The Cartographer

Sweat drips from her forehead, she's quick to dab it into the parchment. She leans back on a small wooden chair, massaging her hand and wrist, then continues.

Her eyes are focused, the ridgeline should go here, not there. She traces a fine line of ink across a large grid pausing several times to blow on it. A knock behind her keeps her from setting the pen to paper once more

"What?" She half turns in her chair, wild mess of dirty blonde hair whipping around a half second later.

"Erica? You're still here, that's..." The older man who entered strode around the room hands clasped behind his back, "interesting." His eyes traveled the length of the room, alighting on a mess of pots and scrolls, spilled ink, a wide window alighting the smaller corners of the large room. His eyes rested, at length on the large scroll unrolled on the center table.

"And what..." he rotated his monocle clockwise a small golden circle protruded from the edges and forced it's way deeper into the wrinkled socket, "are we doing here?"

Erica rolled her head and stood up. Several pops from a satisfied neck accompanying the journey. "Jerald, has anyone told you that you're creepy?"

"Answer the question if you would," he said still hunched over the small table, a lantern flickering overhead.

"I'm fixing mistakes Jerald," Erica half opened a smaller piece of parchment near the edge of the desk, "Look," and pointed to a mountain ridge hand drawn on a piece of parchment, shades of brown denoting different elevations.

Jerald adjusted his monocle several times, a click clockwise two clicks counter. He closed one eye, the other going back and forth between the large ridge that Erica was working on, and the smaller map.

"Yours is two degrees mistaken madam," he stood erect and, not adjusting his monocle turned his gaze towards Erica, "two degrees south, southeast."

Erica stretched out the whole of the small map and the larger map, "That's what I'm saying Jerald, just differently." She took a ruler and a small set of calipers out. A few moments later she tore a sizeable section of cloth from her already tattered shirt. Ink met shirt in a marriage of formulae and calculations. "Look at these, and tell me that my map is still the wrong one"

Jerald held his hand out. Erica placed the calculations gently into the withered palm. He took the shirt piece, folded it, and put it into a secret somewhere inside of his gilded robe. "Ours is not to question, invent, nor change. It is to copy madam."

"But Jerald!" She exclaimed, wanting if not acceptance at least to get her piece of shirt back, Winnifred would be mad at the torn garment, but it would at least be fixable.

"Ms. Valdez" Jerald's long fingers took the smaller parchment, rolled it, and placed it inside a nearby cloth satchel, "please adhere to the rules of this establishment"

"Jerald you know I'm right! Some of your original maps have similar formulas on the back!" Regret is an emotion Erica practiced often.

"Hmm, yes, and where did all of those formulas get me Erica?" He slammed the satchel into a barrel of fifty or so similar satchels. When he turned around the moonlight from the large windows caught his monocle making it appear as though he were a monster from the deep southeastern woods.

"Jerald, I'm-" Erica started

"Of course you are. Everyone is. The executioners too." He next took the quill and dabbed remaining ink back into the well, placing it among a shelf of feathers.

Erica looked at her map. How could being right come at such a cost?

"A suggestion Ms. Valdez" as he took a stopper from the table and popped it into the inkwell.

Erica was mentally busy trying to memorize her work before Jerald dismantled it as well.

"The world hates those who burn bright. You must learn to stifle your heat, or" Jerald rolled the large work carefully, stopping at certain points and re rolling if it was a little lopsided, "hide the flame." He handed her the unfinished work.

"But-" Erica's eyes grew wide, as eyes do when they encounter mercy.

"It's yours of course, and a project of art yes?"

Erica nodded her head almost too quickly. A headache was on the horizon

"Good, I suggest adding a compass with wrong directions so those with less than noble hearts think it serious" The eye that wasn't hidden behind a glared piece of glass was brimming with a tenderness Erica didn't know existed in the old frame.

Erica was on her way out of the workshop when she heard Jerald add "Oh, and Ms. Valdez?" Erica popped her head back through the door. "The supplies are coming out of your pay"

A young woman with a torn shirt and a large map walked through the streets of Werval with a grin reaching each ear, she started to skip.

"What on earth happened to your shirt? said Winnifred through gritted teeth. Erica greeted the outburst with a laugh and a story over a warm fire heated with good hickory.

An old man stood in the cartographer guild's workshop. He turned to begin to organize a maelstrom of supplies.

After rolling the last parchment he took a piece of shirt from a secret somewhere in his gilded robe. A smile tempted his lips.

He hoped that her flame, well hidden, would set the world aflame.