The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [34]
“Here,” the Cartographer said, proffering the pages to John. “See what you can make of these.”
The old sheets of parchment looked very much like those in the Imaginarium Geographica, and John said as much, wondering aloud if they might have come from the same milling.
“Identical, in point of fact,” the old mapmaker said with a hint of derision in his voice. “I’m surprised you even questioned it.”
John and Jack examined the pages, which were ragged along one edge. “Torn out?” Jack asked. “Were these removed on purpose?”
The Cartographer nodded. “There are secrets hidden within those pages that were too much to handle for some of the Caretakers-in-training,” he said blithely. “De Bergerac in particular made unorthodox use of them, and when that idiot Houdini was recruited, the Far Traveler and I were vindicated in our decision to tear them out.”
“I thought the Geographica couldn’t be destroyed,” said Charles. “Wasn’t that actually a problem when we started all this?”
The Cartographer sighed like a schoolmarm with a worn-out dunce cap. “For one thing, boy, I am the Cartographer. I made the atlas. So I can take out whatever I wish. And for another thing, I wasn’t destroying them, merely hiding them. The ones that have been drawn on are dangerous enough—but four or five centuries ago a rogue Caretaker actually stole a stack of blank sheets.”
“Is this the moon?” John asked, looking through the pages.
“And . . . Mars?”
“Don’t get distracted from your goals,” the Cartographer said, grabbing the pages and riffling through them. “This here is what you need right now.”
The page bore an unfinished drawing of a familiar place that was as comforting in its own way as Ransom’s card of the keep had been.
“That’s home!” Rose exclaimed. “I would so love to go there, Uncle John!”
“Avalon,” said John, nodding. “That would be the perfect place to start the journey to the Nameless Isles. But,” he continued, “the drawing is incomplete. Will it still work in the same way as Ransom’s card?”
“What Ransom does by practice and instinct, you’ll have to do paint-by-numbers,” the Cartographer replied in a tone that was only slightly condescending. “I’ve seen you draw, Caretaker. You should be able to finish what Roger Bacon started.”
“If you have the means to travel out of this place,” remarked Charles, “then why didn’t you leave ages ago? Why don’t you come with us now?”
The Cartographer hesitated, and a hard look crossed his features, then softened. “I am bound, if you’ll remember, to stay here in Solitude, until such time as Arthur chooses to release me.”
“Arthur is dead,” Charles said bluntly.
“Charles,” chided Jack. “His heirs are able to open the door,” he said, turning to the old mapmaker. “I’m sure it is within their power to free you as well.”
“When and if they choose,” the Cartographer said. He clapped his hands together. “But that is a discussion for a different day. For now, you need to finish the drawing and be on your way.”
He provided a pencil and several crayons to John, who quickly began to draw on the sheet, sketching in details of the ruins that existed there now, blurring out the unblemished portrait that Bacon had begun of the structures that were new and unfallen. John had seen the island in both states—pristine and ruined— and he didn’t want to take the risk that a drawing of Avalon as it once was would take them further back in time. Better that it take them to the place as he knew it best, even if it was only a shadow of its former glory.
In less than an hour the drawing was completed.
“Simply use it in the same way Ransom used the Trump,” the Cartographer instructed them. “Hold the picture in your mind, then merge what you see there with the picture before you. It will expand, and you should then be able to step through.
“I would prefer not to watch, if you don’t mind,” he said dismissively. “You’ve distracted me enough today