Adventure
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THE SHORE OF FORGOTTEN NAMES
Ike looked at the ink on his fingers and realized he didn’t know which finger was which. His mind was a leaking bucket. Every hour, a name or a face dripped out and hit the dirt. He didn’t just want to find the lost city: he had to. If he didn’t find the stone heart…
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THE MOVING SALT
Knox touched the cold brass of his left eye. It made a tiny, clicking sound: a rhythmic tick that matched the beat of his heart. His father had taken his real eye with a broken wine bottle ten years ago. Then the Cartographer’s Guild had taken his name. They called him a liar. They called…
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The Map in the Water
Ray sat on the edge of the wooden boat. His boots were worn thin at the heels, and his hands were covered in old, white scars. He didn’t look at the ocean if he could help it. To him, the water was a giant graveyard. Five years ago, he was a real captain with a…
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The Map of Lost Sighs
Everyone in the velvet-lined parlors of the city knew Jax was a failure before he even hit thirty. It was the juicy scandal of the season. A master map-maker who drew islands that didn’t exist and coastlines that moved like snakes. They stripped him of his medals and laughed him out of the gala: a…
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The Weight of a Wrong Turn
Everything has a price tag. If you do not see it, you are the most likely person to be sold. I have spent my life weighing things: sacks of grain, crates of silk, and the heavy hearts of men who have run out of luck. Most men are worth about fifty bucks on a good…
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The Bone of the World
Victor held a map of a place that no longer existed. The ink was dry. The paper was crisp. But the mountains on the map had moved three miles south since breakfast. This is the nature of the Slide. The earth is not a solid thing. It is a wet scab on the knee of…
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The Ink on My Hands
I can still smell the black ink on my fingers. It is the only thing that stays. Everything else: names, faces, the way back home: is leaking out of my head like water from a cracked jar. My son, Saul, thinks we are hunting for gold. He is twelve years old and his boots are…
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The Heart of the Moving Walls
So, let me tell you about Ike. This guy was a total wreck when I first met him. He was a map maker who couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag. Not because he was dumb: he was actually a genius: but because he’d messed up a big map for the King. A…
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The Weight of the Compass
The world was vibrating. It was not a loud noise. It was a low hum that lived inside your teeth and made your fingernails ache. Silas sat at a small wooden table. He watched his coffee cup move slowly across the surface. The liquid inside did not ripple. It jumped. Silas was a man who…
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The Throat of the Desert
I can’t remember my mother’s middle name. It is the third thing the sand took from me since sunrise. First, it was the smell of the pine trees back home. Then, it was the sound of my father’s laugh. Now, Mama’s name is just a hole in my head. If I don’t find that book,…