The Cartographer Complete Series

by A. C. Cobble

  He risked opening his eye, grateful that the room was dim. No windows. No lights, either, except what spilled around a form standing in the doorway. A naked form silhouetted by the light from another room. He tried to blink the sleep from his eyes, staring at the shape of the woman, wondering where he was.

  Sam. It had to be Sam, and they were in her apartment. That made sense.

  “Why are you naked?” he asked, scratching his bare stomach. A flash of panic bit through the throbbing pain in his head. “Why am I… Did we?”

  She laughed, and his panic steadied. They had, they must have, in their drunken stupor. Not the first time for either of them, and she didn’t seem upset at the—

  “No,” replied Sam. “I’m naked because I always sleep naked. I just woke up. I needed tea more than I did clothing.”

  She set a lukewarm mug of water and tea leaves on a small table beside her bed and then stooped to gather her leather trousers from the floor. He felt himself stir at the sight of her backside, blood thankfully draining from his aching, swimming head.

  “You don’t always sleep naked,” he claimed, remembering sharing a room on the airship. It was about all he could work out in his pathetic state.

  “I do,” she said, speaking over her shoulder and tugging her trousers on. “Ah, you’re thinking on the Cloud Serpent? I slept naked there as well, but I fell asleep after you and woke before. I don’t sleep much. A relic of my time on the farm, I guess.”

  “Farm? When were you on a farm… Is that a new tattoo? What is that?”

  “It is,” she said, bending again and collecting a linen shirt which she slipped on.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s ink embedded in my skin,” she replied, not answering what he was asking. “Are you going to drink your tea?”

  He did, his mind struggling to return to productive thought.

  But he was awake enough to tell that her tea was shit.

  Though, as she’d claimed, it did have sugar. Finally, after several sips and grimaces at what was slightly warm sugar water with tea leaves floating in it, he asked, “If we didn’t… If we didn’t… why am I naked?”

  “You got sick all over yourself,” she explained. “We might have… well, not after that. I stripped you down, with little help from you I should say, poured a couple of buckets of water over your head, and we both passed out. You twisted and squirmed half the night. I’ll be honest, Duke, if you aim to be a serious drinker, you ought to learn how to do it proper.”

  “We might have?”

  She smirked at him. “Come on. Let’s get you something to eat. Maybe some dry toast?”

  “Yes, ah, I’m rather naked,” he said after throwing off the sheets and then quickly pulling them back over himself.

  “You saw me,” she reminded, nodding at his midsection, “and it seems you enjoyed the show. It’s my turn now.”

  “I thought you preferred girls,” he complained.

  “You also thought we had sex last night,” she said. She sipped her tea and made a face. “This is awful.”

  “I know,” he agreed.

  “Well, get up and make some, then,” she requested. “I’ll work on the toast.”

  “Can I… can I borrow some clothing?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she replied, slapping a hand on her thigh. “I have a couple more pairs of these leather trousers. Check the wardrobe. I think you’ll fit into them nicely.”

  She turned and disappeared into the other room.

  He looked around helplessly. On the floor, wadded in the corner, was his clothing. As she’d claimed, it was damp and filthy with what appeared to be sickly green stains. Her wardrobe was in the corner, but he didn’t bother. Even the shirts and vests she wore were tailored. None had a hope of fitting him. Instead, he stood, drawing her sheets around him in a sort of wrap, and shuffled out into her sitting room.

  “We ought to burn your clothing,” she advised, “and probably that sheet. You’re going to have to buy me a new one.”

  He waved a hand dismissively and then cursed and caught the sheet before it slid all the way to the floor.

  She gave an appreciative nod at the flesh that had been displayed. “For a coddled peer, it sure appears as if you stay active.”

  “For a woman who prefers women, it sure appears that you keep looking at me.”

  “I prefer ale to wine,” she said. “That doesn’t mean I never enjoy a glass of wine.”

