The Mongoliad: Book Three

against the blanket beneath him, pressing the wool against the hard ground.

His reaction was not a sign of madness; it was simply a reaction to the unfamiliar. Men were drawn to civilization; only the most severe ascetic among them relished isolation. Penitent hermits craved seclusion. Being away from the squalor of humanity was an integral part of their spiritual monasticism. They could talk more readily to God in the silence of their mountaintop cave or their desert isolation. It was easier to believe that the voice you heard responding to your queries issued from a divine trumpet if there were no other souls nearby.

But he was a soldier. He slept more soundly when surrounded by the sounds of men preparing for war. His mind was less prone to fearful speculation when he rested behind a stout battlement. Even the sounds of domesticated animals were a welcome lullaby: cows calling to one another in the pasture; the nervous clucking of chickens as they scratched in the yard; dogs, barking at shadows.

On the steppes, there was nothing but the sound of the wind through the grasses; when there was no grass, the wind had no voice, and the silence was unsettling.

He heard her bones creak as she lay down next to him. A blanket fluttered like the wing of a large bird, and he shivered slightly as the cloth descended upon his chest and legs. Her breath hummed against the skin of his neck as she pressed her head against his. Their hands found one another beneath the blanket. Beneath the stars.

Her skin was hot. Pressed against her, his mouth seeking hers, he thought they could stay warm enough to survive the night.

In the morning, there was only a fading blush of heat in the base of his throat. A lingering memento of Vera’s kiss.

“This emptiness does not go on forever,” Cnan said. “We have ridden off your maps, but we are barely at the edge of ones I have seen that show the boundaries of the Mongolian Empire.”

“No wonder it is so huge,” Yasper complained. “Do you really control the land if there is nothing there?”

The lithe alchemist slouched in his saddle, his jaw working absently on a piece of salted meat. In the days since they had crossed the river-since they had left Finn behind-Yasper was typically one of the first to break camp, and more often than not, volunteered to take point. At first, Cnan had found it odd that Feronantus usually acquiesced to the Dutchman’s request. While Yasper was not his to command, typically Feronantus would set one of the more proficient scouts riding before the company. Cnan soon realized Feronantus’s strategy: the alchemist was looking for something-a natural deposit of some alchemical treasure. As long as Yasper was keeping an eye out for anything unusual, then he would be a satisfactory scout and Feronantus could allow the other riders some rest.

Though, recently, he had been afflicted with the same malaise as the more experienced Shield-Brethren.

Graymane’s trail had led them toward Saray-Juk-not surprising, given the presence of more Mongol troops there-and with some caution they had found the place where Benjamin had instructed them to meet him. The caravanserai was deserted-nothing more than a scattering of fire pits near a stand of scrawny trees and a tiny trickle of a stream. The ashes were cold and there were too many tracks of Mongol ponies-it was dangerous for them to stay in the area. Before they left, Cnan found the cryptic message left by the trader, a series of marks carved into the bark of one of the trees-almost as if she had known to look for them. South and east for six days, the message had read, look for the rock.

Which rock? Feronantus had asked.

It will probably be the only rock, Raphael had pointed out.

Given how Yasper tended to focus so tightly on his own little projects, Cnan suspected he might ride right into the rock before he noticed it.

While Raphael’s comment was all too accurate and would likely be the only guidance the company needed, she knew the rock. It was one of the landmarks the Binders used as they passed from the east to the west. A station in the wilderness where messages could be coded and left for others to pick up.

Some Binders, like her, traveled widely, but others stayed within a few days’ travel of where they had been born and raised. At the verge of their domain, they would receive messages and instructions from other kin-sisters, and being more qualified to navigate the dense locality, they would complete the assignment for the foreign Binder. In this way, messages could be carried across the known world and delivery could be readily assured, because the kin-sisters were never dependent upon one messenger.

Such a landmark was used by the Silk Road traders as well.

Cnan glanced over her shoulder at the string of horses and riders behind her. While she was accustomed to traveling across wastelands such as this, she could tell the tedium of riding from daybreak to sunset was beginning to wear on the rest of the company.

And they have no idea how many more days await them, she thought.

“What are you smiling about?” Yasper inquired.

“Nothing,” she replied, setting her face aright. “What could I possibly see that would provoke some humor in me?”

“That’s why I asked,” Yasper said. He sat up and tapped his horse lightly with his stick, edging closer to her. “You’ve been this way before,” he noted. “Tell me, have you seen deposits of salt?”

“Salt?”

“Yes.” He spread his hand out flat and moved it across the landscape. “Like a dry lake. A place where the wind plays.”

Cnan laughed. “All of this land is like that.”

“No, no. Not like this. Perfectly flat. Alchemists call it a sabkha.”

Cnan shrugged. “I do not know that word,” she said, though she had a dim recollection of a Turkic word that might mean the same thing. She tried to dredge up the word, but nothing felt quite right on her tongue. “Nor have I seen one,” she admitted.

“A pity,” Yasper said. “Neither have I.”

Cnan smiled again. “There’s still time,” she said.

“I know, I know.” Yasper flapped his hands, and blew out, puffing up his cheeks. “This… wasteland… wears on me. I’ve been trying to find some solace in my recipes, but my supplies are terribly meager, especially after… “ He trailed off, and Cnan knew he was thinking about the loss of his horse in Kiev.

When he had fled from the fight with the Shield-Brethren, the Livonian commander Kristaps had returned through the same stinking tunnels they had used to reach the Shield-Maiden sanctuary. Upon emerging from the well house, the Livonian had stumbled upon her, Yasper’s, and Finn’s horses. He had taken all three-a smart ploy to reduce their ability to pursue him. Yasper hadn’t been so distraught about the lack of his horse as he had been about the loss of his numerous satchels and jars and powders.

All of his alchemical supplies, gone.

Since then he had been trying to replenish his stores, with some mixed success. The market in the border town had supplied him with the firecrackers they had used so effectively against the Mongol war party, as well as a number of other basic ingredients. Yasper had been excited when they had first stumbled across the wormwood-the hearty plant native to these lands-but after days and days of seeing clumps of it everywhere, Yasper’s enthusiasm had diminished drastically. Cnan knew little about the alchemist’s recipes (and wanted to know very little, actually), but what she had gleaned was that all of his potions, unguents, powders, and salves were built from a carefully measured base of two or three simple ingredients.

Salt being one of those basic ingredients.

“What is it that you hope to create?” she asked, out of boredom more than any concerted interest.

Yasper offered her a wolfish grin. “Why, nothing more than the secrets of the universe, of course,” he laughed. “Every alchemist seeks to unlock the riddle of existence by discerning the secret methods by which God constructed the world. All of this,” he gestured around them, “though this is not much, but all of the world was created through a complex set of instructions. Men have spent their entire lives trying to enumerate the multitudinous mystery of creation. Pliny-do you know Pliny? No, of course you don’t-Pliny wrote thirty-seven volumes on the natural history of the world. Thirty-seven!” He sat up in his saddle, his mood improving as he spoke. “Can you imagine how complicated this world is that God has created? Don’t you want to understand how all the various pieces fit together?”