The Luminoso by Michael Wallace

Author:Michael Wallace [Wallace, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Balsalom Publishing
Published: 2019-01-26T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

The arrangement of the books, charts, and devices on the table, all scattered about, with small lead weights holding down significant pages, reminded Thiego of a recurring dream he seemed to suffer whenever he’d spent too much time in the library vaults of the temple.

In the dream, he was taking one of the three principal examinations required to be given a chain and ring and brought into the Luminoso as a geometer. It was always the final, most difficult test that he dreamed about, and later, upon waking, he couldn’t quite understand why. In reality, he’d studied so many hours over the course of months that the examiner had expressed surprise at his level of preparation and passed him through in less than an hour. But in the dream, he was always late to arrive, could not remember the formulas, and couldn’t seem to organize the books they allowed him to use for the oral examination. The devices—old abacuses and sliding formula markers like the ones on the table in front of him now—were missing position holders.

This was like those dreams, only real.

Since Salvatore sent him down from the wall that afternoon, Thiego, Kara, and a third geometer named Maralisa had been hauling sacred books in and out of the vaults, copying minor passages and weighing down the more significant portions with lead markers to study later. Numbers and formulas never changed—even the information recovered from the First Plenty could be understood on a superficial level, at least—but more than once they had to call in other specialists from the Luminoso to decipher words that had lost or changed their meaning over the centuries.

It was now twenty bells, and the three geometers had nearly exhausted their capacity for sustained mental effort. They were making mistakes, repeating themselves, losing themselves in recursive searches that took them deeper and deeper into the ancient wisdom without ever seeming to work their way back out with solutions. But finally, Thiego seemed to have found what he was looking for. He only needed confirmation.

Kara entered the vault with a large jug of steaming tea and three cups clinking together, dangling on one of her fingers. The other two geometers cleared a spot, and Thiego poured the tea as he fought back a yawn.

Kara produced a paper parcel holding buns from a pouch at her waist. It was still penance, so they would be unsweetened and served without butter or marmalade, but Thiego was hungry enough that he wolfed his down without a second thought.

“Sorry it took so long,” she said. “There was a line in front of the bun seller. Watchmen are loading up on bread—have they doubled the watch or something? I didn’t recognize half of them.”

“Salvatore mentioned something about politics in the Quinta. I’m sure it doesn’t concern us. Look, I was going to wait until you were back, but we found the last constant, and I couldn’t resist calculating the numbers.”

“You did it without me?”

“We’re not done yet. There’s something off. The results .

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