Chapter 27: X

For a long time, Zechariah would not take it. He just stroked his beard and studied the map. Finally, he lowered his hand as if to point at something, flattened his palm against the stone, and erased Justin's lines. He rubbed them out until his hands were black with soot, and the stone was a blank canvas again.

There was a lump in Justin's throat as Zechariah took the twig. He held it like a paintbrush, and with intricate strokes and gentle curves, he began to draw a map of his own.

Moments later, Justin was studying a new charcoal drawing on the ground. By comparison, its detail made his amateurish sketch of Earth look like the kind of randomly squiggled borders you'd find in the front pages of a fantasy novel. Its closely packed continents, to his dismay, bore not even a passing resemblance to anyplace he recognized.