Shades of the Silent: A Word So Small
Nov. 27th, 2006 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aithne[This is the epilogue of this story: Shades of the Silent is finished!]
I knelt on the straw mat in the Dalai's reception room, alone. The official visit from Jochi and the others would wait until later; I had requested an audience alone with him, and it had been granted. My hands were resting on my thighs just before the curve of my belly, my head was bowed, and the room was silent except for my breathing.
The trip from Beijing to Lhasa had been a brutal four and a half months; we'd been caught in snowstorm after snowstorm after we'd gotten south enough to see the mountains. Only the secret passes into Lhasa that I'd seen in the Potala Palace and written down later saved us from being completely stymied by it.
I was mere weeks away from giving birth, now, and grateful that we'd managed to make it here before my time came. But that was the only true emotion I'd felt in months. Nothing gave me pleasure; not sleeping beside my lovers, not Nomolun's bright smiles, not Zayd and Sacha and Jochi and Ahmad's attempts at jokes. Not even riding with Spirit seemed to touch me very deeply.
There were so many reasons for me to be happy, and I could not appreciate a single one of them. Nomolun had tried to counsel me, but she'd wanted me to talk about things, and the words would not come. I held myself together so I could keep everyone else together.
And so I was here, in the West Chamber of Sunshine in Potala Palace, waiting.
There was a soft sound behind me, and I stiffened. Then steps. The Dalai was unaccompanied by even the little lion dogs that lived in the temple, as he came and sat on the steps that led up to the dais. "Ambassador Yesui," the holy man said.
"Just Yesui, now, holy one," I told him.
I raised my eyes and saw him looking at me, taking in hair that had needed to be cropped very short after my encounter with the gloves, the thinness of my body except for the huge belly I carried. I wondered what else he could see in me. He smiled at me, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. "Yesui, then. What brings you to me? I do have your candle."
I nodded. "In truth, I did not come for that. I came because..." My throat closed, and I looked down again. "It is done. Kamil is where he belongs. Ahmad has been returned to life. I have a child on the way."
"And yet there is no joy in you. Is that why you came?"
My shoulders bowed. "I had to kill my father, and my brother. My mother was killed in front of me because of something I did. I do not even know how to begin to grieve. I know no songs for this, and I am afraid..." I trailed off, and shut my eyes tightly. "I am afraid that my soul is twisting because of it. I cannot feel anything. Nomolun tries to help, but when I try to talk, I can't. I came to ask for your help."
"Hm," I heard him say, and felt him rise and take a step forward. Warm fingers brushed my head, tickled in my cropped hair. "Hard choices, I can see. You loved your father deeply, but Kamil had him. You know with your mind that it was only his body that you killed, and you know the same of Tolui. You try to believe it with your heart, but you cannot. And--ah. Nightmares. Fear that you will never be able to feel love again. Fear for your daughter."
"I'm thinking that I may have to give her to someone else to raise," I said, my voice shaking. "I don't know if I'd be a fit mother, like this."
His hands slipped towards the back of my head. "And beneath that, incomprehension of what you have become. You have a new role, and you don't know how you're going to fit into it. There are nightmares, and the magic you've absorbed does not sit lightly in you." His voice was quiet, grave. "Conflicting desires, warring needs, your blood family pulling you in one direction and the family you have acquired pulling you in another. Unfinished business with any number of people." The feel of hands on my head vanished, and I felt him rise and go sit down on the dais again. "It's a lot for one person to handle."
"I am willing to do the work," I said, my eyes still closed. "I just don't know what the work is. I don't know where to start." I opened my eyes. "Can you help me?"
He was looking at me thoughtfully, then nodded. "It is no coincidence that your name is Silent One," he said. "You may never be able to talk about what happened. How long are you here for?"
"I've asked my brothers for a year before I give them an answer, and they have agreed to give it to me."
He smiled. "I would have you start on scrubbing the bricks in one of the back courtyards, or tending the gardens, but in your state I think that it would be counterproductive," he said, nodding at my belly. "You'll live among us for the next year, and I will give you tasks to do. Each of them will help you in some way, even if not immediately." He fixed me with a stern look. "You will relinquish your leadership position among your people for the next year. You have no authority over them. You are no Khan, or even Khanate. You are simply khu sim po." At my look, he said, "Our term for quiet. Oh, and you'll sleep in the light of the candle."
I nodded. "Very well. The dragon. Arwa. Is she still here?"
He smiled gently. "I convinced her to stay here until all of the artifacts had been destroyed."
"I need to talk to her. Explain some things." I gave him a tired smile. "I don't need her showing up at my camp a year from how, thinking I'm someone I'm not."
"She is often in the gardens after sunset. She seems to find the silence restful. There are others here, as well. Shifa, and her brother Jahm. They brought me the candle some months ago, and they seem in no hurry to leave."
"Ah," I said. "I wondered if they'd gone on their way."
"Not yet. Return here two days from now, and we will begin. Tomorrow, I believe I have an audience with Tolui Khan and Jochi Khan." He smiled at me. "And their people, who seem to have been largely inherited from their missing sister."
"Sometimes, the greatest of lies is the truth in turned-out clothing." I spread my hands. "I haven't made my decision yet."
The Dalai looked at me, weighing me. "Two days," he said. "Then we will see."
I rose, bowed, and left the holy man's presence. The child inside of me planted a foot into my lungs, whether in protest or excitement, I couldn't tell. This child of mine had been quite active since a few days after my father had died, starting with little tickling movements and graduating to kicking me in the kidneys, bladder, and ribs. Now, there was not so much room for her to move, and she had contented herself for the past two weeks with occasionally trying to stretch and finding my internal organs in her way.
"Soon, daughter," I told her. I patted my belly gently. "Both of us are tired of this, aren't we? Let's go find your fathers and see what they're up to."
That evening, I was admitted into the gardens at Potala Palace. Rumor was running ahead of us, and I needed to find Arwa. In the dim of gathering twilight, I saw a figure pacing by a dry stream, and heard a female voice muttering. "Arwa?" I called.
The pacing stopped, and the figure swiveled. "Yes? Oh! Yesui." I approached her and she raised her head and sniffed at the air, then looked at me, dropping her gaze to my belly. "You didn't have that last time we met."
"I won't, soon. Can't happen soon enough." I sighed and sat down on a bench. "Arwa, I have a few things I need to talk to you about."
She sat down next to me. "I hear Tolui is in town. Now Tolui Khan," she added spitting the last word hatefully.
"That was what I needed to talk to you about. Tolui is dead."
She looked at me sharply. "And yet he has an audience with the Dalai tomorrow."
"I killed him myself. The Tolui who will speak with the Dalai tomorrow will be swathed in bandages, and through the robes and the illusions, he will look suspiciously roundish."
She was silent for a moment, pressing her lips together. "You. Why?"
"It's a very long story. Tribe politics, mostly."
"How did he die?"
My throat closed, and I looked away from her. "On my sword," I managed. "If you want the story, talk to one of the others who travel with me. I can't tell it."
"Can't, or won't?" Her voice was low, and there was anger in it that surprised me. I kept looking away from her, and her breath rattled as she inhaled. "That's what I thought. Just tell me, was it quick? Please don't tell me it was quick."
"Arwa." I breathed in. "He was my brother. I loved him. I relive the day he died nightly. You have reason to hate him. I am not nearly so lucky. He is dead, if you need the story ask one of the others. But let it lie with me."
She stared at me. "He was working with Kamil, and you do not hate him?"
I rested a hand on my belly, felt my daughter wriggle. "He was taken by an artifact, just like my father was. He made a mistake, and because he made that mistake I ended up having to put a sword into him." I rose, quickly enough to make myself briefly dizzy. I walked away from Arwa without another word.
