The Map Read Online Free Page B

stern, and Jackaby wobbled to find his balance at the bow.
    “ Good aim, ” I said.
    Jackaby looked out and frowned. “But bad timing.”
    I pulled myself up to peer over the boat’s edge, half expecting a toothy swarm of ducks to barrage the vessel. Instead, as I leaned out, the dry, rotted side of the boat gave way and dumped me roughly onto cracked, dusty earth. We were in a brown, desolate bowl, half a mile across, bordered by grasses and a few thin trees.
    “So much for step three,” I coughed. “This pond looks as though it’s been dry for decades.”
    Jackaby nodded. “This challenge may prove more difficult.”
    “What do you suppose we ’ re meant to do here?”
    Jackaby felt the air as if tracing invisible threads. He followed one of them to the end of a rusty chain dangling at the boat’s prow and gave it a tug. It was fastened to a bucket, which he emptied of sandy soil, stirring up a horrific cloud of dry dust. Holding one end of his scarf over his mouth, he confirmed that the bucket, like the key and the vegetable before it, was an object of significance to this place.
    “Do you suppose we ’ re meant to refill the whole pond by the bucketful?” I asked. I vaguely recalled reading a story about a group of women given a similar task and a sieve.
    “No, this place was brimming at the time this map was drafted.” Jackaby took a pinch of gritty soil between his fingers and watched it with interest as he let it dribble back to earth. He tasted his fingertip for good measure. “I do believe we were meant to collect the water itself, which, for obvious reasons, is an unlikely prospect at present.”
    “Well, that ’ s that, then. On to number four?”
    “Not so hasty. Each task serves a purpose, Rook.”
    “ Jackaby, ” I said, “none of this seems to have any real purpose. Water that has evaporated doesn’t seem any more important than a key without a lock or a turnip we can ’ t eat.”
    Jackaby conceded the point and withdrew our next party cracker without enthusiasm. How was I to know that the crux of our next challenge—a matter of life or death—would hang upon the timely use of a turnip, after all.

* * *
The Front Gate
    The fourth, fifth, and sixth steps were all within eyeshot of each other, but Jackaby insisted it was important that we take each in turn. The pop of a cheery purple party cracker brought us just outside the broad gate of an old castle crawling with vines and moss. The front face was hewn of massive stones with a wide tower at each corner, and the slightly caved-in roof of a central structure was visible just beyond. A few remnants of rotted beams appeared to have been part of a once formidable portcullis, but now they lay crumbling in the dirt at the feet of the wide stone arch. A thick chain hung from just behind the keystone, looping off into the shadows of the fortress. Whatever mechanism it might once have activated was long since out of commission.
    “We seem to be a few hundred years late for this treasure hunt, sir,” I said to Jackaby, pitching a lump of cracked masonry into the darkness beyond the gate. The chunk of brick clacked and echoed through the dead chamber.
    “There is something alive in this place.” Jackaby ’ s finger s played along invisible threads in the air, and he squinted into the darkness, sniffing. “Alive and ancient. I can see the tint of an enchantment saturating the whole area. This is very old magic.”
    I stepped into the archway with him, ducking past the heavy chain and willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the inner chamber. The whole thing looked more like a medieval stronghold than an American fort. The entrance split into two narrow paths leading left and right. It had been designed to bottleneck potential invaders, forcing them to serpentine past tall, thin arrow slits, where defenders could easily pick them off as they came. Now the portals were blocked by creeping vines, letting only narrow shafts of dusty light