by Ben Bova
I shook myself the way a dog shakes water off its fur. “Agla,” I whispered so low that I myself could not truly hear the words, “perhaps we’ll meet again, somewhere, somewhen.”
Slipping my curved dagger from its sheath, I slowly, silently sliced a cut through the tough fabric of the tent wall and carefully stepped through it, into Ogotai’s sleeping tent. Another silk hanging was draped over the tent’s side so that I made my entrance unnoticed by those inside.
The tent was dimly lit. Through the silken fabric I could see nothing more than shadows. But I could hear men speaking. It was Ahriman’s voice that I heard first. I froze where I stood, not even daring to breathe for fear of moving the tapestry and revealing my presence.
“Sleep will come soon, my lord High Khan,” said the Dark One’s heavy, tortured voice.
“The pain is bad tonight,” Ogotai replied.
“It is the dampness,” Ahriman said. “Wet weather makes the pain worse.”
“And you make the potion stronger.”
“That is necessary, to keep the pain away.”
“But the pain is winning, Persian. Each night it grows stronger. I can feel it, despite your potions.”
“Did you suffer badly during the hunt, my lord?”
“Enough. Your draughts kept me going. But if it hadn’t been for Orion, I would be dead now.”
I could hear Ahriman give out a long, growling sigh.
“You still prophesy,” Ogotai asked, “that he will try to kill me?”
“He is an assassin, High Khan. He was sent here to murder you.”
“I cannot believe it.”
Ahriman’s rasping voice took on an air of complete certainty. “The next time you see him. High Khan, he will attempt to assassinate you. Be warned.”
“Enough!” Ogotai snapped. “If he had wanted to kill me, he could have let the boar do the job. He saved my life, wizard.”
“And won your confidence.”
Ogotai did not answer. For long moments I heard nothing but the keening of the wind outside and the creaking of the tent ropes.
“My lord High Khan,” Ahriman said, in his harsh whisper, “a month from now your general Subotai will gather the strength of his army once again and march farther west, across the lands of the German princes, across the broad river called the Rhine, and into the land of the Franks. These Franks are mighty warriors. It was they who turned back the Saracens many years ago. It is they who even today battle against the Ottomans near Jerusalem. But Ogotai will crush them utterly and destroy their cities. He will reach the wide sea and plant the yak-tail standard on its shore. You will rule all the lands between the two mighty oceans. All of Europe and Asia will be yours.”
“You have prophesied all this before,” said Ogotai. He sounded weary, dulled, sleepy.
“Indeed,” Ahriman admitted. “But none of this will come to pass if the High Khan dies and all the Orkhons and generals must return to Karakorum to elect a new High Khan. Orion knows this. That is why he must strike you down soon, within the next few days, if he is to save Europe from Subotai’s conquest.”
“I understand your words, wizard,” Ogotai said, slowly. “But I do not believe them.”
“My prophecies have never failed you, High Khan.”
“Leave me, wizard. Let me sleep in peace.”
“I am…”
“Leave,” Ogotai commanded.
I heard Ahriman’s heavy, lumbering tread cross the tent and disappear into the night. For several minutes I remained behind the tapestry while, one by one, the lamps in the tent were snuffed out. Finally there was only one dim light flickering. It stayed lit, and I decided that Ogotai was not going to have it put out.
I stepped out from behind the hanging. The High Khan was lying atop the quilts of his bed, wearing a rough robe of homespun. His face looked haggard. He was sweating. But he was still awake, and he saw me.
So did his guards. Six swords leaped from their scabbards.
Ogotai made a motion with his hands. The guards stood where they were, swords gripped tightly in their hands.
“They see the dagger in your hand, Orion,” said Ogotai, “and fear you are here to slay me.”
Only then did I realize that I still held the weapon. I opened my fingers and let it drop to the carpet. Ogotai gestured to the guards and they sheathed their swords and left the tent.
The two of us were alone.
The High Khan seemed drained of all strength. His eyes focused on me, and I could see agony in them.
“Have you come to fulfill Ahriman’s prophecy?” he asked. “Have you come to kill me?”
“If I must.”
He almost smiled. “It is not fitting for a Mongol warrior to take his own life. But I have a devil inside my body, Orion. It burns inside me like a red-hot coal. It is killing me slowly, inch by inch.”
Cancer. That was why Ahriman was providing him with pain-killers. But not even Ahriman’s skills could cure cancer once it was so far advanced.
“My lord High Khan…”
“Orion, my friend. I cannot be struck down in battle. I am too old for that. I barely made it through the hunt. But you can strike me down. You can give me a clean death, instead of this lingering foulness.”
The breath caught in my throat. “How can I kill a man who calls me friend?”
“Death always wins, in the end. It took my father, did it not? It will take me. The only question is when… and how much pain there will be. I am not a coward, Orion—” he swallowed hard and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment — “but I have had my share of pain.”
I stood there by his bed, unable to move.
“You are a loyal friend,” Ogotai said. “You hesitate because you know that if you kill me, the prophecy of Ahriman will not come to pass: the Mongols will not rule the entire world.”
How could I tell him that this was why I had to murder him?
