It paid her no heed. The rough gray skin was as hard as the stone it resembled. It did not dent like flesh under her touch, and it was the temperature you’d expect of sun-warmed rock.
“This is a wild talus,” Temur said, having completed his circuit.
“How do you know?” Samarkar stepped back to save her toes as it inched forward, chewing away.
He gestured to its flanks. “No marks. The herdsmen file symbols into the skin so they can identify their beasts.”
Men cultivated—could you say domesticated?—the talus to use for mining. They consumed stone, excreting the metal, and their guts tended to be full of hard jewels—diamonds, sapphires, rubies—that they swallowed, much as a chicken pecks up gravel.
“Still,” Samarkar said. “We must be close.”
“Yes. And finding this one so close to the track unmolested tells me the bandit armies have not yet returned to claim these lands. Which is very good news.”
“Indeed.”
Samarkar knew from his discourses on the subject that the Great Khagan had first driven the bandit tribes from these lands. These mountains had long been a holdfast for lawless men who preyed upon the caravans of the Celadon Highway and upon the talus for their precious bellyfuls of jewels.
As the Great Khagan aged, those lawless men had tried to reclaim supremacy, but his son and daughter-in-law had driven them out, though the skirmishing had cost the life of Nilufer’s mother, the Dowager Khatun. Samarkar might have initially thought Temur a simple barbarian, but she was starting to realize that his head was as much an encyclopedia of sophisticated family politics as her own.
“What gods do these people observe?” she asked, as they made their way back to the horses. “Surely Nilufer is no Qersnyk name.”
“It’s Messaline, I think. Before your ancestors pushed them back and made a crack for the Uthman Caliphate to expand into, their empire reached this far.” Temur shrugged. “My grandfather had no interest in forcing conversions. He conquered for wealth and to gain scholars and artisans. All faiths are equal under the Eternal Sky.”
Samarkar hid a smile. All faiths are equal, under mine. Not such an uncommon sentiment.
It wasn’t actually the differences between tribes that caused wars. It was the ways in which all people were alike.
She said, “This is the borderlands.”
He said, “It was also Uthman once, but the Great Salt Desert lies between Stone Steading and the Uthman cities. And the Steles of the Sky fence it away from the steppe and from your people. If it weren’t for the talus, no one would live here at all. But as it stands, though this is a small kingdom and isolated, it is wealthy.”
“And friendly.”
He smiled. “We hope.”
* * *
When they finally came within sight of Stone Steading, Samarkar was surprised at how much it looked like home. By the richness of the air, she could tell they were far lower than any Rasan city except perhaps the southern capital itself—but what she saw as they rode down into it was a broad valley surrounded on three sides by mountainous foothills terraced for agriculture. The fields there were green with summer rice; Samarkar suspected the paddies were fed by qanats bringing water from the glaciers above. The rice fields could then be drained and the water used a second time—to irrigate the apricot and almond trees below.
Little crofts and stands of trees scattered the dished valley floor, surrounded by fields of wheat and cotton and hedged pastures flocked with fat-tailed sheep. She saw the glint of water in irrigation ditches, and the cackle of hens rose up on the dry air, carrying who knew how far. People went about in clothes dyed homespun colors, hauling fat bundles or driving oxcarts.
Beyond this richness, closer to the mountain, stood a pillared stronghold with a pair of tall white towers and a hall between, capped with an onion-shaped dome such as Samarkar had seen only in paintings. The dome glinted in the afternoon sun, reflecting sparks of crimson and cobalt like light shining through a diamond. Samarkar could tell even from here that it was decorated with glass tile, though she could not make out the pattern.
Buldshak huffed around her bit, scenting water.
“Well,” Payma said. “We’re here.”
* * *
They had only begun their descent into the valley when a group of ten riders broke from the stronghold’s gates, coming along the high road at a brisk canter. Ten was a good number, Samarkar thought. Enough—and responding quickly enough—to make a point, not so many as to startle a peaceable group into flight. Peasants came out along the road to watch Samarkar’s party ride in, which also felt familiar, but these folks did not wear the lined vests and flap-fronted shirts that Samarkar’s folk preferred. Their faces were more angular, the eyes rounder, the noses higher bridged. She could see the evidence of Rasan and Qersnyk blood in some faces, and western heritage—Uthman, Messaline—in most.