The Shadow Dragons (8 page)

. . . on the edge of the uppermost shelf was a small glass bottle . . .

CHAPTER SIX

The Last Map

Rose entered the room first,
followed by Archie, the three Caretakers, and Quixote, who was still trying to take stock of what was going on—as well as when and where, for that matter.

“Hello, Uncle,” Rose said. “You’re looking well.”

“What?” the Cartographer said, tilting his head and peering over the top of his glasses. His expression softened when he saw the girl. “Looking well for my age, you mean,” he went on, putting down his quill and standing to better appraise his visitors. “It feels like a thousand years since I last saw you, child.”

“Nearly that, Uncle,” said Rose as she moved forward and embraced the old man. After a moment’s hesitation, he returned the hug and even kissed the top of her head.

“What do you mean, the end of the world?” John asked, closing the door. “Which world are you talking about?”

The Cartographer sighed. “Your first question is ripe with stupidity, but your second redeems you,” he said with a snort. “To make maps, or assist with annotations, or sign autographs for a badger requires only one or two of you to come see me, but for”— he paused and counted heads— “five of you, plus my niece, to come means some kind of disaster is imminent, and at the rate this tower has been crumbling, my guess is that the world is ending.”

“So when the tower is destroyed, the world will end?” asked Charles.

“My world will, at any rate,” said the Cartographer, “so I don’t really make a distinction.”

“I’ve apologized before,” Charles offered, “but repairing the keep really is something that’s beyond my abilities—or anyone else’s, for that matter.”

The old mapmaker waved his hands dismissively. “I wasn’t chiding you, boy,” he said with a huff. “We’ve all known what the inevitable end would be. But still, it would have been nice if you’d dropped in more often to chat. Brought me some cookies, a comic book or two. A better television would have been nice. You can imagine what the reception is like here in the Archipelago.”

“We’ve come as frequently as we’ve been needed,” John started to protest, “and more often in recent years.”

“More often?” said the Cartographer. “You haven’t been back at all in at least seven years, if not more.”

John glanced around at his companions with a dark expression. Ransom had been correct: Going through a card created in their future had
transported
them to that future. They were in 1943.

“Don’t be so sour about it,” the Cartographer said, noting the expressions on the Caretakers’ faces. “I’m only having a go at you.”

“It’s not that,” John began. “When Ransom sent us here, he—”

“Ransom sent you?” the Cartographer said in surprise. “Alvin Ransom? I thought he’d gotten himself lost in the Southern Isles along with Arthur Pym.”

“Ah, that would be me,” Quixote said, raising his hand. “And I was not lost—not precisely, in any regard.”

“He sent us here through this,” Charles said, holding up the Trump. “It worked a bit differently than we’d expected it to, but it did work.”

“That’s very interesting,” the Cartographer said, in a way that indicated he was not used to being interested. He folded his hands behind him and paced across the braided carpet. “Ransom . . . he’s Verne’s apprentice now, is he not? A very quick study in many ways. In point of fact, he was here very recently, making that selfsame card. But he does have his drawbacks, you know.” He stopped and looked at Jack. “Cambridge man, you see.”

Jack started. “Why point that out to me?”

“You’ll find out in around a decade or so, if there’s still a Cambridge by then,” the Cartographer replied with a wink. “Just don’t let the badgers know.”

“What do you know about him?” asked John. “We’ve only spent a few hours with him, and we only went along because he had one of the pocket watches.”

“Ah, he did, did he?” said the Cartographer. “That was one of my ideas, I’ll have you know. Something we used to do in the old days of the Mystery Schools, although I’m not really given to joining secret societies—not ones that would have me as a member, at any rate.”

He held out his hands and waggled his eyebrows, but got only puzzled looks in return. “Does no one in Oxford watch the Marx Brothers? Never mind,” he said with a wave. “Ransom. Bright lad. Unusually adept with spatial perceptions, as you’ve no doubt noticed. I had him training with me here for a few months before he was seduced by the Frenchman. Not sure if it’s a loss or a gain, overall.”

