Down to the Sea

SIX

“I never realized how beautiful it could be out here,” Abraham Keane said, hands clasped around a warming cup of tea to ward off the early morning chill.

Sergeant Kasumi Togo laughed, shaking his head. “You’re a romantic, Keane. You should have grown up out here as I did. The steppes can be deadly.”

Abe did not reply, looking past Togo, soaking in every detail and reveling in it.

The eastern horizon was showing the first glow of impending dawn, a band of dark purple that was expanding outward, the core of light a golden red. He turned to look to the western horizon. The twin moons, Hasadran and Baka, old Horde names that had stuck with the human race, were dipping low.

Togo was squatting by the campfire, made of dried horse and mammoth dung. Looking at him, Abe wondered if it had been the same between his father and Hans Schuder, the older sergeant taking the young officer under his wing.

Togo had been with the cavalry ever since Nippon joined the Republic after the end of the war, serving as sergeant in command of scouts attached to the 3rd cavalry. Abe had been naturally drawn to him, sensing that here was a man who could teach him the ways of the steppe and of the Bantag, and the sergeant had been more than indulgent and patient.

“So how is it with the general?” Togo asked, nodding toward Hawthorne’s tent.

“What do you mean?”

“With them bastards over there.” As he spoke he indicated the encampment of the Bantag, which filled the plains to the east.

“Nothing’s changed.”

“I heard rumor we’re to stay on for a while, keep an eye on them.”

Abe stiffened slightly, and Togo laughed.

“Don’t get upset, Lieutenant. It’s my job, in a way, to know what generals are thinking.”

“Well, you didn’t hear anything from me.”

“Relax, Lieutenant. You’re the model of a proper officer, you are.”

Abe wasn’t sure if Togo was being sarcastic or just having a little fun with him. He knew he was still too stiff and formal, typical of the academy with its spit and polish and every button buffed to a shine. Out here on the frontier it was a different world; of dirty blue and khaki, muddy water, and glaring heat.

“In the old days, they marked the time of dread,” Togo said, pointing at the twin moons. “Tomorrow they’ll be full, signaling the moon feast.”

Abe nodded. God, what a world his parents had known. He could hardly imagine the terror of it. Looking back to the east, he could see the early morning glow silhouetting the golden yurt of Jurak Qar Qarth.

It had been a subject in class more than once, the primal terror that the mere presence of a Horde rider engendered in all humans, and yet somehow he could almost feel a pity for them now in spite of all that his father, Hawthorne, and others had endured in the Great War. What was it like to lose, to see one’s greatness shattered, to live at the whim of another race? A generation ago they had bestrode the earth, riding where they pleased, living as their ancestors had for thousands of years.

In the negotiations of the last week he had sensed that and developed a begrudging respect for Jurak, wondering how his own father would react to the reality of what was happening out here.

He had seen the poverty of their camps, the thin bodies of their young, the scramble for food when the carcass of a mammoth was brought in, more than a little ripe after two days of hauling it from the place where it had been killed and butchered.

“My father, brothers, and sisters all died at their hands,” Togo announced, gaze fixed, like Abraham’s, on the yurt. Abe turned. “You never told me that.”

“No reason to talk about it.” He shrugged, taking another sip of tea.

“Do you hate them?”

Togo smiled. “Of course. Don’t you?”

“I’m not sure.”

Togo looked at him with surprise. “You, the son of Andrew Keane?”

“I don’t know at times. From all that I’ve heard, my father in battle became another person. But he always said that hatred makes you vulnerable. It clouds your judgment. It closes off being able to think as your opponent does and through that defeating him.

“I do know he hated the leader of the Merki, I think in part because of Hans Schuder. But those over there”-he pointed toward the yurts-“I can’t say.”

Abe sat down, stretching out his long legs. The ground was cool, and the wetness of the morning dew soaked through his wool trousers. The scent of sage wafted up around him, a pleasant smell, dry and pungent.

He looked around the encampment, a full regiment of cavalry, and he felt a chill of delight. He knew he was romanticizing, and yet he could not help it. The last of the fires had flickered down, wispy coils of smoke rising straight up in the still night air. Like spokes on a cartwheel, still forms lay around each of the fires, curled up asleep. At times one or two would sit up, then settle back down for a few final moments of rest.

