by S. E. Grove
“You do, Shadrack,” the woman said softly. She took a step closer. “You and I are on the same side. Tell me where it is, and I promise I will put everything right.”
For a moment, Shadrack believed her. He had to make a monumental effort to hear the meaning of her words and not just their sound. “If you and I are on the same side,” he said, “then there is no reason why I should be tied to this chair. In fact,” he added, “there is no reason why your Nihilismian thugs should have dragged me from my house in the first place.” As he spoke, he found the effect of the woman’s voice fading. “Why not let me go, and I promise I’ll put everything right.”
The woman shook her head; her veil quivered. “Before I do anything else, I really must insist that you tell me where it is.” She rested her gloved hand lightly on his shoulder. “You fooled my Sandmen, but you won’t fool me. Where is the Tracing Glass?” she whispered.
Shadrack stared as hard as he could through the veil, but even this close it revealed nothing. “I have dozens of glass maps. Or at least I did, before your ‘Sandmen’ broke most of them. Perhaps you should look through the pieces—the glass you want is probably there.”
The woman let out a small sigh and stepped away. “I thought it might be this way, Shadrack. Still, I am glad to have you here.” The woman’s tone was calm and only slightly troubled, as if she were discussing a trifling concern with a friend rather than issuing threats to a bound man. She indicated the swirling glass globes above her. “You may be the greatest known cartologer in New Occident—perhaps in the world,” she said. “But you will forgive me for saying that I believe I am the greatest unknown cartologer.” She gazed up at the globes and spoke to them, rather than to Shadrack. “I would have benefited from your company before now. Years and years of work,” she said quietly. “Trial and error—mostly error.” She once again looked at her captive. “Do you know how difficult it is to create a spherical glass map? The glass-blowing technique alone took me ages to perfect, and working with a sphere adds a whole new dimension—if you will—to the mapmaking. Still,” she said softly, “the effort was well worth it. Don’t you think?”
“I’d really have to read them for myself to determine their quality.”
The woman turned abruptly. “Yes—why not? I’ve wanted nothing more for quite some time.” She signaled to the two men, who were standing some distance away. “That desk,” she said, pointing. Without untying Shadrack, the two men snagged the chair with their grappling hooks and dragged it to a heavy desk that stood several feet away. It held a glass globe on a metal stand.
The woman untied his hands. “Go ahead—please. Look closely.”
Shadrack rubbed his wrists and, after a keen glance at his captor, turned his attention to the globe. It was slightly opaque—cloudy—and about the size of a human head. The metal base was intricately wrought—copper, it seemed—and the glass was perfectly smooth. It shimmered with the uneasy movement Shadrack had observed. For several moments he stared at it uncomprehendingly, and then he realized that the play of motion within the globe was created by grains of sand. They moved with some unseen power, circling gently through a kind of dance. They showered down, grazed the bottom of the globe, and arced upward again. Suddenly the sand fell into a pattern, and Shadrack saw an unmistakably human face gazing out at him.
He recoiled. “This is not a map of the world. It’s a map of a human mind.”
The woman inclined her veiled head toward him, as if conceding a point. “You are very close.”
Shadrack had not yet touched the globe. Now, with some trepidation, he placed his fingertips gently on the smooth surface. The memories that surged into his mind were more powerful than any he’d ever experienced. He was assailed by the smell of honeysuckle and he heard the ring of laughter in his ears; he had been tossed into a honeysuckle bush, and he felt the crush of leaves under his hands as he tried to free himself. He recalled getting up and running over a damp lawn and then tripping, falling headlong into the grass. He felt the wet blades against his cheek and the smell of soil in his nose. The memories were those of a child.
Shadrack pulled his fingertips away with a gasp and gazed again at the cloudy globe. He shook his head. “It’s remarkable.” His voice was frankly admiring. “I’ve never experienced such powerful smells, sights, sounds. I confess to being curious: how have you mapped such vivid memories?”
The woman leaned forward and touched her gloved fingertip to the globe. “You must know from having made memory maps yourself that no matter how much you try, people always hold something back. The memory is still theirs, after all. As the cartologer you only gather a dim echo.”
Shadrack shrugged. “Better a dim memory than none at all. All maps are like that. They only express an outline, a guide, to a far richer world.”
“Yes, but I do not want outlines. I want the memories themselves.”
Again, he stared intently at the blond veil. “That would be impossible. Besides,” he added, with a note of admonishment, “one has one’s own memories.”
The woman didn’t speak. Then she reached out and gently touched the globe again with a gloved finger. She lingered a moment, then pulled away and spoke, ignoring Shadrack’s last words. “It is not impossible. I have accomplished it.”
“What do you mean?”
“The memories are so vivid because they are complete. They are captured whole in those grains of sand.” She spoke as if describing something of great beauty.
Shadrack looked at the globe with consternation. “And what of the person they belonged to? The boy—or man—who had these memories?”
“The memories are no longer his.”
“You stole them?” The woman shrugged, as if she found the word clumsy but apt. “I don’t believe you,” Shadrack said. He faced the veil in silence. “How did you do it?” he finally asked.
