Now a vast splash hit the Charstalker, and one of the eyes went completely out.
It was not Bone’s doing; he stared and saw the Karvak on his feet, grinning, bleeding, basin in hands. Bone grinned back, though he worried for the steppe warrior.
Both sought more basins. Both were hit by flames.
Bone’s clothes were alight, and once more he was grateful for this arena. He threw himself into a trough that was likely the proximate source for the basins, buckets, bowls, and jugs.
Drenched, he escaped burning. However, it was difficult to extricate himself—and now the Charstalker billowed over him.
Two eyes flared. They displayed the two-part symbol, which in the Tongue of the Tortoise Shell meant Death.
The symbol hissed and frayed as water splashed upon it; hot drops hit Bone’s face.
There stood the stooped priest, conscious, bearing an empty bowl and a defiant smile.
Bone stumbled out of the trough and reached the priest just in time to embrace him.
Thus when heat erupted around them they did not burn. Bone steamed a little, however.
“Ha!” he said, scooping up the old priest and hauling him around the statue of the laughing figure. “It suddenly occurred to me I’m drenched in holy water. I should have done that in the first place.” He stopped laughing as he saw the smoking body of the Karvak. “Ah, hell.”
“He was a good man,” the priest said. “Let us finish this, you and I.”
“Agreed, Grandfather.”
They came at the monster from around either side of the statue, a basin in each hand. The priest chanted what sounded like “Om Mani Padme Hum,” and Bone shouted, “For the Karvak!”
The Charstalker had but one eye left. It drew, not a word but a rude gesture made of flame, as priest and thief splashed it with its doom.
Its final act was fiery, and as Bone expected the blast sizzled toward the priest, but Bone had already launched himself from the platform of the laughing figure to occupy the air between smoke-thing and holy man.
It hurt. To be sure, it hurt a great deal. But Bone kicked through the fire and jabbed a wet boot in the Charstalker’s eye.
Bone’s next move was to connect with the outstretched hand of the gold-plated, beatific figure. The result was not enlightenment but unconsciousness.
Gaunt ran through the peony garden with her bow at the ready, city guards puffing beside her, Snow Pine nearly out of sight up ahead. Under other circumstances, Gaunt would have been alarmed by the presence of a dozen guards. She was not quite used to the notion of being an honest visitor, and yet it was true enough, for her party meant no trouble to Yao’an or its inhabitants.
True, their long-term goal was to find and plunder what Qiangguo would probably consider its rightful property. But no one needed to know that.
As she avoided branches and roots and little streams and miniature temples, she considered it surprising the guards allowed an outlander to accompany them. But they’d seen her shoot. They’d also witnessed astounding swordplay from the foes and a supernatural visitation upon the temple roof. She hoped Bone would be all right. But she trusted his skills.
They needed Quilldrake, she was sure now. Whether this Silk Map was related to their quest or not, with enemies like these he must be the sort of person who could help them.
She’d lost sight of Snow Pine. The group moved more slowly now, as they came up to a line of wooden houses bordering the garden. The guards began bellowing threats to any person who would dare hide from them. She did not think that would be very effective.
Gaunt paused and opened her senses to what was there. As a young poet she’d spent an exorbitant amount of time seeking inspiration in dark graveyards. Whether her poetry had thereby improved was a matter of taste, but it was a fact that she’d trained her senses to be alert for birdsong, crickets, a twist in the breeze, a swell in the moonlight, and (just in case) the rising dead.
It was daylight, and there were no rising dead, but she did notice Snow Pine crouched at one corner of a house. Her companion’s two swords gleamed. Gaunt kept silent, for if Snow Pine had sensed something, Gaunt didn’t want to disturb her. Gaunt crept closer. The house was a two-story affair suggesting modest wealth. More shapes seemed apparent on the upper story. She raised her bow, squinting. She lacked Bone’s facility with heights, but that was what arrows were for.
Light flared within an upper window.
It was not firelight, nor reflected sunlight, but a bizarre green radiance that oozed like a liquid. It illuminated an intricate two-piece wooden panel that blew open as if a strong wind had erupted from within. The wind had a voice. Gaunt knew it.