He caught a glimpse of a sentry, riding picket, slowly circling the encampment, whispering a song, a lovely tune popular with the Celts, who so eagerly volunteered for service with the cavalry.

A few night birds sang, and the first of the morning birds were stirring as well, strange chirping and warbling calls. A shadowy ghost drifted past, an owl swooping into a stand of grass, then rising back up, carrying off its struggling prey.

“That’s the steppes,” Togo said, “beautiful but deadly. It’s where I grew up. My uncle settled a thousand or more square miles abandoned during the wars. It’s part of the land that the general was talking about with them yesterday.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

Togo plucked up a stem of grass and slowly twirled it into a knot.

“It is always that way, Lieutenant. It is about power and survival. The world is not big enough for us all. One side or the other must give way. Their mistake was, they didn’t realize that by enslaving us, they had sown the seeds of their doom. They should have slain our ancestors on the spot the moment any of us came through the Portals. If they had, they would have owned this world forever and could live on it as they pleased.”

“But they didn’t.”

“And so now they will lose all. And frankly, I hope they all go to the devil, where they belong.”

“General Hawthorne says that we must find a way to settle this without fighting.”

“If you doubt me, go to that yurt that looks so exotic, and listen to what is being said within. Then you will no longer doubt.”

They know something is happening, Jurak Qar Qarth thought, staring into his golden chalice of kumiss, which had been stirred with fresh blood.

His gaze swept the yurt, which had been his home now for more than twenty passings of the year. Strange, it was hard to remember anything else, of a world of homes that did not move, of cities, gleaming cities, books, quiet places, sweet scents, and peace.

Like the Yankees, I am a stranger here, but unlike them, I knew of wars in which entire cities burned from the flash of a single bomb, of fleets of planes darkening the sky, of ten thousand armored landships advancing into battles that covered a front of a hundred leagues. No, they do not know war as I know, as I could dream of it here if I but had the means.

And that, he knew, was how this world had changed him. When he had come here he’d felt almost a sense of relief of having escaped alive from the War of the False Pretender, a war that was annihilating his world, turning it into radioactive ruin. At first, when his companion had seized the Qar Qarth’s throne of this primitive tribe, he had stood to one side, observing, almost detached from it all as if he were a student sent to watch.

All that had changed, however, when it was evident that the new Qar Qarth had gone mad with his power and was leading the Bantag to doom. Plus, if he had not acted decisively, these primitives would have killed him as well.

He had accepted peace to save them, and for a while he had even harbored a dream that somehow he could find a way to preserve them. He knew now that was folly.

He looked over at his son, asleep in a side alcove of the yurt, and his chosen companion of the moment curled up by his side.

My son is of them now, and I am but a stranger in this terrible land. My son dreams of glory, of the ride, of the return to what was.

He looked down at the goblet, the foaming drink stained pink, and took another sip.

And I have become like them as well, he realized. I have learned to hunt, the joy of the ride, even though the land is now limited, to listen to the chant singers, to gaze at the stars and tell tales of what lay beyond the stars while the fire crackled, the scent of roasted meat filling the air. And I have learned to eat of the flesh of cattle.

If Hawthorne but knew of that, what would be the reaction? Their meal tonight, a lone prisoner snatched in a border skirmish, had been led in and sacrificed even though the true moon feast was not until tomorrow, but such niceties were no longer observed.

They had slowly roasted the limbs while he was still alive, his mouth gagged so that his cries might not carry to the Yankees encamped nearby. Then the shamans had cracked the skull open, poured in the sacred oil, and roasted the brains while the victim still breathed, listening to his final strange utterances for signs from the gods and ancestors. The blood had been drawn off to flavor the drinks of the Qars and the Qar Qarth, a now precious brew that not so long ago even the youngest of cubs had savored.

“The night is passing, Qar Qarth Jurak.”

An envoy stood at the entryway to the yurt, the first glow of sunrise behind him. The guards of the Qar Qarth flanked him, ready to allow admittance, or, if ordered, instant death for any who dared to disturb him.

He motioned for Velamak of the Kazan to enter.

The envoy offered the ceremonial bow to the purifying fires glowing in their braziers to either side of the entryway and came forward, again inclining his head as he approached.

“Stop the bowing and take a drink,” Jurak said, beckoning to the half empty bowl.

The envoy picked up a goblet, poured a drink, and sat down on a cushion across from the Qar Qarth. Then he raised the cup in salute, following the ritual of dipping a finger in and flicking droplets to the four winds and the earth.

