Before .
Tezmi’a Mountains, Azadniabad Empire
I would inherit the power of the Heavens, Uma had said so.
But my power was a curse, this she did not have to say. Like any great legend, my tale began with tragedy.
But that night when I sprang free of Uma’s womb, our chieftains dreamt of a world of darkness. War and destruction.
She is an omen, the tribe murmured, despite my uncle the khan reprimanding their frivolous superstitions.
Her mother refuses to name her, nor does her father, the Great Emperor, accept her.
With his many wives and heirs, this child is but one of many.
But Uma knew in her heart that blessings came with a little suffering, that was the Divine’s way.
My child is neither cursed nor omen. She has the affinity of light.
Uma liked her secrets. This one she tucked close to her chest.
In the spring pastures of our valley Tezmi’a, that year brought a drought that starved the lands, killing portions of herd.
Other peculiar happenings sowed fear in the tribe: more raids, more deaths.
When Uma suckled me, wild birds would encircle the yurt before flapping into the felt tents, spilling dried meat, spoiling the yak milk and provoking our hunting birds.
‘The girl is cursed,’ my clansmen argued.
‘The girl is simply a girl. And we are God-fearing men,’ my uncle would reprimand. ‘We blame misfortune on no one but our own sins.’
‘But the birds,’ the tribe would insist, ‘they surround the babe. She is unnatural!’ It was true – wherever I was carried there was the sweep of wings above, and birdsong from the trees.
Swaddling me close, the khan’s most favoured wife spoke.
Babshah Khatun. To her, not one dared argue.
‘Enough, you superstitious fools. She is a blessing who has brought forth more birds for hunting. She is unusual; but, unusual children bear the greatest gifts. However I hear your fear. The chief folkteller has the hearts of their kinsmen, for they carry the histories of our sorrows. As your folkteller, Divine as my witness, I will make this babe my apprentice. She will carry with her the tales of your greatest joys and fears until the end of her days.’
The stern lady, though young, never broke her oaths. In irony, her oath became my curse.
In the winter quarters, the best pastures were south of the alpine lake.
That year, the khan’s tribe erected their yurts and herded thousands of yaks, wild mares and lambs at the base of the harsh snow-capped mountains, amongst the rolling green alpine meadows, thin grass growing above cold dirt.
From the lake, icy streams broke through the rocky grasslands of Tezmi’a.
It was my seventh Flood Festival, commemorating the day Nuh left the ark after the Great Flood.
That morning, the children competed, to see whose prized hunting bird would find the keenest prey.
Before long, the khan’s favoured wife interrupted and led the children up the pastures until they reached the end of the settlement of tents, toward the thick woodland.
Some of the tribe’s warriors, who’d escorted goods and cattle across the mountain pass for the emperor’s merchants, rested against the boundary of trees, waxing their compound bows.
Others sipped apricot tea to fling back the wet chill, nodding to us in greeting.
The khan sat with them, my uma – his sister – beside him.
When she spotted our group, Uma scowled and stalked toward us.
‘O, Babshah, what senseless idea do you have now?’
Babshah Khatun merely smiled in silence. Uma placed a hand against my back, staring at the hunting birds cowing upon my shoulder. She warned, ‘Do not go too south of the mountain pass. There are patrols from the enemy clans who snatch away children like her.’
Still Babshah Khatun continued deep into the womb of the valley, past protruding boulders, and clumps of elm, into the tall deep grasses that fattened the wild onagers.
Trails where humans rarely ventured, and the jinn-folk still reigned.
The wind whispered into the children’s hair.
The entombed roots of wizened trees sprawled through the woodlands, and whizzing sprites, those mischievous little apprentices to the long-passed fae of these lands, showered seeds to pollinate the flora.
A deceivingly drowsy day for the violence that it promised.
A place where the old ways still mattered and the Divine-made boundary between jinn-folk and human blurred.
Determined, I tripped along next to Babshah, resisting the urge to clasp the long end of her yak leather tunic, lest she think me not brave. Even my hunting buzzards on my shoulders canted their heads, curious.
Babshah sat squat and brushed her pale hand across the dirt.
Her black hair swung with the wind, a dozen thin braids clasped in silver beads and an array of hawk feathers, not dissimilar to my own.
The only difference was a camel-skin cord around her temple with a blue wooden block indicating her status as a wife of the khan.
‘Today, we will do a new type of hunt,’ Babshah declared. ‘Hunting by folktelling.’
