Folly and Dworkin walk out into the great hall, which is mostly empty. He leads her back into the castle and down, down deep into the castle and the corridors that become caves. Dworkin leans down to Folly and says "These lamps are going to run out soon, I think. Do you have a light?"
Folly frowns thoughtfully. "I don't think that I..."
..._can do that here_, she'd meant to say. But she shoves her hand into her pocket anyway, seeking out the lighter that must've ended up there when she was out on tour....
As her mind reaches out in search of a light, a new thought occurs to her with surprising certainty. She points down the hall with her free hand. "But there's a supply room just down the hall here, with torches -- the electric kind, I mean -- and some candles with matches." She counts off the doors with her pointing hand: One, two, three, four, side-hall.... "There."
She can't for the life of her remember when she was down here that she'd know that, but she's really quite sure. She smiles at Dworkin and leads the way to the correct door.
Dworkin pulls out an electric torch, points it as his face, and turns it on. He flips the switch a off and then on again. "That's quite clever, isn't it? I never quite figured out why Oberon hated electricity so much. He kept nattering on about Gauss rifles whenever I asked, so I stopped asking..."
Folly snorts and shakes her head sympathetically. "Some people seem to think always of weapons and destruction, even when there are so many NICE things to work out instead -- stereos and theremins and flashing neon signs, y'know?" She slips a couple of candles and a box of matches into her pocket, more from Amber-ingrained habit than from any sense that she'll need them. She smiles amiably at Dworkin.
It doesn't seem to occur to her to worry that he's about to lead her out of the castle and into the caves until she glances down at her bare feet. "Um, do you think I'll need shoes?"
"I never could stand the things, but I don't paint with my feet. Neglecting for the nonce the question of why I went off with you, what is it that made you ask to train with me?"
Folly considers the question for the space of a few heartbeats. Then, "I've seen your art," she says. "Not just the trumps -- though those are lovely, too -- but also... there are some sketches in the library. And I think... you have this way of drawing, where even the simplest squiggly line of a sketch evokes exactly the thing you were trying to capture, that just.... It's like you understand the essence of what things ARE so well that you can capture it in a line, or a note, or a breath...." Her eyes are shining with excitement and admiration. "It's the way I try to sing, too, but I'm not nearly so skilled as all that. So I suppose I want to know the things that you know that tell you the secret inner shape of things, if that makes sense...."
"Hmm. Would it deter you if I said that I was hopeless for the first thousand years I painted? No, I didn't think so. And it's not, strictly speaking, true."
Folly smiles. "I'm told I'm supposed to live forever. So even if it takes ten thousand years, I suppose I have the time...." Nope, she doesn't sound at all deterred.
Assuming she keeps following, he leads her into caves. The floors are slick rather than sharp. Folly thinks they are on about the same level as the pattern.
Folly follows along, getting a sense of the caves as much from their sound as from their sights and feel. Every now and then she hums a few bars of a happy melody for the simple joy of listening to the notes bounce around the expanse of stone.
As they make their way deeper into the caves, another facet of her answer occurs to her. "It's not just about art-for-art's-sake, though," she says thoughtfully, "although that's lovely too, of course. Rather, I think S-- ...er, Random needs someone on his team who knows these how-the-universe-works sorts of things and whom he trusts to be honest with him. I'm not sure he has that yet. I want to work toward becoming that person; and having seen your art, I suspect you hold the knowledge and the skill to help me along that path, or at least get me pointed in the right direction." She looks at Dworkin and smiles. "But that's mostly just a hunch."
"Sir Random? Hmm. I thought he was calling himself King these days. Why do you want to be on his team?"
Folly's smile grows a bit wistful. "Because he's my friend, and he asked. Because I trust his heart and his gut, even when his powers of observation could use a little nudge. Because I want him -- and Xanadu -- to succeed. Because I feel more at peace in a motorcrash with him than sitting on a deserted beach at sunset by myself. Because he once sat up all night with me and held my hair while I threw up. Because I understand his vision even when I don't understand him. Because we're greater than the sum of our parts. Because I've always been on his team, and it still feels like exactly where I need to be."
She pads along in silence for a few moments. "Does that answer your question?" she asks.
He nods. "For now, although we may come back to it later." After a moment, he comes to an elaborate door made of ancient wood. The door is covered with ornate designs and ironwork. The old man pulls it open with ease, and gestures in to a small suite of rooms.
"Here we are. I think we'll have to hurry, since I don't think you can stay for the full set of lessons. There's fruit in the basket by the skull, get some when you want it."
"Thank you," Folly says with a genuine smile as she looks around the room. She's too excited to eat just at the moment, though, so she contents herself with getting a feel for the place.
He sits, crosslegged, on a pillow by a small table. There is another pillow across from his seat.
Folly settles, comfortable but alert, onto the other pillow.
"Now, let us begin. How is a painting different from an image?"
Folly smiles. She remembers a concert, years ago; Bastien wanted to expose some of his young students to avant-garde music. Afterward they'd had a lively discussion about the difference between music and noise, where the one ends and the other begins. She couldn't've been more than ten years old at the time, but she finds the core of her answer remains much the same.
