The bone-biting cold began to draw complaints from Rajiv's uncles.

  "Bone-biting cold! Had I known we would go this far north, I would never have come!" Somash grumbled, shivering even beneath his furs.

  "But it was you who insisted on coming," said Kheshtar Yang, a man on loan from Zhenjin to help the uncles dress. His tone was entirely devoid of sympathy.

  "Have you no basic civility for the elderly? Kheshtar Yang, you are being far too familiar with royal guests. The Khan will hear of this insubordination! We will petition him for your punishment!" Parantaka lashed out.

  M?ngke and Zhenjin rode ahead together, their horses steaming in the cold.

  "You have your own breed of horses, Uncle?" Zhenjin asked, observing the sturdy, thick-coated mounts.

  "Yes. I have my own stables. These aren't regular steppe horses. Their coats are thicker, their legs are shorter—meant to climb steep inclines and pull wagons. Fast cavalry horses are useless to me."

  "Where do they graze, Uncle?"

  "On the steppes during the spring, summer, and autumn with Ogedei Cousins in the heartland. But we winter them in my own stables. Your father sends me hay and grain throughout the winter. I grow my own grain through the summer months and stock what I can."

  "So, do you pay Uncle Ariq tribute? Do you trade with him?"

  "Tribute? I am Khan! I pay tribute to no one! He has nothing to trade. He doesn't produce ore, or grain, or silk. He claims that he owns the steppes... It's like me saying I own all the ice and water in the North. Calls himself Emperor now, doesn't he? Hmph. I breed my own horses and graze them close to home. They winter with me at Kharkassus."

  "Yes, Uncle."

  "Ariq is a little man. You are planning to visit Hulagu?"

  "Yes, Uncle."

  "Hulagu also doubles his request for iron from me. That war at his front never stops."

  "Have you gone to see the fighting yourself, Uncle?"

  "No, but if it weren't for Hulagu, the trade routes would close."

  "I see," Zhenjin mused.

  "Hulagu wants to be Emperor, too."

  "Isn't he Emperor of Persia?"

  M?ngke laughed. "Hahahaha! Persia was long dead when we climbed onto those ruins!"

  Zhenjin sighed. "True. And their city was so magnificent we are in awe of its ruins. Yet, Uncle, everything we know comes from them. Our writing, our calendar, much of our spoken language, even our mathematics—they are all shadows cast by the Persian sun."

  "No, Persia is a dead empire. To become Emperor, Hulagu must conquer living people, not ruins and ashes. Not the dead. Not ghosts! Real people. There was no booty from Persia, only sand and ruins," M?ngke said.

  "He will be Emperor when he wins his war. He has taken Baghdad."

  "Baghdad? The enemy is not in Baghdad. There are only belly dancers in Baghdad and addicts on hookahs. Scholars. One can't kill with a shimmy and a belly roll," M?ngke spat. "The enemy are the Desert People. The Desert Order! The DO. Can he win this war against them? That's a big 'if.' Those desert people, we can never conquer them. We can't fight in the desert. Our horses can never move too far away from water."

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  Urduja piped up from behind them. "But they use horses, too. How do their horses manage?"

  "Because they know how to find water. And until Hulagu figures that out, he can at best hold the fort at Baghdad in defense. We are not the aggressor in this war. They have the advantage. The Iranian Peninsula and the Persian ruins are easy pickings. The Arabian Desert is not. You may be lost there for forty years. You'll freeze overnight. If you survive that, you'll die of thirst the second day. There are sinkholes. No one will find your bones. Furthermore, the desert heat forbids any activity any time of day. The DO fight at night. You can't see at night except by the full moon. They have learned to see in the dark, the DO. They have night vision. Hulagu can't win that war."

  "But the DO just stay in the desert. They mean us no harm," Zhenjin countered.

