The Golden Specific (40 page)

As the sun began to dip toward the horizon, Sophia reckoned that they were reaching the place that had been Murtea. They climbed a hill where the spines were short and sparse. Looking out over the dark landscape ahead of them, Rosemary cried: “There! Do you see it? A yellow patch among the black.”

“And another one,” Goldenrod pointed.

“Ausentinia still defends itself,” Rosemary said proudly. “I feel certain it is there, waiting for us to find it.”

“It will be dusk soon,” said Errol. “I fear it will be almost impossible to travel safely through the spines in the dark.”

“I have brought one of the golden eyes.” Rosemary withdrew it from her pack and held it aloft. Slung in a loose net, the orb emitted a penetrating yellow light. “Besides, the forest provides its own illumination, as you will see. I have camped by the perimeter at night and have seen the floor grow bright.”

“Nonetheless,” Errol replied skeptically, urging his horse onward, “we should move onward while we still have some daylight.”

The sky turned a brilliant orange and then faded to violet. The moss around them began to glow softly, as if
illuminated from within. “Just as you said, Rosemary,” Goldenrod observed. “Perhaps it will not be so difficult to travel at night.”

They reached a clearing where the moss underfoot made gentle mounds. A ring of spines around them leaned inward, creating a space like a black chapel of thorns and moss. Errol stopped abruptly. Goldenrod and Rosemary halted behind him. He swung down from his horse and took his bow, which had hung on his shoulder, and a green arrow from his quiver. “You dare follow me here,” he said in a hard voice, aiming the arrow.

A figure emerged from the trees. Pale and luminous, it reached its hands out in a gesture of entreaty.
“At the City of Foretelling, you will have a choice.”

“A
spanto
,” Rosemary gasped. She crossed herself. “This bodes ill.”

Errol's horse, now riderless, backed up, whinnying nervously. Goldenrod reached out and took its reins; she murmured, calming it.

“Do not speak to me of choice,” Errol said, his voice strained.

“At the City of Foretelling, you will have a choice.”

Errol loosed his arrow, plunging a green stem into the phantom. It crumpled and vanished like a scrap of mist.

“Your arrow felled it.” Rosemary's voice was hushed. “I have never seen this done.”

“Any green branch will do,” Errol said tersely. As he returned to his mount, another figure emerged from the spines: a woman, slight and straight—Minna Tims. The horse suddenly
reared; letting out a cry of terror, it turned and fled toward the trees. “No!” Goldenrod cried. “Come back!” Without warning, she seized Sophia and lowered her to the ground. Then she urged her horse toward the trees, diving between the spines.

“Goldenrod! Are you mad?” Errol ran to the edge of the clearing and looked into the trees. With a curse, he pivoted toward Minna's phantom and drew another green arrow from his quiver.

“It advances, Errol,” Rosemary warned. She crossed herself again as the pale figure approached.

Suddenly several voices echoed all at once in Sophia's mind. She heard again the phrases Minna's phantom had spoken in Boston:
Missing but not lost, absent but not gone
 . . . She heard Errol recounting the tale of Edolie and the woodsman:
The beloved figure before her, so many years absent, had been in her heart since childhood
. She heard Rosemary speaking with pride as she looked out over the hills:
Ausentinia still defends itself—

“Stop!” she shouted. She raced to put herself between Errol and Minna's phantom. She understood now that it was this illusion—this specter of Minna Tims—that she had to defend.

“What are you doing?” Errol demanded, lowering his bow.

“She's not a phantom.” Sophia's heart was pounding. “She's a guide.”

“Trust this companion, though the trust would seem misplaced.”
The voice of Minna's phantom was clear and bright.

“What do you mean, she is a guide?” Errol demanded.

“She is a
spanto
, Sophia,” Rosemary said. “A cursed phantom.”

“Listen to her words,” Sophia urged. “They're like the ones
on the Ausentinian maps. She comes to us from Ausentinia. She is leading us there.”

“Trust this companion, though the trust would seem misplaced,”
Minna repeated.

Errol looked at her. “How would such a thing be possible?”

“I don't know. I don't understand it either, Errol, but I don't think the phantom means us any harm.” Sophia took him by the arm, pushing the bow aside. “People say they lead you to oblivion. If the phantoms led here, through the Dark Age to Ausentinia, wouldn't that seem like oblivion? And yet all they are doing is leading us to where the maps we want—the very maps that will guide us to Oswin and my mother—can be found.”

Errol regarded her in silence.

“It is too dangerous, Sophia,” Rosemary said adamantly.

“She is the illusion that will lead us to Ausentinia.” Sophia's voice took on a pleading note. “The map has been right until now.”

Errol shook his head. “Very well.” He stepped away, returning the green arrow to his quiver, but he drew his sword. “I do not trust this phantom for a moment, but I hope I am right to trust you.”

Goldenrod appeared at the edge of the clearing, leading her horse. “Your horse was stung by the thorns,” she said sadly to Errol. “I could do nothing for her.”

“And yet Sophia would have us believe the phantoms are harmless,” Rosemary said.

“I didn't say that,” Sophia protested. “I said they could be guides
from Ausentinia. Their words sound so much like the maps.”