"Eye, mind, heart, hand," she says. "Perception, possession, passion, precision. The painting arises from the artist's will, filtered through his skill, to bring to life the ideals of his heart and mind, his own owned experience made real through shade and line. The image, though, is the purview of the viewer to understand and interpret, feel and experience. To put it another way: Image is in the eye of the beholder, painting is in the will of the creator. I suppose we could think of image as input and painting as output, but in a feedback loop: one person's painting will be someone else's image, and another's image may someday lead to painting...."
Her brow furrows. "But then I suppose some might argue that a creative viewer can turn image into art just by looking at it the right way. Sometimes that can be an act of creation all by itself, don't you think? Like finding a whole drama unfolding in the clouds as they rearrange themselves...." She thinks a moment, then grins. "But I suppose that's not so much 'painting' as 'storytelling'...."
"Hmm. And is a story told in a language you don't understand a work of art?"
He doesn't wait for her answer. "Let me ask that another way. Some critical theorists think art, to be valuable, needs to be timeless and not attached to any cultural signifiers, so an urn is beautiful for what it is, not for what it was, who made it, or why. Others dispute the universal esthetic standards and claim that Art can only be considered as an episode of eavesdropping by a viewer and her culture on an artist conversing with his.
"Which do you think it is?"
Folly's eyes sparkle, and she leans forward. "Ah, but what does it mean for a thing to be valuable? Can something have value in isolation, with no entity to do the valuing? 'If a tree falls in the forest and no-one hears it, does it make a sound?'" She pauses, and then smiles almost conspiratorially, as if sharing a deep secret. "I have always contended that it does. That may not be such a radical thing for a performer to assert, though: I'm sure we'd like to think that we and our works retain our specialness and beauty even when no-one's watching." She grins and settles back onto the pillow again, but her eyes still spark with excitement. She clearly is enjoying the conversation very much.
"And I think that gets right to the heart of the matter," she continues. "The act of creation itself has value for the artist, even if no one else fully understands the result, and that gives any work a certain intrinsic value. I've *heard* stories told in a language I don't understand, seen how the act can transform and transport the storyteller. Of course, one might argue that I *did* understand, that though the words had no meaning to me I could still hear the emotion and the rhythm -- languages I *do* understand -- and that those, rather than the words, were the 'universal esthetic' that gave value to the experience. On the other hand... if Shadow is infinite, if anything I can imagine and even more that I cannot is out there... somewhere..." she wiggles her fingers toward the door, "then is anything truly universal?"
It doesn't sound like a rhetorical question. Folly waits eagerly for Dworkin's response and the continuation of the conversation.
"No, not truly. Anything you might suggest is either bound by a limited sphere or bound outside one or more limited spheres. Tell me, Folly. Are you good at mathematics?"
Folly smiles, a bit sheepishly. "I used to be, yeah, but it's been a while since I've done it in any organized way. I, uh, sort of skipped out on university in favor of music. But..."
She reaches out and taps out a quick little rhythm against the table, a figure that amounts to rapidly breaking a repeating 35 into fives and sevens. "Y'know? I've always secretly suspected that math and music were sort of the same thing, if you just look at them the right way...."
Dworkin smiles and taps the side of his nose with his index finger. "Everything is the same thing if you look at it the right way. Music is a very elegant way of exploring certain aspects of mathematics, filtered through esthetics. Painting can be, as well. Why do you think Trumps work?"
Folly smiles. "Well, I hadn't ever thought of it in terms of *math*, more like... physics crossed with metaphysics, y'know? Psychic radio. And the trump itself holds the key to the channel you're trying to tune to."
Her brow furrows in thought. "Is it reasonable to think of reality in terms of... interfering waves, with the Patterns as their sources?"
"As long as you consider it in terms of interfering waves in which you can have lunch, it's not unreasonable. Or more precisely, where I can have lunch." He walks over to the table and picks up a green fruit and a knife, expertly peels it, and cuts himself a slice.
Folly smiles. She glances at the fruit basket and considers taking a piece herself, but her stomach is still turning strange flip-flops. Perhaps later.
"Next question: Why aren't all paintings Trumps?"
Folly chews her bottom lip thoughtfully for a moment, then ventures, "I think... a Trump is a Trump because it captures some fundamental aspect of its subject in a way that connects them, image-to-subject, like two cans connected by a string." She pauses, frowning slightly, as if not fully satisfied with that analogy. But after a moment's thought she presses on.
"I think it comes down, again, to Skill and Will. A Trump is only a Trump, rather than just a painting, if the artist has the skill to capture that necessary fundamental essence of the subject -- the spark in the eye, the energy, the emotional state. And I suspect, though I don't know for sure, that it would be very difficult, perhaps impossible, to capture the exact necessary essence to make a Trump without setting out to do exactly that -- that is, that one does not generally set out to make a painting and end up with a Trump by accident. It is an act of Will."
Folly glances down at her hands folded in her lap and realizes that she has absent-mindedly withdrawn her card case from her pocket. She thumbs it open and is momentarily startled to see Syd's trump staring out from the top of the deck, the place where Martin's trump usually goes. She lays her thumb over the image, partially concealing it, to guard against initiating an accidental contact while she studies the image. After a moment she looks up at Dworkin again.
