1633880583 (F)

by Chris Willrich

  “He is waiting,” said a voice.

  The speaker appeared to be a big, gray-haired man from Qiangguo dressed in a birch bark hat; a stained, tattered robe; and wooden shoes. He had the look of someone who spent many days out of doors, and probably some nights as well. As ever he looked familiar and not. While his body looked much as Gaunt had known it, his eyes always looked as though they’d seen lifetimes pass between visits.

  “Hello, Sage Painter,” Gaunt said. Bone waved.

  “Ah, that title belongs to one long dead,” came the rumbling voice, speaking as though repeating music heard from a far-off peak. “What is the use of it? I am but his self-portrait.”

  “You are welcome company, friend,” Bone said, “whatever you are.”

  “Indeed, it’s good to see you,” Gaunt said.

  “Strange. You are each so shaped by the other. Yet until now I don’t think I’ve ever encountered you on the same path.”

  Bone looked at Gaunt; she took his hand and smiled. It occurred to her he’d spent considerable time within the scroll while it lay lost in a mountain valley. “We do keep busy,” Bone said. “So Walking Stick’s expecting us, eh?”

  “Every life has its know-it-alls, and you go now to meet one. You will find him at the top of the pagoda. Everything is up and down, right and wrong, with that one. Meantime my way lies rambling in the woods and shadows, far from trouble.”

  Gaunt said, “You will not join us?”

  Bone said, “Surely he is still not so bad?”

  “My words are all bird-chirps to him, and I don’t speak his language.” He clapped and chuckled. “But the mountain is large.” He sighed, though his eyes retained their bright mischief. “Even so, I wish I might look at the outer world from your flying craft, see the land stretch far below, no kitchen smoke for many li, unknown mountains and waterfalls, cries of monkeys and roars of tigers.”

  “I wish there was a way to arrange it,” Gaunt said. “But if we see you later I’ll tell you all about the land.”

  “I would like that, poet. And now crazy Meteor-Plum walks his tangled way. And tangled Gaunt and Bone walk their crazy way. Farewell!”

  They watched him descend the mountain path. In an unnervingly short time, he was a tiny figure. Gaunt wondered about his musings. Al-Saqr did get visitors from the scroll. If one wished to see the wider world, the view from a balloon offered a fine opportunity. Many of the monks accepted the invitation, though many others, including their leader Leaftooth, declined. Gaunt wondered if some of the monks were, like the self-portrait of the Sage Painter who’d created the scroll, aspects of the scroll itself and unable to leave. If so, she thought it might be impertinent to say so.

  One individual who was decidedly not an aspect of the scroll was Walking Stick.

  “Well, Bone, our crazy way beckons. Shall we?”

  “Doesn’t it ever. Let’s!”

  It was often bright and sunny here, but always cold, especially when the wind picked up. The path bore into shadow and out into sun, making rough lurches and plunges into icy streams. Birds conducted their endless conversations about territory, mates, bugs, and humans. More and more, wind slapped the visitors until they lost the cover of trees and beheld a monastery sheltered and perforated by a hardy grove, framed by neighboring mountains, backed by distant mountains, embellished by remote mountains.

  They were welcomed by a monk and taken upstairs for tea. Walking Stick sat cross-legged in the midst of what could have been considered a solarium, except that rather than windows the chamber had crumbled portions of wall. Mountains and mists stretched in every direction.

  “Ah, good,” he said, rising. “Now that we can speak at our ease—”

  Gaunt slapped him. Before that moment she wasn’t certain what she would do. She might have spat. She might have laughed. The move was so sudden even Bone was surprised. Walking Stick surely could have blocked or evaded, but his only reaction was to narrow his eyes.

  Gaunt folded her arms. “That is for my son. If you hadn’t tried to abduct me when I was pregnant, none of this would have happened.”

  Walking Stick took a deep breath before answering. “You speak truly. Yet worse things might have happened.”

  “Such are the apologies of Walking Stick.”

  Bone said, “He has paid, in a way. He has been stuck in the scroll, unable to resume his former life.”

  “I dedicated myself to the education of your son,” Walking Stick said.

  “Taught him,” Gaunt said, “in the manner of your Garden.”

  “Why would I not give him the best?” Walking Stick gestured toward one of the walls’ ruined sections. “However, if it reassures you, know that the monks of the Forest have also instructed him. They have a . . . different approach.”

  Gaunt looked out at swirling clouds. She sighed. “I never thought I would say so, but perhaps it is not entirely bad you were exiled with him. He was left with few friends.”

  Bone said nothing.

  Walking Stick bowed. “I fear he would not consider me one such. Yet I tried to make him an honorable man.”

  “I suppose he couldn’t follow me in everything,” Bone said.

  “You may joke about your larcenous ways, Imago Bone. But I do hope for better for your son.”

  “You mean, you still hope to make him emperor of Qiangguo.”

  Walking Stick said, “That was long ago, from my perspective. I have dwelled with monks of the Forest. Some of their mad philosophy may be rubbing off. If Innocence Gaunt rejects the power of Qiangguo, so be it. Yet I hope to persuade him it’s yet a worthy goal, to cherish and protect the greatest of the world’s lands.”

  “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 o
f 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.”