“You’ve learned our customs well, Velamak,” Jurak said.

“As an envoy such things are important”-he smiled knowingly-“in the same way you had to learn when first you came here.”

Jurak stirred, not sure if there was some sort of hidden meaning here, but then let it pass.

“I am curious,” Velamak continued, “about your world.”

“Yes?”

“The fire weapon.”

“Atomics.”

“Yes, that.”

Jurak smiled. “And you want to know its secret.”

“Think what you could do with such a thing.”

“What we could do, or should I say, what the Kazan could do,” Jurak replied, his voice cool.

“We do have some skills.”

“That my people do not.”

Velamak shifted, taking another sip, his gaze drifting to where Garva and his consort slept. “You must admit that when it comes to machines, your people are limited, whereas mine are not.”

“I think, Velamak, that even for you such a weapon is beyond all of us,” he hesitated for a moment, “and I pray it always shall be.”

“Even if our race is finally annihilated by the Yankees?” Jurak barked a laugh and sipped his drink. Before him was perhaps the answer to all his bitter prayers. Or was it a curse? he asked himself, remembering the old saying to never beg too hard of the gods, or they just might grant you your wish.

Here was an envoy of the Kazan Empire, a realm across the Great Ocean that dwarfed anything imagined by the Horde riders or their human opponents. Here lay the true balance of power to this world.

Here was the possible redemption of his people, a path to survival. Up until the meeting with Hawthorne he had harbored a thought that perhaps there was another way, to move north, and by so doing avoid completely what was coming. If there was to be war between the unsuspecting humans and the Kazan, let it come.

Surprisingly, he did trust Hawthorne and his word. Twenty years of dealing with him had taught him that. Hawthorne believed in honor, even to a hated foe. He was haunted as well by a guilt that made him easier to maneuver. Yes, Hawthorne would go back to their Senate, would plead his case. There would be arguing, the Chin would cry yet again for final vengeance, the Nippon would refuse, and six months from now, when the grass of the steppes was brown, he’d return with a vague promise that he would try again next year.

Equally evident was what Velamak was offering.

“This half-life of radiation that you mentioned in our last conversation, what is it?”

Jurak smiled. “The rate of radioactive decay. Do you understand what I speak of?”

Velamak smiled and shook his head. “Perhaps those of my people who study such things do. Remember, I am just a messenger of the emperor.”

“And a priest of your order,” Jurak added.

Velamak said nothing.

“Tell your people they need to achieve a fissionable mass through a controlled and uniform implosion.”

He smiled as he spoke, knowing that the words were meaningless to the envoy but would be faithfully reported. Perhaps someone back in their capital would vaguely grasp the concept, but to make it a reality, would take far more than a nation that still used steam power to propel its ships and weapons.

“Achieve that, and you can bum a city, a hundred thousand die in an instant, a hundred thousand more die later from poisoning of the air. And no one can return to that place until the half-life of the fissionable material has resulted in a drop below fatal levels of radiation. Does that explain it?”

Velamak gave him a cagey smile. “You talk in riddles.”

“Not on my old world. Every student learned it. The question was how to make it. We were in the eighteenth year of the war of the Pretender before it was achieved by the False One’s side. A spy stole the secret and gave it to our side. On the day I left my world, eleven years later, more than five hundred such weapons had been made and exploded. Entire continents were wastelands. I got dosed at the Battle of Alamaka.”

He rolled his sleeve to show a bum scar on his arm where the hair did not grow.

“The warriors to either side of me were looking in the direction of the blast and were struck blind.”

“A weapon that blinds, how fascinating.”

“Not if you were there,” Jurak whispered.

He remembered the way his tent companions had thrashed in their trench, eyes scorched to bloody pulps, while the blast and shock wave thundered over them. He recalled the terror of wondering if he had been fatally dosed. He had been ordered to shoot his blinded companions, since they would be a burden if allowed to live.

Jurak sighed and took another drink. “I suspect someday I’ll find a lump or start coughing up blood and it will kill me at last.”

“I suspect that even if you did know how to make this thing, you would keep it hidden from us.”

Jurak smiled. “You can be certain of it.”

“Even at the cost of the people you now lead?”

“Believe me, Velamak, everyone dies in the end from it. Stick to the weapons you already know.”

