The Silk Map

by Chris Willrich

  Glancing behind, he thought he saw a trail of windborne sand, as though some beast were approaching. It would have to be on the large side, he thought, surprisingly so for this desert. It seemed that he would not be getting away from nature any time soon. “Say—” he began.

  He was cut off by a shout up front.

  “Sandstorm ahead!” Quilldrake said. “We’d best dig in!”

  Bone squinted ahead, possible pursuit forgotten. The haze beyond the dunes seemed as featureless as ever. “I see no storm!”

  “Do you not see my camel?”

  Quilldrake’s mount, the oldest of them, had ascended a low rise crowned by a rock outcropping. It lay down upon the sand and burrowed its head. The other camels lumbered up to follow suit, moaning and bleating.

  “I suppose we’re stopping,” Bone said to Scoff, who joined the others, dropped, and nuzzled her way into the sand.

  “The old one senses the approach of the burning wind,” said Flint. “The younger camels take its lead. We should too. Lie down, with the camels between you and the approach of the wind. Put your faces in the sand and cover your heads with cloth.”

  “How long will it last?” Gaunt asked.

  “As long as it lasts.”

  Bone and Gaunt lay beside each other. Bone looked up and saw a wall of dust approaching, its tan shroud billowing halfway up the sky. It approached faster than a galloping horse.

  “Hold my hand, Bone,” Gaunt said. “If we’re fortunate, future scholars may display our skeletons together.”

  He took her hand. The sandstorm rushed upon them.

  It seemed to last hours, though Bone was unsure he could trust his judgment. It certainly grew very hot. He squeezed Gaunt’s hand now and then, and she squeezed back.

  He began hearing hints of voices on the wind, curious snatches of conversation that could not be real, as they seemed far too relaxed to be the speech of his companions. As time passed, some of the fragments touched his memory and seemed the voices of his past.

  The more you fight . . . came the voice of Snow Pine’s once-mentor, Lightning Bug.

  The more it slips away . . . answered Flybait, Snow Pine’s dead husband.

  You are one flesh . . . came the voice of Eshe, the priestess who’d performed Gaunt and Bone’s marriage . . . come whatever may . . .

  All things are in your hand . . . came a much rougher voice, much nearer at hand, . . . You who whirl the days . . .

  The storm had ebbed before Bone was quite aware of the fact. Gaunt was tugging at his hand, her voice conveying a trace of alarm. “Bone! We’re free of it . . .” her voice trailed off in wretched hacking.

  Bone found himself in a golden world, for though the thick of the sandstorm had passed, the air was full of haze, making a ripe orange of the sun. Everyone had endured, though they announced their safety with a chorus of coughs.

  Flint passed around waterskins. “We’ve lost time. We should move as soon as we’re able. I recommend traveling through the night. The oasis will provide shelter.”

  “No argument,” Gaunt said.

  Now Flint took the rear, perhaps fearing someone would slump exhausted from their camel and be left behind. The desert treated them with a degree of kindness for the rest of the day, which was to say it passively seared them, rather than actively smothered them. Bone saw no animal life but what they brought with them, and while corpses of old trees thrust here and there from the sand, there was nothing green.

  In early evening, cool breezes at last kissed their faces, and a sort of exhausted jollity came to the caravan. Gaunt sang, giving Bone a rare reminder that she’d studied as a bard. Quilldrake quietly conversed with Widow Zheng; Bone suspected he was making sure, from her responses, that she was bearing up. He overheard Snow Pine talking with Flint. There was something in their voices that raised an uncomfortable feeling in Bone, though he could not identify it. He patted Scoff. “You are doing well?”

  Scoff grunted.

  “I never would have expected you to make friends with a camel, Bone,” Gaunt said.

  “We have much in common,” said Bone. “Perhaps when at last we settle down, we should consider having a pet.”

  “You and your camel will keep a pet? How interesting. Be sure to write me about it.”

  When the sun set, there was nothing westward to hide it, no hills, no mountains, no approaching caravan laden with melons. Bone had the impression the land was one vast, luminous scab. Stars appeared as they proceeded into night, and every time Bone was convinced the sky was full, the horizon dimmed further and more glories blazed.

