The Map of Salt and Stars

Although an enormous emerald green snake threatens Mennad, he won’t relinquish al-Idrisi’s book, as he dreads such precious knowledge falling into his enemies’ hands. Rawiya strikes a bargain with him: She will save him as long as he returns the book and releases the expedition. After defeating the snake, they go to join King Roger’s barge. However, the now one-eyed roc is on their trail and specifically targets Rawiya, who took his eye. The roc hurls camel-sized boulders at the ship, which they just about dodge. Awaiting the roc’s next attack, Rawiya feels for the stone’s warmth in her palm.

Nour remembers the first time she saw her father cry, after her sitto’s (grandmother’s) death when she went and purposely hid from him in the bushes. She feels that she saw an entirely different side to her father. Meanwhile, before they embark on the boat, Huda once more shows signs of fever. Nour’s mother announces she will remain in Libya to seek medical help for Huda, but she implores Nour and Zahra to take and follow her painted map.

Now stowaways on the boat, the two sisters study the riddled map. Nour realizes that her mother has drawn upon Nour’s synesthesia to write the destinations in code, and when Nour looks at the map she sees colors as letters. One of the destinations is missing. Some of the destinations are taken from the story of Rawiya and al-Idrisi, and Nour discerns the final destination must be Ceuta. Ceuta is al-Idrisi’s birthplace, as well as where her parents met. Their father’s brother, Uncle Ma’mun, also lives there, and they can seek refuge and help from him.

The roc lifts Rawiya with his talons and drops her. When Khaldun shouts the name “Rawiya” in despair, al-Idrisi hears the female name and learns of Rawiya’s identity. At first, al-Idrisi feels betrayed that such a close friend would lie to him, and the roc delights in her deceit, stating, “My revenge will be more delicious than I imagined” (247). Rawiya apologizes to al-Idrisi, telling him that she lied to him because she wanted to see the world and he would not have taken a girl seriously. Al-Idrisi then forgives her and tells her that he once had a wife and daughter who drowned in the strait, crossing from Ceuta to al-Andalus. He says that he would have wished for his daughter to have Rawiya’s bravery.

Rawiya tells the roc that his power is lesser than he pretends, because he has no divine power to see and know all things. She then uses the roc’s stony eye to kill the roc. The crew cheers Rawiya’s bravery, and al-Idrisi gives her his scimitar as a reward. They head towards Palermo.

Hiding on the ferry, Nour and Zahra fear being caught. They are terrified when they hear a man announce in Arabic that the boat has a leak. Rocked by the ship’s motion, Nour’s shoulder hits a crate, and the girls are underwater before they know it.

Once the expedition docks in Palermo, Rawiya and her horse Bauza reunite, and they’re eager to present King Roger II with “the most accurate map of the inhabited world that had ever been made, a collaboration on a grand scale and the culmination of the long journey they had taken” (257). King Roger is unwell and bedridden, but he bids them to make a planisphere—a two-dimensional representation of the known earth on a disk of solid silver. Rawiya and Khaldun enjoy the task. While the planisphere brings King Roger joy, his health fails, and they say goodbye. They sense that God oversees their fates.

Both Nour and Zahra nearly drown, but Nour manages to hoist Zahra up until they reach some rocks. As the girls stumble through the city, Zahra overhears that the border between Libya and Algeria has already closed and that they are too late. Zahra figures that the only way out is with the help of smugglers, to whom Zahra gives her cherished gold bracelet in hopes of purchasing safety. A boy and his grandfather also seek the smugglers’ help. The boy has a bunch of crayons and says he is using them to record his name and his story. Nour takes a crayon from him and imagines how she will tell her story in a few words as she reads a former traveler’s graffiti on a wall, “we aren’t on any map” (273).