Chapter 35: In the map room
Arabella's worries all evaporated the instant her feet had crossed the threshold of the map room.
The shelves tracing and adhering to the cylindrical walls, almost reaching the ceiling, enclosed everything at the very center, and were stacked with thousands of long, rolled up papers.
The chronological order in which the maps had been arranged was more than clear as the age of a map was closely tied to the color of the special paper utilized; the darker the shade, the older was the map.
That was common knowledge to every cartographer or historian worth their golden stripes.
Arabella was neither but was well aware of the phenomenon.
Her eyes then fluttered towards the three, lone objects separating the shelves from each other; the three enormous silver globes that stood by the walls, at ninety degrees apart from each other, upon which detailed renders of the world they ambled were embossed in various styles.
She neared one of the spheres and lay a hand on its shell before giving it a gentle push to spin the body in the slowest pace possible. The young woman took her sweet time sweeping every inch of that place with those beautiful gemstones on her.
The next thing that had whisked her attention was the crowded desk at the heart of the room. One map on top of another, they were sprawled all over the wooden surface, paper spilling over the edges as it failed to contain all of them.
A geological map lay beneath a navigational map which, in turn, hid behind a physical one, but on the very top, a chart of a familiar place rested, fresh ink marking a precise point on it.