The Silk Map (52 page)

“It comes of long experience, Haytham ibn Zakwan . . .”

“Please, just Haytham, or Doctor Haytham, if you prefer formality.”

“Haytham, the enchantment you spoke of is the source of my swagger, as you term it . . .”

“Of that I have no doubt.”

“For it has allowed me to live a long time in an attractive, or at least healthy, young body. I have had time to learn self-assurance. Beyond that, I've learned to be entertaining company.”

“You do have charm and self-assurance, but I do not think it is truly the product of study.”

“Oh?” I found myself surprisingly miffed by the suggestion.

“You are inured against fear. You need not fear death, and this self-confidence bleeds over into other areas of your life. It is a contingent aspect of your enchantment, if you will.”

“I'm not sure I do will.”

“Irrelevant. I intend to make use of your self-confidence for my own purposes. There is in this city a tower owned by the wealthy Arkoyda family.”

“I am familiar with it.”

“And with its defenses, I know.”

“So you know I would be reluctant to return there.”

“This time you will have my help. You see, the Arkoydas are patrons of the arts, and within their tower dwell many artists. I have developed a liking for one of these, but I have been unable to obtain her affection. You will help me in this task.”

“Confined within a lamp, I am uncertain how to grant your wish.”

“Ha ha. I have developed a technique which I call
gharbal
or, alternatively,
siniazo
. You might translate this as “sifting” or perhaps “garbling.” I connect filaments of the Cytherean Heliodrosia, with its properties of luring humans to their doom with uncanny illusions, from the lamp to an electrum circlet around my head. Certain other elixirs and ointments are required, none of which need concern you.”

“And as a result of this connection, you will appear to be me?”

“Heh, no. I will be me, you will be you. But I will have your swagger, Imago Bone, and you will have my fear. I shall see what affect this has on a certain female.”

“And after this you will let me go?”

“That I will have to consider. As this is a foggy night, I see no reason to delay.”

“What does fog have to do with it?”

Ah, my foolish questions! This was soon enough answered by a sense of drifting into the air aboard one of Haytham's earlier flying contraptions, this one a balloon utilizing a highly flammable gas. Aboard this vessel we drifted through the city until reaching the tower of the Arkoydas. The tower, I knew from experience, was of dark stone, inset with white marble representing the stars of the Greater Bear.

I knocked on the side of the lamp. “When do we begin?”

“Now,” said Haytham.

The procedure worked its strange effect. I found myself looking through Haytham's eyes and was aware he was looking through mine. Yet each of us also simultaneously peered through the eyes we were born with.

“I think this will conjure headaches,” I said, finding I needed only whisper.

“Perhaps,” he murmured back. “However in ordinary life each eye has a slightly different visual field. This is a harder problem but not an unprecedented one.”

“What now?”

“We must bypass the guard dogs of the upper levels.”

“Do we not need to avoid the guard humans of the lower levels first?”

“Not at all.”

He was lowering us down a rope from the gondola of his balloon so that we would end up on a balcony that circled the whole tower at a slant, coiling for three stories. This was a popular area during parties. There was currently none such, although doors to the balcony were open.

He'd not judged the rope quite correctly, and we found ourselves nose-first on the balcony stones but still suspended from the balloon.

“We need to get untied,” I observed, “quick.”

He twisted himself up to untie his feet. He was not in quite as good shape as he'd imagined; while he could twist himself to reach the knots, he could only stay up for a few moments before uncoiling. Thus escape was proving to be a wrenching process.

I heard pattering feet. “Rats?” I wondered aloud.

His heart pounded. “Dogs.”

Three white lapdogs, smelling of rich perfume, bellowed onto the balcony. I think I would have feared rats less.

I was grateful it was not my own face that was about to be gnawed off. Still, as the lamp was stowed on a pack Haytham carried, I was somewhat concerned with his success. “Close your eyes,” I suggested.

“Why?”

“The suffering may be less that way.”

“I am so glad I recruited you.”

“But also, perhaps my fingers can guide yours . . .”

We tried it. He redoubled his efforts to stretch upward, and I undid a set of knots.

We pirouetted on one foot. We had more sway this way and were better able to avoid the dogs.

“Best stretch again,” I said.

“Wait.” He grabbed a wad of plant material, crushed it into a ball, and tossed it through a door.

The dogs all followed.

“Leftover material from the Cytherean Heliodrosia. They may think they are chasing a cat, or a steak, or an appropriate mate.”

“Or your head.”

“Or yours, in point of fact. All right, heave—”

With a crash that must have been painful, we were soon free. Haytham swaggered. I shivered. We closed the nearest door and headed up.

There were no festivities, but the upper stories were frequently used as an informal salon, and I was thus unsurprised to see artistic types I'd encountered now and then in the city. In Palmary the elite artist and the elite thief will sometimes share circles, because in our own ways we all owe our livings to the rich. Thus I and Haytham were able to chat our way through a few encounters, on our way to the poet we really wished to talk to.

And there she was. Previously I had only seen her from afar, reading her work aloud, or else crossing paths in ways that left us both in worse moods than before. I felt Haytham's heart race. That at least I could help with. I wished him calm thoughts, chief among them that there were many days ahead, and many women inhabiting them, and that to a greater or lesser degree everything would be All Right.

Thus calmed, Haytham was able to talk of this or that, avoiding any of the crudities I had previously brought to bear when encountering this poet.

