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In a remote village, a shaman must live with the alienation that results from his cowardly disobedience. But is there another price to pay as well?
Fiction
Speculative
Zahil tried, again, to become a bird and fly. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply. The air particles swarmed around him and under him, filled his lungs, flowed with his blood. He felt the change all at once. He was power now, and knowledge. Feathers and talons, and wide, seeing eyes. He beat his strong wings, and air rushed obediently in to fill the space underneath them. Now came the critical moment. He concentrated, projected himself mentally into the translucent element that filled the deep sky. To take flight was to master the air. He stretched upwards, outwards, off the platform—leaned his muscles into the infinite blue sea over his head…
He opened his eyes. It was no use. The spirits were angry, and they would no longer assist him. Indeed, they were no longer speaking to him. Zahil stood up on the wooden platform at the top of the old watchtower. His people had built the tower long ago at the south end of the village, and for years it had been a place where villagers kept watch for marauders and bandits and renegade soldiers. But now the empire of the Great Khan was a place of order and law, and the watchtower served only as a place for the shaman to take flight, to conquer the sky.
Zahil shook himself free of the remnants of the failed spell. Shamed now, and humbled, he looked out to the limit of his vision, to the place where the unattainable sky met the earth—the inscrutable horizon, which one moment teased him with the illusion of possibility, and the next moment taunted him with his failures. Zahil became angry, then, at the spirit that governed the horizon, and in his heart he accused it, called it malevolent—a liar and a demon, a slayer of men and a destroyer of possibilities.
And with a distant puff of dust, the spirit of the horizon answered him.
At first, Zahil was not certain of what he saw. At first, the image was a distant blur, a smudge of dirt on the line that divided earth from sky. Very gradually, the image increased in size and clarity as it separated from the line of the horizon and began its slow crawl over the steppe toward the village, until at last Zahil recognized the smudge as a single horse and rider. A little longer, and he saw the white and red streamer which marked the horse as belonging to the Khan. At that moment, he felt he knew, also, who the rider was. And once again, in his heart, Zahil cursed the horizon, which had produced his brother out of nowhere, and was sending him home.
Now Zahil flew. He leaped down the steps of the ladder and, with wings spread wide, he soared into the village. He ran all the way, and did not stop until he reached the center of the village, and the dwelling of Sarga, the chief.
Tem greeted him at the door. She was a mature woman, and still beautiful despite the strands of gray in her long, black hair and the creases at the corners of her eyes. Long ago, Zahil remembered, so long ago that it seemed another life, Tem had been the wife of another man, and the mother of two sons. Now she was Sarga’s wife, and past childbearing. She smiled warmly. "Zahil, my son!" she said. "What is it?"
"I am not your son," Zahil told her. A shaman had no mother. This was a fact which everyone understood—everyone except Tem—and he was tired of reminding her of it. "I come with news for your husband. And for you."
She frowned, and stepped aside to let him in.
Sarga’s dwelling was simple and humble, identical in its construction to every other house in the village. It was circular, having its door at the south end, and a central fire whose smoke rose through a hole at the center of the roof. Sarga sat on the floor at the left side of this fire, sharpening the blades of his knives. He looked up when Zahil entered and, briefly, his brow wrinkled. Then almost immediately, the questioning, worried expression vanished, and he smiled. His face was deeply lined with age, and his eyes were deep with experience. Sarga was a good chief, honest but not foolish, strong but not cruel, and he bowed to no one except the shaman.
He stood now, and bowed, and invited Zahil to sit with him in the place of honor at the north side of the house, behind the fire, where the family maintained an altar for the worship of the spirits and the ancestors. Tem followed, and sat on the floor beside her husband, facing Zahil.
"Tell me what is this is about," Sarga said.
To Sarga, Zahil said, "It’s Yulim." Then he looked at Tem and said, "Your son is coming. I saw him, riding on horseback, with the Khan’s banner streaming behind."
Tem, ordinarily reserved and dignified, now became a sputtering fountain of questions. "Yulim is coming home? You saw him from your flight in the sky? Is he still many days away? Is he in danger? Is he in need? Does he travel alone? What brings him back to us?"
Zahil drew a steady, deep breath. These were questions a shaman was expected to be able to answer, but Zahil’s spirit powers were limited. "He is already near, and approaching fast. I saw him just now, from the tower. He is alone, riding from the south, and perhaps even now he is entering the village."
Tem jumped to her feet. "Here now? Lords of Heaven! Sarga, we must go and welcome him. Better yet, I will go. You go and find your daughters. Have them prepare a feast for tonight. My son is coming home!" Then she turned and ran to the door.
