The Indigo King - James A. Owen [115]
“Well,” he went on, rubbing his hands together, “I’ve enjoyed this, but I really must get back to work. Autunno isn’t going to annotate itself.”
“What are we to do now?” John asked.
The Cartographer blinked. “Abelard is taking Geoffrey to Paralon,” he said, “and I expect you’ll be going home.”
“How do we do that?” asked John. “We used our last means of time travel to get here—and no offense, but it’s far from when we want to be.”
“Don’t you have a talisman of your own?” the Cartographer inquired. “One that can magic up what you need most?”
“Yes,” John replied, “but we’ve all used our turn with the Serendipity Box. It won’t work again.”
“I haven’t,” a voice said, small but firm.
It was Fred.
“I haven’t opened the Serendipity Box,” he repeated. “I’ve thought about it several times but never did. I wanted to wait until it looked as if there really were no other options.”
“Animal logic again,” John said gently, kneeling to look the badger in the eyes. “You may turn out to be the wisest of us all, Fred.”
Jack and Uncas removed the box from the satchel they’d been carrying and handed it to Fred. The little animal didn’t give a preamble speech or make any dramatic gestures, but simply lifted the lid and looked inside.
The box seemed empty at first, until Fred realized that in the corner was a small silver key. He took it out and closed the box.
“It’s the key to your future, I’d imagine,” the Cartographer said.
“Is that a metaphor?” asked John.
“The future. Upstairs—the next door,” the Cartographer replied, exasperated. “That’s the problem with scholars. You always think there are layers and layers to everything, when sometimes, the literal meaning is all you need. It is,” he repeated pointedly, tapping two fingers into his other palm for emphasis, “the key, to, your, future.”
Jack and John both realized it at once. The last door in the Keep. The one always out of reach, because the stairs ended at the Cartographer’s door, while the tower continued to grow.
“Have you ever gone through it?” John asked. “Have you ever gone into the future?”
The Cartographer turned away from them and did not answer for a long, long while. Finally, still facing the wall, he began to reply.
“I have not gone through it myself,” he said quietly, “but it wasn’t for lack of desire or effort. It had opened, just the merest fraction of an inch, just enough for a single look, before it was slammed shut and placed forever out of reach.”
John realized what the Cartographer had left unspoken. “You didn’t get to look through the door, did you?”
“Not I,” the Cartographer said, turning to look at Rose, “but my brother did, and what he saw broke his heart, and he spent the next dozen centuries trying to change what he saw. And he never succeeded, because I spent just as many years trying not to. And I will never be able to erase that shame, or ease the pain I caused him.”
“That was why you were exiled from the Archipelago, wasn’t it?” asked John. “For trying to go into the future.”
“Almost,” came the reply. “I—we—were exiled not for attempting to see the future, but because we wanted to use that knowledge to shape the world to suit our own purposes. That was not permitted then, or now.”
With that, the Cartographer resumed his work, head bowed low to the paper. It was, the companions realized, the end of the conversation.
“Be well, Uncle Merlin,” Rose said, as she and Hugo stepped out the door.
Jack bowed his head. “Farewell, Meridian.”
“Good-bye … Myrddyn,” said John.
“I am the Cartographer now,” he replied, not looking up, “and that is enough. In truth, it always was.”
At the edge of the stairs, the companions found a small keyhole, almost covered over with spiderwebs.
Fred inserted the key into the opening and turned it. There was a small click, then nothing.
Suddenly, as if they were leaves of a plant breaking through soil to sunlight, nubs of stone began to appear along the wall. They pushed outward, groaning