The Silk Map (29 page)

“‘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
?”

She spun.

The doorway into this chamber was off-center, and thus directly opposite the statue was a wall. On it was a painting that closely resembled the enlightened image. It was more faded-looking than anything else in the chamber.

Gaunt approached it, as the sounds of Karvaks neared. It was a near-perfect match for the statue, except that one hand pointed toward a star high up the wall.

“Quilldrake, boost me up!”

They heard sounds at the crossroads overhead as Gaunt teetered on Quilldrake's shoulders and pressed the painted star. At once the ragged image of the holy figure rumbled sideways and a door stood revealed.

Quilldrake knelt, letting Gaunt off. “Hurry,” he said.

Gaunt, Quilldrake, and Zheng slipped into the hidden corridor as the door ground shut. Soon after they heard a beautiful language twisted by angry throats. Weapons pounded upon walls.

The hidden corridor slanted both upward and down. By unspoken agreement, the three slowly moved up. At last they could no longer hear the Karvaks.

“Well,” Zheng said, “it seems we're entombed alive. At least the end was exciting.”

“Perhaps it's what I deserve,” Gaunt said.

“Nonsense, both of you,” Quilldrake said. “Persimmon Gaunt, you were in the dark, facing hostile invaders, when someone attacked you. You responded in fear. Such incidents happen whenever soldiers march.”

“He meant only to stop me. And to keep me from crying out.”

“Even so, no blame attaches to you.”

“I am not so sure. I think perhaps the blame began when I took up a life that required the blade and the bow.”

“I'm not your confessor, but this old treasure hunter would absolve you if he could. Meanwhile—Zheng, be glad of my occupation! I've heard of ancient temples of the Dusters, with their negative spaces.”

“Negative what?” Zheng asked.

“Captain Yang spoke of special spaces for esoteric teachings. Well, secret areas such as this are just such spaces. They were also fine places for temple treasure. Perhaps here we'll find the map—”

“That's the first thing you think of?” Gaunt said. “When your friend Flint is probably a prisoner here?”

“Not at all, not at all. For the negative spaces were also good for spying on the less enlightened. Follow me.”

They ascended to the level of the upper corridors and found that Quilldrake was right. While these regions were largely unadorned, here and there they possessed paintings that resembled scrolls of religious instruction. On this side it was easy to perceive the doorways such images marked. There were also many peculiar concavities, inversions of the statues of the Undetermined and the Thresholders. Thin eye-slits allowed one to peer into the public chambers.

Gaunt peered through one such mask and beheld Karvaks moving through the corridors. Zheng clicked softly at her Living Calligraphy, and it went out like a snuffed candle. Now they proceeded through the dark.

Quilldrake was disappointed in his treasure hunting, for the secret chambers seemed devoid of goods. He could not help swearing now and then under his breath. Gaunt allowed herself a grim satisfaction at that. Something about the treasure hunter angered her this night.

Perhaps, she thought, it was the anger of recognition.

At one point Zheng looked through spy-eyes and gasped excitedly. She tugged Gaunt over and pointed. Through the slits Gaunt could see a chamber filled with faded paintings of a peacock-crowded, fountain-filled paradise, but that was not the cause of the gasp. Many objects were collected here, including Snow Pine's dao sword and Liron Flint's magical saber, the sword Crypttongue. No guards were in evidence.

“There is a doorway not far from here,” Quilldrake said. “We can recover the weapons.”

Gaunt said, “We'd best find the wielders first.”

“Of course.”

Three reverse-statues later, Quilldrake's thirst for treasure was still unquenched, but they found their companions. In a chamber lit by a torch-bearing Karvak guard, Snow Pine and Flint lay asleep. The walls were painted with myriad and contradictory visions of hells, and Gaunt imagined she saw demons gawking and souls writhing. A second guard bore not a torch but a spear.

The companions conspired in a dark antechamber. “Zheng,” Gaunt said, “you said you have only three more scrolls of Living Calligraphy. Do any of them shed light?”

“Yes, but I have just one more of those.”

“That is all we will need. Now here's my plan . . .”

From the beginning of Snow Pine's sojourn with the Karvaks, she contemplated fighting. She'd clutched the dao-sword tight when the Karvak princess, a young woman roughly her own age, began her pronouncement about
guests
. Snow Pine had no desire to be such a guest, but she'd doubted her ability to defeat so many Karvaks. Flint, however . . .

“You have a magic sword,” she'd whispered in the critical moment.

“Crypttongue
is
formidable . . .” Flint had begun.

“But not that formidable?”

“I'm an explorer, not some warrior-mage of old. To give the blade what it requires, to fight off so many . . . no.”