The Silk Map (51 page)

“What are you, anyway?” Northwing asked. “I've been wanting to question you ever since I stepped aboard one of these blasted balloons. You're like no other spirit I've encountered.”

“
Shaman. You are the one form of meat I can respect. I will answer. We derive from the red veins of rock that line the northern slope. They lead to the crystalline forest that underlies the great desert.
”

“The Leviathan Minds' archive,” Bone heard Snow Pine say.

“The record of souls,” Liron Flint said.

“
For thousands upon thousands of years, the meat within reach of the desert has lived and died and been recorded within the crystals. Whether or not true reincarnation occurs for your kind, I cannot say. But under the influence of the Leviathan Minds' creation, a form of transmigration exists. Records of your minds flow within the great archive. Some minds find peace thereby, and some escape to be reborn. Others of us meditate upon the great cruelties of life and afterlife and shed the shackles of morality. We find our way through the veins of crystal that lead to the greatest of us, he who is chained within Bull-Demon Mountain, and who awaits the day of his escape.
”

“Why do I have the feeling,” Bone said, “the day of his escape will be a bad day for everyone else?”

“
Know this, meat. You will never leave Xembala in this life. Whether your stay ends in peace or in fire is your choice.
”

With that, Dolma leapt into the rocky stream. It seemed to Bone that the rocks would surely kill her, but the fiery nimbus blazed even in the waters' midst, regardless of the host body's fate. Soon the Charstalker was out of sight.

“Are you going to follow her, shaman?” Bone asked.

“The vulture in me wants to, but I think it might be unwise.”

“I think you're right. Yet I also think she will be back to haunt us.”

“‘Us.' Then you will join my employer?”

“For now.”

“Good. I will relay this.”

Bone swished his hand experimentally through Liron Flint's head. He mimed choking the treasure hunter, then kicking him. “Hm,” he said. “Northwing?”

“Yes.”

“Have any of you eaten the local food?”

“Not yet. I've advised against it. I'm guessing that to partake is to align one's self with the goddess of the valley.”

“You've guessed right. Which suggests I'll have some difficulty being your ally.”

“Nonsense. You'll be a perfect scout. You can encounter all the mysteries of the valley. Its people. Its magic. Its monsters. Meanwhile we will sip yak's milk and evaluate your performance.”

“You must be a valuable servant, shaman. Because I have a feeling Steelfox doesn't keep you around for your charm.”

The vulture's laughter was all the confirmation he needed.

One perquisite of being a ghost-scout, Bone reflected, was that they couldn't load him with extra gear. He could affect only a small amount of matter with origins outside the valley. He wondered if in time the expedition's possessions would shift into “his” reality, having absorbed sufficient dust, mist, pollen, and so on. He made a mental note not to inquire.

He led the group east along the southern cliffs. More and more often he caught glimpses of what seemed the very image of the lamasery spoken of by the Mad Mariner.

Steelfox agreed the sight was worth investigating. And moreover, Bone hoped Gaunt had escaped and was traveling there as well.

Outside of his conversations with Northwing, who followed him variously as vulture, hawk, panther, and bull, Bone was in company and yet alone. He could tell the others were uncomfortable with his present non-presence, yet in time they ignored the ignorable and began talking amongst themselves. He drifted close enough to hear Snow Pine and Flint.

“Perhaps you and I should speak,” Snow Pine said.

“What is there to speak about?” Flint said. “I am a traitor and a coward. That seems quite final.”

“I was angry.”

“You are not now?”

“No . . . I am still angry. Furious even. Yet I can see you had your reasons. You have wanted this journey for a very long time.”

“Since I was a boy.”

“Children forge iron chains for their grownup selves.”

“Is that what you think? I've walked in the light of Xembala for so long. It does not feel like a chain but like a lantern carried with me.”

“What does it point you to? Not loyalty, apparently. Not . . . friendship.”

“Part of the thrill of such a quest is not knowing just where it leads. Perhaps Xembala is paradise. Perhaps it is a trap. Perhaps it is, under the skin, much like any country, with good and bad mingled in endless hues. I am excited that I may soon know.”

“That's what it is for you, then. The knowledge. You're different from Quilldrake.”

“Quilldrake. Arthur is acting on a dream too, I believe, but it is not the wonderment of a child. It is the fancy of an aging man. He is not lit up from within but rather guided by a gleam from without.”

“The gleam of gold.”

“I think it is more than that. It's triumph. Accomplishment. A feeling that one's passage left a mark.”

“Is that what Bone feels, I wonder?”

“I would not know,” Flint said. “Do you not?”

“I do not truly understand him. His wife makes more sense to me. She loves her lost child, as I love mine. I think Bone loves his son too, but it is an abstracted thing. What he truly dotes upon is Gaunt. What she wants, he wants.”

Flint chuckled. “That, and gold.”

“Maybe for Quilldrake, people are a close second to gold, while to Bone it is the other way around.”

“Perhaps.” Flint paused. “I fear that for me, neither gold nor people are truly important. Only knowledge.”

“And that's why you sided with Steelfox?”

“That . . . and that this alliance seemed the most likely way of keeping you safe.”

