“Here’s one,” Eira says, “but I don’t know that it’s any better than the one you have already.”
I take the map from her and go to the table. She hurries over to sweep away her papers and drafting materials, but before she does, I see what she’s been working on.
It’s an artistic rendering of the dredge, and it’s exquisite.
“You did this?”
She glances over. Her mouth draws tight. “Yes,” she says.
“What is it for?”
“I’m afraid that you’ve caught me working on something simply because it gives me pleasure,” she says. “I find the ship fascinating. And challenging, artistically. Your armor is particularly hard to draw.”
I think she means that as a compliment. Looking at Eira’s picture, I feel a twinge of jealousy. I’ve never been accused of artistry in my drafts or drawings. My work is accurate. Exact. Utilitarian.
“You’re right,” I say. “This map isn’t quite as good as the one in my cabin. Let’s keep looking.”
We return to the cabinets. Even though the ship grinds on below us, I can hear the smaller sounds we make, the sliding of drawers, the rustle and flick of our fingers through the maps.
I get into a kind of rhythm as I’m going through the papers, and I almost miss the map that I’ve been looking for. I flip right past it and then have to stop and go back. A spot on the map matches up with the back of the note left in my bag. There isn’t a piece cut out of this one but I’m almost certain it’s a print identical to the one someone left in my bag. I recognize the contours and curves of the land replicated here, and the paper feels of a similar age.
I take it over to the table and spread it out, and when I see the whole thing, I realize I’m looking at a map for the Cutwater River, the one I dredged with Call. I didn’t recognize it before, because the note only showed a bit of water and land.
They’ve given me a piece of a map that marks the place, or close to it, where Call died.
I laugh.
Eira looks at me, surprised.
I lift up the map of the Cutwater and, in doing so, I accidentally move her drawing of the ship and reveal another sketch underneath.
It’s a drawing of people looking toward a golden sun. Some kneel. A few shield their eyes. And in front of the sun—almost as if it’s pulling the sun along, bringing it to them—is the dredge, which also shines like gold. On its deck, among the armor, stands the upright figure of the Admiral.
It’s a draft of a mural.
Eira’s talent is undeniable in the dredge picture, but this drawing is different. It’s highly stylized, like every other piece of Outpost art. Even the dredge, which she drew so beautifully in her other piece, is inflated and bloated, not intricate and accurate, like her other work.
Eira takes the mural draft from me.
“That’s a commission I’m working on for the Admiral,” she says, her voice perfectly level. She reaches for another paper, and as she pulls it away I see yet another drawing. It’s a person, lined in, almost featureless in its conformity as the type of figure shown in murals. But I recognize the stance, the braids.
It’s supposed to be me.
Eira’s eyes meet mine.
“You’re hard to draw,” she says.
“Why would you try?”
She puts the drawing of the mural back down on the table next to the sketch of me. “Here’s where you’ll be,” she says, pointing at the crowd. “I’ve left a spot to add you in once I get the draft right.”
“As long as I’m not one of the people kneeling,” I say, and she looks at me with a flicker of amusement in her eyes.
“Where will it go?” It seems that the sides of every building in the Outpost are already covered with murals.
“I don’t know,” she says.
It looks like every other mural, I think again, my eyes running over the figures.
Almost too much so.
Almost like a parody.
“Thank you,” I say to Eira, rolling up the map of the Cutwater River to take with me. “You’ve been very helpful.”
“You’re welcome,” she says. I’m willing to bet that after I leave she’ll go over and note which map I took. She’ll know I lied to her, since the Cutwater River is nowhere near here. I wonder what she’ll think of me then.
I close the door and put the map under my arm. I can’t be sure, but something about the way she drew that mural makes me think that Eira is not the Admiral’s watchdog.
So. Does she sympathize with the raiders?
Did she leave the note?
CHAPTER 8
A KNOCK ON MY DOOR in the middle of the night. I twist onto my stomach, my woolen blanket tangling up in my legs, and reach for the lantern on the dresser. It glows softly in my hand as I answer the door.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Captain,” Naomi says. “You’re going to want to see this.”
I dress quickly and pull on my boots. My hair is loose and I braid it as I walk, following Naomi down the tight, twisting metal staircase into the depths of the dredge.
The mining crew waits for me. Things have been going well enough during our first week on the ship. We’ve had no incidents aside from the one with the would-be deserter the first night. Some of the workers smile when I meet their eyes.
The news must be good.
“Look, Captain,” one of the men says.
Even in the lamplight, even before the haul has been through the trammel for sifting, I can make out the dull sheen and color of gold. I’ve never seen a haul like this. There’s so much gold you can spot it among the rocks.
“How long has it been this way?” I ask.
“For the last hour,” Naomi says. “We’ve taken on more in that time than in the rest of the voyage.”
“And the quality’s good?”
“Very.”
The ship’s chief miner, Noah Warren, holds out a map in front of me. “We’re due to keep to the left soon,” he says, and I look where he’s pointing. We’re nearing what’s called a braid, when the river splits into several different channels before coming back together again miles later. “But our best guess is, that with the way the gold is deposited in the bed of the river, we’re more likely to keep up this kind of success if we go up the channel on the right. We’re requesting your permission to divert our course.”