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All that was looking increasingly problematic.

Gaunt peered out to where Haytham pointed the telescope. “The city lies there,” she said, “upon a promontory, beside a gorge, washed by waterfalls.”

“Look at the plain,” Northwing said, stepping aside and making room for Bone.

Given what he’d heard already, Bone was not much encouraged to do so. But he looked. Far ahead in the blazing of dawn, blue-gray mountains sloped down to misty foothills, and these to snow-covered grasslands, crossed here and there by gleaming rivers. Yet for all that brightness there was a darkness upon the plain. Or rather thousands of points of darkness.

“The Wagonlords?” Bone wondered around. “Could there be so many?”

“There are many great wagons flying flags, to be sure,” Haytham said. “But they are in the minority. I see also peoples unfamiliar to me, troops in golden helmets and riders on winged, two-headed beasts. I do think I recognize a troop of female archers as warriors of the Oirpata people. Fascinating. But what I am intensely familiar with are those wheeled sailing ships. And those mastodons and sabercats. And that ocean of horsemen.”

“Karvaks,” Snow Pine said, and made a fist.

“They’ve sacked Loomsberg,” Bone said, his dreams of marvelous acquisitions dispersing like smoke. Also, he felt bad for the inhabitants.

“Such evil,” Snow Pine said.

“Hm, I see no evil,” Mad Katta mused. For a moment they all looked at the blind wanderer. “Oh, there are individuals of bad intent, for certain, though I see those everywhere I go. But no evil sorcery . . .”

“That’s not what I meant,” Snow Pine snapped. “Sure, from a cosmic perspective, like your Undetermined’s, true evil may be a rare thing. ‘Who knows what is good or bad?’ the Forest monks say. All is in flux. But that’s a bird’s eye view. We mice of the world can’t afford such a perspective. Sometimes we have to point to fire and madness and death and just say, well, hell with it—call it evil.”

Katta bowed. “It’s not for me to lecture you on attachment and its woes, my friend. Not while we smell the smoke of a burning city.”

“The Karvaks have never come so far west,” Gaunt said, “have they?”

“No,” Northwing answered. “Except for guests, delegations, that sort of thing. Last I knew, they were pressing at the Mirrored Sea.”

“Then it’s happened,” Flint said, scratching his chin. “They’ve attacked the West. Gaunt, Bone, Haytham—our homelands are now just as endangered as Snow Pine’s.” Bone noticed Flint omitted Northwing and Katta, whose land of birth was already subject to the Karvaks. “Loomsberg’s a tributary to the Eldshore,” Flint went on. “One would expect the emperor in Archaeopolis to respond.”

“There are other factors, my friend,” Haytham said. Bone observed Haytham didn’t directly respond to Flint’s depiction of the Karvak threat. “It’s winter, and Loomsberg lies across the mountains. The Karvaks know this. It was risky to attack in winter, with its bad weather and poor forage. But this having been accomplished, consider the advantages. They are secure against a counterattack. By spring it may seem best to arrange a deal.”

“Well, it’s not our problem,” Bone said. “If the battle’s over perhaps we can land, sell the mechanism, and be off. The Karvaks have a reputation for keeping the bazaars open, no?”

“Ah, he’s eager to fence his stolen goods!” Northwing said, “but it’s not so simple.”

Gaunt said, “We’re aboard a Karvak balloon, Northwing, by permission of a Karvak princess. Your princess, in fact. With her personal representatives aboard. You really think there’ll be trouble?”

Northwing said, “Do you see any banner for our patron, Haytham?”

Haytham searched, and grunted. “Alas. No. Steelfox’s forces are not there.”

“So you see,” Northwing said, “Steelfox has respect in the Karvak Realm, but war is war. If we go there, the balloon will be confiscated, and Haytham and I will be pressed into service. The rest of you may be fine, but you’ll have little hope of reaching the Bladed Isles before spring. I say we go there right away. What about you, inventor?”

“Oh very well,” Haytham said. “There will be stormy seas. Barbarian women. Trolls. Fun!”

“All right, I’m convinced,” Bone grumbled. “Gaunt?”

“Oh, substitute ‘barbarian men’ and I’m in accord.” She winked and addressed the others. “This is your last chance to get off at civilization, I think. Haytham and Northwing might set you down in the foothills.”

Katta said, “I go to preach to these Bladelanders . . . and to speak once again to the carpet Deadfall and understand what has happened to it. For he was a friend.”

