“Do they know who attacked him?”
“He claims to know.”
He nodded toward an older man, sitting on a wooden stool in the shade. He was missing his left leg and was singing to himself as he ate. During the working day, he was responsible for shaving the poles into sharpened points.
“His name’s Philip,” said Stone. “Seems to have a lot of respect around here. Says Tristan is a spy. Watches the lands for the Collectors and they’re the ones who attacked him.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t know that but he told me the Collectors have been to Le Sen and Agen and will be here tomorrow.”
Nuria lowered her bottle of water from her lips and leaned toward Stone.
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve never heard of them before?”
“No.”
“I don’t like the sound of this, Stone. I hope there isn’t going to be any trouble.”
He nodded.
“They have a large militia,” he said. “And we both have our guns.”
She glanced up at the sky.
“I could fall asleep right now,” she said, as the sunlight touched her face. “Warm sun and a full belly.”
He seemed deep in thought.
“Lean my head on your shoulder,” she said. “And doze off for the afternoon.”
Sebastian called for every one to return to work. There were several good natured grumbles.
“What do you think?”
He said nothing.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked, suddenly. “Like Emil?”
“No,” he said, smiling thinly.
She let out a short laugh. His hair was growing back. He looked better for it.
“Do you blame me for everything?” said Nuria. “The way she does?”
He got to his feet, lifted his axe, and offered his hand.
“I don’t blame you.”
She placed her palm against his, rough and hot, and he jerked her back onto her feet.
“Thank you,” she said. She had sat with him for five days and he had never behaved this way before; talkative and demonstrative. “Sometimes, not like today, you can be really hardly to talk to. And it makes me wonder if you would be happier if I wasn’t here?”
There was a flicker of emotion in his eyes. He appeared, momentarily, saddened by her words. That she would think he was angry at her or blamed her or did not want her around. She knew he struggled with the intricacies of conversation, adopting a more blunt approach. She had lived in a city of thousands for twenty five years, developing and honing her skills at military school from the age of seven, mentored by a former officer turned politician. Stone had spent most of his life in silence. They feared him across the wastelands. He was the Tongueless Man. Only he had a tongue and incredibly fast reflexes. It seemed strange to see him without his revolver and rifle. Once more he appeared a different man to her. Nuria searched rapidly for something else to say, to cushion her final words, but Sebastian’s glare told her to get moving. Maybe she expected too much too soon from him. His only friend was dead and though she was not attempting to replace him she wondered if he still saw only a former soldier and officer when he looked at her, methodical and practical, organised and disciplined, and not the woman she truly was, now that her rank and uniform were buried in the past.
“I should go,” she said, sighing.
He watched her walk away, a lack of spring in her step, her arms swinging without rhythm.
Behind a bush he emptied his bladder. As the leaves splashed, he whispered, “I’m glad you’re here.”
Nuria saw the wall was beginning to take shape. Many nights would pass before it encircled the village. She imagined the cold days would arrive before they finished. Days when the sky was pinched bright blue and the ground became hard and you witnessed the very breath from your lungs before you. Raised far south, she had never seen snow, but had heard stories of it and was eager to see a snowfall and place her hands in it. It already seemed colder here than it had in Chett but the villagers often complained of the heat. As she drove her spade into the moist ground, she glanced toward the trees and saw Stone emerge from a bush. From this distance, she reflected on the ugly scars that covered his upper body. He had known so much violence and pain. She felt an ache for him and, as she dug, thought back to the moment he held her hand, touched her skin, focused his eyes to hers.
“I’ve come to apologise,” said a voice.
For a moment, she thought it was Stone, but she could still see him in the forest. She looked at the man addressing her. He stood clean and presentable, long dark hair combed back and neatly parted, beard trimmed. His brown eyes were clear, no longer bleary, and he was not stinking of drink. His feet were planted firmly against the soil and he stood with confidence, not wavering on the spot, threatening to topple over. He wore trousers, a shirt and waistcoat. The clothes had been scrubbed clean and the creases smoothed out. He smiled broadly, a glint in his eye, and extended his hand. She stood sweaty and caked with dirt and clay. She wiped her fingers down her trousers and shook his hand, intending it to be brief and informal, but instead he kept her grip, infusing her skin with his warmth, raised her hand and brushed his lips against it. She pulled her hand away as her fellow workers whistled and called out.
“I would like to introduce myself,” he said. “I am Conrad and I apologise for being quite useless when my brother was wounded.”
“You have nothing to apologise for and there is no need to explain your behaviour to me.”
She had forgotten all about the drunken Saacion, the villager healer, Tristan’s brother.
“You are Ilan’s son?”
“I am dead to him,” smiled Conrad. “He has only one son. At least I never have to find him a gift during the Winter Festival.”
“I’m sorry,” said Nuria.
“I have already thanked your young companion. She is a strange one. I do not understand magic. It made me shiver talking to her. Though that might be the after effects of too much drink. Or perhaps not enough.”
Nuria couldn’t help but chuckle.
