The Ship Beyond Time (The Girl from Everywhere #2)

 

 

“I agree with you there.” Blake smiled a little and put his hat back on his head. He made a little bow on his way out. I shut the door behind him and leaned my head against it.

 

“Must we lose him too, amira?” Kash had propped himself up on one elbow, and he watched me with sorrow in his green eyes.

 

Pushing off the door, I sank down beside him on the edge of the bed, gathering one of his hands in mine. “We all have to make our own choices.”

 

Kashmir sighed, brushing my hand against his lips. “Then what’s next? After New York?”

 

“I don’t know,” I said softly. “But we have time to figure it out.”

 

 

 

 

 

AUTHOR’S NOTE

 

 

The border between myth and history is less like a line drawn on a map and more like the Margins themselves—uncertain gray areas that shift over time. History is indeed written by the victors—or more accurately, the dominant culture—and even primary documents can be influenced by the worldview of their authors. So in this book, what do we consider myth and what do we agree is history?

 

MYTHS

 

KER-YS

 

When I was looking for a setting for Book Two, I wondered where to go after Paradise. Two choices presented themselves: a utopia or a hell. Ker-Ys is a bit of both.

 

Ker-Ys itself is a myth, but I based my description of it loosely on Mont Saint-Michel, an island commune off the coast of France, accessible by a strip of land only exposed by low tide. As noted in the novel, the legend gives different names given for Dahut (or Ahes). In addition, the king’s name is alternately given as Gralon, Granlon, or Gradlon (the version “Grand L’Un” is my own invention). Gradlon the Great was a popular hero of many Celtic myths from the fifth century; Saint Guinole (aka Saint Winwaloe) also lived during that time. But the story of Ker-Ys likely originated much later, near the end of the fifteenth century, after which it was told and retold in various different versions, including Emile Souvestre’s 1844 Foyer breton.

 

Ker-Ys is not the only lost land in Celtic lore: Lyonesse and Cantr’er Gwaelod are similar legends. Interestingly, during both the fifth and the fifteenth centuries, two geological events took place that might have inspired these stories. Between 400 and 500 A.D., rising sea levels flooded a great island off the Cornish Peninsula, turning it into an archipelago now called the Isles of Scilly. And in the fifteenth century, Europe was under the frozen spell of the Little Ice Age, where glacial expansion lowered sea levels again. These real-life events may have given rise to tales of sunken cities.

 

THE ORACLE AT BOEOTIA

 

The story of Trophonius also has several versions. Some say he was a hero, others that he was a demon, still others than he was a god. In one origin story, he and his brother built Apollo’s temple at Delphi—in another, the two siblings robbed a king’s treasury. The second version is the one I used. Either way, Trophonius disappeared into a cavern at Lebadea to become a chthonic being.

 

His cavern and his cult were described in detail by Pausanias, the great second-century geographer. Unfortunately, the primary documents were lost, and his words survive only through a fifteenth-century copy filled with errors. Still, the ritual by which petitioners would seek knowledge seems terrifying—so much so that “to descend into the cave of Trophonius” was another way of saying “to be frightened out of one’s wits.”

 

After making sacrifices and drinking the sacred waters, one would enter into a narrow hole in the ground, with a feeling akin to being buried alive. There, afraid and alone, the petitioner would be given a glimpse of the future, after which they would be spit out of the earth. The priests would then carry the gibbering victim to the temple and seat him on the Mnemosyne Throne, where his ramblings would be recorded and shaped into prophecy before they were forgotten.

 

Pausanias also mentioned the two mythic rivers—the Lethe and the Mnemosyne—that bubbled up in springs beside the cavern. Here geography shades to myth; though the Herkyna River is fed by springs in the area, the Lethe and the Mnemosyne are most commonly found in Hades, as in Plato’s Myth of Er.

 

HISTORY

 

DONALD CROWHURST’S LAST VOYAGE