The Mapmaker's Sons (12 page)

Porter studied him for a long moment in silence. “Then you were raised among fools.”

Tom's dark brown eyes met and held Porter's icy blue ones. Tension flared between them, then Porter looked away. He bit into a biscuit, asking around a mouthful of food, “What about you, boy? Do you have a name?”

“People call me Mudge.”

“Mudge? What kind of name is Mudge?”

“Dunno.” He fished in his pocket and retrieved an oval-shaped piece of metal roughly the size of his palm, then passed it to Tom. The letters
STH,
finely etched but worn with age, were carved upon the metal surface. “My father said never to lose that, for that's who I am. I suppose those are my initials. Don't know how people came to call me Mudge.” He thought for a moment, considering the alternatives. “Guess I don't mind it, really.”

Tom handed the metal piece to Porter. “What is it?”

His brother gave it a cursory glance and lifted his shoulders in a careless shrug. “Old,” he answered shortly. “Not worth much. Probably a plate to identify a saddle or a trunk.” He tossed it back to the boy. “Where's your father now?”

“He died when I was young. His name was John.”

Porter nodded and brushed the crumbs from his lap. “And what did he do, this father named John?”

“He worked in a forge, repairing metals. Sometimes he brought things home to show me. Rings, crests, and shields, mostly.”

Porter nodded, though it was clear his attention had drifted. “And Willa? Who is she?”

“A friend. She took me in after my father died.” An expression of intense pride filled Mudge's eyes. “She's very talented with herbs and banes. People from all around come to buy her potions.”

Porter let out a breath, his disgust evident. “Very good. Now we're to depend on a soft-hearted old hag who sells potions.”

“She's not an old hag!” Mudge shot back. “She's not softhearted either. She'll take you through the swamp only if she wants to—and only if the price is right.”

“Excellent.” Porter pitched his apple core into a bush. “A greedy hag. Even better. We truly are doomed.” He leaned back against a hay bale and closed his eyes.

There seemed to be nothing more to say. The cart's wooden wheels rumbled beneath them, carrying them farther into the deepening twilight. Suddenly realizing he hadn't eaten all day, Tom reached for the pewter cup and took a tentative sip. Goat's milk. The taste was strange to him, thick and heavy in his mouth, but it settled nicely in his stomach. He took another deep swallow and then spread a bit of the creamy cheese on a biscuit. Goat's cheese, naturally. He ate it all, then eyed the dried meat. Not hard to guess its origin. He lifted a strip and took a cautious sniff.

“Eat it,” Mudge urged, taking a large bite himself. “It's good.”

A goat shifted toward Tom. It was an unnerving, black-coated beast, with curved horns, scruffy beard, and slanted yellow pupils. The goat's eyes locked on Tom's, as though conveying a message. Tom looked at the meat, then looked at the goat. “I can't.”

“Why not?” Mudge asked.

“I think it's someone he knew.”

Porter opened his eyes to stare at him. Mudge stopped chewing. He choked on the meat in his mouth, swallowed hard, then threw back his head and howled with laughter. Porter
let out a breath of utter disdain and turned his back to Tom, curving his body against a hay bale as though to sleep. After a bit, Mudge packed away the remains of their dinner and did the same.

The sinking sun took the day's meager warmth with it. Soon Mudge's soft snores drifted back to him.

Tom sighed. He was exhausted, but not sleepy. His fingers traced the edges of the map curled in his lap. Although he could no longer see it, he recalled the names written upon the section marked
The Beyond.

The Dismal Swamp. The Cliffs of No Return. Bloody Passage. Miserable Forest. The Lost Lake, which drained through the Wretched River into the Cursed Souls Sea. And finally, the Desert of Thirst and Starvation. Either their father had had a morbid sense of humor or they were in for a difficult journey.

Father. Mother.
His thoughts skidded to a stop as he considered the words. Words as foreign to his tongue as the taste of goat's milk. And then there was Porter. His brother. No, not just brother.
Twin
brother. With whom he seemed to share only two things: an unnerving destiny, and an intense mutual dislike of the other.

He tilted his head and stared heavenward. The air was cold but clear, the sky studded with stars. The constellations were the same ones he'd viewed from the rooftops of the Lost Academy, he noted with surprise. Same moon, same stars, same night sky.

Different world.

Porter's voice broke through the stillness of the night. “You never answered my question.”

