SILK ROADS AND SHADOWS [011-03-4.7]

BY: JUDITH TARR

Category: fiction fantasy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to express my thanks to Dr. Marsha
Wagner, Vice President for instruction at
the China Institute in New York City, as
well as to Sandra Miesel for articles on
T'ang tombs and the Simposh (now, after a forced
conversion to Islam, called Nuristanis), and
to Andre Norton. With characteristic generosity, she shared
a twenty year collection of books on China, and
gave me the Bowman, Spearman, and
Officer.


NOTE
The Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting
times," definitely applies to the mid-ninth
century, when
Silk Roads and Shadows
takes place. In Byzantium, this period saw
the overthrow of the Amorian dynasty with the assassination
of Michael III, "the Drunkard," and
possibly one of the worst emperors (842-867) in
the Empire's history, by his
erSTwhile-favorite, Basil, subsequently the
founder of the Macedonian dynasty.
In T'ang dynasty China, already shaken by the
attempts at revolution a century earlier, a
Taoist emperor did indeed launch a purge of
foreign religions (including Buddhism) that made
England's dissolution of the monasteries centuries
later look like an afternoon's peaceful leafletting.
Western readers who like to think of Taoism as a
benign cult that stresses unity with nature may be
warned that nature also involves earthquakes and
typhoons-and offers an emperor no reason why he
should avoid these particular manifestations either.
Such actions changed China irrevocably. Before
842, the mania in China for things Western can only
be compared to our present-day fascination for things
Chinese. After 842, China turned increasingly
xenophobic. Ultimately the country withdrew behind
its walls from world trade.
Readers interested in the legend of Shambhala (from which
James Hilton probably drew his classic
Lost Horizon)
might enjoy Edwin Bernbaum's
The Way to Shambhala
(anchor Press), which combines
travel and Buddhist teachings, providing a
toehold onto the Diamond Path for anyone
brave enough to walk it. Those wanting a more detailed
treatment of esoteric Buddhism in Central
Asia might look at the UCLA Arts Council
catalogue,
The Silk Route and the Diamond Path,
an extraordinary Wend of art, theology, and some
formidable maps. The region and trade within it,
centuries before Marco Polo, are covered by L.
Boulnois'
The Silk Roads
(george Allen and Unwen). And anyone who even
glances into Edward Schafer's
The Golden Peaches of Samarkand
runs the risk of turning into a Sinologue. This
extraordinary book describes the art, music,
food, trade, and history of T'ang-dynasty
China in a way that will fascinate new readers and
old China hands alike.
I should probably apologize for endangering the
fabulous Byzantine silk industry, which did
indeed start in Justinian's reign when
Nestorian monks smuggled silk out of Central
Asia. In several spots I've juggled with
chronology in order to install the Varangian
Guard in its palace barracks somewhat earlier
than actually occurred, to rehabilitate the weak
Amorian dynasty in Byzantium, and-since
turnabout is fair play--to eliminate the much
stronger Macedonian dynasty.
I have also wreaked havoc with the People's Republic of
China's excavation of the First Emperor's tomb
outside Ch'ang-an (present-day Xian), which
has already turned up some 7500 lifesize
terra-cotta statues. But possibly my worst
offense has been to wish a turbulent princes? like
Alexandra on an Empire already noted for its
strong women.
Though I've played these games with history quite
deliberately (and, very likely, come up with a few
errors I don't know about yet), let me justify
them by saying that writers of historical fantasy are
like people who stack dominoes in intricate patterns.
Occasionally we give things a little nudge to make
sure they will Fall the way we want them to.


Prologue

The Emperor of the Romans was drunk again. His new
favorite, Basil, told Prince Bryennius
that it was a fever. He would be unable to watch the
prince play polo. Another fever. Bryennius
nodded agreement and regret, despising himself as he
did whenever he agreed with Basil. But it was best not
to cross Basil the Patrician; people who did that
had a way of disappearing from Byzantium. Then it was
more than bad manners to mention their names, in or out of
court; it was bad sense. The Church frowned on
suicides.
Bryennius recalled summers of blue and green and
gold when he and his Imperial cousins had been
close. He sighed, then turned back to his own
rooms in the palace. At least no one had seen the
upstart Basil dismiss him, a prince. And he had
hidden his loneliness well. He flung himself down
with a cup of wine near the scandalously secular
mosaic he had commissioned, too discour-

Susan Shwartz
aged to admire it, or follow his earlier intentions of
going to the stables.
He missed his cousins. There had been four children in the
palace then: himself; Princess Alexandra and her
elder, more placid sister, Princess Theophano;
and Michael, of course, the tall, lordly elder
boy who won the games (except when he chose not
to), and always had a kind word and sometimes a gift for the
younger children. He usually let Bryennius try his
horses, too.
Then Bryennius had lost them all: Michael to the,
throne, and Michael's two sisters to holiness.
Alexandra had been thirteen, Theophano fifteen,
when they had left the palace for the convent over which their
aunt Theodora, a holy woman and noted scholar,
presided. As spare princesses, they had had few
choices. They could be married off to patricians
powerful enough to deserve them but not strong enough to threaten the
new Emperor. Or they might marry foreigners.
But Alexandra had declared that Prankish princes
smelled bad, Armenian ones worse, no proper
match for a
porphyrogenita,
a princess born in the Imperial porphyry
birthing chamber. So that left one option. They could
marry God, as had their aunt, and the widow
Danielis, who had aided Theodora in
building up the island convent's library.
From the few letters Bryennius had from her while they were
growing up, he rather thought Alexandra liked her convent.
She had burrowed into its library for tranquil
years; her letters were full of references to history-and
mild scoldings to a cousin who, she had learned, was
turning out frivolous. That was not his fault, he had
retorted. No one could refuse a prince
military training, but they had refused him a career
in the armies. Perhaps, he thought, Michael's
advisors feared his becoming a successful general.
Thank Mary, Mother of God, he was too old
to survive being made into a eunuch.
Then Theophano returned to the palace. Where she
had once been plump and placid, now she was thin,
easily frightened. He had seen her only once.
"I wanted out," Theophano had wept the one time
he had managed to speak privately to her. "Even
if it meant marrying a barbarian, I had to leave.
But my poor sister is trapped there. She
doesn't even know it's a trap, either."
"What kind of trap?" Bryennius asked.
Useless he might be-devoted to polo, fine
horses, and seductions comb he loved his Cousin
Alexandra.
"The books," Theophano whispered. "Books and
scrolls and strange languages. They-Aunt
Theodora and Lady Danielis-wanted me to read
them, and I was never clever, Bry", you know that. And
then ..." She broke off, her eyes bulging with
fright.
The Patrician Basil had entered the room,
moving quietly, as he always did, the better to hear
them. He bowed to the prince and princess, then disposed
of them, as he always had.
"I think that Princess Theophano is easily
tired. She should devote her energy to preparing for her
marriage to the King of Sicily. Don't you
agree, Highness?"
Bryennius had not seen Theophano again until her
marriage, when she wept again, but this time with relief,
He sighed. That line of thought was unproductive.
It made him boil with anger at Basil, too; and
that was dangerous. Far more pleasant-and far safer-to
consider which of three women to lay siege to for the evening,
and which of three horses to purchase. Glumly, he
decided on a target and to buy all three
horses. As he turned to call for paper and ink, a
hiss from the garden onto which his rooms opened brought
him around, chased dagger in hand.
So even as an idler, Basil found him too much
of a risk to keep alive. Heart pounding,
Bryennius edged around to the doorway. Perhaps it would
be just one assassin; he thought he could kill one man
in a moderately fair fight.
Someone entered the door, Bryennius pounced, and a
woman wailed her outrage and fear. It was
Alexandra's nurse, Demetria, whom
Alexandra had most reluctantly left behind in
honorable retirement when she had en

Susan Shwartz
tered the convent. Panting and frightened, the woman bowed
to him-the boy she had spanked for stealing sweets.
"Your pardon, old mother," he said. He turned his
chair about to spare her the sight of the mosaic, eased
her into it, and handed her his wine cup, which she drained
before extracting a sealed note from the heavy folds of
her black robes.
"Cousin Bryennius," ran Alexandra's rapid,
elegant writing, "I have found the cause of the
Basileus' "fevers" comwh his heir is destined
to catch, too. For their souls' sake, and mine,
help me escape this hellhole!"
So Alexandra had discovered the trap that
terrified Theophano and had asked his help?
Finally, he would have something worthwhile to do! Urgent
questions drew the facts he needed from the old woman.
Yes, her son captained the ship that brought
supplies to the convent. Yes, men were occasionally
permitted on the island. No, Demetria had no
idea why Alexandra might be unhappy or
afraid, seeing as she was holy and safe in God's
keeping, bless her soul . . . and the old woman was
weeping again.
Delighted at his own competence, Bryennius bought a
crewman's rough garments and bribed a mercenary
to lift grapples from the war supplies. Disguised,
he sneaked on board Demetria's son's ship.
It tacked across the harbor to the convent. Then
Bryennius was hugging the walls, creeping from shadow
to shadow, his heart hammering at the sacrilege
Alexandra had demanded of him.
Someone tapped his shoulder, and he all but screamed
until he whirled and saw Alexandra. A man,
almost as short as she, was with her. Bryennius started
to snatch her up for a quick hug of welcome, but "no
time!" gasped his cousin. She kilted up her
skirts like a wild girl, and they ran for the ship.
As they scrambled on board, Alexandra was
frantic, crying to the captain to cast off as they
loved the Emperor and their City.
"For God's sake, cousin, what's wrong?"
Bryennius cried. "And who's this with you?"
Alexandra was as thin and intense as ever, but the little man
huddling near her had a decidedly Persian cast of
feature.
In the convent up above the dock, lights started
to appear. Suddenly a shriek of rage rang out, and
Alexandra sank to the deck.
"They know we're missing! Captain, if you let
them take you, they won't just have you executed; they'll
kill you themselves and drain your soul."
The captain signed himself in terror. All
Byzantium feared necromancy. To have a
princess flee a convent because of it was blasphemy
worse than Bryennius had dreamed possible.
Quickly they cast off.
Alexandra's odd companion came up
to Bryennius, standing so close to him that the prince
recoiled. "Prince, are you armed?" he asked, his
accent surprisingly pure for an Easterner. He
had the manner of a priest and-to Bryennius'
surprise when he asked-the name of the Basileus'
favorite. Probably a heretic as
well as unluckily named . . .
"Are you armed?" he repeated the question insistently.
Bryennius nodded.
"Then I beg you, if we are captured, kill
me."
"We're not going to be captured!" Bryennius
spat.
"But we're not moving," Alexandra gasped.
"Captain, what's wrong?" Her voice was
shrill, as if she expected trouble.
"The tide, Highness. There's no tide!" The
man's voice, hoarse from years of shouting orders,
trembled with fear.
"Then let's row!" Bryennius cried.
Even the heretic strained on the oars. Just as
Bryennius thought his heart would burst, the undertow
struck. When they fought the swift, savage
current, it surged into a maelstrom.
"Get down, cousin!" Bryennius screamed at
Alexandra, who almost lurched over the side of the
boat. She
Susan
Shwartz
drew a tiny phial from her drab garments, fumbled
open, and threw it over the side. The waters
whirlec once more, then subsided.
Alexandra sank down, gasping. "Oh, your face,
cous in. That was holy water, not sorcery."
Bryennius flexed his hands, blistered and raw from
thi
oars. "Now," he said firmly, "Alexandra,
cousin or nc cousin, you owe me an explanation right
now! What the name of hell ..."
"The name of hell . . . that's it, Bry',"
Alexandra gasped. "The Crown Prince, my little
nephew Michae bar comhe's going to be very sick.
No one in the court knows it yet, but he's going
to be sick. Yes, there go the bells and!
semantrons. They've started to pray for him now.
He has! the fever my brother has, and its name .
. . oh, God, itsf name"-she laughed
hysterically-"is Basil. Or Aunti Theodora
and her friend Danielis. They plan to seize j
power."
Bryennius darted a glance at the monk.
"No, not that Basil. He's as much a victim .
. ." In thei reddish glow of Byzantium's night
lights, Alexandra's eyes were wild, the whites as
huge as those of a horse that smells fire in its
stable. "It's all of a piece,
Bryennius.; You were the one who told me that the
silk trade was waning. The vestments in the church
started to fray, and
be
there was no silk to replace them. Aunt Theodora
didn't seem to mind, either. That made me
curious."
Alexandra, Bryennius knew, always had been too
curious for her own good. "You know, Byzantium
used to have to buy its silk from Ch'in. The gold we
paid-no wonder all Ch'in's people have golden skins!
"But when we learned that worms made their silk, I
they refused to sell them to us. Then in the reign of]
Justinian the Lawgiver, Nestorians like Father
Basil here smuggled silkworms out of Ch'in in their
staffs at the risk of their lives. Since then-at
least up until now -Byzantium has produced
silk of its own."
Bryennius nodded. Every Byzantine took pride
in the
City's silk. It was the Emperor's own care. The
silk was even woven in the palace's closely
guarded factories by women more skilled than a
thousand Arachnes. Only the secret of making
Greek fire was more strictly kept. Both
proclaimed Empire to the barbarians: strength,
beauty, truth, and power; the embodiment of splendor
on earth, anticipating the greater glories to come.
If the silk trade failed, then Byzantium
too was failing.
"How has this to do with magic?" Alexandra asked.
"I was about to ask," Bryennius said wryly. His
hands stung and he felt like all the strength had
drained out of him.
His cousin shivered. "It's all of a piece," she
said. "Byzantium faltering, my brother himself. .
. Bryennius, he was smart and brave when he was a
boy, remember? What reason would turn a bright
boy into a drunkard? I won't say he is the
worst ruler Byzantium has had . . . and then
these illnesses. His wife died young, his heir is
sickly. All of a piece.
"At first I believed Aunt Theodora when she said
that Byzantium was being punished for sins. Then"-she
grimaced and, for a moment, looked like the urchin
Bryennius remembered-"after Theophano left, I
became bored again. I'd read most of what she and
Danielis would let me read in the library. They
had other books that looked like they'd come the length of the
silk roads. I asked about them, and they
told me I could not read them yet. But they were
pleased, Bry', pleased that 5 asked.
"You know me, cousin. When I am bored and
curious, 1 try to find things out. I started prowling
the convent. I even found a way out. One night I
came upon a door I had never seen. It was
locked, but I used my penknife . . ."
Alexandra shrugged. "The door opened onto a
stairway that wound down and around until I thought I
was beneath the crypt.
"Then I saw Father Basil here. He lay on an
altar" com.alexandra's eyes went wide with
remembered horror
LfevJtOn'

Susan
Shwarte
com8set up beneath a statue that had about nine arms! There
were stains all about. So I drew my knife
to unbind him, and he cursed me for a witch."
Father Basil knelt by Bryennius. "God forgive
me," he said, "but what else could I think her? I
knew she wa kinswoman to the woman who bought me and
planned to use me as a sacrifice. A Basil
for a Basil, she said. Anc just perhaps, for your
Emperor Michael and his soneabar too."
Devil worship, Bryennius thought. No wonder
the City failed, while Basil rose, with
necromancy to back, him. He shuddered. How had
it happened? Theodora had been a scholar once.
Who had given her the books that seduced her from the
light?
"When I think of how close I came to being what
Father Basil called me," Alexandra said, "I
think I ought to spend the rest of my life on my
knees praying. But there? God forgive me, but they
ought to tear that convent down and sow the ground with salt!"
She shook her head. "Nothing ... I don't know
if I can ever believe j in anything ... I knew
we had to get out. And you were my only hope."
She flung her arms about his neck, and they hugged one
another as they had when they were children.
"Do you hear that?" called the captain. They neared!
the City. The hollow notes of the wooden
semantrons and monks chanting echoed out over the
water. Bryennius coutyl smell incense in the
air.i
"Oh, quickly!" Alexandra whispered as they moored.
Then they were dashing for the horses. Kilting her robes
high on her legs, Alexandra let
Bryennius heave her into the saddle. She was careering
off toward the Mese, into the center of the City toward the
palace, almost before
I
he could follow.
Exhaustion and terror tasted copper in his mouth.
Thef stink of incense grew stronger. Then they were
reining in, their horses' hooves striking sparks from
the stone.
Alexandra tumbled from the saddle and headed to

ward the palace, Bryennius following. Dimly
she heard him acknowledge a guard's salute,
heard the man's muttered praises for the prince's
bringing in a holy woman to pray for the heir. Then
they ran inside, this time to the heir's quarters. They
pushed past the guards and into a turmoil of priests
and physicians.
And there the running stopped.
The Imperial heir lay thrashing in convulsions. His
lips were blue and foam-flecked. Blood ran from
his nose. The little priest slipped into the room and
walked toward the bed, chanting-however dubious his
theology-an exorcism.
"Hold him, sponge him with chilled water!"
Alexandra cried to the physicians. She began a
feverish search of the bed. Finally, she dived beneath it and
emerged holding something wrapped in a fold of
bedclothes.
The prince's struggles ceased so abruptly that
several physicians crossed themselves.
"Kyrie eleison, christe eleison, kyrie
eleison"
filled the room as they began the prayers for the dead.
Basil-the favorite, not the priest-grabbed
Alexandra and pulled her from the bed. Bryennius
hurled himself at the man, determined to protect his
cousins. Alexandra clawed free. She screamed
wordlessly and cast what she held at Basil's
feet. It was a cup wrought of silver in the shape of
demons, their claws holding what looked like a
human skull.
"Devil!" she cried. "Get the priests! Ask
this man what demons he serves. Ask him! And
then ask by what design-and whose treason-he dares
to threaten my brother and his son!" She was crying
stormily. Bryennius held her, stroking her and
crooning to her until the guards dragged out the
treacherous favorite, and Alexandra's nurse
pushed past soldiers to receive the princess
into capacious arms.
Michael the Basileus summoned Alexandra and
Bryennius to the intricate gold shimmer of the
lesser
Susan
Shwarte
Hall of Audience, where he sat between mechanical
lions.
At her brother's nod, Alexandra drew up a
cushion! She leaned companionably against the
left-hand lionj and prayed for courage. Once
again, she felt as if sluf stood between the jaws of a
trap.
Once again, her choices were limited. There had
beet a riot in the Hippodrome that morning when the
Imperij al family appeared in the
kathisma,
or royal box, for the protracted execution of
Basil. (theodora and Danielis were nowhere to be
found.) For the first time in years, Alexandra wore
purple, heavy with gold embroidery and! pearls.
More pearls and massive amethysts quivered
on
her headdress and long earrings. At her brother's
gesture caret she had stood on a
footstool and held up the heir, swaying under the
weight of child, splendor, and acclai mation. When
Michael, pale and sober for the first time in years, had
gestured Bryennius forward too, she saw her own
fear mirrored in his eyes.
"For God's sake, tell me what I can do with the
two of you," said the Emperor. Alexandra supposed
it was a good sign that he did not speak of himself as
"we," in the form that the Basileus must use-"even in
bed,"'* Bryennius had quipped once to the
delight of various spies. "My advisors tell
me that if you go free . . ."
"The army?" Bryennius shrugged.
"They fear you'll turn the Tagmata regiments
against me. And what of you, Alexandra? You heard the
crowd today. They want you named Basilissa."
"That is a title for wife, not for sister!"
Bryennius" broke in, though Alexandra shook
her head at him. Michael's wife had indeed been
the last woman to bear that title. For Alexandra
to be Basilissa put her only al step from the
throne, and even closer than that to exilef or a
convenient accident.
"Would you marry, sister?" Michael asked, and hisf
voice was desperately gentle.
Bryennius tried to lighten the moment. "Whom do
bar
you need put out of the way, Majesty? That oaf whose
odorous ambassadors call him the Holy
Roman Emperor?"
Michael grimaced. So did Alexandra, who
raised a beringed hand to strike at Bryennius as she
had often done when they were children.
"You know I cannot do that to my own sister," said the
Basileus. No one mentioned that there had been no
problem when Theophano had been married
off
to the equally barbarous King of Sicily. But there was
no comparing Alexandra with her sister, ever.
"'What about you, cousin?" Michael's eyes had
gone bright and speculative, and Bryennius"
heart sank.
"The Autokrator is as wise as he is powerful.
Therefore he would not command me to do such a horrible--"
All three of them laughed. "That might be too
popular a match, too," Alexandra observed.
"Sister, would you return to a convent?"
"Not while my aunt lives!" Alexandra swore.
"But I would guarantee your safety." Alexandra
looked blandly at him. "And you would have
leisure to study."
Finally, the anger and frustration of years tumbled out,
echoing in the rich hall. "Leisure! What other
choice can I have? Be walled up in a noble convent,
or some prison, or-the straitest confinement of
all-a porphyry tomb?"
Michael's face twisted. "I, and my son after
me, must learn to rule now, and learn well. We
need time for that, though. Think of a way you can be disposed
of. Help me!"
Then the miracle happened. Alexandra's face
lit up. In that moment she was two parts princess,
one part rebel-and another part, by the grace of God,
pure inspiration, which bubbled from her mind and heart, and
carried Bryennius and the Emperor with her on a
tide of joyous enthusiasm.
"Princes join
the
army or they can be sent to gove one of the frontier
themes. You'll probably do that Bryennius."
"Sister, I regret that I cannot give you a
province t govern, too. I grant you have a
soldier's heart. But a left-brace soldier's
body? Never."
"This is what I want." Alexandra reached
out to touch his amethyst-encrusted glove where it rested
on his knee,; "We all know that the palace
workrooms have been closed down. I know it's been
given out that new looms must be installed, but you know-as
do I-that there is no silk to weave. And we know why.
Theodora cursed the silkworms. We found her
token."
"If ever I find the person who taught you to buy
spies caret my sister, I shall surely execute
him." Michael himself had taught her, Alexandra
reminded him. "If you know; this much, know the rest. I
have sent out men to steal-more silkworms."
"And had no success. Who did you send? Our first
silkworms were brought to us by Nestorians."
"They were expelled from the City for heresy."
"Not all, my Emperor," said Alexandra. "I
found one, tied, waiting to be sacrificed by our
accursed aunt."
Michael leaned forward. "Would he be willing to g*
back?"
"With me," Alexandra said. "Only if I went
too." Alexandra looked up and saw that her brother
had not yet made up his mind. "Why not let me
try? I may not succeed either. But I will be away and
happy.
"You remember how when we were children, we used to dream
of tracing Alexander's route across Persia andi
into Hind, to World's End itself?" Alexandra threw
herself to her knees and laid her face against the cold
of the marble floor in the prostration exacted only of
captives and barbarians. "Brother mine, set me
free to take that path, and I promise you that only
death will stop me. And I swear that if I fall,
I will die with my face turned toward the east."
"And if you do return, with the silkworms? What

then, Alexandra? You will be too powerful to be allowed
to eo free.". ,,
Alexandra smiled. "Ah, my brother, in that
case, I shall have had a long flight. If I
return, then you may mew me up in whatever convent
you wish, and I shall write books for you."
Alexandra pressed herself against the icy rock of this
less-than narrow ledge. She checked her grip and,
only after shi knew she was secure, dared to shiver.
Her caravan wa halfway between Byzantium-where in
what nov seemed like another life, she had been a
princess-an less-than Ch'ang-an, in which she had
vowed to be a thief. The; had crossed one mountain
pass after another. But
novst
she was cesttain that they were lost.
Ahead of her trudged the new guide. Behind her
cam less-than the rest of her caravan: her cousin
Bryennius, her Vara gian guardsmen, priests,
and, most important of all, this grooms they had
acquired in Ferghana for the horsei whose hooves
made flinty sounds as they picked deli cately
along the rocks. She knew that if she dared lea out
over the cliff, she would see clouds floating belo

her, heavy with snow, tinged with crimsons, violets,
an golds-the colors of the Imperial silk that the
worksho of Byzantium no longer wove. Far, far
below, hidden b;

the clouds, lay snow, rocks, and people who lived in the
shadows of the peaks without ever attempting them.
The thought of that view made her dizzy. Guides and
merchants in Samarkand had called these mountains
bam-i-dunya,
the Roof of the World. At first she scoffed at what she
considered typical Sogdian exaggeration to drive
up prices. She knew better now. The air was
thin and cold as an assassin's blade.
Fever stalked behind to claim the cold's leavings; it
shrilled in the temples, clouding judgment and
balance.
From the breast of her tunic, she fumbled out a
greasy, much-folded map. There was still enough light
to read. She traced their way across Taun Meron
Pass. After that, their path was supposed to descend
until they reached Kashgar.
They had left the pass days ago, and climbed ever
since. Still the guide led them on a twisting upward
trail toward white massifs that blocked out the
sky. It was getting darker now, though this high up, the
sky always seemed dark to her. A blood-colored
moon was rising. She glanced ahead, praying that the
guide would wave and announce shelter, an end to the
day's travel. No one could cross the Roof of the
World by night and survive.
She gasped at the thin air. To compose herself, she
ran through a litany that resembled nothing at all she
had ever learned from her tutor or from her days in an
Imperial convent.
They had bargained in Samarkand and Ferghana for
horses and now were bound for Kashgar. From there, they would
cross the desert, heading ultimately for
Ch'ang-an itself, birthplace of silk.
There she must steal silkworms, or their eggs,
whatever might enable Byzantium to revive the
industry that won its Empire beauty, money, and
prestige. If she were caught, they would torture
her to death . . . slowly. But if she had not dared the
venture, she faced prospects almost as bleak.
She feared the convent most. One of the priests wished
on her by the court trudged beside her, and she looked
away. Convents and monasteries, right enough, pro
"V caret fiSiJ'ff*;

Susan Shwart;
fessed service to God and the Theotokos, Mary,
Beare of God. What might lie in secret
chambers behind this less-than pious, glimmering
mosaics made her shudder with mon than the cold.
Haraldr, the Varangian who led her escort,
came up tt her. Accompanying him was the
Nestorian heretic whc called himself Father
Basil, a little man with a roun less-than body and a
Persian cast of feature, an absurd contrast t
less-than the fair-skinned Northerner.
"Do not stand still too long, my princess," the guard:
man told her. Alexandra knew how she must
look: tiny, even frail, dark, and fine in
comparison to the massiv Haraldr, whose blue eyes
appalled the natives hereabouts, and whose endurance
made short work of thes heights. "I saw our
guide talking with Father Andronict there, and I want
a few words with them both. Words like food and shelter
..." He grinned ferociously at her; Alexandra
found Haraldr reassuring, like having one's own
golden bear.
She held out a hand to restrain Father Basil. "My
cousin, Bryennius?" she asked.
"He said the horses were getting tired, and dropped
back. When last I saw him, he decided your
ladyi companion was tired too, and heeded to be
cheered."
Alexandra wasted breath on a soft laugh.
Bryennius had two passions: horses and women.
Usually he was good judge of both. Certainly, his
choices in Ferghan caret comnow restive as the sky
darkened and they saw no stables-had reduced the
Sogdian merchants to wailin; prophecies of
bankruptcy for themselves and starvatio for their children.
Well enough: In Ch'ang-an, they wen mad for such
horses. Bryennius could sell them, or giVery'
them as bribes while searching out a way to ste;
silkworms.
His taste in women, though, might get him killed.
I Samarkand, one lady's brothers had almost
knifed him. And if it hadn't been for Bryennius'
fondness for Alexandra, he might still be playing
polo on the palac
grounds. Instead, his loyalty to her had got him
sent out on this death sentence along the silk roads-and
she thanked God for it.
Father Basil, the Nestorian, raised an eyebrow
at her mention of the Theotokos. "Upset
by Orthodoxy, priest? You prefer, perhaps, my
aunt's altars?" He winced, and she was sorry,
remembering the dark figure with the nine arms, each
holding a dagger, and the altar, wrought of porphyry the
color of blood.
The little man drew closer, so close that his breath
warmed her face. "Do not speak so much, Highness.
Look above us."
Up ahead loomed what looked like a sheet of ice.
It was actually a cliff, its crags smoothed out
by slabs of snow, now fissured and softening in what
passed for spring in this country. Any loud noise-a
shout perhaps, or a horse stumbling or, worse
yet, panicking and plunging aside on the
trail-might bring it down upon them.
"Pass the word to the grooms," Alexandra told the
priest. "If the horses seem fearful, blindfold
them." She wished she could blindfold herself too. As
Haraldr said, it was not good to stand still too long. She
forced herself to move up the line, careful to secure a
handhold before taking each step.
Three more twists on the path brought her out suddenly
onto a ledge that jutted out not more than a foot from the
center of the vast rock face they had to cross. She
edged out, feeling like a fly crawling across a marble
wall. Ahead of her, she saw Haraidr's
unmistakable bulk, and the guide, who waved one
arm.
What lay up ahead turned her sick with more than
altitude. Above them lay yet another peak.
Sure enough, they were well and truly lost. If she
lived, she would kill that guide herself, she vowed. But
on that peak . . . sudden relief threatened
to unlock her knees and send her toppling off the
ledge through miles of empty air. On either side of
that peak stood one of the preposterous
Susan Shwartz
clusters of steep-pitched roofs and sloping walls
built centuries ago by monks, whose successors
still managec to survive here, even in the
winters.
Alexandra crossed herself. For the first time since she
fled the convent, the gesture was more than a habit lef
over from a time when faith provided her something beyond a
vocabulary for swearing. Shelter. Tears squeezed
from her narrowed eyes and froze to her lashesj and she
scrubbed at the ice. She glanced back, and saw
Bryennius waving at her. Sharp eyes: he'd
seen it too.
Remembering Father Basil's warning about noise, she
slowed until he caught up to her. "I want you
to interpret," she whispered. "Beg us shelter, and
find out how long it will take us to find the right road
toi Kashgar." Simple enough: assuming the monks
would! house women, and they would not have to backtrack to
bar Taun Meron, the pass they'd crossed two
weeks ago.
Thinking of Father Basil's ability with the
languages, hereabouts, she almost crossed herself again.
She herself could handle Persian. She knew enough
Arabic to swear in, plus fragments of other
tongues. But these oddly pitched, long-voweled
languages . . . she didn't trust that guide.
The old guide had fallen ill too conveniently in
Ferghana-and he had beers tended
by Andronicus,) recommended by a faction she
distrusted, though on nc evidence. Could she trust
any refuge to which such guide might lead them?
She followed Father Basil along the narrow ledgej
They were coming to the intersection of cliff and newf peak,
where a tumble of rocks offered shelter from the keen
night winds that were blowing, threatening to pluck horses
and men from the ledge and hurl them down, pastl clouds,
into an unseen valley. The moon had risen
fullyf Despite its redness, the spray of clouds
drifting across il looked as white as the mountain
peaks. The sense of being entombed in rock that had
haunted Alexandra for days left her, and she
glanced out with something like love and awe.
If I go no farther,
she thought,
at least I have seen thisj caret

There was a purity to these titanic peaks. Here, for
an instant, she could forget her brother's tottering
Empire, and her suspicions that political
intrigue and thaumaturgicai dabblings (the
traditional hobbies of Imperial ladies) still
gnawed at its heart. The mountains and the empty
spaces were indifferent to such matters, and they
reduced the humans who cared so hotly about them
to motes even smaller than a silkworm's egg.
The wind died. The night was so silent that she could
hear the bells on the harness of the pony toiling last
in line. The high-pitched ringing ceased abruptly,
muffled by a groom who feared to bring the snows down
around his head. Now all Alexandra heard was the
pounding of the blood in her ears. She almost welcomed
the cramping chill in fingers and toes. Soon she would
be sheltered from the night in some small, noisome
room, surrounded by familiar faces and smells, but
she would not forget this exaltation.
A chant suddenly started, it came from the monastery
on her left.
Alexandra's mind went back to the chants of
Byzantine convents: the massed voices, and the
semitones, the striking of wood semantrons, and the
incense, floating below the long, melancholy
features of the Figures in Majesty, glittering in
mosaic. That was
cosmos
comorder and beauty. But . . .
that order was betrayed,
she thought with an intensity of rage she had not
experienced since she stumbled into a hidden part
of the convent and discovered quite a different sort of
ritual.
We were all betrayed.
Male and female voices they were, some pitched
well below what a human voice ought to achieve, and
accompanied with the hollow wailing of horns carved of
straight bone. Instinctively she feared it.
The song that echoed down from the left-hand peak sounded like
the chants she had heard the night she had found Father
Basil, bound in a corner and left to gaze at
a
cup that had been carved from the base of a skull.
What was it he was fond of saying? "The Way has
no
Susan Shwor
constant name, nor the Sage a constant form.
Accordinf to environment, religion is set forth,
quietly offerir salvation to all the living."
Heresy, beyond all doubt.
Still, it offered a terrible possibility. Suppose,
Alexac dra thought to herself, once she crossed the
ledge and
His
panting against the rock, suppose the Good is always
thl same good, regardless of the form in which it
appearsf What about evil, then?
Ever since she was a child, Byzantium had beei
tormented by necromancy; her tutor was perhaps this
less-than only person she knew who did not wear
some sort o amulet or swear by some superstition.
And if that wen so among the Romans, how much more so
amonj barbarians? Haraldr made the hammer
sign more oftei than the sign of the cross, and she
knew he swore hrj Thor.
Aunt Theodora had always been a dabbler. And sh
less-than had always been ambitious and clever enough
to concea it. But from the moment Alexandra had seen that
hatefu figure of a she-demon with the nine arms and
avi less-than mouth and obscenely protruding
tongue, she had knowi that her aunt had traveled beyond
the dark side of hel) own faith to other, more exotic
sorceries-and that thej were all reflections of the chaos
that sought to impose destruction and reign over it.
The ritual that night in the convent would hav caret
culminated in Father Basil's death if she hadn't
rescuec him and fled. She shuddered, nearly retching
with mern-I ory and altitude, thinking of Theodora
and the woman bar Danielis, approaching the altar,
daggers in hand, to kil bar the little Nestorian to add
his strength to the Basil they favored as
Basileus rather than the rightful Emperoij Michael.
Oh, God, the hideous shriek of cheated, hungr)
rage when they discovered Basil gone, and Alexandr
bar missing too.
Alexandra started, then shuddered as if that shrielj had
rung out from this monastery, echoing out over the abyss.
She glanced up at the peak in fear and guilt,;
Father Basil had warned her against loud noises that"
might bring the melting snow down upon them. The
terrible, low vibrations of the chant echoing against vast
rocks, pulsing through the air, seeking entrance to her
mind and thoughts; how had the snow not fallen yet?
Now she could sense a second set of vibrations, a
second chanting, coming from the other monastery. These
voices were also pitched well below the limits of
normal singing, and inhumanly sustained, but where the first
chant revolted her, this made Alexandra feel
warmed, comforted. She glanced up at the peak again, and
rubbed her eyes. Each monastery was bathed in
light: the one on the left, a spectral hue almost
the color of the blood-washed moon; the one on the
right, a pale, pristine blue the color of water
running deep below ice.
Father Basil crouched beside her. "Get down, my
princess," he hissed. "Don't let them
see you!"
If all necromancy was the same, did it follow
that if one necromancer knew about her, they all
did? This was no time to chop logic. Alexandra
sank to her knees and tried to pray. No words
came. She had not been able to pray since she had
met the little Nestorian and fled an Imperial
convent, her faith lost and her reason failing.
Now she lifted her face from her hands. "What are
they doing?" she whispered.
"They call it
mantrayana.
Sound, certain kinds of sounds, can kill-or heal.
The monks fight with noise, one group to bury us
under snow, the other . . ."
"To defend us?"
"To maintain balance, and hold the snow where it lies.
If that saves our lives, so much the better. If
not . . . well, so long as balance is upheld
..." He shrugged, the curious, Asiatic
gesture that went so strangely with his cultivated
Greek.
Alexandra raised herself cautiously and glanced at
the huddled bodies of her caravan. Haraldr was
holding his axe and an amulet, Bryennius
was creeping toward her, the officer Leo (of some noble
house or other; it vaguely troubled her not
to remember which) and several of the grooms and packmen
had collapsed in the snow. She
Susan
Shwartz
could hear faint sobbings. From halfway down the line
came the
Kyries
of prayers in Greek and the more sonorous From
mane padme hum
of a bearer. Hail to the jewel in the lotus, she
translated. The man would do better to invoke
divine intervention, not that it wouldi work.i
They had no defense against this! she thought with fury,
except to wait, and hope, and pray that the monas--
tery that shimmered in the blue light could keep the snow
from overwhelming them. She heard a rumbling, saw a
white blur slide from the cliff, and suppressed
an impulse to hide her face.
About five yards ahead of her, by the guide, knelt
her aunt's priest, not praying for them, not encouraging
the men who might find his spiritual authority-such as it
was-comforting, but watching the left-hand monastery with
awe and an unholy relish. She cursed
him, unnecessarily, since any priest who served
that
was damned already. So her aunt's hand and power had
reached out to the court, giving her this traitor, and beyond,
threatening them all.
"Look there!" hissed Father Basil.
Lights flickered in both monasteries. From the one
on the left, tiny figures, dark against the luminous
snow, were emerging, picking their cautious, sinuous
way down the slope.
"Where are our bowmen?" demanded Alexandra. One or
two good archers-and the Persians usually were good
archers,-ought to drive them back. She and the other nobles
in the party had several vials of Greek fire
carefully stored, but they had agreed to keep the
deadly stuff for ultimate peril. Hurling it
uphill would only bring the inextinguishable, savage
fire cascading down upon them.
The word was passed down the fine, and bows were hastily
strung.
The figures grew closer, and Father Basil
gasped. "You see the ones with the elaborate
headgear?" he asked. Alexandra peered closely
at the advancing magicians.
23
They wore dark hats and reddish robes. Bones and
oddly shaped amulets dangled from hat and belt.
Several held bone horns and shook metal
rattles. She had never seen their like.
"Devil dancers from Tibet, the Land of Snows,"
he whispered. "No monks of any kind fear the
mountains. They travel from Ch'ang-an to Hind, from
Hind to the Land of Snows, all the way to ..."
"Where are those archers?" Alexandra gestured
furiously and saw one guard wave a bow in
response. They were ready. Since she dared not shout
the command to fire, Alexandra rose to gesture at
them. The devil dancers were coming closer. One locked
eyes with her. Her arms felt sluggish, frozen, but
she raised her right arm, ready to bring it down . . .
"No!" screamed Andronicus, her aunt's
priest, and hurled himself at her. She elbowed him
aside, and gasped in horror as he overbalanced and
fell, shrieking, into the clouds that swallowed him.
She flung herself against the safe, icy rock, her
arm sweeping down in a desperate command to fire.
One arrow struck home, and a devil dancer
toppled, tripping one of his fellows. Dead and
live magicians toppled, rolling down the
slope, stirring up snow and rock.
From the right-hand monastery, the chant intensified.
Alexandra bit the back of her hand. Monks
emerged and stood by the base of the monastery's retaining
walls. The chant grew louder, as if the monks
fought against tremendous power. Alexandra felt herself
straining to help without knowing how.
Then the very face of the mountain appeared to writhe.
Huge gouts of snow erupted from it, and blasted down
toward the ledges and boulders where they sheltered, tiny
frail humans who would be picked off the
mountainside like flies and hurled far below.
"Snowslide!" bellowed Haraidr.
The Varangians had seen this before, Alexandra thought
wildly, clutching at the nearest rocks for what good
that might do her. The rumbling of the snow
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Susan
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intensified, entering her body wherever it touched rock
or ground. Over it came the scream of horses
maddened with fear, the shouts and wails of her people, and,
throughout, the terrible, persistent chanting of monastery
warring against monastery.
She found herself drawing long, desperate breaths
against the time when there would be no air at all. Ice
chips stung her face, and she looked away from the
monasteries just in time to see whiteness engulf half
the mountain. Horses and tiny figures went spinning
from the ledge, some still clutching at rocks or weapons
or reins. A thin shriek was the last Alexandra
knew she would ever hear of her lady-companion,
but- "Bryennius!" she screamed and tried to run
toward where he had been just seconds earlier.
"Save yourself!" A huge body pressed her and
Father Basil down against the rock. Giant hands
forced her into a tiny crevice between the stones. "Lie
still until the rumbling stops, Princess. Then you can
dig put." Then Haraldr too was torn from her
by heavy whiteness that poured down and kept on pouring.
There was nothing but the whiteness and the cold and the terrible
noise. Alexandra felt her mouth stretched in the
rictus of a scream that never carne. She could hear
nothing, see nothing, but the snow which finally
drowned out even the chant of the magics that had forced her
this far from home to die.
Alexandra's @lyes were still squeezed shut. Before she
remembered she was supposed to be dead, she brought
her fists up to scrub the snow and ice from them. She
only saw a blur resolve itself into whiteness.
Blind, then? The thought carried an irrational weight of
terror with it.
As if it matters,
she thought,
that I see the place where I will freeze to death.
A rock lay under her shoulder, and she eased away
from it, instinctively seeking comfort. She lay beneath
snow, she realized, and she was still breathing. Snow
slabs must have settled above her, trapping in air and

warmth, saving her life-for now. She looked from
side to side, hoping to see a dark tangle that
might mean that one of her companions had been spared,
but there was only whiteness.
She screamed, but no sound came from her throat, which
felt seared by the screaming she had already done. And
flailing in panic only started a small rumbling
that made her freeze against the snow, remembering the
larger rumbling that had stolen her people from her.
Wait until the rumbling stops, then try to dig
out, Haraldr had said. He was gone, swept away
by the snow. Alexandra hoped he had had time to draw
his axe and shout a prayer to the Thunderer, whom she
knew he truly worshiped. Bryennius was gone.
Father Basil was gone, and without him she could not even
speak to the people in these lands. And the horses, the
weapons, the food, even the few pathetic vials of
Greek fire.
What was the point of digging out? The snow rumbled again,
settling until the next fall. She went rigid,
then gradually eased into a more comfortable position,
composing herself as if to lie in state. Tears froze
on her face. They said that freezing to death was easy,
like lying in feathers, and drifting into dreams of warmth and
light.
She tried one of the meditative exercises she had
learned, but could not concentrate for grief and
exhaustion. Then she slept, and, after a while,
dreamed of sunlight on the Golden Horn, blessed
warmth, and the softness of silk.
Alexandra stirred and trembled. She was chilled all
over. Did this mean she was dying? Then she must turn
her face east, as she had pledged. Which way was
east? She woke, and recoiled in terror from
the snow that pent her in: had she died alr.and been
laid in a tomb? Her head spun, and she almost
panicked. The lid overhead was white, not
porphyry; snow and ice, not Stone. With a little
whimper, she raised one hand to the snow above her. A
chunk broke off in her hand, and she sucked at it.
The cold burned her tongue, but revived her. The
Susan Shwartl
rumbling was gone. She began, with agonizing care,
t caret chip away at the snow.
Dig out, Haraldr had told her.
Sweet Mother of God backslash I'm tired!
If the snow were old and dense-packed as sh caret
feared, she would collapse before she saw the light
day. Keep on digging. She stamped her boots
clear loose snow and reached up. More snow fell
to either sidfj of her.
For hours she worked. She found a little dried meat it
her belt-pouch, and put that in her mouth, with mor
snow. It heartened her. Then she was tired, she
wantec to lie and rest, but she had been sweating, and
knew thai to sleep now, with the protective snow
above her thin bar ning out, exposing her to the cold, would
be death. She wept a little and dug on.
For what? Why was she pressing on? Her
friends wer gone. Her kin was gone. She was alone,
bereft on this caret Roof of the World.
"I promised the Basileus. I promised my
brother." She encountered ice, and drew her dagger
to knock it free! Finally, a flurry of ice
fell before she could duck! Sputtering, she found herself
head and shoulders above the level of the snow. She
kicked and scrambled her way bar out.
The sky was very pale. She could not recognize the land
below her, transformed as it was by crumbled slabs of
snow and ice. She could not even see any bodies,
a cruel mercy that spared her the task of trying
to clamber down to them and provide some sort of
burial. Above her on the peak, the two
monasteries looked as if nothing had touched them for
centuries-no chanting, no devil dancers. They
could be empty. Carefully, Alexandra rose to her
knees. She sobbed for air, and looked around. Shel
was very dizzy. Weaving, she pushed herself to her feet,;
and started toward ... it was the right-hand monastery that had
tried to stop the snow from burying her caravan. She
reeled, no ... not into the gorge . . . and started
off.
Above her, the stars faded and dawn tinged the snow
27
with blood. Surely she had not dreamed away an
entire day and night? There was no time, just snow, and
pain. She craned her head to keep the monastery that
was her goal in sight, and forced herself onward, higher
than she had ever climbed.
Blood made her sight dark. Blood . . . the
merchants had told her that sight played tricks with
one, this high up. "This way," whispered a new
voice, the voice of a wise child.
She turned and looked at him. Despite the
cold, he wore very little-a saffron-colored
cloak, almost like an antique toga, and chains of
jeweled flowers.
"Who are you?" she asked, astonished that he understood
her language.
"I am your friend. You can call me Rudra.
Rudra Cakrin. And if you permit, I will teach you
...
"I could take you to my home," he wheedled.
"Come!" he held out both hands to her, and she pushed
them away. Something bright fell from one of them and
rolled on the snow. It was a brilliant red,
shocking against the whiteness of the snow. Blood? A
rose? Some damned sorcery. Alexandra shook her
head and trudged onward, climbing now on
all fours. Sunlight struck the snow, which glinted
like diamonds along her path.
"Do you wish to see your home again? Then you must take
the Diamond Path ..."
Alexandra moaned. "No! No more magic . . ."
"Come, my sister ..." The hand reached out. In a
moment, it would grasp hers, and she would consent
to sorcery, though she had never consented before . . .
She pushed at the child, and her hand seemed to pass
straight through him. Then, amazingly, she was running
toward the monastery, her heart almost bursting with the
effort.
She heard a whistle and a clamor of horns, and
froze in her tracks. A gate, intricately
carved, painted blue and white, groaned open. People
started down the slope toward her, and she wept from
relief and terror.
Several wore monks' robes. But as fast as they
moved,
Susan Shwartz
others moved faster: men with the golden braids anc
beard of her guardsmen, and a small, round man with ,
Persian face.
"Father Basil!" she gasped, and sank to her knees
"Make him go away."
"Who?"
"Rudra. He said his name was Rudra Cakrin, and
hei would teach me. But I don't want to go there,
I don't! if have to get to Ch'ang-an, I
promised my brother, II promised ..."
Alexandra felt herself being picked up, carried
tender bar ly within the monastery, where the corridors
were narj row and painted with ferocious red and blue
deities she was afraid to look at. "Don't
make me . . ." she beggedj
"My princess," whispered the Nestorian. "I
saw only bar yourself on the slopes. And the monks
found no footprints beside your own-and those of the men the
backslash rescued last night."
He beckoned, and one of the oldest, most wizened ofi
the monks came up beside her. Awe shone in his
narrowj slanted eyes.
"We found this in the snow." The monk held out his
hand. In it gleamed an opened flower. A lotus,
Alexandra! saw, like the ones that were brought from
Alexandria toj float on pools in the palace
gardens.
She moaned and finally let herself faint.
Sometime later, Alexandra became aware that her
body was no longer bitterly cold, that
scrapes and bruises no longer stung, and
that-astonishingly-she felt indifferent to the fact that she
was still alive and even relatively comfortable. Body
warmth did not matter; she was floating in a vast,
pale sea. She remembered afternoons of sailing in the
Basileus' ornately carved barge on the
Golden Horn, then put them out of mind. This was no
earthly water. She felt like a sky creature, able
to bathe and rejoice in the thin, pure air between mountain
peaks.
So this is how angels must feel,
she thought. Somehow the idea didn't seem as
blasphemous as she knew it was.
She could see immense distances. She spared a glance
down at the tumble of snow, rock, and black
specks that she assumed might be bodies at the
base of the mountain. Some lay to the right or left,
away from the abyss itself, diverted by unpredictable
cascades of snow. These
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Susan
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might live, she noted idly. But what was that to her,
a creature of the upper air?
Beyond the mountains lay Kashgar. Her spirit strained
toward the city she had tried to reach. Beyond that she
felt waves of great heat and greater desolation,
luring her to gaze on it, but her eye swept beyond,
farther and farther until it came to a cliff hung with
banners, then a canal, a walled city. She
knew that her visions showed her Ch'ang-an, and she
pressed in closer. It seemed larger and more
splendid than Byzantium, the home she would never
live to regain.
That thought tore her attention back to the west.
Violent light, an insubstantial mob clamoring
for her to notice it: Bryennius' dark, clever
face and lazy voice; Haraldr. Many faces were
new-a tiny, exquisite girl; a slender man,
no longer young, with refined features and wise,
lazy, slanted eyes. Last of all came
a woman's face the color of old ivory, lined
and imperious and bitter, but otherwise an older
version of her own . . .
In her dream, she met the woman's eyes and knew
terror.
There you are!
it seemed to say to something else, and she felt herself
drawn by a black, sticky thread. She was being
ripped from the ancient monastery and battered body that
provided but unstable housing. She struggled in the
dream, trying to raise a shadowy hand. She didn't
want to return to Byzantium, if Theodora were
alive and seeking her. Death was clean in comparison
with what her aunt had planned for Father Basil.
She forced her glance away, but this war of wills in the
upper air was alien to her. She was being drawn back
to look . . . and then, she saw the child who had first
appeared to her on the slope. He did not nod or
shout for her attention, but stood with his attention fixed
upon a glowing flower cupped in his hands. As she
watched him, his face turned wizened and scarred.
Finally, he looked up and their glances met. She
felt a sealing there. She wasn't sure she wanted
it, but it was better than the darkness. The child-Rudra,
he had called himself comsmiled, and his eyes
expanded to dominate her con

sciousness. She was still floating, awash in that strange
sea, but she felt herself drifting lower and lower now.
Soon she could see herself, lying on a narrow
pallet in a room painted with a blue and white
figure. The sight of her own body, still dressed in
battered leathers, Persian trousers, and torn
boots, intrigued her. She was very thin, and her
hair, tumbled free of the cap she wore, was long and
black, almost blue in comparison to the pallor of her
skin. Her face resembled the mosaics she had
grown up with: haughty, narrow features, arched
brows, and a look of melancholy, even in sleep.
Not beautiful, no, but familiar, that woman on the
pallet. She sought to rejoin her body, but felt
herself caught in an undertow, being washed out to that
tranquil sea again.
Soft lights gleamed before her-white, blue, red,
green, yellow, and a kind of smoke color. She
drifted toward them, drowsily hoping for company.
Then she heard a whirring, as if a spinning wheel
wound silk in her presence, a clangor of horns
and cymbals, and strangely pitched, prolonged
syllables she could almost understand. She felt
herself being shaken by the shoulders, and cried out in protest
as old bruises were jarred and new wounds opened.
Abruptly the shaking stopped, and she was eased back
on the pallet.
Alive again? Tears ran from the corners of her
eyes and she could not stop them.
When I was born, I wept, and now I weep again,
for truly, I think I died on the mountain,
she tried to say, but no sound came. Tenderly,
someone wiped her face. Her eyes cleared. She
looked up into the face of Father Basil, and saw that
he wept, too.
"Praise God you live, my princess."
Alexandra turned her head from side to side. The
chanting continued. They were practically dinning it in her
ears.
"Make . . . make them go away," she husked.
He raised a hand. The hooting and braying
subsided. It was very quiet in the tiny room.
Sunlight poured in from one small window. In its
dazzle, the figures painted on the walls seemed
to dance and wave their many arms.
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Susan Shwartz
Two monks slipped from the room, edging past the comt
was one of her Guard who stood at the door! How
many lived, then? She would have to deal with the loss of the
others later. Tears poured down her chapped face,
but she ignored them. For now, she would simply try
to sit up. The priest, little taller than she,
supported her.
"Easy. That was a hard battle you just fought."
"Battle?" she asked.
"Drink this first, then sleep. When you're rested,
I'll explain."
Alexandra glanced at the cup suspiciously.
"This drink, will it make me sleep?" The idea of
more sleep frightened her. If she slept, she might
slip away from her body again to set out upon that sea,
and this time, she might not be drawn back.
"There are no drugs in it," he said. "Is
it that you fear sleep? You drifted very far, but the
monks sang you back."
"Is that what that howling was?" she asked.
"That 'howling" was one of their sacred chants. If you
hadn't been found babbling of a child with a gout of blood
in his hand, I doubt they would have sung it for an
outsider."
They knew of the child who had saved her. Perhaps he was
an angel, if the pagans, devil-worshipers, and
fire cults hereabouts had angels. She knew he
meant her well.
"Now will you drink?" Basil still held the steaming
cup.
Stubbornly, she held his eyes. "While I
drink, you can explain to me which battle you meant."
Father Basil gestured, and an old man came
forward. He had the fined-down look of the mountain
dweller about him. Though it must be cold in the
monastery, he wore only a single yellow robe,
and his arms were bare. They were thin, but looked very strong.
"He knows Persian," the priest said in that
language. "Also some Greek, and the sacred
languages of Hind and the Land of Snows. Even one
of the languages spoken in Ch'ang-an."
33
"Have you thanked him for saving our lives?"
Alexandra asked, and saw Father Basil look
guilty.
Bless the little Nestorian! Alexandra thought and fought
against hysterical laughter. Once he made certain
that he would survive a magical attack and an
avalanche that wiped out most of his companions, he
found himself another savant and-no doubt-had been
discussing philosophy while waiting for her to waken.
Knowledge was a passion with him. It had lured him
to Byzantium, almost to his death. On the long
trip out, she had been his student in languages.
At least this aged monk spoke Persian; she would
not have to struggle with the complex tones of Tibet, or the
endless syllables of Sanskrit.
The old man smiled at her, his narrow eyes almost
slanting shut in his wrinkled, cheerful face. There was
something of the look of
that child
about him: a good enough place to begin.
"No thanks are necessary, daughter," said the monk.
"It is our duty to prevent any interference with your
path."
"The child . . . the wise child. When I dug myself
free and came to you, I saw a child who said his
name was Rudra."
The monk bowed his head. Clearly, he had schooled
himself to silence before outsiders on the topic of this child.
"Why is it so remarkable that still should see him?" She
had been warned that at these great heights, travelers
encountered hallucinations and madness. Had any two people
ever seen the same hallucination?
"Because, daughter, he is the King of Shambhala.
And just as your faith has its mysteries, Shambhala
is not a part of our Way that we reveal
to outsiders."
The kingdom's name resonated like the gong that an
ambassador to the Basileus had brought from the Land
of Gold. It was simultaneously strange and
familiar, like encountering a passerby and realizing that
she was a long-lost twin, Shambhala.
Susan Shwartz
The monk gestured at a wall hanging. Depicted
in brilliant crimsons, golds, and blues was a
city surrounded by rings upon rings of snow mountains in a
pattern of eight petals . . . "Like a lotus,"
Father Basil murmured at her side. At the
center of the city was one of the intricate patterns she
knew were called mandalas, and at the heart of it sat
some sort of figure, enthroned. She
squinted against the blinding sunlight and peered at its
face. If it looked like the child she had seen, she would
know that she had stumbled past hope into some strange
faith's stranger rituals.
"That is Shambhala, the enlightened city hidden between
snow mountains. As the Wheel of Time spins, there will
come an age when wealth and piety will decrease, day
by day, until the world will be wholly depraved.
Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the
only source of honor; passion will be the sole
bond of union between men and women. Earth will be
venerated but for its gold and silver."
The monk's voice deepened as he shifted from
Persian to Sanskrit. It sounded like the
apocalypse, Alexandra thought, and was not surprised
to hear that at that time, a god would become human and
raise a great army. He would ride forth on his
blue horse, and with his blazing sword, destroy the
barbarians-
us? the Persians? my aunt?
comand "reestablish righteousness upon earth. The minds of
those who live at the end of the age of strife shall be
awakened, and shall be as pellucid as crystal. The men
who caret are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar
time shall be as seeds of human beings, and shall
give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the
golden age of purity."
"The apocalypse," she whispered. "We have a ...
sacred story of the end of times, of a great walled
city." The words stuck in her throat, and she was
glad to drink from the cup Father Basil handed her. It
seemed a profanation to speak of the New Jerusalem
here in this pagan shrine, and yet, and yet ... how
much alike the story of Shambhala seemed.
But it was a place on earth.

not in heaven or at the end of days,
the last remnants of Orthodoxy argued at the
back of her skull. What about Augustine? What
if there were more than one city of earth, and more than one
City of God, all examples of order, set
against chaos, and at the end of time . . . she shook
her head. Orthodoxy decreed otherwise. And yet
the ruler of this Shambhala had no reason to appear
to her, let alone save her life, and yet he had.
"Why me? What does he want of me?" she was
appalled to hear herself ask. She was less than
nothing now: a fugitive princess whose friends and
wealth were gone, and lacking even the grace to be
thankful for a visitation that had saved her
wretched life.
The monk smiled and raised his hand to point again at the
wall hanging, when the room shook about them.
Cries rang out in the hall. Her guardsmen
called on Thor and Christos with equal fervor.
Alexandra levered herself up from her pallet onto her
feet as the floor heaved beneath them. The dazzling sun
had been replaced by a ghostly violet glow. Thunder
rumbled in the clouds that were piling up above the highest
peaks. At this height, they were fatally exposed to such
storms.
A man too young to be a monk-an acolyte perhaps?
comran into the room and knelt before the old man. his
Vajra,
the thunderbolt, comes!" he cried.
"There is no need for fear," the older monk
reproved him. "My daughter, we should see this. Can
you walk?"
Where was there to walk? There could be no flight from this
storm. Lightning scored the dark sky. Alexandra
nodded.
The floor still had that alarming tendency to shake as if
she balanced in a chariot, but Father Basil and a
Varangian let her lean on them. Moving with
amazing speed for a man his age, the monk
brought them through a maze of halls until they stood
on a kind of narrow balcony that overlooked the
chasm that was now filled with darkening clouds.
My friends . . . lost down there.
Lightning danced from those clouds to the ones looming above
the barren white peaks, shutting out all the
Susan
Shwartz
mountain range except the crag on which that other,
darker monastery stood.
"Power was invoked and used," Father Basil said
quietly. "It was meant to strike us, but we live.
Therefore it must go
somewhere.
Usually, such power recoils threefold upon the
user." His voice had a questioning note in it, and the
monks nodded.
Again came that blinding dance of lightning. Fires
blossomed upon the snow and rock, encircling the dark
monastery, then dying away. Tiny figures ran from
it, but could not cross that ring where the fires had been.
"What will happen?" Alexandra asked in a voice
she didn't recognize as her own.
"They struck, knowing what they did. Now they will
pay."
The wind died down, leaving the air even colder than
before. Monks, soldiers, and princess huddled
together, watching. Above the doomed monastery, the
clouds thickened. Though the air was still, Alexandra's
hair prickled on her scalp. The clouds seemed
to draw strength from everything about them, to serve as a
channel for some force . . . white and purple
fires danced in their immense bellies. Then an
immense bolt slashed down, searing through cloud,
snow, and rock.
They cried out. Alexandra found herself on her
knees, clutching and being clutched by the others for
support. "Blind!" someone wailed.
"It will pass," came the old monk's serene
voice.
Now they could hear a thin screaming. Alexandra
wanted nothing more than to cower where she had fallen
(assuming she could not creep into hiding indoors), but
forced herself to stand and seek out the source of those cries.
Across the chasm, the dark monastery was dark no
longer. Flames burst out of its windows, danced on
the backs of running, screaming figures, and poured
down the monastery's slanted walls. Then slowly,
almost as if it were a dream in which one encountered terror
past bearing and yet could not flee, the walls
crumbled as the rock beneath them cracked and slid down
the side of the

mountain into the abyss. Any hope of begging the abbot
to order the hillsides searched for survivors of her
party died in that moment.
"Kyrie eleison"
she whispered. God have mercy on all of them.
Whether these forces were arrayed for them or against them,
passionately she prayed for them to keep far from her.
The clouds were dissipating. Sunlight tore through them
and blazed in a column of fire, its base upon the
living rock where once sorcerers had lived.
"What was that?" muttered one of the Varangians.
The monk met Alexandra's eyes. His own were
compassionate, but quite inexorable. "That," he answered
her, "was the path of the thunderbolt. Some call it
Vajrayana, the Diamond Path. And, daughter,
it is the road you must walk if you want
to survive."
In the days that followed, Alexandra felt herself under
the discipline of tutors more severe than any she had
encountered. The man she had thought of as the "old
monk" was, in fact, the monastery's abbot, who
paid her the great honor of speaking to her himself,
rather than through one of his
chelas,
The monks here were a composite of races and people. Some
were even from the Land of Gold, which had been sending people
into the West and Hind for centuries. She had seen
accounts of such journeys by men with names like Fa Hsien
and Have'suan Tsang. Others were from the Land of
Snows, where the religion had taken strange
ways, she thought. The abbot was one such; his followers
called him
tulku,
or holy one, and
rimpoche,
a title Father Basil told her was reserved for a
few very holy men who were believed to be reincarnations
of earlier monks.
After that first visit to her quarters, he had taken
to summoning her and Father Basil to his own rooms,
presided over by a female icon with eyes on
palms, bare feet, and brow whom the monks called
the White Tara, Lady of Compassion. Alexandra
usually winced and
Susan
Shwartz
looked away. The monks also knew of the
Christ. The scriptures explaining the legend of
Shambhala called him Isha.
The abbot had explained the Kalachakra, or
Wheel of Time, to her, had decreed that she was somehow
borne upon it, but that he himself stood apart from it. She
still smarted from the way in which she had learned this.
Terrified after the manifestation of power which casually
obliterated a side of the mountain, she had begged
refuge in the monastery. "If I can do no good,"
she said, "at least I will do no evil."
But she had been refused. She should have expected it.
Vajrayana-the Path of Diamonds. From what she
could understand, it seemed to have as much relationship to other
forms of Buddhism as the Christianity of a desert
anchorite had with, say, that of a silk merchant.
Less, perhaps: for while the ascetic and the merchant
shared a certain orthodoxy (or, in the case of
heretics like Father Basil, a few common
assumptions) Buddhists appeared to be divided
by region and theology into many groups, with
Vajrayana, or the Diamond Path, being
considered the most demanding.
According to the abbot, all paths led to enlightenment. The
Hinayana was the humblest, a lesser way in which people
purified their minds, tried to kill their
desires, and concentrated on their own . . .
Alexandra supposed she had to use the term
salvation. Then there was the Mahayana, the Way that
took lifetime upon lifetime to achieve. A-nd
finally, there was the Diamond Path, which seemed
to turn everything Alexandra had ever believed about
religion on its head.
"It is like poisons," said the old tulku. "For
indeed lust, hatred, and delusion are poisons."
(she would have called them sins, but never mind that.)
"The follower of the Hinayana shuns all poisons.
The follower of the Mahayana path knows that small
doses of poisons may cure one of disease ... in
this case, illusions. But the Vajrayana adept
knows that the idea of poison itself is an illusion.
Lust, fear, anger, illusion . . . they are all
facets

of enlightenment. Such a person drains them and, in so
doing, transforms passions that would make an ordinary
person mad into a vehicle for enlightenment."
"It sounds perilous," had been Alexandra's comment,
in its use of passions-especially sex-it also sounded
like magic, in which a sorcerer might begin by studying
proscribed texts, meaning no harm, but being
drawn, step by step, into congress with demonic
forces. But it was the energy that passion evoked, not the
passion itself, that was important, she learned. Was that
how her aunt had fallen-mistaking passion for
philosophy? The tuiku had agreed. So much for
there being one true faith, then. As Father Basil was
fond of preaching, "The Way has no constant name,
nor the Sage a constant form." The Kalachakra
scriptures might mention Jesus, but they also
mentioned Mohammed and Mam, plus, of course, the
host of Bu.has and Bodhisattvas that flourished
in these mountains.
Each land seemed to have its own special deities,
all horrincally portrayed. Alexandra did not know
if she would ever learn them all, or if she even
wanted to.
She had seen enough of the wrong sort of power to feel her
hackles rise in the presence of any power. She
had sensed it on the mountainside, when her aunt's
priest began to chant. She had sensed it in the
chilling of the air when the thunderbolt blotted out the
monastery that had allied with him. And now she saw it
in the accounts of feats by adepts, who could stop their
hearts and restart them, wear wet robes into a
blinding snowstorm and dry them by the heat of their
own bodies, even fly. She had read of saints
who could do such things; she herself, following her
tutor's instructions, had slowed her heart long enough
for her to escape from the snowdrifts on the
mountainside.
The scholar in her-and the catlike curiosity of the
Greek-awoke and kept her at these new studies,
alarming as they were. At least, she told herself, the
languages would be useful in her travels. She
had seen how quickly these mountains could turn against
travelers; from what
Susan
Shworlz
she had heard of the desert that lay beyond Kashgar, it was
less treacherous because its menace was apparent even in
its name: Takla Makan ... a warning that those who
entered never came out. If bandits or a storm,
earthquake, or fever took Father Basil, she would
be lost unless she could live without an interpreter.
Though she balked at the meditations and visualizations
that the abbot suggested, gradually she reached a
compromise with her new studies that she hoped she could
live with. The Diamond Path bore not even the
faintest resemblance to the Orthodoxy in which she had
been raised. Strangely enough, that did not
bother her. Her aunt had turned to its magical
side, and she herself had almost been the victim of power
turned evil. Why should other faiths not have both bright
and dark, open and secret aspects?
If all faiths were the same-which she wasn't
prepared to admit, but would assume, shrinkingly, for the
sake of argument-then all faiths had another thing in
common: a hidden, or esoteric, side that could be
perverted. A Byzantine's amulet or icon
seemed the same as a Buddhist's statue or
prayer flag; a Buddhist monk's sanctity could
be as great as a dweller on Mount Athos-and the
magic which perverted Orthodoxy could damn one as
quickly as the Diamond Path.
It might be damnation, but it was certainly logical.
And the logic was so seductive she found herself being
drawn in. Clearly, the Vajrayana was
dangerous even to think about.
"That it is," agreed the tulku. "Err on the other
paths, and your Way is only prolonged. Err on
the Diamond Path, and it is like taking the shortest
way up a cliff. One false step, and you
topple into the pit. You need perfect understanding,
perfect self-command-and a guide."
Futile to protest that she had no place
upon this Way. If all magics of all faiths were
joined, as they appeared to be, then she was as likely
to be attacked by a follower of the Diamond Path
who had gone wrong as she was a black magician of
her own kind. It was even futile to

protest that the tulku had taught her up to this point;
he denied doing more than setting her feet on the
Way. Her teacher, he claimed, was no less than
the child she had seen on the ice-the legendary, and
as-yet-unborn, King of Shambhala, in whatever
incarnation he might be at the time, and wherever he might
be. What was worse, if she valued her sanity-
and salvation,
she thought-she would have to seek him.
"Could
you
not be my guide?" she pleaded. A desperate
hope ... to stay where she would be taught, where she could
do no mischief while she struggled with the power that had
been foisted upon her. Far better to stay with this man,
whom she trusted, than wander the Roof of the World like one
of the Magi run mad in search of some mystical child.
"I follow the Mahayana, daughter. If I
followed the lesser Way, I would not have
interfered; no, not if it meant your dying on the
mountain. Because I do indeed see which Way you must
walk, I will set your feet upon it. But you yourself must
make the journey."
Alexandra had argued further, but the abbot had been
as obdurate as ... well, adamant. Finally,
she remembered that victorious Byzantine generals
were awarded a belt studded with diamonds.
Coincidence? She was coming to doubt it. Strangely
enough, the thought settled her. She had fled from a
convent, forsaken what she had thought would be a life
wholly of the mind and the spirit for a life of adventure.
If she thought of this new life as a battle, in which
she served order, wherever she found it, against chaos,
wherever it erupted, she might be able to face it.
But now, risking a slow, torturous death by stealing the
silkworms of Ch'ang-an seemed an easier and more
comforting proposition. And how was she to do either? She had
lost her friends, her horses, and her funds.
She wished she could think of those losses as
illusions, but her grief was very real. Ffaraldr's
loyalty, his laugh, his awe at new places;
Bryennius' ready courage and wry humor; the
grace of those ruddy horses; these tore at her
Susan
Shujartz
until she wished she had the skill of a yogi
to transmute them into some sort of escape. Those
times she was not studying the texts she learned to call
sutras and the strange oblong scriptures that the
abbot lent her-she spent praying for her friends. She
no longer asked what god might hear those prayers.
For the third time that sunny afternoon, Father Basil and a
monk from Hind were correcting her translation of a
passage of an epic battle in which a god
appeared to a king, showed him the futility of a
battle, but ordered him to fare forward anyhow. "It
seems I have something in common with this Arjuna,"
Alexandra commented to Father Basil. "Trying to learn
this seems futile."
He smiled, and tapped the page. "Fare forward,
my princess-once again, from the beginning!" he
ordered. She half expected to feel a teacher's
corrective slap upon her hand.
She was making headway when long strides and heavy
footsteps announced one of the Varangians.
Slower, more decorous steps behind him indicated that he
came accompanied by one of the monks.
Though he wore local clothing and had agreed not
to carry his axe in the monastery, the
guardsman saluted with as much precision as if he
had just emerged from the military garrison in the old
Mangana fortress.
"Pilgrims, my princess!" he said.
Alexandra raised an eyebrow. When the snows andj
winds permitted, pilgrims always found their way
to theif monastery, some bringing sons to enter as
novices, j others seeking enlightenment or bearing
gifts. One such 5 group had brought the abbot the
robes of the priest j whose chanting had brought down the
mountain. The.] ground on which they were found was scorched
black, io caret the shape of a body, crumpled
by a long fall. No bone were ever discovered.
She recognized the monk who entered as the persona
disciple of the abbot. "The pilgrims have come to see the
tulku, have they not? How can
I
best serve him?" There

were legends of Rome and Byzantium in these parts:
As little like him as it seemed, perhaps the abbot wanted
to display the foreign princess to the pilgrims. She
laid down the book with some relief, and rose.
The monk was trying to keep the smile from his face,
to mask his features with the serenity that his master
habitually wore. But it escaped him; he
practically glowed with joy.
"What is it?" Alexandra caught him and, since
he was little taller than she, spun him around.
"Tell me, monk, tell me! Do these pilgrims
concern me?"
The young monk smiled. Not waiting for him,
Alexandra ran down the shadowy corridors she
knew well by now. The god figures in their
eternal, titanic dances on the walls seemed
to wonder at her speed; monks whom she encountered
pressed against the walls to avoid being knocked down.
Panting and almost reeling in the thin air-
was folly to run so fast and so long in these mountains
-Alexandra arrived in the monastery's walled yard.
The lesser gate was swinging open, and the caravan of
pilgrims winding in. Before her stood the abbot.
He too seemed to smile.
Illusion,
she thought,
or hallucination. I have run too fast, or my
readings have made me mad. This is impossible!
Several of the pilgrims wore the dress and
mannerisms of merchants-they were the same on the
Mese, or main road of Byzantium, as
they had been in Sogdiana, and as they would doubtless
be in Ch'ang-an. Others were villagers, bent from the
backbreaking labor these mountains exacted from people who
merely wished to survive. They glanced around,
awestruck, at the monastery, at the abbot in
splendid robes, at the images, and the banners.
But there seemed more fear than awe in their manner.
And the reason for their fear became apparent when the
final group of pilgrims crowded in before the huge
gates swung shut. A group of villagers and
merchants' grooms held . , . "My horses!"
Alexandra cried, and ran forward
Susan Shwartz
to take the bridle of the first one. Not all of them. That
would have been too much to expect. But enough, even if
they lost some on the arduous road to Ch'ang-an,
to make a good appearance.
Six villagers who looked as if they would rather be ,
anyplace but where they were followed the horses. They
were carrying a long, crude stretcher.
Alexandra steadied herself against the horse, its reins
falling from her hand. Her eyes flooded with tears, which
turned cold against her lashes. A sudden sweat
drenched her, then dried quickly in the cold, leaving her
trembling. "Illusion?" she whispered at the
tulku, who shook his head.
That length of arm and leg, the braids of hair and
golden beard-unmistakably, it was Haraldr. And
when she ran to him, and shook him by the shoulders,
calling his name, blue eyes opened to regard her.
He looked at her with a vague sort of attention-but
:
.
no recognition, no awareness at all.
"dis
Around her, the pilgrims were murmuring of a
fantas-j tic battle, of the courage of the fearsome
stranger with his horrible blue eyes, and the axe that had
to be the, attribute of a war god.
"What have you done, Haraldr?" Alexandra cried.;
"And how can 1 cure you?"
The guardsman's only answer was a low, terrifi
moan. Alexandra had never heard such fear from hmbled
He moved, but only to crouch in on himself.
Alexandra tried to pry his hands free, and felt
warmth on her own. Haraldr's hand bled
profusely; the blood had soaked through whatever
filthy cloth they had used to wrap it; She wondered
that he was not bled white by now.
Carefully, she unwrapped the hand. Though the
fle; of the wrist looked macerated-
chewed,
she though swallowing bile-no bones seemed broken,
and this less-than gnawed flesh looked clean. Yet
the bleeding would n stop. She bandaged Haraldr's
hand again, and turned call for help.

