“Even so. Yet during the night some stargazers claimed they saw vast shadows in the sky. A couple of us went to check it out and haven’t returned. We’re not worried—yet. There’s an abandoned temple out that way, with a bunch of paintings in caves. They may just be exploring a little.”
“Temple?” Quilldrake said innocently. “Caves?”
“About a half day’s ride northwest. There’s an old madman who’s appointed himself curator, if you want to check it out. Nothing much to interest a trader, though.”
With a recommendation for an inn, they entered town. Gaunt looked around her, even as the curious townsfolk, many winding down their labor, looked back at them. The style of buildings, with their iron gates and lacquer lattices and sweeping roofs, recalled Qiangguo’s cities, but the oasis town had a different air. Perhaps, Gaunt thought, there was something to the local attempt at geomancy, for there was an aeolian spirit to the place, with more towers and spires, more lanterns and statues, than she’d seen in Yao’an. Strange, she thought, that Yao’an should appear more blunt and militaristic than this exposed, independent settlement.
The Inn of the Water Sprite shared Shahuang’s soaring atmosphere. Its pagoda rose from the southern end of the strip between the two wing-shaped lakes. Stone butterflies adorned various corners.
Soon the travelers conspired in a room with a view of the stables. “So, Art,” Zheng said, once Bone had checked for eavesdroppers. “Why didn’t we shout ‘Karvaks! Karvaks!’ at the tops of our lungs?”
Quilldrake said, “I think Shahuang’s in no danger. And the strange sightings prove it. The Karvaks have gone to the old temple.”
“You think we’re dealing with flying Karvaks?” Zheng scoffed. “They’ve tamed dragons?”
“It can be done,” Gaunt said. “Whatever the truth, the sighting can’t be coincidence. The old temple is where we originally planned to go, no?”
“Yes,” Quilldrake said.
“The Karvaks have gotten wind of the Silk Map, then,” Bone said.
“If they didn’t before,” said Quilldrake, “now they have Flint and Snow Pine to give away the game.”
“Something is nagging at me,” Bone said. “Something I’ve seen in the past . . .” He frowned and shook his head. “It’s not coming clear. Age is catching up with me.”
Zheng and Quilldrake gave him doubtful looks. Gaunt said, “Perhaps it will return, my love, like a thief to a rich house. In any event, I am thinking that I should pay a visit to the old temple.”
“Agreed!” said Bone, looking as excited as a boy given a chance to play beside a cliff.
“I said ‘I,’ Bone. You are still limping. And we will need someone to watch the camels.”
“Watch the camels?”
“Not merely that,” Quilldrake said. “Someone to play the part of a merchant!”
“Merchant?”
“Not only that.” Quilldrake frowned, as though forcing himself toward a difficult decision. At last he said, “I’d like you to guard the fragment of the Silk Map.”
Bone scratched his chin. “I am not sure . . .”
“We may be going into danger.”
“Danger may find me here as well. No, I have a different idea. I want Gaunt to wear it. She is more likely to enter combat than you, and it can help protect her.”
“Why, thank you, Bone,” she said. “I can’t recall you ever giving me clothing before. It’s sweet.”
“There was the escapade outfit . . .”
“I’m sure that was my idea. You’ve simply stared at it so much you think it was your idea.”
“Truly?”
Quilldrake coughed. “If it has to stay with me, I’d rather it be guarding my neck . . . but I see your point. And I trust you not to run off with it. You are among the most honorable ne’er-do-wells I’ve ever known.”
“Don’t make us blush.”
Under cover of night, Gaunt, Quilldrake, and Zheng (who’d insisted she was refreshed and ready for adventure) ascended the dunes to the northwest. This time they were beyond Quilldrake’s knowledge and had to make their best guesses.
Hours passed. Gaunt was getting more comfortable with Quilldrake’s patchwork dress, and it helped keep her warm beneath her travel clothes.
Quilldrake slowed, squinting.
“Now . . .” he began.
“Halt!” came a voice behind them.
“We must be cautious . . .” Quilldrake concluded mournfully.
