The Scroll of Years: A Gaunt and Bone Novel (14 page)

“Does a woman of the Forest,” Walking Stick replied, “invite me inside?”

Lightning Bug put a hand over her chest. “The Forest is within our hearts. Not our walls, Gardener.”

“Then that is one Forest I will never wander.” Walking Stick drew forth a scroll. Bone judged it to be very old, and likely valuable. Walking Stick handed it to Lightning Bug. “A gift, in return for this moment of hospitality.”

Bone sensed caution from Lightning Bug, and controlled anger in Tror. There was history, there.

“A rich gift,” Lightning Bug said, studying but not opening the scroll. “Is there a message here?”

“Sometimes a tree belongs to the forest, not the garden. I would plant it in this place, as a reminder that we both care for the growth of the Empire.”

Lightning Bug nodded and tucked the scroll into the sash of her robe.

“Come, Gaunt, Eshe,” Lightning Bug said, giving no more heed to Walking Stick and taking a traveler by each strong arm, “let me show you your rooms.”

In the perplexing silence that followed, Tror coughed. “It is safe enough in Abundant Bamboo,” he told Bone. “Whatever you are fleeing from, you are far from everything here, save a bored garrison in the Wall above. And from what Walking Stick tells me, you have diminished the bandit gang hereabouts.”

“A refined thief should turn his attention to rich houses,” Bone muttered, observing the villagers, “not poor peasants.”

“Pardon me?”

“Thank you for the hospitality of your house.” Bone bowed, and turned to bow to Walking Stick as well—but the official had already ridden away, his passage silent, his horse nearly lost in the thickets of bamboo.

“A strange man,” Bone said.

“I have no choice but to respect him,” Tror said, and paused as if ready to say more, but merely grunted and showed Bone the stairs.

The home was a six-story wooden affair, looming over its neighbors. Once it would have seemed modest, but not after the wilderness and the sea. From their cramped closet of a room, smelling of wood-dust and river-cooled air and distant pines, Gaunt and Bone looked out at an expanse of square roofs, and the dark curves of the river and hills beyond.

“I could readily cross the entire village,” Bone whispered to Gaunt, studying the rooftops, “and never touch ground.”

Gaunt patted his shoulder; then they looked down the stairs to find Tror and Lightning Bug and their three children all beaming and promising to assist Gaunt in the birth.

“We have three guests,” Lightning Bug said matter-of-factly. “And soon enough, we will have four.”

First, there was the taste of blood.

A scent of cold pine followed from the void, and on its heels blew the sting of frigid air.

Wind moaned among mountains, and light dawned to reveal them to her.

Her. A young woman. That was what she was, a human upon a mountain path, and her name was . . .

“Next One.”

She turned and saw Flybait had also returned to reality. She laughed and hugged him.

“I
like
the afterlife,” he said, pulling away with wide eyes. “It seems we’ve reached one of the lesser paradises. The divine judges are less severe than advertised. Good news for outlaws.”

She cuffed him. “We’re right back where we started. That official said we’d reached the edges of the painting. I think when we fell down the pit we left one edge. Now we’ve reappeared at another.”

Flybait looked around, patting himself to measure his reality. “I recall my father telling of the sorcerer Hsuan Chieh, who could hide from his court duties by shrinking himself into a decorative landscape tray. I guess this place serves a similar function. But why then didn’t we return to our world?”

“It may be that we have to wish it so. But I do not so wish it. The official believes us dead. I wish to explore. Perhaps the hermit will return. He did leave a clue with that poem about the pit and the sky.”

“Let us try the sky, then,” Flybait said. “It is warmer now. On other peaks I see pagodas. Maybe there’s one here. Perhaps we can beg, borrow, or steal.”

Thus emboldened, the youngsters made their chilly way up a mountain of fairytale. Trees spindled out into a misty vastness; waterfalls sliced vertical rivers through the rock; black birds flitted upon narrow wooden bridges that spanned jagged gorges.

Crossing a span, Next One said, “Who maintains such bridges?”

“Does such a question matter, in a world that was painted?”

“I want to know the why of things.”

“Oh? Does not your ability to read grant you the wisdom of the ancients?”

“The ancients cared mostly for people and their ways. If you would know more about nature, or the composition of things, you must get your hands dirty and your feet wet.” She thought a moment longer about Flybait’s words. “Can you not read?”

He shrugged. “I am unencumbered by such matters.”

“Spoken like a scholar. But you would play the part better if you could read.”

“He who does, does. He who doesn’t, documents.”

“Spoken like one who failed the Imperial Examinations. But you could not even read the signs to get there. Well, I am stuck with you, so I may as well teach you.”

“Ha! A girl teach me!”

“Old bearded men are in short supply.”

“Hm. Well. It would be amusing to try. Some day.”

“Oh—so you think I can say nothing of writing here, in the thick of nature? Not so.” They rounded a pathway to the edge of the sky, and Next One swept her arm as she’d seen Lightning Bug do when speaking of forests, rivers, and mountains.

“The early sages divined classical writing from the symbols embedded in nature,” she told him. “We start with high and low, bright summits and dark valleys, heaven and earth. And between them, humanity. That is the basic trigram: above, below, and us in the middle. Three lines.” She swished her finger through a snowbank three times and slowly licked the melting slush upon her finger. (She had Flybait’s attention.) “You can break a line—” here she clopped at “heaven” with the edge of her hand, “and make a new trigram. Break one of them, two of them, all three—you get the variations used in the fortune-telling sticks, as stipulated in the
Book of Jagged Lines
.”