“Yet part of the reason I was sent here was to gain information so that we might have weapons to defeat the Yankees when the time came.”

“And what time is that?”

“When we are ready.”

Again Jurak laughed. “We have been playing this game of words for months. You are torn apart by war. How many contenders to the throne are there?”

“That doesn’t matter. In the end, the Kazan shall be reunited. We will destroy them with ease.”

“Who is ‘we’? I suspect that this order of yours is far more concerned with its own advancement than any unity of the Kazan Empire or who is upon the throne at the moment. For all I know, you represent only your order and serve this distant emperor only with the left hand.” Velamak shook his head and laughed. “Very adroit.”

“Don’t patronize me. I might be the ruler of a fallen clan, but I am the Qar Qarth, who can still field thirty umens of the finest cavalry in the world.”

“We know that. It is one of the reasons we sought you out.”

“And, oh, how we shall pay if war does come. There are forty million humans in the Republic. A million of them can be mobilized in a week. And we shall be the first target.”

“The emperor never asked for you to sacrifice yourself.”

“Nor would I. The emperor is how far away? Two hundred or more leagues by land to the sea. Then how far, a thousand leagues? Two thousand?”

“Something like that. Remember, we knew of your defeat within months of its happening. If we had known your danger earlier, we would have sent aid. We have had twenty years to ponder this question and to prepare.”

“And to fight amongst yourselves, thereby diverting your strength. Velamak, you have been here for months. Over the last week you have seen one of their leaders from a distance, their finest general.”

“Small even for them.”

“Call him that when he is leading a charge, as I once saw him do.”

“I think you almost like him.”

“I do, damn it,” he growled, and he poured another drink. “He has the ka, the warrior soul. It’s told among us how he alone killed more than thirty thousand Tugars in one night, breaking a dam that flooded their camp, sweeping away their elite umens. Some of us believe as well that he has the tu, the ability to read the souls of others.”

“And that is why you forbid me to ride escort and reduced me to watching from a distance?”

“Precisely.”

Velamak nodded. “We know the tu and the ka. But I doubt if the humans have mastered it, at least their humans.”

“Their humans?”

“Ah, so I have piqued your interest.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that there is much of the Kazan I have still not told you.”

“We’ve talked endlessly of this before, and it always seems that I learn precious little of you and your empire in reply.”

“The less you know, the less you will reveal to the humans.”

“Oh, yes, such as your foolishness in giving a revolver as a present to Ogadi of the White Taie clan.”

Velamak stiffened. “I noticed it was missing shortly after I arrived in your camp. Ogadi was the one who escorted me here from the coast. He demanded a present for his efforts. I gave him a few gold trinkets, nothing that could be identified as not being of your Horde. I had hoped the revolver had been lost when fording a stream. Now I know different. He stole it.”

He had never trusted Ogadi. Then again, he rarely trusted any of his Qarths. The damn fool.

“They know of you, Velamak.”

“Only a rumor.”

“I think they know more. I could sense it from Hawthorne. The revolver was enough to cause concern, but he has seemed pressed these last few days, anxious, as if bearing more information than he would ever share with me. Perhaps one of their ships has finally located where you are.”

“As I have already told you, we’ve met three of their ships. Primitive things, actually. They were defeated with ease, their crews annihilated.”

“The humans are incessant, Velamak. You can’t stop every leak, every hole in that invisible wall you try to maintain while settling your own differences.”

Velamak shook his head. “Only rumors. Remember, the ocean is as vast as your steppe, dotted with a thousand islands, archipelagos, and then our homelands. Yes, there are humans out there, some we have never located. They spread widely across the last twelve thousand years since the Portal to their world mysteriously opened up after being asleep since the Downfall. We have set them to our purpose when necessary, slain them when they didn’t fit, but never did we allow ourselves to become enslaved to our slaves as you did.”

“Not I, those who came before me,” Jurak replied coldly. “Whatever. What I am saying is that in the years since we have learned of the rise of this human nation, we have maintained a zone of destruction on the islands where they might venture, leaving no trace.”

“And again, why did you not just attack?”

“To what gain at that moment? When the blow is to be struck, it must be annihilating, not a half measure. We knew we had gained a small edge on machines thanks to those from your world who had come through the portal nearly a hundred years back.

