With an enraged roar, the sea monster lunged forward at Jack, who threw himself into the air across the open stairwell. John and Charles caught him by the arms and lifted him safely onto the opposite stair.
The momentum of the sea monster’s attack propelled its head and neck through the open doorway, where it caught—impossibly, the beast’s body constricted until it fit through the doorway. When it had passed through entirely, Artus slammed the door shut.
“That was very close,” he said. “I’m sure this one is closed. Sorry about the other one.”
“Bravo, lads!” Bert exclaimed, clapping his hands. “Bravo! Well done!”
“Did you get a look inside the door when he opened it?” asked Charles.
“Yes,” Jack said, breathing heavily. “There were Scotsmen—Scotsmen in kilts, maybe sixteenth century.”
“Well,” said Charles. “A sea monster loose in Scotland. That’s going to have some interesting repercussions.”
The companions sat on the stairs to catch their collective breath. All of them seemed overjoyed by their narrow escape except for John, who seemed on the verge of tears.
“What’s the matter, John?” said Bert. “Chin up—we seem to have a knack for beating the odds.”
“Jack has a knack, you mean,” John muttered. “No matter what our dilemma, it seems he can always come up with some way to resolve it.”
“It seems like I can, doesn’t it?” said Jack.
“Bad form, Jack,” said Charles. “We’re each doing our part. I’m as much to blame as anyone for not keeping a firmer hand on Magwich.”
“It’s more than Magwich, though,” said Jack. “It’s a matter of taking action when action is called for. Of just seeing something that needs doing, and doing it. And it seems as if John never does.”
John stared at his friends for a moment, then stood and began climbing the stairs. With anxious glances both upward and below, the others followed.
They climbed.
Conserving their breath for the exertion, they climbed in silence that was interrupted only by the strange rumbling that occurred every hour or so.
Charles had started counting levels when they began, lost count after the run-in with the sea monster, started again, and gave up sometime after counting to four hundred.
“I’m starting to see why he removed himself from the affairs of the Archipelago,” said Charles. “It takes him a century just to go downstairs to greet the milkman.”
“Is it me,” said Artus, “or is it growing darker up above?”
Bert looked up and gave a joyful shout. “A ceiling! I see the ceiling! We’re almost at the top!”
There were three more landings, and four more doors. The one at the top had no stairs. “The future,” said Bert. “Unreachable. That means the next-to-last will be the Cartographer. I’m sure of it.”
John, however, had paused at the nearest door below. He was looking at it curiously and sniffing the air.
“What is it, John?” said Aven. “Trouble?”
“No,” said John. “Cinnamon.”
Chapter Fourteen
Night Passage
The caretakes of the Imaginarium Geographica had been transported by a smell—and suddenly, he was no longer responsible for the fate of two worlds, or the resolution of a war, or the many failures he felt had become chains around his neck, grown heavier with each passing hour. He was once again merely a student/soldier, whose greatest responsibilities involved reading Old English manuscripts and making sure he didn’t leave his rifle in a trench.
John reached out a tentative hand and stroked the air a whisper above the surface of the door.
“John!” Charles exclaimed. “After what just happened below, I can’t believe you’re going to risk opening another door!”
“Agreed,” said Jack. “We should proceed to the last door and find out if the Cartographer really is here. We’ve wasted enough time on the past—uh, so to speak.”
“This one is different,” John said. “Can’t you smell it?”
Aven moved next to John and sniffed at the air. “Yes, I can. It’s a tobacco of some kind.”
“A cinnamon tobacco,” said John. “A special mix.”
“How odd,” said Bert, scratching his head. “The only person I ever knew who liked cinnamon tobacco was…” His voice trailed off and his eyes widened in surprise. “Open the door, John.”
“John, my dear boy. Please, come inside.”
John reached out with a steady hand and pushed. The door swung open effortlessly on silent hinges, and a fresh wafting of cinnamon-scented tobacco smoke drifted across the companions.
Through the door was a tableaux more familiar to them than any other they’d seen in the keep—because most of them, save for Aven and Artus, had been there mere days before.
It was a study, unmistakably British in decor; a library filled with books and a very familiar figure who could not possibly be sitting in his chair, examining centuries-old incunabula with a magnifying glass and calmly puffing away on a large pipe.
Unlike the other tableaux, which required a crossing of the threshold to spur into motion, this setting was already active, as if it had been waiting for someone to open the door and enter the flow. The figure at the desk noticed them through the open door and spoke; the familiar timbre of his voice left no doubt as to who it was sitting at the broad oaken desk.
Professor Sigurdsson gestured to his young protégé to enter and sit. “John, my dear boy. Please, come inside. We have much to discuss, I think.
“Are there others with you, John?” continued the professor, peering through the smoke at the doorway. “It seems I saw someone else outside.”
John looked back at Bert, who shook his head. Whatever import this had was meant for John, and John alone. He stepped forward into the study and closed the door behind him. “No, Professor,” he said. “Just me.”
