her. The drumming sound stopped, and then the dark tent was filled with voices, all of them the familiar voices of her brothers and her cousins and her friends:

  “Erdeni is afflicted.”

  “Some say she put a curse on her grandfather.”

  “Our chief was taken from us when the spirits came for her. Better that they had kept her and returned our leader to us.”

  “She can take the form of an eagle and fly to Heaven.”

  “Be careful what you say. She can linger near you unseen and listen to your words, she can overhear your thoughts.”

  Too weak to rise from her bed, Erdeni listened helplessly to the thoughts of those in her camp, and then one voice, melodic but piercing, rose above the rest.

  “Foolish girl,” Kuan was saying. “You think you hear the voices of spirits. I call them the sound of madness. You believe you may have the gift for magic. I have seen true magicians in my own land, and they could pull birds from empty boxes and make a woman float in the air. There are men in Khitai who possess the secret of the elixir of life, a potion that can make one live for three hundred years and more. I have not seen any such wonders among your wretched people.”

  “I can't deny what the spirits will for me.” Erdeni struggled for breath. “They'll only torment me more if I do.”

  “Give in to them, then,” her grandmother said. “Give in to your voices, to all the spirits that afflict you. I shall tell you what you will then become—a pitiful creature, ranting and raving and rattling your bag of small bones, thinking you are in command of your spirits while they feed on you.”

  “No!” Erdeni cried.

  “I am dying,” Kuan said. “A claw clutches at my heart and twists my entrails, giving me no rest. I am ready to leave this world.”

  Erdeni sighed. “You want to go to Grandfather.”

  “What sentimentality, child. I do not care what becomes of his spirit now. It is only that he is no longer here to make my life easier, and I have no wish to continue living among those who are now likely to make it harder. Farewell, child. Perhaps you are fortunate in your madness. It may keep you from seeing how truly poor and brutal your world and people are.”

  “Grandmother!” Erdeni was suddenly on her feet. Budjek the shaman was still sitting near the doorway, his hand resting on his drum, his eyes wide with fright as he stared at her.

  She reached for the tunic that lay on a chest near her bed, put it on, then tied a sash around her waist. She said, “I am going to my grandmother.”

  “You must not,” Budjek said.

  “You can't stop me.” She moved toward the doorway, not bothering to pull on her boots. The shaman shrank back as she went outside. The black night sky was dotted with stars, the smokeholes of Tengri. She walked past wagons and yurts and over ground scarred by ruts until she came to her grandmother's tent.

  “Kuan,” she whispered.

  Another shaman sat outside the doorway. A spear with a ribbon of black felt had been thrust into the ground, a sign that a dying person lay inside and that everyone must shun this dwelling. “Go away,” the shaman said.

  “I have to go to her.”

  “You'll have a curse on you if you're with her when she takes her last breath.”

  “I can save her.” It was true; the power to heal was in her. The spirits had given her that power. She entered the tent and crept through the darkness to her grandmother's bed.

  “Leave me,” a voice said inside her.

  Erdeni slowly drifted outside her body until she was bound to it by only a slender thread. Her arms were tendrils of light; she reached toward Kuan and saw the glowing threads pass through her grandmother's body. She probed, feeling the wild beating of Kuan's weakening heart, the swelling of her lungs as she gasped for breath.

  “Let me die,” Kuan said as her ghostly form rose from the still form on the bed.

  “I can save you, Grandmother. I can draw the sickness from you.”

  “You hope that you can work some magic to restore me to life, and that when my spirit returns to me, you will win praise and honor for yourself. You want to restore me to a life that is only a burden so that you can have others whisper of your power. You have overreached yourself, Erdeni.”

  Erdeni dug deeper, and was suddenly aflame. Her tendrils were burning, twisting into blackened cords; fire rose in her throat. She had touched venom in Kuan's body and soul, and drawn some of it into herself.

