The Baroque Cycle: Quicksilver, the Confusion, and the System of the World (235 page)

At any rate they made it through, and putting the mountains of Japan on their
larboard quarter they ventured into the East China Sea. Immediately the lookout identified sails to
larboard: a ship emerging through a spacious gap between certain outlying Japanese islands, and
coming about into a course roughly parallel with their
own. This was curious,
because the charts showed nothing but Japanese land in the direction from which the ship had
come—beyond that, it was the Pacific Ocean for one hundred degrees, and then vague sketches of
a supposed American coastline. And yet this ship was unmistakably European. More to the point, as
van Hoek announced after peering at it for a while through his spyglass, it was Dutch. And that
settled the mystery. This was one of those Dutch vessels that was allowed to sail into the harbor of
Nagasaki and anchor before Deshima—a walled and guarded island-compound near that city, where
a handful of Europeans were suffered to dwell for brief periods as they traded with the
representatives of the Shogun.

Now van Hoek ordered that the Dutch flag be run up on the mizzenmast, and had them
fire a salute from the ship’s cannons. The Dutch ship responded in kind, and so after
exchanging various signals with flags and mirrors, the two vessels fell in alongside each other, and
gradually drew close enough that words could be hollered back and forth through speaking-trumpets.
Every man on board who knew how to write was busy writing letters for himself, or on behalf of those
who couldn’t, because it was obvious that this Dutch ship was headed for Batavia, and thence
west-bound. Within a few months she would be dropping anchor in Rotterdam.

This was when they lost their Alchemist.

When it came clear that they were about to lose their Adult Supervision, Jack felt
panic under his feet like a swell pressing up on the ship’s hull. But he did not suppose that
it would instill confidence, among the crew, for him to break down and blubber. So he acted as if
this had been expected all along. Indeed, in a way it had. Enoch Root had shown inhuman patience
during the last couple of years, as the transaction of the quicksilver had been slowly teased
together, and there had been plenty of interesting diversions for him in the Chinese and Japanese
barangays
of Manila, the countless strange islands of the Philippines,
and in helping to establish Mr. Foot as the White Sultan of Queena-Kootah. But it was long since
time for him to move on.

He had taken up an interest in the vast territories limned on Dutch charts to the
South and East of the Philippines: New Guinea; the supposed Australasian Continent; Van
Diemen’s Land; and a chain of islands sprawling off into the uncharted heart of the South
Pacific, called the Islands of Solomon.

Enoch stood on the upperdeck, waiting for his chests and bags to be lowered into the
longboat. As he often did in idle moments, he reached into the pocket of his traveling-cloak and
took out a contraption that looked a bit like a spool. But a poorly made one, for the
ends of the spool were bulky, and the slot in between them, where the cord was wound, was
narrow. He unwound a couple of inches of cord and slipped his finger through a loop that had been
tied in its end. Then he allowed the spool to fall from his hand. It dropped slowly at first, as the
spool’s inertia resisted its tendency to unwind, but then it picked up speed and plunged
smoothly toward the deck. Just shy of hitting the planks it stopped abruptly, having unwound its
meager supply of cord. At the same moment Enoch gave a little twitch of the hand, and the spool
reversed its direction and began to climb up the string.

Jack glanced across several fathoms of open water toward the Dutch ship. A dozen or
so sailors were watching this miracle with their mouths open.

“They cannot see the string at this distance,” Jack commented,
“and suppose you are doing some sort of
magick.
”

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a
yo-yo,” Enoch said.

“That could not hurt a sparrow,” Jack said. “I prefer the original
type with the rotating knives.”

“All well and good for striking prey off tree-limbs in the Philippine
jungle,” Enoch said, “but it gets uncomfortable, carrying such weapons about in
one’s pocket.”

“Where art thou and thy yo-yos bound?”

“It is rumored that the purple savages of Arnhem Land also make
throwing-weapons that return to the thrower,” Enoch said, “but without a string, or any
other such physickal connexion.”