Suddenly his free hand grabbed her by the wrist and
pulled her until she sprawled across him.
"What's wrong?" she asked, her voice shrill with
fear and surprise.
"En freki renna,"
he moaned. "The wolf, the Fenris wolf, runs
forth. My hand ..."
No live wolf would terrify Haraldr, who had
brought wolfskins to Byzantium before joining the
Guard. And no wolf bite would stay untended this
long without festering.
Haraldr had to wake up. He had thrust her
into safety before the snow tore him away from her. He
was one of her last links with her home; she had never
realized how much Imperials relied on the
Varangians, not just for strength and courage, but for their
loyalty and humor. That the magic had reached out
to harm him pained her: It was wrong for the
blond giant to face anything that could not be mastered
by his great axe.
Bracing herself against his shoulder, she forced herself free
of his grip and turned toward the abbot.
"This is my guardsman. I think he must have fought a
demon," she told him. "Help us!"
Without appearing to hurry, the abbot knelt at
Haraldr's other side. "He's too strong, I
can't hold him," she gasped.
The abbot nodded and touched a point at the
Varangian's throat. Haraldr collapsed and
lay alarmingly still.
"Now," the abbot said, and a clangor of horns,
bells, and chanting started. The chant had recalled
Alexandra to life; she prayed earnestly it would do
the same for Haraldr. The old, intricately
wrought bells rang with a peculiarly shrill and
piercing sound that washed over the hearers in wave upon
wave, and never ceased. It seemed to separate
Alexandra from all the world except the man whose hand
she still clutched. She could see Father Basil's
lips moving, but could hear nothing but the eternal
clamor of the bells. The abbot held up a horn
for her to see. Instead she leaned over Haraldr,
trying to wake him, shake him back
into reason and courage.
An underpriest knelt at Haraldr's other side,
washing

his bitten wrist with warm water. There were no wolves
in what passed for lowlands here at the Roof of the World.
There were, however, snow leopards, but they were
notorious for avoiding human dwellings. And the
bite of any big cat would have rotted by now. She
ought to be praying that Haraldr would not lose his arm,
much less his life. But what good would either be if the
mind were gone?
"Tell me what happened!" she begged, though the
bells and horns,
ghanta
and
k'alin,
drowned out her words. Haraldr's eyes opened, the
blue that the people hereabouts found so uncanny, and he
started, glancing about wildly until her pressure
on his fingers made him look at her. He was
floating in illusion, Alexandra remembered her own
wanderings in spirit-and then his glance and his grasp pulled
her into the nightmare which held him trapped.
As the snow pried him away from the princess,
Haraldr bellowed his rage. At least he had
given her a chance to survive; the Shieldmaids would
know that and save him from Hela; he could cross
Bifrost, knowing he had been true to his oaths to the
rulers of Miklagard.
The snow bore him down the mountainside until he
seized a rock outcropping and swung himself into the
safety it offered. Snow and ice thundered over his
head, and he grasped his amulet.
The rumbling and the mad snowslide subsided. After a
time, it looked like he might live. When the snow
stopped trembling as more tumbled down, he dug himself
free, and looked uphill, his eyes wild. He
could not even see the place from which he had been
swept: clouds covered it, or perhaps that whiteness was
tumbled ice and snow.
"My princess," he whispered. "Alexandra!" His
voice rose to a scream, and he flung himself at the
slope until he threatened to pull more snow down upon
him. The footing was too treacherous; he could not
climb back up to save her, if still she clung to the
rock with those little
Susan
Shwartz
hands of hers. More likely, the snowslide
had buried her. He sank to his knees, dizzy.
She held his oath, and he had failed her. Best
to die right here, he thought.
Would that have been her way? If she held his oath,
her brother held hers; and she had sworn to travel
east as far as she could. Poor brave princess:
if she could go no farther, Haraldr could, as long as
breath was in him. He slapped his arms and legs
to bring warmth back to them, then cast about for a plan.
He had been taught by his grandfather how to walk out of
such slides. He would descend into the valley, find
a village where he could rest, then determine what
might be best for a masterless man to do. Scrubby
treetops showed above the snow; he could weave them
into shoes and walk the more easily.
The air grew easier to breathe as he descended.
He paused once to glance up at the mountain peak
where he had lost friends, and the princess he had sworn
to protect, and shook his fist at it. Though he
knew that the Imperial lady withstood hardships like a
woman of the North, she was still in his charge. Like all
the house of Miklagard, she was delicate, because she
lived too much inside her thoughts. That was why they had
Varangians to guard them. The Rhomaioi were
moody but not fools: They valued the
Northerners" courage as it deserved, favoring them
with special trading privileges, and honoring the
Guard with its own wing in the Imperial palace.
He would probably die here, he realized. But he
could not have allowed his princess to travel to the edge of the
world unguarded. Though rocks and snow shifted
treacherously underfoot, Haraldr reached the valley.
Tumbled where they had been flung, he found the
bodies of several men and and their horses, but not his
princess. He plundered the dead men's packs for
food and weapons.
Nearby lay a tumble of priest's robes. There was
no body in them, though the ground where such a body
might have lain seemed etched into the shape of a man, his
limbs twisted at impossible angles. The ground
scrub beneath that shape was withered. He stirred the robes

cautiously with a stick. From them tumbled a
medallion on a chain, insignia such as a priest
might wear, though it bore no likeness to anything he
had ever seen or wished to see. The image on it
grinned like Grendel itself, had daggers in each of its
many arms, and wore round things that looked like skulls.
He might have known. Princess Alexandra had known
Andronicus was no proper priest.
Certainly he had always made Haraldr's
hackles rise.
He touched the Thor's hammer that, for a wonder, still
lay about his neck. Now what? He was lordless now.
His duty had been to guard the princess and her cousin
on their way to Ch'ang-an, and to cover their retreat.
That need not change. Haraldr had no illusions about
his abilities. He could hire on as a caravan
guard and make the desert crossing. But he had not the
cunning and speed to trick Ch'ang-an out of its
silk. Still ... he glanced around the valley, hoping
to see smoke or flocks or fields-some sign of
people who might take him in.
Something rolled across his foot, and he stooped to pick
it up. A hunting horn, but curiously shaped, not
like the ones he used in the home he would never see
again. A circular design had been carved into it.
Grumbling at the pain bending down had caused him,
he tried to blow the horn until twinges warned him
that his tumble down the mountain had probably broken a
few ribs. He hung the soundless horn about his
neck and went on. He might not know what direction
to walk in, but his course was clear. "I will not flee
the space of a foot, but shall fare on farther," he
muttered in his matted beard. To Kashgar,
when he could. And thereafter, if his fate permitted,
across the Land of Fire into Ch'in.
A shrill cry brought Haraldr around, hand to his
dagger. Nearby huddled a child, who tugged at a
sheep that had gotten its foot caught between two
stones. If he were lucky, the child would understand the
mangled Sogdian he had learned from the grooms,
he thought and started toward him. Naturally, the child
fled, but Haraldr bent to free the sheep's foot.
Let the child see he
Susan ShLuarfz
meant no harm, he thought, and let the animal leap
free. The boy rose slowly from where he had flung
himself, his bright black eyes as wide as folded
lids would permit.
Moving slowly, not to terrify the boy further,
Haraldr held out his hands, tried out the word for
"friend," then thought of what else might attract him.
When he was a boy, the sight of blade or axe would
have drawn him like a lodestone; doubtless, this child would
run shrieking from them. There was his amulet, and he was
reaching for it when his hand fell on the cord of the horn
he had found.
Dangling it in front of the boy lured him closer.
Haraldr grinned at the little scrap; what
few children he had seen in these parts were all tiny,
pretty, though in a strange, amber-skinned,
slant-eyed way, and more solemn than the Emperor
on high feast days. This one was no exception. The child
took the horn and examined it, then looked up.
"Shambhala," he breathed.
Was that the name of their village? "Shambhala,"
Haraldr agreed, and took the offered grubby hand.
Even the foul-tasting tea of the mountain folk would be
welcome now, and perhaps they would have wine.
What they had wasn't much, he learned once he
approached a miserably small huddle of five
huts, with a sixth one crumbled in on itself, smoke still
rising from it. The remnants of the village were guarded
by flags, charms, and a priest who waved bones and
rattles in his face and who chanted like a Finnish
volva
when the fit was on him. The people looked hungry and
frightened. Only the boy's presence kept them from
fleeing. He bent down, so that they would be able to look
eye to eye (even though his blue eyes were regarded as
freakish in these parts). "Friend," he said in
Sogdian he knew was thickly accented, and
"Shambhala."
His two words bought him entry into a smoky
dwelling about the size of a barrow (and he touched his
amulet against the ill luck in that thought), where he was
served a bowl of tea with butter in it, and a few
chunks of

dried meat that he tried hard not to wolf down.
Halfway through the too-small meal, the local
priest entered.
Father Andronicus, whose outline had been etched on the
rock, had always made Haraldr feel as if he were
caught alone and tireless in a black forest full of
wolves. This man only made Haraldr feel
wary, though power crackled about him. He laid down
his empty bowl and waited.
The priest handed him the horn. "Friend?" he asked,
and Haraldr nodded. At the priest's gesture, he
bent himself double to get through the door, and followed him
to the ruined hut. The priest pointed at the charred
beams and toppled rock. Haraldr could see claw
and tooth marks. He almost laughed aloud. All his
life he had enjoyed the sagas. Now, within one day,
he had lost his ring-giver, and he was expected
to slay this village's pet
thyrse.
It was well that the sagas had taught him
irony too, he thought, and set himself to wait until
dark.
He drew out his axe and leaned on it, hoping to stay
awake. He had not slept for a full day. The air
in this valley was heavier than in the peaks, luring him
toward rest. Gradually the snapping of flags in the
wind, a few bells ringing, and gabbling voices
grew distant.
When he woke, the peaks at the horizon were barely
crimson, and clouds hid the moon. He tensed and
waited, trying to recall how, in the stories,
heroes slew monsters. In the story of Grettir
the strong, the undead Glamr had ridden the
rooftops, until Grettir wrestled him to death.
Something coughed. He almost jumped, then started to laugh
until he reminded himself that snow leopards
"prowled the hills.
Even snow leopards could have their heads chopped off
by his axe. He drew off his boots to move with more
stealth, picked up the axe, and rose. Rocks
crashed in on the burned-out hut, and something rooted
about in the rubble, then was still. Haraldr padded forward.
He heard bones crunch, and decided that his safest
course was to attack quickly. Clouds shifted, and the
bloodstained moon came out. Now he could
see clearly. He took a few
Susan Shwartz
steps forward, climbing up on the tumbled walls,
stalking the hunter in his turn-and then his prey turned
its head.
It was bigger than any leopard that ramped in the pens
at Miklagard, and its eyes glowed a hellish
green. As he raised his axe to close them forever, the
beast coughed. His axe dropped from his hand, and the beast
leaped for his throat. With a coughing growl, it pounced
down upon him. Haraldr yelled a prayer to Thor and
Christ in Majesty, and got his hands up around the
it's throat in time to protect his eyes.
The beast was quick and twisty, he thought, and took a
tighter grip on its fur. As he reached for the hold
that would enable him to snap its neck, fur became
scales, and steaming drops burned his face. He
bellowed his pain, and held what was now a serpent
away from him, glad the demon had chosen a guise
without hindclaws that could slash and disembowel. The thing
squirmed like Loki itself, but he would bind and kill
it! Though its jaws gaped wide, and the poison from
them burned and dazed him, he twisted the serpent's
neck farther, and felt the bones grind.
Scales became coarse fur again, and he
heard a yelp of anguish. Now he dared to open his
eyes, and immediately wished he had not. He was a
Varangian and the grandson of a jarl. He could fight,
he could hunt, he could read verse and make it. Because
of the verse he read, he feared the thing that he
grappled with in its new guise-r-a huge wolf,
froth dripping from its jaws, the light of malice and
reason in its eyes. Fenris, hound of Hel,
freed of its chain! His grasp faltered for an
instant, long enough for the beast to snap at his throat.
Its teeth closed instead on the horn he bore,
tearing through the cord and sending the horn down to join his
axe.
With one hand Haraldr drew his dagger, andwiththe other
tightened his hold on the great wolf's neck where the
fur had ruffled up so that he had no chance of breaking
its neck. Since there was nothing else to do, he
held fast, hoped that his mail and armlets would
protect

him just a little, and thrust hand and dagger into the it's.
Jaws clamped about leather and metal, He heard
himself screaming, mad from pain, while his dagger slashed
at the beast's vitals until the jaws released.
He fell back, the wolf on top of
him.
Haraldr rolled away from it, rising into a crouch,
ready to fight until he or his enemy were torn in
shreds, but the beast whined in agony. Haraldr staggered
forward to give it its deathblow. His hand and wrist were
covered with blood; dimly he wondered that he had not
left them in the wolf's mouth like a second
Heimdall. He bent and retched with pain. The beast
lay unmoving, but that could be a trick. He started
forward again. Its shape shifted again, from fur
to scales, to feathers, and back . . . and then faded
suddenly, leaving only a burn mark on the ground.
The wind of its passing was sudden and foul-breathed.
Haraldr heard a rattle, as of skulls bumping
together, and then the whistle that one might use to call a
hound.
He glanced up and saw the shadowy figure of an
immensely tall woman with a fierce glare. She
beckoned to him.
Hela?
he thought.
But I'm not dead!
Then the figure changed until it resembled the
capering she-monster Haraldr had seen on Father
Andronicus" medallion. He fell to the
ground, terrified more by the creature's passing than
he had been by its presence. It was the Fenris
wolf. It had broken free. And though he had
beaten it off, it would return, heralding the endless
twilight and the last battle. And Hela had seen
him, marked him for her own. Monster-slayer though he
was, he cowered in dread and horror.
Then there was nightmare for a long, long time . . .
Something or someone was slapping him, cursing him in
bad Norse and the language of the practice yards.
Another demon, perhaps, this one in human form? He
reached up and caught the wrist of the person slapping
him, twisted it, and heard loud protests. In
Greek. Would the demons of the hills know Greek?
He didn't
disif right-brace ,"
@lcaret * -

Susan Shwartz
think so. He opened his eyes and saw, twisting in his
grasp, the princess whom he thought he had lost in
the snowslide. His princess. He grinned
helplessly at her. Beside her stood the little Persian
priest who advised her, several other men wearing
shabby robes, and two people he recognized
as villagers. They stared at him as he might have
looked at the Thunderer himself.
"Let me go, you great bear," Her Highness commanded
again, and he complied. He fell back onto the
pallet, dizzy after even so little time awake.
"Whatever demon was sent to kill us, you slew it.
Rest now. It almost bled you white."
"My axe," he mumbled. His chapped lips hurt
from grinning.
"We have it safe." She turned to the priest.
"Wouldn't j you know that he'd ask for it first."
Tears rolled down her face, and she brushed them
away fiercely, then wiped his face with her sleeve
too. He barely stopped himself from catching her hand
when it "j brushed his mouth. He could not meet her
eyes any-be more. She had been with him, traveled
into nightmare with him, and had not feared his pain.
"The horn . . . horn of Shambhala . . ."
"We have that too," Princess Alexandra told
him. "And when you're rested, you can tell us what you
know of Shambhala."
The Imperial family was wise, that went without
saying, though all Miklagard was supposed to say
so. And the princess was truly wise. Thus, it did
not really surprise Haraldr that
Alexandra or this thin little abbot knew of
Shambhala. It seemed natural that if the same
seithr
comevil magic-afflicted all of them, whatever might
be good would affect them all too. If Hela could be
a she-demon in these mountains, then why could
Valhalla not be named Shambhala?
He remembered the day he had had that revelation.
He had waked from a doze-since the princess had
brought him out of his nightmares, he seemed to spend his
time either eating or sleeping-to hear her protest,
"But I'm
Christian!
Why do I need this Rudra Cakrin? And I'm not
going through these sacraments with bell, crown, sword,
scepter, and all the rest of that baggage ... I
can't even pronounce most of it."
"The initiations of Vajrayogini, goddess of the
Diamond Path," said the abbot. His tone
indicated that he had said it over and over. "I understand
that you are unwilling to set foot on the Way. But it
has claimed you. From Shambhala itself, your teacher
has reached out to mark you for himself, and will, in his own time,
initiate you. Otherwise you have no defense against the
darker powers your aunt unleashed against you and
your City. Though no flowers grow in these mountains,
I can at least give you one of the objects you will
require."
He had said other things that Haraldr only understood
dimly: that this Way he insisted the princess must
follow did not mean the abolition of all passions,
but mastery over them. Rage, she had experienced, and
terror as the snow buried her. (that much Haraldr
understood.) But when the abbot said that she would have
to endure all such emotions before she could use their
strength . . . The princess shook her head,
rejecting the priest's words.
With the air of a roan laying aside an argument in
order to take it up more profitably later on, he
beckoned forward one of the younger priests, who knelt,
sword and sheath laid across his upraised palms.
Though the sword was sharp, both it and its sheath looked
very old. The abbot clicked a long fingernail against
the blade, and it rang keenly, piercingly in that thin
air. Haraldr snapped into battle alertness.
Old swords were things of power. 'This is a
treasure of this house. Would you truly refuse it?"
The princess laughed. "You have me trapped, don't
you? Seeing as how you saved my life, I can
refuse you nothing. And besides that, my own
weapon lies buried in
Susan Shwartz
the snow." She accepted the blade, half saluted
the abbot with it, then sheathed it, and sat studying the
patterns on the scabbard.
To Haraldr's astonishment, the abbot turned to him.
Father Basil moved to his side, ready
to interpret. "You," the priest said. "This is yours."
He held out the horn of Shambhala, strung on
a fresh cord. Only a few scratches showed where
the demon's teeth had closed upon it.
The abbot's thin, dark fingers, hardly more than bones
themselves, traced out the pattern on the horn. "A
city between two rings of snow mountains . . .
Shambhala, where the king and his warriors wait for the
world's need . . ."
Haraldr jerked upright. "My people too have that tale,"
he said hoarsely. "I blew the horn, and no one
answered." No one answered because the need was not great
enough, he realized the instant after he spoke, and
flushed with shame. In that moment, he felt himself the
barbarian that some Greeks were unwise enough to call him
to his face.
The abbot nodded. "If you have need . . ."
Silently the Varangian vowed never
to become that needy. Against all hope, he had slain
a demon. He had found help. He would have the use
of both hands. He had been reunited with the
Imperial princess he was sworn to serve. The
abbot would help them outfit themselves and reach Kashgar.
It was more than enough.
Bryennius choked on snow, spat out a mouthful of
reddish water and ice, and flailed about until he
had made a small cave in which he could rest, at
least for the moment. That was good: Both arms worked.
Groaning, he tested his legs and thanked God and
His gentle Mother that they were not broken. Once, during
a game of polo, he had fallen from his horse and
been dragged halfway around the Imperial grounds
before he could cut himself free of his stirrup. That time,
he had felt as if an executioner had taken a
hammer to each bone and sinew, yet it was nothing to the
aches he felt now.
So cold ... his thoughts were muzzy, the way they were
after he had drunk too much. A priest had been
chanting, that much he recalled. They had been lost,
Alexandra had been even more upset than usual-and,
as usual, she was right. Bryennius remembered now.
The altitude and the chant made the horses uneasy


il
Susan
Shwartz
terrified Alexandra's companion, Thea. Bry"
had divided his time between them until... his head
rolled back and forth in the snow. Oh, God, the
chant had sunk into his body, and then he had heard
the rumbling of half a mountainside's snow pouring
down upon them . . .
"Alexandra!" he called, though it came out a
whimper. "Thea?" No, there was no Thea, not
anymore. Practically his last sight before snow had
blinded him was of his cousin's waiting-woman
cartwheeling through the air, down into the clouds. Leo,
his friend, the Varangians, that mad priest Alexandra
prized so-they must all be dead. And Alexandra
herself. He lived, though how much longer he could live
without fire or supplies was not certain. Still, he
had to look for her. He muttered a brief prayer,
for whatever good it might do anyone, then flailed about
upslope. He could feel strength draining out of him
into the thin, cold air. Then the sky whirled before his
eyes, and darkness closed in. He was falling
backward, and his last thought was that this time he
would never wake.
When awareness returned, it brought sanity with it. It
was twilight. Instead of lashing out until he
exhausted himself, he looked at the place where he
had fallen, then moved arms and legs to make sure
that he could. His hand touched something warm. He crawled
toward the warmth and found the body of one of the pack
animals. He raided its saddlebags for food and
wine, and huddled against it, panting. Gradually the
pounding of his heart and the keening in his temples
subsided. He could hear a low moan, and the
snorting, grunting sounds that a fallen horse might
make.
He was afraid to shout, lest it bring down more snow,
but anything was better than dying alone and frozen.
"Who's there?"
"Here . . . I'm failing . . ." The voice
trailed up into a terrified scream, and Bryennius
tensed, waiting for the snowslide.
When nothing happened, he crawled in the direction

of the voice. Now he could hear muffled sobs,
"Oh, God, buried alive."
"Leo?" he called. "Is that you?"
"Prince! Bry'-you're alive!"
Bryennius forced his aching limbs to dig through the last
few feet of snow. His hand struck an arm splaying
out from hunched shoulders. He grabbed it, heaved the
man to the surface, turned him over, and sank
back onto his knees, panting.
Leo. It was this or back to his regiment in
Alexandria, and he came with me because we were friends.
Did I bring him all this way to die!
His friend's helmet lay several feet away,
badly dented, beside a feebly struggling horse.
Beyond it, another horse was struggling, first to its
knees, then all the way onto unsteady legs.
One of the horses, God help them all, onto which
they had loaded the packs containing Greek fire.
Bryennius tried to whistle at it. It nickered at
him, and stood with its head down.
"Leo?" Gently, Bryennius brushed ice and
grit from his friend's eyebrows. Leo's eyes opened,
then drifted shut again.
"Don't leave me!" Panic threatened to overwhelm
him as it had when he waked and supposed himself alone,
and dying on the mountain. If Leo could walk, they
had horses, supplies ... by the Blessed
Theotokos, they had hope! "Wake up, brother!"
He slapped Leo's face, until the
young officer's hand came up to clasp his.
"Think . . . you're not my general ... he wouldn't
hit . . ." Leo turned over and tried to vomit.
"Here. Try some of this wine," Bryennius urged
him. Finally, he got him settled, his back
propped up against one of the dead horses' packs, a
blanket wrapped warmly about him. He staggered
over to lead those horses able to walk over to where Leo
lay, and picket them roundabout for warmth. One lay
with a snapped foreleg, too exhausted to scream or
to thrash, and he cut its throat with his dagger. He
thought that the blood that splashed his hands was the warmest
thing he had ever imagined. If worse came to worst
. . . Father Basil had told him of
Susan Shujarfz
barbarians who drank blood. Or, he
supposed, they could use the Greek fire to burn the
dead horses and warm themselves at the pyre, if they
weren't consumed too. Bryennius felt his gorge
rising, and turned away quickly.
He made a rough camp, and was glad to sink into the
blankets and furs, gladder yet to wolf down the
sparse provisions he had gathered. It was getting very
dark.
Moonlight glinted on the snow. He could
see his friend's face: scraped raw in some places,
very dirty, his sandy hair matted. He supposed that
he himself looked like a brigand in the leather and
sheepskins of the hillmen. Now he wished that he had
let his beard grow as most Byzantines did. It
would have been warmer.
"Bry', did you find-was Leo turned and spat out
a fragment of tooth with an oath of disgust and
frustration.
"Any of the others? No, When it's light, we
probably should dig around here in case anyone else
... the least we can do is give him proper
burial."
Or her. Alexandra. Of all the rabble of spare
princes and princesses in the palace, she-three
years or several centuries older, depending on
how you looked at it-had been the one closest to him.
He felt his throat squeeze shut against a sob.
She had always provided the schemes, he the manpower
to execute them (and frequently the backside that was
punished whenever they were found out), when they were children. As
they grew older, her wit had extricated him from
numerous traps set by women, politicians, or
both wrapped into one silk-clad package.
Poor little princess. If he was a spare
prince, for whom no politically safe place
existed in Byzantium, his life had been
enjoyable. Polo, the games in the Hippodrome,
beautiful and willing women-it was only when he
spoke with Alexandra, sitting in her rooms among
a clutter of codices and scattered paper, that he
realized that his life was blurring past in wasted
motion.
At least he was alive. Alexandra ... he
couldn't imag-

ine that quick mind and quicker tongue stilled beneath the snow.
But what would have become of her if she had stayed in
Byzantium? There had been no place in the
Empire for her either.
Leo laid a hand on his shoulder. "You and Her
Highness were close," he rasped. "I'm sorry."
"So am I," Bryennius told him, welcoming
comfort. "But it might have been worse. Now, do you
want to try to sleep? Tomorrow we'll have to strip
supplies from the dead horses before we try to find
our way back."
"Back to what?" Leo echoed his own question.
Think, Bryennius,
he ordered himself.
Think backslash
It was hard. He had been denied the discipline of a
professional soldier, and Alexandra had always
supplied the logic. What would she do? "I say
we head back down the slope and try to retrace
our path. This is a trade road. We may
encounter another caravan bound for Kashgar-was
Or they might meet bandits. In either case, they
had the horses, and they had their swords. It was
better than dying on the mountainside. He said as
much to Leo, and waited for the other man-who had been a
soldier-to supply a better plan. To his
surprise, Leo only nodded assent.
Bryennius had time for mild astonishment, another
yawn, and then he was asleep. Sleep was shallow in
these heights, and dream-filled, especially when one
was tired, battered, and hungry. Bryennius found
himself dreaming of Byzantium. Once again the crowd
in the Hippodrome where he had often raced was
screaming. This time the shouts were for Alexandra. All
Byzantium acclaimed her as Basilissa. Her
brother waved him forward too, and the crowd cheered him
as a hero. But Alexandra's face was white, and her
fear struck terror into him too, terror which fed on
itself until he jerked himself upright, his cry
echoing from the icy rocks.
"You were the one who wanted to sleep," Leo told
him. "Really bad dreams this time?"
"She knew." Bryennius leaned forward and let his
hands dangle between his knees. What he could see of
f8*ful

Susan Shtuarfz
the sky despite heavy clouds paled toward dawn.
"She knew when they acclaimed her that she was ... we
were ... in danger."
"Too much power. Didn't you realize?" asked
Leo. "She was popular enough that even the lady
Theodora couldn't sneak out of hiding to plot against
her-and that made her a focus for anyone who wanted
to overthrow her brother."
"Trust Alexandra to see it." Bryennius shook
his head. Alexandra had understood so much, and now she
was dead. Another thing she had seen was the shortage of
silk, not just the first-quality silk and purples
reserved for the Imperial palace, but all silk,
and the goods it purchased from the merchants whose carefully
regulated numbers crowded Byzantium. "She
showed me the empty workshops, the women with idle
hands," he murmured. "I wouldn't have thought
to link it to a blight on the mulberry trees . . .
but when we had them dig, we found those same
devil-cult talismans buried in the orchards.
No wonder all our silkworms died."
"So you came with her-and I with you," mused Leo.
Bryennius looked up. From here, he thought he could
see the two monasteries toward which they had climbed
only a night ago. Then the clouds obscured them
again.
By God, Bryennius, you "re not safe either!
Alexandra had raged.
Just you watch. Soon there will be rumors of a
marriage between us, and you know that's often the first step to the
throne for an ambitious man.
But I
told
the Basileus!
he had protested.
And I don't. want to rule.
Both of them tactfully did not mention their horror
at the idea of marrying one another.
"I wasn't afraid," Bryennius said, with a
sort of dulled wonder. "But none of our
ambassadors-or our spies comcd get more
silkworms. And when Alexandra decided
to try it herself, well, for once in my life, I
wanted to do something useful." He laughed a little
hollowly. "Besides, this might be the only chance I
would have to travel."

He fell silent, not wanting to share what had
truly decided him: the compassion in his cousin's
eyes as she called him a fool. As a spare
prince, he had never been permitted achievements of
his own.
Don't think I'm being noble,
she had said. still
need a man I can trust along, one of my own
blood. . . a prince who can go places where a
princess may not. You . . . please?
He had never been able to refuse her, and so he had
come. There had been plenty of adventures. If this
were the last adventure of all, well, he had had a
fine time.
Lightning crackled through the dense clouds. The
horses screamed with terror, while Bryennius and
Leo leaped to their heads to comfort them. For what seemed
like hours, men and horses clung to one another while
the mountain trembled and fire danced overhead. When the
sky cleared, both men looked up. The
crags where the dark monastery had stood, where
sorcerers had chanted and brought down the snows, had
been sheared away; the naked rock looked slick and
blackened as if by terribie heat.
Bryennius shrugged. "No one could have survived
that," he said. So much for any hope that Alexandra
might possibly have survived the snowslide. Then
he helped load the animals-fine horses and
pack beasts alike-with the supplies they plundered from the
dead. Leo tied two sticks into a rough cross, which
he planted in the snow.
Carefully, they loaded the surviving horses and
helped them turn.
"We head for Kashgar." Leo looked
to Bryennius for confirmation.
He nodded.
"Then 1 suppose we head back to Byzantium
by way of Samarkand? You were lucky to get out of there
with a whole skin."
"We're not going home," Bryennius said. "Not
now, maybe not ever."
Leo stopped so suddenly that Bryennius almost
Susan
Shwartz
bumped into him on the narrow path, "Where are
we headed?" he demanded.
"We finish what Alexandra started, or at least
try to."
Brave words, he told himself wryly. Well,
what else did
he have now? Without looking back at the deadly peak,
the tumbled snow, and the pathetic, rickety cross,
they
headed down the twisting, narrow path to Kashgar.
Four days later, a peculiarly shaped rock
spur convinced Bryennius and Leo that they had finally
retraced the road to the point where the traitorous
guide had led them astray. They traveled
downward, always downward now. Though what passed for a
road in these hills was never easy, it grew
steadily less perilous. But it was still no road that
starving men and beasts could take safely. That morning,
he and Leo had given the last of their grain to the
pack animals. They had food for perhaps two days
more. Kashgar lay at least five days beyond that.
Leo, who had scouted ahead, appeared around a
bend. He shouted and waved excitedly at
Bryennius, who hurried to catch up. Here, where the
pass had opened up into what was practically a
plain, two pathways joined. He
pointed, and Bryennius could see hoofprints. The
marks were old, but of sufficient number that
Bryennius felt new hope.
Susan Shwanz
"Thank God," he muttered.
"This trail is old," Leo warned. "Just look
at the dung. Besides, even if we could catch up,
they might well think we are bandits. And we
haven't the strength to fight them off."
"Now what?" asked Bryennius.
"I put my ear to the ground. Someone is coming. And
then I remembered you used to like to gamble for high
stakes," Leo commented. Then, to Bryennius"
astonishment, he began to unsaddle the horses. It
was far too early to make camp, Bryennius started
to protest. Then he realized. They could not catch up
to the travelers whose tracks they studied, not as worn
as they were. They could not make it to Kashgar on the
supplies they had. With good fortune, the caravan
Leo claimed he heard might actually show up before
starvation forced them to move on again.
Bryennius laughed mirthlessly. "Not for stakes this
high, brother," he said, and helped make camp.
At least Leo's gamble would give them and the horses
a badly needed rest.
Leo had begun to apologize for wasting the time when
one of the high-bred Ferghana horses nickered.
Both men fell silent, listening. The horse
nickered again, and Bryennius went to its head,
stroking its aristocratic nose until it was calm.
Leo loosened knife and sword in their sheaths and
crept into the rocks bordering the trail.
Bryennius fumbled in a saddlebag for additional
weapons. His hand fell on the slick hardness of
ceramic, and he pulled out a heavily sealed jar
containing Greek fire. He was appalled at the
path his thoughts had taken: would he really use the
fire and turn bandit? He hoped he wouldn't have
to find out. At least Greek fire wasn't
magic, he thought. He had had a bellyful of
rnagic. Please God his exposure to it had died
with Alexandra. He had never seen her afraid before
it touched her.
A clatter of stones brought him around, sword out.
"You've gotten more alert," Leo approved. "A
train of

men and animals is approaching. Somehow we'll have
to stop them without scaring them enough that they'll fight."
"Persian or Muslim?" Bryennius
asked.
"Neither," Leo said.
Bryennius was simultaneously puzzled and
relieved. The Sogdians were by far the most numerous
travelers hereabouts, closely followed by the
Muslims with whom they had intermarried. While the
Sogdians dealt with anyone who met their price,
the Muslims could be dangerous, as Bryennius had
found out in Samarkand. It wasn't as if he had
meant to seduce the lady Rabia, sister to some of the
Abbasid trader-nobles. He had glimpsed her
once-purely by chance-voiced his admiration, and
damned near been knifed in the market.
"What are they, then?" he asked.
"I don't know," Leo admitted. "Not
pilgrims; they looked heavily armed. Some sort
of barbarians. But they look strange for these parts.
They're taller than the average Persian and, under
all that dirt, they're light-skinned, almost as light
as the Varangians. Where do you think they come from?"
"Does it matter as long as they let us travel with
them?"
"It might," Leo said. "In any case, do we
wait for them now?"
They settled themselves along the road where they
could see the caravan coming, but where arrows could not reach
them. The morning passed. Bryennius shook himself out
of an uneasy nap, and laid a hand on Leo's
shoulder.
"Shouldn't they be here by now?" he asked.
Leo groaned, stretched, and headed for a rock
spur. He climbed rapidly, then shouted down
to Bryennius, "They've cut across the plain about
half a mile back. They're going to pass us
by!"
Bryennius swore in several languages. "We
have to make them see us!" he yelled back. He
grabbed up a saddlebag, reassured himself that the
horses were firmly
Susan Shwartz
picketed, and began to climb, wincing each time his
shoulder even came close to brushing the rock.
"There!" Leo pointed. Bryennius fought against the
panting that threatened to turn into hacking coughs. He
cupped his hands over his eyes, thankful for the clear
air at these heights that made nothing out of distances.
These barbarians were indeed as tall and blond as
Leo had reported. They were wrapped in black
goatskins, were heavily armed, and looked formidable.
Doubtless, if he and Leo expended their
horses' strength to ride toward them, they would
attack.
Bryennius reached into his pack and pulled out a
sling and one of the vials holding the Greek fire.
Before Leo could stop him, he whirled the sling over his
head. The vial smashed against rock and scrub,
creating a most satisfactory explosion that would
burn fiercely until the last scrap of wood or
plant life was consumed.
"That ought to give us time to reach them," he said with
satisfaction. "And give them something to think about.
Down!"
They scrambled down the rocks and back to their
horses.
"Prince," Leo said formally, "do you want me to go
first?"
"Remind me," Bryennius said, "when we get
to Kash-gar that I'm going to knock you down for saying
that. We ride together!" Leo's question hurt. He had
lost Alexandra, closer than a sister. Leo was his
closest friend, his only companioHave now. He
didn't need a courtier; he needed the brother and
friend his rank had always denied him.
Leo laid a hand on his shoulder. "Remind me,"
he told Bryennius apologetically,
"to let you try."
By the time they reached the fire, the barbarians had
made a half-circle about it, standing between it and the
bundled-up figures who huddled by the few straggly
packhorses and an amazing number of goats,
tended by the women and children. Though they seemed to move
about freely, Bryennius reminded himself not to stare
at

them. A man older and taller than the rest and
wearing, if possible, more noisome goatskins, came
forward bearing what looked like a blackened piece of
wood, hacked roughly into the form of a man, a flat
plate of silver gleaming where the face ought to be.
Two younger men carried a more elaborate statue of
two men, hands on one another's shoulders, legs
overlapping. Some attempt had been made, though
probably with the blade of a spear or blunt
knife, to carve features on the two faces, which
looked like younger men. The three men's progress with
their-icons? idols?-looked too ceremonial to be
anything but a religious rite. And when they started
to chant, both Byzantines tensed. They had known
chants kill before. But it might be equally deadly
to interrupt this one. Bryennius strained
to listen to the chief, priest, or whatever he was.
"Can you make sense of anything of that?" he hissed
at Leo.
"The only thing I can make out is "Imra."
Their chief devil, I imagine," Leo said. Then
he too stiffened. "Wait! That's Greek!"
Bryennius nodded. "You're close," he said.
"I think some of those words are Macedonian." He
had gained something from all those years of listening while
Alexandra talked. When Alexander's armies had
traveled through Persia and into Hind, some men had
deserted, while others, who married local women,
decided to remain behind. Legend had it that their
descendants still lived in hidden valleys, waiting
for Iskandar, as they called him, to return. In an
undertone, he passed the story on to Leo. "They're
far out of their range," he added. "Maybe they're
going to Kashgar to trade." It was better to hope for
that than to assume automatically that they were brigands.
"We're Greek," Leo said. "But Alexander's
been dead over a thousand years. That's a long time
to wait."
"It's a long time, too, to preserve the
language," Bryennius told him. "Besides, what
other chance have we got?"
Susan Shwartz
"What chance, indeed?" Leo said, and kneed his
horse forward. "They've sighted us," he muttered.
"Try to look royal"
"For that, I'll knock you down twice when we get
to Kashgar!" Bryennius hissed, then let his eyes
go remote, his face become still and severe.
Six of the men mounted and rode toward them.
Bryennius heard a snick and shook his head at
Leo. "We ride in unarmed," he said in an
undertone. "We are not afraid of them."
"Like I said, you gamble for high stakes," his friend
muttered. "Here they come, and they've got their priest
with them."
The barbarians rode straight up to Bryennius and
Leo, and then dismounted. If they were going to attack,
Bryennius thought, they wouldn't have given up the
advantage of their horses. After an eternity, the
priest walked up to them, stared, and finally prostrated
himself, muttering incantations and greetings in everything from
Persian to a hideously corrupt Greek.
Leo tugged at Bryennius' shoulder. "What are
they saying? And why are they bowing to us?"
Bryennius nodded almost ceremonially to the priest and the
men who ringed about them, awe on grimy
faces that resembled the northern Greeks he had
seen.
"It's not Alexander. At least, they haven't made
that connection yet. As you heard, they have a god named
"Imra." Apparently, he has twin sons,
or associates, called Ka caret sir and
Bekassir. Think of them as resembling Castor and
Pollux. Now they think . . ."
"They think we're these twins?" Leo cut in.
"Precisely," Bryennius said. "And that means
we are in desperate trouble."
"Why?" Leo asked. If they were gods to these people,
then they would be delighted to feed them and protect them
all the way to Kashgar. Blasphemous as the idea
was, it had a lot to recommend it.
"Why? Just look at us. Bryennius and Leo
Epiphanes. Don't you think we're feeble
substitutes for gods-made-

manifest, trailing in hungry, bruised, and
bleeding? Let's say they swallow that. What
happens the first time they want their resident gods
to perform a miracle or two? God, I wish
Alexandra were here to talk us out of this situation."
"Iskandar?" The priest raised his head,
daring to interrupt the two.
Alexandra's name had won their attention. They knew
that name. Bryennius began to stitch together some sort of
explanation, then shut his mouth on it as the tribesmen
bowed to the earth, as if to a Great King. Then two men
took their bridles to escort them ceremoniously
back to camp. Now he and Leo couldn't escape
even if they wished to. Surreptitiously,
Bryennius crossed himself.
Bryennius and Leo huddled shoulder to shoulder,
wedged in between a number of the tribesmen. As
Bryennius suspected, these people were far out of their own
lands, which lay far to the south, separated from Kashgar
by the Pamirs. Restlessness, akin to the fabled "longing"
of Alexander, had driven them north, Gumara the
chief told Bryennius; after hours of debate, the
chief had accepted Byrennius as a member of
Alexander's royal house. Equally important
had been the words of the priest who spoke for Imra.
as portrayed by the crudely carved black figure
Bryennius had seen worshiping: Imra had commanded
them to seek the Twins, his sons, with whom these people's
fortunes lay.
At least,
Bryennius thought with some satisfaction, still
made them realize that Leo and I are not their gods.
But the instant they had shucked the cloak of divinity,
they had been forced to assume a sort of
overchieftainship, the governance of a people whose laws, as
far as Bryennius could see, resembled complete
anarchy. He had said as much and been told that when he
returned home with them, he could teach them the Greek
laws they had forgotten during the long centuries that
they " been deprived of their rightful king.
Susan
Shwanz
Since they obviously knew little better,
Bryennius couldn't quite call them savages. They
had courage, honor, even art of a kind.
Certainly, their silver, though harshly wrought, had a
massive, sculptural beauty, and their weapons,
crafted of the Indian steel they called
wootz,
were so sharp that he and Leo had accepted new blades
with genuine gratitude.
But the rest of it ...
barbarians,
Bryennius thought for the thousandth time. Their relationship
with the Persian and Muslim traders, for example.
It was half commerce, and half warfare. The
merchant princes called them Simposh, the
black-clad ones, and Kafirs, or
unbelievers, and despised them. In return, the
Southerners regarded the merchants as legitimate
prey. Even the people of Ch'in knew of them and called
them the Moonfolk, doubtless because of their pale skin.
Only the empire of which they claimed to be a tiny
part had forgotten them.
Within the markets, trading for horses, garments, and
weapons went on, though both parties kept hands
to daggers as well as clapped to purses. Outside
the cities, it was war. As the "descendant" of their
King Alexander, Bryennius could not refuse
to accompany the chief and what seemed like at least ten
of his sons on a raiding party. For now, he thought,
he would cooperate. Later he intended to teach them the
difference between war and robbery. He brought himself up
short. Was he really thinking of remaining with these men as
their king? Temptation caught at his heart: he could
make a place here for himself, build something that might
last beyond his lifetime. Something that might one day reach
out to Byzantium and tell his City that he was more than
just a pleasure-loving fool!
He stared into the distance. Though the mountains were many
days" journey from here, the clear air
made them seem but an hour's leisurely ride
away. Below them, winding toward Kashgar, was the dust
serpent that marked a caravan, not one of the huge ones
that were practically armies or tribal migrations,
nor one of

the desperately poor, small ones, but one, as the
warriors told Bryennius happily, the right
size for raiding and riches. It was small enough that they
could take it without being annihilated by archers; large
enough to give them an enjoyable battle and fine
booty-horses, jewels, spices, and more wootz.
Perhaps one day, Gumara hoped, they would take a
smith who was willing to teach them to forge the wootz as
well as they forged silver. So far, all such
captives had proved stubborn and silent, and had
all died very bravely.
His companions might regard this caravan as a
stroke of luck, Bryennius thought, wishing for the
thousandth time that he was almost anywhere else. Those
Muslim merchants were all related to one another.
He needed their goodwill once he reached Kashgar in
order to find supplies and another caravan
to accompany across the desert to Ch'ang-an. Leo,
more experienced than he in warfare, pointed
to the small number of hired guards, each with his
pointed helm and iron and leather armor, the smaller
number of men who bore the deadly curved bows of
archers in this land, and remarked that the tribe had a good
chance of stealing the horses and swords it wanted.
"At any rate, these sheepskins"-he fingered the
coat he wore and grimaced com8w probably make
it impossible for survivors to identify us. If
there are any survivors," he said in a voice that
meant that he doubted it. Then he lapsed into silence,
waiting, like a veteran, for the signal to attack.
Bryennius, beside him, fought an urge to squirm with
nervousness. He had always been nervous before a polo
match, too.
"Ahhh," muttered the warrior next to him. Below
them, the caravan swayed along, sending up a spoor
of dust like an immensely long brownish serpent.
Now they could hear the jingling of harness, the calls of
horsemen and grooms, the complaints of beasts.
"A rich harvest indeed," hissed the chief and
nudged Bryennius in the ribs. "We take,
eh?"
Susan
Shwartz
Bryennius set his jaw and hoped that would
pass for a nod of agreement.
As if waiting for Bryennius' consent, the chief
mounted and screamed for a charge. They rode toward the
caravan as fast as they could, hoping to close with it before
any archers could draw and shoot. Before Bryennius
could rein in, his horse had followed, and Leo
followed him. Byrennius had his sword out to defend
himself. A man thrust at him with a spear, and he cut
through the wood, astonished and appalled when the blade
sheared away half the man's arm and shoulder on the
follow-through. All around him, he could hear the
bellows of frightened beasts and the screams of men and
women. Many of the men from the caravan wore armor of
leather and iron scales. One rode against him on his
unarmed side, trying to knock him off his horse.
Bryennius shoved his shoulder into the man's chest, and
he toppled, to be dragged by his stirrup until a
casual spear thrust finished him off. Bryennius
fought his way clear, then turned to view the battle.
Several of the merchants' silk banners were tattered;
even as he watched, another fell half on the
ground, half on a fallen horse. Bryennius
looked about for Leo. Disdaining his new wootz
blade for his cavalry sword, Leo seemed
to give a good account of himself until . . .
"Watch out!" Bryennius screamed as a man with a
long spear seemed to materialize on top of a
cart. Bryennius kicked his mount's sides and
galloped for the man, but even as he liurled himself from
his horse onto the cart, the spear flew and impaled
Leo in the center of his chest.
Blood and a ghastly shriek bubbled from Leo's
mouth, and he toppled from his horse. "Brother!"
screamed Bryennius, and flung himself onto the man
who had killed Leo. Slitting his throat was the
matter of a moment, and then he could leap down and drag
Leo's body free of the dust and the frightened horses
that had already trampled it once. Tears ran in
clean channels : down his dusty face, and he
dragged Leo from the field.

Leaving him in the lee of an overturned cart where his
body would be safe, Bryennius looked for a
horse. A man in the garb of a merchant was riding the
nearest one. It seemed ridiculously easy
to grab for his stirrup, pull the man down, kill
him, then take his horse and go looking for more enemies
to kill.
The sword seemed too slow and too clean a
method of death. If he could have killed
all the guards in the caravan with a word, he would have
uttered it. He feared magic, but only the kind of
power that had swept away half a mountainside could
sate his desire for revenge. It raved in him like
Greek fire. He cut down a spearman, then
looked for another, and then the next- In the end, the
Kafirs had to leap on him and physically restrain
him. Except for a few prisoners, there was nothing
else to kill. They led him to the rough camp they had
made, patting his shoulder and murmuring approvingly.
Bryennius remembered that Alexander, too, had
been subject to fits of rage.
He sighed deeply, and shook himself. The stink of
blood and excrement and sweat hovered at the edges of
his consciousness, but he postponed his sickness and
walked to the wagon which sheltered Leo. Someone had
pulled the spear from his chest; Bryennius reminded
himself to find out who had done it and thank the man.
He spat dust and bile, then knelt and tried
to wipe his friend's face clean of the muck and agonized
surprise that marred it. He held his hands over the
eyelids until they closed, then smoothed back the
matted hair. He drew a gold chain from around
Leo's neck. Though the metal was dark with blood,
he slipped it over his own head. Last of
all, he bent and unfastened the regimental emblem
Leo had clung to. "If I do make it
to Ch'ang-an, I'll bury it there for you," he
whispered. "I promise you." Behind him, a fire was
burning, those damned savages were laughing and shouting,
and someone was screaming like a woman in difficult
travail. A thick, almost intoxicating smell
twined itself through the
Susan
Shwartz
stinks; someone had fed the campfires with the dried
leaves they used as a mild intoxicant. His tears
made him see double; it all seemed unreal.
When Bryennius rose, he found two tribesmen
watching him. "We'll send him home," he told
them, "on such a pyre as Iskandar himself built."
At his gestured commands, the men heaped those who had
died in the battle at the center of the field.
Gently, he lifted his friend and laid him at the
center of the pyre. Then he rummaged in his pack and
extracted a jar of Greek fire. It was harsh, but
clean; he didn't want to leave Leo to the
ravages of this land, which had showed him no mercy.
Waving the men back, he opened the jar and hurled it
at the pyre. It burst into flame in
midair and drifted down; silvery threads and ragged
gouts of pale fire clung to the bodies.
Even the priest gasped in awe and pointed at him.
Would they try to thrust godhood upon him again?
Castor and Pollux, he remembered Alexandra's
lecturing him, had been twins: one mortal, the
other immortal. When the one had died, the other
petitioned the gods to permit him to share his eternal
life. Each lived and died, he thought
despondently, but they were never together again. If he were
a god, he'd have arranged this battle differently.
Don't add hubris to blasphemy,
he ordered himself.
You're just a man, Bryennius. Because men called you
"prince," do you expect to be spared pain? Then you
are both man and fogl.
It occurred to him that men were usually sick after their first
battle. He went apart and dutifully tried
to retch, but nothing came up. After a time, he
returned ti the camp and accepted their deferential
nods with ease that disgusted him.
They had found several of the most richly dressed oi
the merchants, and had apparently been trying to mal the
youngest tell how to forge wootz. He had refused
tol tell them. When he could do anything beside
scream, hej was still refusing when Bryennius walked
into the center!

of the ring. He looked down at the man, whom they had
stripped of his armor, good leather and lamellar
scales, which they laid at Bryennius' feet. The
captive was young, with the fine-boned, aristocratic
features of the trader princes, disfigured now with
blood and burns.
Suddenly, he began to sob rackingly, babbling of the
proper crucible and charcoal, of watching the wootz
turn the color of cherries or of blood before the
smith forged it. He fainted before he could say more and
proved impossible to revive whether by shouts,
slaps, or precautionary cuts and burns.
"Kill him before he wakes," whispered Bryennius
to the chief. Gumara raised a hand, obviously
reluctant to lose both entertainment and knowledge.
"I said,
"Kill him?
was Bryennius screamed in what he hoped was a
fair imitation of one of Alexander the Great's
rages. If he saw one more man broken by wounds and
pain, he thought he would go mad. When no one else
moved, he drew his knife and gave the
youth his deathblow.
As a dangerous muttering rose, Bryennius
stammered out the only explanation that these barbarians
might accept. "Leo needed another sacrifice."
The muttering subsided. Gumara gestured for someone
to bring forward another prisoner, and Bryennius
steeled himself for a second outburst. Then he leaned
forward. Something about the man's face and bearing,
arrogant even after seeing his kinsmen's deaths. He
remembered now. In Samarkand, this man, his brother,
and two of his cousins had tried to kill him for his
too-evident admiration of his sister. He even
knew this man's name from his time in Samarkand:
Suleiman Mis'ar ibn Mulhalhil. And the man
he had just killed was Abu Dulaf. The family was
famous, with trading stations at each stage from
Samarkand across the desert.
"Now you tell us," the chief was taunting ibn
Mulhalhil, "of the proper method of hardening the
wootz. I know some of it already." His voice took
on a
Susan Shujarfz
singsong intonation. "It must be heated until it does
not shine, just like the sun rising in the desert, after which it
must be cooled down to the color of king's
purple-was
"Then dropped into the body of a muscular slave,"
snapped ibn Mulhalhil. "Why not kill me and
have done with it? You there, the savage who killed my
cousin, you kill me with that knife you probably
plundered from another of our men!"
The Kafirs growled and pressed in closer.
Bryennius stepped in and waved them off. For all the
man's anger at him for all the fact that he was of a
nation with which Byzantium was at war, ibn
Mulhalhil was a civilized man, and should not be
tormented this way.
And besides, so many were dead, so many like Alexandra and
Leo, young and fine and brave; this merchant prince
had courage and intelligence which should not be snuffed out.
Bryennius smeared his hand across his face in a rough
attempt to clean it, then knelt at ibn
Mulhalhil's side, unbinding him.
"You are free now. You have my word that they won't
harm you. Do you remember me?" he asked in
Greek. "It's a long way from Samarkand where you
tried to knife me. How is the lady, your sister?"
The man spat at him but missed. Abruptly,
Bryennius was filled with rage. He had just saved
the man's life, and his damnable arrogance
along with it. The man was tall, with the dark skin and
strongly marked features of the Muslim princes,
made even more distinguished by black brows and a sharp
beard. They had not yet stripped him of his own long
scalecoat, or the tattered brocade he wore
over it.
"The Simposh are strange companions for you of the
Rumi," the merchant observed. "Or perhaps not so;
you're all Kafirs-infidels." Damn him, he
could see
"less-than
that Alexandra was not with him, that none of his party
equals remained, except for a few wretched
Ferghana horses, but he made no comment.
"These people vowed themselves to our service . . Leo's and
mine. My cousin . . ." He turned his face
"dis V
silk roads and shadows

away, ashamed to weep in front of the tribesmen or
their prisoner.
"How crude of you to mention the lady your cousin in an
outsider's presence," said ibn Mulhalhil. Was
that
why he had tried to kill him? Because he had
mentioned his sister? Bryennius knew how startled he
must look. It was true that the Muslims secluded
their women, unlike the ladies of Byzantium who
came and went as they pleased. Bryennius would have
hated to die because of a chance and courteously meant
remark.
Abruptly, he decided that it was wrong for this man
to die at the hands of savages. Besides, he told
himself, the man came from a rich and very powerful family
who maintained a thriving business along most of the
outposts on the way to Ch'ang-an.
Ibn Mulhalhil studied his face, nodded with
satisfaction as he read Bryennius' decision in
it. "What makes you think," he asked in an
undertone, "that these people will really let you release me?"
Alexandra, Bryennius thought with satisfaction, must
be looking down at him from heaven and teaching him
guile. "The gods have decreed that my brother be
rent from me," he cried. "But they have provided in his
place this man, who will serve me as did my
brother."
One of the underpriests nodded approval; it was not
fitting for their ruler to be without a companion.
"And may Allah have mercy upon you for blasphemy,"
remarked the merchant.
On both of us,
Bryennius thought. The chief and the shaman were still
muttering suspicion. "This man's family is
known to me," he spoke quickly. "It is rich and
powerful in Kashgar, and will doubtless pay well for the
return of one of its sons."
"Cleverly done," said Suleiman Mis'ar ibn
Mulhalhil. "I assume you and the Kafirs are
bound for Kashgar, where they hope to equip their new
Alexander"-this was said with a disdainful lift of dark
eyebrows-"for his journey to his new kingdom? Was that
why you intervened?"
Susan Shujarfz
"One reason," said Bryennius. "For another . .
."
"Your trip across the Takla Makan desert? You
seem in an ... embarrassed condition," said the
merchant. "Horses and companions lost.
Naturally, my ransom might well include my
family's help in making the trip."
"Naturally," said Bryennius. He jerked the man
to his feet. "Give me your word not to escape, and
I'll free you. I'll even help you bury your
cousin," he said. One thing he knew about the
Muslims: ferocious they might be, but
they held to their word.
Grief flooded the man's face, and Bryennius
was sorry for his harsh tone. But it was necessary. Ibn
Mulhalhil jerked his chin up in assent, and
Bryennius rested a hand on his shoulder, steering him
first toward the body of his kinsmen, then toward the
quiet night beyond the circle of Kafirs.
Ibn Mulhalhil glanced at Leo's pyre, which
still roared and smoked. "Of your kindness, poor Abu
Dulaf has had enough of fire," he said. "I would rather
bury him." The earth was hard, but they hacked out a
shallow grave for the youth and neaped it over with rocks.
For a long moment, they stood on opposite sides
of the wretched grave, facing one another.
Bryennius nodded.
"I swore to have your life," said the merchant. "Under
the circumstances, I give back my oath." He
laughed bitterly, then cut it off when the laughter
threatened to become hysterical.
The man was keeping himself on too tight a rein,
Bryennius thought. He remembered him as
arrogant, princely in the way that the finest of the
Persian merchants were: proud of their wealth, their
power, and their familiarity with the world. This must be his first
experience with loss and defeat-close
companions of Bryennius ever since the avalanche.
Compassion for his former enemy made his eyes fill, and
he shook his head.
"I meant what I said. We are the last two
civilized men among them. We should stand together, or
by whatever god you worship, merchant, we will both
fall separately."

"You would trust me?"
"I accepted your word. Was I wrong?"
The merchant sighed deeply and rubbed his arms. "We
both may have underestimated one another," he said.
"And we have both lost close, close kin. I too
am willing to start afresh."
He held out his hand, and Bryennius took it, both
with such ceremony that each backed up, then laughed
harshly. Though they would have to guard one another's
backs, their losses were too fresh for either to be
easy with the idea. But they had several days until
they reached Kashgar, and Bryennius would have to explain
why he would not return to the tribesmen's ancient
territory and rule them. He thought he could think up
something. Perhaps Suleiman, his newly acquired
ally, might help. Unaccountably, he smiled
at the thought.
Alexandra reined in her horse and leaned forward.
Though mountains melded uneasily into cloud ranges
at the horizon, the path ahead widened almost into a
veritable road, and it sloped downward into Kashgar.
"I never realized how wonderful a word "down"
was," she remarked.
Already she was imagining the shouts and ringings of the bazaar,
the' chants of alien faiths and suspicious
bargains, the braying of the sturdy donkeys and the
neighing of high-bred horses offered for sale; there
would be a world of color and fabrics; hot food in
the inns perhaps, and, even more blessedly, hot water for
washing. Tears of thankfulness blurred her vision, and
she was careful not to move until her eyes cleared.
Beside her, Father Basil murmured a few words.
"My brethren have a congregation in Kashgar. The first
thing I must do is seek it out and offer thanks to God
that any of us were spared."

