The Silk Map (11 page)

“Do you need to pay to get out?” Bone asked in the Tongue of the Tortoise Shell, just as they were stepping through the gate.

“Not if you leave by the Western Gate,” said the guard. He frowned as he realized Bone had understood him the entire time; however, by then they had mingled with a crowd of women in multicolored patchwork dresses and men in long-sleeved robes with circular collars. The guard grunted and returned his gaze to the mountains.

Gaunt and Bone attracted stares from the people on the wide stone street—nothing hostile, simply surprised attentiveness, as if a mated pair of tropical birds had suddenly descended and begun talking about the weather. Snow Pine, with her rumpled cloak and fierce expression, earned almost as many puzzled looks.

“Let's get to the Western Market,” Snow Pine said. “That's the only place you'll blend in.”

It was strange, Gaunt thought as they made their way toward the bell tower at the city's heart, they'd been dwelling much deeper into Qiangguo than this border city, and yet she hadn't felt so much appraisal as now. But they'd kept to small towns and rough corners of big ones, places where people were willing to overlook useful foreigners.

The sun was descending, and despite the stares they quickened their pace. Even Snow Pine wouldn't want to be caught unsheltered in this unfamiliar city's night. The noises and colors and scents were overpowering after so much time in the wild. It seemed to Gaunt she heard thousands of shuffling feet. She smelled sweat, dung, meat, spices. She saw crimson banners and roofs, golden doors, black clothing, and wood everywhere. It seemed Yao'an's people either loved wood or didn't expect to be staying in one spot forever. Only the frequently encountered walls of the city wards were of stone. These were four yards tall, gated and guarded.

Bone echoed her thoughts. “I feel as though I'm in a stockyard,” he said.

“Yes,” said Gaunt, “a giant stockyard, six miles on each side.”

Snow Pine sounded uneasy. “This city feels more controlled even than the capital,” she said. “Perhaps because it was built in a more warlike time, and it still guards against invasion.”

“I'm surprised anyone dangerous lives out in that desert,” Gaunt said.

“Well, beyond the desert, to the north, are the great grasslands. There are nomad tribes, some dangerous, some not.” She ceased speaking as they came to a gate. This too called for an informal fee. Gaunt began thinking she was in the wrong business. They entered a ward devoted to the business of tradesmen and minor merchants. The rogues passed the shops of bakers, butchers, grocers, tailors, and carpenters. There were small gardens and peddlers' carts. They saw a low-rent alchemist's office with jars of peculiar substances stacked on shelves beside the street for passersby to marvel at. Bone lingered a moment, looking at flickering fire-gems, such as might be handy for illumination.

Gaunt took his arm, and Snow Pine said, “Those are unreliable-looking, Bone. Prone to explode.” As Bone shrugged and went on, Snow Pine continued, “So, the fiercest steppe-riders nowadays are the Karvaks. In my parents' youth they conquered the trading cities to the west, but Qiangguo drove them out again. We know they could return. We're raised on bloodcurdling stories of their atrocities.”

“And thus you must trust your protectors,” said Bone, “and grease their pockets liberally.”

“I don't love our rulers, Bone,” Snow Pine said, “but I'm smart enough to know there's more than one source of evil in the world, and that they're not all equal.”

As if to underline her argument, the next two gates let them pass without bribes. Twice they crossed gently sloping bridges where canals sloshed beneath. After the first crossing they saw more elaborate buildings—temples to various deities of the Celestial Court, buildings of civic administration, homes of the moderately prosperous. Here and there they saw an odd motif in the architecture. Three rabbits or hares were arrayed in a circle, as if they were running endlessly within the span of a wheel. The ears presented a subtle illusion. Each animal's ears pushed into the very center of the wheel, one swung backward, one swung forward. Each ear was shared with that of a different hare; the backward swinging one was also the forward swinging ear of the hare behind, while the forward swinging one was also the backward swinging ear of the hare ahead. Thus, while each animal seemed to possess two ears, the tableau of three rabbits portrayed only three ears in total, forming a sort of aural triangle at the picture's heart.