"Or at least, all of that is what my intuition tells me," she says with a small smile. "The first time I ever saw a Trump of someone I knew, it... it was real enough to convince me. He was dressed all wrong and his hair was too short, but... it was him. The Trump had that fundamental Something that made it unmistakable." She glances down into her lap again with a faint smile. Then, "*Is* it possible to capture that essence just by virtue of being an incredible artist -- to make a Trump by accident?"
"Hmm. If it were, then shouldn't every picture of a place, no matter how it looks, be a trump of someplace in infinite shadow? Of course, places and people are technically different. Except that they're not, of course."
Folly smiles and gives a brief nod.
He pulls out a sketch pad, holds out his thumb and appraises it for a moment. Then he quickly sketches his own outstretched thumb. "Is this a picture of a person?"
Folly looks at Dworkin's thumb, examines its angle as he holds it out, its lines and its texture, the shape of its nail, and all the little marks and clues of its age and history. She contemplates the sketch for a moment and then says, "Some people say that eyes are the windows to the soul, but is it not what we do -- our hands and their works -- that show others who we are?"
She continues examining the sketch as she elaborates, "If the point of a picture -- a picture of a person -- is to capture the unmistakable essence of that person, then I think an image of his hand, if it is expressive enough, representative enough of who that person is and what he does and has done, can be as much a picture of that person as an image of his face, his eyes, his smile."
Her gaze moves again to his outstretched thumb, searching for those features that make it uniquely, unmistakably his. She blinks, and her mouth forms a silent, surprised 'o'. Excitedly, she leans in a little to look more closely at his whole hand, then at his eyes.
"You--- You're---" Light dawns. Folly grins broadly at Dworkin. "Forgive me, I -- I hadn't realized we're related."
"Oh, when you're as old as I am, you're related to practically everyone. But that's not the point! Are you sure it's not a trump of Right Thumbnail Butte?"
"Well, no," Folly says with a small sheepish smile, "it wasn't my Will that made it.... But I see your point."
He looks in her eyes, his very wide open.
"Try it."
Folly looks back at him for a long moment, trying to read his expression -- or at least making sure she reads no mischief or malice in it. She has, after all, been warned that it's dangerous to trust one's relatives.
Not that that's ever stopped her before, of course.
Grinning, she reaches for the sketch. "You know, carrying on a trump conversation with your thumb suddenly doesn't sound like such a strange idea to me. I wonder what it thinks?"
[assuming he passes over the sketch...]
It is cold to the touch.
Folly takes the sketch and spends a few moments studying it without trying to make contact, admiring the style and skill of the image, the simple yet evocative lines. She tries playing the optical-illusion game, making the shape on the page resolve into different possible real-world objects, slowly turning the page to look at the image from all directions as she does so. At one point she goes a little pink, as if the image had suddenly and unexpectedly become something naughty.
[...and assuming it doesn't resolve itself into something obvious -- the Royal Urinal, or something -- when she holds it upside down....]
When she completes her inspection, she begins to concentrate. She keeps her free hand poised near Dworkin's, as if she half-expects to slip and fall into the trump and need a hand back out....
The image resolves itself quickly, and she feels a warm breeze at her back and her hair is blown against her neck. She feels her hand being grabbed and she sways forward and suddenly, she's elsewhere, standing with a card in one hand and Dworkin's hand in the other.
"Now it's entirely possible that I faked that, since I could've known that there was a place that looked like my thumb, but what if I didn't, hmm?"
Beyond the card, is, indeed a place that looks like Dworkin's Thumb. A tall butte with a curve in it stands in the middle ground. Some distance from them Folly sees what looks like a statue of a man from the waist up.
"So... then... the lesson here is either 'Just because you try to make a Trump of something doesn't mean it will come out to be the thing you mean,' or...." Folly screws up her features in thought as she works out all the possibilities. "Or," she concludes after a moment, "possibly 'My relatives have interesting senses of humor.' But nice taste in vistas. That," she says, nodding towards the butte, "looks like a *great* climb...." She's grinning now, her eyes sparkling as her mind unravels the clues. She takes a deep breath, unconsciously scenting the wind for traces of ocean.
"Okay. By your earlier argument, one must be trying to make a trump in order to end up with a trump, or else any painting of a landscape would always end up being a trump since it will necessarily look just like SOMEplace in the infinity of Shadow. But then by a similar argument, if it really is possible to get a trump of the wrong thing by accident, then wouldn't every trump -- even person trumps -- be identical to someplace in Shadow and therefore be a place-trump -- to, for example, the gallery out in Shadow that holds the portrait identical to the one you just made?"
She pauses, turning these ideas over in her mind. "So. In order for trumps of people not to accidentally be trumps to their portraits out in Shadow.... Hmmm. Perhaps it's not possible to make place-trumps that depict only that which was man-made, like a portrait alone or a piece of furniture in a completely enclosed room?" Folly frowns and shakes her head. "I'm not sure, but I don't think I believe that. After all, in a sense people themselves are entirely man-made, and we can make trumps of them, yes? And there is a sense in which art is a product of nature because it flows straight from us and our muscles and our sparky little synapses and our great tides of blood and hormones and neurochemistry. So I'm not sure there's really a fundamental difference. We'll assume for now that accidentally making a trump of Thumb Butte, or Flora's Torso Mountains, or whatever, is functionally equivalent to accidentally making a trump of a portrait gallery and see where that gets us.