An estimable sentiment, Alexandra thought, but she
suspected that the little priest, whose plump frame
appeared not to have suffered at all from the avalanche,
would ask among the Nestorians in Kashgar whether
any remnants of their earlier silk
manufacturies had survived. If they
could somehow buy silkworms here, they had best do so,
and spare themselves the terrible journey across the fringes
of the Takla Makan desert.
Though Ch'ang-an still lured her, losing Bryennius
and the others in the heights had taught her respect for
these lands. Alexandra had to admit that she too never
expected to survive. She sighed and forced herself
to look away from the town that tempted her to gallop
down the slope, screaming in triumph like a
barbarian, then glanced back at the men and horses
halting behind her. Some six of the Ferghana horses
had been saved; all, fortunately, were of the vivid
bay color esteemed in Ch'in. Some of the grooms and
all of the guides and porters were new, found for her
by the abbot whose hospitality had saved her life.
Her eyes skipped over what she could not help but
regard as the emptinesses that should have held her maid,
her cousin, and some of the other officers, until she
came to Haraldr and Father Basil, who rode
closest to her.
As always, Haraldr sat a horse with his axe
slung on his back and a horn hung about his neck.
His size made him awkward on horseback. He
dismounted and led his horse toward Alexandra's
stirrup. The fingers of his right hand twined
around the reins, moving constantly as he exercised the
hand weakened by the bite of a creature that most
definitely had not been a wolf. The grooms with
whom the monastery had supplied them moved out of his
way, regarding him with fear, reverence, and a little
loathing. (alexandra reminded herself to release the men
in Kashgar and hire new grooms; she had no
desire to cross the desert with the head of her guard
an object of superstitious dread by a pack of
mountain men.) Haraldr knew her mind. He met
her eyes and grinned.
Susan
Shivartz
He was another one lucky to be alive, luckier still
not to have run mad. There was little comparison between the
warrior at her side and the bled-out, cowering man who
lay in the monastery's courtyard as she tried to stop
the bleeding from his wrist, and who moaned in terror of the
coming of the Fenris wolf and the final darkness. His
bearers had muttered of demons.
Alexandra inspected the big Varangian, who
promptly involved himself with a minute adjustment to her
stirrup.
"At least we're out of the hills. The hillfolk will
be terrified of you for generations," she
remarked. "You saved that village; God knows, you
probably saved all the villages for miles about,
not to mention the rest of us, by killing that demon my
aunt wished on us, but they won't speak to you, even
to give you thanks."
Haraldr grunted. After a time, he dared glance
up. Now his princess had turned her attention to the
inviting city before them. The abbot had talked to her of
trust, even of surrender to this Rudra fellow who was
fated to teach her. It sounded like holy vows. Once
she had taken those, and almost lost life and soul to them.
No wonder if she were afraid.
"The horn, Haraldr, may I see it?" she
asked. He handed it up to her.
"He"-Haraldr knew that she meant the abbot com8sd
that this is a map, had we only skill to read it."
She paused fpr a longtime. "You of the North are
said to be without fear, and yet . . ."
"In our stories, heroes swear not to retreat even
a footstep, but to go on farther, my princess,"
Haraldr said. "When I was alone, and thought that you and
all the others were dead, I swore that too."
She nodded, and handed the horn back to him. "Then I
will not insult you by asking if you still wish to cross the
desert."
A dark mood was on her; not for the first time, Haraldr
wondered if her regard for Prince Bryennius

had gone beyond the fondness of cousins for one another.
Abruptly she shook off her mood. "Well,"
she declared, "against all hopes of aunt, demon,
or bad weather, we have reached Kashgar. Father
Basil wants to pray, I want to bathe, and we
all need to eat before we can even think of desert
crossings or stealing silkworms." She waved her
hand for the company to start again. "Haraldr, at my
back. You, Father Basil, if you will, ride at my
side. And pass the word that every man and horse in my
service should walk and look as proud as he can.
Let's enter Kashgar as princes, not as
castaways!"
From somewhere, a groom unfurled a banner and handed it
by its pole to Haraldr. Purple silk-the color
and pride of Byzantium-fluttered in the wind as
Alexandra and her train entered Kashgar. A
majesty was on her, Haraldr thought, and enjoyed the
sight of it, which reminded him of ceremonies in
Miklagard in which the leader of the Varangians, who
had the privilege of following the Emperor
into battle, rode behind His Majesty on a
white horse, and the entire Guard marched, clad in
crimson, axes burnished, behind them.
Perhaps now they would all come back into their own again. In
that case, Thor would have the white stallion he had
already pledged, and a mare beside. There were guards at the
outskirts of the city, more of them, and more suspicious,
than the Northerner would have expected. Many peoples
passed through Kashgar; surely it was to the advantage
of all to keep it safe and prosperous. When the
guards hailed them, Alexandra stared them down, then
silenced them with the purse she threw with superb
arrogance to their captain.
So small, and yet so very strong, Haraldr thought, like
the chain that bound the
real
Fenris wolf. Her head was held high, her hair
streamed down her slender back, and she wore the
distant, haughty look that all the Imperials could
summon. Heads up, Miklagard's pride rode
through a bazaar that shone with burnished copper, fine
Susan
Shwortz
embroideries, and glistening fruit, while people of
all the races that thronged the city fell silent
to watch.
Alexandra stretched out, and let the serving women
finish drying her long hair. Fruit glowed on
silver dishes, and sherbet in the Persian fashion
frosted a fine glass pitcher. Equally Persian
were the inn's blue tiles and its standard of luxury for
guests, fresh either from the mountains or the Takla
Makan desert, and eager to pay for it. She might
have deduced from the armor and weapons of the guards that
Persians and Abbasids dominated the trade city;
the number of mosques, and the bazaar clamor at her
arrival, a woman leading her own train, told her
even more.
She had anticipated that particular problem, had
hoped that Bryennius would serve as a second self
for those dealings where a prince would be more welcome than
a princess. But now she would have to be both. She
backslash
rose and pointed. With obvious reluctance, the
servingi women helped her into the coat, boots, and
trousers she' had insisted upon, instead of the women's
garments they had offered her. They were dark silk, so
finely cut that she suspected they had been made
for a prince-or a catamite. She shivered at the
feel of the fabric against her greater-than skin; she
had missed it since leaving Byzantium.
Father Basil was waiting for her in the outer rooms.
"I hope you said a prayer for me too," she
greeted him.
He nodded'as if that had not needed to be said. Waving
away an offer of wine pressed from the mares'-teat
grapes grown in the Turpan oasis-the inn kept
a fine stock for nonbelievers-both were silent
while more sherbet was brought. Once the room was
empty. Father Basil moved his cushions closer
to her.
"You saw the guard," he began in Greek.
"Kashgar is Muslim now, but it's had several
masters in the last few years, ever since the people of
Ch'in were forced from their westernmost prefectures.
We saw it in Samarkand, which they used to rule.
Warriors from the Land of

Snows, Uighurs, the Hsiung-nu. It's
frightening. Andwiththe city under Muslim control-was
"Your people here," Alexandra broke in.
"Safe enough, for now. Heretics or not"-he
grinned at her--"they're people with a Holy Book, and
therefore under protection. As are the Jews, the
worshipers of Mani, and the servants of the Buddha.
That's much the same as it is in
Ch'ang-an. But if the rulers here are threatened,
they may look about for a scapegoat."
"So they can't provide us with silkworms."
"Alas no, my princess. After the last wave of
trouble, the silk was put under even stricter guard.
My brethren will help us pay our way across the
Takla Makan, and for that-was
For that, Alexandra realized, they should all be on their
knees giving thanks.
She listened to the Nestorian's report with half
an ear, thinking that he made as good a spy as she had
ever encountered in a lifetime of dealing with them.
Byzantium appreciated fine spies and rewarded
them well.
She was less enthusiastic about the number of priests
and holy men in the City. While some might
possess the genuine sanctity of the abbot who had
saved her life, she remembered how "Father
Andronicus" had turned out to be a demon. This
close to the desert, other demons might creep in
off the sand. The serving women's jests,
half-malicious, half-fearful, had reminded her
that Takla Makan meant "If you enter, you don't
come out." Apparently, it was desolation itself.
Travelers clustered together for protection,
not just against the solitude but the whispers and giggles of
demons. Occasionally, a caravan would disappear from
along the desert's edge, victim of a
kuraburan,
the "black storm" such demons could summon.
Along the trade routes lay the bones of man and
beast, bleached and dried by the desert, alongside the
remnants of their trade goods. No one wanted
to touch them.
Occasionally bolder travelers came across beams or
broken walls, the ruins of a half-buried town.
But if they
Susan Shtuarfz
dug, seeking treasure, sand poured into the hole almost
more quickly than they could remove it, and threatened
to bury them too. No one dared venture into the deep
desert, though there were legends of a hidden spring at
its center.
Shambhala!
Alexandra had suspected briefly, then dismissed
the idea. Shambhala was said to lie between snow
mountains, not giant, serpentine dunes.
"Thank your friends for me," she told the priest, who
had fallen silent, respecting her thoughts.
He glanced at her men's clothing, then
tactfully glanced away. "How else might I
negotiate with these traders for passage, unless as
a prince, not a woman they can cajole and cheat?"
she asked.
"I heard another story, my princess. They say
that a prince of the Imperial T'ang dynasty
arrived some time ago from Samarkand and now prepares
to cross the desert."
"Why is he so far from his home?" Alexandra
asked, then laughed at herself.
"Apparently the prince is also a poet. Much of the
land we crossed once belonged to Ch'in, but is now in
the hands of Muslims or the warlords from the Land of
Snows. He wished to see what his Empire has
lost. Since
one of the things his Empire lost were the stud farms to the
west, if we were to show him our horses . . ."
"How would you suggest we do that?"
The Persian's round face crinkled into a wide
smile. "It's my understanding that trouble hunts the
entire length of the silk roads, from Byzantium
all the way to Ch'ang-an. Ch'in has been
plagued by revolts and civil wars for the past
century. Nevertheless, life must go on. Beleaguered,
Kashgar may be, but it is still full of
horsemen. There will be a game of polo soon. This
Imperial prince is said to enjoy the game. If
we bring our horses, he'll note them."
Alexandra laughed again. Priest Basil might
be, but he was also Persian, and no Persian
alive could resist polo. They had brought it
to Byzantium and everyplace else

where nobility or warriors might be able to afford
horses for it, and were willing to take the risks it
occasionally entailed. Though women in Byzantium
did not regularly play, as she had heard that some
did in Ch'in. It hurt to remember that Bryennius
had taught her.
"Shall I ride, then?" she asked. If she coiled
up her hair under a hat, she might pass for a
boy. Certainly the mountain crossing had left her
thin enough to do so, she thought, and ate another sweetmeat.
Father Basil shook his head. "This is polo such as
the tribesmen play on the banks of the Oxus, my
lady. It resembles battle more than sport.
Frequently, men are killed. And the ball they use
is a dead goat."
Alexandra grimaced, the last time she would permit
herself to do so at the thought of the game. She must
make herself think of it as the sport of brave men, not
of barbarians-or as a way of meeting the prince and
merchants on whom safe passage across the desert
might depend.
"When is this game?" she asked.
"Later today."
"We shall be there."
Once her grooms were paid and equipped for their
journey back into the mountains, Alexandra and Father
Basil led the remnants of their party-Haraldr and the
two other Varangians who survived, several
Greeks, and one or two mountain men who had taken
a fancy to cross the desert-across the bazaars and
outside the city. Nothing in the well-ordered stores
of Byzantium had prepared her for the bazaars she
had visited during her trip east. Aleppo had
been fascinating, Samarkand a wonder. But
Samarkand had been Persian.
In Kashgar for the first time, Alexandra saw the mingling
of all the many peoples and races, from Hind
to Hsiung-nu: larnas from the Land of Snows,
Persian traders, even people from Ch'in, the land she had
yet to reach. She and some of her officers were the only
Westerners she saw, and their paler skins and round
Susan
shwartz*
eyes-
be
as she learned from whispers and pointing fingers were comwere
esteemed an oddity. The Varangians . . .
well, iff Haraldr had tried to comfort the one child who
saw him-j and burst into wails, he might have started
a riot. She bar rested her hand upon the hilt of the
sword that had been! her gift from the abbot, glad
to have belted it on. Any onlookers would see only
the swagger of a beardless, probably unblooded,
youth.
The markets were rich with their treasures. There was:
enough in one bazaar alone to sate several armies of bar
mercenaries. The metal threads in fine cloth winked
at the hammered trays and pots; brilliant
feathers waved over fine lapis, a rainbow of
jade, and rubies. Weapons caught the sunlight
in their own deadly display. And over all came a
constant babel of voices, trading, swear-was. ing,
wooing, telling stories, or just passing the time of
caret day.
The incessant talk made Alexandra feel quite at
home;! apparently Asians were as fond of it as
Greeks. Fatherl Basil nosed about
in-to Alexandra's mind-a highly? useful but
unclerical fashion, bringing her tidbits off
news the way a cat brings home a bird or a
mouse. That bar man in the goatskin-whom the
guards were! shadowing?-he was a Kafir, who had
come north to] buy horses and, probably,
to steal. What's more, he had! come in the company of a
great trader and his adopted! brother, rumored to be
the King of the Kafirs. Staring at] the dirty,
suspicious-looking man, Alexandra thought
less-than that claims of such people's descent from
Alexander 1 were worse than lies.
"I have heard, my princess," whispered Father
Basil,, "that today's game was the idea of the King of the
Kafirs, J as a parting gift to his people whom he
must now leave* for a time to travel to World's End."
Very clever, thought Alexandra. The Kafirs
retainec legends of Alexander, so this "king," who was
probably! no more a king than Alexandra, used
them. Alexander! had longed to travel east and never
stop: Very well, this! man would too-a perfect
opportunity to abandon the!

barbarians for the more civilized and far more profitable
traders.
Beyond the Kafir were clerks, cool in their blue
robes from the entourage of the T'ang prince, whose
caravan was all but assembled. Seated against a
wall, in a yellow robe, a man with a shaven head
and eyes squeezed shut from a lifetime effacing the
sun spun a prayer wheel. His lips moved
soundlessly. From
mane padme hum.
On a whim, Alexandra stopped. "Do you know of
Shambhala?" she asked. The priest looked
intently at her, nodded, and smiled with cracked
lips. "Shambhala!" he said in a discordant
voice, then went back to his chant. The prayer
wheel never ceased turning. She realized that the
priest was deaf, and in the silence, his thoughts had
turned inward. He had recognized only the shape
her lips had made.
She quickened her pace. Soon they were outside the
city walls. At the far horizon, mountains
loomed up, and the sky was the color of Persian
turquoise. The ground was dry with sand and a kind of
coarse yellowish grit Father Basil told her was
called
gobi.
Squinting against the violent sunlight,
Alexandra tried to see where the desert began. But
if she could not see it, she could smell something-other
than camel, horse, and humanity-a kind of
wildness that crept into her awareness and would grow
stronger as she neared the time when she would venture out
across the Takla Makan. They were coming to a wide
field. She skirted the huge, cross
Bactrian dromedaries and stared narrowly at the
horses. There were a few here of the true blood-red
breed from Ferghana, and that pleased her.
Beyond the rows of picketed animals, men argued over
rules, playing space, and who should give the command
to start. Alexandra's Varangians found her a good
vantage point; to see better, she mounted. Across
the field under a canopy was a richness of fabrics,
a bevy of men and women alike who could only be the
T'ang prince's court. Several Muslims
rode by in full armor. Perhaps she could use Father
Basil, accompanied by one
Susan Shtuarfz
of her Greek officers and one Varangian,
to approach them.
The wrangle ceased. Accompanied by men from each
group, an old man wearing worn black hides and
huge quantities of silver jewelry
galloped to the center of the field. A grayish-brown
horned goat lay bleating across his saddle.
Players and spectators watched intently as he
shouted something, slashed at the beast's neck, and
hurled it, still kicking, into the air. Blood fountained
into the dust, and the mob cheered.
What followed was less a game, Alexandra thought,
than a free-for-all. The teams were huge, but not
necessarily equal in size. No one seemed
to object. The object of this type of polo seemed
as much to mutilate your opponent as to seize the
now-dead goat and race back to one or two areas
roughly marked off as goals, where, as often as not, your
own friends tossed you back into the fray. At least
twice men were unhorsed, to lie unmoving until
kinsmen or servants dragged them out of danger from being
trampled. Horses stumbled to their knees,
screaming, then staggered back up again. Several men,
bleeding from scrapes and blows, and spitting broken
teeth, retreated from the game, as the crowd jeered at
them.
"Not at all like the games at the palace," was the
wry verdict of her officers. Alexandra agreed.
Nor did it resemble the game she had seen in
Persia, which was as much a highly mannered
parade of finely turned-out men and animals as it was
a sport. From the pointing and cheering across the field in
the Ch'in prince's pavilion, she thought that this form
of the game was a novelty to them too.
Gradually the game took on some form of
organization. There seemed to be no set times for
rest. You rode until you or your horse dropped.
Then, if you could, you grabbed a fresh horse from the
sidelines and plunged back into battle. The
prevailing style (if she could call it that) of play
was all-out ferocity in the style of the tribes who
wandered back and forth across the Oxus river

. . . Tajiks, Kafirs, Turkomans, men of
Ch'in, Kirghiz, and a host of others. Some men
rode in the Persian fashion, two were richly
dressed and armed like Abbasid merchants. Both
rode fine Ferghana stallions, almost the equal of
her own.
They had verve and courage, she observed. Surely
that would translate into a well-planned and guarded
caravan. Perhaps she should have Father Basil approach
them. She herself would stay in the background, lest the
sight of a woman who behaved as prince, not
cloistered chattel, offend them past the
hope of doing business. She beckoned to the priest.
"The tall man in the scaled armor. Find out his name
for me," she whispered.
Father Basil returned almost instantly.
"Suleiman Mis'ar ibn Mulhalhil," he
told her. "His family hosts the Ch'in prince.
We met Suleiman in Samarkand, remember?"
Alexandra suppressed a groan, then yelled with the
crowd as ibn Mulhalhil and the man who rode with
him dashed toward the goat, shouldering several screaming
Highlanders aside, then bending to scoop it up,
only to lose it in the next instant, to a Sogdian
who all but ripped the head from the dusty carcass.
They were thieves, those Sogdians, every one of them.
Ibn Mulhalhil ... the family had a post at
Samarkand too. Bryennius had admired a woman
of the house . . . She supposed there were other
merchants here whom she could deal with. "Who's the man
with him?" she asked.
"Strange story, that, as I told my princess
earlier." So he had, Alexandra thought, but it sounded
now as if he had learned more, "Several weeks
ago, ibn Mulhalhil rode in with a band of
Kafirs-and none of the people, or goods, he had left
Persia with. The story goes that the
Kafirs found him robbed and bereft on the
mountainside, and that their king ordered him to be taken
into the tribe. 1 think it's far likelier that the
Kafirs attacked his train, then decided
to improve the deal-and their
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chances of surviving it-by ransoming him back to his
family."
"So that's the man who has sponsored this game, just
as if he knew Roman customs. An amusing
coincidence. He rides well," Alexandra
observed. Then she bent forward, impressed by just how
well he did ride. His trappings were indeed
Persian, but something about his style, something about the
rider himself-in the name of God, she
knew
that trick of leaning out to the side, almost
overbalancing, at a full gallop. She had
applauded it a hundred times in the Hippodrome.
"Impossible," she muttered. It was the dust, she
told herself. She had to see the rider's face. She
pressed her knees against her horse and moved in
closer. The dust and the sunlight, damn them both,
made it difficult to make out features.
And it was hot; she wasn't used to this heat. It
made her dizzy.
She put a disgracefully shaking hand up to her mouth
and rode forward again. She was almost on the outskirts
of the game, jostling for position with urchins, grooms,
and lads too young to be permitted to ride with their fathers
or elder brothers. There were even a few
physicians and priests, some of whom stared narrowly
at her: foreign, outlandish, probably an enemy.
The "King of the Kafirs" reined in his horse. It
curvetted in a quick, tidy ring, sending up a cloud
of dust and gobi, and he grinned at the watchers.
Alexandra screamed. Ignoring the shouts and mutters
of the crowd as they "realized that the foreigner in their
midst was not the boy they supposed "him," she
galloped forward into the center of the field.
"Bryennius!" she shrieked. "Cousin!"
The game thundered on both sides of her, and she
swerved to avoid a Tajik and an Uzbek who fought
a Kafir for possession of the goat. She waved one
hand frantically, crying her cousin's name.
Again he reined in his horse, this time so fiercely that
it reared and screamed as she approached. She swerved

again, and the game roared past. To a howl of
disappointment from his side, the Tajik dropped the
goat.
Bryennius stood in his stirrups and stared at
Alexandra. He smeared a hand across his eyes, then
sat back down. "Alexandra?" he whispered. "I
saw the snow bury you-oh, God, Alexandra,
you're alive!" He shouted his astonishment and joy,
then grabbed her into a rough bear hug. She could feel
him sobbing and knew that she wept too. Against all
hope. . . she had mourned Bryennius as dead.
This sudden discovery-that he was the fraudulent King of the
Kafirs-there had to be some reason for it. The dust
swirled about them, and the riders pounded by.
Bryennius slipped sideways in his saddle, or
perhaps he caught her as she reeled. The heat and stench
would make anyone dizzy.
One hand against his chest, she pushed herself away and
shook her head at his exultant babble of questions.
"I can explain everything," he assured her quickly.
"But I dare not leave the game, not now. Get
back, cousin mine!" He gave her horse a hard
slap, sending it back toward the spectators.
Alexandra saw a man in a dark robe point at
her, then reach inside his garment. She reeled in the
saddle. Halfway across the field, her
guard saw and began to fight toward her. She forced
herself upright.
Though the sky was clear, she felt as if a storm were
brewing: hot, cold, and uneasy all at once.
The ground and the air quivered as she rode toward her
men. Behind her, even the players fell silent. Then
one man screamed in mortal terror.
"Alexandra! Behind you!" shouted Bryennius.
Alexandra twisted her horse's head about, but she
lacked Bryennius' strength with the reins. The horse
stumbled, throwing her onto the bloodstained ground.
She thrust against the ground, rising unsteadily to her
knees, then to her feet. The field seemed
to rock.
Now she could see the man who had screamed-a
Kafir, the very man who had held the goat. He
lay on the ground, blood streaming from his throat,
gashed by the
Susan
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they had used as a trophy. Somehow its head had
been rejoined to its body. Now it gnashed
red-smeared teeth, and its eyes glowed.
And on stiff, but very steady legs, it headed for
Alexandra.
Bryennius rode at the goat, and slashed at it,
but his blade recoiled, and he was practically
hurled from the saddle. Other men tried to stop its
rush, and were forced back, including Haraldr, who
charged it, swinging his axe as if it were a traditional
polo mallet. Helpless to stop it, the men formed a
circle about her.
Alexandra shook her head to clear it, and her hair
fell free of the cap into which she had crammed it. She
heard the riders murmur in dismay. Then the goat
seemed to scent her, or sight her with those
green-flaming eyes, and its stalk turned into a
rushing attack. With a rasp of fine steel, she
drew the sword that the abbot had given her and hacked
at the thing. She hit a leg, nearly cutting it from
the obscenely animated body, but even as she
watched, the wound healed.
The sun beat down upon her head, and she was conscious
not so much of fear as of a furious irritation. Here she
was, a princess of Byzantium, trapped in an
arena and forced to fight some sort of demon or undead
thing while a veritable army of warriors was unable
to defend her. It was a vulgar display. And it came
at the worst possible time too, with Bryennius
restored to her, a Ch'in prince to impress
. . . she screamed with fury and struck again. This time
her blade scraped across the beast's spine and almost was
wedged past her ability to pull it free.
The goat wheeled and stared at her. It looked
remarkably like her aunt, she thought, studying it,
waiting for its next lunge. Though the sky was very
blue, she heard thunder and sensed heat lightning
building up in a sky that had probably not known
clouds for years. The crowd was very quiet, watching.
Up and down the center of the hot, noisome field, she
battled her enemy. Snatches of prayer and
incongruous

remembrances chased themselves through her mind;
Kyrie eleison
jangled against "I will not flee a foot's breadth,
but will farther go," from one of Haraldr's interminable
poems. There was nowhere to retreat.
The thought that she might die here seemed incongruous.
She had never felt so alive, so aware of her own
health and strength, of the will that kept her on her feet,
learning more about the strength of the blade she held with every
stroke. She was holding her own! The discovery of her
own courage thrilled her. Again she heard thunder.
Perhaps it would storm. Perhaps the rain would
dissolve whatever spell knit this demon to the
goat's unnaturally animated flesh.
Again the beast charged her, and she brought down her
sword. The goat danced aside. Again, and then again.
She almost stumbled, and the beast opened its jaws and
rushed her. Fumes from its opened mouth made her
giddy. She was near the end of her strength-if not her
courage-and it infuriated her. This was no proper
way to die. The abbot had assured her she faced
danger on the journey east-and this, most assuredly,
counted as danger. But he had also promised her
aid. Where was it?
She groaned and swerved out of the goat's path, and
struck desperately at its neck. Lightning
pealed, leaping from sky to mountain, from mountain to the
blade of her sword. As her blade severed the
goat's head from its body and both parts of the beast
fell to the ground, the blade trembled and rang in her
hand. Light flashed along it. When she glanced down
at it, the sword was clean of the goat's blood, which
fell, smoking, into the dust.
Alexandra staggered. Her blade stuck in the dirt,
and only that held her upright. All around her, the
circle of men held where they were, staring at her in
awe. Then Bryennius shook himself and
started forward. He held out an arm to her, prepared
to carry her off the field, but she waved him back.
Hadn't she wanted the chance to make these men deal with
her as a prince? She had just shown herself to be even more
than that; she dare not
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dwindle into a mere woman to swoon and be carried
back into the inner rooms.
"My horse," she told him. "Bring him."
Haraldr led the horse forward, and she leaned against
its side, running the knuckles of her left hand
against its smooth, warm neck. The horse rested its
head on her shoulder, and she felt better for the
contact. Solemnly, Haraldr knelt and made his
hands into a cup. She mounted as smoothly as she could,
and adjusted her fingers on the reins, waiting for the
strength to ride back to her inn.
The crowd broke from its wary circle and reformed with
her at its cheering heart. She heard shouts, even the
beginnings of a theological argument. Then the man she
had seen praying in the bazaar was nearby. His eyes
met hers, and she permitted herself a regal nod.
A sudden glint of light made him bend down and
pick something up. Then he offered it to her.
It was what the abbot told her was called a
dorje,
the scepterlike rod that priests used in the
rituals of the Diamond Path. "Shambhala," the
man's toothless mouth formed. "Shambhala." As she
took it from him, she felt a thrill run from it up
her arm and down her spine, banishing her fatigue and
giddiness. Bryennius watched her in some
puzzlement.
"For luck," she said, and tucked it into her belt.
"Cousin, can you make it back to your inn?" he
asked.
"What is this, brother?" shouted Suleiman
Mis'ar ibn Mulhalhil. "s-You send the
lady, your kinswoman" compolitely, he did not
look at her-"back to some mangy inn when my
uncle's wives would vie to take care of her?"
still
wouldn 't wager on that,
Alexandra thought. A Greek, a woman, and a
Christian. She'd be fortunate if the merchant's
harem didn't poison her.
She thanked the merchant. "Before I move-or think
of dinner even-I want a bath and fresh clothes,"
she said. "May we discuss this later?" She also
wanted wine, perhaps several flasks, and a
chance to rest. And above

all, she wanted off a nervous, sidling horse and
out of the center of a sweaty crowd that refought her
battle and battled to view the thing she had slain.
"Burn it!" she ordered anyone who would listen, and
pressed knees against her horse's flanks. The
horse eased through the crowd. Suleiman Mi'sar
ibn Mulhalhil bowed and rode off.
Bryennius was at her side again. "If you are
well, then I must see to my son's funeral," he
said. She blinked at him until she realized he
meant the Kafir. The man whose throat the demon
spirit had slashed was one of Bryennius" warriors.
"You're
King of the Kafirs?" she asked.
"They're called Simposh, and the answer is yes;
and I must go to them now."
"My guards will see me safely to my inn,"
Alexandra assured him.
"Leo's dead," Bryennius said. His face
twisted, and the strangeness that she had sensed between them
fell away. "Oh, God, and I thought you were
too!" His eyes filled, and he fought for control as
they headed toward the gates.
Hoofbeats sounded, and many riders rode between them and the
gates. Alexandra's hand dropped to her
swordhilt. But it was the men of Ch'in. At the
prince's gesture, one man dismounted and walked over
to her. She sat her horse, keeping her face
immobile, almost the Caesar-rnask she had used in
Byzantium. The man knelt at her feet and
touched his brow to the dust in the full prostration she had
seen accorded only to her brother, the Basileus.
"This humble person has the honor to serve His
imperial Highness, Li Shou. The prince has
commanded this unworthy one to bid the princess of
Fu-lin, her kinsmen, and her ministers to dine with
him."
Alexandra gazed about somewhat glassily. She
looked over at the silken bevy of riders that was the
T'ang prince's entourage. The prince rode at
its heart. He was a slender man and, she thought, of
middle height. His
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black hair and long mustaches were silvered, and he
looked more like a scholar than an adventurer. She
met his eyes and felt almost a physical
shock. They were dark and clever, and irony seemed
to dance beneath their heavy lids. He nodded faintly at
her, then turned to the Muslim merchant who rode
several deferential steps behind him.
So that was how the invitation came! News traveled
fast in Kashgar. As if she needed further proof of
that, Father Basil pushed through to her side and spoke
rapidly with the kneeling man. "He's named you the
princess of the Eastern Empire, of Rome, and of
Antioch," he explained. "And he's used the word
for princess, not merely for lady."
This was the opportunity she sought, Alexandra thought.
She touched the dorje tucked into her belt. It had
indeed brought her luck. "Tell His Imperial
Highness I accept," she ordered the priest. "And
word it as beautifully as you can." He spoke at
length to the minister, who rose. A flurry of bows,
and they were both off to prostrate themselves before the prince.
He nodded to them, glanced over at Alexandra, and
smiled. Then,, quite deliberately, he waved his
followers to one side and waited while she rode in
triumph a second time into Kashgar.
Alexandra climbed into the bullock cart sent around
for her by the ibn Mulhalhil household. Behind her
rose what sounded like the sacking of a minor
city; servants had also been sent to pack and move
her belongings and her party's. Rising over the
high-pitched voices of the women and the rapid-fire
gabble of at least three languages came the
voices of Father Basil and one of her officers,
insisting that no one was to touch the pack with the tiny
bottles in it, not if they valued a whole skin.
Having lost an argument about wearing his axe,
Haraldr stalked to the side of Alexandra's cart,
weapon in hand. "Give it to me," she ordered. He
handed it in, and she set it on the floor of the cart
where her sword lay. She had found herself
reluctant to leave it for others to touch, let alone
pack and carry away. The lightning bolt she had
won only that afternoon was tucked into the sash of her new
robes. An outrider drew the curtains of the
1O1
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cart decorously closed, and the bullocks began a
painstaking, lumbering trip down the dusty avenue.
Alexandra parted the curtains. Sand and dust seemed
to cover the street, the camels, and the passersby with
mauve silk veils even finer than the silk
gauzes she now wore. They were a gift of
Prince Li Shou. She ran a finger admiringly
over the pale violet silk with its meticulously
exquisite embroidery of lilacs and kingfishers.
Her sash was sewn with jewels and lined with yellow-a
mark of Imperial honor, Father Basil had told
her, that augured well for their meeting tonight with the
prince. Scent bags dangled from it; the same
scent wafted from her hair, which the maid who was sent
along with the garments had brushed and dressed high on
her head and fastened with jade pins shaped like
butterflies. She wore soft red leather boots that
would not have been out of place on a Basileus riding
in triumph-or on a horseman from the hills.
If this was the dress of a Ch'in lady, she could understand
why silk, not gold, was the medium of exchange in the
laad she became more and more eager to see. Byzantine
silk was darker and heavier, with elaborate, often
Persian, patterns interwoven; this fabric was
incredibly fine and luxurious against her skin after
months in wools and sheepskins.
She peered out farther at the dusty lines of poplar
trees and mud-brick houses as the bullock cart
turned into a covered aileyvyay, to the vast
inconvenience of the people who squatted beneath awnings,
selling the ever-present plums and melons
of Kashgar. The air was full of noises:
voices, the clatter and ringing of the bullocks'
harness, and, over all, the echoing, nasal chant that
Alexandra knew was a call to prayer.
She anticipated a feast tonight, but no wine. A
pity: After her battle on the polo field, she
might have relished a flask. Or perhaps two
flasks, she thought. So quickly had Bryennius'
unlikely new "brother" and his guest, the prince,
moved to provide her with gifts and servants that

she had had no time to compose herself, to place the fight
with the undead in some sort of perspective.
She pulled the curtain closed again and settled
back. Where faith fails, she thought cynically,
try logic. Question: why had the magic about which the
abbot warned her chosen to attack right then? Answer:
she was about to be reunited with her cousin, who had
made allies . . . allies who could help her in
her mission. Second question: why had she received aid?
Answer: another question-why had she met that
beggar-priest, first in the market, then near the
field? She felt as if she stood at the nexus
of events. Last time that had happened, she had faced
magic. She could expect additional
attacks, she thought grimly.
But the dorje-scepter . . . that was part of the initiation
into the Diamond Path the abbot had prophesied she
would accept, and which she had refused.
Do I have any choice at all?
Orthodoxy endowed her with free will, but the lands she
had entered were dominated by karma, foreordained
necessity that made her favorite tragedies
seem whimsical by comparison. She sighed, then
shook herself. Through the curtains she could see the
flames of a sunset made more spectacular by the
dust and sand. She pulled aside the curtains
wholly, promptly scandalizing the people who awaited
her outside the house of Suleiman Mus'ar ibn
Mulhalhil.
If it hadn't been for the giant Haraldr and the
rustle of shocked whispers that usually accompanied
Alexandra, Bryennius realized with a pang that he
might not have recognized her. Until she met his
eyes and took his hands in greeting (she had started
to embrace him, then realized her error), she
looked much like the ladies in paintings he had seen,
or the concubines who accompanied the Tang prince.
She bent and, with some effort, drew weapons from the
cart in which she had arrived.
"Make certain these are stored in honor," she
asked of him, and relinquished them into Suleiman's
hands.
1O4
Susan Shwartz
Bryennius got a look at them: Haraldr's
axe, and a strangely scabbarded sword, the blade
she had used that very afternoon. He felt better once
Suleiman carried it out of sight; some doom
seemed to hang about it. "Did you save any of the
fire?" she asked him in a quick whisper.
"All but two vials. I used one for Leo . .
." His voice went husky, and she pressed his hand
in sympathy, retaining it as he escorted her into the
house. It was very cool and dark, thanks to its thick
walls. Rugs glowed on the floors, piled layer
upon seemingly artless layer, or stacked in corners.
Rich cushions and low inlaid tables made
pleasant-looking islands in the rooms they passed
through.
Outside a carved door, they waited for Father
Basil and Alexandra's officers to arrive. Within
sat Prince Shou, enthroned in one of the few chairs
in Bryennius' brother's home. It had been
specially made and adorned with Imperial
dragons. They entered. While Basil knelt and
touched head to ground, and the officers saluted,
Bryennius bowed as he might to an elder prince.
Alexandra, being born to the purple, bowed only
slightly. The prince didn't seem to miss the
distinctions, and gestured them graciously to cushions.
"Our humble gifts suit the Royal Lady
well," he commented in Ch'in.
Alexandra bowed again. "Tell His Imperial
Highness that this one is honored by his gifts," she
instructed Father Basil, who went off into a spate
of oddly pitched tones. Her own command of the
language was inadequate for such an important
beginning.
For some time, everyone was busy with chilled melons and
plums. If this were late spring, Bryennius thought,
God help them on the desert that lay ahead. When
he had lain in the snow of the Roof of the World, he had
never thought that he might one day curse the heat.
"Most refreshing," said the prince.
"How much hotter can we expect it to become?"
1O5
Alexandra asked the diners at large, echoing
Bryennius' thoughts.
"This one crossed the desert in winter,
lady," the prince replied in Sogdian. "Then the
Takla Makan was so cold that the ink froze in its
dish when anyone tried to write."
"We have relatives in the oasis at Turpan,"
said ibn Mulhalhil, though, Bryennius
observed, he avoided meeting Alexandra's eyes.
Think of her as my cousin, not as a woman, he had
urged the merchant prince. This was an honorable
attempt. "They call the land hereabouts the Land of
Fire. One of my uncles, who made the Hajj,
says that it is hotter and drier than Arabia."
"And equally under attack by enemies," muttered a
younger man in Muslim garb before he was glared
to silence.
"I urged His Highness to delay crossing the desert
until the autumn, but he will not wait."
"Turpan is in jeopardy," murmured Li Shou.
"As Samarkand was before. That prefecture is lost
to us, and soon, perhaps, these others too. So I must
return home while still I can." Bryennius saw
how his eyes flashed to his cousin, who nodded.
"I understand that demons stalk the desert and send
terrible storms," she said.
"Travelers band together as best they can. Anyone who
strays may be lost to demon voices. And
then, the kuraburan, the black hurricanes ...
I survived one, thanks only to the moment's warning
my camel gave. They know when the storms will come."
Alexandra's eyes flashed. She was eager,
Bryennius sensed, to get on with the journey. still
must return home while still I can.
The prince's words had meaning for them too. With the
lady Theodora still in hiding, with no supplies of
living silkworms, and an Emperor and heir very much
at risk, every day away from Byzantium was time lost
for them too. Just as Suleiman shifted on his
cushions, clearly uneasy that someone might commit
the
1O6
Susan
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solecism of discussing business over food, the
changed the subject.
"I have heard," he said, "that you have had adventures.
I would like to hear of them-and to hear* your City. Is
it true that in your Emperor's palace door
leaves are of ivory, the floors of gold, the
beams; columns of sweet-smelling wood and
crystal, while pillars are of lapis?";
Bryennius smothered a laugh at what sounded
like i description of Hagia Sophia.
Alexandra nodded ciously. "In my brother's
Hall of Audience," she somewhat grandly, "he
sits on a throne mounted on i backs of lions
which carry it high into the air."
"And is it true that you are all so obedient to law
1 there is no dissension anywhere in your land? So
stories tell us."
"Our stories," Alexandra said, with a touch of
chief, "tell us how honest your people are. I shos
hesitate to contradict them."
Prince Shou chuckled.
"The prince is unconventional," whispered Fat
Basil in rapid Greek. "Notice that he
asks direct q8tions." Thank God for that,
Bryennius thought. Other wise they might exchange
oblique half-comments for 1" rest of the spring.
Prince Shou smiled happily. "And this warrior
yours?" he pointed to Haraldr.
Alexandra smiled at Haraldr, then at the
prince. Sh was obviously very much at home,
Bryennius note less-than "Haraldr is from our
far north. His people are our alli@. and friends as the
Uighurs are yours: far better tt fighting them,
don't you agree?"
Haraldr watched Alexandra as if she were fresh in
a desert. That was nothing new, Bryennius though
"Never in all my travels among the
hu
have I seei man like him," said the prince. "Perhaps
he might " me of his adventures. I am very
fond of the stories of I hu."
"That's twice he's used that word," Bryennius said
to Father Basil. "What does 'hu" mean?"
"Barbaras"
said the priest.
Alexandra started to bristle in outrage. Who dares
call the Rhomaioi barbarians? Bryennius could
practically hear her sputter that out. Then she
remembered herself, choked, and started to laugh.
"This one would be honored if the princess would
explain her laughter," the prince asked.
She dabbed at her eyes with a fine silk scarf,
tried to explain, then waved to the priest, who spoke
rapidly.
Alexandra looked intent, as if trying to follow.
When had she learned the language of Ch'in? So much
had happened while they had been separated.
The prince looked shocked at the idea that anyone
might call
him
a barbarian, then laughed too. Two of a kind,
Bryennius thought.
"It seems like empires are much the same-yours of the
West, ours of the Middle Kingdom. And we miss
our homes, both of us, and dream of what our homes
have lost."
Bryennius studied him over his glass goblet, then
cocked an eye at his cousin. Prince Shou was perhaps
forty, but his manner, that of a man saddened by life,
made him seem older. It was not that he was somber.
As a Roman, Bryennius could understand sobriety,
even if he had little of it himself.
"He thinks in elegies," quipped Alexandra in
fast Greek, then turned her attention back to him.
"Lost?" she asked. "I am told that Ch'ang-an
is the largest city in all the world. What has it
lost?"
"Aside from lands? Splendor, and poetry," sighed
the prince. "We have started to turn in upon ourselves and
contemplate past grandeur, turning away from the rest
of the world."
"Since Rokshan revolted," Father Basil
interposed quickly. "An-Lushan," he translated
for the prince. "He was Turkic, and
rebelled against the Emperor Ming
1O8
Susan
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Huang. For eighteen months, he was in exile from
Ch'ang-an. Some say that the revolt almost succeeded
because of the extravagance of a royal favorite ..."
"Yang Kuei-Fei," murmured the prince.
"She was wife to one of my ancestors. Imperial
concubine, KueiFei means. Her name was
Yu-huan, Bracelet of Jade. And they
sacrificed her to save the Son of Heaven."
Court favorites again. Bryennius felt his
stomach chill.
"Ever since then, the Middle Kingdom has been
less forbearing with outsiders. And ever since, we have
lost lands. Samarkand is gone to us. Who knows?
Soon Turpan may follow."
"That's true," whispered Suleiman
to Bryennius. "Be on your guard. We've had
reports that Turpan may soon be under attack."
"So I decided that, like the saintly Have'suan
Tsang, I would see what lay beyond the Purple
Barrier of the Walls. I too am bringing back
holy books of my faith comand many others."
If Ch'ang-an were turning xenophobic, it would be
even harder to steal silkworms, Bryennius thought.
And the sooner they went, the better. Suleiman had
convinced him that their best hope lay in convincing the
prince to let them join his caravan, and to travel not
as horse-copers but as ambassadors. Thanks to the
"brotherhood" they had sworn in desperation,
Bryennius could present the court with an entire
herd of horses-not just the Ferghana stallions that
sweat blood, but fine Arabs, and the curious
horses from the south.
It would be a hard trip across the desert, harder still
because Suleiman could not accompany them. He would be
lonely without him, Bryennius realized in mild
astonishment. But he could not desert Alexandra
to take up an offer of a place in Suleiman's
fortunes, even if a prince might turn merchant.
The best he could do was carry dispatches to their trading
stations along the way. So many opportunities: he
might have been a merchant; he might have ruled the
Simposh-and done it well
1O9
comb he would risk his life for a city he could never
rule ... he had sworn to do so.
When his attention returned to the conversation,
he realized that it had turned again to silk. "The knowledge of
silk is old," said the prince. "Perhaps three
thousand years ago, a princess dropped a cocoon
into hot tea and saw that the thread spins off in one
long strand."
My God,
Bryennius thought,
before Christ, before Rome, before Homer even; at least
he calls
that
old.
"The Emperor Ch'in Shih Huang-di, who gave
his name to the Middle Kingdom, had a concubine who
knew how to weave and embroider with silk thread,"
said the prince. "Even today, the First Empress
tends silkworms . . . have you that custom?"
"In Byzantium, our silk is woven by women in
the Imperial palace itself," Alexandra said.
When there is silk to be had, Bryennius thought,
remembering the rotting cocoons, the blighted
mulberry trees that had started them on this quest.
"They say, in fact," the prince went on, "that a
princess who married the King of Khotan smuggled
silkworms in her headdress to her new home so
she would be certain of silk garments there.
Raising silk is indeed a woman's art. And how
not? They love it well, and it loves them. At one
time it was forbidden to all but the First Empress, but the
Son of Heaven was moved by the pleas of his ladies,
and the poverty of the weavers and dyers to rescind his
edict. And ever since, our court has
blossomed," the prince said, with another smile at
Alexandra.
She looked aside. Anyone else would have thought it
was modesty. Alexandra had to be considering what had
just struck Bryennius: They would accept this man's
companionship and protection, would accept the friendship
he seemed to offer. And then they would betray him.
Bryennius looked guilty, Alexandra thought, and
she
knew why.
For my brother, my City, I would do anything,
IO
Susan Shivortz
she told herself.
I am vowed to do it. That story of Yang
Kuei-Fei
-
this prince with his fondness for myths and adventures .
. . if he faced a choice between his
Middle Kingdom and someone's life
-
he would not hesitate to discard us.
Her eyes fell on the dorje that shone gem-bright
amid the gems of her sash. With just such a sash,
Kuei-Fei had hanged herself. She shuddered and
touched the twisted wand. If she had to, she could
betray this prince. But what price would there be
to pay? She knew this thought was part of the obsession with
order and karma that crept like the sand into her every thought.
Dinner had been served and eaten with a combination of
fingers, knives, and the ivory eating-sticks that
Prince Shou insisted on teaching her how to use. She
had managed without ruining her garments. Then
musicians and dancers had entertained, and she had
drifted off into a world of deserts, caravanserais,
and fascinating strangers.
A well-kept hand touched her sleeve, and she almost
shuddered. It was the prince.
"Surely that is a religious symbol of
Tibet," he said, carefully avoiding a question.
"Your Highness is most learned," she parried.
"In my youth"-she raised eyebrows-"I studied
the magics of the Tao, and . . . other paths."
"Then I can only tell you that I found this
today, after I slew the goat for a second time. I
think I was meant to find it." His
"I think it might be auspicious," said the prince.
Alexandra held her breath. "Auspicious" was a
word of power to these people. If a thing were "auspicious,"
for example, the invitation by a prince to a rabble of
barbarians to join a caravan, then it would be done.
But if a thing were "inauspicious," then it might be a
long time until another caravan was ready to brave
the Takla Makan.
"So I was told," she said, "by an abbot 1 met
in my travels."
111
"I would like to hear that story. It is my hope that we
might trade such tales in the long nights-and
days-of our trip across the desert."
Suleiman Mis'ar ibn Mulhalhil looked
appalled until he remembered that female or not,
Alexandra was the ranking member of her party. Now that
the prince had offered the invitation, accepting it or not
was her decision to make.
And it had been made, she suspected, long, long
ago.
"I would gladly hear those tales," she agreed.
"When might we start?"
"When the horses are assembled, and you are rested,"
said the prince. He raised gray-flecked
eyebrows at ibn Mulhalhil. "Can you see to that,
my lord?"
The trader bowed, and the thing was done.
Bryennius paused before a dune that looked like a
dragon frozen in place by the moonlight. The one
rearing up ahead for hundreds of feet twisted like a
serpent. Ahead and behind lay an ocean of grit.
Except that each day the sun burned a little hotter,
their supplies became fewer, and they themselves a little
thinner, they appeared not to have traveled a mile from the
time when the giant dunes hid Kashgar from their
sight. The only variety came in the shape of the
dunes, with the giant king dunes occasionally looming
over all the rest.
They had been traveling for thirty days. In all that
time, the only other caravan they had sighted was dried
skin stretched over bones, and cargo scattered in the
sand. "Do not touch,
bahadur"
one of the Pathans they had hired to tend the horses
warned him. It was the worst of ill fortune to claim
what the desert had taken. One shift of the wind, or
a fall of sand would hide it forever.
"Christe eleison,"
he muttered, useless as the prayer seemed.
""Amen," said Father Basil, passing by on a
donkey. That one! He would survive the trip
to Ch'ang-an on the strength of his curiosity alone.
Susan Shwartz
Bryennius glanced down the line of march. Men,
women, camels, and horses clustered tightly
together. Above them towered the dunes. When they had first
entered the great desolation, he had watched the dunes,
sure that they would crest and tumble down like white
waves, drowning the tiny humans and beasts. He had
never been so far from the sea, from any sort of water.
The weight of all that land bore down upon him, and
then, almost miraculously, it subsided, and he was
able to survive.
Beneath the cloth that covered his mouth, Bryennius
grinned. No one had ever expected discipline or
strength from him, yet he could endure the desert
better than most. The inexorable sunlight had
burned him dark, fined him down, until he could
march all night and well on into the next day without
hardship. Alexandra too was holding up: very thin, but
vigorous. The Varangians rode "like immense
Bedouin," Suleiman had chuckled the first
time he saw them, muffled to the eyes to protect their
pale Northern skin. Several had been vilely
ill from the swaying of their dromedaries; one had had
to be restrained from beating a camel senseless because it
bit him.
The Ch'in themselves? Before the caravan had left
Kashgar, Bryennius had witnessed a comedy in which
Suleiman had attempted to dissuade many of the party
from continuing onward. Alexandra and Bryennius himself
could not be denied; they were the ambassadors, and,
Bryennius*" thought, the master thieves. Besides,
they were Romans, Suleiman a Muslim. No
one knew whether they could continue to meet Suleiman
on terms of friendship. The Varangians rejected
any suggestion of remaining behind. As for the women of
Prince Shou's entourage, "Our ladies have
married into the tribes, and lived well among them.
They will survive, as they survived the trip out."
So much for his "brother's" misplaced concern.
Suleiman had warned him again of the storms, and of the
repeated tests of Turpan's ability to protect
itself. They
1 13
might never see one another again. Bryennius
missed him. He rode past Alexandra,
who sat one of the Ferghana horses at the prince's
side. She was slight enough that the horse would not be
injured: so far they had not lost many of them.
"We have a legend of a mountain called Mem," he
heard Prince Shou say. "It is said that the gods
live there. Is that like your Shambhala?"
That name again. It clamored in the stillness like the gongs
in the temples Li Shou spoke of. Bryennius
shivered every time he heard Alexandra mention the kingdom
she had dreamed of when she wandered alone in the snow.
This prince, whose accomplishments apparently included
a little sorcery, would have to let himself in on her story.
He understood, in a way Bryennius could not. Up
and down the length of the column Bryennius
patrolled, waving at that guard here, this groom there,
bowing decorously in response to a flutter of
silk from one of the Ch'in concubines. Even Alexandra
had told him he looked like an Imperial eagle.
She had never commented on his appearance before. But then,
to his knowledge, she had never ridden and laughed with men before
either.
He looked up at the sky. It seemed paler at
the horizon, indistinguishable from the sand. In a little
while, the sun would rise with a ferocity greater than
ten volcanoes. They would ride until it
grew unbearable, then rest during the heat of the day.
Bryennius would sleep, guarded by the soldiers, who
had accepted him as their commander after he had told them
how Leo had died. He had his men, his friends, his
kin, and his mission. It was more than he had ever dreamed
of having. Despite the terrible asceticism
imposed by the Takia Makan, he was happy.
He heard hoofbeats, smothered by the sand, behind him as
two traders rode up, accompanied by several
grooms.
"Don't ride alone, Highness," they warned.
Susan
Shwartz
"I wasn't drifting," Bryennius protested.
"It isn't sleep we fear. It's the demons.
Listen!" They rode on without speaking. Bryennius
could hear the groans of the camels, an occasional
voice, the faint ringing of harness. He strained his
ears. At the edge of his perceptions came a
hissing. He stiffened.
"Ah, so you hear. Now, listen more closely. I will
lead your horse. Shut your eyes."
As he forced himself to hear, the hissing separated
into whistles and giggles, rising and falling in pitch as
if unseen creatures all about him made
rude and perhaps threatening observations. He opened his
eyes and shook his head.
The man beside him nodded. "Demons," he said.
Gold appeared at the horizon, then turned
copper. The wind rose as it usually did before
dawn.
Then the camels" usual complaints grew into a
chorus of moans. Their pace slowed. At first their
riders, especially the Varangians, tried to beat
them into more speed. The camels clustered together, then
stopped. They dropped their heads to the sand and moaned
again.
"What is it?" Bryennius asked.
"The
buran!
Cover your face, and help us pitch camp. The
camels always know first when the demons bring storms."
Now the horses started to stamp and neigh. The king
stallion shrieked defiance against the rising wind, the
sand that started to swirl, then darkened until it
blotted out the rising sun. The grooms began
to wrap the beasts and themselves in heavy felt, despite
the great heat.
As quickly as the kuraburan rose, it reached howling
frenzy. Bryennius, helping people dismount and
struggle into the protection of a circle of kneeling
camels, looked wildly about for Alexandra. There
she was, riding with the prince toward the hastily
thrown-up camp.
Beside Bryennius men and women whispered prayers and
curses. The storm swirled about them. Bryennius
threw off his felt wrappings and winced as dust stung
him, and stones, hurled by the wind, pounded his legs.
1 15
Securing a line about his waist, Bryennius started
out toward his cousin.
"Don't go!" screamed the man who had crouched at
his side. Then he started chanting.
"From mane padme hum"
Giggling rose over the hiss of the sand and wind. There
they were! Just a few steps more, and surely
Alexandra would see him. Just a few steps . . .
the giggling rose to a gabble and a shriek. The prince
turned to shout something; Bryennius saw his lips
move. Something howled and drowned him out. A gush of
wind and grit battered against the carts, overturning
three. With a scream of terror, Prince Shou's
horse bolted.
"Alexandra!" Bryennius screamed in equal
terror. She had to have heard, would have to ride
toward him and the dubious safety of heavy felt
wrappings.
"You're not getting him either!" she shouted at the
storm. In a fury, she kicked her horse's
flanks and rode after the prince.
Bryennius lunged forward. He hoped he would have
had the courage to go after her. He tried, but two men
of ibn Mulhalhil's household threw themselves at
him and forced him to the ground.
The two riders disappeared into the storm. Howling and
hissing, it forced them deeper into the desert.
The torment of sand and flailing gravel ripped away
Alexandra's sense of direction. She screamed for the
prince as he vanished deeper into the desert, but the
only things she heard over the kuraburan were the
hoots and giggles of the demons that had hurled it upon
them. But she could still see a dim figure, and she
turned her struggling rprse in its direction.
Why had she chosen to throw her life away? She
knew enough of evil sorcery to know that this storm was no
part of the magical feud that had pursued her from
Byzantium. The demons of the Takla Makan were
more malicious and less powerful; they struck at
random, and now they had struck her. The desert would
engulf her. Perhaps a hundred years from
now, it would cast up her bones as a warning
to travelers she herself had not followed. And Li Shou
with her.
"Oh, no, it won't!" she muttered to herself. There
had been no reason to follow the prince except a
sudden
1 17
knowledge, a necessity as stark as anything she'd ever seen
enacted on stage, that she had to save him. That it was
inevitable that she try and that, if all went right, she
would succeed. Was that what was meant by karma?
The figure up ahead grew larger and more solid.
She kneed her horse for whatever speed it could
summon, then leaned forward to catch the bridle of the
other horse. Li Shou grasped her arm until it
ached clear to the bone.
"We have to stay together!" she shrieked. He shook his
head, and, putting her face where his half-slit
eyes could see it, she tried again. He nodded,
understanding the motion of her lips. Well enough. She
pulled her arm free and signaled that they should dismount,
use the meager shelter that their poor horses'
bodies would provide. It was a double bind. If
they were to have the slightest chance of riding out, they had
to preserve the horses. But first, they had
to survive the storm.
They crouched down, huddling together. Li Shou flung
an arm about her shoulder as if he could keep the sand from
striking her. She turned to face him again.
Twice she tried to speak, but her mouth was too
dry. Finally, she spat and managed to twist her
lips around words that astonished her even as they came
out. "Did you really hear a child?"
He shrugged, then winced as a particularly sharp
piece of rock struck his shoulder. "Probably a
demon. It is no matter now. Your effort to save
me was honorable, but I regret it, Princess."
A child. That must have been what drove her away from
safety. When she wandered on the mountainside, there
had been a child who had helped her reach safety, had
promised her . . . she strained her ears to hear
over the storm, closing her eyes, focusing inward.
When the sound she sought for came, she started up
quickly. The prince tried to pull her back down.
"I heard him too!" she said.
He shook his head and pulled harder. The
kuraburan could madden, but this, she knew, wasn't
madness
Susan Shwartz
unless it was the controlled insanity of the power
working through her. And she had felt that enough times to know it.
The sound came again, mingled now with a terrible screaming,
as if whatever child wandered this desert were pursued
by demons.
She stiffened, jerking free of the prince. "There!" she
cried and flung out an arm. "What do you see?"
"Madness," the prince said, a mere shape of the
lips. Then he leaned forward. Breath hissed beneath his
lips as he stared at the figure.
This was not the young child who had guided Alexandra on the
mountainside, Rudra Cakrin, fated to be the King
of Shambhala. If he had had an older brother,
or if he had aged years since he had saved her,
this might be the same boy, almost a youth, wearing
clothes that at times appeared to be riding garments, and
at other times the robes worn by novices in the
monastery that had taken Alexandra in. He stood
very still, untouched by the kuraburan, not even squinting
against the fiercely blown sand, and a light seemed
to gleam about him. With one hand, he held something red and
shining. With the other, he pointed.
Prince Li Shou whispered something. "Of course it
couldn't have been a child. We're both mad. You do go
mad before you die of thirst," he said almost calmly.
"Not madness." Alexandra started after the
boy. "A manifestation. A power. And he wants
us to follow him. Are you coming, or would you rather die
here?"
For an-instant, the prince hung back. Then the
curiosity that had driven him from Ch'ang-an years
ago to collect mysteries and wonders of all
types made him catch up his horse's reins and
follow where the shining figure led.
The horses protested and staggered. They were near the
end of their strength, she thought. Would their companion know
it, or care? She heard laughter rise on either
side of her, felt new fears and rages. Perhaps
she was mad. Perhaps this was not Rudra Cakrin at
all, but a particularly subtle form of demon.
She could choose to
1 19
turn away and accept certain death in the storm, or
she could trust him.
She drew the sword she had used to kill the goat.
It gleamed, blue against the ochre and black of the
blowing grit. Was it her imagination that the demon
laughter grew fainter, as if intimidated either by the
blade or by the glowing figure she and the prince
followed? Though they stumbled, at times buried to the
ankles or the knees in sand, the figure
seemed to move unimpeded above it.
"King Rudra." She tried the name out, and the
figure, though it could not have possibly heard,
turned and pointed again. The sand swirled about them, then
disappeared for an instant. Alexandra stopped short,
then tripped over-it was a beam of wood. They had
stumbled, or been led, into one of the thousand ruined
cities buried in the Takla Makan. Ahead she
made out two walls, and the fragments of a roof from which
time-blackened beams still projected.
The blowing sand threatened to bury her. She picked
herself up, then tugged on her horse's reins. If
the ruin had not crumbled in all the centuries of
storms it must have weathered, it might serve to shelter
two people and two horses. Once again, Rudra
Cakrin had saved her life, or at least won her
time enough to plan what to do to save it for herself. "My
thanks," she whispered, turning to face him.
But the boy was gone.
Alexandra and Prince Li Shou staggered into the
shelter they had found. Their horses knelt the way
that camels did when their loads were removed, a
sign of how exhausted they were. No sand stung
them, and the howling of the storm was so muffled by the walls that
the sudden quiet struck them like a blow.
Except for the light that clung to Alexandra's
sword, almost as if left over from their encounter with the
boy, the ruin was dark.
"Do we have a flint?" she asked, and her voice
sounded hollow. She rummaged in her saddlebags.
Water, but not much of it. Food. Various other
impedi-
I2O
Susan
Shwartz
ments that she should probably abandon to lighten the
horse's load tomorrow. Her fingers closed about a
small cylinder, then jerked back. A vial of
Greek fire, possibly another.
Behind her she heard cloth ripping. Then Li Shou
struck a light. The spark touched the cloth and flared
up.
The prince knelt, nursing the tiny flames. The
elegant, languid man and silken robes of that
long-ago dinner in Kashgar were gone; a humble,
battered figure stared up at her. Alexandra
pulled off her hat and ran her fingers through her
matted, sweaty hair. She shivered. Despite the
heat, this shelter was cold.
"Perhaps we can find something to burn here," she
said. "We can't sacrifice our clothing, not if we
hope to ride out of here."
As both began to look about, the horses nickered,
then whinnied in dismay. Around the ruin rose howls and
laughter.
"They have us penned like fowl at a market!" cried
Li Shou.
"Not while I have this," Alexandra said, holding out
her sword. She would have to stand at the ragged doorway
and hold the creatures at bay, she supposed. The
imbecilic bravado of that idea made her want
to laugh too. If she started laughing now, she
didn't know if she could stop. Carefully, she
drew a deep, ragged breath, and then another and
another, as she had seen monks do-had done herself-in
meditation.
Li Shou drew his own sword. "Not alone."
There had to be a way, Alexandra thought. As the
demons drew closer, and rocks pelted the
walls, she paced the tiny shelter to relieve her
tension. The Tang prince retreated into a corner
to sit and assume a posture of meditation.
"What's this?" he whispered, bending down. Then he
followed his question by something in reverent tones that
Alexandra could not understand.
"What did you find?" she asked, going to him.
"Sutras," he whispered. "Texts, very old. This
one

bears the name of Have'suan Tsang, a monk who
crossed the desert two centuries ago to bring
uncorrupted Buddhist texts back to the Middle
Kingdom."
We have no time for rare books! Alexandra wanted
to shout, but forced herself to kneel. Anything in this ruin
might be a weapon, left for her to find. Prince
Shou lifted the fragile paper tenderly. Something
gleamed, and Alexandra seized what looked like a
handle of dark wood.
A high-pitched tone filled the wretched room.
Outside, the howling turned into yelps of fear, but
only for a moment. Then they resumed with fearful
intensity as if the demons had been infuriated by their
momentary lapse. The bell had frightened them!
Alexandra ran her fingers over the smooth metal,
over the handle that was not wood, she saw now, but bone.
"A ghanta," she whispered. She had seen them in the
monastery.
"You know Vajra rituals?" Li Shou looked
astonished. "But I forget. At Kashgar,
you won the lightning bolt. Think you, then, that all this
is fated?"
The demons drew closer. The roof beams shivered,
and several mud bricks fell from the walls.
Alexandra handed him the bell. "First we fight.
Then, Highness, if we live, we shall discuss
theology."
Together they stepped to the door of the shelter. Beyond the
opacity of the driving sand and dust they could see
figures dancing about and waving black daggers in their
many arms. Alexandra showed the demons her sword.
They took it as a challenge and advanced.
"Now ring the bell!" she cried, and the prince did.
The ghanta's voice was pure and piercing. The
horses snorted once or twice, and were silent.
One demon, braver or madder than its fellows,
ran forward. Alexandra gasped, then spitted it upon
her blade. The demon shrieked, burst into smoke,
and vanished. Alexandra retreated into the cascades
of sound evoked by the ghanta. It was like standing under a
waterfall. She willed the sound to cover them,
to protect them, and felt a thrill dart from
   Susan
Shuuartz
her brow to the base of her spine, and then
another. The protection was there! The demons howled,
and she tensed her will again and again, feeling some energy
leap from her to strengthen that wall of sound. She was
aware of thirst, and then that too was gone, washed from her
by the high-pitched ringing that protected them as the
demons clustered around and the storm grew fiercer.
Li Shou lowered his hand, and the ringing ceased so
abruptly that they both gasped. "The walls aren't
shaking as hard," he said. "I think the storm is
dying."
Alexandra raised her sword and looked outside.
"It's near dawn," she said. "And the sky
is
lightening."
She sighed, then yawned. She felt drained. It
would be wonderful to sleep, but if they rested now, they
might as well rest forever. They shared out food and
water, giving the larger portion to the horses.
"I have this," said Li Shou, holding up a dark
metal arrow that dangled from a chain. "A
direction-finder. It points north. It may be our
only hope."
"Haraldr will search for me," Alexandra said.
"No one turns back to search for what the desert
has taken," the prince said. "What
makes you think that your tall ..."
"Hu-barbarian?" Incongruously, she almost
laughed. "Haraldr is no barbarian as his people
reckon things. He is the son of a . . . you might
call his father a border lord. He can fight and make
poetry. Above all, he is a Varangian,
pledged to the Emperor-and, through my brother, to me.
No Varangian would break such an oath. Haraldr
will find me, or die here."
"A noble thought, lady." Prince Shou turned from
discussion of oaths to contemplating the book he had
found. "Does this mean anything to you?"
He knew she couldn't read the thousand pictures in
which his language was written, Alexandra thought, but
bent to look. Mountains, arrayed as if in the
petals of a lotus, at its heart a city, and at
the heart of the city . . . there was no mistaking it.
There sat a king, and his face,

though older, was the face of the boy who had guided
them.
"Shambhala!" she said. "I saw this picture
once before, in a monastery. That is the king, Rudra
Cakrin. Twice now, when I have been in peril of
my life, I have seen a child or boy with his
face. And each time, I have been spared."
"I have heard that name. We too have such legends. The
story is told that Lao Tzu, one of our
greatest-you would call him a prophet, perhaps-left the
Middle Kingdom on account of its great wickedness.
Now he lives on Jade Mountain. And there is
Mount Meru, in the south. Lady, do you truly
seek such a place and such a king?"
Alexandra nodded, then found herself nodding off. Now that
the bell had stopped ringing, she wanted only
to collapse into darkness.
"Then I give
my
oath to you that I will aid you. And if it is so fated,
I vow that I will go with you myself. If the master of
Shambhala appeared to you, I owe you both my
life. When you arrive in Ch'ang-an, I
promise that you and yours shall be honored guests in my
home."
"Will that be allowed?"
"Ordinarily not," he agreed. "The Uighurs have
been so arrogant that private dealings with many
foreigners have been forbidden. But I am a prince,
I will have returned so recently that they may still be
glad to see me. And when I left, I
had friends enough that I need not expect the silken cord
to be sent me and given until dawn to hang myself for
housing not barbarians, but honored guests and friends."
She had not counted on his gratitude. In an
instant, she saw how easily she might move about
Ch'ang-an if she were not subject to the restrictions
that the capital, like Byzantium, placed on
foreigners. She could steal the silkworms ... at the
cost of betraying not just a man who trusted her, but her
host. Well, if she survived, she would try
to resolve that dilemma.
Susan Shwartz
Her head drooped, and she forced herself to sit upright.
Again, and again-until she found herself falling
sideways to rest against something warm. She shook herself
awake, then rose to her knees about a yard away from
Li Shou, whose shoulder had supported her. The sky
was paling toward dawn. She rose and turned her
back to the prince, to hide her flushed cheeks.
"Shall we start?" she said. It would be well to travel
as far as possible before the sun came up. If worst
came to worst, they could tie themselves to their mounts and
sleep in shifts, one leading the other, and holding
fast to the prince's direction finder.
He nodded. They saddled their horses and
led them outside. Alexandra turned back to look
at the ruin, already more than half-covered by the sand
once again. "I have to believe we have been guided,"
she mused.
Suddenly she cried out and staggered. Instantly the
prince was at her side, half-supporting her,
listening to her stammered tale of how Haraldr had
won the horn that was linked with Shambhala. "I
heard-oh, inside my head!-like the cry of a hunting
horn. Something has inspired Haraldr to blow that
horn, and it calls to me."
Again came that soundless blast, and she reeled.
"We have to let him know that I've heard him," she
gasped. "The bell-ring it!" And when the prince
hesitated, she seized it and rang it herself. In the
still, open air, the sound would carry a long way. And
if the bell rang as the horn did in both ears and
mind, Haraldr must surely-hear it.
"We can't ride yet," she whispered. "He'll
never find us if we don't stay in one place."
"Madness," judged the prince, but settled himself
to wait. "When my horse bolted, I counted my
life as gone. If it is fated that I die, then as
well here as anywhere else."
As the sun rose higher in the sky where never
a bird dared fly, Alexandra alternately rang
the bell, then listened for the horn call that assaulted
her spirit. She could feel strength flowing from her as from a
mortal

wouldund. She sank down on the sand, and Li Shou
sat down beside her, drawing her across his lap to rest.
"It's closer," she whispered, then winced. Her
dirty, scratched hands caught at the prince's
sleeves, and a spasm shook her. He took the
bell from her and rang it, then waited. Moments
later, both winced at the call that came.
"He'll never see us!" she cried and dragged herself
to her horse and its saddlebags. "Swear never
to tell!" she commanded, then hurled what she had
drawn from the bags against the walls where they had
sheltered.
Flame sprang up. The heat from the Greek fire
melded with the heat of the sun and the coarse sand. Sand,
sky, and burning ruins shimmered as if in a
furnace. Alexandra lowered herself to the hot sand before
she fainted, but forced herself to sit, rather than lie down.
"What's that?" Li Shou's voice snapped her from
uneasy sleep.
"Mirage?" she moaned, and he moistened
her lips with water, restoring her to some measure of
alertness. "Where?"
He gestured toward a tiny speck that danced and
flickered between them and the horizon.
"Illusion," she whispered. "It must be."
"You told me that your guard would never abandon you, and
I did not believe it. Now it is I who
believe, and you who doubt. When we are safe, perhaps
you will beg his pardon."
He drew her down to lie on the sand. Then he
leaped to his feet, waving his arms, even jumping in
a mad effort to draw the attention of the black speck
that rapidly gained in size and speed.
It
was
Haraldr, the other Varangians with him. All were
heavily muffled in robes from head to fingertips against
the sun that was doubly punishing to their Northern-bred
pallor. Within moments, they had reached the burning
ruin, where the prince and princess they never truly
expected to see again awaited them.
"You blew the horn," Alexandra said. "I heard
you."
Haraldr reached inside his robes to touch the hammer
he wore. "I shall thank Freya too,"
he whispered. "Come, let us get you back."
Worn by the storm, the battle with demons, and the
struggle of mind and heart to guide Haraldr to them,
Alexandra barely felt him lift her onto his
camel and give the order to start back. The
camel's fast, even stride over the sand and
Haraldr's heartbeat lulled her.
Only shouts of astonishment which rapidly turned
to cheers woke her from a waking dream in which horses and
jade mountains played their part. Someone was trickling
water into her parched mouth, and tenderly wiping her
face with a silken cloth.
"Alexandra!" She opened bleary eyes to see
Bryennius. In the now-ragged dress of a Muslim
merchant prince, he looked like a brigand, and she
told him so.
"Thank the Mother of God and Her Son!" he
wept. "I never hoped to see you, let alone hear
you tease me again."
She could hear Father Basil arguing with a hoarse
voice that she identified with difficulty as Li
Shou's. "Yes, I know I too need rest, but not
until she is tended. I tell you, I saw her
fight the creatures while I watched, unable
to help."
"You rang the bell," Alexandra said, but both men
ignored her.
"In Ch'ang-an, you are to be my guests. And for
now, she is to be tended by my concubines. No, I
will hear no protests. The thing is done." He
clapped his hands, and Alexandra resigned herself to the
ministrations of those birdlike creatures with their
delicate hands and fine skins. Since they had
survived the storm, apparently they were not that
delicate. It might be pleasant, she thought
fuzzily. Once, after a period of intense study
and meditation, she had had a fever, and the dream-filled
rest had come as a pleasure and a relief.
Bryennius was patting her hand, holding it to his

rough cheek. "Cousin, did you hear? The prince
has ordered that his concubines attend you. You're not
afraid they will regard you as a threat to his regard
for them?"
Alexandra knew the women's quarters of the
Imperial palace. At best, they were hotbeds of
gossip, at worst, quiet and subtly murderous
battlefields that no man could understand. But when the
women dabbled in sorcery, assassination could be the
least one had to fear.
She forced herself to pat her cousin's cheek. "I'll
be safe," she whispered. "For one thing, they know they
have me to thank for getting their prince back to them at
all. For another-do you have any idea how ugly they
think barbarian females are?"
Bryennius rode back toward the head of the
caravan, content for the moment. His own inspection had
reassured him that the Ferghana horses' legs were
sound. He had not dared to rely on the words of guards
or grooms for anything as precious as those horses.
But they endured the desert well. Bryennius
suspected some admixture of Arabianst in their
bloodline.
Ever since the Varangians had brought Alexandra
and the T'ang prince out of the kuraburan, leadership
had fallen upon him. He was delighted at how well
he took to it. In the weeks the prince and his cousin
shivered in fever, tied to their camels, Bryennius
had become first man to wake, last to rest. He
agonized over the horses, and settled disputes.
At Kucha, Father Basil and the prince's
physicians agreed that Li Shou could walk or
ride as needed throughout a day's march. At
Karashahr, Alexandra had finally demanded a
horse, intimidated

the prince's concubines into giving her the riding clothes
that they had hidden, and taken up her former routines.
But the merchants, grooms, and soldiers still took
their orders from Bryennius.
His cousin rode at his side now, silent, the way
she had been since the kuraburan. They had weathered
more storms, but none, thank the Blessed Mother of God,
like the one she had been lost in. She had come out of the
desert half-dead and, it seemed, three-quarters
mad. Now her lips moved as if she were praying or
arguing with herself. The one time he had ventured to ask
what her thoughts were, she had told him a tale of a
thing called the Diamond Path that made him think
her wits had gone astray in the sand. That storm, she
told him, could have been an illusion.
"Some illusion," Bryennius retorted. "It
nearly killed you. And you're still far from well."
"If I had accepted the Diamond Path as the
abbot told me I must, I might simply have
walked through the storm the way Rudra Cakrin did,
when he brought Li Shou and me to shelter."
"You still insist you saw someone?" Bryennius had
asked. He was terrified that the sun, the sand, and the
arduous, monotonous trek had stolen his
cousin's sanity.
"Now you think I'm mad," she told him. "Did
you ever think that madness too might be an illusion?"
She stirred, glancing up at the peaks of the T'ien
Shan, called the Celestial Mountains. Snow
glittered at their summits. Bryennius licked his
lips. If he drank now, the entire caravan
might, and they must hoard their water until they reached
Turpan.
"We're climbing into the foothills." He offered
as a safe, sane topic of conversation the
magnificence on the horizon and the line of march.
Alexandra turned to look at him, she was only a
tired, thin-faced woman with bright dark eyes that for
now, were mercifully free of the intense,
speculative glitter that had so frightened him. "It
might be cooler there."
Susan Shwartz
"My Bryennius." She smiled at him. "I
shouldn't trouble you with my own fears. Do you know, I
think you are dearer to me than my own brother?"
If he wept, the caravan might doubt his fitness
to lead them. (what was that bellow? Ghazala, oldest
of the camels, winning her daily war with the men who
tended her, he deduced.) And without a
leader, they were all lost.
Her tiny hand reached out to lie on his above the reins.
"I swear to you, I do not think I'm mad. I
might well be, though. The Diamond Path that the
abbot said I must walk? It's like the mountain ledges
we crossed-snow above, the pit below, and madness all
around. And now the desert. Deserts give birth
to religions, you know. I can understand why."
Bryennius suppressed an urge to cross himself.
Father Basil, heretic or not, would have to deal with that
astonishing comment.
"No, Bry', I'm not preaching a new
revelation." Abruptly, Alexandra's voice was
sharp, angry. "Damn you, man, this is hard enough
without your going silent and tolerant and panicky on
me! I'm telling you, I saw things, I felt
things during that storm, and I can't think them through."
That much sounded like the old Alexandra, when she was
frustrated by her Aristotle. Bryennius could
respond to that frustration.
"Then give it
people.
rest, cousin, please. In fact, if you could turn
your lofty mind"-her nails bit into his
hand-"to ordinary matters, I need to think a
few things through myself. Would you help me?"
"At Karashahr, when you delivered the letters from
Kucha, and picked up the dispatches for Turpan,
what did they tell you that worries you?" Alexandra
grinned at him. "Yes, I know I was supposed
to be resting. But you're not very subtle, cousin."
Bryennius sighed with relief. Prince Shou might
be their comrade and profess himself their friend, but

