The Crimson Skew (The Mapmakers Trilogy) by S. E. Grove (34)

33

Oarless

“IS THAT A good idea?” Sophia asked. The canoe waited patiently for them in the running water, as if held in place by a phantom hand.

“I don’t know.” Casanova looked up toward the Eerie Sea, as if the answer to his doubts might lie there.

“I say we try it,” said Theo.

Sophia looked at him sharply, and she realized that his face was drawn and he was leaning on the walking stick with both hands. He was even more exhausted than she had realized. From the look on Casanova’s face, he had clearly come to the same conclusion.

“There are no oars, which is a problem,” Casanova said, studying the canoe. “This current goes south. We need to paddle against it.”

“Look!” Sophia exclaimed, crouching down beside the canoe. A bundle of blue flowers lay in the hull. The blooms were like two five-pointed stars set atop each other, blue petals alternating with narrow dark green leaves. The bouquet was tied together with a length of white string.

“Starflower,” said Casanova.

Something about the string reverberated in Sophia’s mind. She realized that it reminded her of the length of string tied around the Ausentinian maps. And, with that, her sense of unease began to fade. Someone had placed these flowers here. Someone had sent the canoe. How could such a gentle gesture possibly bear ill will? “I’ve never seen starflowers before,” she said, reaching for them. “They are so beautiful.” She pressed them into her face and found that they smelled faintly of honey.

“They aren’t very common here, unless they are planted in gardens. Smokey has some—they have medicinal properties. Starflower is another name for borage,” Casanova added.

Sophia’s hand tightened on the bouquet. “The canoe comes from her. From Borage.”

“It would seem that way.”

Theo had not moved; he was so tired that he had not even commented on the flowers. She wondered how much the Art of Iron had drained him.

She looked at the flowers in her hand and then the waiting canoe. “I think we should get in. Perhaps her sending us the canoe means something we do not understand. Perhaps it is not as kindly as it seems. But I believe it is a way for us to travel north, toward their realm. And that is what we want, right?”

Casanova nodded. “Yes. Your reasoning is sound.” He looked around. “Well, I will need to make paddles. Give me some time.”

“And since this friendly canoe is so obliging, instead of making paddles, I am going to wait for you in it,” Theo said.

Casanova put down his pack and appraised the nearest trees. “When I packed, I omitted an ax,” he said wryly.

“Can I help?” Sophia asked, and began to remove her pack.

“Hey!” Theo exclaimed.

Sophia and Casanova turned as one to see the canoe, with Theo in it, beginning to drift northward, whence it came.

“It’s moving on its own! I’m not doing anything.”

Casanova scooped up his pack; Sophia re-shouldered hers. He hurried after the canoe, dropping the pack in the hull, behind Theo. The canoe had already drifted several feet.

“Take the bow.” Casanova walked beside the canoe, waiting to make sure that Sophia climbed aboard before doing so himself. “I’ll try to be our rudder.”

Placing her pack in front of Theo, Sophia scrambled in awkwardly, the canoe tipping slightly as she settled onto the front seat. She turned and saw Casanova climbing in after her. “Give me your stick, Theo,” he said.

But before Casanova could use it, the craft began to gather speed, moving steadily forward.

“How is it propelling itself?” Theo asked.

Casanova peered over the edge into the shallow stream. “It’s not the canoe. It’s the water. The water’s moving upstream now.”

“What?” Sophia rose slightly from her seat to get a better view, and she saw that he was right. The water had changed direction and was taking them toward the cave, not away from it. “How is it possible?” she breathed.

“Well,” Theo said comfortably, seeming no longer bothered by the problem. “Smokey did say the Eerie Sea was eerie. If this canoe wants to carry us northward, I’m all for it.”

Sophia had to laugh. Then she looked at him appraisingly. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. But I’m glad to be sitting.”

“Eat,” Casanova said, handing him one of Smokey’s packets of food. “We have yet to see how long this unexpected assistance lasts. Better take advantage while we can.”

Sophia turned to face forward as the canoe approached the cave opening. She felt a flutter of apprehension. The cluster of starflowers was still in her hand, and she clutched it more tightly for reassurance. I hope these waters have our best interests at heart, she said to herself.

