by Various
‘I would prevent you, if I could,’ I said.
He nodded again.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Though, in case you are worried, I would not do it.’
He smiled at me again. Against all expectation, I found myself beginning to relax. That was strange, standing as I was next to a towering, armoured, genhanced, psychically-charged killing machine.
Spoken Gothic surprisingly poor. A reason for unsatisfactory communication with centre? Had assumed linguistic aptitude; may have to revise.
‘I admire perseverance, General Ravallion,’ Yesugei said. ‘You work hard to find me here. You always work hard, ever since you start.’
What did that mean? I hadn’t expected him to have researched me. As soon as I thought that, though, I admonished myself – what did I think, that they were really savages?
‘We know you,’ he went on. ‘We like what we see. I wonder, though, how much you know us? You know what you let yourself in for, dealing with White Scars?’
For the first time, his smile ghosted with something like menace.
‘I don’t,’ I said. ‘But I can learn.’
‘Maybe,’ he said.
He turned away from me, looking back out over the smoulder-dark landscape. He didn’t say anything. I hardly dared to breathe. We stood next to one another as the clouds scudded overhead, both of us locked in silence.
After a long time like that, Yesugei spoke again.
‘Some problems are complex; most are not,’ he said. ‘The Khan does not grant many audiences. Why? Not many people ask.’
He turned back to me.
‘I see what I can do,’ he said. ‘Do not leave Ullanor. If news is good, I will find way to contact you.’
I struggled to hide my relief.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
He gave me an almost indulgent look.
‘Do not thank me yet,’ he said. ‘I only say I will try.’
A deep, raw humour danced in those golden eyes as he looked at me.
‘They say he is elusive,’ he said. ‘You will hear that a lot. But listen: he is not elusive; he is at the centre. Wherever he is, that is the centre. He will seem to have broken the circle, drifted to the edge, right until the end, and then you will see that the world has come to him, and he has been waiting for it all along. Do you understand?’
I looked him in the eye.
‘I don’t, Khan Targutai Yesugei of the zadyin arga,’ I said, sticking to my policy of honesty and hoping I’d got the titles right. ‘But I can learn.’
III. Targutai Yesugei
I was sixteen years old. Those were the years of Chogoris, though, which are short. If I had been born on Terra, I would have been twelve.
I sometimes think our world forced us to grow up quickly – the seasons pass in rapid succession, and we learn the skills of survival very soon. Out on the high Altak, the weather can change so suddenly, from frost to baking sun, that you need to be nimble on your feet. You have to learn how to hunt, to feed yourself, to make or find shelter, to understand the tortuous, swaying politics of our many clans and peoples.
But perhaps we did not grow up quickly enough. In the days after the Master of Mankind came to us, we found that our warrior ways – our speed, our prowess – made us strong. We did not pause to reflect on what our weaknesses were. It was left to others to show us those, by which time it was too late to change them.
Before He came I did not know that there were other worlds, populated by other men with other ways of being. I only knew of one sky and one earth, and they seemed both infinite and eternal. Now that I have seen other earths and marched to war under their strange skies, I find my mind returning to Chogoris often. It is diminished in my imagination, but also more precious. I would go back if I could. I do not know if that will ever be possible.
More than a century has passed since I was a child. I ought to be wiser, and I ought to have left my memories behind me, but we never leave our childhood behind us: we carry it with us, and it whispers to us, reminding us of the paths we could have taken.
I ought to be wiser, and not listen, but I do. Who does not listen to the voice of their memories?
I was alone then. I had gone into the mountains of the Ulaav, walking the high ways. Those mountains are not tall, not like those of Fenris or Qavalon. They are not as majestic as the mighty Khum Karta, where our fortress-monastery was raised, many years later. The Ulaav are ancient mountains, worn down by millennia of winds from across the Altak. In summer a rider can crest the summits and never leave the saddle; in winter only berkut and ghosts can endure the cold.
I had been sent there by the khan. Those were the days when we were always at war, whether it was with one another or against the forces of the Khitan, and a boy with golden eyes was a prize worth much to all sides.
Later, I read accounts of those wars written by Imperial remembrancers. I struggled to do this as, to my shame, I never learned their language as well as I should have. Many of us in the Legion had such struggles. Perhaps Khorchin and Gothic were too far removed from one another for easy comprehension. Perhaps that was why we and the Imperium were always at cross purposes, even in the beginning.
In any case, those remembrancers referred to places I have never heard of and men who never lived, like the Palatine of Mundus Planus. I do not know where they got those names from. When we were fighting the Khitan we called their emperor by his title – Khagan, a khan of khans. We had no idea what his family name was, though I found it out later. He was called Ketugu Suogo. Since we keep so few records of our own, this knowledge is scarce. I am possibly one of the few left who knows it, and when I am gone, his name will be gone too.
Does that matter? Does it matter that we were fighting a man who never lived on a world that I have never heard of?
I think it does. Names are important; history is important.
Symbols are important.
I was alone because I had to be. The khan would not have sent such a precious commodity into the mountains if he could have helped it; by choice, he would have surrounded me with men of his keshig, sworn to protect me should the enemy get wind of my vulnerability and seek to snatch me away.
