Sophia edged down onto the rope with some difficulty, but once she had her ankles hooked around it, she was able to slide down toward the ship’s mast. Burr grabbed her by the waist and swung her onto a foothold among the clipped branches of the mast. “Can you climb down yourself?” he asked. She nodded, but before descending she looked up to watch Theo. He swung onto the rope and nimbly shimmied down. Sophia began descending farther to make room, just as if she were climbing down the trunk of a tree, and a moment later she looked up to see Burr hauling Theo to safety. With both of them securely perched on the mast, Burr cut the rope. “We’re off!” he shouted.
As soon as her boots hit the deck, Sophia was surrounded.
Veressa threw her arms around her. “We were so worried about you!”
Sophia smiled, but her eyes searched for the one person she had not yet seen. “Where’s Shadrack?”
“I’ll take you to him, sweetheart,” Calixta said, leading Sophia by the hand. “He’s just resting below deck.”
“We’re relieved you’re back, Sophia,” Martin said, giving her shoulder a quick squeeze.
The luxurious boldevela had a spiral staircase that descended into a long corridor; the vine-covered walls were studded with pale flowers. Sophia followed Calixta into a large bedroom. The portholes cast a sunny light on the bedding, and buttercups grew in the cracks between the floorboards. Grandmother Pearl sat in an embroidered armchair beside the bed where Shadrack, lying back on the pillows, propped himself up as they entered. “Sophia!” he cried.
“Shadrack!” In an instant she was by his side. “Are you all right?” She pulled back at once and looked down at him critically. Why was he here?
He smiled and tucked Sophia’s hair behind her ears so that he could see her face. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. You won’t believe everything that happened.”
He laughed. “Perfect. You can sit next to Grandmother Pearl and tell me all about it, because I’ll be here a while longer.” He drew the covers back, revealing his bandaged right leg.
“What happened?”
“Afraid one of those pesky bullets caught me while we were underground. I’m beginning to understand why people in Nochtland dislike metal so much.”
“How bad is it?” Sophia asked, looking at his bandaged leg.
“Not bad.” He drew up the blankets. “Grandmother Pearl, I have learned, is a wonderful medic in addition to being a diviner, a storyteller, a weather reader, and who knows what else.”
The old woman smiled. “He has strong bones and a strong heart. Now that you’re here, he has everything he needs to get better.”
Sophia put her arm around her and squeezed gratefully. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.
“It’s wonderful to hear your voice again, dear,” the old woman replied. “You’ve been busy, haven’t you? You need some food and water in you. And some rest.”
“I believe Sophia has stopped the glaciers all on her own, Grandmother,” Calixta put in.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Whether it was all your own doing or not,” Grandmother Pearl said, hugging her, “the cold air has dropped and the ice is falling back. We’re on a fair wind again—can’t you feel it?”
Sophia went to the open porthole. Leaning out, she saw the cold waters below, the city of Nochtland ahead, and the blue skies above. She could hear the sails of the boldevela, leaves flapping in the wind, and the voices of Burr and the other pirates on deck. But she also heard a sound in the distance that made her heart race: a constant murmur, like the high-pitched whine of a thousand sirens.
Sophia drew her head back into the cabin. “It does seem a fair wind. But—that sound. What is it?”
“It’s the Lachrima, my dear. I’m afraid there are many more in the world today than there were before.”
39
The Empty City
1891, July 2: 12-Hour 31
Lunabviate: to conceal one’s thoughts or feelings by presenting a blank face. From luna, or moon. The common perception that the moon has a blank face is applied to those who present a bright or pleasant expression but hide their sentiments.
—From Veressa Metl’s Glossary of Baldlandian Terms
THE GLACIER RETREATED to the edges of Lake Cececpan and then stopped, planting its frozen feet into the earth below and turning a cold shoulder to the sun overhead. The Glacine Age would draw back no farther. And as the glaciers cemented their hold, their hard surfaces shining starkly only three miles from Nochtland, the borders of the Ages were redrawn.
The vast, depopulated Glacine Age stretched from the southern edges of Nochtland to the very tip of the continent. Late Patagonia had disappeared. Much of the southern Baldlands had vanished as well. Where the Ages met, three different cities lay abandoned, their streets emptied by desertion and disaster. Below ground, the mineral city remained silently calcifying, its high towers shining in the light cast by the botanist’s trees. Above the ice, in the northernmost city of the Glacine Age, the empty buildings surrounded the ruins of the great pyramid like silent mourners. And in Nochtland a strange hush had fallen upon the once busy streets.
Thousands upon thousands had departed, fleeing the glacier’s advance. In the weeks that followed, they walked and rode on until rumors began to reach them that the great change had concluded. Some, hearing this, stopped where they stood; they put down their packs, unhitched their horses, and rested. A short respite became a longer one, until many simply began to rebuild their lives on the very spot where they had stopped. New towns sprang up in a long, meandering line stretching northward.
But others could not believe that the glacier had truly halted its advance, and they walked on, heading farther and farther north until they found themselves in the Northern Baldlands. There, among strange people who had never even heard of the glaciers, they threw down their belongings with relief and tried to forget the catastrophe that had driven them from their now-vanished homes.
Still others had lost more than their homes. It was in the Lachrima’s nature to seek solitude, and so it appeared at first that the thousands of Lachrima to emerge from the Glacine Age had disappeared as soon as they had come to light. But they had not disappeared. Many people who had once lived in Xela, or the high cities of Late Patagonia, now wandered the new terrain as faceless creatures; dreading human contact, they haunted the edges of every town on the route from the Baldlands to New Occident.
As the boldevela neared Nochtland, there were some on board who were thinking of the Lachrima’s fate. Sophia, after dutifully eating and drinking what Grandmother Pearl had put before her, listened to the dull, distant wailing and thought about Blanca. Shadrack was found, Nochtland was safe, and New Occident lay waiting for them; and yet, unaccountably, she felt an uneasy grief. Blanca’s cry might have saved her, driving her from the pyramid in time—but that cry had also found its way into her heart. She had no wish to look at the map that had been the sole piece of the pyramid to survive. Handing it over to Shadrack, she sat at the foot of his bed holding the silk scarf that had once been Blanca’s veil. As she twisted the thin fabric between her fingers, she thought about the scars that it had served to conceal. Sophia realized that the more she had seen of the Lachrima’s scars, the less they had terrified her. They moved as Blanca spoke; they reflected her thoughts and emotions just as clearly as a mouth, nose, and eyes. There was even something beautiful about the way those scars had conveyed the cold, dignified determination that lay behind them.