The Bird King(40)

“Come down,” called Vikram. “I’ve found a well.”

Hassan got to his feet with a groan and shuffled into his shoes. Fatima followed him, still dazed, her limbs heavy with the heat and the protests of her stomach. Vikram was pushing the slats of wood off the mouth of the well, singing wordlessly and clacking his teeth for percussion. The scent of sweet water wafted up from the exposed stone.

“Thank God,” said Hassan fervently, falling to his knees. A copper kettle tied to a length of cord sweltered in the sun nearby; he dropped it into the well, laughing in triumph when it landed with a faint splash some distance below.

“Let’s live here,” he said, drawing up the kettle hand over hand. “Now I know why heaven is said to be awash in pure water. I never want to drink out of an old sluggish river again. You should have seen what came out of me before you woke up, Fa. I didn’t know I could produce matter of that color and quantity, of such—”

“Stop,” begged Fatima, queasy again. “Stop talking.”

Hassan shrugged. The kettle came up cold and dripping, beads of sweat forming on its battered surface as he drew it into the light. Putting it to his lips, Hassan drank noisily. When he was done, he wiped his sodden beard on his sleeve and passed the kettle to Fatima.

The water was cold enough to make her teeth ache, but very clear, and so sweet that she forgot herself for a moment and gave a little cry of pleasure. Vikram laughed at her. He stood on the lip of the well and surveyed their surroundings, glaring out at the quiet hills that tumbled south, rising suddenly at the horizon, like waves breaking on a seawall, to become green and violet mountains.

“If we make good time, we can reach the southern pass by nightfall,” he said. “And strike the harbor road while it’s dark.”

“A road sounds nice,” said Hassan in a hopeful voice. “I like roads. Better than scrambling over streambeds and cutting across other people’s fields.”

“You say so now, but you won’t when the time comes,” said Vikram with a smile that Fatima did not like. “That road is watched day and night by Castilian scouts, and there is no other way through the southern mountains—at least, none for human feet. The Vega may be abandoned, but the coastal towns are not, and they all belong to Spain now. The danger of the past two days has been slight compared with what lies ahead.”

Hassan chewed on his beard.

“Give me my satchel,” he said, gesturing at Vikram with one hand. Recognizing the glint in his eye, Fatima felt less sluggish and went to sit next to him, pressing her back against the warm stone lip of the well.

“Are you going to draw something?” she asked.

Hassan pulled a roll of paper from his satchel and spread it out across his knees. “There’s never no other way,” he murmured. “There are always other ways. If there are scouts who watch the harbor road, there are scouting paths that run alongside it. They won’t expect us there, especially in the dark. It’s better than nothing.” He ran his fingers around the edge of the paper. Picking up a charcoal, he drew a meandering line. On either side of the line, he began to sketch what looked to Fatima like the ripples caused by throwing a stone into a quiet pool, yet instead of concentric circles, these were irregular shapes, bulging and shrinking at odd intervals.

“What are those?” she asked, not quite touching the paper with one finger.

“The southern mountains,” said Hassan. His eyes had grown bright. “I’m drawing the elevation of the range that runs alongside the harbor road—which is this line, here. Each peak is highest where I’ve drawn the smallest shape. The widest shape is the base. The closer together the lines are, the steeper the slope. If I had more time, I would mix some colored inks and shade everything, so it would make more sense. But you can still grasp the abstract. Think of it like looking straight down at a mountain from overhead, as a bird does.”

Fatima squinted at the map taking shape beneath Hassan’s long fingers. After a moment, the nebulous shapes seemed to pop in front of her eyes, taking on depth, becoming a range of hills that rose and flattened at organic intervals.

“I’ve never seen a map like this before,” she muttered.

“That’s because no one else makes them,” said Hassan with a little smile of pride. “Most mapmakers draw little ticks to show you where the hills are, but that tells you nothing except ‘There is a hill here.’ Anyone who wants to navigate between the hills must rely on the knowledge of someone who’s already been there. If that person dies or forgets, the knowledge is lost. The map goes silent. This map cannot be silenced. If you learn how to read it, Fa, you can walk through those mountains to the south as sure-footedly as the best Castilian scout, all by yourself if you want to.”

Fatima looked again at the map. Running between the feet of the mountains were narrow bands of white space—gullies perhaps, or little valleys, zigzagging toward the edge of the map haphazardly.

“Here,” she said, tracing a path with her finger. “If I wanted to stay off the main road, this is where I would go.”

“You see?” Hassan actually giggled. “There’s always another way.”

A shadow peered over their shoulders.

“Your way is clever,” said Vikram, “but also slow. Many sharp drops and sharp rocks on which to break ankles. There’s a reason your ancestors put the harbor road where they did. If I were you and I had Vikram along to rend and rip where necessary, I would take my chances on the road and reach the sea with all possible speed, rather than fumble through gullies and give my enemies time to turn every shipmaster in the harbor against me.”