There was something else besides the yelling, something behind it. There was the sound of flesh being torn apart, of metal sinking into bodies. Those screams weren't just from fear, they were from the pain of peoples' last moments. These were the death cries of people being murdered—no—butchered. Something horrible had happened here, maybe somehow in some unseen plane, it still was? Victims’ voices lingered, eternally tormented for centuries by the violence of their ends.
“Something happened here...” Purdue managed, wincing from the loud noises knocking around in his head. He spoke loudly, just to be sure that Nina and the others could even hear him. He looked around the plateau and started walking past his team. “Something awful.”
He didn't know if his teammates were even following him, but he couldn't focus on that. He instead tried his best to follow the voices, and they seemed to grow louder once he started walking. He was being led somewhere by a trail of invisible blood, from a bloodletting that had taken place hundreds of years before.
It wasn't his mind playing tricks on him, and it wasn't Riley's mind fooling her. She walked up beside him and the two followed the sounds as best as they could. They both moved wearily, nearly falling over from the pain that was ringing in their heads.
Whispers came underneath the screams; collective chants that were growing louder and louder with each step he took. A dozen voices all uttering the same word and he could hear that so vividly now. That one word confirmed their location and made it utterly clear now they’d reached their targeted destination. The word that broke through the death thralls was “Khan.”
Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan.
Purdue picked up his pace and could feel Riley beside him. They somehow knew that if they could get to where these voices rang loudest, they might actually be able to get rid of them. They might somehow be able to free themselves from the horrific sounds plaguing them.
Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan.
One step. Then another. They just have to keep moving.
Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan.
Purdue was off balance and reeling from everything going on inside of him. This was madness, possibly even real insanity overcoming him.
Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan.
Just a little further but the steps were getting hard. Everything felt like it was disappearing, except for the deafening screams and the name that continued to echo repeatedly. It was all that mattered now, the rest of the world seemed to disappear. He didn't know if his friends were still behind him. He barely knew if he was even actually going anywhere at all.
Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan.
Purdue would feel completely alone if he couldn't feel Riley moving beside him. He was glad she was there too, and he was glad that both weren't insane after all. Then again, maybe they were. Maybe this was some sort of shared mental breakdown into lunacy. But if that was the case, at least they had each other. At least they wouldn't drown in madness alone.
Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan.
There was something large up ahead, looming over them in the middle of the plateau.
Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. Khan. K--
The screams and chanting in his mind ended abruptly, like they’d just been immediately silenced once Purdue saw that shape ahead.
Then one last shout resounded, but it was more like a roar of angry voices. It was louder than any other of the others had been and far more clear. It seemed to shake the entire world around him when it came through Purdue’s brain.
KHAN.
The name and the wave of voices hit Purdue like a tsunami, and he felt himself falling forward, tipping over straight down toward the rocks at his feet. In seconds, his head collided down onto the hard terrain and all of the wind was sucked from his body.
Everything went black for a moment, but only for a split second.
Purdue opened his eyes and found himself still lying in the middle of the plateau, high above so much of the surrounding area. He looked around and saw that the object ahead was some sort of giant rock, but he didn't find anyone that he recognized. Riley was no longer beside him. Nina, Yusuke, and August had completely vanished. But despite the disappearance of his allies, Purdue realized that he wasn't alone on this rock after all.
A line of frail, skinny men were turning away from a group of other men. The other group were well dressed, looked much better fed, and were all armed. Their weapons were drawn on the skinny men who all turned and started to flee. All of their faces were petrified with panic and fear. As they ran toward Purdue, he held out his hands and called out, but they ignored him. Some ran right past him while others were cut down by the armed group of men.
He didn't know how but something was pushing ideas into his head. He had no way of confirming what he was thinking, but he somehow knew exactly what he was seeing. Those skinny men running for their lives were slaves whose lives had been forfeited to the Mongol conquerors that took their homes. The ones doing the killing were soldiers of Genghis Khan, trying to murder any witnesses to the Great Khan's burial site. They’d ambushed these slaves without any sort of warning or reason and were going to kill every last one of them, to bury the secret with Khan.
Purdue watched as the slaves were massacred without any sort of explanation. They all screamed, begged, and pleaded for mercy, and he recognized all of those terrified shrieks that left their mouths; those same yells were the ones that had been filling every corner of his mind. They never stood any sort of chance against their masters. One of them, the last survivor tried to put up a fight, but he couldn't do much against a blade. He also fell; and after all of the slaves were dead or dying, the soldiers all turned their weapons on themselves and committed suicide around that giant rock nearby. They were going to every possible length to get rid of anyone that knew where Genghis Khan was buried—and he’d been concealed just there—so close to where they’d all fallen.
Purdue knew that was true. Some otherworldly presence was pushing him towards his answers, showing him, and telling him what he needed to know. His gut told him it might have even been those slaves, their souls lingering on this plateau, haunting the place of their sudden deaths. Maybe they wanted to spite those guards that had tried too hard to protect Genghis Khan's burial place? It sure seemed like they were leading Purdue closer.
