The Silk Map
Page 26
At last there was silence and stars.
By a unanimity that stretched across species, Bone, Gaunt, and the dragon horse slept.
Gaunt awoke from a peculiar dream, and it struck her so strongly that before any other action she played a memory trick so she could transcribe it later, coiling a clump of her hair and muttering to herself, “Tongues of fire.” Then she remembered the fires of last night and stood.
Daylight entered the cramped gallery of beige bedrock, by way of a well-shaft nearby. Bone and the dragon horse continued to sleep; the man upon a thin shelf, the steed poised upright over the channel flowing through the passage’s middle.
“A narrow escape,” Gaunt murmured.
The day was already growing warm, but the water of the karez was cold enough to sting. Had she or Bone rolled over in their sleep, they would not have drowned, but the plunge into cold water, suffered in the desert night, might have slain them from the chill, here in one of the hottest regions of the world.
Bone rose abruptly. “Gaunt! Are we dead?”
“We are not dead, Bone. This is no paradise, no hell, no rebirth. This is ordinary discomfort. No breakfast and no easy place to pee. Life.”
“I’m glad to join you in it. Is the horse sleeping?”
“I think so. I think, after all he has done, we must let him rest. There’s been no sign of the others.”
He stood and stretched, stepped into the cold water, cursed. “That makes sense. If there are more structures like this in the area, the odds of survival would be better with one horse to a karez. I hope we can find each other.” He walked carefully to the well-shaft and looked up. “That must go up twenty or thirty feet. I wouldn’t want to try climbing it with its rope destroyed.”
“We’ll wait for the horse. Bone . . . I had a dream.”
He was suddenly all attention. “Tell me.”
“I had a comfortable house, filled with all the trophies of our adventures, even the artifacts we’ve lost. You were sleeping, as were our two children. I was up and about and startled to discover that a fire was yet blazing in the fireplace, and that sparks had landed upon the scrolls I’d piled unwisely nearby. So far all that billowed from the paper was smoke—a narrow escape. I poured water onto the ruined scrolls, all the while imagining you, me, the children, all going up in flames. And yet rather than fear, I felt a calm gratitude that no such thing had occurred. It seemed to me that rather than put out the fire, I should mend it, stand vigil.” Bone said nothing, and she uncoiled the tangle in her hair. “I looked out a glass window and saw a temperate clime filled with trees, and nearby all was . . . deadfall, with new green shoots rising through a chaotic lattice of dead branches and trunks.” She lay back against the bedrock wall, watching Bone across the channel. “That is all. I don’t know the meaning of this dream. But it has left me with a quiet determination. I will see it through. All of it. This is not a battle cry but a statement of fact.”
“We had visions of children before. Before we had to flee to the East.”
She nodded. “And our real son resembled the boy of my vision. I do not claim special powers, but I have seen what I have seen. I sense we will get him back, and that he will have a sister.”
“The girl of my vision,” Bone murmured, “the one riding joyfully along a beach.” He frowned. “We haven’t spoken of it since, but in your vision, our son had a cruel visage.”
“It’s true. He was older than when I knew him, borne upon a litter, commanding men in cowls who bore serrated swords.”
“Gaunt . . . the one-eared stalker and her crew.”
“Swan’s blood. Yes.”
Bone pounded the wall.
“Ow,” he said.
“Bone. Have hope! That was the sense of my dream. If One-Ear—let’s call her that—is fated to be tangled with Innocence, then at least it’s a threat that’s entering the light. I don’t know if we will ever be granted the haven in the woods. And the image of the burning scrolls makes me think we’ll lose much. But we will all be together—even she who has yet to arrive. I am sure of this.”
At her words, Springjumper Wildgroan Headtoss Backkick gave a snort and his hooves clomped the passage.
“I do not speak dragon horse,” Gaunt said, “but I think he is ready to go. Thank you, mighty one.”
The horse surprised her by nickering.
