The Map Girl – Part 2 (IP)

“Oh, what now!”, whimpered the man in white as the strange, bright rainbow coloured ball of light appeared in the corner of his darkened cell and, growing larger and more intensely bright, began to take human form.

Mapella looked round about her at the narrow darkened room, its walls covered in sharp iron spikes and with only one very small barred, circular window to allow light to enter.

“Is this the land of Ormalu?”, she asked of the man who was cowering and moping in a corner of the room, “This dark place?”.

“Only a small part of it”, replied the man, without looking up, “This is my prison. One of the dungeons of the dark sorcerer Kolciber. It is he who placed me here in perpetual darkness without beauty; without music”.

It was much too dark to see the man clearly, Mapella thought, but then she remembered the quill in her sky blue satchel and, reaching into it and grabbing hold of the quill, she drew a five pointed star upon the gloom that immediately started to glow bright white, showering the prison cell with its light.

“I’ve not seen a star in nearly a hundred years or at least it feels like a hundred years”, said the man who Mapella could now see was like some sort of ghost ; pale white and transparent like a mist.

“Who are you? What are you? Why has Kolciber locked you in this place?”, asked Mapella, reaching out a hand towards the apparition and realizing that her fingers could pass right through it.

“I don’t know”, he replied, “All I know is that, when the sorcerer Kolciber came to the throne of Ormalu, I was locked in this dungeon far away from love or the heat of the sun”.

“I’m sorry”, said Mapella; sadness and sympathy, feelings new to her, suddenly entering her heart,
“But my master Azram Mazra is a wizard too and, I think, a far greater one than your Kolciber. He has sent me here to restore something although he did not tell me what”.

Reaching into her satchel again, Mapella this time seized hold of the scroll and, bending down, unrolled it upon the cell floor.

As she looked down at the magical map all of the pictures upon it seemed to come to life; rivers flowed; bells in tiny painted churches tolled; fields of grass and grain; forests and orchards moved in the wind.

But then, stepping upon the map as Azram Mazra had told her to do she said to the ghostly prisoner, “I can take you away from this place. All I have to do is stand upon this map and it will take me anywhere in Ormalu that I desire”.

Suddenly the face of the spirit brightened.

“I would like to see the sea”, he said, excitedly, rushing over and placing his transparent feet upon the map next to Mapella’s, “Oh, and the sky and trees and grass and birds. I’ve often had dreams of them and so I must have seen them once but I don’t remember when”.

“Alright”, said Mapella, happy to see the prisoner more cheerful, “But first, I must see this Kolciber. I must know more about what I am here to do”.

And then, in the next instant, they were no longer in the prison cell but in the lair of the dark sorcerer.