  He snorted and shuffled closer to her fire, peering down at a kettle set on the hearth. “I prefer coffee to tea. I don’t suppose you have any?”

  “No,” she replied.

  “We have to do something about my clothing,” he said. “I cannot walk back to my brother’s palace like this.”

  “I offered a pair of my trousers,” she reminded, grinning at her own jest.

  He shook his head. “Can you find a for-hire-carriage? We’ll send a note to my man Winchester. He’ll come fetch me and bring fresh attire when he does.”

  She shrugged. “Do you care to discuss what was keeping you awake last night?”

  He shot her a hard glance.

  “You were mumbling in your sleep,” she explained. “I couldn’t pick up much of it, but enough to know you were seeing something.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it now,” he said. “Come with me to the palace. We’ll get cleaned up and then talk.”

  “I’ve enjoyed a glass of wine in the past. I didn’t say I was looking to enjoy one now.”

  He rolled his eyes at her. “If I wanted to… Well, I suppose taking a woman back to the palace is exactly what I’d do. Not this time, though. This time, I need time to think, and then we need to talk.”

  She nodded.

  He sipped the lukewarm liquid in his mug. “And we need to find something potable to drink.”

  She simply shrugged and then cursed, scrambling to a griddle suspended over the fire. Muttering to herself, she flipped two pieces of bread. They’d acquired a thick black crust on the bottom and the stench of burnt toast filled the small room.

  “Ah, that’s not so bad,” she claimed. “Last time I tried to cook bread, it caught fire.”

  Winchester stood in the center of the sitting room, his gaze disdainfully moving around the space. “Mistress Sam, your maids are doing a terrible job.”

  Oliver laughed, and Sam hissed.

  “She doesn’t have maids, Winchester,” he advised, rubbing his head.

  “Well, someone is doing a terrible job,” huffed the valet. “I’ll send some women down from the palace. Because it’s such a small place, they’ll have it straightened in no time.”

  “Excuse me,” snapped Sam. “It’s not… Did you say you’ll have some women sent down?”

  “Cleaning women,” said Oliver with a wink.

  “Of course,” answered Winchester primly. “Sweeping, straightening, perhaps a little polish. I think the place will look, ah, like less of a dump, I hope.”

  “Speaking of clean,” said Oliver, still wrapped in Sam’s sheet. “I have some clothes in the bedroom. Can you take a look?”

  The valet nodded and set a small trunk at Oliver’s feet. “I took the liberty of a selecting an outfit, m’lord.”

  “You always do,” acknowledged Oliver.

  While the valet cautiously entered the bedchamber, Oliver flipped back the lid of the trunk and saw simple trousers, a shirt, and a woolen coat. Adequate for the trip up to the palace. He glanced at Sam.

  She leaned back in her chair, balancing it on two legs, and propped her feet on her breakfast table. “I’ll wait.”

  Grunting, he shimmied out of the sheet and quickly yanked on his small clothes and trousers.

  By then, Winchester returned with the clothing from the day before, one hand pinching the clothes out in front of him, the other hand pinching his nose. “This is awful, m’lord, even by your standards.”

  “You don’t think—” Oliver cut himself off as his valet tossed the damp
items into Sam’s fire.

  “That is going to smell even worse,” she complained.

  “Let’s depart until this place can be sterilized and freshened,” remarked the valet.

  “Sounds good to me,” muttered Oliver, pulling on his shirt and shaking out his coat.

  “M’lord, if you mean to be a frequent guest of Mistress Sam, may I suggest securing an apartment that has a closet for the necessaries, indoor plumbing, a gas line, and a proper kitchen? A private carriage court wouldn’t be remiss, but that might be impossible in this neighborhood.”

  “It’s not like that, Winchester,” said Oliver. “We are not having a tryst.”

  “Then why were you naked?” questioned the valet, clearly not believing it.

  Oliver shrugged.

  “Are there are a lot of women you pay apartments for?” wondered Sam.

