The Silk Map

by Chris Willrich

  Down a shadowed gorge with wisteria webbed—

  As haunted a scene as any dreamer sick with wonder

  Rising slick with sweat from troubled slumber

  Might snatch from tides of nightmare lately ebbed—

  As fraught as any eve I’ve tossed

  Since first I shot the albatross!

  Yet Aleph called from beyond the fields we know

  And I followed its flow to the dark below

  Whence it brought that scent of golden pear

  And snatched the voice from fountains fair

  And carried dreams into the dark

  Brooding under a mountain gray and stark

  Washing a forge of demon-fires

  And quenching weapons of living iron.

  It was a monument drear and dire

  A pitiless summit with caves like pyres!

  And from that cacophonous smoking tomb

  John heard intimations of his doom.

  A maiden in a cheongsam

  In delirium I pursued

  Her dress a shimmering map

  Torn to quiver and flap

  As she fled through desert ruins.

  I tore not the qipao

  Nor drove her thus away

  And if I could embrace her now

  So with valor cold and brave

  I would face that demon on the heights!

  I would rise with brave endeavor!

  But the albatross will not take flight

  And in my dreams it screeches, Never! Never!

  Xia’s dying breath! John’s burning fever!

  And we are all as on a darkling river.

  So flee the demon of the forge

  For he on fairy fruit has gorged

  And scorched the fountains of forever.

  “An eerie tale,” Snow Pine said.

  “A flimsy lead,” Bone noted.

  “Perhaps not,” Gaunt said. “That word ‘qipao’—I don’t think it’s current in the West, where such dresses are indeed known as cheongsams. Perhaps the Mad Mariner did indeed glean information from dreams.”

  “Some details match other tales we’ve heard,” Snow Pine said. Bone grunted.

  Quilldrake’s expression reminded Gaunt of a bird watching the morning soil. “Whether you believe it or not, Imago Bone, my associate and I do indeed think there’s a true Xembala. That within it rises a fiery mountain, home to a colony of Iron Moths long separated from Qiangguo’s. That in some manner an ironsilk dress was fashioned there, showing the way. That it was torn into fragments and scattered. And that if the Silk Map could ever be reassembled, one could find the way to that mysterious land—and to its treasure.”

  “It seems we’re pursuing much the same goal,” Gaunt said. “Which worries me. It seems too much of a coincidence that you, we, and those charming people in black are all seeking the same thing, at the same time.”

  “I know little of all of you,” Quilldrake said, “but Liron Flint and I have pondered the Silk Map for years. I came upon this fragment far to the west, under circumstances I prefer not to relate. I kept it, for it has its obvious benefits beyond the cartographic. When I teamed up with Flint I came to learn that Xembala’s tantalized him since his youth. But despite other successes, Xembala’s remained out of reach. Only a few weeks ago did we hear of a discovery in Shahuang that could point the way to a lost fragment.”

  “And news travels fast,” Bone said. “Our friends in black know too, I’d assume.”

  “We’ll be lucky,” Quilldrake said, “if they are the only opposition. Across these lands there may be several parties with their own fragments, all hoping that this long-lost piece will grant the information they need. And as we’ve seen, some may be delighted to eliminate their competitors. We dare waste no time.”

  Quilldrake patted his ironsilk patch. “So there you have it. The four winds have blown us together. Flint the explorer wants the glory of discovering Xembala. I want the glory of the world’s greatest loot. We have lacked only personnel mad enough to join us in this venture. I suggest that whatever your plans, you depart the Jade Gate with me and accompany me until we can find Flint.”

  “Art,” Gaunt said, “make yourself comfortable in our lodgings, as it’s unwise for you to return to your own. We’ll enjoy the Market and return with dinner and our answer.”

  “Most generous,” Quilldrake said.

  “If we’re wrong,” Snow Pine said once they stood within the babbling anonymity of the Market, “if this is a distraction from our true hunt, then we will waste weeks wandering the desert.”

  “We must stick together, Snow Pine,” Gaunt said, putting her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “That’s not fate, but intuition. We chase a legend, on behalf of a legend. The only thing I trust here, really, is our friendship.”

