On those rare quiet evenings, when the wind howled outside the walls of the "Old Pine" and the meager light of the oil lamp cast giant, dancing shadows on the walls, they felt like masters of their small world. But tonight, the center of the universe wasn't one of Kaedan's stories or Ulvia's arguments. It was a rough, yellowed piece of cured leather spread out on the floor between them.
Gil leaned over it, clutching a piece of charcoal. Her usually calm face was contorted in a grimace of concentration.
"So," her voice rang out solemnly, "we are here." She poked the charcoal into the approximate center of the leather, leaving a greasy black dot. "The 'Old Pine' orphanage. And all around... all around is the Whispering Trunk Forest."
She drew a few crooked trees, more resembling frightened giants.
"Go on!" Ulvia urged impatiently, tucking her legs under her. "Tell us about the South! The Great Forest is there, right?"
"I'm getting to it," Gil replied, not taking her eyes off the "map." "Old Ereno, when he brought game, said that south of our forest, another one begins. A big one. Very big. Trees reach the sky, they say, and the grass is waist-high." She sketched another grove to the south, larger and denser.
"And in the North," Kaedan interjected, sitting cross-legged and watching the process intently, "in the North it's cold. Miss Elira said there are lands where snow doesn't melt even in summer. And people live there in stone fortresses." To Kaedan, "stone fortresses" weren't citadels, just big, sturdy houses, and he thought this was very sensible.
Gil nodded and drew jagged, snow-capped mountains in the north.
"And in the West are cities," she continued, sketching a few squares beyond the forest. "Big ones. Made of stone. People there wear silks and trade in... something very expensive. And there are buildings, taller than the pines, where all the world's knowledge is stored." An undisguised thirst was evident in her voice. Knowledge was as real a treasure to her as bread.
Dur had been sitting silently to the side all this time, hugging his knees. He watched the world emerging on the leather with quiet reverence and a touch of anxiety. He knew no rumors of cities or snows. His world was bounded by the orphanage, the forest, and his inner fear.
"And there?" he suddenly asked quietly, pointing to the east, where Gil had left an empty space.
Everyone looked at him.
"The East?" Gil frowned, sifting through scraps of overheard conversations in her memory. "I don't know. No one said anything. Probably just... emptiness. Plains."
Dur shook his head. He picked up his own, still clean piece of charcoal and, after a moment's hesitation, drew a long, winding line to the east of their orphanage. It was thick and dark, as if he were pressing the charcoal into the leather with force.
"There's a River," he whispered. "A big one. A very big one. You can't cross it."
Silence fell in the room. They all knew about his strange fear. Ulvia was about to make a sarcastic remark, but seeing his serious, focused face, she thought better of it. Kaedan looked intently at the line.
"Alright," he said simply. "So, there's a River in the East. We'll be careful."
Gil, yielding to the internal logic of their collective creation, carefully inscribed near the winding line: "The River. Uncrossable."
Their map was ready. It was absurd from a geographical standpoint—the Whispering Trunk Forest the size of half a continent, snowy mountains practically on their doorstep, the entire world fitting on a scrap of leather. But for them, it wasn't fantasy. It was Truth. The first, frightening and alluring, image of the world they were about to enter.
Gil put down the charcoal, her fingers black as soot.
"There it is," she breathed, looking proudly at their creation. "The whole world."
Ulvia poked a finger at the squares of the western cities. "I want to go there!" she declared, but there was uncertainty in her voice.
Kaedan placed his palm on the northern mountains. "And I'm going there. Fortresses are cool."
Dur silently stared at his River. It seemed to him the only real and most terrifying boundary on this map.
"Someday," Gil said quietly, "we'll find out if we're right." A fire burned in her eyes, a fire that even the cold walls of the orphanage couldn't extinguish. That evening, looking at their homemade map, they felt not like orphans, but like great explorers on the threshold of an incredible discovery called "life."