"The next possibility is that perhaps the trump must be rendered with such exquisite skill that it captures the life and spirit of its subject better than any Shadow portrait ever could. But if Shadow really is infinite in the sense of holding every possibility ever, then the identical portrait would HAVE to exist out there somewhere, and we have a contradiction." Folly looks sidelong at Dworkin and grins. She hasn't let go of his hand, and he can feel her grip tighten as her excitement over the problem grows. "So far, if I'm looking at it correctly, the evidence points to you knowing this place existed and drawing it on purpose. Or am I missing -- or misunderstanding -- something?"
"Yes, I did know about this place, it's very distinctive. I've had several tedious conversations with that Giant over there. He's the most narcissistic nihilist I've ever met. Oh, by the way, don't come back here without some help. We're a bit past the inflection point, so it takes a bit of sorcery to keep it safe for people. Sorcery or else me.
"So, let me tell you a few things about trumps and you can tell me what those things mean to your theories. First, you can only draw a trump of a person who is descended from me. Second, place trumps are tied to a specific shadow, and if the place is significantly changed, it stops working. Third, minor variations in both people and place do not prevent contact. You can reach Caine if he shaves off that ridiculous beard, or grows a proper one. You can reach Amber in the winter, even if the trump is of a summer scene. Fourth, you have to mean to make a trump to make a trump. Fifth, you do better with someone or some place you know well."
The clouds overhead lighten and Folly can see the sky. It has red streaks, mixed with yellow and green.
Folly lets out a soft gasp and stares wide-eyed at the sky. Simultaneously, two tiny voices whisper in the back of her mind:
The first says, "My god, that... that's gorgeous."
The second says, "Martin would freak if he knew where we were."
"So, tell me how all that affects your theorizing. Afterwards, we can climb the Thumb, unless you'd like to start right in making Trump sketches."
"A kid in a candy-store never had it so good," Folly replies with a broad grin; and indeed, she seems reluctant to choose right away between two such appealing options, so she jumps into the theorizing instead.
"So... my cousins sometimes refer to the Pattern -- or Patterns, I guess -- as the sources of all reality, and that's how I've come to think of them. But..." Folly looks at Dworkin, seems to be examining the lines of his face, as she works out what she wants to say. "But it's only your descendants who can have trumps made of them, and -- as far as I know -- only your descendants who've ever made Patterns. So... then... is it more useful to think instead of YOU as being the source of this quality referred to as Reality, and is that essence what's being captured when one makes a trump?"
"It may be true, but it's not necessarily useful. It also may have come from your great-grandmother, The Unicorn. Have you met her, by the way? Lovely, but headstrong. I still don't know what she saw in your Random..."
Folly blinks in surprise and actually has to stop her hand from going up to her head to check for a wee horn-nub. "I -- no, I haven't yet had the pleasure," she manages to stammer after a moment.
On the bright side, she's now too tongue-tied with surprise to blurt out that perhaps Random was just the "horniest"....
He starts walking towards the Thumb. "Come along, we can sketch on top of it and talk as we go." He has a long stride. "What do you think patterns do?"
Folly has to trot a bit to keep up, but she's so wound up that it hardly takes any effort. Probably it's a good thing she's about to throw herself at a big rock; she could use a little exertion to help clear her head.
"It seems to me," she replies after a moment's thought, "that a Pattern is sort of like a... a musical score, bringing order to the space around it and laying out what its song will be, and in what style. It gives structure, keeps things stable -- in the proper key and tempo, if you will -- and keeps other influences at bay. It... I think... is an esthetic expression of the will of its creator, and shapes its surroundings to that will -- but it might be other things as well...?"
Dworkin's expression looks doubtful. "Hmm. It probably helps to think of it as a performance instead of score. Or a candle, if you think of the score as 'the concept of illumination'. Yes, a candle is a good model. Or a lens."
"Candle," Folly muses. "Yes, I like that."
He kicks off his shoes and begins climbing the rock face of the thumb. If he keeps going up the way he's going, he'll have to climb up a wicked overhang to get to the top.
Folly, who is still in her court clothes -- minus the shoes -- gathers up her skirt and with practiced ease twists and ties the front and the back sections together until it resembles a pair of loose, knee-length shorts. It's an old skill; one never knows when one might encounter beach and warm surf, or a tempting city fountain....
She starts up the rock face, opening all her senses to enjoy the warmth and texture of stone against her bare hands and feet, the exhilaration of physical sensation and exertion.
"I'll teach you some math while you're painting. You can't really understand it without that."
"Thank you," Folly says warmly, and she means more than just the math lessons, more than the painting. She smiles up at him and notices the obstacle at the end of his present path. "Mind the overhang," she says cheerfully. "--Unless you're going that way on purpose because you like the challenge?"
"We are on the far side of the tree. This place doesn't have to obey reasonable laws and neither do I." To prove his point, Dworkin climbs up under the back-bent Thumb onto the thumbnail and stands 'up'. He walks to the edge and crouches down and swings himself around to the top. His arms seem to be double-jointed. At least.