Two days later, after the official visit with the Dalai, I went into Potala Palace and was taken to one of the workrooms. I was shown to a table stacked with rough wooden boxes, and handed a bowl, a cloth, and gloves made out of a fine metal mesh.
The monk who had brought me in here said, "All of these pieces must be washed, and sorted by color. The gloves are because some of the pieces have very sharp edges." He handed me a box--it was perhaps two handspans wide, long, and deep, and it was filled with what seemed to be shards of tile.
"There's a bucket of water by the table," the monk said, pointing. He withdrew, and I pulled in the gloves and start in on my task.
There were thousands of small pieces, it seemed, and each of them needed to be washed individually. As I washed them, I would put them in a pile with other pieces of roughly the same color. Some of the pieces were tile, some seemed to be shards of pottery, some of them were pieces of glass. All of them were covered with grit, as if they'd been buried for years.
I washed and piled, and then when I was done with the initial sort, I launched into the task of refining my sorting. It had been a week and a half, and I'd barely said a word to anyone around me. Sometimes, one of the others would come and sit with me, and after a few days I realized that I was glad of the company.
Once I was done with the sorting, I was given a stack of larger, rough tiles and a pot of a viscous fluid, and a piece of paper with a design on it. I used the broken pieces of tile to reproduce the design, and then was given another design, and another. Every time I finished a tile, the monk who I reported to would silently take the finished tile from me and hand me a piece of paper with another design on it. I've never been an artist, but I found it interesting to get a design and need to go on the hunt for just the right pieces of glass and clay for it. In the beginning, I wasn't very good at it, but as I went on, I got much better. Sometimes, in the morning, I'd have a fresh batch of mosaic pieces left by the table, and I'd wash and sort those for a few days.
"What do you think they're doing with the tiles?" asked Zayd. He'd stopped by to keep me company while I worked.
"I don't know," I said. "They could be throwing them away, for all I know." I put the last piece I needed down and looked down on the tile, frowning. The design wasn't quite right. I swept the pieces off the tile, blew out a breath, and looked up at Zayd. "Why do you have soot on your face? Come here."
He came around the table, bringing his chair with him. I wet the edge of my sleeve and scrubbed at the soot, which came off easily. "Guess I missed that one," he said. "I've talked a local blacksmith into letting me share his forge, in return for a share of the profits I make off of the things I make. I figured since we're going to be sitting still for a year, I might as well get back to work." He smiled at me, and then his eyes softened. "Ah, there is a sight for sore eyes."
I blinked. "What?"
"You smiled at me, lovely one. You haven't done that for months, now."
I looked at him helplessly, then my eyes filled with tears. He pulled his chair close to mine and I leaned into him, putting my arms around him and breathing in his familiar scent. "I love you," I told him, and realized that I could feel my love for this man, an emotion strange after months of feeling little.
And at that realization, I burst into tears.
After that, things seemed to get easier. I started smiling more. I even laughed--real laughter, not a weak chuckle--a few times, and I started remembering that I loved both Zayd and Sacha. I finished tile after tile, finding the activity both soothing and something that would take my mind off of my increasing discomfort as my body prepared to give birth. I was short of breath all the time, and I felt incredibly ungainly. Everyone seemed to find this quite funny, especially Jochi, who loved to tease me now that it seemed to be safer to do so.
I went into labor almost a month after we arrived in Lhasa, and two days later I met my daughter for the first time. She was screaming, red, and ugly in the way that all babies are ugly, but I was very grateful to have her. I named her Durra, of course.
About two hours after the birth, I was lying with Durra on my chest and Zayd and Sacha on either side of me. The adrenalin of the birth had finally worn off, and I was hurting but not too badly. Nomolun had taken good care of me. I was thinking that perhaps some sleep was in order when there was a knock on the door.
Sacha rose and opened it, and then made a surprised noise as he saw the Dalai on the other side. Zayd got up, too, and bowed slightly. "Don't get up, Yesui," the Dalai told me. "I came to see how you were doing. Nomolun told me all went well."
"I'm all right," I said. On my chest, Durra stirred and woke, making soft noises. "Do you want to hold her?"
The Dalai nodded, and Zayd picked her up and passed her to him. She quieted down when she was transferred into his arms, and reached out uncoordinatedly towards his face. "What have you named her?"
"Durra," I told him.
"Family name?"
I chuckled. "In a manner of speaking. When the clay snake was destroyed, the soul, named Durra, that had animated it lodged in me for a few weeks. When the Eye was destroyed, she was gone and I was three months pregnant."
He raised his eyebrows. "Really." Frowning slightly, he laid a finger between my daughter's tiny brows, ignoring her cry of protest. "I see." He muttered beneath his breath, and I recognized the feel of power that swirled into the room at his quiet words. The power seemed to listen, then vanish. "That's better."
"What did you do?" I asked.
He smiled and handed Durra back to me. "Between the origin of her soul, how she came to be in the first place, and the fact that she has been bathed in your magic the entire time you were carrying her, she was born with more mage talent than she's going to know what to do with. I put a block on most of it. It should wear off in a few years, but the last thing you want is a baby with the ability to throw fire around when she gets frustrated."
"Only most of it?" I asked.
"Best not to block all of it." Durra fussed, and I sat up and shifted her in my arms. "You'll want to start teaching her how to handle it as soon as she can understand what you're telling her."
"Good to know," I said. A yawn caught me then, and Durra had fallen asleep once more. The Dalai chuckled and let himself out, and I was once more sandwiched between Zayd and Sacha. I drifted off to sleep then, and there were no more interruptions for a while.
It took me a couple of weeks to get back to the mosaics, as I adjusted to being a mother and Durra adjusted to being out in the cold world instead of my womb. Fortunately, she was a happy baby and liked being held and rocked by just about everyone. I started to spend more alone time with Zayd and Sacha.
Along with the return of joy came the return of other emotions--anger, impatience, frustration. The Dalai, when I spoke to him, assured me that this was normal. My anger at first focused on Arwa, who had spoken so harshly of my brother, and she and I had words a number of times. I was angry at Kamil for taking so many people I loved away from me, angry at my father and Tolui for dying, angry at Tolui for killing Wind. That phase lasted a couple of months, and mostly ended when I started dreaming about Wind every night, dreaming about her and the foal she would have had.
Day after day I would sit, Durra in a sling next to my belly or on my back, and work on tiles. I started working in the gardens, as well, and rode Spirit every day, and when Durra could reliably sit up, I'd put her in the saddle in front of me when I went. I slept every night in the light of the candle with one of my lovers, our daughter swaddled in blankets beside us.
Inch by inch, I returned to life.
Then came the day, six months after we came to Lhasa, when I handed the monk a tile, and he nodded and took it from me and did not give me a new design. It seemed I was finished with this task. I sat back down at the familiar table, confused.
A few moments later, the Dalai arrived. A monk behind him had butter tea and bread for us. "Well, you appear to be done," he said. "How are you feeling?"
I considered the question. "Alive," I said, after looking into my soul. "Glad for what I have. Hopeful for the future. I'm still grieving for those I've lost, but it's not overwhelming anymore."
"You'll probably have times when it becomes overwhelming again," he told me. "They won't last. Still feel like you're bleeding inside?"
I shook my head. "Not anymore." Durra, in a sling across my front, woke and began to fuss a bit. I took her out of the sling and set her on my knee. One of the little temple dogs trotted up to me and put its paws on my knee, sniffing curiously at Durra. She crowed with delight, and I looked down at her, smiling. "This one's helping. So, do I have any more tasks I need to do?"
"Do you think you need them?"
I looked down at Durra, and shook my head. "I don't think so."
He smiled. "Good. Do you want to see what you've been working on for the last few months?"
I nodded, and we rose. The Dalai led me towards the back of Potala Palace, into an airy room with a number of windows to the outside. At the back of the room, along one wall, was something that took my breath away.
