MYTH-Interpretations: The Worlds of Robert Asprin

by Robert Asprin

  It took me a moment to realize what he meant.

  "Who, me? My name is Will Hawker."

  The man nodded, then turned his attention to his weapons once more, picking up his sword to test its edge again.

  It seemed that he felt our conversation was at an end. I, however, was eager to prolong the discussion and cast about desperately for something to say.

  "Does your sword have a name?"

  That at least earned me another glance.

  "Does your right thumb have a name?"

  I had been expecting a yes-or-no answer, so his question caught me off guard.

  "My . . . No. It doesn't."

  "Neither does my sword. My weapons are to me as your thumb is to you . . . a part of my body. They require no more thought to use than does your thumb. The custom of naming a weapon as if it were an independent being has always been a puzzle to me."

  His level, matter-of-fact tone made me feel chastised to a point where I felt it necessary to defend my question.

  "I always felt it was a way of expressing respect for one's weapons. The people I knew who named their weapons usually claimed to love a named weapon with the same passion they did a brother or a lover."

  "That is what I've been told," the Mongol said with a shrug. "I have simply never agreed with it. To me a weapon is a tool to be used, not loved. If one becomes emotionally attached to a weapon . . ."

  He broke off suddenly, his attention captured by something nearby in the park.

  I followed his gaze, and saw a bush that moved . . . first with a tentative tremor, then flipping back along with a portion of the ground it was rooted in to reveal a dark hole beneath. Before I could speak, a small figure in dark, loose-fitting pajamas popped out carrying a rifle. He scanned the park and the passers-by on the street, his eyes pausing briefly on me, then moving on to my companion. His head dipped in a brief nod of acknowledgement or recognition, then he turned and gestured at someone in the hole.

  Four more men, dressed and armed like their point man, emerged from the hole. The last two had their weapons slung and were carrying a sixth man on a litter between them. The borne man was still, though whether dead or unconscious I couldn't tell. The point man replaced the bush to hide the hole once more, and the band moved off silently in single file, carrying their fallen comrade with them.

  "Those look like Viet Cong!" I exclaimed, finding my voice at last.

  "That's right," the Mongol said calmly, turning his attention to his weapons once more. "Some of them have been included in our honored ranks here in Hell. You'll get used to seeing them. Hell is riddled with their tunnels and spider holes, so there's no telling where they'll pop up next."

  He seemed unimpressed by their unexpected intrusion into our area, so I decided to try to match his manner and return to our conversation. "Tell me, we've been discussing weapons here. Why is it that you still have sword, lance, and bow when they have more modern weapons? Those are AR-15s they were carrying, weren't they?"

  "I am used to these weapons," he said. "Besides, you would be surprised at how well these old tools work against more modern devices. The sword is still one of the best close-combat weapons ever devised, if one has the time to train with it . . . and I've had lots of time."

  "I notice the Cong didn't seem particularly anxious to fight with you."

  The Mongol's lips twisted into a flat smile. "There is an unspoken truce between us. While they respect my weapons, sometimes a name is more power than the keenest sword. They know me . . . or at least their ancestors did."

  Something in his voice sent a chill down my spine, though I couldn't put a finger on it.

  "Speaking of names," I said as casually as I could, "I've shared mine with you, but you haven't yet told me yours."

  He seemed to hesitate for a moment before answering.

  "I am called Temujin by some."

  The name struck me like a blow. As I said earlier, military history is a hobby of mine. While the name might be unknown to many of my age and era, it was more than familiar to me. The person I was talking to was none other than . . .

  "Genghis Khan."

  I was almost unaware of saying the name aloud, my awestruck words matching my thoughts. I would have been glad for the opportunity to chat with any member of the Mongol hordes, but it had never occurred to me that I would ever have the chance to talk to the Great Khan himself! Maybe Hell wouldn't be such a bad place after all.

  "You know the name . . . and the title," the man said in a flat tone that was as much an accusation as a statement. "I would know your thoughts regarding your discovery."