Tom understood immediately what he was asking. His
thoughts returned to the cruelty he'd seen today. The injustice and brutality. He considered, briefly, the choice of turning his back on it all. Of finding Umbrey and the passage that would take him home. Forgetting the map, Keegan, and the sword. Taking the safe route and pretending he'd never learned this other world existed.

He rolled onto his side. “How did you feel,” he said, answering Porter's question with one of his own, “when we touched the map together?”

Though Tom had yet to see his brother smile, a flash of white—his teeth perhaps?—suggested he just had. “Alive.”

It had been the same for Tom. He'd felt more alive than he'd ever been in his entire life. But more than that. Destined. As though everything he'd ever learned, everything he'd ever done, had been nothing but a rehearsal to set him upon this course. He couldn't turn away from the quest any more than Porter could.

Was it worth the risk?

Absolutely.

I
t was well after midnight, yet torches still burned within the great hall.
A bad omen,
Keegan's sergeant-at-arms thought, a certain sign that Keegan's mood was even more foul than usual. The sergeant's stomach tightened as he approached his master's chamber. He hesitated for a moment, steeling himself for the worst, then raised a fist and rapped on the heavy oak door. At the call to enter, he stepped inside.

Keegan stood with his back to the door, staring out a large window at the grounds below. Twelve members of The Watch, Keegan's personal guard—each rumored to have been hand-selected for his physical strength, sheer brutality, and unquestioning loyalty—stood at attention with their backs to the walls.

As dictated by protocol, the sergeant waited in silence, not speaking until he was acknowledged. The moment stretched. At length Keegan turned, his dark eyes burning with an almost feverish intensity. “News?” he queried softly.

“They've gone, Sire. My men and I searched everywhere. We could find no trace of them. I believe they've left the district.”

“Is that right? Left the district, you say?” He drummed the talon-like fingernails of his right hand together, producing a
sharp clicking noise, like a nest of swarming beetles. “They were there, right there, in the broken-down district where the horse was discovered. I saw the dark-haired boy myself. Yet he and his brother escaped your entire force.”

The sergeant blinked in confusion. “As you ordered, Sire.”

“Indeed. As I ordered.” A ghost of a smile flitted across Keegan's face. “How fortunate for me that I can rely so completely on the incompetence of you and your men. The failure must have appeared rather natural.”

The sergeant opened his mouth, then closed it, understanding that the wrong response, perhaps any response, could prove fatal.

“What of the forger?” Keegan continued. He strode to his desk, opened a thick ledger, and began flipping through pages, drawing his long nails down the columns of numbers. “I assume he and his family have been dealt with?”

The sergeant hesitated, gathering his courage. “I'm afraid there was a slight problem, Sire.”

Keegan's hand stilled on the ledger. He slowly lifted his head. “Oh?”

“Before they fled the district, the brothers destroyed the execution scaffold. In the confusion that followed, the townspeople swarmed The Watch and helped the family escape.”

Keegan regarded him for a long moment in silence. “And you allowed this?”

“There are … resisters, Sire.”

“Resisters?” His voice was silky soft, yet the menace contained in that single word cut as clear and sharp as a razor's edge.

The sergeant swallowed. He was treading a difficult path, but he'd learned that withholding information could prove just as deadly as giving too much. “Not just in Divino, Sire, but in all the kingdoms. Pockets of citizens who have begun to fight back. Who refuse to submit to order.”

“Find them. Punish them. Make examples of them as you've done in the past.”

“There's more to it now, Sire. There are rumors …”

“Rumors?”

“They call them the Hero Twins. The ones you allowed to flee. They say once they've recovered the sword, they will put an end to your reign.”

Keegan stared at the sergeant. Bright spots of fury tinged his cheeks. He brought his hand down hard, slamming it against the ledger. “Do you think this is news to me? Do you believe I rely on the word of a bumbling fool like you to tell me what happens in my kingdom?”

“No, Sire.”

Around them, Keegan's personal guard shuffled restlessly, like a pack of vicious dogs straining to be set loose.

“Do you not wonder why I didn't kill the mapmaker and his son years ago? Why I allowed them to live?”

“I—I don't know, Sire.”

“Because I will have that sword. Let them follow their sacred map into The Beyond. When they return, I will be ready for them.”

Keegan pulled open a desk drawer and reached inside. He opened his hand. Five perfect stones, flat and round, as dark and shiny as obsidian, fell to the table. “It took me ten years of searching to find these.
Ten years.
They are utterly worthless on their own. But when combined with the sword, there will be no end to my power.”