“You see, my uncle was a fine Saacion,” he said. “But I do not fill his shoes too well.”
She glanced down at his feet.
“You’re wearing sandals.”
“Indeed I am,” laughed Conrad. He caught a glare from Sebastian, who had come across from the forest. “I will be getting you into trouble.”
He leaned into her, dropped his voice to a whisper.
“You all need to leave.”
He eased back from her, smiling, as Sebastian took steps toward them, muttering about lazy newcomers.
“Meet me tonight for a drink,” said Conrad, drifting away. “In the tavern.”
--- Five ---
“Doug?”
“That’s not my name.”
“It’s the only one I’m going to use.”
He kept his back to her, for a moment, but then relented, though his eyes remained low, unable to meet hers.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to.”
Sadie had sought him out after a back breaking day of labour in the fields, harvesting potatoes. Her face was red. Her thick arms were dripping with sweat. Her clothes were dirty, hands caked with mud. She had found him on the outskirts of the village, a pack on his back, laden with food. He had stolen Nuria’s pistol from the hut and the holster was fastened to his belt.
“I should have left you in Ford,” he said. “With your family and friends.”
He started across the bridge, making for the tree line, back to where they had camped before coming to Dessan.
“I didn’t want you to come with me,” he said. Sadie looked around for help. Someone had to stop him. “I didn’t want you to leave you behind, either.”
“You know I can’t go back there,” she said. “It’s too far on my own. We barely made it here.”
“I am sorry.”
&nb
sp; “I’m stuck here, Doug.”
“That’s not my name,” he snapped. “I made it up. You wanted to call me something so I made it up. Doug, Doug, Doug. I am the Map Maker. That is who I am, Sadie. That’s what I am.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
“You don’t understand. There isn’t a choice for me. I have no say in it. I have to find it.”
Sadie followed him over the bridge, the river gurgling beneath her. It was dusk and the land began to absorb the sun. The horizon filled with a shower of colour, oranges and yellows, reds and purples, streaking through the trees. She felt the warmth of the fading sun on her pale skin. There was the distant beat of hooves against grass. A mother called for her children to fetch water. Ollish birds clucked. Sadie waited, stomach turning, chest fluttering, hoping that the outline of the man who stood before her, with his somewhat handsome round face, would abandon this outrageous plan of exploration and adventure and stay here with her.
What was wrong with him? Why was he walking away from this life? It didn’t exist and even if it did – what did it matter?
Breath escaped her. Her mouth turned dry. She had no idea how to persuade him to stay. What words should she use? She thought of her mother, far in the Southern Deserts, wondering what advice she would offer right now. Though she already knew exactly what she would say in a situation like this and it wouldn’t have been pleasant. She did not want to go back to Ford, living in the ruins of the old Gallen. She liked it here, warming to the people and making friends, working hard in the fields and keeping the hut clean, preparing food, creating a home. She wanted Doug to share that home with her. More than that, Doug made it a home; without him, it was only mud walls and a dirt floor and a thatched roof.
Sadie brushed stubborn flecks of dirt from her hands as her bare feet padded slowly back over the bridge.
“Come with me?”
She kept walking, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling, the sun continuing to sink. The world erupted inside her head. He was no longer Doug. He never would be again. He was the Map Maker. He had always been the Map Maker. She blinked back the tears. He cast a final look at her before slipping into the forest. She had never understood. She had never been able to grasp the indescribable power his maps held. One day, he would be able to knit the world back together, to heal the fractures, and she would fully understand that the reliance on weapons and the black energy would falter. The power was in his maps. The future was in his maps. When his organs failed and the flesh was stripped from his body and his bones became dust, his name would live on. He would be immortalised; the deeds of the Map Maker would reverberate through the centuries. Gallen lacked cohesive shape, lacked history, and his life, his achievement, his sacrifices, would define it.
Sadie had argued tirelessly with him that the world was not broken, was not asunder, but she was wrong, lacking in vision, blinkered to knowledge. It had always been his maps. It was so clear to him. Why could she not understand? Not one of them ever seemed to understand. Ilan, the Elder Chief, that fat, grey, foolish old man had attempted to humour him but the Map Maker had seen through his careful deception. He was a man of dark secrets and shielded a black heart. The Map Maker knew he was plotting to steal his maps and keep them for himself.
“No one will steal my maps,” he said, pressing through the trees, glimpsing halk lazing in a nearby pasture.
He went by the camp he had shared with Sadie, a makeshift tent in a small clearing, peaceful until Stone and his companions had tracked them here. He had been ruthless in destroying their camps as they had crossed the wasteland, burying evidence of small fires and excrement, yet Stone had kept on his scent and followed him through the hills and grasslands and into the forest. The Map Maker idled in the clearing. He scratched his head, thoughts lingering on a moment of tenderness, Sadie astride him, naked, stubby legs grinding against his hips.
“You will have to stop one day, Doug,” she had groaned, slapping her stomach. “You make me fat here and you’ll have to stop and build something for us.”
