The Soul Consortium (18 page)

“The challenge doesn’t begin until I say go, right?”

“Yes.”

“Can I change my mind from scissors?”

Makeswift raises his eyebrows. “Do you have free will?”

I narrow my eyes at him and ignore Veguelle’s smirk. “I’m choosing something different.”

“Very well. Tell me what it is.”

Still squinting, I whisper, “Paper.”

“What did he say?” asks Veguelle.

Makeswift whispers in his ear.

Veguelle whispers back.

“And what did Veguelle say?” I ask.

Makeswift smiles again, leans over, and whispers, “Scissors. And you?”

I shake my head. “But we’re not getting anywhere. Every time I make a choice or he makes a choice we change our minds.”

“So?” says Makeswift.

“Do we have a time limit?”

“The time limit is the strength of your patience.”

“Then how can either of us ever win?”

“I can sit here all day,” says Veguelle. “All I’ve got to go back to is a day of washing floors. I
hate
washing floors. Makeswift told me that if I win, I can pass the chore on to Brother Kayne.”

“Well
I
don’t have all day; I have an investigation to run.”

Veguelle slaps his hands on the table. “Then I win.”

“I think we can stop there,” says Makeswift. “Have you learned anything, Brother Soome?”

I think for a moment. Aside from an even deeper conviction that Brother Veguelle is a complete ass but probably not a murderer, the lesson appears to prove that the study of the Codex is a huge disappointment. Could a mathematical equation, however comprehensive, really be used to predict the future? Are we all still at the mercy of an infinity of possible changes for an infinite quantity of variables?

“I’m not sure what I’ve learned. That demonstration makes it appear that studying the Codex is a waste of time, and I don’t think that’s the message you wanted to convey.”

“Not exactly. For Brother Veguelle here, it wasn’t a waste of time. Do you agree?”

“For him, no, but …”

“Yes?”

“Well, it sounds like Veguelle has done this before. He knew—”

“What to expect? But that’s the point we’re making. It’s so much more than just knowing the outcome. It’s knowing what you will do with it and understanding why you seek it. Without all of these and the tenacity to see them through, you’re right; the effort is useless. But you see, Brother Veguelle here knew the outcome,
and
he had a purpose in knowing,
and
he understood that purpose. Illumination of the Codex is no different. Each of us has a unique way of understanding it. Each of us finds a different path based on our individual desires and expectations.”

“So is that a convoluted way of telling me that we only see what we want to see from the Codex?”

At that Veguelle clapped loudly. “Oh, isn’t he just wonderful? I do like him … Yes, that’s exactly what he’s been saying.”

“No,
not
exactly,” says Makeswift. “It’s true to a certain extent. The future is predetermined and cannot be changed; every future event is dictated and set out in the code for all to see if we choose to look.”

“But doesn’t our knowledge of the future mean we change it?” I ask.

“It’s the exact concept that has driven so many students of the Codex insane and so many governments to war. The short answer to that question is: no, it doesn’t.”

“But if I know what I am about to do, can’t I change it?”

“Of course you can.”

“So surely that would mean the future is
not
determined.”

“No, that’s the reason I chose the rock, paper, scissors game—to demonstrate that simple truth. Listen carefully: however far you choose to look, there is always another decision beyond your sight. It’s a principle law of Codex illumination. The very fact that you chose to find out your future was already predetermined. If you deliberately set out to change your future, then your only limitation is how far you decide to look.”

“You could spend your entire life just trying to find out what decisions you’re going to make after the next one and never actually end up doing anything.”

“Almost, yes. You will end up doing the things you found out about, but you will never ever discover the motivations for the determining decision. But it gets worse. Adding an extra person who knows what you’re doing will complicate things further. And imagine if it isn’t just one person but seven hundred billion people?”

I shake my head and laugh. “It’s enough to make your head hurt.”

“Told you,” Veguelle says. “It’ll drive you crazy if you look too hard too soon. Perhaps we should introduce you to Brother Ignatius, then the truth will really sink in.”

“Brother Ignatius?” I ask Makeswift.

“Poor fellow, we haven’t been able to help him.”

