CHAPTER 14

The mandarin stood patiently at the doorway. The two Mongol guards were squatting on the bare ground a few yards from the door, gobbling their supper from wooden bowls. Their lances and bows were on the ground next to them, their swords at their sides.

"Yes, of course," I said to the mandarin. "Please come in."

He had the trick of walking so smoothly that it looked as if he was standing on a small rolling cart, under his floor-length robes, and was actually being wheeled across the threshold. I introduced him to Agla, who bowed very low to him, then busied herself building the fire higher in the hearth.

Ye Liu Chutsai looked older than any man I had seen among the Mongols. His wispy beard and mustache were completely white, as was the long queue that hung down his back. He stood in the middle of the bare little room, hands tucked inside his wide sleeves.

I gestured to the only chair in the room, a heavy, stiff thing of wood. "Please sit down, sir."

He sat. Agla ducked into the bedroom and brought out two cushions. She offered them to the mandarin, who refused them with a slight shake of his head and a small smile. She and I sat on them, at the feet of the elderly Chinese.

"I should begin by explaining who I am," he said so softly that I had to strain slightly to hear him over the crackle of our fire. Its warmth felt good on my back.

Agla said, "Your name is known as the right hand of the High Khan."

He bowed his head again in acknowledgment.

"Since the original High Khan was still called by his birth name, Timujin, I have served the Mongols. I was only a youth when they swept through the Great Wall and ravaged Yan-king, the city where I was born. I was taken into slavery by the Mongols because I was a scribe. I could read and write. Although the Mongol warriors did not appreciate that, Timujin did."

"It was he who became Genghis Khan?" I asked.

"Yes, but to use either of these names before the Mongols is not wise. He is called the High Khan. He was the father of Ogotai, the current High Khan. He was the man who directed the Mongol conquest of China, of High Asia, of the hosts of Islam. He was the greatest man the world has known."

It was not my place to contradict him. The elderly mandarin did not seem like the kind who would bestow praise foolishly or insincerely. He believed what he said, and for all I knew he may have been right.

"Today the empire of the Mongols stretches from the China Sea to Persia. Hulagu is preparing to conquer Baghdad. Subotai is already on the march against the Russians and Poles. Kubilai, in Yan-king, dreams of subduing the Japanese on their islands."

"He should forego that dream," I said, recalling that Kubilai's invasion fleet was wrecked by a storm that the Japanese called The Divine Wind, Kamikaze.

Ye Liu Chutsai looked sharply at me. "Why do you say that?" he demanded. "What do you prophesy?

Agla gave me a warning glance. Prophets trod a dangerous path among these people.

"I prophesy nothing," I replied, as offhandedly as I could manage. "I merely made a comment. After all, the Mongols are horse warriors, not sailors. The sea is not their element."

The mandarin studied my face for long moments. At last he replied, "The Mongols are indeed the fiercest warriors in the world. They are not sailors, true. But neither are they administrators, or scribes, or artisans. They use captives for those tasks. They will find sailors enough among the Chinese."

I bowed my head to his superior wisdom.

"The empire must continue to expand," he went on. "That was the true genius of the original High Khan. He saw clearly that these barbarian tribes must continue to move outward, to find enemies that must be conquered, or else their empire will collapse. These horse warriors are utterly brave; they live for war. If there were no enemies beyond their borders, they would fall back to their old ways and begin fighting among themselves. That was the way they lived before Timujin welded the warring tribes of the Gobi into the mightiest conquering army the world has ever seen."

"That is why the empire continues to expand," I said.

"It must expand. Or collapse. There is no middle way. Not yet."

"And as the empire expands, the Mongols slaughter helpless people by the tens of thousands and burn cities to the ground."

He nodded his head.

"And you help them to do it? Why? You are a civilized man. Why do you help the people who invaded your land?"

Ye Liu Chutsai closed his eyes for a moment. It made his old, lined face look like a death's mask in the flickering firelight.

When he opened his eyes again, he said, "There is but one true civilization in the world, the civilization of the land that you call Cathay, or China. I am a son of the Chin, the Chinese. I serve the Mongol High Khan so that civilization may be extended to the four corners of the world."

I felt confused. "But the Mongols have conquered Cathay. Kubilai Khan rules in Yan-king now."

The old man smiled. "Yes, and already Kubilai—who was born in a felt yurt on the grasslands not far from this very spot—already he is more Chinese than Mongol. He wears silk robes and paints beautiful landscapes and deals with the intrigues of the court as delicately as any grandson of a mandarin."

His meaning became clear to me. I leaned back and drew in a deep breath of understanding. "The Mongols are the warriors, but the Chinese will be the true conquerors."

"Exactly," said Ye Liu Chutsai. "The Mongols are the sword arm of the empire, but the civilization of the Chin is its brain."

Agla spoke up. "Then the Mongols are serving you, aren't they?"

"Oh no, by my sacred ancestors, no, not at all!" He seemed genuinely upset by such an idea. "We are all serving the High Khan, Ogotai. I am his slave—willingly."

"But only because the High Khan is paving the way for a Chinese empire that spans the world," Agla insisted.

Ye Liu Chutsai went silent again, and I realized that he was arranging his thoughts so that he could present them to us as clearly as possible.

"Timujin," he said softly, as if afraid someone would hear him use the revered name, "hit upon the idea of conquest as a means to keep the tribes of the Gobi from annihilating each other. It was a stroke of genius. But it requires that the Mongols constantly expand their empire."

"Yes, you told us that," Agla said.

