The Golden Specific (44 page)

 44 

Ausentinia

S
OPHIA
RODE
IN
front of Goldenrod, and if the Eerie's arm had not supported her, she would have collapsed. “We are almost there, miting,” Errol said, looking up at her with concern. At the top of the hill, she saw an odd, wavering light near the city. The four of them descended, and as they came closer, Sophia realized that what she had thought was one light was many: a collection of flickering candles.

Beyond the gates, their faces lit by the flames they carried, the people of Ausentinia lined the broad cobbled street. Sophia looked around her in astonishment. They smiled at her, their faces glad and curious and expectant. A woman with long white hair stepped forward and bowed to her formally. “You
must be the traveler without time,” she said. “We have been waiting for you.”

The travelers dismounted. Sophia walked forward, leaning on Goldenrod. The Ausentinians made way for them, and Sophia, despite her weariness, gazed in wonder. The cobbled streets were illumined by tall lamps, and she could see the closed map stores behind them, their windows reflecting the candlelight. The white-haired woman led them to a lighted doorway with a wooden sign above it marked
THE ASTROLABE
. They passed into the great room of a comfortable inn, where the aproned innkeeper gave them a smiling welcome.

“You will rest here,” the white-haired woman said, “for I know your journey has been difficult.” She bowed. “Until the morning.”

The innkeeper led them to their rooms. Sophia drank water from a white pitcher until her stomach hurt. Then she tried to unlace her boots, but it seemed too great an effort. She felt a moment of regret that she would not manage to remove them as she fell forward onto the bed and into sleep.

—July 3: 6-Hour 37—

E
R
ROL
FOUND
G
OLDENROD
in the garden of the inn, resting on the soft grass beneath a flowering plum tree. In her sleep, the white scarf that bound her hair had come loose. Her gloves, no doubt pulled off in discomfort at some point in the night, lay crumpled beside her. Her small green feet were bare.

Errol crouched down and studied her face. He could see the shape of the bones beneath her skin. At times she seemed very
human. But her hands . . . He turned his gaze to the slender green fingers of her right hand, which lay only a few inches from his own. They seemed like the stems of a young tree. Errol felt that he did not need to understand how she drew strength from the sun and soil; but he did need to understand whether she was human.

Goldenrod stretched out her palm wordlessly. Errol blinked. “You are studying my hand,” she said. “You would like to know how the blooms appear there.” She placed her hand, palm up, on Errol's knee. “Go ahead. See if you can solve the mystery.” Her face was serious, but her voice smiled.

Errol took her hand, cradling it in his own. He stared at the lines of her palm, which were faintly white against the pale green. The fingers were slim and soft compared to his. He placed the thumb of his left hand in the center of her palm and pressed it, then raised his eyes to hers and held her gaze. Slowly, the skin below her cheekbones turned pink.

Errol realized he had been holding his breath. He let the air out, relieved. She was human, after all.

• • •

S
OPHIA
ATE
THE
apricots and bread that sat on a little table by the balcony, devouring them to the last crumb. Then she peeled off her clothes, piece by piece, and crawled into the copper tub of water that stood in the corner, a bar of soap and a white cloth folded beside it. The water had cooled slightly from steaming to warm. Sophia submerged herself, washing
every inch of her skin, then wrapped herself in the vast white cloth. She began to feel her mind finally waking.

When she joined Errol and Goldenrod in the garden, she found them talking quietly, their heads bent toward one another as if even the trees should not hear them. She watched for a moment, wondering at the quiet laugh that spilled from Goldenrod's mouth. It seemed so unlike her. Errol touched her cheek lightly with his thumb, as if to capture the sound.

“Sophia,” Goldenrod said, rising to her feet. “How are you feeling?”

“A little better. Still tired,” she admitted.

“It will take some time to feel rested,” the Eerie said reassuringly, pressing Sophia's hand. She led her to a stone bench beneath the trees. “You shared thoughts with an old one. That requires great endurance.”

“Is that what you would call it? Sharing thoughts?”

“I still do not understand it, however many times my Faierie explains it,” Errol said, seeming not at all bothered by his lack of comprehension. He smiled at Goldenrod.

Goldenrod smiled back and then turned that smile to Sophia. “Ausentinia read your memories of the route through the Dark Age.”

“It is strange to think—now I know how a map feels when it is being read.”

“That is how Ausentinia found its way out.”

“But I also—saw things. Remembered things.”

“The memories of an old one are long and powerful.
You glimpsed pieces of them when Ausentinia shared your thoughts.”

