To the north of them, the Tien Shan range rose up, stark and forbidding, the mountains shining gold from the peaks to far down the slopes where the weak sunlight touched them, striking the stinking yellow snow; ahead lay a narrow swath of sere, dust-colored grass where lush green should have been, and only a few clumps of hardy grasses reminded them of what was usually there in profusion. Even the stream they followed gave no comfort, for the waters were cloudy and harsh-tasting and did little to slake the thirst that plagued the Desert Cats clan and their animals as they made their way toward Turfan.
Baru Ksoka was both dismayed and disgusted, for the clan was not making its customary rapid progress, and he was becoming worried, for not only were they behind, but winter was approaching much earlier than ever before. All the hunting that usually kept his clan fed while they traveled had proved disappointing, and as a result, there were many Desert Cats who had begun to mutter about ill-luck, and the danger strangers presented; nothing Baru Ksoka said could stop the insidious whispers, and gradually, he began to listen to the growing complaints. He regarded Zangi-Ragozh, the foreigner in the elaborate black shuba on the cinder-brown pony who had become the nexus of all clan fears, with an emotion compounded of unwilling gratitude and envy as he swung his red pony around to bring him alongside Zangi-Ragozh. “In all your travels, have you seen anything to match this?” Baru Ksoka was a big man with heavily muscled arms and shoulders. His broad, high-cheekboned face was fairly expressionless, but every line of his body revealed strong purpose, and he carried himself in a manner that showed he was used to being obeyed.
“No, Kaigan, I have not.” The two spoke an amalgam of Chinese and Jou’an-Jou’an that made their mutual understanding possible. “Not in the West nor in the East.”
“Do you think there is going to be an end to it? Is our weather to turn warm again, and our grasslands to flourish, or will it remain cold and arid?” Baru Ksoka asked variations on these questions almost daily, and over the nearly two fortnights that Zangi-Ragozh and Ro-shei had been with the clan, the Kaigan had become more insistent. “How much longer can this continue?”
Zangi-Ragozh paused, thinking back to the hard years of famine he had seen before, in his homeland, in Egypt, in Rome, in Byzantium, in the wild mountains that lay to the southeast. “Anything I ventured would be speculation at best. I am sorry I have nothing more to offer you than this—that every dreadful time I have passed through has eventually ended, and this is probably no different than any other.” He did not entirely believe this, having never before seen such unaccountable ruin over so much of the earth, but he kept that bleak thought to himself.
“If it is different, then what is to become of us?” Baru Ksoka asked Zangi-Ragozh.
“That depends on more than you or I can say.”
“Do you think it is magic, or the gods contending?”
“As to your gods, I have no understanding of their might, or their dispositions. They may have done this, but so might many other powers beyond our reckoning. Other gods, far away, may be the cause of this, and no appeals to your own will appease them.” Zangi-Ragozh looked up at the high, trailing clouds. “Not even the sky reveals what has happened.”
“The sun is less than it was, that much is certain,” said Baru Ksoka. “I should not be cold at this time of year.”
“Yes, the sun has lost its power, and the earth is paying for it. But why it is so, I cannot tell.”
“We must find out what we can do to change this, and soon,” said Baru Ksoka.
“If there is anything that will bring about a change,” said Zangi-Ragozh.
“There must be something,” Baru Ksoka said in hard determination. “If Dukkai were stronger, she would attend to it. She must know what we have to do.”
“There might not be any means to implement such a change. This wretchedness may be like a flood, which must pass before anything can be done about the damage it has caused,” Zangi-Ragozh warned, wondering if he could persuade the Kaigan not to demand human intervention in this catastrophic time; there had been occasions in the past when he had witnessed dreadful natural occurrences that led to appalling attempts at solutions that served no purpose but the worsening of the disaster.
“You spent time with Dukkai, our magician, last night,” said Baru Ksoka, the sudden change of subject intended to jar Zangi-Ragozh into betraying any shameful act he might have attempted.