  I realized with a start that his sword was now between us, held in a loose guard position. I had seen experienced fencers in similar stances so I was not fooled by the apparent casualness of his position. The Mongol could attack me without even a split-second delay to prepare . . . only his sword was real and there was more at stake here than tournament points! Taking care not to move my hands, I groped for the proper words.

  "Um, amazement . . . curiosity, admiration . . ."

  "No anger?" the Mongol interrupted. "No desire to attack me or at least raise an alarm?"

  "Why should I want to do that?"

  The Khan's lips flattened into a humorless grin.

  "Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you seem to be of European stock. My people were the scourge of your ancestors, and as their leader, I am one of your greatest folk villains. You would not be the first in these lands who felt it meet to attempt to make Hell a little less pleasant for an old enemy."

  "I can't speak for the others here," I said, raising my hands to shoulder height, palms forward, "but you have nothing to fear from me. Even if I could attack you successfully, which I doubt, I wouldn't. You see, I've never really thought of you as a villain. While it is true that you and your troops were ferocious and brutal, your culture and era required a certain amount of viciousness for survival. What's more, even in my era it was difficult to distinguish how much of the documented brutality of the Mongol hordes was accurate, and how much was exaggeration on the part of either your enemies' chroniclers or your own propaganda machine. No, I have been more fascinated by the more admirable side of your reported personality."

  "And exactly what is it about me that you feel is admirable?" he pressed.

  "Well, first of all, there's the basic success story that would be the envy of any businessman of my time: a boy without family or village in his early teens being actively hunted by his enemies, and in less than three decades building an empire that ruled over a third of the known world. Your abilities as a military leader and tactician are acknowledged by even your staunchest critics, but most of them choose to overlook your other contributions. You not only united the tribes into a massive army, the horde, but you also gave them a written language and a governing set of laws on the Yassa. Your arrow-riders formed a communications network far ahead of its time . . . in fact, it lasted longer and performed better than the Pony Express of a much later period. As far as I have been able to discover, you were the one who introduced the concept of paper money to the world, and you insisted on religious tolerance to a degree that makes the European and Middle East indulgence in holy wars look like ignorant barbarism. No, I have no difficulty admiring you, and I am frankly grateful for the chance to speak with you in person."

  Apparently my sincerity was convincing, for the Khan sheath his sword with a dry laugh.

  "It is comforting to know that my efforts have not gone totally unnoticed in your lands," he said, "but beware, Will Hawker. Beware of being as blind with your admiration as others are with their hate and fear. While some of the things I did may have had a beneficial long-term effect on mankind, many of them were instituted from motives as base and greedy as the worst in history."

  "Could you give me an example?" I said. "I have often wished I could learn the motives and thoughts behind some of your policies . . . good or bad."

  "Well . . . you mentioned our Mongolian scrip—
paper money, I think you called it. That was nothing more than bloodless, systematized looting. When we were occupying a new area, we would insist that taxes and tributes be paid in gold, jewels, or other valuables. For our own debts, we would pay with paper notes. The trick was that when it was time to collect taxes again, we would not accept our own paper in return, but instead insisted on another round of valuables. Within a few years, all the hard wealth, such as gold, was in our coffers and all the people had to exchange was paper."

  I found myself smiling. "Actually, your concept has been followed with frightening accuracy. In my era, all nations have their citizens exchanging paper while the government holds the actual wealth—be it in gold, silver, or crown jewels. I just never thought of it as organized looting before."

  The Khan joined me in my laughter.

  "So I've been told. If nothing else, I fear that particular contribution of mine to civilization has guaranteed me a place in you Hell."

  A random thought brought my laughter to a slow halt.

  "That raises an interesting point," I said. "What are you doing in Hell?"

  Though he also stopped laughing, the Khan's eyes still smiled at me with mischievous humor.

  "You have to ask? Me? The bloodiest butcher of history? If anyone, surely I've earned a place here."

