The Fear You Know

14. Followed

They journeyed along the edge of the plateau for another day, walking on the edge of the Exposed and Isolation. Eli was beginning to feel a little bit better. His body didn't hurt so much, and his desire to walk into the open plane of nothingness was a little less acute.

Neither of them spoke much, the sound of their feet crunching over the open plain the only sound in the near silence. Eli took this opportunity to take a better look at the map. He had only ever ventured this far west in the company of his father, and those memories were now nothing more than a distant past.

"Are we heading back to the tower before we go on?" Peter queried, interrupting Eli's examination before it could really begin. Eli kept the pages of the book open to the map, his satchel swinging heavily at his side. Inside, he could feel Wink's weight weighing the bag down, though his presence was familiar to the point that he hardly noticed it for more than a few seconds.

Eli shook his head, "No, no we will not be returning to the tower. Everything we could learn there, we have here. If there is any information to be gained, any piece of evidence that could lead us to answers, it is out there," he gestured widely to the world sprawled out before them.

Peter made a face, "I am not entirely sure if the evidence we found in Genua was worth asking the questions in the first place."

Eli nodded, he heartily agreed with that sentiment, "As true as that is, any information is good information, and if we hadn't gone there, we wouldn't have our next lead. Plus," he added quietly, "It will keep me away from the Desolate and perhaps give us more time."

If Peter was having any doubts about their course of action, that little comment seemed to spur him forward, and he nodded stolidly, adjusting his pack one more time over his shoulder, "Alright then, we keep going. Where to next? Where is this guy, Ivan?"

Eli reached into his bag and withdrew another book.

Peter walked over to look over Eli's shoulder.

"What's that?"

"This is an Atlas. It is a collection of maps of places both near and far away." He turned the page, "A few of these I have drawn myself, a few of them my mother drew, and some of them came from books." He flipped through the pages, and Peter's eyes widened as he did.

"Wow, all of those?"

Eli nodded, "Yes, all of these." He flipped to a page, "This is a rough map of the Desolate."

Peter frowned, "Why are there so many edges?"

Eli shrugged, "Because no matter how many times we have tried to map it, it always seems to change boundaries.. We aren't sure if that has something to do with loneliness muddling your mind or it grows and shifts depending on who is coming and going, but either way it has proven almost impossible to map." He turned the page, "This is the Exclusion's territory. It is relatively small, sandwiched here between the lost, Genua, and the Uncanny.

Eli turned the page again, opening a double wide map that detailed the whole territory from the sea to the mountain chain at the north. It was a map with a larger view though it was less detailed than the other smaller maps. All of the shapes and curves drawn onto the page were familiar: Desolate lay to the south, hugging the coastline for miles in all directions abutting the sea as an expanse of cracked gray earth. The edges of desolate were marked with light dotted lines. His mother had drawn this map, and had not wasted ink trying to define desolation's true borders, representing generally where they tended to fall. Genua was just to the north of desolate center hemmed in on the east by the Lost and on the west by the territory surrounding mirror lake. Northwest of that would be Kurshing city within the Bounds territory, which was hemmed in on three sides by Stalk, which took up the most northern reaches of the map. It occupied the place just north of Genua as well before sprawling into the upper north east where it sat above Twisted.