Alexandra was family, her complex logic
familiar and reassuring.
"At Kashgar, at dinner that night, you heard that
Turpan is in some jeopardy."
Alexandra nodded. "From what I've learned, it's
always been a battleground. Every time some king or other
wants to expand, his eyes fall on Turpan. Not
to mention his armies. It's a strategic site, and the
water supply is good. Not to mention its wine."
The last thing Bryennius needed now was to think of
Turpan and its
karez,
the subterranean channels that brought water down from the
T'ien Shan foothills, as impressive a thing
in its way as the Roman aqueducts. There were almost
a thousand of them, he had been told. A
thousand cool tunnels, each rippling with water in the
cool, quiet dark. He licked his lips again. This
time he actually reached for his waterskin before he
stopped himself.
"Turpan's under attack, then," Alexandra came
to a conclusion.
"The Karashahr traders think that by now the Turpans
have either waited them out or succumbed." Wars in the
desert were not a matter of protracted campaigns
or prolonged sieges: the resources simply were not
there. Lightning raids, treachery, the hope of
carelessness . . . these were the weapons that might win a
trading outpost for any one of a band of ambitious
tribes. Of all the oases along the silk road,
Turpan had the best chance of outwaiting an
especially well-equipped force . . . unless
someone-or some power-damaged the karez.
"Do we know what we may ride into?" The question was
asked lightly enough. Bryennius shook his head.
That had been the hardest decision of all the ones he
had had to make. Should he wait at Karashahr
until word, or invaders, came from Turpan, or
proceed-in summer comacr the anvil of sand, grit,
and stone so appropriately called the Land of
Fire? Risk his caravan's welfare,
or further endanger his cousin's health and reason?
Susan
Shwartz
"And I was too ill to advise you. Ah,
Bryennius, forgive me?" He almost hugged her then
and there.
"Have you told the prince?"
"When he was ill, I ... drafted his men. It's
doubled our fighting strength." It was hard to suppress
the pride he felt.
"My God, what a general the Empire missed in
you!" she exclaimed. "If you're doing so well on
your own, what do you need me for?"
Well-content, Bryennius turned his horse. He
had heard both hoofbeats and the long tread of a
camel, and wanted his men's reports.
"Why, cousin? To hear what you just said."
Another possible future, Bryennius thought. But
it did seem hard and damnably unfair that even as
his life expanded into a range of possibilities,
Alexandra's shrank and twisted. She was driven now
by two quests: for the silkworms she'd pledged her
life (and his) to bring back to Byzantium, and now
this inexplicable fascination with the Kingdom of
Shambhala. Discreet questions had told him
that it lay to the south. Well, if they survived that
long, they could always return from Ch'in by the southerly
trade routes. From what he'd heard, they were almost
worse than the ones he'd already crossed.
When they stopped to rest, he would tell her everything that
Suleiman and the other traders had told him.
Once she had all the facts, she could occupy that
complex, fertile'tnind on something considerably more
profitable than pagan superstitions.
Days later, they climbed down from the foothills,
reached the ordinary level of the sand, and kept on
begreater-than descending. Here the air was thick and
hot, though so
backslash
dry it scorched the throat and nose. Sunlight
pressed
backslash
upon their backs until they were surprised that the long,
black shadows that they cast were not hunched over: from the
weight of it. The coarse sand cast the heat back up
at them. The camels protested at each step, and
three
backslash

horses had to be killed when they
collapsed, unable to walk a step farther.
"I could almost believe," Father Basil said, "that some
demon had pressed his thumb into the earth and gouged out
this place. The Land of Fire indeed!"
"Please, don't joke about it!" Alexandra
begged.
"This one rejoices that when he came here the first time, it was
winter," said Li Shou.
Bryennius slitted his eyes. The air was a
shimmer of heat. Was the shadow up ahead just another
illusion or was that smoke? He pointed it out
to Alexandra.
She stared too. "Smoke," she pronounced finally.
"And not just smoke, either. Look at the way the light
moves. After Haraldr found me, I don't think
I can ever forget how riders look, coming toward one in
a desert. There are riders coming this way."
She adjusted her swordbelt and signaled for her
guardsmen. Haraldr rode in, his axe at hand.
Prince Shou closed in on her other side.
Bryennius spared time for a sly smile.
"Tell the men to arm," Bryennius ordered one of the
men from Kashgar.
Brigands would not touch them if they showed too great a
force. An army, however . . . "Tell
them also to remember that we are traders, not a war
band. We don't attack unless fired upon."
As the sun beat down on them, they waited, straining
their eyes until the shimmer blurred and re-formed
into a band of riders. "Horse archers," muttered
Father Basil.
"Kazaks, probably," said the Ch'in prince.
"They ride magnificently."
For an instant, both Alexandra and Bryennius
glared at him. This was no time for artistic judgments.
"Friends?" Bryennius asked one of the traders from
Kashgar.
The man shrugged. The riders drew closer, and their
own archers nocked arrows, waiting.
They could stand like this until someone's judgment
Susan
Shwartz
snapped, or they all collapsed from the sun,
Alexandra thought. She knew that as princess, it was
her part to remain in such safety as there was, until
her fate-and the fate of all the other
noncombatants-was decided. She also knew that
it was her fate to resent such arrangements. In her
lost and unlamented convent, she had seen two cats
stalking one another. They had crouched
motionless, neither taking its eyes from the other, neither
moving, until she dropped a pebble. Then the
spell was broken, and each strolled off in a
different direction. The distraction enabled her to break
up what might have been quite a fight, though nothing
compared with the bloodshed (her own included) that might come
from a misstep here.
Like everything else since her escape from the
kuraburan, this did not seem real to her. It was
all illusion, the abbot's voice whispered in her
head. But she didn't want it to be illusion. She
didn't want to be some esoteric being. She was
human, and she wanted her hopes and fears back,
needed them if she were not to throw herself away through
caprice, indifference, or despair.
She remembered Kashgar, and how she had ridden into it
like a princess, her hair flowing down her back.
Well, there was no wind here to make it fly behind her
(and it was probably too matted to do anything of the
kind), but she could try. Moving her hands slowly
toward her head, she pulled off her hat and let her
hair tumble. Homer might write all he cared
to about Amazons: no war party she had ever heard of
included women.
A man who looked much like her hosts in
Kashgar detached himself from the troop and rode forward.
"I am Ibrahim ibn Mulhalhil."
"Now that," rumbled Haraldr, "is what I call
a brave man!"
Alexandra touched heels delicately to her
horse's flanks and moved slowly forward. Behind
her, she heard appalled hisses.
  silk roads and shadows
"Bryennius," she whispered through her teeth, have the
dispatches. Come . . . but slowly,"
"Suleiman Mis'ar ibn Mulhalhil calls
me brother," Bryennius said.
The man looked skeptical. He stiffened, and the
warriors behind him tensed too.
"I have letters," Bryennius added, his voice rising
a little.
"Will you let me bring them to you?" Alexandra called.
Her higher, clear voice carried, unmistakably
that of a woman. She took the letters from her cousin's
hand and walked her horse toward the Turpan
merchant, holding them out to him as she might hold
meat out to a growling watchdog. From what she had seen
of them, they were in Arabic. They might say anything,
including, "Put to death the bearer of these
instructions."
Deliberately, the man opened the letters and read them,
then stared at Bryennius and, a little more abash-edly,
at herself. She forced herself to look around as if he could
not possibly decide to harm them. Today it was
difficult to tell where the mountain peaks ended and the
clouds began. Above the clouds, the sky looked
almost indigo. And what she saw drifting behind the
riders was most certainly smoke. Despite the
dryness of the air, she felt sweat run down her
sides. Her heart pounded as it had done in the high
passes. Sights, smells, and sounds had never
been as intense, or as precious to her.
"I ask your pardon," said ibn Mulhalhil after
a time. "My house and all in it are yours."
Alexandra made her horse back up and she put
her hat back on. No need to court sunstroke,
or embarrass the man by reminding him of her
presence.
Ask if there was a battle,
she wished at Bryennius.
He fell into low-voiced conversation with the man, at one
point grimacing in disgust. Then each saluted the
other in the Abbasid fashion of hand to lips and brow
before returning to his own troop.
"Some of the tribes here have been raiding
Turpan more than usual. Mosques have been
desecrated. The
  Susan
Shuuartz
tribes-they say they were here before Islam and will be here
long after they have driven it into the sand and made
Turpan into a waste like the ruins down the road,"
said Bryennius. "There was plague too-high
fever, convulsions, but it quit when they found ... he
doesn't want to talk about what they found. Some
sort of idol with many arms and skulls."
"Like the attempt on my nephew's life!" cried
Alexandra. Risking her life had won her back
her ability to feel. Once again, she could smell
magic, close at hand. She touched her
talismans and tried to sense what might lie up
ahead. It all but made her gag.
There had indeed been war in Turpan, and the town had
survived it by a hair. The
yurts
of the few tribesmen who still dared to live outside the
town itself rested on battle-marked sand. Smoke
stained the pale mud-brick walls of Turpan's
buildings, and spiraled in patterns about the mosque
with its spire that looked like an ivory toy
carved by a master craftsman for a Titan. They
rode past many homes with walls pitted by fire and
heavy blows. The townspeople were out, restoring the
leafy trellises that gave them shade, grapes, and
comfort, even here in the Land of Fire.
"They defaced even the cemetery this one's
ancestors built here," Li Shou mourned
quietly. "It too must be set to rights."
A look went from Ibrahim to Bryennius
to Alexandra herself. First things first. Now the prince
rode at her side. "This one admired the
princess' conduct in front of the archers," he said
formally. "There are stories of a T'ang princess,
the lady Ping Yang, whose army defended a pass.
May this one express the observation that the princess
and this one's far distant kinswoman have much in common?"
Li Shou, with his old names for places and his
elegies . . . Alexandra shook herself. Li Shou
might be more poet than warrior, but he had been a
good man to have at her back during the storm.

"This one . . ." Oh, she would never accustom herself
to speaking of herself in the third person, anymore than
she could speak of herself as "we" the way Greek
Imperials thought they had to. "I thank
you, Highness," she managed to say. Then, a little more
quickly, "I am very glad that I learned of your
brave ancestress only now, Prince. I rode
out to face the archers because I thought that the warriors in
these parts could not imagine a woman as a threat. If
I had known of that princess, I think I might have
been afraid."
Li Shou smiled and shook his head at what he thought
was her modesty. She colored and turned away,
listening to Ibrahim as he spoke to her cousin.
"Many of our caravanserais have been destroyed,"
Ibrahim said. "You shall stay in my own home."
Ibrahim's home lay beyond the bazaars, in a
narrow alley miraculously free of camels,
donkey carts, and scurrying Uighurs, Kazaks,
Ch'in, Muslims, and any of ten other tribes and
races. The karez was open here to the air, and it
frothed with clean, fast-moving water. Alexandra
wanted to dip her hands and feet into it. Trellises
covered its thick walls so heavily that the mud
bricks were only a pale, intermittent gleam in the
sunlight.
Ibrahim murmured a few words, then stepped
aside for them to enter what felt like a paradise of
coolness. Alexandra felt the skin around
her eyes loosen at the pleasures of being in
near-darkness and close to moisture. Outside, the
leaves rustled comfortingly. Her eyes became used
to the room's dimness, though spots still danced and
glittered in front of the jewellike stacks of
rugs and soft cushions to which Ibrahim steered his
guests.
Bowis of fruit and Turpan's fabled mare's-teat
grapes appeared almost magically. She washed her
hands in the water a manservant offered her in a
turquoise-glazed bowl. Beyond her, one of
Bryennius' troopers bit into a piuin beaded with
moisture. Juice dribbled down his
Susan Shuuartz
chin, and he dabbed at it, grinned guiltily, and
took another eager bite.
Alexandra started to laugh with the rest. Then she
shivered. The juice that stained his lips looked like
blood trickling from the mouth of a dying man. She
shook her head. She was only a trifle dizzy,
coming in out of the sunlight like that. But, she decided, no
plums for her! She took a cluster of the huge,
ripe grapes. A grape burst in her mouth.
Along with its heavy sweetness came the taste of
ashes and blood.
As conversation swirled about her, she shut her eyes
and, in the same instant, regretted it. The taste
of the grape tore her loose from her anchorage in the
tired body that reclined on a cushion in a desert
outpost, and flung her awareness adrift high above
the desert. She saw the mountains she had crossed,
even the peak on which she had almost died-and still her thoughts
soared higher. When the mountains seemed no more than a
wrinkled piece of silk cast upon the earth, she
seemed to pause where she was. Now, on all
sides, voices and colors assailed her.
Smoke wreathed around her, and she flinched from it,
remembering how the abbot had warned her against
demons.
The abbot! She reached with her thoughts for his comforting
presence. He would not intervene, she recalled, but
surely she might greet him? The attempt made
her dizzy, and now she heard laughter, a woman's
voice saying in cultivated Greek, "I may not
even have to destroy her. One step aside on
that
path, and she will destroy herself." She knew the
voice for her aunt Theodora's, and it terrified
her. Bad enough that her aunt threatened her soul, but that
she herself, through a misstep on the Diamond
Path, could plunge herself to hell . . . still
will not,
she whispered. She had always had guides on the
Diamond Path. Now, it seemed, she must
struggle on by herself.
Her awareness plummeted, and she was back inside
her body in Turpan, then, just as suddenly, wandering
in her thoughts below the house, deep beneath the ground.
Water trickled nearby, and someone wept. Something
was rotting, but not yet decently dead, and it crouched
underground.
Abruptly Alexandra snapped back to the here and
now and cut into the conversation. "What lies beneath your
house?" she asked.
Ibrahim clearly thought that his honored guest had a
touch of sunstroke. "We are near the
qanat,
Highness. So we have plenty of water, even now."
Even as Father Basil whispered to her that "qanat" was
simply the word the Arabs used for the karez, she shook
her head in revulsion. Blood and smoke and worse
things lay in that water, which trickled along underground
ways where that thing might lap at it and foul it. Her
conviction that Turpan's war was not yet over
grew.
Li Shou's tired eyes rested upon her and warned.
He knows that something is wrong, and suspects it is
magic,
Alexandra thought. Bryennius looked troubled.
He thinks I am going mad, as well I might.
A strong hand suddenly touched her shoulder, and she
relaxed under the unexpected gesture.
"My princess needs to rest," said Haraldr in
passable Sogdian. Except for the time he had
wedged her into the rocks lest the snowslide hurl her
down the mountainside, he had never touched her before.
Her warmth and littleness struck him almost as fiercely as
his shock when she looked up at him and smiled
wearily. For an instant, he saw her as she had
been in Byzantium: jeweled and remote, but with a
flash in her eyes. And when the Basileus spoke
of her journey that day, it had rekindled the wanderlust
that had already drawn him from Norway to Hedeby and
Aldeigsfjord, on the mad dash down the rapids
from Kiev, and thence to Miklagard. Those bright eyes
had kindled another type of lust on the road east,
though it shamed him to admit it. His princess . . .
her courage and endurance moved him as achingly as her
dark eyes or her slender frame. Even
grimy, and drawn, her silken hair bound up in that
  Susan
Shwanz
ridiculous cap, she seemed as fragile and
perfect as the ivories in the palace. Fool, he
called himself for the thousandth time. She might have wed a
king, not an oaf like himself, but she had chosen to live a
holy life until danger turned her into a
shieldmaid, innocent and fierce. He had as much
chance to win her as he would have if he approached a
Valkyrie with talk of love. But his princess had
smiled at him. His stubborn heart raced.
"Certainly," said Ibrahim, sounding relieved, and
clapped his hands. Alexandra rose. She would, she
supposed, be conducted to his female kin; she was
getting used to that.
"I cannot believe," she heard Li Shou's voice
behind her, clearly taking up a subject that had
stirred up some anxiety, "that the Son of Heaven
would exile the worshipers of Mani."
"Even the rumor of trouble distresses me," Father
Basil replied, "for my own people in your land. How
long will it be before you blame the Nestorians as well
as the tribes for the raids, and the violation of your holy
places? And yours, Master Ibrahim.
If Ch'in turns inward, distrusting the outsiders who
have helped make it wise and rich, against whom else
might it turn?"
Alexandra turned and left the room. The women's
quarters were cool and very quiet, if you ignored the
dismay and murmurings of their inmates at her parched
skin, her thinness, and her scandalous clothing. It was
pleasant to'be bathed and oiled (she forced herself
to ignore the reek of blood in the bathwater, since
none of the other women seemed troubled) and eased down
into a soft nest of rugs, cushions, and a fine
cotton sheet, as if she were an infant. The women
left, leaving behind a pitcher of water and a finely
pierced brass lamp that cast fascinating shadows on
the walls. Alexandra stared at them, hoping to follow
them into deep, dreamless sleep.
But again she smelled smoke, and death, and that
unholiness that lurked beneath the ground here. It was

the karez, she knew that now. The nomads had
withdrawn, but Turpan's real enemy had laired within
its very heart. After a time she rose and dressed in the
clean clothing the women had left for her. Comfort here
was an illusion; she preferred to rest fully clad
against the moment when the illusion was shattered.
For good measure, she picked up her sword, then
laid the pack containing the bell and lightning-bolt
emblem she had won where she could reach it. Only then
did she lie down again.
Lazily she traced the pattern of light dancing
over the roughly textured walls. After a time, the
lamp went out and she slept.
Hasty footsteps and blazing lights invaded
Alexandra's room, and she woke with a cry. In an
instant, she had drawn not her sword, but the twisting
dorje that symbolized the lightning.
Prince Li Shou took one step back. Father
Basil was with him.
"Turpan is under attack?" she asked quickly. So
this was why the plums, the grapes, and the water had
tasted of blood!-Outside, she heard wailing and
running feet, and, over all, the sound of alarm,
voices shouting orders, and the clash of weapons being
lifted from stores and distributed.
None of it surprised her. What did surprise
her was the presence of men and outsiders in the women's
quarters. Then she heard other men's deep voices
too, and she realized that the women were being evacuated
to some place of safety ... if indeed such a
place existed.
"The dorje," breathed the prince. Alexandra spared
it a glance as she thrust it into her belt. It glowed
blue-white.
Ibrahim awaited them in the reception room they
had entered only hours before, armed guards at his
back.
"The tribes?" asked Bryennius, who had his
sword drawn, and looked eager for a fight.
Susan Sstituarfz
The merchant looked distracted. "Down from the
hills, under the houses . . . there is a guard on
the tunnels: How could they have entered?"
There was no time to tell him, Alexandra thought in
pity. He would only think that his troubles had been
increased by the presence of a madwoman.
"The rest of your caravan has been guided to the
ruins of the Han town outside Turpan. You'll
see it. Take these letters"-he thrust dispatches
into Bryennius' hands com8for my cousins in
Dunhuang. Tell them to guard the Jade Gate
well, and to pray for us!"
"I can't leave you like this, man!" Bryennius
cried. "Suleiman Mi'sar ibn Mulhalhil
called me brother. Would he abandon you?"
Haraldr stalked in through the main door,
causing half the men in the room to reach for their
weapons. "My prince," he saluted
Bryennius, "I sent the others on ahead, then
came back here. Do we stay with the rear guard?"
"Yes!" Bryennius cried, even as Ibrahim
shook his head.
"Your first loyalty, Prince ... it must be to your
kinswoman, and to His Highness, with whose safety my
kinsmen in Kashgar entrusted you. Though I would
welcome your sword, this is not their battle."
Ibrahim doesn't expect to win, Alexandra
thought. Voices screamed in the narrow streets, and
outside, flames danced up, casting crazy shadows
on the minaret which seemed to sway back and forth with them.
Bryennius' swarthy face flushed with shame. How
easy it would be to agree that they should stay here. For a
moment Alexandra wavered. Li Shou fingered his
swordhilt, his mind doubtless full of heroic
songs as well as honest fear. It was brave, it was
noble-and it was probably useless, suicidal.
Another man burst into the room. His sword
dripped blood on the fine carpets. "That was the
last of the women! Now barbarians are pouring in from the
ruined caravanserais."
143
"Go now, while you can!" Ibrahim ordered.
"Prince, Princess, let me stay," Haraldr
begged. Alexandra might have expected that. If they
didn't stop arguing, they'd have no choice but to stay
and fight.
"You are sworn to me, Haraldr," Alexandra
snapped in Greek. "And I do not release you."
His blue eyes were on her, troubled and even hurt,
and his hands clasped and unclasped on his axe.
Alexandra drew her sword. "My Lord
Ibrahim, I thank you for your hospitality.
If. . ." She drew a breath . . . "If your
Allah wills it, I shall come back to enjoy it in
peace. Now: which way must we flee?"
"I will lead you," he said, and they ran from the house.
Crowds swirled about them. Riders pounded by.
Alexandra flung herself out of their path. She heard
a scream, and something meaty fall before she could even
draw her own sword. Then they were engulfed in a
snarl of quick, dirty fights. By the time they could
breathe again, and bind up their wounds, Ibrahim lay
dead. Sprawled beside him, half in, half out of the
canal, lay the Greek soldier whom Alexandra
had watched eating a plum. Blood ran from his mouth
and spiraled into the rushing water.
She dashed her hand across her grimy face. "Now
what?" she asked. Father Basil, one of
Ibrahim's men, and Prince Li Shou were deep in
rapid conversation. "Ibrahim-Christ rest his
soul-said that there was an entrance to the karez near his
house," said the priest. "And this man claims to know
the underground ways. He could bring us out to where the
caravan awaits us."

waits for us,
Alexandra thought. The idea of entering the karez was
abhorrent to her. What if they confronted whatever
undead thing she had envisioned lurking in its windings?
She imagined that it looked like the goat she had
slain, only larger and fouler. But they had no
better choice.
Li Shou stared at her. "You think that there's something in
the karez?"
She nodded. Then they heard the shrieks of their
enemy and ran for the karez.
"Everyone flee," gasped their torches you can carry.
Quick!"
guide. "Take what
The tunnels were so low that even Alexandra had to bend
down as they crawled into the twisting darkness.
This had to be torment for Haraldr, she thought after she
heard a thump, a scrape, and an oath in
Norse. "Like the very bowels of the Midgard serpent!"
Haraldr muttered.
"Do you want to bring the earth down upon us?" hissed
their guide. He held up a torch. If the
walls of the karez were reinforced, Alexandra couldn't
see it. The weight of earth pressing down upon them .
. . she sniffed blood again, and knew it for the lives
of the men who had built this waterway, and who
maintained it. She wondered if they were not afraid
to enter the tunnels, and how it felt to be trapped
down here, waiting for the torches to burn out or the air
to go bad.
Their feet splashed in the shallow water. Around them,
the torches flickered orange and yellow. Soot
streaks marked other such journeys. Alexandra
tensed. Where was the trouble she had sensed down here?
Bryennius stopped so quickly that she walked into him.
He started to straighten, then remembered his height.
"I hear something," he whispered.
Alexandra stopped too, though the guide hissed for
more speed. Now she could hear it too, low and
plaintive, rippling
over
the water.
"Someone's weeping!" Bryennius said, and set a
faster pace. He stopped at the junction of two
tunnels, dank from the knee-deep water.
"Which way do we go to get out?" he demanded.
The guide pointed with his chin. That was the direction from
which the weeping was coming.
"A trap?" Alexandra suggested to Bryennius.
Whoever, or whatever wept lay in the path they had
to walk. Haraldr's comparison of the karez with a
serpent was too apt: she felt like she walked in between
its ranged jaws.

Bryennius splashed on ahead. As the water
level dropped, the noise of his passage
lessened. So did the weeping.
Torch in hand, he disappeared in a bend of the
tunnel. The guide, bent almost double, followed, with
Prince Li Shou and Alexandra, Father Basil,
several soldiers, and-as rear guard-Haraldr
hurrying after him.
A scream from the direction Bryennius had
disappeared in shocked a scream from Alexandra too.
Dust and larger chunks of earth dropped from the
tunnel's ceiling. Steel rasped out and
light flickered off the huge blade of Haraldr's
axe.
"The dorje!" whispered Li Shou. "Check it!"
When she had waked, the lightning-bolt emblem had
gleamed balefully. Now it merely reflected the
torchlight. Footsteps neared them, and they tensed.
It was Bryennius. His sword was sheathed, he had
thrown away his torch-and in his arms he carried a
woman in wet, tattered robes that had once been
very fine.
Their guide walked over to him and looked down at the
woman he bore. "What do you think you're doing?"
Bryennius asked indignantly.
"That necklace," said the guide. "A double strand of
moonstones. Princesses of the Uighur royal
house wear such things. We had heard that during the
last battle, the youngest princess disappeared.
We've been expecting the tribes to demand ransom
for her."
The necklace dangled from his hands, like pearls,
only more filled with light.
"Excellent, Your Highness," said a soldier, the
comrade of the man who lay dead outside
Ibrahim's house. "You have found a princess-or
what looks like a princess. How do we
know that that too isn't . . ."
The woman in Bryennius' arms suddenly struggled,
glanced around at the people glaring at her, and wailed again.
Bryennius murmured to her and kept on walking.
"She's no demon," he insisted. "Let's keep
walking."
"Look at her!" whispered Li Shou. "Her mother
may
Susan Shtuarfz
have been a kinswoman, or an Imperial concubine
sent here as a gift."
But what if she were a demon?
Alexandra scurried up behind Bryennius. "That was
a good question, cousin. There are simple tests for
demons. Doubtless Father Basil has holy
relics or water, and I have this!" She showed him the
dorje.
"Holy relics from a heretic, and a heathen
symbol!" Bryennius snorted.
"Bry', you sound as if she's bespelled you already.
In the name of God, man, do you want me to have to think
of you as an enemy?"
"Alexandra!" Real hurt quivered in his voice.
"I won't hurt her. If she's been lost down
here, she deserves all the help we can
give her. But let me test her."
Bryennius turned and knelt. Again he murmured
wordlessly, coaxing the woman he bore, her face
burrowed frantically against his shoulder, to turn around.
Alexandra looked at her and stifled a gasp.
Despite the tears and the terror that blotched her
face, the woman was very beautiful, with the broad
Uighur cheekbones, but the delicate brows and
upswept eyes of the Ch'in. Her mouth was tiny and
perfect.
"Give me her necklace," Alexandra ordered the
guide.
"Highness, we must hurry!" he said urgently.
"I must rejoin my brothers, and you and your people must
flee here!"
Alexandra held out her hand for the moonstones and
dangled them in thestwoman's face. "A few
moments' test is safer than bearing an enemy in our
midst." The woman reached out for the gems.
"Yes, yours," Alexandra agreed. "And who are
you?" She tried in Sogdian, then in careful Ch'in
that brought a gasp of relief and wonder from the other
woman. Li Shou bent close, and modestly the
woman turned her head, almost hiding again in the
refuge of Bryennius' arms. But she
answered his questions in a soft voice still heavy with
tears.
"She is Siddiqa," said Li Shou. "And she was not
lost'

here. The nomads brought her here-and left her. She
does not know why. She tried to walk out, but got
lost."
Alexandra held up the dorje as she might display
a dagger to a boychild. Siddiqa gasped in wonder
and touched it. Father Basil's mutters of exorcism
ended in an "amen."
"Do you still think she is a demon?" Bryennius
demanded. He was angry, Alexandra could tell.
"Apparently not," she said. "Do you still think I am
mad?"
"Hush!" commanded the guide, and they went on. From time
to time, Alexandra could hear Bryennius whispering to the
woman he bore.
Their torches smoked, then died to reddish glows.
They lit fresh ones, which seemed to burn only
half as long. Underfoot, the tunnels grew dry.
"A lesser-used portion of the karez," explained the
guide. "These tunnels fill during the spring, when
the thaw sends icemelt down to us."
He didn't sound wholly convinced, Alexandra
thought. Here the air was heavy, thick with old dust and
dryness. Tentatively, Alexandra sniffed. Old
fears, and underlying them, the scent of blood. There
was
something beneath Turpan, some old chaos that the tribes
knew, and feared, and sacrificed Siddiqa's
ransom in order to propitiate.
Abruptly the Uighur girl wailed. They all
stopped. Their torches, lit so little time ago, were
already flickering to darkness.
Footsteps again, in a rhythm utterly unlike that
of any man, woman, or beast Alexandra had ever
seen or heard. They seemed to pad softly toward
them. Alexandra felt the same dread she had known
in the upper air, smelled fear in the thickening air
and in their very sweat. Whatever approached was a
predator and an angry one.
They quickened their pace, their breathing harsh in the silence
of the bad air, Siddiqa's sobs the only other
sound. Father Basil suddenly went to his knees,
laid his ear to the ground.
Susan Shwartz
"It's shaking," he said, and in the dying light, his
face was very bleak. "An earth tremor, and
here we are."
Now Alexandra too could hear the rumbling. It
reminded her of the avalanche. She had escaped that.
There would be no chance to escape this. Trembling, she
sank to her knees. Her pack felt heavy on her
back. If it came quickly, rest might be a
blessing.
Then she remembered the bell she carried. It had
warded off the demons, shielded herself and Prince
Shou from the driving sand that had tried to smother them. She
pulled the ghanta from her back, and as the rumbling
shuddered underneath them and fissures opened up in the
walls and ceiling of the tunnel, she rang it.
During the storm, it had seemed as if the bell cast
a shell of protective light about her. Now, in the
near-darkness, she saw that light, saw broken
bricks, huge chunks of masonry, crash down
against it, and rebound. A crack wide enough to engulf
Haraldr opened beneath his feet. For a moment he stood
only on light; then the crack snapped closed
again, and the light held.
Gradually the quake died down into tremors, then
into silence. Alexandra set down the bell. The
resonances of its tone still lingered in the air.
The dust all about them set them to coughing
frantically. When the spasms subsided,
Alexandra struck a light and kindled her last
torch.
"Lord have mercy," she whispered.
The others tupned frightened faces to her. She
straightened as much as she could, and held her torch
aloft to show them what she had seen.
All around them, the tunnels had collapsed. They
were sealed in.
Alexandra took a step forward, then recoiled.
Her foot had almost fallen on the body of a man,
mummified by years of exposure to the dust. He still
wore fragments of armor.
"He'll have company now," Haraldr muttered. His
breath came fast and shallow.

Alexandra knelt beside the body. The air would
rapidly turn bad here, and then they would all go
to sleep.
Was that how it was with you tool
she asked the silent face.
Did you ever hope to free yourself?
She could not see whether the man had used sword or
hands to try to dig himself free, or whether he had
simply composed himself, hopelessly, for
sleep.
"The child you saw," whispered Li Shou. "And in the
desert, the youth. Princess, look at that man!"
Alexandra raised the torch, nerved herself to gaze again
at the dead man. Even after all these years, his
face still bore an expression of resignation. And his
features ... it took all her resolution not
to crouch down and sob in despair (as the guide was
doing). The withered features were those of Rudra
Cakrin. On his breast lay a necklace, its
chain snapped, a central medallion bearing the
familiar sigil of Shambhala.
Here even he had no power, and here, apparently, he
had died.
And here they were. Their eyes gleamed white and
terrified in grimy faces.
Their torches burned sullenly. One hissed, then
went out.
V
V"
V
"No!" Haraldr growled and began to scrape at the
earth with the blade of his axe.
"You'll only use up the air that much faster,"
Bryennius said. He had his arm about the
princess they had found. Haraidr merely shrugged and
went on digging. Alexandra understood. As long as
he could hold an axe, he would not despair. But
if even the King of J Shambhala himself had
despaired here, what more could she do? You can die without
howling over it, she ordered herself.
Prince Shou dragged himself over to kneel beside her.
He raised his smoking torch the better to view the
dead man's face.
"But look!" he said softly. Siddiqa took one
look, sobbed, and buried her face in Bryennius'
shoulder.
"If we hadn't found her, she might have wandered out in
time," Alexandra muttered. "Or gone mad. I
suppose this is an easier death than despair and
madness."
ISO

"What makes you think this man despaired,
Princess?" asked Li Shou. "I tell you,
look at his face! And now, ask yourself if, since
we found him, we have heard that creature hunting on
our trail again."
Alexandra stared at him, wondering what he meant.
Another torch smoked and went out, leaving a
reek of oily smoke.
"We have a story," Li Shou went on, "of the
Purple Wall. It was said that when Ch'in Shih
Huang-di began his Great Wall, in order for it
to stand, ten thousand men must be buried within it. A man
named Wan-which means "ten thousand"-was found, and
told of our need. Willingly, he entered the
Wall-was
"That's hideous!" spat Bryennius.
"Perhaps so," said the prince, "but the Wall
endures."
It was like the prince to while away the time between now and
death with a sad story, Alexandra thought, and yet ...
and yet ... the dry earth had lain but lightly on the
face of the dead man. He did not look as if he
had died in despair.
Haraldr scraped away at the earth, his breathing
hoarse in the silence. She stopped him with a touch on
his shoulder.
"A sacrificial death," she mused. She took
up the medallion the dead man wore, wiped it
clean of the crusted earth, then laid it back down on
his breast.
The air was very thick by now. Alexandra felt
drowsy. She leaned against Haraldr's
back, let her senses drift. Except for the heat
and smells, it was like being entombed in the snow again.
Only she was not alone. It was very still. Only one
torch burned now, and it too was beginning to smolder.
Father Basil crouched beside the corpse. Very gently
he traced the sign of the cross on its brow. "We
may as well prepare ourselves," he said.
Suddenly the last torch kindled and flared first
orange, then yellow, then a clear, pure white.
"Air!" she cried and tensed, sniffing for the source
of the tiny breeze that had fed the torch. There it was,
cool,
Susan
Shwartz
and damp. On her hands and knees she tracked it,
scratching at the dried, tumbled earth until
Haraldr shouldered her aside and begin to dig. A
lump of rock-hard earth the size of a man's head
fell forward and splashed.
"Allah the Merciful and Lovingkind! There's
another tunnel beyond there!" cried their guide, who
joined Haraldr at the digging. They panted in the
still-foul air, but rapidly, the hole widened until
Haraldr forced his massive shoulders through.
Alexandra could hear him swear as he
disappeared into that other tunnel. His face, sweaty and
soot-dark, showed at the opening, and he grinned at
them.
"It looks clear," he announced. "I'll help
you through. First you, my princess." Though Alexandra
gestured to Bryennius to hand Siddiqa through first, the
tiny girl resisted.
"Perhaps if I do go first, it will reassure her," she
said. As she clambered through, Haraldr's rough
grasp on her wrists kept her from panicking.
"Bryennius, push her through to me. No? Then you come
through, and she'll join you."
One by one, they struggled through the opening. Even though
air in the new tunnel was dank and stale, it went
to their heads like Turpan's strongest wine. Even
Li Shou laughed a little wildly with relief.
The guide rose to his knees, and studied the
tunnel. After a long pause, he announced,
"Now I can get us out."
"Wait, oh, wait!" Alexandra cried. In
Kashgar, she had won the lightning bolt, and in the
desert, the bell that had shielded them when the earth
trembled. If the King of Shambhala indeed
protected her, he would not begrudge her his sigil,
and she dared not leave it behind. Before anyone
could stop her, she scrambled back into the cave they
had left.
The body of Rudra Cakrin was gone, the
medallion with it. In its place lay a moonstone
the size of a bird's

egg. Sword, scepter, bell, gem, flowers, and
crown, the abbot had told her, were given to those who
walked the Diamond Path. Here beyond all hope was
the gem.
Earth spattered down on her brow from the karez'
ruined ceiling. Thrusting the gem into her clothing, she
flung herself toward the new tunnel, ignoring
painful scrapes as her companions pulled her
free just as chunks of rock-hard earth began to fall
upon her legs. "Idiot!" spat Bryennius, as
they fled down the tunnel, half dragging her in their
eagerness to be far from a new cave-in.
Finally, when they crouched panting against the rough wall,
Alexandra brought out the moonstone. It caught the
torchlight, transmuting it to blue and white fire.
"He was gone," she told the prince and the priest.
"But I will swear to you by all that is holy-in any of
our faiths-that he left this gem for me."
Father Basil smiled gently, though the
sweat and dirt on his face made it a grimace.
"Since you like the tales of the West, Highness,
remind me to tell you one day of the parable of a man who
gave all he possessed for a pearl of great
price."
"There!" whispered their guide. "We're almost
outside."
He waved his arms frantically for quiet in case
enemies, and not their own caravan, awaited them. They
tried to walk slowly, lest the splashing of their
boots in the shallow water alert guards up ahead.
Now Alexandra could see starlight reflected in the
tiny stream that fed into the karez.
They dragged themselves up out of the karez and sprawled on
the earth, drawing great breaths of the fresh air, which was
sweet, with the wild cleanliness of the sand, into their
lungs. The night seemed full of music.
Alexandra forced herself to rise, accompanying the guard
to a tiny rise from which she could see Turpan, from here
only a tiny cluster of buildings from which reddish
smoke rose in the dry air.
Susan Shwartz
Then the guide turned and pointed. "There!" he
whispered. If Alexandra squinted, she could just
barely see ruins. Moving along the
ghostly, crumbling ways of the old town was a file
of men, horses, and camels. "You must go now!" he
ordered.
"Come with us," she said, catching at his arm and drawing
him back down toward the others. She motioned them in
the direction of the waiting caravan.
He pulled away, and she remembered he was
Muslim and would not suffer her to touch him. But he
smiled at her almost tenderly. "I must return
to defend my home," he said.
The man stared at all of them as if trying
to remember them for always. Finally, he bowed deeply
to the Princess Siddiqa.
"Great lady," he said. "If it is the will of
Allah, we shall drive our enemies back once
more. But go quickly now, before they see you. If you
travel till the sun is high, they cannot catch you."
Then he was gone, a tiny figure running down from the
hills, back into the burning oasis. A shower of
sparks exploded up from a house as its wood-beamed
roof collapsed.
Bryennius was swearing without pause or
originality. When the words "Greek fire" mingled
with the oaths, Alexandra interrupted. "That would only
have helped them destroy their town. And in the
end, we might have been taken or killed. Come on.
You heard what ... do you know, Bryennius, he
never gave us his name?"
In the end, they were nearly spitted by their own guards,
who had spent hours in the ruins watching the fight for
Turpan, never knowing when they too might be
attacked, or if they would ever see the people for whom they
waited. Alexandra hated to think how close the
caravan must have come to abandoning them.
"North to Hami?" asked one of the headmen. The
northern route might be longer, but it spared them the

necessity of crossing the White Dragon
Dunes. They were said to be as bad as the Takla
Makan, filled not with demons but with ghosts.
"No!" commanded Li Shou. "Prince Bryennius,
Princess, this one humbly begs your pardon, but
we must go to Dunhuang as quickly as we can and warn the
people there."
The headman glanced at Bryennius, who shrugged and
looked at Alexandra. "Dunhuang, then." A
groom led her horse up, then knelt to help her
into the saddle.
"I'll ride double with the Princess Siddiqa,"
Bryennius said. He mounted, then gestured
for Haraldr to lift her to his saddle. Quiet had
fallen over Turpan. The beasts made no sound.
Even the jangling of their harnesses seemed muffled.
For hours they rode out of the Land of Fire. The sky
paled, then kindled as the sun rose, forcing them first
to a walk, then to a rest stop they had wished to delay
for hours longer. It was harsher than raiding nomads
and infinitely more powerful. And unlike the power
trapped in the karez, the sun would follow them.
Bryennius nearly fell out of his saddle, then
helped the Uighur girl slide down into his arms.
Alexandra, clinging to her own horse until her
knees steadied beneath her, watched the two of them.
"She is too weak for the journey," Haraldr
muttered for only her to hear. "If she cannot ride
alone, she could slow us all."
But the desert air carried his words to Bryennius and the
girl. Even as she drank from the skin he held for
her, she turned and looked up. Worship shone in
her bruised face.
"Don't worry," Bryennius promised them.
"She will ride, and she'll ride alone. She
won't fail you-because she won't fail me."
Father Basil reached for his cross and remembered
once again that he had given it to the
Princess Alexandra. She rode ahead of him,
near Prince Li Shou, as she
so often did these days. Typically, he was talking and
she was listening, hunched forward in the saddle, her head
down. Bryennius rode by, inspecting the caravan
yet again. He tossed an off-hand salute to his
cousin, then went to speak to his Uighur princess.
Her Highness professed to find their devotion
nauseating, though she conceded that falling in love had
helped him learn Ch'in, in order to speak
to Siddiqa.
At least it could coax a smile from her, the
Nestorian thought. What was happening to his
Greeks? Her cousin had transformed himself from a
boy, entranced with helping his elder cousin (much the
master spirit of the two, Basil would have said) escape from
her convent in order to rescue an exotic
priest-himself-and embark upon adventures, into a
formidable man. But if travel and hardship had
toughened him, Alexandra seemed to have lost the confidence
he had gained. She never rode alone, as if she
feared that the singing sands might whisper to her of
despair and madness.
A hot wind fluttered a veil of pallid sand from
the sharp spine of the nearest dune. It
whispered by, almost singing of the many merchants,
princes, monks, and warriors who had passed by.
"What will it tell me I must learn now-or
lose?" Her Highness had asked. Her eyes were
wide, like those of a terrified colt. "I travel
laden with heathen amulets that for my soul's sake,
I should not keep, though, for my soul's sake, I
daje not discard them. Each time I look at them,
they remind me that 1 am being put through tests for some
purpose that isn't mine. I am a princess. I
am trying to find . . . very well, then ... to steal
silkworms for my City. Isn't that enough?"
What was Father Basil to tell her? That stealing
silkworms might be the least of her ordeals was
probably his fault. If she had never seen him,
never seen the chapel devoted to necromancy in her
convent, she would never have come this far, and certainly never
brought herself to the ageless and vengeful attention of the dark

powers. So he had given her the cross he had
treasured since leaving Nisibis, where he had
studied.
He had traveled up and down Persia,
Pasargadai, Persepolis, Susa, Samarkand,
and the places in between. It had never been
enough. Inexorably he was drawn to the West, to the
citadel of so-called Orthodoxy that had exiled his
church, Byzantium with its harbors, its domed
Church to Hagia Sophia, or Holy Wisdom,
its armies that continued the thousand-year-long war with
Persia that Hellenes and Macedonians had begun.
He had thought to rest after seeing Byzantium, yet
here he was, companion to scions of the Greek
Imperial House that was his land and faith's great
enemy.
At least, she had accepted his cross. Granted,
she had stared at it a long moment. That had hurt;
almost, he wished he were one of the black-robed
Orthodox priests in their tall caps who stalked
Byzantium and drew its wealth into their eager hands.
Would she have listened to one of them? He doubted it.
Finding, and saving him had cost her her faith, her
family, and her City. The cross was but small
recompense.
Or, Basil thought, as he watched her turn her
horse away from the Ch'in prince and catch up with her
cousin, the cross was precisely her problem. When
had it reached a crisis? Basil's sharp wits,
trained in theology at Nisibis and in ancient
Persian culture, could pinpoint the moment
when she realized that the King of Shambhala's
sacrificial death in the karez, the man Wan's
willingness to be immured in the Ch'in Great Wall,
and Christ's death on the Cross were all types of the
same thing. All Ways were indeed the same.
Failure in any one of the forces of order-call them
faiths comwd damn her as surely as failure in the
Way to which she had been bred.
They had argued about that halfway across Asia, and now
she had the demonstration of it thrust into her face.
If she was being tested by some power (as indeed it
looked), it appeared to be done treating her gently.
Susan
Shwartzl
Father Basil shuddered to think of what ruthless mystery
bar might regard an avalanche, battles,
sandstorms, and adventitious demons as "gentle
testing."
Alexandra had been too well schooled in
Aristotle tojj deny the logic of her situation, but
it terrified her. Like! the man who had gazed into a
chasm and stood paralyzed, she had confronted
damnation too closely, and too often to look
away. Her terror could not have; distressed the
Persian priest more had he been her
actual father rather than a spiritual father whom she had
to reject. She needed a retreat, Basil thought.
Or rest in a: cool, shady place, not the endless
monotony of the: White Dragon Dunes and their
hot-breathed, ghostly" songs.
Li Shou gestured him up to ride beside him. Fathers
Basil bowed low in the saddle. "This one would bei
honored," he said, though "curious" was, as always,
thel better word.
As he guessed, the prince from Ch'ang-an wished
t discuss Bryennius and Alexandra,
to speculate on why] they came to Ch'in, and what
they might do once they arrived.
Father Basil glanced sidelong at the prince, a
plump little man with the shrewd dark Persian eyes
evaluating a taller, thinner man whose eyes were
weary but equally canny. This was not conversation, but a
combat between heirs to ancient traditions in which
cynicism, evasion, and erudition were the weapons each
used and appreciated. Compared to them (and regardless of
their protests of master philosophers in Athens,
Rome, Byzantium, and Alexandria) his
Greeks were children who careered! through cultures deeper
than they dared permit them" selves to comprehend.
"You are aware," murmured the prince, "that
foreign ers with Ch'in wives or concubines may not
remov them from the Middle Kingdom."
What would Prince Bryennius do? Father Basil
won dered. He doubted that the Greek would leave the
girlj behind, assuming they escaped with the silkworms.
In

that case, he would probably steal her too. But that
was not a possibility to discuss with a member of the ruling
Ch'in dynasty.
"Has His Highness thought what might be done?" Father
Basil asked, almost rudely direct.
"The prince might well take up arms for the Son
of Heaven. He would not be the first prince of the
Hu-barbarians to seek shelter in Ch'ang-an."
A fine response, and one that punished Father
Basil for his rudeness. Not long ago, perhaps just a
century, an exiled son of the deposed King
Yazgerd had claimed asylum in Ch'in as a
client prince. Such men were given handsome uniforms,
titles, and places at court: such things as
Bryennius might have had if his own Empire had not
feared him.
Father Basil turned to look the prince in the eye.
He had suspected that the prince too
regarded the cousins as "his Greeks,"
Bryennius to be given a future at court,
Alexandra a place as his favored wife or
concubine. The attraction had been clear from their
meeting in Kashgar. The prince had a passion for the
exotic. If Alexandra and Bryennius could be
enticed to remain in Ch'ang-an, he would have not only
them but their guards and servants to protect him from
weariness for the rest of his life. It was a possible
future, if it were not for Alexandra's vow to steal
silkworms and return to Byzantium.
"This one," he began mendaciously, "dares to inform
His Imperial Highness that the princess has been a
nun and is still under vows."
"Yang Kuei-Fei was a nun, a Buddhist
nun. Yet she put off her robes and became the
treasure of the Son of Heaven."
Father Basil raised an eyebrow. Actually
to remind the prince that the Imperial concubine had
died in a revolution would have been too blatant.
"I am not the Son of Heaven. Yet, when we
arrive in Dunhuang, I shall commission a cave in
honor of my safe return from my travels, and in
the hope . . ." Amazingly, the prince leaned
forward on his saddle just
Susan Shi
as Alexandra had. Once again, Father Basil himself
to hear a confession. "Why should she not i What is
there for her in her home, which sent her av She . . .
both of them . . . deserve better than life
anil the barbarians."
"Is that not up to your lords of karma?" asked priest
mildly.
"She too is as bound by the Wheel as if she had
born Buddhist rather than . . ." He gestured at
impossibility, as he saw it, of comprehending bar
cults. "I will
make them
stay. I will make them wantl For an instant,
desire blazed up in those knowledge tired dark eyes.
Then, as if that instant of revelation had not occur
Imperial Prince Li Shou waved his hand
gracefully alj blur on the horizon. It
looked close, but the desert was so clear that distance
itself became an illusion.
"Dunhuang," he said. "If there are no storms,
we

reach it in three days. I have been telling Her
Highn? about the caves. She has told
me that in Fu-lin--1 would call it Hrum?"
"Rome."
"Your own faith used to meet in such caves. Is
tt true?"
The discussion of catacombs lasted until Alexand
rode by again, this time with a group of men-atar The
prince's eyes followed her. And, Father Basil not
the big man who led the Varangian Guard observed
it bar
f
From desert, they rode into the green of an oasis,
1 solitude into the paths of caravans starting the
jot out across the singing sand. At least, now, they
warned; they might survive. Even Father Basil
felt self intimidated by the crowds of Ch'in,
Uighurs, sians, Tibetans, and Kashmiri, and
their pack tr During the drastic strike direct
to Dunhuang, he forgotten that people other than those in his
own van existed. Then he was caught up in the
exchange") news, of congratulations or prayers
for a safe journey,:
laments for caravans that had disappeared through the Jade
Gate, never to be heard from again.
"All travelers enter Ch'in by the Jade Gate,"
he overheard the prince explaining
to Alexandra. She listened intently. A trap, the
Nestorian knew she was thinking.
"One would have to pass through the Jade Gate to go south
too?" she asked. Shambhala, so they had been
told, lay in the mountains to the south and west,
"I promise, if you wish to search out Shambhala,
I shall come with you," the prince said, boldly dropping
the respectful address of "this person." He leaned
forward, and would have taken Alexandra's hand even out in
the crowded, dusty road, had Bryennius and the
guides not interrupted with shouts that an inn had been
Found.
Much later Father Basil was summoned
to Alexandra's rooms, where he found her resting,
bathed and fed, but very tired.
"I should return this," she said and held out his
cross. He took it up, kissed it, then
returned it.
"If it gives you comfort, keep it," he said. He
sat before being invited, feeling more discouraged than he
had since that time when his curiosity outran his luck
in Byzantium and he found himself a prisoner
awaiting sacrifice by a woman who had turned to the
Dark.
"What troubles you?" she asked. "I know that
you have heard all the gossip in the town by now."
"The followers of Mani have been expelled from
Chjang-an," he told her.
"But your monastery there-you told me it was an
Imperial foundation."
"Not as Byzantium knows such. One Emperor was
its patron; another may turn his face away.
There have been signs . . ." Father Basil bowed his
head. Signs indeed: Messages came and went from
Dunhuang, and he had
"h f?
WelLike
AU
over
Child
His
in
were
riots
-Christians, Jews, and Muslims were set upon and
their property destroyed. The rumors were even
worse than the messages.
Susan
Shwartz
He should not have come here, though he had dreamed
all his life of the trip east, of seeing with his own
eyes the stele that declared that all faiths were aspects
of the same truth.
"This may make our task more difficult,"
Alexandra mused. "Your people will be afraid."
"Lady, as in Kashgar, they will help when they can."
He knew it might not be enough. They sat
silently, and then, summoning good humor,
Alexandra shook herself. "Prince Shou tells me
that the ladies of the Imperial palace tend the
silk. That might be another possibility comif I
could enter the palace . . ."
"As ambassador, or as concubine?" snapped the
priest.
"As God wills," Alexandra said.
"Do you believe that?"
"You have no idea how hard I try." She sighed,
and might have said more had not one of Prince Shou's
servants begged entrance, and their company at dinner.
"I vowed to give a cave to the Buddha," the prince
had said. "Will you ride with me to the caves? They are
thirty-six
li
comab twelve of your miles-was he explained
to Alexandra, "to the southwest."
The prince had spared no effort to woo her, Father
Basil thought. He himself had planned to gather what
news he might of Nestorian congregations. But the
lure of the caves of Dunhuang was too strong.
Hundreds of years of carving and painting had
transformed a mile-long ridge into a collection of
shrines. He had dreamed about it for years, longed
to see it as he had longed to see Samarkand,
Persepolis, Byzantium, and Gh'ang-an himself.
Gossip and fear would have to wait.
They rode out long before dawn. Finally crimson
glory warmed their backs, and cast long shadows before
them. Though they rode into a green valley, the singing
sand lay piled up outside it in huge dunes. The
air was very pure, moist to their throats after the months
of desert.