Purdue turned around and one of those personal guards was standing directly behind him. That warrior let out a roar and lunged forward with his blade. Purdue gasped; and just as the blade pierced his chest, the vision he was in the midst of dissipated and he was blanketed by darkness again.
“Purdue!”
Pain seared through Purdue's face and he found himself prone on the rocks, surrounded by his team. There were no spectral slaves showing him their demises and there weren't any murderers warriors cutting down anyone. All of his allies were looking down at him, alive and well, looking oblivious to anything that he’d seen.
“Are you okay?” Yusuke asked.
Purdue didn't know how to answer that. He wanted to believe that everything he’d seen was just some concoction of his imagination when he’d hit his head after the fall, but he knew that wasn't the case. It had been far too vivid, far too detailed, and far too real. There was no way he could have ever just come up with that. He didn't have that good enough of an imagination. Most of all, he realized it based on the fact that Riley was lying next to him, looking rattled.
They met eyes and she nodded to him.
“I saw it too. I saw it all.”
“Saw what?” Nina asked, probably more forcefully than she intended, but Purdue understood why. It was coming from a place of genuine concern. To the others, it’d probably looked like he an
d Riley had shared some sort of psychotic episode. They couldn't understand the gravity of what they had both endured. They didn't know the full story like they did. And they hadn't gotten the confirmation that Purdue now understood—they’d found it.
The tomb of Genghis Khan was so close—and his burial had been just as bloody as the rest of the conqueror's life. That much was clear enough. The rest of the world, the textbooks of history had no idea about this part of the story. No one else knew about the brutality that had taken place. Of the billions of funerals and wakes there in the history of mankind, very few had probably been as violent as this one. It was fitting; so fitting that it made Purdue a bit sad that the rest of the world didn't have a clue about the somewhat poetic nature of the very end of Genghis Khan's story. Maybe they would now, now that Purdue was going to find his remains?
“Someone mind telling me what's going on?” August asked, rubbing his hands together uneasily. “No one's saying anything! You're all freaking me the hell out.”
“This is the right place,” Purdue insisted. “Trust me.” He turned to Riley. “Trust us.”
The voices had stopped shouting and Riley even seemed to be returning to her usual self. She was even smiling now, and not looking petrified. Purdue himself was starting to feel a little bit better. Whatever invisible force had dragged them toward this spot had done the work it wanted to apparently. They all took a minute to catch their breaths. It’d undeniably been a long and hard journey, but Purdue was feeling very hopeful now. He just prayed that these ghosts from the past were done using him as a compass. It hadn't been a very enjoyable experience. Hopefully, it was going to just be an easy end to this expedition now—but things hardly ever worked out the way he wanted. Maybe this would be the first?
14
THE REMAINS AND THE LEFTOVERS
The tomb was built under an enormous boulder that must have been there long before Genghis Khan's burial. It seemed to work as something of a headstone for the grave—an enormous, solid marker fit for a man as powerful as Genghis Khan was. It wasn't ornate, but it permeated strength and stability. They just had to make sure that he was actually buried there or this whole search had been for nothing. All of the clues led to this spot. If it wasn't here, then they’d have to start all over and go straight back to the drawing board.
Purdue and the others got to work quickly with their shovels frantically digging all around the large rock. The excitement of being in the right place fueled them all with newfound vigor. There was a good chance that this was where they wanted to be and had finally reached their destination. They all felt so close to what they’d worked so hard to achieve. Something hidden from the world for eight centuries could be buried right beneath them.
Purdue had experienced this kind of sensation before in his travels, but this one seemed a little different, more potent than the others. Maybe it was because this would be his first big victory as the leader of the Order of the Black Sun? This would prove that his decision to restructure the secret society was worth it; that a once malicious organization could actually be used for something positive! This feat would show everyone that the Order of the Black Sun wasn’t going to be different, but it already was.
“Does this count as grave robbing?” Riley asked beside him, wiping some sweat from her brow and looking disgusted. “I feel like I need to take like fifty showers now.”
“It's only grave robbing if there's actually a grave here.”
“Great,” she moaned, looking disgusted. “Now part of me hopes we don't find the tomb now.”
HOURS PASSED, and they all kept digging. There had to be something, anything to show that this was the right place. Those terrifying visions had to have meant something; it couldn't have been for nothing at all. Purdue had seen those sights with his own eyes, witnessed that massacre, and heard the wicked whispers. Purdue kept on shoveling, no matter how tired he got. With each chunk of dirt and Earth he tossed aside, he could feel how close he was to Genghis Khan.
There was something there in the dirt, right by his feet. Purdue reached in and pulled it from the earth. It was a bone—possibly belonging to Genghis Khan. It wasn't for certain, but at the very least, he knew that this was indeed a burial site after all.
