Josiah stoked the fire in his study at the back of the Brentish Booktique. It had been a while since he had attended to his beloved little snug.

Since he had took Xindii and the Kraken Brood, Kia, out into The Crackets his repository of knowledge and science had been left neglected.

The Booktique itself had flourished under the conscientious guidance of Miss Crowe. Its earnings respectable, its customers happy. Only if a little due care and attention had been placed for the snug and study but then, as trustworthy and dependable as she was the last thing Josiah needed was prying eyes and curious fingers probing old cases and sacred texts.

As Miss Crowe was so fond of saying, 'I'M NOT YOUR HOUSEKEEPER MR KAHN.' Just as well, Philippa.

Josiah placed a log on top of the flame and it clasped it with an orange claw. The wood spat and cracked, lively embers seeking the right to grow and consume. The Mapper stamped them out with the tip of his shoe and placed the fireguard in its place of duty.

He turned about and saw Xindii sitting in the cold armchair.

'Is there something the matter, Xindii?'

'No. No. Lost in my thoughts.'

'Careful.'

'There is nothing to fear, sir.'

'Josiah. Sir sounds rather formal.'

'The Sandman . . . will it make me forget? Forget my Ma?'

The Mapper bent down in front of the boy, the heat from the fire bathing his back in a glorious warmth. 'Of course not. Such memories are a part of us. Your Ma will be with you always, Xindii. No drug could take that away. We are the bearers of the flame they sparked. Lest we not forget. Whenever times are hard and the darkness seems long, look to your mind, Xindii. Look deep and you will find her. The Sandman will suppress your dreams, shackle them to the id but memories are our muscle, our heart, why we fight for the things we love. Remember that.'

Josiah pulled himself up and made for the bookcase in the corner. Reaching for the top shelf he tugged at a dusty edition of a book called The Impossible Thief and heard the bookcase crank. Moments later it shifted with a mechanical grace and moved away from the wall revealing a secret room doused in cold shadow. Xindii felt the cold air greet him with a bizarre scientific musk.

Josiah turned about and raised his eyebrows.

Xindii followed, fascinated.

Josiah slipped into the dark first, naturally. Moments later a series of candles sparked and beckoned him in, the smell of burning wax and freshly lit matches enticing him further.

'Welcome, to a Mappers sanctum.'

'You all have secret sanctums? Bit weird isn't it?'

Josiah chuckled to himself. 'Old men toiling away in secret rooms? I see your point.' he smiled.

'Sometimes though, such things are necessary. Some of the things we find in the night must be hidden from curious eyes.'

'Such as?'

'Maybe one day you will find out.'

Josiah quickly turned about and made for the make-shift lab beyond the stacks of papers and bizarre scientific instruments.

'What is this?' Xindii asked, politely.

'I have been charged with producing your suppressant, remember. As a Mapper I cannot refuse.'

'Can I watch?'

Josiah smiled. 'It is most irregular but I can't see what harm it may do.'

Josiah slinked around the lab, turning on the Bunsen burner and grabbing a pestle and mortar.

He reached into a draw and placed his hands inside a couple of blue disposable gloves and reached for a jar of fermented Kalas reed thorns. He placed three inside the mortar and started to ground the liquid from them. Gaining what he thought was sufficient he placed the liquid within one of the test tubes and placed it above the blue flame of the Bunsen burner.

Josiah suddenly realised that the boy's curiosity had suddenly found another interest as he meandered through stacks of books and unfiled papers. Josiah smiled calmly, picking up the Bunsen burner by the base and manually boiled Xindii's prescription to its desired temperature. He then took the test tube from the vice and swirled it vigorously, letting the solution bubble happily until he poured it into the cold test tube where he let it rest.

Where was Xindii?

It was as if the book had just found him, reaching out like a wizened old branch, in need of death or in need of succour. Someone from times past must have nudged it, brushed past with their arm and caught the hard ornate binding of the slip-case. Or maybe it was lonely, in need to be touched and stroked. Felt a longing for a hard thumb to stroke its back; fingers to tickle and brush its proud font.

It wanted keen eyes to read it.

Xindii pulled it from the metropolis of ink and dust and held it in his hands proudly. Thumbed its pages and it fell open. He scanned the page and brushed the soft paper.

                                                                            THE FLEA KING

Xindii felt the urge to turn the page, the lure of its words, and its delivery of a present, unwrapped.

'Xindii? What have you found?'

Josiah appeared down from the stack, intrigued as to the tome he had uncovered.

Xindii – for some reason – felt embarrassed, holding the book down in front of his lap, his cheeks a shade of red, which pulled the Mapper closer.

'What is it?'

'Nothing. Just browsing.' Xindii smiled.

'Let me see.' he replied, holding out his hand.

Xindii passed him the book.

The Mapper took it in his hands and scanned the page. He eyed the young boy over and sighed deeply. 'Come, your suppressant is ready. Here,' he asked passing him the book. 'Return it to its place and make no more of it.'

Xindii took the book and placed it back, three books down from where he found it. This time he tucked it in, disturbing the dust.

'Now, shall we.' remarked the Mapper.

Xindii noticed the disappointment in his voice and followed the Mapper back to his make-shift lab.

'What's the Flea King?'

Josiah stopped dead in his tracks, his shoulders tensed. The dark seemed to bend around him. A trick of the subdued light or a slight Reverie of the Mapper's making. Either way, Xindii felt a chill creep down the nape of his neck. Josiah Kahn turned about, his eyes lidless, his sockets empty.