  Bone sighed. “I also. I am stirred more than I can say by all this talk of treasure and lost lands. But we have lost too much, Gaunt and I. We would not part now with a friend.”

  Snow Pine looked to the sky. The morning star shone dimly to the northwest, just over the city wall. “Village people,” she mused, “have superstitions that the morning star will kill parents if not properly venerated. I don’t venerate anything . . . but I’ll take this as an omen. It may be that I should trust this encounter.” She shut her eyes. “We’ll go with Quilldrake.”

  “You want a piece of jade? Well, we got ’em! Gift? Luck charm?”

  “Luck charm,” Snow Pine said, looking at the morning light glinting off the milky green. “I’m going far away.”

  “Far away, girl? You a princess being married off to some horse-lord?” The merchant laughed at his own joke.

  “No, I’m already married. I just want to remember where I’m from. How about the monkey?”

  “You’re Year of the Monkey?” The merchant chuckled again as he placed it in her hands. “I’m Year of the Dragon. Great match! Too bad you’re married.” He quoted a price.

  She haggled. He reminded her a little of her lost husband, in fact, in his cheerful, unabashed greed. She was inclined to go easy on him, but in the end she said, “Ah, I have to wrap it up quick, my husband will come looking. He’s a soldier, and he gets grumpy if I don’t meet him on his break.”

  The merchant quickly reached a fairer price. Business concluded, he said, “Your husband’s a soldier, but you’re shopping here, not at the Eastern Market? Trying to get to know the West? He getting posted up the road in the Final Fort? Trouble with the Karvaks?” A knowing, calculating look filled his eyes. “There is, isn’t there? I’ve heard tell their fleets are on the move. Big gathering. The kind that leads to wars.”

  This was how rumors began, Snow Pine thought, with people daydreaming they were better-informed than others. But that wasn’t her problem. She thanked the man and moved on.

  In the gray light she could see the diversity of temples bordering the Market, rubbing shoulders with the inns, stables, smithies, apothecary shops, scriveners’ offices, and the like. The shrines of the Undetermined were dark now, for their devotees had been up late with image-washing. There was a mosque for worship of the All-Now, built in the manner of a pagoda, and the followers of the Testifier were up early for prayers. There was a temple of the Nightkindlers, something she’d heard of but had never seen: a tapering tower of black wood, with a mosaic of bright stones in a semicircle at the top, rays from this symbolic sun, or moon, or star, reaching deep into the night. At this hour the temple was dark, but the door was open, and the dawn was creeping in.

  There was a temple to the proliferation of Southern gods known often as the Million or One, for despite their diversity as to numbers of limbs (two, four, a dozen), and manner of heads (beautiful, elephantine, monstrous), and aspect (beatific, sensual, fierce), they were said to all hearken back to one primal source. And here and there stood temples to various personages important to Qiangguo—the Grand Marshal in Charge of Time and the Calendar, the Old Men Who Dispense Longevity and Happiness, the Queen of
the Sky, and many others. She saw no temple to the Swan Goddess, and Snow Pine realized anew just how far her friend Persimmon had traveled. Imago Bone was mostly indifferent to gods, though sometimes she saw him toss offerings to anyone in charge of luck.

  She touched her new monkey charm; she’d made her own provision for luck and now was looking for something else.

  Her feet took her to the temple of the Queen of the Sky. It was not a big structure, more for private observance than for public worship. Snow Pine entered and looked up at a statue of the Queen, who was said to dwell near the polestar. Outside there was a contraption like a stylus upon a pivot, a bed of sand beneath. The lightest touch would allow one to draw a line.

  As she inspected the device, two temple officiants in red appeared and bowed. “Do you wish to contact a god?” said the older one. “Or perhaps the dead?”

  “The dead,” she said, offering a coin.

  “Grip the stylus here. The two of us will help summon the correct vibrations.”

  Snow Pine could imagine Imago Bone rolling his eyes. Perhaps it was foolish. It was a temple offering however, so maybe there was merit in it. And sometimes the messages received in this fashion were strangely apt.

