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    Ruler of the Sky: A Novel of Genghis Khan

    Ruler of the Sky: A Novel of Genghis Khan

    by Pamela Sargent


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      ISBN-13: 9781480497351
    • Publisher: Open Road Media
    • Publication date: 04/01/2014
    • Sold by: Barnes & Noble
    • Format: eBook
    • Pages: 690
    • Sales rank: 255,990
    • File size: 4 MB

    Pamela Sargent has won the Nebula and Locus Awards and was honored in 2012 with the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award, given for lifetime contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship. Her many novels include Venus of Dreams, The Shore of Women, The Golden Space, The Sudden Star, and The Alien Upstairs.

    About Ruler of the Sky, Sargent’s historical novel of Genghis Khan, told largely from the points of view of women, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has commented: “Scholarly without ever seeming pedantic, the book is fascinating from cover to cover and does admirable justice to a man who might very well be called history’s single most important character.” The Washington Post has called Sargent “one of the genre’s best writers,” and Michael Moorcock has said of her work: “If you have not read Pamela Sargent, then you should make it your business to do so at once. She is in many ways a pioneer, both as a novelist and as a short story writer. . . . She is one of the best.”

    Sargent is the editor of the Women of Wonder anthologies, the first collections of science fiction by women. Her novel Climb the Wind, set in the United States after the Civil War, was a finalist for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and her novel Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures. Melissa Rosenberg, the scriptwriter for all five Twilight films, is set to write and produce the movie through her company Tall Girls Productions.
    Pamela Sargent has won the Nebula and Locus Awards and was honored in 2012 with the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pilgrim Award, given for lifetime contributions to science fiction and fantasy scholarship. Her many novels include Venus of Dreams, The Shore of Women, The Golden Space, The Sudden Star, and The Alien Upstairs.
    About Ruler of the Sky, Sargent’s historical novel of Genghis Khan, told largely from the points of view of women, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has commented: “Scholarly without ever seeming pedantic, the book is fascinating from cover to cover and does admirable justice to a man who might very well be called history’s single most important character.” The Washington Post has called Sargent “one of the genre’s best writers,” and Michael Moorcock has said of her work: “If you have not read Pamela Sargent, then you should make it your business to do so at once. She is in many ways a pioneer, both as a novelist and as a short story writer. . . . She is one of the best.”
    Sargent is the editor of the Women of Wonder anthologies, the first collections of science fiction by women. Her novel Climb the Wind, set in the United States after the Civil War, was a finalist for the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and her novel Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures. Melissa Rosenberg, the scriptwriter for all five Twilight films, is set to write and produce the movie through her company Tall Girls Productions.

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    Ruler of the Sky

    A Novel of Genghis Khan


    By Pamela Sargent

    OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

    Copyright © 1993 Pamela Sargent
    All rights reserved.
    ISBN: 978-1-4804-9735-1


    CHAPTER 1

    On the northern bank of the Onon River, a grove of willows and birches rippled in the heat. Hoelun gripped the reins of the horse that pulled her covered cart. The gently rolling green land, bright with wild flowers, would soon grow parched and brown. Spring and early summer were no more than a brief respite between the icy winds of winter and the scorching midsummer heat.

    Hoelun's robe and leather trousers lay next to her, under the square, feathered birch head-dress she had worn at her wedding. A short woollen shift covered her; she had shed her other garments earlier that morning. Her home was under the curved covering of her two-wheeled wooden cart—the frame and felt panels of the yurt she would erect in her husband's camp, the trunks that held her pots, clothes, hearth, jewellery, and rugs, the bed where they would lie.

    Yeke Chiledu rode at her side, his back straight under his quiver of arrows. His bow was inside the lacquered case hanging from his belt; his short, trousered legs hugged the flanks of his chestnut horse.

    At fourteen, Hoelun had known that she would be married before long, yet her wedding had been upon her as swiftly as a summer storm. A month ago, Chiledu had come among the Olkhunuguds to find a wife, and had seen Hoelun outside her mother's yurt. By that evening, he was speaking to her father of the gifts he would offer for her; before the moon had grown full once more, she was Chiledu's bride.