Now they could see the mass of rock that held the
fabulous caves. Father Basil suppressed an
urge to clap heels to the sides of his horse, and
glanced over to see Bryennius reining in too. Then
the sun rose farther, and abruptly, splendor
cascaded down the cliff face.
The cliffs were hung with immense banners of orange
and gold and crimson silk so fine that they
quivered from their own weight despite the stillness of the
air. Father Basil gasped in wonder and a little fear.
Alexandra laughed a little mischievously. "Why do
you cry out, Father? Surely, you're not afraid?"
"Like the legions of Rome the first time they met the
Parthians and recoiled from their silken flags?" he
asked, equally mischievous. She threw up a hand,
conceding the point.
Then the banners blew aside, and they could see the
rock face. It was broken up into hundreds of
caves, the entry to each adorned with carving, some
intricate, some monumental. Niches held stone
Bu.has seated in eternal meditation; there was even
one enormous pagoda of seven stories. All the
caves appeared to be linked by wooden platforms and
ladders. A procession of monks, their arms laden
with scrolls and banners, filed into one ground-level
cave and came out, empty-handed.
They dismounted and led their horses toward the great ledge
as if it were irreverent to ride farther. "Put off thy
shoes from thy feet," thought Father Basil, "for the
place whereon thou standest is holy ground." About
him, grooms and princes alike muttered prayers.
Tension drained from him as the sanctity and peace that
quivered in the air here embraced him. He
sighed, content to see that his Greeks were smiling at
one another again, and that Alexandra seemed relaxed.
Surely the chaos that pursued her could not penetrate
Dunhuang.
They entered the nearest cave, a splendor of
crimson and ochre and gold. Leaving chanting,
kneeling attendants behind, they walked into the next
cave, a wondrous forest of cool greens and
indigos. Lifesize statues of
Susan Shiuartz
Bodhisattvas and warriors attended a figure
seated in a posture of meditation. Its face was
broad, and a gem shone in the center of its divinely
serene brow.
"Can we see them all?" Alexandra asked Li
Shou, leaning forward, her hand almost touching his sleeve.
"We shall try," he said and smiled at her.
Their footsteps echoed as they entered the next cave,
painted in red and gold in patterns that ran from
floor to ceiling. The cave was immense, dominated
by a sleeping Buddha fully thirty feet long.
Alexandra gasped, then turned toward Bryennius.
"Can you imagine the reaction of the old
iconoclasts?"
He began to chuckle, then remembered that in
a manner of speaking, he stood in a great church, and
stopped himself guiltily. "They would have died of
overwork," he said and moved aside to join his Uighur
princess, who studied the wall paintings, her face
rapt.
"Alexandra," her cousin called softly. She and
Li Shou went over to join them.
"The figure is Avalokitesvara, the comforter,
seated in a mandala. Below it are painted the figures
of the donors," explained the prince. "Soon I will
have my own portrait on such a wall."
"Surely though, this is not the style of Ch'in?" Father
Basil ventured. He had seen such figures
brought out of Hind, with their graceful, swaying
bodies, and many arms.
"No. Here we call the Comforter Kuan-yin instead.
And we see her as female. My cave will be
consecrated to Kuan-yin," said the prince.
A priest came to his side, and drew him away
into low-voiced conversation. An attendant also joined
them. Several times, strings of cash chinked
persuasively. Father Basil suppressed a
chuckle. In every country, shrines-or their
keepers-were much alike.
Gradually they separated, to drift from
cave to cave. Father Basil found Haraldr staring
at an immense wall painting broken into several
registers. He followed the Varangian's gaze
away from the many-headed gods and

their consorts locked in ferocious and intricate
embrace to the great central motif. Two
circles of snow mountains, arrayed in the form of a
lotus, and, at its heart, a glistening city and a
great king. Warrior and priest nodded to one another.
"I hope she misses this one," Haraldr told
Father Basil in a voice that sounded as though he
doubted she would. Behind them was a scurry and a
susurrus of whispers.
"Where is she?" Haraldr hissed at him.
"She wandered off," the priest admitted.
"Then we look for her!" The Varangian glared,
then evidently decided not to waste time pounding him
into the rock before he searched for his princess-a
decision for which Father Basil was devoutly grateful.
They found her, finally, in a cave where the dominant
color was the rich blue of pacific manifestations.
Tired of wandering, she had dropped to her knees before
a statue of a woman with a gentle face, carved and
painted to look like a lady of Ch'in.
"Kuan-yin," Father Basil told the Varangian.
"A sort of representation of peace and comfort."
"Like Freya!" Haraldr nodded in understanding.
Basil grimaced. Then he realized that while
Haraldr might see the statue as a goddess, and
he only a representation of a fascinatingly alien
faith, the princess must be seeing it as an icon of the
Blessed Virgin who guarded her City. For the first time
in weeks her face was calm, her breathing slow and
regular.
He heard footsteps outside the cavern and would have
barred entry, if the newcomers hadn't been Li
Shou and an old man carrying a handful of brushes.
So the prince had found his artist, had he? Seeing
Alexandra, the prince stopped short and gestured to the
artist, who crouched behind a statue and began to sketch
with rapid brush strokes.
Basil drifted over to watch him work. More quickly
than he would have imagined, drawn in thin, nervous
brush strokes, the figure of Kuan-yin began
to appear on the paper. Then the artist paused. He
looked from the
Susan Shwartz
statue he copied to the woman who knelt before it.
Muttering under his breath, he picked up a
brush and started work on the figure's face.
The mouth was small, the lips narrower than those on the
statue. At the same time, the nose in the sketch was
more determined. Arched brows, then eyes that were round rather
than slanted. Still, Basil could recognize
Princess Alexandra. The entire composition took
on the cast of the paintings of the Blessed Virgin that Father
Basil had seen in Byzantium, and yet,
unmistakably, it was a Buddhist holy
picture. In centuries to come, pilgrims
to Dunhuang would make their prayers to an icon of the
Virgin in her incarnation as Kuan-yin. Though this was
probably blasphemy, Basil felt no urge
to protest. Kuan-yin, or the Blessed Virgin whom
the Greeks called Theotokos, Bearer of
God-if, in this far-off place, she had the face
of a woman whom a prince delighted to honor, why
should that offend anyone?
The light had begun to fade in the cave when the artist
finally rose. Still, Alexandra sat motionless. The
man stared at her one last time, then bowed almost
reverently. The movement broke her concentration.
Sighing, she stirred from her trance of contemplation. Still
kneeling, she reached into her belt pouch and drew out
two things: Basil's cross and the
moonstone she had taken from the karez at Turpan.
She looked at the statue of Kuan-yin once again,
then at the artist's drawing, startled. "She
is
the Mother of God. I don't suppose the form
matters."
Then she handed'him back his cross. "It appears
that from now on, I shall be just as heretical as you, my
friend." But she smiled as she said it, and her eyes were
kind.
A crumbling rampart rose out of the grit, wound
along their path for a time, then sank back into the earth.
Finally Li Shou stopped beside one ruin, taller than
most. It looked like a watchtower, but for what fort?
was 'I brought order to the mass of beings and put to the
test deeds and realities: each thing has the name that
fits it,"" Prince Li Shou quoted.
Alexandra shuddered, as she did each time he
repeated that saying of Ch'in Shih Huang-di, the
ancient Emperor who had forced his name on all
Ch'in. His hand lay even on the desert between
Dunhuang and Jiayuguan. It was called the Land
of Ghosts. After the safety and sanctity of
Dunhuang, she found its starkness doubly
unsettling.
The ruins they passed now were part of the Purple
Wall, the immense bulwark begun by the ruthless old
First Emperor. Each subsequent dynasty had
added to it.
Susan Shwartz
Now Ch'in was crossed by fortifications, some of rammed
earth, some of bricks or dressed stone, many
crumbling. Surely, if one made the journey, as
unorthodox philosphers said one might, to the
sphere of the moon, one could see those dusty walls
snaking across the land.
Li Shou pointed to the ruined tower. "I like
to imagine," he said, "that the signal braziers still
remain up there. Smoke by day; fire by night. One
column of smoke if a force of one hundred
approaches by day. Two columns of flame
by night for an invading army of five hundred."
What was the warning against silk thieves?
Only Father Basil's misappropriation of
Exodus about pillars of cloud and pillars of fire
protected Alexandra from blurting out the question.
The farther they traveled into Ch'in, the more anxious she
became. She had always heard that fugitives fought
an insane desire to give themselves up. She could
believe it now. Those walls, and the
Emperor who had ordered them built, and given names
to all things, awed her. Such total control and
dedication over thousands of years, combined with the immensity
of the lands she crossed comx was an act of hubris
to even try to steal Ch'in silkworms. She would be
caught, tortured till she begged to die in this land
barriered by mountains and deserts, with never a glimpse
of sea. Until she left the Golden Horn and the
Middle Sea, she did not know how much she would
miss them. The land and her conscience weighed her down,
and she longed for water.
From desert, Li Shou led them into a land of blowing
yellowish soil, where the farmland was carved
into terraces centuries old, and the green crops
grew in dark stripes by the rim of each level.
Alexandra studied the people: bronzed, muscled,
dressed in shabby blue. They did not dare to study
her in return.
Her longing for the sea was satisfied then, in some part,
by the immense Huang He river, yellow in
color, half mud in texture. Along with
innumerable pigs,

countless peasants, and a plethora of officials
(all of whom treated Li Shou with
exaggerated deference), they had boarded a boat for the
journey past dikes and fields and around sandbars
to Ch'ang-an. Not even Haraldr had seen such a
river on the deadly passage south from Kiev
to Byzantium. By the time they disembarked, she no
longer missed the sea. She had had enough of water, and
far too much of the prostrations called kowtows,
sidelong glances, and references to the Hu princess.
At each stop, there had been a flurry of
runners, rumors, and dispatches. A new Son of
Heaven held the Dragon Throne, a devout
follower of the Way, or Tao. While the prince
knew very little of Wu Tsung,
ten thousand years to the Son of Heaven!
he had cried repeatedly. But he had been more
melancholy than usual. He had spent years
collecting texts of all faiths to bring them back
to Ch'in. Alexandra assumed he had expected that the
Emperor would reward him. Now it seemed as if
all his labor might be for naught. He rode
silently, downcast until he remembered the many
Taoist charms and alchemical texts in his
baggage. Perhaps they even included the secret of the
elixir of life. Alexandra found it strange to be
reminded of courts and religious
quarrels, so much like home, but so far away.
Still, Li Shou took pride in the First Emperor,
who had once punished a mountain by hacking it away.
There was a ruthlessness an excess in this land-both in
itself and what its people made-that reduced Byzantium's
plots to the contrivances of a moment. If the idea
weren't disloyal, Alexandra might have thought that Ch'in
made the Empire of the Romans seem new and
petty.
"Mount Li, the First Emperor's tomb, lies
east of Ch'ang-an," the prince said. "It was
built to house him and his troops and his court forever.
They say that he watches, and if danger comes
to Ch'in, he will waken and send his armies ..."
Li Shou was watching her too closely for her to dare
shiver. "What land is this?" she asked quickly. The
old
Susan Shwartz
man was dead; it would take a miracle to make him
rise; and there were no miracles in this land.
"We are passing the graves of the T'ang
emperors," he said.
"A necropolis?" Bryennius asked. He had
known soldiers from the regiments stationed in Egypt,
who had told how that country enshrined its
dead.
"No." Surprisingly, Haraldr broke into the
conversation. Li Shou raised a silvered eyebrow.
"Those are barrows." Touching his amulet, the guard
gestured at the mounds which rose on either side of their
path, gently sloping hills with trees upon them. It
was easy to think of them as manmade.
From time to time, they rode past rows of statues,
only slightly less animated than the stolid
workers who bent and planted, bent and pulled, in
field after field. The escort wished on them
by officials in Lanzhou started up a marching song that
sounded, Alexandra's people complained, like the wailing of
cats. And still Li Shou spoke on and on,
explaining as if he spoke to her alone. At times
he described his home, at times the texts he
carried. They taught ways of power that one adept
might study, but that required two adepts for
mastery. His eyes burned, and his voice was
resonant.
Alexandra thought she understood. The prince had
planned a more triumphant homecoming. A student
of the exotic and the strange in a culture that valued
both, he had gone out to collect wonders, and
returned-to a city and a Son of Heaven
that might not want them. Still, he had to share with someone,
and she was there.
Are we liabilities to him now?
she wondered.
Strange, then, that he seeks our company. It cannot
be simple gratitude for his life.
"You must pardon me," she broke into his flow of
explanations, and turned hastily. She heard him
chuckle, and she greeted Father Basil's approach
with relief. Typically, he had strayed from their
road.
"My princess!" cried the Nestorian. "Up
ahead!"
It looked like a riot, Alexandra thought. Around the

next mound or two, mounted soldiers and peasants
armed with heavy mattocks belabored what seemed
to be other peasants. Why? They looked no
different from their assailants.
"They're Christians, Nestorians like me,"
cried the Persian priest. "Oh, I heard the
rumors along our route, I was afraid ..." A
mounted man with a pike sent an old man sprawling;
he did not move after he had fallen.
"For the love of God, can't we stop this?"
he begged, eyes going from her and Bryennius to Li
Shou and his newly acquired guards. Some of them were
bound to be spies; God knows, she'd arrange it that
way.
The prince's face went grim. He turned in his
saddle, gestured for baggage and
noncombatants-concubines, clerks, and the precious
Ferghana horses needed to woo the court-to be led
out of the way.
One of the Varangians laid a hand on
Alexandra's horse's bridle. She shook her
head. "Use the flat of your sword only, my
princess." She hated to think what would happen if
the first thing the Greeks did in Ch'in was kill
someone.
Now they could hear screams of pain and triumph and,
over them, what sounded like desperate prayers.
Several Nestorian women had fallen to their
knees. One huddled over the infant in her arms
till she was pushed over.
"Hai!" Alexandra cried and spurred after the men.
She grinned as she toppled the man who had struck
the cowering mother with a shrewd blow to his hindquarters.
A lucky blow, she realized in the next instant as
mattocks and pikes were raised against her.
This was cavalry drill; she had no experience at
it. She had not even been able to stay on her horse
for long at Kashgar. She hung on desperately
and swung her sword, wincing with each blow lest she
break the ancient blade.
A shriek whirled her in the saddle. Siddiqa?
What was Bryennius' sweetheart doing out here? she
thought. Where was she? Turning to check on the Uighur
girl's welfare saved her life. A soldier on
horseback rode at
Susan
Shwartzl
her, his pike whistling from the speed with which he brought it
down. It would have cracked her skull like a,
Turpan melon if she had not veered to the side.
Even as it was, Alexandra heard a roar of fury
and some Norse oaths, a rush of wind that struck red
fire into her brain, a roaring and dizziness, and then
nothing at all.
The wheat smelled fresh and sweet. Twilight was
drifting down, and the heavy heads of grain were damp.
She brought a hand up to her aching head, then looked
at the blood that had oozed onto her fingers. She
leaned over and retched. Near her a man sprawled
face down, crushing the grain. If he could
be waked, perhaps he could help her. She tried
to rise to her feet, made it to her knees, and gave
up. But when she crawled over to the sleeping man and
pushed at him to turn him over, the wound that had
destroyed his face made her gag. If there had
been anything left in her belly, she would have brought
it up. The flies were clustering. She brushed them from
the cuts on her own head and crawled away.
She . . . who was she? This was not her home: She
knew that much. Slowly, she sat up and gazed around.
The field was trampled, and other people lay nearby.
Probably dead, she concluded, and praised herself for
her cleverness. There were not that many women with head wounds
who could think so clearly. Now, she must think of what
to do next.
She was alone. This did not seem reasonable. She
must have cominin here with other people, but where were they? She
couldn't bring herself to investigate those who lay in the
field. Perhaps there were others. But the grain rose
higher than her head as she sat. Painstakingly,
she began to crawl again. She saw horse dung, and
dragged herself toward the swath that the horse had stamped
in the field. It was easier to crawl when the grain was
smoothed down. Dark feet rose on either side of
her. Statues, she remembered now. They
had ridden through an army of statues that appeared
to guard these small hills. She laid bloody
hands on the base, then the feet,

then the robed knees, of one statue. It seemed
to sway as if alive and protesting at this treatment.
She murmured an apology, then levered herself up
to stare into the face of some long-dead minister.
"I am lost, sir," she whispered. "I do not
remember my name. Can you help me?" There was no
answer. No wonder: She was speaking in Greek.
No one but she spoke Greek-except the people she
had lost.
The wind stirred the wheat. It sounded like a voice.
She turned in its direction, in the direction of the
next statue, and the one after that, like wise courtiers
ushering her toward their ruler. Up ahead lay a
gentle, breast-shaped hill. The grass upon it
looked soft. If she climbed up there, she would
see other people. Her people . . . they would see her, and
find her. Perhaps they would give her back her name.
The empty scabbard at her worn belt almost
tripped her. She must have had a sword too. So
much; and now she had lost it all-sword, and horse,
and name. She wept a little for the unfairness of
it, and staggered from statue to statue, embracing each
drunkenly in its turn, until she reached the mound,
swayed, and sank down grateful for the rest. The
grass was as soft as she had hoped, and she rested her
aching head upon it. The night wind seemed to croon
to her. Suddenly the fact that she was lost seemed
less terrible than her thirsts for water and for sleep.
She lashed her head from side to side, feverish,
seeking comfort. It made her dizzy.
Curious; she had not seen that freshet rippling through
the fragrant grass before. She lowered her face
into it with joy. First, a good, long drink. Then, she
would bathe her head. That might clear it. Only she
was so very sleepy . . .
Bryennius pounded his fist against the nearest statue,
then swore at the pain. Near him, two wounded men
groaned with slightly more justification.
"Who saw her last?" he demanded. Alexandra's
horse galloping back toward the herd it knew, its
jaws dripping
Susan Shwartz

froth, its eyes rolling, had been the first indication
that; she had come to grief. Damn her! What made
her think' she could pretend to be a
cavalry officer?
"Why didn't you stop her?" he shouted at the
sunset. Father Basil rose from his knees and made
one last sign over the Nestorians slain in the
sudden attack. The others crouched down, heads
knocking the earth, before Li Shou. The prince
gestured to Father Basil. Bryennius could not understand
his rapid, urgent words, but the people spread out over the
field, searching. One cried out and came running
up, awkwardly holding a sword.
Bryennius recognized it instantly. Alexandra
had used that blade in Kashgar.
"She is so little," Haraldr muttered. Small and
slender, she would leave little mark in the grain.
"It's getting dark. We can't leave her alone,
hurt . , ." Byrennius' voice caught.
Siddiqa's gentle hands touched his arm, reached for his
hand, scratched from where a mattock had grazed it.
She began to bind it with a fragrant silk scarf, and
he smiled down at her.
"That way," she whispered, pointing and speaking
slowly.
"You
saw Alexandra?" He grasped her fragile
shoulders and almost shook her. Siddiqa met
his eyes staunchly.
"A man ... a soldier with
a ... a
pike," she explained slowly, so that he would understand,
"he wanted to strike her ... I scream, a ...
ar ... your cousin, she turn, fall. Hit, but not
hit hard. I think . . . that she live. We find
her."
Heedless of the men about them, Bryennius gave the
Uighur a smacking kiss. "You go ... be safe,"
he said, and pushed her back toward the baggage
train.
"Siddiqa says she saw her fall over there!"
Bryennius cried to Li Shou and the Varangians.
The men oriented themselves by the rows of statues and started
an orderly search.
The sky had darkened to Imperial purple when they
reported back in without his cousin.

"Torches," Bryennius said. His voice was a
ragged ghost of itself. "I'll search all night."
"I'm with you, Prince," said Haraldr.
Li Shou shook his head, but did not otherwise
protest. It was probably sacrilege to camp in
this field of tombs, but Bryennius was beyond
caring.
They began to unload supplies. "Not there," the
T'ang prince ordered, and pointed toward one mound
flanked with lions, winged horses, officials, and
foreign envoys. "Liang Shan, where Wu
Tse-Tien is buried. It's an inauspicious
place."
Unlucky? The sooner they made camp, the sooner
they could continue the search. Bryennius was in no
mood for superstition.
"Wu Tse-Tien . . . Empress." Siddiqa
was at his side again. "Very bad."
"Listen to the princess," said Li Shou. "The
woman buried in that tomb deposed an Empress,
then the Son of Heaven himself. Do you understand? She
made
herself the Son of Heaven, wore his robes, occupied
the Dragon Throne for forty-five years. In that
time, she exiled, slew ... at least three royal
heirs were sent the silken cord."
That was, Bryennius knew, the order to commit
suicide and spare oneself disgrace of public
execution. A female Nero, then. Byzantium
had known a few women tike that. Half a century
ago, Irene had blinded her own son; and
now, the Basileus' own aunt would kill him and his
heir-and Bry', and Alexandra-if she got the chance
again; she had nearly succeeded at least once with all
of them. Bryennius made no further objection
to their shifting camp.
But he could not take his eyes from Liang Shan either.
Something about the tumulus drew him. The torches were
kindled and cast long shadows. He mounted and gestured
for one to be handed up to him. To his astonishment,
Siddiqa bore it to him. "You . . . bring her
back," she said, and her eyes were full of tears.
He had not realized that the girl cared about his cousin.
Susan ShujonzA
Hoofs
thundered past him, and he shouted forf Haraldr to wait,
then cursed again, and rode toward the bar hill more
slowly. He reined in and stood in the stirrups, I
trying to listen. Surely, he had heard a cry.
Yes, there it! came again, along with the big
guardsman's bellow ofjj joy. Very slowly, the
Northerner rode back, Alexandra; draped across
his saddle, her head drooping against his less-than
massive shoulder. In just that way he had carried her
out i of the Takla Makan. That time his face had
been muffled j by robes. The relief and
devotion Bryennius read on it; made him look
tactfully away.
Bryennius leaped forward in time to ease his cousin
down from the Varangian's horse and into the firelit
circle where Father Basil waited with soft cloths and
warm water. He caught his breath at the sticky,
bleeding mess that smeared her hair and face, and found
himself j sobbing.
"Put her down, Prince," said the priest. He
touched i her face, peeled back her eyelids,
then shook his head. "One pupil is far larger than
the other. That is not good." But don't mourn yet,
Prince. With God's help, people struck on the head
often live, even when their eyes look thus. She
needs warmth, and quiet, and time to sleep." He
gestured all of them back. "She also needs air,"
he added sternly.
Bryennius crouched as close to his cousin as the
priest would allow. From time to time, food and drink was
handed to him, and the empty containers taken away later.
He did not'remember eating or drinking. The
moon rose in the sky, gibbous and silver. It cast
a ghastly light on her face. Still she slept.
Her breathing was deep and regular.
Then, she began to whimper. Her breath
came more rapidly, and her hands jerked back and forth.
The priest leaned forward with a strip of leather, ready
to force it between her teeth, should she suffer a fit. He
jerked his chin, and Li Shou himself cast more fuel on the
fire.
For a long time, Alexandra moaned and struggled within
herself. Then with a soft wail, she fell back.

Bryennius heard Siddiqa's sweet voice go
taut and urgent in a Buddhist prayer that Li Shou
echoed.
"Kyrie eleison, christe eleison, kyrie
eleison,"
Bryennius gabbled. There had been no time to pray
when Leo died. There never was time to pray along the
line of march, and before that, in Byzantium, he had
seen little need. He wished now that he were more in the
habit of prayer, more adept, perhaps, in making God
hear. Alexandra had survived so much.
Kyrie, spare her, and I shall. . . what
will
you do, Bryennius?
Promises were useless. He turned his pleas to the
Theotokos. Surely God's gentle Mother would
take pity on another woman, one so far
from home. Had she not wandered afraid in Egypt with
her family? Behind him came the mutter of prayers
from the people Alexandra had helped to rescue. That these
prayers were Christian comforted him not at all.
The moon was sinking down toward the horizon when
Alexandra stirred again. She raised her hand to her
bandaged scalp and hissed.
"Alexandra?" Bryennius whispered.
She sat up and opened her eyes. They glowed
green, inhumanly green and intense. She raised
her hands, adorned, as it seemed, with long,
elegantly tapered nails, to her bandages and
pulled them away from hair that now fell sleekly
over her shoulders.
"That is not our name," she said in formal, accentless
Ch'in. Her voice was very cold. "We are Wu
TseTien. Bow before the Son of Heaven!"
Even as Li Shou complied, Alexandra's back
arched in a terrible spasm.
"This flesh is mine!" A second voice tore from
her mouth, the cry of a hawk swooping on prey. It
spoke in Greek, and its accents were those of the woman
whose magics had pursued them across half the world.
Bryennius backed away. He had seen asps
once, and their deadly stare filled him with the
same horror as this nearness to a woman who was
possessed. The familiarity of her face and
figure made it even worse. He would hate
Susan
Shwortz
himself for abandoning his cousin, he knew, but he had
to get away.
"Invader and thief!" Again it was the voice that called
itself Wu Tse-Tien. "Leave the Middle
Kingdom. You have no place here."
"The body is bone of my bone, blood of my
blood, and you are a ghost. You cannot stop me, or bar
me from this flesh that I claim."
As each voice spoke, Alexandra's body jerked
as if she had been lashed. How long could her body
withstand this-let alone the spirit which two spirits assailed
simultaneously? Li Shou backed away from the
ghastly scene in the firelit circle. Spells,
charms . . . Bryennius fixed his hopes on Father
Basil, chanting the words of an exorcism. Christ
had hurled demons from a man into the Gadarene
swine. Would a heretic dare so much? The voice of
Theodora shrieked in rage as he chanted.
Laughter rose over the shrieking, as the Empress
Wu's voice anticipated her
victory. She would walk again, rule again. The
voice turned soft, seductive, promising
crowns and kingdoms to Li Shou, who ground his fists
against his eyes, his languid control shattered.
The Theodora voice wailed again, and Alexandra's
body spasmed, then went limp. Bryennius forced
himself to move closer, as if he could atone for his
earlier terror. He knelt by his cousin's side,
taking her hand. "Is she breathing?" he asked the
priest.
"Bry"?" Her voifce was only a raspy
whisper.
"Alexandra!" His tears splashed onto her face.
"Theodora's gone now, but the other one, the new one
... I fell, Bry', and there was a hill... I
thought if I could get to it, I could rest. Then there were
voices in my head, fighting over me ..."
"You sleep now," he told her, patting her hand.
"I can't!" she panted. "She's still there, the
Empress. She thinks I'm her enemy . . . and
she's right, Bry'. You know, it's not fair. She
lived eighty years, but it wasn't enough. Now she
wants my life too. If I let go for one

moment, she'll have . . . have it all, body
. . ." she gasped for breath, "... and soul, all
my thoughts."
"You're a fighter, cousin, you can drive her out,"
he mumbled, feeling worse than useless.
She gave the faintest of laughs. Tears squeezed
out from the corners of her eyes. "The way of
Shambhala is the way of a warrior. I'm not very .
. . good at it."
Her face twisted, and she shook, then lay still.
"She . . . that's her. She wants out, Bry'.
I'm trying ... try to hold her off." Alexandra
drew a long, deliberately steady breath. "Is
Haraldr there?"
The guardsman knelt beside her. One huge hand went
out to touch her hair, but fell onto his knee instead.
"My princess, we won't leave you. Here we
are; here we'll remain for as long as you need."
"No, that won't work. Both of you, listen. One of the
things I learned once-I was curious-was how
to make Greek fire. If she takes me,
she'll learn it too." Alexandra forced herself to sit
up.
"I can't allow her to learn that. Neither can you. If
she doesn't have a body to live in, she'll have
to return to her tomb.
"My final order to you, Guardsman. If she
conquers, use your axe . . ." She fell back,
her eyes closing.
Haraldr cried out wordlessly.
"Don't argue," Bryennius ordered Haraldr.
"She needs her strength to fight."
Li Shou came up behind them. His hand on
Bryennius' shoulder was stronger than he had
expected. "My knowledge of your tongue is imperfect.
What did she say?"
"Did you find anything, in all your books?" Father
Basil demanded.
"Nothing," said the prince. "Surely your
ritual-was
"The lady Theodora was brought up in Christianity.
My exorcism drove
her
out. But it can do nothing against a creature of another
faith."
Haraldr rose to his feet, his face gaunt with
sorrow. "I will get my axe," he muttered.
Susan
Shwartz
"What is this barbarity?" Li Shou cried.
"You've seen the fire we carry,"
Bryennius replied, not moving away from
Alexandra. She was trembling now, and little broken
sounds came from her throat as she fought the battle
within for control of body and soul. "Alexandra-you know
she has a taste for odd knowledge. She knows how to make
it. We have a law in Byzantium. If we
disclose this secret to an outsider, the penalty is
death-even for an Emperor."
The Ch'in prince started to protest. Bryennius
broke in. "For the love of God, you idiot, do you
want Greek fire let loose in your country?
You told me that Wu Tse-Tien was one of the most
ruthless Emperors you've ever had. She'll use
it!"
If she wins, then Alexandra is dead anyhow, and
better so,
he thought. His cousin moaned, and her trembling
intensified. It was only a matter of moments before it
turned into convulsions again. Her eyes flew open, and
green light came and went in their depths. She
looked very frail. If she surrendered, this
Empress would find out why Alexandra had come into her
realm. Evil she might be, but she was loyal
Ch'in down to the moldering bones she now sought
to escape. She wouldn't let them escape,
let alone take silkworms back with them.
The other Varangians joined Haraldr. His hands
opened and closed on the haft of his axe. One of them
spoke in guttural Norse. Haraldr nodded.
"What did he say?" demanded Li Shou.
Bryennius dashed a hand across his face. If only
he could sweep away demons, foreign princes, and
his grief as easily as he brushed away tears.
""Don't weep," Arinbjorn said. "It will
ruin your aim."" Bryennius bent and kissed
Alexandra's hand, then laid it on her breast.
He stood up and backed away. Siddiqa ran
to his side, and he reached for her, embracing her,
one hand turning her sleek black head against his
shoulder so she might not witness what Haraldr must
do. The Empress' fierce
**ble,
silk roads and shadows

and
*fc
voice erupted from his cousin's lips, then was choked
off. "For God's sake!" her own voice begged.
Haraldr drew a deep breath.
Bryennius was starting to nod when Siddiqa
struggled in his arms. "No!" she cried, pushing with
small fists against his shoulder. "Let me go!" He
held tight, and she kicked him, trying to get
free.
"Little one, little love, you don't understand," he said.
She thrust him away with strength he had never
expected to find in her. She had always seemed so
frail, so complaisant. The mouth he had kissed and
learned to compare to a peony bud twisted and swore
by the excrement of turtles. Her fragility had
been strictly in his own imagination. She might have
been in need of rescue, but she was no weakling.
"Idiots!" she hissed, followed by a spate of
Ch'in that Bryennius could not follow. Then she ran
toward Alexandra's horse,
"She's beside herself," Bryennius muttered and started
after her. "What was that about?"
"In the karez," Li Shou said. "Remember what
we found in the karez?"
They had found Siddiqa, yes, and the body of a man
Alexandra had called the King of Shambhala. It
was all part of that madness she insisted on talking about.
"The sword," Li Shou said. "Sfae dropped it.
The dorje she won at Kashgar, the bell, the
gem-all in her saddlebags, when she
fell. She was unprotected."
This was folly. Father Basil had tried to exorcise
both spirits, and failed. What did Siddiqa hope
to do?
Siddiqa ran back to them, Alexandra's bags
clutched to her breast. She dropped them beside her and
began to rummage inside them, talking all the
while.
"Listen to her, Prince Bryennius. She says that
the Empress Wu was a devout Buddhist. These
symbols are Buddhist symbols; they may have power
when the signs of your faith fail you," Li Shou
advised.
Bryennius glanced frantically over at
Alexandra,
Susan Shujartz
whose back arched in spasms that got stronger and stronger
as the Empress gained control.
Crying out in triumph, Siddiqa held up the
moonstone Alexandra had taken from the breast of the
warrior who had died in the karez. She ran over
to Alexandra and tried to thrust it into her clenched
fists. An arm flailed out and knocked her onto
her side. Stubbornly, she picked herself up and
tried again. Alexandra's other hand came
up, and Siddiqa smacked Alexandra's face
firmly, then pried at her fingers. This time, she
forced the huge white gem into Alexandra's hand.
The moonstone kindled. White light rose from it
until it haloed the woman holding it as if she were
a figure in a mosaic. Alexandra drew a
long, rattling breath. Her eyes opened. Again, the
greenish light of possession ebbed and surged in them.
She looked down at the gem, focusing all her
energy upon it.
The light was reflected from Haraldr's raised
axe. "Wait!" Bryennius cried. "At least,
we can try."
The gem glowed more and more strongly. The circle of
light in which Alexandra lay seemed to coalesce,
then to form into eight separate parts, like a lotus. It
had a faintly bluish tinge.
Disastrous as it might be if the Empress won, they
closed in around her and saw the flower shape
reflected in the moonstone. Moment by moment, it
solidified. Around her rose the chant of prayers
from Li Shou, Siddiqa, and the Ch'in guards.
Alexandra's lips moved too. Her own voice,
blending uncannily with that of the Empress, rose in
prayer and loathing.
"Thief!" she shrieked in the Empress' voice.
"Thief comb adept on the Path. How can this be?
How can I fight?"
Now even the Empress was one with the watchers,
seduced by her faith to fight her desire to steal
Alexandra's flesh and life. The light from the gem
intensified. For a moment, the face of a man in the
prime of life seemed to blaze from it, and
Alexandra's body bowed itself, as if in homage.

"The Diamond Path," whispered Father Basil.
"Give her the lightning bolt."
But Siddiqa was too entranced in her prayers
to hear. So it was Father Basil who found it and held
it before Alexandra's eyes. He unclasped one hand
from the moonstone that she clutched, and lowered the dorje
toward it. Her body cringed away, but her will held.
In the instant before it touched her palm, she reached up
and grasped it firmly.
Her whole body arched again in one of those hideous,
bone-breaking spasms. Bryennius gagged as he
smelled burning flesh. The chanting stopped.
For a long moment, he heard only the chirp of
crickets and the susurrus of wind, blowing through the
wheat fields. Then it seemed that the wind
rose, carrying a wail of mourning back to the tomb
that should never have opened.
Alexandra fell back, gem and dorje rolling from
her hands. To Bryennius' amazement, the hand that the
lightning bolt had seared bore only a reddish
mark resembling a lotus. Even that quickly faded.
Siddiqa tugged a blanket out from one of the packs
and, glaring at what, clearly, she considered
inefficient males, covered Alexandra warmly.
But Alexandra's breathing was deep and regular, and
her face bore a peace that passed their understanding.
"Is she dead?" Bryennius whispered.
His lover went to him and smoothed back his hair.
"Not for many years."
"I shall build another altar to Kuan-yin," said
Li Shou.
Haraldr laid down his axe. Since he no longer
needed to fear the ruin of his aim, he wept, and
Bryennius wept with him.
Dawn shone through Alexandra's tent. One of Li
She innumerable servants or concubines (alexandra
could quite tell which was which) brought her tea ift bar
delicate porcelain bowl and laid out riding clc
Outside her quarters came the usual babel of
br camp, and Bryennius' voice rising
in anger.
"Three men rode off, just like that, and you didn't!
them?" he berated someone. "I know that they know! land and
could sneak off, but still-was
"Undoubtedly, they were sent to examine us report
back." Li Shou's calmer tones cut throti
Bryennius' anger.
"Spies!" he spat.
"Would your own Empire act any differently?"
Alexandra chuckled into her tea. Originally, she
thought it was a kind of wine. Its steaming fn . soothed
burning eyes and eased into her mind, which i bruised.
And why wouldn't it, with two dreadful won
battling inside it for possession of my soul!
She was too battered to be outraged at the thought of
possession, or relieved that her desperate order
to Haraldr to kill her before she betrayed her land's
secrets had proved unnecessary.
She finished her tea, waved away the usual bevy
of attendants, then dressed in the clothes they left
out, even to the cloak and hat that would give her some
protection against curious stares when they entered
Ch'ang-an. Last night, she had waked from fitful
sleep to an argument: Should they allow her a day's
rest here, or should they ride on immediately?
Alexandra had dragged herself outside, stumbling over
Haraldr, who had stretched himself to sleep outside
her quarters.
"I can ride if I must. The less time we spend
here, the better," she had insisted. She would have begged
if she had had to. The firelight outlined the mounds
of the Imperial dead. If Bryennius had asked
her, she would have said to ride away from them immediately, as
the three spies had done. If Ch'ang-an had its
equivalent of Byzantium's Bureau of
Barbarians, no doubt the spies were reporting to it
right now. How would they describe her inner battle
with the Empress? Would they say that a long-lost
T'ang prince had returned home, accompanied
by exotics, including a most aristocratic
madwoman? She would have believed it herself; the
traces of Wu and Theodora's struggle in her mind
were foul, soothed only by her remembrance of the white
light from the moonstone that Siddiqa had forced into her
hands.
A deep voice and a light one exchanged halting
courtesies. She heard Haraldr move aside.
Siddiqa slipped within, dressed in the Uighur
fashion.
1 owe you my life," Alexandra said,
embracing her. ine younger princess cast her eyes
down, tho h
Wed
you
mine
His
You
and
-"
She
flushed at the siste r* dg
f
Br
y
enn
His
us
-"
Are
you ready to ride, elder
my
A
a
his
dra
raise
d an eyebrow.
Why not? Bryennius
is
y orother, and she is beloved by him.
She smiled at the
Susan
Shwartz
younger girl.
If she were the pretty, docile creature that she
looks, I'd be dead.
Ahead of them rose the walls of Ch'ang-an,
thick and square.
"Home," Li Shou murmured. Riding at his
side, Alexandra glanced away to allow him
privacy. The city was huge; twice the size of
Byzantium, and not confined to an area like the Horn.
Canals ran through it; but the massive eastern wall
was broken only by two gates. It would be a hard
city to escape from. The prince had told her how the
city was laid out-an orderly grid of fourteen
wide, tree-lined avenues running from north to south,
eleven from east to west. Except for the two huge
markets, the quarters marked off by these avenues were
walled.
"Not like home," Bryennius had commented to her. He
missed the tangle of streets, rich and poor
houses jostling on the same block as one of the great
churches, with the Mese cutting through the center of the city,
shop-lined, winding up to the perfume merchants near the
palace, and the silk vendors' special House of
Lights, dark now for lack of goods. Surely the
trees Alexandra saw here were mulberry trees.
And where there were mulberry trees, there were
silkworms. Somewhere in those markets or the palace
compounds themselves was the treasure Alexandra sought.
The walls of the C.h'un Ming Gate were at least as
thick as Byzantium's northernmost defenses.
Soldiers in leather and scales guarded them. They
recognized Li Shou and were quick to salute him. The
spies had accomplished that much, at least. As they
entered, the noises of Ch'ang-an rose about them.
Then they heard a rumble. The ground trembled beneath
them, and several of their horses shied.
"The First Emperor stirs in his sleep," Prince
Li Shou commented almost whimsically.
Alexandra forced herself to smile.
The caravan leader who had ridden with them since
Kashgar came up and bowed. "We must
report to the Office of the Sarthavak," he said.
Li Shou nodded at Bryennius. "That office
deals specifically with the hu, I mean, merchants of
Persia. But I think that they will stop off in the
taverns here, or the tea shops." He gestured
elegantly. "No doubt you too will be interested in
the taverns down the road. Or the P'ing K'ang
section. They can make a man's homecoming very
sweet ... or welcome a traveler from the
West."
A number of soldiers and officials rode toward
them, flanking a small, thin man in a scholar's
robe and elaborate headgear. "Your pardon," said
the prince. "I must speak to these people."
Father Basil nodded. "That's where they house . . .
musicians, entertainers . . ." He looked
embarrassed.
"Hetairafi"
Alexandra surmised, and the Nestorian priest
nodded. Siddiqa caught Bryennius' eye with a "just
you dare!" look on her face.
"My own people and our churches are nearer the western part
of the city. I'm told that the market is livelier
there," Father Basil said.
Several of the soldiers looked wistful.
"Do you think it's too late to tell the prince that
we want to be merchants, not envoys of
Byzantium? It sounds easier," Bryennius
commented.
Alexandra sighed. She watched the officials bow
low to Li Shou. From here, she could hear nothing of their
conversation, but their postures and gestures were so
courteous, so mannered, that she suspected some sort
of danger. She touched her heels delicately
to her horse, edging as far into the avenue as she could
without being stopped. Other women rode by, some brash
and bareheaded. The wide avenues teemed with people
riding, walking, or being carried in elaborately
decorated, closed carts. Over the walls of the
quarter she could see the upcurved roofs of what
looked like palaces.
With the air of a man making a generous and unde
Susan Shwartz
served concession, Li Shou inclined his head to the
official and retraced his steps. A flush along his
high cheekbones betrayed his annoyance.
"Ch'ang-an has changed if an official can
challenge the word of a cousin of the Son of Heaven,"
he hissed, and mounted so quickly that his horse sidled.
He leaned forward and ran a hand along its
arched neck. Then he signaled for them to move
forward.
"Ordinarily," he told the Greeks, "visiting
envoys who come to make submission in their prince's
name to the Son of Heaven-was
Alexandra laid a hand on Bryennius' reins,
hushing the indignant outburst he was about to make about
the Basileus' demotion.
"How else could it be?" the prince asked. "When
envoys come, they become the responsibility of that
man's
office, which regulates the funerals of members of the
Imperial family."
"Cheerful," Alexandra commented.
"It also maintains hostels for foreign guests like
yourself. Lu Tsung there"-he flicked his fingers at
the retreating official's stiff back-"heads up that
office. When I told him that you were
my
guests, not his responsibility, he was outraged."
"Do they suspect that we are spies?" Alexandra
asked with all the innocence she could summon.
"Idiots!" Li Shou snorted. "Because Lu
Tsung did well on the examinations, he climbed
rapidly in the Emperor's service. I
have had reports on him and his family. In
Canton, his elder brother locked away all
foreigners; Lu Tsung seems to think that if he
follows his brother's advice, he will gain great
face. He has already doubled the guard to
"protect" Ch'ang-an against barbarians."
"Isn't he succeeding?" cut in Father Basil.
"The Manichees have already been outlawed. Is there not
some movement..."
Li Shou flung up a hand. Never had Alexandra
seen him so angry. "A movement, indeed.
Ch'ang-an has
"2*
silk roads and shadows

always been fascinated by the West. I have looked
forward to reading you poetry like that of To Fu, of showing you
the great paintings of the Yen brothers, who claim to have
painted scenes of your home. Now men like Lu
Tsung want us to turn our backs on all we have
learned from outside the Walls of the Middle
Kingdom."
"Xenophobes," murmured Alexandra, then
translated for the prince's benefit. It sounded very
familiar, very unwelcome. In such times,
foreign guests were in some danger, foreign faiths at
more. It was chaos again, seeking to undermine what order and
cooperation it found, wherever it found them.
"You know that I have spent years collecting holy
texts," Li Shou said. "Buddhist, Taoist, a
few Christian scriptures . . . last year, a
scholar named Li Ao died. He knew a great
deal about Buddhism, had studied it for years just in
order to refute it."
Alexandra and Father Basil looked at one another.
Heresies. Religious conflict. And they were in the
thick of it. Li Shou, they knew, was heterodox,
a true descendant of those Emperors who had
endowed the Nestorian churches in Ch'ang-an. But
this new Son of Heaven . . dis8allyr Emperor
follows the Way?" Alexandra prompted, using the
term Tao. The little she had heard of this Way
spoke of a retreat from the world, a unity with the
cosmos, order, and a simplicity that was almost
pastoral.
Li Shou's eyes burned. "Later," he said.
Pastorals could also include a wolf in the fold,
a wolf, in this case, who might also be the shepherd.
It was not an idea she wanted to dwell on.
greater-than
He was silent as they rode past a lavish
Buddhist temple, its curved roofs painted red and
gold. Outside crouched huge statues that
resembled dogs or lions, or both. Incense
floated over the walls and tantalized them.
Chanting and the sound of gongs rose. For an instant,
Alexandra fancied herself back in her long-gone, and
unlamented, convent. This temple was so rich! she
thought. It seemed larger and more elaborate than the
  Susan
Shwartz
Church of Hagia Sophia, that soaring sculpture
of light, mosaic, and marble, with its domes from which,
some people claimed, angels descended to help the
priests serve worshipers.
Father Basil studied the temple avidly. "There
must be hundreds like it. And Buddhism is not
native to Ch'in . . ."
"Think you Buddhism too could suffer?"
"As your Patriarchs did my own church." He
nodded. "Surely you have heard complaints that in
Byzantium the monks own too much land, too many
armies, and slaves, and control too much of the
City's gold."
It had been wealth that had enabled
Alexandra's aunt to purchase forbidden books,
to bribe the people she must have bribed: wealth that made her
feel all-powerful, and bred first her ambition, then
her damnation.
They rode slowly through the eastern market. Each
trade had its own bazaar. Except for the faces
and the languages, the clamor and the familiar goods
made Alexandra feel much at home. Bryennius
tossed cash to a flower vendor and gave the
chrysanthemums that he bought to Siddiqa, who laughed
with delight.
Alexandra gazed in wonder at the number and kinds
of people in the market: Sogdians, Persians,
Arabs, men of the steppes, Turks, even
strange-looking men in high black hats from a land
she heard was called Korea; men with the dark skins,
aguiline features, and long eyes of Hind, and from
farther south, from the Land of Lions. Priests of ten
separate faiths jostled merchants of all races.
Nobles in carts or litters, or riding
accompanied by servants thronged the bazaars. Many were
women, exquisitely dressed and painted, jade and
gold ornaments trembling in their hair. Seeing
them, she felt unkempt and too large.
She felt as if they stared at her and all
her people, dismissing them as barbarians-which they were not,
appraising them as enemies-which they had no wish to
be. But which, in one important sense, they had
to be. Another enemy rode at her side: the
prince who had been friend and ally, and would now be their
host. It was a terrible crime to betray one's host.
Once past the market, they turned north and rode
toward what looked like official buildings near the
walls over which they could see trees and palace
buildings.
"Administrative offices," Prince Shou
observed.
"This Lu Tsung works in them?" she asked. "Perhaps
we should ..."
"What are you suggesting?"
"If it causes you difficulty to accept us as
guests," Alexandra began slowly, "perhaps we should
let ourselves be received by his people." Constant official
scrutiny would make stealing silkworms harder, perhaps
impossible, but she would not be betraying a man who
deserved better.
"I will not give you up!" he interrupted, angrier
than she had ever seen him. "We will discuss this after
we are settled."
Already, artisans stitched gowns and jackets for her.
Her rooms were bright with jewels and flowers, hair
ornaments, and embroideries. Alexandra had been
bathed, and exclamations for her foreignness had been
suppressed. She had eaten, slept briefly, and
had just begun to wonder whether or not it would do to ask for
books when Li Shou's chief steward, an ancient
eunuch, entered, prostrated himself, and requested the
Most Excellent Lady's presence.
Alexandra followed the man across a garden, in through a
moon-shaped door on either side of which were characters for
life, health, and fortune, and into a room clearly
reserved for her host. Here were the books she had
hoped for, here were musical instruments, exquisite
screens and intricately carved statues, and misty
landscapes painted on silk. The room had the
look of years of loving preservation; the prince's
steward had
Susan
Shwartz
served him since he was a child. Prince Li Shou
sat on a bare platform, paper, a brush, and a
cake of ink at hand. He gazed at an ornament that
seemed to be no more than lapis lazuli sculpted
into the form of a hollow rock. Near him, and
flanked by a number of younger officials, sat Lu
Tsung.
Bryennius, Father Basil translating and gesturing
at his elbow, stood beside another elderly man and
someone who looked like a former soldier. A clerk
crouched at their feet, drawing.
"The Department of Arms," explained Li Shou,
rising to greet her. "It immediately meets with all
foreign envoys to learn of their lands, to draw maps .
. ."
Then it
was
like Byzantium's Bureau of Barbarians, and she
would be subject to official investigation. She
expected no less. Since the officials had not
been presented to her, she ignored them with the hauteur
she had learned in the Imperial palace. Li Shou
appeared appreciative.
Do you realize that you are making enemies'?
she thought at him. Or was it simply that he refused
to retreat from the position he had taken?
When the silence between Alexandra and the glaring officials
had grown too thick to ignore, Li Shou
presented them. Lu Tsung glared at her,
clearly expecting her to bow. "In this
one's land," Alexandra spoke formally, "it is not the
custom for ladies of the Imperial House to bow
to anyone but the Emperor-who is this unworthy
woman's brother."
She could practically hear the old man's bones
creak as he bowed to her. She seated herself, assumed
court manners, and agreed to accept tea while
wishing she could join the conversation around Bryennius.
At a clap of hands, servants scurried out,
returning almost immediately with her Varangians. The
Ch'in soldiers instinctively stiffened into a posture
of defense, then realized that any men so tall and with
such conspicuously golden coloring could not hide
themselves. Garments of red silk had been given them, and
bright sashes banded their

waists: military garments, but unlike anything they
had ever worn. On a bronze silk cord around
Haraldr's neck hung the horn etched with the
sigils of Shambhala.
Alexandra held her tea before her face, sniffed
delicately at the steam, and prepared to deal with an
interrogation.
The questions continued for hours. Abruptly, they turned
to Princess Siddiqa.
"He tries," murmured Li Shou in Sogdian,
"to apply recent ordinances which forbid Uighurs
to associate with Ch'in to her. But she is half
Ch'in herself; her mother was a princess." ,
"You!" Lu Tsung called Bryennius, who
turned, brows haughtily raised. "Do you realize
that you may not take a Ch'in wife or concubine
away from the Middle Kingdom?"
"I thought she was Uighur," Bryennius said. He
turned back, grimacing at Alexandra. "Can't
he make up his mind?"
Alexandra stared at the prince and the official. This was
more than a conflict over privileges; it seemed
an old animosity.
"And the barbarian prince?" Lu Tsung kept
to his subject.
"His Highness is my guest, to stay or go as he
wills. For as long as he wills. In the meantime,
I am of course requesting proper recognition for
my guests," Li Shou said. "I applied immediately
for official robes and for copies of the classics, which
Her Highness wishes to read. I trust you will
arrange their presentation to the Son of Heaven."
"What gestures of submission will they make?"
"You saw the Ferghana horses they brought.
Proper ones, of the true breed that sweats blood."
"These unworthy beasts are this one's trifling gift
to the Son of Heaven," Alexandra said quietly.
"And this . . . this lady?" Lu Tsung gestured
at her with thinly concealed contempt.
Susan
Shivartz
"Her Highness is a scholar and a great traveler;
she will aid me in my studies of the White and the
Yellow. Surely you, as a follower of the Way, can
understand the value of such a lady's services in
alchemy."
Father Basil stiffened. Alexandra disliked Lu
Tsung's crack of dry laughter even more than the
insolence with which he inspected her. "As you know, the
Son of Heaven leads us all along the Way. If
the . . . lady is adept, she might best assist
him."
There was silk in the palace, Alexandra thought. A
move into the palace might be one way of getting
to it.
"If the most honored minister will forgive this wretched
priest," Father Basil interrupted, with determined
humility, "Her Imperial Highness has been a
cloistered nun."
Again that dry, cruel laughter. "So was Yang
KueiFei, and Wu Tse-Tien herself. Yet they
went willingly to the Son of Heaven. And this one has
already let her hair grow. If you study tantra,
I tell you,
Highness,
look to yourself and yours lest you be punished! And if she
also assists you in your studies of the Tao-which I
doubt comassuredly she is no nun."
"Enough!" snapped the prince, though he barely
raised his voice. "You will send my guests their
creden tials, and all else that is theirs. I myself
will act as their advisor. This audience is finished!"
He stared fixedly at the little lapis lazuli
sculpture, as if trying to calm himself.
,
The night was cool, and the garden fragrant. Any
storms that threatened were a result of the day's disastrous
meeting with Lu Tsung. "He dared threaten me!"
the prince muttered repeatedly. "And he insulted
my guests."
It had taken hours to make him willing to say more
than that.
"I never liked him," Prince Li Shou conceded now
as they sat in the quiet garden. A few
lights burned,

gleaming off the golden carp that swam in the twisting
stream that ran through it. Over by a huge, hollowed-out
limestone boulder, Alexandra's soldiers lounged
about and pretended not to be on guard. "I will admit
that the scholar Li Ao was a genuine servant of the
Tao, though very narrow. But this man is a
place-seeker! If the Son of Heaven favored
Buddhism rather than the Tao, Lu Tsung would be a
Buddhist. If he favored Turks, then he would
build a yurt in his gardens and eat mutton.
Now, to curry favor, he feigns a resentment of
all things that are not Ch'in. He thought my going out of
Ch'in madness. I am certain he hoped I would
die on the journey."
"Instead, Your Highness returned, not just with the texts
you sought, but with foreign guests," said Father Basil.
"Indeed." Li Shou nodded. "But there is an
additional problem. Before Lu Tsung was Taoist,
he studied the classics. In fact, his performance
on the scholars' examinations won him his office.
At their best, our classics teach respect and
order."
And at their worst, intolerable prejudice,
Alexandra surmised. "Do they teach one to despise
foreigners and women?" she asked aloud.
"At their worst, yes," the prince admitted in a
low voice. "But it is not the texts as much as
flaws in the students themselves."
Despite the vast distances that separated her
Empire from this one, things were always the same. No one
was fool enough to deny the authority of Saint Paul, and
yet, in his name, fools treated women as chattel.
The similarity between hate-filled misinterpretations
amazed her. Authority. If a man thought he had
set his feet upon the right Way, what might stop him
from insisting that others follow it? Some sages of the
Tao had refused power, but surely others . . .
both Plato and Aristotle had tried to raise
philosopher-kings, and what had they gained? Plato
nearly died in Syracuse of a bloodbath.
Aristotle had tutored Alexander, whose
battlefield had
Susan
Shujartz
been Asia itself. It was dangerous for a ruler to be
consumed by an idea, and frequently deadly to those
around him.
Had they come to Ch'ang-an only to be
caught in a holy war?
"This is an ugly situation," she mused. "As for
living in the palace, I know-was
Li Shou rose so fast that his cup toppled and
shattered as easily as his hard-won composure. "You
know nothing, nothing at all if you make that
suggestion. What I said to Lu Tsung was an
excuse. I tell you, no more of that!"
How dare you!
Alexandra started to demand.
"You, priest!" raged the prince. "You tell her
what his words actually meant!" The silk of his
embroidered robes hissing and whistling about him, Li
Shou strode about the garden. Shards of porcelain
crackled beneath his slippers.
"Before we fall into worse problems," Alexandra
spoke with deceptive quietness, "I suggest you
tell me what he means."
"Alchemy . . ."
"I know what alchemy is," she said, exaggerating
her air of patience. "I know that Taoists
practice it in the hope of gaining immortality in
this world. That is not just heresy, it is blasphemy.
And if your Son of Heaven dabbles in blasphemy,
then I shall pray for you. You will need it.
What I do
not
know"-she turned back to the Nestorian priest-"is
why Li Shou became so outraged after he himself said that
I assisted him in his studies."
Father Basil hunched in on himself. "If we had come
by way of Hind," he began, swallowed, and began
again. "In Hind, the Diamond Path is
associated with ... I have heard that fornication plays
a part in their worship. There are temples devoted
to it, priests and priestesses ..."
Alexandra flushed scarlet and thanked God that the
night was dark. "Though I may have taken a few
steps along the Diamond Path, I know nothing about
this
silk
roads and shadows

V-
other
worship. In other words," she said in a voice that
barely trembled, "what Lu Tsung suggested was that
I go to this Emperor as a concubine."
Father Basil nodded wretchedly.
"Elder sister," Siddiqa spoke for the first
time, "my mother told me of the palace in which she was
brought up. Many ladies pass their entire lives
there with never a glimpse of the Son of Heaven, much
less . . . she was glad to leave. But short of
death, or a convent, there is no escape from it."
Alexandra was abruptly, absurdly furious.
She had entered a convent to escape marrying a
Frank, left Byzantium as much to avoid being
married off as to steal silkworms . . . no, that
wasn't true. What had she sought in leaving
Byzantium for the East? Certainly, she meant
to get those silkworms. But it was the journey, the
chance to see and learn, and to keep on going, free of the
cages of pragmatism and ceremony that had, once
again, slammed down upon her. Upon the road, she had
been traveler, warrior, even-a few insane
times-magician. Now, once again, "they" saw
only a female body to be awarded to the
highest-ranking man available. Had she really
traveled to the End of the World only to find that people and
customs were no different?
Siddiqa's warning enraged her further, dealing as it
did with only the logistics of escaping the palace
once she took the concubine's way in. But then,
Siddiqa was brought up to regard multiple
adulteries as normal. What made it worse was
that she had trusted Li Shou, and he had embarrassed
her. He had turned the magic she had learned in the
Pamirs and relied upon in the desert into a barracks
joke, and she didn't know if she could ever face him
again. Ridiculous tears stung her eyelids, but
she restrained them.
"The prince himself first called me his assistant.
Let us hope that he meant it innocently. Or,
instead of one enemy, he will have two."
The soft silk of her robes caressed her body as
she retreated to the rooms she had been assigned.
The
Susan
Shwartz
mirrors there showed her a stranger with flushed cheeks
and blazing eyes, very slim, but graceful, with
subtle curves that the sheepskins and the baggy riding
clothes she had worn for months had concealed. She
flung the mirror down, struggled out of the whispering,
offensively clinging silks, tossed them aside, and
wept for shame and disappointment. She had thought
better of them all, herself included.
As she admired the bell tower in the center of
Ch'ang-an, Alexandra felt like a
bumpkin who scraped the manure off his boots and
lurched into Byzantium to gape. She was glad for the
hat and veil that let her blend into the crowd; twice
already this morning, she had seen other foreigners jeered
at. A knot of loafers had actually pursued one
portly Uighur until guards caught sight of the
potential riot. Alexandra thought they seemed
reluctant to stop it, but the loafers had fled
anyway. They would be bolder next time.
So the chaos was here, too. Again the ground trembled
underfoot, and she thought of Li Shou's stories of the
First Emperor.
Is it I who wake you, old man, or the chaos!
Stealing silkworms-that might mean disorder in Ch'in,
harm to its trade. But if she did not bring them
back, then Byzantium might fall into worse
chaos. She was thinking in circles again.
Circles . . . abruptly, she thought of the paired
circles
Susan Shwartz
of snow mountains in the paintings of Shambhala. Beyond
the circles of the world might lie other circles. That
was bad Plato and worse doctrine, but if she were
really that orthodox, she would not dream of entering a
Buddhist shrine.
All her spies were out, Bryennius dispatched to the more
discreet tea shops (though Siddiqa had flown into a
rage when he teased her, and had scratched his
face), the Greek soldiers and Varangians to the
rowdier western market. Father Basil had been
only too happy to follow them to the Nestorian
church founded by the saintly Alopen. Alexandra
slipped into the nearby Buddhist temple. She was not
the only woman standing by herself. Several others, both
veiled, and unveiled, meditated before immense
statues like those in the caves at Dunhuang, or
attended the complex ritual.
But the temple felt wrong. Not because it was a pagan
shrine: The monastery where she first learned of
Shambhala had been steeped in holiness. That
feeling of sanctity, even more than the chants and the
incense and the tales of the abbot, had made her willing
to believe that . . . she shook her head. This
temple was far richer than the monastery at the Roof
of the World. It was lavish, even tawdry. The
statues and murals were newly painted and heavily
gilded. Under the chanting and the incense so heavy that two
people had already swooned was a feeling of... fever. One
summer, there had been sickness in Byzantium.
Alexandra had insisted on leaving her
convent's library to help in its infirmary. Even
now she remembered how the air had quivered. The
entire city had seemed feverish, as if it were one
single body, and that body feverish. Though it was
autumn in Ch'ang-an, that febrile energy
quivered here.
She wandered away from the pudgy, chanting monks,
searching the walls for signs of Shambhala. Her
footsteps echoed in the corridors as she moved
away from the crowd. Gradually, the noise
subsided. Now she heard only her own
footsteps, and the padding of sandaled feet behind her.
When she stopped, those other steps stopped
*-


silk roads and shadows
too. Wishing she had the abbot's sword, she reached
into her flowing silk sleeve for the dagger she carried,
then turned around. Her free hand swept the veil
back over her head.
A man wearing a monk's robes faced her. Like
herself, he was foreign. She thought he might be from the
Land of Snows. He raised a hand, and she tensed,
dagger ready. But he only pointed at the
wall and smiled at her.
"To the south, Princess," he said. "And go soon."
Alexandra glanced at the wall. There indeed were the
snow mountains and the mandala of Shambhala, within which the
king sat, awaiting the signal to ride forth to rid the
ordered world of its enemies. The fever in the air
subsided a little. She turned to question the monk. A
lotus with a bluish tinge lay on the clean stone
pavement before her. She really could not say she was
surprised to find herself alone. She bent to pick up
the lotus, sure that she had found a sign. To the
south, then. Once they stole the silkworms, they
would flee along the southern roads, back
to Byzantium.
Lotus held before her, she retraced her steps.
The monk had warned her not to delay, a message
she would heed. She wanted to travel by winter; Father
Basil had learned that the men who had smuggled
silkworms out of Ch'in three centuries ago had
succeeded only because they had traveled in the cold.
Heat quickened silkworms to a riot of hunger and
breeding; winter plunged them into a stupor.
Besides, she was increasingly afraid of the men who
seemed to turn Tao into chaos. Two days before,
Li Shou had vanished into the palace compound
after warning her that their presentation to the Son of Heaven
would be delayed, "though that does not seem to be why you
have come."
Merciful Bearer of God, had he heard her questioning
Father Basil about the silk?
Once, while they had been discussing it, they had
heard a whisper of silk robes, and immediately fallen
silent, inept conspirators as they were. Had that
been the prince?
Her quarrel with him had been slow to heal. Both still
caret from
greater-than 3r
*ment
2O2
Susan Shwartz
changed the subject whenever it turned to magic. Li
Shou was also reticent about the Son of Heaven. How
not? She would hesitate to discuss the Emperor of the
Romans with a stranger. Emperors were all-powerful,
all-knowing. In the case of the Emperor of the
Romans, he was bound by his service to God. An
Emperor who followed the Tao, however, might
believe himself the Tao incarnate, an embodiment of
heaven and earth, rather than its vicar. Such a man
might consider himself as far above good and evil
as she considered herself above silkworms, or
barbarians. Since earthquakes existed in
nature, a man who believed that he embodied all
nature might decide that the earthquake's force was
right and beautiful. He could become a catastrophe
in human form.
The earth rumbled again.
The old First Emperor, stirring in his sleep? It
is not I who am the danger, old man. Look
to your successor.
She waited for the rumbling to die down. When it did
not, she hurried for the nearest door. She had a
horror of being trapped beneath one of the twisted, painted
cornices.
A mob of soldiers and men in workmen's blue
tunics swarmed into the temple, dragging worshipers
from the shrines, and priests from the altars. Another
group bayed the priests up into a ragged line beside a
line of sobbing, shrinking women clad in ashen robes.
One woman's headdress tumbled off as she
wailed. Her head had been roughly shaved some time
ago.
Then the soldiers storced priests and nuns to join
hands. When several refused, swords slashed down.
Then the others were marched out to a chorus of
jeers, a ribald parody of a wedding song, leaving the
bodies behind. Blood pooled on the scrubbed
flagstones.
Now comes chaos,
Alexandra thought. She looked desperately about the
courtyard for her cart and the servants from Li Shou's
household. That overturned hulk, from which the silk
hangings had been stripped, the oxen stolen, and the
servants driven away-that had been her cart. Now
she would have to make her way
2O3
home unescorted and on foot. And her disguise was
no thicker than the silk veil that hid her face from
the crowd.
Someone shouted and pointed, and five men ran toward
her. Alexandra shrank against the wall. In the
desert, when the demons had pursued her and the
prince, she had used the magic of Shambhala
to summon a sort of protection. Passionately,
Alexandra wished for it now. Her hands, gripping
together, crushed the lotus between them, and its fragrance
drove away the stink of sweat and blood and human
fear.
Abruptly, the men who spotted her turned away,
sinking into the crowd that hurled rocks and
less savory missiles at the statues towering
overhead. The screams and crashes of the riot seemed
lessened. Even the air was different: Free from the
blowing soil that yellowed the sky in Ch'ang-an, it
was the dazzling indigo of the sky in the high passes.
For an instant Alexandra felt dizzy,
intoxicated, as if once again she trod the Roof
of the World. She seemed to walk in a bubble of
quiet.
She edged out along the wall into the court, past two
men who kicked at the body of a monk who had chosen
to die rather than be forcibly wed to the woman crumpled
at his side. They might indeed have been well
suited. Alexandra wanted to trace a cross over
them, but dared not move her hands from the lotus that was her
protection.
Carefully, she picked her way across the
battleground that had been a temple courtyard.
She turned to the north and east, intending to return
to Li Shou's compound when the power about her shimmered.
Faint yet piercingly clear in her mind came the
call of a horn. She had sensed its music once
before, and it had saved her life. Now it called in
distress to whomever might hear it. She turned toward
the south and west. Kilting up her silken
skirts of lavender and blue, she began to run.
A horse stood nearby, its head hanging down from
sheer weariness. She touched its lathered neck. When
it did not flinch, she led it to the nearest crouching
statue
2O4
Susan Shwartz
of a grotesque lion, which made an excellent
mounting block. Again, the horn call! She looked
about. Impossible that no one else could hear it! She
tucked the lotus into her belt and drove her heels
into the horse's flanks.
Haraldr was glad that Arinbjorn guarded his side as
they strode through the western market. The small,
golden-skinned natives of Ch'ang-an moved out of
their way. Ahead of them, Father Basil scuttled
around a corner and disappeared.
Arinbjorn chuckled. "The minute we settle into a
new place, he heads off to find a church. Now,
my first stop would be a-was
"The crowd back there, Arinbjorn, is it thinning
out?" Haraldr asked. He felt as if he were
striding naked through a crowd of onlookers. The
market, which he remembered from past visits as being
engagingly rowdy at this time of day, was
quiet, too quiet. You couldn't have a better
battle-comrade than Arinbjorn, when he
decided to use his head for something more than sluicing
ale through the rest of his body. The other man tensed,
started to turn, then changed his mind.
"Are you expecting trouble?"
Haraldr shrugged. "I wouldn't want to take on the
whole market, would you?"
"Not after Her Highness told us to keep quiet. I
like her idea: a quiet, friendly walk through the
market, as if there's any way we can pretend we
look like . . ."
"What's that!" Harajdr dug his fingers
into Arinbjorn's brawny arm until the other
guardsman grunted.
"Leave off, you ox!"
"Over there. That troop . . ." A file of
soldiers, stocky men with knotted scarves on their
heads, cuirasses of scale and leather clattering as
they moved, marched into the market, accompanying a man
in the robes of an official, a parasol denoting
his office held above his elaborate headgear.
Criminals were usually punished in the western
market, Haraldr thought. A commotion
2O5
behind the official drew his attention, and he headed
toward it.
"Quietly,
she
said. When did you ever disregard
her
orders before?" asked Arinbjorn.
Haraldr ignored his friend's remarks, though
ordinarily he might have reminded Arinbjorn that
"she" was Her Imperial Highness Alexandra, and
he'd do well to remember it. He wished that Father
Basil hadn't scurried off so quickly; the instant
matters got beyond drink or food (mostly, you
pointed and held out cash, and someone ran and got you
whatever you pointed at), he wanted an interpreter.
By all the Vanir and Aesir, he especially
wanted one now.
She
was worried, he could tell. Usually her orders were
crisp and direct. This latest one, to go out and
simply listen, filled him with unease. He had
long suspected not just that his princess fled magic,
but that some of the magic she feared lay within herself. As
if anything she could do would be evil-aside from that
order to strike off her head before she could
blurt out their secrets. Twice in the past week,
Haraldr had wakened in a cold sweat, dreaming that
he had raised his axe against the woman he ... He
felt that way because she was their ring-giver, he told
himself. The Basileus had given them and their oaths
over to her. She was so brave, but now she was
afraid. Haraldr could see it, and it made him
want to take his axe to something.
"Looks like a wedding!" commented Arinbjorn. "Lines
of men and women together, all dressed the same."
"They look like monks and nuns, fool!" hissed
Haraldr. "Why would
they
marry?"
Arinbjorn nodded, then smiled at a small child whom
he saw staring at him. Its mother snatched the baby out
of his path.
"Pretty child," he said.
"They probably think we eat babies,"
Haraldr muttered as he tried to puzzle out the
official's words. "Probably best to let them
alone. You're right,
2O6
Susan Shwartz
Arinbjorn. They're marrying off those people
to one another, shutting down their monasteries."
"If Father Basil isn't careful, he may find
himself with a bride!" Arinbjorn laughed, then lowered his
voice, remembering orders.
"These aren't Christians; they're . . .
Buddhists, Her Highness told me." Like the
prince-though liking wasn't precisely what he
felt for Li Shou, who tried to dismiss him, jarl's
grandson as he was, like a hired sword or a
thrall, and whose eyes followed Alexandra about with a
look that his princess (wise as she was in other
ways) was too innocent to understand.
"No!" burst from the throat of one woman who stood
behind the official. Haraldr understood that much of the
tonal, clanging language of Ch'in. The
woman's voice scaled upward into a scream, then
a yammer that choked off as blood gushed from her mouth
and her body fell from the platform into the dust of the
market. The official kept on speaking.
"I think he's looking at us," muttered
Arinbjorn.
"Back up," Haraldr ordered.
Reluctantly, the crowd parted to let them through.
Halfway into the next block, it held firm.
They tried to shoulder through. Suddenly the
press of tiny, intense people, with dark hair and bright
tiny eyes, oppressed Haraldr, and he tried
to shoulder through. His axe was slung across his back.
If he had to, he could free up an arm and draw
it ... unless one of these folk had a knife and was
willing to try using it.
Gritting his teeth and sweating, Haraldr concentrated
on pushing through the crowd. A child set up a wail at
the sight of him, and he kept on going. Behind them, the
official finished, and musicians struck up the
sick cats' wailing, broken by the clash of
cymbals and drums, that they used instead of music in
this land.
Abruptly a wail rose in the market and the crowd
pressed forward. Someone shouted and hurled a rotten
fruit which splattered the official's fine silk
gown, and soldiers leaped from behind him, their swords
drawn.
2O7
"Get moving!" Haraldr shouted. "We've got a
riot on our hands!" Neither man drew his weapon
yet. They pushed brutally through the crowd, eager
to get back to Li Shou's palace and report. The
market crowds degenerated into a series of brawls.
Thieves pillaged the stalls, as
individual fights broke off. Two men
practically rolled underneath Haraldr's boots.
Swearing, he stepped over them.
"Over there!" Arinbjorn pointed. Above one stall
tended only by a few children was a tiled overhang;
was,
until a knot of brawlers caromed into its
supports.
"No!" Arinbjorn shouted, and dashed forward.
Instants later, he grunted as he took some of the
burden of the roof onto his shoulders. "Get those
children!" he yelled at his officer.
Moving with speed unusual in a man his size,
Haraldr dashed forward, but was only in time to keep a
falling tile from dashing out Arinbjorn's brains.
Then the brawlers crashed into the supports again, and the
roof slipped farther. Arinbjorn cried out and fell
to his knees, then onto his face. Over the snarls
and shouts of the mob, Haraldr could hear the terrified
shrieks of the children trapped beneath Arinbjorn, then nothing
at all but panting breaths.
"Get out. . ."
That was Arinbjorn. Haraldr had to free him, yet
if the rioters caught two foreigners here, they would
tear them apart. His oath was to the princess;
but if he abandoned Arinbjorn, she would probably
make him wish that the mob had caught him. He bent
to shift the rubble, then rose to size up the crowd.
He cursed it, then cursed again.
Think, man!
he ordered himself. He wished he had the security of
orders. He twisted one hand in his beard, and felt
fingers brush against the horn he had carried since he
found it. In the desert, when he thought he had lost
Alexandra for good, he had blown that horn, and found
her. He raised the horn, then hesitated. He
might be summoning her into danger. But she held his
oath.
Susan Shivartz
When all else failed, he had only the oath
to trust to. He set lips to the bone mouthpiece and
blew with all the force of his lungs. He produced
no sound. He tried again until red specks danced
before his eyes, and he collapsed to his knees, the
horn dangling from its cord. He could sense echoes
all around him, as if the horn call rang through air
in some world that neighbored this one.
He bent double, hoping that the crowd would miss him.
Nearby, Arinbjorn groaned. Haraldr began
to tear at the masonry that covered him.
Hoofbeats pounded into the market. The crowd parted
slowly, and the hoofbeats neared him, then stopped.
Knife in hand, Haraldr rose into a crouch comand
faced a riderless horse. Reins dropped out of
empty air onto its saddle; he heard a slither
of robes, and feet running toward him. Then a hand
was on his shoulder, and he saw the princess.
"Where were you?" he gasped. Had she found some
Tarnhelm that let her pass unseen?
"Never mind that," she hissed. "The city is running
mad. It's as much as a Westerner's life is
worth to be out in it."
"Arinbjorn tried to save two children. They're
trapped beneath that."
Her Highness studied the rubble, looked at
Haraldr, then reached for her sash. "Give me your
belt too. If we tie one end to the horse, the
other to the biggest piece of that roof..."
He ran to the sweating horse, and the princess ran
after him. "Here, take this!" she ordered, and pressed
a wilting lotus into his harness. Abruptly, he
could see her again. "I can pretend to be Ch'in,
unless they unveil me. You can't. Get him out!"
Though the horse rolled his eyes at the unlikely
looking harness, he was sturdy, and the rubble
shifted with more ease than Haraldr would have thought
possible. Arinbjorn rolled to one side, and the children
screamed.
"That's panic, not pain," Alexandra said. "You
see to
2O9
his,.
Arinbjorn." The man groaned as Haraldr patted
him up and down, roughly seeking injuries.
"Only shaken."
"Load him on the horse," she ordered. "Ill
look to the children." She reached down and took their tiny
hands, smeared with dirt and lime. Haraldr watched
openmouthed then, as she walked up to two people in the garb
of merchants, pushed the children toward them, and spoke
quickly, commandingly in Ch'in. Haraldr heaved
Arinbjorn up across the horse's saddle, then
turned back to see Alexandra, having found
adults to take charge of the children whom Arinbjorn had
rescued, turn back, and look puzzled.
"Haraldr?" He remembered that he held the
lotus; she couldn't see him.
"Here, Highness. Here's my hand."
"Let's go home. I hope that flower lasts till
we get there."
The mob swirled about them, but they passed unseen,
heading out of the market toward Li Shou's compound, and
whatever small safety could be found there.
V" *ity caret i
A carp splashing in the narrow stream that twisted between
pines and a great, freestanding rock startled
Alexandra. This quiet garden, devised by a scholar
for contemplation, and the riot outside its walls
belonged to two separate worlds. Arinbjorn's
bruises were proof of the existence of the other; they had
been lucky to be able to retreat back to the safety
of the palace. Lucky, or divinely favored,
arud she was coming to suspect the latter. Father Basil
had still not returned from his church, nor Li Shou from the
Imperial palace.
Alexandra sighed. Though she dutifully turned to the
books that had been left in her rooms, her
attention wandered to servants' gossip overheard
while she bathed. It seemed that silk in Ch'in was the
product of women-just as it had been in
Byzantium. In all circles from the poor
family that owned only a few mulberry trees to the
women's quarters of the Imperial palace, women
tended the silkworms, chopped leaves for them,
21 1
tended the fires that kept them awake and feeding, and
then, when they began to spin, watched over the cocoons
until they were ready to drop them into boiling water,
then unravel the silken thread.
Well enough. I have only to convince some family
to break the law and sell silkworms to a foreigner .
. . just when the whole Empire looks like it's
turning against foreigners. Simple.
She opened the
Lao Tzu
again, and bent over the unfamiliar characters. What was that?
"Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat the
ten thousand creatures ruthlessly. The sage is not
benevolent; he treats the people ruthlessly." How had
a gentle Way turned so fierce?
But was Byzantium any different? In just one of her
City's riots, over twenty-five thousand people had
been slaughtered in the Hippodrome alone. Chaos
was the same the world over. She laid aside that book
for one wrapped in scented silk. Idly she opened
it and began to leaf through.
The book was illustrated, each picture as
cunningly painted as any devotional manuscript
from the West. But what these pictures were devoted
to! Her cheeks flamed. On each
page, a man and at least one woman twisted and
twined about one another in the act of union. Unable
to look away, she noted that the tiny figures were
pale, the women paler than the men, except for their
private parts, which the artist had tinted a rosy
color.
She dropped the book as if it burned her fingers.
But before she could clap her hands to order a servant
to take it away and burn it, she remembered that for
some sorceries union was a sacrament, a liberation
of power. That was why she had quarreled with Li Shou
when he had told that minister that she assisted him in his
alchemy. If she had seen this book, she felt now
that she might have tried to kill him.
How could a brothel transform itself into a shrine? Her
fingers trembled on the fine paper. The book had
Susan
Shwartz
been lovingly crafted, the figures finely
drawn. Against both her better judgment and her will,
she turned page after page. She had been a nun,
then a traveler; even the thought of performing the least and
most chaste (not that any of them were) of the acts
pictured on these pages appalled her. Yet her
mouth went dry, and her face scalded, and
her curiosity, never long asleep, awoke and
pulsed along her veins.
She had heard titters in the women's quarters,
giggles if clouds or rain were mentioned in
proximity. Now she understood why; and she didn't
think she would ever again hear people speak of jade or
peonies without blushing fiercely.
Li Shou had included the book among those left in
her rooms, she realized.
You're not truly such a fool as to ask why, are you,
Alexandra?
Approaching footsteps made her push the book to the
bottom of the pile she had had brought into the garden.
Anyone coming this way would see only her contemplating
the whorls and caves within the rock he had paid gold
for and ordered set in his garden.
As she dreaded, it was Li Shou. Alexandra started
to rise, then thought better of it. Her knees were weak
and she stammered over her greeting to him. Fury at
her own embarrassment helped her control her
speech.
He gestured at the stream. The sky was darkening
toward twilight, and vapor rose from the water.
"The mists are sluggish, confused today," he said.
"We call them cstzst,"
"Does that surprise you?" she asked.
"Today I tried to speak against the recent madness,"
he said. "But those old men who seek to return us
to the days of Ch'in Shih Huang-di shouted me
down, called me half-barbarian. were you caught in
the street brawls?"
"I saw monks and nuns dragged from a Buddhist
temple," she said, looking down at her scratched
fingers. "They were wed to one another while the rabble
jeered, except for those who refused."

