Tristan

On one hand, Genghis Khan was a man who’d annihilated an empire for harming his emissaries. He should be a supporter of diplomatic immunity as long as the ambassador behaved, right?

Yes, he was a man who’d keep ambassadors safe, and insisted that killing ambassadors was very bad form.

But he was also a man who’d killed four million people to make that very point.

I shivered. I’d started out trying to cheer myself up, but just wound up psyching myself out instead.

At least I’d made sure to learn Mongolian well ahead of time, so I was now pretty much fluent. It’d started with watching children’s cartoons until [Burgeoning Omniglot] had started making sense of the language, then I’d dropped by the Mongolian Embassy in London after dropping off Arthur and Merlin in the city. There, I’d just used [Knowledge Trade] with the first guy I met, sign language basics for a not quite as basic grasp of his mother tongue.

I’d also kept up my “learning” via cartoons when I had the time, so now, I should be perfectly capable of holding conversations with native speakers. Dialects and unknown sayings would still trip me up, obviously, but for the most part, I was ready.

And, of course, I’d have over eight hours in the air to calm back down, on a private jet, no less, paid for by a tiny fraction of the fortune Mia and Dietrich had found.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I know that the skies are very dangerous right now, the monster birds still aren’t all cleared away, but if something happens, I can make a portal to let us all escape and return back here,” I announced as I entered the cabin.

In actuality, the danger was minimal on that front even though most civilian airliners were still being escorted by fighter jets. The few planes that still flew, that was. The chaos the System had brought to this world had destroyed many, and many more had been grounded by understandably worried companies.

But “knowing” that it was mostly safe did fuck all to make me any less nervous as the small metal climbed heavenwards, to take me to meet one of history’s most notorious rulers.

***

Ulaanbaatar was exactly what I’d expected, yet somehow also the exact opposite. A beautiful capital city with countless skyscrapers forming the center of downtown, surrounded by an expanse of smaller buildings, eventually reaching the suburbs which Google said were where some of those who still lived a nomadic lifestyle spent the winter. And while Winter was still a month or two out, after all, it was only the beginning of October, those areas were already filled to bursting. Likely people clustering together for safety’s sake.

But despite everything I’d known about the city, and googled on the flight over, a small, distant, part of me had expected something … “worthy” wasn’t the right word, but it was something similar. Something that matched the ... The idea of Genghis Khan.

History had had plenty of impressive rulers, some well-known, some not.

Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world and done so while fighting at the front lines the entire time and survived.

Thoros the Second of Armenia had reconquered his nation from the Byzantines, beat the Seljuks, then trounced the Byzantines again and then, simply, retired. Peacefully. Considering how often even triumphant rulers ended up coming to horrible ends, I considered actually enjoying one’s final days to be almost the ultimate victory.

Hannibal Barca of Carthage had kicked the ass of the Roman Empire six ways to Sunday through tactical brilliance and sheer gumption, though then beyond the first few incredible victories, he’d failed to take Rome itself and slowly been driven out of Italy over the following sixteen years.

Then there was Jan Zizka. He’d been a first one-eyed, then fully blind general who never lost a battle despite almost always being at a disadvantage, leading peasants and revolutionaries against nobles and knightly orders. And when he’d died, he’d had his skin turned into drums for his soldiers to beat, so that his spirit would always be with them.

Or what about William Marshal, the legendary British Knight, who’d fought his way up from a wandering knight errant to a member of the nobility through duels and tournaments, purely through strength and skill at arms?

Not to mention that he’d been legendarily loyal to the crown, eternally following his oath, even when it definitely was to his detriment. Even when he’d been in his seventies, he’d won the crown back for the deposed Henry the Third. No one could have faulted him for not fighting against most of the country’s nobility for the sake of a literal child, but that’s what he did. He’d sworn an oath, and he’d kept it.

Actually, come to think of it, why wasn’t he back? Was it because, unlike one Sir Francis Drake, he hadn’t sworn to come back from even beyond the veil of death?

But that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. There were many successful conquerors in history, many brilliant statesmen and leaders, but Genghis Khan was in a class of his own.

First, he’d started from literally nothing.

Second, the loyalty and discipline he’d instilled in his troops, forging a truly terrifying and indomitable force from a disparate group of nomads.