“Her pregnancy is not going well,” said Zangi-Ragozh, wholly unflustered. “She asked me to come and provide some ease for her.”
“That seems to be true, that she is suffering with her growing baby, although why she should be so much burdened, I cannot say; my other children have all been lively and thriving in the womb,” said Baru Ksoka heavily. “I regret that we had to give your wagon over to her use.”
“The camels carry the chests and crates well enough.” He thought of his hidden gold and jewels now in chests carried by camels.
“To have our magician miscarry at such a time would be a dire omen, and all the clan knows it.”
Zangi-Ragozh appreciated the warning he heard in the remark, and so he offered a conciliatory answer. “If there is any way to preserve her and her infant, I will do it, to the full limit of my skills. She is in her eighth fortnight, and she should be more accommodated to the pregnancy. If all goes well, she should be over the worst of her weakness in another fortnight, and assuming she is able to sate her hunger, she ought to be able to travel with the rest without more than the usual difficulties of pregnancy.”
Baru Ksoka’s laugh had no mirth in it. “You speak as carefully as a man facing the Underworld Judge.”
“I want to be precise in what I say, so that we understand each other,” said Zangi-Ragozh.
“A very commendable intention.” Baru Ksoka lowered his head in deep thought. “At Turfan, you will have to decide if you are to continue with us or go your own way. We should not take too much longer to get there, even at our current slow pace. I give it five days, unless we have another mishap.” He referred to the hunt of two days ago when one of the men had fallen from his pony at the gallop and broken his shoulder and smashed his ankle. “You were very helpful with Dur Moksal.”
“I am not sure I have done that much for him, yet,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “He is badly hurt.”
“He is alive, and that is more than any of us expected him to be,” said Baru Ksoka with finality.
“At Turfan, you and I will decide,” said Zangi-Ragozh.
“Yes,” he agreed, then tapped his pony’s sides with his heels and rode back to the van of the Desert Cats, leaving Zangi-Ragozh to continue on in isolation, for only three of the clan other than the Kaigan and Dukkai ever spoke to him: Imgalas, who supervised the animals; Gotsada, Dukkai’s cousin, who had been assigned the task of looking after her; and Jekan Madassi, who was in charge of all cooking when the clan camped, and who had come to Zangi-Ragozh for spices. The rest of the Desert Cats made a point of avoiding contact with the two foreigners, a reserve that was increasing as they traveled.
By nightfall they had reached a small spring surrounded by trees with long, drooping leaves; these were turning as pale yellow as the snow on the mountains, preparing to be shed for the season. The spring was wonderfully fresh, lacking the harsh taste of sulfur that had become common in streams and rivers throughout the region. Most of the women spent the evening filling casks and skins from the spring, and the animals drank deeply of it. Around the central fire, most of the Desert Cats gathered, and a few tried to bring a little jollity to the occasion by getting out their pipes and drums. But very shortly the merry tunes fell flat, and soon the music was abandoned as the clan waited for the side of wild goat to finish cooking over the flames.
“This is not going well,” Ro-shei said to Zangi-Ragozh from the tethered camels as he unloaded a small sack of chopped hay he had bought in Kumul from the nearest pack-saddle.
“No, it is not,” Zangi-Ragozh agreed; they spoke in Imperial Latin, keeping their voices low.
“I make it mid- to late October, in the Western calendar,” said Ro-shei. “It feels nearer mid-December.”
“I would say the third week in October, or perhaps the last,” said Zangi-Ragozh.
“And winter already under way” said Ro-shei, a hard shine to his faded-blue eyes. “There was snow on the ground at sunrise, two mornings ago.”
“With travel going more slowly because of it,” Zangi-Ragozh agreed.
Ro-shei spoke into the silence that had fallen between them. “Have you decided what we are to do in Turfan? Do you plan to winter there?”
“I believe it may be decided for us, and without any reference to our sentiments, or the weather,” said Zangi-Ragozh.