“What happened?”

“His mind fucked up completely,” says Veguelle. “He was probably the most studious among us, brilliant in fact, almost as genius as yours truly. Unfortunately, one day he went to his chamber, calculated a new set of algorithms to identify a particular direction he knew his life would take, and … well, he never recovered—slipped into a waking, muttering coma.” He sucks his top lip and stares wide-eyed into space. “He’s in the casualty chambers receiving forced dietary intake these days. We think he’ll come out of it one day, but nobody really knows, and nobody wants to find out in case the same thing happens to them. It’s rather like a brain virus.”

“I understand what you’re both saying”—I nod to Makeswift—”but doesn’t it reinforce the point I made earlier? That it makes the whole business of understanding the Codex seem pointless?”

“Not at all,” Makeswift says, digging his hand within a fold of his robes as if looking for something. Frustration fills his expression for a few moments, and then he stops, his face growing pale.

“Is something wrong?” I ask.

He closes his eyes, mumbles under his breath as if recalculating something, then shakes his head. “No, nothing at all.” After a sharp intake of breath, he produces a small metal box from his robes. “There’s more you need to understand, Brother Soome, and today’s lesson isn’t over yet. Take this and open it.”

I lift the lid, eyeing Makeswift briefly before looking at the contents. Inside are three familiar dark cubes of polished wood with bold white dots painted on each of their sides. “Dice.”

Makeswift nods. “I wanted to use coins, but they … uh … seem to have been … they seem to have gone missing so we will use dice instead. Throw them for me, please. I think you’ll find their sum amounts to ten.”

I oblige him and watch in amusement as they settle on a one, a four, and a five.

“Again,” he says. “This time it will be seventeen, but one of the sixes will be caught before it rolls off the table.”

I roll the dice, and just as he predicted, a six and a five show up before me. The remaining die tumbles across the wood, heading toward Veguelle who, with his usual grin, slams his palm on top of it before it rolls into his ample lap. He lifts his hand to reveal a six.

I nod. “So you
can
predict the future.”

“Of course we can,” blurts Veguelle. “What do you think we’re all doing here if we couldn’t?”

“But the paper, rock, scissors test …”

“It shows you what happens when there’s a clash of free will, that’s all,” Veguelle mutters. “It’s not just that you can’t see beyond your own decisions. The test is a hint at how complex the calculations are. There are thousands more levels of complexity to unravel that most of us can only guess at. If the Codex were that simple to understand, don’t you think we’d know for sure who’s been murdering everyone here? And if it were that simple, why did the entirety of the Great AI disappear for hundreds of years trying to work the whole fucking thing out, hmm?”

I raise my hands and warn him with a stare. “Relax. I’m just trying to—”

“Brother Makeswift!” Brother Kayne, the doomsayer, rushes into the verbal melee before I’m able to finish. “Come quickly. There’s been another murder.”

B
lood is spattered liberally over the sandstone walls of the murder victim’s room. At first glance, the utter chaos of personal belongings strewn over the floor, drawers and wardrobes open, robes torn and tossed across the bed, it appears as though the murder was not committed without a prolonged fight. The unfortunate half-naked body is propped up against the far wall underneath the open window with a garden trowel jutting out of his open neck, and I wonder why the murderer did not bother to conceal the weapon.

Brother Veguelle, who I assumed had a stronger stomach, rushes back out to surrender his breakfast to the cobbled floor of the passage outside.

But to me, and from the looks on Brother Makeswift’s face and the startled monk’s who led us to the scene, the real horror present in the room is not the murder: it is Abbot Deepseed creeping around the room, with a serene expression, arms folded inside his robes, examining each item with rapt curiosity.

“Terrible,” Brother Makeswift says breathlessly.

The abbot stops, turns slowly, looks at each of us, as if he is not quite sure what we are. “Yes, a tragic event.”

It takes a few moments for me to control my nerves and begin my investigational routine. “Have you touched anything, Abbot? Is everything exactly as it was when you first entered?”

“Nothing has been touched.”

“Can you tell me where you have been this morning?”