The woman let out a quick sigh of satisfaction. “I knew you would be interested. I will show you the process sometime. For now, I can tell you that it involves submerging the subject in sand and then using that sand to make a globe. It is a beautiful method. But the results—even more beautiful. You see, the globe you are looking at is not the map. This”—she indicated the constellation of globes circling overhead—“is the map. This is the map that led me to you.”
“Then you will have to read it for me,” Shadrack said acidly, “because I see no map in that collection of stolen memories.”
“Do you not?” the woman asked, sounding faintly surprised. “Look more closely. See how they move—gliding, drifting away, suddenly drawing near. All those memories are connected. Someone passing someone else in the street. One person catching a glimpse of another through a window. Someone finds a lost book here, someone gives it away there. Someone discovers an old crate full of glass panes, and another person sells them in a market. Someone buys one of the panes and makes a cabinet of it. Someone steals the cabinet. Does this sound familiar? It may have occurred before your time. There is a story—a history—circling over your head, and the map it draws has led me to you. I have taken many memories to find the Tracing Glass, and you with it.”
Shadrack found it difficult to speak. “Then you have wasted your time.”
“No,” she said quietly. “I have learned much. Far more than I expected. You see—people’s memories are richer than they know. They ignore memories that seem unimportant, but to the careful reader they spring out, full of meaning.” She lifted the glass globe and turned it lightly, then replaced it before Shadrack on the desk. “This last one was the key. Read it again.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Shadrack pressed his fingertips to the globe. Immediately he recalled a study filled with towering piles of books. The musty smell of paper closed in around him, and a dim light shone through the window. At once he knew to whom the room—and the memories—belonged. He gasped in dismay.
As if to dispel any remaining doubt, the memory lingered over an engraved sign on the open door:
CARLTON HOPISH
Cartologer
Minister of Relations with Foreign Ages
A face that seemed simultaneously familiar and oddly distorted appeared suddenly beside the sign. It was his own face.
He wanted to pull away from the globe and the horror it implied, but he could not. He remembered this conversation, now, through the eyes of his friend Carlton, greeting Shadrack Elli and inviting him to sit. Shadrack grimaced; he knew where it was headed, and he suddenly understood with panicked clarity why the veiled woman had abducted him.
“Solebury is leaving next month,” Carlton said. “At first he was unwilling to say, but in the end I got it out of him.” He leaned forward and slapped Shadrack’s knee triumphantly. “He believes he has finally found a definitive indication of the carta mayor’s location.”
Shadrack frowned. “He is chasing an illusion,” he said gruffly.
“Don’t give me that,” Carlton protested. “You, of all people. One of the few who can read and write water maps.”
“It is nothing but a fantasy.”
“A fantasy? How can you say that? I thought you would want to go with him,” Carlton said with an injured air. “It’s not like you to pass up a chance for a great discovery—a chance to find the living map of the world, the map containing every moment, past, present, and future, a map that would show when the Disruption occurred—”
“There is nothing to discover.”
Carlton remained silent, studying the guarded, reluctant face before him. “You would be a great help. Particularly,” he added slyly, “if it’s true that you have the Polyglot Tracing Glass.”
Shadrack gave him a piercing look. “Where did you hear that?”
“It’s true, then!” Carlton exclaimed. “I would give anything to see it.”
“I have it.” Shadrack turned away. “And there is no pleasure to be had from reading it, believe me.”
Carlton’s voice dropped to a whisper. “But you could use it to find the carta mayor. It would be a great service to your country, Shadrack.”
“I said no! I will not discuss it further.”
“Come, Shadrack, don’t be angry with me,” Carlton said, in a conciliatory tone. “I had no idea you felt so strongly about it.”
Shadrack yanked his fingers from the globe as though it had stung him. The image of Carlton in his hospital bed, helpless and witless, a mere vacant shell, flooded his mind. “What have you done to him? Are you responsible for leaving him—ruined?”
“I treasure his memories,” the woman said, with what sounded like a smile. “And I always will. They led me to you.”
“You destroyed him for nothing.” Shadrack’s voice was hard with fury. “If you are seeking the carta mayor, you are wasting your time.”
“Why are you so vehement in your denial?” Her veil shook slightly. “I wonder. Could it be that you do believe it exists? Could it be that the very mention of it touches a sore spot, an old injury that has never quite healed? To think,” she said lightly, “that such knowledge might be just on the other side of this fragile wall of skin and bone.” She pressed her fingers against Shadrack’s forehead.
“You are wasting your time,” Shadrack repeated angrily, shaking her off. And he realized, with shock, that the woman before him could easily leave him as she had left Carlton: empty, helpless, hopelessly damaged. Shadrack made an effort to control his anger.
“Are you familiar with the last section of The Chronicles of the Great Disruption?” she asked.
As Shadrack stared at the desk before him, looking anywhere but at the globe, his eye lighted on a pair of scissors. “I am familiar with it, of course, but the Chronicles of Amitto are undoubtedly apocryphal. I consider them a work of manipulative fiction.” He rested his arm lightly over the scissors as he spoke.
