“I have not killed your friend, even though I could have easily,” I said to their leader. “I come in peace. I am not a warrior.”

The leader eyed me suspiciously. “Not a warrior? Then god protect us from the warriors of your race!”

“I come in peace,” I repeated. But I kept a firm grip on the sword.

“You speak our tongue.”

“That is true. I seek your Khan, your leader.”

His narrow-eyed face pinched into a thoughtful frown. “The Khan? The High Khan?”

“Yes.”

“This man is a devil,” said one of the other warriors. “Let’s kill him.” He unlimbered his bow.

“No,” said the leader. “Wait.”

I could see he was struggling furiously within himself to decide what to do. Barbarian warriors are seldom faced with such choices. I wondered if these six horsemen were the ones who had ravaged and killed the family I had seen earlier in the day. They seemed to be carrying no loot.

“Where are you from, stranger? What is your name?”

“I am called Orion,” I said, “and I come from far to the west of here.”

“From beyond the western mountains?” asked one of the warriors.

I nodded. “And beyond the seas that are beyond those mountains.”

“You are an emissary, then?” the leader asked.

“Yes. An emissary from a distant land.” I hoped that even barbarians treated emissaries with some vestige of diplomatic immunity.

“And you wish to see the High Khan.” It was not a question.

“That is my mission,” I said.

The warrior at my feet slowly got up, on legs that were still wobbly. His left arm was useless; probably the shoulder was broken. The kick I had given him would have felled a man twice his size, I knew. His midsection must be very sore; it obviously hurt him to breathe. He stared at me for a moment, then held out his empty right hand. I debated within myself for a moment, then handed him back his sword.

He took it, hefted it, smiled at me, then raised the sword over his head for a vicious slash at my neck. I stood unflinching, staring into his eyes. I knew that I had plenty of time to block his swing once he started it. This might be merely a test, or his attempt to show that he was uncowed by me.

His eyes probed mine, searching for the slightest sign of uncertainty or fear. I held my ground. The warrior’s face was lean and hard; the thin white slash of a scar ran along his left cheek, down near the jaw. His leader, leaning both arms on the pommel of his high-peaked saddle, said nothing.

The warrior slowly brought his sword down until his arm hung at his side. Turning to the others, he shook his head. “He is a demon, not a true man.”

The leader laughed. “He is a strange one, that is true. We will take him to the Orkhon and see what comes of him.”

They made me walk while they rode, but they were generous enough with their water. I drank from the leader’s leather canteen, and then from the canteens of two of the other warriors, as the long, hot day slowly dragged to its conclusion.

We were in Persia, I was certain of that. And from the way these tough, scarred warriors spoke, they were most likely Mongols of the horde of Genghis Khan. This was the twelfth or thirteenth century, then, and these wild barbarian horsemen were ravaging the civilized world from Cathay to the plains of Poland.

I tried to ask the leader of this small troop a few questions, but he had gone silent. Apparently he had made up his mind to deliver me to higher authority, and he wished to be drawn into no further talk. He was a warrior, not a diplomat. But he had spared my life, and that was a good enough decision for this day, as far as I was concerned.

The sun touched the flat horizon of the desert and within minutes it was night. And cold. I clamped down on my body’s surface capillaries and did what I could to keep myself warm, but I was not dressed for a desert night. The warriors took no notice of my shivering; they simply plodded along, with me walking beside the horse of their leader.

It was a city that had been burning all day long. I never found out its name, but I recalled that the Mongols had no use for cities; being nomads, they preferred the open grazing lands that fed their horses and cattle. In war, if a city surrendered to them, they left it in peace, merely installing a Mongol overlord to collect taxes. If the city resisted, it was besieged until it fell; then it was methodically destroyed and all its inhabitants either killed or sent into slavery. Twentieth-century people thought that city-destroying nuclear weapons were something new under the sun; the Mongols razed cities by hand — burned them or took them apart stone by stone and in some cases even diverted rivers across the blackened foundations. And they murdered the inhabitants one by one, with swords and lances and arrows, after raping the women and pillaging every home. Of course, they also tortured anyone who looked rich enough to have hidden gold or other treasure. Compared to what I saw with my own eyes of the barbarian conquests, nuclear weapons at least have the blessing of being swift and impersonal.

The Mongol encampment was huge, even in the flickering lights of the campfires. Tents and round, felt-covered yurts — which looked like teepees mounted on ox-carts — stretched for acre upon acre across the barren ground. Thousands of horses snuffled and neighed in huge, roped-in corrals. You could smell them miles away. Women cooked in front of most of the tents, stirring heavy, black iron pots. Smoke rose from the central holes of most of the yurts, telling me that they had at least a primitive form of central heating.

The warriors marched me through what seemed like miles of the camp, through the maze of tents and yurts that had been laid out with no apparent order whatsoever. But they knew exactly where they were heading. Suddenly I saw that there was a large open space, ringed by fully armed guards, the firelight glinting off their steel helmets and jeweled sword hilts. My captors reined in their horses here. The leader dismounted and spoke swiftly to one of the guards, who cast me an utterly disbelieving look. But he nodded, and the leader of the little band of horse warriors quickly remounted his pony, grinning. The six of them galloped off, happy to be relieved of the responsibility of their strange prisoner.

The guard was obviously an officer accustomed to giving commands that were obeyed instantly.

“I am told you speak the tongue of the Gobi,” he said. He was older, a trace of gray at his temples, but like the horsemen, he was almost fully a head shorter than I. Although his face was unmarred, across the back of his right hand there was a livid scar that disappeared beneath the leather cuff of his tunic. His voice was high; he would have made an excellent tenor.

“I understand your words,” I answered.

“Your name is Orion; you come from beyond the western mountains, and you are an emissary sent to make submission to the High Khan.”

“I have been sent to see the Khan, that is true.”

He looked me over disdainfully. “You carry no gifts for him.”

“The gifts I bear are here.” I tapped my temple. Then, seeing the faintest flicker of a smile curl his lips, I realized that I was dealing with a very literal man. I added, “They are gifts of wisdom and knowledge, not jewels or fine pearls.”

He almost looked disappointed. I believe he would have enjoyed splitting open my skull to examine it for hidden treasure. With a shake of his head, he told me, “You cannot approach the Orkhon looking like a naked beggar. Come with me.”

As I started to follow him, I said, “I have not eaten…” What should I say? I wondered. That I have had nothing to eat in eight centuries? “…for many days,” I concluded.

He was like a minor officer in any army; everything displeased him, except for those important things which made him angry. Grunting and mumbling to himself, he led me to a campfire and told the woman there to feed me. I gulped a steaming bowlful of unidentifiable stew, hot enough to scald my tongue, and swilled it down with sour-tasting milk. By the time I was finished, the guard came back and dumped an armful of clothes on the ground beside me. Gratefully, I pulled on a pair of loose-fitting trousers, a rough shirt that was tight across my shoulders, and a shaggy leather coat.