The cave entrance was dark, and as soon as the canoe passed under the overhanging rock, it turned a sharp corner: right, toward the ice. The waters had yanked them into sudden, overwhelming darkness. Sophia could only tell that they were still moving by the quiet sound of the rippling water beneath them. Then, as they drifted farther, shimmering threads of light appeared overhead and on either side. “What are those?” she whispered in the darkness.

“I am not sure,” came Casanova’s quiet reply. “Perhaps veins of mica.”

Sophia thought her eyes were adjusting, for the craggy walls grew slowly visible, but then she realized that a greater source of light lay ahead. The tunnel turned left, and suddenly the rock around them was replaced by ice. Illuminated by unseen sunlight beyond, the ice shone pale blue. The walls and ceiling around them had shallow bowls and sharp points, as if they had been carved away in pieces by a giant spoon. Here the stream was deep and wide, its bottom no longer visible. The canoe moved serenely along, the mysterious waters maneuvering the vessel through the ice cave with uncanny ease.

“This is magnificent,” Sophia said to Theo and Casanova. Like her, they were both staring about them, awed. It was hard to believe that the massive glacier they had seen from the shore was actually hollow.

The ceiling rose higher and higher as they moved forward, and the space opened into a vast cavern. It reminded Sophia of an earlier adventure—navigating the labyrinth of the lost Age beneath Nochtland. The blue ice, the waves of chill air, the echoing sounds recalled the monumental pyramid of the Glacine Age that had met her when she finally emerged from the subterranean passages.

In the canoe, surrounded by unearthly ice, Sophia hardly felt the cold. She came unloosed from time. Of course Elodeans would want to come here, to experience the majesty of such a place. It had a sense of perfect stillness, and she almost longed to step out of the canoe so that she could stand in the great cavern, within the quiet of the ice.

Or was it quiet? The sound she was hearing, Sophia realized, was not only the rippling water around the canoe. There was something else intermingled with it—a kind of whispering. She cocked her head, trying to hear past the gurgling stream. Yes, now that she listened for it, the sound was clearer: a susurration, as if somewhere in the great ice cavern, people were talking to one another in hushed voices.

“Do you hear that?” Sophia asked, turning back to look at Theo and Casanova. Theo had fallen asleep. He was curled up around Sophia’s pack, resting his head on a folded blanket.

“I hear it,” said Casanova. “The whispering?”

Sophia nodded. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. It sounds like human voices, but I cannot make out the words.” He reached into his pack and took out a napkin-wrapped bundle. “Try to ignore it,” he told her. “And Sophia—remember what Smokey said. You should eat, too—you haven’t had anything since midday.”

Sophia took the packet Casanova passed across to her and unfolded the napkin on her lap. Slowly chewing on the dried meat and fruit, she tried to discern whether the cavern had entrances that might lead to other caves. “There,” she said to Casanova, pointing off to the right. “Another opening.”

“I see it.”

The more she looked, the more Sophia realized that there were innumerable passageways leading off the great cavern. It was a network of waterways and ice tunnels, but the water beneath them guided them past every one. Perhaps, she thought, there are people in those other passageways. There was no telling how sound would travel through such an unusual space. The thought was disquieting. Elodeans traveled in solitude. Who else would be wandering the ice tunnels of the Eerie Sea?

Finishing her meal, Sophia shook the napkin out, folded it, and stowed it in her pack. She turned all her attention to the canoe’s route. I should be mapping this, she realized, reaching for the notebook in her satchel. She hurriedly reconstructed the route they had taken so far, doing her best to capture the contours of their own meandering path beneath the glacier. Then she began making note of where the tunnels branched on either side, marking them with half circles.

They had almost reached the far end of the cavern when the canoe began turning to the left, toward one of the arched openings in the ice wall. Sophia quickly marked the location on her map and then looked up, eager to see where they were headed.

The canoe entered a narrow passageway with a low ceiling. It seemed smaller than the others she had observed—so narrow that it was only just wide enough for the canoe. And the space overhead was shrinking. With a flash of unease, Sophia realized that Casanova would not have been able to stand had he tried. Perhaps the unseen hand that steered them was not so benign, after all.