"Come on up, the weather's fine!"
As Folly pulls herself over the side, she sees that he's set up an easel and has a found a wooden palette.
She smiles and takes a moment to enjoy the view, turning in a slow circle to etch the details of the whole panorama into her memory before joining Dworkin at the easel.
"So, is your choosing not to obey reasonable laws just another instance of probability manipulation? I guess that sort of thing would be a little easier out here---" An impish sparkle creeps into her eyes as she gestures at their surroundings. "---I guess the technical term would be 'far from Order', but I confess that thinking of the Pattern as a performance makes me want to call it 'the cheap seats'...."
"No," says Dworkin, swinging his arm in lazy windmills over his head. "Probability manipulation is orderly. Sorcery is Chaotistic. Probability manipulation is about obeying the letter of the law. It's harder out here, because there's less probability to grab on to.
"This place is a little bit nodal, so it's a bit of a stable instability. It's like it has high activation energy."
Folly nods slowly as she ponders that. "But then, if there's less probability out here, that means Chaos is... mostly deterministic?" Somewhere in the back of her mind, her subconscious is working out how that relates to the things Martin has told her about his time on this side of the Tree. It actually weaves in pretty well.
"Eventually. But it's very, very large."
He looks at the easel. "So, what shall we paint? Oh, and ask me why we climbed up here."
"The gorgeous view with the purply bits off in that direction?" Folly suggests, pointing off to an improbably-colored and -shaped rock formation, dappled by light from the multicolored sky. "Or is the point to paint an Elswhere or an Otherwhom and try to make a connection?" She smiles at Dworkin, her eyes bright with curiosity. "And why did we climb up here -- besides for the gorgeous view of the purply bits, I mean?"
"We climbed up here because this is where the easels are. Sometimes questions have simple answers." He taps his temple with the (clean) paintbrush.
"We are here to teach you, and we do not have years to practice, so we'll try to set you on the right path and let teach you to teach yourself. If you can do that, then you'll be able to make some headway.
"The easiest trump to make is the one person you know best. Assuming you know yourself best, that should be you.
"However, it's also a difficult trump to make, because it requires something that some of us will never be capable of, which is an honest appraisal of yourself. Oh, and discipline, talent, knowledge, aptitude, a desire to learn, and some degree of innate intelligence. There's a reason why most of your uncles and aunts don't really paint. Or perhaps, they didn't want to expose their inner selves to an old wizard enough to get over the hump of learning it, perhaps." His grin could be described as wolfish.
Folly's return grin is more subdued. _I'm a songwriter,_ she thinks. _Plumbing the depths of my soul for artistic fodder is a way of life. But is it the same thing as knowing myself?_
She turns her awareness first inward, then to the easel before them. She's not entirely sure what they might find if they go upending all the rocks in the landscape of her being -- but she's not afraid to look.
"Are you ready to begin?"
"Yeah," Folly replies with a surer smile and a brief, decisive nod. "I'm ready."
"Are you? Good." He holds the palette in his hands, making no sign of sharing paint or brush. "Tell me, then, how you would make a drawing of yourself. A drawing so clearly you that at any point in the process someone who looked at it would say that it was a drawing of you." He leans back against a rock and closes his eyes, listening.
"I think," Folly begins slowly, "you would need to start with my heart...."
Heart. Love. Her love may define her more absolutely than any other feature, but what is it that makes her heart unmistakably hers?
"You have Named me," Adonis had said to her when she addressed him as 'love'. She hadn't known what he'd meant at the time, but she does now. He is -- was, she corrects herself sadly -- Love, but a great Earth sort of love that sows its seed wherever it treads, without borders, and without staying to tend the garden that grows in its wake. Love as Seed.
And then Paige -- Folly told her once, a long time ago, that Paige's love defines her. She is Love, too, but a consuming passionate love that transforms the lover through the very act. Love as Fire.
Folly looks into her own heart and sees these things, but also... Delight. Joy. Nurture. Hope. Strength. Loyalty. Mischief. Unconditional love for all her friends and family, coupled with the willingness to poke them with sticks if she thinks they need it. Life. Laughter. Love as...
"...and paint me from the inside out, from the child within to the... the mother without." She smiles a little at the double meaning. "Eyes and mouth moments away from delighted laughter, hands ready to give support, face looking up... always looking up. A body barely able to contain the music within. And inside, a deep warm ocean, or a tree with deep roots...."
She turns her thoughts now to her worst qualities -- for if this is to be a true portrait, it must contain her whole self, all her jealousies and stubbornness and... well, is a tendency to give others the benefit of the doubt a strength or a fault? Her mind flashes briefly to Caine, and then to Aisling, and a tiny crease of a frown appears between her brows.
"...inviting and welcoming and warm and bending on the surface, but strong and fierce in its depths, and wild, unyielding to convention, holding fast in loyalty to its own nature."
Folly thinks a moment more. "And also, there should probably be a cat."
"Yes, a cat. An aquatic one, I'd think. I did Benedict with that ridiculous horse and I've never been happy about it. It was right, but then later it was all wrong.