Thus the three of us had a conversation better than any we'd had before. I found the poet quite approachable and unaffected (previously I'd thought her vain) and was quite enjoying being Haytham's auxiliary confidence.

Then it all went wrong. Enrapt by the poet's eyes, we did not quite understand the clicking hand gesture she suddenly made and the cooing sound that accompanied it.

Not until the white, perfumed beast jumped into her lap.

“Oh, dear—” we began, as it started yipping, attracting its companions.

We rose, making excuses, when the thing lunged out and snapped at us, tearing at the delicate threads of Haytham's “sifting” apparatus. In retrospect, I believe the beast wanted another taste of the same material Haytham's distraction ball was made of, and smelled it on us. It would not be the first time a human scheme was undone by canine scent.

Regardless, the damage had a peculiar effect. The specific illusion Haytham had arranged was undone, and a new one replaced it.

“You!” said the poet.

“Me?” said Haytham.

“You went to all this trouble—to see me?”

“Of course—”

“And not to steal?”

“Only a heart,” Haytham said, the kind of line I could never deliver with alacrity, and he could never deliver without stammering. Together we pulled it off.

Then we ran for it.

On the way out we bumped into one of the guests, a charming young woman, though hardly the poet's equal. Her physical charms were somewhat more expansive than my poet's, and I was a trifle embarrassed for Haytham that he became tongue-tied with her in the doorway, wishing (he was loud about it) that he might become tongue-tied with her in reality. Had he no loyalty to his imaginary girlfriends?

In the contact, the rippling of the illusion was undone, and he again appeared as himself.

“Who,” she gasped, “who are you?”

“I am the thief Imago Bone,” he said, “disguised as the inventor Haytham. Would you like to ride in my flying machine?”

She was actually thinking about it, when I hissed to Haytham, “You will release me now.”

“I can't possibly do that.”

“You forget we are linked. I can make you whistle and click and summon those dogs.”

“You wouldn't.”

I exerted my will; he found himself making the hand gesture.

“Are you acting like I'm a dog?” the woman said, her voice a whole season colder.

“Not at all,” he said smoothly, still enjoying my swagger. “This is how I remotely command my vessel. Now it is ready to hear a command phrase. By the ring of King Younus, you are released!”

As he said this he bundled up the plant fibers and the lamp and tossed them over the balcony.

I landed in my natural size with a number of lumps but free of inventors and dogs. I was not free of the memory of the poet.

The lamp never worked for me, so I left it on a museum doorstep. I did not encounter Haytham again, though of course I heard about him. He left a string of broken hearts behind, several attached to wealthy heiresses. He fled the city some months later. Now I know where he ended up.

As for the poet, well, maybe when I saw her again I had a bit more of that Mirabad smoothness about my speech. And maybe she liked me just a little better. For that, I am grateful to . . . Doctor Haytham.

“Thus,” Bone concluded, “much though I admire Haytham's inventiveness, I dislike his use of women.”

“I lack the context to quite understand this city-story, though I do recognize the antics of men and women. And I also think I know who your poet is.”

“I hope I'll see her again.”

“I wish that for you, corpse-man. Such a separation must be hard.”

“Yes. Have you anyone, Northwing?”

“Now and again. Neither Steelfox nor Snow Pine's interest seems to lie in my direction, and the locals are somewhat . . . veiled.”

“My sympathies.”

“Bah. . . . You were right about the terrain.”

Before them lay a chasm. Far below roared a river, its waters a swirling mix of green from minerals and white from rapids.

“Aiya,” Bone said.

“You know, Bone, you can swear like them, but you'll never belong to Qiangguo.”

“Who says I want to? Hm. The chasm's too wide to jump or bridge. Farther up we might manage, but it's rough climbing. Further down, we could eventually ford. But we'd be in the open.”

“It's natural enough. A barbarian like you, awestruck by the fabled cities, that culture stretching back through time like an endless river. Now, following this river back could get us killed on the rocks. On the other hand, this would be a much earlier descent than we'd planned. Tough decision.”

“We have cities, you know. Feh. Much as I long to descend, closer to where Gaunt must be, the heights beckon.”

“I'll go have a look. And your cities are smelly villages beside the great places of Qiangguo.”

“You're just trying to goad me! You don't even like cities! You've never been to ours!”

“So you think. A spirit-body gets around.”

With that she was off, leaping among the boulders, ascending toward the nearest of the great waterfalls. Bone was glad none of the gleaming, crimson veins of rock occupied this southern side of the valley. He looked across Xembala, spotting some of those veins, tiny from this vantage, like the red in bloodshot eyes. He looked for a glimpse of the lamasery and thought once again he saw a golden flash upon a grand plateau at the valley's heart.

When he looked again across the chasm, he swore and dropped low. He crawled to a hidden nook between two boulders.

He saw three huge wooden constructions, flag-draped ropes between them. Each machine possessed a large arm and a dangling counterweight.

“What are you doing down here?” the squirrel said in his ear.

“Look over there.”

“My. Not Karvak devices. They look like catapults from Qiangguo.”

Bone nodded. “Or Kpalamaa, or the Eldshore. But the construction's a little odd.” He squinted. “I see people in colorful garb moving between them. They're loading sacks onto the weapons.”

“Interesting. When I try to see with the mind of a human, I do not witness catapults or figures.”

“They're going to fire! How close are the others?”

“I've warned Steelfox already, Bone. They're taking cover. Nothing will—”

The strange catapults fired. Ammunition of what looked like flour sacks spun through the air and collided harmlessly with the rocky landscape.