The Indigo King - James A. Owen [46]
Anaximander bowed deeply. “I am what I am,” he said simply. “Now, let us speak of the Archipelago, shall we?”
The problem with trying to relieve oneself in ancient Greece, Chaz decided, was that everywhere he went, there was some kind of statue or carving or bas-relief with a face on it—which meant that every time he stopped to pee, something was watching him.
And it was flat-out impossible to loosen one’s bladder when one was being watched.
Finally he managed to find a decent spot in between a tall, stout olive tree and a great cistern. The shadow underneath afforded just enough privacy to do what needed doing, as long as not too many people passed by.
Chaz had unbuckled his trousers and was just preparing to relax and let loose the torrent, when he heard familiar voices. He pulled up his pants and leaned back to peer around the cistern.
It was Myrddyn and Madoc. They were at the other end of the alley, having a heated if hushed exchange.
Chaz moved closer to listen. He still could not understand most of what they were saying—but he could remember. And he was catching just enough—words like “ship” and “dragon”—that he knew it might be important to remember it all.
“And what happens if we’re found out?” Madoc was saying. “They claim to know Deucalion—that means they could discover the truth: that we were exiled from the Archipelago.”
“No one needs to know that!” Myrddyn hissed, grabbing his twin by the collar. “Least of all Anaximander! Only Deucalion, the Pandora, and the Dragons themselves know what really took place before we came here. And that’s the way it will stay until we can return!
“No,” he said, finally releasing his grip on Madoc’s tunic, “we’ll use them for whatever information we can glean, and then we’ll dispose of them, as we have the others. He’s already prepared the wine, as he has before.”
“You know I’m uncomfortable with that, Myrddyn,” Madoc said, his voice low. “We could have trusted some of them, I think.”
Myrddyn shook his head. “It’s too great a risk,” he said blithely. “The knowledge of the Archipelago is rare, and it must remain so. The fewer who know anything of it, or of us and our real reasons for returning, the better. Do you want to get father’s ship back or not?”
After a moment, Madoc nodded, still reluctant. Then together the brothers turned and walked back toward the amphitheater.
When he was certain they had gone, Chaz emerged from the shadow of the cistern where he had been watching them and stood in the alleyway, breathing heavily and trying to reason out what he believed he had heard.
For a long moment, Chaz considered his options, looking hard in the direction of the philosopher’s house. Then, abruptly, he spun about and began walking toward the amphitheater and the plaza … and the portal back to Sanctuary.
Of any scholars of the ancient world who made maps, only Anaximander had conceived of one depicting the entire world.
The maps he showed to John and Jack were crude by their standards, but revolutionary for the philosopher’s time. And they were good enough for a beginning. Some, John suspected, might even be in the Imaginarium Geographica.
Anaximander had already sussed out the fact that John and Jack were versed in the reading and function of maps, and so he proposed that they help him in indexing the ones he and the twins had already made, to see if they could add details to their growing store of knowledge about the Archipelago.
With unspoken reservations, and keeping their objective in mind, the two Caretakers agreed—but while they worked, the same concern played out in both of their heads.
To return home, Myrddyn and Madoc needed two things: first, something to guide them—the maps, which would eventually form the basis for the Imaginarium Geographica; and second, a vessel touched by divinity, as Odysseus’s ship had been once, able to make the journey and traverse the Frontier.
They could not help with those things, but they could provide a lot of information about the Archipelago itself. Too much, in fact. In their