The Book of a Thousand Days (16 page)

"Here's the mucker girl, my lord,'' said Shria.

The khan pulled me toward the wounded man. "My friend is hurt. Sing for him."

"I... I can't, my lord. A healing song can't stop blood from flowing or close a wound."

"Help him, Dashti."

How I longed for the voice of Evela and the strength of Carthen, for powers as mighty as the desert shamans are rumored to possess, for a way to force that man's body to do my will and heal itself. But I felt as thin as grass. I sat by the man's head, I touched his face. My body shook so hard I thought I heard my bones rattle, and I wondered if my limbs would fall right off.

Sing to him, Dashti,

I ordered myself, but before I could find a tune, I got to thinking of Mama with the fever, her skin as yellow as this paper I write on, her lips dry like a snake shedding its skin. For hours, for

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days I sang to her. I pushed my soul into the words till my voice rasped to ashes. But she fell asleep, deeper and deeper till her skin went cold.

A shaman knelt beside me, letting his hands hover over the bleeding man's chest. Until I recognized his face, I didn't realize he was a shaman because he was dressed only in a robe and for some reason had removed his tassled hat and belt with nine mirrors.

"I feel a pulsing heat," said the shaman, his eyes closed. "The life heat leaves his body even as his blood does. His soul is teetering on a threshold, undecided to live or die."

"Help him to live," said Khan Tegus. He was speaking to me and to the shaman and he seemed near crying. "Tell his soul to live!"

Who am I to tell a man to live? Who am I to claim the powers of the Ancestors? I moved aside so the shaman could have more room to do his holy work. He's climbed the Sacred Mountain and seen the faces of the Ancestors. I have no place beside him.

I sat quietly in a corner, though I was tempted to curse like the horse wranglers and kick a chair. I was so angry at myself for not being smart enough, for not being a true healer, but I just sing the easing songs, the slow and cheery songs, the animal songs.

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Later

When Qacha brought dinner to my room, she whispered that the bleeding man is an important chief to the khan.

"And the man who stabbed him?" I asked.

"An assassin. Sent by Lord Khasar to kill Khan Tegus, or so Koke heard."

"What less should we expect from the lord of the realm named for Under, god of tricks?"

"True enough, but Under played a trick back on him today. A shaman was present, and when the assassin attacked, I hear the shaman took fox form and leaped between the khan and the assassin. It seems not even Lord Khasar s warrior would dare to harm a fox."

"Ah," I said, the animal scratches on the assassin's face making sense, and the shaman wearing just his robe. He must've lost his clothes when he changed. Would that I'd been there to see that!

So it seems Under played everyone today. The khan is unharmed, but the assassin's blade still found a true mark. He's a slippery one, that Under. I knelt to the north and prayed thanks that Khan Tegus was

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protected, but I don't much like depending on the god of tricks.

Day 113

Morning was still as dark as night when someone tapped at my door. I wrapped my wool robe over my sleep clothes, thinking it must be Shria with an errand. Instead I found my lady's khan.

He looked as tired as dawn, and he leaned against my door and just stared at me for a time, eyes half closed. I hadn't realized that I'd stopped breathing until I heard him breathe in deeply. He said, "I know you'll say it's hopeless, that you won't be able to help, but Dashti, will you come with me?"

I didn't ask what he meant as I followed him down the dark corridor. I'd been too startled to think of putting on shoes, and the floor was slippery with cold. The blind walls around us reminded me of the tower, and I spent the walk imagining what those three years would've been like if my companion in the dark had been someone else.

We entered his chambers and the air was thick with the sweet smoke of burning juniper. A shaman woman was doing her wild dance between the bed

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and the fire, beating a flat drum, the tassels on her hat flying.

"You may rest for a moment, holy one," said Khan Tegus, and the woman stopped spinning and sat in the corner. For a moment, I could see my own face reflected in one of the nine mirrors on her belt. I looked away.

The bleeding man was asleep on a low couch, his chest rising and falling too fast for sleep. Khan Tegus knelt by the bed. I knelt beside him.

"The shamans tell me they've done what they can, but there's no change," said Khan Tegus. "They tell me that when all that blood poured out of Batu, his soul flowed with it. Now it's dislodged from his breast and wavering on the edge of his body."

The man's face was pale. I touched his arm and found the skin was prickly hot. "His soul doesn't know whether to stay or go."

The khan met my eyes straight on. He didn't blink as he said, "Help it to stay."

I looked at the shaman, squatting by the fire and humming. I knew to complete her training, she must've climbed the Sacred Mountain, fasted from all food, and prayed for four days, naked under the sky. Bareness is the ultimate debasement, so that's why shamans do it, to submit themselves completely to the

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Ancestors, and even more, to prostrate themselves under the Eternal Blue Sky, naked and new as a baby.

These shaman healers had their souls washed by the Eternal Blue Sky. Who was I to try where they had failed?

"My lord --," I started.

"Please." The khan rubbed his eyes so I couldn't see his face, but I could hear how his voice was worn to crumbling. "Batu is my friend, but he's also my chief of war. Khasar is on the move, set to tear out the throat of my army, and I can't lose anyone else. Please help him, Dashti."

