The Silk Map (22 page)

“Flint will be sufficient. Or Doctor Flint, if you prefer formality. Master Flint was my father. There are indeed good ways. You can fly, if you have access to an aerial mount. You can use tunnels, if you are a sand-goblin. If one dared tame the dragon-horses of the Forbidden Steppe, one might cross the sands in a day. And perhaps, if you are a sorcerer, you can translate yourself magically from one side of the desert to another.”

“As I understand it,” Quilldrake put in from ahead of Flint, “even the legendary Archmage can't manage such a feat. Even great wizards are forced to walk.”

“Indeed,” said Flint. “My real answer is that the only good way to travel the desert is by consulting a book about it.”

“I agree,” said Widow Zheng from behind Bone, as she and he peered warily at a distant skeleton. “I look forward to our camp and perhaps some candlelit reading.”

“How far to the first oasis?” called Snow Pine from the tail of their caravan. Bone remembered that she'd grown up beside the Ochre River, and that for all the hardships of her life, insufficient water had never been one of them.

“I believe we're making reasonable time,” Flint called back. “But I still anticipate some travel by night. We have been here before, but we'll have to judge at sunset whether we can safely travel the rest of the distance in the dark. Otherwise we must camp in the open.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“Possibly!” shouted Quilldrake. “The oases have old warding-stones blessed by priests of the three faiths hereabouts, and sometimes glyphs left by wandering wizards! One hopes at least some are efficacious!”

“And if none are?” asked Gaunt.

Widow Zheng cackled in a way that made Bone a trifle nervous. “That's what Living Calligraphy is for,” she said.

They settled into a quiet progression for the next hour. Had this been a forest or a grassy plain, Bone thought, chatter would have cut the silence, but in the desert simply moving was a disciplined endeavor. He recalled the milder desert beside the city he'd once called home, and the words of his mentor in the thieving art.
Beware places of no concealment
, Master Sidewinder had said.
Grand plazas. Open sand. Honest relationships
.

Must I have no honest relationships?
Bone had asked.

Of course you may! With me you will never, even in the tiniest degree, ever have cause to think I would deceive you in any matter whatsoever. Rest assured, I am as trustworthy a man as has ever been born.

You are a genius at thieving, Master Sidewinder, but you are a little obvious with your sarcasm.

My work here is done.

Bone smiled at the memory. He missed his long-dead teacher and wished Gaunt could have met him. He missed Palmary and cities in general. He regretted none of his time with Gaunt. Well, maybe certain events. The cannibals. The philosophical torturers. The dragons. But not the whole. Yet it seemed to him that for a city-thief he spent an inordinate amount of time outdoors. Someday, when they'd won back their son, he would take them into an overcrowded, noisy, polyglot enclave where nature was nowhere to be seen, to get away from it all.

Glancing behind, he thought he saw a trail of windborne sand, as though some beast were approaching. It would have to be on the large side, he thought, surprisingly so for this desert. It seemed that he would not be getting away from nature any time soon. “Say—” he began.

He was cut off by a shout up front.

“Sandstorm ahead!” Quilldrake said. “We'd best dig in!”

Bone squinted ahead, possible pursuit forgotten. The haze beyond the dunes seemed as featureless as ever. “I see no storm!”

“Do you not see my camel?”

Quilldrake's mount, the oldest of them, had ascended a low rise crowned by a rock outcropping. It lay down upon the sand and burrowed its head. The other camels lumbered up to follow suit, moaning and bleating.

“I suppose we're stopping,” Bone said to Scoff, who joined the others, dropped, and nuzzled her way into the sand.

“The old one senses the approach of the burning wind,” said Flint. “The younger camels take its lead. We should too. Lie down, with the camels between you and the approach of the wind. Put your faces in the sand and cover your heads with cloth.”

“How long will it last?” Gaunt asked.

“As long as it lasts.”

Bone and Gaunt lay beside each other. Bone looked up and saw a wall of dust approaching, its tan shroud billowing halfway up the sky. It approached faster than a galloping horse.

“Hold my hand, Bone,” Gaunt said. “If we're fortunate, future scholars may display our skeletons together.”

He took her hand. The sandstorm rushed upon them.

It seemed to last hours, though Bone was unsure he could trust his judgment. It certainly grew very hot. He squeezed Gaunt's hand now and then, and she squeezed back.

He began hearing hints of voices on the wind, curious snatches of conversation that could not be real, as they seemed far too relaxed to be the speech of his companions. As time passed, some of the fragments touched his memory and seemed the voices of his past.

The more you fight
. . . came the voice of Snow Pine's once-mentor, Lightning Bug.

The more it slips away
. . . answered Flybait, Snow Pine's dead husband.

You are one flesh
. . . came the voice of Eshe, the priestess who'd performed Gaunt and Bone's marriage . . .
come whatever may . . .

All things are in your hand
. . . came a much rougher voice, much nearer at hand, . . .
You who whirl the days
. . .

The storm had ebbed before Bone was quite aware of the fact. Gaunt was tugging at his hand, her voice conveying a trace of alarm. “Bone! We're free of it . . .” her voice trailed off in wretched hacking.

Bone found himself in a golden world, for though the thick of the sandstorm had passed, the air was full of haze, making a ripe orange of the sun. Everyone had endured, though they announced their safety with a chorus of coughs.

