The Indigo King - James A. Owen [114]
It was the Imaginarium Geographica. The first Imaginarium Geographica, which the Cartographer had begun in Alexandria centuries earlier.
“In this atlas,” he explained, “are maps to every land in the Archipelago. At least, those I have managed to remember. Abelard brings me scraps of stories of new lands, and I make new maps. But these, the finished works, should be looked after by those who also write its Histories. Will you accept?”
Geoffrey looked flustered, then bit his lip and bowed gravely. “I am your servant.”
The Cartographer shook his head. “You serve the Silver Throne and the peoples of the Archipelago. I am only a map-maker.”
“I have to ask,” Jack said. “Did we fix it? Is the world, the timeline, proceeding the way it was meant to after the battle at Camelot?”
The Cartographer nodded. “It was not the last confrontation between Arthur and Mordred—but it was the last that you were witness to. There were other encounters between them, and much more to Arthur’s own history that you have not yet learned. The building of the Dragonships. The forging of the great rings from the Cup of Albion. Your learning of these things may yet be in your future, and events must still follow the paths already taken, if you are to return to the world you know.”
“We can go home?” Uncas and Fred exclaimed together. “Really?”
“Yes, little Children of the Earth.”
“And you’ll remain here, Bound by Arthur,” said Jack. “It’s just, I think. But having been Bound once myself, by Mordred, I can’t say I don’t have some sympathy for you.”
“It must be a strong magic,” said Hugo, “to keep you here so long.”
“Magic, and Bindings, and Openings, and Summonings have far less to do with actual power than they do with belief,” the Cartographer said. “Belief in what is possible, and belief in what is necessary.”
He gestured to Jack. “You say that my brother, Madoc, once performed a Binding on you? With a ritual? And blood?”
“That’s right,” said John. “On all of us. It took a remedy from within the badgers’ book, the Little Whatsit, to free us.”
“Did it now?” came the reply. “So ask yourself this: Why did it work to begin with?”
“Because, ah …,” John started. He looked at Jack, who shrugged.
“Mm-hmm,” said the Cartographer. “And why did the badgers’ remedy work?”
John and Jack had no answer for that, either.
The Cartographer nodded, almost melancholy, and rubbed Fred on the head. “And you, little Child of the Earth. Can you tell me why the Binding worked, and why your remedy did as well?”
“Because we wanted them to,” Fred answered.
“Because,” the Cartographer said simply, “you had faith that they would.”
“If it’s a matter of faith,” Jack retorted, “then why wouldn’t the talismans you found, like the Spear of Destiny, allow you passage back to the Archipelago?”
“Oh, I found many other talismans,” the Cartographer said. “A dozen. Dozens. Maybe a hundred. It doesn’t matter. What matters now, as it did then, was the reason that those ‘divine’ objects wouldn’t allow me to pass through the Frontier into another world.”
“Because you didn’t believe,” said Jack. “Because you had no faith that they were, in fact, divine.”
“Exactly, my boy,” the Cartographer said. “I was searching, and acquiring, and trying to use objects that had value, worth, to other people. Not one of those things meant more to me than that. As a means to an end.”
“But if they had …,” Jack began.
“If they had,” the Cartographer finished, “I’d have crossed over easily, no bones about it. If I’d had a belief in just one of those things, I’d have passed.”
“But the sword, Caliburn, was from your world, your gods,” said Jack. “Why couldn’t you use it?”
“For exactly the opposite reason,” the Cartographer said. “I had