I can feel Brother Makeswift stare at me in alarm, as if placing the abbot under suspicion is a mortal danger. But I know he must be suspecting the same thing. They all must.

“I was in my study meditating,” says the abbot. “And now that I have seen the crime, I shall return … to meditate further. Please keep me informed of your investigation concerning this most unpleasant murder of Brother Flavius.”

Brother Makeswift and I part in the doorway to allow the abbot to pass, neither of us wanting to even brush the edge of his robes as he drifts past us.

“What the fuck happened here?” Veguelle says after wiping his pale lips and waiting for the abbot to walk out of earshot. “This isn’t a murder; it’s a fucking massacre.”

“Please.” Makeswift squeezes his arm. “Let Brother Soome do his work.”

“But we need to find that bastard and fast,” Veguelle protests. “Sunny’s got to be dealt with. I knew he was capable of serious violence, but all this? It’s … it’s …”

“Shut up,” I tell him, stepping carefully into the room. Whether Sunny was responsible or not, the signs of struggle are deceptive. I can often read the signs of bodily stress following a fight, but there are none here. The fingernails are intact, the soft tissue around the biceps and palms show no indications of bruising. The attack appears to have been sudden, unexpected. I ponder for a few seconds how much I should tell Veguelle and Makeswift. Their reactions to my conclusions might be useful. “There was no struggle here.”

“No struggle? Don’t you have eyes, man? Look at it in here! These robes just tore themselves, did they? “ Veguelle grabs them and tosses them at me. “And these books leapt off their shelves like suicidal fucking vegan house rats?”

“If you can’t control yourself,” Makeswift snaps, “please leave.”

Veguelle crosses his arms with a trembling huff.

“Thank you, Brother Makeswift,” I say, picking up the robes and showing them to Veguelle. “Where’s the blood?”

“What?” Veguelle blinks.

“The blood, where is it?”

“Have you actually
seen
the walls? I don’t know if your wondrous powers of deduction have taken command of your mind yet, but we’re not in the habit of enjoying blood ripple as a popular color scheme for our—”

“The robes, you idiot, take a closer look at the robes!” I throw them at him. “Not a drop on them. And look at the rest of this mess. Do you see blood on any of it? It’s only on the walls nearest the body.”

“Prancing Prometheus! The boy’s right!”

“If the disturbances here were part of the struggle, there’d be blood on most of it.”

Brother Makeswift nods. “So what do you think happened?”

“When was the last time either of you saw Brother Flavius?”

Makeswift presses a hand against his chest. “You don’t think that we—?”

“Relax. I just want to know what sort of mood he was in.”

“I saw him yesterday just before supper,” says Makeswift.

“Me too,” says Veguelle. “I don’t recall anything unusual.”

I squat down beside the body, examine the forehead. “This mark,” I say, pointing to a spot burnt into the skin surrounded by another burn in the shape of a ring, “it’s been burnt into his skin postmortem. Is this the Eye of Pandora? The same mark that’s been etched into the other victims?”

“Yes,” says Makeswift.

“What does the symbol mean?”

“It could mean several different things,” Makeswift says. “It used to be a sign of wrath or judgement, but it could equally be a seal of protection.”

“Hah!” Veguelle says. “Wrath or judgement about what?”

“What makes you think it wasn’t for protection?” I ask him.

“Does he look like he’s been well protected to you?”

I ignore Veguelle’s sarcasm and turn back to the body. The obvious conclusion from the ransacked condition of the room is that the murderer was desperately trying to find something while the tenant was absent, and unfortunately for Brother Flavius, his unexpected return resulted in a swift and wrathful death.

But the obvious conclusion is not always the right one, and there are several interesting details making me think of an alternative scenario. The cabinets were opened with a key rather than forced entry, the finger marks on one of the small drawers suggests it was examined multiple times during the search, as if the hunter was convinced a particular object should have been there. But most convincingly, I notice that the pressure marks made by the fingertips on the drawer are quite different to those that were holding the murder weapon.

“I believe the victim was trying to find something important before he died. Do you know if Brother Flavius kept anything of value that someone else might want?”