The Silk Map

by Chris Willrich

  Her wig had come loose in the struggle, and it was impeding her sight. She tore it off, wincing, and almost wished she could shroud her gaze again.

  The Karvaks were surprised by Gaunt’s ferocity, and especially Snow Pine’s, but they seemed determined to live up to their ancestors’ deeds, and were not giving up. Several warriors had run to intercept Gaunt.

  There were too many. She was becoming weary, and the sword’s gems were full of spirits and could steal no more. The babbling of the trapped minds filled her head until it was as though she swung and jabbed and parried within a dark room filled with voices, the external world just a blaze of light through a cracked doorway.

  Voices. Acting on a mad impulse Gaunt spun Crypttongue and shoved the pommel into a Karvak’s face.

  Luckfire, she silently commanded, I release you!

  Light burst in the warrior’s face, light and more than light, a red glow that twisted and swirled and revealed a youth’s face wrenched with exaltation and fear as the spirit blazed through the living warrior’s head and rose toward Father Sky. Dazed and blinking, the Karvak in front of Gaunt staggered backward, letting her advance to one of the great arches bordering the Bazaar of Parrots.

  It was not enough. More foes came, blocking her escape. She jumped onto a fruit cart and ignored the invectives of the vendor as she attempted to release another spirit, but she had not learned any other names, and this seemed to be a requirement. “Tell me who you are!” she demanded and was rewarded by an incomprehensible hubbub as all the spirits spoke at once.

  “I think you’d know me by now!” came a voice, and the warriors looked up as a crazy thief swung by a rope into the market. His arrival snapped an awning, toppled a fruit cart and sent apples and peaches careening everywhere, left merchants swearing, and broke the Karvaks’ line.

  Bone came to a stop by tumbling onto the ground, rolling to his feet, and offering her his hand. She jumped to join him.

  He nodded to the arch and winked. She pointed toward it with Crypttongue.

  As they ran into the District of Doves, Bone said, “Handy thing, that blade.”

  “I thought you hated magic swords.”

  “Well, I am not the one carrying it.”

  Every city had its own architectural language for saying rough neighborhood. In Qushkent the sigils of that language included termite-ravaged shacks and tottering towers of cracked brick, fire-charred ruins never rebuilt, and habitations fashioned like nomadic tents, nestled amongst the rest. Other signifiers included knots of young men staring from behind crumbled walls, older men standing nonchalantly streetside with daggers in hand, faces that peered from windows and darted away just as Gaunt noticed them.

  Bone took a coin purse from his belt and tossed it to one of the largest and oldest loiterers, one who had several lieutenants close by.

  “What are you doing?” Gaunt demanded as they ran down one narrow lane, then another.

  “Spreading goodwill!”

  “They won’t help us, Bone. After all that talk about the horses—”

  “I concede! But do not forget who’s chasing us! Qushkent and the Karvaks have history!”

  As they ran, trying to seek one of the spots chosen by Katta—whom she hoped was safe—she began to suspect Bone was not crazy, not in this one respect. Out the corners of her eyes she caught sight of tents shoved into streets, laundry stretched across alleys, spontaneous gatherings clogging intersections. The Qushkent city guard was noticeably absent in the District of Doves, and there was no one to command the citizens to make way for the troop of armored foreigners. Angry shouts followed flights of scattered birds into the air, but she saw no Karvaks for now.

  They reached a low wall, and Bone leapt atop it, froze, teetered, took a deep breath, and held up his hand.

  “I had not expected the outskirts of town to be so near,” he managed to say.

  Gaunt looked over the wall.

  Sheer granite cliff greeted her and an ocean of cloud perhaps a hundred feet below. Cold wind ruffled her hair. “Come down from there,” she said.

  “It is exhilarating.”

  “Come down.”

  He huffed, spun, jumped, bowed.

  “I swear, if you fall to your death from this city,” Gaunt said, “I will compose a poem so savagely mocking that all your other exploits will be as dust, and the name ‘Imago Bone’ will be a synonym for ‘dolt’ for the next thousand years.”