“Trust this companion, though the trust would seem misplaced,”
Minna repeated. She turned and slipped away among the spines.

“We must follow her.”

“Sophia, wait!” Errol called.

“I will not wait,” Sophia insisted. “She will be gone in a moment.” She plunged into the spines, following the retreating back of the pale specter.

 40 

Minna's Phantom

S
OPHIA
COULD
HEAR
Errol and Goldenrod call her name. She could hear them fall behind as they tried to follow her twisting route through the spines. But she was fixed on the pale figure before her, and soon their sounds faded.

Minna's phantom moved quickly. Sophia felt a longing in her chest that seemed to steal her breath; at first she thought it was the anxious, fervent wish that she had understood the Ausentinian map correctly. But then she realized it was simply longing to see that pale figure: to never lose sight of it; to follow it wherever it might go, as long as she could continue seeing that beloved face that turned, every few steps, to make sure Sophia was there.

A part of her realized that she was falling under the phantom's spell. This was what had happened to Errol's brother, Oswin, when he pursued the phantom of his horse, heedless of where he was and who else pursued him. But the other part of her, the principal part of her, did not care. This was what she wanted. She wanted to follow Minna. It felt so unquestionably right, but she could not tell if it felt right because she was correct in reasoning that Minna would lead her to Ausentinia or simply because she wanted it to feel right.

Her awareness of the Dark Age around her dimmed, until all she saw was Minna's phantom. The long dress trailed over the moss, sweeping it lightly. When she paused and turned, looking over her shoulder, she smiled in a way that Sophia found achingly familiar.
How could I have forgotten that smile?
Sophia asked herself. She felt in it all the comfort and reassurance that she had missed over the long years of Minna's absence. She began to wait expectantly for Minna to turn her head, to smile once more. Each time it came, Sophia felt a rush of happiness. She quickened her pace over the moss.

The spines had become almost invisible in the darkness. Her path was illuminated only by the moss underfoot and the phantom before her. She lost track of whether they continued to move east—and, as the stepping and pausing, stepping and pausing continued, she lost track of time. Minna had not spoken again after leaving the clearing, but Sophia seemed to hear her nonetheless. It was not words that she spoke, but thoughts and feelings. Minna said that she had not wanted to leave Boston, that she had missed Sophia on every step of the
journey, and that it had broken her heart when she realized Sophia would have to wait for her—and wait for her, and wait. But Minna also said something more heartening:
I am here now,
she said to Sophia with every pause, every turn of the head.
Wherever I have been, I am here with you now.

The dark hills grew more pronounced, and they climbed out of the forest to overlook a valley. She stood before Sophia, hands outstretched.
“You have not yet met fear,”
she said, smiling sweetly, and her eyes filled with tears.

Then she placed her right hand on her heart and lifted her palm, as she had the first time she appeared in Boston. The luminous figure that seemed made of crumpled paper faded slightly and then brightened.
“You have not yet met fear.
” Then she was gone.

“Mother!” Sophia exclaimed, rushing forward. She grasped at the air.
“Where are you?”
she cried, her own eyes filling with tears. “Come back!”

She looked around wildly for the pale figure, and as her eyes scanned the middle distance she saw the valley before her. Stopping, dazed, she felt herself emerging from the phantom's spell.

She was at the top of a hill. The forest moss carpeted the ground under her feet and the slope before her. At the hill's base, the black moss met green grass in a vivid boundary. Beyond it the grass grew tall and lush, dotted by wildflowers that turned expectant faces toward the yellow moon. Spruces, cypresses, and pine trees clustered in the valley. Birches and maples lined a dirt path leading to a stone wall, where a gated entrance stood
open. The city of Ausentinia shone in the moonlight, its copper roofs gleaming like dozens of white flames.

“Ausentinia,” Sophia whispered. With trembling fingers, she pulled the map from her pocket.
“Defend the illusion, taking the Path of the Chimera. Along it, you may lose yourself, but you will find Ausentinia. When the wind rises, let the old one dwell in your memories, as you have dwelled in the memories of others. Give up the clock you never had. When the wind settles, you will find nothing has been lost.”

Sophia looked out at the city she had wanted for so long to find.

Then she turned to where the moss met the green grass of Ausentinia. From the moment Goldenrod described the nature of the old ones, Sophia had suspected what the map would ask of her. Now she knew for certain.

A sudden cry drew her gaze upward. Seneca, swooping toward her, landed abruptly on her pack. Sophia was thrown off balance by the strength of his descent. “Go back, Seneca,” she said, over her shoulder. She saw the falcon's dismissive gesture out of the corner of her eye. “Go back,” Sophia insisted. “You will have to guide them here. Tell Goldenrod where I have gone.”

She let herself plummet downhill, her feet moving quickly over the moss. As she did, Seneca opened his wings and pushed off, taking flight. Sophia felt herself gaining momentum, and she began to brake, wondering suddenly if the weight of her pack would pitch her precipitously into Ausentinia. She threw it off, and her descent slowed.

She stopped at the very edge of the Dark Age, looking out
onto the dirt path that lay only a short step and yet a whole Age away. “I am ready,” she said, between gasps.