Unfortunately for him, the test of heaven only worked on a single mind. We had strange and bashful gods on Chogoris; they only showed themselves to lone souls, and only where the land rose to meet the infinite sky and the veil between realms was thin and perilous.
So, even knowing what danger waited for me, the khan’s warriors left me at the foot of the mountains, and I made my way up into the heights alone. Once I started walking I did not look back. The air was already biting, whistling under my rough kaftan and chafing against my flesh. I shivered, huddling my arms to my chest and keeping my head down.
The valleys of the Ulaav mountains were famously beautiful. Meltwater created lakes of cobalt in the shadowed laps of the peaks. Pine forests ran down sheer rock-shoulders in cloaks of dark green, dense and glossy like lacquered armour. The sky above the summits was glass-clear, so intensely blue it hurt the eyes to look at. Everything there was hard, stern, clean. Even in my half-chilled state, I was moved by it. I understood, as I neared the high places, why the gods lingered there.
Aside from that, I felt nothing – no visions, no magical powers, no bursts of supernatural strength. The only mark of my uniqueness was my eyes, and they had done nothing thus far but bring me trouble. If it had not been for the khan I would likely long since have been killed, but he recognised my potential before I did. He was a far-sighted man, with a vision for Chogoris that I was too young to understand. He also knew how useful I could be to him if he was right.
I climbed higher, following tracks that were seldom trodden and which were little more than pale impressions on loose stone. By the time I stopped, my head light from the thin air, I was high up on the eastern scarps and could see how far I had come.
Both of Chogoris’s moons were up, even though the sun had not yet set in the north. I was l
ooking out across the vast expanse of the eastern Altak – the endless plain of scrub-grass that ran away further than anyone had ever travelled. From my vantage, I could see tiny sparks of camp fires out in the wilds, separated by huge, empty distances and overlooked by the lowering sky.
Those lands were the khan’s, though in those days they were still contested by other tribes and clans. Beyond them, over the eastern horizon, lay the realms of the Khitan.
I had never seen so far. I sat down, leaning against a shelf of bare rock, gazing out across the vista before me. Night-birds wheeled high above, and I saw the first stars come out in the frost-blue sky.
I do not know how long I sat there, a single soul exposed on the flanks of the Ulaav, shivering as night fell across the world.
I should have made a fire. I should have begun the work of making a shelter. For some reason, I did nothing. Maybe I was fatigued from the climb, or dizzy from the sparse air, but I stayed where I was, cross-legged, gazing out across the darkening Altak, mesmerised by the tiny golden lights glowing out on the plain, held in thrall by their silver counterparts in the arch of heaven above.
I felt that I was in the right place then. I did not need to do anything, or change anything, or move anything.
If something was going to happen, it would happen to me there. I would wait for it, as patient as an aduu under halter.
It could find me. I had done enough travelling.
I woke suddenly.
It must have been much later – the sky was velvet dark, pocked with a glittering cloak of stars. Distant campfires still twinkled out on the plain, now sunk into deep, deep blue. It was bitterly cold, and the wind rustled the dry branches around me.
One by one, I saw the fires across the Altak die. They winked out of existence, leaving the plain even emptier – just a void, broken by nothing.
I tried to move. I found that I could glide upwards, swimming through the air as if it were water. I looked down at myself and saw a sleek, feather-lined body. I rose quickly, circling higher, feeling the breeze lift my trembling wings.
The mountains fell away below me. The curve of the world’s horizon dropped. In the east, over where the lands of the Khitan lay, I saw more lights going out. The whole world, all of it, was sliding into darkness.
I hovered, tilting a little in the high winds. I called out, and heard the crii of a night-bird. It felt like I was the only living thing in creation.
Soon I was alone with the stars. They continued to burn silver in the space above me. I flew ever higher, beating my wings against thinning air.
I came amongst them. I saw lights burning in the vaults of heaven. I saw fires raging and curls of flame flickering in the darkness. I saw things I did not recognise, mighty iron-clad things with prows like ploughshares, torn apart and reduced to drifting pieces. Forces too immense for me to comprehend were fighting across the trackless void.
So these are the gods, I thought.
I passed among the wreckage of those things, marvelling at the shapes and symbols carved on shards of spinning metal. I saw a many-headed snake-creature embossed upon one fragment; the head of a wolf on another. Then I saw a sign I recognised – a lightning strike in gold and red, the eternal mark of the khans.
Part of me knew those things were visions, and that my body remained where I had left it on the slopes of the Ulaav. Another part of me, perhaps the wiser, recognised that I was seeing something real, something more than real, something that underpinned reality like the poles of a ger underpin the fabric.
Then, like the fires on the Altak, the fires in the stars faded away. Everything went dark. I knew, though, that I was not falling asleep again. I knew that something else was coming for me.
I was out on the plain. It was noon, and the sun burned white in the empty sky. The wind came down from the mountains, rustling the scrub-grass and tugging at my kaftan.
