The Crimson Skew (8 page)

Sophia did not speak. She waited, an unexpected tenseness coiled in her stomach. The Fates no longer meant anything to her, and she had stopped believing that the world was ordered by some greater power. Yet she found herself watching Maxine's movements with hopefulness and dread, as if this would actually determine her fortune.

“This is one path you might take,” Maxine said, indicating the lowest branch of the tree. It ended at the horseshoe. “It is a dangerous path. Along it, you seek vengeance for a friend you have loved. The vengeance takes you into darkness, into a world of terrible deeds. By the end of this path, some of those deeds are your own.”

Sophia nodded wordlessly as Maxine looked to her for acknowledgment.

“This path is less likely, but you will find it alluring,” she went on, pointing to a higher branch that led to the broken piece of glass. “It is the path of knowledge. Along it, you will become the greatest cartologer of the known world. Your uncle's mantle will pass to you. But along with knowledge comes peril. This form of knowledge, while pure in itself, attracts the attention of those who would misuse it. You find yourself a fugitive, an exile, and your knowledge becomes a great burden.”

Again, she looked up at Sophia, who nodded once more. The knot in her stomach was tightening. Were none of these possible futures happy ones?

“Now, this path,” Maxine continued, gesturing to the path that ended in the velvet ribbon, “is safer. It is the path of prosperity. There is happiness, though there is less knowledge. Your cartology fades into the background, and your life becomes firmly anchored in the material world. Exploration and profit. Treasure and adventure. This path holds only trivial dangers and many pleasures. But I see a vein of discontent pulsing through the pleasure: a sense of being dissatisfied. Be
forewarned—this path will bring you happiness, but it may not bring you fulfillment.

“And then there is this path,” Maxine concluded, waving her arm over a broad branch that led to the tree ring and the small, brown shape. “I am mystified by this path, for parts of it are obscured to me. It seems dangerous, but I cannot tell you what the dangers are. It seems fulfilling, but I cannot describe the forms of fulfillment. What I see is a pattern: losses followed by discoveries; grief followed by intense joy; bewilderment followed by a font of certain knowledge. This is a complex path.”

“How will I know?” Sophia finally asked. “How will I know which path I am on? And do I have a choice?”

“There are choices everywhere,” Maxine replied, waving her arm over the table. “They begin here. Which path of these do you wish to take? I will tell you how to find it.”

Vengeance, knowledge, prosperity, or uncertainty. Sophia could see, even with such brief descriptions, that all but the first path had both good and bad things about them. Knowledge was important, Sophia reflected, but it would count for very little if she had to spend her life running from others who sought it. Prosperity was pleasurable, but she had already seen what a life of prosperity looked like: Miles, Calixta, and Burr had followed that path. There was a certain carelessness to their lives that Sophia found appealing but somehow . . . deflating.

“I would follow the last path,” Sophia said aloud. “Though there are uncertainties, the pattern you describe is one I think I could live with. One I think I would like. I am used to loss and
I am used to finding things in the wake of that loss. This seems the right path for me.”

Maxine nodded gravely, almost bowing as she let her head fall forward. As she rose, she took the tree ring and the brown shape in her hands. “Then let me tell you how to find this path. There are three things to remember—three crucial junctures. One will happen very soon. The other two will not happen for quite some time. Are you ready to hear them?”

Sophia swallowed. “Yes.”

“First. When you see the knight and the dragon, you must think only of your own safety. Your instinct is to stay. You must flee.”

“A knight and a dragon?”

“That is what I see—I can only imagine that they are symbols.”

“How will I recognize them?”

Maxine smiled under the veil. “You will recognize them. Second, you will learn something that causes you to doubt the honesty of someone you love. When this happens, you will be wise to look beyond reason for your judgment.”

“What do you mean, beyond reason?”

“Reason and rationality alone cannot decide this for you. Listen to the part of you that judges the world on feeling.”

“Very well.”

“Third. Something will change the ground beneath your feet. What was natural will become unnatural. Dust will change to water. Water will change to dust. You will feel fear.
You must overcome this fear—your accumulated knowledge has the answer.”

“So I must ignore my instincts, my reason, and my feelings in succession,” Sophia said, disheartened.