“Why does everyone,” Northwing muttered, “insist on calling every personality a ‘he’ or a ‘she’?”

Katta smiled. “Please indulge a limited man his metaphorical crutches. At any rate, I once told Deadfall I’d pay him for his service. Such a being can only truly be repaid with knowledge, and while I taught him the languages of Qiangguo and Qushkent, it seems too little. And I would like to understand his betrayal, if only for my own enlightenment.”

Snow Pine said, “I think Joy and I must go there, to understand the meaning of this ‘Runemark.’ And she will want to see Innocence again.” She turned to Flint. “And you . . . will you go to the Bladed Isles?”

“I am an explorer, my dear,” he said, touching her cheek. “There are things I wish to discover.”

Northwing coughed. “Well, my mistress gave me a sabbatical and now it is time to return.”

Haytham nodded, “I too wish to see Steelfox again.”

“Lady Steelfox,” Northwing said. “Remember your station.”

“Shaman, remember,” Flint said, “we are not under the orders of the Karvak Realm, up here.”

“Give it time,” Northwing said.

Bone squinted out the porthole. “Time’s something we may have little of. Balloons are rising. I count six.”

“Nine,” Haytham said, “if you add the three I see being readied.”

Upon the ones that were already rising, Bone could make out symbols of a lion rearing up on a cliff and of a wolf with ruby eyes. “Gaunt, do you see a metallic sheen on those envelopes?”

“Swan’s blood,” Gaunt swore. “Haytham, we have to escape this place, now. Those balloons are made of ironsilk. They will be impervious to our arrows. We will be quite vulnerable to theirs.”

“Altitude!” called out Haytham. “Drop ballast! Northwing, I request an easterly wind. Haboob, I desire hotter air—and a great deal of smoke.”

As the travelers busied themselves with Haytham’s instructions, the efrit raised a sketchy gray arm with a dramatic flourish. Flame blazed high and smoke filled the ger.

“Ack—” Haytham managed amid the general cacophony of hacking. “I mean—outside . . . conceal us with smoke?”

“You are very careless with your instructions, O mighty conqueror of the skies,” Haboob scolded as the smoke swirled through the roof of the gondola. “You are fortunate you are not dealing with a djinn.”

Soon there was no telling what lay outside. Smoke filled all the portholes.

Bone said, “Surely they know where we are, Haytham. Meanwhile we do not know where they are.”

“Ah, but we do,” Mad Katta said, staring down at the bamboo framework underfoot. “I did not perceive them at first, but now that they are rising, I see flickering pinpoints of negative karma. Nine in all.”

“Of course!” Gaunt said. “We haven’t been using demonic heat sources . . .”

“But my original design called for them,” Haytham concluded, a trifle smugly, Bone thought. “And the Karvaks are still using those methods. Haboob is better, though they can’t know that. With luck they’ll conclude we’ve suffered an accident and must be abandoned.”

“We are staying above them,” Katta said.

Minutes passed within the strange limbo of their dark ascent. It grew very cold, rivaling the worst arctic weather Bone had endured. They shivered within their thick Karvak deels, edging as close as they dared to the brazier.

“We may not simply
appear
to be in trouble,” Northwing said at last, her strained breaths manifesting as wispy clouds. “I am finding it harder to control the wind. Katta . . . errant countryman . . . do you still see the demons?”

“They are following, great shaman, but falling farther behind. . . .” Katta shivered, though he sounded less strained than Northwing. Bone was panting as though after a brisk run. “I see them crackle with rage as their quarry escapes,” Katta continued. “Oh, how they would like to make our skins blister and pop. It is nauseating to contemplate their energies. It is surely accumulating me karmic merit. Merit, merit, merit. Wondrous merit.”

“Is our air running thin?” Haytham wondered aloud, rubbing his forehead. “My vision is blurring. . . .”

The efrit Haboob formed a grin. It looked like a crack in the side of a blazing kiln. “I have pushed us as high into the atmosphere as I dare, mighty Haytham ibn Zakwan ibn Rihab, master of knowledge, tamer of demons, commander of the skies—”

“Short version, please.”

“Your air is indeed growing thin. Those of you who are acclimated to high places will function better than the lowlanders, but all of you are suffering.”