Flint passed around waterskins. “We've lost time. We should move as soon as we're able. I recommend traveling through the night. The oasis will provide shelter.”

“No argument,” Gaunt said.

Now Flint took the rear, perhaps fearing someone would slump exhausted from their camel and be left behind. The desert treated them with a degree of kindness for the rest of the day, which was to say it passively seared them, rather than actively smothered them. Bone saw no animal life but what they brought with them, and while corpses of old trees thrust here and there from the sand, there was nothing green.

In early evening, cool breezes at last kissed their faces, and a sort of exhausted jollity came to the caravan. Gaunt sang, giving Bone a rare reminder that she'd studied as a bard. Quilldrake quietly conversed with Widow Zheng; Bone suspected he was making sure, from her responses, that she was bearing up. He overheard Snow Pine talking with Flint. There was something in their voices that raised an uncomfortable feeling in Bone, though he could not identify it. He patted Scoff. “You are doing well?”

Scoff grunted.

“I never would have expected you to make friends with a camel, Bone,” Gaunt said.

“We have much in common,” said Bone. “Perhaps when at last we settle down, we should consider having a pet.”

“You and your camel will keep a pet? How interesting. Be sure to write me about it.”

When the sun set, there was nothing westward to hide it, no hills, no mountains, no approaching caravan laden with melons. Bone had the impression the land was one vast, luminous scab. Stars appeared as they proceeded into night, and every time Bone was convinced the sky was full, the horizon dimmed further and more glories blazed.

“It's cold,” Gaunt said, and this was another thing Bone had not quite noticed, but he shivered as she said it.

“This is among the hottest and coldest of places,” Quilldrake called back from where he guided them by the stars. “Still, I prefer the cold to the heat. If landmarks didn't matter, I'd always travel by night.”

They reached the first oasis before moonset. It was little more than a large pond with a score of poplar trees escorting it through its days and nights, a guard of four obelisks attending them. Each monument bore an inscription—two in the Tongue of the Tortoise Shell, one in the script of Mirabad, the last in a vertical script unknown to Bone. The ones that looked familiar were forbiddances against evil.

Gaunt said, “I am curious what we need defending from.”

Widow Zheng said, “They say there are night-horrors in this desert. They make sounds that lure the traveler from her companions and leave her lost and alone. If she's lucky.”

“I suspect the rumors exaggerate, however,” Flint said. “You may have heard peculiar sounds already? As temperature changes, masses of sand may shift, their acoustics strange and disturbing. While the world has its dangers, the mind magnifies and multiplies them.”

Whether or not the wardings were efficacious, they succeeded in calming the travelers' nerves. Soon they'd tied up camels, filled up waterskins, tossed bedrolls, and collapsed into sleep.

Six days, four oases, and one more sandstorm passed in like fashion. At first they had little energy for talk, but by now Bone was beginning to settle into a routine, and late in the afternoon of the sixth day he walked beside Flint and said, “I'd like to know more about Xembala.”

“Wouldn't we all!” Flint shook his head, staring at the blurred horizon. “The lost paradise, spoken of in many legends. Once, Imago Bone, I thought I could locate it by reason, triangulate it. You see, in Qiangguo, the Pure Land is said to be in the west. But in Palmary, the Lost Garden is said to lie to the east. Far, far to the south in Harimaupura, they say the Enlightened Kingdom lies to the far, far north. So you see, I suspected I could trace all these legends to a particular spot in the physical world.” He chuckled. “And to a degree I succeeded! Alas, my ‘spot' is a region over a thousand miles across. In the great trading cities of Anoka, Qushkent, and Madzeu, and in the oasis towns, paradise is said to rest among the clouds. So I concluded Xembala must lie upon the Plateau of Geam, home of mystics. I climbed the mountains and battled vultures and vertigo to attain it. In Geam, the holy ones told me Xembala was an idea, that paradise was in my head. Very helpful. But there was a twinkle in their eyes as they said it, and I think they knew much they wouldn't convey.”

Quilldrake had joined them. There was a worried look in his eyes that his bright tone belied. “And here you see the basis of Flint's and my collaboration! For
I
am interested in mere treasure to rival the wealth of emperors. Flint seeks the sublime revelations of exploration.”

“In any event,” Flint said, “I think Xembala must lie amid the mountains near to the Braid of Spice. And I feel sure that, before the year is out, I will find it.”

“We have a more immediate problem, I fear,” Quilldrake said, his voice now in accord with his expression. “We should have reached the next oasis by now.”

Hours of backtracking commenced, during which the sun set and the stars emerged, their steady beauty a prickling contrast to the journeyers' increasing worry. Quilldrake at last called a halt, consulting with Flint in low tones. Flint sighed and turned to the others. “I think further searching is counterproductive. We'll seek a rocky spot to camp.”

“I don't dispute you,” Gaunt said, “but I hope it's defensible.”

“I suspect we will be safe.” Flint added, “But I do suggest roping ourselves together before sleep.”

Thus they and their camels arranged themselves beside lonely boulders. Widow Zheng, now much recovered, told them a bedtime story about how the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, once tipped over this or that alchemical vessel in the heavens, producing bright nebulae that remained to this day. Quilldrake and Flint were vocal in their appreciation; Bone, Gaunt, and Snow Pine more muted. At last Bone and Gaunt curled up next to each other, and Bone sank into an exhausted slumber.