not join us?”
Bone said, “Surely he is still not so bad?”
“My words are all bird-chirps to him, and I don’t speak his language.” He clapped and chuckled. “But the mountain is large.” He sighed, though his eyes retained their bright mischief. “Even so, I wish I might look at the outer world from your flying craft, see the land stretch far below, no kitchen smoke for many li , unknown mountains and waterfalls, cries of monkeys and roars of tigers.”
“I wish there was a way to arrange it,” Gaunt said. “But if we see you later I’ll tell you all about the land.”
“I would like that, poet. And now crazy Meteor-Plum walks his tangled way. And tangled Gaunt and Bone walk their crazy way. Farewell!”
They watched him descend the mountain path. In an unnervingly short time, he was a tiny figure. Gaunt wondered about his musings. Al-Saqr did get visitors from the scroll. If one wished to see the wider world, the view from a balloon offered a fine opportunity. Many of the monks accepted the invitation, though many others, including their leader Leaftooth, declined. Gaunt wondered if some of the monks were, like the self-portrait of the Sage Painter who’d created the scroll, aspects of the scroll itself and unable to leave. If so, she thought it might be impertinent to say so.
One individual who was decidedly not an aspect of the scroll was Walking Stick.
“Well, Bone, our crazy way beckons. Shall we?”
“Doesn’t it ever. Let’s!”
It was often bright and sunny here, but always cold, especially when the wind picked up. The path bore into shadow and out into sun, making rough lurches and plunges into icy streams. Birds conducted their endless conversations about territory, mates, bugs, and humans. More and more, wind slapped the visitors until they lost the cover of trees and beheld a monastery sheltered and perforated by a hardy grove, framed by neighboring mountains, backed by distant mountains, embellished by remote mountains.
They were welcomed by a monk and taken upstairs for tea. Walking Stick sat cross-legged in the midst of what could have been considered a solarium, except that rather than windows the chamber had crumbled portions of wall. Mountains and mists stretched in every direction.
“Ah, good,” he said, rising. “Now that we can speak at our ease—”
Gaunt slapped him. Before that moment she wasn’t certain what she would do. She might have spat. She might have laughed. The move was so sudden even Bone was surprised. Walking Stick surely could have blocked or evaded, but his only reaction was to narrow his eyes.
Gaunt folded her arms. “That is for my son. If you hadn’t tried to abduct me when I was pregnant, none of this would have happened.”
Walking Stick took a deep breath before answering. “You speak truly. Yet worse things might have happened.”
“Such are the apologies of Walking Stick.”
Bone said, “He has paid, in a way. He has been stuck in the scroll, unable to resume his former life.”
“I dedicated myself to the education of your son,” Walking Stick said.
“Taught him,” Gaunt said, “in the manner of your Garden.”
“Why would I not give him the best?” Walking Stick gestured toward one of the walls’ ruined sections. “However, if it reassures you, know that the monks of the Forest have also instructed him. They have a . . . different approach.”
Gaunt looked out at swirling clouds. She sighed. “I never thought I would say so, but perhaps it is not entirely bad you were exiled with him. He was left with few friends.”
Bone said nothing.
Walking Stick bowed. “I fear he would not consider me one such. Yet I tried to make him an honorable man.”
“I suppose he couldn’t follow me in everything,” Bone said.
“You may joke about your larcenous ways, Imago Bone. But I do hope for better for your son.”
“You mean, you still hope to make him emperor of Qiangguo.”
Walking Stick said, “That was long ago,
Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain