The Cloven Land Trilogy

by Simon Kewin

  Twenty minutes later, he stood at the base of the tower, peering up at the stone walls silhouetted against the starry sky. From afar the building had looked deserted, no sounds to be heard, no lights in the arched windows. But what use did a blind man have for lights? Now Ashen was up close he could see a small garden and pens for animals around the stone walls, all well-maintained. A large animal, a pig perhaps, snuffled inside one of the low stone huts. Someone was living there, or had recently.

  A solid wooden door barred his way. He strode up to it and knocked, the hollow sound loud in the cold darkness. Nothing in the night moved. In the distance, moonlight glinting off its surface, the river was a ribbon of silver in the night.

  Ashen shivered in the cold air while he waited for a reply, huddling his robes around him. No response came. He rapped again, louder, hard enough to skin his knuckles. When this, too, went unanswered, he twisted the iron ring that latched the door. To his surprise it turned easily, and the door swung inward.

  The wavering flame from his torch revealed a round room that filled the entire lower level of the keep. The walls were bare stone. A collection of muddy leather boots and well-used garden implements lined the walls, each carefully placed so their owner would know precisely where they were. A central stone staircase spiralled upward. Closing the door behind him, and holding his torch forward, Ashen climbed.

  On the next floor, shelves had been built from floor to ceiling. They were filled with rolls of parchment, piled high in some places. The characters of some language he didn't know were carved into the shelves, cataloguing the thousands of maps. He wished he had time to study them. If this man could see through the aether clearly enough to draw the lands he glimpsed through borrowed eyes, there would be maps of many worlds, many impossibly distant places. Places Ashen had only heard about in myth and fairy-story. What wonders were sketched on these parchments?

  But there was no time to find out. He climbed past two more levels, on each of which the walls were covered by more shelves piled high with scrolls. The smell of old paper filled the air. Still no one called to him or tried to stop him. He was beginning to think the keep was abandoned, that he'd been mistaken in sensing the Mapmaker's presence. Wasn't it strange he'd been allowed to walk in there with all the precious maps lying around? Perhaps he'd arrived too late after all. Perhaps the Mapmaker had been dying even as Ashen quested for him from the river. Perhaps, despite all Smoke on the Water's efforts, he was a few minutes too late. It was a grim thought. If they couldn't get a message through to Cait, what hope was there for any of them?

  The thought struck him that there might be another undain there. That some skulking horror had flown across the An and made its way to the tower to kill the Mapmaker. The old man had to know things about Angere. Had to know about the massing of armies and their plans. He may even have heard Menhroth giving his orders. If the undain knew about the Mapmaker, they might come here to destroy all record of what had been glimpsed. And if so, if the murder had only just happened, the monster would still be there, lurking in the darkness, waiting to attack.

  Perhaps leaping from the shadows even now…

  The temptation to flee was almost overwhelming. Ashen had to force himself to carry on. His heart raced in his chest, his pulse pounding in his ears. He stepped warily up to the next floor, torch held forward, listening for any movement. The winding stairs stopped a few steps up. If there was an undain, this was where it would be. He clutched the gems around his neck again, preparing to work a spell of fire if he was attacked. He was no match for an undain lord. At least he could die fighting.

  “Ashen Meggenwar, mancer of Guilden. Welcome to my ruin.”

  The voice was an old man's, weak, little more than a croak. Surely not one of the undain. Ashen climbed to the top of the stairwell, still wary. The Mapmaker appeared to be expecting him. Perhaps that was why Ashen had been able to enter the tower so easily. If the old man had wanted to keep him out, he would simply have locked his door.

  Scraps of torn parchment lay in drifts on the floor, as if someone had torn and shredded the maps in a fit of fury. In the guttering torchlight, Ashen picked out fragments of detail here and there. The curve of some unknown coastline. The towers of an unnamed city. Had one of the undain come here after all? Had the old man fought it, defeated it?

