Chapter 1
Khan Orkhan was sitting near his tent and was sadly looking at his children, Aikyz and Targitai. He was deep in his thoughts, since he would soon have to give his only son as an amanat1 to shah Alp-Melek, the strong and powerful enemy to whom he had been paying tribute.
The khan’s wife, the beautiful Perizat, passed away a year after Aikyz was born. She was very keen to have the baby, despite healers and herbalists’ warnings that the pregnancy would be difficult and the consequences could be fatal. Perizat had been suffering and visibly wasting away for a year after the baby girl’s birth, until finally the gods assumed her into heaven. Orkhan truly loved his beautiful and clever wife and could not accept her early death. He unjustly blamed his little daughter, Aikyz, for this tragedy. He failed to love her; instead, the khan increasingly hated the innocent child with each passing day, and anger clouded his eyes… Orkhan-khan knew that Karim, a steppe storyteller, who was also a wise and courageous warrior, had brought up Perizat. Karim had found the girl when Perizat was only two years old; the child was wandering alone in the forest looking for her parents. Karim and his wife named the girl and took her in. The married couple at once loved the little girl sent by the gods. In fact, they were over forty years old when they found the child, and no longer believed a day would come to hear a child’s laughter in their yurt2. Suddenly the Almighty Creator heard their pleas – that is why Perizat appeared in their tent. Karim and Alma worshipped the girl and feared for her, as they quickly realized that the little girl was of noble lineage, and was possibly even a princess. Alma noticed a tattoo of a lion with a dragon’s head on her left shoulderblade when she was bathing Perizat. The fact led them to conclude that their foundling had probably come from a royal family. But how did
1 an amanat – a political hostage
2 a yurt – a tent
the little girl end up left unattended in the forest? They did not
know the answer to that question.
Perizat grew up as an unusual child; thus, her name was Peri1. Alma regarded her as her own daughter and, to prevent the evil eye from casting a spell on their child, she made Karim move away from everyone and live in seclusion, away from the kin, so that no one would pay attention to the unusual child. Perizat learnt from her newfound father to play a stringed bowed instrument, which Karim had made from a solid piece of wood just for her. There was something heavenly, divine, in her ability to work hard, in her dexterity and grip, and most importantly, in her keen intellect. She was a perfect creation of God. Karim and Alma feared for her future and tried their best to protect her from all odds.
Alma died after the wedding of her beloved Perizat, before her grandchildren were born, and now only Karim and Orhan knew of her secret. After Perizat’s death, Karim distanced himself from everyone and lived alone in the forest, devastated by the loss of his loved ones. Karim spent his days alone with his kobyz2. His kyuis3 were beautiful, and were a musical representation of his life. The entire fabulous world and all the inhabitants of the forest listened to Karim’s compositions with rapture, enjoying the depth and fullness of their sound. Thus, Karim found sanctity and permanence in music and in nature.
Khan Orkhan remembered how he saw a girl playing the kobyz, fell in love with her immediately and married her according to all the nomadic rules. Orkhan had ignored his wife’s tattoo then; he was drunk with love, and thought that happiness would last forever... However, alas, it so happened that he was
1 a peri – a fairy
2 a kobyz – a stringed bowed instrument
3 a kyui –a folk instrumental play performed on the different folk
instruments
now left alone in unbearable pain and sorrow, blaming his anguish on his motherless daughter. In addition, presently he sat looking for a way out to save Targitai.
Targitai was two years older than his sister was; he was five and Aikyz was three. Suddenly Orkhan had a thought: what if instead of Targitai, he could send the hated Aikyz as an amanat? The idea seemed like a good one to khan, as it would enable him to kill two birds with one stone: to retain his beloved son and to get rid of his hated daughter. However, how to outsmart the enemy, since girls are not sent as hostages? “I’ll send her away dressed as a boy! And then I’ll let it be,” he decided.
* * *
Shah Alp-Melek and his faithful brother-in-law Kambar, who was also his commander-in-chief, were discussing another campaign when a soldier guarding the post informed him, that delegates from Orkhan had arrived and delivered the khan’s offspring as a hostage. The shah ordered him to bring in an amanat. Aikyz entered the throne room frightened, unable to understand what was happening. She was very scared, and she was tired after a hard journey of nearly twenty days. Aikyz was not yet able to count, but it seemed to her as if she had been on the road her whole life. The girl lost the only person who truly loved her – her mother, who could not withstand a severe illness. The poor child felt only dislike and even hostility from her father. Here she was, among strangers, and she did not understand why she had been brought here. There was plenty to be afraid of for a small child!
Aikyz was a visual copy of her mother. She was very dark- skinned, but had blue eyes, just like Perizat, and there was a glimpse of future beauty in all her appearance. The frightened child held a toy in her hands shaped like a kobyz-playing girl, and the grandpa Karim depicted a lion with the head of a dragon
on this carved wooden doll. Aikyz did not part with the toy, since the wooden doll reminded her of her mother. The child stood in front of the shah and his friend holding her toy.
Kambar turned around, stunned, as if he had seen a little niece whom he could not forget! It was astonishing – the child who had gone missing twenty-three years ago was standing in front of him, a complete twin of his sister! The shah saw the pale face of his warlord, looked at the amanat with cold eyes and shuddered at what he saw, scaring Aikyz. The little girl cried as she looked at the faces of the men and hid behind the warrior who had entered. Everyone looked at each other in utter shock. The khan was the first to come to his senses and ordered the guards out. He looked at Kambar, then at the child and said:
“Come here, closer.”
