Free The Scroll of Years: A Gaunt and Bone Novel by Chris Willrich Page A

sure . . .”
    She elbowed him, and he went silent. He clearly needed someone to watch out for him. There was no point disagreeing with the chief, and they hadn’t actually misled. Well, Flybait hadn’t. Next-One-A-Boy felt the presence of the scroll beneath her tunic like the rustling of her own heart. Would Five Finger Chang discover her betrayal? Perhaps he’d throw her out. Perhaps he’d kill her. Perhaps he’d claim her for his bed.
    But no—Chang was a smelly, ugly, cold-hearted extortionist and highway robber, but like the one-shoed Lord of Lost Causes, he treated his few female comrades with honor. Chang’s second in command, Exceedingly Accurate Wu, was even a woman. Albeit one who terrified her. “All men are brothers here in Shadow Margin,” Chang would say, “even the women.” Men who defied this rule, even those who mistreated the camp followers, were flogged. Next-One-A-Boy had chosen a good entry into the wild outlaw mirror of decent society, that outcast realm which folk called the Rivers-and-Lakes.
    “We cannot tell if they are magical,” Exceedingly Accurate Wu said, “until they are tested in battle.” She studied Next-One-A-Boy and Flybait as though assessing grimy old coins.
    That evening Next-One-A-Boy contrived to wash without revealing the scroll hidden in her pile of clothes. The cold touch of the waterfall made her feel born anew, like an immortal with an ethereal body rising through rainbow clouds, attended by a phoenix. She curled up with her bedroll and scroll (well away from Flybait, who should not get any ideas) and in the moonlight shafts of the caves she dared unroll the scroll a little.
    The scroll was not a text but a painting, a monochrome landscape of dark ink upon white, formed of intricate brushwork testifying to endless hours of squinting labor. She caught a glimpse of mountains rising rugged and tree-crowned from a wash of clouds, the peaks growing more indistinct with distance. The one hint of color was a signature-chop hovering above all like a faded red sun. The scene blurred and swam as Next-One-A-Boy’s fatigue caught up with her, and she slid into a peculiar dream.

    The Dream of the Cold Mountain
    A dreamer once found herself drifting through the sky like a windblown leaf, looking down upon mountains rising like islands from fog. Although snow had not yet come to the waking world, here it lay thick upon the rocks. She meandered among the falling flakes and settled at last upon a winding path, as gently as a lighting songbird.
    Solidity came to her, and she hugged herself for warmth, wreaths of breath rising from her pursed lips. How cold it was on the mountain! All around her rugged peaks lay engulfed in silent white, while dark forests rose thick within a breath of mist. Clouds swirled around a wind-tossed moon that ascended like a lonely white bird.
    Fear closed its icicle fingers around her heart. She could not remember her name, nor where she belonged.
    She ran upslope, seeking illumination. Chased by confusion, the traveler craned her head but caught only snatches of dark blue sky. Snowflakes made tiny cold kisses upon her face. Alpine mist soaked her clothes. She shivered.
    “Hello?” she cried out. “Is anyone there? How did I get here?”
    The words themselves seemed formless, like something spoken in a distant valley and carried here in an unpredictable flurry of winds, their meaning blurred, their context unknown. Who was the speaker, and who the listener?
    No , said something deep and stubborn within her. No, I cannot lose myself in fog and snow and the dissolution of self. All things may seem unreal, but this fathomless cold will kill me sure as steel. Although she could not recall her name, the girl’s hard thought steadied her. Yes, such bluntness was the natural tenor of her mind. She was returning to herself.
    But how to find shelter? She was no hermit, for they had not yet taught her woodcraft. (They? She let the question drop like snow.)