“That may only be a traders’ tale,” Dorje said cautiously. “We do not know if it is true.”

The other shrugged. “We do not know it is not. And there are others like it, too many for all to be lies.”

I sighed. “Does he have a name, a real name, this Falconer? Where exactly does he live? What about his wife, the Spider Queen?”

“Oh yes, he has a name,” Dorje confirmed. “Tarik Khaga, the Raja of Kurugiri. That is the name of his eyrie, his stronghold in the mountains. It is south of Tufan, looming above the Path of Heaven’s Spear. His Spider Queen wife…” He shrugged, too. “She is called Jagrati. It is a Bhodistani name. But no one knows where she came from, not for certain.”

Hearing the name Jagrati spoken, one of the other Tufani traders ventured a comment in his own tongue. They conferred amongst themselves, and for the thousandth time in my life, I wished humankind didn’t have so many bedamned languages.

“Pemba says he heard that the Spider Queen Jagrati was born to the lowest of the low among her people,” Dorje said in a hushed whisper. “She is what the Bhodistani call an untouchable.”

I was confused. “I don’t understand.”

He studied me gravely. “You know nothing of Bhodistani society and religion?” I shook my head. “It is all very complicated. Everyone is born into a caste that determines their role in life, based on the life they lived before this one. The priests are the highest. Second are the rulers and warriors, and merchants are third. Fourth come the workers, who toil to serve the higher castes. The lowest of the low, the untouchables, they do not even have a caste. They perform tasks that are unclean.”

The word unclean stirred an uneasy memory of the Patriarch and his creamy smile within my memories. “Such as?”

“Such as handling corpses and gathering night-soil. Tasks so unclean that even the shadow of an untouchable can pollute one’s food, so it must be discarded.” Dorje stretched out his hands and regarded them. “That is not the belief of those of us who follow the Path of Dharma and Sakyamuni’s teaching. But it is the belief in Bhodistan, where they worship many different gods.”

It was enough to make my head spin.

Stone and sea, the folk of the world hold a great many peculiar beliefs! That night, I was glad when Unegen bade us in an irritable voice to cease our yammering, extinguish the coals, and take to our bedrolls.

And in the morning…

More desert.

More dust.

“What about the Lady of Rats?” I asked Dorje on the second night into our journey. “Can you put a name to her?”

“Rats?” he echoed in an inquiring tone.

I nodded. “I was told she is the Falconer’s enemy. Tarik Khaga’s enemy,” I said in clarification. “He sought to acquire her, and her husband refused. He was killed by Khaga’s assassins-and yet she remains to defy him.”

A heated discussion ensued among the Tufani.

“Yes,” Dorje said at length. “There is such a woman, a widow. The Rani of Bhaktipur, who rules in the valley kingdom below the Falconer’s eyrie. The Raja hid her away when the Falconer sent for her. The Falconer’s assassins slew him, but they did not succeed in taking his widow.” He shuddered a little. “Why, no one knows for sure, except that the men who guard her are also fiercely loyal. And there is a temple there, a very famous temple among the Bhodistani, where rats are worshipped as an aspect of one of their goddesses.”

“So it is true,” I mused. “Rats.”

He nodded. “Rats.”

It was a long journey. Over the course of weeks, I must have heard a hundred tales of the Falconer and the Spider Queen, of his acquisitive nature, of her unholy wiles. Of the myriad assassins they employed, and the myriad ways in which they dispatched their targets. Dash listened to them with a boy’s morbid delight, contributing details he had heard. Unegen shook his head in disapproval, but he held his tongue more often than not.

I tried to sort through it all and cling to what was real.

The Falconer was real; so be it. He had a name, Tarik Khaga. He lived in a place, a real place, called Kurugiri.

The Spider Queen…

Well, at least she had one name. Jagrati. Where she came from and what mysterious thrall she wielded were much in debate.

The fact that she did wield a mysterious thrall, wasn’t.

FIFTY

Midway through the journey, I saw the mountain range on the horizon.

The Abode of the Gods.

It stretched east and west as far as the eye could see, but at first glance, I didn’t think its snow-capped peaks seemed all that imposing. In a few days’ journey, I thought, we would reach the base.

I was wrong.

It took us two more weeks of slogging across the barren desert, the mountains remaining tantalizingly distant. By the time we were travelling beneath their shadow, I was well and properly in awe of their scale.

I was also profoundly grateful that I hadn’t had sufficient coin to book Unegen’s caravan for an exclusive passage across the desert. I’d grown fond of the good-natured Tufani traders, and Dorje had seen fit to take me under his wing. He promised me that I might travel with them through the first series of passes into the trade-city of Rasa in Tufan. There, he assured me, I would be able to find an escort to guide me through the Path of Heaven’s Spear, to the distant valley kingdom of Bhaktipur.

The day we reached the base of the Abode of the Gods, we made camp beneath their looming presence. In Alba, the foothills alone would have been reckoned formidable mountains. I gazed beyond the foothills at the narrow crease of the first great pass, ascending sharply into the unknown heights. The late-afternoon sun drenched the eastern half of the pass in golden light, plunging the western half in stark shadow.

“This is where you left Bao?” I asked Dash.

He nodded. “In the morning, he set out alone, and Grandfather and I turned back to cross the desert.” He paused. “How is Bao?”

Dash knew I had a sense of Bao’s presence. Over the course of the journey, there had been ample time for me to tell my half of our story, which the boy had been eager to hear. I consulted our diadh-anams. Mine burned strongly within me, a clean, blazing spark urging me into the dizzying heights.

Bao’s was motionless and unchanged.

It was as it had been from the moment Aleksei had unlocked my chains-dull, sullen, and guttering.

“The same,” I said soberly.

Young Dash knitted his brows. “That’s not good, is it? Moirin… let me come with you. I can help. I’m sure I can.”

His grandfather’s head jerked up in alarm.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I settled for bowing gravely to Dash in the Ch’in manner, hand clasped over fist. “Thank you, young hero. Your heart is wise and courageous beyond its years. But this task was set before me by the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, and I cannot allow you to risk yourself; nor can I risk depriving Grandfather Unegen of his pride and joy, the light of his heart.”

The elderly Tatar grunted, relaxing.

Dash flushed, his cheeks reddening. “But I want to help!”

“And so you have,” I said gently. “You are my piece of good luck, Dash. You found me when I did not think I wanted to be found, and because of you, I have reached the mountains safely, with good companions to continue the journey. I will carry the hope of that moment forward with me, always.”

He looked away. “It’s just…”

“I know.” I knelt and hugged him. “You will find your own story, young hero. This is only a piece of it.”

Dash returned my embrace, his wiry young arms flung tight around my shoulders, his face pressed against my neck. And there beneath the shadow of the Abode of the Gods, I could not help but think that Master Lo was right. All ways led to the Way. From one thing, all things arise.