  Ashen search the darkness for the Mapmaker. “Are you injured? Were you attacked?”

  A dry chuckling from the shadows told Ashen where the old man was. Ashen crossed warily toward the sound, kicking through mounds of tattered parchment. Something crunched and snapped beneath his boot. Shards of glass scattered the floor, too. Ashen thought he knew what they must be. The seeing sphere, smashed into pieces.

  “Attacked?” the man said. “No, no. You're the first visitor I've had in many years.”

  “Then, who did this? Who destroyed all your maps?”

  Ashen's torch revealed the shape of a man slumped against the shelves, as if he were too drunk to move. There could be no doubt this was the Blind Mapmaker. An old man, skin lined and grey like the bark of a tree, his silver hair straggly and wild. His eyes were a piercing green, but it was clear from the angle of his gaze that he didn't see Ashen. Instead, he stared into the distance as he spoke. “This, Ashen? Isn't it obvious? I did this.”

  Ashen kneeled beside the man, looking for wounds or some sign of injury. “But why? Why would you do such a thing? All these maps. Your life's work…”

  “Because they're useless!” said the old man, a sudden fury rising within him. “Don't you see? When the undain come they'll all be wrong. They'll have to be drawn again. All those names, all those villages and towns and cities, will have to be erased.”

  “You can see the future?” asked Ashen.

  “No, no. I can see people's minds. See what they see. Know what they know. I have seen the undain preparing on the far bank of the An. Glimpsed what they are up to on other worlds, too. I know what is coming.”

  “And what have you seen?” Ashen couldn't stop himself asking even though he knew what the answer would be. He had already seen the certainty of it himself, in the snows on Howl Hill.

  “The destruction of Andar,” said the Mapmaker. “The end of everything.” He picked up a handful of scraps and threw them into the air, a flurry falling like snow to the ground.

  “It may not be like that.”

  “You haven't seen what I have seen. The number of them. The scale. They will cross the An like an unstoppable tide. Like another flood.”

  “So you have seen Angere? You can converse with people there?”

  “There are no people there.”

  “There are some,” said Ashen. “One or two at least.”

  The Mapmaker turned his head to Ashen then, as if he could finally see him. “I know why you're here. You want me to send a message to this girl. This lost, weak girl. What is the point? What is the use?”

  “So you know of her? You have seen her? She's still alive?”

  “I've seen glimpses. Scraps. Enough to know she is powerless to do anything. That there was never any hope. She should never have been sent. Your mother and her plans: what is the worth of any of them?”

  Ashen persisted. He had come too far to give up now. “Perhaps you're right. But you have to try. Everything depends on it.”

  “Nothing depends on it. It will make no difference.”

  “Please.”

  The old man seemed to sag into himself, as if the air had left him. “No. The girl is lost. I could see little enough of her at the best of times but certainly not now.”

  Dread clutched at Ashen's insides. “Then, she is dead?”

  The old man didn't reply for a moment, as if he were peering into the aether there and then, seeking answers. “Dead? No, not yet I don't think. They will prepare for the rites. But it won't be long. They have her you see, the undain have her. She lies lost in the dungeons of the White City, and her mind is closed to me.”

  Ashen didn't know wh
at to say. He had the sensation of falling. For some reason he thought of the children who'd run along the banks of the river, shouting and laughing. They were damned now. They were all damned.

  “And my mother? And Ariane?”

  “They are lost to me, too. They walked together into the underworld and faded from my sight.”

  Ashen slumped beside the old man, the hard edges of a wooden shelf digging into his back. He paid it no attention. “There … there must be someone in Angere you can reach. Others went with the girl. What of them?”

  “It's pointless.”

  “Then there is nothing to be lost by trying.”

  The old man scowled, shook his head. He picked up another handful of scraps, let them fall. “There is one I might reach. One I can talk to. But it will make no difference even if I can find him. He is far from the girl and as powerless as she is.”

