A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

Glanno
might say, that was the most petty-tracted nefoaminous
argument I ever seen! 'Twas still in full swing when we
blaggered it outa there.'
    'Blaggered?' said Faint. 'The carriage can barely crawl,
Ilk.'
    'Ain't nothing so tensifying as running for your life at
a snail's pace, let me tell you, but if it wasn't for Master's
protecterives we'd be nothing but flops of hairy skin and
chunks of meat like everyone else back there.'
    Precious Thimble shivered and made a warding gesture.
    Master Quell emerged from the carriage after forcing
open an ill-hung door. He was sheathed in sweat. 'What a
damned world this is,' he said raggedly.
    'I thought we were on an island,' Jula said, frowning.
    'We heading back to sea?' Precious asked Quell.
    'Not a chance – the carriage wouldn't hold. We need to
find a more civil place to hole up.'
    She watched him walk off the track to find a private
place where he could groan and sigh as he emptied his
bladder, or at least tried to – he never wandered far
enough. 'You need a practitioner of High Denul,' she
called after him.
    'As you say, Witch, as you say . . .'
    Cartographer had found a stick from somewhere and was
scraping out patterns on the dirt of the road a dozen paces
ahead. Precious Thimble squinted at him. 'What's that
thing doing?'
    No one seemed to have an answer.
    After a long pause, Sweetest Sufferance spoke. 'Either of
you other girls feeling a tad bloodthirsty?'
    Well, that woke everyone else up fast enough, Precious
Thimble observed a short while later, still struggling with
her own panic. That damned lardball was still half convulsed
in laughter, and Precious was of a mind to stick a
knife in one of those teary eyes, and she doubted anyone
would try to stop her.
    Master Quell reappeared. 'What's so funny, Sweetest?
Oh, never mind.' He surveyed everyone else with a
pinched, uncomfortable expression, like a man who'd sat
on a cork. 'The night stinks – anybody else noticed that? I
was thinking of Rashan, but now I'm not so sure.'
    'You need only take me as far as a port,' said Mappo. 'I
can find my own way from there.'
    Quell squinted at him. 'We'll deliver you as agreed,
Trell—'
    'The risks—'
    'Are why we charge as much as we do. Now, no more
about that, and don't even think of just cancelling the
contract – we'd take that as a grievous insult, a slur on our
good name. We'll get you there, Trell, even if it's on one
wheel behind a three-legged horse.'
    Cartographer tottered back to them. 'If it pleases,' he
said, attempting a smile that Precious decided was too
ghoulish to describe without descending into insanity, 'I
have outlined a solution.'
    'Sorry I missed it,' said Quell.
    'He meant that literally,' said Precious, pointing up the
road.
    Quell in the lead, they walked up to observe the faint
scouring on the pale dust of the track.
    'What in Hood's name is that?'
    'A map, of course.'
    'What kind of map?'
    'Our journey to come.'
    Reccanto Ilk squatted to study the effort, and then
shook his head. 'I can't even make out the island we're
on. This is a stupid map, Cartogopher.' He straightened
and nodded to the others. 'That's what you get tryin'
to work with a dead man. I swear, common sense is the
first to go when you turn into the walking dead – why is
that?'
    The Bole brothers looked thoughtful, as if working on
possible answers. Then, noticing each other's frown, both
broke into smiles. Amby snorted then had to wipe goo from
his upper lip with the back of one hand.
    'I must be mad,' Precious whispered.
    Quell asked, 'This is some kind of gate you've drawn
here, Cartographer?'
    'Absent of investiture, but yes. I have no power to give it.
But then, you do.'
    'Maybe,' Quell mused, 'but I don't recognize anything
you've drawn, and that makes me nervous.'
    Cartographer walked along one side and pointed a
withered finger down at the far end of the map. 'Do you
see this straight, wide groove? All the rest funnels into this
path, the path we need to take. The best maps show you
the right direction. The best maps are the ones that lead
you to a specific destination.'
    Reccanto Ilk scratched at his head, looking bewildered.
'But that's what maps are for – what's he glommering on
about?'
    'Not all maps,' corrected Cartographer, with a shake of
his head – and nothing, Precious concluded, could ever be
as solemn as a dead man's shake of the head. 'Objective
rendition is but one form in the art of cartography, and not
even the most useful one.'
    'If you say so,'