“Who dares disturb the nap of Widow Zheng!”
Within the strange light she saw two figures in black, one hooded, one not. The un-hooded one held its right arm awkwardly.
Gaunt fired at her—for this was surely the one who’d attempted to choke Bone.
The woman reacted by diving into the weirdly lit chamber. Gaunt couldn’t be sure if she’d scored a hit. Likewise, she didn’t know what had happened to Snow Pine—for her friend had vanished and all sound was obscured by the bellows of the guards. Some of her new associates clutched crossbows and commenced discharging them at the remaining figure.
Gaunt waited no longer but ran toward the house.
She discovered an open door on the ground level, entering a dwelling that seemed made for the comfort of codices and scrolls, with some small provision for a human inhabitant. The way to the stairs was marked by a spill of swirling green light.
At the top Gaunt encountered a workshop that under other circumstances would have fascinated her. Books in various states of mending sat upon one large table. Yarrow sticks for divination lay upon another. A scroll of unfinished calligraphy dried upon a third. The walls were as book-lined as the ones below. All these things Gaunt would later reconstruct in her mind like the fading impressions of a dream. Of more immediate concern were the five figures in the room.
Widow Zheng the bookseller stood beside the table of calligraphy. Quilldrake hid under the table of mending. Snow Pine crouched before the table of divination. The two assailants faced Snow Pine, one wielding a sword, the other raising hands that Gaunt knew were only a little less dangerous. The unarmed foe’s right arm was wrapped in a bloody cloth.
Gaunt had already readied an arrow; she aimed. “I trust you remember me.”
“Give him up,” the one-eared woman said.
“I cannot!” replied Widow Zheng. Gaunt now saw that the eerie light emanated from a blank scroll in the bookseller’s hands. “This man owes me a book. Surely you understand.”
“At most you delay us,” said the other figure in black. The voice sounded male. “No matter where you hide, we will find you and claim what’s ours.”
“Can’t we discuss this?” Snow Pine said, adjusting her swords with every twitch of the warriors in black. “Reach an understanding?”
“No,” said the man, pulling forth a flat black stone from around his neck.
“No,” said Quilldrake, much more quietly, from under the mending table.
Gaunt shot the stone.
Her action was intuitive, surprising her. It surprised the man in black as well. He staggered backward, an arrow in his chest.
I have become a cold thing, Gaunt thought dimly. But smoke rose from where the man fell. Three blazing eyes were forming within it.
The one-eared woman snarled and kicked at Snow Pine. Snow Pine slashed and cut the woman’s leg but nevertheless fell into a tumble of table and yarrow sticks. Gaunt scrambled to draw a fresh arrow. Widow Zheng swore and snatched a new scroll, rapping it upon the table. The calligraphy upon it glowed with purple light and leapt off the page. Gaunt thought she recognized the proverb One who is snakebit for an instant, dreads a rope for ten years. The characters twisted like a cable and wrapped themselves around the smoke-thing.
The thing’s eyes blazed, and triple gouts of flame lashed at t
he purple calligraphy. The logograms writhed like grass in a fire and vanished.
Widow Zheng swore more emphatically.
Gaunt now had her arrow, and she fired at the one-eared woman. Wounded, disarmed, and breathing hard, the woman was still formidable; the arrow, aimed at the heart, only grazed her shoulder.
Now crossbow bolts were pummeling the chamber, and heavy boots could be heard upon the stairs. The one-eared woman snarled something in a language unknown to Gaunt, before looking at the smoke-creature and bellowing an incomprehensible command.
The thing swirled into a dark vortex, and the woman leapt into it. It bore her away like a leaf in a storm. Together they roared out over Yao’an.
In the moments before the guards arrived, Widow Zheng gasped to Quilldrake, “You, Arthur, owe me a book . . . two magic scrolls . . . and an explanation.”
“It will all be yours, my dear. But that last cannot be spoken within Yao’an.”
“Give me the rest, and I’ll arrange your departure.”