Thirdly, the fact that his empire had stuck together quite a bit better than most empires created by a single man. Sure, it had fragmented over and over again until eventually, it had been reduced to “just” present-day Mongolia, but compare that to, say, the empire of Alexander Magnus … yeah, the great Khan wins.

Not to mention that the last descendant of Genghis Khan had only been deposed in 1920. Granted, Alim Khan hadn’t ruled Mongolia; he’d been the Emir of Bukhara, but it was still impressive how long the “official” bloodline had stayed in prominence.

And finally, fourthly, everything Genghis Khan had done he’d done on a greater scale than almost anyone else in history. He wasn’t the first man to turn a small nation that was just like its neighbors into an empire, but he’d gone further than anyone else, almost quintupling the previous “record,” set by Cyrus the Great, founder of the Persian Empire.

Which brought me back to Ulaanbaatar. The father of this nation had returned, to bring it back to its old glory. He couldn’t have realistically already reshaped the city, and quite frankly, he was too much of a pragmatist to do that in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse, but a small, distant, part of my mind had insisted that someone like him, someone whose title literally translated as “universal ruler” and was so widely know that few people even realized that it wasn’t his actual name, had to have changed the city somehow. As though his mere presence would elevate his center of power.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Still, it was a city of almost two million in the middle of the apocalypse. That it was still fully intact was damn impressive. We sure as shit hadn’t managed that with the Untersberg even when there’d been nine ancients defending it. Granted, we, and by that, I mostly meant the mountain spirits under Charlemagne’s command, fixed that damage in a matter of hours, but it had still happened.

And Genghis Khan had kept the city looking pretty without a magical means of undoing damage, not as far I knew, anyway.

I continued to stare out across the city, only my determination to maintain my dignity preventing me from literally pressing my nose against the window, until the plane finally touched down with nary a bump, then proceeded to reach the terminal at a speed that felt like that of a formula one car compared to the glacial pace I was used to from planes on the runway.

The same went for my passage through the terminal. No labyrinthian pathway through the airport so complicated that I practically expected a minotaur to jump out from somewhere, just a simple, straightforward, path from the plane to immigration to baggage claim.

Technically, I could have probably sidestepped immigration using my status as an ambassador, but I didn’t represent an actual country with proper, existing, connections to other nations and this really wasn’t something I wanted to make a stink over. If sending word of my arrival ahead via the Mongolian embassy in Prague wasn’t sufficient arrangements, I’d be fine.

But as I approached the end of the line, already pulling my passport from my [Diplomatic Pouch], a man in a security uniform approached me.

“Ambassador Vogt?” he asked in English.

I nodded.

“Tristan Vogt, Ambassador of the Untersberg, envoy for his majesty, Dietrich von Bern and his imperial majesty, Karl der Große.”

The brief flash of surprise that flashed across the guard’s face at my fluent Mongolian was quite gratifying to see. Sure, I might not have Mia’s ass-kicking ability, and my knowledge would do a hell of a lot less than my magic when I actually wound up in a fight, but it was really nice to be able to learn things so quickly.

The guard looked me up and down, his eyes lingering on the insignia [Ambassador’s Authority] so helpfully provided, then briefly comparing my face to a picture he surreptitiously pulled from his pocket. Apparently satisfied, he gestured towards a currently-closed gate in the fence barrier that blocked me off from the baggage claim.

“Follow me, please. Do you have any baggage we need to wait on?”

“No,” I shook my head. “Everything I need, I’m carrying with me.”

He nodded, and kept going, until we reached a limousine outside. Not the regular parking lot, but a private section clearly meant for, well, people like me.

I also took this opportunity to scan everyone nearby with [Piercing Gaze], checking for deception or red-flag-raising loyalties. After all, we were isolated enough for something … unpleasant to happen.

But as it turned out, things were fine, near as I could tell. My guide hadn’t lied to me, no one around me was “lying” in the sense that they were pretending to be something they were not, and everyone had “Mongolia” or “Genghis Khan” among one of their scannable loyalties. They weren’t quite fanatics, at least as far as I could tell, never having seen someone I’d actually label as one, but they were loyal, following their new ruler’s direction not because they had to or because they were being paid, but because they genuinely wanted to do so.

My guide opened one of the limousine’s doors and gestured for me to get in.

