The Golden Tablet
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 9
They broke camp before dawn.
Khutulun moved through the morning preparations with her usual efficiency, the commander reassembled overnight from whatever the meadow and the hot spring and his hands on her waist had briefly displaced. She gave orders in the flat decisive tone that required no repetition. The Keshig responded with their wordless competence. The camp disappeared into packs and saddlebags with the practiced speed of people for whom this was simply morning.
Niccolò watched her and thought: both things are true simultaneously. The commander and the woman at the hot spring. Neither one canceling the other.
He found that more interesting than anything in his maps.
She came to him while he was saddling his horse, appearing at his shoulder with the quietness she had when she wasn’t making a point of being heard.
“The next two days are the hardest section,” she said. “The path narrows. There are places where we ride single file for an hour at a time.”
“Kaidu’s men.”
“Will know that too,” she replied. “Stay directly behind me in the narrow sections. Not two lengths back. Directly behind.”
“Understood.”
She checked his horse’s girth with two sharp pulls the way she always did and he had stopped being offended by it three days ago.
“Khutulun.”
She looked up.
“Last night,” he said.
Something in her expression shifted — not closing exactly, more the look of someone deciding how much of an open door to leave.
“Last night,” she agreed.
“I want to be clear about what it was,” he said. “For me.”
She waited.
“Not the mountains,” he said. “Not the fire or the wrestling or the proximity. Those things were—context. Not cause.” He looked at her steadily. “You are the cause. Specifically you. I want that to be said plainly.”
She looked at him for a long moment with those direct dark eyes doing their reading.
“Venetians,” she said finally, “are apparently more direct than I was told.”
“Mapmakers,” he replied. “We record what’s real.”
The almost-smile. Then the real one, brief and complete, hitting him the same place it always hit him.
“Mount up, Niccolò,” she said, turning toward her stallion. “Be direct after we’re through the narrows.”
He mounted up.
The narrows were everything she’d described and worse.
The path pressed itself against the mountain face for two hours of riding in which the drop to the left was a vertical argument against looking down and the rock face to the right was close enough to scrape a knee on. Single file, the Keshig strung out ahead and behind, horses placing their feet with the careful deliberation of animals that understood the stakes.
Niccolò rode directly behind Khutulun and watched her back and kept his eyes on the path and did not look left.
Twice she raised her fist and the column stopped and she sat motionless listening to the mountain with an attention that seemed to go beyond hearing into something more animal and more accurate.
The second time the stop lasted long enough that he eased his horse up beside her — there was barely room — and looked at her face.
Her eyes were moving along the rock face above them. Slow and systematic, the way she read terrain.
“There,” she said quietly. Not pointing. Just a direction in her voice.
He looked. Saw rock. More rock. The edge of something that might have been a shadow or might have been —
“A man,” he said. Just as quietly.
“Two,” she replied. “The second is ten yards further along. Behind the overhang.”
He couldn’t see the second one. He believed her completely.
“What do they want,” he murmured.
“To know our numbers and our speed,” she said. “Information. Not engagement. Not here — the path is as bad for them as for us.” She raised her hand and the column began to move again. “They’ll report to Kaidu. He’ll make a decision.”
“What decision.”
“Whether we’re worth the trouble,” she said simply. “The Paiza makes us expensive. But the maps—” she glanced at him— “the maps make us valuable. To the right buyer.”
He thought about the master roll in his saddlebag. Months of work. Every pass, every grade, every river crossing and ford and fatal mistake in the Persian sources corrected and confirmed. A document that could move armies.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.