The Magician King_ A Novel - Lev Grossman [39]
You goddamned idiots, she thought. Too clever for your own good. No wonder you let Quentin in, you’re just like him: you can’t stop outsmarting yourselves. You think you can buy off my life with this? With a bunch of fat envelopes? You are perhaps under the impression that I will accept these in lieu of the magic kingdom that is my rightful inheritance?
Oh my no. Not on your life, mister. This is a standoff, a waiting game, and I’ve got all day. You’re looking for a quick fix to the Julia problem, but no such fix exists. You’d best settle in, my friend, because Julia is playing the long game.
CHAPTER 7
On the way home, Quentin made it his royal business to orbit the Muntjac and check in on everybody once or twice a day. The morning after they left the Outer Island, Quentin’s first stop was Benedict. The ship was racing along under the tropical sun, its every line and sail twangingly taut and perfect, and Quentin was feeling a little silly that he’d had the Muntjac so thoroughly fitted out for what had amounted to a trip around the block. He found Benedict sitting on a stool in his cabin, hunched over his tiny fold-down writing desk. Spread out on it was a hand-drawn naval chart showing a few jagged little islands and peppered with tiny numbers that might have denoted the depths of the ocean. Somebody had gone over the shallow water with a pale blue wash to make it look more watery.
Benedict hadn’t warmed to Quentin any since they’d left the mainland, but Quentin found himself liking him anyway. There was something bracing about the sheer consistency of his contempt for Quentin, who was, after all, Benedict’s king. It took some backbone to stick to that position. And if nothing else Benedict was about the nerdiest person he’d met in Fillory, of a type that didn’t really exist in the real world: he was a map nerd.
“So what have you been up to?” he said.
Benedict shrugged.
“Seasick mostly.”
He hadn’t seen much of Benedict, though he’d tried a couple of times to tutor him on his math. Benedict was conspicuously skillful at doing arithmetic in his head, but Fillorian mathematics weren’t particularly advanced. It was amazing how far he’d gotten on his own.
“What are you working on?”
“Old map,” Benedict said, without looking up. “Like really old. Like two hundred years ago.”
Quentin peered over his shoulder, hands clasped behind his back.
“Is that from the embassy?”
“Like I would do that. It was on the wall. In a frame.”
“It’s just that it has the Outer Island Embassy seal on it.”
“I copied it.”
“You copied the seal too?”
“I copied the map. The seal was on the map.”
It was a gorgeous map. If he was telling the truth, Benedict had genuine talent. It was detailed, precise, without any hesitations or erasures.
“That’s amazing. You have a real gift.”
Benedict flushed at this and worked even more industriously. He found Quentin’s approval and his disapproval equally unbearable.
“How’ve you found the fieldwork? Must be different from what you’re used to.”
“I hate it,” Benedict said. “It’s a fucking mess. Nothing looks like it’s supposed to. There’s no math for it.” His frustration brought him out of his shell a little. “Nothing’s ever correct, ever. There’s no straight lines! I always got that maps are approximations, I just never understood how much they leave out. It’s chaos. I’m never doing this again.”
“That’s it? You’re giving up?”
“Why shouldn’t I? Look at that—” Benedict waved at the wall, in the general direction of the heaving sea. “And now look at this.” He pointed to the map. “This you