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 reaclass="underline" 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.”