In the mazed world of smoke-inspired paradise dreams, the tarkhan Borshar moved suddenly from tranquility to agony. He jerked convulsively, spasming, his face contorted into a rictus, his throat torn by a horrible scream of rage. The tarkhan had not, when he slipped into the trance, expected his communication with the greatness to be agonizing.
Partly, that was just because the Black Brain poorly understood the frailty of humans. Its closest contact with them was with Jagiellon, who was not frail. But mostly it was because both parts of the Black Brain, the man who had once been Grand Duke Jagiellon and the ancient and powerful denizen of planes far beyond and below the ordinary, were angry. Indeed, furious.
Could these stupid tools not manage a simple straightforward murder? The Baitini were a society of assassins. They spent their lives in practice and prayer, blast them. Killing a few pawns should have been a joke. They were masters of the poison, and the cunning blade.
Now the pawns were on the loose again.
And they were dangerous pawns. Pawns that had turned victory into defeat for him on prior occasions. He did not like the fact that they were now much closer to his heartlands. It seemed ridiculous, but…
"They must be hunted down and killed."
Over the last few years the Black Brain had so subverted the Baitini that they obeyed him unconditionally. He had orders. Borshar would do his best, or die trying.
But his influence, Borshar informed him, was limited. The breach of tradition had frightened and upset even Gatu's loyalists. The Mongols believed the spirits of the land favored the foreign Knights of the Holy Trinity. Or that they practiced magic, to have survived.
"I will give you magical powers to call on the afrits and lesser creatures to do your bidding. Let them believe you too are a powerful worker of magic."
The Baitini tarkhan thanked him devoutly for so favoring him.
Chernobog knew what price the user would pay, eventually, for what were actually rather limited powers. But that was not his problem.
The Black Brain now turned its attention southeast to see how the Baitini dream of capturing the empire and ruling it by the code assassin was succeeding. They prayed and tried to reach him. Because, right now, they had need. That in itself was not a bad thing, the part which once had been human informed him. Chernobog and Jagiellon were one and the same now, but still the part which had once been Prince Jagiellon did have a better grasp on human affairs. No matter what the Baitini and their fifth column insurrection achieved, chaos among the Ilkhan was a good thing. It would make physical conquest easier, later.
He turned his attention now to the shipyards and the burgeoning encampment outside Odessa, using his puppets to inspect the work.
Here he found much that pleased him.
Then he was recalled to his throne room by a messenger who had returned from Karelia in the far north.
Bringing strange, worrying news, and no shaman.
"They will not come. They flee before me, Prince Jagiellon. We caught one, eventually, but he was just a minor healer. Of no use to you, Your Highness. We tortured him until we got some answers. Something is moving up there among the hunting tribes and reindeer herders. Something is acquiring their names. It seems they would rather die than come to your service as a result."
The messenger did not understand, but Chernobog did. The shamans of the north believed everything had true names. And if one had their true, secret names, they had to obey. There were ways of protecting those names. There were ways of ferreting them out. Obviously some shaman had become expert in the latter, and was choosing to defy Chernobog. That had to be investigated and dealt with.