Xindii fell back into the stacks, paralysed with fear as his mentor steadily marched toward him, his face splitting, falling away into dust to reveal a moving mass of thriving liquid black which reached out with wanting tendrils.

Xindii woke in Josiah's armchair, perplexed. Perturbed as to his surroundings. He looked toward the bookcase which was closed shut. His heart beating in his throat, sweat clad to him, soiled and rank.

He felt the steady hand of calm on his chest from Josiah who had magically appeared in front of him, kneeling against his knee, easing the syringe out of the vein in his arm which made him yelp like an infant.

Josiah eased off the leather belt tied to Xindii's lower left bicep and returned it to his waist.

'How are you feeling?'

Xindii tried to think. 'Eh, fine I think . . . but weren't we in . . .' He looked toward the bookcase, Josiah followed his gaze, intrigued. The Mapper's face passive, unconcerned.

'Just your mind fighting the Sandman, Xindii. One last fight for survival from the id, powered by the tide of the dream pool. I'm sorry.'

'Sorry? Why?'

The Mapper stood by the fire once again, placing his apparatus back into his case. 'I should have been frank with you before the trial.

'Dom Janus came to see me before we left the Crackets . . . I'm sorry but there will be no placement upon your return. I only wish I had discovered you sooner my boy. Least then, we may have had a glimmer of a chance.'

Xindii sat in the chair, his breathing easing. 'You don't think I'll return. You think I'll die out there?'

'Even if you do return my friend, the elongated use of Sandman will make you a slave to it. A Mapper uses dream as a builder uses bricks. If you cannot wield dream my boy then I'm afraid your dream bears no credence.'

'Then I'll stop. When I return, I'll stop.'

'The withdrawal will kill you, boy.'

Xindii sat in the chair and smiled. 'They said that with Xelofremanine and I walked away. You Mappers, always filling me with drugs.'

The boy from Jeppa stood up shaking his head. 'I'll prove you all wrong.'

Xindii made his way out of the snug shaking his head and Miss Crowe entered stopping the boy in his tracks.

'Mr Kahn?'

'Yes Philippa? What is it?'

She swallowed hard. 'It's the Crackets! They're on fire.'

The boat pulled up to the jetty, a couple of Watchmen, kindly dispatched from the Sanis-Rhae Watch leaned over the bow and swung the rope, catching the post and pulling it taught, the slipknot gliding effortlessly tight, anchoring the craft.

Josiah stood with the captain, watching the inferno rage through the folly, a blazing ball of white and orange turning everything to ash.

Xindii appeared from below deck, slipping on a dark blue fleece. He looked at Josiah and placed his hand on the Mapper's shoulder.

Only hours ago he had been ready to vent his fury at the man. For drugging him, burying his dreams in the mud of his subconscious. Taking away any hope of light at the end of a twenty year tunnel of darkness. But in seeing the man watch his beloved home being raised to the ground and its surrounding folly and gardens he realised the risk the man had taken in housing him. Acting as his advocate, his mentor, his friend.

Dom Janus had refused a placement, much to the plea of Josiah. Had the Guild taken reprisals? Had Basquiat and Kia been in the inferno? His mind was swimming with ideas and scenarios. What happened Kia? Did you get out?

The Watchmen steadied the craft and tethered it and the Mapper made his way through the pathway of six-foot reeds, swaying in the wind, concocted by the blaze half a mile inland. The smell of burning wood filled their nostrils, tainted their taste buds. From afar the blaze was intense but as they edged ever closer the heat became intolerable. Their skin blistering through the transparent breath of the wallowing and seething fire.

Josiah tried to move closer but was held back by Xindii and the constables. He saw the skeletal remains of his house, still standing, it's frame made from fae wood, shipped especially from the forests of Kissledaw. Its blistered cadaver remained. An insect–like ghost of its former self, the place Josiah had called home for years. His refuge, his sanctuary. A thank you from the Guild of Mappers themselves. Had they taken what they had so freely given? Had Josiah pushed them too far?

He watched the Mapper fall to his knees, his hands placed behind his head, bearing his soul to the onslaught.

Xindii knelt down with him.

'What have I done, Xindii?'

'It's just bricks and wood. Nothing that can't be rebuilt.'

The Mapper looked to his charge.

'It's not safe for you here, Xindii . . . Your time in Frugalmeyer has come to pass. Our lives are both in jeopardy.'

Xindii smiled through the smoke. 'I'm going anyway, Josiah. Remember?'

'You can't come back . . .'

'What?'

The Mapper looked to the ground. 'You can't come back. Ever.'

'What have you done, Josiah? Twenty years. That was my sentence. Not exile.'

'You will no longer be safe in Frugalmeyer while I live.'

'But . . . this is my home. I can't go knowing that I can never return. The court -'

'The court doesn't hold the power Xindii . . . remember that. Constable?

Xindii saw the Constable approach from the corner of his eye. A black burly shadow with a halo of fire. Curious, Xindii turned about and then felt the smack to his temple and fell into a pit of comfortable warm black.

Thank you once again you lovely people. Your votes and reads push me ever forward. In fact I have just been having some fun with the sequel. Yes, sequel . . . and, of a fashion a possible spin-off. Set in another realm! But that's another story - literally. But please, as I have said before, these guys mean a great deal to me. So continue to vote and comment and most importantly read. Oh, we are getting there now! The Flea King is coming . . .