  She framed a question in her mind. What would you have me do, Flybait? Do I follow this mad quest?

  The stylus swished. When she removed her hand, a logogram meaning Acceptance lay in the sand.

  “It seems your departed wishes you to be at peace,” said the older officiant.

  “Peace?” Snow Pine kicked the sand.

  “Hey!” said the younger officiant.

  “I have not walked across half of Qiangguo to look for peace! Up yours, dead husband! Be useful next time! Don’t expect me to talk for a while!”

  The officiants looked as if they’d just seen an angry spirit as they retreated into the temple.

  “Perhaps you should be forgiving,” said a nearby voice. “I’ve heard that such functionaries sometimes suggest their own messages. And suppose you really have reached the one you seek? Perhaps he merely wishes you well.”

  Snow Pine was unnerved to find a man beside her. He was strange even by the standards of the Western Market: a white-robed, hulking fellow whose face was concealed by a shroud, as though hiding some disfigurement. He bore a walking stick and many silver charms around his neck. There was something unnerving about his posture. Perhaps he was a hunchback.

  His girth troubled her as well; it seemed to shift and quiver at times, although the man’s boots and gloves stayed still. It was as though the morning wind had singled him out.

  “This is between me and a dead man,” Snow Pine said.

  The man bowed. “That is fair. Then I ask that you be forgiving of me. I have taken an interest in you since the disturbance of yesterday. I have accosted you in order to give you advice.”

  “All right, you’re here. Go on.”

  “Quilldrake and Flint are known to me. We are engaged in a similar enterprise, one might say. They are not what I would call honorable people. I warn you not to trust them. And yet, if you must travel with them, they will lead you where you need to go.”

  Snow Pine snorted. “A cryptic warning from a mysterious stranger! My morning is complete!”

  “What is so mysterious? I am merely an old traveler offering advice.”

  “Ha. Old men of my acquaintance always want to swat youngsters or lecture them.”

  “I suppose I am lecturing you, at that. You seem like one far from home, cut off from her origins, and thus you remind me of me. You have a contradictory nature. You have lost something dear. Perhaps more than one thing. It might be better to let go. But you and your companions do not let go of anything easily, do you? Beware of them, too—for I see in your friends the mark of madness.”

  Snow Pine looked far away to where Gaunt and Bone sat silently at their breakfast. “Give me your name,” she said. “I don’t trust people without names.”

  “I could conjure a name out of the illusion we call thin air. Would that make me more trustworthy?”

  “Indulge me.”

  “Dorje. Think of me as Dorje. And think of my advice as a gem to pocket, a cheap one perhaps, but one that will sparkle in the right light. Let its rough edges nag at you until that moment comes. Follow Quilldrake and Flint. Do not trust them. That is all.”

  Dorje bowed and walked into the crowd. For such a heavy-looking man, she thought, his robe billowed over-much, and his steps were light.

  She patted her luck charm. These were not the answers she’d sought. However, they would do.

  For now.

  “You look guilty,” Captain Sun told Imago Bone in the cool morning interlude before the Jade Gate opened. The ward doors of the thoroughfare leading from Market to gate had swung wide with the first direct sunlight, and by now the street was full of camels and horses and wagons, and babbling travelers garbed for the desert sun, and chattering locals trying to sell the travelers one last thing, and boxes of red peppercorns, ginger, salt, and medicinals, and padded bags filled with porcelain cups and jade figures, and clothing embellished with cicadas and dragons—and outnumbered guards trying to rope this snorting, many-headed beast of commerce with the brittle twine of authority.

  Bone smiled at Sun, glad he wasn’t him. “Being interrogated makes me feel that way.”

  “If you think this is an interrogation, you’re more naive than you look. Well, you may be innocent of wrongdoing in Yao’an. But you’re surely guilty of something.”

  “That describes all men.”

  “Do you have a problem with authority, outlander?”

  “No; I enjoy authority.”