It was the mosaic I'd been working on, put together. There were mountains in the background, a variegated blue sky above. On the steppes, a herd of horses was running, and on the backs of those horses were figures. The figures were indistinct, but they wore Mongol clothing and armor, and the one in front carried a white Spirit Banner on a spear.
"It's us," I said, finally. "My blood family. I had no idea. It's beautiful."
"You created it," the Dalai said. "Your hands put this together." The colors of it glowed in the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows, and I felt my heart fill to overflowing. I realized there were tears running down my face, and raised my free hand to wipe them.
There were steps behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder. It was all of them, all of those I'd been with on this journey--Zayd and Sacha, Temur and Nomolun, Ahmad and behind him Spirit in human form, and behind them Jochi.
I turned and went to them, and they surrounded me and all tried to hug me at once. I was laughing and crying at once, and so were all of them.
By the time we disentangled, the Dalai was gone, and I went with my family to the rooms that had been set aside for us.
It was time to start thinking about the future.
*****
We spent longer than a year in Lhasa, about sixteen months all told, because we wanted to leave in the spring when traveling out of the mountains would be easier. Nomolun and Temur married each other in a ceremony that blended the traditions of the Mongols and the Tibetans. I made the decision that I would take Tolui's place, and Zayd made a few magical items that would help to that end, so I wouldn't have to constantly cast illusions.
In fact, I was going to be not one but two people. I would be Tolui, and I would also be his wife Sorkhokhtani. Tolui, we decided, would be scarred so badly from his encounter with the gloves that he would always wear a silk mask that covered his features, loose robes, and gloves. That way, more than one person could be Tolui. The family would be in on the secret, and those few who truly needed to know, but otherwise we would keep it from the world.
I would take the territory offered to me, and I would help it rebuild from the devastating attacks, building a permanent camp that might someday become a capitol near the center of it. I would send for Orbei, and with luck Borte would believe I merely wanted to arrange an advantageous marriage for her and send her along. This was not precisely my plan, but it was close enough.
I hadn't been paying a lot of attention to anything other than my grief for the first six months of our stay in Lhasa, so there were a few surprises for me during the remainder of our stay. One was that Temur had bred all of our mares when they came into season that spring, so by the winter we had a dozen new foals capering around. Three of them where Spirit's, and his colt out of Lark, one of the white mares that had belonged to Jochi and now belonged to Zayd, would be gelded and given to Durra as her first horse.
The other surprise walked in about a year after we arrived in Lhasa. I was eating a late midday meal after participating in one of the formal discussions of philosophy that the monks held daily. I had mostly been listening to Nomolun putting forth passionate argument, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with excitement. I was thinking about seeing if I could get a few of the monks here to travel back with us; Nomolun was never so happy as when she was embroiled in philosophical discussion, and that was one thing we tended to lack.
Zayd was at the forge, Temur and Sacha were out hunting, and I wasn't sure where Ahmad was but I thought he was visiting some of the other mages in town. So I was alone when I heard steps coming down the corridor towards me. I frowned. The monks and servants tended to go barefoot or wear soft slippers when it was cold. These were boots. It didn't sound like any of us.
The mystery was answered when the owner of the boots came into the doorway and stopped, looking at me. I blinked. "Sabur?"
"In the flesh." He grinned. "I heard through the grapevine that you were here, and decided to take a detour on the way home."
"That's quite the grapevine," I told him, smiling. "Come, sit, there's tea."
He did so, pouring some from the pot into a clean cup. He looked the same has he had the day I'd met him, long black hair, glint in his eye, and all. "It's good to see you," I told him. "You're looking well."
"So are you. Congratulations on ending Kamil."
I looked away from him. "It had a price. Thus why I'm here right now, and not off ruling part of an empire."
Sabur nodded. "I heard you had to kill your father and brother. Ugly business."
"You were right, though," I told him. "My father waited for me. I gave him the opportunity, and he chose to help me end it." I looked down at my hands. "He died as well as he could, under the circumstances." I looked up. "Water in the river, really. How about you? What have you been doing?"
"Oh, this and that. What little remained of the brotherhood by the time Kamil was ended didn't really believe he was gone. We changed their minds for them. I'm on my way back to Leh, to see if anyone's started rebuilding. I think I'll settle into my territory again." He eyed me, and leaned forward. "Still involved with those two men of yours? My offer's still open, you know."
I laughed and sat back. "You're incorrigible. Yes, I am. And I have a daughter with them, now."
"Congratulations! So what are you doing here? My sources were not specific."
I shrugged. "It's one of the few truly safe places I know. I was in bad shape after my father--after I killed my father. I came here to recover. We'll be off in a few months. I have some traveling to do in this part of the world, and then we will head north."
"Well, I suppose if you have to lick your wounds somewhere, this place is as good as any." Sabur chuckled, and we sat and drank tea and talked about what we'd been doing in the year and a bit since we'd last seen each other.
Eventually, another pair of footsteps came down the corridor. Ahmad stuck his head into the room. "Yesui, there you are. This one wants her mama." He was carrying Durra on his hip, and set her down. She toddled over to me, giggling, and I lifted her up onto my lap. Ahmad nodded at Sabur. "I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Ahmad."
"Ahmad, this is Sabur, the copper dragon I've told you about. Sabur, Ahmad was the ghost in my bracelet. He told me how to destroy all of the artifacts."
Man and dragon stared at each other. "You're that Ahmad? The one who killed Kamil in the first place? I thought you died--ah, but you did."
"Returned into life by the ending of Kamil," he said. "And I've heard of you, of course."
He inclined his head. "All lies, of course."
On my lap, Durra was staring at Sabur, three fingers jammed into her mouth. Her blue eyes were wide, and she was studying him with an intense expression. I frowned. She didn't usually react to strangers like that; to Durra, the whole world was her friend, an accurate assumption for a child who was spending her first year mostly in Potala Palace. "What is it, little one? What do you see?" I asked her, stroking her face with my fingertips.
She jerked away from my touch, pulled her fingers out of her mouth, and began directing a stream of babble towards Sabur, who blinked at being so addressed. He looked at me. "I have to admit not having a lot of experience with human children. Why is she doing that?"
I shook my head. "That's not her usual reaction to strangers. I've no idea--"
But then I did. My daughter got a look in her face that I would recognize in later years as a combination of frustration that she couldn't make herself understood and plain old stubbornness, and held out one of her hands, palm-up.
Floating above her hand was an image--a copper dragon, its tail lashing slowly, an amused look on its face.
I opened my mouth, closed it again. "I believe she can see your true form," I told Sabur, somewhat unnecessarily. "The Dalai warned me that she might display some unusual talents." Durra laughed, apparently amused by the dumbstruck looks on the faces of those in the room.
Sabur gave me an uneasy look. "And on that note, I do have some other people to give my greetings to while I'm here," he said. "I am here for a few days."
"Come for dinner tonight," I said,. "Or at least tea afterwards."
"I would not miss it." He nodded to us, rose, and walked out.
When he was well gone, and out of earshot, Ahmad chuckled. "Never thought I'd get to meet him," he told me. "He seems to have a thing for you."
I groaned. "Don't I know it. It's all right. He'll visit for a few days and then be gone, and I probably won't see him again."
Ahmad glanced at the door where Sabur had disappeared. "I wonder. Anyway. I found something in one of the books I'm looking at that might interest you. Want to take a look?"
"Of course!" I said, and followed him out.
*****
After that day, Durra started showing more and more signs of her talents, and it took quite a bit of effort and thought to teach her how to control them. Surprisingly enough, the pair that seemed to have the most luck in teaching her were Jahm and Shifa. Because Durra wasn't talking yet, Shifa would relay what she was thinking to Jahm, who would use it to gauge whether she was understanding what he was trying to show her.
