And this tribe has a sheet of coloured glass, 
and beneath it lies that warlike prophet, 
Chingiz Khan’. And his body does not decay; 
for it was placed here by means of a pact with 
the OBSERVERS, who are the children of 
many races, and who did not wish to be killed 
by the armies of TOLUI; and they placed the 
body where all could see and remember it; and 
by strange dark magics the OBSERVERS 
preserve it; and the armies of TOLUI went 
away again; 


And the tribe of the KIRGHIZ lives to the north 
of the Oxus; and they are a warlike people, in 
the manner of the KIPCHAK and KALMYK. 


+Divan-e Afshar 


A collection of poetry by the 15th century Persian poet 
Shams al-Din Afshar Shirazi, a member of the Timurid 
court. Although reported by numerous sources as being 
of high quality, the Divan has been entirely lost except 
for a translation by the 19th century British orientalist and 


Foundation operative John Callaghan. This translation is 
extremely loose, and it is believed that Callaghan 
embellished or invented many details; he is not believed 
to have come into contact with any other sources 
discussing SCP-3986, however. 


And on the mount of Ofstrato, upon the Onon's 
shore, 


A stately pleasure-dome, atop the rocky 
moors, 


With tiles of cobalt blue stand the watchers of 
the night, 


The tunnel all refracted, the threshold framed 
starlight? 


And in their halls there walks a folk of learning 
and of love, 


Whose hearts are pure-white as if the feathers 
of the dove, 


Ply the secrets of the stars that twinkle in the 
dark, 


And smile and write on arcane pages only 
sages hark. 


+Recitations of Lakshmi Rao 


A work by an unknown Hindu author from the mid-16th 
century, this work records the sayings of the Yogi mystic 
Lakshmi Rao. A number of manuscripts, each with minor 
variations, were in circulation across the early modern 
period. Translated from Hindavi. 


And on the eighth day, the Venerable Sage 
came to us, and asked us why we die. 


And the brahma among us told him many 


things; that the body was like the worn-off 
clothes of the atman, and that it must be 
exchanged many times; 


And that the atman would be purified further 
and further, until it can rest. 


And the Venerable Sage smiled, and nodded, 
and approved; and the brahma among us were 
mollified. 


But then the Venerable Sage offered an 
alternative notion. He spoke of Genghis Khan, 
who had died in order to build Bedhashaala, 
also called Rasadkhane-ye Moghul, also 
called Shangri-La. 


And the brahma among us protested; there 
was no such place, they said; there was not 
even a legend of such a place; 


And the Venerable Sage merely laughed, and 
said, this is the sacrifice of death; all that you 

are slides into oblivion, and nought can recall 

what you have given. 


For even the form, or the name, or the idea of 
a place is nothing but idle words or frail 
memory to those who are left behind. And 
Genghis Khan, who sought an elixir of eternal 
life but accepted its non-existence, was able to 
accept this. 


And thus, for no reason beyond his own desire 
to patronise scholars, he gave his body as a 
seed, and around it grew a beautiful 
observatory; 


And people from all nations arrived there; and 
recognising the glory of our country, raised up 
walls not of Mongol furs or Muslim stone, but 


of red Patna; and it shines with the fire of the 
sun. 


And thus there was no empire left in the soul 
of Genghis Khan, and he was at last at rest. 


And the brahma among us agreed, and hailed 
the Venerable Sage. 


+The Construction of Xanadu 


A novel by the 17th century Chinese novelist Li Yujian, a 
bureaucrat in the service of the Ming dynasty who fell 
into poverty following the Manchu conquest of the 
country. Li's account provides a narrative of Kublai 
Khan's construction of Xanadu, which he portrays as 
bankrupting the state and causing immense destruction. 
Unusual for a novel of this period is its sympathy for the 
Yuan dynasty and its portrayal of Kublai as a heroic (if 
flawed) protagonist. The passage in question comes 
towards the end of the novel, as Kublai's loyal servant 
Baichi asks him why he continues to embark upon a 
project he knows is doomed to fail. 


And Baichi stood up at last, and looked at 
Kublai. "| do not understand,” he said. "| know 
| am only a poor idiot, but | cannot see the 
reason. All around you rage the fires, and 
Xanadu is burning, and still you will not give it 


up." 


And Kublai turned towards him, and Baichi 
saw how his face, within the firelight, no longer 
looked like flesh, but like stone. Indeed, it 
reminded him of a statue he had seen, in his 
youth; one weathered and beaten with age, 
but still carved to make the watcher remember 
the divine glory of its emperor. 


And Kublai said, "| cannot stop, noble Baichi, 
because to do so would be to abandon myself. 


For all my palaces, for all my glory and my 
kingdom, for all the nations of the world who 
pay homage to me as no other emperor has 
achieved, | am still a Mongol, born to a Mongol 
king, who knows nothing but the hunt and the 
lust for gold that is common to all my kind." 