There was a noise in his head. Always a noise. He knew it contained words but he was unable to filter them out. He laboured against her and she trembled and collapsed on him, stinking of sweat. Afterwards, he stood outside in dwindling sunlight, pine needles against his feet, the air cooling the perspiration on his skin.
“No more maps,” she had said.
He plotted his route north, through the forest, away from the Eastern Villages.
“Across the sea,” Philip had told him, two days earlier. “That is where I was travelling. Ah, I was younger then.”
“What’s across the sea?”
“Ennpithia,” grinned Philip. “Ah, the land of beauty.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, as trees were chopped and sawed. “Our land is Gallen.”
Sunlight streamed through the gnarled canopy of trees. Philip was much older than any man the Map Maker had ever known. He was much older than Stone and appeared older than Ilan. His eyes grew wide when he spoke, his hands making shapes with the words. He spoke rapidly, barely taking breath and sometimes would end up choking and needing to swallow a mouthful of water. The Map Maker set down his tools to listen, intrigued by Philip’s story.
“You believe Gallen is the only land in this world? Ah, that is a very silly thing to believe. You are foolish to think this. The world is a much bigger place than Gallen. North, far north from here, a great long way north is Caybon, a ruined town from the Before. There is a vast community of friendly people. It is a very special place indeed. Caybon is where the land meets the sea. Imagine living in a town where you can hear the waves of the sea and there is a beach where the clay is the colour of the sun and not the colour of fire. That is where you will find passage to Ennpithia. Ah, a beautiful land. Rich with forests, animals and people.”
He continued to shave the poles into points. Stone hefted one onto his shoulder and carried it from the forest.
“There are cities with tall buildings that reach to the clouds, cities where a man can raise his family. The guards who heard you speak with Ilan, the day you arrived, they told us all of the wonder of what you possess. Ah, you are a clever man. You are a very clever man. You look into my eyes and you know I speak only the truth. Look into my eyes. Look. No, look, look, look into my eyes. Ah, yes, you know Ennpithia exists. You know it is there. All you have to do is find it. You have a lot of blank spaces on your maps. It is time to fill them in. Ennpithia is the missing piece.”
The Map Maker wiped the sweat from his face.
“What did you call it?”
“It is the missing piece. You know it is.” He clenched his fists and shook them. “You know the world is wrong. You know this in your heart.”
“I have another map,” he said, lowering his voice. A fellow lumberjack glanced at him, wondering when he would pull his weight around here. “It’s very old. I think it dates from the Before. The map is huge with lots of islands and seas and enormous land masses with strange names … but I have found no mention of Gallen on it. I believe that Gallen is a small part in a much bigger world.”
“Then you must find Ennpithia, my friend. You will find your answers there.”
The fire crackled. He shared a bed with Sadie in the corner of the hut. She cried as he told the story of Ennpithia.
“Doug, how can you even think of leaving?” she whispered, between sniffs. The hut was empty but she had grown accustomed to talking in a low voice. “Based on the ramblings of an old man?”
“He is more than an old man,” said Doug. “He is incredibly wise. He spoke to me as if he had known me my entire life.”
He paused.
“I cannot stay in one place. Not for long. There is more than Gallen and I want to find it.”
Sadie wiped her eyes, rested a hand on his shoulder, dug her nails in. “What if he’s wrong?”
“I’m not stupid,” he said. “I’ve travelled to many places, Sadie, and heard all ma
nner of tall tales. But this man, Philip, I can hear the conviction in his voice. It’s there, we both know it is.”
“Then he’s a good story teller, that’s all.”
“Do you remember the map you gave me?” She nodded. “It’s a very special map from the Before. It’s how our world once looked.” He saw she didn’t understand. “How can I explain it to you?” He scratched his head and reached into his pack for the old map. “Look at that town by the sea. It’s named Cabourg. Do you understand now? Philip called the town Caybon but I think it’s the same place – Cabourg, Caybon.”
She was silent for a moment, absent-mindedly stroking his chest as her thoughts drifted. His unwashed fingers stabbed the map, pinpointing Cabourg and she watched him trace a line across a stretch of blue and stop at a jagged curve of green with the initials En and nothing more. There was nothing further to see because the corner of the map had faded.
“E N,” he said. “Ennpithia.”
Was it possible? Could he be right?
“How will you cross the sea?”
“I have to seek out a man called Yannis. He lives in Caybon, Cabourg, whatever it’s called. He is known as the Sea Warrior. He has made …”
“You’re mad,” she said. “I don’t want to hear anymore of this.”
She wiped her sleeve across her nose and eyes. She heard Nuria step into the hut and drop down onto her bed.
“You don’t understand,” said the Map Maker.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Sadie, when I think of Ennpithia the noise in my head clears. Sometimes I can begin to make out the words.”
She stared at him.
“What do the words say?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I can’t understand them but I can hear them.”
“Why do you believe this man?” she said, his voice rising. “Why doesn’t he live there instead of here?”
The Wasteland Soldier, Book 2, Escape From Tamnica (TWS) Page 6