THE YNGLING AND THE CIRCLE OF POWER by John Dalmas

Crossing a little rise, he could see no sign of Hans waiting there. When he reached it, he dismounted, hob­bled both horses, and let them rest and graze. He himself lay down on the lumpy ground with an arm shielding his eyes, and went to sleep at once. It seemed to him that Hans, despite his promise, might have abandoned him, but he wasn’t going to worry about it.

It wasn’t much later that Hans woke him; he hadn’t slept long enough to feel gummy-eyed and confused— maybe twenty minutes.

“Did you find anything?” Hans asked.

Baver got up and shook his head. “Our tracks, that’s all.”

Hans looked grim. “We’ll ride the road then. He fol­lowed it far, and when he left it he rode in the same

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direction. He must be going where the road goes. Maybe he’ll come back to it.”

He didn’t sound optimistic, only determined.

Near sundown they came to a live stream with poplars growing along it. By that time both of them were nearly falling out of the saddle. Hans had killed a marmot. Now he dismounted, Baver following suit. They hobbled their horses, gathered deadwood, built a fire, and skewered the marmot, setting it to roast. Then they pitched the tent, refilled their waterbags, ate the marmot half raw, and crawling into the tent, fell quickly asleep. They wouldn’t wake till dawn.

PART IV

DISPERSAL

TWENTY-FIVE

At the time of the Great Death, the Yan Mountains had had little natural forest. Most of it was of trees that stood bare in winter: oak and chestnut, maple and ash. Planted forests had been more extensive, mainly Korean pine, with lesser areas of other conifers. Then the Death came, and suddenly there was no more logging, no more cultivation. Feral dogs multiplied, decimating what live­stock there was. Before long the smaller feral dogs had disappeared: They lacked a suitable ecological niche, and in hard winters were preyed upon by the larger, which in turn were eaten by wolves that drifted in. More and more old fields and pastures were conquered by forest, and with ecological succession, the hardwoods tended to crowd the conifers out. At length the climate began to cool, and the conifers increased, including species that migrated in from the Changbai and Da Hinggan Moun­tains to the east and north.

The few human survivors and their descendants had mostly moved southward, where the climate was softer. Bears had drifted in, and considerably later Siberian tigers.

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The town of Miyun had crumbled. Centuries later it would be mined for steel and cement by returning hu­mans. The new Miyun, the empire’s capital, was kilome­ters away and higher, between the old Miyun and long-dead Chengde. The site had been chosen by the young Songtsan II for its beauty. Also the Great Wall passed nearby, providing abundant building stone.

The imperial palace occupied much of a high hill. It’s surrounding wall enclosed more than sixty hectares of land—parade ground, gardens, and various buildings—all enclosed by a high wallof stone blocks. It was referred to as “the Dzong,’ which in Tibetan means fortress.

It didn’t resemble at all the ancient fortresses of Tibet. They’d been built to withstand sieges and assaults by armies which, though pre-technological, were much more sophisticated than anything existing in the post-plague world. Large habitable areas of the Earth still were occupied thinly or even not at all by humans. Thus large wars for territory were just beginning to occur again, and long-lost techniques for the siege and assault of strongholds had not been reinvented.

But the Dzong, though designed more for privacy and beauty than defense, was as much a fortress as any in the empire.

A runner had notified Songtsan Gampo that Lord Fong was waiting to report, and with one particularly large yeti guard, the emperor had stridden across the parade ground, then wound downslope through shaded, pool-dotted gardens to the modest gomba of his Circle of Power. It had been built thirty years earlier beside a quiet shadowing grove of ancient, thick-boled thujas— arbor vitaes dark and shaggy, long escaped from cultivation.

The sleeping rooms of the monks were on the second story, and the library on the third. The Sanctuary of the Circle was on the first, along with the kitchen, the eating room, the latrine, and several other rooms.

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