What Baitsakhan does with his sister, to his sister, must stay between the two of them.
The older she gets, the more fun she offers. He likes how she says his name, with such wounded confusion, as she did when he brushed her hair back from her neck and pressed a hot poker to her skin. She never tells on him, because he warns her not to. He is her brother, and she loves him; she thinks this is how brothers are supposed to be.
He liked the game of it, making her love him and fear him all at once, so that she would keep his secret.
“Are you sure?” she says to him, blinking big, trusting eyes and holding the cup of nails between her two tiny hands. He is 11 years old and she is five, old enough to know better.
“I’m sure,” he tells her, and promises, “Nothing bad will happen.”
He’s her brother, and so she believes him. She tips the cup to her lips. Forces herself to swallow one small nail, and another. Baitsakhan grins, encouraging her, and soon she is giggling, because it’s not so hard after all.
Because he is happy, and that makes her happy.
He’s not exactly sure what the nails will do to her—that’s what makes it such an interesting experiment. He expects them to tear up her intestines, to cause internal bleeding, to make her scream.
He doesn’t expect them to kill her, but he’s not displeased when they do.
The years of his training pass. Baitsakhan tires of pretending, playing at a so-called “humanity” he has no desire to possess.
He dreams of a day when he will no longer need to hide. When he can do as he pleases with impunity.
Until then, he keeps his true self hidden in the shadows.
He waits.
Baitsakhan spends little time in his ger with his mother. His older brother has a wife and family of his own; his sister and father are dead. It is only the two of them now, and the small, domed dwelling feels both too big and too small.
He dislikes the way she looks at him, peering from around corners when she thinks he isn’t watching, the way her gaze rests on him when he pretends to sleep.
“I will always love you, whoever you grow up to be,” she tells him, whenever he beds down in their ger.
His mother has faded over the years. As the ger has grown more crowded with color and decoration, she has hollowed herself out. Her husband’s death struck one blow, her daughter’s another, but Baitsakhan suspects her true exhaustion comes from enduring her youngest son’s existence, day in and day out. And that pleases him. She rarely speaks, never smiles. Her gaze is flat, her lips so often pressed together in a thin straight line that Baitsakhan often forgets she’s lost most of her teeth.
She is aging poorly, his mother, and he enjoys watching it.
“Sweet dreams,” she always tells him when he closes his eyes.
He likes that, and sometimes believes she has the power to make it so. Because it’s when he sleeps at home that he most often has the best kind of dreams, dreams of blood and corpses and a dead, scorched world layered in ash. He kills when he dreams; he kills when he wakes. This, he thinks, must be what people mean by the word happy.
Baitsakhan is nearly 13 years old. He can count the days until eligibility on his fingers and toes. He need only wait half a moon, and he can be the Player.
But can is different from will.
Al-Ulagan has three more years before he ages out. Baitsakhan is expected to wait those three years, doing as he is told, pretending to be someone he is not.
This is intolerable.
“I am stronger than him, Master,” he tells Surengan. As always, the word master curdles on his tongue. Baitsakhan has no master. “Faster than him. Most certainly smarter than him.”
“And yet he is the Player and you are not,” Surengan says.
“Exactly!” Baitsakhan pounds his fist into rock. They are climbing a desert cliff. The old man is still strong enough to hoist himself up a steep incline. But sometimes Baitsakhan wonders what would happen if his trainer lost his grip, dropped hundreds of feet to the ground with a satisfying crunch. Who would be left to order him around then?
Surengan sighs. Baitsakhan knows his trainer dislikes him, and is pleased by it. “Again and again, I have tried to teach you patience.”
Baitsakhan wants to laugh. If Surengan only knew how patient Baitsakhan has been. All these years, all these interminable lectures, and still Surengan lives.
What better testament to Baitsakhan’s patience can there be?
“The patient Player is the dead Player,” Baitsakhan says. “When Endgame begins, the slow will be the first to fall. The meek and the merciful are doomed. You taught me that.”
