The Golden Specific

by S. E. Grove

“At the ’stitution.”

  “The what?”

  “The ’stitution.” Winnie looked decidedly uncomfortable. He examined his bare feet.

  Theo pushed him into one of the kitchen chairs and sat down next to him. “I have always thought, when they put you in an institution,” he said, enunciating clearly for Mrs. Clay’s benefit, “it usually means that you are too talkative in the wrong company or quiet in the wrong company or smart in the wrong company or persistent in the wrong company. Basically, it means you have been yourself but in the wrong company. Isn’t that the way of it?”

  “That’s right,” Winnie said, crossing his arms with an expression of indignant disdain that did not entirely conceal the gratitude shining in his eyes like tiny flames.

  Mrs. Clay sat down slowly, her face pale. “I see. Well, Winnie. You are always welcome to a meal here.” She had the sense that this was woefully inadequate, but the complications of doing more struck her forcibly, and she realized that she would have to think long and hard about this problem. Opening the breadbox that sat on the counter, she removed a loaf of currant bread, cut a few slices, and placed the butter beside it while the conversation continued.

  “Winnie wants to help us,” Theo went on, “and he’s going to start by telling us what he found out about the agreement between Shadrack and Broadgirdle.”

  Drawn away from thoughts of the institution by the currant bread and Theo’s prompt, Winnie straightened up in his chair. “Broadgirdle has a book. He was going to give it to Shadrack.”

  “Yes, he gave it to him. But we don’t know what it is.”

  “It’s a book written by another Shadrack.”

  Theo squinted. “What do you mean?”

  “A book written by another Shadrack Elli. Published in 1899. It’s about maps for places that don’t exist, and a war.”

  Theo’s face eased with understanding. “Ah—it’s dreck.”

  “What’s dreck?” Winnie asked. He took the opportunity to seize a piece of currant bread.

  “A word from another Age. It means trash. But really it means things from another Age that don’t belong in ours. Like that book.”

  “Well, Broadsy used the book to explain to Shadrack what he wanted. He calls it ‘westwood spansion.’”

  Theo and Mrs. Clay exchanged a glance. “He wants to take the Indian Territories and the Baldlands,” Theo said slowly, thinking aloud. “Westward expansion.”

  “And,” Winnie added with his mouth full, “he wants Shadrack to help him. He’s even agreed to get Shadrack out of jail so he can do it.”

  “But why would Mr. Elli agree to that?” Mrs. Clay protested.

  “Because of you,” Winnie said, swallowing. “Both of you.”

  Theo and Mrs. Clay stared at him, uncomprehending. “You’re from the Baldlands, aren’t you? And your papers are forged? Well, Broadsy knows. And he’s making Shadrack pay for it.”

  29

  Roads East

  —1892, June 30: 7-Hour 00—

  The silkworm that feeds from the grapevine rather than the mulberry tree was introduced by merchants from the Middle Roads. From these merchants, too, was learned the unique properties of its silk. As long as she is the exclusive wearer, the owner of such silk will impart to it a sense of her character. Even when she has left this world, one may sense her presence in the fabric made by these extraordinary creatures. It has become common practice to wear a silk, or “silkshell,” to bequeath to loved ones upon one’s death.

  —From Fulgencio Esparragosa’s

  Complete and Authoritative History of the Papal States

  ERROL AND GOLDENROD had each traveled hundreds of miles on foot in the last year, and for each this was a point of pride. Goldenrod could not conceive of any people but hers moving smoothly and quickly over long distances; Errol, who now knew every inch of road between Seville and Granada, could not imagine anyone navigating the route more competently than he did. He glanced skeptically at Goldenrod’s dark hood more than once, thinking to himself that she was probably roasting. Likewise, Goldenrod observed his heavy boots and weaponry with a knowing smile, thinking to herself that they must weigh a good thirty pounds altogether.

  So the two traveled quickly, without speaking, but each intently aware of the other. Indeed, Errol was so focused on Goldenrod’s quick steps and Goldenrod so focused on the sound of Errol’s boots that neither noticed the difficulty Sophia had keeping up with them.