“Our ships outgun them, our flyers are larger, our artillery is superior in all respects, as are our explosives. Still, what I have learned from you is so damn tantalizing. You speak of wireless telegraphs, these engines you call internal, the creation of light through wires, chemicals that kill, gases that kill, the making of diseases. By all the gods, what we would give for such knowledge.”

“And yet I know of it but not how to make it happen,” Jurak said.

“Precisely. Ten years of working on such things and no threat of the humans could ever matter to us.”

“You have the edge you have, and that is it.”

“Damn.”

It was a curse not directed at him, but nevertheless he stiffened, sensing an insult. After twenty years as a Qar Qarth, his pride would brook no insult, either real or imagined.

“No, you misunderstand,” Velamak said hurriedly. “I understand why. I know that our ship designers are working on this mechanism called firing control, being able to judge a target from a great distance and aim correctly. The advice you gave us years ago on that still bears fruit. Our guns can shoot three leagues or more, yet at sea they are useless beyond two thousand paces. I understand that such a thing is being studied, but ask me to explain and I am useless. I understand that it is the same with you.”

“I was but twenty years old when I became a soldier. Prior to that, I was a scholar interested in the writings of the ancients and their philosophies,” Jurak replied. “I knew to turn a knob and the light would come on so that I could read, but ask me to explain why the light came on and I had no idea.”

“Still, what you have said we shall try to work upon.”

“You arouse my curiosity about something.”

““And that is?”

“Your humans. I know you feel disdain for the moon feast. I watched you closely this evening.”

Velamak waved his hands indifferently. “Primitive, but interesting. I suspect you were far more disturbed than I would ever be.”

Again Jurak bristled slightly, but then let it pass. “There is something different about your humans. I have heard rumors of it.”

Velamak smiled. “Yes, they are different.”

“And what is that difference?”

“They are on our side.”

“But you said you slaughtered those on the islands.”

“Inferior ones. No, we are talking about those who have lived inside the empire, some of them for a hundred generations or more.”

“And are they slaves? Do you feed upon them?”

“At times, but that is inconsequential, and of no concern to them.”

“Then what is this difference?”

Velamak smiled. “The Shiv. We breed them. We breed them to match what it is we desire of them.”

“And that is?”

“A race of warriors. Bred the way you breed your horses. Those we do not select we slaughter or geld. Only the best continue on, generation after generation.”

“By the gods. They could be the seeds of your own destruction.”

Velamak smiled. “No. For it is the Order that controls them, and they have something you never gave your humans.”

“Which is?”

“Faith. A faith in a god of our creation. They are the Shiv, the elite of the elite, and when the Republic faces their Shiv legions, they will die.”

“And what of us, then?” Jurak asked, a cold shiver of fear coursing through him when the full enormity of what he had just heard struck him.

Velamak smiled. “He of my order, who I suspect even now is moving toward final control, he will guide the way.” Jurak lowered his head. For the first time since meeting this envoy he felt at last that he understood what was hidden beneath. This man wasn’t just an envoy, he was a fanatic, a believer, who had come to prepare the way for the madness to come.

“So you survived after all, Hazin.”

Hazin smiled, bowing low before the Grand Master of his order. He could see the wary gaze, the shift of the Grand Master’s weight as he leaned forward ever so slightly, ready to spring if Hazin should make a threatening move.

“My master, I must protest the indignity of a personal search before entering your quarters,” Hazin replied. “I would not be so disloyal as to strike you now.”

There was a sarcastic grunt of bemusement. “The whole city has been in turmoil since your ship docked, wondering what news you bring.”

Hazin chuckled. So they weren’t sure. Good.

“Hanaga is dead, as you ordered.”

There was an exhale of relief.

Ah, so he did fear the plot within a plot. Fine, that would have diverted his thinking for the moment. “There was no sense in keeping the news hidden. I’ve already sent one of our acolytes to the palace to give his most exalted highness the good news. I thought it best, however, to report to you personally.”

The Grand Master stirred. “Are you certain he is dead?” His voice was filled now with menace.

“If you doubt, fetch the Shiv who were aboard the ship and put to them the question. They disposed of the body after we were done.”

“You should have kept some proof for the satisfaction of Yasim.”

“The acolyte bears a basket containing Hanaga’s head. Is that proof enough, my master?”

There was a chuckle of bemusement. “He’ll most likely vomit at the sight of it.”

“And vomit again when you press for payment,” Hazin replied.