  “You swallowed poison,” Erdeni gasped from her scorched throat. “You knowingly tried to bring death upon yourself!”

  “It's true.” The shimmering form of Kuan grew to fill the tent. “I would rather die by my own hand than live among you any longer. Here is your choice, wretched creature. Go into my mind and heal me, draw the poison into your own soul. You may suffer for it, even cripple yourself or die for it, but those are the risks a true shamaness must take. Or you may allow me the death I seek.”

  Erdeni twisted amid the flames that licked at her, horrified at what Kuan had done, wanting only to flee.

  “Get out!” her grandmother shrieked. “And may you and all your people be damned!”

  A wall of flame hurled Erdeni from the tent. She screamed and found herself sitting up in her bed. An arm was around her shoulders, a hand gripping her fingers tightly.

  “Child,” old Chelig murmured, “what is wrong? Why do you cry out so?”

  “It's nothing. A bad dream.”

  She had run from her grandmother's tent screaming, and had only a dim recollection of the months after Kuan's passing, when she had gone about her chores passively, feeling as though her grandmother had taken part of her spirit with her into the next world. Perhaps she had. Kuan had certainly taken whatever courage Erdeni might have possessed; only her fears and cowardice remained. She had thanked the spirits for abandoning her and allowing her to escape the life of a shaman. She had prayed that she would never hear their voices again.

  “I think you had more than a bad dream,” Chelig said. “I sensed a presence creeping toward me before you cried out. You should speak to Nachin. He may be able to help you.”

  “No.” Nachin was shaman in this camp, and one of Dei's closest comrades. His eyes had the look of the eagle for which he was named, and Jirghadai had told her that Nachin often flew to Heaven when he went to Mount Chegcher to pray and seek visions. She did not want those piercing eyes looking into her soul. “I am a coward,” she said softly.

  Chelig did not seem to hear as she got up and made her way back to her bed.

  * * * *

  Doghuz's shouts woke everyone camped near her circle. By the time Erdeni had run from her tent to join Doghuz, who was huddled near a wagon, several men and boys were riding toward them from other parts of the camp.

  Alghu, an uncle of Jirghadai's, dismounted and hurried toward Doghuz. “They came as soon as I told them,” he said. “Are you sure that—”

  “Look for yourself,” Doghuz replied. The bloodied carcass of a sheep lay only a few paces from the older woman's tent. Next to it was one of Nayan's big dogs, its throat torn open.

  “You heard nothing?” one man asked.

  “Nothing at all.” Doghuz's hands were trembling; she thrust them into her wide sleeves.

  Alghu studied the ground near the two carcasses. “It's clear what happened,” he said. “The sheep strayed beyond the wagons, the beast brought it down, and then the dog must have run here to drive the tiger away.”

  “A tiger?” Erdeni asked.

  “Look for yourse
lf,” Alghu said. “Those are a tiger's tracks.” He gazed out at the flat grassland with its patches of desert. “What I don't understand is how the tiger killed the dog before it could bark a warning, and where it could have fled after making its kill.”

  “First a horse,” Doghuz muttered, “and now this.” She looked up as Dei Sechen rode toward them, Nachin at his side. The two men dismounted and walked toward the dead animals. Nachin peered at the bodies; Dei scowled as he stroked the graying strands of his wispy beard.

  “We'll have to set out a poisoned carcass,” Nachin said, “and hope that rids us of this tiger.” His small dark eyes were slits. “Let's hope that works, and we don't have to hunt the beast.”

  “A hungry tiger might harry our herds in winter,” Dei said, “but I don't understand one coming so close to a camp in summer. The creature would find more game in the mountains, or in the forests to the north.” He glanced at his men. “Alghu, ride to the horseherders and ask if they've seen any more signs of a tiger. If not, tell Jirghadai to ride back here with my son.”

