Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

Pass two evenings later.
The commander fed them for two nights (mutton stew and mutton stew), let Chou Yan entertain with gossip from the capital, and sent them west, with advice as to where to spend three nights on the way to Kuala Nor, so as to arrive at the lake in the morning.
Yan was entirely content with this counsel, having no interest at all in encountering ghosts of any kind, let alone angry ones and in the numbers (improbably) reported by the soldiers at the fort. But Wan-si disdained belief in such matters and did not want to spend an unnecessary night in the canyon among mountain cats, she said bluntly. If his friend was alive by the lake, and had been there for two years ...
They pushed on through two long, light-headed days (Yan was finding it difficult to deal with the air this high), past the commander's suggested stopping places. On the third afternoon, with the sun ahead of them, they ascended a last defile between cliffs and came suddenly out of shadows to the edge of a meadow bowl, of a beauty that could break the heart.
And moving forward through tall grass, Chou Yan had finally seen his dear friend standing at the doorway of a small cabin, waiting to greet him, and his soul had been glad beyond any poet's words, and the long journey came to seem as nothing, in the way of such trials when they are over.
Weary but content, he brought his small horse to a halt in front of the cabin. Shen Tai was in a white tunic for mourning, but his loose trousers and the tunic were sweat- and dirt-stained. He was unshaven, darkened, rough-skinned like a peasant, but he was staring at Yan in flattering disbelief.
Yan felt like a hero. He was a hero. He'd had a nosebleed earlier, from the altitude, but you didn't have to talk about that. He only wished his tidings weren't so grave. But then he wouldn't be here, would he, if they weren't?
Tai bowed twice, formally, hand in fist. His courtesy was as remembered: impeccable, almost exaggeratedly so, when he wasn't in a fury about something.
Yan, still on horseback, smiled happily down at him. He said what he'd planned to say for a long time, words he'd fallen asleep each night thinking about. "West of Iron Gate, west of Jade Gate Pass / There'll be no old friends."
Tai smiled back. "I see. You have come this long distance to tell me poets can be wrong? This is meant to dazzle and confound me?"
Hearing the wry, remembered voice, Yan's heart was suddenly full. "Ah, well. I suppose not. Greetings, old friend."
He swung down stiffly. His eyes filled with tears as he embraced the other man.
Tai's expression when they stepped back and looked at each other was strange, as if Yan were a ghost of some kind himself.
"I would not ever, ever have thought ..." he began.
"That I would be one to come to you? I am sure you didn't. Everyone underestimates me. That is supposed to confound you."
Tai did not smile. "It does, my friend. How did you even know where ...?"
Yan made a face. "I didn't think I was coming this far. I thought you were at home. We all did. They told me there where you had gone."
"And you carried on? All the way here?"
"It looks as though I did, doesn't it?" Yan said happily. "I even carried two small casks of Salmon River wine for you, given me by Chong himself there, but I drank one with your brother and the other at Iron Gate, I'm afraid. We did drink to your name and honour."
The ironical smile. "I thank you for that, then. I do have wine," Tai said. "You will be very tired, and your companion. Will you both honour me and come inside?"
Yan looked at him, wanting to be happy, but his heart sank. He was here for a reason, after all.
"I have something to tell you," he said.
"I thought that must be so," his friend said gravely. "But let me offer water to wash yourselves, and a cup of wine first. You have come a long way."
"Beyond the last margins of the empire," Yan quoted.
He loved the sound of that. No one was going to be allowed to forget this journey of his, he decided.