“So, the reason you couldn’t make the swirl pattern do anything…” Joel said.
“Was because I don’t know what it’s supposed to do,” Fitch said. “Your father believed that unless he could match the proper type of line with the knowledge of what it did, nothing would come of it.”
Fitch pulled out another sheet. “Some laughed at him for that, I fear. I, um, vaguely remember some of these incidents. At one point, your father convinced some Rithmatists to draw his lines—I wasn’t involved, and didn’t pay much attention at the time, or I might have remembered his interest in new Rithmatic lines earlier. But he wasn’t able to make those lines do anything, even though he had a large number of possible intentions for them to try out. From his writings here, he saw that as a major defeat.”
There was a loud sigh from the floor, where Melody lay, listening and staring up at the ceiling. She must have to launder her skirts daily, Joel thought, considering how much she likes to sit on the floor, and climb trees, and lie on the ground.
“Bored, dear?” Fitch asked her.
“Only mildly,” Melody said. “Keep going.” Then, however, she sighed again.
Fitch raised an eyebrow toward Joel, who shrugged. Sometimes, Melody just liked to remind everyone else that she was around.
“Regardless,” Fitch said, “this is a wonderful discovery.”
“Even if it doesn’t tell us what the line does?”
“Yes,” Fitch replied. “Your father was meticulous. He gathered stacks of texts—some of them quite rare—and annotated them, listing any that contained hints or theories about new Rithmatic lines. Why, it’s almost like your father looked forward in time and saw just what we needed for this investigation. His notes will save us months!”
Joel nodded.
“I daresay,” Fitch said, almost to himself, “we really should have taken Trent far more seriously. Yes indeed. Why, the man was a closet genius. It’s like discovering that your doorman is secretly a scholar of advanced springwork theory and has been building a working Equilix in his spare time. Hum…”
Joel ran his fingers across one of the volumes, imagining his father working in this very room, crafting his chalk, all the while thinking on Rithmatic wonders. Joel remembered sitting on the floor, looking up at the table and listening to his father hum. He remembered the smell of the kiln burning. His father baked some of his chalks, while he dried others in the air, always searching for the ideal composition, durability, and brightness of lines.
Melody sat up and brushed some curly red hair out of her eyes. “You all right?” she asked, watching him.
“Just thinking about my father.”
She sat there for a time, looking at him. “So,” she finally said, “tomorrow is Saturday.”
“And?”
“The day after that is Sunday.”
“All right.…”
“You need to talk to the vicar,” she explained. “You have to get him to agree that you should be allowed to go through the inception.”
“What’s this?” Fitch asked, looking up from a book.
“Joel’s going to be incepted,” Melody said.
“That wasn’t done when he was eight?” Fitch asked.
“Oh, it was,” Melody said. “They screwed it up. We’re going to make them let him do it again.”
“I doubt we can make them do anything, Melody,” Joel said quickly. “I don’t even know if this is the right time to worry about that.”
“The Fourth of July is next week,” Melody said. “If you miss it, then you’ll have to wait an entire year.”
“Yes, well,” Joel said. “There are much bigger things to worry about right now.”
“I can’t believe this!” Melody said, flopping back down. “You spend your entire life mooning over Rithmatics and Rithmatists, and now you have your chance to become one, and you’re just going to ignore it?”
“It’s not that good of a chance,” Joel said. “I mean, only one in a thousand get chosen anyway.”
Fitch was watching with interest. “Now, wait. Melody, dear, what exactly makes you think they’ll let Joel try again?”
“He didn’t get to go into the chamber of inception,” Melody said. “So, he couldn’t … well, you know.”
“Ah,” Fitch said. “I see.”
“I don’t,” Joel noted.
“It’s not fair,” Melody said, staring up at the ceiling. “You’ve seen how good he is at Rithmatics. He never even had a chance. He should get a chance.”
“Hum,” Fitch said. “Well, I’m no expert on church procedure. I think, however, you will have a difficult time convincing the vicar to let a sixteen-year-old young man take part in an inception ceremony.”
“We’ll make it work,” Melody said stubbornly, as if Joel didn’t have a say in the matter at all.
A shadow darkened the doorway. Joel turned to see his mother standing outside, on the landing at the bottom of the stairwell. “Oh,” he said, noting her stunned look. “Um…”
“Mrs. Saxon,” Fitch said, standing. “Your son has made a wonderful discovery.”
She walked into the room, wearing her blue travel dress, her hair tied back.
Joel watched her with trepidation. What would she think of them invading the chamber she’d locked up and left behind so long before?
