The Scroll of Years: A Gaunt and Bone Novel (25 page)

“I would ask you to do so,” Gaunt said, “if the visitor is not Bone.”

“It shall be so. Now tell me again of this city of Palmary, that I might write poems about it. The squalor and majesty of such a place intrigues me . . .”

Innocence fell asleep, and fell off the breast. Gaunt lifted him, head draped over her shoulder, and thought,
Ah, now I can—

Her desires crowded together, jostling for approval.

—sleep!

—ransack the archives!

—sleep!

—question the monks!

—sleep!

—explore the Peculiar Peaks!

—sleep!

—question the self-portrait!

—sleep!

—write a poem, to ground my racing head!

—sleep . . .

“Persimmon Gaunt,” said Leaftooth.

She shuddered, jerking her head. The light was different, dimmer. Leaftooth was the only visitor. The wind was howling outside. A heavy blanket was over her, and there was no pressure on her shoulder and chest.

“The baby . . . where’s the baby . . .”

“Asleep in the basket yonder. As you were asleep, until moments ago.”

“I . . . I shouldn’t be weak . . .”

“Cherish weakness. Flow to the lowest level, and all will come to you.”

She shook her head, yawned. “The better I learn your language, Leaftooth, the less I understand you.”

Leaftooth smiled as well. “We have a visitor. A boy. He has a story that will interest you.”

Gaunt was surprised to recognize the gangly, tangle-haired Flybait. He was shivering from his long journey up the mountain, and obviously frightened, but his gaze was defiant as he addressed the gathered monks, the self-portrait of the Sage Painter, Wu, and Gaunt. “My gang has the scroll.”

“Beg pardon,” said Gaunt, “but the Cloud and Soil Society was destroyed.”

“Yes,” Wu said, staring at the lad.

Flybait sucked in his stomach, straightened his shoulders, and aimed his nose skyward. “You refer to my old outfit. I have come into my own as a man to be reckoned with.”

Wu laughed. Ordinary laughter was to Wu’s laughter as embraces were to head-locks. “You, Flybait, are an ignorant fool.”

“Would it be better to be a knowledgeable fool? I am a man of action, with my own operation now. Your whole universe is in my hands.”

“That is a large claim,” Leaftooth said. “This realm extends far beyond the scene depicted in the scroll. It has its own peculiar reality.”

Flybait gave an evil grin. (Gaunt noted the distinction: a truly evil man would have smiled in the ordinary fashion.) “Shall we test that premise,” he said, “by burning the scroll?”

“You cannot threaten us, young man,” Leaftooth answered, “standing there wrapped in our blankets, sipping our tea. Even the self-portrait of the Sage Painter knows not what will happen if you burn the scroll. What of it?”

Flybait sneered. “Would you try to stop me, old man?”

Leaftooth said, “Perhaps, less-old man. We are not all-passive, we monks. The Way of the Forest does not forbid action—for it forbids nothing. But we cannot guess what outcome your destruction, or our response, might engender.”

Flybait began to look confused. “That’s a threat, right?”

“It is reality. Suppose you throw a rock at a window. You may have done so at one point. That is bad, surely?”

“You’re a little late to lecture me about that.”

“Yet say the window is as yet unrepaired when a fire breaks out in the house, and a family escapes more easily through that empty frame. That is good, surely? Yet as the survivors huddle together on the street, a sick member of that family spreads the illness throughout the crowd and then the entire city. That is bad, surely? Yet the suffering of the city causes the Emperor to pass it by when his armies need swelling. That is good, surely? Yet the Emperor’s mercy means he has not quite the soldiers to defend against an invading horde. That is—”

“Okay, okay!” The boy held up his hands. “I get it. You’re too mystical to threaten. No need to torture me with philosophy. Just send me back and we’ll sell you off to a pawnbroker. Gaunt. You’re a friend, sort of.”

“Why, thank you,” Gaunt said.

“You can come with me . . . is that the baby?”

“That is the baby.”

“He’s cute . . .”

“Thank you. These people have sheltered me. You will not harm them.”

The self-portrait of Meteor-Plum coughed. “I could prevent you from leaving, Flybait, but I will not. It already pains me to imprison one life here.” Wu glared at him, but he continued. “But I can advise against your departure. Persimmon Gaunt has spoken of those pursuing her, and they are formidable.”

Flybait looked uncomfortable. “We saw lots of troops, sure. And that stick guy. And that freak dragon. It looked different from the ones in all the rich people’s fancy tapestries and clothes, but even I know enough to be scared of the thing.”

“You do have a talent for self-preservation,” Wu said grudgingly. “What about that girlfriend of yours?”

Flybait looked wistful. “Next One’s not my girlfriend. She’s waiting outside the scroll. We got away from the dragon, from the troops, everyone. We’ve brought in smart kids—they know all the alleys and sewers and tunnels. We’ll be all right.”

Gaunt said, “Idiot. Even my lover, Bone, greatest second-story man of the Spiral Sea, is never so cocky. That dragon is commanded by Night’s Auditors, assassins of the mind. If they don’t know the tunnels, they’ll ransack every brain in Riverclaw to learn. They will find you. Or Walking Stick and his Garden will.”

“Their vision of the Way is a harsh one, the Garden,” Leaftooth said. “But none can deny their devotion, or the skill they bring to their misguided willfulness. A Garden master might defeat any ten ordinary warriors, on open ground.”

Flybait sneered and spat, but he looked nervous now.

“You’re not a bad sort, Flybait,” Gaunt said, “a little loose with property rights, but I’m a pot, you’re a kettle.” To his blank look she added, “I’m not leaving, but I have another idea. The monks might shelter and feed your gang for a time. Rotate your crew through the scroll, while you find a buyer. Let me venture out to assist you. I have some experience moving valuable hauls.”