“Done,” said Quilldrake.
“What was that thing?” Gaunt asked, helping Snow Pine up.
“Hate undying,” she thought Quilldrake answered, but anything more was drowned out by the triumphant arrival of the guards.
Clearly this was to become the tale of how brave Gate Captain Sun and his hand-picked men vanquished foreign sorcerers. The way Widow Zheng kept weeping and praising and almost fainting into his arms, Gate Captain Sun probably felt like he’d rescued the whole western half of the city. Zheng also seemed to enjoy being held by the strapping gate captain. Gaunt couldn’t entirely blame her. She also preferred Widow Zheng’s story to, say, a tale of suspicious foreign treasure hunters bringing trouble upon Yao’an.
For Quilldrake was known to the guards, and it was clearly a mixed notoriety.
“Where is your partner-in-crime?” Captain Sun demanded, when he was finally able to turn his attention from Widow Zheng.
“My colleague is away on business.”
“What sort of business?”
“Scouting a new caravan route. I hope he succeeded.”
“Are you planning a long trip?”
“I think so.”
“Well, we might all be relieved by that. Do you think your trip might commence tomorrow?”
“It’s quite possible.”
“Good. That assurance may save you a lot of trouble when I talk to my superiors.” He turned to Gaunt and Snow Pine. “Now you two—”
Gaunt said, “My husband may still be in danger.”
The gate captain shook his head. “The scarred fellow? Just before we entered this house we received word that he and a priest defeated a demon-thing. And possibly a Karvak spy—reports were conflicting. The priest is looking after your man.”
Gaunt let out a long breath.
Captain Sun said, “Widow Zheng, you’ve clearly been through a trial. You may finish your nap, of course. You other three will come back to the Western Market with us, and you will stay within that ward until summoned.”
They weren’t exactly a group bursting with respect for authority, but their responses this time were silent nods.
In the Inn of the Bright Future they considered their own. Bone lay upon a cot, rubbing his bandaged head, muttering occasionally about pain and enlightenment. Gaunt held his hand, sometimes squeezing it when he ranted. “So,” Bone said to Quilldrake. “Your colleague. How will he fare?”
“I’m concerned, to be sure,” said Quilldrake, stroking his beard. “But Liron Flint’s a resourceful fellow. If he got a good enough head start he’ll have collapsed our tunnel upon our murderous friends. It was he who devised our escape route. Or rather our connection to it, for an earlier version once led from the first watchtower to an inn in this very Market. It was made for the convenience of the royal family long ago, and then rediscovered by enterprising soldiers. We’ve had a delicate but profitable relationship with some of the guards hereabouts.”
“Your friend wielded an interesting sword,” Gaunt recalled.
“You have an eye for the loot, don’t you, now? Yes, it’s a relic of some distinction. Well, I can’t blame anyone for admiring treasure.” Quilldrake leaned against the wall. He had a belly to him and had eagerly taken all food offered. His voice held jollity, but there was a haunted look to his eyes. “I thank you for our rescue. Strange as it sounds, I take our assault by mysterious figures as a good sign! But we’ll save that discussion for later.”
“I would appreciate hearing more now, Master Quilldrake,” said Gaunt.
“Call me Art. One half of the firm of Flint and Quilldrake, Limited. Authorized to trade in Amberhorn, Palmary, the Sublime Sultanate, and Skidtown. And Yao’an, of course.”
“One of those places is not like the others,” said Gaunt.
“We’ve indeed been footsore in recent years,” said Art. “So have you, my dear.”
Gaunt nodded and introduced their little group; she was relieved to see no glimmer of recognition at her and Bone’s names. “My husband and I came to Qiangguo via a series of ships. Having had various adventures here, we, with our friend Snow Pine, plan to try our hands at the Braid of Spice.”
“You’ll be trading, then?” Quilldrake asked. “Or hiring out as cavern guards?”
“I suppose we hadn’t thought this through,” Gaunt said. “We only just arrived.”