“I sensed that. But there is so much else . . .” Sophia shook her head. “Has Ausentinia spoken to you? Do you know more about how it came to be trapped within the Dark Age?”

“Yes, it has,” said Goldenrod. “You speculated that the Dark Age was made by human hands. Ausentinia has told me that this is so. The Dark Age is not a Clime, any more than a puppet is a person. But in some ways it behaves like a Clime. And this explains why it has expanded. It was created to sustain natural life—to support the native life within it. Indeed, its only purpose is to support such life; if no creatures remained in it, the Dark Age would fade, like a tree rotted at the root. Once there were many native beings—people, plants, and animals. As it stands now, the entire Age supports only a single native creature.”

“The fourwings?”

She shook her head. “The wanderers—the plague. The fourwings were made to sustain them. They are home to it. But, as you know, the people of the Papal States have hunted the fourwings to rarity. Soon after the Disruption, when people first encountered the Dark Age, they attempted to cut down the dangerous spines. The fourwings defended their homes, attacking at the edges and finally flying farther and farther to deter invaders. People of the Papal States destroyed as many fourwings as they could, thereby also destroying the creatures upon which
lapena
survived. And so the plague looked
elsewhere—left the Dark Age and wandered to others so that it might survive. Those others, people in the Papal States, are not as strong as the fourwings; they do not bear its presence well.”

“So if the fourwings are allowed to live, the plague will return to them?”

“Perhaps. It would take time.”

Sophia sat in silence.

“There is another possibility,” Goldenrod said.

“The goldenrod,” Sophia guessed.

The Eerie nodded. “Any Eerie bloom would do. I happen to have goldenrod.” She opened her palm, revealing a small yellow blossom.

“Over the years, the people of the Papal States have spent a fortune on gold,” Errol said. “Gold thread. Gold chains. Gold masks. Such a waste.”

“It is an old manner of thinking. Shielding oneself from a sickness instead of speaking to it. You cannot blame them for trying,” said Goldenrod.

Sophia smiled. “I can imagine the Dark Age filled with goldenrod. It would be very beautiful.”

Errol snorted. “The flower would be the only beauty in that wretched place.”

“But it would grow differently,” Sophia reflected. “If the soil is man-made.”

“It well might,” agreed Goldenrod. “We will see.”

Sophia watched as Goldenrod scattered the yellow petals to the ground beside them. “I want to go with you.”

“You need to rest,” Errol objected.

“She will rest,” Goldenrod told him. “And then we can all go together.”

“Every day more people die of the plague,” Sophia said. Errol and Goldenrod did not reply. Sophia bit her lip. “You should go soon. What does it look like, Goldenrod?”

“The plague?” She pursed her lips. “Imagine a tiny moth made of light.”

Sophia contemplated the existence of such a creature and wondered at the creation of an entire Age to sustain it. As she pictured the small moths, their wings flickering, her eyes closed. She leaned back against the birch and drifted, her breathing easy.

 45 

Rescue

S
OPHIA
AWOKE
IN
her room at the Astrolabe, a pale green blanket tucked around her. Rosemary sat nearby in a wooden chair, looking out through the open doors to the balcony. She held a length of blue fabric in her hands that she fingered absently. Sophia lay quietly for a moment, content and unwilling to move. Rosemary's expression was thoughtful. She drew her hair back with a practiced movement and braided it loosely, then pulled the braid over her shoulder and brushed the tip across her palm, as if writing something onto her skin. Then she took up the blue fabric once more and held it up before her appraisingly. Sophia pushed herself up to sit.

“What is that?” she asked.

“You are awake,” Rosemary said, turning to her.

“I must have fallen asleep in the garden.”

“Yes. Errol brought you here.” She looked down at her lap. “This is my mother's silkshell.”

“I've heard about silkshells, but I've never seen one.”

Rosemary held it up. “Would you like to?”

“What does it do?” Sophia asked.

“When you feel the silk, you will have a sense of who she was.”

Sophia pulled herself to the edge of the bed and took the silk in both hands. The moment she touched it, she felt herself in the presence of a woman—laughing, gentle, easily affectionate. The longer Sophia held the silk, the deeper became her sense of Rosemary's mother. She had been a little too indulgent with her only child, and she felt, with some embarrassment, unrepentant about it. She had struggled all her life with doubts about whom to trust. She had been strong in her faith and flexible in her opinions. She had no fear of death, but she feared, at every moment, pain or hardship for her child.

Sophia handed the silk back, overcome that Rosemary had shared with her something so precious. “It is almost like a memory map,” she said. “But without the memories—just powerful emotions.”

Rosemary nodded, carefully folding the precious fabric. “It was kind of her to leave it for me at the end.”