  “You would not.”

  She folded her arms.

  He sighed. “You have my promise not to die in that manner. I may keep it very soon.” He peered over the wall. “Aha, I think that is it.”

  Gaunt noticed a man upon a tiled rooftop near at hand, and he noticed her. He commenced whistling and gesturing.

  A shout went up, and though she still did not know the language, she recognized the beautiful tones of Karvak. The lovely sound probably said, Our quarry is this way.

  She nudged Bone. “I don’t think everyone here hates the Karvaks.”

  “Ah, human nature,” he said, leading her down a single-file path alongside the wall. “Let nine hundred and ninety-nine people agree on the value of breathing, and the next will extoll strangulation.”

  Gaunt saw one of the Karvak balloons rising from the Bazaar of Parrots. “We’d best hurry.”

  “I agree! I am not contrary! Ah, here—” He slipped through an old fissure between two great stones in the wall. It took either confidence or blind faith to do this with the void so close at hand, but Gaunt followed.

  She emerged onto a stairway so narrow as to make the paths up Five-Toe Peak look like highways. The wind made mischief with her footing, and carrion birds circled through the white.

  “Why was this even built?” she asked.

  “I have speculated, and now I am sure.” He sniffed deeply. “Ah! The dank ripeness of flowing sewage.”

  Indeed, a trickle of foul water emerged from a tunnel in the side of the mountain, for inevitably Qushkent must drop its waste upon whatever mysteries dwelled below the clouds.

  “I already miss the desert,” Gaunt said.

  They reached the sewer-tunnel, and it was as rank as Gaunt had imagined, as well as low-ceilinged and uncomfortably warm. At least there was a faint glow from Crypttongue, a radiance of many pale hues emanating from all the gems save the one that had imprisoned Luckfire.

  “I must say again,” Bone said, “a useful sword.”

  “It harvests spirits,” Gaunt said.

  “How is your own?”

  “That is not a good question for now.” They stumbled and splashed into the darkness. At least the slope was gentle. “I don’t suppose,” Gaunt said after the light behind them was like a coin shining in a sunlit well, “the steppe warriors will refuse to enter such an enclosed space?”

  “I do enjoy your poetic fancies,” Bone said, “but let’s not slow down.”

  They passed many side passages, but Katta had said they needed to reach nearly the heart of the city. Now they heard sounds of metal and voices of frustration far behind them, and the pinprick of sunlight wavered. Gaunt wished their own light could dim, but this seemed beyond her control.

  At last they reached the place Katta had spoken of, where steps led up from the sewer channel and into a steeply sloped tunnel connecting to the karez system far below. They ascended and came to a closed door, and then another. At the third they stopped, listened, and knocked with a distinctive pattern.

  Two knocks sounded in return. Gaunt rapped exactly once more. There came the sound of a bolt being thrown, and the door creaked open.

  Zheng’s face was ghastly, dark paint mimicking intricate scars.

  “Quick,” Gaunt said to Zheng. “Let us in.”

  “Only the two of you?”

  As Gaunt entered the torchlit room she saw Katta beside Zheng and the rippling shape of Deadfall beyond. The two humans wore soot-colored one-armed cloaks in the manner of the Nightjar Psychopomps. Each had a silver-colored chain ar
ound one ankle, and each was attached to a dark sphere. These were made of painted wood, of course. Similar attire awaited Gaunt and Bone. Katta had false scarring applied over three-quarters of his face.

  Bone shut and bolted the door behind them. They were in a small alcove possessing three other doors and a spiral staircase leading up. The fire illuminated scenes of a cosmic war, angelic beings representing the stars battling demons of darkness.

  Gaunt said, “I’d hoped Snow Pine had gotten here through another path.”

  Katta shook his head. He continued painting himself as he spoke. “She ran in the direction of the District of Doves.”

  Bone swore. “We have the Karvaks behind us. I don’t think she could have come that way.” He scratched his chin. “Gaunt—all of you—you continue. I will search for Snow Pine. We will either join you at the Tower of the Beak, or we will find another way below the clouds.”

