The Silk Map

by Chris Willrich

Zheng poled her way back to them on the raft. Nothing untoward occurred, and soon Gaunt and Bone took up poles of their own. This trip was gentle, but the bamboo frame was long gone.

  Zheng looked different, Bone thought, less careworn somehow. She told them, “Jamyang thought you’d do best with the larger craft.”

  “I am glad you made it,” he said.

  “So am I. It’s easier to see the sunlight on the far side. I don’t even regret losing the map. I think it will be all right. I am remembering . . . well, it’s like recalling a dream. I do not quite believe it. But this land seems familiar.”

  In the waters of the river, Gaunt saw her reflection and did not recognize herself. There before her was a hard-traveled desert wanderer, sun-bronzed, near to matching her name, and beside her was Bone, similarly road-worn, at the limits of his strength. She poled the water again, and the reflections changed. Now she and Bone fought Karvaks in Qushkent, but it was an idealized scene. It seemed she truly was the elegant dancer she’d pretended to be, hair lustrous as a courtesan’s, tattoo gone, skin pale as if she’d never left rainy Swanisle. More ripples, and she and Bone climbed the Red Heavenwall far inland in Qiangguo, only there she’d been pregnant with Innocence, here she was clearly not, and able to simply enjoy an escapade with her lover in a far land. When the waters next whorled, she unaccountably saw herself as a tiny figure beside a diminutive Bone, volcanic fury blazing against a night horizon, the sky above painted with the colors of the aurora. All these scenes of her past selves, her dream selves, like and unlike the Gaunt she was. But could she know what she truly was, after all?

  “Zheng,” she said. “This river is unnatural.”

  “You don’t say,” muttered Bone, and Gaunt wondered if he saw what she saw.

  “My friend tells me the visions are a gift of the land,” Zheng said. “A sign that our identities are dreams, in a river of bubbling, transitory phenomena.”

  “You haven’t disagreed with me,” Gaunt said.

  “I guess not,” Zheng said, chuckling, and for a moment Gaunt’s companion seemed like her old self.

  They reached the far side. Curiously, no sudden currents had afflicted them, as they had Zheng. As she tied the rope, Gaunt looked downstream, seeing no hint of the fragments of the Silk Map.

  What she did see was the wreckage of a Karvak balloon, on the treetops perhaps a mile west. “Let’s get away from here.” The three—or four—of them strode to the path.

  “I . . .” said Zheng, “I am not sure . . . I can make it . . . I feel . . .”

  “You can do it,” Gaunt encouraged her. “It’s not far.”

  “Should we investigate?” Bone said when they were once again under a green canopy. “Our friends may have been prisoners on that balloon.”

  “I do not know if Flint and Quilldrake are really our friends anymore, Bone. And is that inventor Haytham a friend?”

  “Ha! I’ll have to tell you about him later. But what of Snow Pine?”

  “She urged me to complete Monkey’s task, with or without her. I gave my word.”

  “What do you say, Zheng?”

  Gaunt saw no one.

  “Zheng?” Bone called out. “Zheng!”

  “Zheng!” said Gaunt, returning to the riverbank. Bone peered into the underbrush. They continued hunting in this matter for several minutes.

  Bone swore and kicked the red ground. “There are swift monsters in the world. But I cannot accept that something dragged Zheng off with us standing there.”

  “Agreed. Something stranger has happened.”

  “Perhaps we could ask our friend Jamyang.”

  “That was not funny, Bone.”

  “But it may be true. Zheng may have blended into the deeper reality of this place, to coin a phrase.”

  “Hm. Perhaps we should indeed be eating mangoes.”

  “I see what you mean, Gaunt, but I’m leery.”

  “What if we pick a couple, the next tree we pass? We will keep them handy, in case we find ourselves at an impasse. Or starving.”

  “You are wise, O wife.”

  “Do not forget it, O husband.”

  They followed the path. Although rough and interrupted with stones, fallen logs, and ditches, it was an improvement on the verdant maze of the other shore. Gaunt told Bone she hoped the temple she’d spotted was no apparition. Bone spoke similarly about the bejeweled palace.

