The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [23]
It was a lot longer than Quentin expected. Yards of almost-blank parchment scrolled by as Benedict cranked, showing curves and arcs of latitude and longitude or whatever the Fillorian equivalents were, traversing miles of open ocean. Finally he stopped at a tiny, irregular nugget of land with its name underneath it in italic script: The Outer Island.
“That must be the place,” Quentin said dryly.
Benedict would neither confirm nor deny this. He was painfully uncomfortable making eye contact. Quentin couldn’t think who Benedict reminded him of until he realized that this was what he had probably looked like to other people when he was sixteen. Fear of everybody and everything, hidden behind a mask of contempt, with the greatest contempt of all reserved for himself.
“It looks pretty far out,” Quentin said. “How many days’ sail?”
“Dunno,” Benedict said, which wasn’t quite true, because he added, obviously in spite of himself: “Three maybe. It’s four hundred and seventy-seven miles. Nautical miles.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Nautical’s longer.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred and sixty-five yards longer,” Benedict said automatically. “And a bit.”
Quentin was impressed. Somebody must have managed to beat some information into Benedict somehow. The brass map reader had many articulated arms that extended seductively outward, each one with a posable lens on it. Quentin swiveled one around, and a magnified version of the Outer Island swam into view. It was roughly peanut-shaped, with a star marked on it at one end. Its border was a thick dark line, with a fainter outline around it, doubling it, as if to suggest waves, or maybe the submerged edge of the landmass under the water.
It was about what he expected. A fine black thread, a single lonely stream, wandered from the interior down to the coast. Next to the star was the word Outer, in smaller letters. Presumably that was the name of the island’s one town. The lens failed to reveal anything else. All it did was make the fine grain of the parchment look coarse.
“Who lives there?”
“Fishermen. I guess. There’s an agent of the crown there. That’s why it has a star.”
They looked at the star together.
“It’s a shit map,” Benedict volunteered. He leaned down so that his nose almost touched it. “Look at the shading. Why do you want to know about it?”
“I’m going there.”
“Really? Why?”
“That’s actually a pretty good question.”
“Are you looking for the key?”
“No, I’m not looking for the key. What key?”
“There’s a fairy tale,” Benedict said, as if he were explaining to a kindergartner. “That’s where the key that winds up the world is. Supposed to be.”
Quentin wasn’t wildly interested in Fillorian folklore.
“Why don’t you come along?” he said. “You could make a new map of it, if this one’s so bad.”
Now he was a counselor of troubled youth. Something about the boy made Quentin want to shake him up. Get him out of his comfort zone so he could stop sneering at everybody else who was out of theirs. Get him thinking about something besides his own neuroses for a change. It was harder than it looked.
“I’m not rated for fieldwork,” Benedict mumbled, dropping his gaze again. “I’m a cartographer, not a surveyor.” Quentin watched Benedict’s eyes keep getting drawn back to the map, to that irregular peanut. Maps of places, rather than actual places, were obviously where young master Benedict preferred to live. “The linework is . . .” He made a noise through his teeth: ch. “Jesus Christ.”
“Jesus Christ” was an expression the younger Fillorians had picked up from their new rulers. It was impossible to explain to them what it actually meant. They were convinced it was something dirty.
“In the name of the Kingdom of Fillory,” Quentin intoned, “I hereby pronounce you rated for fieldwork. Good enough?