by Aiden James
I could almost feel my son’s pulse quicken and his own dread constrict around his entire being. He had personal knowledge of Kaslow’s cruelty from his own near-death experience in the Alborz Mountains of Iran last year. As if unable to continue speaking, he nodded for me to go on.
“Viktor Kaslow may not know who I am,” I said, making sure my tone was hushed and difficult to decipher by anyone other than him. “However, he certainly knows the what. It’s in the way he looked at me in Caracas. Usually it takes centuries for an immortal to recognize another, and that’s because we realize we’ve seen each other before, in eras past…. But, somehow, Kaslow knows he and I are virtually made from the same ilk.”
No other words were necessary. My son nodded thoughtfully and turned his attention out the window. Only this time, he wasn’t looking absently at the cloudbank below. He mumbled something. It took a moment to realize he had uttered his first prayer in my presence in more than fifty years.
Chapter 2
The Royal Garden is a splendid hotel overlooking Victoria Harbour. Whenever possible, I like to treat Alistair to the better accommodations the world has to offer. As for me, when traveling on my own, it really depends. I’ve been fortunate to accumulate enough wealth during the past two millennia to not worry about material needs for the next several centuries. At times, I’ve relished being treated like a Saudi prince, lavished with luxury. Other times, I’ve sought austere solitude in the most hostile locales around the world. Often, these areas are afflicted with extreme poverty.
Only once have I taken such a trip with Alistair. He almost died, and this is not the aforementioned trip to Iran last year. It was in South America, where retrieving a coin involved one of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty cartels. All told, my son has experienced close brushes with death in three of our twelve coin hunting expeditions. His sigh of relief when I revealed our present accommodations, shortly after the plane landed, became a prelude to his approving nod as we stepped into our sixth floor suite at the Royal Garden Hotel in Hong Kong.
“I’m liking it so far, Pops,” he said, smiling broadly after laying his laptop case and suitcase on his bed. “But, your coin had better be here, since you’ve now pissed off the CIA. Someone in the agency is bound to show up soon.”
“It’s here,” I assured him, while gazing through a window with the better view of Kowloon Bay. “And, true, if anyone in Washington has a beef with me, they already know where to find us.” I offered a confident smile as he joined me by the window.
“At least you picked something in the historic district. Perhaps after dinner we can explore the area a little, although I assume the science museum has already closed for the day,” said Alistair. “I meant to check on the hours of operation, including the weekend hours before we left Washington.”
“Are you forgetting we moved up nearly a full day?” I reminded him. “When we left Honolulu early this morning, it was Sunday. Now that we’ve crossed the date line it’s Monday evening. Didn’t you notice the late afternoon hustle and bustle as we drove through downtown?”
He looked mortified, as if this realization had just hit him. I reminded myself that he’d retired from teaching less than three weeks ago. For a career academic, the idea of lost time was akin to coming home and finding their pad burglarized.
“This means our sightseeing will be cut short, since the coin exhibition begins tomorrow morning,” he lamented, moving over to a small refrigerator and grabbing a bottle of water. “I don’t suppose you can press your charms into action, and see if you can purchase the shekel beforehand?”
“What, and watch the price for it sky rocket?”
“Ha! As if the bidding price for the rarest Tyre shekels could ever rise above two grand! Even if it did, I’ve watched you pay millions for some coins.”
“I can’t argue with that,” I chuckled, thinking about those instances. “We’ll have to see how it goes in the morning.”
“Well, that brings up another point,” said Alistair. He moved over to the window and pointed toward the bay. “Not to sound ungrateful, since this is a posh arrangement. But, what motivated you to stay this far away from the Convention and Exhibition Centre? You, of all people, like to be as close as you can be to what you seek, so your senses can hone in on a coin. This is a definite first.”
He was right. I usually hover over the prize I seek like a kingfisher circling around its nest. However, except for one terrible betrayal in the late thirteenth century, I’ve never had to worry about an unexpected attack coming from my blind side until now. It was another ripple effect from Viktor Kaslow’s reemergence in my world.