  In time they reached a rocky hill, seemingly identical to the one bearing Gaunt’s pagoda. They saw no structure, but a winding path led up through the rocks.

  “The altitude may provide a good view,” Gaunt said.

  Bone sighed. “If I do have another incarnation, I may ask to return as a mountain goat.”

  At the top they knelt from exhaustion; the gesture was perhaps not out of place. For a cluster of tents, akin to the ones suspended from the Karvak balloons, were arrayed in a loose crescent beside a stone statue of the Undetermined. This seated figure was missing a nose and both hands, but a gentle countenance remained.

  In its lap sat the sword Crypttongue.

  “The tents look old, abandoned,” Bone said.

  “Time to eat the mangoes,” Gaunt said. “But just one of us for now. When that one fades, the other can eat.”

  “I concur. I’ll do it.”

  “I was going to recommend myself.”

  “I am—slightly—more adroit at skulking.”

  “I think quickly. I have good intuitions.”

  “You’ve used that sword successfully and can claim it without shifting realities. And if the mangoes bring madness, what of your intuitions?”

  “I do not want to lose you, too.”

  “You won’t. Whatever is happening in Xembala, I believe it is not intentionally harmful.”

  “Much harm can be done unintentionally.”

  “I have survived much that was truly hostile.”

  “Very well, Bone. Eat your mango if you’re so hungry for danger.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. Just eat.”

  He did this with a degree of gusto.

  “Do you feel any differently?”

  “Aside from slightly more sated, no.” He wiped his chin, peered around. “Nor do I perceive anything differently.”

  Gaunt frowned. “Zheng slept before she was truly seeing the unreal.” She looked uneasily at the sky. “I do not think we’ll have the same luxury.”

  “Karvak balloons?”

  “They will surely try to descend, and we are quite exposed.”

  “Then, do we leave your sword, or claim it?”

  “It is not my sword, Bone.”

  “Then there is your answer.”

  He gestured as if to go.

  She hesitated.

  “Ah,” he said.

  Gaunt gazed upon the sword. “Imago, I have always shunned violence except at great need.”

  “A wise policy.”

  “Yet armed with Crypttongue I’ve been a more effective combatant.”

  “So I’ve seen.”

  “And were we to leave this behind, it might be used against us.”

  “I confess, I cannot see a Karvak turning away from such a prize.”

  “So. I am torn.”

  “I do not think this is something I can decide for you, my love.”

  “You will respect me? If I employ such a dread thing?”

  “I would respect anyone who wielded such a weapon. Probably from a distance. Yes, be assured I will always respect you.”

  “At times, I’ve felt ours an unequal partnership. You have skills honed over an unnaturally extended lifetime.”

  “I would have been lost, many times over, without your wits. If you want this sword, take it. But you need no crutch to be an equal in my eyes.”

  “I cannot trust my judgment in this.”

  “Cannot, or will not?”

  “You accuse me of cowardice? After everything? Have mercy. I am lost in contradictions. Every step seems to l
ead toward a precipice.”

  “Very well.”

  As if unwilling to consider for more than a breath, he raced toward the statue of the Undetermined, tumbled, and kicked the sword out of the holy one’s lap.

  It arced into the air and impaled the rocky ground like a spade cutting mud.

  Bone reached out—and flinched backward as if struck. Blood dripped from his nose.

  “Imago!” Gaunt called, approaching him with drawn dagger. “Is the sword—”

  “Not the sword! I never touched it. There’s someone here! Many someones.” He had a dagger out as well and was shifting backward, looking left and right. “I perceive them but dimly, like sputtery ghosts. . . . They are women, dressed in robes of bright colors. . . . They seem most determined, though I see no hatred in their eyes. . . . Back, I say! I do not wish to harm you!”

  Gaunt ran forward, waving her dagger.

  “You’re not intersecting them, Gaunt! They seem to notice you but disregard you.”

  “Let them disregard this!”

  She grabbed Crypttongue, pulled it from the rocky ground.

  It appeared to her that something knocked Bone’s dagger from his hand, and another something pummeled his face, both somethings invisible. She ran forward and jabbed at the air in front of him. Bone ceased flinching.

