“My dear Songtsan, intriguing and conspiring to rule the Mongols is a waste of time. I have the procedure for you: Allow me to take a hundred thousand soldiers to the frontier, sixty thousand of them cavalry, and invade. Crush all resistance, then conscript as many as you want of the survivors.”
The general who spoke was as tall as the emperor, who himself was tall. He was also thirty kilos heavier. His silk robe, which nearly reached his knees, was indigo, the color reserved for the royal family, and heavily brocaded with the figures of men fighting. A scarlet sash gathered it about his thick waist, and held a curved sword with a blade nearly a meter long. Beneath the robe’s hem, yellow silk pantaloons were bloused into knee-length boots, their toes upcurved strongly, their glossy, golden brown leather inset with lacquered images of wildlife: pheasants, deer, a tiger . . . His horned helmet was hammered steel concealed beneath gold plate; its rim coiled silk, scarlet and indigo. Its sky-blue silk skirt, which protected his bull neck from the sun, was embroidered with tiny eagles and falcons; vines and flowers added color.
Emperor Songtsan Gampo would have had any other man executed for telling him that one of his projects was a waste of time. But this was his favorite younger brother and best general, so he merely shook his head and answered drily. “There is a time to cultivate a people and a time to break them, a time for allies and a time for slaves.” He shifted slightly in his seat. “We have a whole world to conquer; fighting enough even for you. And the Mongols are attainable as allies; valuable allies. They will be the razor-sharp head of my spear, to gut resistance. Men who grew up in the saddle, with the bow, make better cavalry than men who did not. Men who spend their lives on the move, who live on horseback, often on what they can kill, and on milk from their mares—such men do not tire and do not frighten.”
He changed direction then, his voice comfortable, smooth as silk. “The Koreans are excellent fighting men, yes? How many of them volunteered to serve with us, after you’d broken their army?”
The answer was sullen but honest. “None. Oh, a hundred, maybe two, but not good men.”
“And how many soldiers did you find it necessary to post there to control the country?”
“Sixty thousand.”
“And mostly cavalry.”
“It was necessary! Otherwise we’d have needed four times as many garrisons—at least twice as many men—and even those could not control the roads as we do now.”
The emperor eyes gleamed like black marbles beneath hooding has. “So we have a conquest which bleeds us,” he said.
Drukpa sounded aggrieved now. “But Korea and Mongolia are not the same! Korea’s mountains are thick with forests perfect for rebels and bandits! And it was necessary to be harsh in victory, to break their will!”
“It didn’t work. It didn’t break their will.”
His general said nothing to that.
“Well. You are my brother. You conquered Korea on my orders, and did what seemed necessary at the time. And you are right; Korea and Mongolia are very different. Mongolia is mostly open to the sun, and to our eyes. And their people are indeed different. The Koreans are stiff-necked, unyielding, and they were united, more or less, behind their king. The Mongols, on the other hand, are more practical and relatively reasonable. And they are fragmented into various tribes that sometimes fight against each other and seldom agree on anything of consequence.
“Had you been less harsh, the Koreans might well have been no less intransigent than they are, and even more difficult. But the Mongols are susceptible to manipulation, and I want at least fifty thousand of them in my army when I send it westward to conquer the world. That will be far better than leaving sixty thousand of my own cavalry, or a hundred thousand, as a garrison in their country. I have chosen one of their chiefs to be supreme, and I will guide him to domination. Then I will honor him, perhaps marry his favorite daughter, and bring his sons here as ‘my proteges’—my hostages. And . . . ”
He stopped, for in the corridor outside his door, a silver gong had been lightly tapped. “Enter!” he said.
A runner entered and bowed. “Your Magnificence, Tenzin Geshe is waiting, with information for you.”
“I will see him now. Send him in.”
The emperor turned to his brother. “I don’t expect this to take long. Our meetings seldom do.”
A moment later the geshe entered the chamber and bowed deeply. “Your Magnificence.”
“What do you have for me, geshe?”