  "No, I meant . . . well, Hell is primarily a Christian concept. How is it that you have been drawn to an afterlife outside your own religion?"

  That earned me a shrug. "There have been several theories posed by the various philosophers here to explain my presence. Some feel that the religious tolerance of mine you referred to earned me a place in the eyes of the Christian God, and subsequently resulted in my assignment here. Others feel that my presence is actually a stage prop for the Europeans here . . . that their Hell would not be complete without their arch-enemy lurking in the background. The presence of the Viet Cong here seems to support their theory. Then again, it may be that part of my own afterlife punishment is to exist surrounded by Europeans rather than my own countrymen."

  "But what do you think?"

  The amusement vanished from the Mongol's manner, and he turned his attention once more to his weapons. "I think that it is pointless to think of such things. I am here. Why I am here is unimportant. The time to plan and ponder a battle is before the conflict is joined, not while actively engaged with the enemy. Then hindsight is a dangerous indulgence, for it draws our concentration away from the task at hand. One must condition oneself to reject such thoughts in favor of studying the terrain and the changing face of the battle in progress. I do not care why I am here. I am, however, interested in the nature of my punishment and how best to endure it."

  For a few moments, I watched him examine the tools of his trade.

  "That reminds me of a question I meant to ask when I saw the Cong," I said at last. "You speak of battle. Is there fighting here? War? Can people die in Hell?"

  "My words were figurative," he grunted. "In my mind, life itself, or afterlife, is a battle . . . a constant confrontation of opposition in an effort to exert one's own will on others. To answer your question, however, yes, people can die in Hell. I have experienced it myself. As I said earlier, not all the people here share your admiration of me or my kind. The revival process is unpleasant enough that I do not wish to repeat the experience any more than is absolutely necessary. In regard to war and fighting . . ."

  He paused and looked around us with the tight-lipped, humorless grin I had noticed before.

  ". . . There are people here. Anywhere there are people there will be war and fighting . . . sometime, on some level. As a student of military history, I'm surprised you didn't know that."

  "Is this the punishment you spoke of, then?" I said after a few minutes' thought. "Are you paying for a lifelong series of battles with eternal battle in the afterlife?"

  The hard, dark eyes fixed on me again.

  "You know very little of Hell, Will Hawker."

  With those words he began to gather his weapons, securing them one by one upon his body. It occurred to me that I had somehow offended the Khan with my last question.

  "You're right. I don't know about Hell. That shouldn't be surprising, as I've just arrived today. What you said earlier about not wasting time wondering why you're here . . . I didn't even know that. Since I got here I've been doing nothing but bothering people about why I'm here. I didn't know the protocol or customs, so if I insulted you somehow by asking about your punishment, it was unintentional. You mentioned it yourself earlier is all. I thought it was all right to discuss it."

  The man's movements slowed, then ceased completely.

  "You owe me no apology, Will Hawker," he said with a sigh, his eyes never leaving the ground. "It is simply that my true punishment is distasteful enough to me that I do not like to dwell upon it, much less discuss it. If anything, our talk has provided me with momentary divergence from my thoughts. For that I owe you thanks, and will answer your questions."

  He raised his gaze to meet my own.

  "I did fight my entire life, but because of that, battle would not be a punishment to me . . . simply a continuation of my normal existence. No, my punishment is far more subtle than that. You have correctly perceived that I am preparing for battle. Look around you and tell me what you see . . . or more important, what you don't see."

  Puzzled, I swept my eyes around in a full circle.

  "I . . . I'm afraid I don't understand."

  "What you don't see," the Khan supplied, "is followers. I have no army, no horde. Unlike any previous life, any battle I encounter here I must fight alone."

  It took a moment for the irony of the Khan's situation to sink in. One of the greatest leaders the world has known—a ruler of nations, commander of troops numbering in the hundreds of thousands—reduced to single combat with nothing to organize other than his personal weapons.

  "I'm sorry," I said, and meant it. "It must be very difficult for you."

