The Silk Map (23 page)

He woke from a dream in which he'd been a Mandarin of Qiangguo, prosperous enough in government service to maintain two wives, who happened to be Persimmon and Snow Pine. Rather than the idle fantasy this might have presented as a daydream, the vision was a frenetic nightmare of doubled to-do lists, contradictory criticisms of his garb and deportment, and endless struggles with home maintenance. “I am a monogamist for life,” he murmured on waking up.

The night was cold, and after the day's heat and the dream, he was disoriented for a time, sorting out here-and-now from then-and-nowhere.

The voices of the desert had returned.

You speak as a primitive. . . . There are no ultimate punishments and rewards, only processes . . .

You have limited understanding. . . .
Not
is a condition superior to life. It is purer. No hurt. No shame. No fear . . .

I see into your soul, decrepit boy. You've begun aging at last, yet you fritter away your moments impressing this foolish girl . . .

Freedom is ruin, and love's a lie, late or soon, all mortals die . . .

I want your end. I want you to perish, friendless, loveless, in cold despair . . .

Bone looked around to see if the others had heard anything.

That was when he realized they weren't there.

He turned this way and that and saw only empty, starlit desert. People and camels were gone. For that matter, so were the rocks. The rope that had connected him to his companions had vanished.

He peered this way and that but could see nothing.

He considered several possibilities.

First:
I am dreaming. Perhaps I might reconsider the dream of two wives after all.

Second:
All of my companions were lured away, and they took the rocks with them.

Third:
It is I who've been lured away, and I've only just come to my senses.

The third possibility seemed, alas, the most reasonable. No mimicking monsters revealed themselves, so he listened carefully for any hint of his camp.

Nothing.
Snore louder, Gaunt!
Still nothing. Gaunt would claim he was the louder snorer. Diabolical, then, that the evil forces had lured
him
.

Ah! Now he heard the voices of his colleagues. They sounded a trifle alarmed, and he thought he heard Gaunt call his name. He raised a foot—

But wait. Whatever had lured him this far might be luring him yet. He cupped his hands, turned away from the sound, and bellowed in the opposite direction.

Bone heard Master Sidewinder's voice, not in the desert but within his memory.
Night is when we work, and darkness is our friend. But evening betrays us in one important way. I believe sound travels farther in the nighttime. I do not know the reason for it. Something about the air, perhaps. And night is a quieter time, so anomalous noises are better noticed. Be soft of foot!

Now he heard something other than memory. The distant voices behind him began calling. He heard Gaunt's nearly inaudible cry of
Bone! Bone!

Yet closer at hand he heard a rough voice: “Bone? That you?”

It was Art Quilldrake.

Gaunt's voice was longed-for, Quilldrake's rather less so. However, under the circumstances, Bone was suspicious of what he most desired. He would take a chance with Quilldrake.

“How did you come to be out here?”

Quilldrake's voice answered, “I stumbled out here, as in a waking dream.”

“Rarely a wise idea.”

“How do I know you are Imago Bone, and not some apparition?”

“Alas, you do not! I am in the same predicament.”

“We don't know each other well enough to test each other with personal information . . .”

“There is something, however,” Bone said. “We're both men of the West. Perhaps the desert spirits are ill-informed of those lands.”

“Unless they're sifting our minds as we speak. Still . . . what is the Eldshore's capital?”

“Archaeopolis, of course. But we must do better than that.”

“I'm just warming up, young man. What are the three greatest treasures of the Bladed Isles?”

“The popular answer would be the spear, the axe, and the sword. The sagely answer would be the three main islands themselves, twisting together like embattled dragons.”

“And what would be the treasure hunter's answer?”

Bone smiled. “The sword Schismglass, the Great Chain of Unbeing, and the
Chart of Tomorrows.
”

“Tell me more,” Quilldrake said.

“You will speak of one,” Bone said, “and I of the next.”

“Very well. The Schismglass of Baelscaer is a blade of purest crystal from the lost Purple Moon. Within its violet blade dwell souls it's cleaved from their bodies. Unlike its rival, the sword Crypttongue from Mirabad, it does not preserve these essences intact but gradually feeds upon them. This induces desperation in the captive spirits, and more than once they've wrenched control from a would-be owner. As such it is perilous and is now believed to lie at the bottom of the sea.”

“Good,” said Bone. “Well, the location of the Great Chain of Unbeing is no mystery, for it links together the three Dragon Headlands, binding the arkendrakes of the Isles against any possibility of awakening—and tapping their power for use by the Runemarked King, should any again appear.”

“Excellent,” said Quilldrake. “The
Chart of Tomorrows
is a book of sea-maps scribbled by the Winterjarl, the wizard who claimed to have come from a future of infinite ice and snow. With it, one may sail through history, at the price of becoming a fated thing. It's rumored to have been lost in the desert with the expeditionary army of Nayne of the Eldshore, and that this is lucky for anyone who values causation.”

“Thank you,” said Bone with a bow. “I am provisionally convinced you are a flesh-and-blood treasure hunter consumed with ambition, rather than a desert nightmare consumed with bloodlust.”

“Likewise. Now . . . what are we to make of those calling for us?”

For,
Bone! Quilldrake! Bone! Quilldrake!
rode the voices on the night wind.

“If we walk directly away,” Bone mused, “and they're the genuine article, we will not encounter them unless we turn back. If we do stumble upon them, they're surely apparitions.”

“Reasonable, reasonable. This depends on our skill navigating by starlight, however. And if we fail, we may be lost in the desert for the rest of our short lives.”

“I concur,” Bone said. “Let's be off.”

