The Silk Map (63 page)

“Ah, blazes. You're right of course.”

They proceeded around the drop beside the magma lake.

“Where do we proceed?” Flint asked.

“I suspect,” Gaunt said, “we go through that passage guarded by six guardians of wrath.”

For there, indeed, stood many glowering statues, warning the travelers away from a dark passage sloping upward.

Rabten and his Xembalan companions knelt as he intoned a prayer. Rising, he said, “Let us go.”

Eighteen strong, the expedition entered the realm of the Bull Demon.

Gaunt immediately felt a queasiness in her stomach, reminiscent of riding a plunging balloon.

“Are you all right?” Bone asked her, touching her shoulder. He looked a little ill himself.

“More or less. This is nothing compared to pregnancy.”

“That's a fair point,” said Snow Pine, also looking pained.

“You of course would not know about that, sister,” Jewelwolf said. “You who never had the chance to bear your man sons.”

Steelfox did not reply, so Gaunt answered for her. “Women's roads can be so rocky, Jewelwolf. Why do we throw stones in each other's paths?”

“Stay out of this, foreigner,” said Jewelwolf.

“We are all foreigners here,” Widow Zheng said, “except these nuns and monks. Even I . . .”

“Yet motherhood is not foreign to you, I think,” Jewelwolf said with an airy laugh, and Zheng responded with a clipped nod. “We are all mothers here, are we not . . . except Steelfox and her pet shaman. All true women.”

“Irrelevant, Jewelwolf,” snapped Northwing. “I'm not a woman.”

“You dare to talk this way?” Jewelwolf answered. “And yet I am curious. You dress as a man, by the standards of your people. Do you believe you are one?”

“I don't consider myself either male or female,” Northwing said. “I'm a shaman. Among our people that means I walk between all categories. Light and darkness. Giving and claiming. Life and—”

“Yes, yes, I have heard all this before,” Jewelwolf snapped, “though I did not realize the depth of the perversion.”

Steelfox, who had not spoken before, said in a voice low and sharp, “You will not speak to my servant in that manner.”

“Oh! You care about your pets! Your twisted shaman and your deranged inventor.”

“I rather like ‘deranged,'” Haytham put in.

“It is always thus with you,” Steelfox said. “Cutting at me, smiling all the time. Always reminding me I am not a baatar. Reminding me my realm is smaller and more desolate. Reminding me that my husband died before we had children.”

Jewelwolf said, “It is not my fault that you haven't remarried. You are a Karvak princess; you could have your pick of men.”

“If I had no taste—”

“Perhaps your taste runs more to your livestock—”

“Enough!” Steelfox's blade was unsheathed. “Do you seek combat? I will give it to you!”

Jewelwolf responded in kind, though she still left her round, cloaked shield on her back. “You think you can—”

“Princesses!” boomed a voice, though it struggled to be heard over the sudden rumbling of the mountain. When the sound subsided, it was Rabten who continued to speak. “Princesses, hatred is the great enemy of humankind. We are in the lair of one who feeds upon that very emotion. Do you not sense it? The disorientation we felt, it brought us deeper into the power of the Bull Demon. We are more easily gripped by hate.”

Gaunt said, in as calm a voice as she could manage, “I suspected we'd pierced another veil of reality.”

Bone put in, “You know, I am coming to prefer my own mundane reality, with its bandits and sandstorms and ornery camels.”

“And its walking mummies,” Gaunt said, “and Leviathans and dragon horses?”

“Exactly! The everyday world.”

They chuckled together, and Gaunt studied the princesses. The mood had changed. They were backing away from each other.

Rabten said, “Even here in a realm of evil, the greatest foe is the fury we bring with us. Only tolerance of and patience with one another can challenge this threat. Be true, Karvak warriors, my daughters. Defeat the enemy called hate!”

Steelfox breathed in, breathed out, gaze focused not upon her sister but at some hidden horizon only she could see.

She sheathed her blade.

Jewelwolf said, “I am not your daughter. The man whose daughter I am would remove your head for speaking to me in this way.”

That said, she sheathed her blade as well.

Rabten bowed.

They continued up the passage.

Gaunt released a slow breath, took in air that tasted increasingly acrid. The hallway had the look of a natural lava tube, but as with the tunnel in Five-Toe Peak, Gaunt did not believe it. The thought made her glance at Snow Pine, whose own gaze alternated between the tunnel and Monkey's staff.

“Are you all right?” Gaunt asked.

“Yes . . . The staff seems skittish, excited by this place. And I'm seeing things . . . strands of chi flowing from place to place within this mountain. They're concentrated somewhere not far ahead. The staff feels more powerful now . . . I'm not sure I can command it.”

“You can,” said Flint. “I am regularly amazed by what you can accomplish, Snow Pine.”

“I . . . thanks.”

“We are here,” Rabten said.

Up ahead the passage opened onto the volcano's caldera, a space like a titanic, smoldering arena. Smoke rose up in scores of places from the rocks. There was lava here as well, bubbling up from a sort of natural cauldron on the left, flowing through the middle of the caldera and disappearing through a gash on the far right. Near the far wall were two deflated Karvak balloons.

In between lay an island, like the island of the Iron Moths. But unlike that vast dome of twisted stone, this island was dominated by single ruddy boulder the size of a keep.

Into it was carved the face of a ferocious bull.

Eyes that resembled enormous rubies blazed within the red stone.

“If I were not terrified,” Bone said to Gaunt, “I might imagine the two of us scrambling up the back of that thing, to creep over its head and claim the rubies.”

