Once, late in the evening, we looked up to see the stars occulted by a vast shadow with a line of light along its edge and knew we gazed upon the incredible heights of Baskarone.
“I want to go there,” Constanzia breathed. “I can think of nothing else. Since I first saw an ambassador from Baskarone, I have longed to go there. It is why I started reading The Diaries. To find a way!”
Mama shook her head, biting her lip. “I’m afraid that is impossible, child.”
“You don’t understand. If you’d ever seen one of them …”
“I have,” Mama said, her nostrils flaring, her mouth grim. “Several, as a matter of fact. What you say is true. Seeing them makes us long for Baskarone, but we may not go there, no matter how we long. They will not let us in.” She turned abruptly and went into her cabin, leaving Constanzia and me to stare after her, wondering at her tone.
I wondered often at her tone. When I was honest with myself, I realized I had expected a mother, my mother, to be like Dame Blossom: a little severe, but unfailingly affectionate in a kindly, nurturant way. Mama was not that. Sometimes I thought she was not even very like the woman who had written the letter. Oh, it was nothing one could put one’s finger on. We talked together, took tea together, confided in one another. I told her about Giles. Her eyes filled with tears, and we cried over that together. She understood. She said she had felt that way about my father. I held her hand and was happy. And then, just as I thought I was beginning to know her, I saw on her face an expression of remote untouchability. She looked through me, as though I did not exist. Then, some hours later, she became my affectionate mama again.
This happened more than once on our voyage. I could not explain it. I feared, from time to time, that something I had done or, more likely, had not done, sometimes came to her mind, damaging the feelings between us. Or I feared that something about me put her off. I didn’t know what it was. When she was being my mama, I felt as secure as a child held in loving arms. When she looked through me, I felt wavery, as though my very existence was in question. I actually wished for Carabosse, so that I could ask her what she thought was happening.
Another night, with the Queen moored at the edge of the water, I saw the last of the cages disposed of. Several times during late-night hours of our journey I had left Mama and Constanzia sleeping and had sneaked into the hold to hold converse with those in the cages. Ambrosius had read or traveled widely, and had been interested in the religions of the world. Each cage had been consigned to a particular hell, and each cage was full of beings Ambrosius imagined had learned to fear that special hell, whether one of fire or ice or eternal separation or mere time-serving prior to some later reconciliation with whomever or whatever they considered responsible for their fate. There were many espousing fundamentalist Christian faiths, all babbling of the love of God while seething with guilt and resentment. I suggested to them that, if they could bring themselves to disbelieve, they might free themselves from their confinement, and a few must have managed to do so, for several of the consignees from Erebus complained of light weight when they received their shipments at last.
When I came up on deck after the last such conversation, the captain was standing at the rail. I was not wearing my cloak. He nodded at me and grinned apologetically. “Can you believe I used to bring them all across from the Edge in a rowboat?” he asked. “Of course, that was before I came to Chinanga. I suppose it’s more interesting now.”
“Where did Ambrosius borrow you from?” I asked.
“The Greeks,” he said. “I am their ferryman.”
“Of course,” I said, remembering things I had read. “You rowed a boat across the Styx.”
“For the coins on the dead men’s eyes,” he said. “The work has not changed much.”
“And where do the souls come from in the cages?” I asked.
“Where do the trees come from,” he smiled. “And the snakes and the orchids.”
I nodded, thoughtfully, taking his point. “Are you bored?” I asked. Everyone spoke much of boredom here in Chinanga.
“Oh yes,” he said in a grumpy voice. “I am bored. So much so that occasionally I long for the simpler days.”
Two days later we reached the falls which came down from Baskarone and moored along the riverbank, well back from the plunging torrent. We could not see the top. The roar of the waters and the clouds of spray extinguished any appreciation of the enormousness of the fall.
In a clearing some distance from this pool the captain found the expected stack of kegs and crates, let down from above, I supposed, by some unimaginable windlass. While the crewmen were loading, several passengers departed, quiet persons with purpose writ large upon their faces. The captain shook his head after them as they went off toward the great wall.
“Going to try for it, they are,” he told me. “Going to try and climb it. Every time I come up here, there’s a few. Silly creatures. Even if the wall wasn’t unclimbable, which it is, them from Baskarone aren’t going to let anyone climb there.”
I shook my head with him. Poor vagrant creations of Ambrosius Pomposus, destined to climb so high to so little purpose.
While they were getting the cargo aboard, Mama and I hiked to a hilltop some