Shifa looked much better than she had when we'd first met her, but the problem of her not being able to shield others' thoughts from her mind still plagued her. There were other preparations that could be used like opium that weren't so addictive and destructive to the body, and she had been trying each of those in turn. A combination of them seemed to be working, acting as an artificial shield. When she needed to be able to read minds, she'd take another drug that acted as an antidote, or simply wait until the preparations she was taking wore off.
She would never live a normal life; Jahm would have to take care of her as long as she lived. It was a shame, really. Both of them were good with Durra, and neither of them would have a chance to have children of their own, likely. When I offered him a position working for me--or rather for Tolui--he looked at me, and told me he'd think about it.
When we left, he was in our group, as was Shifa. We had quite the little community of mages with us. After completing the mosaic, I'd taken up my study of illusions more seriously. There was Zayd, of course, and I'd gotten a chance to see for myself just how much more power he had when he had access to a forge. Ahmad didn't have the talent of actually creating works in metal, but he knew how to do just about everything else when it came to artifacts. Jahm's specialty was offensive and defensive magics.
As we headed out of the mountains and north to the territory that was now known as the Ilkhanate, I felt very lucky indeed despite the difficulties ahead. We had great mages among us, some of the finest horses in the world, and a territory that had been most thoroughly subdued by my father, a man of military genius unrivaled in the world. The world would never see his equal, this man who had been born Temüjin, a poor boy in one of the most desolate landscapes in the world.
We returned to Samarqand, intent on basing the activities of the Ilkhanate there, with a secondary capitol at Tabriz. Samarqand was chosen not only because it was central, but because it was only a few days away from Panjakent. Through the tunnels, it was only six days to Zan, the drow ancestral city, and there I could find another one of those transporting rooms, should I need to go shelter under the great mountain some day.
Zayd and Ahmad together had built me a series of artifacts that would disguise my face and my voice, and another set that provided a full illusion of Sorkhokhtani. The artifacts also warned if anyone was using a seeing spell to look through them. So I might be Tolui part of the day and Sorkhokhtani the rest, or Tolui would leave for a few weeks and I would be Sorkhokhtani that entire time.
If Tolui had one of his two most trusted guards with him, and even shared his tent with one or the other each night, none thought anything of it. I had thought that either Zayd or Sacha would tire of my company and seek others, but both of them seemed content enough with me.
Four years and two children later, both sons, I sent to Ulaanbaatar and requested that Orbei come to us to live. She did, and the deception was revealed to her, the last immediate family member who had not known. She was sixteen by then, well-grown, and she was finished with her training.
She came to us the day she arrived, to the court that was being held. She bowed low, the chains of her headdress jingling, and said in a smooth voice, "My brother. I am here, as requested."
Behind the silk mask, I smiled. "You are welcome. We have much work to do, Orbei." I paused. "How is Borte?"
She shook her head, pain in her eyes. "She fades. Her mind is gone, it is only her body that remains. Ogedei is with her constantly, and it won't be long now."
"I'd have delayed more, but there are some things that cannot be put off," I said sadly. "Tonight, my yurt, we will speak of your tasks."
She nodded and bowed again, then turned and left. The court murmured and broke up when I waved my hand, dismissing them. Zayd, next to me, muttered, "She moves like you."
Behind the mask, my smile turned sharp. "That's because she and I had the same teachers."
"She's a scout?" he asked in a strangled voice.
"Credit me with some foresight, Zayd," I told him. "I started teaching her myself when she was five. Unlike me, her training had to be in secret because of her birth. Father knew, and approved, but nobody else ever did. Not even my brothers," I said warningly. "She is good, they tell me. Not as good as I am, but she's likely going to surpass me once she has some more experience under her belt. I knew I'd need her, some day."
He laughed then, and gave me that look that always made me glad when it was my night with him. "Shall we go see what sort of trouble Durra is getting herself into? I left her with Jahm. Oh, yes, there was a message. They found Rabab, and she agrees to your terms."
I resisted the urge to crow. "Good," I said, my relief heartfelt. "We need people like her desperately. She can do what she does best, and we will gain the benefit of her experience." I'd offered her the protection of my people in return for her using her skills as a merchant for us. I had a vision of a great trading empire, and had made some strides in that direction, but I knew when a dream outstripped my abilities.
Rabab, given the wealth of the Ilkhanate and a mandate to open trade to all of the corners of the world she could find, had those abilities. Behind the mask, I smiled, and then groaned. "What?" Zayd asked.
"Later," I said, holding up a hand. I was pregnant, and this child was very active. I was going to have to give up being Tolui for a bit in a few weeks. I thought that this time, Tolui could go on a drinking binge and let Sorkhokhtani run things for a bit. My late brother's drinking habit had become a convenient excuse for those periods when someone else had to be him for a while.
Over the next few years, I had two more sons and another daughter. Six children were quite enough, especially when all of them were very strong mages. After Durra had come my sons Möngke, Kubilai, Ariq Boke, and Hulagu, and we named my last daughter Al Alta, after my eldest sister. I'm afraid Möngke and Kubilai were always destined to come into conflict, half-brothers born too close together under opposing stars. Kubilai, in particular, inherited a good portion of my father's brilliance, my magic, and his father Sacha's ability to organize the talents of others.
Nomolun and Temur had several children, and eventually the two of them left my side to travel. Jochi, after a few years, left for his own territory, the Golden Horde. The furor over my father's death had finally passed, and most did not remember that he had been barred from inheriting at that point. The khuriltai eventually chose Ogedei as the Great Khan, and I think Chagatai was mostly resigned to it, though he grumbled.
Spirit stayed with me, of course, and I was always glad of his company. He did not age, and all questions about him were deflected with shrugs. Sabur, contrary to my expectation, did come to visit every few years. He and I remained friends--and very occasionally more--for the rest of my life. Sacha and Zayd simply shrugged; I was theirs, and there was no dragon in the world who was going to change that, they claimed. Besides, Sacha enjoyed Sabur's company, quite possibly more than was strictly within the bounds of friendship.
Once the children were old enough, and the Ilkhanate was prosperous and stable enough, Tolui suffered a quite public "death", staggering out of his yurt the morning after a drinking binge, vomiting copious amounts of blood, and dying. The body was one that had been created by Ahmad, and it served for something to bury. I stayed on as his widow Sorkhokhtani, running things for a few years, and then "died" once more. My children knew that I was still alive, but agreed to act as if both their parents were dead.
After twenty-three years of being other people, I was finally Yesui and only Yesui again.
My territory was in good hands, and the fate of the Mongol empire was no longer mine to influence. I found myself profoundly grateful for it. Ahmad came with Zayd and Sacha and I, as did a few others, and we set out to revisit places we had been to on our headlong fight against Kamil, more than a quarter of a century ago.
We made the journey, and then found ourselves once more in Kengtung, this time to stay. Nomolun and Temur had settled here, as well.
It is a good life. There is music, and magic, and I make pretty pictures to entertain the children, tell them fictionalized accounts of the days we spent chasing Kamil. Like my father, when I die, my body will be taken to the Ikh Khorig and buried there in secret, and my name will become wind on the water. Unlike my father, who was legendary even before he died, there will be no stories told about me.
Except this:
On the steppes of Mongolia, a girl rides a black horse, racing the wind. The horse is her guide, and will lead her through peril. She is chasing the mad mage who killed her father.
The story will go into vast detail then about what the girl was doing, and why she had to do it, and how it ended. None of those will be anything close to the truth.