"Were they slain?"
Alexandra nodded.
"They were sworn to renunciation," Li Shou spoke
softly. "But there are other ways along the Path that
are sweeter." His hands drifted over her books
(including the scandalous, silk-wrapped one), and he
dropped down beside her on the carven bench.
"Why do they do this?" The cry burst from her before she
could control her voice.
"And you in the West, have you not your holy wars? Did
I not hear Father Basil describe how your own
City cast his people out?"
Alexandra shook her head. "This is worse. This
is ... chaos."
Li Shou's hand touched hers, and she forced herself not
to flinch. "I agree. Destruction, and greed. The
monasteries have become fat and sleepy. The Son
of Heaven-may he live ten thousand years!-follows
the Tao. He
is
the Tao. But little men like Lu Tsung will make their
fortunes." He sighed, and was silent, as if waiting
for the garden's serenity to purge his spirit of bitterness.
"At least, I may not be forbidden my own
studies," he said. "The Son of Heaven is
fascinated with immortality, and so will not hinder any
scholar who claims to seek it. You too, lady; you
are a student."
His hand stroked hers. One finger touched the center of
her palm, which was sweating, then traced the veins on
her wrist. She pulled her hand away, and he
laughed.
"What do you read, Princess?" he asked in a low
voice that made her tremble. "No. Look at
me." He tipped up her chin with one well-kept
finger. "That is better. You blush. Will you not answer
me?"
Her lips were trembling, and she hated it, despised
the gush of tears to her eyes, her
involuntary response to that gentle, knowing voice and
practiced touch.
"It may be a long time before the Son of Heaven will
agree to see you, and you can fulfill your brother's
commands. With all that time . . . there are other ways
Susan Shwartz
of enlightenment than the road to Shambhala, you know,
and ways more satisfying when shared."
She knew how ill-favored many people in Ch'in found
Westerners, had counted on it. But Li Shou, she
remembered, had always been fascinated by things and people from
beyond the Middle Kingdom. His life was bound up with
them.
Alexandra had faced avalanches and black storms
along the way to Ch'ang-an without half the panic
she felt now. He smelled of sandalwood. He was
bending over her, and she felt paralyzed. In an
instant, he would touch her, and she would learn whether a
body-her own body-could really twist into those
astonishing postures that seemed burned into her
memory.
"Your Highness!"
It was Li Shou's aged steward, his wizened face
looking almost anguished. The eunuch had his arms
outstretched, attempting to bar two other people-
from interfering in his master's pleasures!
It was Haraldr, and with him a much-singed and bleeding Father
Basil. Alexandra leaped to her feet.
. "After I saw Arinbjorn settled, my
princess, I went out again hoping to find the rest of
your people. All but two are safe."
She bowed her head. "Last of all, I found Father
Basil. He should be in bed, with a healer sent for, but
..."
"But I had to speak to you, to both of you!" cried the little
man. "They're'killing us out there! Do you know what
they did? Today they torched the church that an Emperor
had built. Two hundred years of faith and hard
work-burned to ashes in an afternoon!"
Tears rolled down the priest's grimy face.
"I helped save the children in the school, praise
God. But our entire community, they're making
plans to flee."
Then it would be useless to appeal to them for silkworms.
It was inevitable. If no one would sell them or
supply them, she would have to steal them from the only
source left. The palace. Perhaps Siddiqa's
mother's

VV-"TF
stories would help her sneak in-or they could bribe
a guard. Involuntarily, she put both hands to her
temples.
Too much was happening at once. The Manichees,
the Christians, the Buddhists ... if no foreign
faith was safe, it would be only a matter of time,
perhaps just hours, until foreign merchants too were under
attack.
"We are behaving like savages!" hissed Li Shou.
"This chaos is unspeakable!" He rose. "Lady,
kindly excuse me. You will want to question your people. And
I, I must write a memorial to present to the
Son of Heaven. Han Chu, you will see that a
surgeon attends to this good priest. And, lady,
remember what it was we spoke of."
The languor that had characterized the prince since his
return home was gone. The man who walked toward
his study was the comrade of the journey east, the ally
who had not despaired in the Takla Makan, nor
flinched in Turpan. Even Haraldr granted
hi'm a curt salute.
"Father," the steward began in that woodwind eunuch's
voice of his, "we must salve your burns. Come
and rest."
Father Basil flinched violently away from
the alien features that resembled the hundreds of
rage-twisted faces that burned what he had most
prized. "Forgive me," he murmured the moment
afterward. "Call the surgeon for me, and I'll
submit."
Alexandra reinforced his request with a curt nod.
Reluctantly, the eunuch retreated.
"What is it?" she asked.
"If we do not leave soon, I fear we will not be
able to flee at all," whispered the priest. He
began to weep again. ""Lady, they're killing us!"
Alexandra took a scarf from her sleeve, dipped
it into the stream, and began to clean his face. The
blood-scent seemed to taint the cleanliness of the
pines and gingkoes.
"You are exhausted," she murmured. "Go with Han
Chu, go and rest. Leave the problem to me." The
priest staggered off.
"You should help him," she told Haraldr, who
lingered by the pool. He had not yet changed out of the

Susan Shwartz
bar
crimson he had worn in the morning. His tunic was
torn at the shoulder. The weal of an old
scar was pale against the heavy muscle and red-gold
hair of his chest. Her mouth went dry as she looked
at him.
"My princess," Haraldr began, his voice
hesitant as always when he thought he intruded on her
thoughts. "What did you and the prince discuss?"
Alexandra's brows flew up, and the blood rushed
into her face again. But she had control of herself in an
instant. "Weather," she said softly, staring out at the
stream and the troubled, cloudy mists that rose from it.
"Clouds . . . and rain."
He was standing over her in just the way that Li Shou had.
The warmth of his body drew her; she had always felt
safe among her Varangians. But now she was unable
to meet the earnest, anxious gaze that willed her
to be his keen-witted and confident leader. Haraldr
thought of her as an officer, perhaps, or as a princess
put in his care; nothing else. She rose. When he
offered his hand to assist her, she evaded him, and
picked up her books, clutching them to her breast.
"Can you find Bryennius for me?" she asked. "I
need to talk with you all."
Even Father Basil and Arinbjorn insisted on joining
the meeting in the garden. Bryennius thought that both of
them would do better to rest, Ch'ang-an,
exciting as it had looked, had proved to be a trap
they might have to run from before it cfaught them in its
jaws.
Siddiqa, desert-bred, shivered in the cool of the
evening and Bryennius laid a cloak over her
slender shoulders. She screwed up her forehead in a
way that always made him want to kiss her, as she
struggled to find words in the Sogdian that they all
used to confuse any spies.
"Think!" Alexandra urged her. "We can't just go
wandering about the palace."
"My . . . mother never told me where the silkworms
were."
Alexandra sighed.

"Stop badgering her, cousin!" Bryennius snapped
at Alexandra. Nothing about Alexandra's plan
to smuggle herself and his Siddiqa into the Imperial
palace in the closed carts often used to convey new
concubines pleased him. Small, quick, arid
female, they might go unnoticed just long enough to cram
the dormant silkworms into hollow cane staves and
flee. The rest of them would be waiting outside the
northwest gate. Assuming they could find the
silkworms, steal them, and get out.
"What makes you think that they don't have the same
level of protection for their silkworms as we do
... did ... for ours?" he demanded.
"Eunuchs might not stop two women who look like
they are engaged in legitimate work. I've been in
the Gynaecia, I know that silkworms need a lot
of work," Alexandra said. "As for ... magical
protection, I can only rely on what has
helped us before."
Her voice was a little too cheerful, Bryennius
thought. She had to know how full of holes her plan
was. But he had nothing better, and the need to escape
this city was upon him, as much as on the others. If the
chaos here had grown so strong, what must it be like in
Byzantium? At least now he was a soldier,
fit to defend his home . . . assuming he could get
back there.
Bryennius gazed up at the moon and shuddered. It
was a thin sickle, tinged red, as if it had reaped the
harvest he had seen today in the streets and inns. Not
a single tavern owned by Westerners was still standing
unburned.
One of the soldiers stationed along the winding path near
the stream whistled. They all fell silent, then
started talking too loudly and at random.
Li Shou, elaborately dressed in court
robes, stood before them.
"Bring light," he said over his shoulder.
Bryennius flinched at the sudden torchlight.
The prince seated himself beside the stream, nodded at the
towering rock that cast its shadow across the group, then
looked them over.
Susan
Shwartz
"Tell me what you are planning," he ordered, then
held up a long-fingered hand in a gesture that was both
commanding and elegant. "And please, do me the justice
of not asking "what do you mean?"' I am a man of
sense. And 1 have long suspected that more than a
desire to pay your respects to the Son of Heaven
brought you to Ch'in."
Haraldr was creeping up behind him. In a moment more,
he could catch him, gag him before he could cry out . .
. but Alexandra too held up a hand and forbade it.
"Other than the courtesy we owe you as our host,"
Alexandra said, "why should we tell you?"
"Because I suspect that it is bound up with magic,
with the chaos that has stalked you since you left your
home . . ."
"Earlier than that," she put in.
"And if it's a matter of magic, I can
possibly help. Certainly, I have earned the right
to try."
Alexandra raised an eyebrow.
"This evening, after I left you, I wrote a
memorial condemning the Son of Heaven's actions.
It is worse than you thought. Do you know how many
thousands of people have already died? Ch'in will be one vast
graveyard before he and his court of carrion-eaters
are sated."
"You said that at court?" Bryennius asked.
"I did. Needless to say, I was shouted down and
accused of treason. The ministers called the guard,
and they hurled me-mesta prince of the Imperial
House comto my knees before the Dragon Throne."
He laughed grimly. "A prince, did I say?
Not any longer. 1 was demoted to commoner and sent
home to await . . . this may be it now."
Han Chu appeared on the curving path and
prostrated himself at Li Shou's feet.
"Didn't you hear, old friend, that I am prince no
longer?" the younger man asked. "Get up, man,
get up! And bring in my guests."
The eunuch rose. With immense dignity, he
ignored
   silk roads and shadows
the tears that ran down his face, and ushered in five
armored soldiers. Their ranks parted to let Lu
Tsung, a roll of dark silk in his hands,
approach the prince.
"Even now I find you with your barbarians, not
decently worshiping at the altars of your
ancestors," the minister remarked, disgust evident in
his pursed lips and flaring nostrils. "You have become
a barbarian yourself."
Li Shou sat, watching his enemy. His breath came
a little faster, Bryennius noted, but he neither moved
nor spoke.
"I believe that this will be no surprise," the minister
said. "The Son of Heaven remembers that once you and
he were distant kin." He unrolled the dark cloth
he carried. Shrouded in it was a long, silken
cord.
Siddiqa stifled a gasp, and Han Chu sobbed
aloud. Bryennius darted a look at Alexandra.
"Think of Nero," she whispered in rapid Greek.
"He would command men to open their veins by sending them a
sword. Here, they use a silken cord."
Suddenly Bryennius could not get enough air, or
take his eyes from Li Shou, who leaned
forward slightly, touched a finger to the cord, then
took it into his hands and tugged on it.
"It appears to be quite sturdy," he remarked. He
glanced up at the night sky. "I have until
dawn, I assume, to make my arrangements. You
need not wait."
My God, does he really expect the man to sling
that cord from the branch of the nearest tree and hang
himself? Bryennius thought. It wasn't decent. He
heard himself growling, and saw Haraldr start forward.
"Unnecessary," Li Shou told the Varangian. "But
if you could show these men out, then come back, you would have
my thanks-for whatever they are worth now."
Haraldr signaled. Abruptly, the Varangians
seemed to materialize from the shadows and tower over the
minister and his guard. The Ch'in soldiers looked at
Lu Tsung, then at the Varangians, and went
quietly.
Of
was com1.i
,",
@.
Susan Shwartz
"You see?" asked Li Shou. He let the silken
cord fall into his lap. "I am
considered a Westerner. So, naturally, I shall help
you-provided you work no harm on the Son of
Heaven."
Alexandra took a deep breath. "He has the
right," she told the rest of the group. "We came for
silkworms. A blight killed the silkworms in
Byzantium, blight and foul magic that stretched out
to menance the Emperor and his son. The silk trade
is vital to our Empire. I thought that if we had
could restore it . . ."
"That the balance might, in some way, be restored?"
Li Shou asked patiently. Alexandra nodded.
"There are no silkworms to be had here," said the
prince. "You will have to go to the palace and take them."
"So I thought too," Alexandra said, and told him
their plans thus far.
He turned and stretched out a hand to his steward, who
crouched weeping at his side.
"Han Chu." The man scrambled up, then made
to flee.
"No, don't go. Or you, Prince Bryennius.
Stay with me for as long as you can. I-we-will need your
help before the end."
caret

A
By moonrise, the servants" lamentations subsided
and were replaced by a steady stream of farewells.
Each man and woman received a final gift from the
prince whom they had served, then slipped out of the
compound. A while later, Bryennius' soldiers,
Greeks and Varangians heavily muffled to hide
their alien features, were escorted to the eastern
gate.
Last of all, the eunuch Han Chu prostrated
himself before his master, then took charge of a richly
caparisoned cart bound for the Imperial palace, and
bearing Alexandra and Siddiqa. They wore
elaborate robes, suitable for soon-to-be
Imperial concubines, and, because the night was cool,
overrobes of warm furs. But beneath their robes were
riding clothes and boots, and hollow staffs were hidden
among the cushions of the cart in which they rode.
"What if they fail and are caught?" Bryennius
stood in

**c
Susan Shwortzi
the doorway, shaped like a moon for good fortune,
until j the cart disappeared in a bend in
the road.
"Han Chu will not let them suffer." The condemned
prince's voice seemed to come from very far away.
Bryennius turned on his heel and reentered Li
Shou's study. The lamps cast wavering shadows on
the walls and gilded silk hangings, and glowed through a
jade screen by the prince's writing table.
Inevitably, there would come a moment when Alexandra
and his Siddiqa would have to leave the old man behind.
What if they were caught then? For all the strangeness
she had been through, Alexandra still preserved a
Christian horror of suicide. Siddiqa might
not, but the idea of that delicate throat pierced by a
blade comhe saw Li Shou watching him with that
too-perceptive gaze of his, and shuddered.
The prince set his seal to a paper, rolled it, and
handed it to Bryennius. "Yours, for the journey. Now,
come look at the map." Bryennius stood over the
older man, stood so close that he was aware when he
shivered. Behind them, in its wrappings, coiled the
silken cord that both struggled to ignore.
"I know Alexandra feels compelled to escape
south, but don't expect to travel by sea. The
harbors will be watched. And no city in Ch'in is
safe for outsiders now." The long,
elegant hand began to trace out a route. "Your
only hope of safety lies on the frontier,
back the way you came. To Dunhuang." stJ
Shou shuddered. "I wish I could say that the people now
alive in Ch'in are all you may have to fear. Just
remember that the First Emperor promised vengeance
against
any
foe of Ch'in."
Li Shou was talking about magic again. In that case,
Dunhuang, where the timeless sanctity had touched even
Bryennius, and given Alexandra rest, might
shield them from any magic that pursued them from
Ch'ang-an, just as it had protected them from what
drove them from Byzantium.
"You have kin there, of a sort," the prince continued
silk roads and shadows
with a quiet intensity that made Bryennius sweat,
despite the autumn chill. "Warn them to flee.
But if you value them, do not travel with them."
"Why? Surely, the bigger the caravan, the safer the
journey."
"And the slower! I tell you, speed is safety for
you, and nothing else. When you leave Ch'ang-an,
make haste. Especially-was He looked
up. "You remember the tombs of the Emperors. Your
road . . . there is no other way . . , takes
you past Mount Li. By all the gods, do not dally
near the tomb of the First Emperor. Promise me!"
Bryennius nodded. "From the Jade Gate, go
south. At Khotan, you can choose again: back
to Kashgar, or into Hind or Tibet. I had hoped
to go too, and help your cousin find Shambhala . .
. perhaps she will now. I do not think she will be at peace
until she tries."
Prince Li Shou rolled up the map and gave it
to Bryennius, then sat gazing at the gem carved
into the form of a hollowed, water-smoothed rock,
drawing its serenity into his own spirit.
"Why not come with us, man?" Bry' cried. "Come
back to Byzantium, and be our guest, as we have
been yours!"
But the prince was shaking his head. "I cannot leave
here."
"In the name of God, why not, when all they can think
to do is sentence you . . ." Bryennius gestured at
the deadly, bundled silk behind them. "You're even
helping us steal silkworms . . . why stop at
that?"
The Ch'in prince chuckled, a sound
incongruous in the still room. Outside, the night
wind blew and a nightingale sang. The scent of
pine prickled at Bryennius' nostrils.
Briefly he cursed the trees outside. In a
few hours, the prince would pick up that cord, go
into the garden, and choose the sturdiest branch he could
find.
The older man turned and smiled at him. "In
case you had forgotten, the punishment for stealing Ch'in
silk
,
less-than *
Susan Shwartz
worms
is
death. Even though I am sentenced to die, I cannot
leave. For all my years traveling, the Middle
Kingdom is my home."
Bryennius shook his head, the beginnings of angry
sorrow welling up in his chest as a growl. "Consider
it like this. I am a child, forbidden by my mother to give
food to strangers. Yet I like the look of the
strangers, so I disobey. But, just because there is
punishment in store, shall I run away with them? I shall
stay here, where my ancestors have died.
Let it go, younger brother."
Bryennius knew he looked startled. "Oh,
yes, I call you brother. People usually come to regard
you as a brother, do they not? And in our case, there
might have been rather more truth to it-if matters had but
worked out as I hoped. We might truly have been
brothers, you and I."
Bryennius shook his head in sorrow. "Alexandra
is cousin, not sister, to me."
"In all the important ways, you are her
brother, even more than that Emperor you serve. You
... I planned for you to serve the Son of Heaven as
a soldier. You might even have enjoyed it. And the
lady . . . she would have been my first wife, my
companion, and my partner in study. I would have
treasured her . . . you knew that, did you not?"
"I saw how you looked at her," he admitted.
"So did she," mourned the prince. "Such a brave
lady, yet I know I frightened her. It might have
been very sweet. Had we only had more time . . .
We are bound together on the Wheel, all of us. Perhaps
it may reunite us one day. You will tell her what
I have said?"
"My oath on it!"
But the prince shook his head, amused
by Bryennius' fervor. This was the last time Li
Shou's poise would make him feel raw and
untutored, Bryennius thought regretfully. "Your
word on it is enough. I trust you. You should be long
gone, but-was He looked up. Abruptly he
shivered, and the sallow skin at eye and mouth ticced
convulsively. For a moment, he looked ancient and
disa-
silk
roads and shadows

dying. Then he gazed at the miniature rock and
drew a deep, shaking breath. "Stay with me, for just
a while . . ."
"To the end," Bryennius vowed hoarsely. "I
promise you something else. My first son,
Siddiqa's and mine . . . he will bear your name."
"Among those impossibly long names you Western
barbarians use?" Li Shou laughed in quick
delight. Then his mood turned somber again.
"Promise me nothing. But, as I said, we are
all bound. It may be I shall come back into flesh as
a Hu-barbarian. Certainly, I spent years
enough-and love enough-upon them. Perhaps, I might even
return as a child you love."
Bryennius ventured to lay a hand on the seated
man's shoulder. Li Shou reached up and grasped it
for an instant. "Enough. Take the map. Take this
ring as my gift to you. Give your cousin Alexandra
this trifle." He pointed at the rock. "It is not
so heavy that it will weigh her down, no matter how
fast you travel. And remember me."
Sensing that Li Shou had schemed to keep them all in
Ch'ang-an, Bryennius had never trusted him.
Now his mistrust struck him to the heart. Once
again, a brother passed beyond his reach, as Leo and
Suleiman had both done. And this one he had never
appreciated. He reached into his heavy travel
clothes and pulled out the insignia he had carried
since before Kashgar.
"This belonged to a man I honored," he began, but
already the prince was shaking his head.
"I have no need for gifts now, nor for any of the
treasures I stored up. Illusion, all of it.
Do your holy books not say so too?"
"Vanity of vanities," Bryennius murmured.
"I give them to you, all my beautiful vanities.
Use them to cover your flight. Feed them to the
flames . . . when I am gone." Bryennius
knew he must have looked even more dense than
usual. "The fire! Your cousin would have died rather than
betray how to make it. I know you have a few vials
left. When I am gone, use
Susan Shwartz
them to burn this place. It will look like a riot.
Perhaps they will think all of you died in the flames . .
."
Li Shou turned and looked up at the sky.
Moonset had passed hours ago. The air was
freshening, the sky turning pale. "By now, I
pray, they should be through. And safe. You must go." He
bent and reached for the silken cord, slipped it from its
wrappings, and let it slide from hand to hand. "At
dawn, Lu Tsung will come to check that I have obeyed
the Son of Heaven. Let him find only ashes.
Perhaps, if we are very fortunate, the fire will catch
him too." He looked up, a kind of wry
mischief glinting in his long eyes. "You see, the
rock in the garden, the one by the stream, is one he
covets. And since it is an old companion of
mine, I want to cheat him of it."
"I can't believe you're not afraid." To his
disgust, the words he had suppressed all night
blurted from Bryennius' mouth.
"Afraid of death, no. I shall be
reborn. Unless, of course, I have earned
sufficient merit to win release. Though I doubt
it, my friend, I truly doubt it." The prince
smiled, then turned serious again. "But I do fear .
. . pain, a long struggle, disfigurement. One
reason I asked you to stay ... do not let rne
suffer."
Bryennius bowed assent.
"Why then, we make an end. Come, younger brother.
First we will bum these papers that I no longer need,
and then I shall inform my ancestors to expect me
among them almost immediately." Swiftly Li Shou cast
papers on a burner, then werjeament to an austere
altar on which tablets rested, and prostrated himself before
it.
Banners of violet were starting to glow at the
horizon. A nightingale's piercing song made the
night almost unbearable. Then a brief tremor
shook the earth, and the bird flew away. The prince
raised an eyebrow and watched it go. "Quickly,
now." He led the way into the garden where they had often
sat and talked, then gazed about. "That tree, I
think."
He had chosen the pine beside the stream, near the huge,
free-standing rock he loved. Looping the
silken

*greater-than
cord into a noose, he tossed the other end over a
branch and secured it. Then he climbed onto the
bench and slipped the noose over his head.
Though Bryennius longed to break, to run and hide like
an irresponsible, grieving brat, he forced himself
to stand firm, as he had done at Leo's pyre.
"God watch over you . . . whichever god you
choose," said the prince. Then he smiled. For a little
while, he stood meditating, his eyes shut.
Bryennius found himself praying, both the prayers of
Church and childhood and the heathen ones he had learned
in this strange, cruel land.
Then Li Shou jerked himself away from the bench. His
feet kicked spasmodically, and his mouth gaped and
gurgled.
Bryennius drew his dagger and stabbed the prince to the
heart. His blood stained Bryennius' tunic as
he stepped forward to catch him, to cut him free, and
ease him down to lie beneath the tree.
He folded Li Shou's hands over the wound. They were
still warm, and his blood warmed them further. Then he
closed the dead man's eyes, and let his
hand rest for a moment of farewell upon his forehead.
Finally he placed Leo's regimental insignia
between the prince's clasped hands. Hadn't he
promised Leo to bury it honorably in
Ch'ang-an?
"As I promised . . . brothers," he whispered.
His eyes watered as he lurched back to the
now-desolate rooms where he might have been content
to live out his life, and he swore at his tears. A
pack lay on the floor. He almost stumbled upon it.
Then he rummaged through it fiercely, finding the vial
he sought more by feel than sight.
Shouldering the pack, he returned to the garden. A
few long needles had drifted down upon Li
Shou's body. The nightingale had returned,
to open its throat in one last torrent of song before
dawn. Bryennius clapped his hands to frighten the
bird away. As its wings flapped, and it flew
to safety over the palace walls, Bryennius
hurled
the vial of Greek fire down beside Li Shou. Then
he ran before he could see the flames start, catch,
and consume his friend. And if he pulled his hat down
upon his face and wept as he mounted, then rode
frantically toward the Ch'un Ming Gate,
he was not the only man in Ch'ang-an that dawn to be
stained with blood, to weep, and to flee.
The walls of the Imperial city were high and thick,
and the gates sloped inward. Alexandra lifted the
curtains of the oxcart that lumbered in through the gates,
toward the silkworms and away from escape. She
wished she could see Han Chu, who drove the cart.
He claimed to be distraught at his prince's death
sentence, but she had seen good actors before.
Half-smothered by cushions in the place beside her,
Siddiqa breathed too quickly, and her eyes glinted.
Fear? Excitement? Alexandra knew that the
Turpan princess had nerve and courage, but even
if her nerve broke, she needed her now for her
fluent Ch'in, and her features, which were not as alien as
Alexandra's. She looked like she might be an
Imperial concubine; after all, her mother had been.
Siddiqa shifted awkwardly, pulling at her
robes. Desert-bred, she found the weight of furs
and wadded silks, plus the riding clothes they
concealed, distressing. Her hand went to her waist, and
Alexandra knew she caressed the dagger Bryennius
had given her. She would turn it on herself, an
option Alexandra did not have. If they were taken, her
best course would be to compel guards to kill
her. Han Chu, she suspected, had orders not
to let her live to face slow torture for theft, but
Han Chu could not pass within the walls protecting the
silkworms from the rest of the Imperial compound.
The cart rumbled over paving stones now, past rows of
long-needled pines and gingkoes, past columned
buildings that seemed barred against them. In the
moonlight, the round entryways of some buildings
looked like mouths-but to think that way was to open herself to

fear, and to court chaos. The wheels rattled over
an arched bridge, then beneath another gate, over which a
tablet hung. Guards halted the cart and Han Chu
hailed them, speaking too rapidly for Alexandra
to follow. She tensed, and Siddiqa squeezed her
hand. In the darkness, she could not see the reds and
golds that the walls were painted. From the distance came
the yapping of a hound. The cart jolted forward and she
dared to breathe again.
Finally, Han Chu slowed the cart beside a narrow
building, and edged it into a pool of shadows.
Alexandra forced herself to remain seated until he
came to open the cart for her; mannerly shyness, even
awe, suited her role. She glanced sidelong at
the old man whose swollen eyes and sagging
posture relieved any doubts she might have had that
he would betray her. Then she and Siddiqa followed
him across a wide space in which their footsteps rang
too loudly, and the hound's yapping was louder yet.
Their shadows sprawled across the field, and up the
next wall. The bundle of canes that Han Chu
carried looked like spears. Surely a guard would
see and stop them.
The gate in this wall was very narrow. Though her fears
screamed that this was a trap, a cage, she let Han
Chu bring them to the tiny gate. Here he bowed, handed
them the hollow canes they would fill with silkworms,
then slipped back into the darkness to wait. No man,
nor once-man, could pass within these walls, for the
making of silk was women's business.
Ahead of her, mulberry trees swayed in the night
wind. Their branches were bare, sign of a recent
harvest. Silkworms, she knew, fed
voraciously before they spun. To keep them from food
for even one hour was to kill them. The branches
hissed and rustled as clouds scudded across the moon,
and cast dappled shadows on the building ahead. The
wind was freshening. With God's favor, they might
expect the weather to turn cold and remain so. A
good frost would ensure that the silkworms would
sleep in their cocoons, raising the chance that she could
bring them, still living, to Byzantium. Despite the
Susan Shwartz
chill, she and Siddiqa dropped their fur cloaks,
since the building housing the silkworms would be kept
hot to aid them in spinning their cocoons.
The barking Alexandra had heard earlier became
louder. She hissed a quick oath. That was all they
needed, to have some imbecile come out to investigate a
barking dog or to hush it-and find them. "We'll have
to quiet it ourselves," she whispered. But beside her
Siddiqa shrank away and looked wretched. She
certainly picked a fine time to show that she was afraid
of dogs. Alexandra sighed, and waved her on
ahead.
The barking ceased. A scrabble of claws on stone
told her that the dog, or dogs, drew nearer. Then
she heard a low whine and a growl. She drew her
dagger and moved forward slowly, stopping herself just before
she whistled. In an undertone she hissed out noises
that she knew calmed dogs, praying that they worked here
too.
"So, boy, so ... what do you have?" she whispered.
She made her way over to a dense tangle of
bushes where something scrabbled and whined. To her
relief, the animal was small, one of the golden
hounds from Samarkand that seemed like nothing but a
collection of tufts of fur. But a whimpering
reveaied that she was alone in finding the beast harmless.
A tiny fox kit cried and tried to curl its way
beneath a rock. It was alone; clearly, at some time
before, the hound had killed its brothers and sisters.
"Oh . . ." Alexandra sighed. Though this was no
time to rescue small animafs, she had to drive
away the hound in any case. Her sash, looped about
its collar, made a convenient leash. She tethered the
hound to a branch, then picked up the kit and set it
on her shoulder. When she finished inside, she would
free it.
The door opened at a touch, and she slipped
inside. The place resembled Byzantine
workrooms in the women's quarters before the blight had
killed their silkworms: the meticulous cleanness,
the faint hum of life and growth, the stacks of
trays, and, above all, the heat, like a summer on the
Golden Horn. Briefly, she was

homesick, then exultant. She wanted to dance or
cry out her victory-even though she was thousands of
miles and many months premature.
Seizing her canes, she almost ran to the nearest
tray of cocoons and began cramming the small,
thready capsules inside them. She thanked God
that the worms were not in their feeding frenzy; the one time
she had witnessed that, the relentless crunch of leaves
had sickened her.
The humming intensified. She found it soothing. After
the chill of the outdoors, the warmth of the room and the
heartbeat of the fox kit against her breast lulled her.
She felt faintly drowsy.
Then she saw Siddiqa, crumpled up against one
rack of trays. Bile rushed to her mouth and she
swallowed hard, remembering that strong odors-sweat,
fear, sickness-killed silkworms.
"Younger sister?" She knelt and began to turn the
Uighur girl. Desert-born, she would not have been
harmed by the heat; a survivor of the karez of
Turpan. she would not have fainted from terror. All this
Alexandra knew without thinking. She laid Siddiqa
down and went into a fighting crouch, her dagger springing
into her hand as she heard slippered footsteps.
"Your sister thief tried to pretend that she was here
by right," said a woman's voice. "I am glad you
do not lie." There was a deepness, a richness, and yet
something wild about that voice, like piled
furs. Even though Alexandra knew that perfumes were
never brought near silkworms, she smelled a faint
musk. This must be the woman called the "silkworm
mother," guardian of the cocoons. In its way, the
position was as demanding as that of an abbess: no
scents, no cosmetics, and cha/y for months on
end. The woman Alexandra faced didn't look like
an ascetic. She was tall and supple. The
sleek hair that sprang back from a V on her
brow was thick, with a reddish glow. Strongly marked,
arched brows set off huge, black eyes and a dark,
passionate mouth, open now in a smile that showed
sharp, perfect white teeth.
"conS
Susan ShLuartzm
"Fox . . ." the word shuddered from Siddiqa.
"Fox-woman ..."
Alexandra had heard tales from the Varangians of
bar "weres," creatures half-human,
half-beast; she had never f thought that a
were-creature could be lovely, even though its
long-nailed hands were extended like claws to rend her.
The Varangian tales were of wolves; in Ch'in, the
tales spoke of creatures that had the souls of
foxes.
She had no silver, no cross upon her, none of the
arsenal of countryfolks" or priests' wardings
against such a creature. Her exultation of but a few
moments past seemed as far distant as Byzantium
itself, or the moon. It seemed unfair that she might
be stopped, not by chaos, nor princes, but by the
damnable, unpredictable wild magic such as she
had encountered in the desert and in Turpan.
"I won't hurt you," she began, trying to reach the
animal in the fox-woman.
"Thief!" the woman hissed. "I shall put the
sleep on you, and drag you outside to feed my little
one."
Wakened by the voice and probably, Alexandra
thought, by her pounding heartbeats, the fox kit nestled
in Alexandra's robes chose that moment to squirm and
bark shrilly.
"My kit!" cried the woman in a voice that sounded
like a fox's bark. "My son, my only one left
by those accursed dogs! Give him to me!"
She advanced, and Alexandra backed away from her
long, sharp nails."
"What will you have?" said the mother of silk. "These
insects I guard? That foolish, sleeping thief?
What are they to me beside the life of my child?
Take them, take them all, but give me my
son!"
She gestured with one of those quick, clawed hands, and
Siddiqa stumbled to her feet, rubbed her eyes, and
picked up the canes she had filled.
"Fox-spirits are treacherous," she whispered
to Alexandra. "Do not trust her."
So Alexandra dared not trust any bargain she
struck.

The fox-spirit's eyes grew as bright as polished
onyx, then spilled over. Alexandra had not
realized that a beast could weep. "Please," she
begged. "Give him to me!"
In the name of God, or the Bearer of God, or
whatever names anyone worshiped, did the woman
really think that Alexandra would dash the poor kit's
brains out, right before her eyes?
She pulled the fox kit from within her robes and
stroked the small, soft body that squirmed in its
eagerness to reach its dam.
"Don't torment me!" cried the fox-woman.
Alexandra gestured to Siddiqa to head for the door.
Gathering up her courage, she walked toward the
woman who shook her head from side to side
in her grief. Her hair flew free and lashed like
a fox's tail.
"I tied up the dog that would have killed . . . your
son," she told her. "I meant to set the kit
free after I finished here." She held the kit out
to its mother with trembling hands and dared to make her own
plea. "I ask you to believe that I do not steal for
sport, nor take more than I need. I ..."
She thought (as she had not done for months) of her
nephew, the prince whose life she had saved, of her
fevered homeland, and her voice choked ... "I have
kits of my own to protect. If I cannot bring them
what you guard, they may die. But I will not bargain
with a child's life. Here. Take your son. Keep him
safe."
She placed the kit in its mother's hands. For an
instant, they closed over her own, and she felt their
hot, inhuman strength. Sharp nails bit into her
flesh briefly, then pulled back.
The fox-woman clutched the kit to her breast, and
backed up against the wall. One tray spilled and
its precious contents rolled onto the floor.
"You do not bargain?" Her eyes were bright,
suspicious.
"Yesterday, I saved children in the
marketplace. Today, I saved your son. I tell
you, I will not hurt a child!
Susan Shwartz
Now," she bluffed, "call your masters. Will you
watch while they kill me?"
Alexandra had never felt such pity as she did then
for the confused, wild creature who saw her usual
defenses fail and was faced instead with kindness.
Suspicion warred with relief in the brilliant
eyes. Clearly, she trusted no one, even the people
who had set her as a guard, yet loosed the hound that
killed her other kits. Fox-spirits were treacherous,
unpredictable. They would not keep a bargain for
longer than might amuse them.
But they could be moved by gratitude and love.
Moving faster than any natural human, the
fox-mother darted forward, seized Alexandra's hand and,
doglike, sniffed and kissed it. "Take what you
need and go. I shall remember your scent and teach it
to my children. Woman"-and the word was almost a title of
nobility-"know that Russet Silk is grateful
to you comand that she is not the least of the vixens."
Alexandra bent and began filling her hollow staffs
from the cocoons that had rolled on the floor. Beside
her worked Siddiqa, though more slowly from her
fears of the fox-woman who circled them.
"You will go west," said Russet Silk. "That is
good. Ch'in has no place now for kind strangers,
or any strangers at all. Keep going west. Do
not stop, not for anything. And perhaps, if you come home
to your own earth, perhaps you will tell your kits about me."
At that, Siddiqa looked up and smiled. "I shall
tell them that you were very beautiful and very true," she
said. Alexandra nodded.
The fox-woman smiled. For a moment, the three of
them simply looked at one another, and the warmth they
felt had nothing to do with the heat in the building. Then the
earth shivered, and Russet Silk sniffed the air.
"You must go ... now!" she cried softly. "I myself
shall be your guide."
Swiftly, using every scrap of cover and shadow (but,
in the instant it took Alexandra and Siddiqa
to scoop up their cloaks, pausing to spit at the
tethered hound),

Russet Silk led them through the tiny gate back
to their cart. The air was damp; soon it would rain.
Han Chu lay sprawled on the ground beside the cart,
his shoulders shaking. Hearing them approach, he
lifted his head, then forced his aged body
stiffly up.
"Excellent ladies!" he cried. "But who is with
you?" he asked and looked around.
At the moment that his eyes turned to Russet
Silk, a large fox of unusual beauty and her
kit darted away from Alexandra, back into the night.
"We have it," Alexandra whispered. "Now let us
leave, if we can." They leaped into the cart, hiding
themselves and the precious canes filled with cocoons beneath
the heavy fur robes. As Han Chu plied the
goad on the lazy oxen, they stripped off their
overrobes, then forced themselves to lie silent and
unmoving as the cart lumbered through a gate, over a
bridge, then through another gate. It began to rain,
and the oxen slowed, mourning the rain with loud bellows.
That was a dreadful moment. For an even more dreadful
one, Han Chu was questioned by guards. Then they were out of the
Imperial city and moving toward the Ch'un Ming
Gate.
Banners of light the color of an Empress"
veil streaked across the sky. But more violent fires,
unchecked by the rain, stained the ground and sky as they
rode past Prince Li Shou's compound.
Siddiqa gasped.
"Bryennius," Alexandra whispered
quickly. "He must have torched the house with Greek
fire." She crossed herself and muttered a quick
prayer for Li Shou, who had wanted her, and who had
spent his life to aid her and her City.
"Ai-eee backslash was
Han Chu began to wail. The cart stopped as he
let the reins lie slack. He sat staring at the
white-hot giare.
"No! Keep driving!" Alexandra cried. "We
don't dare stay here. Once we're outside the
gate, we'll be safe!" A lie, very probably,
but outside the Ch'un Ming Gate waited
Bryennius, please God, and their guardsmen,
Susan Shwortz
horses, and packs-all they would need if they were
even to try surviving the trip home.
Wailing that he would die with the prince whom he had
served his whole life, Han Chu tumbled down from the
cart and ran toward the burning house with a speed that was
astonishing in a man his age. Siddiqa, younger and
faster, leaped out and started after him.
"Come back!" Alexandra cried, hating herself as she
caught the girl by the robes. "If you ever hope
to see Bryennius again, we have to get out of here!"
She hunched her shoulders and tugged her
hair about her face before whipping up the oxen and heading
for the gate. She wished she had even the fragments of the
lotus that had let her pass unnoticed through
yesterday's riots. Many carts crowded the gate,
though. Since they looked like two terrified women
trying to flee the fires, they were waved through.
Once outside Ch'ang-an's eastern wall,
Alexandra drove swiftly along the road. The
rain made it hard to see the landmark by which they had
agreed to meet, a ruined shrine by an ancient,
twisted tree. She kept on driving, cursing the
oxen, ready to weep from worry.
"We have to turn around," she called to Siddiqa.
"I am sure I've driven too far."
The possibility of driving back and forth in the rain
while pursuit might be assembled (no matter
what Russet Silk had promised!) ate at her
nerve. Then the ground trembled again, the oxen
bellowed, and Alexandra realized that she might not be
able to keep them from panicking.
"Gather the canes," she ordered, "in case we have
to jump. I'll try to turn now."
Even as she turned, the quake came again, stronger
this time and echoed by thunder. The rain intensified. She
fought to hold the oxen.
Then, like the welcome shock of cold water on a
hot day, she felt the demand for her attention that always
meant the horn of Shambhala.

"That way!" she cried. "Thank the Blessed Mother."
She goaded the oxen into a run and cried encouragement
to them as the thunder pealed once more. Lightning seared
across the sky, and she saw her Varangians, axes
raised, guarding their horses. Behind them, wrapped in
an oiled cloak, was Father Basil. Two grooms
leaped forward to seize the oxen's heads. Alexandra
and Siddiqa jumped down from the cart.
"Bryennius?" asked the Uighur as Alexandra
ran to one of the packhorses.
"Not here yet," came Haraldr's deep voice.
Alexandra hoped that Siddiqa wouldn't hear the concern
in it. Her hand fell on the thing she sought, cool and
cylindrical, and pulled it free.
A horse galloped toward them. The guardsmen
growled and formed a line between the rider and the women.
Alexandra readied what she held in her hand for a
throw. The horses screamed. Even in the rain,
Alexandra could smell blood too.
"Friend!" cried a voice in Greek at the exact
moment when Siddiqa darted by the guardsmen.
In a moment, Bryennius was down from his horse and
had her in his arms. Alexandra started forward, then
held back. Siddiqa had the right to embrace the
newcomer, not she. She busied herself, turning the
cart. Then she slashed the reins of the cart almost through.
In a moment, she would toss the Greek fire onto
it. With iuck, the burning cart and stampeding oxen would
foil pursuit for a brief time.
"That's blood!" Siddiqa gasped, terror in her
voice as she clutched at her lover.
Alexandra's heart went cold. The rain poured
down her face and plastered her clothes to her body.
"Not my blood," came Bryennius' voice, more
subdued than Alexandra had heard it for weeks.
"Li Shou's. I couldn't just let him strangle
slowly. God have mercy or, his soul."
Feeling as though nothing would ever warm her, Alexandra
threw the vial of Greek fire, and the cart
Susan Shwartz
exploded into flames. The oxen dashed away, bearing
the burning cart. One good jolt would sever the reins,
and the cart would careen on its way, free of the
terrified beasts.
Haraldr tossed her into the saddle, and they were fleeing
Ch'ang-an as the earth trembled, and
lightning, not the rising sun, supplied light for the
journey.
Mount Li loomed up along their path. The horses
screamed in terror of the storm. Inevitably, they
slowed down.
"Hurry!" Bryennius screamed. "As you love
your souls, Li Shou warned me to get by Mount Li
as quickly as we can. Ride!"
What good is speed if we break our necks!
Alexandra bit her lips on the words, then bit them
in earnest as she fought to keep her horse from bolting.
Foam whipped from its jaws, to be washed away in the
driving rain.
A blinding peal of lightning brought them all to a
stop. Not ten feet away, a huge crack opened
in the road, then snapped shut. The earth's
trembling reverberated along her spine; her teeth
were chattering. If they had ridden a second longer,
they would have been engulfed. Again a rumble of sound from
deep in the earth. Purple-white lightning crowned
the smooth shape of Mount Li, but even as they
watched, landslides deformed the carefully tended
slopes. Then, with a crack, the mountain itself split
asunder.
Mount Li cracked open. Rocks and
clods of earth flew from the rift and struck the
fugitives. Siddiqa's horse screamed and
reared. Heedless of the hooves flailing near his head,
Bryennius grabbed the mare's bridle.
"We can't ride till the tremors stop!" shouted
one of the Greeks, whose horse plunged and
curvetted while the ground under it shook. Then he
and the horse were down, rolling on the ground.
Boulders and mud tumbled down Mount Li, crushing
the pomegranate trees that grew there so that the mud
turned the color of blood from the splattered
fruit. The slide was slower than the avalanche that
had nearly wiped out the caravan at the Roof of the
World. Let one of those boulders hit someone, though,
and it would be equally deadly.
Though Alexandra fought to control her own horse, she
couldn't stop glancing at the tormented slope. Then,
almost as quickly as the mudslide started, it subsided
to
Susan Shwartz
small tremblings along the ruined hillside, as
if the! mountain shook off the last troublesome concealment.
Concealment . . . Alexandra gasped and crossed
herself. "There's a cave in the hill," she cried.
"It's huge!"
Now a ghostly violet light gleamed from the gash in
the hillside that the sliding mud and rock had
revealed.
"What's inside there?" asked Father Basil. "Some
sort of figures?"
"Keep back!" Bryennius screamed. Behind him,
the man who had been unhorsed tried frantically
to catch his mount.
If he can't ride, I'll have to abandon him,
Bryennius thought. Even as he recoiled from the
idea, he shouted for the man to unload one of the
packhorses.
"Stay back, priest!" he cried again. With almost his
last words, Li Shou had warned Bryennius to keep
his people clear of Mount Li. He had to get them
away!
As the light about the cave brightened, as if a
spectral dawn had come, the shadowy figures that
Father Basil claimed to see shuddered, as if waked
from their twelve hundred years' sleep. Ch'in
Shih Huang-di might be dead that long, but he had
set his guards before his death, and set them well.
Now, alerted by the chaos and the thieves of silkworms
that some . . . some spirit perceived as a threat to Ch'in, his
guards waked. Living men? Revenants?
Bryennius shuddered and bile gushed into his mouth.
"Statues . . ." breathed Alexandra from beside him.
Years ago, me/chants had shown him statues
stolen from a tomb in Egypt. He had marveled at
their precision, their completeness, and the miracle of their
long survival. But those statues had been tiny.
These . . . they were as tall as the men and horses that
had posed for them a thousand years ago.
Chariots drawn by four terra-cotta horses, their
nostrils eternally flared in rage, their manes
sculpted into windblown shapes, rumbled down the
ravaged slope. In each stood a charioteer, his
bronze and wood weapons ready for use.

"An army of statues!" Bryennius cried.
Siddiqa screamed, then bit her lip until it
bled.
He turned his horse's head savagely, gesturing
for everyone to flee. Single horses could outrun
chariots, and if not, the twisted ground might stop
them. The chariots jerked and rolled down the slope.
One toppled and rolled downslope; its fellows
drove by as if it had never existed. Behind the chariots
emerged archers, who took up positions on either
side of the gaping cave, arrows already nocked
on their bowstrings. They fired as one creature. The
man who had been unhorsed fell with a scream and an
arrow in his eye. A slinger whirled its weapon with
unnatural strength and speed, and a Varangian
fell, his skull shattered.
Behind them marched a troop of warriors, their headgear
and scaled armor modeled down to the last knot or
nail, their bronze swords real and deadly. Their
eyes, the gelid eyes of lifeless clay, gleamed
in the violet light: purpose smoldered there, and a
vengeful rage. The statues would pursue them throughout
Ch'in.
Bryennius galloped down the cracked road. He
could feei each step of the terra-cotta army at his
back shudder down upon the earth. He tried to reason
his way out of his panic. If the figures were slow,
they might be outrun. Since they were mindless, "knowing"
only that they had been set to chase enemies the way
a hound is set after its quarry, perhaps they could be
outguessed. They were clay: Perhaps a catapult could
pound them into shards. But, unless the earth opened
to swallow them into the clay from which they were formed, they would
not cease their pursuit.
Bryennius remembered the endless, agonizing miles
of the journey through savage land ahead of them,
then thought of the mindless, tireless enemies behind them, and
despaired.
Behind him, the army of Ch'in Shih Huang-di
trampled the dead soldiers into the mud.
Susan Shwanz

They rode west, ate in the saddle, and begrudged every
brief pause; the warriors behind them had no such
need to eat or rest. Bryennius felt himself reel
in the saddle. Remembering the passage east across the
Takla Makan, he signaled a stop, just long enough
for the riders to bind themselves to their saddles. Siddiqa's
haggard face, with purplish shadows beneath each eye,
tore at his heart, but he dared not strain his horse
by riding double.
Mud splashed underfoot as they fled past empty
fields. Gradually the rain stopped. By afternoon, people
had emerged from their houses and the caves cut deep
into the loess, the slopes formed centuries ago
by blowing earth. Though a rope drawn across their path
might have brought half of them down, the villagers
did not intervene.
"Guards up ahead."" gasped Alexandra.
Bryennius heard the hiss of blades being drawn,
though what good that might be against archers, he
didn't know.
"They're riding away," Haraldr spoke.
Bryennius turned around in the saddle. He could not
see even the chariots at the vanguard of the lifeless
army. But he thought he could sense each step that the
First Emperor's clay warriors took by the way the
earth quivered.
"We're unclean," said Father Basil.
Despite the need for haste, Bryennius drew
rein to look at the little monk.
"You know how good the messengers are in Ch'in," he
explained. "Do-you think that the guards don't know who
we are, and what pursues us? They think we are as
good as dead already."
"Or they fear to be caught between us and the statues,"
said Alexandra. "I think they trample anything in
their path."
Unclean. Bryennius had seen a leper once,
abhorred even by the guards sent to drive her off.
He remembered commenting that it would have been merciful
to kill her, but "Who wants to get that close?"
asked a scared

mercenary. He had survived to be old-but not by touching
what was already condemned.
We are ghosts, undeads ourselves,
Bryennius thought.
We ride through the paths of the living, and they flee us.
Haraldr chuckled, an incongruously bright sound.
"Then supplies should be no problem. We can take
what we need." Bryennius remembered that he had
been a trader and that, among the Northerners, the
distinction between trader and pirate was frequently
blurred or forgotten altogether.
Bryennius signaled for them to slow their horses to a
walk. They would rest them, then speed up again, riding
west until they dropped, Bryennius foresaw, or
until they were overtaken. If they outraced the
statues, they faced other perils: the desolation of the
land itself, solitude, bandits perhaps, who might
decide that a small band racing across a frozen
desert must carry treasure that outweighed the risk of
taking it.
"Perhaps once we are outside the borders of
Ch'in," Father Basil suggested, "the statues may
not be able to move."
"First we have to get there!" snapped Bryennius.
Alexandra shook her head. "This is ...
unbalanced," she began. "Set a guard
to protect Ch'in: well and good, if
vindictive. One might expect that of the First
Emperor. But this visitation . . . this is not
ordered." She shivered and struggled with one hand into a
heavier cloak. "It is too harsh. And law
perverted turns to chaos, which has no law at all
. . ." She stopped herself before she could finish,
looking guilty and terrified.
They rode through village after village, and none would
face them. The fields shone with ruddy stubble;
harvest had come and gone. From time to time, they saw
animals: rabbits, a stray goat that some family
would regret losing. Twice, Alexandra wasted
energy and breath to point out a fox to Siddiqa.
Only the foxes seemed unafraid. The air was
cold. Soon it would be winter. Perhaps the statues
would crack and break, but Bryennius doubted it.
Susan Shwartzj
"Up ahead!" Siddiqa called. Bryennius had
not real" ized she had kept enough strength to speak.
Ahead of them glinted the twisting, silted coils of the
Huang He River which heavy rains had swollen
until thick waves crested against the dikes, tearing
at them hungrily.
"Can they cross running water?" Alexandra questioned
Father Basil. There was no need to ask who
"they" were.
"Can we?" asked the priest.
"We can ride onto a boat," Bryennius said,
"and take it. The boatmen will have no choice, and we
have money to reward them."
"If they won't?"
"Haraldr?" asked Bryennius. "How different
is this Yellow River from the waters of the North?"
"Far bigger," said the guardsman. "More treacherous.
We do not pass the rapids during flood season,
or times like this . . . yet that is what we have to do
now. The water road to Byzantium I know. I'd
like to see these statues take it; we'd see the last
of them! But I do not know these waters." Still, if they
ran into trouble on the river, Haraldr could be set
to command the boat. It might work after all,
Bryennius thought. If they could cross the river,
and the statues could not. They could leave them standing on the
opposite bank! Bryennius grinned at the
idea.
But when he spoke his thought, no one else laughed.
s
Their horses limped toward the river, reaching it
by late afternoon. Many times all of them were thankful that
they had bound themselves to their saddles, as they
reeled and sagged, asleep as they rode. On the
trip east, Bryennius had seen Scythians and
Hsiung-nu who could sleep in their saddles without
danger. Perhaps they would learn that trick . . . though
they would never escape the danger.
Unless the river . . . the river like a strong,
sullen god . . . hooves clattered down onto
the docks where

boats swayed at their moorings along the swollen
waters. Men fled from them on either side.
"That one!" Alexandra pointed to one boat, larger and
finer than most, on which sailors lingered as if
reluctant to abandon it.
"Quick!" Somehow they flogged that last gallop out of
their horses. Once they were safely aboard, they
could rest, and tend the horses' slender legs.
Bryennius tugged at the scarf that bound him to his
saddle, leaped onto the swaying dock. It seemed
to respond not to the pulsing of the river but to the tread of
oncoming, human feet. His legs buckled, but he
threw out a hand against the boat and saved himself from
falling. Haraldr almost toppled down, then lurched
to Bryennius' side on the dock, his axe at the
ready.
"We need Father Basil!" Bryennius called
back. Scuffling noises and a yelp of pain behind him
told him that the little priest was making heavy weather of
his dismount. Dusty and exhausted, Father Basil
staggered to his side. Bryennius leaped into the
boat. As a torrent of protest and curses poured
over them, Haraldr boosted the priest into the boat,
then turned to help the others.
Father Basil spat dust into the river, then began
to argue loudly, a clangor of threats and entreaty
that rose but did not drown out the footsteps of that
marching, inhuman army.
"At the horizon," Alexandra said, and pointed.
Beneath smears of dried mud, her face was gray. In
her arms, she clutched the precious bundle of
hollow staves that held silkworms. Siddiqa
held another such bundle.
"Cast off!" shouted Haraldr. Father Basil
broke off the argument to echo that cry.
"No use," Alexandra said, running toward the big
Varangian. "All the men on the dock . . .
they've all run away."
Haraldr started to hoist himself over the side.
"Where are you going?" Alexandra cried, reaching out
to catch his arm.
Susan Shwartz
"Someone has to cast
off,"
he said, as if explaining it; to a child.
"Fee! the current!" she argued. "Once this boat
is free, it will be swept downriver so fast . . .
you will be left behind!"
The guardsman looked at her. Then, very gently,
he removed her hand from his arm and kissed it.
"No!" It was a wail of protest. Haraldr stared
at her, willing her to withdraw her command. The darkness
at the horizon drew closer, and he jerked his chin
toward it:
Look at that.
Bryennius shut his eyes briefly. They ached from
sleeplessness and dust; tears might wash them clean.
As he opened his mouth to tell Alexandra to release
Haraldr, Siddiqa cried out and pointed.
"Elder sister! There ... all along the ropes .
. ."
If ever they reached Byzantium, Bryennius
thought, he would teach her the terms sailors used for
ships and all things pertaining to them. Then he too
gaped as he followed her pointing finger.
There, gnawing on the mooring ropes,
crouched the largest foxes he had ever seen. From time
to time, one would look back, as if checking on the
approach of the terra-corta warriors, then give a
sharp bark to which others would reply. Like a work gang and
its foreman! Bryennius thought.
"Bless you, Russet Silk!" cried Alexandra.
One fox ... a vixen, Bryennius decided, with a
remarkably fine, ruddy pelt, raised its
elegant head and looked right at Alexandra. She
barked once, as if in reply, then chewed at the
rapidly fraying hemp.
The fox-guards yelped more sharply. Even as the
boat swayed at anchor, it began to shake in
response to those thousands of pounding feet.
"Quickly," Alexandra gasped.
"They've got it!" Bryennius muttered, and
managed to restrain Haraldr from swinging ashore and
helping out.
The last strand snapped.