"Now, this might take some time. Describe how you'd decide what the first brush-stroke would be in your new trump. How do you know where to start?"
Folly smiles. "You know, if you were asking me about a song instead of a painting, I'd have an immediate answer: I'd start with the rhythm, because that's sort of how I tell people apart. It's like---" With one hand she taps a steady beat, a little faster than a heartbeat, against her stomach, while the fingers of her other hand flutter against her sternum in a faster syncopated rhythm. "You know, kind of what their life-force feels like. I'm not quite as... facile... in the visual language yet. What visual thing would define the subject as efficiently?"
She tilts her head from side to side as if trying to see the problem from a better angle. "I suppose... I'd start with my core, with the line that shows the tilt of my head and the curve of my spine -- not the flesh that hangs from it, which can change with time, but the forces that give it shape and strength and movement. Everything else grows from that initial posture."
"But it's not the start, is it? How did you choose the canvas, how did you choose the brush, the paint? How did you choose to paint instead of draw yourself? Why did you want to paint yourself? I know, 'because I told you to', but that's not the point."
He sits down, cross-legged, by the easel. "Sit! If I had all the time in the world, you'd start by making paper cards from scratch, then brushes, concentrating on why a brush is a brush and why this hair is good for it and another is less good."
Folly nods and sits with her knees drawn up in front of her and the soles of her feet pressed to the warm rock. The slow curling and uncurling of her toes against the stone almost looks like a caress.
"As it is, we probably only have a few months here before you've got to go back, so we'll see if you can learn something in one of the hardest ways possible: by having someone tell you about it."
At the mention of months, Folly's brows creep up and together in a look of concern. "If--- Is--- Will that be months in Xanadu, too? If I'm gone that long... well, perhaps if there's some way to send a message that I'll be gone for a while? There... there are people there who would worry quite dreadfully about me, you see, if they weren't sure I'm safe...." She does not add that she would miss those same people quite a bit herself, but her wistful tone might give her away.
"Hmm? Oh, well. There's no need to be gone a long while unless you want to. Shouldn't be more than a few days, in the more real places. I find that helps the teaching. I can stretch our time a little more with a little bit of sorcery so we don't have to sleep, but there is a law of diminishing marginal returns attached to it, and it's not a law we can break."
Dworkin gets up and paces while he lectures. He discusses how the brush was made, why it's good for the task, he discusses the paper, the pigments, the mirror (which wasn't there when he started this discussion), the light, and how they affect any trump and why they're ideal for her to paint herself.
He explains to her that she'll fail, sometimes, to make a trump, or she'll make one that won't last, or one that can only work for a short distance in shadow, distance being an unmeasurable thing related to how similar the shadows are. He tells her how to use studies to help her make a better final product. He tells her that how a person is drawn can affect how they seem in the trump contact, and how it's unwise to trump a less-than-fully-formed relative.
Folly tries to keep her interruptions to a minimum, but every now and then she interjects a question to clarify some tricky point. In particular, she asks what it means to be 'less-than-fully-formed': "I suppose it would include those that aren't born yet, yes? But what about those who've not taken the Pattern yet? Or... or those who are only very distantly related?"
"Some of your cousins are too weak to make a trump of. People who haven't walked a pattern are too susceptible to outside influences to be good candidates. The Pattern reinforces. Young Wossname. Garrett. Leave him be until he's initiated."
At the mention of distant relatives, something else occurs to her. "If you don't mind my asking, did you or the unicorn ever have any other children besides Oberon?"
"We did have other children. Time has not been kind to our offspring."
"I'm so sorry to hear," says Folly with genuine sympathy. She decides not to press the issue. Er, so to speak.
Eventually, he tells her 'Now. Make a trump.'
Folly rises, dusts off her skirt, and spends a long moment contemplating herself in the mirror. Doing so feels a bit strange: under Martin's influence, she hasn't spent any significant time gazing into mirrors since... since she washed up in the sink in Soren's studio in Texorami, probably. How long has it been? Whether due to some sorcery, or the strangeness of time on this side of Ygg, or all that has happened since, it feels like half a lifetime ago....
She gazes at her reflection, taking in all the little details as objectively as she can. Under the light of the strange stripey sky, her skin almost seems to glow with life and energy from deep within her, and her dark eyes shine like polished onyx; even the vivid purple stripes in her hair seem both real and more-than-real, as if here the improbable were precisely the thing to be expected. Beneath her loose, flowing court clothes, her body looks soft and strong at the same time, almost like... almost....
Oddly, the only word she can come up with is "motherly".
She takes up the palette and begins mixing colors, starting with the gold-light-over-blushing-ivory of her skin tones. As her aesthetic sense engages fully with that task, a more earthbound part of her brain worries quietly at her: No, really, how long *has* it been? We returned from Texorami a couple of weeks ago or so, and we were out touring in Shadow for... weeks, almost a month, and I never... did I? No, but sometimes travelling will do that to a girl, it's really nothing to worry about, it will all come to rights soon enough....
On the palette, Folly now has four perfect pools of color capturing the light and shade of her skin. She dabs a brush into the main tone and lifts it toward the canvas. The tip of the brush, she notices, is shaking.