But the girl, and the swift horse she rides, that is as much truth as I will leave behind me. It is only fitting that in the end my name will be only Silent One, and my only story the endless sweep of the wind across the steppe, and the shadow as a black horse flashes past.
love is a word so small
let it fill up 'til I can't see at all
I want to be blind, only my hands to guide me
bring all of you inside me
--Vienna Teng, Now Three
let it fill up 'til I can't see at all
I want to be blind, only my hands to guide me
bring all of you inside me
--Vienna Teng, Now Three
I knelt on the straw mat in the Dalai's reception room, alone. The official visit from Jochi and the others would wait until later; I had requested an audience alone with him, and it had been granted. My hands were resting on my thighs just before the curve of my belly, my head was bowed, and the room was silent except for my breathing.
The trip from Beijing to Lhasa had been a brutal four and a half months; we'd been caught in snowstorm after snowstorm after we'd gotten south enough to see the mountains. Only the secret passes into Lhasa that I'd seen in the Potala Palace and written down later saved us from being completely stymied by it.
I was mere weeks away from giving birth, now, and grateful that we'd managed to make it here before my time came. But that was the only true emotion I'd felt in months. Nothing gave me pleasure; not sleeping beside my lovers, not Nomolun's bright smiles, not Zayd and Sacha and Jochi and Ahmad's attempts at jokes. Not even riding with Spirit seemed to touch me very deeply.
There were so many reasons for me to be happy, and I could not appreciate a single one of them. Nomolun had tried to counsel me, but she'd wanted me to talk about things, and the words would not come. I held myself together so I could keep everyone else together.
And so I was here, in the West Chamber of Sunshine in Potala Palace, waiting.
There was a soft sound behind me, and I stiffened. Then steps. The Dalai was unaccompanied by even the little lion dogs that lived in the temple, as he came and sat on the steps that led up to the dais. "Ambassador Yesui," the holy man said.
"Just Yesui, now, holy one," I told him.
I raised my eyes and saw him looking at me, taking in hair that had needed to be cropped very short after my encounter with the gloves, the thinness of my body except for the huge belly I carried. I wondered what else he could see in me. He smiled at me, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. "Yesui, then. What brings you to me? I do have your candle."
I nodded. "In truth, I did not come for that. I came because..." My throat closed, and I looked down again. "It is done. Kamil is where he belongs. Ahmad has been returned to life. I have a child on the way."
"And yet there is no joy in you. Is that why you came?"
My shoulders bowed. "I had to kill my father, and my brother. My mother was killed in front of me because of something I did. I do not even know how to begin to grieve. I know no songs for this, and I am afraid..." I trailed off, and shut my eyes tightly. "I am afraid that my soul is twisting because of it. I cannot feel anything. Nomolun tries to help, but when I try to talk, I can't. I came to ask for your help."
"Hm," I heard him say, and felt him rise and take a step forward. Warm fingers brushed my head, tickled in my cropped hair. "Hard choices, I can see. You loved your father deeply, but Kamil had him. You know with your mind that it was only his body that you killed, and you know the same of Tolui. You try to believe it with your heart, but you cannot. And--ah. Nightmares. Fear that you will never be able to feel love again. Fear for your daughter."
"I'm thinking that I may have to give her to someone else to raise," I said, my voice shaking. "I don't know if I'd be a fit mother, like this."
His hands slipped towards the back of my head. "And beneath that, incomprehension of what you have become. You have a new role, and you don't know how you're going to fit into it. There are nightmares, and the magic you've absorbed does not sit lightly in you." His voice was quiet, grave. "Conflicting desires, warring needs, your blood family pulling you in one direction and the family you have acquired pulling you in another. Unfinished business with any number of people." The feel of hands on my head vanished, and I felt him rise and go sit down on the dais again. "It's a lot for one person to handle."
"I am willing to do the work," I said, my eyes still closed. "I just don't know what the work is. I don't know where to start." I opened my eyes. "Can you help me?"
He was looking at me thoughtfully, then nodded. "It is no coincidence that your name is Silent One," he said. "You may never be able to talk about what happened. How long are you here for?"
"I've asked my brothers for a year before I give them an answer, and they have agreed to give it to me."
He smiled. "I would have you start on scrubbing the bricks in one of the back courtyards, or tending the gardens, but in your state I think that it would be counterproductive," he said, nodding at my belly. "You'll live among us for the next year, and I will give you tasks to do. Each of them will help you in some way, even if not immediately." He fixed me with a stern look. "You will relinquish your leadership position among your people for the next year. You have no authority over them. You are no Khan, or even Khanate. You are simply khu sim po." At my look, he said, "Our term for quiet. Oh, and you'll sleep in the light of the candle."
I nodded. "Very well. The dragon. Arwa. Is she still here?"
He smiled gently. "I convinced her to stay here until all of the artifacts had been destroyed."
"I need to talk to her. Explain some things." I gave him a tired smile. "I don't need her showing up at my camp a year from how, thinking I'm someone I'm not."
"She is often in the gardens after sunset. She seems to find the silence restful. There are others here, as well. Shifa, and her brother Jahm. They brought me the candle some months ago, and they seem in no hurry to leave."
"Ah," I said. "I wondered if they'd gone on their way."
"Not yet. Return here two days from now, and we will begin. Tomorrow, I believe I have an audience with Tolui Khan and Jochi Khan." He smiled at me. "And their people, who seem to have been largely inherited from their missing sister."
"Sometimes, the greatest of lies is the truth in turned-out clothing." I spread my hands. "I haven't made my decision yet."
The Dalai looked at me, weighing me. "Two days," he said. "Then we will see."
I rose, bowed, and left the holy man's presence. The child inside of me planted a foot into my lungs, whether in protest or excitement, I couldn't tell. This child of mine had been quite active since a few days after my father had died, starting with little tickling movements and graduating to kicking me in the kidneys, bladder, and ribs. Now, there was not so much room for her to move, and she had contented herself for the past two weeks with occasionally trying to stretch and finding my internal organs in her way.
"Soon, daughter," I told her. I patted my belly gently. "Both of us are tired of this, aren't we? Let's go find your fathers and see what they're up to."
That evening, I was admitted into the gardens at Potala Palace. Rumor was running ahead of us, and I needed to find Arwa. In the dim of gathering twilight, I saw a figure pacing by a dry stream, and heard a female voice muttering. "Arwa?" I called.
The pacing stopped, and the figure swiveled. "Yes? Oh! Yesui." I approached her and she raised her head and sniffed at the air, then looked at me, dropping her gaze to my belly. "You didn't have that last time we met."
"I won't, soon. Can't happen soon enough." I sighed and sat down on a bench. "Arwa, I have a few things I need to talk to you about."
She sat down next to me. "I hear Tolui is in town. Now Tolui Khan," she added spitting the last word hatefully.
"That was what I needed to talk to you about. Tolui is dead."
She looked at me sharply. "And yet he has an audience with the Dalai tomorrow."
"I killed him myself. The Tolui who will speak with the Dalai tomorrow will be swathed in bandages, and through the robes and the illusions, he will look suspiciously roundish."
She was silent for a moment, pressing her lips together. "You. Why?"
"It's a very long story. Tribe politics, mostly."
"How did he die?"
My throat closed, and I looked away from her. "On my sword," I managed. "If you want the story, talk to one of the others who travel with me. I can't tell it."
"Can't, or won't?" Her voice was low, and there was anger in it that surprised me. I kept looking away from her, and her breath rattled as she inhaled. "That's what I thought. Just tell me, was it quick? Please don't tell me it was quick."
"Arwa." I breathed in. "He was my brother. I loved him. I relive the day he died nightly. You have reason to hate him. I am not nearly so lucky. He is dead, if you need the story ask one of the others. But let it lie with me."
She stared at me. "He was working with Kamil, and you do not hate him?"
I rested a hand on my belly, felt my daughter wriggle. "He was taken by an artifact, just like my father was. He made a mistake, and because he made that mistake I ended up having to put a sword into him." I rose, quickly enough to make myself briefly dizzy. I walked away from Arwa without another word.