The Grand Master nodded, picking up a dagger resting on his desk to examine the blade.

“He’ll pay. He knows the result if he doesn’t.”

“Yasim might appear a weakling on the surface. But is he?”

“He’s a fool. Hanaga was different. Once the civil war was decided, we all knew he would turn on us. We were the one threat left to the Golden Throne. Yasim will be too afraid of us to strike. That, besides the wealth offered, was good enough reason to switch sides and support him.”

“The war, however, is all but finished now,” Hazin replied. “Playing one against the other was our own path to power. The remaining Banners will submit. And then what?”

“We consolidate our hold. With the payment offered we can expand our temples, gather more recruits. In ten years the cycle of struggle for the throne will start again, and yet again we shall play the game. This new emperor is morally a weakling, but he is lusty enough in his private chambers. Soon enough he will breed the next generation for us to play with.”

Hazin nodded, though he did not agree. The Master was old, the fire was going out of him. He was thinking now like an old one, seeking security, warmth, a comfortable seat by the side of Yasim at the banquet table and amphitheater.

He did not know the full measure of the one he had just placed on the throne. For that reason alone he should die, and for the simple fact that he was in the way.

“The journey has been a tiring one,” Hazin replied. “May I have your permission to withdraw?”

The Master nodded, then held up his hand just before Hazin backed out of the door, motioning for him to close it.

“One question.”

Hazin kept his features expressionless.

“Your order was to kill Hanaga. It is rare indeed for one to survive such an assignment.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Yet you obviously arranged it so you would.”

“Yes.”

The moment has come, Hazin thought. If he has any wisdom, he should kill me now, this very instant.

“You knew my intent in assigning you.”

“Yes, to ensure that I would die as well, but I did not.”

“And?”

“You could kill me now and find out the result, or let me live and find out the result.”

There was a long moment of silence, the master holding the dagger in his hand. At one time, long ago, this one had been his first mentor in the order. Hazin had loyally followed him, because that loyalty had been properly rewarded with advancement. Now he had only one step left to achieve-the final rank within the order, and the master knew it.

Hazin finally looked straight at him. “Better the threat you know than the one you don’t,” Hazin whispered. “For someone else to get at you, they will still have to contend with me.”

There was a subtle nod of agreement.

“The dynamic between us will keep the balance. If there is another rival within the order, such as Grishna or Ulva, they know that if they strike you down I will still take revenge, and if I should be stricken, then you will mete out revenge. As long as we are careful, we can both survive.”

“Are you pleading for your life, Hazin? I always thought better of you than to sink so low.”

“No, rather suggesting that we both can live or we both will die. I know why you assigned me to kill Hanaga. That was the business of our order, and I could accept it.”

He pitched his voice carefully. The master had trained him in the reading of the finest nuances of expression, the slightest change in tone, the flicker of an eyelid, the ever so subtle glancing away when a lie was spoken. That was yet another power of the Order, the training to be a truth sayer, one who could detect a lie in another, no matter how carefully crafted.

He thought of the human Cromwell for an instant, the sharp honesty that was so easy to read, and yet so difficult to penetrate. Then he pushed the thought aside. He had to remain focused.

“I assigned you to Hanaga to get rid of you. The needs of the Order are changing now that the civil war is ending. You, Hazin, thrive on conflict and manipulate it to your own advantage. I am not sure if you can survive now that it is ending.”

“We must still contend with the human rebellion to the north.”

The master snorted. “Time enough later.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why?”

“We encountered a ship of theirs.” He briefly explained the battle with the Gettysburg, but left out the detail of taking the two prisoners.

“Trivial.”

“An opportunity. We know that the Golden Throne is increasingly suspicious of the Shiv. The fact that we breed thousands more than will ever be needed for sacrifice, that we have trained them in war, and that they have fought to victory in every engagement makes the emperor nervous. Unleashing them against the human Republic will give us millions to rule and can perhaps reveal as well the location of a Portal.”

The Grand Master openly laughed. “You and that mad dream of leaving this place. Is not scheming for one empire enough?”

Hazin could see that the true focus of the conversation had wandered. His own life still hung by a thread.

“I want to ensure the survival of the Order, of our own personal survival.”

“Our survival or yours, Hazin?”

“My staying alive guarantees yours as well, Master.”

“Is there a threat in those words?”