The professor stood and took John’s proffered hand in both of his own, pumping it frenetically. “So happy to see you, John,” he said. “Wasn’t expecting you for another day or so, given the state of transportation in these troubled times.”
“Believe me, Professor,” John said, taking a seat opposite his mentor, “I wasn’t expecting to see you, either.”
It was almost too much to take in. There had barely been enough time to accept the news of the professor’s death, much less come to terms with it. The adventure to the Archipelago had begun almost immediately. And since, all his thoughts of the professor had been fleeting and commingled with regret, and sorrow, and an overwhelming sense of failure.
For an instant John considered whether this visit might be the universe’s equivalent of sending him to the rector’s office for a reprimand, notwithstanding the fact that the rector was dead.
“I do not know why we have been given this strange opportunity,” said the professor, “but I am glad we have, for I fear I shall not live out the night.”
John started. Was it possible the professor had had a premonition of his own murder?
“It’s true,” the professor continued, keeping his own counsel as to whether or not he’d answered John’s unspoken question. “Strange elements are loose in the city these days, and they involve me far more than I hoped they would at this age. But I have responsibilities, and I must see them through, whatever the cost.”
“I got your note, Professor,” said John. “What did you need to tell me?”
“I know from your letters that you are filled with fear, young John. Not just because of the war, but fear for your future.
“I know you are conflicted—that you are at a crossroads and are not sure which path to take. But know this: I chose you for a reason. You have gifts, John. Remarkable gifts. And if you develop them, as I hope I have helped you begin to do, then you may yet go forth to lead an exceptional, extraordinary life.”
John was taken aback—whatever he had expected, it was not this. The professor had always been friendly toward him, in
the way that a mentor might be, but such directness, especially with such passionate encouragement, was more than unusual.
“I have not been entirely honest with you, John,” said the professor. “The studies I have given you—I’ve pushed you, I know. But it was all for a purpose. A purpose far greater than I have told you. I’m ready to do so now.”
John considered what was happening. Had he indeed stepped backward in time, to the night the professor was killed? Or was he experiencing some other kind of spectral visitation, a phenomenon generated by the strange energies of the keep? And if so, what might be the effect of his revealing the future to the professor? Would it change the events of the past? Or merely complicate the present to a worse degree than he already had?
John made his decision.
“You have been training me,” he said, “to become a Caretaker.”
The professor relaxed. “You know, then. Wonderful, my boy. How did you come to realize it?”
“I’ve met Bert. And I’ve seen the Imaginarium Geographica. But—”
“Excellent,” the professor said, cutting him off. “Then it doesn’t matter what happens to me. Not now.”
“Of course it matters!” said John. “How can it not?”
Professor Sigurdsson puffed away on his pipe, filling the room with the aromatic smoke.
“Because,” he said at length, “we each have our role to play, and mine was to train you, to prepare you for the mantle you’ve claimed. No more, no less. And I can see that I did it well enough that I can take whatever is to come with a wink and a nod and a how-do-you-do.”
“That’s the problem,” said John. “You did do your part—but I didn’t do mine. I was a terrible student, Professor! And I think I’ve failed you in every way that one can fail.”
Professor Sigurdsson started to laugh, then realized that the young man was serious.
“Boys will be boys, John, and the distractions of life are there to color your work, and vice versa. Besides, you were called away to war, and that’s bound to have an effect on your studies.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” said John. He couldn’t quite bring himself to admit all that had gone wrong in the Archipelago: the inability to function as a translator, followed by the actual loss of the Geographica itself. “Bert told me what would be expected of me as Caretaker Principia of the Geographica, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to do it. I’m just not ready.”
“Bert had the same concerns, when last we discussed you,” admitted the professor. “But I assured him that when called upon, you would rise to the challenge. And that was enough for him. He never questioned it again. Although in truth, he was a supporter of you before I was. I’m a good scholar—but Bert has the imagination. Not many like him. But in you, my boy, he found a kindred spirit.
“Listen to him, John. He’ll advise you well, when I’m not able to, and in ways that I cannot. Heed the words of the Caretakers who preceded you, whose wisdom can be found in the Geographica, for they have learned lessons you will need to learn yourself. And make note of the things you observe, so that you can pass the knowledge on to those who will come after—for you have joined a grand tradition, my boy. And once you have accepted this, it will remain forever a part of your life.
“Believe in yourself,” the professor said, grasping John’s hands in his own. “You have all that you need within you. You are strong enough. You are intelligent enough. You have learned more than you need to complete the tasks that lie before you. Now you must overcome the fear that is preventing you from embracing your destiny.”
“The fear that I am too weak?” asked John.
“No,” said the professor. “The fear that you are too strong.”
John was taken aback. “Too strong? How can I be too strong? I’ve failed at every task I’ve been given.”
