2

  Anno Domini One Thousand Two Hundred Eighty:

  The writ of Kublai Khan ran over degrees of latitude and longitude; he dreamed of world empire, and his court honored any guest who brought fresh knowledge or new philosophy. A young Venetian merchant named Marco Polo had become a particular favorite. But not all peoples desired a Mongol overlord. Revolutionary secret societies germinated throughout those several conquered realms lumped together as Cathay. Japan, with the Hojo family an able power behind the throne, had already repelled one invasion. Nor were the Mongols unified, save in theory. The Russian princes had become tax collectors for the Golden Horde; the Il-Khan Abaka sat in Baghdad.

  Elsewhere, a shadowy Abbasid Caliphate had refuge in Cairo; Delhi was under the Slave Dynasty; Nicholas III was Pope; Guelphs and Ghibbelines were ripping up Italy; Rudolf of Habsburg was German Emperor, Philip the Bold was King of France, Edward Longshanks ruled England. Contemporaries included Dante Alighieri, Joannes Duns Scotus, Roger Bacon, and Thomas the Rhymer.

  And in North America, Manse Everard and John Sandoval reined their horses to stare down a long hill.

  “The date I first saw them is last week,” said the Navajo. “They’ve come quite a ways since. At this rate, they’ll be in Mexico in a couple of months, even allowing for some rugged country ahead.”

  “By Mongol standards,” Everard told him, “they’re proceeding leisurely.”

  He raised his binoculars. Around him, the land burned green with April. Even the highest and oldest beeches fluttered gay young leaves. Pines roared in the wind, which blew down off the mountains cold and swift and smelling of melted snow, through a sky where birds were homebound in such flocks that they could darken the sun. The peaks of the Cascade range seemed to float in the west, blue-white, distant, and holy. Eastward the foothills tumbled in clumps of forest and meadow to a valley, and so at last, beyond the horizon, to prairies thunderous under buffalo herds.

  Everard focused on the expedition. It wound through the open areas, more or less following a small river. Some seventy men rode shaggy, dun-colored, short-legged, long-headed Asian horses. They led pack animals and remounts. He identified a few native guides, as much by their awkward seat in the saddle as by their physiognomy and clothing. But the newcomers held his attention most.

  “A lot of pregnant mares toting packs,” he remarked, half to himself. “I suppose they took as many horses in the ships as they could, letting them out to exercise and grazewherever they made a stop. Now they’re breeding more as they go along. That kind of pony is tough enough to survive such treatment.”

  “The detachment at the ships is also raising horses,” Sandoval informed him. “I saw that much.”

  “What else do you know about this bunch?”

  “No more than I’ve told you, which is little more than you’ve now seen! And that record which lay for a while in Kublai’s archives. But you recall, it barely notes that four ships under the command of the Noyon Toktai and the scholar Li Tai-Tsung were dispatched to explore the islands beyond Japan.”

  Everard nodded absently. No sense in sitting here and rehashing what they’d already gone over a hundred times. It was only a way of postponing action.

  Sandoval cleared his throat. “I’m still dubious about both of us going down there,” he said. “Why don’t you stay in reserve, in case they get nasty?”

  “Hero complex, huh?” said Everard. “No, we’re better off together. I don’t expect trouble anyhow. Not yet. Those boys are much too intelligent to antagonize anyone gratuitously. They’ve stayed on good terms with the Indians, haven’t they? And we’ll be a far more unknown quantity.… I wouldn’t mind a drink beforehand, though.”

  “Yeh. And afterward, too!”

  Each dipped in his saddlebag, took out a half-gallon canteen and hoisted it. The Scotch was pungent in Everard’s throat, heartening in his veins. He clucked to his horse and both Patrolmen rode down the slope.

  A whistling cut the air. They had been seen. He maintained a steady pace toward the head of the Mongol line. A pair of outriders closed in on either flank, arrows nocked to their short powerful bows, but did not interfere.

  I suppose we look harmless, Everard thought. Like Sandoval, he wore twentieth-century outdoor clothes: hunting jacket to break the wind, hat to keep off the rain. His own outfit was a good deal less elegant than the Navajo’s Abercrombie Fitch special. They both bore daggers for show, Mauser machine pistols and thirtieth-century stun-beam projectors for business.