Right then, I would've scaled the forbidden heights of the Sacred Mountain for him, but I didn't know how to do what he asked.

The healing songs help things be as they are at first, as they want to be again. I wondered, could I sing to the man's very soul? Help it return to his breast and sleep peacefully again? If there's a song for souls, my mama never taught it.

I wanted to run away, I felt so useless and ashamed! But I couldn't. Khan Tegus had given me a pine bough and My Lord the cat, he let me sing the pain out of him, he remembered my name. I had to try.

I took Batu's hand, closed my eyes so my whole world was touch and sound, said a silent prayer to

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Evela, goddess of sunlight and songs, and began to sing. I didn't know what song would come out of my mouth until I heard it.

"Little bird, little bird, that twits and flits and flies. Little bird, little bird, unfold your feathered skies."

It's not a healing song, it's a play song, one the mucker children sing in the spring, racing in a circle, leaping over stones. I almost laughed to hear myself sing it. I don't know why that song felt right. Maybe because it makes such a happy noise; the tune likes to skip on my tongue and tickle my throat.

The shaman glared at me through the tassels on her hat, as though saying,

That's not a reverent song for the dying!

I glared back, as though saying,

The whole point it to stop the dying!

I think Khan Tegus must've noticed the abundance of glares, for after a minute he dismissed the shaman from the room. We were alone now. I kept singing.

Sing to his soul, I told myself. So I sang more happy songs, things to remind him of how rich is living, how blue is the Eternal Sky, how good roasted meat tastes with a sprinkling of salt, how the steppes fill with thousands of yellow heartsong flowers after the frost breaks. When I began the lighthearted song that goes, "Bread on the stones, Mama, and how the belly groans," her khan joined in, knowing that one

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from his own childhood, I guess. Beneath my own voice, his felt like a horsehair blanket, rough and warm.

After a time, I let her khan sing that one alone, while I wove in "the earth breathes, the earth sings, its soul moves in the rivers," and other healing songs for sickness and injury.

Batu's breathing slowed, his voice mumbled sleepily in his throat, and if I were smart enough to know such things, I'd say his soul slipped back inside, curled up like a cat in his chest, and purred to be home.

By then, her khan was sitting on the floor beside me. He leaned his back against the couch, stretching his legs out before him. I leaned back, too. We both knew Batu was better. We didn't have to say it.

"You may return to your room, if you wish," he said.

I shrugged. "I won't sleep any more tonight."

"Neither will I." He watched the flames in the hearth. "It's a wondrous gift you have. I can't help wonder how muckers know songs that shamans have never heard."

I sighed before I talked, just because it felt right. "The people of stone walls, the ones who live in cities, they have healers to call and shamans to bless them. But the people of the felt walls, alone with the

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wind and grass, would die if Evela, goddess of sunlight, hadn't taken pity on us. She gave muckers the healing songs to help us keep living beneath her sunshine. Or so my mama said. And I believe her. You'd be a fool to doubt her. The grasses themselves bowed down before her foot touched them."

He chuckled, and when I asked him why, he said he'd had such a mother, too. She'd gone to the Ancestors' Realm seven years ago, but was such a powerful presence he still thinks to check that his sash is tied straight each morning so she won't scold him.

"And she named you Tegus," I muttered.

"What was that?"

"I was just thinking," I said, "how you can tell something about a woman by what she names her children. Tegus means

perfect

in the naming language."

He made a face. "I haven't always relished that name. My cousins gave me much grief about it growing up."

"I think it's lovely. I mean..." I returned my gaze to the fire, because it was easier to talk to him that way. "What I mean to say is, it's lovely to think of your mother holding her first baby, and looking at your fingers and toes, your eyes, your lips, and saying, 'Perfect. He's perfect. My Tegus.'"

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"I can imagine her saying those very words." He was quiet a moment. "Dashti. That means 'one who is good luck doesn't it?"

"Another name that caused teasing. It's not an easy thing to wear a mark of bad luck on my face and have a name that means good luck. The story goes that a clan sister helped with my birth, and when she saw me, she told my mother, 'She should be called Alagh,' meaning

mottled

, you know. My father saw me and said, 'You must call her Alagh so all know she is destined for bad luck.' So my mama said, 'Her name is Dashti.'"

He raised his bowl of milk tea. "Let's drink to stubborn mothers."

He took a long sip, then offered the bowl to me. The same that he had drunk from. He shared a drink with me, gentry with commoner. I took it with both my hands to show my reverence, and when I drank, the warmth seemed to fill not just my belly, but my entire body down to my toes.

We kept watching the fire and talking about mothers and other things. I tried to keep in mind his status, but I was drowsy, and the sight of a fire sings its own kind of healing song, one that seems to say, "Easy, slow and easy, all is well." It reminded me of his third visit to the tower, when he sat on the ground

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and leaned against the wall, and I leaned on the other side, and we just talked. And the Ancestors let us.

He looked at my feet and said suddenly, "You're not wearing shoes."

I wiggled my toes. "I guess I'm not. But at least my sash is tied straight."

"Hmph, no comparison. What would your right good mucker mother say to that, walking around in bare feet?"

I had a joke on my lips about skinny ankles and had to choke it back. So near I came to revealing myself!