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“He seems to have his own ideas,” Gaunt said.

“He is young,” Walking Stick said.

“Would that he were younger,” Gaunt mused.

“Age, if accompanied by experience, is to be welcomed. I hope to become much older yet, for clearly I have much to learn. But . . . you don’t mourn his maturity, do you, Persimmon Gaunt? You regret that you were not there beside him. Now he has that chance—and he has rejected you. That is not right. He is prideful, quarrelsome, insubordinate. Even you, thief, do not deserve such treatment. He dishonors you and my teaching. If only for this alone, I must seek him out.”

“Is that why you wished to speak with us?” Bone said. “For our blessing to travel with us? As far as I’m concerned, you and the scroll are Snow Pine’s business now.”

Gaunt nodded. “We may not like you, Walking Stick, but if she tolerates you, we tolerate you. But try to abduct my son again, and . . . well. You have seen that we are determined people.”

Bone took her hand.

Walking Stick said, “That is one of two reasons I wished to speak to you. I do want to find Innocence again. And I want you to find him as well. He’s less likely to become a threat to Qiangguo if his parents can influence him. Such is my first reason.”

“And your second?” Gaunt said.

“You have an unusual artifact in your possession, do you not?”

Without thinking about it, Gaunt found her fingers brushing the bejeweled pommel of the saber sheathed over her back. It unnerved her to find herself caressing the magical weapon. “Crypttongue? I’ll have you know I prefer not to use the thing. I’ve released all its captured spirits.”

“That is important to you, is it not? That you gain no benefit from this murderous thing. You’ve killed, poet. And you fear you will cross the invisible line between one who has had to kill, and one who is a killer. Or at any rate, you hope such a line exists.”

“Be careful, Walking Stick,” Bone said.

“And you,” Walking Stick said, “you fear what you have done to her. You are a lost creature, but she had other destinies, before you lured her onto your path. You fear Crypttongue even more than Persimmon Gaunt does. For it represents everything you hope she won’t become.”

“Do you want the thing, then, Walking Stick?” Gaunt said, drawing the sword.

She let it clatter at her feet. In the vibration of metal against stone, she imagined she heard a keening, yearning quality.

“Why give it to me?” Walking Stick said. “It was Liron Flint’s weapon before it was yours.”

“Flint has many intuitions about Crypttongue,” Bone said. “One is that it chooses new owners. Flint does not think it a good idea to have it back.”

“Likewise,” Walking Stick said, “I would not take it, even were my fighting style a match. Enough. I had reason to question your relationship to the sword, but any concerns I had are answered.”

Gaunt hesitated before reclaiming and sheathing the weapon. “Are you quite satisfied?”

“No. Because that was not the artifact I was speaking of. There is a book in your possession that discusses the Bladed Isles, is there not? You acquired it in faraway Qushkent, and since traveling to the West you have kept it here, in this monastery.”

Gaunt and Bone looked at each other. By wordless agreement, Gaunt told the truth. “How did you know?”

“Do not blame Abbot Leaftooth; I have been ferreting out truth on the Empire’s behalf for decades. He does not even know that I know. I’ve had considerable time to ask leading questions and shadow his movements. I know the book you possess is known as the
Chart of Tomorrows
, or the
Carta Postrema
, or even more colorfully as the
Drakkenskinnen
, after the origins of its bright leather.”

“Then perhaps you know its danger,” Gaunt said. “We still don’t know who gave it to us in Qushkent, nor why, but perhaps it was meant never to be used. For if we can believe the book, it shows how to alter history.”

“Causality may be an illusion,” Bone said, “like free will, true love, and the perfect heist. But I prefer to live in a world where such things can at least be dreamt of.”

“And if the
Chart of Tomorrows
speaks true,” Gaunt said, “then the future can alter the past, and effect precede cause. Such a power dwarfs the little dangers posed by a magic sword, or an efrit, or a flying craft. That is why we brought it here for safekeeping.”

“Will you respect that decision?” Bone asked. “Or will you try to make Qiangguo an empire that spans time?”