They turned in the moonlight to discover the two guards who’d greeted them in Shahuang. “You!” said the leader. “What are you doing out here?”
“Evening constitutional,” Quilldrake said.
“Don’t insult them with lies,” Zheng said. “Sonny, we misrepresented ourselves. We’re traders, sure, but we’re also treasure hunters. We think there’s a treasure in that old temple. We also think there may be Karvaks after it.”
“Now I’m starting to believe you, Grandmother,” said the guard. “The treasure, now, you can work that out with the crazy hermit—”
“Captain Yang? Sir? Isn’t a cut our due?”
“You’ve spent too much time in Yao’an, Jia. Shahuang’s an honest town. Now, if there are Karvaks around, that is our business. We don’t necessarily mind, but there’s history there.”
“Indeed,” Zheng said.
“We were already on our way to investigate, so we’d be glad to join you. Shall we?”
They reached the temple at moonset, Yang and Jia guiding them to a vantage where they might glimpse it unseen. A rocky promontory rose pale and shadowed against the stars, and upon its face were carved two great humanoid figures, each with one hand upraised. Between them opened a wide tunnel.
There were also two small figures, torchlit, bearing spears. These were more lightly armored than Yang and Jia, wearing breastplates, shields, and tasseled helmets.
“Karvaks,” said Yang.
“Let’s attack,” said Jia. “There are only two.”
Gaunt said, “There may be many others in the shadows.”
Yang said, “The outlander speaks true, Jia. Now we’ve verified there are armed Karvaks, we should return and sound an alarm.”
Quilldrake said, “And then we have battle. Perhaps a siege. Protracted and messy. What about your poor mad hermit?”
“Looking this over? Sadly, he’s probably dead. And it’s not the hermit you’re really concerned about, is it?”
“I confess to some urgency in exploring these caves,” Quilldrake said.
Yang sighed. “You’re lucky I found you. And you’re lucky I have some fondness for Old Crazy Wei. Jia, I’m going to lead these worthies into the back entrance in hopes we can extricate the hermit. You will proceed back to town and sound the alarm.”
“The women can return too,” Quilldrake said.
“You’re trying to cheat me already, aren’t you?” Zheng said. “I’m coming. Gaunt?”
Gaunt almost felt she was a schoolgirl again, egged into exploring the Abbess’s private library. “I’ve promised Bone to be careful.”
“And so we will!” said Widow Zheng.
Gaunt thought Zheng’s definition of careful must be an interesting one, but she found herself nodding. She must trust her own instincts now. She had to admit, it was satisfying not to consult Bone on everything related to sneaking and thieving.
“It has been an honor serving with you, Captain Yang,” Jia said with a bow.
“You are such the pessimist! Did we not play in these ruins as boys? I will be fine. Off with you!”
Shaking his head, Jia trudged away into the sands.
“Let us be about this nonsense before I change my mind,” said Yang.
He led them far around the rocky promontory and up a narrow, snaking gorge. It terminated against a blank face in the sandstone mass. Yang crawled out of sight beneath a boulder. Gaunt followed and found herself sliding into a cold carven passage. The others scraped and thudded behind her.
&n
bsp; “You are all right?” Quilldrake asked Zheng.
“Haven’t had this much fun in years.”
“I do not suppose any of us brought a light source?” Yang asked, and was answered by silence. “Excellent. It is good to know only seasoned professionals are on this mission.”
“I do have a means,” Widow Zheng said. “I’m down to but four scrolls of Living Calligraphy, but perhaps it’s time to make it three.”
She opened a scroll, and the characters upon it glowed like candle flames: Better to light one candle than curse the dark. They spilled off the suddenly blank paper and fell to the floor, where they commenced roaming around like a caterpillar composed of fire. Zheng gestured and clicked, and the illuminated proverb flickered ahead of them.
“Marvelous,” said Yang.
“Thank you,” purred Zheng. “You are a man of courtesy, handsome one.”
“How long does it last?” Quilldrake asked.
“You are a man of business,” groused Zheng. “An hour, perhaps two.”
“Let’s be about it then,” said Quilldrake, and Gaunt saw sweat upon his brow, shimmering with the magical firelight.
