Ninety Chains

The ground stopped holding still. Rivers left their beds and took the roads with them. A hillside opens along a seam nobody drew. Every map made before the season is now a careful record of somewhere else. Five people walk two hundred miles across changed country to draw the one that replaces it. You are the routefinder. You decide where they go, what gets written down, and what gets marked as uncertain. THE ATLAS IS THE POINT Four layers, drawn by hand as you go: terrain, water, danger and rumour. What you record is what survives. What you skip stays blank, and the blank is honest. TWO WAYS TO KNOW A PLACE Survey spends daylight, and its record is trusted. Listen spends the group's patience, reaches what a survey cannot, and is written down as uncertain. Neither is the right answer. They cost different things. THE PEOPLE CARRY IT Wren inks by lamplight. Odell walks on a stick and does…