  The troop reined in, so disciplined that it was almost like one man halting. Everard scanned them closely as he neared. He had gotten a pretty complete electronic education in an hour or so before departure—language, history, technology, manners, morals—of Mongols and Chinese and even the local Indians. But he had never before seen these people close up.

  They weren’t spectacular: stocky, bowlegged, with thin beards and flat, broad faces that shone greased in the sunlight. They were all well equipped, wearing boots and trousers, laminated leather cuirasses with lacquer ornamentation, conical steel helmets that might have a spike or plume on top. Their weapons were curved sword, knife, lance, compound bow. One man near the head of the line bore a standard of gold-braided yak tails. They watched the Patrolmen approach, their narrow dark eyes impassive.

  The chief was readily identified. He rode in the van, and a tattered silken cloak blew from his shoulders. He was rather larger and even more hard-faced than his average trooper, with a reddish beard and almost Roman nose. The Indian guide beside him gaped and huddled back; but Toktai Noyon held his place, measuring Everard with a steady carnivore look.

  “Greeting,” he called, when the newcomers were in earshot. “What spirit brings you?” He spoke the Lutuami dialect, which was later to become the Klamath language, with an atrocious accent.

  Everard replied in flawless, barking Mongolian: “Greeting-to you, Toktai son of Batu. The Tengri willing, we come in peace.”

  It was an effective touch. Everard glimpsed Mongols reaching for lucky charms or making signs against the evil eye. But the man mounted at Toktai’s left was quick to recover a schooled self-possession. “Ah,” he said, “so men of the Western lands have also reached this country. We did not know that.”

  Everard looked at him. He was taller than any Mongol, his skin almost white, his features and hands delicate. Though dressed much like the others, he was unarmed. He seemed older than the Noyon, perhaps fifty. Everard bowed in the saddle and switched to North Chinese: “Honored Li Tai-Tsung, it grieves this insignificant person to contradict your eminence, but we belong to the great realm further south.”

  “We have heard rumors,” said the scholar. He couldn’t quite suppress excitement. “Even this far north, tales have been borne of a rich and splendid country. We are seeking it that we may bring your Khan the greeting of the Kha Khan, Kublai son of Tuli, son of Genghis; the earth lies at his feet.”

  “We know of the Kha Khan,” said Everard, “as we know of the Caliph, the Pope, the Emperor, and all lesser monarchs.” He had to pick his way with care, not openly insulting Cathay’s ruler but still subtly putting him in his place. “Little is known in return of us, for our master does not seek the outside world, nor encourage it to seek him. Permit me to introduce my unworthy self. I am called Everard and am not, as my appearance would suggest, a Russian or Westerner. I belong to the border guardians.”

  Let them figure out what that meant.

  “You didn’t come with much company,” snapped Toktai.

  “More was not required,” said Everard in his smoothest voice.

  “And you are far from home,” put in Li.

  “No farther than you would be, honorable sirs, in the Kirghiz marches.”

  Toktai clapped a hand to his sword hilt. His eyes were chill and wary. “Come,” he said. “Be welcome as ambassadors, then. Let’s make camp and hear the word of your king.”

  3

  The sun, low above the western peaks, turned their snowcaps tarnished silver. Shadows lengthened down in the valley, the forest darkened, but the open meadow seemed to glow all the brighter. The underlying quiet made almost a sounding board for such noises as existed: rapid swirl and cluck of the river, ring of an ax, horses cropping in long grass. Woodsmoke tinged the air.

  The Mongols were obviously taken aback at their visitors and this early halt. They kept wooden faces, but their eyes would stray to Everard and Sandoval and they would mutter formulas of their various religions—chiefly pagan, but some Buddhist, Moslem, or Nestorian prayers. It did not impair the efficiency with which they set up camp, posted guard, cared for the animals, prepared to cook supper. But Everard judged they were more quiet than usual. The patterns impressed on his brain by the educator called Mongols talkative and cheerful as a rule.

