The Silk Map (53 page)

“Ha,” said Northwing.

“Wait,” said Bone. “Look.”

From the shattered sacks rose a cloud of green dust that encompassed the area, tendrils extending to the chasm.

“It's some sort of sleeping potion!” said Northwing. “Get out of here, Bone, we're already caught.”

“But you can escape with me.”

“No, you've forgotten . . . my body . . . back there . . .”

The squirrel twitched, looked this way and that, and its subsequent vocalizations were purely animal. It fled up the slope.

Bone ran after it. The terrain was too rough—and time too short—to let him crawl. He hopped along the boulder-tops, green dust chasing him. All his experience lived in his feet now. The catapults fired again.

Bone ducked under a sack that exploded in the rubble beside him. Green vapor filled half his vision.

There was only one, mad chance. He scrambled down the boulder on the wrong side, the chasm side.

He dropped.

Hanging there along the edge, he felt icy winds blasting through the fissure from the direction of the falls. As the green dust reached him, the wind whipped it away. He turned his head toward the cold slap of the air, breathed it in, taking as little of the green as possible.

More sacks burst nearby, in the rocks, on the cliff.

But in the end, he knew, they had him. His vision swam with color. Would the valley goddess protect him if he plunged into the water? Would she save him from drowning if he fell asleep on the way down?

His choices were few. As the catapults creaked back into firing position, he hauled himself up the edge, curled up beside a boulder, and pretended to sleep.

Soon illusion was truth.

He found himself dragged upon a litter, and he'd the presence of mind to keep his eyes shut. It was warmer, and he heard an unfamiliar language and also a continuous roar. He parted his lips and tasted waterfall spray. Motion, now. They were ascending. The light beyond his eyelids darkened, the air warmed further, the roar became muffled.

Fight? No. Wait.

Light and sound, fresh waterfall roar.

Darkness and a dimming of sound.

And again light and noise.

This repeated many times, until there was bright light with a sense of openness, the songs of many birds, the chatter of many people, including piping voices of children.

Bone opened his eyes.

He and his companions had been conveyed by many figures in bright robes. They'd entered the vast courtyard of a lamasery filled with fruit trees and fountains, a whole village within the walls. A rocky promontory on the far side sheltered a fortress with three sweeping levels, split in twain by the rush of water descending a canal cut from a vast extension of the southern cliffs.

The water flowed through this gigantic park until plunging into a great pit near at hand.

A number of individuals in orange robes were approaching—wizened, bald, of both genders. Bone knew an opportunity for a dramatic entrance when he saw it.

It was surely the antithesis of a thiefly approach. He leapt up from his litter, bowed before the elders, and said to none of them in particular, “Mentor John, I presume.”

If one was traveling to the palace of enlightenment, Gaunt reflected, a balloon was hardly the worst way to go. Even surrounded by guards ready to push you out.

In the company of Lady Jewelwolf, her Wind-Tamer, six warriors, and Arthur Quilldrake, the flying ger took Gaunt over the great river and its flanking emerald forests, bright-plumed birds and rainbow-hued butterflies rising as they approached.

She turned away from the porthole to look beyond her two minders at the fiery cauldron tended by the Wind-Tamer. Charstalker eyes glared back. In the flickering light, Crypttongue hung from the bamboo rafters on the opposite side. Another strange artifact hung nearby, a disc of bronze big as a dinner plate. It spun with the pitching of the ger, one side displaying stylized images of the constellations as named in Qiangguo, the other a smooth polished surface. It might have been an ordinary bronze mirror, but its prominence suggested otherwise.

Quilldrake stood beside it. Like many a man, he assumed that a woman's glance directed near him was surely directed
at
him. This appeared to make him uncomfortable. He stepped around the fiery cauldron, the Charstalker's own gaze following him, until he stood near Gaunt.

“I can explain,” was the first thing he said.

“I feel certain you can,” Gaunt said.

“There seemed no other hope, but to ally with strength.”

“History echoes with similar words.”

“Indeed! I'm not in this world to shape countries and empires, but to enjoy myself. I command my own ship. But even a captain must follow the wind.”

“Whom would you throw overboard, ‘captain'?”

“Uncalled for! No one's died as a result of my actions. Can you say the same?”

Gaunt could not answer.

“Jewelwolf seeks what we seek,” Quilldrake said, “and she's willing to cut us in.”

“Us?”

“I'm willing to consider our arrangement still good, bygones be bygones. After all, it was you, your husband, and Widow Zheng who ran off with this Mad Katta. Perhaps he gave you no choice either, but in any event he's long gone. Where are Bone and Zheng, anyway?”

“Elsewhere in the valley. We were—separated.”

“Pity.”

“Where are we going exactly?”

“The great volcano at the eastern end. Having observed the map fragments that repaired this balloon, and in consultation with her partners . . .” Quilldrake glanced at the bronze mirror. “. . . Lady Jewelwolf believes the Iron Moths are there.”

“Some of the stories spoke of a volcanic haven.”

“Yes. I think we are on the right course.”

“Quilldrake. You say ‘we,' but where is your partner?”

“Ah. A delicate problem. You see, the Karvaks aren't entirely unified. The politics are fascinating. Under their mother's reign, each sister had a semi-independent realm. But with the election of a new Grand Khan, everything changes. Jewelwolf got wind of the ironsilk hunt and crossed the desert to take command of a balloon Lady Steelfox left at Hvam. With that craft she came here to dispute her sister's authority. You can do that if you're the Grand Khan's wife.”