“Oh no!” she whispered. “They are real. Everything in the Chronicles has come to pass, or will come to pass. Recall the lines toward the end—December twenty-seventh: ‘Consider that our time upon the earth is as a living map: a map drawn in water, ever mingling, ever changing, ever flowing.’”
“I recall it,” Shadrack said carefully, easing the scissors into his sleeve. “But it means nothing. It is empty poetry, like the rest of the Chronicles.”
She strode around the desk so that she stood across from Shadrack. “What would you say if I told you that I have proof—in the globes overhead—that the carta mayor is real: the living map of the world drawn in water exists. What is more, a skilled mapmaker could not only read it,” she paused, “but alter it: alter the world by altering the map.”
“No one has so much as seen the carta mayor,” Shadrack said tersely, “so it seems rather presumptuous to begin speculating about its properties.”
“You are not listening.” She leaned toward him. “I have proof. The carta mayor is real. It is not just a map of the world that was and the world that is. It shows all possible worlds. And if a cartologer such as you were to modify the carta mayor, he could change the present. He could even change the past—reinvent the past. Rewrite history. Do you understand me? The whole world can be redrawn. The Great Disruption can be undone.”
“It cannot be undone. Every cartologer, scientist, cosmographer will tell you the same thing: there can only be another disruption. The world is what it is now—its course has been set. To change the Ages would mean disrupting the world once again—the costs are unknown, unimaginable. The only manner of making the world whole now is through exploration, communication, alliances, trade. On principle, I object to the kind of change you describe. But my objection is of no matter; the task you have set yourself is impossible.” His voice was hard. “You are fooling yourself if you believe otherwise.”
“You are fooling yourself,” she replied, her voice dismissive. “Your faint curiosity in the other Ages. A sea voyage here, a trek across the mountains there. What do you hope to accomplish with such trivial exploration? What is exploration compared with the hope of synchrony, harmony? The hope of restoring the true world?”
“It can’t be done. Believe me, I have worked with water maps. I take it you have not, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. It can’t be done.”
The woman’s veil trembled. “But you have not yet seen the carta mayor. It will be different.”
Shadrack shook his head and hunched farther over the desk. As he did so, he dropped his right hand and felt with the scissors for the rope binding his ankle. The woman was still on the other side of the desk. The two scarred Nihilismians stood by the cold furnace, their grappling hooks hanging by their sides. He glanced quickly toward the other end of the chapel and saw a set of double doors that doubtlessly opened out onto the grounds. Then he leaned in close to the glass globe as if examining it. “Your work is impressive, and I admire your cartologic sensibilities—sincerely. But I can’t help you; and even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
He had cut through the ropes binding his right ankle, and he leaned forward even farther to reach his other ankle under the desk. “I can’t help you because I don’t believe in the Chronicles or the carta mayor. And I won’t help you because I have no desire to see the Great Disruption repeated in my lifetime. I want no part of it. My only consolation is that the task you have set yourself is impossible to achieve.” Shadrack cut the ropes on his left ankle and quickly slipped the scissors back inside his sleeve and straightened in the chair.
“Ah!” the woman said, circling to Shadrack’s side of the desk. “Then shall we put your beliefs to the test? If you truly believe the carta mayor does not exist, tell me where the Tracing Glass is. You can prove to me that the Chronicles are nothing but empty poetry.” Shadrack sat in silence, his face expressionless. “I believe if the glass map is not here, there is only one place it can be. With your niece. Sophia.”
“I tell you—all my glass maps were broken on the floor of my workroom.”
The woman placed her gloved hand on Shadrack’s arm—the same arm that concealed the scissors in its sleeve
. “I have not told you my name,” she said softly. “You may call me Blanca. Like the white of an unmarked page—of a blank map. Or of white sand. Or of fair, unblemished skin.”
Shadrack looked at her but said nothing. He glanced at the two Sandmen; they appeared lost in thought, considering the globes overhead.
“Sophia has the map, doesn’t she?” Blanca asked. “And all I need is something to persuade her to give it up.”
Shadrack suddenly pushed back his chair, flinging off Blanca’s arm. The scissors flew into the air and soared in an arc, shattering one of the globes. A shower of glass shards and sand rained down over them, but he had already begun running toward the far end of the chapel, racing for the broad doors at the rear. He heard the footsteps of the men behind him and the furious cry from Blanca at the sight of the broken globe.
The broad double doors ahead of Shadrack suddenly flew open and four Sandmen stepped into the chapel. Shadrack ducked to the left and ran toward one of the windows: he could climb onto one of the desks and leap, hopefully with enough strength to break through the stained glass. Then he felt a sudden, painful snag against his leg.
He was pinned to the floor, his chest crushed painfully against the stone, and in a moment they were all upon him. He tasted blood in his mouth as the men hauled him to his feet, wrenching his arms behind his back. The grappling hook had ripped his pant leg, leaving two long welts all the way down his thigh. Only chance had prevented the hook’s prongs from tearing deep into his muscle.