A hundred feet down the passage, Gaunt glimpsed a figure. Her hand went to her dagger before Yang said, “It is but a statue, an image of the Undetermined.”
“What is that around his forehead?” Gaunt asked. “A mirror?” The cross-legged figure was the tan of sandstone, with faded remnants of red, yellow, and black paint clinging to it after centuries. Yet the sculpted headgear of the Undetermined still retained the shiny look of cloisonné.
“That is the symbol of the Dust on the Mirror,” Zheng said, the usual growl departing her voice. “It’s an offshoot sect, more popular on the roads West than in Qiangguo. They believe in enlightenment but seek it by way of wanderlust and adventure.”
“Thus has Crazy Wei expressed it,” Yang said with surprise. “Are you a nun?”
The growl returned. “Ha!”
“Very well, we’ve seen a statue,” snapped Quilldrake. “What of the hermit?”
“I confess to a gamble here,” Yang said. “This area’s hard to locate by entering from the front, and I’m hoping Old Wei made it here when the Karvaks arrived. Otherwise I doubt we’ll find him.”
“Are these secret hiding places?” Gaunt asked.
“‘Secret’ may be too strong a term. But Wei said there were little-known sections for esoteric teaching. You see how the statue gestures with one hand toward an upward-sloping path and with the other to a downward-sloping path? Upward lies the grand galleries, downward the chambers of deepest meditation.”
“Fine, fine!” said Quilldrake. “Which way will Old Wei be?”
Yang frowned at him. “I think he’d go downward if he could.”
“Let’s go,” Gaunt said gently, to forestall Quilldrake saying it rudely.
They descended through a passage that wound this way and that, snake chasing tail. From time to time they peered into cells painted with strange beings, angelic, demonic, beatific, ferocious. At last they entered a remote chamber with a vaulted ceiling, whose walls swirled with color. At the far end sat a statue of an enlightened and haloed human, flanked by painted holy folk in saffron robes. Spreading out from there was a panoply of earthly life—deserts, mountains, valleys, cities, even oceans and islands. Above soared winged entities sublime or monstrous, circling a mandala of crimson energy. In Widow Zheng’s flickering light, the whole tableau took on an illusion of depth and motion. Gaunt had to reassure herself that rock remained beneath her boot.
“Wei?” called Yang in a hoarse voice, struggling along the path between audibility and concealment.
There was no answer.
Yang cursed. “They must have caught him. We’ll have to ascend.”
“Wait . . .” Quilldrake murmured, stepping closer to a painted stretch of desert. “Zheng, perhaps you could send your light this way?”
“What do you see?” Zheng asked, crooking a finger toward her living calligraphy. The room brightened near Quilldrake.
“These look distinctly like Shahuang’s butterfly-wing lakes. Now look at these nearby hills.”
Gaunt leaned closer. Beyond Quilldrake’s extended finger lay an illustration of poplar trees clustered around a lake beside a rocky hill. Under the trees were a few pagodas representing a settlement. “A different village,” she said, “next to a vanished lake. In the same area as this temple?”
“It’s said that lakes come and go in the desert,” Zheng added. “Streams and aquifers are fickle . . . is that a flag?”
It did indeed appear that a flag flew from the tallest building of the lost settlement. Zheng picked up her glowing handiwork as though cradling a kitten, and the light swelled. Now Gaunt could see that the flag had a peculiar shape. It was a long tube, gently crooked, like the lower part of a cheongsam.
“A fragment of the map?” Gaunt said.
“I intend to find out,” said Quilldrake.
“I too . . .” murmured Zheng. “Perhaps those ruins are nearby . . .”
“Soon we may find the path,” Quilldrake said, “to treasure incalculable.”
“You people sicken me,” Yang said. “A man’s in danger—an entire village—and you can only think of treasure.”
“If you only knew what treasure—” Quilldrake began, but Zheng shushed him.
Yang’s words stung. “I will help you, Yang,” Gaunt said. “The Karvaks may have captured friends of ours too.”
Quilldrake said, “A moment! A moment! I must commit this painting to memory.”
