“Brother…”
?gedei blearily looked around the smoke-filled tent, trying to find the source of the voice that intruded on his feverish dreams. Squinting against the firelight, he could make out a tall figure, dressed in yellow and white furs. He tried to raise his arm and beckon the figure closer.
“I rode through the night…” The figure knelt at his bedside, slender fingers clutching his hot and greasy hand. “The foreign demon has not yet swallowed you,” the figure said with a smile.
“Tolui,” ?gedei murmured. He wanted to embrace his brother, but the effort required to speak his name had used all of his strength. He tried to turn his hand so that he could squeeze his brother’s fingers, but even that was beyond him. “The Blue Wolf is coming for me soon,” he whispered. His throat ached, and he could not summon any spit. His mouth was like the southern desert—arid and lifeless. “I… am glad you are here,” he managed. “When I pass from this world—”
Tolui put a leather-scented finger to ?gedei’s lips, stopping him. “You will not die,” he said. His face was drawn, and there were dark circles under his eyes, preternaturally aging his youthful face.
“You have found a cure?” ?gedei’s voice cracked, breaking into a dry cough that made his chest ache.
“I have spoken to some of the shamans, and they fear there is no hope. But an old man of the Eagle Hills has told me there is a way…” Tolui’s voice fell away, becoming lost in the rhythmic drone of the shamans who still watched over him, chanting and tapping their drums.
“No,” ?gedei managed. “I can’t allow—”
Tolui shook his head. “Father told me to watch over you, ?gedei. Is that not what I have done? When you forgot your lessons, where was I? When you dozed off, who prodded you awake? Who took care of Father’s empire while the tribes squabbled and whined about declaring you Khagan? I gave it to you gladly when it was time because I knew you, of all our brothers, to be the wisest and most capable. You were Father’s choice, and it has always been—and will always be—my greatest duty and honor to stand by you.” His eyes were bright and wet. “If you die, we will be lost. We will be weak and helpless while the tribes gather for the kuraltai and pick a successor, like an orphaned child who crawls from its ger to find its family devoured by predators.”
“It should be you, Tolui. You would make a fine Khagan.”
“Compared to you?” Tolui shook his head. “The gods fear you, my brother. Look how desperate they are to destroy Father’s dream—your dream.” He squeezed ?gedei’s hand, forestalling any argument. “I have already decided. The shamans will perform the ritual. Let me do this for you. Let me serve my Khan in the best way that I can.”
Silence had fallen in the tent, and ?gedei struggled to look around. There were more shamans than he thought the ger could hold. They all wore blue robes, and they had traded their drums and divining bones for cups and deer horns and carved wooden rods. He tried to extricate his hand from Tolui’s grip, but his younger brother held him fast. He could not sit up; he could not speak. His strength was gone, and he fell back against the sweat-stained furs. They wrapped around him like wet snow, and dark demon patterns danced at the edge of his vision…
The shamans were chanting, and the tent was illuminated by the light from four braziers burning fragrant pinewood. Had time passed? Tolui was no longer at the side of his bed, and his hand—the one so recently held by his brother—was cold and cramped. When ?gedei blinked, one of the braziers went out; in quick succession they were extinguished, and great billowing clouds of smoke began to obscure the chanting shamans.
A greasy tendril of smoke passed over his face. He reached out to touch it, but there was nothing there, nothing but a vast emptiness, as if he lay naked on the steppes and the stars had all winked out.
He could smell blood, like a fresh kill, and thought of the deer by the river—the one he had killed with his father so many years ago.
The chanting stopped, and then shamans whooped and yipped, a wolf pack cacophony.
?gedei could not remember closing his eyes, and opening them was like lifting an iron gate. Little by little, he managed to raise his eyelids, squinting and blinking even though there was little light in the tent.