“What were you training him for?” asked John. “To be a Caretaker?”

“To be a Cartographer, actually,” came the reply. “You don’t think I want this job forever, do you?”

“I wasn’t aware that you could resign,” Charles said mildly.

The Cartographer grinned wryly. “Resign, no, but retire, probably, and whether I like it or not, thanks to you,” he said, wagging a finger at Charles, who blushed. “Or hadn’t you noticed? I don’t have a retirement plan in place, but it would be nice to have a successor.

“I don’t hold out much hope for that happening, though,” he continued, with a heavy exhalation of breath. “I understand that something’s been stirred up back in the Summer Country, and that’s causing chaos here in the Archipelago. No one really bothers to keep me updated on things unless they need something from me—but if it’s as bad as the wind seems to indicate, I won’t be useful to them for much longer anyway. All I do is make maps, and with that,” he finished, pointing to the
Geographica
sticking out of John’s pack, “you have all the maps anyone needs in this world.”

“I think that’s part of why we’re here,” said John. “We have to get Rose to a place that isn’t in the
Geographica.”

The Cartographer made a sputtering noise, and his eyes bugged out. “If it isn’t in the
Imaginarium Geographica,
boy, then it wasn’t worth noting, or no longer exists. And there are even maps of places in the latter category still in it, so—”

Jack interrupted him. “Ransom told us we needed to make our way to someplace called the Nameless Isles. Do you know anything about them?”

“The Nameless Isles!” the old man exclaimed, eyes blazing with anger. In an unusual show of physicality, he actually stepped forward and grabbed Jack by the lapels. “Are you certain that’s what he called them? The Nameless Isles? Tell me, boy! Tell me now!”

All three Caretakers were taken aback at this sudden flaring of emotion. They had seen the man known as the Cartographer at many periods throughout his life—but during his tenure in the Keep of Time, they’d never seen him express anything more than annoyance.

“That’s precisely what he called them,” said Jack. “We don’t mean to upset you, Myrddyn.”

At the mention of his true name, the old man was startled out of his anger. He let go of Jack, and with a few deep breaths, he composed himself once more.

“I apologize,” he said haltingly. “It’s become somewhat of a joke, this ‘end of the world’ business, especially with the tower crumbling more each day. But the Nameless Isles were something to be hidden away, not named, not discussed, not shown, until and unless the actual end of the world was imminent.

“Far to the north of the Archipelago of Dreams, past the domains of the Troll King, past the islands of the Christmas Saint, lies a circlet of islands that have never been named. No map has been drawn to locate them—well, none that could be duplicated, that is. And certainly none that could be included in the
Imaginarium Geographica.”

“Why couldn’t they?” John asked.

“Because the islands themselves are alive,” came the response, “or at least as close to living creatures as large masses of stone are likely to get. They have a form of consciousness, and they have will. They are constantly on the move, so they can never be found in the same way twice. A map on paper or parchment would be useless.”

John grimaced. “How can we find them if they’re always moving?”

Archimedes let out a snort and sidled over to the Cartographer. “He really doesn’t listen well, does he?”

“It’s been a constant problem,” the Cartographer admitted. “I told you the maps could not be included in the
Imaginarium Geographica”
he said to John, “not that the islands couldn’t be mapped at all.

“Finding the route to a living island that is constantly moving,” the Cartographer went on, “requires a living map that may constantly change—and so every map I have ever drawn for the Nameless Isles has been drawn on the seekers themselves.”

“You’re going to draw the maps on
us?
” Jack exclaimed.

“Not all of you,” the Cartographer said in exasperation. “I do have other deadlines to meet, you know, and drawing one on each of you would take all day and then some. No, just one of you will do. So,” he finished, rubbing his hands together, “whose strong back shall we transform into a map?”