“Peace,” said Walking Stick. “We need no such power. As I understand it the
Chart
spends considerable verbiage on the Bladed Isles. It is that knowledge I wish, not power over time. I need to know all I can, for A-Girl-Is-A-Joy’s sake. You have seen the mark upon her hand.”

“It’s hard to trust you,” Gaunt said, who had seen the Runemark in two places, on Joy’s hand and within the
Chart of Tomorrows
.

“It’s my price, then, for helping find Innocence.”

“Is that how it is?” Bone said. He looked at Gaunt and shrugged.

Gaunt nodded. “Very well. Perhaps we’ve had our fill being the keepers of dread magical things.”

Before honoring Walking Stick’s request, she and Bone took full advantage of the accelerated time flow, for a night of lovemaking within the scroll would be negligible from
Al-Saqr
’s point of view. They also got drunk on rice wine and played weiqi, though Bone kept getting the rules confused with chess. Crowded as the monastery was, it was like a palace compared to the gondola of the balloon.

Refreshed, Gaunt and Bone awaited Walking Stick’s return in the upper chamber. Today was as bright as yesterday had been misty, and the blazing sunlight seemed to belie any thoughts of murky islands, dragon-prowed ships, fire, and doom. Far in the distance, unreachable miles away, a coiling, green-blue female dragon soared among the Peculiar Peaks. Such were seen now and again, but never had anyone here spoken with one. It seemed the Sage Painter had put no male dragons into the world of the scroll. Mating dragons produced conflagrations. Gaunt was thankful the conflagrations of human love remained metaphorical. Mostly.

Walking Stick arrived with A-Girl-Is-A-Joy and Snow Pine.

Gaunt patted a stool beside her. Joy sat. “Walking Stick said something about a book?”

“Look here.”

Gaunt showed Joy a tome bound in white leather. To see its spine and upper-left cover was to believe it a work of recent vintage, but on closer inspection it seemed weathered, damaged, ancient.

Yet the wear and tear had a peculiar aspect. Beginning from the spine and upper left the book seemed new, yet scuffing, creasing, and flaking increased as one looked toward the lower right. Flip the book over, and one would see worse afflictions moving from the lower-left corner to the upper right. The back cover was ragged and peeling. In the upper-right quadrant it was shedding a red powder resembling rust.

That much was odd in itself. But Gaunt had the strong impression that the exact pattern of ravages—a cut here, a flake there—changed each time she beheld it.

Likewise, the early leaves of the book seemed freshly penned but looked progressively aged as one turned pages. The middle section had the faded but intact look of parchment preserved in dry air. The back section was a catalog of ruin, with some pages buckled, curled, and torn, others shrunken, molded, or burnt. And as with the cover, Gaunt had the impression that the collection of strange maps and writing changed subtly each time she looked. Coastlines changed shape; little islands appeared and disappeared. Different scripts combined within the
Chart
. . . ancient runes mingled with the flowing calligraphy of Mirabad and the vertical script of the Karvaks. The proportions were ever-changing.

She had some experience with dangerous books. She feared this one.

“So what is it?” Joy said.

Gaunt opened the book to a set of writings that looked like neat collections of twigs.

Joy frowned. “Those are runes of the Bladed Isles. Walking Stick’s told me enough to help me recognize them, but I can’t read them. They don’t use runes there anymore, he said.”

Bone said, “I believe he’s mostly right. This is an old book.”

“I can only read some of this,” Gaunt said, “and then with uncertainty. But this is the
Chart of Tomorrows
.” She turned the page, and there was a map.

Joy peered closer. “What is that place?”

Walking Stick snorted. “It’s a map of the world, in which the Bladed Isles are shown in detail, and everything else becomes increasingly simplified and distorted as one travels east or south. I assure you, the maps made by the Eunuch Admiral of Qiangguo are much more reliable.”

The map was indeed more detailed in the West, for Gaunt could recognize the island groups there. Tiny red runes marked a spot on the Contrariwise Coast, and another at Swanisle.

Gaunt flipped to another page of runic text, then another map, this time of the Bladed Isles in the upper-left corner and Swanisle in the lower right. More places marked in red runes began appearing. The one at Swanisle was clearly in the north of that land. There were a few in the sea between, and many in and around the Bladed Isles.