"For in the west, in the far west, my 
grandfather lies, staring up at the sun and 
smiling. For he lies atop the tallest mountain, 
the only mountain in all the steppe, and above 
him lies the greatest testament to his power. 
For behold! The greatest minds of Po-Su and 
China are gathered in one place, amid a 
palace akin to the greatest emperor's; and 
there they have plumbed the depths of the 
universe. They have seen the rotation of the 
earth and the centrality of the sun; and through 
the glass all the stars pay homage to him, from 
the screaming tyrant to a preacher of distant 
gods; and on the ceiling of the universe he 
stands, forever, tall and proud, a monument 
forgotten yet necessary that no man can 
touch." 


And Kublai looked down upon his burning 
castle, a mountain made of wood and stone, 
and he wept, and Baichi wept with him, for 
although he would never be an emperor or a 
sage he understood, having grown and played 
with emperors and tyrants, the desire to 
conquer that world still denied to them, that 
immortality through empire. 


+Letter from Nikolai Karensky to Katerina Karensky 


Nikolai Karensky was a Russian army officer sent as an 
envoy to the Dzungar Khanate in the early 18th century, 
where he died in March 1718. A great deal of 
correspondence survives between him and his sister, 
Katerina, which has since been seized by the 


Foundation. Translated from Russian. 
20th Feburary 1718, near Ghulja. 
My dearest Katerina, 


The weather here continues to be frightful. It 
has begun to snow, and these appalling Tatar 
tents are little protection against the elements. 
My guide, Mehmed, has told us that we are to 
stay put, on the Khan's orders. It is a shame; | 
had hoped to see Almaligh, the old capital of 
Moghulistan, but this is prohibited. It seems | 
shall return straight home to St. Petersburg 
with no diversions at all. 


Still, it is only a small problem, because | came 
across the most wondrous sight recently while 
travelling with the Khan across the Tarim 
Basin, as | discussed with you in my previous 
letter. | became lost from the bulk of the rest of 
the group, and found myself wandering across 
unfamiliar pastureland. | was lost and with little 
food; but | saw before me a lone mountain, 
shaped so oddly | became convinced some 
structure had been built upon it. 


| approached on my horse, and saw a series of 
steps carved into the mountainside. They 
shone with a brilliant cobalt, and | was quite 
taken aback at the beauty of their 
preservation. | ascended- by now desperate 
for water- and after what seemed like no time 
at all, | was atop the mountain. 


And what a sight lay before me! It was as if | 
had stepped out of the savage nomad land | 
had been in only moments before and had 
instead entered a university in Russia. An 
Orthodox chapel lay at one end; a great plaza 
covered in stained glass, as if taken from 


/ /1994: You try to be good; you should try harder. 

/ 11994: Some people don't know how to be kind. You'll Know soon 
enough, won't you? 

/ /1997: People who do terrible things deserve terrible things. 
You've brought this upon yourself, my dear. 

/ /1998: You'll find out, soon enough. 

/ /2002: You look like you've made some mistakes. Some things 
are unforgivable, aren't they? 

/ /2002: Do you think they've forgotten? 


« SCP-516 | SCP-517 | SCP-518 » 


some Roman church; domes and white marble 
to rival the best found in Russia. 


| presumed this place must have been some 
Russian colony of some kind, but | was 
mistaken; it was full of Persians, Chinese and 
Arabs, all wandering with telescopes and 
sheafs of papers under their arms and 
discussing high matters- astronomy, astrology, 
the rotation of the earth. Some were 
discussing the philosophy of empire, others 
the ethnography of the Kipchaks. One fellow, 
an Arab named lbn Ubayd, gave me some 
water and food. When | asked him what this 
place was, he told me it was the observatory of 
Genghis Khan! | was very confused by what 
this meant, until he told me to look at the fine 
stained glass | had admired earlier. 


Beneath it, Katerina, was a sight | had never 
thought to see; a perfectly preserved corpse of 
the conqueror himself. | had thought that he 
had died some way to the east of this, but it 
was Clearly him- | knew it in my soul. | could 
feel his gaze upon me. | thought how strange it 
was, that a savage Tatar such as this should 
have made such a place. But then, | thought, 
perhaps he did not; perhaps this was an 
unwanted legacy. His eyes stared so 
horrifyingly at the sky. 


Nobody would tell me anything about the 
place, and they sent me on with supplies some 
hours later. | could not find the place again, 
and found my people again shortly after. But 
oh, Kat, what a find! The tomb of Genghis 
Khan! | shall write up an account of this 
miracle as soon as | return home; my fellow 
travellers and students of history across the 
continent! 


Give my love to Alexander and the children- 
how they must have grown!- and remember 
me fondly in your prayers. 


Nikolai. 


