The Silk Map (10 page)

Steelfox's face burned.

“Aha!” said Jewelwolf. “Ah, sister. Still drunk on fairy tales like our brothers sucking down kumiss. But indeed I envy you. I'd love the opportunity to leave all my responsibilities and gallop off on a mad quest. Alas, some of us must consider matters of war.”

It was hard to maintain composure around her younger sister. Keeping her voice steady around a shaman was comparatively simple. “I trust my khatun,” Steelfox said. Yet she thought,
What if it's true? I'm a blunt instrument, and I do hate politicking. What if this Silk Map's something Mother invented to keep me busy? What if I'm just an idiot?
But she said none of this aloud, rather, “War? Do you mean something beyond your husband's ‘chastisement'?”

“Our mother has a quiver of admirable traits, sister, but her bowstring's broken; she's too peaceable. With a new Grand Khan—and of course I mean for this to be Rocklion—we'll again be ready to invade the trading cities, and Yao'an as well. This very year, perhaps this very season, we'll leave off the thin gruel of skirmishes and toss the poets some meaty war tales, as bloody flesh before wolves.”

“As at Hvam?”

“Do you expect me to feel shame at that name?” Jewelwolf scoffed. “Have you forgotten Firegold?”

“I mourn the best of our brothers. But the truth is, the Hvammi got a lucky shot in. Heartened, they refused to surrender. In this, they behaved just as Karvaks would.”

Jewelwolf made a dismissive wave. “City-dwellers have no more claim on martial honor than mice have a claim on the clouds. They choose to live as penned animals, and at our discretion they can be slaughtered as such. Your remarks reveal you've no heart for battle—as our father concluded. Don't feel ashamed. It's not for everyone, not even every Karvak.”

Steelfox did not take the bait. “You seem different, sister.”

“A good difference, I hope.”

“You seem like a honed blade.”
And a bloodied one
.

“Good. Yes, I have been learning much of the wider world. My horizons go on and on. I've seen the outlying nations at Rocklion's side. Like Mother, I've entertained poets and scholars.” Jewelwolf hesitated before leaning close. “Unlike Mother, I've treated with sorcerers, and learned much from them.”

“I will not repeat that.”

“Thank you. I hoped you might understand, you who know the Reindeer Folk and their strange ways. I've searched for knowledge farther afield. I've encountered a cabal of sorcerers, one from the frozen North, one from the steaming South, the last from the stormy West. They've convinced me that an alliance might be beneficial.”

“To whom?”

“Ha! Their lands are far too remote to threaten us, but my generosity aids them in securing various rare substances for their works. And they for mine. Already their assistance has improved the training of my Wind-Tamers. I could take matters further. Much further. But for now I think Mother would be squeamish.” Jewelwolf shook her head. “Alas for foolish taboos. We're willing to lose thousands in battle, when a single human offering to higher powers could secure us a bloodless victory.”

Something was agitating Qurca. His claws dug painfully through Steelfox's thick sleeve. She could hear her own heartbeat. “Father forbade such things.”

“Sister, no one respects Father's memory more than I! But he tried the scrupulous path toward conquest. He failed. We nearly lost the empire. His methods will keep sacrificing honorable Karvaks to the cowardly schemers of Qiangguo and their ilk, time and again. Mother hides from the truth, but she knows the world laughs at us. Perhaps that is why she's willing to support Rocklion.”

Qurca's mind was shrieking at Steelfox now. Images blew into her mind like evocative clouds ahead of a storm: a broken wing, a beak crushed against the ground, an egg cracked before its time, a peregrine turned to carrion. If she could translate the images into Karvak they might say,
Wrong, wrong, wrong!

At the same moment, Aughatai was staring at the bird. Steelfox clicked her tongue and raised her arm, and after a moment's reluctance the falcon flew off.

“Trouble controlling your gift-beast?” Jewelwolf said.

“It is morning and I haven't been letting him hunt.”