“I see.”

“She arrived just as Steelfox was attempting to capture you. But I believe you were a little preoccupied.”

“It was a long day.”

“Long story short, Flint and I ended up separated, one with each sister. Each dared the CloudScar. Jewelwolf still has a total of three balloons patched up and flying in this valley, but Steelfox's balloon hasn't been seen. I'm uncertain Steelfox and Flint survived. Likewise Snow Pine.”

“If so,” said a new voice, “it's no less than what my sister deserved.”

Lady Jewelwolf stood beside them. She wore a heavy blue coat, and her hair was coiled above her head and shiny with animal fat; yet although her appearance was strange, Gaunt was struck by something universal: the assurance of one born to power.

“You are speaking Roil,” Gaunt couldn't help but notice, “the language of the Eldshore.”

“I have a gift for alien tongues. It has been an aid in securing allies and arcane power.”

“You are a sorceress?”

“To a small degree. The true value of my training is that unlike most warriors I do not fear magic but embrace it. I have allies among the wizards of many lands. I know what magic can do for the Karvak nation—far more than Steelfox's feeble ‘natural philosophy.' Though I must acknowledge her tricks have their uses. If only she would admit the same of mine.”

“She does not approve of magic?” Gaunt said.

She thought Quilldrake was making warning eyes at her.

Jewelwolf made a fist. “She is a hypocrite. She has her mind-bound hawk, her barbaric taiga shaman, her inventor who binds Charstalkers to make his balloons fly. But she balks at the great magics. She will not accept human sacrifice.”

“Weak of her,” Gaunt ventured.

“I am glad you agree. She is like our father in that respect, for although a great war leader, he was unable to understand that terror is a necessity for rule. Squeamish, both of them. My husband and I have no such flaws.”

“What are your plans?”

“As Quilldrake said, we will claim the lair of the Iron Moths. It seems impractical to establish a foothold in Xembala—yet. Therefore we will seize as many moths and as much ironsilk as possible. In the steppes we will establish our own center of iron sericulture.”

“With a cut for us,” Quilldrake added.

“Of course. If you serve me well.”

“Do the Moths not require great heat?” Gaunt asked.

“I have a solution for that, thanks to my allies.”

“Who are they?”

“Ah. They are great wizards and leaders. Together we will lead the world into its next age. There is the troll-jarl of the Bladed Isles, he who commands the stuff of the rock itself. There is the greatest of kleptomancers, who steals knowledge and power from everywhere and knows many secrets. And there is the dark prince of the Eldshore, he who dares perilous magic in search of power.”

Gaunt felt unease in her gut, and it was not just from the balloon's motion. “They sound mighty indeed,” she said. They also sounded familiar. It was not a welcome familiarity. “Forgive me, great one,” Gaunt said. “I am exhausted from my ordeal.”

Jewelwolf blinked. “Very well. You may sleep in this spot.”

Gaunt curled up, feeling rather like a newly acquired dog. She sensed Quilldrake lingering near her for a while; then he sighed and shifted away.

For a time unmeasured, she did sleep. She dreamed of vast structures upon the Earthe, buried in the Earthe, carved into the Earthe, through which magic flowed. She heard the Earthe howling in pain at the rearrangements its tiny inhabitants had made within it. She heard its sorrow, shading era by era into rage.

She woke up to the sound of Jewelwolf snarling, “Where is she? How could she escape?”

Gaunt looked up. Karvak soldiers were jabbing spears into every part of the ger. She stood and waved, and no one noticed her.

She smiled.

Jewelwolf said, “Quilldrake! Have you aided her escape?”

“Hardly! And I have no inkling how she accomplished it. I will say that she's a tricky one. Perhaps you should consult your friends.”

Jewelwolf faced the bronze mirror, passing her hand over the cosmic images of the inscribed face, turning it toward the smooth. Light flickered within, light that had nothing to do with the fire from the Charstalker.

Yet it was the Charstalker who caught Gaunt's attention.

“
You
,” came a voice from the fire. “
Meat. I see you.
”

No one else in the ger responded.

“
They cannot hear me
,” growled the Charstalker. “
Only you.
”

“Are you going to give me away?” Gaunt said.

“
Not if you help me. I want to bring this balloon down.
”

“Is that something you can arrange?”

“
With your help. You retain a limited ability to interact with matter, especially matter possessed of magic. Use your sword. Use it against the symbols upon this cauldron. I will then depart this craft.
”

“Um. Will that not result in a crash? And my death?”

“
Look out an eastern-facing porthole.
”

She slipped past where Jewelwolf's mirror was flashing with light, the colors resolving into a fractured image, a different face in each fragment. One was a thin man with a look of perpetual exhaustion, another a thick man whose skin was the texture of clay, a third a well-formed man with a handsome bearing and a rakish grin. The last was a robed woman with skin like snow. Gaunt crept, in case these powers could somehow perceive her.

Out the porthole she beheld a great, green-crowned plateau. The ruins of a vast lamasery covered it, and many tents crowded beside the rubble. A river surged down a rocky extension of the cliffs and onto the plateau, before disappearing down a vast pit.