With a rumble, the visage's grin widened, revealing serrated ruby teeth the size of stalagmites. A deep tormented groan rose from the stone gullet.

“Or perhaps not,” he added.

“We can tell the story your way afterward,” she said.

The Bull Demon was not moaning at them. There was an encampment of round tents before it, and a score of robed individuals knelt or sat cross-legged beside them, as though waiting. They looked to be the Fraternity of the Hare. Two others held a captive between them, standing as close as they dared to the Bull Demon.

One of the captors was a member of the Fraternity.

The second, Gaunt saw with the plunging-balloon feeling, was Mad Katta.

Between them stood Chodak. It seemed to Gaunt the three were speaking to each other, but she could not make out the words.

The Bull Demon, however, she could hear. It spoke in what she suspected was the language of Xembala, in a rumbling, hissing voice like hot stones tossed into water.

“What does it say?” Gaunt asked the nun beside her.

“‘I am so cold,' it says,” the nun replied, as she made gestures against evil. “‘Let the high lama warm me.'”

“Where is the flying carpet?” Bone asked. “Where is Deadfall?”

“I do not see it,” Gaunt realized.

There was more talking. A voice was raised, a woman's voice, and Gaunt realized the robed figure helping secure the lama was the woman Bone had called Dolma. The Bull Demon roared back.

“The demon says, ‘You cannot bargain with me,'” the nun relayed. “‘I will promise nothing. With the high lama in my maw, the valley is mine to control.'”

More talk.

“Now the demon says, ‘You lost your right to bargain when you came to the place of my power. You may be able to resist the Charstalkers, but I have other servants.'”

And a great flapping arose, and unearthly shapes descended into the caldera. They were winged nightmares of dark metal, four-winged and dozen-legged, spikes covering their faces. The wings swirled with what might have been celestial symbols—comets, stars, nebulae. A red glow suffused them. There were perhaps a hundred, and they surrounded the tents.

“No,” Widow Zheng said.

The Bull Demon laughed.

The nun, her voice losing some of its composure, relayed, “‘My power waxes and the Iron Moths can no longer resist my Charstalkers. Give up the high lama, now. Slave Katta, lead her to me.'”

“We must stop this,” Gaunt said.

“We will,” said Rabten. He snapped orders in Xembalan, and his people rose. “Help us if you can, but this is our fight.”

The Xembalans rushed toward the Iron Moths and their lost leader.

Gaunt called to Steelfox and Jewelwolf. “You are the best archers we have. Can you each hit one of the Bull Demon's eyes?”

“Of course,” Steelfox said.

“But what point is there in that?” Jewelwolf said.

“Distraction,” Steelfox said.

Arrows flew and plinked off the giant rubies. The Bull Demon roared. The great boulder shifted and regarded the newcomers.

The distraction worked. The high lama broke free of Mad Katta, while Dolma seemed unwilling to keep her. Chodak ran beside the river of lava, chased by others of the Fraternity, but an Iron Moth got to her first. Rabten and two monks tackled the Moth, which rose into the sky to shake them off.

The three fell into the lava and were lost.

Gaunt watched, horrified. But Chodak was free and running toward them.

Bone was already sprinting to protect Chodak, as more Charstalker-possessed Iron Moths flew her way and robed figures continued to chase. All the other Xembalans were engaged with the Moths or the Fraternity. It was the foreigners' moment.

Gaunt said, “Archers, concentrate on the Fraternity. They're flesh. Snow Pine, I suspect you have the only weapon that can harm Iron Moths. Engage them. Haytham, Flint, Quilldrake, do what you can to guard the high lama.”

“I am willing,” Haytham said. “But where are Quilldrake and Flint?”

Steelfox heard her inventor ask the whereabouts of the treasure hunters, but she had no time to wonder at their absence. She picked off three of the Fraternity, then fired an arrow at the Charstalker-taken Iron Moth that now closed on the lama. This seemed to have no effect, nor did her sister's own arrow. They tried again, to no avail, although Steelfox did have the impression the creature noticed them and was angered.

It was like old times, in a way, when the sisters might have competed together in games of archery and riding. It had been too long since Steelfox had ridden a horse. It had been too long since she'd seen the steppes. Too long since she'd felt like a sister.

“Quit daydreaming,” Jewelwolf said. “Aim for the eyes.”

“Those are much smaller than the ones on the Bull Demon.”

“Always excuses.”

Steelfox hissed and fired. She hit an eye. Jewelwolf did likewise. The Moth, or perhaps the Charstalker within, seemed enraged. It bypassed the high lama and came directly toward the Karvaks.

Persimmon Gaunt shouted, “Northwing! Can you affect these creatures?”

“I will try . . .”

But before anything else could occur, Widow Zheng had walked into the Iron Moth's path, hands raised.

The Iron Moth paused.

“You know me,” Zheng said. “Or you know of me. I was Xia. I saved your ancestors. Do not harm my companions.”

The Iron Moth landed, halted, shook like a taut sail in a strong wind. The Charstalker blaze surrounding it grew brighter. Bit by bit the quivering Moth came closer to Zheng.

Northwing said, “I have it.”

The Moth fell, twelve legs flailing.

Jewelwolf aimed at it.

“Wait!” Steelfox said. “If the shaman has control, it could be a useful tool.”

“As you wish.” Jewelwolf shot instead at a member of the Fraternity headed toward the high lama. Steelfox followed suit.