“He's always caused problems for you,” Jewelwolf said thoughtfully. “I remember his hatching.”

“Naturally.”

Steelfox remembered the calm, grave voice, so much more devastating than any shout.
Look, my daughter, look how your falcon has emerged into the light. Let your fears ease. I know now, what I should have realized. You are not a baatar. Not a hero. There is no shame in that, my beloved girl. Take your bird and go now to your mother. Jewelwolf, attend me.

“So here you are, sister, a baatar . . . talking of human sacrifice.”

“Say what you will, our shame shall be ended, sister, whatever it takes.” Jewelwolf paused and gazed south. “As it was at Hvam, so shall it be in Anoka, and Yao'an, and all the rest, if we are defied. And perhaps, for one example city, it shall be as Hvam whether we are defied or not. We'll claim their feeble fortifications and ring them round as we would the prey in a great hunt. All that breathes within shall live only at our sufferance. We'll let some escape: those with wit to flee and others who have talent. The rest we'll destroy, and the skulls of men, women, children, and animals will rise as monuments, and the smoke of their former flesh will writhe as a black banner upon the wind. For even the greatest army is weak if it cannot boast fear as its herald.”

“Does your husband have a taste for such work?”

“He's learning. I consider myself a gifted teacher. I look forward to instructing my sons.”

“The Grand Khan wasn't pleased with your handling of Hvam.”

“Though you are my elder sister, it is not your place to criticize me in Father's name. You were never a baatar. He was right to send you to the taiga.” Jewelwolf's voice softened. “You will always have an honored place, sister. But times are changing. You belong with your Reindeer Folk, not upon the grasses or the Braid of Spice. There in the shadows of the forests is where your destiny lies. Not in the bright glare of battle.”

Something cold entered Steelfox's voice. “I may be no baatar. But I am our father's daughter. And I give him and our mother the respect you never did. If there's war, I'll distinguish myself in it. There is more than one way to prove one's worth.”

She said these things, and perhaps Mother Earth and Father Sky heard her, or perhaps she'd already seen the shadows falling on the grass. Either way, the timing could not have been better.

Guards were shouting, and early risers among the children were pointing, as shapes emerged from behind Mastodon Mountain and climbed the eastern sky. Haytham ibn Zakwan had followed instructions and had positioned himself for a dramatic entrance. In fact, there he was in his white robe, waving theatrically down at the Karvaks beside the drumming Northwing.

I may be no hero, sister, but I can fly
, Steelfox thought, as the shadows of the great balloons, carrying their flying gers, fell upon Lady Jewelwolf's astonished face.
All the way to the Braid of Spice.

From a distance the city of Yao'an appeared to Gaunt as a squarish crystal covered in dust, some manner of mirror perhaps, shattered into myriad glass rhomboids and painted brown by the winds from the western deserts. Here at the northernmost foothills of the Worldheart Mountains, looking down on their destination, she fell to her knees. A month of hard travel had finally brought them to Yao'an, and this was only the threshold of their true journey.

Bone staggered up behind her and fell onto his face amid the dry grass. He coughed dust. “Well. We've arrived at the Jade Gate. We've accomplished that much.”

“We walked, Imago,” Gaunt murmured. “All we did was walk. We're good at that by now.”

“Yao'an,” said Snow Pine as she caught up to them. She sat cross-legged upon the hilltop. “When I was a girl I'd sometimes hear the saying, ‘Beyond Yao'an, you will never taste springtime.'”

Snow Pine had said the Braid of Spice was not a literal road, for no authority had ever managed to maintain a highway all the way from Qiangguo to the Midnight Sea. But Gaunt did perceive three roads in this place at least. One stretched westward into dry country beyond a broad, willow-lined, muddy river. That river flowed north into a gray-and-tan expanse of desert before vanishing into a haze that blurred both horizon and sky, and a curve of the Red Heavenwall followed the waters north, with a narrow cart-path running between like a child running to keep up with her parents. To the east a broader road meandered beside the Heavenwall, passing into green grassy land dotted with scrub, eventually vanishing into better-watered territory patched with forests.