Aikyz approached. The shah was looking at her and could not believe his eyes; at that moment, he was remembering the day his wife and daughter disappeared, the day of their strange death, when he himself might also be said to have died.
They were on a campaign, he and Kambar. His wife’s father, the shaman1 Buiryk, was also with them, and he predicted trouble and kept rushing home. However, no one listened to him and did not believe in his silly predictions. This was in vain, as it turned out. Terrible news awaited them on their return from the campaign! They were told that the shah’s wife and daughter had been attacked by a rabid wolf and had to be burnt together with all the guards and servants, so as not to infect the other children and wives of the great Alp-Melek.
The shah, Kambar and Buiryk had been in deep mourning for nearly five years. The shah understood nothing; his mother, who openly hated his wife and daughter, gave the order to burn the people he loved more than life. He could not forgive her for this unthinkable cruelty and made a vow to himself that he
1 a shaman – a ritual expert
would never speak to her. He was true to his word and forgave his mother only after her death. Kambar and Buiryk were also inconsolable; Kambar decided that he would find the culprits and punish them personally, but could not oppose the shah’s mother. Buiryk cursed all Alp-Melek’s wives and children, and the shah’s mother along with them. The shah obediently accepted Buiryk’s curses and did not punish him, as he himself would have liked to do, but a wicked fate nonetheless mocked him. Buiryk retired into himself and went to the forest wilds after the tragedy, where he had treated people. He was no longer able to see the faces of all the people from the palace; they were disgusting to him.
* * *
Kambar did not wait for Aikyz to approach, but went up to her first, sat down on his lap and embraced her. Aikyz was crying, but suddenly she gently removed Kambar’s hands, went up to the shah and, holding out her toy, said:
“My name is Aikyz and this is my toy.”
The shah did not hug the girl. He became furious when he heard the child’s maiden name, feeling cheated. How dare khan Orkhan send some girl to him instead of his son! The angry shah shouted to the guards:
“Give the child to the lions!”
Kambar did not even have time to say anything – the guards took the girl away. Moreover, the shah coolly handed the toy into Kambar’s hands and said:
“Let us get on with our strategy.”
Kambar could not disobey his shah, but his heart was beating fast, as he could think of nothing else – all his thoughts were only of the poor girl given over to the cruel animals, and how to save her. Half an hour passed. Kambar, who had seen thousands of deaths and all the horrors of war, looked at the shah and thought: why did the shah treat the child so inhumanely? Meanwhile, Alp-
Melek thought that the gods had put him to the test... Suddenly a guard came into the hall in a brisk step and addressed the shah:
“Your Imperial Majesty shahinshah, this girl, she... You must see it for yourself.”
The shah shuddered: why would such a small child bring so much trouble? What would that mean? However, he went with Kambar to the cages where his lions were kept. The shahinshah, accustomed to lions since childhood, and was not afraid of them. Remarkably, his young daughter, who had disappeared many years before, was not afraid of the bloodthirsty predators either... Moreover, this little girl who had come looked strangely like her, just as two peas in a pod!
Kambar followed the shah obediently, expecting to find the torn body of the little girl, but approaching the cage of the animal, he saw not at all a terrible, but instead a touching picture: an old lioness, finishing her last days, was calmly laying as Aikyz was sleeping near her.
The lioness was almost the same age as his daughter; the shahinshah recalled with sorrow how his daughter had played with the little lioness, and his heart ached. Nevertheless, he quickly pulled himself together, becoming even more bitter, and angrily ordered the child to be thrown to the elephant to be trampled on. Kambar could no longer restrain himself; he called out to the shah and handed him the child’s toy so that he could take a closer look at what was depicted there. Alp-Melek saw khan Orkhan’s malice for the child; he did not even look at the toy, but simply threw it on the floor. Immediately, however, he picked it up when he saw the lion with the dragon’s head painted on the wood. This mark told him a lot... Nevertheless, the shah himself did not know what to think until Kambar told him:
“This child is the answer to some mystery, something we do not know. Please be sensible and spare the girl at least for one day.”
The shah agreed, but was distraught, and Kambar gave orders that the child should be guarded and taken to his palace. He wanted to consult the father urgently; perhaps he, having seen the girl, would suggest how to save her from death. The commander-in-chief said aloud:
“Shahinshah, it is necessary to bring the shaman Buiryk and ask him to summon the spirits and give an answer as to what to do and how to deal with the child.”
Insomnia had taken the palace dwellers into its lingering embrace... Shah Alp-Melek did not sleep. Nor was Kambar asleep. Nor did the lioness. Buiryk did not sleep either, he only fell into a light slumber and had a strange dream in which his dead wife asked him to save their little girl. Buiryk did not understand what she was talking about and tried to explain the dream somehow to himself…
Why did the people in the palace not sleep? The supreme deity, the great Tengri who rules the whole world, presented them a gift in the person of a little Aikyz, so that she could change not only the fate of all our sleepless characters, tormented by insomnia, but also the fates of the peoples of the world. God of the gods Tengri had already bestowed Aikyz herself with happiness and luck – for the rest of her life – but the little girl herself did not know that she would become a heavenly message to people who waited for good and warmth from the great god of the worlds – Tengri!