“If we optimally plan our departure from the hotel tomorrow morning, it’ll add at most twenty minutes to our arrival at the convention,” I said, for the moment not answering the deeper, implied concern behind his question. “They’re expecting a huge crowd, since so many rare coins will be on display. If we leave late, we’ll likely get swallowed up by the mob.”
“I expect Viktor Kaslow to be somewhere in that crowd, and maybe even a few of Cedric’s people,” said Alistair. “I’m sure you expect them, too. And, don’t forget I’ve studied your older journals. Your obsession with the Ala ad-Din silver shekel has brought you to China many times before, including several trips to Hong Kong over the course of the past four centuries.”
I turned away from his probing gaze.
“What makes this one so damned special?” he persisted.
“It’s a long story, Ali,” I replied, scowling as if my Ala ad-Din obsession was his fault. “One told best if we were at the Martini bar downstairs. I could use a stiff drink.”
“Not me,” said Alistair. “But I could go for some Huaisang cuisine. The desk clerk gave one hell of an endorsement for Dong Lai Shun.”
“The Chinese restaurant on the premises?”
“Yep.”
What I needed was quiet ambiance and a drink…or two, and maybe three. Sharing a tale that had only partially made it out of my head during the past millennium was the bigger issue.
“All right,” I agreed. “I’m not sure how much I’ll reveal, since I have no intention of talking about it until the wee hours. Be prepared to listen closely, as I doubt I’ll be willing to share it ever again.”
“Just as long as it doesn’t turn into a lecture, I’ll give you that.”
“Good. I’ll stick to the important things…such as the coin’s lineage and Genghis Khan.”
“Genghis Khan? What in the…are you saying you once knew him?”
“Yes.”
I left him standing near the window with his mouth hanging open in disbelief while I cleaned up. It was the first of many such reactions that night.
* * *
“Okay, Pops…I’m ready to hear your story about Ala ad-Din.”
We had just finished an exquisite Shuan Yang Rou dinner at Dong Lai Shun, and were working on our second bottle of Bordeaux.
I suppose many of you would expect a bottle or two of baijiu, instead. I deferred to Alistair’s preference in hopes it would keep his interruptions to a minimum.
“What do you know about the thirteenth century Shah, Ala ad-Din Muhammad?”
Alistair eyed me curiously after I posed this question. It certainly wasn’t how he expected the story to start.
“The one who aspired to be Sultan of Khwarezm, in the early 1200s?”
“Yes, he’s the one,” I said. “Persia wasn’t big enough for him, and my coin’s curse fed his insatiable lust for conquest.”
I smiled, grateful for his prior knowledge of the Shah. Alistair’s expertise as a professor was in Middle Eastern history, but I doubted the Shah’s fateful arrogance regarding the Silk Road in the thirteenth century captured his imagination anywhere near how it had fed my irritation when it happened ‘real time’.
“So, we’re talking about the Shah who was extremely paranoid and whose ambitions defied the diplomacy of Genghis Khan?” He chuckled and paused to sip his wine.
“And, here I thought you were going to start things off with a ramble about tracking your coin to the nomadic tribe Mr. Khan hailed from.”
“I didn’t know him as Temujin, if that’s what you’re getting at.” I shot him a fatherly look. After all, I could just as easily keep him in the dark regarding my role in what went down eight hundred years ago. “I had heard the legend of a nomadic warlord becoming a formidable entity—one powerful enough to overthrow the great Chinese kingdoms of the north.”
“That’s because he was a master of forced diplomacy.” Alistair lifted his glass in mock salute. “Khan kept the bloodshed to a minimum by giving the rulers of each Chinese city and town an opportunity to step aside and let him through. That was before Ala ad-Din Muhammad defied him.”