“Interesting,” Gaunt said, after they'd noted a handful of these images. “Is there a special meaning to them?”

“Not that I know of,” Snow Pine said. “I guess I've seen this motif once or twice before, but I never thought anything of it. There sure seem to be a lot of them here in Yao'an.”

They zigzagged their way through the wards, some prosperous, some destitute, some welcoming, some suspicious. The sun became a half-circle sliced by city walls. A rich, heady smell crept into their noses as the shadows welled, that of thousands of cookfires all over Yao'an. Three stomachs groaned their way through two remaining wards until they found a gate to the Western Market. This called for a bribe even larger than the one at the Southern Gate, as though the guards sensed Gaunt and Bone were placing themselves in more danger with every new inch of afternoon shadow.

“Do you know what I hate most about petty corruption?” Bone said. “That it hardly ever has a central, plunderable vault.”

“Hush,” Gaunt said.

As the Westerners grumbled their way into the Market they were blasted by sound and color. Even with people departing the place to beat curfew, it was hard to find space to maneuver. There were some last, frantic trades being conducted at the top of the lungs, over such spices as nutmeg and coriander and saffron, over furs of otter and lynx and snow leopard, and glinting bottles of strange herbs, peacock feathers, and jewelry crafted from turquoise and gold and jade, parchments with rubbings from famous temples along the Braid, and glass marbles embedded with “evil eyes” of every hue.

There were griffin-hides and carapaces of giant ants. There were slabs with bizarre fossilized creatures within. There was a ship's wheel of immense size fashioned of black rock, carved along the rim with spidery glyphs. There was a clump of sand contained within a jar sealed with cork and a mysterious rune; the sand whipped and swirled like a live thing.

This was all bewildering enough to Gaunt, but by now much of the Market had transitioned from business to entertainment. There were stage magicians who were swallowing knives and spitting fire. There were sorcerers who were swallowing fire and spitting knives. There was a troupe of musicians performing with voice, flute, and fiddle from a platform atop a ridiculously large, and astonishingly patient, camel. There was a troupe of acrobats forming human pyramids, and walking on stilts, and juggling glass bottles filled with scorpions. The performers were cheered on by the denizens of the Market and by those elite citizens of Yao'an empowered to walk any ward at any hour. Gaunt had the feeling of a celebration only now commencing.

She looked around for someone to ask about it and found a grocer of Yao'an who was packing up her family's cart (she must have had appropriate papers for the gates.) “Madam,” Gaunt said, or what she hoped was the equivalent, “is it always like this?”

“Huh?” The middle-aged woman looked a little dazed by a day at the Market. She took a moment to focus on Gaunt, and another moment squinting at Gaunt's auburn hair. She seemed suspicious. Bone took the opportunity to buy a few watermelons, and commenced handling them like an amateur juggler or a malfunctioning scale. The purchase seemed to ease the grocer's concerns. “No, respected outlanders,” she said. “Business is down. It picked up today because Washing Day's tomorrow.”

“Washing Day? What?” But by then the grocer had returned to her packing and corralling her helpers and children.

Snow Pine told Gaunt, “I should have remembered. This time of year they wash the images in the temples of the Undetermined.” She pointed to three buildings at different corners of the Market, glinting with gold-plated statues. “They'll anoint the big images and bathe the little ones.”

“The Undetermined certainly likes his statues,” Bone said. “I suppose fame's no flaw if you're enlightened.”

“Be respectful, Bone!” said Gaunt. He was normally an easygoing man, content to rob the rich and spend his gains among the poor. (Not give away, of course. Spend.) But he had a hard spot for religion, and as a wayward devotee of the Swan Goddess, at times that made her wince.

Moreover, they were surely surrounded by thousands of followers of the Undetermined, and she didn't want to test their serenity.

Snow Pine said, “Besides, Bone, most of those images aren't of the One himself. They're of his colleagues, the Thresholders, beings who compassionately help people toward enlightenment.”