“So writing is fortune-telling?”

“No! But there’s a connection. The sages taught that nature’s deepest patterns can be represented in our arts. Thus the earliest characters of writing represent simple pictures. It is said that the Four-Eyed Sage of Antiquity divined the first characters by observing tortoise shells, rivers, birds, and stars—all the patterns of the world. The patterns lie at the back of everything. So, you can draw a few spiky lines for ‘mountain,’ or a kind of burst pattern for ‘fire,’ or a spindly one for ‘tree.’” She swished out the patterns as she spoke.

“Okay. But come on, you know that most of the characters aren’t really pictures. They’re . . . squiggles. Squiggles upon squiggles upon squiggles.”

“Well, people have had thousands of years to develop writing. It’s gotten complicated. There’s a lot to remember. But you can do it, Flybait.” She echoed something Lightning Bug had said to her. “You’re still young.”

Now there appeared upon the heights a pagoda of cheerful-looking red brick, clouds winding above it and mists swirling beneath it, as though it performed a vaporous ribbon-dance.

Something about the movement of the clouds worried her. Two billowing, serpentine cloudbanks were moving toward each other, as if to battle or mate. It did not seem natural, even for this place.

“Hey, look at this,” Flybait called. He pointed at a pine tree whose trunk was inscribed with knife-cut characters, a poem in the bark. She read it for him.

Trampling snow up the Peculiar Peaks,

The mountain path meanders:

The deep ravine clogged by an avalanche,

The twisting creek, the fog-dimmed bushes.

It hasn’t rained, but we slip on the grass,

It isn’t windy, but the trees seem to breathe.

Who can jump from the weight of the world

And join me in the tumbling clouds?

“Yep,” Flybait said. “Crazy.”

“No,” Next One said, “it’s as if he is anticipating us. Uh-oh . . .”

“Uh-oh what.”

“Look at the clouds.”

The pair of converging cloud masses had taken on the aspects of strange raptors, or dragons. Each flew sideways, such that Next One could see upon each only one eye, one mouth, one foreclaw, one hindclaw, one horn. Tails curved upward, framing the scene.

When the clouds came together, their forms merged to create one image. It was as though the world pivoted. The mouths conjoined, the eyes paired and seemed to gaze forward, the horns seemed as eyebrows and the claws as fur upon a hungry, monstrous face.

“Taotie!” Flybait screeched.

“What?”

“A devourer. A spirit monster shown on old bronze sacrificial urns. But now we’re the sacrifices. Run!”

The two ran, and whenever Next One cast her gaze behind her, she saw the cloudy maw of the taotie bearing down on them. It grinned and blew, and strong winds appeared where none had been, bending and snapping trees. Rocks tumbled, and mists swirled all around.

“Where can we run?” Flybait yelled. “The cave’s too far!”

Next One thought of something crazy. Or the other side of crazy. “The poem! The hermit was telling us something. ‘Who can jump . . . and join me in the clouds?’”

“Jump over a cliff? That’s a plan?”

“It worked in the pit!”

The taotie was almost upon them.

“Okay,” Flybait said. “If it’s that or be eaten . . .”

They held hands, took deep breaths, and jumped.

They spun within the void, the taotie following them down into endless mist. After a time all senses faded into a perception of bright emptiness. Next One’s last thought was that this bright emptiness was the counterpoint of the dark emptiness of the pit, and if she could understand both sides at once, the light and the dark, she would understand what was beyond, the true empti—

Imago Bone heard the intruders the evening after settling in to Abundant Bamboo. Asleep beside the door (he had insisted, as it was after all their first night and who knew what could happen?) he roused to the sound of creaking two floors below, and of sharp whispers. He’d slept in his traveling clothes (again, it was the first night) and rose to a coiled crouch before he was fully awake.

Gaunt still slept upon the narrow bed, and he chose not to disturb her until he’d heard more. There. Another creak, and a bump, and some frantic whispering. This would not be their hosts, planning murder—such sounds would be closer. This was probably not their hosts’ children—the voices sounded young, but not that young. House thieves.

Another bump. Amateur house thieves.

It occurred to Bone he could be useful to the family. The thought made him smile. He drew on his belt, the one with two sheathed daggers, and slipped out the door.

Tiptoeing down the stairs to the landing, he judged the intruders unaware, for their whispering continued unabated. They sounded confused, as though they’d gotten the wrong house. Bone considered whether to be lethal or merciful, and was considering the problem so carefully he nearly jumped when a hand came down upon his shoulder and another across his mouth.

It was the gentleness of the iron grip that made him relax and look into the eyes of Lightning Bug. She wore a dark outfit suitable for nighttime heists, with a hood not yet pulled up. He resisted speculation about her evening activities, whether criminal or carnal.

She released him and pointed downstairs. He nodded. In that moment he had no doubt she could defend her own home. But a guest had his obligations.

He proceeded down the stairs, she right behind him. He heard bickering in the language of Qiangguo. There were two shadowy forms in the moonlight cast by the sitting room window. One shadow examined a desk, the other a table.