“Ambassador Vogt, this vehicle will be at your disposal for the duration of your stay.”

“Thank you,” I replied as I entered, not even having the time to close the door behind me as he did it for me.

“Would you like to visit your hotel before your meeting?” the driver asked, but I shook my head. “Or book a room?”

I shook my head.

“I’ll be teleporting back home after my meeting with the Genghis Khan,” I informed him, my mind tripping over the grammar. I knew it was a title, not his name, but that didn’t change the fact that for most of my life, I’d been unaware of that fact, and that was how “Genghis Khan” had lodged in my brain. One normally didn’t use “the” in front of a name, and while that wasn’t what I was doing, my brain seemed determined to regard it as such.

Damn, I’d have to watch myself there.

The whole affair really reminded me of a “Pint of Science” event I’d visited several years ago. Well, not so much “visited” as “gone to a bar the day after my 18th birthday and an event was happening,” but that was beside the point.

There’d been a talk about how “the brain is the stupidest organ in the human body.” Sure, it was a biological supercomputer that even modern artificial intelligence could not match, but it had a bad tendency of internalizing certain things and refusing to let them go even in the face of empirical evidence. In fact, being proven wrong actually activated some of the same areas of the brain as physical pain did. That said everything, didn’t it?

My point was, I needed to remember that while I was meeting with a legendary figure, he wasn’t his legend. He was a person who might differ from the mental image I had of him, and I needed to deal with the person who was in the room with me, not the person I’d imagined him to be.

… yeah, I’d be in the same room as Genghis-freaking-Khan. Sure, even if I did badly enough to actually piss him off, [Diplomatic Immunity] would probably save me and [Polite Rebuke] could potentially deflect a second attack, but then … I mean, I knew he didn’t attack ambassadors and was a pragmatist at heart, knowing exactly why one left ambassadors alone yet, well, it was Genghis-freaking-Khan.

Knowing that, objectively, I was probably in more danger from random monster attacks even in the city than from him didn’t change the fact that I was barely able to keep my knees from shaking, obsessively straightening my tie, or the like.

No, I simply did my best to look dignified as the limo took a circuitous route to the Government Palace. Near as I could tell, the intention was to arrive right on time for the pre-arranged meeting, and since I wasn’t getting a hotel room for later or freshening up in one, that meant the drive would be taking longer. But I didn’t mind getting a better impression of the city.

Eventually, we reached our goal, and I used [Modern Makeover], once, sending a slight change rippling down my outfit, re-straightening my tie, and removing the handful of creases that had worked their way into my outfit. Then, I used [Restoration of the Old] to clean myself, removing any dust or dirt that may or may not have found its way onto my clothing since I’d stepped onto that plane back in Germany.

To my surprise, I was greeted by quite a few cameras and reporters on the entrance steps of the building. Not a “Hollywood celebrity” kind of reception, but even one would have been more than I’d expected. At least no one was shouting questions at me.

So I just put on my best neutral expression and continued forward, until I vanished into the building, where a young woman wearing a very expensive and well-tailored power suit greeted me.

“My name is Sarangerel, aide to the Genghis Khan,” she introduced herself. “Follow me please.”

And off we went, straight through the building to our final destination. It was kinda weird how unusual actually being able to go directly to one’s destination in a government building actually was. I certainly wasn’t used to it. Though that might just be because I was used to German buildings, not because I wasn’t used to being an ambassador …

Either way, two guards that were not only impressive, but also likely quite strong, stood before a final pair of double doors, and opened them as we approached.

And suddenly, I was standing in the same room as Genghis Khan. Alone. Only a desk, which was suddenly looking exceedingly fragile, and five meters, an easily crossed distance, separated us. I had to force myself to take the final step that would allow the doors to be closed behind me. the look in the legendary ruler’s eyes told me he’d noticed the small hitch, though I got the impression he was willing to overlook it.

“My name is Tristan Vogt, I represent the ancients currently transforming the Untersberg into a fortress to weather the end of times,” I introduced myself, inclining my head. Not enough to be considered a full-on bow, but sufficient to acknowledge the power dynamic.

“Greetings, Ambassador Vogt,” Genghis Khan replied. If my use of Mongolian had surprised him in any way, I sure as shit didn’t notice. “I believe we already have a treaty, don’t we?”