“That one over there is Khan Tengri,” Cnán said as the rest of the company reached the overlook, pointing to the white peak, blazing in the afternoon sun. “We are close to the Zuungar Gap.” The mountain floated above a layer of blue and gray clouds, a slab of flying marble like the mystical and unreachable home of foreboding gods. “When the sun sets,” Cnán finished, “the snow turns red.”
Istvan hawked and spat, and Cnán wasn’t sure if the Hungarian’s reaction was one of disbelief or if he was engaged in some manner of warding ritual. More and more, she had begun to see the Hungarian as a deeply superstitious man, one who was both haunted and hunted by some spirits only he could perceive. He hadn’t been completely taken by the influence of the freebutton mushrooms for many weeks, but she suspected he still had a secret cache of them on his person and that he would, from time to time, chew one.
“Tengri,” Yasper mused. “Isn’t that the name of the Mongol god?” The light from the distant mountain peak seemed to be reflecting from his face. “Does he live up there?”
Cnán shook her head. “No, the Mongols aren’t like that. They believe in spirits. Everything has a spirit—the rocks, the trees, all the animals—and these spirits are all part of the world that flowed from Tengri.”
“That is not dissimilar to the Christian view of the soul,” Raphael pointed out.
“Ah, but the Christian soul is unique and distinct,” Yasper countered. “Your soul inhabits your body, and when your body perishes, your soul goes to Heaven. It is still your soul. I suspect—and correct me if I am wrong, Cnán—when something dies, the Mongols believe its spirit flows back to Tengri where it is reabsorbed into the great expanse that is their god.”
Cnán shrugged, indicating that this conversation was already well beyond her.
“You are separate from God, good Raphael,” Yasper continued, “I suspect the Mongols and their world are not. In fact, I am sure we will find a shrine near the top of the gap that is dedicated to the rocks and the trees that manage to thrive at this height, so close to the realm of the Sky God.” Yasper seemed genuinely thrilled by the idea.
“I’m sure the Church will be delighted to send missionaries to endlessly debate this distinction,” Feronantus observed dryly.
“We could let these two debate it now,” R?dwulf said. “We have many days left in our journey.”
Feronantus smiled at the longbowman’s enthusiasm. “I am a fighting man,” he said. “Not a theologian or a philosopher. All of this talk is well beyond my simple understanding, and I fear such discourse will be meaningless to me.”
“I think your understanding is far from simple,” Raphael noted dryly.
“Perhaps,” Feronantus said. “But it is my understanding.” The old veteran tapped his horse with his reins, nudging it back to the sloping path. The others, sensing the time was over for scenic viewing and rhetorical discourse, followed until only Cnán and Raphael remained.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Do you see it?”
Raphael nodded. There were winds blowing at the top of the mountain, and a gauzy curtain of white mist fluttered at the tip as if it were caught upon that high spire. Below the slope of the mountain was changing color—gold to crimson.
“I have heard stories about the Shield-Brethren, though I have little faith they contain but the merest morsel of truth to them. They are like many fanciful tales one hears along the trade routes,” Cnán said as the others moved out of earshot. “You pretend to fight for the Christian God, but you swear your oaths to someone else, don’t you?”
“Does it matter?” Raphael countered. “If the oath I am swearing is to protect people like you and other innocents?”
“Do you all swear the same oath?” she asked.
“We do,” Raphael said.
“But it means something different to some of you, doesn’t it?” she pressed.
“Aye,” he said softly. “I fear that it might.”
Ahead of them, Khan Tengri became drenched with blood.
The wind howled so vociferously and with such zeal that, for the rest of the day after they breached the gap and began their rapid descent down the other side, Raphael’s ears were blocked. His head was filled with the shrieking echo of Boreas, the angry north wind that had attempted to drive them back with the sheer volume of its outrage.