  He sat cross-legged on a tent floor. Sandoval, Toktai, and Li completed the circle. Rugs lay under them, and a brazier kept a pot of tea hot. It was the only tent pitched, probably the only one available, taken along for use on ceremonial occasions like this. Toktai poured kumiss with his own hands and offered it to Everard, who slurped as loudly as etiquette demanded and passed it on. He had drunk worse things than fermented mare’s milk, but was glad that everyone switched to tea after the ritual.

  The Mongol chief spoke. He couldn’t keep his tone smooth, as his Chinese amanuensis did. There was an instinctive bristling: what foreigner dares approach the Kha Khan’s man, save on his belly? But the words remained courteous: “Now let our guests declare the business of their king. First, would you name him for us?”

  “His name may not be spoken,” said Everard. “Of his realm you have heard only the palest rumors. You may judge his power, Noyon, by the fact that he needed only us two to come this far, and that we needed only one mount apiece.”

  Toktai grunted. “Those are handsome animals you ride, though I wonder how well they’d do on the steppes. Did it take you long to get here?”

  “No more than a day, Noyon. We have means.”

  Everard reached in his jacket and brought out a couple of small gift-wrapped parcels. “Our lord bade us present the Cathayan leaders with these tokens of regard.”

  While the paper was being removed, Sandoval leaned over and hissed in English: “Dig their expressions, Manse. We goofed a bit.”

  “How?”

  “That flashy cellophane and stuff impresses a barbarian like Toktai. But notice Li. His civilization was doing calligraphy when the ancestors of Bonwit Teller were painting themselves blue. His opinion of our taste has just nosedived.”

  Everard shrugged imperceptibly. “Well, he’s right, isn’t he?”

  Their colloquy had not escaped the others. Toktai gave them a hard stare, but returned to his present, a flashlight, which had to be demonstrated and exclaimed over. He was a little afraid of it at first, even mumbled a charm; then he remembered that a Mongol wasn’t allowed to be afraid of anything except thunder, mastered himself, and was soon as delighted as a child. The best bet for a Confucian scholar like Li seemed to be a book, the Family of Man collection, whose diversity and alien pictorial technique might impress him. He was effusive in his thanks, but Everard doubted if he was overwhelmed. A Patrolman soon learned that sophistication exists at any level of technology.

  Gifts must be made in return: a fine Chinese sword and a bundle of sea-otter pelts from the coast. It was quite some time before the conversation could turn back to business. Then Sandoval managed to get the other party’s account first.

  “Since you know so much,” Toktai began, “you must also know that our invasion of Japan failed several years ago.”

  “The will of heaven was otherwise,” said Li, with courtier blandness.

  “Horse apples!” growled Toktai. “The stupidity of men was otherwise, you mean. We were too few, too ignorant, and we’d come too far in seas too rough. And what of it? We’ll return there one day.”

  Everard knew rather sadly that they would, and that a storm would destroy the fleet and drown who knows how many young men. But he let Toktai continue:

  “The Kha Khan realized we must learn more about the islands. Perhaps we should try to establish a base somewhere north of Hokkaido. Then, too, we have long heard rumors about lands farther west. Fishermen are blown off course now and then, and have glimpses; traders from Siberia speak of a strait and a country beyond. The Kha Khan got four ships with Chinese crews and told me to take a hundred Mongol warriors and see what I could discover.”

  Everard nodded, unsurprised. The Chinese had been sailing junks for hundreds of years, some holding up to a thousand passengers. True, these craft weren’t as seaworthy as they would become in later centuries under Portuguese influence, and their owners had never been much attracted by any ocean, let alone the cold northern waters. But still, there were some Chinese navigators who would have picked up tricks of the trade from stray Koreans and Formosans, if not from their own fathers. They must have a little familiarity with the Kuriles, at least.

  “We followed two chains of islands, one after another,” said Toktai. “They were bleak enough, but we could stop here and there, let the horses out, and learn something from the natives. Though the Tengri know it’s hard to do that last, when you may have to interpret through six languages! We did find out that there are two mainlands, Siberia and another, which come so close together up north that a man might cross in a skin boat, or walk across the ice in winter sometimes. Finally we came to the new mainland. A big country; forests, much game and seals. Too rainy, though. Our ships seemed to want to continue, so we followed the coast, more or less.”