Father Basil let loose a flood of orders which,
as the boat swung away from the dock, the sailors
began slowly to obey . . . just as chariot wheels and
clay hooves clattered through the village.
"Beware archers!" cried Alexandra.
Siddiqa clapped her hands to warn the foxes, who
turned and fled soundlessly as the ancient chariots
approached.
"My God, look at them!" cried Alexandra.
The first wave of chariots rolled onto the dock.
The horses that drew them clattered over the docks,
and then, without a pause, leaped down into the roiling,
silt-laden surges of the river. The foot
warriors followed, sinking without a splash.
As the boat came about, heading toward the middle of the
river, the soldiers cheered. Two Varangians
hurled up their axes so that the autumn sunlight
flared onto the blades. They were facing west.
Toward home.
Father Basil clapped his hands and began to chant.
"Give thanks to the Lord for He is good. The
horse and his rider He hath thrown into the sea!"
"Careful, priest," said Alexandra. "This is the
Yellow River, not the Red Sea and the chariots of
Pharaoh."
"Do you really think we deserve a miracle?"
Bryennius asked. Abruptly, his exhaustion
caught up with him, and he found himself sitting on a
coil of rope. Siddiqa tugged at his boots
until he pushed her hands away. She was
even more tired than he. With exhaustion came
depression, almost a return of his old despair.
He could not believe that Ch'in Shih Huang-di's
army had simply sunk into the water. Not being
alive, it couldn't drown.
But it could be swept downriver, dashed against rocks
or floating logs, even against other boats, he
thought. The chariot wheels would stick in the mud of the
river's channel. Perhaps ... he tugged at his
boots. First he would tend to the horses. Then, after
a meal, a wash, a chance to change from the clothes
crusted with Li Shou's heart's blood, he might
permit himself to hope, even to sieep.
Susan
Shtvarti
But after all those things, even as Father Basil starte
to tell their story over bowls of potent rice wine,
he fel bar asleep. He knew enough to protest
muzzily when he wa carried to an improvised
pallet, but to do nothing else. bar
When Bryennius rose and stretched, cursing anc
groaning at the thousand aches he had acquired during
days of riding, he saw that the sun was high. The
sailor and his own people had reached an uneasy truce;
some! of the soldiers were even allowed, now,
to help with thef operation of the boat. All looked
better after their night's j rest.
They looked better still by the time they landed.; Perhaps they
might escape, Bryennius thought. Perhaps! that
order, or cosmos, that Alexandra always lectured!
him on was strong enough to prevail, even this far fromf
home.
He tossed gold to the boatmen, led his horse
onto the! dock, and mounted. The others followed.
They climbedj a hill and paused to look back at
the river. Then] Bryennius swore, long and
foully.
"Do you see?" Alexandra whispered, pointing. I
"There, in the shallows ..."
All but one chariot had been caught in the mire at
the left-brace river bottom. Only three
horses drew it now, and they! struggled up onto the
riverbank, onto dry land. It was followed,
Bryennius saw, by other horses, their snapped
:
reins dangling from metal harnesses. One
terracotta horse limped on three feet; the
fourth must have been snapped off by a rock or snag.
And the horses were followed by what looked like a
veritable legion of the thrice-damned
warriors, water and mud pouring off their armor.
All were battered, and many cracked, even broken in
places. He knew what must have happened. Since
there was no bridge across this mammoth river, and since
no boat could take them, the statues had formed their
own bridge, file after file of warriors marching
over their fellows' heads, leaving behind without pity

those who cracked apart, or sank too deeply,
into the mud at the river bottom.
A trick of the sunlight caught one "warrior's"
eyes, and they appeared to glare at Bryennius with
ancient, implacable hatred. But why should they have
pity? Bryennius thought, in rage and despair.
They were not alive, they hated any living thing, and they
would harry him and his to death, and beyond.
The only alternative was simply to lie down and be
trampled-and that was no alternative at all. Very
well. He would go on as long as he could ... as
long as he must for the sake of the cousin who would never
give up, the princess he loved, and the men who had
become his to lead.
Biting his lip against shameful tears, Bryennius
led the retreat west.
Dunhuang's peace wreathed about
Alexandra, palpable as the frost in the morning air.
The light turned the dust in the air to gold that
shimmered like the mosaics in a chapel; the sere ground
cover, now an orange hue that faded as autumn
yielded to winter, crackled beneath her boots. After
weeks in the saddle, with only brief pauses for
relief or rest, she practically had to learn how
to walk all over again. Now her feet seemed
to register every scrubby brush, stub, or rise in the
ground as she headed slowly for the caves.
Eased by sweet oil, her saddle galls only
ached when she moved suddenly. But they were nothing to the
pain that blurred the golds and ochres of Dunhuang
into an inchoate splendor that
he
would have found beautiful.
He
had loved the frontier, and would not be seeing it, or
anything else from now on.
Alexandra's hand closed hard on the lapis
sculpture

that had once rested on Prince Li Shou's table
by his inkstone. The pressure should have hurt. She
wanted it to hurt, but her hands were too
heavily callused. Bryennius had given the stone
to her that morning.
"You should have had this earlier," her cousin had told her
after he had unearthed it from his saddlebags. "But . .
."
In the flight from Ch'ang-an toward Dunhuang,
nothing had mattered but putting as much distance as
possible between themselves and the First Emperor's avenging
army. No human force had pursued them or tried
to stop them; it was as Father Basil had predicted.
They were judged accursed, unclean. Somehow the word
had spread, and all along their route, people's concerns
had been to provide them with what they needed and get
them gone as quickly as possible. On the other hand, there
was that one village they'd found deserted comexcept
for the people staked out along the road. Outsiders, all of
them: foreigners, heretics, the mad, the simple,
and the misfits. They had lost precious hours
freeing and consoling them while Ch'in Shih
Huangdi's army advanced. Father Basil still
prayed for the souls of the villagers who had planned the
murders. Bryennius still waked shouting in rage at
the idea.
Here in Dunhuang the monks had accepted them,
promised them rest and care while they
prepared for the desert crossing. Bryennius didn't
trust it. When they traded for camels in the
markets, Bryennius steadfastly refused to contact
his adopted Muslim family or to join any other
caravan. "I know that a larger caravan is safer
against bandits. But it's also slower. Why doom
anyone else?" he had asked just that morning.
"Is that what you think? That we're all going
to die?" Alexandra challenged him. He had denied
it, but his words sounded hollow.
She turned the precious little carving over and over in
her worn hands.
"Li Shou gave it to me before ... he died. He
asked
Susan
Shwam
me to give it to you and say that he regretted frightenin
bar you. That you might have had something very swe together. For
as long as it lasted."
Despite Alexandra's weathering, the flush that
sprea less-than just from her throat to her face
burned, and she looke down.
"I knew he wanted me." The words came out hoar
ly, and she remembered her shock and embarrassment that
day in the garden when she had become aware
of the prince's desire. More shameful yet, she had
waked to hei) own body's needs.
"You couldn't trust him," Bryennius said. "I
didn't trust him either. Now I wish I had."
The prince had traveled with them, fought with them j
sheltered them, and, at the last, died because of themj and
thousands like them. Alexandra had muttered some-1 thing
she hoped Bryennius would interpret as thanksj and
walked quickly away.
"Don't go far!" Bryennius had called after her.
"Asl soon as the camels are loaded, we take
the pass south bar west for Miran."
From Lanzhou to Jiayaguan, from Jiayaguan
to Dunhuang, and now, south along the rim of the
Taklai Makan with rarely a stop ... the
statues would not! spare them time, and time was what she
needed. The! caves of Dunhuang were holy; she
didn't think that thef statues could penetrate the
aura radiating from them.
As she reached the ladders and scaffolds that led to the
caves, she blinked back her tears. A short
climb, and into this cave with the wall paintings of
Bodhisattvas painted the blue of compassionate
manifestations, past the long, long red and gold
hall with the recumbent Buddha, and-yes,
here it was, the cave that Li Shou had commissioned in
honor of his return to the Empire that had killed
him. The paint still smelled fresh.
If she slitted her eyes to avoid the alien
shapes and patterns that scrolled over walls and
smooth-carved ceiling, she would see only the
Kuan-yin, lady and comforter, painted on the far
wall. Despite its elegantly

elongated eyelids, she could pretend it was an
icon of Mary, Bearer of God.
Placing the lapis lazuli before the painting, she
knelt and tried to compose herself for meditation. But Li
Shou's face kept intervening. She had at first been
unaware of how he felt. Once she realized, she
had had no idea of how to cope with his desires.
He had known that. She supposed that, in a way, he
had loved them all-and had died for it. Passionately
she thanked God that Bryennius had intervened in
what otherwise was suicide. Foolish, that thought;
Li Shou's faith didn't damn the suicide, but
sent him back onto the Path to try again. Even the
Bodhisattvas, beings so perfected that they could
escape the world, chose to remain in it to guide
others. Li Shou was far from the Buddhist
notion of sainthood, but he had loved the world of art
and adventure he'd created for as long as he could.
He would be happy to return, she thought, and she
wished him a speedy, happy rebirth.
If only he might have seen how beautiful the
priest artists had made the cave! He had told
Bryennius that Ch'in was his mother, and he could not leave
her again. Like Socrates, she thought, and was irrationally
angry at her mind's attempt to escape
into philosophy.
Philosophy was no consolation, despite one
Latin treatise to the contrary. But its author had
also died a political death. Consolation lay less
in reason than in emotion. Not to extinguish it, but
to face it and harness it. Love it, if one could.
Tears poured over her cheeks, and her hands,
upraised to hide her face even from Kuan-yin.
Had she failed in love and charity toward a man who
had saved her life? She didn't know, and she
shook with the force of her grief and bewilderment.
The painting's gaze drew her, even though she knew
that she had served as its model. She forced herself
to meet its somber, compassionate eyes which guided
her into deep meditation. For the first time in weeks, she
remembered where she had learned about the
mastery of
Susan Shwartz
emotions: the monastery in the Land of Snows where the!
abbot had spoken to her of the land called Shambhala.
Lif Shou had promised to help her find it, had
wanted to seek its enlightenment for himself.
He had been with her when she had found bell and!
gem, tokens that indicated her path toward the
mystical! initiation that might take her there.
Bell, gem, lightning! bolt, and sword were still with
her, almost as precious as 1 the canes filled with
silkworms that each one of her] people carried. Light
as they traveled, nothing tempted i her to discard those
talismans.
Now that she was facing west, apprehension about her
left-brace
return home warred with her quest for Shambhala.
She
right-brace
thought-admit it, she ordered herself-she prayed that the
statues could not pass the borders of Ch'in to invade
the cities of the West. Yet, if she escaped them
and returned to Byzantium, what triumph could she
expect with her aunt in hiding, free to work evil
magics upon, the crippled Empire? In
Shambhala, she might learn a power that would enable
her to cleanse Byzantium of the evil that blighted
it.
And it drew her. She could feel some power pulsing in
the cold, pure air, enticing her back toward the
terrible serenity of the desert, and the even more terrible
calm of the mountain peaks. If Shambhala lay
anywhere in the physical world, it was probably beyond
Khotan far to the south.
She shivered and crossed herself. "Forgive me,
Lady, that I pray to a* graven image and call
it Thine," she whispered. "And forgive me for where I
must go, if truly Thou thinkest it sin. For truly,
I no longer know what sin is, or Truth." Her
meditations turned bizarre again as her thoughts drifted
toward unimaginable mountain peaks.
She retrieved Li Shou's carving. This was not the
place to leave it. If there were altars in
Shambhala, she might leave it there.
Footsteps, deliberately noisy, brought her
whirling up from her knees, her hand reaching for the sword
she had

left in her baggage. Haraldr stood in the
doorway to the cave, calm and trusting.
If she had been a child, she would have run to him for comfort
and buried her face against his chest. But she had seen
the look in his eyes once before, in a dead man's
face, and it would be wrong to exploit her most
loyal follower.
"My princess? Prince Bryennius says we
must leave."
"Did he send you?" Alexandra asked.
Bryennius' mood had been so dark that the
Varangians had muttered among themselves.
"No. His lady did."
"How does my cousin seem to you?" Alexandra
looked carefully away as she asked the question, knowing that
it strained Haraldr's loyalty to discuss one
member of the Imperial family with another.
"If he were one of ours, I might call him
feigr.
You would say "touched by fate." But he has hired
some fine grooms and guides. Some are from Hind and
Tibet." Haraldr shook his head to forestall her
next question. "They understand that we are all, in a way,
pursued by fate. But they want to return home
quickly, so they accept the risk."
That was good, Alexandra thought. Talented Bryennius
might be when dealing with horses, but it took
men born to the deserts to master the tough, quarrelsome
Bactrians, and men mountain-bred to handle the beasts
they would need in the dizzying passes of the Kun Lun
range.
Booted feet hurried toward them, raising more
noise than was proper in these caves. More of
Bryennius' messengers? Alexandra had
trespassed on their peace long enough. As she
rose, she caught sight of the paintings on the farthest
wall: a double ring of snowcapped peaks and, in their
center, a great city, ruled by a king whose face
haunted her dreams. Opposite, reclining at her
ease, sat a goddess, eyes painted on brow,
palms, and the soles of her feet. Except for the
eyes, Alexandra could almost see her as the Lady of
Compassion. The couldd abbot it; the Pamirs had
called her White Tara.
Susan Shwanzl
So Li Shou had included all their hauntings, shel
thought, and felt fresh tears start. She knew the
exact? instant when Haraldr detected the tear
stains on her face' by the way his own face saddened.
He raised one large less-than hand as if to wipe
her eyes.
"Even though you have never gotten it to sound, you
be still wear the horn you found," she said, stepping back
quickly and pointing at it where it hung from his neck. It
too, she remembered, bore the sign of
Shambhala.
He shook his head, diverted, as she had hoped.
"I am neither sighted nor a scholar, Princess.
But I found this horn, and I must keep it."
He walked to the door and stood aside to let her
pass through first.
Dunhuang had withdrawn its protection, and it was
time for them to be gone.
Blown by winds so cold that Alexandra's ink froze
as she tried to do accounts, they fled south and west.
Veils of dust and grit wreathed about them and caught
the remote winter daylight when they met a slower
caravan. At Alexandra's insistence, they screamed
warnings to leave the trail, then dashed by before frightened
archers could nock arrows, or priests begin a rite
of exorcism. If they were not overrun by the First
Emperor's army, one more legend would rise in the
markets-of a caravan of ghosts clad in light,
warning travelers of disaster.
Alexandra's saddle galls bled afresh, then
healed and troubled her no more. Siddiqa suffered
terribly from the cold, lost all her
plumpness and some of her beauty. Then, like the others,
she changed. Now her eyes, Hike Alexandra's,
squinted against the ever-present dust toward a
trackless horizon or looked nervously behind her,
and her body was fined down for enduring the Takla
Makan by winter. It was colder than the gales that
swept from Scythia onto the Golden Horn,
Alexandra thought, cold as the Hel by which the
Varangians no longer spared the strength to curse.

There was no need, and no time, to curse it. A
kuraburan struck, and they had barely time to wrap
themselves in thick felt against the violence of flying
rocks and gravel. When they had journeyed east,
Li Shou and she had survived just such a storm,
Alexandra remembered. Even if its howling-whether
it came from wind or demons-made speech
impossible, her lips were cracked from the cold;
unnecessary talk hurt. And if she had wasted strength
on tears, they would have frozen on her cheeks.
Unable to rest, they waited out the storm, wondering if
it had stopped their pursuers.
When the winds subsided to a faint howl,
Bryennius, in the grip of the blackness that filled his
heart since Ch'ang-an, took two of the
scouts on a mad foray to the rear. Two men
returned with news of the army of marching statues.
Only one chariot still rolled along on cracked
wheels, drawn by clay horses that lacked manes
or limped on only three hooves. The
footmen's armor was crazed and pitted by windblown
gravel; several of the spearmen lacked arms.
Statues blown onto their sides or backs jerked
and rolled until collision with another statue or a
standing rock pushed them back onto their feet or
broke them beyond use.
Bryennius had lost one of their scouts, a trained
siinger, after he hurled a stone that hit an ancient
captain, and waited too long to see if the
now-headless statue could rise. So there was a method
of "killing" the statues, but there were still so many statues
and so few of them that Alexandra insisted that there be no
more such forays.
Outside Keriya, their water ran short. Now they
could spare none for the beasts, and they thanked God for the
camels. Still, each day, their humps diminished and
their long-legged strides slowed.
And the distance between them and the deadly army of Ch'in Shih
Huang-di, which needed no water, dwindled.
Days blurred into nights of too much
watchfulness
Susan SIN
and too little sleep. This close to any town, they!
fear bandits as well as their pursuers. They was
travel by night again.
One night Alexandra flogged her groaning camel
t bar head of the line of march. As had become his
Bryennius usually rode alone.
"Leshi, one of our Tibetans, tells me that
there! lake at the desert's heart," she said. "If
we found wouldn't have to risk entering Keriya."
"The desert
has
no heart," Bryennius said. "WeJust to enter
Keriya to buy more animals. Two camels bar
mange, and one is near to foundering."
The Bryennius she remembered would have been bar to
quest for the mysterious lake. This silent, stranger
knew what their presence in a market might cost it,
but dared not turn aside. She susp that his decision
would give him screaming night again tonight, and all the
nights that followed. She' have taken his hand if she
thought he'd have per it.
Bryennius saw the gesture. Something struggled l
bar bar gray eyes, so pale compared to the
night and his ered skin . . .
"Brother . . ." she stammered.
"In the name of God, don't call me that!" the we
tore out. "Don't look at me like that! Everyone
who 1 ever called me brother-Leo, Suleiman,
even Li Sfc comis someone I've lost. Everyone
who has ever offe me a future is*someone I've
had to leave. I beg you,.! me alone to think about the
trail and the desert, nothing else."
"There's me," Alexandra whispered. "And Siddiqa
"And what happens to you, Siddiqa, and me when if
we return to Byzantium with the silkworms?" Thef
Bryennius turned on her was drawn and despei
"There is still our aunt, still the magic. And don't,
God's sake, tell me again about Shambhala."
"If you think we all will get ourselves killed, why-was
"Why do I go on? Because there
is
you, and there
is
Siddiqa. And maybe I'm more a Roman than I
thought, enough of one to go on until I drop."
"Would it help you to talk with Father Basil?" she
asked, her voice breaking.
"Why?" Bryennius shrugged and turned
to look up at the stars, huge and blooming above the
emptiness of sand and sky. Alexandra rode at his
side that night, struggling against a grief that she
prayed was premature.
Light and warmth on her back made her whirl
around. Sunrise slanted toward them from the east,
drenching the desert with growing splendor. The rising
sun seemed shrouded in rainbows, a star inscribed in
a circle that reminded her of Shambhala.
"Cousin." she ventured. This time Bryennius
turned and even smiled at her.
"You love it, don't you?" he asked. "Even now.
Cousin, I envy you your joy."
The sunrise hid her guilty flush.
They reached Keriya that day. To call their dealings in
the market "bargaining" was an arrant lie.
Merchants saw their need for camels, water, and
news, and charged accordingly. They lost two grooms
there, but gained a guide from Ladakh, who knew the
trails that led south toward his home.
"Send scouts out, post slingers at your walls!"
Bryennius told the merchants as they mounted fresh
camels. Their breath steamed in the frigid dawn as
the kneeling beasts grunted, then swayed to their full
height. Tell them to aim for the heads-but
keep your distance!"
Then they were running toward Khotan. The new
camels tired, then grew thin as their riders tested
their nmits. One night they stopped briefly. An
impulse made Alexandra take out the moonstone
she had found in wrpan and gaze into it. At its
heart firelight pulsed and Piayed tricks with it;
she almost thought it formed mountains, then a lotus, in
its depths.
Susan
Shwar
Was that Shambhala, beckoning to anyone with the eyes and
heart to see?
Bryennius, who had lain with ear to the grit and
gravel! of the frozen desert, rose unsteadily and
came over tol her. "I know I promised a
rest, but we'll have to mountf up again."
"Are the statues closer?" Alexandra asked.
Bryenniusff claimed that the earth shuddered under their
feet, and bar that he could hear it.
To her surprise, Bryennius shook his head.
Father! Basil had hoped that as they neared the borders
of Ch'in, j where the power that drove them must weaken,
the caret statues would slow. Had he been right?
"Not statues," Bryennius said.
"Statues would approach from the east. I thought I
heard riders. From the west-and north."
Khotan lay to the west and slightly to the north of
j them.
"Bandits?" She mouthed the word soundlessly at him, and
saw his face turn grim and more drawn under the ragged
beard he had grown.
He nodded. "We should edge south. Perhaps we'll
miss them." But his tone robbed his words of any
hope. He turned away, laid an arm over
Siddiqa's slumping shoulders, and urged her toward
the strongest of their camels.
Hurriedly, Alexandra ordered her camel
to kneel so she could mount. She hardened her heart
to its moans. As the beast broke into a travesty of
its usual ground-covering stride, it bellowed in an
anguish she wished she could echo. Only bandits or
desperate men would ride these trails at night;
only bandits, their quarters near the trail, would
use fast horses instead of the safer, tougher
Bactrians. At least the moon was up. It would
light their way, preventing a stumble into a ditch or
deserted town. They might even see the bandits before
they struck.
Suddenly the gem's light flared, then
pulsed like a living heart. Alexandra leaned out
perilously over her
silk roads and shadows261
saddle. A little way to the left, amid a confusion of
torn bales and overturned carts, lay the stiffened
bodies of men and beasts. She held up the gem like
a torch. The wind had not yet swept the desert
clean of the limping tracks of the survivors of that
attack: more men than beasts-and right in the path of their
enemies.
Light flared behind Bryennius, a counterfeit
sunrise. He turned to see Alexandra hold
aloft the gem she had won in Turpan-and saw what
its light revealed. Quickly he turned back before
Siddiqa could see it too. Her back, pressed
against him in the saddle, felt sharp and fragile.
If she hadn't grown so thin in this mad flight
home, he wouldn't have darest1 ride double, even on
the best of their camels. He tightened his hold about
her waist and felt her body relax in his clasp.
His own spine felt like a column of fire. He
hoped that, for once, a long night's ride and the need
to keep alert for bandits or treacherous footing would
numb him to the pain.
The night passed in a stupor of haste and
pain. At dawn, he shook himself back to full
awareness and found Father Basil riding beside him. The
heretic priest's roundness was deceptive:
Persian-born, he had tremendous endurance in the
saddle. As vast cloud formations

I
scudded overhead, the wind spat sharp gusts of dust
at them. Bryennius blinked hard and buried his
face in the sheepskins he wore. They were rank.
He could not remember when he had last been clean.
Ch'ang-an, perhaps. He had been clean then of Li
Shou's blood, as well.
Father Basil's cry of joy made him raise his
head again. was "I shall lift mine eyes up unto the
hills whence cometh my help,"" whispered the
priest.
Abruptly, Bryennius hated him and his relentless
hope.
We're not there yet,
he wanted to say.
We could be caught in a pincers between bandits and those
statues. What if they don't slow at the border,
as you hope?
He forced himself to silence for the sake of the woman who
rode with him. In Ch'ang-an, she had glowed like a
plump peony bud. Now she held herself upright in
the saddle in order not to burden him. He must not
trouble her with his despair.
Behind him came a cry of triumph from Alexandra,
echoed immediately by a hoarse shout from the guardsman whose
camel trailed hers, and whose eyes rarely left
her. As she forced more speed from her beast in order
to catch up with Bryennius, Haraldr followed.
Bryennius had seen that look on her face before,
when she had ridden east in a delirium of wonder,
myths of some god-forsaken paradise ringing in her head
from her days and weeks in an equally heathen
monastery.
"That way!" she called, gesturing ahead of them.
"Leshi tells me he expects the passes south
will be clear."
Bryennius grimaced. Any sensible caravan
master knew that from Khotan, he should travel north
and west, completing at Kashgar the great circle around
the deadly Takla Makan, then head back across the
Pamirs into Persia-toward home. But Alexandra
still insisted on heading south, where she dreamed she might
find Shambhala. She was likelier to find
death for all of them. Li Shou had warned him of the
passes in the southern
Susan
Shwartz
mountains: rotting fiber bridges, dizzying
plummets for thousands of feet into clouds, and through them
into ferocious, unseen torrents, trails stacked
with the bones of men and beasts who had fallen along the
way.
If he tried to make her see reason or, failing
that, turned the caravan around (and tied Alexandra
to her camel, if need be), the Varangians would
back her, not him, and he knew it. She, not
Bryennius, was full sibling to the Basileus; the
guard had sworn to follow
her.
A good general might have changed their minds, but he
... he looked more brigand than Byzantine now in
his stained garments and his beard.
Alexandra too was fined down to skin, bone, and
grime. She also wore filthy sheepskins,
Persian leggings, and boots, and she had dragged a
fur hat over her matted hair and down to her
eyebrows. Underneath it, her eyes blazed with the sort
of mad faith that drew men after her . . .
had drawn Li Shou even to his death, and still
compelled Haraldr to follow her. Did she realize
how much of the big man's loyalty sprang from
love?
Alexandra might dream of Shambhala, but
Bryennius dreamed too, and woke screaming. He
knew that she comforted herself with her belief that they had
rescued people staked out along the track of the First
Emperor's army. He had never told her everything
he had seen when he had doubled east, scouting along
their track. Thank God, he had managed not
to betray that even to Siddiqa, despite his dreams.
Alexandra had her dreams. He ... these days, he
prayed only to survive another day, when, please
God, he would fight to survive one day more. It
was, he thought with an odd stab of pride, the
choice of Achilles between a life that was brief but
noble or one that was long and inglorious. In
Byzantium, Bryennius had been rich and safe,
with his horses and his seductions and his fine wines.
He might have lived out a long and useless life.
Now, he did not expect to reach Khotan, much
less ever see his home again. But he had crossed the
Roof of the World, had ruled, however briefly, the
Kafirs, crossed
the desert, and been a confidant to princes. He had
even found love.
It might be all he would have-but it was not enough. He
forbade himself to escape into resignation. Quickly he
reviewed his defenses. He had the soldiers whose
leadership Leo had bequeathed him. If he did not
argue against Alexandra's obsession, he had the
Varangians. There was even some Greek fire
left yet. And-who knew?-the magic she pursued
might aid them.
Though the markets at Khotan were full of horror
about bandits, Bryennius saw and heard no traces
of them. As they left Khotan, heading south, he
dared to hope that they had disappeared. At least
Khotan was well protected. And the statues . .
. Father Basil appeared to be right. They were slowing
down. If the statues could not cross the mountains,
perhaps Alexandra's obsession with Shambhala would be
worthwhile.
For days they climbed steadily. Far below, in the
desert basin, the worst of the winter had passed. But
it clung to the foothills of the Kun Lun, mounding
about the frozen bodies of dead horses and camels,
the goods their bodies still bore marked with the names of
merchants who would reclaim it (if they
lived) during the mountains' brief spring, and
briefer summer.
At Shahidulla, they traded for fresh beasts and
pressed on toward Suget Pass. Ahead of them
towered peaks that dwarfed any Bryennius he had
seen. Though Li Shou had told him of monks who
had passed this way on foot, he did not see how.
"The statues
cannot
cross these," Bryennius comforted Siddiqa during the
breathless nights when they clung together more for warmth
than passion.
Then they mastered the pass, and were climbing again. The
trails became tortuous, then, abruptly,
widened onto a high plateau where wind blew across
melting snow, bringing them winter and a hope of fairer
weather at the same time. There was no track
to follow: even the guides born in this land shook their
heads, baffled.
Susan Shwortz
Then Alexandra drew out the gem she bore and stared
into it for a long, long time. When she raised her head,
Bryennius shivered with a new horror. His cousin's
eyes seemed glazed, reflecting the light of the
gem. "That way," she breathed.
"That way" led toward white peaks. Beyond them lay
mountains even higher, tipped with the purple-white of
everlasting snow. This was only the first of such ranges.
They seemed to circle this plateau like some behemoth
serpent with an egg in its mouth.
As they drew closer, the peaks' huge shadows
blotted out most of the sun. Now the guides checked
the harnesses and adjusted loads to prevent
slippage, removing bells, silencing whatever
might jingle.
"Bandits?" asked Bryennius. It was one of the few
words he knew in all the languages of the silk
roads.
"Snowslides," said Leshi, the guide.
Thereafter, they rode in silence, except for the growls
of ice and snow as it rotted and slid down the
mountainsides. Bryennius could track such
avalanches by the plumes of snow and cloud that shot
up.
Then they spotted hoof-and footprints, stamped
deeply into the mud and the remains of the snow. There did
not seem enough of them to be bandits.
"Lamas," said Leshi. Bryennius did not miss
how Alexandra caught her breath. She had been
dreaming again, he knew. He had set one
guide to watch her even more closely and to lead her
mount.
The day before they reached the foot of the massif, they
saw more footprints. This time, there were many of
them-plus several corpses that had not yet turned
black from the cold.
The peaks drew Alexandra like nothing else in her
life had ever done. All the while they crossed the
plateau, she had abandoned fears of the statues behind,
the bandits that might be ahead, and the mountains themselves
to her companions. A ring of snow mountains, she
thought.
Shambhala was girded with rings of mountains like the ones
that lay up ahead.
When they finally stopped, and she woke from her waking
dream, the sun was still high. Why stop now? Even her
own guide had dismounted, to join the grooms and
soldiers who clustered about something. There seemed
fewer than usual. Alexandra looked about.
Probably Bryennius had dispatched many of them
to scout.
Bryennius rode over to her.
"Send Father Basil there to translate," he told
her.
The Nestorian hastened to join the knot of anxious
guides. Alexandra followed more slowly, pausing
to glance at the mountains. How did she know that up
ahead, if they headed for what looked to be a mere
scratch on the snowy mountainside but was actually a
narrow path, they would find themselves in a sheltered area
where they could pass the night, yet stand guard against their
enemies? She must tell Bryennius, she
decided, and signaled him.
Her cousin tore himself away from the guides and the
priest who translated for him. He sawed at his
reins and headed back at a pace that brought a
jangle of protest from his groom.
"At your command, Alexandra," he said. This close
to a fight, he shed the darkness that had been on him for
months, and grinned at her, bowing in a parody of
court manners.
"What are they saying?"
"Leshi says he remembers this place now.
There's some kind of fortress up ahead."
Alexandra gasped. To cover it, she asked, "What
don't you want Siddiqa and me to see over there?
Another body?"
"Some sort of monastic. The guides call him a
lama. He died from a head wound; it
looks fairly recent. We're in for trouble."
"What about Leshi's fortress?"
"I'd assume that the bandits have probably taken it
for their own."
Susan Shwartz
I
Certainty struck Alexandra, and she almost reeled.
"It's safe," she said in a voice she did not
recognize as hers. "It is not a fortress so much
as a holy place. No enemy can cross its
bounds."
Bryennius looked narrowly at her. His eyes were
reddened, and lines from squinting into the sun and immense
distances narrowed them. He was burned almost as dark as
the guides from the sun on the plateau.
"Alexandra ... I can't order my men to ride
into what might be a bandit's lair because of some
intuition," he said. But a ghost of the trusting,
affectionate princeling he had once been emerged from
behind the wariness and begged her to be right.
"By my hope of salvation, Bryennius ... I
swear to you. And look at this!" The same faith that
made her certain of the fortress' security made her
pull out the gem that had served as lodestone. It
caught the sunlight and sent it up in a
column of blinding light.
"And the statues?"
"They too ... I do not think they can approach. And
have they not slowed? We are far from the grave of their
master."
Reluctantly, Bryennius nodded.
"Then let's get the pack animals moving," she
suggested. She herself rode toward Siddiqa and
smacked the rump of her mount to get the lazy thing
moving.
A shout from high above them made her stop short.
"Haraldr* volunteered to scout that fortress,"
Bryennius told her when she glared at him. "You
told me how he survived the avalanche!"
The glinting snow rumbled and crumpled down a stretch
of the massif the width of a market. Gradually the
fine dust of ice chips and snow subsided, and
Alexandra saw that hidden under the snow, carved into the
living rock, was an enormous statue of an idol
she had seen once in the monastery in the high
Pamirs. It must have towered at least two hundred
feet, dwarfing utterly the colossal figures she
had seen in Dunhuang.

Female and fierce, the statue leaned in a
position of ease against the rock.
Vajrayogini, she had been told the statue's name
was. The female patron of Vajra, the
Diamond Path. Its face was supremely
calm. It would watch their escape or their
massacre, even their being stamped into bloody pulp
on the snow by their pursuers with the same indifference.
Alexandra was tempted to curse, then thought better of
it. She had seen enough of the power of alien gods-and
rulers-not to insult them.
Now she could see Haraldr descending the cliff from
which Vajrayogini had been carved by unimaginable
sculptors. He waved his arms and ran up to her,
panting in the thin air.
"Quickly!" he shouted, then collapsed, his immense
body racked with coughing from exertion and high
altitude. He was bleeding slightly from the nose.
"We'll die if we don't have some protection.
And night is coming fast. Did you see the fortress?"
Bryennius demanded of Haraldr.
He shook his head, coughed again, then fought to speak.
"Bandits . . ." he whispered. "Ahead of us."
"In the fortress?" Bryennius persisted.
Haraldr shook his head. Staggering somewhat from the
spasms of coughing, he headed for the beast to which
he had strapped his axe. Alexandra wondered at his
endurance. The blinding headaches and dizziness that
struck newcomers to these heights no longer troubled
any of them, even Siddiqa. But she was breathing hard
(how much harder it must be for the guardsman! she
wondered). As she left the flat plain and wound through
the narrow passage that led to the fortress, red specks
danced before her eyes, tiny lights that had nothing to do
with the now-setting sun-or the greasy fires that
smoldered before them in the long, bloody shadows from the
peaks.
They had not been the first caravan to pass this way
recently, or to hope to reach the fortress for shelter.
Thus
Susan
Shwartz
far, however, they were more fortunate than the people sprawled
at their feet, packs strewn over the rocks. Their
bodies bristled with arrows, and the snow had melted,
then frozen again, purplish-black.
Father Basil crossed himself, then reached for the bow that
he, as a Persian, preferred. Siddiqa's
delicate face went taut, but she drew her
dagger and did not look away.
An arm rose, waved feebly, then
fell. Leshi and another man, Diu from Tibet,
Alexandra remembered, cried out and rode forward.
Bryennius swore earnestly.
"By the One, they're all dead or dying, damn you!"
he shouted. "Tell them what I said!" he screamed
at the Nestorian.
Basil started to translate, but the guides rode
toward whoever still survived in the carnage of the
caravan. Alexandra shook her head at the
Varangians, then glanced warily at the men hired
at way stations along the desert route. Unlike
her Guard, the grooms and guides were not sworn
to her. She could not stop them, no matter if they
decided to betray them to robbers, lead them over a
cliff, or simply abandon them. All she could do
was pay them, treat them as well as she could, and trust
to their goodwill. Assuming as they must, that bandits
watched nearby, they risked their lives with this
attempt at rescue. Therefore it was important
to them. If she helped her own men to help, she
might win the grooms' goodwill.
On the other hand, if they dallied too long, they
might freeze, unsheltered, in the dark. Or the
statues might catch up to them, if the power that forced
them forward could command them this far from its
grave.
Alexandra rode over to where Diu and Leshi
knelt. They gabbled at one another, their wizened
faces twisting with concern as they worked over a tangle
of filthy plum robes. A lama! That explained
why they had stopped. She knew from the old abbot that
plum robes meant that this man was relatively far
advanced along his Path.

Her two guides wiped blood and dirt from his
face, it was contorted with pain and the wrinkles of a
rugged old age. Alexandra knelt beside them. She
meant to offer her own help. But the lama's words
drove the words from her mouth.
She had seen that face in childhood, in youth, even
in death-and always when she had been in peril of her
life.
"They're coming!" shouted one of her soldiers. Behind
her came the clatter of hoofbeats and the yells she
had been braced for. Swords and axes were drawn
with a hiss of fine metal, and she heard the twang of
men testing bowstrings.
"To the fortress!" shouted Bryennius.
"They'll never get the old lama across a saddle
without killing him," Alexandra called
to Haraldr. "Help him!" Slinging his axe on his
back, he came running. Tenderly he lifted the
old man across the nearest pack animal.
"Get inside, my princess!" he shouted, but
Alexandra waited until she saw all her people
moving.
Her guards formed a protective wall about her and
forced her toward her mount. She overheard the
guides, Tibetan and local, gabbling earnestly
to one another, and she made out two words, "tulku"
and "rimpoche," or precious one.
"If they can see anything precious in that poor,
dying man who won't last out the night, they're
welcome to it!" Father Basil grumbled,
infuriated, as always, at senseless cruelty.
"God forgive me!" he added.
"He will, if you ride like your wretched life
depends on it!" Alexandra shouted. She was as
furious as he. Many times she had come so close
to meeting the man they had found, but never to speak to him.
Now, he lay within easy reach-but he was dying.
The bandits were gaining on them. In moments, they would be
within arrow-shot.
"Take my reins," she shouted at the nearest man.
5t was Bryennius. She reached into her
packs, fumbled, and drew out the bell she had found
on the desert.
Susan
Shujartz
It had held demons and storm at bay; it might
serve here.
As the first flight of arrows whined toward them, she
rang the bell. The sound exploded. She could feel
it as an actual force, pressing against her ears,
resonating behind her eyes, quivering in the air,
deflecting the bandits' arrows to spatter harmlessly
onto the rock and snow. She kept ringing the bell,
and the sound grew, forming a dome of music about them.
Haraldr rode back, snatched up Alexandra's
reins, and dragged her and her mount up the track into the
fortress and safety. She tumbled out of the saddle, and
he steadied her, flinging a spare sheepskin about her
shoulders.
"How many . . ." She glanced around.
"We lost Topgye and one of the pack animals,"
Haraldr reported. He gestured for archers to take
up guard by the narrow slits of windows. Already the
Tibetans had vanished deep within the fortress.
A moment earlier, she had been exhausted, near
to fainting. It must be something within the fortress,
she thought, something that restored her. No wonder the
bandits had not taken it for their own. It was indeed
guarded by the magics of those who had built it.
Who were they? Alexandra could see that only the
outermost walls had been built by men. Inside those
massive walls were immense natural caves which
generations upon generations of pious travelers had
vaulted and painted over with images of gods and
mortals in vivid shades of rust, re*d, and
blue. One figure had the head of an elephant,
another of a maddened water buffalo. Some had many
arms and legs which writhed ecstatically in the embrace
of chalk-skinned female demons. It resembled
Dunhuang, only the caves were much vaster. And the
rock was hard: it must have taken centuries to hollow
out these caves.
Alexandra turned away from the caves to look
outside. Below the circle of safety cast by the
fortress lay the man and beast they had lost to bandits.
"Topgye," she murmured. He had been one of the

steadiest of their guides. Alexandra had trusted
him, even loading his camel and his yak with several
staffs filled with carefully preserved silkworms and
two phials that even her soldiers handled
with care.
"I hate to see that," Bryennius growled, and
pounded his fist against the wall.
The bandits were closing in, swarming over the
corpses. One rummaged in a pack and emerged with
two ceramic flasks.
"He carried fire," Alexandra said. She reached
for flint and tinder.
"Do you want me to make him drop it?" Haraldr
asked. He borrowed a bow from one of the other men,
bent it experimentally, and grimaced.
As he shot, the bowstring twanged discordantly. The
arrow had misfired, would fall short, was already
faltering . . . and then the power of their wills,
amplified by the place in which they sheltered, pushed at
it. The arrow fleshed itself in the bandit's arm. He
shrieked with pain, the flasks he held toppled from
his hands to smash against the hard ground into a golden
conflagration as exquisite as it was lethal. Five
of the bandits died then and there, their bodies writhing as
they shrieked and tried to beat out the fires that
shriveled them. The rest fled.
"Perhaps they will think we are demons, and not
return," Father Basil said. Haraldr grunted
disbelief, his eyes on the broken bowstring.
Then he cast the bow down.
"My princess!" he cried, and reached out
to Alexandra just as her earlier exhaustion, coupled
with the strain of this last battle, crushed down upon her.
She stumbled to her knees and felt the warmth of a
cloak tucked about her. Then sleep ambushed her and
dragged her away into starless depths.
"So you think you can escape me?" The Imperial
abbess towered over her, and her mouth was blood-red.
Father Basil had escaped. It was Alexandra who
lay
Susan Shwartz
bound naked to the blasphemous altar hidden deep within
the convent in which she had spent so many years. She
brandished a torch, was bringing it closer and closer
to Alexandra's face. Alexandra woke up with a
shriek.
The muffled hiss of a fire collapsing into itself as it
died was what had waked her. Now she recoiled with a
low cry. Despite the cold, she was sweating. Why
had she dreamed of her aunt? In the sullen
bloodlight of the dying fire, Alexandra stared
straight up at a huge female figure with blue
eyes painted on its white hands, face, and feet.
It was not her aunt after all.
Beside Alexandra sat Father Basil.
"Dreams again?"
"Of home, this time. My aunt. God help us, as
we get closer to home, what if she reaches out
to attack us, as she did in the Pamirs?"
"Pray, daughter. Look, that's the White Tara,
Lady of Compassion," he pointed out to cover any
embarrassment Alexandra might feel.
"Just like me." She laughed hoarsely and saw him
wince. She hated Greek fire, hated the fact
that once, to atone for her knowledge of how to make it, she had
been willing to order Haraldr to slay her.
Father Basil handed her a steaming cup.
"The guides made this specially for you." Since there
was no way to refuse, Alexandra sipped at the
strong tea, heavy with salt, grajn, and butter.
She forced herself not to grimace. Even in the dark and
quiet, one of the guides might be watching.
"A fine warrior, fainting like that . . ." she
muttered. "When even Siddiqa . . ."
"The guides have been whispering about you," murmured
Father Basil. "Foreign you are, female you are, but
you rescued the rimpoche, an act which will buy you
freedom from the Wheel."
Over the quiet voices of men changing
guard, the strangely musical tones of the men of
Tibet, and the

rippling speech of Hind, came Haraldr's
voice, in guttural and angry Norse she
couldn't quite follow.
"Which wheel?" asked Bryennius. who came in and
sat on his heels beside her.
"The Wheel of Time, to which-these pagans say comall
men are bound. You gained great merit when you allowed the
guides to rescue the tulku."
"All you priests look out for one another,"
Bryennius commented. "Why is this particular priest
so precious?"
Alexandra opened her mouth, then closed it. Just as
well not to share her suspicions about his identity with
Bryennius.
"He is a tulku," explained the Nestorian,
"that is, almost a saint, reborn generation after generation
to bring enlightenment to the world. There are many such. Her
Highness and I met one, in fact. But this is one
of the greatest."
Heavy footfalls came up behind them, and the fire
blazed as Haraldr doled out fuel. It would have to be
rationed strictly, Alexandra thought.
"How safe are we here?" she asked him.
Haraldr's face was somber. Alexandra braced
herself to endure his report.
"There's no way to tell you this gently, my
princess. A storm has blown up."
The day had been clear.
"You think it may be sorcery?"
"Lady, if we were in my home, I would swear that
some volva, some witch, pursued us. As it is, I
can only suggest that we wait it out. A spring flows
through these caves. If we had food enough, we could
last out a three-year siege. Unless the statues can
overrun us."
When she looked at Bryennius, he shrugged.
Clearly he had expected no better.
"What I want to know is this: What is this veritable
bishop among lamas doing wandering about outside his
home?" Bryennius tried desperately to change
the subject.
Susan Shwartit
"He is trying to
go
home," Alexandra said. "He if searching for the way
back, the way back to Shambhala. bar from
Father Basil looked down into the reviving
fire. "I dc not think he will find it. I examined
his wounds whet they brought him in. The tulku is
dying."
"No!" Alexandra hissed it, and sprang to her
feet "Not this time! Not to be so close and miss him
again!"!
"He may linger for several days," the priest saidf
"Long enough, at least, to speak with you. He has
askec that you attend him."
"Then let me go to him. Now!"
Father Basil patted her shoulder and handed her more" of
that damnable tea. Though Alexandra suspected that it
was made not with the butter of yaks, but with their]
excrement, she drank it down for its warmth. Then
she I swilled out her eyes at the spring Haraldr
had pointed! out. It was ice-cold. She followed
him to where guides! and soldiers alike were quartered.
Those who were not bar on watch slept or gamed
quietly, weapons tended and j near to hand. Two
of the men from Tibet had kindled! small lamps before
the more horrific of the wall paint-1 ings.
Alexandra wrinkled her nose at the smell of
burn-1 ing butter.
Deeper and deeper into the caves she followed
Haraldr. This fortress . . . once it
must have housed hundreds of industrious monks, all
busily chanting and, painting.
I
Light shone from a passage leading to the right. From it
emerged Lesh-i. Waving Haraldr aside, he
bowed deeply to Alexandra, then led her within.
The tulku was very old. His bare arms seemed no more
than sinew and bronzed skin covering thin bone. His
hair was thin, shorn against his skull, and his face was
a mask of wrinkles that curved down to a thin mouth that
seemed, despite pain, to harbor a warm smile.
Though blood seeped through the bandages that wrapped his
side, when Alexandra entered, he sat up and
raised a hand in greeting and blessing. His other hand
rested on a dented brass wheel that spun and
rattled

continually. But his eyes . . . his eyes were very wise,
and very familiar. With his face cleaned of blood and
dirt, there was no mistaking that visage.
"My daughter," said the lama.
It seemed natural for Alexandra to kneel at his
feet.
"You are Rudra Cakrin," she whispered. "The
King of Shambhala. I have longed to speak
with you."
The old man nodded. "Once I am reborn, 1
will be the man you name. But before that, I had to speak with
you. You have much to learn before 1 die."
Alexandra stared at the man whom she had seen before as
babe, youth, and corpse. still
endured hardships, just as the abbot warned me. I have
weathered every strong. emotion . . . or almost. And now
I have found you. Where is my power? Will you give it
to mel
Behind the wounded man, two of her guides set out a
narrow drum, a horn made of what looked like a
thigh bone, a blunt dagger, and an array of
dishes, each of which contained a red, green, or white
powder.
The lama turned to dismiss them, then gasped as his
movement strained his wounds. The bloodstains on the
wrappings around his belly grew wider and darker.
Magic forgotten, Alexandra reached out to add more
bandages before she recalled that he, like some monks or
the holy men of Hind, might abhor being touched by a
woman. "I do have some skill," she murmured.
Rudra Cakrin shook his head at her. "This will
serve long enough."
279
Their eyes met, and Alexandra tried to suppress
an incongruous urge to laugh. She was a
princess; this was her caravan; and she had, after a
fashion, rescued him. But he looked at her as
if she were a student he had summoned-and a tardy one
at that. Around them rose the clash and hoot of
Tibetan chants, each man sustaining three
notes at once.
The stare continued. Finally, they both chuckled
simultaneously, then inclined their heads in such a
stately fashion that they laughed again. The lama
pressed one hand to his side but waved off an offer
of help.
Alexandra could well believe he was a king; he had
the manner of one, and a warmth that could win hearts and
minds quickly and forever. Her brother had had that manner
before their aunt Theodora's curse had beset him.
Alexandra clapped her hands, and one of the guides
(whose awestruck gaze told her that he had already
been won over) knelt with more of the ghastly tea.
"Serve my guest first," Alexandra commanded in
halting Tibetan. The lama smiled again.
They sipped the thick brew silently. Then the
lama set his bowl aside.
"So, what is it you have found?" he asked,
a grandsire telling a riddle to a child, an adept
training his disciple.
Alexandra drank more tea. She seemed to be
getting used to it. What had she found? Did he
mean the silkworms, peace of mind, a safe road
home-or journey's end right here and now? The enigma
resolved itself in a moment, and she matched his smile.
"I have the silkworms I claimed I sought," she
told him. "But what I truly sought was the
journey. And if I am spared to return home,
I shall cherish its memory for the rest of my life."
"Are you content?" It sounded like contradiction.
Behind the lama swelled the chant. From
mani padme hum. "I
should be," she said. She had never desired to forsake
the world. In Byzantium it had forsaken her,
Susan Shwartl
having in it no place for a spare princess whose
skills! were smuggling, arms, and some minor magics.
Here shel had found a world of her own, a wealth of
knowledgel and emotions. Gazing into the dying man's
eyes, AlexanJust dra tried to say she was content,
that she had found what right-brace she sought, and what
she loved most.
But she could not lie to him.
He smiled a smile that belonged either to children orf the
ancient and saintly. Then, deliberately, he
cleared aj flat place before him and reached for a
saucer of gleam-1 ing white powder. As she
watched, he sprinkled threel white circles, then
cut the outer two into eight sections bar ,ch. Then
he looked up, as if waiting for her to ask what I
he did.
"What do you know of Shambhala?" He asked her.
"It is a hidden, peaceful land," Alexandra
began.
"It is more," said the lama. He began almost to sing..
His voice was as clear as spring rain dripping
into a] garden pool, flowing over rounded rocks,
natural, time-were' less, and simple to comprehend.
Though he sang inj Tibetan, Alexandra found
herself able to follow every word about the gardens and the palaces
that awaited.
Yet it seemed natural that Father Basil knelt
at her side and murmured a translation in
Greek, more natural yet when his translation
changed into holy words that she shared with him. "The city
was of pure gold, crystal-clear. The foundation of the
city walls was ornate with precious stones of every
sort..."
"Between the mountains, locked in by snow, lies
Shambhala." Its ruler continued the song that
Alexandra had first heard years ago in the
Pamirs. "When this age of darkness turns so
wicked that the Way is lost, and war devours the world,
then shall Shambhala ride forth to battle . . ."
Harsh coughing broke in on his chant. This time,
blood oozed not only from his side but from his mouth.
Leshi darted forward, eased him down onto a
pallet, and poured more tea.
He needed rest, Alexandra thought, more than he
i caret ppppfl caret -.
silk roads and shadows281
needed to teach a disciple as unlikely as herself. She
rose to leave. "Come back . . . later." His
voice was almost a death
rattle.
Escorted by Bryennius, Alexandra walked back
toward the central hall where her Guard assembled.
"The bandits have returned," one of the Varangians
reported.
"Even despite the storm?" she asked.
"Even so. I counted their fires. They could starve us
out."
"What do you suggest?" Alexandra asked.
"We have to break out," Bryennius spoke first. "The
timing is the worst risk: We must avoid the
storm, yet not wait so long that our food gives out
or the statues reach us ... though that, at least, would
eliminate the problem of bandits."
Bryennius was right. Soon the statues would tramp
through the plateau and find the winding path to this fortress.
It seemed ludicrous, however, to hope for their coming.
"Do you think we can take the bandits?" Alexandra
asked.
Arinbjorn, the guardsman who had spoken earlier,
laughed. She knew that he would fight like ten devils
as long as she lived and then, probably, leap with a
yell from the nearest cliff.
"There is another problem," Alexandra pointed out.
"The . . . lama. I doubt that he'll ever be fit
to travel. But our guides won't leave him
until he dies."
The soldiers looked at her, and she sighed. It would
be her duty to go back and reason with the King of
Shambhala. She turned on her heel and started
back through the painted caves, echoing to the ancient
chants raised by her guides.
Rudra Cakrin had not rested. Inside the
circles of white powder lay other
colors. Now they truly resembled
Susan Shwartz
mountains that embraced a city that shone in powders
crushed from malachite, cinnabar, and lapis.
Though the dying man's hand shook, he reached forward
to place dry wood, saffron, and incense at the
pattern's heart. "That is for the king," he whispered.
"To help me on my way."
It looked like a tiny pyre.
"Tomorrow you must go. When you do, I shall make
sacrifice to thank you for your teaching."
"My
teaching?"
"Indeed, my daughter. Never, in all my lives,
did I dream I would have a student who was not brought
up in the Way, yet who followed it unaware. You
have sought me faithfully. Your people have tended me as if
I were their own father. I must bear this lesson to my people.
Remember me, child of mine."
Alexandra shook her head to clear her eyes of the
tears that threatened.
"Please," she whispered, her voice breaking. "I
have sought you so long . . . you cannot leave me like this.
Tell me, at least, not to despair."
The lama looked up, his eyes flashing.
"I tell you no such thing! You know the Diamond
Path: not to abjure emotion but to wield it. All
emotions, not just the ones you call good or bad.
Take them, and use them. And at the moment of your
greatest need, your "despair" as you call it,
think of Shambhala."
Rudra Cakrin's head slipped sideways, and
Alexandra threw herself forward to catch him. But he
had only fallen into the fitful sleep of the dying, which
comes more and more often until they cease to wake or
breathe.
What of the powers that the abbot had said she might gain
from him? She needed them to protect herself and those who were
hers. She had hoped for magic, and he had given
her only riddles and maxims. Could they teach her
anything at all? One thing was certain; she would learn
no more from him tonight-and tomorrow she must flee. Before then, she
must understand what it was that he had said.
silk roads and shadows

Fearing to disturb the mandala he built with his last
strength, she rose carefully. "I shall see him before
I leave," she whispered to the guides. "I shall not
ask you to abandon him. But I must have at least one
guide. Choose whom you will send. You
heard the holy man. We must be ready by dawn."
She left the cave, where the fires were burning down
and the chant had fallen silent, and stood outside,
unwilling to go back and face the hopeful faces of
her people with nothing more than the riddling words she had
heard. She would have to return soon. There were plans
to be made, supplies to check, the precious,
awkward bundles of hollow canes to be loaded
on each pack animal so that if only one of them
should win through, her City would get the silkworms that
would restore it to health and power.
Voices rose and fell. After a long time, there were
footsteps, and she tensed, her hand reaching for her
sword.
"It is Arinbjorn, my princess," said the
Varangian.
Alexandra looked closely at the guardsman.
Now that she remembered, he had reported to her before,
too.
"Where is Haraldr?" she asked.
Arinbjorn looked aside, then forced himself to meet
her eyes.
"Is he ill?" Oh, God, not Haraldr, she
thought. From Byzantium across the mountains and desert,
he had always seemed the one stable thing, the one
man she could trust above all others.
"He is not . . . ill. But I fear he is
feigr."
The guardsman touched the hammer that hung about his
neck against that ill luck that even speaking the word
might bring. A man who was feigr was fated to die,
the Rus thought. Whether or not it were true, they
believed it. If Haraldr thought he was doomed, then
all that magnificent will and endurance of his would turn
toward what seemed his inevitable death.
"Take me to him," Alexandra ordered.
Arinbjorn led almost at a run through the drafty
caves
Susan Shwartzi
to a tiny fire where Haraldr sat cross-legged,
arms propped on his knees, his head with its matted
fair braids resting on his hands. Surely after this
long, he" knew her footsteps. But he did not
rise at her approach. He did not even move.
"Leave us," Alexandra ordered Arinbjorn. "And
tell no one."
Then she sat down beside Haraldr, waiting for him
to speak. For years, she had leaned on his strength,
used him as shield and bodyguard until now he was
as dear to her, as necessary to her, as Bryennius
or her brother. Why would he not speak? Every moment was
precious!
When the silence became more than her strength could bear,
she laid a hand on his shoulder. A tremor ran
through his body. The touch made him look up, and she
almost shrank from the expression on his face.
Haraldr's eyes were haunted by his conviction of
impending death and shame.
"Arinbjorn should not have brought you. I wanted to spare
you the sight of me like this. Forgive me, Highness. I
have failed you, failed my oath. But it is
Ragnarok. All things fade and wither, while
outside the frost giants gather, waiting to devour
us. I am ashamed, but I cannot face it."
A gout of rage warmed her as he spoke.
"Do you truly think I have come to charge you with breaking
your oath?" she demanded. "I would never call you a
coward, Haraldr, And until tonight, I never thought
I would cail you a fool."
His gaunt face looked puzzled.
"Arinbjorn came to me because he hoped that I could
move you where he failed. And I came . . ."
She was on her knees, trying to shake him. It was like
trying to move one of the peaks that circled
Shambhala, she thought. He was so solid,
and so ... so stubborn. So damned, imbecilically
stubborn that he might die merely because he mistook
honest fear for the notion that fate had marked him for
death.
Was the power Haraldr called Wyrd any stranger
than the karma they spoke of in Child "M

a voice whispered inside her head. Frantically
she shook off the thought. She needed all her confidence
to reclaim her officer.
His hands came up and cupped her shoulders, holding
her immobile.
"You, my princess. Why did you come?"
"Do you think I want to go home without you?" she
demanded, her breath coming fast. "That's like asking if
I want my swordhand hacked from my arm.
Haraldr, I need you!"
He had always responded to that need. His hands shifted
on her shoulders. Then, the nature of her need
changed with such speed and intensity that she gasped
aloud. Her thoughts flashed back to a garden, now ash
and rubble, in Ch'ang-an, and a book that had struck
her shamed and restless, unable to speak to the prince who
had given it to her, or to meet Haraldr's eyes
thereafter. She had flushed and lied to him,
stirred by his presence in a way she refused
to admit. The prince had tried to arouse her-and had
done so. But not for him.
Now she swayed in Haraldr's grasp. His strength
and warmth forced her to recall the passionately entwined
figures in that licentious, exquisite little book.
How could people touch so? she had wondered at the time.
How could they resist? she asked herself as he bent
closer.
"My princess, are you truly so desperate that you
would give yourself to me to pretend we have a chance at
life?"
"Don't
be
that way!" she wailed softly. Though his hands loosed
their clasp, they still rested on her shoulders. He
smelled of dirt, and sweat, and something else that
left her breathless.
The Diamond Path was built on strong emotion,
Rudra Cakrin had told her. Desire, her
body's need for the man who held her, stunned her in
the instant that she recognized it. Passion washed
over her in a flood that left her dinging to him, her
face pressed against his shoulder, She could have stayed that
way for hours, listening
Susan
Shwartz
to his heartbeat, but he raised her chin in long,
hardened fingers.
Their faces were so close together that his breath warmed her
face.
"Stay with me, Haraldr."
He traced the path of a tear down her cheek. His
eyes were wide with wonder.
"At least that will leave a clean streak," she
muttered, and felt a chuckle rumble through his deep
chest.
"You have always been the shield at my back," she
murmured. "Tomorrow, too, you will guard me. But, my
friend, must it always be fighting?"
"My princess," he whispered. "My little
princess." His big hands drew her firmly against
him, and she flung her arms about his neck.
"You have called me Alexandra before," she told him.
"Why should you fear to use my name now?"
"It's not your name I fear to use," he told her.
"My . . . Alexandra, I have dreamed of you,
longed for you to give me what you should not give."
"Who says I should not give myself?" she asked,
trembling with amazement and delight at the
passion that made her voice husky. "When I
left the convent, it was forever. Even if we have only
one night, Haraldr, I want it. Keep me with
you."
One hand pressed against her back, while the other
twined itself in her hair. "So fine and dark. It was like
silk in Ch'ang-an," he said. "You were lovely,
but he was always with you,-always watching you."
"And you were jealous?" The possibility came as
pure joy to her.
"Gods! I ached for you . . ."
"He never touched me," she told him. "I never
wanted anyone until now."
Carefully, Haraldr bent his head and laid his
lips against hers. They were roughened, cracked from the
cold, but their touch woke a fire in her blood, and
her own lips parted. As their kiss deepened,
Haraldr fumbled open her clothing and fondled her with
such care

that she knew he had imagined touching her a thousand
times.
Then he released her. As the cold air brushed her
nakedness, she whimpered.
"Alexandra . . . dear heart. You're
certain of this?"
She was cold now, and his body against hers would be
warm. She reached for him, to draw him down beside her.
He glanced about warily. "Anyone might come here,"
he said. Hastily he tugged her garments closed and
wrapped her in the furs of his bedroll. Lifting
her, he strode deeper into the stronghold. At a
sheltered corner, he set her down. Alexandra
watched him, her eyes wide, her lips parted, as
he undressed first herself, then himself. His hands were
eager but very sure, and he waited until she
pressed against him before he moved carefully above her.
In Byzantium, they would call this a sin, she thought
wildly. But in these lands they made love into an
art, and they were right. She wanted to say that
to Haraldr, but his mouth came down on hers
ruthlessly. Some miracle of desire taught her
to slide her hands down his sides to his hips,
to move so he might kiss her bre'asts, and, when his
hands parted her thighs, to arch her back to receive him.
Hardy from months of riding, she did not feel the
pain that women always warned younger women to expect, the
first time. Instinctively she tightened her legs about
him, welcoming him.
"My princess." It was almost a growl of
triumph. Then he whispered her name over and over,
and she clutched his shoulders as the tremors shuddered
over her like an avalanche. But this time, she was not
left alone and afraid. Once again, Haraldr was
with her, holding her as waves of feeling swept them
over the edge of consciousness. They were floating in each
other's arms, drifting in the dizzying pure air of the
high passes. Power seemed to flow from the air into their
bodies. Fair and fail, dark and tiny, the
warrior and thinker: each complemented the other, and they were
one.
Susan
Shwartz
Alexandra squeezed her eyes shut. Lights
exploded I behind them, and she seemed to see a
circle of shimmer! ing reds and greens draw nearer
and nearer. The vision formed into a city with a palace at
its heart. And in it sat the king she had searched for,
restored to youth and health. He was aware of her, and
he nodded recognition, be even joy, before he
turned his attention to the mandala before him, adding color
and strength and richness to it. Power seemed to sweep out
from it, enveloping her, moving beyond her to embrace the
entire valley. With so little a thing as a gesture,
he held back his enemies-and be hers.
She was so close to understanding now! One more moment, and
she would possess more strength, more joy, than she had
ever dreamed existed.
Alexandra gasped with delight. Then she was back in
her body again, rubbing her face against the hair on,
Haraldr's chest, listening as his powerful heartbeat
slowed. She laughed briefly, and felt his hands
smooth her hair.
She rubbed her face against him again, then looked up.
"I'm glad," she said simply, and raised her
face for his kiss. There had been power here; she
knew that now, but it had not been for power that she had
given herself. Her last thought, before sleep claimed
her as deeply as her lover, was that she had fled a
Prankish royal bed, only to find herself wrapped
in sheepskins and the embrace of a man from the North.

The clash of prayers brought her laughing up out of a
dream full of peace and wonder. She lay alone,
warmly wrapped, and her body felt very light.
Haraldr sat beside her, and the shadow that had lain on
him was gone. He was armed for battle, axe at his
back, the horn of Shambhala dangling from its
frayed silk cord.
"Did you watch over me all night?" she
asked, smiling warmly.
"Not all of it," he said, and touched her cheek. "The
old lama . . . the king ... he has asked to see
you."
:
caret caret fc
"caret fi"
caret
silk roads and shadows

She leaped up, exulting in the way Haraldr's
eyes followed her, and tugged on her tumbled
clothing.
"It is a pity to hide you," he said. For an
instant, he held her against him, and her body tingled
with response. Then they released one another.
Alexandra headed down the passage to where the horns
and rat-tiings were loudest, and he followed her.
The old lama sat hunched over his mandala, as if
he willed himself into its center. Little showed of the
splendor that she and Haraldr, united, had seen the
night before. His skin was yellowed and drawn, with
bluish shadows about the mouth. Death could be no more than
hours away-if it did not come in the next moment.
Alexandra knelt, hoping that his death was not
so near that he would no longer recognize her.
"You have your talismans, do you not?" he asked.
She nodded. "Sword, and bell, flowers and gem."
She even had the rock that was her legacy from Prince
Li Shou. Everything but the crown of the adept.
"I will hold your enemies at bay for you as long as
I can. When I can fight no longer . . . again, I
will not say, "Do not despair." Instead, I will
tell you this: use all that lies within yourself. At the
moment of your deepest anguish, think of me and
Shambhala."
Alexandra bowed her head.
"Your guides ... I have no need of them. They will
go with you." Relieved of his care, they bowed before her,
and she gestured them out of the cave.
The dying man shuddered. Quickly he reached into the tiny
fire burning near him, and plucked out a twig, then
kindled the sandalwood in the center of the manda-to a. The
wood scattered pungent bronze sparks in the still
air.
"Now go!" he whispered. "With my blessings, and my
hope."
Alexandra strode to the great central hall where the
rest awaited her. They were armed and ready to flee or
Susan
Shwartz*
turn and fight. It occurred to her that they must know how
she spent the night, but she saw no grins, no"
knowing looks, only joy, as if the power that had
brought her and her lover together had somehow encompassed
them in its embrace of the entire valley.
Bryennius walked toward her. The darkness that had
haunted him was gone, and he smiled with his old
jauntiness.
"You must see this, Alexandra," he said, and drew
her to the gate.
She braced herself to bear the sight of bandits blocking
their escape, waiting over fires until hunger
should drive their quarry out to them. But the ground before the
fortress was white and smooth. Snow had fallen
during the night, hiding blood, flames, and the charred
bodies of the men who had died yesterday.
"I thought they would come back," she said. Her breath
froze in front of her face.
"Perhaps they did. Look beyond," said Bryennius, and
gestured.
Beyond the expanse of virgin snow stood a host of
warriors such as the ones that had pursued them. The
scales of their armor were cracked and chipped, their
weapons battered and bent. Many of the
terracotta warriors lacked a hand, an arm, or
parts of a shoulder or hip. Fresh snow helmed each
of them. The First Emperor's warriors stood
arrayed in semicircles before them. If
Alexandra's people were to escape this place, they could
only do so by passing through the ranks of their most
relentless enemy.
For a long moment she stared at the creatures that had
pursued her. Experimentally, she started forward. They
did not move.
"I knew it!" exulted Father Basil. "We've
passed beyond Ch'in's frontier, and they cannot follow
us!"
It might be true that beyond his realm's vast borders,
the First Emperor's power dissipated and his creatures
stood helpless. But the lama had said he held her
enemies at bay, and Alexandra believed him.

