The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [30]
Jack started. “Why point that out to me?”
“You’ll find out in around a decade or so, if there’s still a Cambridge by then,” the Cartographer replied with a wink. “Just don’t let the badgers know.”
“What do you know about him?” asked John. “We’ve only spent a few hours with him, and we only went along because he had one of the pocket watches.”
“Ah, he did, did he?” said the Cartographer. “That was one of my ideas, I’ll have you know. Something we used to do in the old days of the Mystery Schools, although I’m not really given to joining secret societies—not ones that would have me as a member, at any rate.”
He held out his hands and waggled his eyebrows, but got only puzzled looks in return. “Does no one in Oxford watch the Marx Brothers? Never mind,” he said with a wave. “Ransom. Bright lad. Unusually adept with spatial perceptions, as you’ve no doubt noticed. I had him training with me here for a few months before he was seduced by the Frenchman. Not sure if it’s a loss or a gain, overall.”
“What were you training him for?” asked John. “To be a Caretaker?”
“To be a Cartographer, actually,” came the reply. “You don’t think I want this job forever, do you?”
“I wasn’t aware that you could resign,” Charles said mildly.
The Cartographer grinned wryly. “Resign, no, but retire, probably, and whether I like it or not, thanks to you,” he said, wagging a finger at Charles, who blushed. “Or hadn’t you noticed? I don’t have a retirement plan in place, but it would be nice to have a successor.
“I don’t hold out much hope for that happening, though,” he continued, with a heavy exhalation of breath. “I understand that something’s been stirred up back in the Summer Country, and that’s causing chaos here in the Archipelago. No one really bothers to keep me updated on things unless they need something from me—but if it’s as bad as the wind seems to indicate, I won’t be useful to them for much longer anyway. All I do is make maps, and with that,” he finished, pointing to the Geographica sticking out of John’s pack, “you have all the maps anyone needs in this world.”
“I think that’s part of why we’re here,” said John. “We have to get Rose to a place that isn’t in the Geographica.”
The Cartographer made a sputtering noise, and his eyes bugged out. “If it isn’t in the Imaginarium Geographica, boy, then it wasn’t worth noting, or no longer exists. And there are even maps of places in the latter category still in it, so—”
Jack interrupted him. “Ransom told us we needed to make our way to someplace called the Nameless Isles. Do you know anything about them?”
“The Nameless Isles!” the old man exclaimed, eyes blazing with anger. In an unusual show of physicality, he actually stepped forward and grabbed Jack by the lapels. “Are you certain that’s what he called them? The Nameless Isles? Tell me, boy! Tell me now!”
All three Caretakers were taken aback at this sudden flaring of emotion. They had seen the man known as the Cartographer at many periods throughout his life—but during his tenure in the Keep of Time, they’d never seen him express anything more than annoyance.
“That’s precisely what he called them,” said Jack. “We don’t mean to upset you, Myrddyn.”
At the mention of his true name, the old man was startled out of his anger. He let go of Jack, and with a few deep breaths, he composed himself once more.
“I apologize,” he said haltingly. “It’s become somewhat of a joke, this ‘end of the world’ business, especially with the tower crumbling more each day. But the Nameless Isles were something to be hidden away, not named, not discussed, not shown, until and unless the actual end of the world was imminent.
“Far to the north of the Archipelago of Dreams, past the domains of the Troll King, past the islands of the Christmas Saint, lies a circlet of islands that have never been named. No map has been drawn to locate