“Do you think the Desert Cats might winter there?” Ro-shei persisted.
“I have no notion, but for us, I think it would not be wise, no matter how many foreigners may seek shelter there. I believe foreigners will be unwelcome this winter, for the sun is growing weaker and the cold is spreading, and everyone must look to his own during such perilous times. I have never experienced anything to equal this.” Zangi-Ragozh took a long, deep breath. “From what Baru Ksoka said earlier, as soon as we reach Turfan, he will want us gone.”
“Unless Dukkai is worse,” said Ro-shei. “Or there are more injuries. Or another miscarriage.”
“That may yet be attributed to my presence and not the impact of hunger that is at the heart of Dukkai’s troubles, and the misery of all the rest. Most of these people are just beginning to grasp what lies ahead next spring. I am particularly worried about Dukkai: she needs better food, and more of it, but there is none to be had.” Zangi-Ragozh pressed his lips together.
“Is it, at root, the fault of the child?” Ro-shei looked surprised.
“Perhaps indirectly, because it is as hungry as she is.” He held up his hand as Ro-shei began to speak. “Yes, I know. I, too, am hungry. Everyone is hungry.”
“You do not need me to remind you, I am certain, that you must feed,” said Ro-shei.
“I will continue to take small amounts of blood from the ponies late at night; they can spare it, and it does not weaken them as it would any of the Desert Cats; it may not be very much, but for now, it must suffice,” Zangi-Ragozh said with a swift, sardonic smile; he took the sack from Ro-shei, holding it easily as if its weight meant nothing to him. “I will present this to Baru Ksoka, so he may keep his animals in little better fettle than he has been able to.”
“And once we are on our own, what then for our ponies and camels? You will have to use them more often, and that will take a toll on them. They will need extra rations, yet you are giving this sack to the Desert Cats. What will we feed the animals if we find nothing for them to graze upon?” Ro-shei did not make this a challenge to him, but let the question remain between them, raw in its impact.
“There are still the hidden sacks under the wagon-floor, grain and chopped hay; six of them, and they appear on no inventory. Assuming no one finds them, and we are permitted to take the wagon contents, we will manage well enough. What we have stored away should give us two more fortnights of food for travel before we have to make our ponies and camels live on scrub brush.” He stared over at the clan members, all of them caught up in the smell of the cooking goat. “This is wearing on all of them.”
“And on you,” said Ro-shei. “At least I have been able to find enough to eat, although the game is becoming scrawny.”
“What was it today?” Zangi-Ragozh asked.
“A bird, about the size of a large hen, stringy and tough, but enough to sustain me,” said Ro-shei.
Zangi-Ragozh glanced over his shoulder. “At least we are sharing with them, which makes us less strange.”
“With their animals, more to the point,” said Ro-shei.
“And, with their magician doing poorly, they are glad of my medicaments,” said Zangi-Ragozh, as he shouldered the sack of chopped hay. “I will stop to see how Dukkai is doing before I return.”
“And what of Dur Moksal? Will you see him, too?”
“If his women permit it,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “They are being very protective of him just now and do not want me to taint him any further.”
“Then I hope they do not make him worse,” said Ro-shei. “These Jou’an-Jou’an do not trust you.”
“That, old friend, has occurred to me,” said Zangi-Ragozh as he left Ro-shei to go in search of Baru Ksoka; his passage through the camp attracted little attention, for everyone was waiting for the signal for the meal to begin. He found the Kaigan with Imgalas on the far side of the cooking fire, and he stopped at a respectful distance and ducked his head. “Baru Ksoka?”
“What is it?” the Kaigan snapped as he turned to Zangi-Ragozh.
“I have a sack of chopped hay that my companion and I have decided we can spare for you.” He swung the sack off his shoulder. “If you would accept this as a gesture of my gratitude for allowing us to accompany you on your travels?”
Baru Ksoka stared at Zangi-Ragozh. “This is … most unexpected.”