By the Caliph’s tent, braziers flared high as the captives were brought before him to be greeted by a coded question, to which they answered the password-answer—if they knew it.
“Who brought the Qaa’ba?”
“Ibrahim and Ishmael.”
“What would you have of Toledo?”
“Steel.”
“What is damascened?”
“Swords.”
The Caliph’s own wizards listened to the exchanges, and told those who truly knew from those who merely guessed—for there were a few barbarians who spoke Arabic with accents so thick it was clear they had learned it as a foreign tongue, and poorly at that. Some were indeed the Caliph’s spies, though, recruited by other spies. Each, for his own reason, had come to hate the cause he served.
Those who did not answer the questions, or who tried and failed, were sent to a squadron of men who had lost brothers or fathers in that day’s battle. When the true spies had been winnowed from the accidental captives, the Caliph asked them, grim-faced, “Whom do we fight?”
Now one or two spies interpreted for the barbarians who had taken the Caliph’s coin, and who told more than the disguised Arabs, for they had known the answers for years.
“We all are members of hordes,” one barbarian explained, “what you would call tribes. But we are of many nations—Turks, Pechenegs, Mongols, Kirkhiz, Kazakhs, Polovtsi, Manchus, and more—any whom Olgor Khan can sway to his service.”
“Who is Olgor Khan?” Caliph Suleiman asked, his brow dark.
“You would call him a king,” another barbarian answered. “He was born the son of the Khan of the Azov Horde, but when he came to power, a priest with burning eyes journeyed to him from the distant South, one who called himself Arjasp, and told him that if he worshiped the god of darkness and strove to bring all people into the god’s power, that god would exalt him and make him emperor of the world.”
“And he let himself be seduced by the lure of power?” Suleiman asked.
“Of power and riches,” a third barbarian said, “for the priest promised him the wealth of all the world, masses of gold and gems by the bushel, if he would bow down and worship Arjasp ‘s god.”
“What name has this god?” Suleiman demanded.
The barbarians answered, “Angra Mainyu, or Ahriman.”
The Caliph stiffened, staring at them in horror.
CHAPTER 4
“I know that name,” said the general who stood nearby.
“Yes, I know it well,” the Caliph said through stiffened lips. “There is a small district within my empire whose people still speak of Ahriman—but he is not the god they worship, he is the demon they abhor.”
The barbarians stared. “It is no mere invention of this high priest, then?”
“Ahriman is the name they have given him of late,” Suleiman replied. “The old name of this king of demons was Angra Mainyu, and he is the enemy of their true god, Ahura Mazda, the god of light. In times long past, his priests were called ‘magi.’ “
“ Why, even so,” said one barbarian, with a shudder. “Arjasp calls himself a ‘magus.’ “
“They are the oldest of the wizards,” said the general, “and claim that all magic comes from them, for they have given their name to it.”
” ‘Magic’ comes from ‘magi’?” asked one barbarian, wide-eyed. “Then may the heavens defend us, for we are lost!”
“Not so,” snapped an Arab wizard, “for we have learned a great deal since these magi invented their form of magic—and believe me, theirs is only one of many! We know something of theirs, and of others far older!”
The barbarians seemed to be a little reassured by the claim.
“What does this Khan Olgor with those he conquers?” the Caliph asked.
“Say ‘emperor,’ rather,” said one of the Arab spies, “for he styles himself ‘gur-khan,’ which means Great Khan, or Khan of Khans.”
“The audacity of him!” Suleiman fumed, but he could not deny the validity of the claim, for a man who had brought many nations and their kings beneath his sway was indeed an emperor.
But not the only emperor—nor would he ever be, Suleiman swore to himself. “What happens to the peoples of the nations he conquers?”
“Those who join him of their own free will and seek places in his army are honored,” said one barbarian, “and their wives and children dress in brocades, live in tents of silk, and eat meat every night. Those whom he commands to surrender, and who do so without battle, are left to live much as they did before, governing themselves, though their kings must obey the commands of the Great Khan. Their merchants, however, grow rich from trade with all other tribes and nations who have joined the empire.”
“How long has it been growing?” the Caliph demanded.
“Nearly twenty years,” a barbarian answered.
“What of the tribes who fight against the Great Khan’s conquest?” the Caliph asked.
“He butchers all their men,” a barbarian answered, grim-faced, “and builds a pyramid of their skulls to mark where a town was so foolish as to resist him. He makes eunuchs of those males who are still boys, then sells women and children all into slavery. Where there was a city before, there remains only a deserted ruin—deserted until he gives it to one of his wild tribes for their dwelling.”
Even Suleiman had to suppress a shudder. “How much territory has he taken, this Great Khan?”
“His hordes have swept all through the center of the world, O Caliph,” a barbarian said.
Suleiman turned to his Arab agents, frowning. “What does he mean?”
“It is their term for Central Asia, O Caliph,” answered one. “Your empire and Europe sit on the western edge of the world and China on the eastern, with the land of the Hindus on the southern.”
“What lies on the northern?”
“Ice, and people whose hides grow thick fur over everything except their faces.”
In the heat of Persia, that almost sounded attractive. The Caliph nodded and turned back to the barbarian. “How many nations has Olgor taken?”
“We Polovtsi, the Kirghiz, the Kazakhs, the Tartars …”
“The Afghans, the Pathans, the Mongols … “ said another.
“The Uzbeks, the Huns, the Turks …”
Suleiman listened, dazed, as the names of Central Asian nations rolled before him.
“He has even conquered Fu-shien, a Chinese province that spreads beyond the Tien Shan Mountains,” a last barbarian added. “All have fallen before him or joined him with eagerness, beguiled by the promise of loot and empire.”
The Caliph drew breath. “Is there any part of Central Asia he has not conquered?”
One by one the spies shook their heads. Suleiman turned to his wizard, anger gathering. “Have you learned nothing with alI your scrying that these men have not told me?”
“All is as they say.” The oldest and most powerful of his wizards stepped forward. “We can only add that there are pockets of people here and there who have fled the cities that fell to Olgor and taken refuge in mountains, desert oases, and islands in the middle of vast lakes, who hold out against the Great Khan and stay free—but it seems they survive only because he does not think them worth his time when he has a world to conquer.”