Two days later, after the official visit with the Dalai, I went into Potala Palace and was taken to one of the workrooms. I was shown to a table stacked with rough wooden boxes, and handed a bowl, a cloth, and gloves made out of a fine metal mesh.
The monk who had brought me in here said, "All of these pieces must be washed, and sorted by color. The gloves are because some of the pieces have very sharp edges." He handed me a box--it was perhaps two handspans wide, long, and deep, and it was filled with what seemed to be shards of tile.
"There's a bucket of water by the table," the monk said, pointing. He withdrew, and I pulled in the gloves and start in on my task.
There were thousands of small pieces, it seemed, and each of them needed to be washed individually. As I washed them, I would put them in a pile with other pieces of roughly the same color. Some of the pieces were tile, some seemed to be shards of pottery, some of them were pieces of glass. All of them were covered with grit, as if they'd been buried for years.
I washed and piled, and then when I was done with the initial sort, I launched into the task of refining my sorting. It had been a week and a half, and I'd barely said a word to anyone around me. Sometimes, one of the others would come and sit with me, and after a few days I realized that I was glad of the company.
Once I was done with the sorting, I was given a stack of larger, rough tiles and a pot of a viscous fluid, and a piece of paper with a design on it. I used the broken pieces of tile to reproduce the design, and then was given another design, and another. Every time I finished a tile, the monk who I reported to would silently take the finished tile from me and hand me a piece of paper with another design on it. I've never been an artist, but I found it interesting to get a design and need to go on the hunt for just the right pieces of glass and clay for it. In the beginning, I wasn't very good at it, but as I went on, I got much better. Sometimes, in the morning, I'd have a fresh batch of mosaic pieces left by the table, and I'd wash and sort those for a few days.
"What do you think they're doing with the tiles?" asked Zayd. He'd stopped by to keep me company while I worked.
"I don't know," I said. "They could be throwing them away, for all I know." I put the last piece I needed down and looked down on the tile, frowning. The design wasn't quite right. I swept the pieces off the tile, blew out a breath, and looked up at Zayd. "Why do you have soot on your face? Come here."
He came around the table, bringing his chair with him. I wet the edge of my sleeve and scrubbed at the soot, which came off easily. "Guess I missed that one," he said. "I've talked a local blacksmith into letting me share his forge, in return for a share of the profits I make off of the things I make. I figured since we're going to be sitting still for a year, I might as well get back to work." He smiled at me, and then his eyes softened. "Ah, there is a sight for sore eyes."
I blinked. "What?"
"You smiled at me, lovely one. You haven't done that for months, now."
I looked at him helplessly, then my eyes filled with tears. He pulled his chair close to mine and I leaned into him, putting my arms around him and breathing in his familiar scent. "I love you," I told him, and realized that I could feel my love for this man, an emotion strange after months of feeling little.
And at that realization, I burst into tears.
After that, things seemed to get easier. I started smiling more. I even laughed--real laughter, not a weak chuckle--a few times, and I started remembering that I loved both Zayd and Sacha. I finished tile after tile, finding the activity both soothing and something that would take my mind off of my increasing discomfort as my body prepared to give birth. I was short of breath all the time, and I felt incredibly ungainly. Everyone seemed to find this quite funny, especially Jochi, who loved to tease me now that it seemed to be safer to do so.
I went into labor almost a month after we arrived in Lhasa, and two days later I met my daughter for the first time. She was screaming, red, and ugly in the way that all babies are ugly, but I was very grateful to have her. I named her Durra, of course.
About two hours after the birth, I was lying with Durra on my chest and Zayd and Sacha on either side of me. The adrenalin of the birth had finally worn off, and I was hurting but not too badly. Nomolun had taken good care of me. I was thinking that perhaps some sleep was in order when there was a knock on the door.
Sacha rose and opened it, and then made a surprised noise as he saw the Dalai on the other side. Zayd got up, too, and bowed slightly. "Don't get up, Yesui," the Dalai told me. "I came to see how you were doing. Nomolun told me all went well."
"I'm all right," I said. On my chest, Durra stirred and woke, making soft noises. "Do you want to hold her?"
The Dalai nodded, and Zayd picked her up and passed her to him. She quieted down when she was transferred into his arms, and reached out uncoordinatedly towards his face. "What have you named her?"
"Durra," I told him.
"Family name?"
I chuckled. "In a manner of speaking. When the clay snake was destroyed, the soul, named Durra, that had animated it lodged in me for a few weeks. When the Eye was destroyed, she was gone and I was three months pregnant."
He raised his eyebrows. "Really." Frowning slightly, he laid a finger between my daughter's tiny brows, ignoring her cry of protest. "I see." He muttered beneath his breath, and I recognized the feel of power that swirled into the room at his quiet words. The power seemed to listen, then vanish. "That's better."
"What did you do?" I asked.
He smiled and handed Durra back to me. "Between the origin of her soul, how she came to be in the first place, and the fact that she has been bathed in your magic the entire time you were carrying her, she was born with more mage talent than she's going to know what to do with. I put a block on most of it. It should wear off in a few years, but the last thing you want is a baby with the ability to throw fire around when she gets frustrated."
"Only most of it?" I asked.
"Best not to block all of it." Durra fussed, and I sat up and shifted her in my arms. "You'll want to start teaching her how to handle it as soon as she can understand what you're telling her."
"Good to know," I said. A yawn caught me then, and Durra had fallen asleep once more. The Dalai chuckled and let himself out, and I was once more sandwiched between Zayd and Sacha. I drifted off to sleep then, and there were no more interruptions for a while.
It took me a couple of weeks to get back to the mosaics, as I adjusted to being a mother and Durra adjusted to being out in the cold world instead of my womb. Fortunately, she was a happy baby and liked being held and rocked by just about everyone. I started to spend more alone time with Zayd and Sacha.
Along with the return of joy came the return of other emotions--anger, impatience, frustration. The Dalai, when I spoke to him, assured me that this was normal. My anger at first focused on Arwa, who had spoken so harshly of my brother, and she and I had words a number of times. I was angry at Kamil for taking so many people I loved away from me, angry at my father and Tolui for dying, angry at Tolui for killing Wind. That phase lasted a couple of months, and mostly ended when I started dreaming about Wind every night, dreaming about her and the foal she would have had.
Day after day I would sit, Durra in a sling next to my belly or on my back, and work on tiles. I started working in the gardens, as well, and rode Spirit every day, and when Durra could reliably sit up, I'd put her in the saddle in front of me when I went. I slept every night in the light of the candle with one of my lovers, our daughter swaddled in blankets beside us.
Inch by inch, I returned to life.
Then came the day, six months after we came to Lhasa, when I handed the monk a tile, and he nodded and took it from me and did not give me a new design. It seemed I was finished with this task. I sat back down at the familiar table, confused.
A few moments later, the Dalai arrived. A monk behind him had butter tea and bread for us. "Well, you appear to be done," he said. "How are you feeling?"
I considered the question. "Alive," I said, after looking into my soul. "Glad for what I have. Hopeful for the future. I'm still grieving for those I've lost, but it's not overwhelming anymore."
"You'll probably have times when it becomes overwhelming again," he told me. "They won't last. Still feel like you're bleeding inside?"
I shook my head. "Not anymore." Durra, in a sling across my front, woke and began to fuss a bit. I took her out of the sling and set her on my knee. One of the little temple dogs trotted up to me and put its paws on my knee, sniffing curiously at Durra. She crowed with delight, and I looked down at her, smiling. "This one's helping. So, do I have any more tasks I need to do?"
"Do you think you need them?"
I looked down at Durra, and shook my head. "I don't think so."
He smiled. "Good. Do you want to see what you've been working on for the last few months?"
I nodded, and we rose. The Dalai led me towards the back of Potala Palace, into an airy room with a number of windows to the outside. At the back of the room, along one wall, was something that took my breath away.