“Impossible!”

“As I said—‘Any sufficiently advanced tech—’
”

“I heard you the first time. So it’s off to Arnhem Land. And
then?”

Enoch paused to check the progress of the boat-loading, and seeing that he still had
a minute or two, related the following: “You know that our entire Enterprise hinges on our
being able to corrupt certain Spanish officials and sea-captains, which is not inherently difficult.
But we have had to spend countless hours wining and dining them, and listening to their interminable
yarns and sea-fables. Most of these are tedious and unremarkable. But I heard one that interested
me. It was told me by one Alfonso, who was first mate aboard a galleon that left Manila for Acapulco
some years ago. As usual they attempted to sail north to a higher latitude where they could get in
front of the trade wind to California. Instead they were met by a tempest that drove them to the
south for many days. The next time they were able to make solar observations, they discovered that
they had
actually crossed the Line and were several degrees south. Now the storm
had washed away all of the earth that they had packed around their hearth in the galley, making it
impossible for them to light a cook-fire without setting the whole galleon ablaze. So they dropped
anchor near an island (for they’d come in sight of a whole chain of ’em, populated by
people who looked like Africans) and gathered sand and fresh water. The water they used to replenish
their drinking-jars. The sand they packed around their hearth. Then they continued their journey.
When they arrived at Acapulco, the better part of a year later, they discovered nuggets of gold
under the hearth—evidently that sand was auriferous and the heat of the fire had melted the
gold and separated it from the sand. Needless to say, the Viceroy in Mexico City—”

“The same?”

Enoch nodded. “The very same from whom you stole the gold before Bonanza. He
was informed of this prodigy, and did not delay in sending out a squadron, under an admiral named de
Obregon, to sail along that line of latitude until they found those islands.”

“Would those be the Solomon Islands?”

“As you know, Jack, it has long been supposed that Solomon—the builder
of the Temple in Jerusalem, the first Alchemist, and the subject of Isaac Newton’s obsessions
for lo these many years, departed from the Land of Israel before he died, and journeyed far to the
east, and founded a kingdom among certain islands. It is a part of this legend that this kingdom was
fabulously wealthy.”

“Funny how no one ever makes up legends concerning wretchedly poor
kingdoms—”

“It matters not whether this legend is
true,
only
that some people
believe
it,” Enoch said patiently. He had begun
to do tricks with the yo-yo now, making it fly around his hand like a comet whipping around the
sun.

“Such as this Newton fellow? The one who reckoned the orbits of the
planets?”

“Newton is convinced that Solomon’s temple was a geometrickal model of
the solar system—the fire on the central altar representing the sun,
et
cetera.
”

“So he would fain know about it, if the Islands of Solomon were
discovered…”

“Indeed.”

“…and no doubt he has already perused the chronicles of that expedition
that was sent out by our friend in Bonanza.”

Enoch shook his head. “There are no such chronicles.”

“The expedition was shipwrecked?”

“Shipwrecked, killed by disease…the vectors of disaster were so
plentiful that the accounts cannot be reconciled. Only one ship made it to Manila, half of her crew
dead and the rest dying of some previously unheard-of pestilence. The only one who survived was one
Elizabeth de Obregon, the wife of the Admiral who had commanded the squadron.”

“And what does she have to say for herself?”

“She has said nothing. In a society where women cannot own property, Jack,
secrets are to them what gold and silver are to men.”

“Why did the Viceroy not then send out another squadron?”

“Perhaps he did.”

“You have grown coy, Enoch, and time grows short.”

“It is not that I am coy, but that you are lazy in your thinking. If such
expeditions had been sent out, and found nothing, what would the results be?”

“Nothing.”

“If an expedition had succeeded, what result then?”

“Some chronicle, kept secret in a Spanish vault in Mexico or Seville, and a
great deal of gold…” Here Jack faltered.

“What did you expect to find in the hold of the Viceroy’s
brig?”

“Silver.”

“What found you instead?”

“Gold.”