Maxine's voice was steady and encouraging. “It is not a matter of ignoring them, but of knowing when to trust which part of yourself. In the first case, put your instinct aside and trust the virtue of self-preservation. In the second case, put your reason aside and trust the virtue of affection. In the third case, put your feelings aside and trust the virtue of knowledge. You have all these things—instinct, reason, sentiment, and knowledge. This telling of your fortune only counsels you when to heed each.”

Sophia nodded slowly. “I understand.”

“Take these,” Maxine said, holding out the tree ring and the brown shape. “They hold the keys to your path. They are first steps to launch you upon it.”

Sophia took the two objects and looked at them in the half darkness, mystified.

Maxine smiled reassuringly. “And now you may help me extinguish the candles. The fortune-telling is done.”

• • •

S
OPH
IA RETURNED TO
her room feeling unsettled. She had accepted Maxine's offer thinking that it would be amusing—like having one's cards read at a fair. But Maxine had seemed so solemn, her vision of the future so true, that Sophia found herself shaken.

The little bedroom was lit with lamps. Dark violet curtains
had been drawn shut, and the bed with its violet-trimmed bedding had been turned down. Sophia placed the two objects Maxine had given her on a spindly little table by the side of the bed and stared at them in the flickering light of the flame lamp.

There was a light knock on her door. “Come in,” Sophia called. She knew already that it would be Goldenrod, and she turned expectantly.

Goldenrod made her way in quietly, shutting the door behind her. “You are upset,” she said, coming to stand by Sophia. She wore an embroidered nightdress that fell to her bare green feet—clearly borrowed from Maxine's closet.

“I didn't know the fortune-telling would feel so . . . real.”

“Perhaps a little like the Ausentinian maps,” Goldenrod suggested. “Truthful but confusing at the same time.”

“Yes,” Sophia agreed. “Exactly like that.”

“All attempts to describe the future have such an effect. They have the ring of truth because they seem possible, but they are unclear because nothing of the future is known with precision. What are these?”

“Maxine gave them to me. She says they are objects with meaning for the path I have chosen. But I don't know what they mean.”

Goldenrod took them up one at a time, examining them silently before placing them back on the small table. “From a tree and an élan.”

“An élan? What is that?”

“It is also known as an elk, or moose. Both these objects hold memories.”

Sophia started. “Memories? What do you mean?”

“These rings each correspond to a year of the tree's growth. The most recent year is here, by the bark. And this,” she said, picking up the brown shape, “is a piece of élan antler. Males drop their antlers each year.”

“Moose antler,” Sophia said wonderingly. “But how can they hold memories?”

“Memory maps, the kind you know, are made by people using other objects as their vehicles. These maps here are less complex, more intuitive. They were made by this tree”—she indicated the circle of wood—“and this moose.”

Sophia took this in. “And you can read them because you could speak with them while they were living.”

“It is likely the moose is still living,” Goldenrod corrected her, “since this antler looks quite fresh—it may be from last year or the year before. Yes—just as I would communicate with them in the present, I can read their memories of the past. But it is not entirely beyond you, Sophia. These may be the perfect way to begin.”

“Begin what?”

“Begin to understand the world as an Elodean does.”

“But I am not Eerie—Elodean. I can't do what you do.”

Goldenrod smiled. She put down the antler and reached out, clasping Sophia's hands in her own green ones. “You will remember what I told you in the Papal States—how the Weatherers read more deeply than we do, heal more expansively than the rest of us.”

“I remember.”

“It has always struck me that the quality that sets the Weatherers apart is also that which sets you apart. They weather time—this is what gives them their name. It is a different way of describing what you do: to wander, timeless.”

Sophia's breath caught in her throat. “Really?”

“Yes. It is true that you are not Elodean, but I think our form of knowledge is not restricted to our blood. I think it can be taught—and learned. It might be easier to begin with something inert, like this bark and this bone. For you, it will resemble map reading.”

Sophia felt a sudden thrill rising in her chest. “If you think it's possible—of course! Of course I want to learn. How do I begin?”

Goldenrod squeezed her hands. “We will begin tomorrow. Before then, if you like, spend time with these two sets of memories. Discover everything you can by examining them with all your senses. Then you will tell me what you find.”

Sophia nodded.

Goldenrod considered her closely. “Do you feel less anxious about your fortune?”