The travelers had emerged from similar country weeks ago to enter the wilderness leading to Five-Toe Peak. At that time they hadn't even come near Yao'an.

“A city,” Bone mused in a voice he usually reserved for gems or gold. “Wine. Gossip.”

“Food that isn't dry as sand,” Snow Pine said, “or tough as sandals.”

“A bath,” Gaunt conceded.

Before long they were descending the hill as fast as they dared, billows of dust following them like a pack of thirsty, hungry, filthy dogs. At heart Gaunt was a city girl. She'd never let go her writing gear or at least three books, and crumbled in her pack was much-abused black clothing she considered her “escapade outfit,” something suitable for both rowdy nightlife and the less-combative form of caper. She'd never wear it in a fight (unless a plan went very wrong), but it was worth the extra weight to clutch that much of her past.

Yet closer in, Yao'an revealed itself a doubtful source of rowdy nightlife. It was an orderly collection of thousands of buildings, laid out in the four-section pattern beloved of Qiangguo. Three high walls formed a
U
, closed at the top by the even taller rampart of the Heavenwall. The city lay at the spot where the Wall bent northward, so that no force appearing from the north or the west could afford to ignore it. Gaunt caught a glimpse of the two great markets—the Eastern, with its goods gathered from various provinces of the Empire, and the Western, with luxuries carried across the Braid of Spice.

Her heart hammered, and it was more than the plunge down the hill and onto the dry, cracked land bordering Yao'an. It was more than the thought of a few fleeting comforts.

Somewhere in this city, someone might know about ironsilk, and the story of Xia.

The walls loomed higher, and very few buildings rose outside. Most farmland here lay eastward. The few constructions to the west were caravanserais, filled with camels and merchants either newly arrived or soon to depart. Three stone watchtowers lay southward between the city and the foothills. One belched smoke as the travelers neared the Southern Gate.

Close up the city walls looked to be of brick and rising six yards overhead, topped with crenellations, flags, and soldiers. The guards at the gate seemed bemused.

“You came from the hills?” said their commander, imposing in steel armor formed of many small and interlocking bits that each resembled the three-pronged character for “mountain.” “You don't seem like hillfolk, with their bright costumes and tasseled hats, smelling of yak milk. Now you,” he continued, studying Snow Pine, “look like a girl from back east, in the Littoral. And you two, you look like death.”

“Death's a country by the western sea,” Bone said, “a pretty place, but never drink the water.” But he said it in his native tongue.

“What are you babbling?” the guard asked.

“He says,” said Gaunt, stepping on Bone's foot, “our caravan was hit by sandstorms and we're the only survivors. We stayed in the mountains out of sheer terror. That's where we found our guide.”

“I got lost in the mountains months ago,” Snow Pine said. “My poor parents were eaten by Bashe-snakes. May we enter the city, burn incense for the dead, and drown our sorrows in wine?”

“You need to pay to get in,” said the guard. “Maybe a little extra because I don't trust you.”

Luckily they'd left civilization with modest money belts, and one virtue of monster-infested wildernesses was that they were cheap. Gaunt plucked a few coins, and they clinked together in the commander's palm. He frowned and nodded, and led them into a guard shack where all their daggers and Snow Pine's sword were sealed into their sheaths with wax, a complicated imperial chop impressed into each. Gaunt's bow was bound with rope, every inch of which held similar calligraphy, and the knots were sealed with wax and pressed with the chops. The arrows were left alone.

“A weapon with a broken seal,” said the guard commander, leading them back out, “is the mark of a miscreant and will make trouble for you. Seeing as you don't have travel papers, you'll want to get to the Western Market, and fast. Someone there might give you lodging. Otherwise the informal fees will stack up. That's free advice.” He waved them through the gate.