  “But perhaps, somehow, the message will get through and Cait will hear it.”

  “And perhaps we'll simply feel a little better about ourselves for having made the effort, though it is a waste of time.”

  “So you'll do it?”

  The Mapmaker sighed. “I can try. For what it's worth.”

  “Thank you,” said Ashen. “The message…”

  “I know what the message is. Just because I choose not to open my mind to your mother doesn't mean I'm blind to what occurs on Islagray. The bridgehead. I will do what I can. Not for you, mancer, and not for your mother. But for Andar. Then at the end I can console myself that I did all I could.”

  “Thank you.”

  Ashen opened the leather bag he'd carried on his back. The bag containing the old maps his mother had given him as a gift. “You probably know already that I brought you these old maps from Islagray. We thought you could add them to your collection.”

  There was the briefest spark of interest on the face of the old man. For a moment Ashen thought he was going to take them, run his fingers over them, feel their lines. But then he looked away. “They are as useless as all the others. The world is about to be redrawn. The old maps are all wrong now.”

  After a few moments, Ashen rose. There didn't appear to be more to say. It would be fully night outside, but he didn't want to stay in the keep any longer than he had to. The sooner he left, the sooner he would be back at Islagray.

  At the stairs, though, he paused and looked back to where the Mapmaker lay in the shadows. “You could come back with me.”

  “With you?”

  “To Islagray. We could load up the boat with all the maps that remain. We could store them underground with the old books.”

  “And you think they will be safe there?”

  “They'll be safer there than anywhere else. You will be safer there than anywhere else. They will come for you here.”

  “They will come for us wherever we are.”

  The old man didn't say any more, didn't move.

  After a moment of silence, Ashen turned and climbed down the steps to the foot of the keep.

  21. The Endless Dark

  Ariane stopped by the entrance to the caves beneath Islagray. “Will we need the spiders in our hair again?”

  A large, iron cage hung from a hook beside the door. Inside was a dark, rustling mass of leaves and cobwebs and the purple legs of the archive's spiders. The creatures knew the endless, twisting tunnels intimately. If Ariane or Hellen took one with them it would play out a gossamer thread they could follow back to the entrance if they got lost. A thread that wasn't really there: a shimmering line of magical light.

  Hellen poked a finger through the bars to stroke one of the creatures. It stamped a striped leg as if waving at her.

  “No,” she said. “Where we're going is beyond even their knowledge. They'd be as lost as we'll be.”

  “Well, that sounds promising,” said Ariane. “And where exactly are we going? As so often you have completely failed to tell me what you're planning.”

  Hellen stood for a moment, trying to remember the route they had to find. It had been many, many years since she'd taken this road. The deep hum of the Song, reverberating through the rock from the Songroom, had a clear edge of alarm to it now. Occasional pauses too, as if the song of the land was sputtering out. She tried to ignore it and set off at a brisk walk, taking the leftmost of the five tunnels that descended beneath the Witches' Isle.

  “That's because I don't fully know what I'm planning myself,” Hellen called over her shoulder. “Despite what you may think I don't have all the answers either.”

  Ariane muttered something to herself about daft old women and hurried to catch up. “But you know a far sight more than you're telling me, Hellen Meggenwar, eldest and supposedly wisest of Islagray. How will burrowing down here help Cait? You heard what her mother said, we have to help her.”

  “I agree, we do.”

  “Then tell me what's going on. Assuming Ashen manages to get word through to Angere, and assuming by some miracle Cait gets the message and is able to do as you instruct, how are we going to get there to rescue her? And what's in the archive that will help?”

  “There's nothing in the archive that will help,” said Hellen. “We're going much farther. Didn't I once tell you the caves go on forever? Well, maybe they do and maybe they don't. But they go a long way, that's for sure. And if you know the path to take, they lead to other tunnels, other secret ways.”

  “Secret ways going where?”

  “To the Island in the An.”

