wealthy Tagrong tribe came under his rule. In theory, when the old steward stepped aside, Khrothung should take over from him. Who could have predicted that Senglon would marry a Dragon daughter who would give birth to such an unusual son?
At that thought, an evil plan grew in Khrothung’s mind, and he knew he must act fast, so he set out for home. At the crest of the hill he looked back down at the crowd gathered at the river, and his heart felt as if it were crawling with poisonous insects. Loneliness overcame him, and he knew that his vile plan against the newborn baby was that of a coward. As a young man, he had always been ready to fight, and fight hard. Frightened by his fearlessness, his mother had sought the secret to making a man more timid: the shaman had told her that he must drink the blood of a fox, a shy, cowering animal. She had followed the instruction, but the shaman had not told her that whoever drank the blood would also inherit the fox’s devious and cunning nature.
Sitting on his horse at the crest of the hill, Khrothung recalled the magnanimity he had seen in the eyes of the newborn baby and those of Gyatsa Zhakar, and was reminded of his own eyes. He knew they were now the sly eyes of a fox, and he was suddenly ashamed. He, too, had been great-hearted, until Fate had intervened.
Within three days Khrothung reappeared, smiling, bringing with him cheese and honey. ‘My newborn nephew is already as big as a three-year-old. He will surely grow even faster when he eats the food I offer.’ His words were sweet as honey, but the food was laced with a poison powerful enough to kill a yak. Taking the baby in his arms, Khrothung began to feed his nephew.
Joru looked up at him with clear eyes and smiled, then held up his hands to show wisps of dark smoke rising from between his fingers. The powers given to him by Heaven had expelled the poison from his body. In his confusion, Khrothung licked a fragment of fresh cheese stuck to his fingertip. In an instant, he felt as if lightning bolts were lashing him, that his intestines were being tied in knots, and knew he had been poisoned. His burning tongue would not allow him to utter a clear sound. All anyone heard as he tore out of the tent was a wolfish howl.
Khrothung stumbled to the river, where he pressed his tongue to the ice for a long time. When at last he could speak, he uttered an incantation to summon his friend Mgonpo Redag, a warlock, half human, half demon, who could snatch a living soul and take control of the body. Soon a great raven appeared, whose wings cast a wide shadow on the ground. It tossed the poison’s antidote to Khrothung, who stumbled to his feet as the raven flew off.
In the time it had taken for his uncle to run to the river, Joru had begun to talk.
‘What ails your uncle?’ his mother asked.
‘He went to the riverside to cool his tongue,’ Joru said, not answering his mother’s question.
‘But he is not beside the river.’
Joru told his mother, ‘Uncle has sent a black wind in our direction, so let this black-wind demon be the first I vanquish.’
Though his human body was sitting beside his mother, his celestial body was already flying towards the black wind. Mgonpo Redag flew past three mountain passes before he met Joru’s celestial body, standing tall between Heaven and Earth, with nine hundred celestial soldiers in silvery armour waiting to carry out his commands. Joru remained motionless, waiting for the warlock to show his magic. The black-wind demon saw that this was not Joru’s real body, so he flew around the soldiers towards the next mountain pass. Again he met Joru, blocking Heaven and Earth, this time surrounded by nine hundred celestial soldiers in gold.
Twice more he met Joru, the soldiers dressed in steel and then in leather. Then he saw Joru’s human form sitting in front of a tent. Joru flicked his hand and tossed four colored pebbles into the air, summoning the celestial soldiers to surround him like an iron wall. The warlock Mgonpo Redag quickly sent up a column of black smoke and vanished, but Joru pursued the black-wind demon to his cave and sealed the entrance with a giant rock. Mgonpo Redag summoned all his magical powers to blast a tiny opening in the rock, but the crevice he opened let in a bolt of lightning sent by Joru, which blew him to pieces.
Now the good Joru transformed himself into the warlock’s shape and went to see Khrothung, telling him he had defeated Joru’s celestial soldiers and killed the infant, for which he wanted Khrothung’s walking stick as payment. Now, this was no ordinary stick, but a treasure given to Khrothung by the black-wind warlock. With this stick, a person could walk through the air as if on wings. The disguised Joru threatened to tell the old steward and Gyatsa Zhakar how Khrothung had plotted to murder him unless Khrothung gave up his treasure, and with reluctance, he did so.
Joru flapped his cloak and flew off, but instead of a black wind the light of a rainbow trailed him. Suspicious, Khrothung flew to the warlock’s cave, where he found the giant boulder blocking the entrance. Peering through a hole in it, he saw what was left of Mgonpo Redag: the disembodied head. The warlock’s hand, also detached from his body, appeared to clutch the stick, and Khrothung, unmoved by his friend’s death, transformed himself into a mouse small enough to squeeze through the hole. Squeaking, he wriggled into the cave, but when he scampered up to the demon, the stick was gone. When he realised he could not see clearly through his beady mouse eyes, he tried to return to human form, uttering the incantation. He remained a mouse. Terrified, he repeated the incantation, and this time something happened. His head regained its human shape and size, but his body remained that of a mouse. He struggled to the cave opening where, to his horror, he found that his head was too big to pass through the tiny hole.
Joru appeared at the entrance, and, feigning surprise, said, ‘What is this monstrosity? I should kill it. It must be a demonic transformation.’
Khrothung shouted, ‘Nephew, I am your uncle, and I have fallen under the spell of demons.’
Joru slapped his forehead, confused. ‘It seems he has suffered from his own magic, so why does he say he was affected by another’s evil spell?’ While he was thus questioning himself, Joru’s magic power diminished, giving Khrothung an opportunity to transform fully and squirm his way outside. Seeing bewilderment in the child’s face, he dusted himself off and said, ‘Little boys should not play so far from home.’ Then he swaggered round the mountain pass, out of Joru’s sight, and flew away.
After returning to his house, many miles away, Khrothung wondered if Joru really had come from the celestial realm, since the child had so easily foiled his evil plans. If so, then he, resourceful Khrothung, would remain merely the head of the Tagrong tribe, with no greater future. The thought made him so gloomy he could neither eat nor drink for a day, and rumbles of hunger joined his sighs.
The Storyteller Teacher
That morning, the dew lay heavy on the grass. Too much wet grass made the sheep ill, so Jigmed set out late. The sun was high when he took his flock up the hill. Thrushes, tired from singing, were resting, and lizards, after warming their cold blood in the sun, were searching for insects.
From far down the road, behind a cascade of brilliant light created by the sun, came a storyteller. First Jigmed saw a banner held high, then a hunchbacked old man on the horizon, moving towards him.
After greeting Jigmed, the old man smiled. ‘Why am I thirsty even before I begin to sing?’
Jigmed poured a cup of tea from his heated bottle. ‘There is a passage that confuses me. Will you sing for me?’
‘Does the young man want to learn how to sing?’
‘I have dreams, but what I see in my dreams is never complete.’
‘Which passage do you wish to hear?’
‘About the family into which the son of the deities was born. It is a story as tangled as a skein of wool, or as the branches in a grove of old azaleas.’
The old man sat down and gazed at the sheep on the grassy plain. But instead of singing, he talked. He told Jigmed that this might help him with the difficult part.
‘Then you are my teacher.’
‘I will be your teacher.’ And with that, the old man began.
The