“And she wore it for you, too,” Sophia said. “For many years, it seems.” She paused. “I'm sorry we have not found her yet.”

Rosemary smiled. “I am sure we will.” She stood up. “Are you hungry?”

Sophia realized that she was. “Very much so.”

“Alba says you are to ask for whatever you like. She is the elderly woman who brought us to the inn. She is a member of the council of Ausentinia, and she says the city is greatly in your debt.” She smiled again. “So what would you like to eat?”

“Anything.”

Sophia and Rosemary ate soup and bread and cheese in companionable silence, and when their plates of pudding with honey had been scraped clean, Rosemary suggested they walk the short distance to the border of the Dark Age so they could see what Goldenrod was planting. “That is,” she added, “if you feel well enough.”

There was no question Sophia would go. It was more tiring than she had imagined to change into her now clean clothes and lace her boots, and she tried to conceal her labored breathing as they walked through the streets of Ausentinia. Everyone they passed smiled, often waving their thanks to the traveler without time.

When they reached the gates, they rested in the shade of the stone wall. “We should go back,” Rosemary said. “I do not know why I did not bring the horse.”

“It is only a short distance,” Sophia insisted, starting along the path that she had taken, only half-aware, the night before. Rosemary followed her reluctantly. “Would you . . .” Sophia hesitated. “Would you tell me what they were like when
you met them?” She paused. “Minna and Bronson?”

Rosemary did not answer right away. Her footsteps sounded heavily on the packed earth. “They were very kind,” she finally said. “They feared for their lives, and yet they behaved with great compassion. I could see that this was born from their manner of loving. Each other, and, I am sure, you. When I spoke to your mother, I felt reassured.” She smiled. “Can you imagine? Though behind bars, she was reassuring
me
. They were—they
are
—wonderful people. They came all this way to rescue a friend. I recognize it does not make it less of a loss to you, but they acted with great selflessness and humanity.”

Sophia felt tears spilling onto her cheeks. But she also felt that her feet moved more steadily and with greater energy, and soon they had reached the hill where Ausentinia had extended into the Dark Age, drawing a dirt path through it to the Papal States beyond.

As soon as they crested the hill, Sophia saw what the Eerie had done. In the soil of the Dark Age, the goldenrod had taken lush, explosive root, and great, golden canopies hung over the spines like clouds. Sophia gasped. “So beautiful!” she exclaimed.

“Yes,” Rosemary agreed. “Very beautiful. She and Errol are walking the path to the Papal States, and the goldenrod will grow on either side of it.” The golden boughs wove through the Dark Age as far as they could see. “A golden specific in a dark Age. The most beautiful remedy for the most brutal plague.”

They sat at the top of the hill and watched the blossoms nod and sway in the breeze. When Sophia felt recovered, she rose and looked back at the valley of Ausentinia. Now she could
see what had been invisible at night: a path encircling the city, bordered by cypresses and spruce trees. “Rosemary,” she said, heading downhill, “let's take the path around the city.”

“We should go back so you can rest.”

“It will only take a moment,” Sophia insisted. The quiet among the trees was profound, disturbed by the occasional conversation of birds in their branches. Sophia felt more energy in the shade, and they walked slowly but steadily. Stopping to lean against the trunk of a maple tree, she admired the world Ausentinia had preserved. Then a glimmer of white caught her eye. She thought at first it was a strange kind of bird, and then she thought it might be an ornament made by some Ausentinian and placed among the trees. “Can you see what that is, Rosemary?”

Rosemary left the path, disappearing from view. Sophia let herself sink down onto the ground, and she rested her head against the maple. Minutes passed. When she opened her eyes, Rosemary had not returned. Sophia checked her watch and found that she had been gone nearly half an hour. With a start, she rose to her feet and walked as fast she could toward the white shape that had caught her eye.

“Rosemary,” she called, as she stepped over the pine needles. “Rosemary?” she called again, more urgently.

There was no response, and as she reached the twisted roots of a cypress she saw why. The high, blanched roots made a kind of shelter—a room, a cage—at the tree's base. Rosemary sat beside them. “See, Sophia, where you have led me.” Her eyes were swollen from tears. Inside the cypress shelter, as if
someone had taken refuge there long ago, was a half-hidden human shape, the fragile white of dried bone. “The cross she wears on a gold chain—I recognize it without doubt.”

Sophia knelt down and gazed at the skeletal figure. “You found your mother's resting place,” she whispered.

Rosemary nodded. “She came here to escape me—to protect me.” Her tears returned, and she covered her face with her hands. “But now I have found her.”