  Everard visualized a map. If you go first along the Kuriles and then the Aleutians, you are never far from land. Fortunate to avoid the shipwreck which had been a distinct possibility, the shallow-draft junks had been able to find anchorage even at those rocky islands. Also, the current urged them along, and they were very nearly on a great-circle course. Toktai had discovered Alaska before he quite knew what had happened. Since the country grew ever more hospitable as he coasted south, he passed up Puget Sound and proceeded clear to the Chehalis River. Maybe the Indians had warned him the Columbia mouth, further on, was dangerous—and, more recently, had helped his horsemen cross the great stream on rafts.

  “We set up camp when the war was waning,” said the Mongol. “The tribes thereabouts are backward, but friendly. They gave us all the food, women, and help we could ask for. In return, our sailors taught them some tricks of fishing and boatbuilding. We wintered there, learned some of the languages, and made trips inland. Everywhere were tales of huge forests and plains where herds of wild cattle blacken the earth. We saw enough to know the stories were true. I’ve never been in so rich a land.” His eyes gleamed tigerishly. “And so few dwellers, who don’t even know the use of iron.”

  “Noyon,” murmured Li warningly. He nodded his head very slightly toward the Patrolmen. Toktai clamped his mouth shut.

  Li turned to Everard and said, “There were also rumors of a golden realm far to the south. We felt it our duty to investigate this, as well as explore the country in between. We had not looked for the honor of being met by your eminent selves.”

  “The honor is all ours,” Everard purred. Then, putting on his gravest face: “My lord of the Golden Empire, who may not be named, has sent us in a spirit of friendship. It would grieve him to see you meet disaster. We come to warn you.”

  “What?” Toktai sat up straight. One sinewy hand snatched for the sword which, politely, he wasn’t wearing. “What in the hells is this?”

  “In the hells indeed, Noyon. Pleasant though this country seems, it lies under a curse. Tell him, my brother.”

  Sandoval, who had a better speaking voice, took over. His yarn had been concocted with an eye to exploiting that superstition which still lingered in the half-civilized Mongols, without generating too much Chinese skepticism. There were really two great southern kingdoms, he explained. Their own lay far away; its rival was somewhat north and east of it, with a citadel on the plains. Both states possessed immense powers, call them sorcery or subtle engineering, as you wished. The northerly empire, Badguys, considered all this territory as its own and would not tolerate a foreign expedition. Its scouts were certain to discover the Mongols before long, and would annihilate them with thunderbolts. The benevolent southern land of Goodguys could offer no protection, could only send emissaries warning the Mongols to turn home again.

  “Why have the natives not spoken of these overlords?” asked Li shrewdly.

  “Has every little tribesman in the jungles of Burma heard about the Kha Khan?” responded Sandoval.

  “I am a stranger and ignorant,” said Li. “Forgive me if I do not understand your talk of irresistible weapons.”

  Which is the politest way I’ve ever been called a liar, thought Everard. Aloud: “I can offer a small demonstration, if the Noyon has an animal that may be killed.”

  Toktai considered. His visage might have been scarred stone, but sweat filmed it. He clapped his hands and barked orders to the guard who looked in. Thereafter they made small talk against a silence that thickened.

  A warrior appeared after some endless part of an hour. He said that a couple of horsemen had lassoed a deer. Would it serve the Noyon’s purpose? It would. Toktai led the way out, shouldering through a thick and buzzing swarm of men. Everard followed, wishing this weren’t needful. He slipped the rifle stock onto his Mauser. “Care to do the job?” he asked Sandoval.

  “Christ, no.”

  The deer, a doe, had been forced back to camp. She trembled by the river, the horsehair ropes about her neck. The sun, just touching the western peaks, turned her to bronze. There was a blind sort of gentleness in her look at Everard. He waved back the men around her and took aim. The first slug killed her, but he kept the gun chattering till her carcass was gruesome.

  When he lowered his weapon, the air felt somehow rigid. He looked across all the thick bandy-legged bodies, the flat, grimly controlled faces; he could smell them with unnatural sharpness, a clean odor of sweat and horses and smoke. He felt himself as nonhuman as they must see him.