“Come along, Art,” said Zheng. “I’m taking the light with me.”
“Very well, very well. I have it. Fortunately my memory is excellent.”
They returned to the statue with outstretched hands, following the upward path this time. Gaunt wondered why she felt shame. She’d never represented herself as a hero of any sort, for all that Bone accused her of it now and again. Yet her cheeks burned. Perhaps that was why she told Yang, “Your armor clinks as you walk. Let me move ahead of the light and alert us to trouble.”
“That is brave of you.”
“It’s nothing.”
She padded forward into the darkness, imagining Bone by her side, whispering things his old teacher Sidewinder might have said. Exploring ruins is a marginal occupation, for rarely will you be first on the scene. Better to plunder those warm in their mansions than those cold in their crypts. But if you must go, tread lightly, for the dead have no need to walk their own halls. Pits and spikes and collapsing walls cannot disrupt their morning routine. And the mighty of old may have banes untold!
She began to hear a harmonious-sounding language somewhere in the halls ahead. The speech had a musical quality to it, and it was hard to ascribe it to brutal barbarians; yet it was surely the Karvak tongue. She motioned to her companions to proceed more slowly, and drew a dagger.
Three steps later, and an attacker was upon her.
Gaunt had only a glimpse of a side passage and the sound of a scuffle upon the stone to alert her; the man came seemingly out of nowhere, grabbing her by the neck and mouth. She knew that her reaction must be swift, or her life might be over.
She twisted and plunged her dagger into the man’s chest.
He screamed and released her, tumbling to the floor.
Much happened at once. Gaunt shifted, the dark wetness upon her blade shining in the magical firelight. The man gasped upon the floor, a dark pool spreading beside him.
The musicality of the distant voices ceased; what she now heard was barked commands.
Yang was on his knees, saying, “Wei! Wei!”
“What?” Gaunt said.
“Foreign devil!” the guard captain snarled. “Why did I trust you? You’ve killed an innocent man.”
For indeed the assailant was no Karvak but an old man of Qiangguo, hair pale and wispy upon his agonized face.
“He attacked—”
The man was not yet dead,
saying, “Old Wei . . . he wanted to stop you . . . ahead lie Karvaks . . . their eyes so bright . . . one day they must gain enlightenment, but until . . . you must hurry . . . flee to the lowest chamber . . . look behind the mirror . . . Old Wei will no more dream of taking the caterpillar to First Wife’s tomb . . . has he been reborn enough? He has lived among the beautiful images . . . he goes to the reality . . .”
“Wei?” Yang said. “Wei?” There was no answer. Yang hit the wall with an armored fist. “He was always mad, but a good friend to us children who braved the sands. He deserved a better fate than this.”
“I am sorry,” Gaunt said.
“I too,” said Zheng, her voice distant.
“But the Karvaks come,” Quilldrake said.
“I will not leave him to them,” Yang said and lifted up the body. Gaunt sheathed her bloody dagger, hands shaking.
They returned to the statue of the outstretched hands. Yang said, “I will take him out to the sands, that he may escape them.”
“But he said, ‘the lowest chamber,’” said Quilldrake.
“Mad babbling at the end,” Yang said. “Would you risk your life for it?”
“I will,” said Quilldrake.
“If he’s going, I am,” Zheng said.
Gaunt hesitated. In the end she could not say it was courage that led her on, but a hunch, and perhaps a desire to honor the man she’d inadvertently slain. And maybe a desire to escape Yang’s eyes. “I will go to the lowest chamber.”
“As you wish,” Yang said, voice thick with contempt. He disappeared through the passage out.
The three who remained raced to the lowest chamber. It was no different than before, except in this respect: now they had the certainty the Karvaks would find them.
“Mirror, mirror . . .” Quilldrake said. “What could it mean?”
“There’s no mirror,” Zheng said, “not even like the one on the signpost statue.”
“Well, is this it?” Quilldrake said. “Doomed at last?”
“‘The dust on the mirror,’” Gaunt said, trying to shake free the dust of guilt, though it darkened her sight. She stared at the statue of the enlightened figure. “What would a mirror see?”
The Silk Map Page 19
