Iron-grey and blood-crimson
The steppe was frozen all around him. The soil was as hard as rock, and the snow was whiter than sun-baked bones. Tiny insects of cold run around in his nostrils, down his throat, and into his lungs with each breath, and he exhaled mist as thick as freshly milked airag.
He had been exiled from his tribe almost a month ago, for a transgression he did not think was severe enough for such a punishment, simply pointing out that the dung-spat who called himself khan was a bastard unfit to herd the tribes sheep, let alone lead its men into battle, or negotiations of trade. And he knew that the tribe agreed. Dung-spat was given his power by another tribe that had once beaten them, but was too weak to unite them into one power. Such were the ways in the Khamug, but everyone who was given sense by Tenrgi, and eyes to see, knew that this could not last.
Still, he was exiled. The shaman! Exiled! The Gods of the Sky would burn nations for lesser injustices!
Another inhalation, another gust of the cold claws brought him back to the present. He saw his robes whitened by snow, and far away, the carcass of his horse. It felt strange to look at it. It was not even his horse, just a horse they gave him, along with a weeks worth of food, and yet, he felt more sorrow for the horse then for the tribe. Beside him lay his fiddle, its strings frozen solid, its bow brocken as it fell from the horse. It was his grandfathers. One of the few gifts he recieved when the spirits made him a shaman.
Shaman.
Saying the word out loud gave him confidence. His tribe abandoned him, his horse abandoned him, but Tengri did not. He was still alive, he way under the blue sky, and he had his drum.
Inhale, pause, exhale.
He got up from his feet, swpet the snow from his coat, and began to sing a prayer to Tengri, God of the Infinite Blue Sky. This voice resonated in his throat, producing a multitude of notes, and slowly began to creep over the white wasteland.
He sang lauder, harder, weaving his anger into the prayer. The into the next prayer as he finished. And the next. He sang all the 99 prayers he knew, without a pause, each one lauder than the pervious, his voice thundering over the frozen steppe, over the mountains beyond the horizon, up the the seat of the Sky God himself, so he may hear his plight, and help him.
And Tengri heard.
Altanuyun drew another breath from the cold air, and felt the taste of blood, like iron, on his tounge. He spat on the white snow, and watched as the redness began to move, and shape itself in the mark of a wolven claw.
Alone with his Gods, the shaman picked up his drum, and began.
One. Right. Inhale. Upper world. Two. Right. Hold. Middle world. Three. Left. Thump. Thump. Four. Exhale. Underworld. Faster. One. Right. Thump. Upper world. Two. Inhale. Thump-thump. Spin. Three. Exhale. Shake. Left. Four. Right. Right. Underworld. Drum. Hold.
One. Two. Right. Right. Thump. Thump. Pray. Lauder! Three. Hold. Spin. Four. Exhale. Jump.
One. Drum. Colse eyes. THUD! Sing!
Two. Drum. Drum. Right. Left. Spin. Hold
Three. Upper world. Tengri. Blue sky. Sing!
Four. For the rivers, sing! Left. Jump. Jump.
Five. For the grasslands, sing! Right. Thump. Thump. THUD!
He felt, somewhere, with his body, beads of sweat dripping down his face, washing away the dirt, and falling to the snow, slowly, as a feather in the still air. He heard them impact on the white powder, he felt the tiny pieces of snow pushed into the air.
Six. Middle world. For the mountains, sing! Thud, thud, thump, thump, THUMP!
Seven. For the steppe, SING! Right, right.
Eight. Underworld. For the spirits, sing! THUD! THUD!
He saw the snow crack, the soil crack, the world crack open and reveal a dark hole in front of him. He felt blood in his throat, in his nostrils, in his lungs. He felt the cold claw at his face. He felt the spirits calling.
Nine. SING! SING! SIIIIING!
Ten. Into the hole. JUMP!
His back was flaring up with pain. He felt the skin peel away, shrivel up, he felt the drums skin being torn from his back, the four corners of the world, the three world, the Tree, he felt them being written on his back with blood. He felt his bones jitter, he felt his flesh being boiled away over his ribs, he saw his guts, working, wriggling, pumping, a red cavalcade of pain, and he saw his Shamans Bone, his extra rib growing diagonal to the others. It marked him as a shaman for all of the spiritworld to see.
It glowed. Then, out of the nothing around him, out of the tunnel of blackness that he was falling down in, something lashed out at his Bone, grabbing him by it. It drew another mark into the bone, the one-hundredth, and let him fall again. His flesh was restored, and the drum etched from his back was now in his hands. He was found worthy.
He landed on the soft, mouldy floor of the Underworld. He could hear, see, feel the spirits wriggling around him, hear the dead go about their toil, but all this was meaningless to him. He did not come here to converse with the spirits, to comfort the dead, or to deliver words spoken too late to be heard. He came for a vision.
It lay in front of him, a bowl of clear water, blue as the Sky itself. He drank it, and the vision was given to him.
Flocks of sheep, thin, and starving, were hounded by packs of mongrels, masquarading thmeselves as herders and friends and leaders of the flock. The steppe was barren. Horses lay beside roads, unmoving, and birds were circling over the carrions of cattle. The mongrels moved from one flock to the next, sweeping from the deep blue lakes, up to the mountains, down to the plains, and along the rivers, and everywhere they went, they brought despair.
The lake became grey with dirt, and its water went sour, poison for the flock. The mountains became bald stone, the plains became red deserts, the rivers dried up, and the land died.
Somewhere, a wolf, grey as pig iron, its paw crimson from clotted blood, was striding the land, alone. And it called. It called him! Altanuyun howled in answer, and the wolf rode to the flocks, and they became healthy and numerous. He rode to the mountains, and they were painted in green, fat grass. He rode down the plains, up the rivers, he bathed in the deep blue lake, and healed the land as he went. And the mongrels retreated, and retreated, and retreated.
But some of them remained defiant, and tore into the flocks, tormented the horses, and burned the land, until the crimson-pawed wolf howled to the sheep, the cattle, the camels, the land, and they rose up, in wolf-form, and killed all mongrels in their way. They tore them to shreds, and fed the land the blood.
The wolf, now blue-furred, howled defiantly against the World itself, and the World trembled in fear.
Altanuyun knew in his heart, that had he not howled back, the mongrels would kill the wolf. He understood. He knew. But who was the wolf? A crimson paw? A bloody hand? A sign for great power, yes, but who?
Wolf. Blood. Claw. Red paw. Grey as iron. Iron?
The spirits saw, he understood.
He was hurled back into the World, his head in the snow, his blood flowing freely from his mouth.
A wolf gently licked his face.
Musical score: Huun Huur Tu - Fly, fly my sadness
