KhKhanQuest
A campaign in nine chapters,
three alphabets and one train line.
- The Chancelleryа҃
- The Letterв҃
- The Ordersг҃
- The Dinkyд҃
- The Tsaritsaє҃
- The Steppeѕ҃
- The Riverз҃
- The Arrivalи҃
- Нью-Йоркѳ҃
Chapter а҃
The Chancellery
Somewhere in the Imperial Chancellery a clerk addresses a letter. He has heard of tsaritsas. He has heard of girls named Sarit. Nobody has told him these are different words, so he splits the difference.
Царит = царица + שָׂרִית. Wrong in two languages at once, and the most important document in this story.
Chapter в҃
The Letter
It leaves Princeton addressed in Latin letters. Her name carries one X, and it sits in Axelrod.
The Russian post forwards it east and rewrites the address in Cyrillic. Watch the X. Аксельрод spells that sound кс, so the X leaves. It lands in Хан.
Same letter, different word. In every alphabet she gets exactly one.
One more office, one more alphabet. Hebrew writes that sound ח. It is the letter her own first name lost on the way from חַנָּה to Greek, when Hannah became Anna.
Khan puts it back. X · Х · ח — one sound, three alphabets, one Anna.
Chapter г҃
The Orders
Inside is one page. The orders are short and unmistakably imperial. Proceed east. Pacify the steppe. Report back.
She reads them as a conquest. Everyone does, at first.
Steppe peoples called the Russian emperor the White Tsar. Keep that in mind.
Chapter д҃
The Dinky
The imperial transport turns out to be two silver cars on 2.7 miles of track. The horse has opinions about the doorway.
On the platform a stationmaster squints at the envelope and corrects it in pencil. Not a tsarit. Княжна, knyazhna, an unmarried prince's daughter. A promotion, technically.
Chapter є҃
The Tsaritsa
At Princeton Junction the express pulls in, and somebody with better eyesight takes one look at the kokoshnik and fixes the envelope again. Царица. Empress.
The cloak is lined with Central Asian ikat. She packed for where she was going.
About that clerk. He wasn't wrong. He was early.
царь+ица=царица
שַׂר+ית=שָׂרִית
Two unrelated roots, Caesar and the Hebrew sar, both meaning a ruler. Two languages, and both build the woman's word the same way, with a feminine ending fixed to the end. Sarit is the little princess. Tsaritsa is the empress. Same blueprint, bigger crown.
Chapter ѕ҃
The Steppe
Reeds to the horizon. A sky with nothing in it. Banners strung on tall poles all along the skyline. Everything the orders promised.
Then the map catches up. Look at the map. These are the Meadowlands. The banners carry catenary wire. The steppe is New Jersey, and it is ten minutes from Manhattan.
So nobody is invading anyone. A tsaritsa named Khan, riding east toward the White Tsar's steppe, is just going home.
Chapter з҃
The River
Every campaign has a great river to ford. This one has been forded underground since 1910. She keeps her crown on in the tunnel. The fish are unimpressed.
Chapter и҃
The Arrival
She comes up into a hall made of sky. Glass, steel, light falling straight down. Everybody steps aside for the horse.
Here the last office stamps the envelope for the last time. Not knyazhna. Not tsaritsa. Хан.
Every other title on this envelope had to be conferred. This one she was born with.
Chapter ѳ҃
Нью-Йорк
Off duty. Crown on, cut-off shirt. In 1974 John Lennon stood on a Manhattan rooftop in a New York City T-shirt, and that became the picture. This is the Cyrillic edition.
He also wrote a song about a world with no countries, which would have saved this envelope a lot of trouble.
the Tsarit
Княжна
Царица
Хан
Anna
anna khan akselrod
Every office on the way got your title wrong. I never did.
I'm so proud of you, Anna.