"Well," Alexandra said, drawing a shaky breath,
"let us move before the day passes."
Steadily, carefully, they led their yaks down the
slope to the track they must follow. Snow churned
up in powdery drifts about the huge beasts, frosting
them with white. Their footsteps crackled and hissed
in the dry snow; there was no jangle of
harness, no shout of orders as their column narrowed
to pass between the ranks of the lifeless statues.
"Don't look at their eyes," Bryennius
whispered to Siddiqa, who trudged at his side.
Now they walked through the middle of the host. A faint
wind began to stir, brushing at the snow helms that
each statue now wore. They seemed almost to creak
with a terrible eagerness to break free of whatever held
them motionless. Alexandra dared look one in the
face, and saw a hatred made doubly frightful by its
mindlessness.
They had only five files of the clay warriors
to pass through . . . four now ... in a moment they would
be beyond them and could run toward the defile that led to the
south. Perhaps they should start a rockslide to block the
path to any enemy who might dare it.
Abruptly a cloud passed over the sun, and
turned it the color of a tarnished coin. Overhead,
the sky darkened further. Out of nowhere appeared a
huge black bird which flew over them, shrieking.
The timbre of that shriek chilled Alexandra's
blood. She had heard it before, a cry of insatiable
hunger. Only that time, it had torn from a human
throat.
Her aunt Theodora had cursed her when
she fled Byzantium. That laughter had pursued
her halfway across Asia. And now, as they
returned, and the other powers that oppressed them waned,
hers grew strong once again.
That laughter . . . the night of the avalanche,
Alexandra had sensed that she laughed then too.
"No . . ." she breathed. Now the wind sounded like the
last feeble breath of a dying man, and she shuddered.
So did the First Emperor's deathless army.
Susan
Shwartz
The guides screamed, pointed, and ran ahead.
"They're freed!" shouted Bryennius. "Run for
those spires up ahead!"
Grasping the harness of the nearest pack animal which
bore wrapped bundles of cane, Alexandra
plunged forward. She slipped in the snow, recovered
herself, and tugged on the beast's reins. Behind her came
Father Basil. He dropped one hand long enough
to cross himself in memory of the dead lama.
She broke into a stumbling run that sent icy
knives into her throat and lungs. It was perilous
to run in these heights, even more perilous to lag behind.
She could endure for just a moment longer. Haraldr
seized her arm and half dragged her along
beside him.
Leshi, who had already run between the rock spires,
looked up. Then he shrieked and waved his arms to bar
their way.
"We can't stop!" she screamed.
But the clatter of rocks, high overhead, silenced
her. Ice splintered free of the peaks, and began
to fall upon them like a rain of daggers. Boulders
ground against the rocks, and earth that had imprisoned
them for centuries tore loose and clattered down
toward them, gouging out other rocks that followed. Though
it seemed that the ice and rocks took forever to shake
free, Leshi had only time for that one scream before the
slide toppled a huge boulder down the slope,
into the air, to smash him against the opposing rock
wall.
Escape south was blocked.
"Take what you can, and climb!" Bryennius
shouted. Using a bundle of canes as a lever,
Alexandra forced herself up the newly fallen
boulders. Rocks and ice slid beneath her feet, and
threatened to hurl her sprawling. Gasps and cries
beside and behind her let her know that the others too tried
to cross the rockfall Theodora had caused.
It shuddered beneath them and threatened to cast them
down. Finally they had to stop.
"Once the tremors subside ..." was on
everyone's
f
  "4i
silk roads and shadows

bleeding lips. They sagged down onto the frozen
ground or leaned on packs and weapons. Once the
rocks settled, they would try to walk out.
Again huge wings cast a black shadow overhead, and the
shriek Alexandra dreaded rang out. The bird
circled three times, descending lower and lower as it
flew over the silent gray statues that ringed the
plain.
Once again the bird cried, as if in summons. Very
slowly the soldiers of the First Emperor stirred.
They stepped forward, halted as if reluctant
to serve a new master, then began heavily to advance.
Their terrible stone eyes glittered with hatred and
renewed power.
The statue advancing on Alexandra was an officer.
Though river, desert, and mountain had scored its
face, gouged into the folds of its robe, and chipped
away at its right hand, the left still clutched
its bronze spear. Slowly the statue raised its
weapon and brandished it.
"Get back!" Haraldr and Arinbjorn hurled
themselves between her and the statues, backing her into a crack
in the rock.
f
"Keep Her Highness safe!" Haraldr shouted at
Arinbjorn.
With their bodies protecting her, she would be the last
to die, trampled once they fell to the warriors who
now belonged not to the First Emperor of Ch'in, but to the
sorceress Theodora.
"No!" Alexandra cried.
Haraldr whirled to face her, his blue eyes
anguished.
"Don't make me die alone," she asked. Even
if she escaped, what chance would she have in these moun-
com**.
comiMteliThat
%**less-than be
silk roads and shadows

tains, alone, without supplies besides the silkworms
she could carry on her back?
"Use the rocks!" Bryennius screamed.
He turned to the rockslide, scooped up a
head-sized boulder, and hurled it.
The rock smashed against the topknot of a spearsman.
The head shattered, the statue toppled, and the
men-at-arms cheered hoarsely.
"We
can
stop them," Bryennius cried. "Come on!" His
hands full of rocks, he ran forward.
"No!" Siddiqa's shriek of protest followed
him long before anyone else started forward.
Another spearsman moved forward, a horrible,
awkward deliberation in its chipped limbs. It
raised its spear and hurled it. Sharp sunlight
glinted on the bronze, and it flew like a violent
leaf in the instant before it slashed into Bryennius'
throat. Blood spurted from the wound, impossibly
red, steaming in the cold, thin air, and Alexandra's
cousin pitched forward onto his face. Siddiqa
shrieked again, an agonized, thin sound. She ran
forward and hurled herself across Bryennius. As the
spearsman advanced, she raised a tiny hand that
held a jeweled dagger to prevent the figure from
trampling her lover's body.
Even as Alexandra cried, "Save yourself,
sister!" the statue's heavy arm clubbed the Uighur
girl between neck and shoulder, and she dropped like a
flower with a snapped stem.
Tears froze on Alexandra's face. She
clawed at the rocks, passing them to soldiers who
could hurl them at the oncoming statues. Beside her,
Haraldr grunted as he pried loose a huge
stone, flung it into the path of two more warriors, then
bent for another.
Father Basil, his lips pale, murmured prayers
as he pried rocks free and passed them to the
soldiers.
They had dared to hope that beyond the borders of Ch'in, the
First Emperor's strength would wane, and the statues
lose their power. So they had. But as the First
Emperor's power withdrew, another power had reached
,ment
Susan
Shwartza
out. Finding the clay warriors masterless, Theodora
hadj seized them for herself. Now that she could control the!
lifeless, insatiable warriors, she would march them
west across the mountains.
They could storm Byzantium, and all the cities
of the West. A spasm of horror shook
Alexandra and made her drop a stone reddened by her
torn fingers. She had tried
backslash
to bring life to her City. Instead, she had loosed
upon it an army that no city could withstand. She swore and
rolled the stone on to a man who could use it.
"Get one of the guides. You, man! Take the
princess, and you, you, and you . . . get over that
rockslide if you be have to fly!"
So Haraldr was still trying to rescue her, whether she
wanted to be rescued or not. He had his axe out
now. In an instant, he would charge the statues.
It was an instant he didn't have. Clambering above
his head on the unstable footing that was the best that the
rockslide gave them, a guide stumbled and fell
with a shrill cry. His fall set off a second
slide. Boulders caromed off boulders. One
bounced, and struck the Varangian on the side of the
head and he fell.
Alexandra tore free of the soldier who tried
to urge her up the treacherous slope, and ran
to Haraldr's side. She wanted to scream and fling
herself across her lover's body as Siddiqa had done,
waiting for pain and blackness. But as long as her mind
could hatch one more plot, come up with one more
gambit that might buy them time, she refused id
give up.
Now she stood over him. His axe had fallen from his
hand, but she knew she could not lift it. She sought for a
weapon-a rock, a knife, anything-and remembered
the prince's gift to her: polished stone, apt to the
hand. She fumbled in her tunic for it. What she
pulled out instead was the gem she had taken off a dead
man's body in Turpan. It was dull, lifeless
now, but it was hard and would be easy to throw.
Haraldr's body jerked as he tried to rise. His
head, with its blood-matted beard, lolled to one
side. "The
*"* .
be*
*
**i

silk roads and shadows
horn ..." Words bubbled out with the blood. Then his
eyes shut again.
Where was the horn he had carried since fighting a
demon in the Pamirs, the horn carved of some bone,
and marked with sacred signs of Shambhala? The
cord holding it had snapped . . . there it
was, a little in front of her.
But if Alexandra retrieved it, she would be right in
the statues' line of march. They could trample her.
What difference did it make if she fell to them
sooner or later? Haraldr had asked for the horn,
and he should have it. She darted forward and bent to pick it
up. The cries about her had diminished, and she
realized how few of her people remained alive.
It was time for her to die, too. Her life flashed
through her mind: years of learning, and then these past
years full of fear and adventure and brilliance.
She hated to have it end. Then despair, more powerful
even than the lust she'd known last night, drowned out
her anger. The statues drew closer, sure, now,
of their quarry.
At least
try
to defend yourself, fool, she told herself. The gem
felt smooth and cool in her hand as she flung it
at the statue nearest her. Her aim was good.
When all hope fails, think of me. Think of
Shambhala.
As the white gemstone arced across the sky, Alexandra
remembered Rudra Cakrin's parting words to her.
She raised the horn of Shambhala to her
lips and blew.
The horn made no sound. She blew harder,
until her chest ached with the effort to force the thin mountain
air from her lungs into the horn. Now she sensed the
prickle of nerves and unnameable senses that had always
been the horn's summoning call. But no sound.
She coughed, and blood stained the horn. She shook
it empty, then drew breath for the last try she would have
strength to make. At least, she thought, reeling, she
would faint and never feel the stone warriors stamp the
life from her.
She drew more breath than she had ever done before.
Blood suffused her vision, made her temples
throb, and her heart beat almost to bursting.
i
f
t*
, com8@l
"S!,
Susan Shwanm
Sound belled out across the sky. Then the gem struck!
the stone warrior full in the chest, and the statue;
shattered, bursting into flame as the power contained in the
gem was released.
Still the echo of Alexandra's last horn
call rang out, forming chords as it reverberated against
cliff and peak, like the chanting in some ritual of
Asian magic. The clamor was overwhelming.
Alexandra sank to her knees. She had mastered
despair enough to act. Now she waited either to live or
to die.
Beneath her, rock and earth trembled as if battered
by many hooves. The air quivered as the light
splintered into the sort of rainbow brilliance that had
dwelt at the heart of her white gem and formed into an
incandescent mandala pattern. It gleamed like the
mosaics in the Church of Holy Wisdom itself.
Then the hoofbeats she had sensed echoing through the rock
grew louder. The mandala burst asunder. Through it
rode the hosts of Shambhala.
Their steeds pawed the glistening clouds and fragmented,
rainbow light, and arched magnificent heads on which
manes waved like wildfire. Riding ahead of the
others, on a horse whose glossy coat gleamed
indigo, came a young man with long eyes and amber
skin, and a face that Alexandra had seen in all
stages from infant to corpse. He saluted her with a
wave of his hand, a touch to lips and brow.
Then his army rode down from the sky to charge the
now-burning warriors. They raised
swords much like the one Alexandra herself bore against the
statues and charged into their ranks. Each time a
warrior touched one of the statues with his sword, the
statue shattered. Its fragments coalesced into a
shining figure, pure light, pure fire, that leaped
out at all the other statues and ignited them. In a
very little while, pillars of light blossomed where
Alexandra's enemies had been. The light was so
strong that she squeezed her eyes shut. Perhaps, she
thought, it would be a pyre for her friends as well.
silk roads and shadows
Gradually, the terrible brilliance subsided. When
Alexandra dared to look up again, she saw the
statues crumble into dust. Sudden winds whipped up
out of the mandala, fragrant with the air of the gardens of
Shambhala, and blew the ancient powder away.
She heard a wail of rage and frustration, and
thanked a power she had no heart to name.
Now the troop of Shambhala rode toward her, and the
ground glowed beneath the hooves of their horses. Then the
warriors of Rudra Cakrin reined to a stop.
Alexandra forced herself to her feet. She flung out a
hand blindly, and felt something warm: the flank of
Rudra Cakrin's horse.
Alexandra drew her own sword and
presented it to him. He touched its hilt, then pushed
it back toward her. She was aware of strength at her
back and knew, without having to turn, that somehow, against
all hope, Haraldr not only lived, but had
managed to rise to greet these new allies.
"You called us," said the king. "I hope we have
served you well."
Ceremoniously, Alexandra inclined her head. Then
she smiled.
"Will you ride with us?"
Warriors in armor and robes such as she had seen in
the hidden caves of Dunhuang rode forward,-each
leading a horse. All about her, the men who had
survived the last battle with the First Emperor's
warriors were rising. At a gesture from Haraldr,
each moved to stand beside one of the horses. The least of
them was so fine that it made the horses of Ferghana,
the pride of an Emperor, look like battered
wrecks.
"There may be others whose spirits are strong enough to make the
journey," said the king. "They are yours as well. Shall
I ask them?"
Bemused, Alexandra nodded. Rudra Cakrin
raised a hand, and the air quivered, grew taut, then
rang like a temple gong. As the sound
reverberated and combined, then died away, other
figures rose from the ground.
k
**
,f
Susan
Shwartz--
Blood had dried on the throat of one young man with
dark hair and a grin that looked wise now, instead of
* careless. He brushed the dark gouts away,
wiped his hand, then offered it to the tiny, fine-featured
woman beside him. When horses were brought them, he
thanked the men who brought them in careful,
aristocratic Greek, and lifted his love into the
saddle before swinging up behind her.
"Bryennius!" Alexandra whispered, and crossed
herself. Nothing happened-no wail, no puff of
brimstone, no fiends turned upside down and
flying into the air. She supposed she was not
surprised.
"He wants to live. As much as you do, he wants
to live, and has earned another chance. Ride with us,
Princess, to Shambhala and beyond!"
Horses were brought to Alexandra and her guardsman.
Haraldr knelt and cupped his hands, as if
waiting to throw her up into the saddle. But Rudra
Cakrin himself dismounted. Taking the reins of the horse
meant for her, he backed the animal expertly
until it stood before her. Then the beast bent one
foreleg, and extended the other, and the great horse
knelt until Alexandra could mount without assistance.
"My silkworms!" she remembered.
"They are safe," said Rudra Cakrin.
Alexandra glanced behind her. A wide bundle that
she knew concealed hollow staffs lay strapped behind
her, and behind each one of her people. She bowed again, in
acceptance.
"You have endured and mastered danger and the greater, because more
hidden, dangers of your emotions . . . Finally you
conquered even despair and dared to summon us, long
before the Wheel turned and we were destined to ride forth."
The tears Alexandra would not shed before leaped once again
to her eyes. Trembling, she made her plea for her
City, for the need that had sent her out on the silk
roads, for its continuing danger as long as that
frustrated necromancer raged through its streets.
greater-than *"
silk roads and shadows
3O1
"I saved my brother and his heir once,"
she concluded. "I hope that they still live. I pray
that they do." Her voice broke, and Haraldr rode
closer to comfort her. His arm on her shoulders felt
warm, but she forced herself to slide free of it.
"Do you dare to ask our aid for outsiders, those not of
our faith, who have never set foot on the Diamond
Path?" Rudra Cakrin asked.
Another test? Alexandra stiffened. Yet his words
had the tone of ritual, not of challenge. "Yes,"
she said. "I do dare. 1 summoned you to ask your
aid. By the challenges I have met, I demand it!"
"Ride with me," said Rudra Cakrin. was
"Seek, and you shall find. Ask, and it shall be given
unto you.""
Alexandra gasped. Behind her came delighted
laughter. "I knew it!" exulted Father Basil.
"I always knew it. "The Way has no constant
name, nor the Sage a constant form.""
For once, she had no heart to defend Orthodoxy.
That argument had been lost long ago.
"We ride home!" cried Rudra Cakrin to the
hosts of Shambhala.
The horses started forward, gained speed, broke
into a gallop, and then, effortlessly, lifted above the
surface of the ground, soared past the cliffs
and peaks of the mountains, and into the mists that wreathed them.
A maze of light, sound, and color engulfed
Alexandra's consciousness.
Gradually, she became aware that she rode at
Rudra Cakrin's side. She glanced back
to reassure herself that Haraldr rode in his accustomed
place slightly behind her. Even though it had been
midmorning in the world they had left behind, the sky was
dark and the stars glittered practically underfoot. They
had passed from color into a realm of night.
Those of her own people whose love and will had survived death
rode mixed in among the supernal army of
Shambhala. Siddiqa nestled in her cousin's
arms; and
Susan Shwortz
both of them seemed far more intent on one another than
on the wonders through which they rode. Father Basil
practically trembled with joy and the gratification of his
passion for knowledge. And Haraldr rode with wonder on his
face. She knew them, and loved them all, so
well. God-whatever god ruled here-bless them all.
Responsive to her merest thought, her horse slowed
to enable them to ride knee to knee across a carpet of
glistening stars.
"Are we dead?" Haraldr asked her.
"I remember a rock struck me. I fell, but
I have a hard head. I saw you take the horn.
Now, do we ride with the Wild Hunt, or shall we
cross the rainbows of Bifrost into Valhalla?"
So Haraldr, like Father Basil, recognized
elements of his most deeply rooted beliefs in
Shambhala.
"And I"-Alexandra smiled at him-"shall 1 be the
battle-maid who has chosen you?" They laughed
knowingly.
"You are my princess," he said. His tone
transformed her title into a caress. He swept out
an arm, clearly intending to draw her onto his own
saddle, but the horse she rode quickened its pace and
bore her away.
Stars winked about their heads as they descended through
night into a region where rainbows shimmered and dawn
turned the sky rose and violet. They stood in their
saddles, knees tight against their horses, as if
they rode down a steep slope. The angle of
descent diminished and they were riding through clouds that
bathed Alexandra's face*and burning eyes with
welcome moisture. Downward again. Now they could
see diadems formed of cliffs and peaks, two great
rings of snow mountains, a smaller range
nestled in against a greater. Smaller ranges
divided each ring into eight regions that looked like the
petals of a celestial lotus.
As they rode lower, crossing the outer ring of snow
mountains, gold roofs of palaces and temples
winked up from rich green fields like enamels wrought
for an Emperor's shrine. They approached the
mountains that guarded the heart of Shambhala. Here the
snow had
3O3
turned to ice; the ancient peaks gleamed like
adamant or diamond.
Rudra Cakrin pointed down at the city they
embraced. "Kalapa, my capital," he said with
love and pride.
Alexandra gasped. Like Byzantium, Kalapa was
a gem set in water: two exquisite lakes,
one the shape of a half moon, the other a crescent.
The lakes were so clear that she could see the rocks that
gleamed in their depths. As they descended still farther,
she realized that the very rocks themselves were precious
stones. Waterfowl swooped over the lakes. The
scent of lotus floated up from the petals
scattered on their water, which was the color of fine
lapis.
They rode past a park in which gleamed a mandala that was
twin to that built by Rudra Cakrin in the fortress
only one night ago. Then they touched down before his
palace. It reminded Alexandra of the center of a
flower. Its roofs were built pagoda-fashion, as
she had seen in Ch'in, but with tiles of beaten gold.
Ornaments of pearl and diamond hung from the
eaves. The walls themselves were adorned with statues of
goddesses carved, like caryatids, from single blocks
of fine coral. White-robed servants and
officials hastened from doorways set with
sapphires and emeralds, or peered from windows
hewn from fine sheets of lapis, shielded by golden
awnings.
This city makes Byzantium look like a slum,
she thought unwillingly.
Rudra Cakrin had dismounted and was holding out his hand
to her. She nodded thanks, but slipped down on her
own, amazed that the pavement (fine marble, with gems
gleaming between the slabs) felt like normal stone. She
followed the King of Shambhala into the palace, through
rooms in which carpets and brocade cushions glowed
like gems themselves, into a throne room fragrant with
sandalwood incense. Here Rudra Cakrin took his
seat on a throne, mounted, like the
Basileus', on the backs of great lions.
Susan Shwartzl
She and the others sank down on piles of silken
J carpets.
"God forgive me for thinking that heaven itself could
I
be no finer," whispered Father Basil.
Gratefully, Alexandra accepted the warm water and
thick towels that servants offered, and washed her hands
j from which all cuts and bruises had vanished.
All the soreness had vanished from her muscles, and
her gar
to
ments were miraculously cleaned and mended. But she
let the golden cups and dishes full of honeyed
fruits lie untasted before her. Persephone had
been condemned to remain in Hades for eating
pomegranate seeds, and she wanted to run no such
risk.
"There are no conditions on my hospitality,
Princess," said Rudra Cakrin. He sounded so
much like Li Shou in Kashgar that she found herself laughing
at her own suspicions. She accepted a peach, and
saw her friends help themselves, Haraldr to golden
apples, Siddiqa to grapes.
Bryennius-as she would have guessed-concentrated on the
wine.
"I have given you my word that we shall ride
to Byzantium and cleanse it," said the king. "But we
do not need your help to do so. Why not remain here?"
The great throne room was silent as he waited for a
reply.
Alexandra was silent, waiting.
Now that I have seen Shambhala,
she thought,
is there power here for me beyond the king's promise to heal
my Cityl
She had mastered the austerities that the old abbot had
foretold.
Now whaf greater-than .
Though no words passed her lips, she was certain that
her thought was clear to everyone in the room.
"Now, we determine fates and futures," said
Rudra Cakrin. "You have proved to me what a
thousand incarnations failed to do: that outsiders can walk
upon the Diamond Path and prove themselves worthy.
And having proved yourselves worthy of Shambhala, I
offer you a welcome. Will you take it?"
"If I do not stay," asked Bryennius, "what
then?"
3O5
sii.k roads and shadows
"Then I return you to where I found you."
"In short," said Bryennius, "to my death. Of
course I shall remain here."
His eyes gleamed with more than the hope of renewed
life. Bryennius had always been a man denied
purpose, a productive future. Friendships he
had treasured were ripped away. No sooner did
he find some path-as King of the Kafirs, or a
trader prince, even as an Imperial Ch'in
officer-than it was snatched from him. In Shambhala,
he would be a warrior on guard, awaiting the orders
to ride for the good of the world. And until that call came,
he and Siddiqa could roam parks and halls such as
no other lovers had ever enjoyed.
One by one, Alexandra's people made their choice. The
surviving guides chose to return to their mountains,
not yet fit for the circles of Shambhala. Many of the
soldiers, rapt by the beauty of the place, elected
to stay.
"I am a Christian priest," said Father Basil
reluctantly. "And much as I could learn here, I
fear that I must not spend my life and the life hereafter
awaiting a heathen apocalypse. I must
beg you to return me to Nisibis, my home."
He sounded so downcast that the court laughed, but their
laughter was kind.
Finally all but the surviving Varangians had
spoken. Then the king turned to Alexandra. "They
await your word, Princess. What is it? Will you
remain here, immortal, free from the Wheel? You
are one whose presence we would treasure."
The offer intoxicated Alexandra like the air in the
high passes. Here was the answer to her loneliness, a
future surpassing any that might await her in
Byzantium. She might even ask King Rudra
to see that her silkworms arrived home.
Shambhala was so beautiful that she could forget that she
missed the sea, and would never lay eyes on it again.
There would be years . . . centuries ... to study.
But what of her guardsmen, most of whom had family
somewhere, either in the City, upriver at Kiev, or in
the far, far North? She realized that they were looking
at her
*,,
Susan Shwartzl
as their leader, willing to accept her choice as binding
on; themselves. They would be content here, she knew.;
None of them was more than nominally
Christian; they would easily regard Shambhala as
a manifestation off their own beliefs. And Haraldr,
who meant the most to her, would accept any future in
which they could claim one another. In Byzantium,
their bond would be a scandal. Here they would have eternity
together.
What would become of her City if she stayed?
Beset by magic, how would her brother regard
jeweled outsiders who claimed magical power and
brought them gifts? Michael-please God he was still
alive, still fit to rule-had suffered so much that he could
not be asked to deal with what he had a perfect right
to suspect was an invading army. Someone had
to explain things to him, to aid him during the transition
from Basileus of an Empire besieged by sorcery
and full of turmoil to ruler of an Empire that she
would try to make a reflection of the splendor of
Shambhala.
She sighed, then reached into her tunic and pulled out the
carved lapis Li Shou had bequeathed her.
"In Ch'in, there was a man who wanted very much to find
this place. He promised to come with me . . . but he
died. I think that Prince Li Shou was a man you
might have welcomed, Majesty. Will you accept this
stone? It was his last gift to me."
"I will accept it gladly," said Rudra Cakrin.
"But what of your own choice, Princess?"
Alexandra sighed, and felt her eyes prickle with
tears. She knew it would be hard to get the words out,
and so she said them quickly, before she could betray herself.
"I must return," she said.
"Think carefully," said the king. "Will you give up
immortality and freedom for mortal cares and
obligations? Will you forego enlightenment to help men and
women who may blame, rather than thank you?"
She remembered her final interview with the
Basileus.
What happens if you return, Alexandra? We will
have to
face the problem of what to do with you all over again.
"#*-
sh.k
roads and shadows
3O7
Unless, of course, her brother were dead. In that
case, she must secure his Empire for her
nephew, for whom she had an obligation to be
regent.
Unless you wish to rule yourself.
Fear that she might seize the throne had
been the politically expedient reason for sending her
east in the first place.
Not while my brother or his son lives,
she vowed. She had an obligation to serve them while
they lived, and, if they died, to avenge them and rule
after them.
"I must return to my home," she repeated.
"Even if they turn against you?"
Alexandra wanted to cry out for him to stop tormenting
her. There would be no retreating from a third
refusal, she sensed.
"Even so."
The throne room rustled with soft whispers. All about
the room, white-robed people turned to look at her with
sorrow and, she realized, with awe.
"Then, Princess, accept this token from me."
A gem like the one she had found in Turpan
materialized in the dish from which she had chosen a
golden peach. Even as she lifted it, the gem warmed
and stirred in her hand, transformed in an instant into a
blue lotus, its petals closed.
The whispers that wafted clouds of incense about the vast
hall rose in power, then resolved themselves into a
chant she remembered from her days in various shrines.
From
mane padme hum.
Over and over the white-robed figures repeated the
chant. Hail to the jewel in the lotus.
The lotus bud in her hand stirred. Its petals
unfurled, and at their heart, gleaming with a pure
blue light, lay a diamond.
"It is yourself," the King of Shambhala told her.
He rose from his throne, descended the "steps to the
floor, and bowed himself at her feet.
Alexandra gasped. She had been stupid again,
blindly stupid. She should have considered the questions he had
posed her. Would she accept the cares of the world instead
of immortality and escape from the Wheel? For a
Susan Shivartzi
person brought up in the Church, that was the
only]
choice. But in Asia, enlightenment and escape from the
Wheel were the ultimate goals.
Only one type of being chose mortality and sorrow
instead of joy and freedom. That being was a
Bodhisattva-a being so perfected that he, or she,
would accept incarnation to aid human beings toward their
own salvation.
The thought wasn't just blasphemy; it was
incongruous. She was Alexandra, not some
aspect of the Comforter whose many aspects had smiled
at her from so many paintings and statues. One had even
worn her face. That too was incongruous. Yet
to respond to these people with the wild laughter that bubbled up
in her would be the worst type of cruelty after they
offered her the greatest homage in their power.
"Rise, Majesty. How should you kneel in your own
realm?" she asked Rudra Cakrin. "Please
believe me. I am no Bodhisattva. I am
a human woman-or I could not have felt and mastered
the emotions I needed on the Diamond Path."
"If you are not a Bodhisattva," asked the king,
"what shall we call you?"
The burden of her birth, her City, her shadowed
future, all of which she had managed to shed while on
her quests, settled upon her shoulders like court
robes made of gold and lead. There lay her
answer.
"Call me a Roman," she said softly. "A
Roman who may not abandon my Empire as long as
it needs me."
Alexandra rose to her feet. If she stayed any
longer in Shambhala, her renunciation of all it
promised would break her heart.
"I beg you, let us ride soon," she
said.
Mercifully, the King of Shambhala spared her any
attempts at persuasion, and led the way out of the
palace. Their horses awaited them outside,
grazing in a sunny court. At the king's
approach, his magnificent stallion trumpeted,
and the rest looked up, then arched their necks in
welcome. They did not look at all blown from their
earlier journeys.
Alexandra's eyes blurred-
from the sunlight on all the gold,
she lied, when Haraldr reached out to steady her.
"Ride with me," Bryennius was urging Siddiqa.
"I may never have a chance to show you Byzantium
again." His eyes met Alexandra's. "At least I
can bear you company that long, cousin," he told her.
"You'll remember ..."
"I will tell my brother," she promised. Then she
swung up into the saddle.
Once again, she rode at Rudra Cakrin's
side through the park, past a pond as blue as
Prince Li Shou's lapis
3O9
Susan Shwortzi,
lazuli. The gem would remain here forever, as
the prince had wanted. If she were lucky, she would
control herself j before she started to envy the stone. As
they passed, waterbirds burst from the glistening
reeds, so bright themselves that they appeared to be clad in
gems, not, feathers. As the birds rose,
Alexandra raised her head to follow their path, and
found herself looking down upon them. Unobtrusively,
smoothly, the horses had risen from the raked path
into the air, and now their hooves struck bright sparks
from the clouds as they broke from an easy trot into a
gallop.
She slitted her eyes, afraid of the glare from the
snow mountains that loomed up ahead. Then they were
climbing still farther, soaring over the inner barrier,
rushing toward the incredible massif that protected
Shambhala from the world itself; and she found herself able
to bear the light. They passed through thin cloud. A
fine veil of snow stung their faces, and the clear
air filled them with joy. Alexandra, who had thought
to weep, found herself laughing as they rode back above
the Roof of the World toward Byzantium.
At a sign from the king, Haraldr sounded his horn.
Soon they were joined by other riders, all spendidly
dressed and mounted. This was not an escort. It was the
army of Shambhala that she had seen painted
on temple walls.
"Did you think to face your enemies all alone?"
asked Rudra Cakrin.
Alexandra shuddered, remembering how Theodora had
tried to own her, mind, body, and soul. She
remembered the story of Shambhala: that when the world
grew too wicked to bear, then the forces of
Shambhala would ride forth to purify it. were they at
the end of days then? Perhaps this was merely the action of a
wise king unwilling to let an enemy grow,
unchecked.
They rode from bright afternoon into another night. Father
Basil gazed about at the nearby constellations.
Bryennius wound his arms about Siddiqa, though she
had not complained of the cold. When Alexandra turned
31 1
in her saddle, she saw her Varangians riding as
if to a hunt.
The wind whipped into their faces. They were descending
now, riding down the night clouds as if they were the
slope of a snow-clad hill. Clouds hid the earth
from them: surely they had passed the cities of
Persia, had ridden over Antioch, and the ancient
towns of Asia Minor, even Troy itself. Still
lower, and they dropped through the last wisps of
cloud.
As the shadowy bulk of Byzantium's walls
loomed up, Alexandra cried out. The Golden
Horn was black; a sickle moon shivered in its
depths. The City was too dark and too quiet. Very
few lights trembled at the docks or along the
wide Mese that wound up toward the palace itself.
Byzantium seemed to crouch in upon itself like a dog
with a fever.
"My brother," she whispered. "My City."
"Behold," said the king, and raised a hand.
In an instant, Byzantium gleamed with light, and
Alexandra would have preferred the old darkness back.
Witch-sight,
her panic shrilled inside her skull. Now the king
let her see as the great mages saw. The City
crawled with lights. A greenish phosphorescence
rose from the docks, crept up from the island convent
where she had spent so many years under Theodora's
orders, and spread upward, into the City. Worse
yet, patches of it appeared to glow from some of the
churches, even in the palace itself.
"Like a rotten fish!" Haraldr muttered, and reached
for his axe.
Alexandra drew her sword, its blade
too gleamed, but with a ruddy light she found comforting.
Just such a light shone through other parts of the City: in
many of the churches, about the Marigana and those parts of the
palace which housed her own Varangians" kinsmen,
in rich houses, or in hotels. She herself and the
riders with her, descending with a spark of hooves on
stone, were limned with the same light, like saints in a
mosaic.
"Show me your enemy," ordered Rudra Cakrin.
There
vt*-5
,r
Susan
Shwarti
came a tugging at Alexandra's mind, as he sought
th8ful vision for himself.
The last time Alexandra had opened her mind thus,
ill had become a battleground for two evil
women. But nowl she felt as if she had abandoned
fear in the defile where! spring snowmelts would soon
pour over the fragments off her enemies. She met
Rudra Cakrin's eyes with trust,! and let him
see what he would.
"Is that she?" he asked, and pointed.
A pool of that unholy light grew, down
on a stone wharf, spilling over into the Horn itself.
"She wants to flee!" Alexandra hissed. If
she had dallied in her choice, agonizing whether to go
or to stay in Shambhala, Theodora might have
escaped her, gone elsewhere-whether to Rome,
Alexandria, even ruined Troy itself-to prey on
other cities until it was safe for her to return.
Alexandra pressed her heels into her horse's
sides and rode out ahead of the king.
"Help me stop this!" she demanded.
Desperation and a hot, righteous anger that Theodora
continued to exist at all led her to a wellspring of
strength she had not known she possessed. Now she
drew on it, felt it surge through her body, rise
in her spine like a tide of fire until her eyes
burned, and she knew that ordinary humans, if any
dared be out, would shrink from the sight of her face.
She dropped embossed reins on the horse's arched
neck, and held out her hands. White fire leaped from
them into the sullen glow that was the visible manifestation of
her aunt's power. It roared up like oil poured upon
flames, like the Greek fire she herself had used in
her travels.
Now it bent toward her, seeking to curl inward and
devour her. She held out a hand, denying it
passage, and felt the men and women at her back
pour their strength into her. She drove the white fire
onward. It was like cautery, she thought, a blazing
iron held to a wound to heal it. She must heal her
City.

I am not worthy of this.
The thought crept into her head, and she recognized
even humility as a danger. She had mastered other
emotions; now she turned on her own sense of
unworthiness and used it to fuel her anger.
Worthy or not,
she told herself,
this must be done, and you are who is here to do it.
Of course, it was absurd that she should fight a
sorcerer with flame borrowed from a heathen king.
Nevertheless, she was here to fight, in any way that she
could. The fire lapped against stone buildings, seeking
entrance any way that it could. Now it was driving some of
her aunt's servants out of cover. Two of them,
their heavy cloaks on fire, ran shrieking toward
the water and leaped from the high wall. They sank with the
hiss of quenched metal. Not even a bubble or
speck of ash marked their fall.
"Let no one escape," Alexandra
whispered. Behind her, the army of Shambhala spread
out. "Some of you guard the palace. I must fight my
aunt myself."
The evil phosphorescence was in retreat! Once,
as a child, she had walked on the shore and seen a
strange fish washed up to die. It too gleamed.
Instead of normal fins, it had had tendrils that
extended, then shrank back on its central core.
Even as a child, she had not been surprised to learn that
the creature's touch bore poison. Now the light
dispelled by Theodora's dark magics reminded her of
that fish. It too curled in on itself.
With Rudra Cakrin to guide her, and Haraldr's
unquestioning loyalty at her back, she followed the
green fire to its source. Though her mind felt
curiously free of her body, she was aware that she
dismounted, that she led her horse through Byzantium's
tortuous streets (lit now with warring fires),
across the Mese, and down into a section where she had
never explored. Here were the worst stews, and, as
rumor had it, the sordid shrines of cults that
centuries of Orthodoxy had not been able
to expunge. Here one could buy poisons, curses,
or ritual murders.
And here, of course, she expected she would
find
Susan
Shwartz
Theodora. The green fires intensified, leaped
high over* head, as she led the forces of
Shambhala to the cross bar roads she expected
to find. Though the doors and! windows in the
half-wrecked buildings looked like de-fj cayed
teeth, she shivered at the power that bubbled from bar
one of them, a shrine to some dark goddess.
"Come out!" she cried, hawk-shrill, and extended
her! hands toward the door. Fire lashed out from her
fingertips, blasted through it, and into the building.
"Niece." Abruptly, Theodora stood before her,
wreathed in fiames, the white and the green. They
licked at her skin, but she showed no sign of the
agony any human would feel. "I welcome you."
Puzzled, Alexandra raised her hands. "Is this
surrender?" It seemed much too easy. A general
might have thought to retreat, even surrender, but conquer
in some later battle; Theodora was no general, but
a destroyer.
"Yes," said the sorceress. "Yours!" In an
instant, the green fire soared up between Alexandra
and the forces of Shambhala, formed into a cone,
and began to descend upon her.
She could see through it. Bryennius was shouting, and the king
himself had to hold Haraldr back. Her eyelashes
began to singe, and she raised her hands to call the
fire. Without the king to back her, it came more
slowly, but it came, intertwining about the green flame
in a terrible beauty. Her pulse beat in her
temples like the great gongs in the temples of Ch'in,
and sweat ran down her sides as she drew on
her.? reserves for more strength, more fire. The white
fire intensified, took on shadows of blue and
purple. The effort of forming it into a weapon left
her gasping, but she hurled the fire at Theodora,
and sank to her knees.
The flames engulfed her aunt. This time,
Alexandra saw the woman's skin sear, saw the
features-so like hers!-twist with pain, then control it.
Her mouth moved, spat, and then Alexandra could hear
her.
"You can destroy me, niece. But what then?" she
cried. "Return as a subject to a City I
might have ruled,
Vi
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silk roads and shadows

that you might have shared? Do you think that the palace will
welcome you back, that your brother will embrace you,
trust you?"
Alexandra remembered that her brother had warned her
if she returned in triumph, steps would have to be
taken to control her. She would have damned the memory,
except that to curse was to play into Theodora's hands.
The curse would recoil upon her.
"I may die," said the sorceress. "And so I will
prophesy to you. The best you can expect is isolation
and mistrust, perhaps on the island I once ruled.
Remember the shrine there, the one you denied when you
robbed it of its sacrifice? Can you tell me that the
hour will not come that you will kneel before its altar and try
for my power to add to your own? Or will you be content as a
prisoner, or the victim of a "lamentable"
palace mishap?" Theodora laughed, though the air
had to sear her lungs.
"Little niece," she whispered, her voice honeyed,
"take my hand. Release me from this. Let
me heal, and I can show you such wonders ..."
Fire licked the face, yet still it was an older, more
beautiful version of Alexandra's own. Power had
marked it, glowed in it still. That power reached out
to Alexandra, drew her, left a briny taste in
her mouth.
They were akin. Theodora had always recognized the
tie of blood, had sought to strengthen it-until,
finally, she tried to make Alexandra another of her
victims. Why had she listened so long? She knew
what she could expect, had known it even when she
refused to remain, safe and honored, in
Shambhala. She shook her head, repudiating her
aunt's words and her own knowledge. She had done what she
had sworn, and must be content. She spat the taste of
power from her mouth. The tiny, rude action broke the
last hold that the dying sorceress might have had on
her.
"One more duty," she muttered. "Let me make this
quick."
The flames wreathed up again, pure and almost totally
blue. They twisted about Theodora, twining more and
Susan
Shwari
more tightly, condensing into a thin spiral, and the
winked out of existence, leaving only a circle of pu
white on the spattered pavement. Beyond it, the shrinel
roof collapsed in a shower of sparks. In the instanf
before it was consumed, Alexandra saw the statue tha the
shrine protected. Its features twisted and ran,
theij re-formed into the aspect of compassion that she knew
and loved best.
Theodora and her dark goddess-were they glad to before
cast free?
Alexandra collapsed on the stones. The barrier of
bar flames that separated her from her allies
vanished, anc they ran toward her. Haraldr reached
her first and I embraced her possessively, then,
fearful of burns, re; leased her.
"She is unharmed," Alexandra heard the king
tell; him. "She breathed the air of Shambhala,
ate its food. For a little longer, she cannot be harmed
by the outside world."
But I might have been harmed by my own choice,
she thought, and the king nodded.
She let herself sag gratefully against her lover,
who ran fingers over her face and hair to reassure
himself that she was unharmed. She might have drifted
into sleep then and there, but Rudra Cakrin reached out
to touch her cheek. Strength ran from his fingers
into her body and she opened her eyes.
Rudra Cakrin rose and turned toward Asia.
The horizon had already begun to pale. Alexandra
smiled at Father Basil, who raised a hand in
farewell, then looked over at Bryennius, who
seemed unsteady as the sky paled.
Thank God there would be no time for long farewells.
She bowed to the King of Shambhala as if he were the
Emperor of Byzantium himself.
"Set us on our way," he said.
They mounted, and at a hand signal, his troop started
away. Light and wind swirled around them once again.

The sun shone at her back, as Alexandra and six
guardsmen-all who remained of the soldiers,
priests, and companions who had ridden out from
Byzantium years earlier-rode toward the City's
eastern wall.
"The Horn, my princess!" cried one of the men.
Light gleamed off the blue water. It was good to see
it again, better yet to see Byzantium.
Alexandra breathed a prayer of thanks. She had
survived, and she was returning with the silkworms that
she had promised. Bryennius would be safe and
happy in Shambhala with his love; Father
Basil would no doubt entertain all Persia with
tales of his travels. She wished that she might
hear them. But she was home! And soon she would see
her brother, the Basileus, and tell him of her own
adventures.
"You there!"
Soldiers at the first gate shouted at them. Up on
the walls, archers held their bows ready.
Jolted back to reality, Alexandra realized how
they must appear: six huge, ragged men who bore the
axes of the Guard and rode behind a thin, dark-haired
creature who could be man, boy, or camp
follower, all mounted on horses that made the Arab
and Persian steeds of Byzantium look like nags.
Haraldr rode forward cautiously, shouting out his name
and mission. Alexandra raised her head, looked at
the officer who had come out to question him.
"I am Alexandra," she said. Even to her own
ears, her Greek sounded accented. "I am back.
Let me through to see my brother!"
By the time Alexandra and her six survivors rode
up the Mese, they had acquired an escort
composed, she suspected wryly, of half a
regiment. This close to noon, the Mese was crowded,
though the guards forced shoppers and staring
passersby back to allow her to pass. Traces of the
sickness Alexandra had sensed in Byzantium the
night before still remained in empty buildings and rude
scrawls upon church walls and monuments
Susan Shwartz
that should have been inviolate. But the air retained the
purity of air in the mountain passes, the sun shone,
and! all about, people swept up rubble and marveled at
thej flamelike clean streaks upon some of the walls.
Closer to the palace, the silk merchants' shops
were,! empty, but she had expected that. Though she
had alsof expected messengers to precede her, she
was not pre-j pared for the onslaught of guards,
cubiculars, logothetes, and the rest of the army of
palace functionaries who waited outside, and
swept her into their complex wake.
She recognized several men, knew one, in fact,
to have been her spy in what seemed to be another
lifetime, and summoned him to her side. "I have the
silkworms," she said.
Somewhere during the uproar, she oversaw the unpacking
of the canes in which the silkworms were packed. It was
spring. By the time the silkworms awoke from the sleep
into which the cold had cast them, the mulberry trees would
be in full leaf again, and the weavers would be
busy. She wondered if any of them resembled
Russet Silk.
"When can I see the Basileus?" she demanded, not
at all content with the torrent of reassurances and
promises that her words evoked. They had separated
her from her guardsmen, she realized, and she protested
that too, all the way down the miles of corridors
to her own suite in the palace's women's quarters.
Here serving women reacted with such horror to the sight
of an Imperial princess with sun-browned face and
hands, and wildly straggling hair, wearing ragged
men's garments, boots, and a long, strangely marked
sword, that they cut short the bows her position
demanded of them in order to fall upon her with a babble of
lament and propel her into a bath more luxurious than
anything she had seen since Ch'ang-an. She
laughed weakly as she was bathed, massaged, and
perfumed-all with cries of amazement at her
journey (not to mention regret for broken nails and
ruined skin)-and refused an oppor-

tunity to rest for a week each time it was offered, and
ate lightly.
She started to demand to see her brother, but
remembrance of court ceremonies
returned to her. "When can the Basileus receive me?"
she asked instead.
The brief silence, followed by a flurry of
activity involving jewels and robes, did not
please her. Nor, she found, did the robes
themselves. They were purple silk, as befitted her
rank, woven with gold thread, and brocaded in an
elaborate pattern that looked Persian. But even
the gold embroidery was somber; and they were so heavy!
The earrings they put on her hung down to her
shoulders, and her headdress scratched her brow. With
longing, she remembered the gauzy silks and hair
ornaments of Ch'in.
Finally, a richly dressed eunuch invaded her
suite to announce that the Basileus would receive her.
She took up the cane filled with silkworms that
she intended to present, carrying it as if it were a
sword. Then, slowly comgiven the weight of all the
trappings she wore, she could hardly rush-she
followed more officials and guards toward the throne
room.
So it was to be a formal audience? she thought. That
didn't please her at all. Neither did the
whispers that buzzed behind her back in each
corridor, or her sensation of being watched
and reported on to the various palace spymasters.
The doors were flung open, and Alexandra was
announced.
His heir at his side, her brother Michael,
Emperor of the Romans, sat on the lion throne.
Behind the throne was a freestanding tree wrought of
silver, ornamented with golden fruits and birds.
The throne had been hoisted high over the heads of his
courtiers, as if she were a barbarian who must be
overawed. Alexandra bowed herself in fuil court
prostration, suppressing both the irritation she felt
and a mischievous urge to knock her head against the
marble in the style of Ch'in. At her
Susan Shwari
brother's command, she rose, the cane holding silkl
worms resting on her outstretched palms.
Despite this bar rigor of ceremony, the courtiers
whispered. There wa something Alexandra did not know,
she realized.
The throne descended with a creaking of engines. Nov
she could see the Basileus' face. Despite her
training, gasp of dismay broke from her lips, and the
cane dropped from her hands to roll, unheeded, onto
thef floor.
"There was no way to tell you, sister mine,"
said her! brother, and removed the bandage from his eyes.
Theyl stared out at her, white and sightless like the eyes
off beggars.
"More magic?" she whispered as if no one but she,
her I brother, and his quiet, pallid heir were in
the cavernous hall.
"I think so. After you left, my son fell ill
again. I went to Hagia Sophia, and prayed that
whatever curse fell on him be aimed at me
instead. And, as you see ..."
"Theodora is dead," Alexandra said, ignoring the
gasps as she interrupted the Basileus.
"Yet I am still blind. I wish I could see you, little
sister. I can hear you; you speak with an accent now.
They tell me that you arrived in a scandalous condition,
with only six guardsmen-and the silkworms. What of the
others?"
Alexandra shook her head, then realized he couldn't
see the gesture. "They won't be returning," she
said. At another time, she would explain further.
"S. We shall miss our Cousin Bryennius." She
didn't miss her brother's use of the Imperial
"we." "But We welcome you, our most beloved
sister. Once again, We are deep in your debt."
Alexandra bowed her thanks. Then the
Caesar-mask fell from her brother's face, and he
beckoned her forward with a pale hand from which he slipped
a heavy ring.
"Sister, before you left, you promised to write me
tales
.-*-by "comgreater-than
silk roads and shadows

of wonders. Since I can no longer read them, I
fear you must tell them to me."
"Any time you wish." Alexandra forced the words out and
blinked against the tears which would ruin the cosmetics her
waiting-women had layered onto her face.
"It must be soon," said Michael. "Now that you are
back, I intend to resign the diadem and retire
to a monastery. You will serve as regent for young
Michael."
Unless you want the crown yourself.
The words hung unspoken and ominous in the hall, and the
courtiers leaned forward. Michael was aged beyond his
years, wearied, despairing, but his sister seemed
strong. Would both Michael and his heir be packed
off today to a monastery? When Alexandra made no
reply either to the spoken or unspoken words,
Michael continued. "Here, take this ring
..."
"No!"
Heedless of eunuchs, courtiers, and about five
officers who started forward, Alexandra hurled herself
at her brother. His arms circled her, and he shook
his head at the outraged crowd before he bent and kissed
her cheek.
"I brought the silkworms . . . for you, all for
you," she wept. "I fought for you. And now you would
simply give it up, give it away? To me, when
you know 1 don't want it? Don't!"
"Little one, little sister," he whispered against her
face. His hands patted her back the way they had
done when she was a child and had fallen, or been
punished for some offense.
Her tears fell on his face and into his eyes.
Then, as she felt some sort of power flow out of her,
she sighed and sagged against him. Suddenly her brother
gasped and stiffened, and he thrust Alexandra
unceremoniously aside. She caught herself on the
arm of the throne, and knelt, looking up into his
face.
The Basileus raised a shaking hand. Even as
Alexandra looked, the whiteness that had stolen his
sight dissolved. He blinked, and drew a
long, sobbing breath.
Susan Shwar
"You too, little sister," he whispered. "Are you also
sorceress?"
It was Shambhala, she wanted to protest. A little
of the magical city's virtue must still remain in her,
enough to heal her of all weariness, and to restore her
brother"'caret sight. A black-robed priest
started forward, holding up; crucifix and chanting
exorcisms.
As Alexandra grasped the golden cross and kissed
it,! the silver tree behind the throne burst into white
flowers,] and the enameled birds began to sing. People
shouted! from the throne room and she could hear cheers
outside.
In a moment, she and her brother might have to fear'
deafness, not blindness, she thought. Then she tore her,]
eyes away from her brother's face with its shining
eyes.
The court watched her every move avidly. Did they
really think she might turn into a demon and fly out
a window, or proclaim herself Basilissa-or
what? All the strength she gained in Shambhala had
left her, draining; into her brother. Using the throne
to lever herself back onto her feet, she
studied the courtiers and soldiers, trying to read their
loyalties in their faces and acts. She was very
tired now. cold, and afraid.
still
shall have to buy myself some new spies,
she realized.
Ink spattered Alexandra's stone table as she pushed
away from it once again. Not even her battered
copies of Homer would help her describe her
travels in a way that her brother-and his priests-would
accept. But she could not, for the life of her,
describe Ch'in as a land of barbarians, or
Shambhala as a shrine for devil worship: not after
she had seen devil worship too.
If, by some miracle, she could capture the
wonders, terrors, and splendors of her journeys
on parchment and ink, they would probably charge her with
heresy. Though the charge was true, admitting it would
be the death of her. There'd been far too many
heretics around in recent years. Besides, one
Byzantine abbess (especially one born in the
purple) addicted to sorcery was one too many. If
Alexandra showed tendencies in that direction, she
knew how quickly her brother's ministers would contrive
a "lamentable accident." She had to be above
suspicion.
Susan Shwar
She strode toward the garden. Her slippers caught
if the folds of her stiff silk overtunic, and she
swore three languages at the glittering
nuisances. A gardene and at least two servants
slipped discreetly out of sight spies,
probably.
If she paced to the garden's stone wall and leaned
ovet
it, she could scan the entire City, with the Horn
beyonc it glinting bronze in the late afternoon. It was
a view sr had longed for all the time she crossed the
mountains! and the deserts of Asia. Ingrate that she
was, now she 1 longed for the mountains that she would never
see] again-and the freedom that went with them.
She laid a thin hand on her breast. A note
rustled" beneath her hand. Last night one of her
servants had; smuggled it in to her from the
Varangians' barracks. Haraldr had resigned
from the Guard, and he planned to
:
leave Byzantium. Colored sails moved
slowly over the water, and she studied them
resentfully. Surely that small one
belonged to a Rus merchant, come to sell furs and
amber. Haraldr would leave her on just such a
boat-maybe on that very one.
Weeks of interrogation by her brother, his suspicious
ministers, priests, and generals had kept them apart.
She had seen Haraldr once, the disastrous time they
had allowed her to appear in the Hippodrome. The
crowds had hailed her as Basilissa; she had
been hustled back to her quarters, prisoner because of
her popularity; and now it didn't look like they would
let her go anywhere else in a hurjbbity . . .
except back to the convent she had fled. She could
feel its walls closing in on her, as if her
yellowed bones already lay in the crypt. She gasped
for air.
She had forced herself to glance idly over Haraldr's
note, then fold it as if it meant nothing to her.
She had wanted to weep and to pace, then stalk through the
palace and ask Haraldr what he thought he was
doing. But the women's quarters did not work that way,
not in Byzantium, not in Ch'ang-an, and
probably not anywhere else where they had women's
quarters. If she had
had Siddiqa here, the girl migh have advised
Alexandra. As it was, Alexandra
relied on guile, flattery, and gold to hire a
messenger and to ensure privacy if Haraldr
answered her summons.
If he stayed away, was it because he did not dare
to come-or care to?
Her fingers worked at the throat of her gown. There was
not enough air anywhere in this palace for her! Her weeks
back in the City she had longed for had cost her her
serenity and the sure power she had gained in
Shambhala. Now they would cost her the one man whose
love and loyalty she had thought were absolute. She
drew a gasping breath, then walked slowly back
inside.
If she wept in the garden, spies might report
it to men who tried to undermine her brother's trust in
her. They had heard her reject even a regency,
but they did not believe it. Well, if she hadn't
been the one who swore she had no wish for the
diadem, she didn't know if she would have believed it
either.
Footsteps in her suite made Alexandra whirl
around, her hand trying to clench on the hilt of a sword
she no longer wore. The eunuch she had bribed
nodded to her, a complicit gleam in his eyes. She
raised her brows until he bowed with more
respect, and oozed his painted, scented self out of
her rooms.
Then, and only then, did she dare to look at the
man whose fair hair blazed in the light of the
windows. He had changed the crimson and the axe of the
Guard for blue silk that matched his eyes, and a
richly chased dagger on a belt clasped by a gold
buckle the length of her hand. Haraldr's face was
taut, the way it usually got before a battle. She
would never be able to stop looking at him.
"My princess," he greeted her, then stood
quietly.
That very quiet robbed her of speech. He acknowledged
that she had a right to summon him, to storm, spit, or
rage at him, as she chose-and that it would not alter his
decision in the slightest.
His mere presence made her feel more at ease.
Even
I
Susan Shwartt
now Haraldr meant warmth, loyalty she could
trust. As she relaxed, he cocked his head
slightly and smiled atf her.
"Haraldr, why?" As the words burst from her in anf
anguished whisper, her hands went out to him.
Swiftlyl he caught them in his own, kissed them,
then drew her! into his arms. His hands rubbed along
her shoulders. She] could feel the tension in his body
pass into her, then bar dissipate as the embrace
reassured them both.
Finally he held her away from him and looked down:
into her face. "The Guard swears loyalty to the
Emperor.
I
But
you
hold my oath now. How can I serve your brother?"
He pulled her close again, more roughly this time.
"When I heard the whispers, that they feared you would
try to seize control ..."
"Haraldr, I don't want it!" It was a
low-voiced protest.
"They will never believe you. Once I realized how
my presence in the Guard might endanger you, I
resigned. I am moving in with the merchants soon.
I shall probably leave on the next ship."
His hands held her as if she were precious to him, and
she felt herself warming. "How could you endanger me?"
she asked.
He gave her a little shake. "You know the
history of your line. Whenever a princess takes a
soldier to her bed, it usually means she wants
to seize the throne. You know that. You, though: 1 know you
are trying to convince the court that you have no such plans.
Isn't that why you agreed to return to your convent?
Besides," he said, brushing his bearded lips against her
forehead, "I didn't want to pine away for an
abbess."
"I am not an abbess yet," she murmured.
"Haraldr, I don't want you to leave me."
"Then come with me," he urged and bent to kiss her.
"Come north. I can show you ice that floats on the
sea's back, bubbling pools of mud, and boiling
water that spurt into the air. I could set you to rule
men and women who would trust you at your word."
In his own land, Haraldr was almost a prince, she
recalled. "It won't work," she tried to say,
to explain that if she fled Byzantium for the North,
her brother would almost certainly expect a war.
"They'll send an army," she began, but he shook
his head, and his lips smothered her protests. She
clung fiercely to him, then broke away.
"Not here," she whispered. Taking his hand, she led him
to her bedroom. Very gently, he tugged the headdress
from her braids and removed her jewels.
Then he loosed her hair so that it flowed down over
his hands as they unfastened her clothing, and covered her
in the moment that she stood naked under his gaze. She
removed his belt, and flung it aside before he
lifted her and laid her on her bed. Then, as she
watched, he pulled off his own clothing.
"It's good to have a proper bed instead of sheepskins,
and no enemy outside, isn't it?" he asked her as
he lay beside her and brushed her hair off her
shoulders. It was too hard to keep from touching him, so
she didn't try. She flung her arms about his
neck and pulled him down to her.
"We have time, sweet one," he told her. "Here,
let me . . ."
He stroked her body, then cupped her breasts and
rubbed her nipples with callused thumbs until she
gasped, and his caresses slid over her belly and
thighs. When she reached for him, he taught her how
to please him with lips and fingers. Then he embraced
her strongly, and rolled until her body lay
impaled on his own, and they both cried out in
pleasure.
"Come away with me," he muttered against her neck,
twining his fingers in her hair so he could look at
her. Then he kissed her deeply,
deliberately seeking to rouse her again.
Alexandra closed her eyes, drowning in the waves
of pleasure that washed over her. His hands and lips
moved over her again and again.
There had been mischief in his gaze, she thought.
Did he really think that he could seduce her
into following
Susan Shwar
him blindly? Well, he was welcome to try. She
laughe and accepted his body's persuasions with joy,
matchii him touch for touch, until they lay spent in
each other'] arms.
When the haze of passion that had wreathed then both
thinned out and returned them to the world, asked again, "Will
you come with me?" She hadn*ful imagined the humor in
his blue, blue eyes. She met with mischief of
her own. "No," she said, and kiss him deeply.
"And you already knew that. We havl tonight, Haraldr.
Let's enjoy it."
"I ought to turn viking, that's what I ought to do,"
hef told her. "But there's only one treasure I
want to steall from this City. Do you know what that
treasure mightf be?"
"What stops you from trying?" Alexandra teased
him."
"You do," he admitted. "You'd kill me if I
carried you; off without your consent." He laughed.
Suddenly his face twisted, and he buried it against
her. He no longer sounded as if he laughed.
Alexandra wrapped her arms about him comfortingly as far
as they could go.
Sunlight swept down the wall of her chamber
into evening while they held one another thus. Finally,
Alexandra stirred and ran her tongue over her
bruised lips. "Do you want some wine?" she asked
drowsily.
"You should not serve me," he said.
"Really?" She moved out of his arms, and left the
bed. "I will remember you said that. Or, my
Haraldr, we can look at it this *vay: I know
where the wine is. You don't."
"Sweet gods, I shall miss you," he muttered.
It pleased her to brush her long hair back over
her shoulders and walk toward the wine flagon which lay
in a frosted silver bowl filled with half-melted
snow. She swept her fingers across the bowl's damp
edges, brushed them over her throat, behind her ears,
and between her breasts. The coolness made her shiver with
pleasure. She poured wine into a goblet, turning
back with a smile toward the man who opened
his arms to her. Then she stopped dead.

A wind like the air in the high passes wrapped about
her, then subsided, leaving behind it the smell of
lotus. And there were no lotus blossoms in
Byzantium at this time of year. Light welled up
behind her, and she gasped, almost dropping the wine.
She bent over a table on which jewels lay
scattered. Among them was the ball of moonstone she
had brought home with her. The light was shining from it.
She caught it up, and the light poured over her.
Haraldr exclaimed in his own language. Pulling
a blanket from the bed, he padded over to her, and
wrapped the soft wool around her shoulders. The
radiance from the gem limned them both as she held it
between them.
She had seen visions in its depths before. But this time,
Haraldr's eyes widened with amazement, and
Alexandra realized that he shared them.
"That's Shambhala," he whispered. "I thought . .
."
"So did I, my love. When I chose to come
home, I thought it was irrevocable. But it looks like
the king may give us another chance. Will you take it?"
"Will you?" he asked.
"This is a way, the only way, we can be together-and
I can be free. You have the horn, don't you? I have
the gem; you have the horn. We can go back,
Haraldr!"
Laughing, he whirled her around exuberantly until
she begged for mercy. Then he picked up the goblet
she had filled and held it out to her. Looking into his
eyes solemnly, she drank and gave him the cup.
He turned it, and placed his lips on the rim where
hers had touched, then drained it.
They went back to her bed and lay in each other's
arms, lip to lip, talking quickly, urgently. But it
was a long time before they spoke again of love.
Alexandra looked cautiously about, then boldly
entered the part of the City reserved for Rus merchants,
where Haraldr had moved after leaving the Guard. A
few inquiries brought her to the inn where he had taken
a
Susan Shujart2
room; she ignored the smirks that accompanied thef
information. In Ch'ang-an, she had used a lotus
tof conceal herself. Here in Byzantium, where the
City's 3 faith had been her own, and where so much of
it still f influenced her, such minor magics didn't
seem to work.
"dis
She had done the best she could, she decided, and'!
tapped on Haraldr's door.
He flung it open. As she stepped out of the shadows
of bar the corridor into his room, and closed the
door behind her, he started to hug her. Then his grin
faded.
"Alexandra! Have you no sense of shame?" he
asked.
She looked down at herself, at the gems and
luxurious tunic purchased from the middle-ranking
palace eunuch who had been her go-between, then
laughed. "Very little shame, when it concerns you," she
said. "This costume got me out of the palace.
Eunuchs are always prowling back and forth, scheming or
shopping." She shrugged. "I think some have lovers in
the City ..."
A choking noise from Haraldr set her laughing.
"And you don't want other Northerners to think that you
and a palace eunuch . . . oh, Haraldr!" She
leaned against the wall, practically bent double, then
wiped her eyes. Since deciding to flee, she had
found herself quicker to laugh than she had ever been. Perhaps
she was drunk on hope. Then she would also hope it
lasted. Her hand came away smeared with
kohl, and that made her chuckle too.
"Let me wash this paint off," she said. "Then,
since you don't like these clothes, I shall take them
off."
"I have our goar packed," he protested, "and the ship
won't wait for us."
"And I," she said, her voice muffled by laughter and
folds of cloth, "am wearing a second suit of
clothes. A good thing that most eunuchs are plump;
otherwise I might have had to carry them. That would have
looked suspicious. There!" She flung the
glistening silks into a heap on the floor. "Do I
still offend your sense of propriety?"
Under the eunuch's clothing, Alexandra had hidden the
garb of a young merchant, an assistant sent to the
,*andvu*mand

silk roads and shadows
harbor to deal with one of the younger, less important
Rus.
Haraldr chuckled. "No one would mistake you for a
man," he said and handed her a long bundle wrapped
in a cloak.
She unwrapped it. "My sword!" she said. She
belted it on with relief.
"Let's go." Haraldr hoisted one bag to his
shoulder and reached for the other.
Daring him to object, Alexandra picked it up and
slung it over her shoulder. It was heavy, but she
thought she could manage. It would cause talk if a
merchant struggled under a double load while the youth
at his side walked free.
They headed down to the harbor. As she walked,
Alexandra gazed about the City for the last time. The
churches, stores, and monuments looked cleanly
scoured, beautiful, familiar-but a vision of the high
passes and of Shambhala beyond them flashed across her
mind. She would not miss her birthplace.
"Are you sure no one saw you?" Haraldr
muttered.
"Not at all. I'm not even sure that the people I
bribed will stay bought." With her free hand, she
pulled out the gem that now contained a vision of
Shambhala in its heart, breathed on it, and tried
to concentrate. "If only we had stayed longer there!
I might know what I am doing."
still
am not here. You do not see me. I will pass
unnoticed,
she told the crystal. Her head began
to ache and strength to pour out of her, a sign that something
might be working, but the flow of power was so ragged that she
distrusted the results of her own magic. An older
Northern woman walked right into Haraldr and bounced
back. She let out a cry, reached for a talisman,
and fled.
"Seems to work," said Haraldr.
Ahead of them she could see the masts of the ship that would
carry them away from Byzantium to a port where they
could join a caravan for the trek east. She stumbled.
"This
is
heavy," she admitted.
L: His
  caret
"backslash
Susan Shwartm
"Not much farther," he said.
backslash
"I hear hoofbeats."
"Probably from the Mese.":
Not daring to hide, or to take to their heels, they
kept to the same steady pace while what sounded like a
troopf of cavalry trotted by.
"Haraldr, they're turning," Alexandra
said without! moving her lips.
"We are almost at the dock. Keep walking."
Surely her escape hadn't been discovered so
fast! Alexandra lamented silently. Just let her
board the ship. She'd go below, and stay below until
they passed beyond the reach of Byzantium's harbor
guards.
Up ahead was their ship.
But fanned out in front of it was an armed guard
drawn from one of her brother's most aristocratic
regiments. At the center of the crescent formed by men and
horses, conspicuous on his white horse, was her
brother, not the wan figure whose blindness she had
cured, but a tanned, able man in the purple and
armor of an Emperor.
Alexandra dropped her bundle. Now that she had
been discovered, she felt outrage, not fear. "I
bribed that eunuch well!" she complained.
"Sister, remember that I taught you to buy spies!
I bought that one first, then passed him on to you," said the
Emperor. "Together, we have made him a rich man."
Alexandra caret snorted. Then her brother's
guards moved in. She glanced anxiously at
Haraldr. Thank God: His axe was nowhere in
sight.
She held her hands away from her sword and moved
cautiously toward her brother. He dismounted, and she
fell to her knees.
"Most Sacred Majesty," she said, and bent her
head. "I beg you to believe that I mean no harm
to you, that all I want is to leave here in peace."
Her brother raised her and drew her away from his
soldiers, who were as curiously faceless in their
armor

and helmets as the figures that had pursued her out of
Ch'in. "Is it Shambhala?" he asked.
Alexandra took a deep breath. If the truth were
the wrong answer, then she was probably dead. She
let out the breath, then decided not to speak. If her
voice broke, she would die of shame before they could
execute her.
"I thought so. I told you, Alexandra, that if you
returned, there might be little future here for you. And
I heard the longing in your voice when you spoke of
Shambhala."
"Your ministers," Alexandra cried softly. "They
would force ..."
"I sometimes think that Emperors come and Emperors
go, but the civil service goes on and on.
Yes, some of them are insisting that I put you out of
harm's way. But thanks to you, I
am
Emperor. That means they still have to obey me."
He held out his hand to her. She kissed it and
pressed it to her brow. Again, Michael raised her,
this time drawing her into a brotherly hug. "I can either
see you off on this ship-which looks seaworthy enough,
I suppose-or send you out the gates in triumph
as befits a prince, or princess, who has saved
the City. My own recommendation-was He smiled at
her, then looked at Haraldr, and shook his head.
"Sister, I will never understand women. I remember
how fiercely you refused a Prankish king. And
now, I find you offering me as brother-in-law one of
my own former Guard."
Haraldr bristled, took one step forward, then thought
better of it.
"In his own land, he is a prince!" Alexandra
protested.
"They all are," sighed her brother. "I make no
protest. I merely observe. But I do suggest that
you return to the palace, at least long enough to kneel
with your chosen Northern "prince" before a priest."
Alexandra held out her hand, and Haraldr
joined them. "A priest?" he said. "Your Majesty
honors me.
Susan Shwartz
But our way lies through Persia, and there is a
priest inf Nisibis-was
"Father Basil!" Alexandra laughed.
"A Nestorian heretic?" Her brother raised
eyebrows, then shrugged. "But then, I suppose that
you have your own Orthodoxy . . . Alexandra, go with
God Who created the tides, which, as I can see from
the shipmaster's face, wait on no man,
Emperor or not. But accept this" from me."
The Emperor reached into the breast of his clothing and
brought out a narrow golden circlet. "The crown of a
Basilissa," he said. "You have earned it."
She knelt, and he placed it on her brow.
"Wherever you go," he whispered, "think of us."
Alexandra smiled and inclined her head. In
Shambhala she would be able to watch, and to study, and
to protect her City should it need it. The crown
tingled. The last token of an initiate along the
Diamond Path was a crown. She could feel the
circlet tingle on her brow, feel power collect
and rush throughout her body until she felt the same
well-being she had known in Shambhala.
The shipmaster gestured wildly. At a nod from the
Emperor, he sent sailors down to take
Alexandra's and Haraldr's gear. Alexandra
threw herself into her brother's arms, then rushed on
board. Slowly, the ship moved into the Horn.
Light shone down on her brother, who held up a
hand in farewell. His figure grew smaller and
smaller. When she could no longer see him, she
turned her eyes and dreams eastward.
***"
"V:.cccaret *@lcaret
caret A,.
Epilogue
The mountains loomed up before them, wreathed with the first
hints of the deadly winter storms. When the way grew
too steep to ride, Alexandra, muffled in
sheepskins, walked at Haraldr's side, gazing
into her crystal as he steadied her with an arm about her
shoulders.
They climbed higher and higher. Now the sky was a
deep, rich blue, arching up toward indigo. The
sun shone down on the peaks and made them cast
impossibly sharp shadows. Within those shadows, it was
fiercely cold; outside them, almost as warm as
spring.
"We are almost there," Alexandra whispered.
Behind her, Haraldr was ordering the bearers and guides
to return to the previous night's camp, to wait
three days there, and only then come in search of them.
She wondered if they would bother to search at all.
Hillmen accepted miracles as a part of life.
The first time these men had seen her sword, they had
all but abased themselves before her, muttering prayers in
which she
Susan Shwar
caught the name of Shambhala. They had been bearer
not guides; from the moment in her bedchamber that si had
seen Shambhala glow in her crystal, she had know
how to find it, and where.
"Just a little farther," Alexandra told Haraldr,
anl took his hand.
They walked between two rock spires. Even this
earl; in the autumn, ice glinted upon them. Beyond ther
stretched a flat space, large enough, perhaps, for a
sma band of horsemen. Beyond that lay only the
abyss.
Alexandra's gem kindled in the afternoon sun. Al
column of fire shot up from it into the sky.
"This is the place," she whispered. She could almost
bar see the gleaming ice of the peaks that hid
Shambhala J from the world, hear the cries of
waterfowl in the clear] pools near its heart,
feel the fine silk cushions of the i palace.
Haraldr's hands grasped her shoulders, and he
turned her to face him.
"Alexandra, if we do not find Shambhala, you must
not fear," he said urgently. "We can always go
to Kashgar. Prince Bryennius' friends would
welcome a man with a strong back and a princess with a
brave heart for their own sakes, as much as for his."
She reached up and kissed his face. He was as eager
as she to regain the land they had had to renounce, but
Alexandra knew that if he could spare her pain
by turning his back upon it once again, he would.
"The last time we traveled these roads, I left
despair behind me,", she whispered. "I cannot
believe that we will be disappointed."
He embraced her fiercely. Then, as if reminding
himself of his usual notions of how fragile she was,
he started to ease his hold. She flung her arms
about him, welcoming the surge of love and desire that
heated her blood. For an instant, she toyed with
delaying their search to enjoy this moment, then put the
thought aside without regret. There would be time, in
Shambhala, time for them to delight in one
another and to learn the paths on which their love might
guide them.
t caret at greater-than from .
silk roads and shadows337
They clung together for a moment longer. Then Alexandra
laid her hands against Haraldr's chest and very gently
pushed him away.
"I think we should try now," she said.
Haraidr nodded, his face somber. Slowly, he
drew the horn with the sigils of Shambhala from about his
neck and lifted it to his lips. The sun shone down
on him until he gleamed like an immortal, and
Alexandra had to glance away. Haraidr was so
beautiful. She would never understand why he loved her.
Then he sounded the horn, sending a merry, musical
call up into the hills.
Winds rushed down from the peaks, bringing a faint
powdering of snow and a fainter scent of lotus.
"Again," said Alexandra.
With the second blast, a garden sprang up from the
barren rock all about them. Birds began to sing,
while white clouds massed before them.
Haraidr grinned. Raising the horn a third time,
he blew it until jubilant echoes rang out from
peak to peak, blending like the chorus of some
awesome festival.
The winds swelled again, bringing them the fragrance of
Shambhala's gardens. Eyes shut, Alexandra
basked in the sunlight and the warmth, the comfort of
Haraldr's arm over her shoulders as they waited.
Then they heard a sweet clamor of silver and
gold horns. The clouds lit, then parted in two
shining arcs.
Out rode a troop of men and women, richly
dressed as if for a wedding, and mounted on splendid
horses. In the lead, his right hand outstretched
to welcome them, rode the King of Shambhala.