“And how does that help you?”

“The right buyer might be able to protect the scroll from the auditors and the Garden. I’m told the most powerful figures of the Empire live in Riverclaw. If anyone can protect us, we’ll find them there.”

Flybait put his hands to his head. “All right, all right. I’ll trust you. I’m tired. A bed sounds nice. I’ll think about it.”

But in the morning the boy had left his room, his tracks passing through muddy ground, back down the mountain road. Wu spat down it after him. The self-portrait said that by noon he would have no choice but to send Flybait back to the Empire of Walls.

Innocence slept fitfully that day. He seemed not to have quite mastered the art of releasing gas, and Gaunt’s existence seemed to consist of jiggling him gently so he would get it out one end or the other. When he stopped wailing and finally slept, it was in her arms. When her arms ached and her eyelids fluttered, she would place him in the basket, but within minutes he screamed his outrage, and it was back to jiggling. All was motion. She wondered if that had something to do with the Way the monks spoke of. Yet the Way sounded much more restful than what she was doing.

Flow down to the lowest point, baby
, she thought.
Like water. No, wait—you don’t have to flow down your water just yet. Sleep . . .

The day grew hot, hotter than at any time since she’d arrived. The clouds burned away and a searing sun, perhaps a bit larger than the one back home, beat down upon the gleaming emeralds of the Peculiar Peaks. Gaunt took her jiggling routine outside. Innocence was finally asleep on her sweaty shoulder when Flybait returned at a run, a terrified-looking girl with long black hair and a bamboo cane panting beside him. Gaunt recognized Flybait’s serious-eyed friend. She opened her mouth to ask Next One what was the matter, but was startled by the girl’s wail.

“They’re dead! They’re all dead!”

The poorest region of Riverclaw was its Shadow Ward, inland from the Purple Forbidden City. Hemmed by that citadel and the high barriers of the Heavenwalls, it suffered long shadows except at midday. The roughest district of the Shadow Ward was the Neck, where the Heavenwalls bent close, marking the boundary of the Ward before winding separately across the land, and where the rival garrisons of the Red and Blue Walls snarled and sported, with Riverclaw’s poor as pawns and hangers-on. And the bleakest section of the Neck was the Necropolis Wall, an afterthought of a barrier running between the Heavenwalls, guarding the city from an ancient burial ground infested with hopping vampires and hungry ghosts.

The dragon Kindlekarn, guided by the visions in Hackwroth’s skull, dove over the Shadow Ward and flapped toward the Necropolis Wall.
Of course Flybait and Next One would make their base here
, thought Imago Bone, who had heard tales of Riverclaw from Tror and Lightning Bug.
Death, to young toughs, is less terrifying than humiliation.

Bone’s musing on terror was interrupted by the panic of the people below. Citizens screamed and fled through squalid streets, sometimes to be trampled by a rush of Imperial soldiers or city guardsmen. At times those warriors took aim at Kindlekarn, and crossbow bolts clanged off the metal and jewels in the dragon’s hide. Occasionally, by luck, a bolt found a seam between encrustations and stuck. Kindlekarn grumbled as if stirred from a reverie. He spat fire. Men burned, but Bone thought more damage was done to the surrounding neighborhood than to the combatants. Yet even this attack might be kinder than the auditors’ methods.

Lampblack swung his lantern. The fiery entity called Flick, evidently recovered from the sea, twisted and spun in the lantern’s vicinity. Its burning tendrils coiled toward the Necropolis Wall. Bone’s gaze followed the gesture, and he squinted at tiny figures disappearing through the fortification’s old stone. “There!” he told Night’s Auditors. “Those look like our urchins.”

“I apprehend,” Hackwroth said, “that this old wall has many fissures, natural and hewn, allowing communication with the graveyards beyond.”

“Yes,” said Lampblack, “And I sense Persimmon Gaunt’s presence, though it is strangely remote. It is as if she were thousands of miles away, even though Flick points to the wall, not the horizon.”

“She is remote,” Bone said. “I will explain the manner of it shortly.”

“No need,” said Hackwroth. “I perceive now . . . she is a prisoner of an artifact, a gateway to another world. Interesting. Kindlekarn, proceed into the necropolis. We will cut them off.”

“Best drop me off on this side,” Bone objected. “We will block their retreat.”

“A worthy suggestion,” Lampblack said, “so long as I accompany you.”

“It should be me, father,” Hackwroth objected. “Your injuries—”

“You have the mastery of this dragon, not I. No, I shall keep watch on Bone. Set us down before the wall.”

Hackwroth grunted, Kindlekarn descended, and Bone leapt onto a narrow rooftop. Lampblack alighted less steadily. With a look of warning at Bone, Hackwroth urged Kindlekarn over the wall into the city of the dead. The morning air cooled notably with the dragon’s passing. The sky overhead was soft blue, but the early sun cast a long shadow from the sharp ramparts of the Forbidden City. That was good. Bone preferred darkness.

He considered fleeing, but feared Lampblack’s power, and his footsteps would in any event converge with the auditors’ at the painting. Best to ride the coattails of chaos, and see what opportunities came.

Thus he helped the auditor down with as much grace as he could manage.

“Thank you,” muttered Lampblack after they slid together off the hovel roof.

“Mention it not—”

Bone was interrupted by a scream from the rickety dwelling they’d descended. A thin woman and two young boys, all dusty and dressed in rags, burst from the house and fled from Bone and Lampblack, their departure guarded by a short, shuffling man with many missing teeth and a rusty knife that looked ready to snap in the breeze.