A rush of memories suddenly flooded my awareness, awakened from the deep recesses of my mind. It was more than I expected. I heard the screams of women and children, while the men of Samarkand lost the fight to protect them. All because of one man’s foolishness. Shah Ala ad-Din Muhammad had fallen under the influence of one of my blood coins.
Genghis Khan was not a friend, but neither was he my enemy. We met during my last visit to Khwarezm, where I sought to reclaim this particular coin. Ala ad-Din had recently slaughtered Khan’s personal Mongolian envoy and executed an imprisoned delegation of the Mongol’s ambassadors—crimes he would pay dearly for. The coin enhanced the Shah’s wickedness, and I was oh, so close to getting my hands on it. It’s bluish glow emanated faintly from inside his heavily guarded personal chambers.
“So, Pops, what does Khan’s tiff with Ala ad-Din have to do with the coin we’ve traveled half the world to find?”
My son’s voice snapped me out of my stupor.
“The Shah’s reckless actions were inspired by the coin’s inherent evil,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Those actions inspired a retaliation that undoubtedly was fed by the same wickedness. A plague spread out to the Mongol army from inside Samarkand, and I could feel the change invade them all.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?”
I looked up from my wine glass to see Alistair shaking his head. Without access to the scene playing in my head, the historical annals he had studied painted a much softer scene than the merciless ripping of human flesh I recalled.
“As you stated, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army had always deployed some vestige of diplomacy,” I explained, finding my normal voice. “But, from the day Samarkand fell until the moment his reign ended, his diplomacy was no more—especially against Islamic peoples. The new policy was to slaughter everyone standing in his way—even those who didn’t offer resistance, but were also Muslim.”
“And, you truly believe the untimely fall of the Shah’s burgeoning empire was due to a coin?”
I hate it when Alistair plays the devil’s advocate. He damned well knows this is not only what I think, but is also verifiably true.
“Yes,” I said. “Along with the Shah’s bent toward wickedness. It certainly wasn’t because of evil inherent within Genghis Khan.”
“How so?”
“It was the way Khan looked at me when I was brought before him, an hour or so before he reneged on his amnesty promise for the Shah’s soldiers who had aided in the overthrow of Samarkand,” I explained. “I saw kindness in his face, which I didn’t expect to see, based on the ferociousness of his army of warriors.”
“Did you consider he might have you killed with the rest of the city’s populace?”
“I was prepared for it, especially when his generals—including one of his sons—insisted on my execution. He waved them off, and we spoke briefly outside his tent.”
“I assume it wasn’t casual conversation concerning the weather, or was it?” Alistair jested while sipping his wine.
“No, it wasn’t,” I said thoughtfully, while the ancient scene continued to play in my mind. “He knew I was different. Maybe it was on account of his affection for shamanism, or my non-Persian appearance.”
“And, just like that he let you go?”
“When I told him I intended to pursue the Shah to Urgench, He gave me a horse and enough jerky to last a few days. I would’ve survived without the rations, but didn’t want to offend him. I thanked him and promptly left. It wasn’t long before I heard anguished cries behind me….”
“You know what his men did to the people of Samarkand, correct?”
“Yes. But, I didn’t see any of it,” I said. “It wasn’t until I gave up my search for Ala ad-Din and returned to the city’s ruins a few months later. I’ll never forget the pyramids that filled the plain outside the broken city walls.”
“Pyramids made up of human heads, of helpless men, women, and children that Genghis Khan’s men slaughtered outside the city without mercy,” said my son, quietly. It was as if he shared the mental image of the terrible, foul scene I came upon that midsummer afternoon so long ago.
To this day I see it all clearly, beneath a cloudless sky. Memories do get buried in my mind, but a byproduct of my curse is the clarity they still have when they return. No matter the event, it is as if it happened yesterday. Always.
“Why did you go back to Samarkand?”
“To find my coin,” I told him. “I foolishly assumed Ala ad-Din took it with him, but I soon learned the Shah had left his entire wealth behind him. The coin was hidden with other treasures beneath the palace. When I returned, however, the Shah’s thick vaults had been completely plundered by the Mongols. There was nothing there…just a dead city.”