  “I wouldn’t say a lot,” grumbled Oliver, glaring at his valet as the man dramatically mouthed a number. “Let’s go to the palace.”

  Later that evening, hydrated but still feeling like the bottom of a boot, Oliver sat in front of a crackling fire in a giant stuffed chair. Sam, sitting in an identical chair, had her feet propped up on an embroidered and tasseled ottoman.

  “I could get used to living like this,” she mentioned.

  He swirled his glass, dark amber liquor coating the sides of the crystal and then slowly running back to the base. His eyes were locked on the fire, hot and orange-red, but it flickered and leapt just like the cold white fire from his dream.

  “You’re not getting drunk again, are you?” she questioned.

  “No, not for a long time,” he replied. “At least, not that drunk.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “I had a dream,” he told her. “It was… vivid. Exceptionally vivid. It was like what I saw when we fought Isisandra and Colston beneath Derbycross. I think… I think maybe some of that powder is still in my body. Is that possible? Could the drink have, I don’t know, triggered it somehow?”

  Sam shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “I thought you were an expert on these things,” he complained.

  “There is far more to sorcery than anyone can be an expert on,” she claimed, “or would want to be an expert on. The dark path is a twisted and evil one. A vision, you said?”

  “A dream, I said.”

  “As drunk as we were, I’m surprised you recall anything. It’s certainly a little fuzzy to me. What was this dream about?”

  He sipped his whiskey, letting the liquor warm his throat and his stomach, hoping it would ease the dull pressure in his head. “It was the underworld, I think, or Northundon. Maybe my imagination of what the city looks like on the other side? I don’t know, but I recognized it clearly. I knew with certainty that was what I was looking at. It was cold, and the city was on fire. There were tens of thousands of souls marching into the city, into the fire. I don’t know what happened to them there, but they spoke of sacrifice and a bargain. They just kept marching. They… they said my mother was not there. That’s the same thing they said when Colston threw the powder into my face.”

  “It was cold?” asked Sam, toying with her own glass, the rest of her body stone still. “What color was the fire?”

  “Bone white,” replied Oliver. “It was dark, though, all over. Somehow, I could still see. It was as if shadows were moving on a mime’s screen, but opposite, white on black. Despite the dark, I knew what was happening. That’s the way it is in dreams, isn’t it? And I had no body, but I could still feel.”

  “The underworld is a hard place to describe,” said Sam. “Descriptions vary, as some observers are more articulate than others, but they match what you’re telling me, Duke. What you’re saying you saw could be the real underworld, the actual other side of the shroud, a mirrored reflection of our own reality.”

  He frowned at her.

  “You said the souls spoke to you. What did they say?”

  “They told me to go there,” he murmured, staring into the crackling fire. “Northundon, I think they meant.”

  “Your dream may have been a vision.” She drew a deep breath. “A prophecy, some would call it.”

  “A prophecy!” he said incredulously, staring at her. “I don’t think it was that. I didn’t see the future.”

  “Maybe you saw the present?” she suggested.

  He quieted, uncomfortable with the idea.

  “What else did the spirits tell you?”

  “They told me my mother wasn’t there,” he answered. “That’s the same thing they’d said before, that she wasn’t there but that she had been. They wanted me to find her, to complete some bargain or a sacrifice. I don’t know what they were talking about, just that they wanted her and claimed she was not there, not in the underworld.”

  “That’s a prophecy, Duke,” said Sam. “That’s just like what my mentor said he saw, a vision that was startlingly clear. It stayed with him his entire life, every detail. In it, the message was of a darkness spreading from Enhover. He thought I was to be involved in stopping it, along with you.”

  “Me?” snorted Oliver.

  “Duke,” chided Sam, “you did help stop Isisandra Dalyrimple, did you not? In Romalla, a member of the Council, Bishop Constance, claimed that my mentor’s prophecy had already come true. She said we had already stopped the tree of darkness that Thotham claimed would grow out of Enhover. He didn’t think it was over, but… I don’t know. It could be. It could not be. You were involved, though, just as Thotham predicted.”

