“And you did not stop him?”
“I couldn’t,” Matt said. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s not that I wanted him to have it. I just couldn’t stop him. And now my mother doesn’t know me anymore. She’s forgotten my father, her two other children—my brother and sister—who all disappeared right before my eyes. I didn’t want that!” He nearly shouted at the emperor. The anger was rising in him, though he wasn’t sure why. He felt he’d had this conversation before with someone, but he couldn’t remember who it was or when it had been. He only remembered the feeling of being accused of something in which he had no defense except his own feelings.
Jia placed a hand on his arm.
The emperor waited for Matt to calm. “Now you say after this Captain Vincent put Yhongzeng inside of the compass, he was able to change things, manipulate time, space, and matter? You saw him do this?”
Matt nodded.
“But how did he do this? By what means? This is important.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“The time tapestries,” Jia said. “Show him the time tapestries from Corey and Ruby.”
Matt had almost forgotten. He reached in his robe and pulled out the two scraps of fabric that he knew belonged to Corey and Ruby. The emperor leaned in closely to inspect the scraps. Though they had noticeably faded, the pieces of fabric gave off a subtle glow in the dark.
“What is this material?” the emperor asked.
“The captain called it a time tapestry,” Matt said. “It’s supposedly all the events of our lives woven together—everything we’ve done, everywhere we’ve gone, everyone we’ve met. Or will meet.”
“Extraordinary. It’s like silk woven from water and light.”
“You should see it when it’s whole and unmarred,” Jia said. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“These are pieces of a greater whole, then?” the emperor said.
Matt nodded. “I think this is how Captain Vincent is changing things. I always imagined he would have to travel around the world all over time and change things, but it seems it’s simpler than that. He just pulls out a person’s time tapestry and changes whatever he wants.”
“But not without help,” Jia said. “We think someone is assisting him in the destruction of the time tapestries. Remember the man we saw on the Vermillion with the captain?”
Matt nodded. He’d almost forgotten that too. He was forgetting too much, too quickly. “He had some kind of explosive. We think that’s what the captain is using to change certain things. We don’t know who he is, though.”
“Albert knows,” Jia said.
“But he won’t tell us,” Matt said bitterly.
“I think he’ll come around if we treat him with respect. Albert’s not all bad, you know.”
Matt scoffed. “He doesn’t deserve respect. Maybe we should beat it out of him. I’ll bet he’d talk faster then.”
“Violence is always a weak solution, if it is any kind of solution at all,” the emperor said. “You’d do better to follow the advice of my daughter.”
Jia beamed with obvious pleasure at her father’s praise, and for some reason it made Matt feel even more irritable. Maybe he was feeling jealous. Jia had her father. He was the orphan now.
“Even if Albert does come around at some point,” Matt said, “there’s no guarantee that man will help us or even know how. And by then it might be too late. I’m starting to forget them. My family. I can’t see their faces in my mind. I can’t remember what they sound like, and there are things about them that I don’t know, but I feel like I should, like their birthdays. Shouldn’t I know my own brother and sister’s birthday? How long before I forget their names? That they’re my brother and sister? That I care? That they exist at all?” Jia took Matt’s hand. It was only then that he realized he was shaking.
“Your brother and sister are twins you said?” the emperor asked.
Matt nodded, wiping at his tears. “Is that important?”
“I don’t know,” the emperor said. “Maybe. Maybe not. In China, twins are a symbol of luck, boy and girl twins are especially powerful, they are yin and yang, symbolizing balance in the universe. But your brother and sister are not alone. They have you. You are also significant, I think. You are the inventor of the compass! You are an orphan but somehow came to this particular family. Why? It is not coincidence, I do not think.”
The emperor took the cylinder he had been carrying. He opened the top and retrieved a large scroll. He unraveled it and placed it on the table, using some stones to hold down the corners.
Matt almost forgot his anger and grief at the sight of it. He was instantly mesmerized. It was a star chart, very complex. Three layers of circles, one inside of the other, very much like his compass (he couldn’t help but notice the similarity), and inside of each were hundreds of constellations. Lines had been drawn, the constellations were labeled. Matt didn’t recognize most of them as they’d been labeled in Chinese characters, but he recognized a few—Hercules, Virgo, Cassiopeia.
“Now,” the emperor said. “I have been studying astronomy for many years and keeping a careful record. The stars and planets can tell us a great deal about our universe, and lately my priest friends and I have noted certain disruptions. Many constellations have dimmed or disappeared completely, and new ones have begun to appear, but one has remained constant through it all.” He pointed to a place on the chart where three points formed a triangle. “The Summer Triangle. Astrologers have interpreted it in many ways over the centuries. There are stories and legends, and of course, the number three is significant in many cultures and religions. It is a holy number, a number of luck. But in more scholarly circles, the Summer Triangle symbolizes the three pillars of the universe—matter, space, and time. Together they bind or lock our universe, create order