  “Bone, no,” Gaunt said.

  “I will not lose . . . anyone else.”

  “Bone. I understand.” The torment in his gaze was almost more than she could watch, but she forced herself to look into his eyes. “But Snow Pine’s life does not matter to her as much as her Joy’s freedom. You must trust me. We are both mothers. You are needed here, now.”

  He lowered his head. “Very well.”

  “Karvaks are behind you?” Katta asked, pulling Deadfall (who was itself covered with dark cloth) over his shoulders. “Then we will have to forgo the face paint for you two and trust the costumes are enough.”

  They snuffed the torch and proceeded through one of the doors.

  A long tunnel, blessedly free of sewer-stench, led to an iron door. In the light from Crypttongue’s jewels, they could see swirling figures in the metal, shaped like spirits rising toward embedded silver stars or falling toward a spherical darkness. A keyhole filled a gold-plated circle, with the rays of a stylized sun.

  Katta tested the door. “I believe the keys are now needed.”

  Gaunt sheathed the sword and retrieved Ildus’s keys, a tricky proposition with only one arm available. The cloaks did have a right armhole, with a flap covering the hole. The right arm could be used, but only if one was willing to abandon the disguise.

  She tried four keys before one worked.

  The door opened upon a sunlit stairway.

  The ascent took long enough that their eyes had mostly adjusted when they emerged into the great graveyard.

  “To seem believable,” Katta said as they reached the top of the stair, “we must separate, and shamble. Gaunt and Bone, your faces are unpainted, so do not look back. In this manner we will move toward the Tower of the Beak. Sooner or later our odd behavior will be noted.”

  “Hopefully later,” Bone said.

  “Yes. If a shout goes up, or if one of us runs, we must all run. The tower will be locked, so Gaunt more than anyone must reach it. Let us hope we all do.”

  Gaunt squeezed Bone’s hand and walked alone among graves.

  From an early age this had been an activity she’d loved. She had strolled the green grass under the clouds, and the headstones of her ancestors and those of friends had surrounded her, some simple slabs, some in the form of the Swan ascending, some in the shape of circles representing a procession from birth to death. It had been peaceful here, in a way that her family’s bustling manor had never been.

  Only years later had she realized that few in her village had dared visit the graveyard when one of her family visited it, and that in a sense she was depriving others of the pleasure. She had never thought of her family as wealthy, for indeed, they were much diminished, and her parents and older sisters’ eyes were fixated upon the petty gentry of other villages and their relative wealth. Anxiety over money squeezed the life out of the house; no wonder Persimmon had been more comfortable among the dead.

  All that worry and strife, the girl had thought, when the ground eventually claims anything. Make peace with death or not, the most stupid thing in the world was to pretend it wasn’t there.

  The people of Qushkent didn’t pretend it wasn’t there. Perhaps here on the edge of a white eternity, oblivion was easier to grasp. She dragged her ball and chain through a paradoxical realm of black slabs. Each was as perfectly shaped as the human hand could craft it, yet there seemed no order to their placement. It was as if a god of night had dropped a deck of cards.

  There were no markers, though many slabs bore flowers. Beside each slab was an iron lever, massive enough to surely require great effort for the one-armed psychopomps to pull.

  Her path took her near the abyss, and here there was no wall. There was something strangely attractive about descending just a little more, just a little more, seeking a place where one could dangle one’s feet into the clouds as if they were a river.

  But no, there was shuffling to do.

  She heard the shuffling of her companions as well, and no shouts as yet. The sounds of the city were muted; she could not tell if anything was amiss, or if the odd yell or peal of laughter was unusual.

  A sudden sound almost made her halt. It was a creaking, slow and labored. The door to the graveyard? But that had not possessed the same timbre. And this noise was closer at hand . . .

  Yes. Just up ahead. It was coming from one of the grave slabs.

  From inside.

  She heard other such sounds, farther away.

  Her mind raced, and while none of the possibilities she considered seemed plausible, none made the noises go away. She increased her pace.

  Just behind her a slab burst open with a thunderous crash.