“Oi! Over here!”
He called out and everyone else stopped their shoveling for a minute to see what he found. They all looked over the bone with wide, optimistic eyes, and were all just as hopeful as he was that this was what they’d come all this way to locate.
They kept excavating in that general part of the ground and kept finding more and more remains, like pieces of a puzzle that they were trying to piece together. With each part, Yusuke starting laying the bones in place a few yards away, doing his best to construct a person on the ground. There were two hundred and six bones in the human body. Purdue didn't expect to find every single one of them. Some had probably crumbled to dust over the centuries if they’d any sort of meat on them. They kept pulling the bones from the grave for hours.
Purdue took hold of a piece and heaved. What came up was battered and withered, but it was clearly a human skull.
It was Khan!
Purdue was looking into the eye holes of one of history's most notorious and successful conquerors. Of course, no eyes were looking back at him. There were just two dark openings. Purdue was thankful for that. Being in Genghis Khan's sights probably hadn't resulted in a good outcome.
He cupped the cranium in his grasp of one of the most recognizable names in the long history of humankind. It was surreal, to say the least.
“Is that...?” Yusuke was at his side, looking with amazement at the skull. Yusuke had been looking for Genghis Khan's remains far longer than Purdue had. “Is that really him?”
“Seems so,” Purdue alleged. “But we won't know for sure until we can have these bones examined. But...who else would it be, aye?”
Yusuke looked elated, and Purdue shared that joy and relief. This wasn't all just for nothing. They’d really found Khan. Shin Wo had been senselessly murdered in his sleep, but his death hadn't been in vain. Purdue wished he could have been here to see Genghis Khan's remains for himself, to be able to meet the man that fascinated him. That would have been amazing, but Shin never got to see his dreams fulfilled. Purdue had given him the hope that he might be part of finding the Great Khan's grave, but then that anticipation had been ripped away by whoever brought that blade down on Shin’s throat.
The others all climbed out of the hole they dug around the boulder and gathered nearby the bones. Purdue placed the skull on the ground above the rest of the bone formation that had been made. It was starting to resemble a human skeleton. Genghis Khan was laying on the ground in front of them, staring at them with his hollow eyes and his permanent smile. One of the most famous men in history had ended just like anyone else, nothing but bones—but it was him. It wasn't confirmed yet, but Purdue could feel it. They’d truly found Genghis Khan's tomb!
15
SETTLING OLD SCORES
The new Order of the Black Sun continued to exhume any stray remains from around the boulder, unearthing more and more pieces of the legendary world conqueror. When Purdue was satisfied by how much of him they found and was sure that they weren't going to find much else in the ground, he scooped up all of the brittle old bones and put them in a large burlap sack.“We did it,” Riley exclaimed with a broad grin. “We really found it.”
“Because of you,” Purdue said. “You brought that bow to my attention. That bow gave us what we needed to get here. We couldn't have done this without you, Miss Duda.” He meant every word. She was still a novice to all of this, but she had done well. She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him into a hug. “You did good, lass. You did good.”
The others looked pleased, too. Despite the disastrous detours the journey had taken, from losing Shin Wo, who could have been a great help the rest of the way, they’d successfully navigated their way to the end of the quest and had found the treas
ure. Purdue wished that Riley and especially Yusuke were seeing the value of being part of the Order of the Black Sun; that their membership made this all possible. They now had the resources to discover things that they may not have ever been able to uncover on their own. He wanted them to leave this expedition feeling fulfilled and satisfied with the group. And Purdue prayed that the rest of the order saw their success and realized that the Black Sun could be just as victorious with a guy like him in charge instead of a lunatic like Julian Corvus.
“So what now?” August asked.
Purdue looked out toward the edge of the plateau, toward the long drop that led back to the rest of the world below. The way up had been a challenge, and the descent might even be somehow worse. He shook his head. “I suppose we starting making our way down.”
Everyone still looked happy with their success—but now a little less so.
The journey down the side of the plateau was almost just as difficult as the way up, but at least this time Purdue felt accomplished. The remains of Genghis Khan had been up there after all. There was no doubt anymore, so he was nervous for what was ahead. They’d succeeded in everything they set out to do. That made the climb down a much more joyous event than it’d been going the opposite direction. It also helped that there wasn't rain this time either.
Purdue secured the sack of bones tightly around his back, and it was odd knowing that he was carrying one of the most important figures of history like a backpack. Genghis Khan had probably never been transported by another person ever, probably not even when he was a baby. He probably emerged from the womb already full grown and a master warrior. Yet here Purdue was, lugging one of the most feared and respected leaders in all of humanity around on his bag. It was the most surreal piggyback ride Purdue had ever experienced. Purdue knew he was the only one of the seven billion people on the planet that could say that they’d carried Genghis Khan down a mountain. The ancient warrior was a lot lighter now than he would’ve been in life.
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