They moved steadily away from the voices and did not encounter them for what seemed twenty minutes.

“I am pleased—” began Bone.

Bone! Quilldrake! Bone! Quilldrake!

“Gah,” said Quilldrake.

“Wait,” said Bone, cocking his head. “Those are not the same voices.”

Quilldrake
, came the sultry tones of a woman Bone was sure he'd never heard in his life.
Arthur Quilldrake, do you so easily shed the garments of power? Do you not miss me, here at the margins of the world?

“No,” Quilldrake said, though Bone was uncertain he spoke true.

“I advise you,” Bone said, “not to speak to these figments—”

Bone!
cried the second voice.
It really is you! Thank the Swan! I've searched the world for a means to restore your son. There is a way! Where is Gaunt? We must speak to her!

“You're not real, Eshe of Kpalamaa,” Bone said.

Is that any way to talk to an old friend? Listen, I cannot fault your caution. But the one with me is a sorceress who can help. She is how I reached this land.

She speaks the truth
, said the first voice. It broke into laughter.
Are you men so skittish, to run from two women's voices?

“You were right, Bone,” Quilldrake said, each word like a carefully planted footfall. “Let's turn back.”

“Yes . . .”

Father!

“No,” Bone said.

Father, they've almost freed me, but I'm like a ghost! I need your love, yours and Mother's, to step fully into this world.

“No,” Bone said, moving as quickly as possible back toward the original set of callers, Quilldrake keeping pace.

Father! Father, please!
The voice sounded as though it were just behind him.

Bone hesitated. Was he not the greatest of thieves?

Could he not steal a glance?

“I must see . . .” he whispered.

“Don't be a fool!” Quilldrake hissed. “I know not your son's story, but he surely could not be here.”

“Have you no children? Do you not
know—
”

“I have children. Do not, Bone.”

Father!

Quilldrake grabbed Bone's arm; Bone kicked and charged away up a dune. He tumbled down the other side, rose, rushed toward the boy's voice. But he saw no one. Now Quilldrake's was one of the voices that seemed to assault him from three directions,
Bone, Bone, Bone. . . .
He kept running, searching.

The moonlight intensified, and something tinkled beneath his pounding feet. He halted.

Crystalline growths rose all around him in indistinct, spindly shapes, like distorted trees or frozen lightning strokes. The air around him hummed.

Father, Father, Father
, the wind droned.

Something told him to run, and it was his own voice this time. Yet he could not.

His feet were rooted to the sands, embedded in a layer of moonlit crystal.
Bone, Bone, Bone
, the growths seemed to tinkle, and in that light they almost seemed to be bones indeed, first toe-bones, then ankle-bones, and, with a rapidity that mirrored the deepening timbre of the sound, leg bones . . .

Gaunt's first awareness of trouble was awakening to find Widow Zheng battling Snow Pine and Flint.

Gaunt blinked, murmuring, “What . . .”

“Release me, grandchildren! I've lived on the edge of this desert for twice your lifetimes!”

“No!” said Snow Pine, trying to pin Zheng's arms.

“You're being lured,” said Flint, dodging the widow's kicks, “to your death.”

“My husband is out there, and I will find him!”

Gaunt looked for her own husband and did not see him. “Bone? Bone!”

“He's gone!” Snow Pine said. “So's Quilldrake. Help us!”

“Ha!” said Zheng. “Help yourself!” Her next kick landed upon a scroll she'd kept by her bedroll.

The scroll unrolled and crinkled and puffed outward, as though punched. Glowing blue characters rose forth, proclaiming the proverb
Water can float a boat, and sink it too
.

And a flood burst from the brush-strokes in the air.

It was as if the logograms were really holes in reality, leading to some sunlit place just below the surface of an ocean. Gaunt thought the effect beautiful, before it knocked her off her feet.

She found herself toppled beside Snow Pine and Flint, drenched, salty, sandy. She rose, swore, and spat.

The magic was gone, and so was Zheng.

In the moonlight Gaunt spotted footprints leading away from the calligrapher's bedroll.

“She can't have gotten far,” Gaunt said. “And I'd wager wherever she's going, Bone and Quilldrake have gone too.” She pulled her boots on.

“We're with you,” Snow Pine said.

“No,” Gaunt said. “Change your clothes—exposure.” The magically transported water was still warm, but in the desert night it would chill fast. She shed her robe; the thieving outfit beneath was damp as well, but less so. Snatching up her bow she said, “I'll drop coins to mark the way.”

“Good luck,” called Flint behind her.

Gaunt ran. The cold awakened her senses to a keen edge.

Under the moon she glimpsed a shape upon the sands. She caught up with Widow Zheng even as she heard voices on the wind.

 

I, an evil, will prevent a greater evil . . .

“Forgive” is a weakling's word . . .

You forsook the glory of voice and memory . . .

Man's for devouring, not for loving . . .

This woman loves you, Bone, just enough . . .

“Zheng! Stop!”

“Let me go! Do you not hear him?”

Gaunt . . . Gaunt . . .

“My husband, Gaunt! My husband's voice!”

“That is exactly why you must resist—and I. We're being lured to our dooms.”

Mama . . . Mama . . .

“No,” Gaunt said.

“You
do
understand,” Zheng said. “I can see it. If some part of him has survived, I must go to him.”

“He will not be here. Any more than my son is here.”

Mama!

At Gaunt's words a tremor crossed Zheng's face. “Your son?”

“He is lost.”

“I—I lost a son too. He fought the Karvaks . . .” Zheng looked around at the desert, seeing it anew.

“I am sorry. My son lives. Or so I may hope. But he's trapped in a faraway place.”