She recalled the business-like manner in which the bearded man had set her livelihood alight. The Dutch Republic was full of men who would, and did, brave vast oceans to barge into the worlds of others without knocking. Because of them, Amsterdam was the chief city in all the world, the richest and the keenest. Unobstructed by kings or popes, they would claim any corner of the Earth. Or beyond.
Of course they would not share Eleusis. The VOC had grown fat by refusing to share with anyone. Not the Spaniards, not the Portuguese, not the French. They wanted to keep the secret of a new land to themselves until they had it claimed and divided into shares. There was a city on the moon, and they were going to take it.
Two weeks later, Maghfira dressed all in black like any good VOC man. She prepared her portfolio and checked out of the hotel, unsure if she would ever be back. Then she set off for the East India House, headquarters of the VOC, where she meant to get the first true contract in a life dominated by facsimile.
*
The East India House was an edifice of ongoing construction, a muddy testament to wealth and progress. The brick facade marched unbroken down the Hoogstraat for blocks, guarding the VOC’s secrets behind the unapproachable scale of the building, the biggest in Amsterdam. To the east lay the Kloveniersburgwal canal and the boats. Maghfira had arrived here six years ago, and the idea of leaving the same way felt in some way inevitable. She let herself in to the commons and made for the clerk’s chambers.
“Mistress van Delsen,” Bartelsz greeted her once the door had been shut behind her. “You have chosen an odd hour to visit.”
“And yet you are working, Johan.” Maghfira perched on the wobbly bench facing her broker’s desk. The man shrugged.
“I am indeed. How can I help you, my lady? Are you ready, finally, to return to Batavia?”
Where I can find a rich husband and grow fat in the sun, like my mother? No, I don’t belong there either. “I have another voyage in mind,” she said, managing not to scowl. “I believe you have a ship headed for Nais.”
“Nais?” Bartelsz said, his eyes widening in alarm. “You mean Sumatra, of course? I have a fluyt bound for Padang, but Nais, it’s just a jungle. There’s nothing there, my lady.”
“I mean Nais,” she said firmly, hoping she had read the star charts right. “I know there is a company expedition bound there, likely in October. If you know nothing of this, please take me to Governor-General Maetsuycker. I will put my request to him.”
Bartelsz narrowed his eyes with suspicion. “Whatever you have heard of this expedition, my lady, you must have misunderstood. There is nothing for you in Nais.”
“No. There isn’t, is there? And yet, we will depart from that island, or somewhere near it.” She locked eyes with him, hoping he recognized the same unwavering determination she’d had to undertake her first voyage. “I want to be added to the crew. I wish to be—” she sat straighter, testing the words, “—the cartographer.”
Bartelsz balked. “Maggie, this is an audacious request, one I certainly cannot begin to—”
“I know what lies beyond Nais,” she interrupted him, reconciling herself to stronger methods. “And if you know as well, you will take me to my lord Maetsuycker, or whoever has concerned themselves with that voyage, before I take my request to the Spanish.” She tried to breathe normally, as if this were a simple request and not blackmail of the worst kind. Bartelsz’s jaw quavered.
“Do not do this, Maggie,” he begged, more disappointed than worried. “What could you possibly want—”
“Will you pass on my request, my lord?” She did not care to hear what derision he would lay on her. She already knew well enough where he thought she belonged—but he was wrong. She didn’t belong anywhere.
Bartelsz sighed in resignation and nodded. He stood and beckoned her to follow him down the narrow stone halls, deeper than she could possibly dig herself out.
*
Bartelsz left her alone in the wide office of the Governor-General. She stood, portfolio clutched in both hands, willing on herself the poise that said she believed absolutely that Joan Maetsuycker had no choice but to hire her.
The frown on Maetsuycker’s face when he entered spoke its own stubborn story. The grey-haired man closed the door behind him and marched aggressively towards her, hands outstretched.
“Mistress,” Maetsuycker barked, “show me your work.” Maghfira nearly balked at the directness of his request, at his lack of manners. How very like his underlings this man is. She held out the portfolio to him, grateful that her arms did not shake.
He strode to his desk and unbuckled the leather case, flipping through the moon-maps and star charts within. Maetsuycker looked tired, then tore the top two pages out of their sleeve and tossed them unceremoniously into the fire.
“What!” Maghfira cried, furious.
“You are a great fool, my dear,” he said. “And you have just made a madwoman of yourself. You will get out now. Thank you.” He took two more pages, wadded them, and added these to the mounting flames.
“I will not!” she replied, stepping up to the desk and snatching one of her pages of notes. “I have come for Eleusis, and I will not go until you agree to add me to the voyage to Nais.”
“My lady, you are in no position to make such demands. I know you. My men have been to your home and have destroyed everything in it. You have nothing to offer and nothing to threaten me with. You are a nuisance and that is all. You may go now while you still retain your dignity.”