  “Can we ask him?” wondered Oliver. “He’s in the spear, isn’t he?”

  “Do you know how to speak to an incorporeal spirit that’s imbued into an inanimate object?” asked Sam. “Because I do not.”

  “Well, how do I know if it’s… if it’s real? A prophecy, I mean.”

  “There’s only one way to tell,” answered Sam. “You wait to see if it comes true.”

  “What, wait and see if my mother is alive?” scoffed Oliver. “It’s been twenty years. She’s—”

  “The spirits said she was in Northundon,” interjected Sam, “but she’s not now?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “They weren’t very clear. I couldn’t speak back to them. I could only listen to what they told me.”

  “That’s prophecy for you,” she replied sardonically. “We could scry for her, I suppose.”

  He blinked at her.

  “Do you have anything that belonged to her that could help fashion the bridge?”

  His hand drifted up to his head, back over his hair, to the leather thong that kept it tied back. “I do.”

  “It’s risky,” she admitted, “but what else can we do? We both agree there are sorcerers out there, more powerful ones than even Isisandra Dalyrimple. They’ve cleaned house and severed the threads that may lead us to them. We don’t have any other leads. After the fiasco in Romalla, we don’t have any assistance on the way. It’s just us, and we have nowhere to go.”

  He frowned. “I’m not saying I agree to this, but if I did, where would we start?”

  “Just like I did when searching for Thotham, except this time, you’ll be the one directing the spirit. I can help you with that. First, though, we need to get the supplies.”

  “Back to the apothecary, then?”

  “Back to the apothecary,” agreed Sam. “First thing in the morning, we can—”

  “Let’s go now,” suggested Oliver. “If I recall, the man lived upstairs of his shop. He should be around. A brisk walk in the weather may do us some good. Get the blood flowing and help us wake up, and if not, perhaps the man will have something that can help with my head. The pressure inside of my skull has been beating like a drum since we woke.”

  “Didn’t Winchester give you something?” she asked.

  Oliver grunted. “It could have been wig powder for all the good it’s done, and I wouldn’t put that past him. He gets sullen, sometimes.”

  She smiled. “Well, as I’m no longer i
n the employ of the Church, I don’t have much else to be doing. Let’s go.”

  The Priestess XI

  A month after the winter solstice, the nighttime streets of Westundon were vacant and frozen. Proper folk had long since retired in front of their fires or darted quickly to where they needed to be. In the heart of winter, late at night, there was no lingering out on the streets. Even the pubs they passed in their rumbling mechanical carriage looked half-empty. Thick, wet sleet pattered against the glass window, threatening to melt and freeze as the night wore on. Already, Sam saw the streets had gained a slick, reflective sheen.

  “I’m not sure this was a good idea,” she said.

  Across from her, his long coat pulled tight around him, a thick wool scarf wrapped around his neck, Duke admitted, “It probably wasn’t, but we’re almost there.”

  She grunted and looked back out the window. On the street corners, big gas-lit lamps spilled a glow that barely cut through the precipitation. Dark stone buildings twinkled with lantern light around their doorsteps, but the windows were shuttered and dark to stop the chill from seeping inside. The mien of the city, closed and crouching, fit her mood.

  Sitting back, she rubbed gloved hands together. “I wish I’d brought the rest of my drink.”

  “Maybe the apothecary will serve us something,” offered Duke.

  “They’re known for that, aren’t they?”

  “Surely there’s a pub nearby we can stop in on the way back,” suggested Duke, taking her place at the carriage window and frowning. “Assuming we can find one open.”

  Moments later, the carriage slowed to a skidding stop.

  Duke tugged his scarf tight. “Ladies first?”

  She snorted.

  Sighing, the nobleman opened the door and stepped down into the cold, night air. Digging through his purse, he flipped their driver a shining silver coin and waved as the man professed extreme gratitude.