    Chiledu turned his head, and the faint lines around his small black eyes deepened as he smiled. His teeth were white against his brown skin; his face was broad, his cheekbones flat. He was eighteen, his moustache only a light sprinkling of hairs above his mouth; two coiled black braids hung down from under the wide brim of his hat.

    "You should cover yourself," he said, accenting his words as his Merkit people did.

    "It's too warm."

    Chiledu scowled. She would put on her clothes if he ordered it. The young man suddenly laughed. "You are beautiful, Hoelun."

    She flushed, wishing he would say more, remembering all the words he had used to praise her golden-brown eyes, her small flat nose, her thick, braided hair and pale brown skin. She had closed her eyes during their first night together, unable to stop thinking about her father's mares and the way his stallion mounted them. Chiledu's quick thrusting inside her had brought her pain; he had moaned, shuddered, and withdrawn, to fall asleep at her side a few moments later. The next night had been much the same; she had hoped for more.

    Chiledu turned and scanned the horizon. On open land, any danger could be seen from afar, but here, with patches of wooded land by the river, they would have to be more cautious.

    They rode slowly towards the Onon's narrow stream. The river was shallow here, barely more than a small creek; they would be able to cross it easily. A small flock of ducks were feeding upriver. Chiledu trotted towards them. Further up the bank, he dismounted, took out his bow, and crept towards the distant flock.

    Hoelun pulled at her reins; the cart rolled to a halt. She untied the spare horse from the back of the cart and led the animal to the water. Long fingers of willows and birch trees came nearly to the edge of the opposite bank; in the distance, a massif abruptly jutted from the land. Tengri, Heaven, was a vast yurt under which parts of Etugen, the Earth, thrust upwards, reaching towards its roof. The mountains, with pines and larches that hummed and sighed whenever the wind stirred them, were places of spirits, of voices that might whisper to shamans, of ghosts that might enter the bodies of animals to protect a man or lead him to his death. The slender stream of the Onon trickled as it flowed over the rocks; running water also harboured spirits.

    Upriver, Chiledu was intent on his game, his bow raised. A shadow moved under the trees across from Hoelun; a twig cracked. She turned towards the sound and saw a man with a falcon on his wrist. The stranger leaned forward on his horse, his shoulders broad under his long, open coat, his eyes tilted, but also long and oddly pale, unlike any eyes she had seen. She tried to cry out; her voice caught in her throat. The man suddenly vanished among the trees.

    The spell of those strange eyes was broken. "Chiledu!" she shouted as she tugged at the horse. "Husband!" Chiledu had not even sensed the stranger's presence; she wondered how long the hunter had been watching them. "Come quickly!"

    He ran towards his horse, his game forgotten. She glimpsed the stranger riding around a small hill before trees hid him once more.

    "What is it?" Chiledu called out as he reached her.

    "I saw a man there, under the trees." She pointed. "He rode away. You had better go after him and see—"

    "And leave you unprotected?"

    "He was alone," she said.

    "He might want me to follow him. He could have friends nearby. Water the horses, and then we'll go on."


    They crossed the Onon and moved north-west. Chiledu rode ahead of the cart. Hoelun touched the flank of her horse lightly with her whip. Here, the land sloped into hills, slowing her pace.

    The cart rattled as she rounded one grassy slope. The stranger had not greeted them, or held out his hands to show that he meant no harm, but maybe he had not wanted to provoke Chiledu by gazing openly at his unclad wife.

    Such thoughts were not keeping her fears at bay. Clans of Mongols roamed the lands to the south, and she knew that they were enemies of the Merkits; Chiledu had told her about their raids. Resentment clogged her throat. She would not be worrying about the unknown hunter now if Chiledu had kept his men with him instead of sending them ahead to his camp after the wedding. He should have been more alert, and not so certain that he could protect his bride alone. He had been thinking only of how he could enjoy his new wife during the journey, instead of waiting until she raised her tent in his lands.

    "You should have gone after him," she muttered, "and put an arrow into his back." Chiledu was silent. The sun hung overhead; she thought of the cool shade under the distant willows where they might have rested.

    She urged her horse on, then heard the distant thunder of hooves. She looked back. Three riders were moving towards them from the south. A small hill hid the men for a moment, before they reappeared.