“But the mines of Mexico produce only silver.”

“It is true…we never solved the mystery of the origin of that
gold.”

“Do you have any idea, Jack, how many alchemists are numbered among the ruling
classes of Christendom?”

“I’ve heard rumors.”

“If a rumor got out among those people—kings, dukes, and
princes—that the Island of Solomon had been discovered, and gold taken from there—not
just any gold, mind you, but gold that came from the furnaces of King Solomon himself, and was very
close to being the pure stuff of the Philosopher’s Stone and the Philosophick Mercury—I
should think that it would excite a certain amount of interest. Wouldn’t you say?”

“If rumor got out, why, yes—”

“It always gets out,” Enoch explained flatly. “Does this help to
explain why so many great men are so very angry with you?”

“I never thought it wanted explanation. But now that you mention
it…”

“Good. And I hope it also explains why I must go and see these Solomon Islands
myself. If the legends are true, then Newton will
want to know all about it.
Even if they are nothing more than legends, those islands might be a good place for a man to go, if
he wanted to get away from the world for a few years, or a few centuries…in any event, that
is where I am bound.”

The yo-yo came up sharply into Enoch’s palm and stopped.

T
HE SEA-VOYAGE
FROM
J
APAN
to Manila had in common with all other sea-voyages that it
was all about latitudes. Van Hoek, Dappa, and several others aboard knew how to find their latitude
by observing the sun’s position in the sky. The sun came out at least once a day and so they
always had a good idea of which parallel they were at. But there was no way to reckon longitude.
Accordingly, van Hoek’s charts and records of Hazards to Navigation tended to be organized by
latitude. Along certain parallels they had nothing to worry about, because in this part of the world
(according to the documents) no reefs or islands existed there. But along certain other parallels,
hazards had been discovered, and so whenever
Minerva
was found to be in
such latitudes the mood of the ship changed, sail was reduced, lookouts added, soundings taken. They
might have been a hundred miles due east or due west of the Hazard in question; not having any idea
of their longitude, there was simply no telling. Since the voyage from Japan to Manila was a
north-to-south one, their degree of latitude, and their degree of anxiety, were changing every
moment.

Other than reefs and islands, the chief hazards were typhoons, and the kingdom of
Corsairs who had wrested Formosa from the Dutch some years previously, and through whose waters they
had to sail in order to reach Luzon. On this voyage both of those hazards struck on the same day:
Corsairs sighted them and fell into an intercept course, but before they could close with
Minerva,
the weather began to alter in ways that suggested an approaching
typhoon. The Corsairs broke off the pursuit and turned their energies to survival. By this point
Minerva
had ridden out several such storms, and her officers and crew
knew how it was done; van Hoek could make educated guesses as to how the direction of the wind would
change over the course of the next two days, and how its strength would vary according to their
distance from its center. By setting some storm-sails and managing the tiller personally, he was
able to arrange it so that they were not driven against the isle of Formosa. Instead the typhoon
flung them out to the south and east, into the Philippine Sea, which was deep water with no
obstructions. Later, when the weather cleared and they could shoot the sun again, they sought out a
particular latitude (19° 45’ N) and followed that parallel west for two hundred miles
until they had passed through the Balintang
Channel, which separated some groups
of small islands north of Luzon. Turning to the south then, they made way with great care until the
hills and headlands of Ilocos—the northwestern corner of Luzon—came into view.

At that moment the character of the voyage changed. Three hundred miles separated
them from the point of Mariveles at the entrance to Manila Bay, and it would all be coastal sailing,
which meant contending with weak and fickle winds, and taking frequent soundings, and dropping
anchor at night lest they run aground on some unseeable hazard in the dark. Some days they made no
progress whatever, owing to contrary winds—by day, they traded with locals for fresh fruit and
meat brought out in long dual-outrigger boats, and by night they patrolled
Minerva
’s decks with loaded blunderbusses, waiting for those same locals to steal out
in the same boats and creep over the gunwales with knives in their teeth.