"Patience, woman," Sarga called after her. "Let us first determine what brings Yulim back to us, and then we shall decide if it is a matter for feasting over."
But Tem was already outside, holding her skirt bunched at her knees and running down to the south end of the village.
Zahil sat with Sarga on the floor of the old chief’s house, and they waited.
At last, Tem threw open the door and, entering, she pulled Yulim by the hand so that he stood for a moment on the threshold. Zahil looked up to see his younger brother silhouetted darkly against the blinding light of day. A moment later, and Yulim stepped boldly into the chief’s house, and Sarga and Zahil rose to greet him. Then the door closed, and Yulim’s features emerged.
It had not yet been a full year, but already the round face of the baby was gone, replaced with harder lines of bone and muscle. But the face—older, now, and worn, and unshaven after the long journey—still lacked the fierceness of a born warrior. His hair was long, and fell past his shoulders in waves. But Yulim’s eyes were as they had always been—dull and unobservant, looking inward on some private fantasy. Zahil wondered how much his brother had learned in the past year, and how much he had guessed.
Yulim bowed low to Sarga. "Father," he said. Although Sarga was the husband of Yulim’s mother, and not Yulim’s true father, it was nonetheless customary and polite to address one’s stepfather as father. Then Yulim bowed to the shaman. "Brother," he said. "It’s good to see you again."
The men sat cross-legged on the floor now, before the door of the house, while Tem bustled about, making green tea and preparing a sleeping place for her son.
"We are pleased that you are well," Sarga said to Yulim.
Yulim bowed his head slightly, and made to speak.
Sarga raised his hand, silencing him. "But you coming here is also a matter of concern to us. If you come here without the blessing of the spirits, you may bring misfortune behind you."
"Father," said Yulim. "Don’t be fearful. I’m here rightfully, and only for a short time."
Sarga raised his eyebrows.
"I was granted leave. For one phase of the moon only. Calculating the time I need for traveling, I can stay here for a fortnight, no more."
"Only a fortnight?" asked Tem, as she removed the pot of water from the fire. "That is so short! They should have allowed you more time for travel, so you could stay longer with us."
Sarga ignored his wife. "It cannot be common, for soldiers in the service of the Khan to leave their post."
Yulim shook his head. "Not common. But permissible under the circumstances."
Tem finished laying out the tea cloth, with the pot and cups, on the floor before the men. Now she sat beside her son. "Circumstances?"
"Our commander is leading us east in the spring. Into China, to the lands ruled by the Jin."
Tem protested. "But that is so far! At the end of the earth! That’s what I feared most, when Zahil dreamed you, when he said you had to go and fight for the Khan. I was afraid of losing you forever." She looked accusingly at Zahil, who squirmed under her glare.
"Yes, Mother," said Yulim. "It is at the end of the earth. That is why I asked the commander for leave to visit my home once more."
Sarga dismissed his stepson’s sentimentality with a wave of his hand. "I am sure every soldier would like to see again the village where he was born, and where his mother lives. But a commander who gives a man permission to leave his duty, even for a short time—the Khan should take his head!"
Tem looked up from pouring the tea, and frowned at her husband. But she said nothing.
But Yulim laughed. "Precisely. And the commander said no."
The others looked at Yulim, and waited without speaking for the rest of the story.
Yulim raised his cup to his lips, took a slow sip of his tea. Then he set the cup down again. "The next night," he continued. "The commander was drunk. So six of us, we invited him to play a game of dice, with the loser granting the winner’s request. And we called the spirits to witness."
Tem laughed with delight and clapped her hands. "And your commander was drunk, and so he lost! Very good!"
Sarga ignored Tem. He lowered his eyebrows, and spoke sternly to his stepson. "A commander who drinks, and gambles with his men. The Khan should take that man’s head."
Yulim nodded. "And he still refused to grant our request. There were six of us now, all asking for a month’s leave. One man called on the spirits who witnessed the game, and cursed the commander’s family."
Zahil stirred uneasily at this, and broke his silence. "How did you come here, Yulim?"
"There was an eclipse of the sun," said Yulim.
"Yes," said Tem. "I remember the day. I was outdoors with your daughters, Sarga. We were talking and laughing, and then all at once the sky became dark, and we were frightened. We ran, each of us to her own house. It’s very bad luck, when that happens."
The usually patient chief became annoyed now. "Outdoors," he said to his wife, "talking and laughing with my foolish daughters, and none of you doing your work." Then to his stepson, he said, "Yulim, finish your story."