All three of them seemed in accord on turning away from the darkness ahead, though rotating the dragon horse was an awkward process, quite a contrast from the majesty of the night before. He walked steadily enough once aimed toward the distant light, but it was clear escaping the Dragonheat had been an ordeal, and that progress today would be slow. Gaunt and Bone did not even consider riding.
The Dragonheat was nowhere to be seen, only the ordinary heat of midmorning, as they emerged from the karez and beheld a cultivated region like a green shawl stretched over the desert’s brown. There were grape orchards and mulberry trees, wheat fields and rows of cotton. Field workers in plain robes of white, gray, blue, or tan, most also wearing round hats with elaborate weaving, were busy clearing debris from the passage of the storm. Gaunt had the impression they’d had a long night.
The thought of grapes made her stomach groan. But she suspected that answering questions now would be uncomfortable. She steered stallion and man around the passage’s opening and up the sandy slope.
Here was a borderland, a last gasp of the desert between the irrigated land and the alpine high country to the south. Thus it surprised Gaunt to discover, after some twenty minutes, a small community of tents. Each was inhabited by a wizened human being. Most of these old dwellers were accompanied by one or two younger helpers, or else by an occupied birdcage. Some of the ancients sat on chairs, some on rugs. All had their feet buried in the sand.
They passed two such people without attracting comment, but a third hailed them, and it seemed best to stop. The travelers and the horse regarded the sand-bather and his parrot. The old man possessed a long beard, a white robe, and a hat that reminded Gaunt of the plumage of tropical birds. He sat cross-legged upon a carpet that recalled, in decoration at least, the elaborate patterns upon Deadfall. He spooned pieces from a melon slice cut like a wide smile. He himself was expressionless, but his voice was cheerful as he greeted them. Unfortunately, Gaunt and Bone did not recognize the language, and if Springjumper Wildgroan Headtoss Backkick knew it, he wasn’t talking.
“Do you speak the tongue of Qiangguo?” Gaunt asked, demonstrating that she at least did.
“Why yes!” said the old man. “Long ago, though it seems like last week, I was a caravaner who went as far as Yao’an. Those were the days!”
“Those were the days!” said the parrot in the cage.
“You weren’t there, Hakan,” said the man with a smile. “Honestly, what a braggart. I don’t know why I put up with him. But only the man who has nothing has no problems.”
“Do you and the parrot live here?” Bone said, bemused.
“Light in the darkness, no! My sons and daughters and their families take turns helping me out here, twice a week.” He nodded toward his unseen feet. “Hot sand is good for aching joints. But it’s not very conversational out here. Care to join us?”
“Care to join us?” squawked Hakan.
The man’s name was Aydin, and he had melon to share, and this was enough for Gaunt to consider the name Aydin a good fit for sainthood. Bone and the dragon horse seemed pleased as well. The equine demolished an entire melon, and then another, until Gaunt felt compelled to leave some coin behind. Aydin would have none of it.
“Don’t insult my hospitality, young lady! Besides, this is the best story I’ve had in a year. Is this truly a dragon horse?”
“We will tell you half of everything,” Gaunt said, “if you keep it to yourself for half a week.”
“Done,” said man and parrot, almost simultaneously.
Bone fidgeted as Gaunt wove a tale of their travels that excised all mention of magic scr
olls, demons, demigods, Leviathan Minds, sand-ships, or ironsilk maps. This still left caravans, swordfights, sandstorms, secret passages, mummies, Karvaks in balloons, and dragon horses. She was a little circumspect about the geography. Aydin did not pry.
“I confess,” he said, “I am not at all certain I believe your story, though the horse is surely impressive. But it is marvelous nonetheless.”
“I have not told you half of what I have seen,” Gaunt said.
“In a way,” Aydin said, rubbing his beard, “that thought is more satisfying than believing I’ve heard it all. The grandchildren have ransacked my brain for every story from the tales of Layali who stayed the executioner’s blade, every account of the Undetermined’s prior incarnations, every marvel of Qiangguo’s Rivers-and-Lakes, every wonder-story of the Fire Saint, may his words light the future, and every perplexing true anecdote of my days along the Braid. I have reached the bottom of my memory’s cask, and even scraped beyond the wood into the muck below.”
