Piers Anthony: Steppe

TAYANG: "Who are these who pursue our ships with such devastation?"

FIRST OFFICER: "They are the hunting dogs of Temujin: Jebe the Arrow, Jelme the Devout, Subotai, Borchu, Qasar... They feed on spaceships and are leashed with lasers; their skulls are of brass, their teeth hewn from primeval rock; their tongues are swords and their hearts of iron!"

SECOND OFFICER: "What should we do, Tayang?" (Silence.)

THIRD OFFICER: "Arise, Chief! Your wives and mother await you!"

(No response.)

Then the last of the Naiman returned to their ships and resumed the hopeless battle. Alp, moved by their courage in adversity, would have spared them. But they fought on resolutely until the last man was eliminated from the Game.

"They must have had a great leader!" Alp said, shaking his head. Would his own troops serve him like that, after he died?

The bulk of the Naiman populace now submitted to Alp. But Jamuqa remained to be hunted down. That was to take two more Days but was inevitable, for Alp had conquered Steppe.

Chapter 18

QAN

For the moment there were the Naiman to be assimilated into the empire. First Alp checked the officers and aristocracy among the captives, determining their potential usefulness to the new order. It was his policy to waste nothing, and he considered human skills to be the greatest resource of all. By properly utilizing the talents of the men in his empire, he could forge it into a stronger power than had ever been seen in Steppe before. One that could successfully tackle the perennial enemy of all the nomads: China.

Some of the captives were well-dressed Uigurs. Alp recognized them instantly, for they were his kind, even when only players in the Game. He had paid scant attention to the political affairs of the diminished Kingdom of the Uigur, fearing that this could adversely effect his objectivity and make him prone to mistakes. He was a Mongol now and had to cultivate Mongol thinking, lest he slip and lose everything... as he almost had. But he was aware that the Uigurs, after being displaced by the Kirghiz in 840, had settled in the Tarim Basin of the galaxy and become civilized farmers and traders. Later barbarian powers had drawn on Uigur literacy and been somewhat civilized by it—such as the Khitans and more recently the Naiman. So the presence of a number of Uigurs here was not surprising. Now Alp had reason to cultivate them specifically, for the Kingdom of the Uigur was his new neighbor to the southwest. He was in a fashion returning to his homeland!

Alp's hands were sweaty, but his voice was steady. "Who are those?" he inquired, as if he did not know.

"They are savants, astrologers, physicians, scribes," came the answer. "They read the stars, make predictions, care for sick women, write letters."

"That one," Alp said, pointing to a minister holding a curiously wrought gold object.

"I am Tata-tunga, keeper of the Tayang's seal," the Uigur said.

Alp froze. Tata-tunga in person! The author of the historical manuscript that had led to the entire Mongol quest! What did this portend?

But he kept his voice even. "The Naiman's power is broken. You are a Uigur; you owe the Tayang nothing more."

But the Uigur would not speak against the dead Tayang. "He was a good master."

Alp liked this. The man who was loyal to one leader even after death would be loyal to another—once won over. "What is the purpose of this object?"

Tata-tunga lifted the gold. "This is the Tayang's seal. Whenever he made an order he stamped it with this seal to prove the order was not forged. No other seal duplicates this pattern."

This was something new to Alp. He had been aware of seals but had thought they were relics of the ancient western peoples like the Sumerians. So now the nomads were finding use for them! "Who writes out the orders?"

"I do, usually," Tata-tunga said.

Naturally the man was literate! But not the way Alp was, this player would write in Galactic script, not Uigur. "You will join my court," Alp said, "granting me the same loyalty you gave your former master. You will arrange to have a seal made for me—not gold, something more precious. Jade, I think. And you will instruct my children in writing and in history." He thought a moment, then added: "And you will compile a survey of national mythologies—Mongol, Naiman, Uigur—and Khitan. The process of empire is unkind to separate subcultures, so we want an accurate record."

Tata-tunga looked at him with new appraisal, then acknowledged with a formal tilting of his head. An extremely able scholar had just been added to the empire. And so long as this Uigur remained in Alp's service, Temujin had to be Jenghiz.

Meanwhile, Alp's enormously increased power brought new problems. He was not accustomed to the niceties of organizing a real empire, and leaned heavily on the intelligent Tata-tunga from the outset of their acquaintance. The man knew more about government than Alp did. If Tata-tunga were a true representation of the Uigur original—and Alp's secret document suggested this was the case—the breakup of the Uigur empire was as much blessing as tragedy. Uigurs now ran a larger portion of Steppe than they could have on their own. Stripped of their military role, they had concentrated on education—a more enduring asset.

Alp had his first serious taste of palace intrigue. Old Munlik, Temujin's stepfather, remained a capable adviser. There was so much work to be done that Alp could not conveniently dispense with his services, apart from the potential stickiness of eliminating a technical relative. So Alp continued to tolerate him, and Munlik continued to handle the myriad noisome details of nomad organization and discipline with unquestionable loyalty to Alp's interest... and that was one of the things Alp disliked about the man. The darker side of Alp's personality was mirrored in Munlik too clearly...

But Munlik's seven sons lacked their father's discretion. One among them, Tab-tangri, was a shaman: a worker of magic. Few Galactics actually believed in sorcery, but it was considered valid in the context of the Game, and Tab did have an impressive array of tricks. He could make a burning fire appear in his hand, then quench it and show his hand ungloved and unburned. He could make his ship vanish from the screens of other ships as if he had fallen into another continuum. And he had helped Alp by proclaiming that Temujin was the man chosen by the Game Machine to be the next and only lord of all Steppe, the Great Qan. Many dubious allies were swayed by this, and it enhanced the image Alp was so laboriously forming among the various Steppe peoples: his inevitable supremacy.

But Tab was personally ambitious and vied with Temujin's own sons for influence at the Mongol court. He became insolent, and worked insidious mischief. He quarreled with Temujin's brother Qasar, and when unable to move the stout warrior, set upon Qasar's ship with several of his brothers, crippling it.

Qasar survived and promptly complained to Alp. "That bastard Tab tried to eliminate me!" he shouted, redfaced on the screen.

At first Alp didn't believe it. "You—a leader of the Mongol archers? How could he touch you?"

Black rage showed on Qasar's face, and he cut the connection. Alp hadn't meant to insult him—but certainly Qasar should never have been taken unawares by the likes of Tab! It was a good lesson.

Next Tab himself called. "The Spirit has revealed to me a command from Eternal Heaven," he intoned in that shamanistic way of his. "Temujin will reign first, and after him Qasar. How fortunate to have such a brother!" He faded.

This hardly seemed like a quarrel with Qasar! Tab was endorsing him for Qan, just as he had endorsed Temujin before. Why was Qasar so surly?

But as Alp thought about it, he liked it less. Why should Qasar rule after him? Was something going to happen to Temujin?