She smiled. “It’s been years,” she said. “I thought about coming back down, but I always worried that it would hurt too much. I worried it would remind me of him.” She met Joel’s eyes. “It does remind me of him, but it doesn’t hurt. I think … I think it’s time to move back in here.”
Chapter 19
Joel sat in the broad cathedral hall, arms resting on the back of the pew in front of him, head resting on his arms, thoughts refusing to rest at all.
“The Master gave life to the lifeless,” Father Stewart proclaimed, droning on at his sermon. “We are the lifeless now, needing his atoning grace to restore light and life to us.”
Light shone through the stained glass windows, which were each set with a clock that ticked away the time. The main window—a brilliant blue circular one—was inset with the most magnificent clock on the island, the gears and spindles themselves formed of stained glass.
The pews filled the nave of the cathedral, with a single aisle running down the center. Above them, in the reaches of the domed cathedral interior, statues of twelve apostles watched over the crowd of devout. The statues moved occasionally, their internal clockwork mechanisms giving them a semblance of life. Life from the lifeless.
“The bread of life,” Father Stewart said, “the water of life, the power of the resurrection.”
Joel had heard it all before. Priests, he had long since noted, had a distinct tendency to repeat themselves. This day, Joel was finding it even more difficult than usual to pay attention. It seemed strange to him—even unsettling—that his life should have intersected so keenly with the important developments at Armedius. Was it fate that had placed Joel where he was? Was it instead the will of the Master, as Father Stewart spoke of so often?
He looked up at the stained glass windows again. What would it mean for the church if public opinion turned against the Rithmatists? Several of the windows depicted King Gregory, the Monarch in Exile. He was always surrounded by Rithmatic drawings.
Cut into the stonework of the walls were interlocking patterns of circles and lines. While the building itself had the shape of a cross, the center where the cathedral arms met was circular, set with pillars marking the points on a nine-point circle.
Apostles watched, and the Master himself was symbolized on the rood. A statue of Saint da Vinci drew circles, gears, and Rithmatic triangles before itself on the ground. He had been canonized and adopted into the Monarchical Church, even though—or perhaps because—he had been a rebel Christian.
Even the most oblivious of men knew of the connection between Rithmatics and the Monarchical Church. No man gained Rithmatic powers without first agreeing to be incepted. They didn’t have to stay faithful—in fact, they didn’t even have to profess belief. They simply had to agree to be incepted, thereby taking the first step toward salvation.
Muslims called Rithmatics blasphemy. Other Christian churches grudgingly accepted the necessity of the ceremony, but then disputed that it proved the Monarchical Church’s authority. The JoSeun people ignored the religious side of the experience, remaining Buddhist despite their inceptions.
However, no man could deny that without the Monarchical Church, there would be no Rithmatics. That simple fact allowed the church—once on the brink of extinction—to eventually become the most powerful in the world. Would the church stand up for the Rithmatists if the public tried to bring them down?
Joel’s mother sat next to him, listening devoutly to the sermon. She and Joel had spent the previous day moving back down into the workroom. It hadn’t taken very long; they didn’t own much. Every time Joel stepped into the workroom, though, he felt as if he were eight years too old and about two feet too tall.
Something poked Joel in the back of the neck. He started, then turned around, surprised to find Melody sitting on the bench behind him. She’d been on the other side of the building when he’d last seen her.
“He’s almost done,” she hissed. “You going to ask him, or should I?”
Joel shrugged noncommittally.
A few moments later, she slid onto the bench beside him. “What’s up with you?” she asked quietly. “I thought this was everything you ever wanted.”
“It is,” he whispered.
“You don’t sound like it. You’ve been dragging your feet ever since I told you my plan! You act like you don’t want to be incepted.”
“I do, I just…” How could he explain? “It’s stupid, Melody, but I’m worried. For so long, I’ve defined myself by the fact that I missed the opportunity to become a Rithmatist. Don’t you see? If this works, but I’m still not chosen, I won’t have that to fall back on anymore.”
Joel had studied, learning the patterns and defenses, following in the footsteps of his father. But all the while, he’d been able to feel secure in the knowledge that he wasn’t a failure or a reject. He’d simply missed his chance, and for a good reason.
Joel hadn’t destroyed his father’s hopes for a Rithmatist child. Joel couldn’t be blamed if he hadn’t had an opportunity, could he?
“You’re right, that is silly,” Melody said.
“I’ll go through with it,” Joel replied. “I just … It makes me feel sick. That’s all.”
Logically, he saw problems in that reasoning. One couldn’t be “blamed” for not being a Rithmatist. Still, logic didn’t always change the way a person felt. He’d almost rather be left with the possibility that he could have been a Rithmatist than find out for certain.