- Pope Gregory X: You've met the fabled Prester John?
- Nayan: Yes, we've all heard the stories. Descended from the Magi, casts shadows in the night, resides by the river of heaven, which imparts everlasting life.
- Pope Gregory X: He's cunning, he's merciless. The hand of God. His vast army sweeps undetected across the land, leveling faithless villages and cities. He exterminates.
- Nayan: Prester John is nothing but merciful, Your Holiness. He offers mankind the opportunity to open their hearts to Christ.
- Pope Gregory X: And what if their hearts remain shuttered?
- Nayan: Well, then that's the finest example of his mercy. He returns them to the warm embrace of their Maker.
- [first lines]
- Marco Polo: [riding up] Eight keshig dead. And ten horses.
- Kublai Khan: My son's horses?
- Marco Polo: No sign of Jingim or Ahmad.
- Kublai Khan: How close to Karakorum?
- Marco Polo: Close enough.
- Kublai Khan: Kaidu...
- Marco Polo: Who else?
- Kublai Khan: To harm my sons...
- Marco Polo: An act of war.
- Kublai Khan: We ride for Karakorum!
- Kaidu: You'd take the word of a round eye over blood?
- Kublai Khan: Sad, isn't it? But his words have proven true.
- Old Woman: [sitting at her pot of potions] Great Khan. How you've grown greater and greater with each passing year. And you, Cousin Shabkana more and more delicate.
- Kublai Khan: Your skin brings to mind fine parchment, or the rose petals I use to clean my ass.
- Old Woman: Your words no longer cut me, Kublai. That is the great gift of age.
- Kublai Khan: Nor yours me. The great, great gift of sovereignty.
- Old Woman: You speak as you rule, like a bull-yak. Your mother's blood has proven unyielding.
- Kublai Khan: [to Byamba] To be mothered by a yak or a nagging witch? Which do you prefer?
- Phags Pa: [having trouble chanting] They say grief is hardest on focus. But I'd say fear is worse. Uncertainty of an outcome.
- Empress Chabi: You have borne no children. You know nothing.
- Phags Pa: I know of suffering.
- Empress Chabi: [gruffly] What could a child such as yourself know of suffering?
- Phags Pa: We measure age not in years but in lifetimes.
- Empress Chabi: And in all your lifetimes, how long has it taken for your karma to catch up with you?
- Phags Pa: The nature of karma is that it comes when it comes, at just the right moment, exactly when one is ready to heed its message.
- Empress Chabi: And if one heeds the message, makes recompense, can the karma be changed?
- Phags Pa: For every action, there is a ripple sent through time. One cannot escape one's karma.
- Empress Chabi: If you do not wish to become a eunuch, stop speaking in riddles.
- Phags Pa: Then again, I suppose one can change it.
- Empress Chabi: How?
- Phags Pa: Learn compassion. Carefully imagine how others feel. Put yourself in their circumstances and practice kindness from that day forward.
- Empress Chabi: That is it?
- Phags Pa: It *will* change your karma now.
- Phags Pa: [to himself after she stomps out] Or many lifetimes from now.
- Nayan: All my life I've been challenged by men who believe they've been chosen by a God of one sort or another.
- Pope Gregory X: Mmm, and one day, we shall see who is right.
- Nayan: Yes, Your Holiness. But in the meantime I found forfeiting my beliefs to be in no one's best interest.
- Pope Gregory X: But that's a virtue, Nayan. One God seeks out in his noblest of servants. Depending on what you believe in, of course.
- Nayan: My Khan *and* my Creator.
- Pope Gregory X: You see people come in here and they look at the the silks, the golds, the marble, the manuscripts. And many want to burn it. They want us to choke on the ash of our traditions. And I see you, Nayan, standing there, wobbling between two worlds, wagering your eternal salvation. I want you to understand something. If the Mongols come we will not cower. We will not capitulate. We will not negotiate for anything but your Khan's unconditional surrender. And when the ash clears I'll be looking to see which side you stand on. As will your Creator.
- Kublai Khan: What is it about progress that makes you squeal like a pig in heat?
- Kaidu: Sight of my origins. Purity of my ancestors' intent. Lose that and I lose my soul.
- Kublai Khan: Purity is cried by those who follow. Leading is putting your soul on the line, so others may have the freedom to ponder theirs. It's an onus like no other.
- Kaidu: If you so resent it, why not relinquish it?
- Kublai Khan: So that you could tear down everything I built? You really want to be remembered for ruining an empire on the cusp of ruling over all?
- Kaidu: I want to be the one remembered for saving it. From you.
- Kublai Khan: Rhetoric is easy. But it masks envy, lust, greed. Or is just a desire to finally still your old mother's nagging?
- Kaidu: Spoken by the son of a murderous, thieving bitch!