From behind the secret door, Aldo felt a cool breeze, smelled dry air with a hint of mustiness and old papers. He followed
his father down a sloping ramp. When they rounded a corner, Aldo stopped in awe.
The chamber was huge. In this hidden vault beneath the Saedran temple, maps covered the walls, and painted constellations
sparkled across the curved dome of the ceiling. Such detailed paintings! Aldo saw the careful outlines of Tierra, the streets
of Ishalem, the currents in the Oceansea, even the boundaries of the Middlesea on the other side of the isthmus. Densely written
notations marked the landforms, uncertain outlines followed sketchy reports of possible islands, seasonal whirlpools, barrier
reefs that had been sighted out near the horizon.
It looked nothing at all like the map Yal Dolicar had sold him.
He noticed sturdy mahogany tables piled with charts, log-books, and diaries. Compasses and protractors lay next to ink pots
and paints. Staring at the dome overhead, he recognized the familiar constellations visible from Tierra, and as his gaze moved
onward, he noted other star patterns, groupings he had seen only in books but never with his own eyes. One set of stars continued
from another to another in a clear progression all across the painted sky.
Aldo turned slowly around, drinking in the impossibly magnificent work of art. He tried to take in everything at once. He
marveled at the network of rivers leading from the highlands to the sea, the hills of Alamont, the plains of Erietta, the
Soeland islands, the dense and cold Iborian forests, the impassible mountains of Corag. He felt as if the breath had been
stolen from his lungs. He was looking at the
whole world.
Belatedly, he noticed Sen Leo sitting in the room, watching him with a bemused expression on his face. The old scholar turned
to Aldo’s father. “Are you certain this isn’t too soon for him?”
“He’s a chartsman, after all,” Biento said, then added, “And it was necessary. He needed to know what we already know. He’s
still very young and gullible.” He nudged his son.
Aldo was not certain what to do or say as he sheepishly extended the fanciful map. “I… I bought this from a sailor.”
Sen Leo glanced at it for only a moment before shaking his head. “Completely inaccurate. A fantastical representation, with
just enough known details to fool the unwary.” He narrowed his eyes. “People like Aldo.”
Holding Dolicar’s fake map up to the landscape on the temple wall, Biento used a paint-stained finger to trace the outlines
of real islands and the extended coast, pointing out how the two did not match. “Can you see now that this is completely fictitious?
Look here, and here.” He strode over to a different part of the wall. “And look, no islands exist in these waters. And where
is this reef, and the two large islands here? The man who sold you this map was simply fabricating a story.”
Aldo flushed. “It’s so obvious.” He turned his shame toward himself for being so easily fooled, but even that could not diminish
the sense of wonder that surged through him now. He went closer to the walls, staring at the names of specific rock outcroppings,
small patches of forest, lighthouses, villages. “But this—all this—is
known
and verified?”
“This is our Mappa Mundi,” said Sen Leo, “the manifestation of the most sacred quest for all Saedrans—to discover the world,
to map and record what we see. When our chartsmen return from far lands with new observations, we draw more lines on the map.
Once we have succeeded in charting all of creation, Ondun will reward us by raising our sunken homeland.”
“Is this the only Mappa Mundi?”
“Every Saedran temple has a secret map room.” Biento looked at his son. “I am a cartographer. I don’t sail off to far ports,
but I have a chartsman’s memory and knowledge, and I travel around the countryside to paint a perfect copy of the map in each
temple. That’s how we share information.”
“But you said you painted commissioned portraits of nobles!”
Biento gave him a coy smile. “Oh, that merely provides a good excuse for me to travel so widely. Your mother knows the real
reason.”
Aldo couldn’t tear his eyes from the map of the world. He saw the precise details in the Tierran continent, but noted the
sketchier outlines of Uraba and the many blank areas beyond. “And we have no better information about this half of the world?”
“Parts of it, but not enough,” Sen Leo said. “There are Saedrans in Uraba, but the Urecari won’t allow us to interact with
them. Their maps of Tierra are probably just as sketchy. With the signing of the Edict, maybe we can share information and
work together at last.”