  “What?”

  “Don't pretend to be deaf.”

  “But that's just an old story,” said Ariane.

  “And you're just an old woman, but here you are. Just because a story's old doesn't mean it isn't true. There's an island in the middle of the An, invisible from either shore, and that's where we have to go.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I read about it. There was someone who glimpsed it from the bridge.”

  Ariane tramped along in silence beside Hellen, her brow furrowed. “But how do you know it's possible to get there? Have you been? Is this another adventure you neglected to tell me about?”

  “No,” said Hellen, pausing to study the carving of an oak leaf above one of the doorways. “No, I've never been there. I tried once, many years ago, but I failed.”

  “Wonderful,” said Ariane. “Well that puts my mind completely at rest.”

  Hellen smiled at her old friend. Ariane was nervous, worried, and this bickering was how she coped. How they both coped, truth be told. Could Hellen find the way to the ancient tunnels beneath the river? Perhaps. That was the problem with old books. She'd once thought she could rely on them. Their words didn't change as stories passed by word of mouth changed. That was the whole point of writing: an account written a thousand years ago could be read unchanged today. It was miraculous, magical in its own way. But it wasn't so simple. The words on the page or the parchment stayed the same but the people reading them didn't. Language altered. Thoughts set down long ago barely made sense any more. Words were lost. Or, worse, hung around but changed their meaning. Sometimes subtly, sometimes becoming the opposite of what they'd once meant. How could you be sure what the ancient writings truly said now?

  Not for the first time she wished she'd coaxed the archaeon into more of the books. The bookwyrm was ancient and wise, spoke all languages and all versions of those languages. It would have been able to tell her in a moment the true meaning of the words she'd unearthed in the old scroll. A scroll written, unless Hellen was completely mistaken, on the hide of an actual dragon. But somehow she'd never got round to it.

  What had she been doing all the years and decades? She'd been busy, she knew that, but she'd left so much undone. Ariane was right, she was an old fool. Part of the problem was that she'd never thought reaching the mythical island was important. Intriguing, certainly, but not day-to-day, making things better for people important. But that was another thing Cait had changed by throwing herself into Angere. Everything was different
now.

  “Hellen?”

  “Hmm?”

  “You've done that thing where you wander off into your own thoughts. Tell me what you know, woman. I might be able to help. I'm not completely useless.”

  “No. Sorry. Yes. You're right. In truth I don't know much.” She stopped at another doorway. This one had a lizard carved into the rock above it, long tail curled in a crescent. Not this one. An hour's walk down there and you hit a dead end. “We're looking for a locked door.”

  “Locked by whom?”

  “I don't know.”

  “And do you know where this door even is?”

  “I know in … broad terms.”

  “Fine. So do you have the key for this door?”

  “No. Wouldn't help much if I did.”

  “Why?”

  Hellen stopped. They were approaching the last of the torches. Beyond the flickering, honey light was only darkness and the slow, quiet age of the ancient tunnels. She tried to put the notion that it was patiently waiting for them out of her mind. “Because there's no keyhole on this side. Whoever locked the door did so from the other side. To keep us out.”

  It took them half a day of wandering and backtracking to find the locked iron door. It was rusty and ancient, coated with a patina of green, but it was solid when they pounded on it. Just as Hellen remembered, there was no keyhole, no handle, no way at all of opening it.

  “What did you try last time?” said Ariane, running a hand over the metal.

  “Everything I could think of, obviously. All the unfastening and unfurling spells. All the rust and decay charms. I tried knocking it flat with brute force, and I tried politely knocking. I even tried bellowing out the magical words the mancers go around shouting. Nothing had any effect.”

  Ariane set down her backpack and studied the door, as if she might find answers written upon it. “And what makes you think we'll have any more success this time?”

  “Last time I was here because I'd read about the door and wondered what was on the other side. This time we have to get through it. The future of Andar may depend on it. The future of Cait certainly does.”