    Chiledu rose in his stirrups, then galloped towards a nearby hill, trying to lead the men away from her. She lashed at her horse and the cart bounced and swayed as the animal broke into a trot. The three men raced past her after Chiledu; she recognized the stranger. He grinned at her, his greenish-brown eyes filled with a wild joy.

    The men soon disappeared behind a distant hill on which an obo stood. The shrine was a small pile of stones with a spear jutting from the mound; she whispered a prayer to whatever local spirits the obo honoured.

    Chiledu could not have carried her on his horse; that extra burden would have ensured his capture. His only chance was to outrun his pursuers. She trembled with rage at her helplessness. Her husband had failed her. Maybe that meant he deserved to lose her.

    Chiledu burst out from behind a hill; he was riding back to her. She tensed, then stood up as he galloped towards the cart.

    "What are you doing?" she shouted, as his chestnut gelding skidded to a halt. "I saw their faces when they passed—they mean to kill you."

    The young man panted for breath. "I can't leave you here."

    "You'll die if you don't. Go—you can always find another wife." Her words were more bitter than she intended. "You may call her Hoelun in memory of me, but save your own life now!"

    He hesitated. The three strangers rounded the hill. "Listen to me." How could she convince him to save himself? She clutched at her shift, then pulled it over her head and threw it at him. "Take this as a keepsake, to remember my scent. Go to your people, and come back for me with your men later."

    Chiledu pressed the garment to his cheek. "I will come for you, Hoelun—I promise you that."

    "Go now!"

    He lashed at his horse, then galloped away. His looped braids beat against his back, then were tossed forward as he glanced back at her one last time. The three strangers neared her; they whooped and circled the cart. For a moment, she thought they would let Chiledu escape, but then they rode after him. She stared after them until she could see only four small clouds of dust on the horizon.

    Hoelun sank to the seat of the cart. Despite Chiledu's brave promise to come after her, it was not likely his people would trouble themselves over one stolen bride. The Merkits would wait before they sought vengeance for this wrong. By then, Chiledu would have another wife to console him.

    She was still naked, except for her oxhide boots. She reached for her robe, pulled it on, and tied the strings at her waist. Even if she fled on the spare horse, she did not know where she could find safety. Her bow lay behind her, but she made no move to fetch it; forcing the strangers to kill her would gain her nothing. The pale eyes of the hunter had told her that he wanted her alive.

    CHAPTER 2

    The three strangers rode back along the river-bank, following the stream towards Hoelun's cart. Chiledu had evaded them. They would have taken his horse and weapons, and perhaps his head as a trophy, if he were dead.

    The three trotted up to her. Unable to control herself, Hoelun began to cry; the pale-eyed man burst into laughter. His smile enraged her. As he leaped from his horse, she lashed at him with her whip. He grabbed it from her, nearly pulling her to the ground, then climbed into the cart.

    "Cry all you like," he said. "Tears won't help you." He pushed her down to the seat and jerked the reins from her hands.

    "Be grateful," one of the other men said. "Being a Borjigin's woman is better than being a Merkit's." He reached for the reins of the pale-eyed man's horse. Their speech was much like her people's, easier to grasp than Chiledu's northern dialect had been at first.

    "He'll come back for me," Hoelun gasped between sobs.

    "I might, if I had lost such a wife," the man next to her said. "That Merkit won't." He urged her horse forward. One of his companions rode ahead to lead the way; the third trotted at their side.

    "You made my husband leave me. He rides into the wind, fleeing for his life," Hoelun wailed. "I call out his name, but he can't hear me." Her grief tore at her, yet she was dimly aware that her captors expected such lamentations; they would not think much of a woman who forgot her loyalties too quickly. "You drove him away, you—"

    "Be quiet." The man riding next to the cart had spoken, in a voice that sounded like a boy's.

    Hoelun shrieked; the pale-eyed man winced. "My master Yeke Chiledu—"

    "Be quiet!" the younger man said again. "He can't hear you now."

    "You're finished with him," the man next to her muttered. "I won't have all that wailing under my tent." She hated him even more then.

    "So you mean to keep her," the younger man said.

