Munglik went ahead of her, leading her up the slope. When they came to the berry bushes, he pointed out the flattened underbrush of the trail he had found.
“Gather some berries and go back,” Khokakhchin said. “I’ll follow this trail.”
“By yourself? But—”
“I remind you that Jali-gulug took me with him when he hunted the ghost-tiger,” she said. “I’m not afraid to meet him now.”
Munglik shook back his long black hair. “He may be dead, after so many days alone.”
“Then I will say a prayer for him.” She made a sign. “Keep the Bahadur’s children safe. Don’t let them wander from the shelter. I’ll return as soon as I can.”
She left him and followed the trail to the clearing. Jali-gulug’s horse, the same one he had been riding when she had last seen him, was drinking from the spring. The gelding’s bay coat was dull and marked by scratches; it lifted its head and whinnied as she approached. She circled the clearing and soon found more underbrush with broken branches; Jali-gulug had not troubled to hide his tracks.
The trail led her higher, to another clearing. Above her, Jali-gulug sat on an outcropping, eyes closed, back against the fallen trunk of a tree. She climbed up to him, clinging to the bushes and branches as she ascended the steep hillside.
Jali-gulug’s face had the tight dry skin of a corpse; the hands resting on his folded legs were claws. His shaven head was uncovered, his braids hanging over his chest. At first she was sure that he was dead, and then he opened his eyes.
“Khokakhchin.”
She sat down next to him on the rocky outcropping. Over the tops of the pines below them, she saw the battlefield. The Tatars had put out their fires; the men of their heavy cavalry were mounting their horses. Near the man bearing Ghunan’s tugh, the Tatar war drummer was astride his horse, his drums hanging at his mount’s sides. The warriors looked so small from here, waiting for Yesugei to ride across the empty expanse to meet them. This had to be how Tengri saw men, as tiny creatures that could be swept away in an instant.
“Do you have water?” he asked.
“Yes.” She slipped her waterskin from her belt and lifted it to his lips. He drank only a few drops, then feebly pushed the skin from himself.
“You found me,” he said. “The spirits sent you to me.”
“My mistress sent me up the mountain with her children. Your trail led me here.” But he had spoken the truth. Her dream that night had sent her to his side.
“I know now why the spirits led me here,” he said. “I can save our people, but I must draw on what’s inside you to do it.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“You must help me, Khokakhchin. I need a basin, a cup, anything that can hold water.”
“I didn’t bring such things with me.”
“Then give me your waterskin.”
She handed it to him. He leaned forward; seeing how weak he was, she slipped an arm around him to support him. He poured some water into a small cavity in the rocky ground, then fumbled at his waist.
He drew out one of his pouches and opened it, his fingers fumbling at the leather ties, and shook several large round white stones as smooth as jade into his hand. Khokakhchin tensed, realizing what he intended to do.
“Your jada stones,” she whispered. “You mean to call down rain.”
“I mean to call down a storm.”
“You mustn’t,” she cried, drawing away from him. “A storm might turn on us.”
“Khokakhchin.” His voice had changed. “You still deny me my vengeance against the Tatars. You deny rest to the ghosts of your people.” Her husband was speaking through Jali-gulug once more. “You must consent to this,” the young man continued in his own voice, “or I cannot call down the storm.”
“Do what you must,” she said, bowing her head, knowing she was now no more than an eye of fire in Jali-gulug’s hand.
He put his jada stones in the small cavity of water, then poured more water over them as he chanted. She did not know the words he spoke, and wondered where he had learned the spell. Bughu might have taught him the words, or perhaps a spirit had whispered the spell to him.
The wind rose. She heard the wind shriek above them, crying out as it swept toward the plain. She felt it rise inside herself and knew that Jali-gulug was drawing on her strength. Khokakhchin screamed; the wind howled back at her, wailing through the trees.
Jali-gulug kept chanting. The wind was coming over the mountain ridge, gusting to the southeast. If the wind did not change, Yesugei’s people, behind their barricades at the bottom of the ridge, would escape the brunt of the storm. The wind would not shift; she would aim it at the enemy. She screamed again, feeling her soul feed the storm.
Thunder rolled over the ridge, bringing thick clouds as black as felt. The dark clouds billowed over the sky above the plain; lightning slashed through the darkness. The Tatars milled around on the plain, their battle plan forgotten in their terror of storms and lightning. Horses reared, throwing their riders. Men threw themselves to the ground as a bolt of lightning flashed from Heaven and struck the Earth.
The trees below bowed in the wind. Khokakhchin’s skin prickled; her face flamed as more lightning forked and struck the plain. Lightning severed a mass of dark clouds. A gust tore Ghunan’s standard from the hand of the Tatar warrior holding it. A bolt shot down from the sky, stabbing into the midst of a knot of Tatar warriors on horseback. Some of the enemy rear forces were already in retreat, streaming east.