  She could not help spinning around and thus beheld the corpse slowly rising from the grave. It was a woman dressed in a pleasant robe of rosy colors. Otherwise she rather resembled the desiccated corpses near Shahuang. A disturbing hiss emerged from between yellowed teeth.

  Gaunt ran. Another crashing sound filled the graveyard, and another.

  “Speed over stealth!” she heard Bone shouting, and indeed even during this sentence his voice moved noticeably closer.

  “Interesting!” Katta was saying. “A defensive enchantment perhaps—”

  “Shut up, Katta!” Widow Zheng said. “I’m using the scroll now.”

  “We have not reached the tower!”

  “Not sure we will at this rate. Hey, Deadfall, listen! ‘The cautious foot can brave any ground!’”

  “Why do you give this magic to Deadfall?” Katta demanded.

  “I do not have feet,” the carpet said.

  “You have problems moving around,” Zheng said. “But this seems like a good time for a magic carpet that can soar.”

  “Ah!” the carpet sighed, as though some old pain had lifted.

  Gaunt could pay no more attention to this, however, for the Tower of the Beak rose ahead, with only one slab between her and it.

  The slab burst open.

  Gaunt swore.

  “Gaunt,” came a voice rasping from within the grave.

  She ran pell-mell for the lever beside the slab, throwing her full weight upon it.

  It clicked and dropped, and an unseen slab flew open below the corpse.

  “Gaaaaunnnt . . .” she heard it say as it plunged into the clouds below.

  “Make an appointment,” she said.

  A scuffling alerted her, and she rolled away from the assault of the dead woman who stalked her.

  As the thing clawed at her, Gaunt struggled to free her arm from the damnable psychopomp cloak. She succeeded as the entity’s eyes lit up with a fiery glow. “You have come far, meat,” gasped the body, “but the journey ends here.”

  Just as I sleep and dream after a fashion, so I have insomnia after a fashion. The night before the Qushkent caper I found myself restless, rustling here and there like a mundane carpet in a strong wind. Thus I made my way to the refuse chute I’d encountered back when Katta had become rid of his odious employee. From there I risked an excursion.

  I found that thinking of the human garbage of that earlier en
counter left me angry, and anger gave me unexpected strength. My short flights were a little longer, my balance a little better, my stamina somewhat enhanced. Emboldened, I left the city.

  I did not dare explore the CloudScar and its treacherous-looking air currents. But I leapt between pine trees of the edge, enjoying the freedom of the night. I listened to the songs of living night birds. Later, I poked at the corpses of dead birds. Then I returned to the heights to start the process all over.

  It was from that vantage that I beheld the darkness in the sky. It was a round gap in the stars, which made me suspicious of its origins. I was even more suspicious when I saw it cover the moon.

  To reach it seemed unlikely, and I found myself cursing my poor luck to be hampered by the divided nature bequeathed me by Olob and Op.

  Anger made me soar.

  With one mighty effort I leapt to the clouds and attached myself to the gondola of a balloon.

  I shifted myself up and listened to an intriguing conversation.

  “The ultimate goal is of great interest,” a regal-looking woman was saying in the language of Anoka, speaking to dancing images in a glowing brass mirror, “and the secondary goals are of some value as well.”

  “You are certain,” another woman’s voice emanated from the mirror, “your sister is interested only in the secondary goals?”

  “She is insufficiently informed to have any other desire. The story of her life, in a sense.”

  “Your rivalries are of no interest to us,” said a man’s gruff voice. “Only results.”

  “I will report—wait. We are overheard. I will speak later.”

  She waved a hand and the mirror grew dark. She looked this way and that.

  “You,” she said and clapped. Karvak warriors approached her. “I give you credit, whoever you are. It took the nerve of a baatar to spy upon me here. Show yourself. Perhaps you can be of service.”

  And thus did I reveal myself to you, great Jewelwolf.

  Of our meeting and our arrangement I of course do not need to inform you, only that anger, I have now concluded, fuels my power. I suspect in your own way you understand that lesson very well.