Chapter 35: In Xanadu did Kublai Khan...

THE MOST REMARKABLE THING happened at the end of the 1960s: A man landed on the moon.

It took me a couple of centuries in the country, but eventually I’d adapted to life in America. It changed so rapidly I had difficulty keeping up at times. I considered myself pretty sophisticated, with a television, an automobile, and a nearby movie theater. But the last week in July, I sat alone on a rooftop for seven days and seven nights, simply staring into the sky at the moon.

I cursed at Pinaruti again for not having given me wings. I would fly to the moon. Or farther. The television and theaters were filled with science fiction movies. People would one day fly farther than the gods of Olympus. I didn’t say that aloud. Hubris.

I had never actually flown. Perhaps that is why I spent so many years of my life sailing the oceans. The wind in my hair. The salt spray of the seas. The loving companions from the infinity room. But even in my own infinity room, where I should be able to make any rule I wanted, my feet were firmly anchored to the ground.

And then, ten years after that historic small step for man, Liz came to me and said, “My momma’s sick. Can we go visit her?”

I immediately thought of the houses I had under construction and dismissed any thought of staying because of them. I had good foremen and they would work without me for a few days. I’d said yes before I really considered what it implied. Her parents were on the West Coast. We were in the Midwest. I thought of the long car ride ahead of us. If her mother was that sick, we might not make it in time for Liz to say goodbye. I made the heart-shaking decision to fly. In an airplane. I bought tickets and we boarded a ship that took to the air. I was ecstatic! In just a couple of hours, we were in California and Liz joyfully ran to her mother’s bedside.

I never regretted that trip. I flew! The feeling of leaving the earth behind us and flying through the sky, higher than any birds flew, was so intense it made me weep. It reminded me of my time with the Khaan.

Which Khaan? Well, all of them. It was Chinggis Khaan that I first encountered near the western mountains. He had just been declared the Great Khaan of all Mongols and was riding eastward to consolidate his kingdom. The Mongol Horde followed in his wake, subjecting all to his dominion. And I was somehow in his path.

I was brought before the great Khaan and paid appropriate homage to him. And then we sat and talked. He was a man of uncommon intellect and great wisdom as well. I told him stories of my travels and he laughed at them, because he knew no man could live long enough to have so many adventures.

He was especially interested, however, in the tales of Alexander and Caesar. He had me describe over and over how certain battles were staged and how they were won. He created a large board where I could build models and push troops around to show him how each battle was fought. The big difference between the Khaan’s forces and either Caesar or Alexander was that nearly all the Khaan’s troops were mounted. They couldn’t really lock shields and march forward like the two great emperors did. But he learned strategy and tactics from everything I showed him as he prepared to move toward the Song dynasty in the south east.

The kingdom of the Mongols was a horse-based culture. Not only did they ride them, but they ate them. I was even served a fermented drink made from mare’s milk, and it wasn’t half bad.

And then one morning, Chinggis Khaan had me mount a horse and ride beside him.

I had been on horseback at times before and I had harnessed a horse to my chariot. I had horses pull my show wagon and had seen Alexander mounted on Bucephalus. But I had never mounted a horse and galloped for an entire day. We flew! It was like sailing across the great plains of Asia.

The Great Khaan captured cities that thought they had time to prepare. He did it by arriving days before they were ready. He swept up their armies and made them part of his own. But the horse brigade always arrived first.

The wind in my hair and the sun in my eyes was the most glorious feeling I had ever known.

And that was the feeling I had when the airplane took Liz and me to California. It was wonderful!

“Bob, may you live forever,” Chinggis said to me one day as we walked about a city he had conquered near the Black Sea. “I am building a great empire. It needs a great city from which to rule it.”

“This city might not be a good choice, Khaan. It is far from the center of your empire and is really not very well maintained,” I said.

“These things are true. But I want no one to say of my capital city, ‘Chinggis Khaan stole this city from the people and drove them out so he could rule in comfort.’ No, I want a city that people will come to and say, ‘The Khaan built this city to rule over our vast empire.’ I want them to see the glory of the Khaan.”

“That is a noble thought, Great Khaan. Where should this city be?”

“Over there somewhere,” he said waving a hand vaguely to the northeast. “I know that sounds vague, but I don’t know where to build this great city. The empire is vast and its emperor must travel from end to end each year in order to rule it. But he must have a place to call his home in this strange world.”

“This would be a great endeavor,” I said.

“Make no mistake; I will never see this city. Perhaps you will live forever, but I will not. I am already getting old. I have sons and they have sons. My son Ugedei has set out with an army to conquer Europe. Eventually, some one of my sons or grandsons will rule over the entire Mongol Empire and that one needs to summon his subjects to the most glorious city on earth. You have spoken of the gardens of Babylon. Make gardens for the Khaan. You have talked about the palaces and temples of Rome and Greece and Egypt. Create a palace and temples for the Khaan. You have seen the prosperity of India. Make a place where my heirs can prosper. Do this, Bob. Grant this wish to an old king.”

“I will find a place where the Khaans of the Mongol Empire will prosper,” I said. “If I cannot live long enough to make this place by myself, I will lay it out so the walls can go up when the Khaan arrives.”

“I will tell my descendants to seek a Chinese monk called Bob and follow him to the place of honor. Go now, Bob. I don’t know how long it will be.”

I left the next morning, separating from the horde and riding the horse Khaan gave me off to the northeast, while he turned to conquer the south.

It was almost fifty years before I had direct contact with the horde again. The second Great Khaan was Ugedei, Chinggis’ third son. Where his father had set about conquering the south and pushing into China as far as the sea, Ugedei Khaan set his sights on Europe and the land of Alexander. He annexed most of what is now Russia, all of China north of the Yangtze River, and pushed through the lands of Persia and Asia Minor.

Ugedei apparently missed his father’s tale of a city prepared for him. He built his capital at Karakorum, one of the palaces he stopped at during his annual rides from China to Europe. He was poised outside Vienna and ready to attack when he died suddenly. Thrown into disarray, his army withdrew to await the decision of the next great Khaan.

That took some time. Two more Khaans rose to power, a brother of Ugedei and a nephew. But Ugedei’s strong influence encouraging trade throughout his empire, kept the empire from falling apart. It took until the Fifth Great Khaan, Hubilai, to create a government that could administer and control the great empire.

Traveling in the general direction that Chinggis had pointed me, I journeyed much more slowly than the horde. I surveyed all the likely places that I might lay out a city of the sort he described. I kept track of my location based on the star charts I always maintained. Released from the pressure of the moving horde, I spent time in the infinity room with my wives and concubines. If it weren’t for my knowledge that one day a great Khaan would move through this area, I might have attempted to hide my satchel in this vast empty land and claim it for my own. But I knew that anywhere on earth a person claimed as his own would one day be conquered. I could not risk that for my people.

I had been traveling for a few years, crisscrossing the land, when I came upon a perfect location. There were mountains on one side and a river on the other. Water was plentiful with lakes and springs. The vegetation was lush and materials were plentiful. I paced around the area I would claim and it took me two days to make the full circuit of what would one day become Kaiping, the city of the Great Khaan.

After I had surveyed the land by eye, I set up a place where I could shelter in a cave and opened a gateway to the infinity room. My wives and concubines all came out to view the territory and comment on where the palace would be located and how the streets would be laid out.

“It reminds me of Bathra,” Nimia said as she cuddled next to me in front of a fire. “A very lush and green Bathra,” she giggled, remembering how dusty and dry the ancient city had been when we first arrived.

“At least we don’t need to move people away in order to lay the city out,” I said. “I wonder how long it will take before people discover us here and begin to move in.”