Read The Edge of the World for Free Online Page A

found that he had no words. His mouth opened, closed, and finally settled into a
     relieved grin. Sen Leo strode to the door and flung it open. In the next room waited Biento and Yura, Aldo’s father and mother.
     The old teacher held on to the doorframe, as if he were exhausted as well. “He has passed.”
    His mother drew a delighted gasp, and his father beamed, stepping away from the easel that held the painting on which he had
     been working. Aldo walked on unsteady legs into the outer room.
    His younger brother, Wen, heard the news and beamed. “I’m going to be a chartsman someday, too!” Wen, though, changed his
     mind every other week, and showed no inclination for the long and tedious study required to memorize so much data.
    His little sister, Ilna, sat at a table drawing crude sketches, imitating her father’s work. “We’re proud of you Aldo!”
    “But he still has much to learn,” Sen Leo cautioned. “He must acquire a greater breadth and depth to his knowledge, but he
     does have the skill—perfect recall. He is a chartsman.”
    Aldo straightened his back and said formally, “I pledge to do my best.”
    Sen Leo gathered his robes and departed, marching out into the narrow streets of Calay’s Saedran District. The teacher had
     not brought a single book, map, or reference catalogue with him. He, too, had every one of the words, maps, and numbers memorized.
    “We should celebrate!” Biento scrubbed a hand through his son’s curly brown hair, an unruly mass that made him look years
     younger than he actually was. Right now, Aldo’s flush of embarrassment at the attention made him seem even younger still.
    “This celebration should be for
him,
” Yura replied. Her long straight brown hair was bound in a scarf. Her face was smudged with flour, since she had been baking
     small round loaves of bread during Aldo’s lengthy examination. “Let him go down to the Merchants’ District and buy something
     for himself. He deserves it, and you know how he loves to watch the ships.”
    His father put away his paintbrushes, with one last appraisal of the commission he had nearly completed—a portrait of a minor
     nobleman, a vain old man whose villa was a bit too close (or so he always complained) to the smells and noises of the Butchers’
     District.
    Since the Aidenist religion forbade artistic expression for the glory of any individual person, even Saedran painters like
     Biento na-Curic were not allowed to create private portraits. The presters insisted that the only proper subjects for a painter
     were scenes from the story of Terravitae and the voyage of Aiden. Obeying this restriction to the letter, though not the spirit,
     noblemen found ways to make themselves appear in the religious paintings. Biento had completed a work that showed sailors
     on the prow of Aiden’s ship as the lookout sighted the coastline of Tierra for the first time. Most of the figures were vague
     and shadowy in the background, but filling much of the painting was one “crewman”—who happened to look exactly like the commissioning
     nobleman.
    Biento made a good living for his family by doing such work. He frequently traveled so that he could do his painting inside
     noble households or merchant offices, and sometimes he disappeared for days at a time, with no one knowing exactly where he
     was, but he always returned home looking satisfied.
    Wiping his hands with a rag, Biento withdrew a small box hidden between two thick volumes in the family library and took out
     ten silver coins, more money than Aldo had ever held for his own use. “This is for you—treat yourself.”
    “I appreciate your faith in me!”
    “How can we not be proud? You’ve brought honor to all of us—and once you start voyaging, you’ll be able to pay us back tenfold
     in no time.”
    “I’ll be a chartsman, too,” Wen declared.
    “Only if you study,” his mother said. The boy did not appear to be excited by the prospect.
    Aldo