There was something exquisitely poignant about the painting now. The only surviving thing to prove that they had all existed. She looked up at Magister Pregaldin. “Were you there?”
He shook his head slowly. “No. It was before my time. I have always been interested in it, that’s all.”
“Her name was Jemma,” Thorn said. “Jemma Diwali.”
“How did you find that out?” he asked.
“It was in a book. A stupid book. It was all about abstractionist counter-layers and things. Nothing that really explained the painting.”
“I’ll show you what it was talking about,” the magister said. “Stand right there.” He positioned her about four feet from the painting, then took the lamp and moved it to one side. As the light moved, the image of Jemma Diwali disappeared, and in its place was an abstract design of interlocking spirals, spinning pinwheels of purple and blue.
Thorn gave an exclamation of astonishment. “How did that happen?”
“It is in the microscopic structure of the butterfly wings,” Magister Pregaldin explained. “Later, I will show you one under magnification. From most angles they reflect certain wavelengths of light, but from this one, they reflect another. The skill in the painting was assembling them so they would show both images. Most people think it was just a feat of technical virtuosity, without any meaning.”
She looked at him. “But that’s not what you think.”
“No,” he said. “You have to understand, Vind art is all about hidden messages, layers of meaning, riddles to be solved. Since I have had the painting here, I have been studying it, and I have identified this pattern. It was not chosen randomly.” He went to his terminal and called up a file. A simple algebraic equation flashed onto the screen. “You solve this equation using any random number for X, then take the solution and use it as X to solve the equation again, then take that number and use it to solve the equation again, and so forth. Then you graph all the solutions on an X and Y axis, and this is what you get.” He hit a key and an empty graph appeared on the screen. As the machine started to solve the equation, little dots of blue began appearing in random locations on the screen. There appeared to be no pattern at all, and Thorn frowned in perplexity.
“I’ll speed it up now,” Magister Pregaldin said. The dots started appearing rapidly, like sleet against a window or sand scattered on the floor. “It is like graphing the result of a thousand dice throws, sometimes lucky, sometimes outside the limits of reality, just like the choices of a life. You spend the first years buffeted by randomness, pulled this way by parents, that way by friends, all the variables squabbling and nudging, quarreling till you can’t hear your own mind. And then, patterns start to appear.”
On the screen, the dots had started to show a tendency to cluster. Thorn could see the hazy outlines of spiral swirls. As more and more dots appeared in seemingly random locations, the pattern became clearer and clearer.
Magister Pregaldin said, “As the pattern fills in, you begin to see that the individual dots were actually the pointillist elements of something beautifuclass="underline" a snowflake, or a spiral, or concentric ripples. There is a pattern to our lives; we just experience it out of order, and don’t have enough data at first to see the design. Our path forward is determined by this invisible artwork, the creation of a lifetime of events.”
“You mean, like fate?” Thorn said.
“That is the question.” Her tutor nodded gravely, staring at the screen. The light made his face look planar and secretive. “Does the pattern exist before us? Is our underlying equation predetermined, or is it generated by the results of our first random choice for the value of X? I can’t answer that.”
The pattern on the screen was clear now; it was the same one hidden under the portrait. Thorn glanced from one to the other. “What does this have to do with Jemma?”
“Another good question,” Magister Pregaldin said thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Perhaps it was a message to her from the artist, or a prediction—one that never had a chance to come true, because she died before she could find her pattern.”
Thorn was silent a moment, thinking of that other girl. “Did she die in the Holocide?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know her?”
“I told you, I wasn’t there.”
She didn’t believe him for a second. He had been there, she was sure of it now. Not only had he been there, he was still there, and would always be there.
Several days later Thorn stepped out of the front door on her way to classes, and instantly sensed something wrong. There was a hush; tension or expectation had stretched the air tight. Too few people were on the street, and they were casting glances up at the city. She looked up toward where the Corkscrew rose, a black sheet-iron spiral that looked poised to drill a hole through the sky. There was a low, rhythmic sound coming from around it.
“Bick!” she cried out when she saw the Waster heading home laden down with groceries, as if for a siege. “What’s going on?”
“You haven’t heard?” Bick said.
“No.”
In a low voice, Bick said, “The Protector was assassinated last note.”
“Oh. Is that good or bad?”
Bick shrugged. “It depends on who they blame.”
As Bick hurried on her way, Thorn stood, balanced between going home and going on to warn Magister Pregaldin. The sound from above grew more distinct, as of slow drumming. Deciding abruptly, Thorn dashed on.
The denizens of Weezer Alley had become accustomed to the sight of Thorn passing through to her lessons. Few of them were abroad this forenote, but she nearly collided with one coming out of the tobacco shop. It was a renegade priest from Glory to God who had adopted the Waster lifestyle as if it were his own. Everyone called him Father Sin.
“Ah, girl!” he exclaimed. “So eager for knowledge you knock down old men?”
“Father Sin, what’s that sound?” she asked.
“They are beating the doorways of their houses in grief,” he said. “It is tragic, what has happened.”
She dashed on. The sound had become a ringing by the time she reached Magister Pregaldin’s doorway, like an unnatural Note. She had to wait several seconds after knocking before the door opened.
“Ah, Thorn! I am glad you are here,” Magister Pregaldin said when he saw her. “I have something I need to… .” He stopped, seeing her expression. “What is wrong?”
“Haven’t you heard the news, Magister?”
“What news?”
“The Protector is dead. Assassinated. That’s what the ringing is about.”
He listened as if noticing it for the first time, then quickly went to his terminal to look up the news. There was a stark announcement from the Protectorate, blaming “Enemies of God,” but of course no news. He shut it off and stood thinking. Then he seemed to come to a decision.
“This should not alter my plans,” he said. “In fact, it may help.” He turned to Thorn, calm and austere as usual. “I need to make a short journey. I will be away for two days, three at most. But if it takes me any longer, I will need you to check on my apartment, and make sure everything is in order. Will you do that?”
“Of course,” Thorn said. “Where are you going?”
“I’m taking the wayport to one of the other city-states.” He began then to show her two plants that would need watering, and a bucket under a leaky pipe that would need to be emptied. He paused at the entrance to his bedroom, then finally gestured her in. It was just as cluttered as the other rooms. He took a rug off a box, and she saw that it was actually a small refrigerator unit with a temperature gauge on the front showing that the interior was well below freezing.