“Yes.” She looked up at the Eerie, her kind face inches from her own. Impulsively, she threw her arms around her friend's neck. “Thank you.” Goldenrod could not know that apart from relieving her anxiety, she was giving Sophia what she had wanted for so many months: a way to keep learning, a way to keep reading the world through maps.

M
AJOR MERRET HAD
been raised in a military family. Both he and his father had attended the military academy in Virginia. His grandfather had fought against the rebellion that had earned New Akan its statehood. And now Merret was battling New Akan himself, more than ninety years later and in far more dangerous circumstances: that state had allied with the vast Indian Territories, a polity of unpredictable strength and resources.

Major Merret was inclined to think little of that strength
and those resources, because in general he thought little of people outside of New Occident. In fact, he thought little of people beyond southern Virginia, his home turf. But he was also a cautious man, and though he might privately think the Indian Territories a dusty wasteland and New Akan a damp one, each populated by ragtag bands of cowards, he would professionally treat them as formidable enemies. For this reason, it infuriated him that he had to face the enemy with his own band of what he knew were ragtag cowards: the “blocks”—former inmates of the prison system who hardly knew the proper handling of a weapon, and whose experience of fighting had been motivated by greed, or viciousness, or bumbling self-defense. Merret brooded over the speculation that he had done something—he could not fathom what—to displease his superiors, and it had landed him in charge of this collection of loafers and scoundrels.

Major Merret's contempt was no secret. In fact, it became more and more evident by the day, so that on the morning of August fourth, when his troops found themselves nearing the edge of New Occident and thereby on the very threshold of enemy lines, it fell upon them like burning walls that had smoldered slowly for hours.

Despite his attempts to teach them discipline, Major Merret realized, the blocks had learned nothing. He said as much to them now, as they stood before him, awkward and disheveled in their uneven rows. Days of humid weather had tried what little discipline he had been able to instill in them. The heavy,
yellow clouds that sat motionless overhead made the air rancid. Occasional rumbles brought no rain, only heavier humidity, and the troops were not coping with it well. Their clothes were rumpled. Hardly anyone had slept peacefully, and more than one fight had broken out the night before. Instead of orderly, obedient faces, Merret saw men that were unkempt, underslept, and on edge. The sight filled him with furious despair.

His voice carried and he spoke with control. “I have wasted weeks attempting to pound into your imbecilic skulls that in a few days you may be fighting for your lives against people who actually
chose
to fight in this war. And because you are too rock-headed to understand this, you fight with each other instead of preparing to fight the battle that awaits you.” He looked at the two men who stood beside him, the culprits who had most recently provoked his outrage and who now faced the entire company. One of them, MacWilliams, looked bored. His massive hands rested at his sides, his knuckles red from where he had hit the other man. Trembling, his blackened eye trained on the ground, Collins could hardly stand up straight; he seemed on the verge of collapse. Merret considered them judiciously and decided to make an example of them: the bully and the weakling. They both had their uses.

“If it were up to me,” Major Merret snarled, “I would gladly send you across that border to meet your incompetent deaths. But, unfortunately, I have a job to do, and you are the inadequate tools with which I must do it.” He turned sharply to Collins, the trembling soldier. “Are you afraid of what awaits you in the Indian Territories, Collins?”

Collins startled. He gave Merret a fearful sidelong glance. He had no idea what answer the major wanted.

“Answer me, Collins,” barked Major Merret.

Collins drew himself up and clenched his jaw in what he hoped was an impression of staunchness. He did his best to stop trembling, balling his thin fingers into fists and locking his narrow knees. At home, in Philadelphia, Collins was a printer, and he had been thrown in prison for publishing a satirical cartoon of Gordon Broadgirdle. Before being incarcerated, the most violent altercation Collins had ever experienced was an amicable dispute with his brother over the cost of a new printing press. He had no place in the Western War, and he knew it. “No, sir?” he lied.

“And are you afraid of MacWilliams?”

Collins swallowed, baffled once again. “I can try not to be, sir,” he said.

“And are you afraid of me, Collins?”

Collins took a deep breath. He had thought that his answers were somehow, miraculously proving correct, but now he feared that he was being led into a trap, and he could not imagine how to get out of it because he had no idea what the trap even was. He decided to be truthful, because he had already tried lying. “Yes, sir,” he said. Suddenly, so suddenly that he had no idea how it had happened, Collins found himself sprawled on the ground with the damp earth inches from his face, and he realized that there was something holding him down.