“Indeed, young one,” Surengan says. “And when your time comes, you will be able to act without hesitating. Because you will have taken the time to learn.”
Baitsakhan snorts.
“Respect,” Surengan reminds him.
Baitsakhan again thinks how easy it would be to knock the old man from his perch. Surengan is his great-uncle, one of many in the tribe. While his grandfather, Suhkbatar, is considered to be the wisest of the elders, Surengan is by far the more powerful, and the more meddlesome. Baitsakhan knows he is supposed to feel something about this, as he is supposed to feel loyalty to all those who share his Donghu blood. Family. Loyalty. Such strange concepts. This is why Bat and Bold follow him wherever he goes, begging for his favor. This is why Jalair struts through the camp with pride, letting his brother’s power go to his head, as if Baitsakhan’s achievements have anything to do with him. Baitsakhan understands so much about blood, but he will never understand this.
Surengan and Baitsakhan summit the cliff with ease. They ride their horses back to camp.
“Pack your belongings, young one,” Surengan says. “Tonight we take a journey.”
“To where?”
Surengan shakes his head.
“Why?”
Again the old man shakes his wrinkled head.
Baitsakhan glowers, but he does as he is told.
Patience, he tells himself.
The word tastes of rotting goat.
They hike aimlessly across the steppe. Surengan has forbidden them horses or camels. Walking, he says, will make their minds clear.
He says the same thing about the pain of the wind on their faces, the way the chill air burns their throats. Surengan says that there are many who believe that because the Gobi is a desert, it must be hot. This is the kind of willful foolishness that makes men so easy to kill.
They march into the wilderness for many hours, never stopping, never speaking. The sun rises and falls. The moon chases in its wake. The stars poke crisp holes in the canvas of sky.
Finally Surengan points at a rocky outcropping. “Here,” he says. “We will make camp.”
Baitsakhan looks sharply at him. Surengan has always cautioned him against stopping to rest in the wide open, especially in this region, where bandits roam the steppe. It is unwise to leave oneself open to ambush.
“We passed a cave, not long ago,” Baitsakhan says. “We can go back.”
“We sleep here tonight,” Surengan says, settling to the ground. “You may build a fire, if you would like.”
Baitsakhan likes none of this.
But he does like the sounds he hears in the night as he lies awake, waiting for the sun. He hears the sound of hoofs and whispers, and knows that trouble has indeed come to find them. He could awaken Surengan now. It would be nothing for the two of them to fight off the ambush, send the bandits racing for their lives.
But Baitsakhan does not want that. Not after the day he’s had. He wants blood. And so he lies still, his favorite knife in his hand, waiting.
Waiting for them to creep closer, unsheathe their knives.
Waiting for them to come near enough that there will be no escape.
Waiting for his moment—and then it is time.
He is a whirl of motion, a cyclone of death. His knife flashes in the moonlight. He attacks in silence, slitting open their
bellies before they have a chance to scream. There are five of them, and two survive long enough to attempt to fight back, but Baitsakhan makes quick work of it, chopping off their hands at the wrist. These two he leaves alive, writhing on the ground, and he gets to work. He hears Surengan calling his name. It was apparently too much to hope that one of the bandits managed to slit his throat. Baitsakhan ignores his trainer. Let the old man wait for once; Baitsakhan has waited long enough.
It is immense fun, carving up the first man, listening to the terrified whimpers of the other. The second kill proves even more satisfying, because this man knows what’s in store for him, or thinks he does.
Baitsakhan has discovered that humans are remarkably bad at anticipating pain.
The words carve out your eyeballs have no meaning in the imagination.
Some things must be experienced to be truly understood.
It’s only when the five bodies have all gone still and Baitsakhan kneels in a pool of their mingled blood that he remembers Surengan.
The old man clears his throat.
“You put us in danger, old man,” Baitsakhan snaps. “You’re welcome.”
“Sit, young one.”