The rain came in sheets, hiding the battlefield from Khokakhchin. She called out to the spirits and another bolt pierced the plain. Thunder beat against her ears with the sound of a war drum. Jali-gulug was taking all her power. The air grew sharply colder, and soon the rain had turned to ice.
Sleet lashed her face; ice glittered on Jali-gulug’s coat. Shielded as they were on this side of the ridge, they could not escape the storm altogether. Khokakhchin huddled against the tree trunk and covered her face with her arms, feeling her power ebb from her. There was a hollowness inside her; the strength given to her by the spirits had been spent. She would die here, she supposed. It did not matter. Yesugei’s people would survive, and her mistress’s children would be safe. Her husband’s spirit would be at peace; she would join him at last.
The wind was dying. Khokakhchin lay still, waiting until the spirits among the trees were speaking only in sighs. She sat up slowly, marveling that she still lived.
Tatar bodies littered the plain. Panic had probably killed as many of the enemy as the storm. The enemy was retreating. Two wings of Yesugei’s force were already in pursuit, fanning out as they galloped after the Tatars. They would pick off more of the enemy, then close around them like talons. Both the Tatars and Yesugei’s allies would tell stories of how Heaven had come to the Bahadur’s aid.
“Jali-gulug,” Khokakhchin said, “you are the greatest of shamans. Even Bughu would admit that now.”
He did not reply.
“He will of course claim that his prophecy of victory turned out to be true after all.”
Jali-gulug was silent. She turned to him. He lay against the tree trunk, his legs folded, his bony hands resting against his thighs. His lips were drawn back from his teeth; his dark eyes stared sightlessly at Heaven. His chest did not move, he made no sound, and she saw that his spirit had left him.
Yesugei’s people would never know of his greatness. They would not believe an old woman who was the only witness to his power, and who had lost what power she had in aiding him. She bowed her head and let her tears fall, mourning Jali-gulug and the honor he should have been granted but would never have, then wiped her face.
Some of the Mongol men and boys were moving among the enemy dead, stripping the bodies. She reached for Jali-gulug’s jada stones, put them into his pouch, then slipped the pouch under his shirt. She would make a shelter of tree limbs to house his body before she left him.
She stood up and began searching
the ground near the outcropping for dead branches. Munglik would be waiting with Yesugei’s children, perhaps fearing that she had been lost, and Hoelun Ujin would be worrying about her sons. She could tell Munglik truthfully that she had found Jali-gulug and that he had died on the mountainside. She would have to pay her respects to the young shaman quickly. She would pray for him later, when Yesugei and his people celebrated their victory.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without
the express written permission of the publisher.
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
“Pamela Sargent, Writer,” copyright © 2003 by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.
“The Broken Hoop,” copyright © 1982 by TZ Publications. First published in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, June 1982.
“The Soul’s Shadow,” copyright © 1986 by Mercury Press, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1986.
“Ringer,” copyright © 1995 by Pamela Sargent. First published in More Phobias, edited by Wendy Webb, Richard Gilliam, Edward E. Kramer, and Martin H. Greenberg (Pocket Books, 1995).
“Bond and Free,” copyright © 1974 by Mercury Press, Inc. First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1974. Copyright reassigned to the author in 1977.
“Big Roots,” copyright © 1994 by Pamela Sargent. First published in Return to the Twilight Zone, edited by Carol Serling (DAW Books, 1994).
“The Shrine,” copyright © 1982 by TZ Publications. First published in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, December 1982.
“The Leash,” copyright © 1987 by TZ Publications. First published in Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone Magazine, April 1987.
“Outside the Windows,” copyright © 1993 by Pamela Sargent. First published in Journeys to the Twilight Zone, edited by Carol Serling (DAW Books, 1993).
“Eye of Flame,” copyright © 1996 by Pamela Sargent. First published in Warrior Enchantresses, edited by Kathleen M. Massie-Ferch and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW Books, 1996).
Copyright © 2003 by Pamela Sargent
Cover design by Andy Ross
978-1-5040-1039-9
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
EARLY BIRD BOOKS
FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY
BE THE FIRST TO KNOW ABOUT
FREE AND DISCOUNTED EBOOKS
NEW DEALS HATCH EVERY DAY
EBOOKS BY PAMELA SARGENT
FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA
Available wherever ebooks are sold
Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media.
Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases
Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox.
Sign up now at
www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters
FIND OUT MORE AT
WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM
FOLLOW US:
@openroadmedia and
Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia
Eye of Flame Page 23