Major Merret looked with concealed satisfaction at the surprised faces of his company. Even MacWilliams was a little
startled. With his boot planted firmly on Collins's back, the major pressed down—hard. “You are not nearly afraid enough, Collins,” he said, his voice steely. “Let me tell you why. The Indians might kill you. And MacWilliams might give you a black eye every morning for the next month. But they can't do what I can. They can't destroy your self-respect, making you wish you'd never survived that prison in Philadelphia.”

Collins coughed. He tried to lift his head just a little, but the boot pressed down harder.

Merret waited, allowing the company to absorb Collins's humiliation. MacWilliams, he noticed, had exchanged his boredom for smugness. “They can't make you eat dirt the way I can,” Merret finally said. He looked down at the pitifully thin man. Collins's uniform was ripped, no doubt from the altercation with MacWilliams. The skin of his hands was pinched, as if worn to the bone. Merret felt a shudder of disgust. “Eat dirt, soldier,” he said, saying each word clearly.

He heard a murmur moving through the company, and he pointedly ignored it. “I said, Collins,
eat dirt
.” He pressed his boot down and waited.

Slowly, hesitantly, Collins turned his face toward the ground. The boot let up slightly. Then he opened his mouth and took a small mouthful of dirt between his teeth. The boot pressed down again.

“I said
eat
dirt,” Merret said. “Swallow it.” He looked at MacWilliams; the smugness had been replaced by an air of discomfort. Merret felt Collins's ribs rise underneath his boot.
“Again,” he said. Then he lifted his boot so that Collins could once again turn his face to the ground.

Theo stood in the second row, watching Merret's lesson in discipline. He felt as sick to his stomach as if he, too, were eating the soil. Beside him, Casanova radiated rage. All of them did. But Theo could sense something else, along with the rage: fear. It was like being in a dark cave, where the smell of damp hung all around, and then the smell of something rotten slithered out from within it: part and parcel of the damp, one made by the other, until the scent of mold overpowered the damp and they became an indistinguishable whole. Theo couldn't tell if the fear was in him, too, or if it just filled the air so thickly that he was surrounded by it. He watched as Merret forced Collins to eat mouthful after mouthful of earth. And in the midst of that lesson in fear, Theo felt something unexpected: a wish to defend Collins, no matter what the cost. For a moment, the wish felt good, like a flare of clean, bright fire in the dank cave.

“Well, MacWilliams?” Major Merret asked, into the still silence.

MacWilliams was looking at him now with open hatred. His boredom-turned-smugness-turned-discomfort had crystalized into something else.

“Are you going to do anything about it?” the major prodded, his tone insolent. “Do you have the decency and common sense to help a fellow soldier being made to eat dirt? A soldier who might well be you next time? Or don't you?” He stared at
MacWilliams, a sneering smile on his face. Then he lifted his boot and stepped back.

Collins coughed. A moment later he began retching. MacWilliams, with a final look of loathing at Merret, crouched down and gently helped Collins to his knees. He kept his hand on the man's back as Collins vomited.

Theo's brief flare of good feeling evaporated. Instead, he felt a cold repellence at how Merret had manipulated MacWilliams—and the entire company. He had intentionally brought about the anger, the fear, and finally the wish to defend Collins.

Merret's lesson had succeeded. They would not fight one another again. They had a common enemy now.

As the major gave them leave to begin breaking camp, and the soldiers dispersed, fleeing as quickly as possible, Theo stood rooted to the spot. The clouds overhead rumbled, and Theo wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his uniform. “Hey,” Casanova said, putting his hand on Theo's shoulder. “Come on.” Theo didn't respond. “I know. Merret is a brute. But there's nothing we can do about it.”

Theo blinked and turned to look at Casanova. “He's not a brute. He's a clown. That's what this company needs to see.”

Casanova shook his head. “What do you mean?”

“He's a joke. What we have to do is laugh at him. If we can laugh at him, we won't be afraid of him.”

Casanova's good eye narrowed. “I don't know what you're planning, Theo, but don't plan it. Just let it pass.” He pulled Theo back to their tent, a worried look on his scarred face.