The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [33]
“One of my better works, all told,” he said, wiping his hands on a cloth. “You’re quite a good canvas, young Charles. Patient, not fidgety, very few moles to work around. If I’d had a hundred of you I could have done the entire Geographica on the backs of scholars and done away with the parchment altogether. We could have kept you in a village somewhere, growing fat and happy on tea and cakes. Then, whenever a captain needed to go somewhere, we’d just call out your particular island and send you off with him.”
“An interesting idea,” John said as Charles groaned and straightened up. “But what happens when you lose one of the, uh, maps?”
“Interesting doesn’t always equal practical,” came the reply, “but being practical is always less interesting.”
“How do you feel, Charles?” Jack asked as he helped his friend slip his shirt back on. “Does it itch?”
“It’s not really too bad,” said Charles as he tucked his shirt into his trousers. “It does tingle a bit, but not unpleasantly so. A little like having some friendly ants roaming around searching for a picnic.”
“Better you than me,” said John. “When you get back to London, you’ll just have to remember to sleep on your back to avoid explaining it to your wife.”
“No worries there,” said the Cartographer. “The map isn’t visible in the Summer Country—only here, in the Archipelago.”
“Well, if I’d known that,” Jack huffed, “I’d have volunteered myself.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Charles hummed skeptically. “I’m sure you would have, Jack.”
“Thank you, for . . . for everything,” said John, offering his hand to the Cartographer, who paused, then took it at the wrist, in the old fashion. “We should leave. There’s no, ah, time to waste.”
“We’ve overlooked one thing,” Jack said mildly. “We’re still stuck in the Keep of Time.”
“It gets easier after the first thousand years or so,” said the Cartographer.
“That is a problem,” John agreed, realizing they’d come via a one-way passage. “And we don’t have a Compass Rose with which to contact anyone either.”
“Isolation clears the mind and sharpens the senses,” said the Cartographer.
“Perhaps we could fashion some sort of rope and lower ourselves down,” Charles suggested.
“And then what?” said Jack. “We swim to the Nameless Isles?”
“We could use the Opening to access the Underneath, and the islands below,” John suggested, rubbing his chin. “Autunno is the closest source of allies we have.”
“That just creates a whirlpool,” Jack countered. “We’d only drop farther”
“Why are they arguing about this?” Quixote asked the Cartographer. “Aren’t we just going to take the boat?”
The Cartographer shrugged. “I think it’s the process they have to go through. They are somehow required to argue pointlessly about things that are completely irrelevant before deciding to do what was staring them in the face all along.”
John looked at the old men. “You have a boat?”
“Of course I have a boat,” the Cartographer shot back. “You yourselves sent me here in it. It hasn’t gone anywhere else since.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the chaotic shelves behind his chair.
Sitting there on the edge of the uppermost shelf was a small glass bottle that contained a miniature Dragonship.
“The Scarlet Dragon,” John said in realization. “I’ve never given it another thought.”
“I’m not surprised in the least,” Archimedes said, preening.
“So it turns into a boat when we break the glass,” Jack said. “We still have no way to escape the tower.”
“I’m suddenly beginning to see why you’re professors,” said the Cartographer as he handed Jack the ship in the bottle. “Arguing about the problem instead of asking if anyone has a solution is the best way to ensure tenure. Cambridge is lucky to have you.”
“I teach at Oxford,” said Jack.
“That’s right,” the old mapmaker murmured. “I keep forgetting what year it is.”
He rustled around in the far corner of the room, where things seemed to be organized in piles rather than piled on shelves. After