    "Of course," the man with Hoelun replied.

    "You have one wife already."

    "Do you expect me to give her to you? I saw her first. Go find your own woman, Daritai."

    "Very well, brother," the younger man said. "I should have known you wouldn't—"

    "Stop this talk!" The man riding ahead of them turned in his saddle. "You two fight enough without having a woman come between you."

    So her captor had a wife. She would be the second, with a lesser place; she regretted the loss of Chiledu more than ever.

    "We had so little time, Chiledu and I." Hoelun dabbed at her eyes with a sleeve. "We were wed only a few days ago."

    "Good," the pale-eyed man replied. "That will make it easier to forget him."

    She covered her face, then peered through her fingers at the stranger. He was taller than Chiledu, and broader in the chest. Long moustaches drooped on either side of his mouth, but now that she was closer to him, she saw that he was not much older than her husband.

    "What's your name?" he asked. She refused to answer. "Do I have to beat it out of you? What are you called?"

    "Hoelun."

    "These two are my brothers." He gestured at the man leading the way. "Nekun-taisi is the eldest." The rider grinned back at them with a smile as broad as his brother's. "Daritai Odchigin rides at our side. When I rode back to tell them of the beauty I'd seen, they were on their horses in an instant. I am Yesugei."

    "Yesugei Bahadur," the one called Daritai added. Bahadur—the Brave. Hoelun wondered what the man had done to merit such a title.

    "Bartan Bahadur was our father," Yesugei said. "Khabul Khan was our grandfather, and Khutula Khan our uncle."

    "The voice of Khutula Khan," Daritai said, "could fill a valley and reach to the ears of Tengri. He could eat a whole sheep and still hunger. He could lie by a burning forest and brush away the flames as if they were cinders. Once, he and his men were attacked while out hunting, and he fell from his horse. Everyone believed he was lost, and our people gathered for his funeral feast, but no sooner had his wife shouted that she didn't believe he was dead than he rode into camp, alive and with a herd of wild horses he had captured on the way."

    Empty boasts, Hoelun thought, the proud words of those whose pride was greater than their possessions. She knew something of the Borjigin Mongols. Their clan had been powerful once, but the Tatars, aided by an army of the Kin, had crushed them. Khutula, the Khan who sounded so invincible in Daritai's words, was dead, along with his brothers.

    "And who is Khan now?" Hoelun asked boldly. Yesugei scowled. "You have no Khan—that's what I have heard." She wanted to anger this man, to pay him back somehow. "You lost two Khans—the one your brother brags about and the one who led you before him. Isn't that so?"

    "Be quiet," Daritai muttered.

    "The Tatars killed your uncle," she continued, "and the Kin killed the one before him."

    Yesugei's jaw worked; for a moment, she thought he would strike her. "Ambaghai Khan was going to the Tatars to make peace," he said, "when the Tatars seized him and sold him to the Kin. They impaled him on a wooden donkey in front of their Golden King, and the Kin mocked him as he died, but in his last message to us, Ambaghai Khan told our people not to rest until he was avenged. The cursed Tatars will suffer for that."

    "So of course you have to fight," Hoelun said. "The Kin will help the Tatars to keep you from growing stronger, but if the Tatars grow too powerful, the Kin may turn to you. It keeps Khitai safer, having such battles outside their Great Wall."

    "What would you know about such things?"

    "Only that wars here serve the Golden King of Khitai more than they serve us."

    Yesugei gripped her arm hard, then let go. "You've said enough, woman."

    She rubbed at where he had bruised her. "I think you had enough enemies without stealing me."

    "You may be worth a few more."

    Hoelun closed her eyes for a moment, afraid she might start crying again. A sudden gust swayed the trees. She thought of Chiledu, riding on alone with the hot wind burning his face.


    South of the grove where Hoelun had first seen Yesugei, the land was flatter and empty of trees. A small herd of horses grazed in the distance.

    "Ours," Daritai said as he waved a hand towards the horses and the men guarding them.

