The Khan Epilogue

It was an audacious plan. Some would say it was doomed from the beginning. A gladiator to a soldier to a senator. But if anyone could do it, he could.

And now he had a benefactor, a sponsor for his military application, who lay sweating and gasping on the cot beside him. Another piece to his plans falling into place.

From his father he got strength and determination. From his mother he got political acumen and a sense of people and society. What's more, he understood his role in history. The first minotaur citizen, the first minotaur in a position of power, the first to normalize relations between his two peoples.

Oh yes. He had a vision.

He was a strange beast indeed. A bastard of two worlds.

And that was his greatest strength.

*

Author's Note

Allow me to say a few words about the quality of my own work.

I read a lot of novels in a wide variety of genres. But I think sword and sorcery is my favorite. I like the use of magic and I like the intricacies of archaic politics. I think an ancient or feudal system is wonderfully crude. Mad, power hungry kings are definitely not something anyone would actually want to actually live under, heaven forbid. But at the same time, it makes for good stories. The arrogance and the personally idiosyncrasies of the powerful actors and how it effects real life and death decisions fascinates me.

And it doesn't have to just be ancient politics to capture that. We only need look at the political situation today to see how people with overlarge egos effect the lives of so many others.

Years ago I read a one volume summary of the American Civil War. It was by John Keegan. And what struck me from reading the outline of the war, was just how much each general's personal baggage effected the war. Rivalries between generals on the Union side kept battles from being won. Or they made casualties higher than they needed to be. Personal jockeying for status among the brass drug the war out longer than necessary.

What I'm saying here in my round about way, is that the dynamics of the people involve shape the events. That is what The Khan is about, at least in part.

Let me mention some of the novels I have read during the course of writing The Khan that inspired me: River of Stars and Tigana, both by Guy Gavriel Kay; All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, all by Cormac McCarthy; Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller; and Shogun by James Clavell.

On the technical side of writing let me say, I had three guiding principles going into this project.

First, I tried capturing the physicality of the world these characters inhabit. I wanted you to see the swirl of dust motes in the golden light spilling through the windows. I wanted you to hear the creak of leather and wood, to hear the howl of the wind across the southern plains. I wanted you to feel the hot hard bodies and the chill mountain air. I wanted you to smell the musk of unwashed flesh and the scent of testosterone.

This decision highlighted all the things I wanted emphasized. It made the world more savage, it made the combat more brutal, and it made the sex more carnal.

Two. I wanted the love between Hakkon and Jun'ai to be true, not cynical. I wanted the emotions to be realistic. Jun'ai did indeed love Ariakas, as she loved two rival minotaurs in the next phase of her life. Their emotions were real and the emotions involved were highly complex. I strongly wanted to avoid easy answers, but at the same time, I wanted to make sure their love seemed real. And in that, I feel I was successful.

At the end, when grown Hyun was talking to her mother, I wanted a complex mother daughter relationship to be concisely told in a few short sentences of dialogue. Hyun was awed and even a little intimidated by her mother growing up. And Jun'ai was probably not an easy woman to live with. She drove her son away, after all. But when Hyun got older, she saw her mother for the damaged person she was, as all of us are if we are honest with ourselves.

And principle number three, I wanted a low fantasy setting. I am horrified when I read flashy magic and overstated magic items. When Jun'ai found the magical sword Kith'kanan in the catacombs in chapter eight, I knew as soon as I wrote it, that she was going to get injured in the battle at the end. It was important to show that the sword made her magically faster, but that the extra speed was only a slight advantage. Going against two jackals was still going to be a challenge.

And when they fought the beast in chapter three, I wanted this terrifying creature that killed members of their party, and in the end, it wasn't actually a dragon. They were only able to kill it because it was a lesser creature, a wyvern. This choice on my part gave them an encounter that they can win, while keeping the power and mystique of dragons intact. I'm not cheapening dragons by have them kill such a powerful creature in a random encounter.

There is a final point I want to make about theme. From pretty early in the process of writing this story (when I was writing chapter four, for the record) I knew how the story was going to end. I knew they would have two children, a boy and a girl, and that these children would grow up to fulfill their parents' dreams. One would be Khan after Hakkon and the other would return to Tyre. I even mentioned that in the nymph's prophecy to the couple. One child would be Khan, and the other an outcast. I saw that outcast as a gladiator slave back in Tyre.

These children would grow up and complete the goals set out from the previous generation. I believe that the goal of all people should be to stretch just a little further than their parents. To achieve just a little bit more. I want Kyrou to succeed where Ariakas failed. I want Hyun to build on Hakkon's progress and take the alliance further. And I want that theme to resonate here at the end.

In this savage world of violence and hardship, there is such a thing as true love, and there is a genuine hope for a brighter future.