it dawns on him slowly, that he wants to be angry with her.Â
he wants to take her map in his hands and tear it to pieces, watch as they flutter like bird feathers to the ground before treading purposefully over themâas if to call attention to the fact that it did not require a university education, an office in a white marble building, a pitiful acolyte who doesnât know any better, for him to put his work underneath his heel.Â
donât you get it? he would snarl. she would gape at him heâs sureâwhen did the boy grow falconâs wings? when did he learn their fearsome call, that wolfâs howl that does not belong in the mouth of the bird? he would snap his newly grown beak, look at her with his yellow hunterâs eyes, and say donât you understand yet that none of this matters?Â
you thought the frontier could be contained, forced into submission and inside of borders made of stark black lines on paper? iâm here to tell you, cartographer, that the frontier is so much bigger than we are capable of understandingâthe frontier flays the flesh from your bones and takes root inside of you, makes your pathetic body that is barely capable of containing the terror inside of you part of it.Â
we go forth, we push boundaries, we discover, not because god has granted us the grace to do so. we go forth because the frontier has decided to spit us back out instead of swallowing us whole.Â
he wants to be angryâbut anger would involve an explanation. anger would involve trying to translate a language that he has only learned through having his jaw forced open, and having each word shoved down his throat until he spat them back up like bile. anger would involve admitting that he was not smart enough to keep himself alive.Â
because he isnât, is he? logic would dictate that one who shares his body with so many dead must count himself among them.Â
âthank you.â he says after clearing his throat, dragging a hand through his hair in an effort to bring himself back to the present, to remind himself of his own physicality. âbut that wonât be necessary. my handsââ he shakes his head as he spares a glance down at them, bloodied with black ink. âclearly arenât steady enough at the moment, and accuracy should be prized above all else. especially here, and now, when it seems to be in such short supply.âÂ
here, he thinks, as he drags his thumb across his temple in an effort to soothe the phantom ache that always seems to be lingering there, as we come to the ends of knowledge itself. it leaves a black mark that disappears into his hairline.Â
he meets her gaze, and in the back of his mind there is howlingâif it is lonely, if it is a cry of pain, or if it is a foreshadowing of grief, he cannot tell the difference. âshould weâmap this place, i mean? maybeââ he exhales slowly, shakes his head. âmaybe we shouldnât be encouraging people to come here. there isnât anything remarkable about it except death and cold.â
She can tell by the apparent drift of him, by the crackling sound of him, that the ladâs along a mental journey sheâs not privy to. Sohrab only studies him, sore-knuckled hands interlaced before her. âWise.âÂ
The cartographer hums in a clipped syllable as Cyrus thanks her in one breath and doubts his hands in the next. Sheâs never known maternal instinct half as well as sheâs known the mantisâ, but as she watches him smear ink across his temple, Sohrab finds she has to resist a sudden and strange urge: retrieving the ink rag and mopping his brow.Â
âٞسع ŮاداŮ,â she mutters as she twists the rag in her hands instead. âMankind have thrown themselves at mountains since their inception, and will continue to do so until our collective ruin, with or without our encouragement.â That is to say, âSomeday, someone will map this hellscape. We are already here. We have made it this far,â This âweâ is more of an inclusion than Sohrab has ever extended to the budding young cartographer; as if to drive the conspiring nature of it home, she affords a passing wink.Â
âWe may as well be the first.â