Still casting backwards through time, the worrying voice in her head skids straight past the Coronation, backward through the preparations, and lands on the Army's return from Ygg. She is in a tent, sharing wine with a reluctant Martin and their friendly but perhaps slightly daft injured cousin.
Folly's eyes dart from the still-blank canvas to the view from the butte; she half-expects to see firelillies dotting the landscape.
Adonis's voice again echoes out of a memory: "I hope you will find the opportunity to take advantage of my blessing soon...." She replays the words over and over in her head, each time hoping they'll be different.
But no, he really did say "blessing". She is beyond certain.
She lowers the brush again. Deep in her gut, the strange fluttery feeling that has kept her off-balance all day grows more insistent.
Well, sh**.
"Er, Dworkin?" Folly turns from the canvas to her great-grandfather. "I have a--- That is to say, if--- Well, it just occurred to me that if someone were to be involved in a trump contact while... while pregnant, would the, er, the wee nubbin be involved in the contact, too? And would that fall into the 'unwise to trump the less-than-fully-formed' category?"
"If it would have harmed the 'wee nubbin', I'd've told you before we started. 'Wee nubbin'? What do they teach in schools these days?" He rolls his eyes.
"Well, but that's quite what they look like in pictures, now, isn't it?" Folly protests, but she's grinning. She can't quite help herself. She feels a little like her head is ready to fly right off, and a little like hiding under the furniture, only there isn't really any here, but mostly she's overcome with a feeling of lightness, of elation.
"Hmf! You sound like Gerard. Not that any of you lot ever learned to properly speak Thari." He gestures back to the canvas.
She swirls her brush through the paint again and turns her attention back to the canvas. After another long moment staring at its blankness, she touches the tip of the brush to a point about a quarter of the way from the top and traces a long, gracefully meandering line, as expressive and suggestive of life and movement as Chinese calligraphy from the pen of a master, or some arcane but intuitive music notation. The stroke shows Folly's outline from about where her third eye would be down to somewhere a little below her navel, suggesting joy and hope in the tilt of her upturned face, the mouth and throat ready to open in song, the posture strong but also willingly vulnerable.
She takes a moment to contemplate the mark she has just made, as well as to see whether Dworkin has any comments or criticisms.
Just before the end of the stroke, Dworkin calls out. "Stop!"
He looks closely at the painting, and then at Folly. Bending down and turning his head until his head is completely sideways. He turns towards her.
"Tell me what you see." It's kindly, but it seems no less a command for that.
"I see...." Folly takes a deep breath, focuses on the canvas, letting all outside distractions melt away. "I see light and movement, like sunlight on water. I see my own face, looking up. I see life and strength and springing-forth, roots to buds. I see flight, song, a comet, and the path of a cat's paw trying to catch it."
He nods. "Now. Tell me what you've told to someone else who can use this, who can't see what you see that isn't there."
Folly closes her eyes and waits 'til the afterimage of everything on the canvas, visible and invisible, fades from her mind's eye. Then she opens her eyes again and tries to see what is there from a fresh perspective.
"Here is my hope and my happiness," she says slowly. "Bright love that reaches out. I think that is what remains on the page even if you can't see anything else." She turns and looks at Dworkin. "It sort of makes me want to call me."
"Don't. You won't answer.
"Hmm. Now, what if you'd painted this in a hurry, or while angry, or while distressed? Some people believe that nothing can be observed without changing it. Sometimes they're right. For trumps it's true, or as true as it can be, and still be a statement about reality."
Folly thinks about this for a long moment, then asks slowly and perhaps rhetorically, "If I paint the same shape while feeling a different emotion, is it really the same shape? Can it be identical in every visual particular -- same color, same pressure, same proportions -- but carry different information? And if so, does the difference depend on the painter or the observer? Or perhaps the idea is that it couldn't be the same in every visual particular because the subject being painted would not be the same under those conditions, and therefore the visual representation would have to change in order to reflect reality." She chews thoughtfully on the tip of the brush-handle. After a moment, a slow smile spreads across her face. "A butterfly beats its wings," she intones, as if quoting something, and her eyes stray to the small jewelled butterfly on her wrist.
"That's one of the differences between making Trumps and other arts. Every stroke of every line encapsulates the hole of the artist's impression of the subject. It's why I can tell one of Brand's trumps from one of yours. I can read it and see what kind of impression you would have had of the subject. The visual representation is a tool, in some ways, but it's not all there is. If it were, then any painting would be a trump of something.
"That's why you shouldn't allow just anyone to make a trump of you. And why an artist must above all exercise her critical eye when making a trump."
Folly nods slowly, as if she's still thinking hard about what he's saying, processing it, absorbing it. "This is all starting to sound an awful lot like a book I read once about maths, which I'd mostly picked up because of the pictures. It suddenly makes more sense why it's called 'chaos theory', y'know? I don't think the author knew, though -- or if he did, he didn't mention it."
He looks at her painting and doesn't respond directly to her comment.
"This trump will have trouble coalescing, because this sweep is your hope and your happiness and lets down the holistic Folly-ness to bring what you think of as your essential Folly-ness. Taking shortcuts gives you short-lived trumps.