“This,” Gaunt said, “is a book of maps assembled by a wizard known only as the Winterjarl. Though it seems he had several coauthors. He claimed to have come from a future of infinite ice and snow, but he escaped backward through the years.”

“Backward through the years?” Snow Pine put in. “What the hell does that even mean?”

“You have seen,” said Walking Stick, “how time can flow at different speeds in two realms, like a rushing river beside a gentle stream. Now imagine leaving the flow of your river, backtracking along the land, and returning to the river at a place upstream. If this is possible with time, one might visit people long dead and places long vanished.”

Gaunt flipped a page. Now the Bladed Isles’ northernmost island, Spydbanen, was shown in detail, several red markings on its coast. “What this book claims is that a person with the proper understanding can use the marked locations to sail through time. Now, why the Winterjarl says ‘sail’ when many of the spots are inland, I don’t know. I’m not one of the people with understanding.”

“How did you get this book?” Joy said.

“Oddly enough,” Bone said, “it was a gift. Someone with knowledge of us left it for us in the days when we sought the Silk Map. We do not know whom.”

“A big coincidence,” Snow Pine said.

“The kind of coincidence I have trouble believing,” Gaunt agreed. “But that’s a mystery for another time.” She turned more of the pages, seeking a particular spot. Even with the changeable nature of the book, she was becoming familiar with the place she wanted. “So. There are multiple languages here, and I confess there is much I can’t read. But I’ve made progress with the runes. The Winterjarl rambles about many aspects of the isles. Trolls. The underground uldra. The vortex of the Draugmaw. And . . .” Gaunt found the image of a hand marked with a rune resembling three intertwined lengths of chain, glossed by more runes yet.

“That’s my mark!” Joy said. Her eagerness turned to accusation. “You knew this was here? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Right,” Snow Pine said. “What Joy said. Why?”

“I’ve been unsure what the runes say,” Gaunt said, looking away. “I didn’t want to worry you. But it’s best you know. ‘The Runethane is the land’s, and the land is the Runethane’s. In the time of the land’s need, the Runemarked King will arise and command the energies of the Great Chain of Unbeing, which captures the power of the three sleeping dragons. He who bears the Runemark will live for the land, and die for the land, and so long as the Chain remains he will never leave.’”

“And you didn’t think this was something Joy should know?” Snow Pine said. “How many other magic dooms are you hiding?”

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Joy said with a stifled laugh. “All that applies to a ‘he.’ Obviously, I’ll be just fine.”

Bone sighed. “I’m sorry. We should have said something sooner.”

Gaunt added, “But I’m still unsure of the translation.”

“What about the runes on my hand?”

“I think,” Gaunt said, “they say, ‘Staraxe, Sunblade, Moonspear.’”

“Let me guess,” Joy said, her laugh gone. “The names of dragons?”

“Possibly. And the runes weave through a representation of the Great Chain, a vast construction at the heart of the isles.”

“Then that’s where I have to go.” There was something in Joy’s face recalling misty cliffs and lonely winds. “After we find Innocence.”

“You can’t go,” Snow Pine said. “You heard Gaunt. You’ll be trapped there.”

Joy raised her hand. “Maybe I’m already trapped. I have to know why that distant land chose me. Me! Teach me everything you can.”

CHAPTER 4

STORM

“Smoke,” Haytham said, peering through the brass spyglass.

They had approached the mountain city-state of Loomsberg on a sunny, clear winter’s morning, the fields and copses of trees rushing below under a bright dusting of snow. Bone had jostled with his companions for a look out the portholes, until Haytham ordered them to take turns to preserve the ger’s balance. Now he crossed his arms and rubbed his feet together beside the scornful-looking efrit. He’d been looking forward to city pleasures. And not just any city, but a wondrous place where humans, goblins, and the mountain-delven coexisted and built marvelous contraptions. Some, like the waterwheel and the windmill, could work anywhere. Others, like the steam calliope, tended to break down elsewhere, for reasons esoteric to him. Nonetheless, some of Loomsberg’s stranger wonders were both portable and able to persist for months, and he’d lain awake while
Al-Saqr
shifted in the wind, thinking of marvelous items they might buy.