“I like your own prophecy better, Orion. Let the Mongols live in peace. Let other nations struggle and war against one another. As long as we find peace… and rest…”
His eyes squeezed shut again and his whole body arched on the bed like a man being tortured on the rack.
When he opened his eyes again, there were tears in them. “Not even Ahriman’s potion is — helping tonight. I weep like a woman.”
My hand slid to the empty sheath at my belt.
Ogotai’s breathing had become shallow, gasping. “It would not be good for the others to see me so weak. The High Khan should not appear with tears in his eyes.”
I remembered that among the Mongols it was forbidden to shed blood. I turned and took a pillow from the chair beside his bed.
Ogotai actually smiled at me. “Good-bye, my friend from the western lands.”
I covered his face with the pillow. By the time I lifted it from him, there were tears in my eyes.
I walked slowly out of the tent, past the guards who still stood at the entrance. The storm had blown away. Dawn was turning the sky pink. I strode back to the house, to the pony tethered beside it, mounted up and rode out of the city. Agla was still there in the wilderness, somewhere. Perhaps I could reach her before the Mongols realized what I had done.
For two days and nights I searched the grassy open plain, wondering if Agla had survived the storm, wondering if the Mongols would come hunting for me, wondering what Ahriman was doing to revenge himself for my thwarting his plan.
On the morning of the third day I saw a pony, head drooping, reins dragging on the grass, its saddle askew and empty. I had been walking my horse, but I quickly mounted up and dug my heels into its flanks. I galloped along, following the trail that Agla’s mount had left in the grass, my heart racing faster than the pony’s drumming hooves.
And then I saw a figure sprawled on the ground as if it had fallen from its horse or dropped with exhaustion. I bent over my pony’s neck and raced toward her.
But suddenly the world seemed to drop away from me. I was falling — falling i
n a crazy, wild, spinning tunnel — my arms and legs flailing against emptiness as a flashing kaleidoscope of vivid colors battered at my senses. Just as suddenly I was floating in utter darkness, disembodied in a black pit of weightless, timeless suspension.
“Agla!” I screamed. But there was no sound.
How long I hung suspended, bodiless in that dark void, I have no way of knowing. Slowly I began to realize that this was Ahriman’s doing, his revenge upon me for thwarting him: I was sentenced to an eternity of nothingness.
But then I saw a tiny spark of light, a distant star glimmering against the vast, indifferent emptiness, and my heart leaped. The star grew, shimmering, into a golden sphere and slowly took the shape of a glowing golden man.
Ormazd.
You have done well, Orion. I could not hear his words, for no sound existed in this blankness. But I understood what he was saying. This was his doing, not Ahriman’s. Ormazd had taken me away from Agla, whisked me out of time once I had completed his bidding. This was my reward for stopping Ahriman once again.
But your work is far from finished, he was telling me Ahriman still threatens the continuum. You have only deflected his evil; you have not ended it.
I felt myself falling again and heard wind whistling past me. I opened my mouth in a long primal scream of anger — anger directed not against Ahriman, my enemy, but against Ormazd, my creator.
INTERLUDE
Orion’s body floated lifelessly on nothingness in an infinite void. The Golden One appeared, shimmering into radiant human form, and began to examine his handiwork.
With senses that could discern the energy levels of individual atoms, the Golden One inspected the inert form floating before him. He nodded to himself, satisfied.
“He did not need to die this time.”
The Golden One did not bother to look up. “No. Yet he still resisted my summons.”
“He is learning to hate you.”
“He is learning that his own petty desires are sometimes in conflict with mine. And the one he hates is the godlike personage he knows as Ormazd. That is only a small part of me, as you well know.”
A silver gleaming lit the featureless expanse, and the one who called herself Anya appeared, clad in metallic silver from throat to foot, her dark hair tied severely back away from her face. Her silver-gray eyes looked first at the Golden One, as they must, and then focused on the body of Orion.
“He wanted to stay where he was,” she said.
“Yes. With you.”
“We were happy together.”
The Golden One made a gesture that might have been resignation, might have been pique. “He was not sent on this mission to be happy. He has a task to accomplish.”
“You send him to kill the Dark One; yet he does not have the strength to do so.”
“He will, eventually. He must.”
“You have not made him strong enough,” Anya insisted.
“No.” The Golden One shook his head. “It is you who are weakening him.”
“I?”
“You make him realize how alone he is. You make him desire companionship, even love.”
Anya’s chin rose a stubborn inch. “Have you ever considered, while you are playing your game of infinities, that he makes me desire companionship… even love?”
“Nonsense! You cannot…”
“I did love him,” Anya confessed. “When I was in human form, living down there in those wretched tents, he was magnificent. I thought him a god, almost. I think he reminded me somewhat of you.”
The Golden One smiled. “Truly?”
“A god,” she went on, “a being of great strength, and great goodness. And…” she hesitated.
“And what?”
“Great need.” Anya’s voice suddenly became almost pleading. “Can’t you see how confused, how painful, it is for him? Cast into a strange time and place, commanded to do things that are impossible…”
“He succeeded in his task,” the Golden One said. “He has kept the continuum intact.”