Surengan is a shadow in the night. Baitsakhan lowers himself down to the dirt. “Sitting,” he says snidely. He is in no mood for a lecture.
“I saw what you did to these men,” Surengan says.
“Yes, I killed them. I don’t know about you, but that’s what I do when someone’s attacking me.”
“It was unnecessary, what you did to them,” Surengan says. “It was overly harsh.”
“Harsh?” Baitsakhan laughs. “I’ve seen you slice off a woman’s fingers one by one. I’ve seen you gut a man from throat to belly.”
“I have done these things, yes,” Surengan says. “But I have not enjoyed them.”
“Yeah? Me neither.”
Surengan shakes his head. “I’ve been watching you, young one. You think you can disguise what you are, but I see you. Perhaps I’ve tried not to see, but no more.”
“And what is it you see, old man?”
“I see the joy you take in killing.”
“As you taught me, uncle.”
“You’re young,” Surengan says. “You’ve misunderstood so much, and perhaps this is my fault. We are Donghu, child. We live in a brutal world, and to survive, we lead brutal lives. This has always been our way, and our ways are good.”
Baitsakhan yawns.
“We are brutal by necessity,” Surengan says. “We kill when we need to, and we do not shy from what must be done. We live as soldiers, because our lives are war. But soldiers must have honor. Soldiers must despise the kill. You, Baitsakhan, you kill without honor. You kill without reluctance.”
“What kind of Player would I be with reluctance?”
“You will be no Player at all, if you cannot learn this lesson.”
This stops him short.
“I will be the Player,” he insists. “The Trials decreed it.”
Surengan shakes his head. “Something else you have misunderstood, young one. The Trials select the one worthy of training. But to be a Player? You must pass through me.”
“You’re telling me that if you think I’m not good enough—”
“Yes, Baitsakhan. What I say shall pass.”
“I’ve done everything you wanted me to do,” Baitsakhan says. He hears it in his voice, the weakness, the desperation, and despises himself for it. “I’ve proven myself again and again.”
“You are strong and you are smart,” Surengan allows. “Perhaps the strongest and smartest Player the Donghu have produced in a long time. You are steel, but steel must be tempered.”
“This was a test,” Baitsakhan realizes. “You brought me out here because you knew this would happen. You want me to fail.”
Surengan shakes his head. “I want you to learn. This is all I’ve wanted for you. And now you must learn that actions have consequences. Make different choices, Baitsakhan, or I will be forced to make one of my own.”
Baitsakhan drops his head. “Master, I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you will heed me.”
“But what if I can’t? What if . . . I fail?”
“You have never failed at anything you’ve set yourself to, Baitsakhan. Set yourself to this. You must find your respect for life, for all life, especially that which you take away.”
“And you will help me?” Baitsakhan asks. His voice quavers.
Surengan approaches, stoops before him, takes Baitsakhan’s arms in his aged hands. Gently, he pulls his student to his feet. Baitsakhan is tall enough to meet him, eye to eye. “I will help you, if you are willing to be helped,” Surengan says.
This man is the one person in the world who has power over him. The one person who can take away the thing Baitsakhan most wants. Baitsakhan cannot let that happen.
Will not.
And so he wraps his hand around Surengan’s in a tight grip and makes his solemn promise. That this will be a new beginning. That from tonight, Baitsakhan will be a new man.
This is a promise Baitsakhan fully intends to honor.
Which is why, as soon as Surengan lets go his hand—so arrogant, so sure of himself, so pathetically certain that his young charge will heed his warnings, despite all he’s seen and all he should know—Baitsakhan stabs him in the gut.
Bat and Bold are target shooting along the cliff’s edge when he returns.
He returns on horseback, a magnificent chestnut stallion that he has claimed from the dead bandits. Only a fool like Surengan would choose to walk across the steppe when he could ride. And Baitsakhan will suffer no more fools.
“Baitsakhan!” Bat shouts, shooting an arrow into the sky to celebrate his cousin’s approach.
