Taxman Part 4

Bo-Jing met with Gansukh, and asked him what he knew of the Four Coins. Gansukh explained that they were heirlooms of his people. If any of them were discovered, he could surely claim his place of leader of his father’s people. All the legends said they were hidden in the Valley of the Five Fires, a sacred place that he and his brother and all the local men of honor had sworn not to enter when receiving their first horse and formally joining the horde. But Bo-Jing was an outside. If he found one of the coins for Gansukh, he could name his price.

Bo-Jing knew what he wanted. “Something that could make me invisible.”

Gansukh promised he could do that.

Bo-Jing finished training his men and buying provisions for their trip to the Valley of the Five Fires. When the day came for them to set out, Gansukh asked Bo-Jing and Beatriss if they could help him with one thing.

“I am having problems with a thief. Of course I could deal with him myself, but it is not my place to enforce the law. I would not usurp the will of the Emperor or his agent . . .”

Gansukh explained that a shaman had stolen some jewelry belonging to his wife, a necklace and a ring. His right-hand man Batzorig, who also happened to be his brother-in-law would show them where the shaman lived. He could identify his sister’s necklace. And also the ring.

So the company set off. They found the shaman’s abode, a sprawling house built of stone and thatched with straw, next to a cave and a stone formation that happened to closely resemble a skull. When Bo-Jing ventured inside the house, a strange wailing noise, rose from an invisible source. Bo-Jing retreated and set fire to the rood of the house. While the wet thatch smoldered, a mob of skeletons began filing out of the caves, raising a terrifying din by clanging their swords against their shields. Ryu showed his holy symbol and began turning the skeletons to dust in a blaze of holy fire. A squat man stepped out from behind a rock. He pointed a wand at Ryu and hurled a huge ball of fire in the holy man’s direction. Ryu was knocked to the ground and the three of Bo-Jing’s men were killed in the fiery explosion. The others were badly wounded. When the smoke cleared, the shaman was gone.

“What are you doing to my home? To my creations?”

Beatriss and Bo-Jing argued with him. The skeletons ceased their advance and Ryu lowered his holy symbol.

The shaman confessed to having stolen Narantsetseg’s necklace, but denied that he’d stolen anything else from her. The shaman threw the necklace on the ground. Batzorig, recognizing it as his sister’s eagerly grabbed it. “This is it. She’ll be so happy!”

Beatriss asked Batzorig to describe his sister’s ring. When he could not, he agreed that there might have been a misunderstanding and that they should return to Khuzu Kala.

Narantsetseg was happy to see her necklace returned, so happy, that Beatriss did not trust her husband’s disappointment. “What about the ring?” Narantsetseg was deaf and could not be questioned closely, but she smiled like amother who had recovered a lost child, stroking the necklace with ring-heavy fingers.

Beatriss accused Gansukh of staging a trick that cost three men their lives. With a great display of insult and outrage, Gansukh ordered them to leave his tent. “I will pay your tax and then you will have no reason to stay here!”

During the week that Gansukh collected the tax money for Khuzu Kala, Bo Jing made inquiries as to how to bury the men who had been killed. Gan Yul explained that while most the bodies of most people were laid out on the steppe for the animals, esteemed warriors were sometimes buried in a place of honor. And before the treaty, the Valley off the Five Fires had been known as the Cradle of Humanity. The most esteemed warriors were laid to rest in the valley where humans had first appeared in middle earth.

B-Jing collected the taxes from Gansukh and then set out to bury his fallen men. Gan Yul led them to the edge of the Valley, where they rested at the fire tended by the Nergui horde. Gan Yul, as a member of the Nergui horde, would not enter the valley. But he pointed out a lone mountain in the middle of the valley and explained to Bo-Jing where to find the warriors’ grave. “On the far side of the mountain, at the edge of dawn’s shadow.”