  Alghu mounted his horse and galloped away. Nachin was still staring at the animal carcasses. He lifted his head; his eyes met Erdeni's. “Did you hear anything last night?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “She was dreaming,” Chelig said as she came up to Erdeni's side, “and awoke with a cry. I felt that something unseen was near us, but the young Ujin's cries must have scared whatever it was away.”

  Nachin leaned toward Erdeni. “Was your dream of a tiger?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “Not last night. But the night before—” She hesitated. “There was a tiger in my dream then, and evil spirits devouring a horse. The next morning, my husband's father told us that a tiger had killed one of the horses.”

  “Have you had prophetic dreams before, Erdeni Ujin?” Nachin asked.

  “Only once, before my grandfather died. I saw him among the dead, and found out later that he had completed his life.”

  Nachin's eyes narrowed, and she suddenly felt that he knew all about her and the time the spirits had driven her from her father's camp.

  “Erdeni is a strange one,” Chelig said in her quavering voice. “I wonder—”

  “Half the morning will pass while we stand here talking,” Dei said. “It's time we were about our work.” He and the men with him were quickly in their saddles.

  The fingers of Nachin's right hand moved as he turned away from Erdeni and walked toward his horse. He was making a sign to ward off evil, she saw then, and directing his spell at her.

  * * * *

  On the night Nachin left the poisoned carcass of a lamb outside the camp for the tiger, Jirghadai was with Erdeni again. She slept deeply, untroubled by dreams, soothed by his presence. The carcass was still untouched in the morning; the men on guard had seen no sign of the big cat.

  Jirghadai was on guard the next night, keeping watch near the fires outside his father's camping circle. Erdeni, alone in her bed once more, dreamed that she was flying over the steppe, her arms now wings, her toes curled into talons. A star, twinkling in the blackness overhead, became a campfire as the wind bore her closer to the light.

  Kuan was huddling near the fire, as she always had in life even on the warmest of days, her long black hair a dark mass covering her shoulders and back. “Your spirit wanders,” Erdeni said to her grandmother's ghost as she alighted. “It's because you weren't a good woman, because you took your own life.”

  Kuan threw back her head and laughed.

  “Get away from me, Grandmother. Stop haunting me, or I'll ask the shaman Nachin to cast a spell that will drive you from me.”

  “Ask him,” Kuan said. “That pathetic chanter of useless words has no power over me. I have reason to keep near this camp of barbarians.”

  “You have no cause to be anywhere around Dei Sechen's people.”

  “But I do. Something has drawn me here. Do you know what is beyond this world, Erdeni? Chaos—only the disordered shards of a shattered cosmic jewel. One can follow any number of fragmented trails, each of them leading to a different world—and yet each of those worlds is this one. I have followed a trail that has shown me my granddaughter as an old woman, sitting in her tent with her sons and their sons, respected and honored. I have traveled over another trail to an Erdeni dying alone in her tent during a harsh winter, with no one to pray for her spirit. Along still another trail, I found an Erdeni who lived out her life never knowing that there is a vast world beyond this poor pasture. Would you like to know what the future may hold for you?”

  “No.”

  “But you have caught some glimpses of it when the future has cast its shadow into the past. There is much more you could see along these ever-changing trails.” Kuan rose to her feet, her black hair swaying. “It is one of those trails that brought me here, and you, Erdeni, will keep me here.”

  “Leave me in peace, Grandmother,” Erdeni said.

  “You are not the only reason I am here. You are nothing by yourself, only a woman destined to be another nameless soul forgotten by the world. But you are a tool I can use for my purposes.”

  “I won't let you.”

  “Oh, but you will.” Kuan laughed. “You are a coward, fearful of any powers you may have, remember?” Her laugh became a shriek.

  Erdeni fled, soaring high over the Earth, then felt herself falling. Her limbs jerked; there was grass under her face. She was lying on her stomach, her hands clutching at stony ground. She lifted her head and realized that she was lying out in the open, outside her tent, far from her camping circle.