"Yes, Mother, it was bad luck," said Yulim. "The commander returned to his house to find his son had gone blind, and his wife had miscarried. He thought it was his fault, that the spirits had cursed him because he had not granted us our request."
"So then, he let you leave," said Sarga.
Yulim nodded. "For a phase of the moon," he said.
Sarga turned to the shaman. "Did you dream this, too, Zahil? Did you dream your brother would come to us at this time?"
Ashamed, Zahil shook his head.
"Then," said Sarga, "I do not believe it is the wish of the spirits. But, Yulim, you have come, and we will keep you for a fortnight," he said, and he slapped his knees with finality. Then he shook his head, and said again, "That commander should lose his head."
Tem began weeping, then. And with her sleeve, she wiped the tears from her face. "I am so happy," she said. "I am so happy."
But the shaman stared darkly at his brother, and said nothing.
Zahil was the shaman, the dreamer. He dreamed the time for planting and the time for harvesting. He dreamed the births, and the names, of children. He dreamed the causes of illnesses, and the cures. He dreamed when the spirits required the killing of animals. And he dreamed one other thing.
Every mother of sons was required to give one son, and one son only, to the Khan’s army. For every mother of sons in the village, the shaman dreamed and, on waking, he pronounced the name of the son who was to go to war.
For Tem, long ago, he named Yulim.
That first night the entire village celebrated Yulim’s homecoming with a feast. The women, under the direction of Sarga’s grown daughters, prepared lamb, and millet cakes sweetened with honey, and they borrowed nuts from the winter stores. The village buzzed with excitement, and Tem was so overcome with her joy that she spent the night weeping, and hugging the women and children who crossed her path.
The people of the village had known Yulim since his birth, but now the banner of the Khan had transformed him into something new, something larger. Everyone was desperate for news from far-off places, and everyone came out to see the young soldier and hear his stories. Men asked about the progress of the Khan’s military campaigns in distant, foreign lands. Mothers inquired about their own sons, away at war. Girls vied with one another for a look, a smile, a word from Yulim. Yulim answered those questions he could, and even some of those he could not, and when he spoke, the villagers reached out and touched his arm, his shoulder, his cheek.
Zahil stood at the periphery of events, neither included nor absent, and he watched his younger brother closely. He saw that the usually quiet and reserved Yulim played his new part well, never showing discomfort or annoyance or fatigue. That night, through his demeanor, Tem’s youngest son demonstrated—before all the people, before the spirits, and before the shaman—that he was now a man. At the periphery, in the shadows, Zahil grimaced and scowled and waved his arms disapprovingly. But that night, no one took any notice of the shaman.
Later, the people of the village built a bonfire, and there was drumming and dancing and laughter. Zahil left, then, and went back to his own dwelling at the northern-most edge or the village, and sat beside his own fire, and lit his pipe.
This time, the shaman became a tree, still and patient and wise, with roots deep in the earth and branches reaching up toward heaven.
In the smoke that rose from his pipe, he sent a prayer to the spirits, asking for counsel. But the spirits did not answer.
Tem fawned over her younger son now. She gave him sweetened mare’s milk to drink, and knit him a tunic of her best wool. She oiled the leather of his boots, and mended his clothes. And every day she burned incense to the ancestors, and prayed that they would keep him safe.
The people of the village—perhaps thinking of their own sons whom they had not seen in months, or years—brought Yulim gifts. They came to Sarga’s door with salted meat for Yulim’s saddle pack, woolen muffs to cover his ears, laces for his boots, and these Yulim accepted happily.
The shaman watched his brother closely every day, and listened attentively every day when his brother spoke, and every day was torturous.
The village children would sit in a circle on the ground, with jaws hanging slack and hunger in their eyes, as Yulim told them his stories. A hundred mounted Han, and Yulim alone, to defeat them with his bow. The Khan’s own sister-in-law, abducted by roving bandits, and Yulim alone, to chase them down. The Persian ambassador in his jeweled turban, who had come to negotiate a treaty, and Yulim, to serve as a guard. These were children’s stories—fanciful, fabulous, fantastical, and untrue in every detail.
To the adults of the village, Yulim told other stories. He told how the tribes had united under the Great Khan, and become strong. He said that the united tribes had pushed out the borders to the south, east and west. The Khan had sent men into China, and Persia, and other lands without names, beyond the setting sun. The empire, said Yulim, was growing daily, and would one day encompass the whole world. These were stories made for adults—composed of rumor, propaganda, and the brave campfire talk of cold, frightened soldiers.