  “It’s cold,” Gaunt said, and this was another thing Bone had not quite noticed, but he shivered as she said it.

  “This is among the hottest and coldest of places,” Quilldrake called back from where he guided them by the stars. “Still, I prefer the cold to the heat. If landmarks didn’t matter, I’d always travel by night.”

  They reached the first oasis before moonset. It was little more than a large pond with a score of poplar trees escorting it through its days and nights, a guard of four obelisks attending them. Each monument bore an inscription—two in the Tongue of the Tortoise Shell, one in the script of Mirabad, the last in a vertical script unknown to Bone. The ones that looked familiar were forbiddances against evil.

  Gaunt said, “I am curious what we need defending from.”

  Widow Zheng said, “They say there are night-horrors in this desert. They make sounds that lure the traveler from her companions and leave her lost and alone. If she’s lucky.”

  “I suspect the rumors exaggerate, however,” Flint said. “You may have heard peculiar sounds already? As temperature changes, masses of sand may shift, their acoustics strange and disturbing. While the world has its dangers, the mind magnifies and multiplies them.”

  Whether or not the wardings were efficacious, they succeeded in calming the travelers’ nerves. Soon they’d tied up camels, filled up waterskins, tossed bedrolls, and collapsed into sleep.

  Six days, four oases, and one more sandstorm passed in like fashion. At first they had little energy for talk, but by now Bone was beginning to settle into a routine, and late in the afternoon of the sixth day he walked beside Flint and said, “I’d like to know more about Xembala.”

  “Wouldn’t we all!” Flint shook his head, staring at the blurred horizon. “The lost paradise, spoken of in many legends. Once, Imago Bone, I thought I could locate it by reason, triangulate it. You see, in Qiangguo, the Pure Land is said to be in the west. But in Palmary, the Lost Garden is said to lie to the east. Far, far to the south in Harimaupura, they say the Enlightened Kingdom lies to the far, far north. So you see, I suspected I could trace all these legends to a particular spot in the physical world.” He chuckled. “And to a degree I succeeded! Alas, my ‘spot’ is a region over a thousand miles across. In the great trading cities of Anoka, Qushkent, and Madzeu, and in the oasis towns, paradise is said to rest among the clouds. So I concluded Xembala must lie upon the Plateau of Geam, home of mystics. I climbed the mountains and battled vultures and vertigo to attain it. In Geam, the holy ones told me Xembala was an idea, that paradise was in my head. Very helpful. But there was a twinkle in their eyes as they said it, and I think they knew much they wouldn’t convey.”

  Quilldrake had joined them. There was a worried look in his eyes that his bright tone belied. “And here you see the basis of Flint’s and my collaboration! For I am interested in mere treasure to rival the wealth of emperors. Flint seeks the sublime revelations of exploration.”

  “In any event,” Flint said, “I think Xembala must lie amid the mountains near to the Braid of Spice. And I feel sure that, before the year is out, I will find it.”

  “We have a more immediate problem, I fear,” Quilldrake said, his voice now in accord with his expression. “We should have reached the next oasis by now.”

  Hours of backtracking commenced, during which the sun set and the stars emerged, their steady beauty a prickling
contrast to the journeyers’ increasing worry. Quilldrake at last called a halt, consulting with Flint in low tones. Flint sighed and turned to the others. “I think further searching is counterproductive. We’ll seek a rocky spot to camp.”

  “I don’t dispute you,” Gaunt said, “but I hope it’s defensible.”

  “I suspect we will be safe.” Flint added, “But I do suggest roping ourselves together before sleep.”

  Thus they and their camels arranged themselves beside lonely boulders. Widow Zheng, now much recovered, told them a bedtime story about how the Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, once tipped over this or that alchemical vessel in the heavens, producing bright nebulae that remained to this day. Quilldrake and Flint were vocal in their appreciation; Bone, Gaunt, and Snow Pine more muted. At last Bone and Gaunt curled up next to each other, and Bone sank into an exhausted slumber.

  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 figme
nts—”

  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.