A gust of powerful wind moved through the birch trees closest to her, unsettling their papery leaves so that they fluttered and came free. The wind struck her face, more sudden and violent than she had expected, and the border of Ausentinia moved through her. She disappeared into the memories of another being: the memories of the place where she stood.

She had no sense of her body. If she had a body, that knowledge was gone.

The world was black and red. All was darkness, except for where the sky was pierced by red flame that turned violently white and then streaked to the earth, filling the air with terrible roars and clouds of dust. When the flames turned white, the landscape was briefly illumined, and there was black, black rock in every direction. A raging impatience simmered in the back of her mind, and she knew that this was not her mind, but Ausentinia's. Impatience and unease—a wish to be everything, to be nothing, to be otherwise. The dark earth, the red flames, the flashes of piercing light, the roaring, and the clouds of dust went on and on. They went on for longer than Sophia thought possible. The restless violence coursed through her, and there seemed no end to it. Flickering somewhere in the endless dark, Sophia in her own self felt a spark of terror: a fear that it would go on forever.

Give up the clock you never had,
she reminded herself.

She had to lose track of time, as wholly and irretrievably
as she could, so that she would not spend years wandering aimlessly through the Clime's memories: so that the memories of Ausentinia would not erase her own. She could understand the dread all who had ever become Lachrima must have felt—the great horror of being swallowed whole by an ancient vastness. And she could sense the impulse all who had become Lachrima must have followed—the impulse to cling to oneself fiercely, as if clinging to a rock in a great ocean of time. But this, she knew, was not the way. The way was to give up oneself, to give up one's sense of time—to let go of the rock, to float.

Sophia plunged forward, letting herself plummet through the memories the way she had plunged downhill, the way she had rushed through the beaded map. She moved, and the dark vanished. In a moment, she had passed from a burning world of darkness to a world of water. Waves rose and fell around her. A massive, brilliant moon that seemed close enough to touch hung on the horizon. A steady sense of purpose had replaced the reckless violence: Ausentinia gazed at the moon and felt a stirring of something like contentment. Agitation still lurked below the surface of the waves, but in the air above them was tranquility. Sophia let herself float again, urging herself more quickly through the memories. The waves disappeared. Ice curved away from her in every direction, and the sun hung limply in a pale sky. As she let the time give way, slipping through her fingers rapidly, and then more rapidly, straining her own limits, the ice continued, and only the flickering light of the sun—day and night and day again—assured her that time was indeed passing.

The ice seemed interminable: ice and indifference. A penetrating, immobilizing indifference descended until Sophia could hardly recall anything beyond it. Struggling against a sense of panic, she pushed onward; the endlessness of this unrecognizable world, these incomprehensible memories, threatened at the edges of her consciousness like a terrible promise. There had to be something familiar—somewhere, some time.

Abruptly, as if it had never been gone, the world she knew appeared. She gasped with relief. There were hills and trees, and a bird wheeled down to settle among the rocks. The rocks crumbled and gave way, creating a deep ravine, which filled slowly with rubble. Ausentinia had shed its indifference. Curious, tentative, and searching, it made its way into the world. Sophia recalled trees growing from seed, spreading to cover great expanses, dressing and undressing with the seasons. A path appeared before her, leading three ways, and then, trudging slowly toward her, under a white garment that covered everything but her eyes, came a woman. Sophia paused to watch. The woman drew closer; her eyelashes were caked with dust and she walked wearily, taking the path lined by birches.

Moving onward through Ausentinia's memories, she saw the travelers, at first in small numbers. Then they grew more numerous until they became a blur. Young and old, always alone, they moved along the path. Ausentinia felt a piercing fondness for them. Sophia felt something tugging at her mind: it reached for her, drawing a thread from between her thoughts as if pulling a silver thread from a tapestry. Ausentinia needed
to find a route through the Dark Age that had overtaken it, a path out of the darkness, and it tugged at Sophia's memory insistently. The memory came free. The path she had taken through the dark forest unfurled behind her, perfectly recalled in every detail.

Sophia opened her eyes. A light so bright that she felt blinded shone around her. Her body felt strange. Her head was light; her ears throbbed; her throat felt scraped to rawness. When she took a deep breath, her lungs ached. But the air began to restore her.

She lifted her head. Not brilliant light, but complete darkness surrounded her. For a moment she felt a rush of terror: it had happened—she had been transformed into a Lachrima. Her hands flew to her face, and as she felt her familiar features, she realized that the darkness around her was the night sky, deepened by the gathering of clouds above her. The path between the birches to Ausentinia ran true before her.

She had crumpled to the ground, and she raised up slightly, with effort, to look behind her. Leading up the hill through the moss was a dusty path that she knew Ausentinia had made from her memories: a route through the encroaching Age, a safe passage through the darkness.

• • •

H
ALF
AN
HOUR
afterward, Seneca appeared and Errol crested the hill after him to find Sophia curled into herself, lying in the grass by the side of the road. He gave a shout and dropped his horse's reins to rush toward her, Goldenrod and Rosemary
hurrying behind him. When he seized her, fearing the worst, Sophia's eyes startled open.