  The Khan was on his feet in an angry surge.

  "Do not pity me, Will Hawker," he hissed. "Hate me, fear me, for those reactions I am accustomed to dealing with. But spare me your sympathy. In my entire life I never imposed my burdens or sorrows on another, and I will not have that happen now. I have been stripped of everything I worked to build. Leave me my pride."

  Snatching up his bow, he turned to leave.

  "Wait!" I called. "Take me with you!"

  He faced me again, the dark eyes studying me intently.

  "I will be your army . . . or aide. I'm not much, but it will double your force."

  "It may not be wise to interfere with the fate planned for me," the Khan said carefully. "Perhaps you should wait until you know more of Hell before making such a rash commitment."

  Now it was my turn to laugh.

  "To follow Genghis Khan into battle would be the dream of a lifetime for me. I'd face the Devil himself for the chance."

  "You may not be speaking figuratively," the Mongol warned. "But come, walk beside me and tell me of yourself. It is clear you have a warrior's interest and heart. What is your background?"

  A small chill flitted across my heart.

  "Well, as I told you, I've studied military history. I'm familiar with the writings of Clausewitz, Sun Tsu, Hart . . ."

  The Khan waved his hand impatiently.

  "No, I mean, what is your firsthand experience."

  "I . . . um . . . studied the martial arts for over twenty years—you know, karate and kung fu. I did a little fencing and riflery, but never had a chance to get into archery . . ."

  I stopped talking, for the Khan had halted in his steps and was studying me carefully.

  "Am I not making myself clear, Will Hawker?" he said. "I am not asking about your studies. I wish to know what your actual combat experience is."

  I licked my lips, unable to meet his gaze.

  "None," I admitted. "My country had only one war while I was of age to serve, against the Viet Cong we saw earlier. When I
tried to volunteer for combat duty, I was rejected. Medically unfit for active service, they said."

  "And so you studied war as a hobby."

  "That's right. I had always wanted to be a soldier. Not getting into the army was one of the biggest disappointments of my life. It made me feel I had somehow failed as a man, so I kept up my studies as best I could on my own."

  "You had friends? You would talk to them of strategies and battle plans?"

  "That's right."

  "And whenever possible, you would talk to other noncombatants—children and women—explaining to them the mind of a soldier and his necessary role in society?"

  "Well, sometimes. Most of them didn't want to listen, but I did what I could."

  In the silence that followed, I sneaked a glance at the Khan. He was staring at the horizon, his face expressionless. Finally, he heaved a great sigh.

  "You may not fight beside me, Will Hawker. Better that I fight alone."

  "But I'm fit enough to fight. Those doctors only . . ."

  "I didn't say that you can not. I said that you may not. I do not wish you for a follower."

  "But . . . I . . . Why . . ."

  Words failed me in my confusion. The Khan shook his head minutely and turned to face me.

  "I told you before, all I have left is my pride and I guard it jealously. It will not allow me to accept a follower such as you. Still, your offer of loyalty was both generous and sincere, so courtesy demands that I at least try to explain my position to you."

  He paused for a moment and his gaze drifted into distant focus as he organized his thoughts.

  "I mention earlier that I tried not to waste time wondering why I was here in Hell, but the most disciplined minds wander, and I have formed a theory as to the reason for my punishment. My fatal weakness is not that for killing and bloodshed, but rather of vanity. You see, I liked being Khan. Liked it far too much for the good of my followers or the world. When I was elected Khan of the united tribes, the Horde, I perceived that we were too strong to be attacked. Whatever defense I organized would eventually stagnate from disuse, until the tribes fell to bickering among themselves from boredom. Then the Horde would dissolve, taking with it my position and title. To avoid this, I instituted an expansionist policy and put the Horde on the attack. We were constantly pushing our borders outward, which guaranteed the Horde would be fighting, and I kept them fighting, and therefore united in purpose, until my death. Vanity made me a warmonger, so here I am paying the price that I never accounted for during my life."