“A statement of reality,” Hazin said quietly, his voice cool, even, without a hint of emotion.

The master stared at him and then ever so slowly put the dagger back down.

“For the moment, then, we shall leave things at that.” Hazin bowed and turned to open the door, using his left hand, which he had kept concealed in the folds of his robe.

Leaving the master’s chamber, he hurriedly went down the open flagstone corridor, past one of the pleasure gardens where several of the new initiates loitered, drifting in their hazy drug-induced visions, and entered his chamber, sweeping past the Shiv guards, careful to open and close the door to his room with his right hand.

Once alone he gingerly put a glove on his right hand, careful not to touch anything with his left. When his right was safely covered, he peeled off the dark, flesh-colored glove on his left hand and threw it into a charcoal brazier. Then went through the same ritual again, putting another glove on the opposite hand before using it to remove the other.

Finally he peeled off the robe he had been wearing, careful to not let the folds around the cuffs touch any skin.

The Grand Master was alone in his study. The ceremony for the ending of day would occur within the hour, and he would, as required, go to attend. The poison on Hazin’s left glove, placed on the door handle, would still be damp and should penetrate the skin of the palm. It was subtle. He would not even notice it against the cool metal.

Death would take awhile, a day perhaps, but then the convulsions would come, mimicking a brain seizure. Of course, he would carefully avoid going anywhere near him. No one would suspect, or if they did, they would never dare to speak without definite proof.

Hazin realized he was shaking for the first time in years, and he felt a surge of anger against himself for such lack of control.

The old one had sealed his fate on two points. First, he had been foolish not to kill Hazin immediately once he was in the room. Having sent him once to his death, he should have seen it through to the conclusion. That was a sign of hesitation, perhaps even of sentiment, a feeling unworthy of a Grand Master. Second, he had not seen the true danger that came with peace. If Yasim, who had masterfully engineered his plot over years of conflict, no longer had someone to plot against, he would now turn on the Order. He would do it subtly, cautiously, and then strike with blinding fury.

A diversion would have to be offered, one that would refocus the attention of Yasim, and all the others of the Golden Family, and Hazin realized that fate, if such a thing existed, had dealt him the perfect choice.

It was paradise.

A voice whispered to him that it was all illusion, drugs in his drink and food, but the sensations were so intoxicating that he no longer cared.

Occasionally the one with the blue eyes would come, smiling, speaking softly, reasonably, explaining how clear and simple his course; to submit fully to the Order, to become one of the Shiv and, most tantalizing of all, to one day return home to rule, to no longer be the forgotten son.

How Hazin knew these things Sean was not sure. It was hard to tell what he had actually said, what Hazin already knew, and what he could somehow sense, for he now knew that Hazin’s powers were beyond that of anyone he’d ever met, human or Horde.

Someone touched his shoulder and, half rolling over, he looked up at her and smiled. He didn’t know her name, he wasn’t even sure if she was the one who had come to him the night before, but it didn’t matter.

What she said was unintelligible, but that didn’t matter either. She was above any dream of loveliness he had ever hoped to know, almost inhuman in her perfection. He wondered if she, like him, had tasted of the lotus.

The land of the lotus eaters, he remembered his mother telling him of that myth.

Perhaps that is where I am now. He looked past the compelling green eyes of the woman to the garden. The riotous bloom of flowers had an iridescent quality to them. They actually seemed to glow with their own inner light. The sight of them made him laugh, and she laughed with him.

She stood up and walked ever so slowly-to his eyes she seemed to float. She plucked a flower and returned, offering it to him. He almost wept with the beauty of the precious violet and red blossom. She leaned over and peeled off a petal, holding it up, brushing his lips with it, then slowly ate it.

He smiled and did the same. She went to fetch another, and he waited with anticipation, feeling a stirring of desire, dreaming of what he would do next with her even as she floated across the garden.

A gentle whisper of a voice, and she seemed to disappear into a cloud, replaced by Hazin.

For a moment he wasn’t sure if he had drifted off to sleep, whether he and the green-eyed girl had made love or not. It was hard to remember now.

“I could send you away from here,” Hazin said, sitting down by Sean’s side.

He felt a flash of panic, but then, looking into those impenetrable blue eyes, he knew that Hazin would not be so cruel. Why would he grant such a gift only to take it away?

