“I’ve lived on ships for most of my life, and I’ve seen mysteries that can only be explained in that way.”
“Like what kind of mysteries?”
“Strange cities built on the water’s surface that appear one moment and disappear the next. Selkies and mermen building pockets of sea to contain a single Age. Mostly, I’ve seen peculiar things underwater—fragments, you might say—that seem like broken pieces of many Ages, lost in the currents.”
“So you once had your sight?” Sophia asked, fascinated.
“Yes, I did—although, if you ask me, my sight was somewhat like that anchor we were talking about. Just as you are better off without your sense of time, I am better off without my sense of sight. I know it sounds strange to say it, but it was only when I lost my sight that I began understanding the world around me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, take your palm, for instance. In my youth I might have taken your hand in just the same way, but I would have been looking at your eyes and your smile to get a good sense of who you were, and I wouldn’t even have paid attention to your hand. After I lost my sight, I noticed things I would never have noticed before, distracted as I was by seeing.”
“I think I understand what you mean,” Sophia said. She was suddenly conscious of how much she was relying on Grandmother Pearl’s appearance in order to get a sense of who she was: her hair, her neat dress, the deep wrinkles around her eyes. “So I have to think about what I notice, since I don’t notice time.”
“That’s right, love,” her companion said approvingly. “What else is there that no one else is seeing because they’re looking at the time? You’re not distracted by time, so you’re bound to notice something everyone else doesn’t.” She paused, letting Sophia consider this. “It may take you a while to discover it, mind!” she added, with a laugh.
Sophia smiled. “You’re right.” She looked at Grandmother Pearl’s wrinkled hands. “If you’re ninety-three, that means you lived through the Great Disruption.”
“I did, although I don’t remember it. I was only a baby then. Though I learned of it from my mother. In the United Indies, where everyone’s livelihood depended on constant travel to either side of the Atlantic, the shock was extreme. The old European ports vanished. The colonies in the Americas transformed. And the Baldlands plunged into warfare and chaos and confusion. Imagine hundreds of thousands of people all waking to find the world around them scrambled—all of them solitary exiles from worlds that no longer existed. It seemed the entire continent had gone mad. My mother always spoke of it as a dream—a deep, long dream that left the world changed forever. Then again, my mother was a dream-reader, and she knew better than most that the boundary between waking and dreaming is an uncertain one.”
“Was your mother a”—Sophia hesitated—“pirate, as well?”
“Ah, she was, but piracy was a different thing in those days. Dangerous, underpaid work. Not like now. My mother was raised on ships and never owned a pair of shoes in her life, poor thing. She made her fortune divining the weather and reading dreams. Her life was a hard one. But now—this is the great age of piracy.”
Sophia thought, hearing Shadrack’s voice, that in truth it was the great age of exploration. But she didn’t contradict her. “Captain Morris’s ship is certainly well-off,” she said mildly.
“She’s a good captain. We’re all well treated and we have regular holidays. Burr and Calixta make a good profit—no doubt there—but they’re not greedy; they share it with the rest of us. We none of us have reason to complain. Still, if you saw other ships, you’d see that this one is modest in comparison.” Grandmother Pearl shook her head. “More wealth on one of those than on some of the smaller islands, I swear. The larger islands, of course, are a different story. Have you been to Havana, dear? It’s awash in coins of every kind.”
“I’ve never been to the United Indies,” Sophia admitted. “I’ve never been to the Baldlands, either. In fact, before this trip I’d never been south of New York.”
Grandmother Pearl laughed and patted her hand. “Well, all the more to look forward to. The Baldlands will take your breath away; they always do, the first time.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
“Remember what I told you about a cup of water from the seas? Well, the Baldlands are just like that—only on land. All the different Ages, brought together in a moment.”
“I can’t imagine it,” Sophia said, frowning slightly.
“Well, you don’t see it that way, not all at once,” the old woman explained. “Perhaps just after the Great Disruption you could see the lines of where Ages collided; one street in one century, the next street in another. But now, after more than ninety years, the Ages have settled. In the Triple Eras, for example, the three eras have melded into one. You can’t tell that one building is from the past and another is from the future, or that someone is wearing a mixture of clothing from three different eras, or that an animal from the ancient Age sits beside an animal from a later one. Now it seems just what it is—a single, whole Age derived from three.”
Sophia leaned forward eagerly. “Tell me about the animals. I’ve heard it’s the creatures that are the strangest.”
“There are wondrous animals, it’s true,” Grandmother Pearl agreed “But in the Baldlands you have to be careful how you use those words—animal or creature.’”
“Oh! Why?”
“Because of the Mark of the Vine and the Mark of Iron.” She paused, hearing Sophia’s silence. “Have you heard of them?”
“I’ve read about them.” Sophia recalled the passing mention in Shadrack’s atlas. “But I didn’t really understand them. What are they?”
Grandmother Pearl settled back in her chair. “Well, I’m not surprised. People don’t like to speak of it. Particularly people from the Baldlands. But you won’t understand the place unless you understand the Marks. They’ve always been there, at least since the Great Disruption, but the cruel way of seeing them has come about over time. Would you like to hear the story of how it all started?”
“Of course.”
“It was put to verse by the poet Van Mooring, a man from Nochtland who became a sailor. Every mariner knows it.” She began a slow, mournful song in a voice that spun out over the deck like a fragile thread.
“At Nochtland’s gates of iron strong
The guard kept watch to block the throng
Of those who would have broken through
To see the palace so few knew.
A glimpse of peaks and shining glass
Amidst the gardens thick and vast
Was all the towering gates allowed
To passersby and city crowds
Until the stranger did appear
And with his hooded cloak drew near
Demanding to be ushered in
And claiming kinship with the king.
The guard refused; the stranger fought.
His hood fell back and as they sought
To pin him his arms and bind him tight
The stranger hurtled into flight.
His cloak fell free; his wings spread wide
And showed the stranger had not lied.
The emerald leaves with which he flew
Were Mark of Vine and proved him true.
The guard leaped up with mighty bounds
And tore the stranger to the ground.
He fell to earth with broken wings
And broken pride unknown to kings.
The Iron Mark had brought him low.
The cruelty of the Mark’s harsh blows
Was paid by all the guard in kind:
The cost of being metalmind.”
Her voice trailed off, yet the vivid images stayed in Sophia’s mind. “What does that mean—‘The cost of being metalmind?’”