“Muck below!” said the parrot.
“There is a feeling of being wholly spent of stories,” Aydin said, “which is perhaps appropriate for an old man who sees death on the horizon like a beautiful storm. And yet, it is good to have a little wine in the cask, at the end, and the belief that there is still an untapped vineyard, out there in the world.”
“Last night’s storm,” Bone said. “Did you see it?”
“We had reports from the watchtowers when we descended this morning. It is lucky the Dragonheat did not rise beyond the sands, or the alpine forest might have caught fire, and with it Qushkent. Do you know why the energies of the dragons might have chased you?”
“We have a talent for annoyance,” Bone said.
Aydin chuckled. “As you wish. Do you go to the city?”
“I think so,” Gaunt said.
“Your horse would fetch a fantastic price in the Market. But be alert. Ours is a city of honest folk, but we attract some rough sorts as well. Watch your step in the Bazaar of Parrots, but it is the best place for commerce.”
“Commerce!” said the parrot, sounding proud.
“Avoid the Street of Peafowls, for though you may fetch higher prices from the grandees there, they are treacherous and wield private armies. Exotics such as yourselves are safest staying in the Alley of Babblers, where strange ideas are the norm. Avoid the District of Doves, which is named ironically, and the Avenue of Spiderhunters, who are twilight folk. Learn the chirps of each street and be ready to take wing. We have a saying, ‘Before entering a place, consider your exit.’”
“It is one of my principles as well,” Bone said.
They thanked Aydin and proceeded south, and up.
From the realm of the sand-bathers the land rose like a petrified tidal wave. Desert swiftly gave way to dry grassland, broken by granite slabs. Solitary bushes and poplars were the heralds for an army of trees, with gnarled undergrowth crunching underhoof. Where at first the stones seemed interlopers in the soil, rock and dirt became equal partners in an ancient dance, and at last the rock predominated as the dance ended at a precipice kissed by clouds.
The dragon horse snorted and stamped, excited for the first time since he’d awakened. The late morning was still cold up here, and his breath was visible. He rippled his back in a way that finally convinced Gaunt and Bone that he wanted to be ridden.
They trotted west along the precipice. Gaunt reflected that Bone’s love of heights must be facing its ultimate test.
Soon there came whinnies from the west, and beyond a stand of pine trees they encountered the other dragon horses, with Snow Pine, Zheng, Katta, and Deadfall beside them. The humans and horses looked weary but safe. The carpet looked like a carpet.
The horses reared and stamped and snorted, facing the edge of their desert world.
The others had halted beside an egg-shaped boulder vast as an Eldshoren cottage, perched as though awaiting some mountainous bird to warm it. Gaunt imagined that a sneeze could topple the stone, but the snorts of the horses merely sent vapor coiling past to descend into the whirling cloud mass rushing past the cliff face. Had the rock actually fallen, it would have plunged but a few feet before the white swallowed it whole.
Snow Pine and Gaunt hugged, and Katta said, “I am pleased you did not perish.”
“It would be wasteful,” added the magic carpet, “if you were deprived of breath.”
“Behold the CloudScar,” said Zheng, perhaps wishing to change the subject. “Before today, I never thought to see it.”
“How far does it extend?” Bone asked, in a tone he usually reserved for jewels.
“No one knows,” Katta said, “for its eastward and westward extents lie deep amid mountains, where none go, but rumors say it’s half as long as the Braid itself. As for its width, accounts agree the far wall is rarely more than a few miles off. If my sources are true, then by peering out there you might glimpse rocky ramparts rising above the white and the pearly helms of the Heavenwalk Mountains. Beyond, to the southeast, lies the Plateau of Geam, where the lamas taught me baking and the lore of the true and the transitory.”
“Which has proven more useful?” Gaunt asked. “Baking or lore?”