John’s face took on a dour expression, and Jack stammered a moment, trying to decide what to say. In his younger days, he would have been the first to volunteer, but age and seasoning had made him much less rash. Still, one of them was going to have to do it if they were to make any progress at all.

Quixote suddenly stepped forward and removed his helmet as he dropped to one knee. “If I may serve yet again in this humble way,” he said in his high baritone, “then I shall offer myself as the canvas for your quill.”

The Cartographer looked startled for a moment, then made a clucking sound with his tongue and helped the knight to his feet.

“Your self-sacrificing gesture is appreciated, and your honor and nobility are without question,” the old mapmaker said, “but to be most frank, while your spirit is willing, your flesh is wrinkled. I could do it, no question, but it would be akin to projecting a movie reel onto a shar-pei.”

“Uncle Merlin,” Rose began as the others comforted the crestfallen Quixote, “I would be willing—”

“Absolutely not,” he replied, holding his hands up defiantly.” For all I know you’ve already got a tattoo or three, and I’m not going to be accused of adding to your delinquency. Also, you’re still quite small, and an island is likely to slide off your back altogether.

“No,” he said with finality, “If it’s to be any of you, it must be one of the Caretakers three.”

“We could draw straws,” Jack began, when Charles let out a loud noise of exasperation.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” he said as he began pulling off his shirt. “I’ll do it, but when my wife starts asking prickly questions, I’m deferring to you fellows.”

The Cartographer instructed Charles to lean himself over the drafting table to allow as even a working surface as possible. It was set low to the floor, so Charles’s legs dangled at an awkward angle until his companions propped them up with pillows.

“Uncle Charles,” Rose said, hiding a giggle, “you look like a bear rug, stretched out to dry.”

“More like a bare rug,” said John. “The press doesn’t let you out to get much sun, does it, old fellow?”

“Do you want to trade places?” Charles shot back.

“Looking good,” John said quickly. “Carry on.”

The Cartographer rummaged around in the overladen shelves in the back corner of the room, muttering to himself, until he finally emerged with a long, gleaming black quill and a stoppered bottle of ink.

“The quill is made from the tail feather of one of Odin’s ravens,” he explained as he took his seat behind Charles. “Hugin . . . or maybe it was Munin. I forget. It doesn’t matter, anyway. What makes this process work is the ink.”

He set the quill aside and gently removed the stopper from the bottle, which appeared to be half-full. The cloudy liquid inside swirled about lazily in the glass and seemed to emanate a faint glow and a familiar scent.

“Apple cider?” John said, sniffing. “The ink you use is apple cider? Will that even work?”

“An unusual map requires an unusual medium,” the old mapmaker replied. “It only smells like cider because of its extreme age.”

“Did it come from one of the apples on Haven?” Jack asked. “Those trees were quite old, I believe.”

“Oh, it’s far, far older than that,” said the Cartographer as he dipped the quill point into the bottle. “If it didn’t come from one of the oldest trees that ever was, it certainly was in their forest. You who subscribe to these newfangled modern religions have a name for it: the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

Charles nearly bolted upright. “Do you mean the juice you’re using to draw with may have come from an apple off the same tree Adam and Eve took an apple from in the Garden of Eden?”

“Same tree?” the Cartographer said indignantly. “Pish-tosh. It’s from the same
apple.
They only took two bites from it, after all.

“Now,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “Hold still—I want to get this right the first time.”

Slowly, with deft and deliberate strokes, the ancient man once called Myrddyn, then Meridian, and then Merlin, before at last becoming known only by his trade, began drawing the map that would guide the companions to the Nameless Isles.

He began at the lower left, just under Charles’s rib cage, with a vast island large enough to have continental aspirations. Then, pausing only to dip the quill, he quickly worked his way upward, adding smaller islands in a variety of shapes and putting in navigational notations as he sketched. Another sizeable island was situated between the shoulder blades, followed by two half-moon isles that were obviously volcanic in nature.