Little by little, the ceiling dropped. Her unease bloomed into panic. “What if the ceiling meets the water? Casanova, we’ll freeze! There’s no way to climb out!”

His face was grim. “I don’t know.” He had to lean back to look up. “I should have made that paddle.” Jabbing at the ceiling experimentally with Theo’s walking stick, he said, “If it comes to it, I can keep us in place with this. We won’t be dragged underwater.”

This did not make Sophia feel much better. She turned forward once more, trying to see if the ceiling would rise again, but, if anything, it seemed to dip lower. She ducked her head. “Casanova!”

“What’s happening?” Theo mumbled.

“Stay down.” Casanova had slid down from his seat and was holding the walking stick at the ready, preparing to use it as a brake against the ice.

“Wait!” Sophia cried. “Wait! Don’t stop us. I see a different kind of light ahead. Not blue—yellow.”

She huddled down. The low ceiling continued for another ten feet, twenty feet, fifty feet, and then the canoe turned a corner. Without altering its speed, it drifted through the low archway and out into the open air, leaving the ice tunnels behind.

“Thank the Fates,” Casanova murmured, climbing back onto his seat.

Sophia took a deep, relieved breath.

The canoe had emerged beyond the glacier, drifting into a stony landscape that seemed limitless. The air seemed brighter and cleaner than she had seen in days—the sky was a cloudless blue. Behind them, the glacier wedged between the mountains was like a cork in a funnel: a barrier from the world of upper New York. Before them, granite outcrops with surprising shapes—leaning mounds and tall cones and bulging humps that looked like faces—made a prospect of sculpted stone. The canoe seemed to move with renewed energy along the narrow stream that cut through the rock.

The sun was low on the horizon, and Sophia estimated that they had perhaps an hour or so of light left. She checked her pocket watch; they had been inside the glacier for more than two hours.

“Is this still the Eerie Sea?” asked Theo.

“You know as much as I do,” Casanova replied. “What does your hand tell you?”

Sophia looked back to see Theo with his hand outstretched, concentrating once more.

The landscape drifted past. A few minutes later, he told them, “We are going the right way. But I have no idea if this is the Eerie Sea.”

“There’s someone watching us,” Casanova said abruptly.

Sophia whirled. “Where?”

He pointed toward the west, to a distant rock ridge. Sure enough, a figure stood there, with the sun behind it. “It’s been there since we came out of the glacier—always a little ahead of us, as if it knows where we’re going.”

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Theo said, yawning. “Even the canoe knows where we’re going. We’re the only ones who don’t, apparently.”

Sophia watched the figure and found that what Casanova had said was true. It remained always at the same distance, always to the west and a little ahead of them. She shook her head and turned back to her notebook, intent on continuing the map she was making. “Maybe it is one of the sisters,” she said, sketching the route through the stone.

“Could be,” Casanova replied. “It seems agile to me. More than I would have expected for an eighty-year-old woman.”

“Is that how old they are?”

“Around that. From what Bittersweet said about how long his mother and grandfather knew them.”

The sun began sinking into the horizon. All around them, the stone was bathed in orange light. Here and there, cliffs jutted up into the darkening sky, bright red and shaded purple. “Oh!” Sophia exclaimed. She pointed ahead. A cluster of fireflies had appeared in the air above the stream, and as the canoe approached they danced toward them, their lights glancing on and off.

Casanova observed them warily. “The three sisters must have sent them.”

To Sophia they seemed anything but ominous, and she smiled as the fireflies heralded them onward. “A retinue of fireflies,” she said. “I think it’s very welcoming.”

As the sun sank lower and the sky above them made a dome of fading indigo, the canoe began to slow down. The stony outcrops disappeared, leaving only a flat stone table stretching east and west. Abruptly, the stream widened. Sophia realized, as they floated forward, that it had opened into a lake: a wide body of water bordered entirely by stone. And now, as the fireflies flickered toward it, she saw the island that rose in the middle of the lake. Steep and thickly forested, it jutted from the still water like a craggy horn. At the hill’s peak was a great stone edifice that seemed carved from the island itself. Lights shone in the windows—amber lights that flickered like candle flames, or fireflies.