It was the mosaic I'd been working on, put together. There were mountains in the background, a variegated blue sky above. On the steppes, a herd of horses was running, and on the backs of those horses were figures. The figures were indistinct, but they wore Mongol clothing and armor, and the one in front carried a white Spirit Banner on a spear.
"It's us," I said, finally. "My blood family. I had no idea. It's beautiful."
"You created it," the Dalai said. "Your hands put this together." The colors of it glowed in the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the windows, and I felt my heart fill to overflowing. I realized there were tears running down my face, and raised my free hand to wipe them.
There were steps behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder. It was all of them, all of those I'd been with on this journey--Zayd and Sacha, Temur and Nomolun, Ahmad and behind him Spirit in human form, and behind them Jochi.
I turned and went to them, and they surrounded me and all tried to hug me at once. I was laughing and crying at once, and so were all of them.
By the time we disentangled, the Dalai was gone, and I went with my family to the rooms that had been set aside for us.
It was time to start thinking about the future.
*****
We spent longer than a year in Lhasa, about sixteen months all told, because we wanted to leave in the spring when traveling out of the mountains would be easier. Nomolun and Temur married each other in a ceremony that blended the traditions of the Mongols and the Tibetans. I made the decision that I would take Tolui's place, and Zayd made a few magical items that would help to that end, so I wouldn't have to constantly cast illusions.
In fact, I was going to be not one but two people. I would be Tolui, and I would also be his wife Sorkhokhtani. Tolui, we decided, would be scarred so badly from his encounter with the gloves that he would always wear a silk mask that covered his features, loose robes, and gloves. That way, more than one person could be Tolui. The family would be in on the secret, and those few who truly needed to know, but otherwise we would keep it from the world.
I would take the territory offered to me, and I would help it rebuild from the devastating attacks, building a permanent camp that might someday become a capitol near the center of it. I would send for Orbei, and with luck Borte would believe I merely wanted to arrange an advantageous marriage for her and send her along. This was not precisely my plan, but it was close enough.
I hadn't been paying a lot of attention to anything other than my grief for the first six months of our stay in Lhasa, so there were a few surprises for me during the remainder of our stay. One was that Temur had bred all of our mares when they came into season that spring, so by the winter we had a dozen new foals capering around. Three of them where Spirit's, and his colt out of Lark, one of the white mares that had belonged to Jochi and now belonged to Zayd, would be gelded and given to Durra as her first horse.
The other surprise walked in about a year after we arrived in Lhasa. I was eating a late midday meal after participating in one of the formal discussions of philosophy that the monks held daily. I had mostly been listening to Nomolun putting forth passionate argument, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright with excitement. I was thinking about seeing if I could get a few of the monks here to travel back with us; Nomolun was never so happy as when she was embroiled in philosophical discussion, and that was one thing we tended to lack.
Zayd was at the forge, Temur and Sacha were out hunting, and I wasn't sure where Ahmad was but I thought he was visiting some of the other mages in town. So I was alone when I heard steps coming down the corridor towards me. I frowned. The monks and servants tended to go barefoot or wear soft slippers when it was cold. These were boots. It didn't sound like any of us.
The mystery was answered when the owner of the boots came into the doorway and stopped, looking at me. I blinked. "Sabur?"
"In the flesh." He grinned. "I heard through the grapevine that you were here, and decided to take a detour on the way home."
"That's quite the grapevine," I told him, smiling. "Come, sit, there's tea."
He did so, pouring some from the pot into a clean cup. He looked the same has he had the day I'd met him, long black hair, glint in his eye, and all. "It's good to see you," I told him. "You're looking well."
"So are you. Congratulations on ending Kamil."
I looked away from him. "It had a price. Thus why I'm here right now, and not off ruling part of an empire."
Sabur nodded. "I heard you had to kill your father and brother. Ugly business."
"You were right, though," I told him. "My father waited for me. I gave him the opportunity, and he chose to help me end it." I looked down at my hands. "He died as well as he could, under the circumstances." I looked up. "Water in the river, really. How about you? What have you been doing?"
"Oh, this and that. What little remained of the brotherhood by the time Kamil was ended didn't really believe he was gone. We changed their minds for them. I'm on my way back to Leh, to see if anyone's started rebuilding. I think I'll settle into my territory again." He eyed me, and leaned forward. "Still involved with those two men of yours? My offer's still open, you know."
I laughed and sat back. "You're incorrigible. Yes, I am. And I have a daughter with them, now."
"Congratulations! So what are you doing here? My sources were not specific."
I shrugged. "It's one of the few truly safe places I know. I was in bad shape after my father--after I killed my father. I came here to recover. We'll be off in a few months. I have some traveling to do in this part of the world, and then we will head north."
"Well, I suppose if you have to lick your wounds somewhere, this place is as good as any." Sabur chuckled, and we sat and drank tea and talked about what we'd been doing in the year and a bit since we'd last seen each other.
Eventually, another pair of footsteps came down the corridor. Ahmad stuck his head into the room. "Yesui, there you are. This one wants her mama." He was carrying Durra on his hip, and set her down. She toddled over to me, giggling, and I lifted her up onto my lap. Ahmad nodded at Sabur. "I don't think we've been introduced. I'm Ahmad."
"Ahmad, this is Sabur, the copper dragon I've told you about. Sabur, Ahmad was the ghost in my bracelet. He told me how to destroy all of the artifacts."
Man and dragon stared at each other. "You're that Ahmad? The one who killed Kamil in the first place? I thought you died--ah, but you did."
"Returned into life by the ending of Kamil," he said. "And I've heard of you, of course."
He inclined his head. "All lies, of course."
On my lap, Durra was staring at Sabur, three fingers jammed into her mouth. Her blue eyes were wide, and she was studying him with an intense expression. I frowned. She didn't usually react to strangers like that; to Durra, the whole world was her friend, an accurate assumption for a child who was spending her first year mostly in Potala Palace. "What is it, little one? What do you see?" I asked her, stroking her face with my fingertips.
She jerked away from my touch, pulled her fingers out of her mouth, and began directing a stream of babble towards Sabur, who blinked at being so addressed. He looked at me. "I have to admit not having a lot of experience with human children. Why is she doing that?"
I shook my head. "That's not her usual reaction to strangers. I've no idea--"
But then I did. My daughter got a look in her face that I would recognize in later years as a combination of frustration that she couldn't make herself understood and plain old stubbornness, and held out one of her hands, palm-up.
Floating above her hand was an image--a copper dragon, its tail lashing slowly, an amused look on its face.
I opened my mouth, closed it again. "I believe she can see your true form," I told Sabur, somewhat unnecessarily. "The Dalai warned me that she might display some unusual talents." Durra laughed, apparently amused by the dumbstruck looks on the faces of those in the room.
Sabur gave me an uneasy look. "And on that note, I do have some other people to give my greetings to while I'm here," he said. "I am here for a few days."
"Come for dinner tonight," I said,. "Or at least tea afterwards."
"I would not miss it." He nodded to us, rose, and walked out.
When he was well gone, and out of earshot, Ahmad chuckled. "Never thought I'd get to meet him," he told me. "He seems to have a thing for you."
I groaned. "Don't I know it. It's all right. He'll visit for a few days and then be gone, and I probably won't see him again."
Ahmad glanced at the door where Sabur had disappeared. "I wonder. Anyway. I found something in one of the books I'm looking at that might interest you. Want to take a look?"
"Of course!" I said, and followed him out.
*****
After that day, Durra started showing more and more signs of her talents, and it took quite a bit of effort and thought to teach her how to control them. Surprisingly enough, the pair that seemed to have the most luck in teaching her were Jahm and Shifa. Because Durra wasn't talking yet, Shifa would relay what she was thinking to Jahm, who would use it to gauge whether she was understanding what he was trying to show her.