“At what cost?”
“The cost does not matter, my dear. Only the goal is significant.”
“You would sacrifice him — you would sacrifice all of them — to save yourself.”
“And you,” the Golden One pointed out. “If I am saved, so are you and the others.”
“And so is he, the Dark One. He will be saved also.”
“No. He must be destroyed.”
“But you cannot destroy him without destroying us.”
“That is not true. I will destroy him. This creature that you dote on will do that for us.”
Anya looked down on Orion’s silent body. “You know he can’t achieve that. He is only a creation of yours. The Dark One has powers that he cannot match.”
“He will defeat the Dark One.”
“He can’t.”
“And I say he will! We have already stopped him twice. I will keep sending out this creature to defeat the Dark One, no matter how long it takes.”
“Haven’t you looked around you?” Anya demanded. “Haven’t you seen what’s happening? Are you so egotistical that you believe you actually are winning this contest?”
“I am winning,” the Golden One replied. “The continuum remains intact, despite the Dark One’s pitiful little schemes.”
Anya raised one hand, and the emptiness in which they stood was suddenly filled with vast swirls of stars, boiling cauldrons of gas that glowed pink and ultraviolet, whirlpools of galaxies sweeping out to infinity.
“Look!” she shouted over the rumble of the expanding, exploding universe. “See what is happening to the continuum.”
The Golden One followed her outstretched finger and saw stars collapsing in on themselves, titanic explosions that flung out seething gases and then sucked them back in to an insatiable vortex of energy until what was once a brilliant star became nothing more than a black hole in the fabric of space-time. He saw whole galaxies succumbing to the same forces, winking out of existence, dying even as he watched.
“Do you think you are winning?” Anya demanded. “While the continuum is dying, piece by piece?”
The Golden One snapped his fingers and the starry universe disappeared. Once again they were in the calm nothingness of the void.
“Do not be alarmed by side-effects, my dear,” he said. “The battle is taking place on Earth. Of all the planets of the continuum, of all the living intelligences in that universe, it is these creatures of Earth that hold the key to our struggle.”
“So you believe,” Anya said.
“What I believe is true,” answered the Golden One. “What I believe is the continuum.”
“For how long?” she taunted. “How long will you be able to maintain your control? He is defeating you, O mighty Ormazd. The forces of darkness are gobbling up the continuum, bit by bit.”
“That will all be reversed once the Dark One is destroyed.”
With a sad, unbelieving shake of her head, Anya said more softly, “So you will send him back again?”
Glancing at Orion’s waiting body, the Golden One replied, “Yes. It is necessary.”
“Then I will go also.”
“You are very foolish,” said the Golden One.
“And stubborn. I know.”
“You can’t actually want to be with this… this, creature. You can’t actually desire him.”
She smiled. “He reminds me of you, a little. But where you have arrogance and power, he has doubt — and courage.”
The Golden One turned his back on her, and abruptly disappeared. Orion’s body began to stir; his eyelids fluttered as his fingers clutched at emptiness.
Anya watched him. coming to life, and slowly she faded into nothingness. But as she dissolve the human form that she had taken, her luminous gray eyes never left the face of the creature she had known, the man she had loved.
PART THREE: FLOOD
CHAPTER 22
My eyes opened and showed me a blue sky bright
with sunshine and puffy white clouds. The memory of Karakorum, of Ogotai and the Mongols, faded from my mind like a distant, echoing song. All I could think of was Agla, the sound of her voice, the touch of her vibrantly warm skin, her beautiful face. “Ormazd,” I thought, “do you understand what suffering is? Do you know how cruel you are?”
Yet, even as I said those words to myself, I had the feeling that I would meet her again. Aretha, Agla, whatever her true name was — she was bound to me, and I to her, through all of time. No matter how many centuries separated us, we would find each other. I knew it with all my soul.
I realized that I was lying on my back. Sitting up, I surveyed my new location. It was a broad open meadow of cool grass that sloped gently down toward a distant river. Trees grew at the water’s edge, the first trees I had seen in a long while. The grass itself was long and wild and matted; no blade had ever cut it, from the looks of it. Wild flowers dotted the land with color. Rocks and boulders jutted here and there; no one had ever cleared them away. The trees by the river swayed in a warm wind; they rose up from a tangle of low foliage that hugged the river’s bank. There was no sign of civilization, no sign of human beings ever having been here.
A rabbit’s brown, lop-eared head popped up from the grass. It eyed me, nose twitching, as I sat there, then hopped up closer, well within arm’s reach. It had no fear of me at all. After a few moments of inspection, it bounded away and disappeared into the long grass once again.
I looked down at myself. My garments were a simple kilt made of hide and a leather vest. A braided belt around my waist held a small knife. I drew it from the belt and saw that it was made of a smooth stone handle and a blade of chipped flint, tied to the handle rather clumsily with what looked like dried pieces of vine.
Closing my eyes for a moment, I tried to puzzle out where and when I might be. Obviously I had been sent backward through time again. Ahriman had told me I was moving back toward The War, from the twentieth century to the thirteenth to the…