The arrow arcs toward the clouds, then falls back into gravity’s grasp, speeding toward the earth—and toward Bold, who stands directly in its path. Alerted by the whistle of air, he ducks out of the way just in time, then smacks the back of his brother’s head. “Dolt! You nearly killed me.”
“Slow and stupid deserves to die,” Bat says, thumping his fist against Bold’s shoulder.
“I see only one stupid face here, and it looks a lot like yours.”
“That’s what makes you my identical twin, you horse’s ass. Your face looks like mine. Only dumber.”
This is the final straw. Bold slaps Bat across the cheek. Bat seizes Bold’s fingers and bends them backward until Bold screams. Bold wraps his elbow around Bat’s neck and squeezes, yanking his other hand free and grinding his fists into Bat’s scalp. Bat yelps. Bold growls. Soon the two are on the ground, muttered curses mingling with hisses, spits, yowls, and, briefly, an argument about which of them should have been left out on the steppe to die in infancy.
Baitsakhan watches impassively. This idiocy, he knows, is how the brothers demonstrate and cement their love.
They are pathetic creatures, but they are fierce and they are loyal.
This could come in handy.
At the sound of his footsteps, the brothers look up from the dirt. “You’ve returned quickly, cousin,” Bat says, dropping his hands from around Bold’s throat.
Bold gives his brother one last sharp kick in the shin, then rises to his feet. “And you’ve returned without Surengan,” he observes. “What happened out there?”
Neither of them notes that he is covered with dried blood. Baitsakhan considers his options.
“If I asked something of you, would you do it?” Baitsakhan says.
“Of course,” Bat says quickly.
“Whatever you need,” Bold says.
“Anything I ask?”
The twins nod. “You’re our Player,” Bat says.
“And our blood,” Bold says.
“Our brother,” Bat says. “The only one we have.”
The brothers have never held Esan’s death against him. In fact, like their mother, they have only loved him more since that bloody day. It is as if by killing E
san, Baitsakhan claimed his cousin’s place.
“You would swear this to me?” Baitsakhan asks. “Your obedience? Your loyalty?”
The twins nod again, solemnly this time. The gravity of the moment has penetrated their thick heads.
“We would give our lives for you, Baitsakhan,” Bat says.
“It would be our honor,” Bold agrees.
“Swear it on your blood,” Baitsakhan says, producing a dagger. He marks a sharp slash across each of their palms, then his own. Flesh presses together. Blood mingles. Vows are spoken. Pledges offered, lives sworn. Bat and Bold are his, in blood and spirit.
“Now,” Baitsakhan says, “ask me again what happened in the desert, and I will tell you a story.”
This is the tragic story Baitsakhan tells the rest of his tribe, when he returns to the camp with Bat and Bold:
Deep in the unforgiving desert, he and Surengan were set upon by bandits. They came in the night, silent and under cover of darkness. They came with knives drawn and hearts of stone, and before Baitsakhan could wield his weapon, Surengan was butchered where he lay. Baitsakhan took his vengeance, cut out their hearts and took off their heads, but it was cold justice, because Surengan was dead.
“I buried him where he lay,” Baitsakhan tells his tribesmen. “The gods were cruel this day.”
“You do him honor,” Baitsakhan was told by the men of his tribe. “You have become the warrior he always knew you to be.”
That much is true.
The night after he returns, Al-Ulagan summons Baitsakhan to his ger.
To be summoned: this is nearly more than Baitsakhan can bear. He reminds himself of the virtues of patience. He waits in silence as Al-Ulagan blathers on about Surengan, who trained them both, who was a fine and noble man, whose spirit will look on in pride and satisfaction as the two of them carry on his teachings. “We are like brothers, you and I,” Al-Ulagan says. “I know you have lost Surengan, and I know the pain that must cause, but you still have me. We have three years until you take up my mantle, and in those three years, I would be honored to teach you everything I know. Allow me to be your master, and I will gratefully offer what wisdom I can.”