Ogotai’s death! When the High Khan dies, all the Orkhons and generals return to Karakorum to elect a new High Khan. Genghis Khan’s death had halted the Mongol expansion, for a year or so. Ogotai’s death stopped the Mongol invasion of Europe — permanently.

Ahriman was not out to murder Ogotai; he was in Karakorum to protect him, to keep him alive, so that Subotai could finish the work of conquering all of Europe. Because after Subotai would come the mandarins of Ye Liu Chutsai, bringing peace and order and the law of the Yassa to the enslaved inhabitants of Europe. Bringing the same immobility and eventual stagnation to Europe that their bureaucracies had brought to China itself and the Middle East.

Europe would be homogenized by the mandarins, under the sword arm of the Mongol conquerors. The petty, boisterous states of Europe would be stamped out of existence and blended into the iron despotism of the East. The great cities would wither — or be destroyed. The Renaissance would never happen. Europeans would never discover science, never build the high technology that allowed democracies and human freedom to flourish.America would be discovered by Chinese navigators, if it all.

At last I saw Ahriman’s plan clearly. By allowing the Mongols to conquer all of Eurasia, he guaranteed that the human race would stagnate and slowly, slowly die away, crushing itself under the changeless heel of Oriental tyranny. What Ye Liu Chutsai believed to be the highest civilization in the world was in fact a trap in which humankind would extinguish itself.

If Ahriman could achieve that, he would have altered the space-time continuum to such an extent that its very fabric would be ripped asunder. The continuum would shatter. Ormazd would be overthrown. The human race would perish utterly. The forces of darkness would win the long, eternal struggle.

If Ogotai lived. That is what Ahriman was trying to accomplish. That was what I had to prevent. My mission in this time and place was not to kill Ahriman. It was to kill Ogotai.

Cursing, crying out into the thunder-racked night, I turned my pony back toward the haphazard capital of the Mongols, leaving Agla alone and defenseless in the storm, heading back toward Karakorum to murder the man who had befriended me.

I tethered the pony under the projecting eaves of the house the Mongols had given Agla and me. The rain still fell heavily, sweeping across the cleared space around the ordu in blustery waves. The twin bonfires were dark and cold. No one was in sight. Ogotai’s tent swayed and billowed in the gusting wind. I could hear the tent ropes creaking.

Every conscious thought in me urged me to ride back into the grassland to find Agla. She was searching for me there, risking her life to save mine, and I was here on a mission of murder while I left her to wander alone through the raging storm.

But something stronger than my conscious will was directing me now. Like a warrior who marches numbly into battle even though every fiber of his being wants to run away to safety, I walked toward Ogotai’s sleeping tent, stiff with the icy cold of the night, hunched over against the slashing rain and wind.

I was a clever assassin. Instead of heading straight for the sleeping tent, I crossed the open space surrounding the ordu on the far side of the High Khan’s main tent, away from the blackened embers of the two bonfires, where there would be no guards posted to observe my approach. I entered the big, swaying, creaking tent. It was dark and empty. The long silver table had been cleared. The cushions where the Mongols lounged while their slaves attended them had been removed.

Crossing the darkened tent swiftly, I crept along the shadows of the silken hangings that shielded the entrance which connected it to the High Khan’s sleeping tent. Two warriors stood at the entrance, erect, awake, and fully armed. I slid back behind the hangings and tried to gather my thoughts.

Whether Ogotai was awake or asleep, he would no doubt have those six deaf and dumb guards in his sleeping tent with him. My only chance to kill him would be to rush in and strike him down before the guards could react. What happened afterward did not matter. I told myself that several times, and I knew that I was prepared to do it. But the other side of my mind was begging me to run away, to find Agla and go far from here, find a place where death and murder were unknown, a place where we could live together in peace and love forever. While the Mongols conquered the rest of the world and inexorably snuffed out the flickering lights of learning and growth, I heard myself answer. While the human race sank into decay, despotism, and despair. While Ahriman won his eons-long battle and watched all of humanity wither away into extinction.

I shook myself the way a dog shakes water off its fur. “Agla,” I whispered so low that I myself could not truly hear the words, “perhaps we’ll meet again, somewhere, somewhen.”

Slipping my curved dagger from its sheath, I slowly, silently sliced a cut through the tough fabric of the tent wall and carefully stepped through it, into Ogotai’s sleeping tent. Another silk hanging was draped over the tent’s side so that I made my entrance unnoticed by those inside.

The tent was dimly lit. Through the silken fabric I could see nothing more than shadows. But I could hear men speaking. It was Ahriman’s voice that I heard first. I froze where I stood, not even daring to breathe for fear of moving the tapestry and revealing my presence.

“Sleep will come soon, my lord High Khan,” said the Dark One’s heavy, tortured voice.

“The pain is bad tonight,” Ogotai replied.

“It is the dampness,” Ahriman said. “Wet weather makes the pain worse.”

“And you make the potion stronger.”

“That is necessary, to keep the pain away.”

“But the pain is winning, Persian. Each night it grows stronger. I can feel it, despite your potions.”

“Did you suffer badly during the hunt, my lord?”

“Enough. Your draughts kept me going. But if it hadn’t been for Orion, I would be dead now.”

I could hear Ahriman give out a long, growling sigh.

“You still prophesy,” Ogotai asked, “that he will try to kill me?”

“He is an assassin, High Khan. He was sent here to murder you.”

“I cannot believe it.”

Ahriman’s rasping voice took on an air of complete certainty. “The next time you see him. High Khan, he will attempt to assassinate you. Be warned.”

“Enough!” Ogotai snapped. “If he had wanted to kill me, he could have let the boar do the job. He saved my life, wizard.”

“And won your confidence.”

Ogotai did not answer. For long moments I heard nothing but the keening of the wind outside and the creaking of the tent ropes.

“My lord High Khan,” Ahriman said, in his harsh whisper, “a month from now your general Subotai will gather the strength of his army once again and march farther west, across the lands of the German princes, across the broad river called the Rhine, and into the land of the Franks. These Franks are mighty warriors. It was they who turned back the Saracens many years ago. It is they who even today battle against the Ottomans near Jerusalem. But Ogotai will crush them utterly and destroy their cities. He will reach the wide sea and plant the yak-tail standard on its shore. You will rule all the lands between the two mighty oceans. All of Europe and Asia will be yours.”

“You have prophesied all this before,” said Ogotai. He sounded weary, dulled, sleepy.

“Indeed,” Ahriman admitted. “But none of this will come to pass if the High Khan dies and all the Orkhons and generals must return to Karakorum to elect a new High Khan. Orion knows this. That is why he must strike you down soon, within the next few days, if he is to save Europe from Subotai’s conquest.”