  “You have hit one!” he said. “Now, to the right!”

  She lunged right.

  “No, sorry, I mean your left!”

  She thrust left. “Keep your wits about you, man!”

  “A hit! But they are attempting to surround you and kick your legs out from under you.”

  She swung Crypttongue in wide arcs.

  Bone said, “You are driving them off! They cannot lay a hand on you; you’re like a ghost to them. Yet they are substantial to the sword! An impressive advantage—ow!”

  Bone, surprised, found his arms pinned behind him. If he were not insane, of course, if this weren’t a perverse delirium wrought of poisonous fruit. Perhaps Bone was crazy, and Zheng had scampered into the woods . . .

  “Can you hear them, Gaunt?” Bone asked, perspiration showing on his face. “A couple of them know the dialect of southern Qiangguo. They order you to stand down, or they may inflict injury.”

  “Oh?” Gaunt said, stepping forward with the blade raised. In the Tongue of the Tortoise Shell she said, “Do you follow the Undetermined and his Thresholders? Then how can you employ violence?”

  “They hear you,” Bone said, cocking his head. “One, their leader, I think, says, ‘The great work of life is to combat suffering with understanding. But it is sometimes correct to employ lesser means of combating suffering.’ I may be getting the sense of it wrong, Gaunt, but I think she’s sincere. She says, ‘You have harmed some of us already—is this truly what you wish?’”

  Gaunt shouted, “How can I be responsible for hurting people I can neither see nor hear?”

  Bone said, “She says, ‘We can never fully end the suffering we cause, but we can be mindful of it. In a similar way we regret any insect we may have crushed, unknowing, as we walk. And we step lightly when we can.’”

  Gaunt hesitated. She did not necessarily agree. She did not necessarily disagree. But somehow considering such matters quenched her fury. She lowered her sword.

  Her sword, she realized. That was how she thought of it. She was not about to set Crypttongue down.

  Bone’s arms appeared to become free. He sighed and stretched, wheeling them in circles. “They’ve stopped, Gaunt. They are looking at you. With sad eyes, I’d say. They are tending to their wounds.” Bone slowly retrieved his weapon and sheathed it. Raising his arms, he said in the Tongue of the Tortoise Shell, “I mean no harm. We wish to reclaim this sword . . . Zheng! I see Zheng, coming up the path! And that man must be Jamyang.”

  “I do not see anyone.”

  “She says she’s been pulled into the grasp of the goddess of the valley. As I will be.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “I concede this is a great deal of excitement for one mango. The leader says, ‘If you are owner of the blade, we do not contest it. But it is a wicked thing to enslave the mind it contains. We have offered it sanctuary.’”

  “In what way can it be offered sanctuary?”

  “‘Here in Xembala, the land can offer a dwelling place for the wayward spirit. If released, it may pass on to new incarnations, or other realms, or oblivion. But it may also linger, and live among us as an inhabitant of the valley.’”

  “There is much here I do not understand,” Gaunt said. “But know this: We are on a quest that may rescue more than one lost child. I am willing to keep the entity in this sword chained for as long as that takes. For I suspect such captives empower the weapon.”

  Bone looked uneasy. “She says, ‘I urge you to consider the karmic burden you take upon yourself, compounding your suffering on behalf of these children with the suffering of those you bind. Together they form a weight upon you. Release them.’”

  “And give up my son?”

  “‘You need not give up your quest. A quest can be a good thing. Love of a child can be a good thing. But your choices speak of desperation, of craving. An unhealthy frame of mind.’”

  “And does this wise woman know what it is like to be a mother?”

  “She concedes she does not.”

  “Let her walk in my shoes, before she speaks! Let her nurse, and clean, and sing to sleep an infant before she judges my loss! Let her kiss scraped knees and hug away nightmares before she talks about my craving, as if I were some disciple of opium! I will not be some good little wife who can just serenely make another baby, and let it all flow by me like a river.”

  “Gaunt . . .” Bone said. “I do not know what she really thinks. But I never . . . I never . . .”

  “Don’t talk now,” she said, shaking her head, as her body shook as well. “Just interpret.”

