The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Of Horoscopes

Previously: "The Metaphysics of Magic, Part 2" 

"It wouldn't do any good if Frank put on my mask," you point out. "I told you, anyone who puts it on just disappears, like Justin did."

"Of course," Joe says. "That's what Frank and me were talking about just before we left, and that's who come I know Frank would still be willing to put the mask on if you asked him to. There's no telling how long you'll be gone, and probably your life really won't be fun when you get back if you've disappeared during that week. Frank is willing to put the mission on hold in order to spare you as much grief as possible."

You are staggered by the generosity--and implicit trust--contained in the offer, which makes it very easy to demur. "It's more important to take out Blackwell," you say. "I'll pay the consequences."

Joe smiles warmly at that.

* * * * *

Frank smiles too when you see him and thank him for the offer even after declining it. You then lead your doppelganger into the bathroom, where you swap clothes with it, before pulling his mask off your face and replacing it with the mask of yourself that you pull off of him. You are out of the bathroom before Justin wakes.

"He's been out for a week," you tell the brothers when you reappear. "He's gonna freak out."

Joe Just brushes past you to disappear into the bathroom. "He'll give him some calming words," Frank tells you. "He's into the drugs anyway, you know, and we'll just pretend he's been having a really fun time this past week, and it's caught up with him." He takes Justin's mask from you. "You sure you don't want me taking your part until you get back?" You nod your head firmly. "Okay. Then I'll use this to get into Blackwell's after we've sent the real guy home."

* * * * *

Joe is with Justin for only a few minutes, then with a silent salute to his brother leads you back out to the rental car. At his suggestion you stop at a nearby Chinese restaurant--"I wanna fuel up"--before leaving town. After ordering, Joe studies his placemat, which is decorated with a Chinese zodiac, with obvious amusement, then turns it over.

"What's your birthday?" he asks, and you tell him. "Your dad's birthday? Mom's? You got a brother, right? What's his birthday?" He asks you a handful of other questions, some of which make minimal sense ("If you had a lucky number, what do you think it would be?") and some of which just seem nonsensical ("Bananas or umbrellas?") As he talks, he draws a large, loose circle on the back of the placemat and starts filling it in with arcs, lines, tangents, and other whatnot. He checks his cell phone a few times; jots complicated equations in the mat's margins; stares into the corner of the room.

Finally, you can no longer contain your curiosity. "What is that? A horoscope?"

He retrieves his attention from very far away. "Hmm? Oh, kind of. A real horoscope, I guess you might say, though the word is really misleading in this context. It's more like an abstract, multi-dimensional representation of ... well, of you."

The hair on your neck prickles.

"Remember we were talking earlier about magical connections? Well, guys who make horoscopes aren't wrong about everything. Some of the most important magical relationships run to and from and through the planets. They bind a lot of things into ... Well, into things like webs."

By this point he doesn't have to caution you that "web" is just a metaphor for another metaphor.

"Don't get the impression," he continues, "that the planets are the only things that have webs or that they're even the most important ones. Everything stands at the center of some web or other. That web of connections, in a sense, is just another way of visualizing the thing itself. Everything also stands on the fringes of an uncountable number of other, overlapping webs. This kind of calculation--" he runs his fingers around the edge of the complicated design "--is a way of identifying where you stand on a lot of those other webs, and that gives an interpreter an idea of the location and character of the web you stand nearest the center of. If you figure out that web, then you can figure out a lot about the person."

You peer at the design but resist asking the obvious questions. "So the planets do influence us?"

He groans. "That's a complicated question. In a trivial sense, yes, because everything influences us, to a small degree or other. In a less trivial sense, it depends, because some people stand nearer the center of one planetary web than the others. In the deepest sense, no, they don't influence us, not in the sense of efficient causation. But they are explanatory because they factor into certain probability curves. But I see that I've lost you."

He says that, because he's noticed that you're staring at him with a slackened jaw and glassy eye.

"Here's another analogy, like the murder weapon one," he says. "Suppose you get drunk and drive your car into a fire hydrant, which gets you all wet. Did your drunkenness cause you to become wet? No, the water from the hydrant did that. Did your drunkenness cause the accident? No, the movements of your hands and feet did. Did your drunkenness cause the movement of your hands? No, you did. But your drunkenness did alter the probabilities that your reflexes would be such-and-such, which altered the probability that you could avoid an accident, which altered the probability that ... and so on and so on. Your drunkenness is not a causal element in the accident, but it is an explanatory factor in describing why the probability envelope associated with that accident had the shape it did." He's grown very excited with this extemporaneous lecture, but his eyes and smile droop as he stares into your face. "And again I've lost you."

"How do you know all this?" you ask waspishly. "Aren't you supposed to be, like, my age?"

He runs his tongue over the front of his teeth and grins. "Well, let's take me as an example." His flips your placemat over and his hand flies over it. This design is much more complicated, and he ignores his plate after it arrives, even as you wolf your own food down.

"Okay," he says when he's done, "this is only a fraction of what I could fill in, and I won't take you through it step by step. But I can start with lots of factors that I know about and can use them to calculate probabilities for other factors, which in turn modify the earlier factors in a complicated set of feedback calculations. I can also factor in lots of other facts, like where I've been and what I've done and what talents I've manifested--like my ability to perform these fucking calculations, for one thing--which further modify the overall probability function that describes me.

"The big deductions, it turns out, are here and here." He points to two small symbols. "That's Sol and Mercury, and given their position in the equations they contribute a staggering lot of data that feed into all the rest."

He leans back. "Basically, someone who knew how to read this thing would understand how I could know all this shit and more, and why I'm really good at languages. They'd understand it the same way they could understand by looking at my blood-alcohol content why I was weaving all over the road and drove my car into a ditch. It's because I've got, for lack of a better word, connections to the planets that influence knowledge and expression."

You mull this. "So, anyone who had those connections would have your talents?"

"Um, if it were the exact same connections, then yes. But it's not just--for lack of a better word--my geometric relationship with them, but the structure of that relationship, and that is something that is very rare."

He seems to wait for you to ask something, but you're far too confused to even come up with a question, and he seizes the chance to start gobbling down his own dinner. When you speak again, it's to return to a simpler--and to you, a more important--subject. "Look, I just want to know why you and your dad are so interested in me."

He swallows his food and rubs his mouth with the napkin and begins speaking in a very low voice.

"Because our little secret society, the Stellae Errantes it's called, is made up of people who have those rare attributes I mentioned. 'Secret society' gives the wrong impression, but there is no good word for it. It's like a secret society, but it's also like an army and it's also like a prison. Like a prison in the sense that we all watch each other, make sure we don't get into trouble. Errantes means 'wandering,' and like every fucker who's ever been born, we have a tendency to wobble from the straight and narrow. But we support each other, so maybe it's also like an AA support group.

"But we need a purpose beyond that, and one of our purposes is handling guys like Blackwell, which is what makes it like an army. I mean, there's no real harm in guys like Blackwell, if vanity, arrogance, selfishness, and a sociopathic disinclination to think of others don't constitute harm. But when they lay their hands on something like the Libra, that's when we step in."

"To do what?"

Joe's laugh is a bark. "To stop the bad guys! Look, I know me and Frank made a big play of being magical gangbangers back at our first meeting. But that's just because that's what we thought you were! Actually we're more like the church police. Though not affiliated with any denomination," he hastily adds.

And while you're digesting that, he continues. "Anyway, you wanna know why our dad is interested in you? It's because he collects guys like us. And yes, I just said 'us'." His hand sweeps you and him both within the scope of his meaning. "You and me and Frank too."

Next: "The Stellae Errantes" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"