Maghfira’s heart pounded as if she were about to leap from the pier. “You have destroyed nothing of me,” she said, taking up a quill. “And you need me.” She flipped the paper over and licked the quill before dabbing it in his inkpot. With a few quick, broad strokes, she traced again the outline of the moon and marked on it the location of Eleusis. She had begun to map out the stars when Maetsuycker snatched the sketch right out from under her. She stood straight, staring him down. His red-rimmed eyes looked at her as if she were some kind of abomination. “Burn it,” she offered. “Burn them all. I will make them again. The map is in me and I know what it shows. You cannot undertake an expedition to a new land without a cartographer, so take me. You will find no one better.”
“I could destroy you as easily as I have destroyed your scribblings, woman,” he said, crumpling this last sketch and putting it aside. “If I thought you were a threat. But the Spaniards will only think you mad, the Portuguese madder. A fanciful picture will mean nothing to them.”
“I know exactly where and when Eleusis can be seen,” she said. “I will commission a ship to Nais myself if I need to. You will find I am quite determined, my lord Maetsuycker.”
“What I see,” he said, sitting at his desk as if the discussion were making him too weary to stand, “is a villain who would sell out her nation to—”
“If this is my nation,” Maghfira barked, frustrated, “then let me serve. What kind of leader are you, who cannot see a good tool when one is presented to him? All I want is to be part of something new. Something where the boundaries are not yet set, the fortunes not yet cast. You will find no one better suited,” she repeated.
“You have threatened the Dutch Republic with treason or worse,” Maetsuycker pointed out. “And my men will not want a woman on their ship.” He frowned in earnest. “Bad luck.”
“Would you rather a wet rag represent you in Eleusis?” she countered. “And as for luck,” she shrugged, “tell them different fates rule the skies than the seas.” Hopefully. “My lord, I am not leaving.”
The creases on Maetsuycker’s forehead retreated in thought. Maghfira tracked his gaze to a framed print on his wall: the moon, as rendered by the artist van Langren. She wondered if she were to flip it over, if she’d find Eleusis hiding in the shadows beneath.
After a long moment of silence, he nodded. “Let us test your resolve then, my lady.” He placed the remaining sketches from her portfolio on the fire and held up a hand. “You will not need them i
f you are as good as you say. Come.”
Maghfira was determined not to let the Governor-General’s fatalism scare her. The only thing she was absolutely sure of was her resolve. She followed him out the door and through the endless halls of the East India House, praying with every step that he was not leading her to a dungeon—or to an executioner. They finally came to a plain door with one lock, which he opened. Beyond it was darkness. Maghfira hesitated.
“The noose has been around your neck ever since you set foot in my domain, my lady,” Maetsuycker said. “It is no more dangerous in there than anywhere. Has your courage run dry already?” Maghfira glared at him and stepped into the blackness.
The coolness of outdoor air hit her within a few steps. Moonlight bathed an interior courtyard strewn with unfamiliar constructions, the chief of which was an enormous cannon built at one end of the long yard. Maetsuycker lit a lantern and led her towards it. A contraption of shining gold sat tethered atop the long neck and caught the lamplight, shining like a beacon. Maghfira gawked.
“Our great hope for reaching Eleusis, or somewhere else up there,” Maetsuycker waved at the waning moon above them. He held the lantern high as they approached the cannon, illuminating the golden sphere’s portholes and limp sails. It was no bigger than a covered carriage, but sealed as tight as a barrel. He turned to scrutinize her. “We have not yet tested it with men inside, but the unmanned flights have been promising. The greatest minds in the Dutch Republic have informed its construction, and it will take the bravest to pilot it. We are training the crew by locking them in vaults for hours at a time.” He almost smiled then, taunting her again. “Cramped, without fresh air or light, occasionally jostled in the most violent manner. Who knows how long and how arduous the journey will be? We must prepare for the worst. Do you think you could do it, Mistress van Delsen? Ride the winds packed into a crate built by geniuses and lunatics, like a piece of stolen Antiquity? Some of our best captains have already quit the project. What makes you any better suited?”
“I have nowhere else to be,” Maghfira said softly, still taking in the contraption’s golden wheels and joints. “I don’t belong here.”
Maetsuycker’s face softened. “Ambitious people seldom feel as if they belong, my lady. After all, who would venture into the unknown if they were content with what they already had?”
Maghfira stared at the golden vessel in awe. She imagined its sails unfurled, catching gusts from all directions, tenting first one way then another, tossing this little sun about the sky like a kite. Then she imagined gliding towards the Heavens in a moment of calm, the moon growing brighter at their approach. She imagined rolling to a stop on alien soil, unfolding herself in a new place. She imagined new oceans and new mountains, new roads and new buildings. She imagined the freedom of not being expected to belong.
“I will do it,” she said.
* * *
Charlotte Ashley
Charlotte Ashley is a writer, editor and bookseller living in Toronto, Canada. Her short story, "La Héron", was nominated for both the Aurora and Sunburst Awards in 2016. Her latest short, "A Fine Balance," will appear in the Nov/Dec 2016 issue of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. You can find more about her at www.once-and-future.com or on Twitter @CharlotteAshley.
THE BRONZE MAN AND THE SECOND SON
Lee Blevins
The bronze man came on a dog sled loaded with furs. The tribe had heard tell of him through the traders. He gave gifts to the elder and then to each member of the tribe and soon they lowered their spears. His eyes were a dull green, emerald and unblinking.