  Leaving Seville, they passed more than one traveler headed in the same direction, and after a quarter of a mile Sophia saw a great number of people clustered around a tiny stone chapel. “What is that place?” she asked, trying not to pant.

  “It is a shrine for Saint Leonora, whose silkshell lies within,” Errol replied. “The pilgrims come daily to visit.”

  “What is a silkshell?” She hoped faintly that the explanation might slow him down.

  Goldenrod stopped, dismayed. “Sophia, you are winded.”

  “Your legs are longer,” she said ruefully.

  “I am very sorry. We must keep a more reasonable pace, no matter the danger,” Goldenrod said, giving Errol a stern look.

  From then on, the falconer and the Eerie walked more slowly, and while Sophia felt that her lungs were filling with dust, she no longer had difficulty keeping pace. They passed another shrine that stood in the shade of a towering oak tree; two young women wearing veils murmured to one another in the shrine’s entrance. Errol nodded to them as he passed.

  “Do you follow the religion of the cross?” Goldenrod asked.

  “I do,” Errol said with a sharp glance in her direction. “Many of the shrines along this route are worth visiting.”

  “I suppose they mark the sites of miracles.”

  “They do indeed,” Errol said, his tone defensive. “The clerics of the Papal States do not inspire my faith in the least, but some of the miracles that have taken place here would inspire wonder in the heart of the most hardened heathen.” He spoke the last word meaningly.

  Goldenrod smiled. “Such as?”

  “At the site of that shrine we passed, a blind woman took shelter from a storm beneath the old oak tree. She not only stayed dry—when the storm passed, her vision had been restored.”

  “Truly miraculous,” Sophia agreed.

  “What a kindhearted tree,” observed Goldenrod.

  Errol looked at her, scandalized. “Perhaps I was wrong. Some heathens are too hardened, after all.”

  “Not in the least—I am really quite touched to hear of such generosity,” Goldenrod said matter-of-factly. She looked off at the horizon, where something had caught her eye. In the short time they had spent walking, Sophia had realized that the Eerie walked with her attention elsewhere, as if she were listening to a conversation in the air around her. Her impression was confirmed when Goldenrod stopped on the dusty road, her eyes alert and focused. “Four riders,” she said. “From the direction of Seville.”

  Errol looked down the road and saw nothing. “How do you know?”

  “I know,” she told him. “We have a little time. There is an abandoned house some minutes up the road—we should take shelter there.”

  “I know the house. How could you possibly know of it?”

  “Does it matter?” Goldenrod asked, walking on.

  The abandoned building was a stone farmhouse with broken shutters. They crouched inside, against the stone walls, which were still cool from the cold night. Minutes later, four riders of the Golden Cross thundered past on horseback, their masks shining like torches in the sun. They left a cloud of dust behind them that swirled and subsided, unsettling the air.

  “We should wait here until dusk,” Goldenrod said, when the road was quiet once more.

  “It will be safest,” Errol agreed. “I will travel up the road to get water.”

  “I wil
l go,” Goldenrod said, rising. “It will be safest.”

  Errol shook his head impatiently. “It will not. And you do not know where the water is.”

  “Yes, I do.” Her voice was calm. “And you are better equipped to protect Sophia, should anything occur in my absence.”

  Sophia watched them, suspecting that Goldenrod knew quite well nothing would occur in her absence and knew, too, that she had made the one argument Errol would be incapable of denying. “Very well,” he finally said.

  Goldenrod took his water sack and two jugs from the farmhouse and headed off toward the east, her hooded cape wrapped around her. Sophia watched anxiously through the window until the Eerie reappeared, a wavering, shimmering figure in the morning heat. Goldenrod gave the first jug to Sophia and placed the other in a cool corner. She handed Errol his water sack. Under her hood, her hair and clothes were still wet from the water she had poured over herself at the well. She took off the cape with some relief and hung it on a peg, as if the little farmhouse were hers and she had just arrived from an outing. “I realize the sun is taxing to you,” she said, pulling off her gloves and placing them on the table, “but I have need of it. I will be on the other side of the house, away from the road. If there is any disturbance approaching, I will let you know.”

