grind the
lenses had been lost after the Rending. Piers’ instrument had been
passed from father to son through generations of mapmakers.
Possibly the body may have been renewed and the lenses realigned
several times, but there was little doubt that the lenses
themselves dated back to the days of the Old Margravate, to
Malinawar, before the world had been rent. They were priceless.
Piers’
murderers had been looking for something.
Something
small that could be hidden in the lining of a doublet or the spine
of a book. Or flat, so it could be folded up and put in the heel of
a boot, or rolled up to fit inside a pot handle or a telescope.
Precious stones? Money? A map? Yet mapmakers did not carry large
sums of money and valuables, nor did they secrete their maps away
from sight like hidden wealth. And what the murderers had been
looking for had to be something more precious than a telescope.
Still, if he did have something valuable, she knew exactly where he
would have put it, and it was apparently a place that the searchers
had not considered…
Reluctantly,
with a sense that she was somehow about to violate her father, she
reached out to take up the wooden leg. The padded cup made to hold
the stump of his amputation was cut from soft leather, which had
then been lined with flannel and stuffed in between with
tree-cotton. It was not the cup that interested Keris, however. She
took the leg across to the shop counter where she freed the several
linchpins that attached the cup to the lag-eye screws in the wood.
She held the peg up to the light and peered into its hollow
interior. There was money there as she had expected; but there was
something else as well. Gently she upended it and shook out its
contents into her other hand.
A rolled up
mapskin.
She knew
immediately it was not a Kaylen map; the skin was the wrong colour.
Carefully she unrolled it across the counter.
And stared.
And stared.
Nothing had
prepared her for this, nothing.
A trompleri
map.
Her first
thought was an incredulous—and joyous—So they exist! Then she felt
the hot stab of prickling fear. There was magic in such a map.
And lastly the
thought came, Perhaps there were those who would feel a trompleri
map was worth killing for…
~~~~~~~
Chapter
Four
And the map
the Maker gave to Knight Weddon was such that had never been seen
before. The mountains stood high before him and the Deep writhed
across the mapskin, showing its wickedness. Knight Weddon fled the
Minions, following the path the map showed him and was received
safely…
—Pilgrims VIII:
5: 42-44
Keris worked
hard on the charts. She’d decided thirty-five master charts were
needed that year and they were among the hardest she had ever had
to create, with more ley lines than usual and some odd
manifestations along the length of the Wanderer—the Bitch, as Piers
had always called it. In addition, his notes had been torn and
muddled out of sequence, so it was sometimes hard to tell which
figures corresponded to which ley lines. She worked fifteen hours a
day and even then had to skimp on the final artistic work of the
copies, which was a blow to her pride. She was only slightly
mollified to hear the copied maps praised by those who came in to
buy them. The buyers thought Thirl had drawn them, of course, and
it rankled to hear him praised when all he had done was the
tracings and repetitive work. It hurt too, to have to send out most
of the maps uncoloured. Without Piers to help and with so much more
to do than usual, there simply was not time to include the extras
that had made her work special in the past.
She laboured
in the kitchen where her mother now slept, out of sight of the
customers, keeping her mother company and trying not to see how
fast Sheyli’s health was deteriorating, trying not to hear her
restless tossing and moaning. The household chores and much of the
nursing were now given over to Mistress Pottle. Even Thirl had been
forced
lenses had been lost after the Rending. Piers’ instrument had been
passed from father to son through generations of mapmakers.
Possibly the body may have been renewed and the lenses realigned
several times, but there was little doubt that the lenses
themselves dated back to the days of the Old Margravate, to
Malinawar, before the world had been rent. They were priceless.
Piers’
murderers had been looking for something.
Something
small that could be hidden in the lining of a doublet or the spine
of a book. Or flat, so it could be folded up and put in the heel of
a boot, or rolled up to fit inside a pot handle or a telescope.
Precious stones? Money? A map? Yet mapmakers did not carry large
sums of money and valuables, nor did they secrete their maps away
from sight like hidden wealth. And what the murderers had been
looking for had to be something more precious than a telescope.
Still, if he did have something valuable, she knew exactly where he
would have put it, and it was apparently a place that the searchers
had not considered…
Reluctantly,
with a sense that she was somehow about to violate her father, she
reached out to take up the wooden leg. The padded cup made to hold
the stump of his amputation was cut from soft leather, which had
then been lined with flannel and stuffed in between with
tree-cotton. It was not the cup that interested Keris, however. She
took the leg across to the shop counter where she freed the several
linchpins that attached the cup to the lag-eye screws in the wood.
She held the peg up to the light and peered into its hollow
interior. There was money there as she had expected; but there was
something else as well. Gently she upended it and shook out its
contents into her other hand.
A rolled up
mapskin.
She knew
immediately it was not a Kaylen map; the skin was the wrong colour.
Carefully she unrolled it across the counter.
And stared.
And stared.
Nothing had
prepared her for this, nothing.
A trompleri
map.
Her first
thought was an incredulous—and joyous—So they exist! Then she felt
the hot stab of prickling fear. There was magic in such a map.
And lastly the
thought came, Perhaps there were those who would feel a trompleri
map was worth killing for…
~~~~~~~
Chapter
Four
And the map
the Maker gave to Knight Weddon was such that had never been seen
before. The mountains stood high before him and the Deep writhed
across the mapskin, showing its wickedness. Knight Weddon fled the
Minions, following the path the map showed him and was received
safely…
—Pilgrims VIII:
5: 42-44
Keris worked
hard on the charts. She’d decided thirty-five master charts were
needed that year and they were among the hardest she had ever had
to create, with more ley lines than usual and some odd
manifestations along the length of the Wanderer—the Bitch, as Piers
had always called it. In addition, his notes had been torn and
muddled out of sequence, so it was sometimes hard to tell which
figures corresponded to which ley lines. She worked fifteen hours a
day and even then had to skimp on the final artistic work of the
copies, which was a blow to her pride. She was only slightly
mollified to hear the copied maps praised by those who came in to
buy them. The buyers thought Thirl had drawn them, of course, and
it rankled to hear him praised when all he had done was the
tracings and repetitive work. It hurt too, to have to send out most
of the maps uncoloured. Without Piers to help and with so much more
to do than usual, there simply was not time to include the extras
that had made her work special in the past.
She laboured
in the kitchen where her mother now slept, out of sight of the
customers, keeping her mother company and trying not to see how
fast Sheyli’s health was deteriorating, trying not to hear her
restless tossing and moaning. The household chores and much of the
nursing were now given over to Mistress Pottle. Even Thirl had been
forced
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