Robert Doherty: Project Aura

A book in the Psychic Warrior series, 2001

The Himalayas

1220 A .D.

Jagged white-topped peaks crowned the horizon in all directions, cut only by the narrow river valley. Like an invasion of locusts, the great Genghis Khan’s army marched up the chasm, driving hostages they swept up before them. Finally, deep in the high country, the valley broadened, opening to a lake, next to which was a small town of whitewashed stone buildings. A thick layer of ice covered the water, even though it was the height of summer.

Horses’ and men’s lungs labored for oxygen as the Khan deployed the bulk of his warriors in a semicircle around the captives at the near side of the village. More than a thousand hostages, every person who lived in the lower valley, milled about in fear in front of the Mongol soldiers.

At over ten thousand feet in altitude, the valley was a desolate place holding little of obvious value. The twenty-thousand-foot-high peak of Kharta Changri loomed to the west, overlooking massive glacier fields that fed the lake and river, known as Kharta Chu to the locals, that came out of it. Ten miles to the south, Chomolungma, which was not to be called Mount Everest for another six centuries, filled the horizon.

Khan rode forward, one hundred of his elite guard behind him. He was flush from recently having destroyed the great city of Samarkand several hundred miles to the northwest, in a more temperate and lower land. Astride the Silk Road, Samarkand had boasted a population of over two hundred thousand souls. Khan had ordered his troops to slay everyone except the most skilled artisans, whom he sent back to Mongolia in chains. Men, women, children, even cats and dogs, were put to the sword. The walls of the city were razed and broken into dust. A nearby river was diverted to wash over where the city had been so that no trace of it would survive-such was the fate of those who were in the Khan’s path. The world had never known such a conqueror-not even Alexander or Caesar had come close to inflicting the level of destruction that had been dealt by the Golden Horde led by Genghis Khan. It would take weapons of mass destruction in the twentieth century to approach the scale of the millions his forces killed, the cities he destroyed, the land he left barren behind him.

None had stopped Khan so far, so he rode forward without fear, his warriors guarding him with arrows notched to the sinew strings of their bows. He paused as he approached the town. A lone figure barred his path: a slight old woman, seated in a chair made of reeds, set in the center of the small track that led into the town. Some of the hostages were crying out to the old woman in a strange tongue, no doubt pleading for her help. The town behind her, though, appeared deserted, as if it had not been occupied for a very long time. The cold air had preserved the buildings, but there was no other sign of life, and certainly little of wealth.

The woman had light skin, unlike the darker tone of the hostages. Her hair was long and white, flowing over her shoulders like a waterfall. Lines etched her face, surrounding eyes the likes of which the Khan had never seen-they were icy blue and their gaze pierced into him.

She wore a long robe of white that stretched to the ground.

Less than ten feet in front of the old woman, Genghis Khan raised his left hand, halting his troops. Khan saw no fear in the woman’s face, something that gained his immediate respect after dealing with so many cowering noblemen from towns he had encountered on his march. Among the Mongols, women were held in esteem and their wisdom listened to, so Khan held back from immediately slaying her. Also, this strange situation interested him. It was not what he had been told to expect.

“I speak your language,” the old woman said in Mongol, which surprised the Khan.

This land was far from his home, and he had only come here because he had been told stories of a wonderful valley full of riches, hidden high in the mountains. The ones who told him of this place, wanderers without a home, were a group of outcasts. These people had assured him that he would find treasure beyond belief high in the rooftop of the world, as they called it. This place did not look rich, but it had been an arduous trip here and Khan did not want to go back empty-handed.

“I am the Great Khan, ruler of all you see behind me, and soon to be ruler of all I see before me. ”

“I know of you, Great Khan of the northern plains,” the old woman said.

Khan was not surprised the woman had heard of him. All the world trembled at the approach of the Khan and his army.

“You are far from your path,” the woman continued.

“My path is whatever I choose it to be.”

“So it seems.”

“What do you know of me?” Khan demanded.

The old woman’s voice became surprisingly loud. “Your greatest pleasure is to vanquish your enemies and chase them before you. To rob them of their wealth and see those dear to them bathed in tears, to ride their horses and clasp to your bosom their wives and daughters. Is that not what you believe?”

Khan slammed a fist into the armor on his chest. “It is what I live for.”

“Your goal is to conquer all the world.”

“As far as I can ride will be mine,” Khan said. “None can stop me. ”

“There are forces in the world that you do not know about,” the old woman said.

Khan spit. “The sword and bow are great equalizers. None have stopped us so far.”

She waved a frail hand. “We are not your enemy.”

“I decide who my enemies are.”

“You do not want my people as your enemy. It would gain you nothing.”

Khan stiffened. He lifted his left hand and slashed it down. A troop of his warriors fired their short bows into the hostages. A hundred fell, most dead, the wounded screaming in agony. Warriors waded among them and slit the throats of those that cried out.

“We are enemies now, aren’t we?”

“Those are not my people,” the woman said. “They till the land in the valley far below. Why kill them? They are not your enemy either.”

Khan looked about. “I don’t see your people.”

She waved her hand once more. “They are all around you. They watched you come up the valley.”

“We saw no one other than these.”

She rested a hand on her chest. “Of course not. You see of us only what we allow you to see.”

“You know me, old lady. Who are you?”

“You may call me Kirati.”

Khan got off his horse, his squat, bowlegged form wiry and used to the harsh life in the field. “What are your people called?”

“We are the spirits who ride the wind.”

Khan could sense the uneasy rustling among his men close enough to hear. He gestured with his left hand, indicating for his guards to move back out of earshot. His mother had told him tales of the wind spirits, the souls of those who had died, who flew over the steppes. But the old woman looked very much alive to him.

“You are the dead?”

The old woman smiled. “No. We came here to the high country long before your ancestors first rode the great grasslands that you call home, and we will be here long after your name is legend. We came here to be left alone. To be away from men’s wars.”

Khan squatted, running the strands of a leather lariat through his callused hands. “Where there are men, there are wars. It cannot be avoided. It is our nature.”

“We know,” Kirati said. “That is why there are few men with us. We came to this place, far away from all others, to dwell. We lived in this village for many years beyond counting. Then we fought among ourselves. Some left and became the wanderers who told you of this place. Others, most of the men, they went far to the west. And we went higher into the mountains where no one can dwell.”