Thickening smoke worked its hazy tendrils through the streets of Ishalem. The animals inside Asha’s residence were disturbed,
some frantic; the songbirds flapped against their cages, the hounds bayed. Most of the cats had already fled, and Asha couldn’t
find them, though she looked everywhere.
The soldan-shah burst back into their private quarters, his face flushed, eyes red and irritated from the smoke. Perspiration
sparkled on his shaved scalp, and his voice cracked with alarm. “Asha, tell your servants to pack your things! Grab only the
possessions you value most and get down to the docks—hurry! I have already sent men to prepare your ship for immediate departure
to Olabar.”
Asha was bewildered. “How can I possibly take everything? I’d need days to.—”
“
Now
. Only what you need, only what you value the most, only what you cannot replace. You have less than an hour.” Throughout
their marriage, Imir had done his best to keep her happy. He denied Asha nothing and had never raised his voice to her—she’d
given him no cause—but now he was brusque. “With the winds whipping up, nothing can stop this fire. Ishalem will burn to the
ground.”
Asha gasped. “But that’s impossible! This is… this is
Ishalem!
”
Imir headed for the doorway. “One hour, Asha. Be on the boat, or be left behind.”
“But if it all burns.—”
“It
will
all burn. One hour.” He marched into the corridor, and guards quickly folded around him.
Her small dogs wouldn’t stop barking, and she shooed them away as she called for her handmaidens. The serving women had already
recognized the danger and started throwing their own possessions into trunks and baskets. Now they flurried about gathering
her silks and jewels with a grim efficiency.
From the balcony, Asha saw the fire advancing like a golden army, orange flames moving from street to street, sweeping up
the side of the hill to the sacred Arkship. In the streets outside the residence, horsemen galloped, people shouted or screamed.
Seeing that the Aidenist side of the city was also on fire, she was surprised that sparks could blow so far and so swiftly.
Even the Saedran houses and shops had caught fire. The entire city! Imir had not exaggerated the danger, and she realized
how little time they had.
“Forget the silly possessions! We must take my pets. Grab the bird cages. Put leashes on the hounds, and bring my little dogs
in their baskets. Oh, how are we going to catch the cats?” Asha turned around, desperate for help. “Get carters, find wagons—we’ll
make a procession down to the harbor. Our boat is waiting in the main canal.”
The handmaidens were startled, their arms heaped with bright cloth, embroidered cushions, ornate golden ewers. “Go!” Asha
cried.
“The pets!”
They burst into motion, though a few of them pocketed jewels and gold chains, not even bothering to be surreptitious about
it. Asha didn’t care, so long as they rescued the animals.
Asha joined the women, carrying two cages of shrieking birds out of the main entrance to a waiting cart. Despairingly, she
called for her cats, but they did not respond. The little dogs yapped, poking their heads out of the baskets, but handmaidens
nudged them back down. Well-muscled manservants struggled to lift the larger animal cages onto carts. The hounds pulled against
the leather leashes, straining at their collars; one of the straps snapped, and the dog raced into the streets. Asha shouted
after him, but the hound vanished into the smoke and chaos. The manservant looked at the frayed end of the leash. “Shall I
catch him, my lady?”
“We cannot wait, Lady Asha,” cried one of the handmaidens. Tears filled Asha’s smoke-reddened eyes, and she knew the woman
was right. Two wagons had already departed into the tortuous and crowded streets toward the harbor.
Nearby, the Urecari prime church was a towering bonfire, fueled by the sacred pennants and tapestries. Asha mumbled a prayer
to herself for the church, for Ishalem; she couldn’t believe Ondun would let this happen. How could Ishalem, the holiest city
in the world, be allowed to burn to the ground? Only an hour before, she would have asserted that Imir’s guards and soldiers
could extinguish the flames, and that would be that. Now she doubted any man, even the soldan-shah, could save the city.
They fled the residence as the flames encroached. Making their way downhill toward the docks, they followed the choked drainage
canals, until they reached a shallow-draft boat with a man aboard waving to them from the anxious crowds on the edge of the
canal. “Lady Asha! Soldan-Shah Imir commanded me to wait for you. You and some of your party can ride with me!”