  Erdeni stood up slowly, shivering in her silk shift, her knees shaking. Dei's camp was a few black mounds jutting up from the distant northern horizon. Not far from her lay the carcass of a dead calf.

  She crept toward the dead animal, knowing what she would find. The tracks were easy to read in the dawn light. Perhaps this calf had wandered away from its mother during the night; it had been easy prey for the tiger.

  She sank to the ground and covered her face. “Help me,” she whispered, terrified.

  She sat there for a long time, hands over her eyes, looking up when she heard the sound of a horse's hooves, hoping to see her husband.

  Nachin was riding to her, with another horse tied to the horn of his saddle by its reins.

  He halted near her, untied the reins of his spare horse, and handed them to her. Erdeni said nothing to him as she mounted. Nachin trotted toward the dead calf, circling it slowly, then rode back to her.

  “Your husband was on guard,” the shaman said. “He didn't know you were gone until he was relieved of duty and went back to his tent. No one saw you leave your tent. What did you do, woman—fly out through the smokehole?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Did you see a vision before you found yourself here?”

  “I don't remember.” The dream was already fading in her mind. “I was near a campfire. My grandmother's ghost was there, telling me that she had a reason to haunt me, but I don't recall—”

  “When did you last dream of your grandmother before tonight?”

  She swallowed. “The night the tiger killed the sheep and the dog.”

  Anger glinted in his eyes. “Then I fear that you and your grandmother's ghost may have brought a curse upon us.” He flicked his horse's flank lightly with his whip and began to ride toward the camp; she galloped after him.

  * * * *

  Nachin made her wait outside the camp while he and Jirghadai went to Dei Sechen's tent. When the men returned, Nachin led Erdeni between the two fires burning outside her camping circle. All who entered the camp had to pass between fires to purify themselves, but the shaman wanted more from her. Under his direction, she took down her yurt with Doghuz's help and loaded its panels, along with the trunks holding her possessions, into the two-wheeled cart she had ridden to her husband's camp.

  By then, the sun was dropping to the west, and nearly all of the Onggirats had gathered to watch as Erd
eni drove her horse-drawn cart between two larger fires and the shaman beat his drum and chanted. Nachin wanted everything she had brought with her purified, and even then would not allow her back into the camp. She was to put up her yurt downriver, away from everyone else.

  She unhitched her mare and tethered the animal to the cart. She raised her dwelling alone, holding back her tears as she steadied the wicker frame and tied the felt panels to it. She did not deserve this. Only a person tainted by staying with someone who was dying, or a family whose yurt had been struck by lightning, had to go through such a purification. Only the worst of curses required one to live outside a camp for a time.

  Nachin rode out to her that night. She put him in the place of honor in front of the bed and sat down on his left, handing him a horn of some of the kumiss she had brought with her. He murmured a blessing, scattered some drops to the spirits, then drank.

  “I see,” she said bitterly, “that my kumiss is under no curse.”

  “You and your belongings were purified, and I'm thirsty.”

  “And I suppose you'll expect to be paid a horse or two by my husband for going to all of this trouble over me.” She sipped her kumiss. “Why do I have to stay out here if I'm now purified?”

  “You'll be here only until I can find out more about what you may have brought to us. We'll soon be moving north to Lake Kolen. I don't want us carrying this curse with us to our summer grazing grounds.” He paused. “You seem to have a gift, Erdeni. It may be that you have the ability to master much powerful magic. Why aren't you following the way of the shaman?”

  “Because the spirits who once spoke to me no longer do.”

  “I don't believe you. They still call to you. They carried you from this camp. It is you who have turned from them and refuse to hear them. That makes you dangerous, because evil spirits may try to use whatever power you have for their own ends.”

  She could hide nothing from this man. “I am cowardly,” she said. “The way is too hard. I saw the demands it would make of me when I tried to save my grandmother. I don't want to reach into others and draw their pain into myself.”