“They are reciprocal skills. When a cake fails to rise it is helpful to recognize the rising and falling of the cake as illusions. When contemplating reality it is helpful to see illusion as the sugar on a pastry. The bread would nourish without the sugar, but the sugar would be meaningless without the bread.”
“You may not be making me a follower of the Undetermined,” Gaunt said, “but you are making me miss pastries. And cities. Where lies Qushkent?”
“You can see it from atop Egg Rock, here.” Barely had Katta’s words joined the hushed sound of the wind than Bone had ascended the great stone. Gaunt dismounted and followed; she was pleased to note she was only a trifle slower.
“I see a stone mountain to the east,” Bone said, “one resembling the head of a bird. But no city.”
“Look again,” Gaunt told him, guiding his hand. “The bird is the city.”
And indeed, the snowless peak that lofted blue-gray above the CloudScar had been shaped by artisans of courage and subtlety, coaxing a roughly avian shape into the head of a raptor. The neck was a sheer cliff dropping perhaps two thousand feet into the whirling white, but at the flat crown it narrowed into a beak-like projection jutting into emptiness.
“Ah, Qushkent,” Katta said as he assisted Zheng up the boulder. “At most times I am detached about my blindness, but alas this isn’t one of them. Enjoy the sight. This is among my favorite places . . . but one must watch one’s step, even as the thin air makes one watch one’s breath. Here we will find the way to Xembala.”
“Ah,” Zheng said, minding her footing. “It puts me in mind of a poem.”
She said:
Why argue?
Win your robe and bowl
While I walk the clouds and rivers
Where I will carry water and chop wood
And wipe the dust from the mirror
Dust that is as true as we.
Katta looked startled. “That was written by a follower of the Undetermined, in Qiangguo, a long time ago. He lost a sort of . . . contest. The poem has vanished in the mists of time.”
“I don’t really understand it,” Zheng admitted. “I don’t even remember where I heard it.”
“The author . . . thought he’d been unfairly criticized on an esoteric point. So he went to walk the Earthe.” Katta smiled, his look distant. “Perhaps he was just a sore loser. We try to see beyond worldly illusion, but pride is always there, and with it attachment, and suffering.”
“‘Life is suffering,’” Bone said. “That’s your creed in a nutshell, isn’t it? There are days I would agree. Many of them recent.”
“Outsiders often fixate on that phrase, and I’m afraid it misleads them a bit. You could just as easily say, ‘Life is bliss.’”
“Well, I would rather say that . . .”
“You get that too?”
“The point is, life will give you all these things, unpredictably. But we keep wanting to control it all, to get what we want, when we want. That leads to suffering.”
“So life is suffering.”
Katta rubbed his temples. “I am starting to think so . . .”
“Perhaps you should burp.”
“These are intriguing questions, to be sure,” Gaunt broke in, “but I’m afraid I have one even more intriguing.”
“Oh?” Bone said.
“What are our opponents up to?”
Snow Pine followed where she was pointing, squinted, and sucked in her breath.
“I would be grateful if you told me what you saw,” Katta said.
“The Karvaks have reached Qushkent,” she said.
As they neared the gates, they argued. Bone would always wonder later if he’d been on the right side. There was expedience, and there was knavery. He had always believed he’d had honor, for a thief; afterward he would question that.
It began with Katta saying, “I do not understand how they could have beaten us here. How could their balloons have outrun the dragon horses?”
“Never underestimate a scholar of Mirabad,” Bone said.
“Nor a Karvak,” Zheng said.
“I suspect,” Gaunt said, “the Dragonheat had a salutary effect on the air currents. They might have had as rough a ride as we. I notice only one balloon over the city, when three went south.”
“Then Liron—” Snow Pine said. “Flint. And Quilldrake. They may have been lost.”
“We know only what we see,” Bone said. “But what we see worries me greatly. They may have had a whole day to seek the secret path to the valley below.” A cold, clever idea occurred to him. “I think we should sell the horses.”