The Mapmaker's Apprentice

These were dark times, and not just because ashes from burning forests filled half the sky.

They were dark times in comparison with the not-so-bright times of a few years ago, before the sky fell and the first drake sightings. Then, it was a simple matter of is-my-tribe-superior-to-your-tribe warfare, and who has magic and who doesn't, and is it Mar, Wint or Mede magic anyway? Now, an uncountable army of creatures immune to some of the worst effects the swamp could throw at them stomped southward, destroying everything in its path.

The night the sky fell was called Meteos Niktos, and the story was that the two main sides in the splintered civil war each took the burning north as a sign they would win.

The uncountable army of monsters in the north was called many names, but prevalent among them was the Mass, and it was populated by drakes. Drakes were immune to the poisons in the mud, the water and the plants. And magic.

These monikers for the current dark times crossed paths somewhere about a hundred miles east of Domus Palus, and veteran mapmaker Affe Kurzeit felt the sharp jangle of her senses that signified, in a make-yourself-pee-in-your-pants kind of way, that she was at a crossroads of thought, and in no way would things get better any time soon.

The small refugee camp on the southern shores of the Fens of Reur had nothing it could give away, but Affe had speared a wayward, frightened fox on her way across the Lapis Amnis — the river often confused as a sea whose reshaping of the land was so predictable today's island was tomorrow's riverbed.

Over the potluck fox stew, the stories of the dozen families in this camp came out. They were an odd lot: some obviously tribesmen by their giant stature; some noticeably Fygae by their complexion and tools. The majority were Mar, the mixed bloods. All had lived on the edges of the Fens of Reur to the north, and all had shown the intelligence to run when the first drakes were sighted near their homes. And all had left behind a homestead, a town or a family to save
themselves.

Affe could appreciate the save-your-skin approach. She knew the only person you could trust to think first about you was yourself. She had learned a lot in her time at the drake's prison camp, about herself and other things, but she kept her silence here. So far, these refugees had not seen a drake. They considered them stupid, mindless beasts — tool-users, absolutely, but with no conscious thought directing them.

The mapmaker's knowledge was the exact opposite: the drakes were intelligent and organized and very conscious of what they were doing. They were not immune to magic. About the only thing true in what the refugees told her was that the poisons in the mud and water did not affect them the same way.

Maybe the most important information she had was that the drakes were divided, just as the Mar were. The rogue mapmaker, Gabel, had used one faction to fend off another, which had allowed Affe to get free, but caused his own death and those of his companions from Mucker's Folly.

Affe ground her teeth when she thought about it. If any of them had shown the faintest spark of brains, they'd all be alive and with these refugees. The irony was that Affe herself would probably be dead. Or still imprisoned. Or dead anyway.

The mapmaker settled into her blanket near the warmed rocks away from the fire and searched the sky for stars. The sure sign the drakes were hot on their heels was the way the smoke and ashes of the burning forest to the north obscured everything, even the moon Fraemauna, which was supposed to be full now.

Affe stared and stared until she thought she saw stars through the black clouds. She missed the stars. There had been stars, she remembered, in the drake camp. There had been stars when she arrived at Mucker's Folly. But in all her flight south, she felt she had not seen a single star. Her mind told her the stars were just pinpoints of light in the sky with no significance whatsoever. But her upbringing underscored her sense. The stars were her ancestors, and they no longer watched over her.

She curled a little tighter into her blanket, and eventually exhaustion overcame her strain.

********

The refugees were heading south, into the civil war. Affe did not agree about that choice. Who knew what was left down there? But she kept her silence, only telling them her destination was Domus Palus. They all left, shortly into the gray morning, except one boy.

He was Tuck, the foundling of the woman who was most vocal about what the drakes were like. At half Affe's age he was nearly as tall as her, but full of the awkwardness of youth. He watched her through mud-colored hair desperately in need of a trim, standing forlornly in a puddle with a small cloth sack over his shoulder.

She started walking east. Whatever he wanted, she wasn't about to ask. But she kept him in her peripheral vision as long as possible, and smirked when she saw his hand brush his hair aside, revealing eyes full of surprise.

"Miss!" he called, launching into a run that caused his knees to knock together and nearly trip him. "Miss! Wait!"

"What do you want?" she said gruffly, not stopping. "I've got a long way to go today. I hope to make Domus day after tomorrow." No way she could do that, not over this ground, but she could try.

"Take me with you!" he cried, and fell face first onto the ground. She heard the squirlch as some loose appendage broke a soft spot on the peat and plunged through into the murky water.

She turned then, to see him push himself up and stare in horror at his bare hand, murky water dripping off it. His face went white.

"Why do you want to come with me?" she asked, and he gaped at her. Yes, she thought, I'm not going to offer to help you yet.

"Be-because you're a m-m-mapmaker," he said, staring in fear at his hand. "What do I do with this?"

"What are you afraid of? It's just water."

"W-water?" He wiped his hand and arm on his shirt, smearing the mud around. "But there's Dinah's Curse."

She nodded. "If you drink it."

"An' there're konig worms."

"They don't like water, they like mud."

"There's mud in the water!"

"Too much water." She sighed. "Stand up. Why do you want to come with me?"

He stood up, brushing his still mostly wet hand through his hair again and dislodging a twig.

"I want ..." He trailed off and turned ashen in her darkening glare.

"No," she said, firmly. "No, no. I will not help you become a mapmaker. You're too young and stupid. You fell over just saying hello to me."

He closed his mouth, face turning red. She could see his jaw firm. Maybe in two or three years he'd need to shave that cleft chin.

"I'm not stupid," he said.

"Yes, you are," she responded. "You're still talking to me." She shook her head. "Look, I'll tell you one thing, all right? I'll tell you the path to being a mapmaker, the greatest secret you can learn from me. All right? It's an easy one."