"Of what use is all this bloodshed and misery, however?" the mandarin asked. "What purpose does it serve, other than keeping these nomadic warriors from each other's throats?"

Neither Agla nor I had an answer for that.

"On the other hand," he went on, "here is the civilization of the Chin, the highest civilization the world has ever seen. It is not warlike, so it has no way of spreading the fruits of its culture to other lands."

"The Mongols invade Cathay," I took up, "but the Chinese civilization conquers them, eventually."

"It takes a generation or two," Ye Liu Chutsai said, agreeing with me. "Sometimes longer."

"So your task is to keep the Mongol empire growing, so it won't collapse, for a long enough time to allow it to evolve into a Chinese empire, ruled by civilized mandarins who will control the entire known world."

He nodded. "A single, unified empire that girdles the entire world, from sea to sea. Think of what that would mean! An end to war. An end to the bloodletting. A world of peace, ruled by law instead of the sword. It is the goal to which I have devoted my entire life."

A Chinese empire, carved out by Mongol warriors, ruled by silk-robed mandarins. Ye Liu Chutsai saw the highest civilization in history creating a world of peace. I saw a stifling autocracy that would stamp out individual freedom.

"I share my vision with you," the mandarin said, "because I want you to understand the problem you have raised for me."

"Problem?" I asked.

He sighed. "Ogotai is not the man his father was. He is too amiable to be a good ruler, too content with the wealth he has today to understand the need to drive constantly onward."

"But you said..."

"Fortunately," he went on, stopping me with one upraised, slender, long-nailed finger, "the dynamics of the empire are still powerful. Hulagu, Subotai, Kubilai and the other Orkhons and princes along the periphery of the Mongol conquests still press onward. Ogotai stays here in Karakorum, content to let the others do the fighting while he enjoys the fruits of their conquests. It is not a healthy situation."

"But what has that to do with us?" Agla asked.

"Ogotai is a superstitious man," Ye Liu Chutsai answered. "And his soothsayers have been warning him, lately, to beware of a stranger from the West—because he will attempt to murder the High Khan."

I said firmly, "I too have a warning for him."

"You are from the West," Ye Liu Chutsai said. "So is the one who calls himself Ahriman."

"He is here!" I blurted.

"You know him?"

"Yes. It is he whom I must warn Ogotai against."

The mandarin smiled vaguely. "Ahriman has already warned Ogotai against you, the fair-skinned man of great strength from beyond the western sea."

I sat there on the cushion, wondering where this would lead. My word against Ahriman's. How could I convince...

"There is something more," Ye Liu Chutsai added. "Something that makes the problem acute."

"What is it?"

"A threat to the empire has arisen."

"A threat?" I echoed.

"What could possibly threaten an empire that has conquered half the world?" Agla asked.

"Earlier today you used the word 'assassin' when you spoke to the guards."

"Yes, after those two men tried to kill me."

" 'Assassin' is a new word here. It comes from the land of Persia, where a cult—perhaps it is religious, I do not yet know—has sprung up. It is a murder cult, and its members are called assassins. I am told the word stems from a Persian name for a drug these men use: hashish."

"I don't understand what this has to do with me," I said.

"The man who directs this murder cult is as clever as a thousand devils. He recruits young men and promises them paradise if they follow his bidding. He gives them hashish, and no doubt other drugs as well, to show them a vision of the paradise that will be theirs after their mortal bodies perish. Small wonder that the youths are willing to give up their lives to do their master's will."

"I know of these drugs," Agla said. "They are so powerful that a man will do anything to have them."

Ye Liu Chutsai dipped his head once in acknowledgment. "The addicts are ordered to kill a man. Even though they know that they themselves will be killed as a result, they do so gladly, believing that they will awaken in an eternal paradise."

I said nothing, even though I knew that what appears to be death is not the end of existence.

"In Persia, thousands of merchants, noblemen, even imams and princes have been... assassinated. The cult has merely to warn a man that he has been marked for death and so great is the terror that the man is willing to pay any price to placate the assassins. Thus the cult grows rich and powerful."

"In Persia," I said. The land of Ahriman and Ormazd, and their ancient prophet Zoroaster.

"It has grown far beyond Persia," replied Ye Liu Chutsai. "All of Islam is gripped by the terror. And I fear that assassins have made their way here, to Karakorum, to kill the High Khan,"

"Ahriman is from Persia," I said.

"So he freely admits. But he says that you are, too. Which you deny."

"Assassins nearly killed me today."

The mandarin made a small shrug. "That could have been a clever ruse, to put us off our guard. The two dead men were not Mongols, despite their garb. They could easily have been Persians. You may have killed them to keep suspicion away from yourself."

"But I did not. They tried to kill me."

The mandarin's wrinkled face looked truly troubled. "I want to believe you, Orion. But I do not dare to act naïvely. I am convinced that either you or Ahriman is an assassin, perhaps even the very leader of the cult, the man known to the Persians only as the Old Man of the Mountains."

"How can I convince you...?"

With a shake of his head, Ye Liu Chutsai said, "In a problem such as this, the Mongols would act with wonderful simplicity. They would simply kill both you and Ahriman—and possibly you, too, my dear lady—and have done with it. I, with my civilized conscience, will endeavor to determine which of you is the assassin and which is the innocent party."

"Then I have nothing to fear," I said, wishing that I actually felt that way.

"Not from me. Not yet." The mandarin hesitated, then added, "But Ogotai is not a patient man. He may apply the Mongol solution and be rid of the problem once and for all."