The Map Read Online Free PDF

do?”
    Jackaby shrugged. “Consult the map?”
    The map depicted a broken clock with long whiskers, obviously the hare. Two human figures stood before it, and beyond it only one. I looked at the castle and then at Jackaby. The grim realization hit me.
    “Two paths,” I said. “The rabbit can only go after one person at a time. I think he intended for the holder of the map to find a willing sap to go through one end while he slid through the other. Two enter, one survives.”
    Jackaby nodded. “Yes, I suspect you ’ re right. It would certainly be in keeping with his outlook on trust, I suppose. Fortunately for us, we don ’ t need to make it through this particular trap the way the Bold Deceiver planned.” He slid a pink party cracker from the bandolier. “We have our own route to the tower.”
    I frowned.
    “It ’ s all right, Rook,” Jackaby said. “I want to play by the rules and do the adventure properly, but I won ’ t have you jump into a fatal trap—not on your birthday.”
    “It isn ’ t that.” I looked at the hare. From a safe distance, when it wasn ’ t snapping its incisors at my neck, the thing was truly pitiful. Through its mangy fur, the creature ’ s skin was stretched tight across its ribs. Its tall ears drooped and its eyes were cloudy and bloodshot. There was a madness there. Not the madness of fury, but of absolute fatigue.
    Jackaby followed my thoughts. “I can ’ t reverse it,” he said at last. “It ’ s old magic. There are a few mages at the Zandermacht who might have been able to undo the effects after a decade, maybe two, but the spell is a part of him now. I ’ m sorry. There ’ s nothing we can do.”
    “Can you see . . . ,” I faltered. I have never been quite certain of the nature of Jackaby ’ s vision, and he has never been particularly straightforward or coherent in explaining it. “Can you see its mind? See how it’s feeling?”
    Jackaby breathed in, slowly. “It has sentience,” he said at length. “It is aware of itself, and it is deeply discontented.”
    “And the villagers at the garden?” I asked darkly. “Are they sentient, too?”
    Jackaby answered gently. “No, Rook. They show no more awareness than an average artichoke. They were taken by the garden, but they didn ’ t suffer. The people they had once been were gone.”
    “Then there is something we can do for him.”
    Jackaby knit his brow for a moment, and then his expression bloomed in comprehension. He pulled open his satchel and handed me the turnip.
    The hare ’ s whiskers twitched, and its head shot up as I stepped forward. I came to the edge of the creature ’ s range and pitched the vegetable at its feet. The hare sprang up and inhaled deeply. It took an experimental nip, and then hungrily devoured the entire thing.
    The change was almost instantaneous. The creature glanced down at itself as one quick wave of color turned its fur a blend of purple and white. It perked up at the sensation and then bowed down again, ducking its head into its chest as its ears sprouted into leafy green stems. Before I realized it was done, I was staring not at an animal, but at a bulbous plant more massive than any we ’ d seen in the garden.
    “That last meal was a very long time coming,” said Jackaby. “He’s gone. You ’ ve put him out of his misery.”
    I nodded, still looking at the enormous vegetable, and swallowed against a lump rising in my throat. It was frustrating to feel so sad for something as ridiculous as a ten-foot tall turnip. “Giant rabbit—giant vegetable. It . . . it was just the obvious thing.”
    Jackaby put his hand on my shoulder. He waited until I met his gaze to speak. His eyes were soft and full of respect. “ Rook, ” he said with quiet earnestness, “it was a hare, not a rabbit.”

* * *
The Curtain Wall
    Budging the heavy turnip out of the way proved as daunting an obstacle as the hare had been, and in the end we employed the pink party cracker after all.