Shifa looked much better than she had when we'd first met her, but the problem of her not being able to shield others' thoughts from her mind still plagued her. There were other preparations that could be used like opium that weren't so addictive and destructive to the body, and she had been trying each of those in turn. A combination of them seemed to be working, acting as an artificial shield. When she needed to be able to read minds, she'd take another drug that acted as an antidote, or simply wait until the preparations she was taking wore off.
She would never live a normal life; Jahm would have to take care of her as long as she lived. It was a shame, really. Both of them were good with Durra, and neither of them would have a chance to have children of their own, likely. When I offered him a position working for me--or rather for Tolui--he looked at me, and told me he'd think about it.
When we left, he was in our group, as was Shifa. We had quite the little community of mages with us. After completing the mosaic, I'd taken up my study of illusions more seriously. There was Zayd, of course, and I'd gotten a chance to see for myself just how much more power he had when he had access to a forge. Ahmad didn't have the talent of actually creating works in metal, but he knew how to do just about everything else when it came to artifacts. Jahm's specialty was offensive and defensive magics.
As we headed out of the mountains and north to the territory that was now known as the Ilkhanate, I felt very lucky indeed despite the difficulties ahead. We had great mages among us, some of the finest horses in the world, and a territory that had been most thoroughly subdued by my father, a man of military genius unrivaled in the world. The world would never see his equal, this man who had been born Temüjin, a poor boy in one of the most desolate landscapes in the world.
We returned to Samarqand, intent on basing the activities of the Ilkhanate there, with a secondary capitol at Tabriz. Samarqand was chosen not only because it was central, but because it was only a few days away from Panjakent. Through the tunnels, it was only six days to Zan, the drow ancestral city, and there I could find another one of those transporting rooms, should I need to go shelter under the great mountain some day.
Zayd and Ahmad together had built me a series of artifacts that would disguise my face and my voice, and another set that provided a full illusion of Sorkhokhtani. The artifacts also warned if anyone was using a seeing spell to look through them. So I might be Tolui part of the day and Sorkhokhtani the rest, or Tolui would leave for a few weeks and I would be Sorkhokhtani that entire time.
If Tolui had one of his two most trusted guards with him, and even shared his tent with one or the other each night, none thought anything of it. I had thought that either Zayd or Sacha would tire of my company and seek others, but both of them seemed content enough with me.
Four years and two children later, both sons, I sent to Ulaanbaatar and requested that Orbei come to us to live. She did, and the deception was revealed to her, the last immediate family member who had not known. She was sixteen by then, well-grown, and she was finished with her training.
She came to us the day she arrived, to the court that was being held. She bowed low, the chains of her headdress jingling, and said in a smooth voice, "My brother. I am here, as requested."
Behind the silk mask, I smiled. "You are welcome. We have much work to do, Orbei." I paused. "How is Borte?"
She shook her head, pain in her eyes. "She fades. Her mind is gone, it is only her body that remains. Ogedei is with her constantly, and it won't be long now."
"I'd have delayed more, but there are some things that cannot be put off," I said sadly. "Tonight, my yurt, we will speak of your tasks."
She nodded and bowed again, then turned and left. The court murmured and broke up when I waved my hand, dismissing them. Zayd, next to me, muttered, "She moves like you."
Behind the mask, my smile turned sharp. "That's because she and I had the same teachers."
"She's a scout?" he asked in a strangled voice.
"Credit me with some foresight, Zayd," I told him. "I started teaching her myself when she was five. Unlike me, her training had to be in secret because of her birth. Father knew, and approved, but nobody else ever did. Not even my brothers," I said warningly. "She is good, they tell me. Not as good as I am, but she's likely going to surpass me once she has some more experience under her belt. I knew I'd need her, some day."
He laughed then, and gave me that look that always made me glad when it was my night with him. "Shall we go see what sort of trouble Durra is getting herself into? I left her with Jahm. Oh, yes, there was a message. They found Rabab, and she agrees to your terms."
I resisted the urge to crow. "Good," I said, my relief heartfelt. "We need people like her desperately. She can do what she does best, and we will gain the benefit of her experience." I'd offered her the protection of my people in return for her using her skills as a merchant for us. I had a vision of a great trading empire, and had made some strides in that direction, but I knew when a dream outstripped my abilities.
Rabab, given the wealth of the Ilkhanate and a mandate to open trade to all of the corners of the world she could find, had those abilities. Behind the mask, I smiled, and then groaned. "What?" Zayd asked.
"Later," I said, holding up a hand. I was pregnant, and this child was very active. I was going to have to give up being Tolui for a bit in a few weeks. I thought that this time, Tolui could go on a drinking binge and let Sorkhokhtani run things for a bit. My late brother's drinking habit had become a convenient excuse for those periods when someone else had to be him for a while.
Over the next few years, I had two more sons and another daughter. Six children were quite enough, especially when all of them were very strong mages. After Durra had come my sons Möngke, Kubilai, Ariq Boke, and Hulagu, and we named my last daughter Al Alta, after my eldest sister. I'm afraid Möngke and Kubilai were always destined to come into conflict, half-brothers born too close together under opposing stars. Kubilai, in particular, inherited a good portion of my father's brilliance, my magic, and his father Sacha's ability to organize the talents of others.
Nomolun and Temur had several children, and eventually the two of them left my side to travel. Jochi, after a few years, left for his own territory, the Golden Horde. The furor over my father's death had finally passed, and most did not remember that he had been barred from inheriting at that point. The khuriltai eventually chose Ogedei as the Great Khan, and I think Chagatai was mostly resigned to it, though he grumbled.
Spirit stayed with me, of course, and I was always glad of his company. He did not age, and all questions about him were deflected with shrugs. Sabur, contrary to my expectation, did come to visit every few years. He and I remained friends--and very occasionally more--for the rest of my life. Sacha and Zayd simply shrugged; I was theirs, and there was no dragon in the world who was going to change that, they claimed. Besides, Sacha enjoyed Sabur's company, quite possibly more than was strictly within the bounds of friendship.
Once the children were old enough, and the Ilkhanate was prosperous and stable enough, Tolui suffered a quite public "death", staggering out of his yurt the morning after a drinking binge, vomiting copious amounts of blood, and dying. The body was one that had been created by Ahmad, and it served for something to bury. I stayed on as his widow Sorkhokhtani, running things for a few years, and then "died" once more. My children knew that I was still alive, but agreed to act as if both their parents were dead.
After twenty-three years of being other people, I was finally Yesui and only Yesui again.
My territory was in good hands, and the fate of the Mongol empire was no longer mine to influence. I found myself profoundly grateful for it. Ahmad came with Zayd and Sacha and I, as did a few others, and we set out to revisit places we had been to on our headlong fight against Kamil, more than a quarter of a century ago.
We made the journey, and then found ourselves once more in Kengtung, this time to stay. Nomolun and Temur had settled here, as well.
It is a good life. There is music, and magic, and I make pretty pictures to entertain the children, tell them fictionalized accounts of the days we spent chasing Kamil. Like my father, when I die, my body will be taken to the Ikh Khorig and buried there in secret, and my name will become wind on the water. Unlike my father, who was legendary even before he died, there will be no stories told about me.
Except this:
On the steppes of Mongolia, a girl rides a black horse, racing the wind. The horse is her guide, and will lead her through peril. She is chasing the mad mage who killed her father.
The story will go into vast detail then about what the girl was doing, and why she had to do it, and how it ended. None of those will be anything close to the truth.
But the girl, and the swift horse she rides, that is as much truth as I will leave behind me. It is only fitting that in the end my name will be only Silent One, and my only story the endless sweep of the wind across the steppe, and the shadow as a black horse flashes past.
Here ends Shades of the Silent.
