‘Incredible,’ she breathes.
‘You’ll need a good map for heading north,’ Fallon says. ‘I doubt you can sail all the way, unless your ship’s picked up some new tricks.’
They approach the table. One of the men behind it looks up, eyes owlish from squinting.
‘Lord. Come for the latest in herds? Mountain ice? Soil life?’ His stubby fingers jab expressively.
Fallon smiles. ‘Not today. My friend here needs a map of the routes north.’
The man’s huge eyes blink slowly. ‘A map north? Yes, of course. Naval and land. But nothing further? No touches upon the azimuth, nothing cadastral or choropleth?’
Fallon shakes his head. ‘Just the routes.’
The short man blinks again, his head bobbing like a buoy at sea. ‘Not a problem, just unexpected.’ He selects one, a beautiful wash of colours, rolls it and stows it in a leather tube, before thrusting it at Fallon. ‘My lord.’
Fallon takes the tube, tugs a little as the shorter man’s hand refuses to let go.
‘Shapetender?’
The mapmaker flashes a smile, his large eyes swivelling. ‘Are you sure, Lord? Nothing hypsometric, nothing theodolite-kissed?’
Fallon pulls, firmly. ‘Just the map.’
Shapetender’s fingers relinquish it reluctantly.
‘Your digger will be by later, I expect? For the darkening charts? We have prepared a further one on the movements of the moon. Another on cart roads of the old Empire.’
Fallon looks at him levelly. ‘She will, Shape. And don’t let that brain of yours get ahead of your lips.’ He turns to Shipwright, presses the map tube against her chest. ‘Stage one, Ship. A decent map.’
As they walk away, the round-headed man’s gaze lingers on them for a moment, before another customer calls for his attention.
‘What was that about?’ Shipwright mutters.
Fallon laughs. ‘Oh, our fidgety little friend? He’s a mapmaker of the old school.’
They walk further down the avenue of rugs, the light striped and shaded by awnings stretched far above, against the dusty warehouse glass.
‘Cartography was a big Hesper industry, back in the day. No one made maps quite like us.’
Shipwright smiles, recognising his manner, that storytelling style, and eggs him on. ‘Oh really?’
‘Our maps aren’t always just maps. Sometimes, they can hold secrets.’
She raises an eyebrow, ‘How?’
He shrugs, sidesteps a sweaty, racing young boy, his face stamped with green ink. ‘It can be all kinds of things. The twist with which a mountain’s drawn. The stippling on the edge of a swamp. Dots where there needn’t be dots. Lines hidden inside other lines. Paper towns that don’t exist on the earth, but mean something when they’re on a map.’ His smile is wicked, his arms conspiratorial around her shoulder. ‘Towns that exist on the earth that are just hinted at in a wash of colour, a choice of vellum.’ He taps the tube at her hip. ‘We’re clever bastards.’
She laughs. ‘So it would seem. How come no one cottons on?’
‘Smart question. The codes change all the time, and only the cartographers know. They’ll send them, interpret them, receive them, alter them.’
‘That’s a lot of trust to place in a few people.’
He nods. ‘It is, but they swear an oath, a real serious thing. Can’t even break it once they’ve gone to glass.’
Shipwright sighs. ‘You’re all so cryptic. “Gone to glass”. That’s dead, right?’
Fallon nods. ‘Almost. Story for another day. Let’s leave it at the maps for now.’