“Oh.”

“I am fond of you. Surely you have seen this.”

“Fond of me? I thought people were of no matter to you.”

He chuckled. “I place you in a category different from ‘people.'”

She snorted. “There's never been anyone more ‘people' than me. I'm as common as mud.”

“I do not really believe that.”

“The followers of the Forest let everything wash over them, Liron. We call nature transitory, but we don't call it illusory. Sometimes, in all these well-meaning traditions—the Swan with her self-sacrifice, the Undetermined with his enlightenment, your Painter with its justice—I see little room for ordinary folk. With their ordinary itches and laughs and farts and songs. Everything must be high-minded and shining amongst the clouds. Only the Forest, in my experience, really acknowledges darkness and pain and shit and blood as things to understand, rather than things to abhor.”

“On behalf of all the world's other religions, I would gently suggest you are oversimplifying.”

“Heh. Probably. If you weren't a traitor I'd teach you about some dark simple things right now.”

Flint coughed. His gait slowed. The two fell behind the others a bit. Bone did as well.

A squirrel bit Bone's leg.

“Ow!”

“That's for eavesdropping.”

“That's uncalled for! I was just curious.”

“Said the duck who nested on the polar bear. Keep walking.”

Bone grumbled, but he did as instructed. The way remained rough. He'd seen no balloons except once, in the distance, two days before, but he remained cautious.

“I hope Snow Pine can find some solace,” Bone said. “Not sure about Flint, of course, but the alternative is Haytham—”

“Or you?” said the squirrel.

“I'm a married man!”

“I know all about ‘married men.'”

“You don't know me,” Bone said. “Haytham, now, he's not so bad, but regarding women he's rather shallow.”

“You know him well?”

“Not well. But once I became entangled in his schemes.”

“Do tell.”

“I think the terrain ahead becomes very challenging soon. I will abridge my telling. So, once, far away, I was paid to investigate Haytham's lodgings.”

“Steal from him, you mean.”

“No, and who is telling this story? But things went very wrong. A mummy grabbed me, one I realize now was akin to those beneath the desert. It smothered me into unconsciousness—”

“And you died.”

“Are you four years old, Northwing? Let me finish . . .”

THE TALE OF THE THIEF (TRULY), CONTINUED

I awoke within a brass prison smelling of old oil. Something about the working seemed sloppy to me, for while the chamber was oval in shape the actual contours were somewhat off. There was a straw mat and a chamber pot resembling an oversized thimble, and a drinking cup resembling a somewhat less oversized thimble.

A booming voice resonated within the chamber. “Aha! I knew it! You carry a bit of enchantment upon you, thus you can be sealed inside the lamp.” I recognized the voice as that of my target.

“Hello!” I called out. “Do I have the honor of speaking with the illustrious Haytham ibn Zakwan ibn Rihab, mighty among sorcerers?” I added the last because, mighty or not, it never hurts to butter up a magic-worker. (Of course, I know you would never be susceptible to such transparent flattery.)

“Indeed!” said the echoing voice. “Though you do not know me so well. I am no sorcerer, nor wizard, nor shaman, or whatever bizarre practitioner you might mistake me for. I am a natural philosopher.”

“I am afraid you have lost me.”

“On the contrary, sir, I have you thoroughly found. But as to natural philosophy. I study the ordinary workings of the world, such as any person of keen observation might glean. I lack any magical gift.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“Permit me to make a fine distinction, for it seems to me you might be among the few with wit to comprehend. This world has pockets of unbridled, ferocious creativity that are difficult to reproduce. Magic, we say. However, it primarily contains phenomena that are, given sufficient study, predictable. I investigate both matters, with an eye to improving human knowledge. What makes me different from a sorcerer is not just my lack of arcane gifts but my unwillingness to record transitory results. Instead I study processes that anyone with intelligence and the proper equipment might duplicate. Among these is the capture of magical beings.”

“So you make monster traps?”

“The process still eludes me. This is one of many vessels—bottles, urns, jars—prepared by the ancient king Younus, whom having once been devoured by a djinn in the shape of a whale, decided to return the favor. The vessels of Younus can trap a magical being upon the utterance of a command phrase. A given entity could only be pulled in thrice, however. This lamp was the abode of a djinn many years ago but was vacant until recently.”

“Do you not run a risk, telling me the lamp's limitations?”

“Not really, since keeping you is not a primary goal. I have caught you for a purpose, Imago Bone.”

“Oh?” In some ways it was less alarming to be a mere collector's piece. “I thought it was an accident.”

“No. Through a proxy I hired you to come here.”

“You could have sent an invitation.”

“You might have declined. Also, this way, you cannot appeal to the authorities.”

“What do you want with me?”

“I have been observing you for some time. In so doing I recognized that, while human, you are protected from mortal harm by a strong enchantment.”

“I do not deny it.”

“I have also noticed that you do fairly well in an area where my experiments tend to go awry.”

“Oh?”

The confident voice became shy. “You have a way with women.”

“Ah. Well. One does what one can . . .”

“As do we all. We do not all have your self-assured swagger, however.”