“Because of your fear,” said the professor. “Not because you were incapable. Our weaknesses are always evident, both to ourselves and to others. But our strengths are hidden until we choose to reveal them—and that is when we are truly tested. When all that we have within is exposed, and we may no longer blame our inadequacies for our failure, but must instead depend upon our strengths to succeed…that is when the measure of a man is taken, my boy.
“Believe in yourself. Believe that you were not meant to spend your life in dusty libraries, nor in the battlefields of war, but in doing something greater.
“Believe in yourself, John, and that you have it within you to lead an extraordinary life.
“Just believe, my boy. My dear boy. Believe.”
The wind rattled the windows of the study, the first indication that the weather was shifting.
“I think a storm is coming in,” said the professor. “I’ve said what needed saying, and I think it’s time for you to go.”
As if punctuating his words, a tapping sound had begun down the street outside. The professor rose and clapped his student on the shoulders.
“You’ll do fine, my boy,” he said as he opened the door, “and remember, whatever happens—I have been, and always shall be, very proud of you.”
With that, John stepped out of the study and closed the door.
Once more he found himself standing in the Keep of Time.
“Is something wrong?” asked Aven.
“What do you mean?”
“You just stepped inside,” said Charles. “Just this moment. The door closed, then opened again. You weren’t gone for but a second or two.”
“Impossible,” said John. “I’ve been talking with Professor Sigurdsson for the past half hour.”
“The doorways,” said Jack. “They manipulate one’s perceptions of time. To John, it was half an hour. To us, out here in the keep, it was no time at all.”
“What did he say to you, John?” Bert pressed.
John tilted his head, then smiled. “He said we have a job to do.”
As he spoke, the familiar rumbling sound started again, and as the companions watched, the floor shifted beneath their feet, and the ceiling expanded, as if the keep were taking in a breath.
“I think the tower just grew,” said Charles.
“That makes sense,” said Bert. “This is nearly the last room—if all of the other doorways led to points in the past, then it stands to reason that the Cartographer’s room, there near the top, is constantly moving into the future, and the one above is in the future.”
The door they had determined to be the Cartographer’s was the only one in the entire keep that had a keyhole. Jack squatted down on his haunches and peered through.
“Spare me your furtiveness,” said a clipped, slightly irritated voice from behind the door. “It’s very rude to peep through keyholes—either knock down the door or go away.”
Jack stood upright. “Do you have a key?”
“I have a thousand keys,” said Bert, “but none that would fit this lock.”
Charles reached out a hand and pushed. The door didn’t budge. “Solid,” he said. “Not like any of the others. Maybe we’re meant to try to knock it down?”
“Perhaps we could pick the lock,” Artus said, as he reached out to examine the mechanism. At his touch there was a sharp click, and the door opened with a slight creaking.
“Hmm,” said Artus. “Didn’t expect that to happen.”
He pushed it open the rest of the way, and together, the companions entered the room at the top of the stairs.
“If you’re here about the annotations, you’re early.”
Chapter Fifteen
The Cartographer of Lost Places
The room was expansive, but not overly so. The walls—what could be seen of them—were stone, but every available surface was covered with maps. Old ones, new ones, maps topographical, cultural, political, and agricultural. There were maps of the moon, as well as Antarctica, and even maps that were obviously of the Earth, but of a kind that seemed to have coalesced the continents into a single landmass.
There was a sca
ttering of bookshelves, all laden with volumes of what they presumed were more maps. And save for the two pieces immediately in front of them, no other furniture. The rest of the room was filled with globes, surveying equipment, and rolls upon rolls of parchment, all of which served the purpose and namesake of the man they had come to find.
There, in the center of the room, sketching at a carved wooden desk, was the Cartographer of Lost Places. He was sitting on the edge of a high-backed chair with the emblem of a Sun King carved into the top, intensely focused on the task at hand. He would draw a few quick lines with a large quill, before dipping it into an inkwell on the desk while considering what to do next. He would then make a few more lines, and repeat the entire process.
The Cartographer, for all the legendary dross of rumor and mystique that surrounded him, was rather unremarkable in appearance. He was shortish and stocky, and he wore spectacles that were perched on a bulbous nose. His hair, which was dark save for two streaks of white that grew above his temples, was swept back and flowed to his shoulders.
He wore the scarlet robes that a knight who might have served during the Crusades, or possibly the Inquisition, would have worn. His belt was Roman or Greek, bound tightly over a skirt fashioned from strips of studded leather; and underneath all the rest, he was wrapped in strips of cloth that covered his legs and feet and extended to his wrists.
“Yes?” he said, finally taking notice of his visitors. “If you’re here about the annotations, you’re early. It’s the wrong damned Friday.”
With that he resumed his work as if they were not even there.
The clock in the corner ticked away for a few minutes before John finally cleared his throat, loudly. Twice.
The Cartographer rubbed his pen on the blotter and looked up. “Aren’t you from the Merchants’ Guild? You are Lorenzo de Medici, are you not?”
“Uh, no,” said John. “I’m the Caretaker of the Imaginarium Geographica.”
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