  Errol frowned and said nothing. “Thank you,” Sophia said. She took a long drink from the jug. Then she went to the back of the farmhouse and changed from her nightgown to her traveling clothes. After a moment’s hesitation, she left the Nihilismian amulet in her pack. Through the window, she saw Goldenrod lying on her back on the earth, her hair fanning out in every direction, absorbing the sunlight.

  Sophia smiled to herself. She had no doubt that Goldenrod bore the Mark of the Vine, as people in Nochtland called it. But Goldenrod did not describe it as such, and she seemed different, somehow, from Veressa and Martin, Sophia’s friends there. Perhaps she seemed different because among the Eerie the mark was common, rather than a sign of prestige. Moreover, what person in Nochtland could summon yellow blossoms on their palms? She was no doubt at the “far end of the spectrum,” as Veressa had described it.

  Errol sat with his eyes closed, though his forearms rested on his bent knees and his expression indicated that he was awake. Sophia sat down against the wall and took the beaded map from her satchel. Blowing gently on the fabric, she watched as the white lines took shape and then placed it on her lap. Sophia glanced at her watch to make sure she didn’t drift too long—it was eight-hour, thirty-two—and then she placed her fingers on the map, marking the time on the clock with one hand and viewing its contents with the other.

  It was early April. The parched landscape around her looked indistinguishable from the one she had just been traveling, and she felt an odd sense of recognition. She stood upon a yellow plain that stretched almost to the horizon. The land grew mustard-colored and then faintly green—almost blue—as it gave way to hills. Sophia moved along the road. She knew that her finger upon the map was allowing her to move, but she felt entirely immersed in the memory, as if she had physically traveled into it. The road ran straight, then reached a crossroads with signs that had been bleached empty by sun and wind. She chose one of the paths east, but the landscape did not change. Standing again near the crossroads, she altered the time with the fingers of her left hand, moving up an hour, then two, then an entire day. The weary hours progressed; the sun rose and set overhead. But the crossroads were empty and quiet.

  Sophia traveled farther east, following the long ribbon of road. She retraced her steps for one day, and then another, covering the middle of the map over and over again, until she was certain that while the crossroads marked the center of the map, there was nothing to be seen there.

  Suddenly Sophia remembered where she was, and that she had covered weeks of travel along the memory map’s dusty road. Lifting her finger from the map abruptly, she fumbled for her watch. Eight-hour, thirty-three—only a minute had passed? Was it a whole day later? But Errol was sitting as she had last seen him: eyes closed, head resting against the stones. No, it was true. Only a minute had passed.

  How could this be? It had not happened in all the time she had spent aboard the Verity dwelling in the beaded map. She had just now spent many days on the changeless road, yet only a short amount of time had passed in the farmhouse. Could it be—Sophia wondered, with dawning awareness—could it be something I did by losing track of time? Am I letting the time expand in one place in the map, while almost no time passes here?

  Eager to test her theory, Sophia placed her fingers upon the map once again. She set the time to its earliest point and returned to the crossroads, traveling quickly east until she thought she could go no farther. Then, as she flew along the dusty road, she saw something on the horizon. Hills, yes, but hills of a different sort. She stopped abruptly. The landscape had changed.

  She was facing directly east. To the south, she could see the walls of a town or village. To the north, the blue hills loomed within striking distance. In all her time within the map aboard the Verity, she had never seen the village or the blue hills.

  Sophia hurried to the village. Her finger dropped off the edge of the map, pulling her from the landscape; she reimmersed herself. A high stone wall bordered the village, and though she could see the entrance gate, she could not approach it. Taking the road northward, she saw a farmhouse with a sod roof and stone walls. She neared it and heard a young woman’s voice, slow and sweet, singing. Her heart pounded. Here was the first glass bead: the first person she had encountered in the map’s memories. She did not know how, for the song was surely in Castilian, but Sophia understood the words: they told the story of a lovely gray dove, struck down by an arrow, never to fly again. The song was tender and unspeakably sad. She felt pained by the sound of the girl’s voice, and she knew that the person whose memories were inscribed upon the map had known this girl and felt compassion for her. But although she could hear the song and see sections of the farmhouse, she could not see the singer. Sophia lifted her finger in frustration.