“The lords of the south have sent me forth to map the margins of this land. I seek a guide to take me north along the western coast to the frozen sea. My masters will reward the man who would guide me, and his entire village, too.”
“What if you should perish in the white?” asked the village elder. “You masters are unknown to us.”
“My masters are both far and near, for they see what I see through the eyes they made me.”
“You are no man, then?”
The bronze man lowered his fur hood and unwrapped his headscarf. His face was not of flesh but of metal, dark brown and smooth but for the heads of nails that held it together. He had no nostrils and a mouth that did not move and showed no teeth.
“I am golem from Eschau. I have been commanded to explore the limits of the Seniumlands in order to aid the cartographers of Eschau in the creation of a more accurate map of the known world. There are hundreds of my brothers walking other parts of this world. We bring no harm and take only knowledge.”
The two dozen members of the tribe braced themselves against the biting wind and studied the strange face of the visitor from the south. He did not move to wrap his face up again.
Farven stepped forward. He was the second son of the village elder. The task would fall to him.
*
The bronze man told those who could fit into the village circle, a perfectly round room ten feet below the surface snow, about the south and where he had come from and what he had seen. He was born a grown man, he said, and absolute in drive and purpose. He had passed through the hundred foot tall gate of Eschau shoulder to shoulder with one hundred fellow metal men. He had traveled north through field and forest and mountain and desert and field and forest and mountain and desert, and then through the very ocean itself, to reach the Seniumlands. He had explored the southern coasts with men of the Penta, the Windjo, the Thulu. He had seen the Black Giant’s Staff and the Springs of Fire and the Molten River. He had hunted bear and seal and whale; he had buried brave men. He had walked far and long and he was not the least bit weary.
Farven, the second son of the village elder, spent the night in his own abode. His young wife did not beg him to stay because she knew better than to waste her breath: it was his duty. They could not spare the eldest son on such a task or trust the third son to guide the southern golem well. They spent the night in each other’s arms but they did not make love. This was for the best, Farven reasoned, in case he was to be lost out in the white.
At dawn, his brothers loaded Farven a sled and dogs and resupplied the sled of the bronze man and switched out his dogs. His father took him to the hill that overlooked the village and spoke to him in private.
“Guide the golem where he would go unless he would take you into enemy hands or beyond the frozen sea.”
“Yes, father.”
“He may drive you hard. You must allow yourself to be driven, if he treats you with respect and does not endanger you.”
“Yes, father.”
“But he fears not death. You must trust your own instincts and not push yourself beyond breaking. Rest often and tread carefully.”
“I will, father.”
The father leaned in and held the son and whispered into his ear, “He fears not gods, either.”
That day Farven bid his wife and his family and his village goodbye. Then he and the bronze man rode forth, in search of borders.
Farven and the bronze man camped that night along the great break, the line of splintered plateau that separated the tundra from the coastland. Farven had planned to make fire in the Seniumlander way but the bronze man took his right hand off at the wrist, sat it on the snow and lit it on fire with but a thought. Farven cooked his rabbit over the bronze man’s fingertips.
“The Olomin told me that beyond your territory there are men with beaks and talons. They say they fly.”
“It is said. I have not seen them take wing but, should we fall into their grasp, they shall eat my flesh and sharpen their talons on your metal form. I can take you no further east than the Hills of Wint, beyond which the birdmen lay claim.”
“As you wish.”
They rode along the western coast, up and down the rising points, keeping always the frozen sea in sight.
There were many little islands upon the coast and the bronze man would stop his sled at each one and gaze out towards it for but a minute. Then
they would ride on.
There were few villages to the north of Farven’s, and none of them along the coast, but they came across several abandoned hunting camps. All that remained of them were marking posts. Farven insisted on praying at each black column, as was the Seniumlander custom.
Farven ate snow hare and the bronze man ate nothing at all. They made little conversation, Farven having exhausted his curiosities quite early, and the bronze man with little need for social nicety. Everywhere before them was snow or sea.
The jagged plateau of the great break eventually rose and splintered into mountains. Farven told the bronze man that ice trolls lived there but that they had little to fear from them because his great-grandfather had saved their king from an ice bear trap and thus earned their immortal gratitude.
The sea waters froze where the western coast wrapped around to become the northern coast. The sky turned the surface a soft blue shade, split up with smeared blacks and blinding whitecaps. The frozen sea stretched north forever (or so Farven insisted).
“Have any walked it?” asked the bronze man.
Farven had asked that question once when he was but a boy on his father’s knee. Now he told the golem what had been told to him.
“Only the gods.”
*
Farven knew where the game bedded down at night and how to crack the ice to fish and knew enough to run from wraiths, but, as the days grew endless in the white and the wind kept biting at their sides, he was glad he only had to hunt and fish for one.
“I don’t understand,” Farven said, one night. “If you are to map this land, why have you left unseen the great interior between the sea and the village of my tribe?”
“I shall,” said the bronze man. “In time. My master instilled me with a maxim—first you draw the border and then you fill it in.”
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