    Hoelun was silent. "My brother Yesugei," the young man continued, "is the anda of Toghril, the Kereit Khan, who lives in a tent of golden cloth." So Yesugei and the Kereit Khan had sworn an oath of brotherhood. Daritai shifted in his saddle. He had already told her that Yesugei was chief in his camp and head of his subclan of Kiyat Borjigins, with followers from other subclans. "They swore their oath after Yesugei fought against Toghril Khan's enemies and restored him to his throne. An uncle of Toghril's claimed the Kereit Khanate for himself, but our forces defeated him, and Toghril was so grateful that he offered my brother a sacred anda bond. The Kereits are rich, and Toghril Khan a strong ally."

    "So your brother has some friends," Hoelun said. "I thought his only skill might be stealing brides from their husbands."

    Daritai shrugged. "Men of the Taychiut clan live in our camp, and Khongkhotats, and many more of Bodonchar's descendants follow us in war."


    (Continues...)

    Excerpted from Ruler of the Sky by Pamela Sargent. Copyright © 1993 Pamela Sargent. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
    All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
    Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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    A novel of the thirteenth-century Mongolian warrior, and the women who surrounded him, that offers “a panoramic view of the charismatic leader” (Library Journal).
     
    In 1167, in the harsh homeland of Mongol tribes, a child was born who was to change the course of human history. His father named him Temujin, but the world knows him as Genghis Khan. Set amid the barbaric splendor of the Mongol hordes, Ruler of the Sky tells the tale of the warrior who forged one of the greatest and most terrifying armies the world had ever seen, and conquered the world from Peking to Persia. Not only is this the story of Genghis Khan, it is also the story of those who were closest to him, especially the women who played such an important role in his life. From the windswept plains of Mongolia to the opulence of the Chinese court, Ruler of the Sky is unforgettable.
     

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    Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
    The ruthless 13th-century warrior Genghis Khan, who built a vast empire in his drive for world conquest, is the subject of this workmanlike historical novel, a panorama of warfare, intrigue, sex and betrayal. In Sargent's ( The Shore of Women ) somewhat romanticized portrayal, the Mongol ruler is a schizoid figure capable of both monstrous savagery and saintly humility and forgiveness. We see Genghis Khan through the eyes of women who loved and manipulated him. His doting mother, Honelun, stirs his lust for vengeance by telling tall tales of his father's poisoning. His chief wife, Bortai, is bitter over his neglect of her. Another wife, Ibakha, rashly attempts to convert the ruler from worship of the sky-god Tengri to Christianity. Still another spouse, Ch'i-kyuo, a ladylike Chinese princess, has lesbian trysts with a Han concubine. Genghis Khan himself enjoys simultaneously bedding two additional wives, Tatar sisters Yisui and Yisugen, and we also read of his homosexual relationship with a friend whom he later orders to be hung. Sargent's flat prose is plodding and ridden with cliches, but it helps anchor the exotic excesses of the violent world she describes. (Jan.)
    Library Journal
    Sargent, the author of numerous sf novels, has produced a neatly crafted work that manages to provide a panoramic view of the charismatic leader Genghis Khan while at the same time presenting the background mosaic of warring Mongol tribes in enough detail to keep the reader from getting hopelessly confused. A nice touch is Sargent's telling the conqueror's story from the viewpoint of the women in his life--mother, wives, and daughters. This technique makes it possible to introduce considerable domestic detail and prevents the novel from becoming a mind-numbing catalog of battles. Even so, the last 200 pages are so mired in accounts of conquests that they drag a bit, and the multitudinous characters--only a few developed in any depth--blur together. Still, the exotic setting and inherent drama of Genghis Khan's life make this an appealing novel to fans of historical fiction.-- Beth Ann Mills, New Rochelle P.L., N.Y.
    Kerri Kilbane
    Out of the annals of history, the ruthless, bloodthirsty conqueror Genghis Khan lives again in this expansive saga, as perceived through the eyes of the women who loved him. "Behind every great man . . . " they say; and befitting a king who in one lifetime accomplished what 10 average kings might, there is more than one great woman here. "Ruler of the Sky" chronicles the birth, coming-of-age, reign, and death of this vastly complex warrior king from an intimate perspective. In an age in which women were subjected to barbarous conventional practices, the courage, wisdom, tenacity, and ingenuity of these particular women are remarkable. An impressive novel from a veteran writer.

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