He nodded, but sullenly. He knows I'm patronizing him. Well, he's not that stupid then.

"All right. Here it is: To become a mapmaker, you set out to the most dangerous place you can think of, and then return alive. Good luck."

Affe turned her back on Tuck and began walking again. Too far to go today to deal with a lone kid. He'd never keep up. And she was now traveling crosswise to the Mass. How far west had the drakes come? Glancing north, she could just see the rippling waters of the Amnis, disappearing to the shortened horizon. Fog, mist, ash whatever the white stuff was over the water, it kept her from seeing the other side of the river. No signs of fires this morning. Maybe something would come up later.

She walked on, ignoring the chastised silence behind her.

********

The owl's hoot in the night woke Affe. Then she heard the rustling in the woods behind her.

Affe was a good judge of distance, having learned that a measured pace made better maps. She had traveled close to 25 miles the previous day, helped along because of the big meal the previous night. She had boiled water and some leaves for her dinner, and settled in to the bole of a tree about head height to her off the ground. Dry, sheltered, protected, and well-hidden in her mud-colored blanket, she had passed out looking for the stars again.

The mapmaker made a mental picture in her mind of what the terrain looked like around her. The rustling continued, intermittent in the way of someone moving steadily from one bad spot to another. Affe grabbed the spear she had curled herself around before falling asleep, deciding there was only one person who would see or at least smell the remains of her fire. She would jump him on the count of three.

One, two ...

"By all the gods and their mortal lovers," the hissed curse came just before a resounding crack as someone fell full length into a bush. A short sharp shout was quickly followed by more cracks as the person struggled to stand, like the sound of a rain of rocks, finished with a splorch that could only be the person landing in mud.

"Three!" Affe shouted and leapt from her branch. There was no light, but she knocked aside the cover of her fire bank and knocked in the torch — a thick branch wrapped at one end with varying degrees of tinder. It lit quickly and would burn out fast, but at least she could see who it was.

It was Tuck, of course.

"For the love of Marrish." She took a deep breath, then shouted, "What are you doing here?"

The owls started hooting again, and a bunch of birds, startled, rose up from their roosts.

Tuck stared at the torch from his prone position, legs and arms splayed apart, chest heaving, hair tangled with everything. The sack sat crumpled by his hand.

"What are you doing here?" she cried again. "Were you following me? Don't you want to become a mapmaker?"

He stared at her in mute astonishment, and the torch went out.

Cursing, Affe went to the slightly glowing coals of her fire and dropped some tinder on it, bringing up a small blaze. She busied herself getting her filling the pot.

"It has to be hours before the sunrise," she muttered. "But I doubt I'll be getting back to sleep after the start you put me through. Get over here! You probably want something to drink."

He hadn't moved, but now he did, coming over and waiting nervously.

Of all the things, she thought. Of all the useless, pathetic, twisted, evil, crazy little things. She knew she was getting far too worked up about this, and took a deep breath. She looked everywhere but at the boy as she waited for the water to boil.

What has me all worked up? That he wants to be a mapmaker? That he traveled as far as I did yesterday? No, she realized. It was that he'd found her. Suddenly she stared at him.

"How'd you find me?" she said sharply, then held up a hand. He hadn't even opened his mouth. "Wait. Wait for the tea."

I need to calm down before I make any decisions, she thought. He's just a harmless child, no more than fourteen, a bit clumsy but weren't we all at that age? She stared off into the distance.

"I tracked you," he said, mustering courage to go against her order. He even briefly met her eyes when she shot him a glare.

"You tracked me?" she said, her voice getting edgier. "How did you know you were tracking me and not some other mapmaker?"

He nodded at the boiling pot, cleared his throat, and didn't meet her eyes. "Your weight ... no more than 120, right?" He coughed. "And you have a chink in the sole of your right boot."

She poured the water into two wooden mugs, sifting the finely grounded tea into both. All the while, she watched him peripherally.

"Who taught you that? What does my weight have to do with anything?"

He cleared his throat again and accepted the cup. "It ... you tread lightly. Um. Any man your, um, age ..." He paused, sweating. She motioned him to continue. "Most people would be heavier than you."

"All right," she said, cautiously. "Now, who taught you that?"

"Um." He spent a long time blowing on his tea. "No one," he said finally. "I ... thought about it. It seemed to make sense. And you have a chink in your right boot." He finished hurriedly, as though he wanted it to be said.

"You're lying," Affe said, staring at his ducked forehead. "I can tell."

"No!" Tuck said, flushing immediately, and she knew he couldn't have been lying. "I looked at the footprints the big Wints left, they have huge feet, and they were much deeper than yours. And I got a good feel for yours ‘cause when I started, yours was the only pair of shoes for a while."

"That's more like it," she said, nodding. "I'm the only person headed to Domus today?"

"No," he said. "Two other sets of tracks matched yours for a while, both heavier people. One of them had sliced grooves across his boot sole."

She sighed. "You're bound and determined to be a mapmaker, aren't you?"

He stared wordlessly at her for a minute, and suddenly the expression didn't look as stupid as it sounded. It looked calculating.

"Yes," he said, finally, color returning to his cheeks.

"Well, Domus Palus is the place to be then." She nodded to the bole in the tree. "Get some sleep. We'll be off early."

He crawled off to the bole, dragging his sack with him, then turned when she called his name again.

"Why didn't you listen to my advice? Go to the most dangerous place, and come back alive?"

He met her eyes, this time, for maybe a second, then looked away, mumbling.

"What was that, young man?" she said harshly.

"This was the most dangerous way I could think of," he said, a bit louder. "Following you."

Copyright 2005-2007 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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