The Magic Circle Katherine Neville (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📖

have vied for the lands that Genghis Khan, and before him my namesake Attila, had conquered centuries ago: Central Asia. It was a more recent version of this struggle that killed my father, and brought me together with your grandmother Pandora in Paris when I was only ten years old.”

“You mean the struggle for Central Asia?” I said, as the image I thought I could almost see coalesced a bit. Swallowing with dry throat, I decided to take a chance. Even if Volga didn’t know what I was talking about, at this point I had little to lose.

“Volga,” I said, “do you know how all this history, geography, myth, and legend relates to my grandmother? Do you know what her manuscripts are all about?”

Volga nodded, grimly. With his next words, I understood why.

“I myself was trained from infancy as an ashokh,” he told me. “I knew the unwritten history of our people. When my parents were killed in the First World War, during the so-called Balkan Crisis, the world was in flux. I was taken in by a band of Gypsies who were fleeing the region; I supported myself like other Gypsy children, begging for coins. The pre-Roman inhabitants of Transylvania were called Daci, or Wolves, so it was no surprise that the man in his twenties who adopted me into the tribe went by the name of Dacian. He proved a masterly violinist, and indeed later instructed a young fellow, by the name of Lafcadio Behn, whom we picked up in Salzburg toward the end of the war.”

I started to speak, but pressed my lips together and let him continue.

“When Dacian began to comprehend what I’d been trained for—that despite my youth, I might know an ancient legend that few had ever even heard of—he said we must journey to France and meet his ‘cousin’ Pandora. That I must tell her everything I knew, and she would understand what to do.”

“And did you tell her when you got there?” I asked, barely breathing.

“Indeed I did,” said Volga. “The world would be a vastly different place today, as you must realize, had I not met your grandmother when I did—or had we all not agreed to help her in her most important mission.”

It was a surprise when the sober Volga Dragonoff leaned forward and grasped my hands firmly in his, as Dacian had done in Vienna. His ungloved hands were warm and strong, and gave me for the first time in weeks a feeling of security and confidence.

“I shall now tell you something no one knows, perhaps not even your uncle,” he said. “My last name, Dragonoff—it wasn’t my father’s name, which was simply Ararat, after the mountain. Your grandmother gave it to me as a kind of honor or title. ‘Like King Arthur’s father, Uther Pendragon,’ she told me. ‘It means one who can harness and bring under control the all-powerful dragon forces lying beneath the earth’s surface.’”

“Why did she say that about you?” I asked in a hushed voice, almost a whisper.

Volga looked at me with dark eyes, as if thinking of something long ago and far away, too dim for me to see.

“Because I revealed to her what I am about to reveal to you,” he said at last, though not reluctantly. When I glanced quickly toward the door, he added, “You needn’t fear what it may mean to others: only an initiate will be able to truly fathom what it all means.”

“But I’m not an initiate of anything, Volga,” I assured him.

“Yes, you are,” he said with a partial smile. “You have certain qualities your grandmother once possessed. A moment ago, you found a common thread in patterns of antique history, medieval legend, and contemporary politics. The ability to form such connections is the one skill required of an ashokh. But innate ability is not enough—appropriate training is also required. I can see you have received such training to an advanced degree, although you yourself may yet be unaware of it. See if you don’t feel the power to detect another, hidden level in the story I’m about to tell you.”

THE SECRET HISTORY

There was a bluish wolf which was born having his destiny from Heaven above

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His spouse was a fallow doe. They came, passing over the Tenggis.…

At the moment when [their descendant] was born, he was holding in his right hand a clot of blood the size of a knuckle bone. [He was given] the name of Temujin [blacksmith]

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—The Secret History of the Mongols, trans. Francis Woodman Cleaves

In nomadic cultures like those of the steppes, the sky itself is regarded as God. The axis on which the universe pivots is the Pole Star, at the tip of the small bear’s tail. It is held that a leader’s destiny is to subjugate and unite the “four corners”—the four quadrants of humanity on earth corresponding to the four quarters of the night sky.

The most important function in the nomad’s world is that of the blacksmith; his craft of creating the tools, weapons, and utensils so essential to this harsh existence is believed to be taught him directly by the gods. In such a belief system, all those born to be leaders were first born smiths; like the Greek Hephaestus, they’re considered partly magi and partly gods. The long rule of the Mongol dynasty was known to the Mongols themselves as the Blacksmith Monarchy.

In the year 1160, beside a freshwater spring near the river Onon in the grasslands of the Mongolian steppes, a mysterious figure was born. His ancestors, the legend says, were a blue wolf and a fallow doe. His name was Temujin, meaning blacksmith—as Attila’s, who came before him, had meant iron.

When Temujin was nine, his father arranged his betrothal to a girl of a neighboring tribe, but during the father’s return journey he paused to dine on the steppe with some Tatars, and was poisoned. Owing to their youth, Temujin and his brothers lost their father’s herds to their own tribe, who moved on, leaving