Ben Bova - Orion in the Dying Time

“We would not have to fight?”

“You will have to fight,” I said. “The land is ruled not by men, but by monsters such as no man has ever seen before.”

“Monsters?” blurted one of the warriors. “What kind of monsters?”

“Have you seen them yourself?”

“Are you spinning tales to try to frighten us, man of the west?”

Subotai hushed them with an impatient gesture.

I replied, “I have been there, my lords, and seen this land and the monsters who rule it. They are fierce and powerful and hideous.”

I spent the next hour describing Set and his Shaydanian clones, and the dinosaurs that he had brought from the Mesozoic.

“What you speak of,” said Subotai at last, “sounds much like the djinn of the Persians or the tsan goblins that the people of the high mountains fear.”

“They are to be feared, that is true enough,” I said. “And they have great powers. But they are neither ghosts nor goblins. They are as mortal as you or I. I myself have killed them with little more than a spear or a knife.”

Subotai sank back on his silken cushions, deep in thought. The others drank and held out their goblets for more wine. I drank, too. And waited.

Finally Subotai asked me, “Can you lead us to this land?”

“Yes, my lord Subotai.”

“I would see these monsters for myself.”

“I can take you there.”

“How soon? How long a journey is it?”

Suddenly I realized that I was talking myself into a double-edged trap. To bring Subotai or any of the Mongols back to the Neolithic, I would have to reveal to them powers that would convince them that I was a sorcerer. The Mongols did not deal kindly with sorcerers: usually they put them to the sword, or killed them more slowly.

And once in the Neolithic they might very well take one look at Set’s reptilians and decide that they were supernatural creatures. Although the Mongols feared no human, the sight of the Shaydanians might terrify them.

“My lord Subotai,” I answered carefully, “the land I speak of cannot be reached on horseback. I can take you there tomorrow morning, if you desire it, but the journey will seem very strange to you.”

He cast me a sidelong glance. “Speak more plainly, Orion.”

The others hunched forward, more curiosity on their faces than fear.

“You know that I come from a far land,” I said.

“From beyond the sea that stretches to the sky,” Subotai said, recalling what I had told him years before.

“Yes,” I agreed. “In my land people travel in very strange ways. They do not need horses. They can go across far mountains and seas in the blink of an eye.”

“Witchcraft!” snapped one of the warriors.

“No,” I said. “Merely a swifter way to travel.”

“Like the magic carpets that the storytellers of Baghdad speak of?” asked Subotai.

I grabbed at that idea. “Indeed, my lord, very much like that.”

His brows rose a centimeter. “I had always thought such tales to be nothing more than children’s nonsense.”

Bowing my head slightly to show some humility, I replied, “Children’s nonsense sometimes becomes reality, my lord. You yourself have accomplished deeds that would have seemed impossible to your grandfathers.”

He made that sighing noise again, almost a snort. The others remained silent.

“Very well,” said Subotai. “Tomorrow morning you will take me to this strange land you describe. Me, and my personal guard.”

“How many men will that be?” I asked.

Subotai smiled. “A thousand. With their horses and weapons.”

The warrior sitting next to Subotai on his left said without humor, “You will need a large carpet, Orion.”

The others burst into laughter. Subotai grinned, then looking at the surprise on my face, began to roar. The joke was on me. The others lolled back on the cushions and howled until tears ran down their cheeks. I laughed, too. Mongols do not laugh at sorcerers and witchcraft. As long as they were guffawing they were not afraid of me. As long as they did not fear me they would not try to knife me in my back.

One of Subotai’s tough, battle-scarred veterans led me to a stall in the loft of the church where a few blankets and pillows had been put together to make a serviceable bed. I slept soundly, without dreams.

The sun shone weakly through tattered scudding gray clouds the next morning. The rain had stopped but the streets of Kiev were rivers of gooey gray-brown mud.

Subotai’s quartermaster had apparently spent the night hunting up equipment taken as spoils from the Muscovites big enough for me to wear. Obviously nothing made for the Mongols themselves would fit me.

I came down to the nave of the converted church decked in a chain-mail shirt, leather trousers, and boots that felt a little too snug but warm. A curved scimitar of Damascus steel hung at my side, its hilt sparkling with precious gems. The faithful old iron dagger that Odysseus had given me was now tucked into my belt.

A red-haired slave led me out into the watery sunlight, where a pair of Mongol warriors waited on their ponies. They held a third horse, slightly bigger than the other two, for me. Without a word we rode through the muddy streets and past the gate that I had entered the night before.

Out beyond the city wall waited Subotai’s personal guard, a thousand hardened warriors who had beaten every army hurled against them from the Great Wall of China to the shores of the Danube River. Mounted on tough little ponies, grouped in precise military formations of tens and hundreds, each warrior was accompanied by two or three more horses and all the equipment he would need for battle.

At the head of the formation Subotai’s magnificent white stallion pranced as impatiently as the great general himself must have felt.

“Orion!” he called as I approached. “We are ready to move.”

It was a command and a challenge. I knew I had to translate the entire mass of them through spacetime, but I feared to attempt doing it as abruptly as I myself moved through the continuum.

So, playacting a bit, I squinted up at the weak sun, turned slightly in my creaking saddle, and pointed roughly northward.

“That is the way, my lord Subotai.”

He gave a guttural order to the warrior riding next to him and the entire formation wheeled around and followed us at a slow pace.

I led them into the dismal dark woods that began a bare half mile from the city’s walls. Concentrating with an intensity I had never known before, I uttered a silent plea for help to Anya as I tried to focus all the energy I could tap for the translation through spacetime.

The woods grew misty. A soft gray billowing fog rose from the ground and wrapped us in its chill tendrils. Our mounts trotted ahead slowly, Subotai at my side, his bodyguards behind me, close enough to slice me to ribbons at the slightest provocation. The fog grew thicker, blanketing sound as well as sight. I could hear the muffled tread of the horse’s hooves in the muddy ground, an occasional snort, the jangle of a sword hilt against a steel buckle.

I ignored all distractions. I even ignored Subotai himself as I gathered my mental strength and forced the entire group of us across the continuum. I felt the familiar moment of utter cold, but it was over almost before it began.

I realized that I had squeezed my eyes shut. Opening them, I saw that we were still in a forest. But the mist was dissolving, evaporating. The ground beneath us was firm and dry. The sunlight filtering through the tall leafy trees was strong and bright.

We were now in the forest of Paradise, I realized, riding north by east toward the edge of the woods. The time was the early Neolithic. This was the place and the time where Set had determined to make his stand: to wipe out the human race while it was still small and weak, to wreak vengeance upon me and the Creators for destroying his home world, to seize the planet Earth and make it his own forever.