The Silk Map (20 page)

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 share 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.

Three persons, in fact, if not four. For there, out of breath, was the priest from the Market temple where they'd battled; and there on a pallet dragged by two acolytes was a large oblong bundle shrouded in white cloth.

“There you are, Imago Bone,” said the holy man. “You asked me what you might do to compensate us. You vanished before I could give you an answer. Perhaps you did not wish to disturb my meditations.”

“I have great respect for the power of silence,” Bone said. The camel licked him again. “Blkk.”

“Here is your answer. Nine Thunderbolts requested his body be disposed of in the Karvak manner. Preferably abandonment to the animals of the steppe.”

“The steppe,” put in Quilldrake, “is weeks away from here.”

“His instructions indicated he would accept the desert as an alternative. Would you do this thing?”

Bone looked at the pallet. In death the shrouded Karvak seemed even bigger than he had in life. Bone wanted to say no. But Nine Thunderbolts had been a valiant comrade, even if only for a minute or two. And Gaunt would surely step on his foot again. He nodded.

Corpse disposal added one more complication to the business of getting proper papers from a nearby official, one who moonlighted, in broad daylight, as a counterfeiter. Bone found the contrast with parts farther east intriguing. Those provinces had been less regimented, yet their civilian officials were proudly honest. But perhaps he should be grateful; without corruption he, Gaunt, and Snow Pine might not have been allowed in Yao'an at all.

He felt relief like a cool breeze when the travelers grandly waved their papers and set out through the gate.

It was not truly made of jade. That lovely substance did clink through the stone tunnel in great quantities, however, along with the rustle of cloth, the glint of gems, the aroma of spices. The tunnel ran through an exceptionally thick portion of the city wall, with provisions for archers to fire through murder-holes.

“Good-bye, Yao'an,” Gaunt said. “I don't know if I love this city or hate it.”

“The going consensus,” said Quilldrake, “is that the answer is ‘yes . . .'”

Verses interrupted him, crooned by a performer on the Yao'an side of the tunnel.

 

Blossoms of pears, like the white desert moon.

Willow branches green like the steppe.

One day willow fluff will blow west like mountain snow.

Beyond the Jade Gate where spring is forgotten.

Light swallowed them, and they were on the Braid.

The desert did not immediately confront the travelers, for a river lay in their path, bordered by willow trees. Wheels spun, churning up the flow for thirsty irrigation ramps. Rafts bobbed, ready for hire, yet another fee. But it was that or give up the camels and ride on cheap bamboo floats buoyed by goat corpses. They hired two rafts.

“Aiya!” Gaunt said, employing a generalized term of exasperation—for as they poled off she lost her balance, until Bone and Snow Pine caught her. She laughed a little. “That expression . . . you know, I don't know how I got by without it.”

Snow Pine said, “Do you not swear, away in the Far West?”

“Of course. But to my ear we do it with less music. I'm glad to have more curses in my quiver.”

“You'll have cause,” Widow Zheng said, staring out west at the brightness as though reconsidering her choice, “to use them all.”

They left the river behind, bells tinkling on their camels, their corpse-pallet dragged behind the last. Beyond was not a road but a track worn smooth by countless hooves and feet. The land soared to their left, dry scrub giving way to lush bushes and trees with increasing altitude, before bowing before rocks and snow, peaks and sky. The land to the right was an empire of tan sands, save for a line of vegetation following the river and the Heavenwall northward, farms and villages tied to it like knots on a green cord. River, wall, and green diminished in stature with remoteness from Yao'an, and not simply because of distance. However, this was hard to judge, for the desert air shimmered with heat. Here on the road it was comfortable enough, as breezes flitted down from the mountains, and occasionally their feet were sloshed by the waters of short-lived, desert-bound streams.