  Bone lowered his head. After a time he said, “Ah. Zheng’s friend proposes we journey to the palace—the seat of Maldar Khan! The closest thing this strange land has to a ruler. Let Maldar Khan decide, Jamyang says.”

  “That is acceptable to me, Bone,” Gaunt said, her fury spent. If nothing else, the journey would delay the reckoning.

  “And to me,” said Bone. “Jamyang is considering . . . oh, no.”

  “What?”

  “Zheng’s spotted something. Turn around.”

  She did. At first Gaunt could not understand what she was seeing. Just over the edge, a vast shape curved into view. Some deep part of her brain feared a monster. But it was no beast.

  A Karvak balloon, the same that Gaunt had punctured earlier, rose above the cliff.

  The gash in the gasbag had been patched by sections of an ironsilk dress, painted with cartographic symbols.

  “Gaunt!” Bone was shouting. “Run!”

  She ran. They descended the path, for there was only one safe route of descent.

  Yet it was not safe at all, for soon they saw Karvaks in armor advancing up the switchbacks. The warriors halted and unsheathed bows. Gaunt and Bone flattened themselves against the rocky wall as arrows careened off the stone. They were momentarily safe, but the balloonist Karvaks would soon descend the path.

  “Just like old times,” said Bone. “Why, I remember—”

  “Focus, Bone,” said Gaunt. “I have a strategy.”

  “Desperate and dangerous, I suppose?”

  Gaunt set Crypttongue against the rocks and pulled out her saved mango. She cut it with the tip of the blade.

  “I suppose,” Bone said, “desperate plans work best on a full stomach . . .”

  “Shut up, Bone.” Gaunt stuffed as much mango as she could into her mouth and gulped it down. She threw the rest over the edge. “Now I will eventually become attuned to Xembala or whatever the hell is happening. But you are farther along, Bone. You must run.”

  “Run where?”

  “Over the edge. I’ve learned much from you, Imago, bu
t you are still the one with a lifetime of acrobatic thieving behind you. Use it all.” She lifted Crypttongue.

  “Not without you.”

  “Stupid man, don’t be noble.” She smiled, for she could feel strength enter her sword-arm from the blade. “There’s too much at stake. Innocence and A-Girl-Is-A-Joy. We’ve tangled with Karvaks. They’re not your common warrior. We won’t win, but I can hold them off while you escape.”

  “I—I was offered this choice before. Stay with the boy, or . . .”

  “I’ve tried to forgive your choice.” Her voice grew hard. “But I won’t forgive you this time. If this is the end, we have had our adventure, Imago, my husband. I cherish it. Now listen to your wife. Save our son. Go!”

  She ran, howling, up the path.

  She did not pause to see which path he took to escape. That was his business. But somehow she sensed he’d gone.

  A group of Karvaks ran up to her. Armored as they were, these men did not seem quite human, and her mind painted shadows over them, these sons of unknown women, made them symbols of everything that stood between her and her boy.

  Crypttongue empowering her blows, she felled five before the arrow struck her in the leg.

  She tumbled, and the sword fell from her hand.

  Someone kicked Crypttongue away; the foot’s next target was Gaunt’s face.

  It seemed she dwelled with the aurora for a moment before the world returned to her and she stared up into a female Karvak face. The woman who knelt beside Gaunt was like and yet unlike Lady Steelfox, only a little younger and yet somehow with a gaze like that of a greedy child.

  “You fought well,” the Karvak said in the language of the Eldshore, “and I respect that. You’ve earned your life. Your companion’s death is inevitable, of course. He has chosen to run like an animal, and we know what to do with prey. Be assured the kill will be swift and clean.”

  “So generous.”

  “I know enough about your lands to know you are raised in corrupt ways. Nevertheless, you are a poet as well as a brigand, and you can give my husband, the new Grand Khan, helpful intelligence. Serve me well now, and you will have a place in our empire, yes, you, and even your sons and daughters.”

  Gaunt considered spitting in the Karvak’s face, but with Crypttongue gone the battle-fury had withdrawn. Words were what she needed now.