“And immediately got into trouble,” Quilldrake said. “Welcome to the Braid. But I’m curious. You say you had no plans for the road, yet you looked for us. We have a fairly narrow brief. We buy exotic treasures or else hunt them.”
“We are chasing a legend,” Snow Pine admitted. “A wise . . . person . . . hinted of a source of ironsilk. Not the forbidden island in the warded lake. A source beyond Qiangguo.”
Bone said, “Widow Zheng said you might offer advice.”
“Did she now,” said Quilldrake. “Well, this is interesting timing. Peculiar, even. You see, those people you drove off are likely after the same thing, albeit in a less friendly manner.”
“What?” Bone said. “Were they hoping you’d reveal the location?”
“We don’t have the location. Not exactly.”
“What do you have?” Gaunt demanded.
“I have the Silk Map,” said Quilldrake. “Or part of it, rather.”
“The what?”
Quilldrake removed his outer robe, revealing a patchwork tunic beneath. It was somewhat in the piecemeal style of the women’s dresses Gaunt had seen in the other wards of Yao’an. Her eyebrows rose, but she’d seen all manner of costume in her travels and reflected Quilldrake’s garb was his own business. Quilldrake patted the region over his heart. The particular patch here extended to shoulder and collar, and had already caught Gaunt’s eye. It had the sheen of silk, yet it lacked the flora or fauna decorating most silken clothing. There were no birds or blossoms. Instead, she saw ridges of mountains, tracks of rivers, little pagodas. An unfamiliar vertical script marked some of the features.
The edges of the patch were irregular, as if torn in a moment of great violence. The other fragments were also haphazard—and yet Gaunt had the sense these were deliberately fashioned so, to draw attention away from the unique shimmer of the piece covering heart and neck.
“The Silk Map,” Quilldrake repeated.
“To be more precise,” Bone guessed, “it is an ironsilk map.”
Snow Pine whistled.
“That is why the assassin’s thrust didn’t kill you,” Gaunt said. “You had ironsilk armor.”
“Only a fragment,” Quilldrake said. “And I like to think I have some wherewithal for survival, ironsilk or no ironsilk. But yes, it was quite valuable today.”
Gaunt said, “Indeed. Ironsilk is precious. So who would squander it to make a map?”
“And where does the map direct us?” Bone said.
Quilldrake smiled at Bone as though discovering a long-lost cousin. “Where does it direct ‘us’ indeed? Well, perhaps you have h
eard the poem? ‘In Xembala did Mentor John a lofty lamasery raise . . .’”
Gaunt broke in, “‘Where Aleph the holy river flows . . .’”
Quilldrake’s eyes twinkled. “‘Through labyrinths that no man knows . . .’”
“‘To an ocean innocent of days,’” Gaunt concluded.
“I think I may become jealous,” Bone said, looking from Gaunt to Quilldrake.
“Nothing is preventing you from learning more poetry,” Gaunt told her husband. “Although in this case it’s unsurprising you haven’t heard it. It’s a work of the Mad Mariner, and he’s an acquired taste. It’s said he wandered up and down the docks of Archaeopolis, clutching at passers-by and reciting fragments of beauty and woe.”
“Yes,” Quilldrake said with a distant look. “I’ve heard more than one version of this poem, some you would find quite strange. But this seems the one that matches other legends. Listen.”
THE MAD MARINER’S VISION IN A DREAM, A FRAGMENT
In Xembala did Mentor John a lofty lamasery raise
Where Aleph the holy river flows
Through labyrinths that no man knows
To an ocean innocent of days.
And thrice nine miles of alpine hill
Were walled about by his dread will
Where folk of strange countenance strode
And dreamed of ages bronze and gold
By fountains that preserved their youth
And served as mirrors of piercing truth.
And there blossomed groves of fairy fruit
Lofting in one day from seed to root
And rotting in the misty night
To rise anew by dawn’s gold light
As our sacrificed Goddess shall one day live
And to us sanctification give
As sworn in the teachings of that Good Swan
Who is likewise loved by Mentor John.
But no! the chill from Aleph’s flow which thundered
The Silk Map Page 12