The children murmured amongst themselves, but Babshah did not elaborate. Instead, she latched on to my hand – ‘Prepare yourself, my apprentice’ – before continuing along the fir path.
When we stopped, and it came time for our hunting pairings, my milk-sibling Haj refused to take me as a partner. He was ten years old, only three years my senior, but the gap was large enough to fuel his arrogance. He took his complaints to Babshah.
‘My uma says to stay away from her, else she will curse my bird’s game! I train with a spotted sparrowhawk. The girl trains with a pair of sooty buzzards. Smaller and useless, just like her. With all the birds that follow her, she will scare away the prey.’
‘I may be Aysenor’s only child, but I am not useless,’ I muttered, keeping my lip from trembling.
Haj merely puffed his round cheeks and narrowed his blazing black eyes before snatching my arm. ‘What did you say?’
At his intense words, my other clansmen eyed me curiously. Their parents had also warned them about the strange little girl who attracted the eccentric crows, the screeching hawks.
I held Haj’s gaze. Babshah said if my tribe thought my very existence was cursed, I would prove nothing except through my actions.
‘Enough, Haj.’ Babshah wrenched him away. He stormed off.
I shrank behind Babshah’s furred robes, but the woman was no longer my kinsman. Instead, her grey eyes reflected the anciency of a tradition spanning eons: the chief folkteller of the tribe. Yanking me out from her legs, she wagged a bony finger.
‘O, young apprentice. Remember my teachings.’
‘B-but they hate me, Babshah Khatun.’
She stooped to my height. ‘A folkteller speaks truth through the lore of history. The people can love or curse you for it. A most severe task, not all can bear its burden. Your uma was to be the next folkteller, but she resisted and it fell to me. Foolish woman that she is, Aysenor. You will not fail my entrustment.’ This was the first time I’d been entrusted with anything. It felt precious. I nodded fiercely.
The children scattered into the forest to begin the hunt. Haj and I strapped our bows and arrows, to use if and only if our hawks failed in catching quarry.
We hunkered through the trails, musk deer mewing through the foliage.
At the first clearing, a thin stream gusted the rocky terrain.
The woodland swallowed any sunlight. My young buzzards curled on to my shoulders uneasily, digging into the furs of my tunic, a thin leather cord around one of their talons.
Haj sneered at both birds. He was seasoned in his bird bondage.
He didn’t need a creance to tether his hawk.
Haj tied his bait to a hemp rope, recited a prayer and swung it in practised loops, his sparrowhawk flapping to and fro in powerful strokes.
Haj did not allow me to use my buzzards. Instead, his sparrowhawk caught chubby sage grouse and quails. I sat back against the trees, stroking the long necks of my birds. Gradually, I heard the voices of the other children growing louder.
‘Older Brother, do you hear that yelling?’ I asked.
‘Who is yelling?’ Haj turned. His sparrowhawk returned to his shoulder, talons empty. The bird curled its beak against his collar, shivering.
‘Something is wrong, Older Brother.’ I glanced about the forest.
‘Of course you’d be scared,’ he snapped with a frown.
The ground tremored, startling the rest of his words. The voices of the other children rose into shrill screams. Haj backed away so fast, his foot twisted against a stubborn root.
‘Brother!’ I clenched his arm to steady him as he fell heavy against me. My heart rattled and I brushed the bow and arrow strapped to my leather vest. ‘We must go.’
He nodded. ‘Your uma warned us from going south of the pass.’
We retraced our trail back toward the open pastures. The commotion reached us first. I saw the other children shoving forward out of the woodland, pointing to something behind them.
Haj gestured to his older sister Hawah. She was flushed and gasping for air as if she’d run the entire length of the valley. ‘Brother, there’s a beast! We must flee!’
‘Flee? Where do you think you are going? My lesson is not yet finished.’ Babshah swooped into the field as though appearing from nowhere, her robes flapping behind her. ‘Do not run, little cowards.’
‘B-Babshah Khatun. It’s the same beast from your stories,’ Hawah insisted.
‘Which kind?’
Hawah paled. ‘A great buffalo with deepest blue fur, and an enormous horn – the size of a small tree. As sharp as the khan’s blades! But its eyes,’ she paused, shivered and spoke, ‘such red eyes like hellfire!’
‘A karkadann. This is a rare blessing,’ Babshah mused. ‘The great horned beast from the jinn-folk roams wild in remote terrain. And, what of it?’