Yulim said, too, that he had been there, on his horse, with his arrows slung over his shoulder, at victory after victory on the southern border, and that he had met the Khan. Zahil did not believe a word of it.
Zahil was the shaman, the dreamer, the one who possessed the spirit powers. He saw deeply, and he knew what others did not.
The night before Yulim was to leave, Zahil sat in his house, trying to become fire. He sat in the circle of warmth and light cast by own small fire, and invited the heat to penetrate his cells, to leave the shape and pattern of its essence within him. Then he stood and, with arms raised, he swayed and crackled and hissed. His energy built to a degree too intense to bear, and he released it, and directed it harmlessly upwards toward the hole at the center of his roof. He was heat, and motion, and color, and danger. But he was not fire.
He tried harder, reached higher, grew hotter and more intense. He heard around him the primal screams of the burning grass, the pounding feet of fleeing horses, the suffocating sky gasping for air. Or maybe he heard only a hand knocking, and a voice calling his name.
It was Yulim, asking, "May I come in?"
Zahil did not answer. He sat down on his floor, in the wreckage of another failed spell, resigned that, sooner or later, he should suffer a visit from Yulim.
Yulim entered the shaman’s house, and sat down beside his brother. "I’m going away tomorrow. I may not return for a long while." He said these words without looking at Zahil.
Zahil sat silently for a long time, looking into his fire. At last he said, "This is true."
"Will the spirits keep me from harm?" Yulim asked.
"The spirits do as they wish," said the shaman, "and not as men wish them to do. They save those that they love, and those that they hate they destroy. And it is not for us to know who is loved, who is hated, or to understand the reasons why."
"But you are the shaman. Your business is to know the wishes of the spirits, and then to instruct men on how to behave."
Here, Zahil paused for another long while. Finally he said, "I know the minds of spirits. I know of your trickery."
Yulim’s response was quick and defensive. "What do you mean to say, brother?"
"That you did not win victories at the southern border, that you did not meet the Khan, that you are not fierce with your bow. The spirits know your mind. You are boastful and proud, Yulim, and you are a story-teller more than you are a warrior."
Yulim scoffed at this. "A story-teller, and not a warrior, you say? Brother, you dreamed me!"
The shaman shook his head. "You are a gentle man, the son of a soft woman, and you are caught in war like a fish caught in a net, and you have begun to grow old from it."
Yulim dismissed his brother’s ravings with a scowl, and then asked, "Will I see great battles in China? Will I perform heroic acts? At least you can tell me that much."
"You are caught in a poisoned trap," said the shaman, "and you have already begun to die. You will see nothing in China, unless it is a sharp blade entering your heart."
Yulim stood up. "You lie!" he told the shaman. "You do not speak for the spirits. You are the trickster here, not I." And with that, he turned away and left his brother’s house.
Zahil was angry now. Angry at himself, for speaking the truth to one who was too weak and too willful to hear it. And angry also at his brother, for discerning, within the spoken truth, that other truth, the one that lay silently within it, nestled like a serpent.
More than his brother, Zahil was a trickster, a liar, and a fraud.
Once, long ago, the shaman dreamed. For Tem, who was a mother of sons, he dreamed. And in his dream, he saw himself, mounted on a horse which belonged to the Khan, with a white and red banner streaming behind. Himself, with his bow slung across his shoulder, riding to the land of the Jin. Himself, with grim resolve, entering the battle for possession of a distant, foreign capital. Himself, with cold iron penetrating his heart, and his own blood soaking the tunic his mother had knit of her best wool.
Then he woke from his dream, and he named his brother.
And the spirits abandoned him that same day.
Yulim left in the morning, carrying with him the gifts, and the love, of his people. Yulim, who was now a man, but never a warrior. Yulim, cherished son of a soft and gentle mother. Yulim of the unobservant eyes, Yulim of stories and fantasies, Yulim the dreamer. Yulim, who had already begun to die.
Zahil, whom the spirits had chosen for war, sat on the wooden platform of the tower, and watched his brother, who was now diminishing in size and blurring in form as he rode away across the grassy steppe, until at last, the horizon swallowed him in a puff of dust.
In the village, Tem wept again—loudly, inconsolably, for grief and fear. Her husband folded her in his arms, pressed her face to his shoulder, and led her back to her house.
A year passed before they received word of Yulim’s death. The messenger who brought the news to Sarga’s door said that Yulim had fought bravely for the Khan, and had died a hero’s death while taking the Jin capital.
And the shaman knew that it had happened exactly as he had dreamed it.
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