“I don't mean to mock,” Bone said. “Everyone deserves a bath. Speaking of which . . .”

“Yes,” Gaunt said, glad to be in agreement again, “we need to find an inn.”

“One thought, if you don't mind,” Snow Pine said. She began rapid, scattered conversations with people nearby that usually brought shrugs, but which sometimes resulted in pointing at various spots around the Market and beyond its Eastern Gate. Gaunt had a reasonable grasp of Qiangguo's language, but the speed of these exchanges left her far behind.

Snow Pine returned with a satisfied look.

“There are several sources for old legends hereabouts, but the best is one Widow Zheng, who sells books not far down the great East-West Avenue. It's too late to consult her tonight, but she is out and about most days. Now, about that bath.”

So they took up lodgings at the Inn of the Bright Future, only a modest step up from the Inn of Fond Remembrance next door, but at least the wood wasn't rotting. Having purchased a room and meals, they took bowls of noodle soup with pigeon eggs bobbing inside and sat on a bench outside the inn, watching entertainers and candlelight and the heavenly show of stars easing into view within the deep blue of evening. Bone sliced and shared one of his watermelons, and they felt warm breezes tickle the dribble down their chins.

For a time they could forget hope and worry for their children, and behave as children themselves.

At dawn they left the Market while its vendors were rising and some of its entertainers were snoring. They entered the city's great east-west road. Gaunt found it wider, cleaner, and more pleasant than the various paths they'd taken the day before, especially with a civic garden to their right. Peonies bloomed, their pink blossoms shining where the early sunlight caught them.

“It's the Fourth Moon of the year,” Snow Pine said, head turned toward the flowers, “the Peony Moon.” Something hard entered her voice. “The peony's a sign of love.”

Gaunt had a moment's grief for her widowed friend, but in the next moment she'd seen something more beautiful to her than flowers. There were many peddlers' carts parked along the street beside the garden. One collection of three had a sign above that might as well have been written in blazing characters: WIDOW ZHENG'S KNOWLEDGE EMPORIUM.

The carts were covered with books.

Gaunt stepped closer, hesitantly now, hardly believing her eyes. It had been a while since she'd seen so many works in one spot. Not just codices, but also scrolls, paintings, tablets, pamphlets . . .

Widow Zheng herself was a spry elder possessed of gray hair and a face that had seen rain and sand and war. Her gaze twinkled like a fisherwoman who'd felt a tug. Though slight of build, she unleashed a voice that bestrode the wild territory between a noble's peroration and a carnival barker's shout. “Knowledge! Rumor! Accounts of Ancient Days! Tales of Bandits and Kings! Yours for a Pittance!”

“We do not have a pittance . . .” Bone cautioned a little hopelessly.

“These things can be negotiated,” Gaunt said, drifting closer to Widow Zheng's treasures.

“Aiya,” Snow Pine said, twisting her hair.

Gaunt's gaze flitted over a menagerie of books, some proclaiming their contents, some not.

“You may open them, my dear,” said Widow Zheng, her voice now conspiratorial. “I know a fellow worshipper when I see her.”

“You must understand,” Gaunt said, “where I come from your cart would be considered a treasure-house.” She quickly passed hands and eyes (and nose, oh, the scent of paper, leather, and papyrus) over such works from Qiangguo as
The Nightmare of the Crimson Citadel,
and
Lamentations of the Great Historian,
and
A Partial Reconstruction of the Classic of Music, from Such Fragments as Were Recovered from the Burning of the Books
. There were alien texts as well. Some were in the flowing script of the Mirabad Caliphate, which Gaunt regretted never mastering. Others were in languages she did not recognize at all. However, her mouth watered over foreign books translated into the Tongue of the Tortoise Shell:
A Mirror for Young Despots
and
A Discourse on Light and Darkness
caught her eye, as well as an absurdly fat codex titled
The Epic of the King Tutored by Wolves, the Savage Abridgment
.