“It has to do with the barbarian the Circle detected in the west, the man who subsequently began to travel eastward in our direction.”
“And?”
Tenzin Geshe opened his mind to Songtsan Gampo. The emperor’s lips thinned.
“You failed.”
“Indeed, Your Magnificence. At least the ones I sent have failed. I did not send a demon; they are too limited and unreliable, and I have no leverage over them. Instead I gathered, created, three storm elementals, and sent one to cover each of the travel routes, to watch for the man and kill him. One of them is lost, it disassembled; one is still where I sent him; and the other has returned.”
Songtsan Gampo frowned impatiently. “So? What went wrong?”
The geshe’s mind replayed in detail the encounter of the storm elemental with the travelers on the steppe, as he’d read it from the elemental’s time track.
The emperor pursed his lips, scowling. “And it could not resist the man? Then how is an elemental superior to a demon for our purpose?”
The geshe bowed more deeply still. “Your Magnificence, much that is told of demons is untrue. A demon has no power except over the victim’s mind. True that is enough, in some cases, to wreak havoc, but not with this man. An elemental, on the other hand, has power over physical substances—storm, earthquake, volcano. And storms can move about, strike almost anywhere, while an earthquake or volcano is restricted. But this man has greater calm, greater strength of serenity, than we had realized; than we could have imagined. He sat facing violence and death, and . . . We have seen what happened.”
The emperor frowned thoughtfully. He was almost invariably intolerant of failure, and even more of “reasons” for failure, but he knew from his own limited dabblings that wizardry could be most difficult to work. And this geshe was not only exceptionally gifted; the man was a continuous education to him. “How does an elemental have power over substance while a demon does not?” he asked. “Enlighten me.”
“Your Magnificence, a demon was once a man, who visited such evils on other men that he cannot confront returning in another incarnation to balance the kharmic equation. The enormity of his debt overwhelms him, rendering him more or less demented! He dwells in the lowest level of the astral plane, a level of guilt and continuous distress, and cannot escape to a higher level until he has willingly reincarnated and balanced his equation.”
In his single-mindedness, the emperor missed the lesson implicit in the geshe’s explanation. Instead he took over the explanation at that point. “And the wizard gives him form,’ he said, “that he may move abroad within the material plane.”
“The wizard helps him give himself form, Your Magnificence, from spirit stuff. Provides guidance, and a certain necessary focus that he cannot provide himself. Once he has it, he may or may not be grateful, and loyal to a point. And usually he cannot long retain that substance he has taken, which alone keeps him in the material plane.”
“Umm. And elementals?”
“The air, the earth, the sea—all have energies of their own. Great energies, including a diffuse, low-grade intelligence of a sort. And they are already in the material plane. I, with the energy of the Circle, gather—gather and mold—a quantity of that energy; a large quantity. The result is a powerful entity with its own limited intelligence, an entity which perceives, and which directs itself according to its maker’s command. And unlike a demon, when it disperses, it no longer exists, except as the diffuse energy from which it was formed.”
“Um. And subject to its maker’s command, you say. But not this time, it seems. It met a new commander.”
“Not exactly, Your Magnificence. The man did not command it. He simply established an affinity with it. After which it could not bring itself to destroy him.”
“The difference has no practical significance.”
Another bow, very deep this time.
“And this is what you came to tell me?”
“In part, Your Magnificence. In addition, since that encounter, the Circle has not been able to locate the man at all, even to sense his continued existence.”
“And you are concerned by this?”
“Indeed, Your Magnificence. I have little doubt he still plans to come here.”
Smiling, the emperor turned to his brother. “How many of your soldiers, Drukpa, would it require to kill one barbarian wizard?”
The general snorted. “One. Oh, perhaps as many as four or five ordinary soldiers, if the wizard happened also to be a great fighting man.” Raising an arm, he caused its sleeve to slide to the elbow, and flexed a remarkably large and powerful forearm. “A warrior like myself could handle any wizard,” he added. “I am not susceptible to their tricks and illusions.”
