Veressa touched the glass map for a moment and shuddered, as if she saw something on its surface. “I know this map,” she said quietly. “Shadrack and I came across it together, many years ago. Part of me wishes we had never found it.” She shook her head. “Let me tell you how it happened.”
—11-Hour 31: Veressa Tells of Talisman—
“IT WAS WHEN we were students, as Mrs. Clay told you, that we knew one another. She is right that we were close.” Veressa paused. “Very close. But something,” she continued quickly, “came between us. What Mrs. Clay did not know was the extent of our work in cartology. She could not know the dedication—the passion—with which we pursued it. Mapmaking with all materials—glass, clay, metal, cloth, and others besides—was naturally part of our studies. However, we learned in one of our courses that there were other materials for mapmaking that were forbidden in our school. Our teachers would not say what they were. But by and by we heard of a former teacher who had been dismissed because he persisted in experimenting with them. He was called Talisman, Talis for short—I do not know if that was his full name.
“If they had told us of Talisman’s terrible experiments, we would have been disgusted and lost all interest. But our teachers’ silence only made us more curious. I can’t remember which one of us came up with the idea of finding Talisman, but once the idea had taken hold neither Shadrack nor I could shake it. Piece by piece, we put together the story, and we discovered that he lived alone not far outside of Nochtland.
“We were wise enough to write to him beforehand. We told him we were students of cartology, and that we desired to learn something of his methods. To our surprise, he responded almost immediately. He said we would be most welcome, and that he would be happy to share his learning with us. In person, we found him just as kind and welcoming, if older and more tired, than we had expected—his face was that of someone who had lived through a time of great grief. His vast home was dilapidated, but he did his best to make us feel comfortable. He showed us the rooms where we would stay and the study where we would work. I remember that he spoke with us for only a few minutes before leaving to prepare dinner—he had no servants and seemed to live alone. Those were the only minutes we passed in relative peace.
“Shadrack and I made our way to the dining room, as Talisman had instructed us, and we waited for nearly an hour. There was no sign of him. After the hour had passed, we began to hear a strange sound from somewhere far away within the house. It was the sound of weeping.
“I was uneasy, but Shadrack reassured me, saying that we knew not what private grief Talisman suffered. We had only to wait, he insisted. Another hour passed, and then another. There was no sign of Talis. The sound of weeping grew louder, and finally became so inescapable that I felt desperate to leave. But then it would subside, and I would steel myself to wait a while longer. Then, suddenly, when it was almost nine-hour, Talisman appeared in the door of the dining room. I say it was Talisman, but he was almost unrecognizable. He waved his arms furiously and shouted at us in a language we did not understand. Shadrack and I clung to one another, terrified. But we soon saw that he meant us no harm. In fact, it was almost as though he could not see us—he appeared to look right through us. He shouted at something that stood before him, railing at the empty air. Then, just as abruptly as he had arrived, he turned on his heel and left.
“Shadrack and I fled to my room. We pushed a chair against the door and sat up the entire night. We heard the sound of weeping rising and falling through the early hours, but we did not see Talisman again.
“We had already made our plans to escape as soon as it was light, but at dawn we heard a faint knocking on the door. Shadrack cautiously removed the chair. To our astonishment, Talisman stood in the hall—contrite and disheveled—begging our forgiveness. He seemed to have no memory of what had occurred, but he suspected that all was not right. It was painful to see how he attempted to apologize while being entirely unaware of what he had done. ‘Did you find supper to your liking?’ he asked anxiously. We answered that we had not had the chance to eat. ‘I am terribly sorry,’ he said, tears filling his eyes. ‘I can’t—I don’t know how to apologize. Please, let me make it up to you with breakfast.’ It would have been cruel to deny him. We followed him to the dining room, entirely perplexed by the change in circumstances, and proceeded to have an ordinary breakfast.
“After breakfast, Talisman seemed to regain some of his energy, and without being asked he turned to the topic of cartology. ‘I am honored that you have shown an interest in my methods,’ he said. ‘And I am only too happy to share them with you. As it stands, there are no others who practice them, and I fear that when I go’—a shadow passed over his face as he said this—‘there will be none to carry on.’ We assured him that while we knew nothing of his methods, we were enthusiastic students and open to every manner of experiment. ‘Wonderful,’ he said, his face brightening. ‘Has it not struck you as remarkable that the principal method for reading memory maps is human touch? How is it that the fingertips have this ability to transmit memories to the brain? In fact,’ he went on, his enthusiasm growing, ‘it is not only the fingertips but the entire human body which responds to the stored memories on a map. Try it—your elbow, your wrist, your nose—they are all the same. It is as if human skin were a great sponge, simply waiting to absorb memories! In fact, this is exactly the case—we are sponges and we do absorb memories.’
“I heard then for the first time the theory that has since been confirmed by other scholars. At the time, I was not certain whether or not to believe Talisman. Now I do without question. He applied his knowledge to shocking ends, but there is no doubt that his observations were true. ‘The Great Disruption,’ Talis went on, ‘disrupted the world in ways we are only beginning to understand. But one thing we know—there are borders, fault lines, edges to the Ages that resulted from the Great Disruption. I have always sought to understand these borders. What did they look like? What happened along them when the Disruption took place? Perhaps we will never know entirely what it was like, but we can try. I imagine a great, blinding light that sears the earth along a jagged line.’ He laughed. ‘But perhaps I am being fanciful. What we know beyond a shadow of a doubt is what happened to those people who were on the fault line when the Disruption occurred.’
“Shadrack and I looked at him in surprise. This was unexpected. ‘Have you never contemplated it?’ he asked, equally surprised. ‘I have been obsessed with the question. And now I know. Those unlucky people fell into a great chasm of time. Every event that ever took place on the spot where they were standing passed through them, like blinding light passing through a prism. Can you imagine what such a thing would do to you? Can you begin to conceive the damage to the human frame, the human mind, of being plunged into infinite time?’ He shook his head, awed by his own question.
“‘Contrary to what you may think,’ he continued, ‘they did not die. Oh, no—much the opposite. They passed beyond time, extending their lives to unnatural length by decades, perhaps even centuries. Nevertheless, they were lost—hopelessly lost. A million memories that did not belong to them remained echoing in their brains. Consider: black is the absence of color, while white is the sum of all colors. What is the result when all of those strange memories are forced into your mind? Utter blankness, utter whiteness. Their minds were blank. And so were their faces. Just as a contented old woman wears the grooved wrinkles of every laugh, and a bitter old man wears the furrows of every frown, and an old warrior bears the scar of every battle, so their faces showed the traces of every memory of their engulfed minds. They wore the face of nothingness.’”