  "Recently they've attacked the trade routes. And those trade routes have made us rich. The silk trade, the spice roads, the Imperial Highway—we must protect those. But then we have been experiencing a creeping invasion. Peoples from the desert and beyond have been crossing our borders, living and hunting on our traditional lands. A few such incursions are harmless, but when these incidents become common and we begin to lose grasslands, when they disturb the migrations of the herds, that will change the steppes. We can't have that. Hulagu's war is justified, but Khublai's war against the Annamese seems unnecessary," M?ngke agreed. "You're in love with the Lady Tran?"

  "No, Uncle. She's in love with me," Zhenjin bragged, puffing out his chest.

  M?ngke snickered, seeing right through the bluster. “Sure, couldn’t resist a handsome devil like you.”

  ” She couldn’t. I am the handsomest man in the world. I look like my uncle”

  “Thats my boy”. M?ngke nods in approval

  They journeyed from caravanserai to caravanserai until they left the Imperial Highway. Then, there were no more caravanserais , and they had to make camp and light a fire in open. At night, the caravans were arranged in a circle with a campfire in the middle and a perimeter guard.

  "Uncle, without my caravan, how long would it take your Kheshig to reach Kharakhorin?"

  "Two weeks' hard ride."

  They skirted frozen mountain ranges. At some point the land begins to rise steeply. and arrived at Kharkassus.

  "Welcome to Khrakorza!" boomed M?ngke. "This is my home in the Kharkassus Mountains."

  The Khrakorza was built like a ring around a raging bonfire in the middle—a surprisingly warm, comfortable structure. M?ngke and his men set up camp. A fire was started. They opened a barrel of plum wine and some khumis. There was dancing and whooping around the fire.

  The evening meal was cooked and eaten fireside. The Khrakorzan took out their instruments and sang about whales and polar bears and mountains of snow and ice. Mahintha jammed with them—fine musicians with music like falling snow. Mahintha wrote poetry inspired by the beauty and the power of the frozen landscape

  The Khrakorza had a lava block that, after initial heating, emits a warmth of its own for many hours. M?ngke's men situated these stones around the pavilion so that the structure encircling the bonfire was kept warm.

  "They are the original inhabitants of the tundra. A lonely race. But it is who they are. They can't change, nor do they want to," M?ngke explained. "They are the best miners in the entire Khanate. They can dig like no one else can, and they like to live underground. They understand the language of stone. Know where ancient waters under the rocks lie."

  M?ngke then told of the strange men who live on the frozen sea. "They aren't fish or dolphins. They are men. They live on the ice. They make houses of ice."

  Urduja's eyes widened. "If they are dolphins, they might listen to me sing."

  "Ah yes, the ice men also sing to the dolphins."

  "They do?" Urduja exclaimed. "I want to meet them! Where are these people, Great Khan?"

  "We don't know them. I saw one in a little boat. It was snowing hard; it was hard to see," M?ngke admitted.

  "In that expanse, there is only ice and stars," Mahintha murmured.

  "A good place to build a telescope, Uncle. What do you think?" Zhenjin asked.

  "We must do that." M?ngke's eyes lit up.

  "I'll ask Master Po to find us a Chaldean to build us one. Maybe we can find one at Baghdad?"

  "Yes, there are still observatories there."

  "The ice men," Urduja said, almost breathless. "They build houses made of ice! They have a boat made of skin! And they sing to dolphins. They must be Tawalesi!" She looked around excitedly. "Do you know any of their songs?"

  "Not the words, but the melodies." Several Khrakorzan started humming a haunting tune.

  "We make boats from reeds! I'd like to see those boats of skin!" interjected Urduja, but no one paid attention.

  As M?ngke's Kheshig began to chant, everyone dropped off to sleep. As Urduja and her handmaidens stretched out by the fire, Urduja complained:

  "The Vassal Heirs do not listen to me."

  Uddiawan was already asleep.

  "Now only you notice?" said Liwanag.

  "I'm not always so attuned to everyone."

  "We noticed," chorused Liwanag and Tala.

  It was a moonless night, but the stars shone ever so brightly. Falling stars and zipping lights flitted across the sky.