I looked down and saw a cup in my left hand. It was earthenware, like all the cups of the ordu. Blood-red liquid filled it nearly to the brim.
I looked up again, shading my eyes against the piercing sun, and saw four figures standing before me. Their outlines were shaky, as if broken by heat-haze, except that it wasn’t hot.
All of them had the bodies of men and the heads of animals. One had the head of a blue-feathered bird with amber eyes; one had the head of a serpent; one had the head of a red-eyed bull; one had the decaying head of a fish, already yellowed with putrescence.
All of them looked at me, shimmering in the direct light. They lifted their arms and pointed.
None of them spoke. They did not have human lips to speak with. For all that, I knew what they wanted me to do. Somehow their thoughts took shape in my own mind, as clear and distinct as if I had summoned them up myself.
Drink they told me.
I looked down at the cup in my left hand. The liquid within was hot. Froth had collected around the rim. I felt a sudden thirst break out. I lifted the cup halfway to my mouth, and my hand trembled as I did so.
I knew something important was in there, but I held back. My instincts warred within me.
Drink they told me.
The tone of their command gave me pause. I did not know why they wanted me to do it.
It was then that I saw Him. He came from the opposite direction. He had the shape of a man too, but the halo of light around Him made it hard to make much more out than that. I could not see His face. He was coming toward me, and I knew, without knowing how, that He had travelled from a long, long way away.
He gave me no command. Other than that, He was like the four beast-figures. There was some relationship between them, something I could sense but did not understand. The Four were scared of Him. I knew then that if I drank from the cup, then I would be defying Him – if I did not drink, I would be defying them.
We all remained like that for the space of many thoughts. The Four pointed at me. The man wreathed in light walked toward me, never seeming to come any closer.
Drink they told me.
I lifted the cup to my lips. I took a sip. The liquid had a complex taste: sweet to begin with, then bitter. I felt it flow down my throat, hot and vital. As soon as I had started, I felt an urge to keep drinking. I wanted nothing more than to swallow it all down, to drain it to the dregs.
Drink they told me.
After that one sip, I put the cup down, crouching carefully and resting it on the earth before me. For all my care, it spilled a little, staining my fingers. Then I took a step away from it.
I bowed to the Four, not wishing to give offence. I spoke, not really knowing where my words came from.
‘It is courteous to take a small amount,’ I said. ‘That is enough for us.’
The Four lowered their arms. They did not command me again. The man stopped walking, still just where He had been when I had first seen Him.
I felt that I had disappointed all of them. Perhaps, though, I had disappointed Him less than I had them.
The vision began to fade. I could feel the hardness of the real world reasserting itself. The sunlit plain before me rippled like water, and I saw gaps of darkness under it.
I wanted to stay. I knew that my return to the world of the senses would be painful.
I looked again at the man, hoping to make out something of His face before the dreaming ended.
I saw nothing but light, flickering and wheeling around a core of brightness. There was no warmth in that light; just brilliance. He was like a cold sun.
When His light was taken away, though, I felt the loss of it.
I woke, for real that time, shuddering from the chill. My limbs ached, and were as red as raw meat. I tried to move and felt spikes of agony in my joints. Everything hurt – I felt flayed.
It was dawn. Below me the plains were milky with mist. I saw an arrowhead of birds scud across them, moving just like our formations of mounted warriors did. Pale lines of smoke rose up through the mist, the last remnants of the fires that had burned through the night.
I forced myself to move. After a while, the worst of the pain began to ebb. I jogged and waved my arms, unstiffening my knees and my elbows. Blood started to flow around my body again. I was still very cold, but movement helped.
I could still remember my visions. I knew what they were. Uig, the khan’s old zadyin arga had told me to expect them. That was the test of heaven – once the visions came, they would never leave.
I didn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, it was confirmation of what I had always believed about myself. On the other, it presaged a life of loneliness.
A zadyin arga was not a warrior. He did not travel the plains in lacquer armour fighting for his khan: his life was a solitary one, shackled to the gers, protected at all times and forced to root through entrails and scry the stars. The position was one of honour, but not of the highest honour. Like all the boys of the tribe, I had dreamed of riding the steppes, taking war to the enemies of my brothers and of my khan.
As I stood, shivering upon the slopes of the Ulaav, watching the mist boil away from the plains, I contemplated telling them that the test had failed; that my golden eyes were nothing more than a strange, harmless affliction.
I even began to wonder whether the things I had seen had been nothing more than dreams, the kind that everybody has. I tried to make myself believe that.
Then I looked down at my hands. The ends of my fingers were still stained red.
I stuffed those hands into the sleeves of my clothes, unwilling to look at them. Slowly, I started to walk back the way I had come.
I had passed from one way of being into another during that night. The change was profound, and over the wearing years I would gradually learn just how profound – back then, though, it felt like almost nothing had changed. I was still a child, and I knew nothing of what powers had been stirred into life within me.
Even now, more than a century later, I am still a child in that respect. We all are, those of us with power: we know so little, we see so imperfectly.
And that is both a great curse and a great blessing, for if we knew more and saw more perfectly then we would surely go mad.