“I’ve scaled heights for decades,” Bone complained, “and I feel absurdly dizzy. . . .” The ger seemed out of focus. Haboob was like the shadow of smoke upon water.

“He means mountain-height, Bone,” Gaunt snapped, “not mansion-height.”

“I dwelled for years upon the high plateau of Geam,” Katta mused. “Early on, my lungs sometimes felt as though they burned. Later I adjusted.”

“How special,” Northwing spat. “The rest of us are lowlanders, Haytham! Diminish the heat and let us drop! If I lose consciousness we’ll be at the winds’ mercy, and who knows where we’ll end up.”

“Bone,” Haytham said, “pull that black rope beside you . . . it opens an emergency flap to vent the hot air. . . .”

Bone did so, though his muscles were sluggish. His arms performed the operation like recalcitrant mules.

They dropped slowly at first, then precipitously. Bone’s mind and vision cleared. Now he comprehended enough to feel truly frightened. “Haboob, how close are we to the mountains?”

“As I was about to say, O thieving assistant to the great Haytham ibn Zakwan—”

“That’s greatest second-story man of the Spiral Sea.”

“—we are plunging toward a narrow pass between the burning city and the lands westward. Perhaps you would like the smoke cloud dispersed—”

“Yes! Yes!” Bone thought he heard the voices of everyone in the ger, including his own. He peered out a porthole.

A dark curtain ripped aside, and gleaming glaciated peaks stabbed upward as a clutch of spears might pierce the awareness of a gnat. Northwing cursed and gestured wildly. A sudden wind forced them into a sheer-sided gorge.

For an unnerving moment Bone saw the shadow of a gigantic balloon against the western clouds, encircled by prismatic light. “Names of the dead gods . . . the Karvaks have sent some sort of monstrous craft against us. . . .”

Flint peered out and chuckled. “Fear not! What you perceive is a mountain specter.” He turned and saw that Bone, Gaunt, Katta, and Snow Pine all had weapons out. (That Katta’s weapon was a blessed pastry did not reduce the seriousness of his expression.) “Peace!” the explorer said. “Mountain specters are an illusion. Our shadow is cast against the clouds. It happens so often to travelers here that this range is named the Homunculus.”

“Ah!” said Katta, returning his cake to a pouch. “That is why I see no demonic form ahead.” He gazed backward. “Nor behind. We’re safe.”

“I beg to differ!” Northwing said. “The prevailing wind’s easterly. Added to mine, it’s carrying us through the pass like wild horses! Make peace with your deities!”

“You don’t want to hear what I think of my deity right now,” Flint said with a giddy laugh.

“You don’t believe in him anyway,” Snow Pine teased him.

“Well, in these mountains I might!”

The passage was indeed glorious. Bone’s eyes drank it in. The landscape swept by at delirious speed. Glaciers blazed near at hand, and bright snow whirled down steep slopes like the ghost of desert dust. All was shining with reflected sunlight, as though sisters of the sun were frozen within the peaks. Bone blinked in the glare, turning toward darker regions where spindly evergreens waved like weary dancers in the sharp-biting breeze. A hawk dipped and soared, feathers twitching so much in the wind it looked impossibly nervous. But Bone was the nervous one. Abruptly the weather changed, and clouds and mists pressed close at hand. Fog curdled along the pass, and rocky danger flashed into view only now and then within a sea of gray.

“Are you finding inspiration?” he asked Gaunt, for she was inscribing words onto a wax tablet.

“I must guard against overdone similes,” Gaunt said, staring out a porthole, “like an angry hawk-beast protecting its eggs from the Scarlet Order of Omelet Chefs.”

“That is exactly how I feel. Well, not exactly. It is spectacular.” He smiled and pointed. “I believe we once had a long, beautiful interlude by that waterfall down there.”

“Ah, I remember! But it was that one over there.”

Bone frowned. “You’re certain?”

Gaunt laughed. “If we survive, we’re going to become one of those old couples who argue endlessly about their pasts.”

Bone wondered where and how they’d be spending that old age. “Either way, we’ve passed both spots.”

She squeezed his arm. “Life seems to be moving ever faster for us.”

The fog fell away. Green forested hills of the Eldshore appeared below. Beyond the Eldshore lay the sea, and beyond that lay Swanisle, and the Bladed Isles. Bone felt once again he was nearing the edge of any sane map, going farther than any city-thief should go, and he feared for the group and their journey. He was glad so many others were willing to join them.