With her closest handmaidens, she crowded aboard while the rest of her servants took the heavily laden carts directly to her
barge. She kept the voluminous birdcages with her. The manservants and two armed guards had to beat away desperate people
who clawed and pushed, trying to board the small boat. Asha hated to leave them behind. “But… all these people! We should
save them.”
The manservants and guards were momentarily speechless; finally, one of the men gestured around to indicate their single small
boat. “My lady, we cannot! Our orders are to save you.”
Asha felt her heart lurch in her chest. The desperation of these poor people called to her. The people of Ishalem, faithful
to Urec. They were only trying to escape the fire, having left every possession behind. But the guards were right—the boat
had no room, not with her pets in their bulky cages and baskets. Two bright green parakeets squawked and fluttered against
the bars. She was surprised to see that one of her cats had been caught after all, and now it yowled piteously, fur bristling.
Uneasy with the angry crowd, one of the soldan-shah’s guards untied the painter, even as Asha tried to think of a solution.
Before she and her handmaidens were fully settled, the boatman used a pole to shove his craft into motion, leaving the shouting
crowd behind. Some of the people even cursed her!
“Wait!” Asha yanked out her birdcages. “I’ll make room. We can save
somebody.
” Since she and the soldan-shah had had no sons or daughters of their own, her pets had always been like her children. Now
she opened the cages, shook the bars to force the squawking and frantic birds into the air, ignoring her deep sadness as they
flew off into the smoky night. She knew she would never see them again. Asha tossed the cages overboard. “There, now take
some children perhaps.” She looked to the side of the canal, reached out her hands as they drifted past the terrified people.
But the guards ignored her. “I am sorry, my lady. We have to get you down to the docks.” They refused to obey! Continuing
to push the boat along the canal, the boatman picked up speed. The heavily laden craft scraped bottom from time to time, and
two men had to push with poles to free them.
Barely able to breathe, she looked over the side of the boat as it drifted along the canal, forlorn. What would happen to
all those people? If the whole city was going to burn, as Imir said, where would they go? She began to grasp the horror of
just how many might die here this night. “No!”
Though the canal deepened as the boat drifted, the water was cluttered with debris and coated with an oily scum. Asha spied
a burned man floating amongst the flotsam, his head above water, arms clinging to the side of the canal. His clothes were
singed and in tatters, his face and hands covered with soot. Much of his hair was gone. And she saw he was alive.
“Wait! That man needs help!”
“We’ve already told you, Lady Asha. There is no time.” The boatman looked up as a shower of sparks glittered above them in
the night sky. “We cannot save him.”
The man feebly lifted a hand, eyes closed, face drawn in agony. The cooling water of the canal must have saved him, but he
would die soon unless a healer tended him.
“Stop! That is my order! We must save
someone.
” The unwavering command that charged her voice sounded new and completely foreign to her servants. “We
will
take him. So many are being left behind, we can at least rescue this one.”
“But, my lady,” said one of her handmaidens, “if you save this one, you must save all of them, and you cannot.”
“So I should just give up on everyone?” Asha straightened on her unsteady seat. “Urec would never forgive me for that—and
you should pray for days to cleanse your mind of what you have just suggested!”
“I will pray that others will help them.”
“He will likely die, Lady Asha,” one of the guards warned. “He is badly burned, and these waters will have poisoned him.”
Stubborn, she commanded the boatman to nudge the limp figure with his pole so that Asha’s servants could reach him. Guards
hauled the burned man over the gunwale, and Asha snapped imperiously to her horrified handmaidens, “Help them—we don’t have
much time!”
With clear distaste on their faces, the women clutched at the muddy black tatters that clothed the man’s body. He groaned
as they pulled him aboard, but he was deeply—and mercifully—unconscious. He retched, having nearly drowned in the shallow
water. His skin was raw, red and black, but he breathed.
Asha thought of all the pets she had saved in the past, the animals she’d rescued—birds with broken wings, dogs with splinters
in their paws, scrawny cats that had been tormented by evil boys—all of them lost causes, and yet she had healed them. “We
will
take him to the ship. We
will
tend him. I have doctors to heal his injuries.”