I leaned over her shoulder, studying the map. The nearest wild kobold well was only fifty miles or so away. “So if Kaphiri has sent more players, they’ll likely look for us at the mesas, and not at these wild wells.”
“That may be,” Maya said, “but if you camp at the wells you’ll find no food or water or shelter from the elements, and no defensible positions. It’s a trade-off, though it may be a worthwhile one. You’ll have to decide as you go.”
I nodded. “Thank you for all you’ve done.”
“Too much and not enough,” she said as she handed me the map. “We do ask this of you: make no copy of this map for your savant, and destroy it as soon as you have left this region. The life span of a wild well is fleeting, but the life span of expired information is not. In a few months this map will show only where wells used to be. I wouldn’t want anyone to follow it to their death in the silver.”
Dusk came and went, and still there was no word from Liam, but as the scholars had predicted, the silver did not immediately appear at the onset of darkness.
The scholars based their predictions on the rhythm of storms that arose in the Iraliad’s southern basin. Little was known of the basin, except that silver seeped from it, even in the daylight. It was a lowlying, broken land, “As if the fist of the god had struck the world,” Emil said. Like the other scholars, he believed some force or factor, hidden there beneath veils of silver, controlled the rise and fall of silver storms even as far away as the northern edge of the Kalang Crescent.
“Our histories tell us the goddess spun the world from a cloud of silver, and that the silver is her mind, dreaming the world into existence. But where does the silver come from? And how could the goddess control it? I believe some hint of an answer might be found within the southern Iraliad. That region is different from all others in the world, for the silver is never absent, and no player may go there, and live… except perhaps the traveler.
“Once, I tried to go there. I was already old, so there wasn’t so much to lose. I was determined to discover what was there, even if I never escaped alive with the knowledge—but the goddess has no patience for hubris. I barely penetrated the rim of the basin, for the silver became a wall that would not let me advance. In that land you can feel the forces that made the world, still at work, endlessly building up the land all around. You came across the Kalang Crescent. Did you know that it grows higher every year?”
“We had guessed,” I said, quietly astounded at this confirmation. “And we saw the southern desert, when we were on the Crescent.I have no curiosity to go there!”
“Wise youth! For myself, I decided that life was precious to me after all, and I turned for home, but it took me a hundred days to return a mere two hundred miles to these friendly lands of the north.”
Emil sighed. “If we could but understand the factor of the southern desert, we would be so much closer to understanding the tide of silver now rising in the world… or so I believe.”
The scholars had collected notes for centuries, but they could only predict the rise and fall of silver in a radius of some hundred miles around the Temple of the Sisters. Farther than that, their studies failed. This one night they could guide me. Then I would be dependent on luck once again.
Leaving my savant on the pinnacle, I retreated down the stairs to eat some dinner. When I returned half an hour later I found the stars out in all their glory, and a message from Jolly recorded on my savant. I cursed my timing. But when I sent a link Jolly answered immediately, his youthful face gazing from the screen of my savant with worried eyes. “They said you were sick.”
“I’m over it now. Where are you?”
“It’s an old station. I don’t know if it has a name, but we’re only staying here this night. We’ll leave again in the morning. Ficer says to tell you we’ll be at Azure Mesa by tomorrow afternoon.”
I consulted the map Maya had given me. “That’s only a hundred twenty miles from here!”
A gruff voice spoke from offscreen. “Ask her if that’s not too far… now that we’ve crossed almost all the North Iraliad to meet her.”
Jolly grinned. It was infectious. “I’ll be there,” I promised. “In fact, I’ll be waiting when you arrive.”
“If the silver allows it,” the gruff voice amended.
“Yes,” I agreed. “If.”
Only 120 miles—a few hours by bike, if all went well… though things had not gone well for some long time. After Jolly had gone to have his dinner, I cradled the savant in my lap and considered.
Liam and Udondi still had not called. Did that mean they could not? If they had found trouble, it might mean trouble would find me if I stayed at the Sisters.
I could leave tonight.
Liam had been planning to set out tonight anyway. The silver wasn’t expected to rise until late. I could set out, get as far as the first wild well on the map, and camp. That way I’d have a start on anyone who might come looking for me… and if Liam and Udondi showed up at the Sisters tomorrow… well, I’d leave a message with Emil telling them where I’d gone.
I took my savant downstairs. Emil nodded when I told him my plans, as if he’d expected as much. He summoned Maya. “She has decided to leave us this night.”
“There are no safe choices now,” Maya said. “You should have until midnight to reach shelter, but in the darkness you’ll need to go slowly. You weren’t planning to use a light?”
I shook my head.
“By starlight,” Emil said. “By the light of Heaven.” He clasped my hand. “If I were younger I’d go with you. As it is, I can only watch… but I’ll watch well. The traveler will have no news of you from this old man.”
“No, Emil. If he comes, you must tell him whatever he wants to know. He’ll learn it anyway, and I would not have you or anyone else hurt.”
His eyes were moist. “That task may be too hard for me.”
I kissed his cheek. “Still I ask it of you.” Then I whispered the name of the mesa where I was to meet Jolly, and I left him and went downstairs.
My bike was ready. I put on my field jacket while Maya made sure I understood how to find the first wild well. I thanked her, then I called Moki and put him in his bin. Maya opened the door for me. The Bow of Heaven glimmered overhead, giving me a little light. There was no sign of silver. I wondered if Kaphiri lay hidden somewhere among the boulder-strewn slopes. I desperately hoped it wasn’t so; I didn’t want him to know I lived. But even if he was watching, at least he would have no way to follow me except on foot. He would have no way of knowing where I went.
Maya set her hand on my shoulder. “Go slowly,” she whispered, “and with great care. The Iraliad will not forgive any mistake tonight.”
I nodded. Then I set out alone on the path she had shown me.
Coyotes were about that night, and for two or three hours they followed me, appearing as silhouettes on the ridge tops, or as dark shadows against the pale sand of a desert wash. When I first saw them I was frightened. But they did not attack, and when they vanished an hour before midnight I felt terribly alone.
It was only fifty miles to the well that would be my refuge, but the Bow of Heaven was stingy with its light and I worried I would lose my way so I went slowly, making sure of every landmark Maya had told to me. In this way I came to a wide plain.
In much of the Iraliad the land is a hard mineral soil, but the silver had made that plain a fertile place, and despite the rarity of rain, tough sedges grew knee-high, with waxy white flowers looking out among them, their petals agleam in the starlight. Far away I could see the dark shapes of mesas rising against the star-spangled sky, and closer, an ethereal gathering of white standing stones half-melted by the passing tides of silver, so that some stood on stems, looking like elongated white mushrooms.