  Captain Sun grunted. “You are fortunate. All of you. Under other circumstances I might have to detain you. But we’ve gotten word that the Protector-General’s chief assistant has died in mysterious circumstances. Smothered in a locked room! He was accounted a wicked man, but no matter. Magistrates and guards will be busy with this; no one wants to hear about trouble in the Western Market.”

  “We will leave immediately!” Quilldrake said. “We simply have a few more items to gather . . .”

  “I am surprised,” Bone said, “given this murder, you are not sealing the gates.” He winced as Gaunt stepped on his foot.

  Sun shook his head. “They assume it is a city insider, someone who hopes to gain advantage by the death, and thus one who wouldn’t announce his guilt by fleeing. The killer also stole an item of art—I know not what, but they say it’s bulky and would be difficult to transport. And the Protector-General’s not about to lose face by publicly acknowledging the crime. Thus you may leave, but not just yet, for you must wait for . . . ah, she is here.”

  Widow Zheng must indeed have powerful clients, Bone realized, and have claimed favors. For there was the lady herself, outfitted to travel and leading a shaggy two-humped camel laden with supplies and books and scrolls.

  “You are going with us?” Quilldrake sounded both excited and aggrieved.

  “Well, you owe me explanations, young man,” she told the graying Westerner. “I have consulted the Book of Jagged Lines and tossed the yarrow sticks, and it appears this is an important matter.” She smiled. “Just as important, this old body perceives the opportunity to taste the wide world one last time.”

  “I might emphasize the ‘last time’ aspect,” Quilldrake said. “Zheng, you know this will be an arduous journey. And possibly dangerous.”

  “And thus you should not eschew the company of an adept of Living Calligraphy.”

  “She has a salient point,” Gaunt said.

  “We’ll keep to established roads for a time,” said Quilldrake, sounding resigned but not altogether displeased, “so there’s ample opportunity to change your mind—”

  “And I expect a full share of the loot,” Zheng said.

  “A full share?” Resignation was flung off like a wet cloak. “A half-share, perhaps! I cannot accept every last hanger-on . . .”

  “A full s
hare for her,” Snow Pine said, “or none of us go. Yes?”

  “Yes,” said Gaunt.

  “Eh?” said Bone, who was squinting closely at the scrolls of Living Calligraphy, scratching his chin. “Oh—yes.”

  “Gah,” said Quilldrake. “If it weren’t you, Zheng . . .”

  “Thank you,” Zheng said. “Careful with those,” she told Bone, “you might set one off and get trampled by an inked elephant.”

  Bone backed away, hands raised. “I’m worried enough by your camel.”

  “Ease your fears, pup, for you must purchase camels of your own . . .”

  In the end they bought three more camels, two to carry goods, another to carry a person. The plan was for Zheng to ride always, while one person out of the remaining group could rest during a portion of each march.

  Bone, Gaunt, and Snow Pine next watched with growing bewilderment as Quilldrake and Zheng haggled for last-minute trade goods. It seemed to Bone this was hardly an auspicious moment to cobble together a caravan, and that the wares on offer were far from choice. And yet Quilldrake and Zheng cajoled people they evidently knew well, speaking of past favors and difficult circumstances, future promises and hints of blackmail.

  Before long they were proud owners of damaged bolts of silk, bottles of doubtful remedies, cracked bricks of dubious tea, and bags of “five-spice blend” that surely held no more than three actual spices.

  “We’ve announced we’re off to sell our fine products in Madzeu,” said Quilldrake in Roil. “As far as anyone knows, we’re simply honest traders. Thus we’ll slip our pursuit.”

  Loading the goods was an operation nearly as delicate as acquiring them. Bone regarded their shaggy, two-humped bearers with trepidation. The feeling did not seem to be mutual. One camel trotted up and licked him.

  “Ergg!” he said, struggling not to shout. “Blkk.”

  “Are these Western curses?” Snow Pine said.

  “Only in Bone’s native language,” Gaunt said. “A most peculiar tongue.”

  “You have ‘peculiar tongue’ right,” said Bone, mopping himself. He looked up. “Ergg,” he said, pointing, referring to a person this time.