+Voyages in Russia and Turkestan 


A travelogue-cum-report written by the British orientalist 
and Foundation operative John Callaghan and published 
in 1887. The portrayal of sensitive information within this 
work on other anomalous items (particularly SCP-3838 
and what would eventually be revealed to be SCP-3150) 


led to Callaghan's lynching during the 1889 Snarling 
Coup, an important predecessor for the modern 
Foundation's development as a scientific institution. 


And upon this stretch of grassland lies a small 
mountain; approximately 400m tall, by my 
calculations. It contains a set of stairs carved 
into the side of the mountain, winding around it 
10 times before reaching the top. 


Upon the top lies a small observatory. Of 
particular note is its adherence to modern 
standards, being remarkably similar to a 
number of similar institutes across the West; 
despite this, it is staffed and occupied chiefly 
by Orientals of various types. A disappointingly 
cliched set of texts are held within by its 
ignorant guards; some works on heliocentrism, 
they claim, existed prior to Copernicus, despite 
the clear impossibility of this. Still, there was a 
remarkable set of Persian poetry which | did 
not recognise; a great deal by Omar Khayyam 
and some previously unknown examples of 
Shams al-Din Afshar, who | had heretofore 
only encountered in catalogues and allusions. 


There is a clear anomalous presence here, 
what with the presence of modern buildings 


and equipment within a less enlightened 
country. The inhabitants demonstrate a clear 
knowledge of modern instruments and 
techniques, but insist in writing in what | 
believe to be a variant of the Phags-Pa script 
of ancient Mongolia, despite its many 
unsuitabilities for scientific endeavour. They 
are cagy and inscrutable people, who seem 
unwilling or perhaps unable to give me any 
further information on the place. 


There is one final thing of note- a plain sheet 
of clear glass in the centre of a small plaza, 
somewhere to the side, containing a perfectly 
preserved human body. Although obviously 
not the body of Genghis Khan, as the 
inhabitants claim, the clothes it is wearing do 
appear to be of particular antiquity and are 
very fine. | attempted to liberate a sample, but 
the glass could not be easily removed or 
broken and so | desisted. 


Beyond this, Kazakhstan is a most desultory 
location for anomalous items. | intend to return 
to the Marketplace posthaste. 


Addendum 1: On 09/12/1999, Dr. Nicholas Cartwright, project lead 
on SCP-3986 from 1969 to 1984, died in his sleep. A small note was 
left to the Foundation with contents pertaining to SCP-3986; a 
transcript is as follows. 


+File 


| remember- as a very young man- that my 
father told me about Callaghan, whom he had 
met. Reading the file again tonight, | recall the 
way my father discussed his manifold 
weaknesses, his rather closed mind- but also 
his open and generous spirit, his kindness to 
those less fortunate (or perhaps those he 
deemed less fortunate!), and his sudden 


change of heart shortly before the Snarling 
Coup, when he disavowed a great part of his 
travelogue after finding something in the 
archives at Tabriz. Specifically, he claimed that 
SCP-3986 had been far more significant than 
he had previously thought- that it was indeed 
the grave of Genghis Khan, and that he would 
return there posthaste for a final discovery. 


He wrote down what he found, but it was lost- 
some time, we think, during the Snarling Coup. 
And it was perhaps this which led us, for the 
longest time, to believe SCP-3986 affected by 
the anafabula. The seventh piece lost, a place 
apparently expunged from the world- it was not 
hard to conjure up a theory where Callaghan 
was a fantasist who had invented the 
observatory, following on from the many 
fictions of previous centuries- because, in 
keeping with the ideas about the conflation of 
myth and history in the 60s and 70s, we were 
disdainful of the observatory's existence. And 
so the observatory became a piece of myth, 
observed in various other works, and deleted 
from existence. 


But this wasn't how the anafabula worked, and 
we should have recognised that. Indeed, | 
began to be troubled by how many of the 
authors already described the observatory as 
hidden or lost. | was the one- in the face of 
considerable opposition- who insisted on 
giving the observatory its own file, its own 
number, creating the project. But our searches 
turned up nothing, and for a time | thought that 
| had led the Foundation on a wild goose 
chase, some errant quest for my own personal 
fantasy. 


But then | found it. For me, it appeared in 


southern Russia, on a steppe that had once 
been Tatar but had become settled, Christian, 
modern. The grass- which some earlier 
observer would have seen as the hellish 
ground of northern savages, or the romantic 
freedom of the nomads, or some other such 
thing- was now mere grass, an explicable and 
unromantic thing, discussed in terms of 
economics or history or geography. It was 
explained; it was made modern. 


And within that rose the steps of cobalt and a 
mountain of black stone. And | rose, giddy with 
excitement, my recording devices ready to 
snap all, hear all. Like any dutiful Foundation 
researcher- even one old and frail and 
withering, as | was- | wanted to bring it all back 
to my superiors, to advance the cause of 
knowledge.