The emperor turned back to the geshe. “There! You see? And imagine what one of my yeti guards would do to him! We will not worry further about this shaman you speak of. But I am interested in him now; I would like to study him.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I have heard of a spirit, a demon if you will, being called up and caused to clothe itself within an animal, a bird or other creature. What do you say to that?”
Tenzin answered carefully. “I have heard of it, Your Magnificence, but from no one who knows how.”
The emperor’s face tightened. “Find out!” he snapped. As if at the end of his patience with this difficult geshe. “Find out how to do it, and see it done! Put one into an eagle and send it forth to find this man and follow him. And keep me informed as to the man’s location and activities.”
A final deep bow. “As Your Magnificence orders.”
Tenzin Geshe maintained the obeisance until the emperor dismissed him, which, given the emperor’s frame of mind, took a long half minute. Then he turned and left.
“Does the geshe have cause to worry about this wizard?” Drukpa asked.
“It’s very doubtful. My good geshe is perhaps the most potent adept in the empire, aside from Jampa Lodro, who is old and very holy. But Tenzin is one-sided. He overlooks the physical factor.”
“What was he thinking when he left?”
“He wasn’t. He was carefully avoiding thought.”
“And yet you trust him?”
“I will know at once if he ceases to be loyal. I do not need to read his thoughts to know that. Only his aura.”
“But he withholds his mind from you!”
The elder brother’s gaze, suddenly cool, found the younger’s, and Drukpa lowered his to his knees. “There is a level,” the emperor answered, “at which you must allow a man that, or you destroy his usefulness. Remember that, brother. And I know of no one else who can do for me what Tenzin does.” Except, he added to himself, old Jampa, who refused, and is too holy to punish. And perhaps—the thought took him by surprise—perhaps the man he seeks for me. Might I be able to attach the barbarian’s loyalty? . . . Could that be why he comes here? To serve me? The notion sparked a cautious excitement in Songtsan Gampo.
Tenzin kept his mind essentially still until he’d distanced himself enough that he could think behind a screen without being obvious, should the emperor return his attention to him. He strode out of the Inner Garden almost without noticing the great ogre, the “yeti,” guarding the gate in the privacy wall. The ogre stood 225 centimeters tall and weighed 200 kilos. Watchful but incurious, its red eyes followed the geshe across the palace’s outer grounds, which were almost as much a garden as the Inner Garden was.
Tenzin had a problem. For a demon, he had little doubt, could not be effectively housed within an actual, material animal. He knew of several attempts by powerful wizards; all had failed. With focus by someone sufficiently adept, a demon could form for itself an animal likeness from spirit stuff, but it was neither very stable nor reliably controllable. Certainly it would not fool the wizard they watched for.
Arriving at the gomba, he sat on a bench beneath the thujas, briefly brooding. Then a possible solution occurred to him, one that quickened his pulse, though there might be difficulties in carrying it through. For each species of plant and animal there was a pool of species beingness, of a higher order than the beingness of storms. A mind/spirit beingness far more difficult to manipulate, but with more potential. With the Circle to work with, it may be possible to gather an elemental from the pool of some species—some species which forms packs or flocks . . . And if I could then implant that concentrated beingness into one physical individual . . . It would be an animal elemental incarnate, more intelligent than a storm could possibly be.
It should probably be a bird, he decided, for the mobility needed, but an eagle wouldn’t do. They were too solitary; their largest association was the mated pair. They gathered at carrion, on occasion, but such behavior was opportunistic and accidental, not social; they seemed to do nothing in concert except tend their nest. Then there was the question of how much intelligence one bird could house without burning out. It seemed to him it should be something fairly large, with considerable individual intelligence. Wolves were supposedly intelligent, and great wanderers, he’d heard. Might they be suitable? Perhaps the wizard and his companions would shoot a wolf out of hand though.
He would sleep on the matter tonight. Tomorrow he and the Circle could begin exploratory work on it.