Free The Edge of the World by Kevin J. Anderson Page A

patterns, groupings he had seen only in books but never with his own eyes. One set of stars continued
     from another to another in a clear progression all across the painted sky.
    Aldo turned slowly around, drinking in the impossibly magnificent work of art. He tried to take in everything at once. He
     marveled at the network of rivers leading from the highlands to the sea, the hills of Alamont, the plains of Erietta, the
     Soeland islands, the dense and cold Iborian forests, the impassible mountains of Corag. He felt as if the breath had been
     stolen from his lungs. He was looking at the
whole world.
    Belatedly, he noticed Sen Leo sitting in the room, watching him with a bemused expression on his face. The old scholar turned
     to Aldo’s father. “Are you certain this isn’t too soon for him?”
    “He’s a chartsman, after all,” Biento said, then added, “And it was necessary. He needed to know what we already know. He’s
     still very young and gullible.” He nudged his son.
    Aldo was not certain what to do or say as he sheepishly extended the fanciful map. “I… I bought this from a sailor.”
    Sen Leo glanced at it for only a moment before shaking his head. “Completely inaccurate. A fantastical representation, with
     just enough known details to fool the unwary.” He narrowed his eyes. “People like Aldo.”
    Holding Dolicar’s fake map up to the landscape on the temple wall, Biento used a paint-stained finger to trace the outlines
     of real islands and the extended coast, pointing out how the two did not match. “Can you see now that this is completely fictitious?
     Look here, and here.” He strode over to a different part of the wall. “And look, no islands exist in these waters. And where
     is this reef, and the two large islands here? The man who sold you this map was simply fabricating a story.”
    Aldo flushed. “It’s so obvious.” He turned his shame toward himself for being so easily fooled, but even that could not diminish
     the sense of wonder that surged through him now. He went closer to the walls, staring at the names of specific rock outcroppings,
     small patches of forest, lighthouses, villages. “But this—all this—is
known
and verified?”
    “This is our Mappa Mundi,” said Sen Leo, “the manifestation of the most sacred quest for all Saedrans—to discover the world,
     to map and record what we see. When our chartsmen return from far lands with new observations, we draw more lines on the map.
     Once we have succeeded in charting all of creation, Ondun will reward us by raising our sunken homeland.”
    “Is this the only Mappa Mundi?”
    “Every Saedran temple has a secret map room.” Biento looked at his son. “I am a cartographer. I don’t sail off to far ports,
     but I have a chartsman’s memory and knowledge, and I travel around the countryside to paint a perfect copy of the map in each
     temple. That’s how we share information.”
    “But you said you painted commissioned portraits of nobles!”
    Biento gave him a coy smile. “Oh, that merely provides a good excuse for me to travel so widely. Your mother knows the real
     reason.”
    Aldo couldn’t tear his eyes from the map of the world. He saw the precise details in the Tierran continent, but noted the
     sketchier outlines of Uraba and the many blank areas beyond. “And we have no better information about this half of the world?”
    “Parts of it, but not enough,” Sen Leo said. “There are Saedrans in Uraba, but the Urecari won’t allow us to interact with
     them. Their maps of Tierra are probably just as sketchy. With the signing of the Edict, maybe we can share information and
     work together at last.”

12
Ishalem, Urecari District
    Thickening smoke worked its hazy tendrils through the streets of Ishalem. The animals inside Asha’s residence were disturbed,
     some frantic; the songbirds flapped against their cages, the hounds bayed. Most of the cats had already fled, and Asha couldn’t
     find