  She understand now how the map worked. Cabeza de Cabra’s map was unlike the memory maps in Shadrack’s library, because those had been the careful compilation of many memories. This map contained only his experiences—no one else’s. Sophia frowned. Truly, she was looking for a few drops of water in an ocean; a few glass beads among hundreds; a few minutes in a whole year. She sighed and looked at her watch: eight-hour, thirty-five. At least I have plenty of time to search, she thought.

  Sophia returned to the farmhouse and decided to piece together a chronology. January, February, March—she traveled northward along a dusty road that led to the hills. A stone bridge crossed a dry gully and the hills fanned out, dry and yellow but unexpectedly green and verdant farther on. Sophia’s fingers held her in early April. She inched forward to the middle of the month. Suddenly, on the twentieth, as she stood on the stone bridge facing east, she saw a figure coming toward her out of the hills: an old man, walking slowly with the support of a staff. He stopped and looked up at her. He seemed to scrutinize her—or, rather, scrutinize the person whose memories she inhabited, and finally asked, “Good morning, sheriff. First time, I take it?”

  “Yes,” Sophia found herself saying. She felt a spasm of tension in her chest. “First and last, I hope.”

  The old man smiled. “There is nothing to fear. Simply follow the middle path at each juncture. This is my third visit.”

  “And did you find what you were looking for?”

  “Always.” The stranger produced a scroll of paper from inside his tattered shirt.

  “I confess to harboring some skepticism.”

  “Young man,” he replied with a shake of his head, “the maps require some interpretation, and not a little patience. But they are the truest, canniest pieces of wisdom and prophecy I have ever known. It’s no wonder the papacy fears this place. If someone had lost Heaven and came to
ask for a map back, they would get it. Believe me. No matter what you have lost, Ausentinia will help you find it.”

  30

  Two Maps, One Year

  —1892, June 30: 8-Hour 37— and —1880: April 20—

  Many parts of the Papal States remain barren and unexplored. And wherever lands remain unexplored, of course, rumors about them abound. Most are undoubtedly spurious: tales of an Age in the northern mountains inhabited by people made entirely of lead; or a cave on the coast leading to an Age of mermen; or a region in the south where the pathways worn by travelers appear and disappear at whim.

  —From Fulgencio Esparragosa’s

  Complete and Authoritative History of the Papal States

  SOPHIA GASPED, THE part of her that sat in the farmhouse with Errol and Goldenrod tensing with excitement while the part of her that traveled through the map continued to converse with the traveler on the bridge.

  The old man smiled. “Are you from Murtea, sheriff?”

  “I am.”

  “Tell me your name so that I might find you the next time I am there. I will come to see what guidance your map from Ausentinia has given you.”

  “Alvar. Alvar Cabeza de Cabra.”

  The old man offered his dry, withered hand. “Juan Pedrosa, of Granada. I will look for you, Alvar, and I hope your map will be auspicious.”

  “Thank you. Safe travels.” Cabeza de Cabra walked on, pausing once to turn and watch the retreating figure of the old man, who walked slowly with his staff. Then he proceeded along the path before him. It ran straight over a hill. On the other side it split three ways; Cabeza de Cabra took the middle path. He walked along until it split again, taking the middle path once more. As he walked, the way grew less dusty, and the grass on either side grew greener and taller. At the next juncture, the middle path took him through a small grove that obscured the hills, and then it began to ascend in earnest. The trees grew more densely and filled the air with a quiet rustle. Fig, lemon, orange, and olive orchards covered the hillsides, while maples and a few elms shaded the trail. As he climbed, the woods became piney, the air sharp with the scent of sap. Always taking the middle way, Cabeza de Cabra walked tirelessly, until almost an hour had passed. Then he crested a hill and paused to look out over the valley.