“And, your ‘feel’ didn’t warn you that you were on the wrong track, huh?”
Careful, my boy. I know what you’re getting at.
“I ignored my instincts, since I’d already decided to not hang out in Samarkand any longer than necessary.”
“Do you ever think you might’ve been able to save any of the people had you stayed?”
“No.”
But that’s not necessarily true. It would’ve been extremely dangerous, but I’ve long been haunted by the likelihood I could’ve saved a few of the children. I had encountered a number of orphans in the city. If I hadn’t been so consumed with chasing after a villain, who in the end didn’t even have what I wanted, maybe I would’ve seen the opportunity to save someone other than myself.
If I could do it all over again right now, yes I would risk life and limb to carry as many as I could out of harm’s way.
“That was unfair of me to ask,” said Alistair, as if sensitive to the cloud suddenly taking over my countenance. “How did the coin get from Samarkand to Hong Kong?”
“At the time, I had no idea what became of it,” I confessed, trying to push the unpleasant images of the plain of human pyramids out of my awareness. “I had no idea what became of it for almost four hundred years. The journals you mentioned earlier mark the beginning of its reintroduction to the world.”
“Your journals talk about the Mongol Queens, who carried some powerful influence in the Mongolian Empire,” continued Alistair, who in effect had taken over my story. I chuckled at the irony. “One of them, named Khutulun, was mentioned by you as having the coin.”
“Yes, that’s true.” I nodded approvingly. “She was the exception as far as being affected by the curse is concerned. I almost missed the connection to her, since the coin’s curse affected her parents and seemed to skip a generation before bringing calamity to her descendants. But, after it passed through her hands to her son, and from him to his daughter, intermarriage with a wealthy merchant in southern China was what brought the coin to this part of the world.”
“I thought it didn’t surface in Hong Kong until 1851?”
“Correct, again, Ali. Generations of merchants in the Cheung family line eventually found their way here, in 1737, and through intermarriage with the Gu family, the coin ended up here.”
“Hmmm…. That’s quite a bit of history, Pops, and to think it could’ve turned out differently had Ala ad-Din Muhammad chosen differently,
” said Alistair, pausing to finish his wine. “Your tale didn’t take near as long as you thought it would. Maybe we should start keeping records like you used to do with your journals, and include them with the coins. We can research the ones we already have when we get back to D.C., and keep a log for the ones still out there that you’ve got a hot ‘feel’ for.”
“Sure, we can do that, son.”
In truth, it might be a good thing for Alistair, especially, since I pictured a difficult adjustment ahead for him. Teaching history to college kids had been his life and passion for most of his adulthood. He’ll need a new hobby, at least in the short term.
The big thing now was making sure this coin didn’t get away again. I could feel its pull getting stronger. Despite often being in the same general locale with this elusive coin during the past few centuries, the last time I had been close enough to see its glow was nearly eight hundred years ago. Somehow, I had to get close to my coin again in the next few days, and make sure I didn’t leave Hong Kong without it. I sure as hell didn’t want to wait another eight hundred years before the next good opportunity came along.
Chapter 3
We returned to our room around eight o’clock. Determined to catch an amazing sunset, Alistair decided the outdoor pool atop the building would provide the best vantage point, and hurriedly left my presence. Despite his budding love affair with Amy Golden Eagle, I sensed his real interest was in ‘scenery’ unrelated to the sun’s disappearance in Kowloon Bay. In the past I might’ve joined him, but Beatrice’s steady return to youth had altered my perspective on that sort of thing.
When I ended the first installment of my story at her Good Shepherd bedside, it had all the makings of a fabulous romantic reunion for us. My beloved wife seemed to recognize me when she awoke. The age-defying crystals had begun to heal her tired and worn body, as well as her mind, and I was beside myself with joy. Unfortunately, her only recollection of me was as her grandson—the ruse created twenty years ago by Alistair to explain my sudden appearance in his life.