“But you know I would not, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You can leave at any time. In fact, I give you your freedom, O’Donald. You can awake in the hour after dusk. I will give you an airship and you can wing off to home, to your people, to the land ruled by your father and his friends.”

The way he said it made the mere contemplation of it revolting. Sean felt light-headed, his stomach knotting.

“That choice would always haunt you, though, wouldn’t it? To know that this paradise is here, to be tasted at any time. Instead you would live in a land of barrenness, where those who passed behind you would cover their mouths and whisper, ‘There goes the son of the drunkard, the senator who is only thus because he hangs on to the power of others. There goes the son of the uncouth, the loud mouth, the braggart, and fool. And he shall one day be the same’.” Sean lowered his head and began to openly weep. “Your mother endured that, you know, and you were powerless to stop her from feeling that pain, weren’t you?” Sean could not even answer. He merely shook his head as the tears continued to flow.

“Stay with me,” Hazin whispered. “Stay with me, and I promise that you can one day return to right such wrongs, but do so on your own terms.”

Sean looked up at him.

Hazin reached out and lightly touched Sean’s shoulder, tracing a finger along a still open wound from the torture. “Unfortunate, that, and I apologize.”

“Apologize?” Sean was confused. It was as if this one before him now was someone else, not someone to be feared, but to be trusted, followed, even to be loved.

“A mistake. As soon as I realized who you were, I had to make amends, which I am now doing.”

Sean could not reply, overwhelmed with gratitude.

Hazin offered him a cup, and he drank the golden liquid, which was sweet but laced with a touch of bitterness.

“That should ease any unfortunate pains you still might have. Soon you will awake, but you will remember. Do you know where you are, Sean O’Donald?”

Sean struggled to focus his thoughts. What did the question actually mean? Here, was that the question? He remembered coming off the boat, the vastness of the city, its gleaming temples, spires, arches, and columned buildings. It reminded him somehow of the stories of how Roum might have looked before the destruction of the Great War, a destruction that his own father had taken part in.

.. Was that what the question was?

“Kazan. We are in the Imperial City of Kazan,” he finally replied, even as the world about him began to drift in a soft, diffused light.

Hazin laughed softly. “So literal in your thoughts, even now. A sharp intellect, which is good at certain moments.

“No, I mean here, now.” He extended his hand, gesturing to the garden, the walls embedded with precious gems that caught and bent the sunlight, the fluttering curtains of silk, the lush green grass upon which they sat, and the bubbling fountains that splashed and played a soft musical chant.

“Paradise,” Sean finally replied, and Hazin smiled approvingly.

“Yes. You are enjoying paradise and I hold the key to it.”

“You?”

“Yes. I can open the gate wide to any who so desire it, or close it forever and cast those who fail into the fire of eternal suffering.”

As he spoke, he extended his hand, almost covering Sean’s eyes. Terrifyingly, a vision seemed to be concealed within that open hand-of fire, of agony, of eternal longing for bliss never again to be tasted.

Sean cried out and turned his head away.

“Do you believe what I just told you?”

“Yes.”

“Look back at me.”

Sean turned to look back and was startled, for Hazin was gone, disappeared, a swirling cloud of sweet-scented smoke obscuring all around.

The smoke drifted and curled, slowly parting, and someone else appeared before him. He had never seen such eyes, the palest of amber, her skin a milky white, hair raven black, coiling in a long, wavy cascade that covered the nakedness of her breasts.

“Her name is Karinia.”

It was Hazin’s voice, but where he was Sean could not say.

“I have chosen her for you, Sean O’Donald. Look into her eyes and see paradise. Fail and know that you will never see such love again.”

Sean could not turn away from her gaze. Her features were flushed, and he sensed that somehow she was afraid. He reached out and lightly touched her cheek.

“You will stay and serve?” Hazin asked.

Sean could not answer. Some voice whispered to him that here was the moment that would forever define his life, who he was, what he would live for. But all he could see were her eyes and the actual feel of the garden of paradise, as if all of it had merged into his body and soul and would be part of it in pleasure, or torment, forever.

“I will serve,” he whispered.

“Then she, all of this, is yours forever.”

He heard a soft laugh, a rustling, and knew that Hazin was gone.

“I’m of the Shiv,” she whispered, “and though not born to it, you are now of us.”

Startled, he realized that she was speaking English, though her words were halting.

“Is this what you desire?” he asked.

She laughed softly and, leaning over, kissed him.