She stared at him in silence. When she spoke again, her voice had changed. “You wish to understand the truth, of course,” she said quietly, almost sweetly. “How foolish I was to leave you untrained so long, Weeping. You will understand the truth, certainly.” She turned to Shadrack. “And you will understand the cost of deceiving me. You may save yourself by being indispensable, but you cannot save anyone else.” She stepped quickly around the desk and motioned to the petrified men who stood pressed against the wall. “Bring them,” she said brusquely, motioning at Weeping and Shadrack.
Weeping and Shadrack were each half carried, half dragged into the adjoining car. The wheelbarrow that Shadrack had heard so many times stood against the corner wall. In the middle of the car was an hourglass the size of a grown man. It rested on its side, suspended within a circular metal track. Each chamber of the hourglass was made of petal-shaped sheets of glass, soldered along the edges. One chamber was closed and filled with sand. The other chamber was empty and open, one of the petals opening outward like a delicate door. Shadrack realized immediately what was about to happen. “No,” he cried, trying to shake himself free. “You will gain nothing by doing this.”
“You have lost your chance to negotiate with me,” Blanca said coldly. Then she addressed the Sandmen: “The bonnet and jacket.”
“His memories are useless to you!”
Weeping had stopped struggling. He stood stoically, his gaze turned inward, as if contemplating a distant memory. His fingers rested lightly on the amulet around his neck. Two Sandmen forced him into a straitjacket that wound his arms around his body, lacing it tightly closed behind him. A helmet of canvas and wood was placed over his head, covering his eyes. Then they thrust the wooden block in his mouth and pulled the wires up and through the helmet.
“If you do this,” Shadrack said, his voice hard, “I will not lift a finger to help you.”
“I believe you will feel differently when it is your niece who wears the bonnet,” said Blanca. Shadrack froze. “I am merely giving you a demonstration here. Remember, Shadrack. It is not I who made this happen—it is you. You leave me no choice.”
The Sandmen pushed Weeping into the empty chamber. He lay awkwardly, face-up, his knees pulled in toward his chest. Shadrack could see the metal wires of the bonnet straining against his skin. The Sandmen fastened the glass door. Then they rotated the hourglass upright so that Weeping lay, crushed and helpless, in the bottom chamber. The sand began to pour down upon him. Weeping struggled to breathe. His composure left him. He began kicking uselessly at the glass, battering his head against it. But he succeeded only in cutting his cheeks, and blood mixed with the sand.
“That’s enough, pull him out!” Shadrack shouted. “You’ve made your point.” He struggled to free himself, but the other Sandman pinned his arms behind his back. He watched as Weeping writhed ever more helplessly and the sand funneled on steadily, inexorably.
“You may turn it back now,” Blanca finally said.
The two Sandmen rotated the hourglass once again, so that Weeping was carried high up over their heads and the sand that had engulfed him began to pour back into the other chamber. They all waited silently. Weeping no longer struggled. He lay inert.
“Take him out,” Blanca said, when the chamber had emptied. She watched, arms crossed, as the Sandmen rotated the hourglass to its side, opened the chamber, and caught the buckles of the straitjacket with their grappling hooks to lift Weeping. He was limp as they lowered him on the floor, loosened the straitjacket’s laces, and removed the bonnet and the wooden block. He lay with his eyes closed. Two long, bloody lines stretched from his mouth to his ears.
“How much has he lost?” Shadrack asked numbly. “Will he be like Carlton?”
The train suddenly came to a halt, and the Sandmen shifted into action. “We’ve reached the border,” Blanca said. “Unload the trunks and the contents of the study. I need twenty minutes to convert this sand. Do not disturb me until I am through.” Then she addressed Shadrack. “From Carlton I took everything. But Weeping will be like these others,” she said coolly. “Unburdened of most of their memories, but still conscious men. Still remembering dimly with some part of their minds what it means to be a Nihilismian. To mistrust the reality of the world, to believe in that which is unseen, and to pursue it blindly. My Sandmen,” she added, almost affectionately, as she looked down at Weeping. Then she turned and left the compartment.
25
The Royal Library
1891, June 28: 13-Hour 48
Vineless: A derogatory term used particularly among the inhabitants of Nochtland to describe someone who is considered pitiful, weak, or cowardly. Part of the family of words derived from the phrase “Mark of the Vine,” to designate those who are physiologically marked by botanical matter.
—From Veressa Metl’s Glossary of Baldlandian Terms
SOPHIA STILL COULD not believe that she had carried something so precious in her pack for so may days: not simply a tracing glass, but a memory map of the Great Disruption! Now she was certain that Montaigne and the Nihilismians wanted to use it to find the carta mayor, and Veressa was inclined to agree.
Veressa had offered to show them the other maps, so they had all gone to the palace library, where she retrieved them from the safe. The tracing glass could not be used because it was still day, but even reading the other three maps together was overwhelming. Each of them took a turn with the layered maps that possibly told the story of the Great Disruption, and each came away silent, lost in the past. Sophia struggled to match the three parts she had just seen with her memories of the glass map. How do they all fit together? she wondered.
Veressa returned the three maps to the library safe and led them back through the palace. The floors were stone tile, covered by thick carpets of fresh petals or leaves. As they walked along a corridor strewn with fragrant pine needles, Sophia heard a light tinkling sound, like the ringing of glassy bells, and she was surprised to see Veressa hurry to the wall and kneel. Martin followed suit, lowering himself carefully on his bad leg. “Everyone kneel by the wall,” Veressa whispered urgently. Calixta, Burr, and Sophia did as they were told, though it struck her that all of them—the pirates particularly—looked very odd. They were not the kind of people who bowed to anyone.
The tinkling sound grew louder, and then Sophia saw a slow procession round the corner. It was made up of women dressed in pale green silks that trailed to the floor, their skirts adorned with glass bells; orchids studded their elaborately dressed hair.
One woman wore her hair long and loose. It was bright green—the shade of an uncut meadow—and grew to her waist. Folded down across her back were what appeared to be two long eucalyptus leaves that grew from her shoulder blades. They were wings.
“Greetings, Royal Botanist,” Princess Justa said, “Royal Librarian.” She had the same accent as Veressa and Martin—sharp, with rolled r’s—but her tone was high and imperious, as if she spoke from a great height.
Veressa and Martin murmured their greetings without raising their eyes from the floor. Calixta and Burr, Sophia noticed, were staring straight ahead—neither at the floor nor at the royal entourage. Sophia could not help herself; she looked directly at the princess. Justa’s gaze traveled over the small group and finally rested on Sophia, who felt a chill as the princess looked her over disdainfully from head to foot—or, rather, from head to knee. “What are those?” she asked icily.