"Which may be what you want, but I'm not teaching how to make half-trumps. Once you have a proper background, then you make crazy-moon experiments. You'll have a grounding in the true art, at least." He turns to her. "Are you hungry? Mustn't forget to eat."
At the mention of eating, Folly suddenly realizes she is ravenous. "Oh, yes! I think... food would be good," she says with a smile and a vigorous nod. "Thank you for reminding me. All this thinking had taken me quite out of my viscera...." For a moment, her hand strays protectively to her belly. But for all her sudden awareness of her body, her mind is still churning away.
She sets aside the palette for a moment and pulls out her trump case. With Dworkin's lessons still swimming in her head, she slides out the top trump once again and examines it closely, this time with a rational, critical eye. She rotates the card in her hand until the image is upside down, the better to concentrate on the form, the composition, the colors, the individual brush-strokes without being distracted by the subject.
"This is one of yours, yes?" she asks Dworkin as she scrutinizes the card, trying to see and understand the difference between his holistic interpretation and her own essential one.
"Hmm? Oh, yes. I didn't expect him to change so, though. That one probably won't last more than another seven or eight hundred years."
Change...? Yes, as Folly examines the image, she catches glimpses of it, finds the subtle differences between the man in the card and the man she knows. Here in her hand he seems younger, more irresponsible, a hint of mean-spiritedness beneath the wide streak of playfulness. Quite like himself, but with the rough edges still poking out.
Rather like he was when she met him. She blinks.
"Unless he dies first. In that case it gets funny."
Folly looks up from the card with a start. "Trumps still reach people who are dead? Or do you mean something else goes funny?"
"No, of course trumps don't reach dead people. That would cause no end of problems. They don't even reach everywhere when people are alive. They don't even reach people who are asleep. Death is hard to cheat..." He stops, as if he's been struck by some stray thought.
"Enough. Tell me what you came to learn and what you think I haven't taught you. We approach the end of our lessons." The sun seems have decided to start to set.
Folly takes a deep breath of the cooling air. "I wanted to know more about your art, about trumps, about how you capture the essence of things, and you've set me on the path to understanding; and I thank you humbly for that. I wanted to know more about... perhaps 'the structure and aesthetics of the universe' is the best way to express it: what a Pattern is and does, who we are and why... and we've touched on those things as well, although there is still much I don't really understand. Practical matters, mostly, which may become clearer as I grow to understand the theory." She pauses a moment, searching for a good example.
The old man nods.
"For example, why did Random conclude he needed to draw a new Pattern when there was already a working one? He's... you know, not really a theory person, he just feels things in his gut and does them, which I totally respect, but it would be good to know if his gut is ever leading him astray and I need to reason him out of things, y'know?"
He starts to speak and then stops, frowning. After a moment he starts again. "It is the nature of being attuned to the Jewel that you will inscribe a pattern or die. He did it because he was not stable. You may have noticed the difference in him since he wrote it. He's thicker."
Folly's brows creep upward to somewhere between "concern" and "alarm". Deep in her gut, she squashes the urge to use the card she's holding, to call him up and tell him to take that damn thing off before it sucks out his insides and kills him. Why in all the earths would his own grandmother---
"What *is* the Jewel, anyway?" she manages to ask after a moment. "Where did it come from, and why do we have it?"
"I don't know what it is. It isn't from here. She made it, of course, but I don't know how or of what. And we have it because no one has been able to take it away from us." His grin is ... wolflike, in a conspiratorial way. "The Patterns and Shadows are like a pearl. They protect Chaos from the irritant of Order."
Folly rolls this new information around in her mind for a long moment, examining it from multiple angles. "So... the Unicorn first gave you the Jewel so that you would make a Pattern and keep Chaos safe? Or were there other Patterns before?"
In the back of her mind, she is now imagining the Jewel as an engagement gift from an especially demanding mistress.
"No, no. She gave me the Jewel so that I would make a Pattern and keep everyone safe. She is a creature of Order and didn't care for Chaos. In any case Chaos is infinite, so it can take care of itself.
"But that was a long time ago, and paint and canvas are now. Do you understand the relationship between Pattern and Trump?"
"Well," Folly ventures slowly, "I had been thinking of Patterns as being sources of Order, and Trumps as... connections, or shortcuts, or links, between manifestations of that Order: between your descendants, or between a child of Order and a point in Shadow. I'd been thinking of Pattern as the fundamental, and of Trump as an overtone that emerges from it, if that makes sense. But from what you've said about creating a Pattern, it sounds as if Order itself is the fundamental, which Pattern shapes and Trump connects."
She pauses and chews her lip thoughtfully, then grins sheepishly at Dworkin. "I... I'm not sure I have my brain all wrapped around it, quite. I know it's possible to create trumps without being an initiate of a Pattern, because Merlin and Brita have both done it. But would it be possible to create Trumps if no Pattern existed? Is Pattern more fundamental, or are Pattern and Trump complementary ways of shaping Order?"
"No, it wouldn't. There wouldn't be anything to create Trumps of. Normally this far out from the center, past the Tree, you'd have trouble painting anything real, because there's less reality to use. Communication is a parlor trick of the process. The real power is to create congruity. It's a local override. It's a whisper in your ear as opposed to a distant shout. That's why they don't work some places, you know. And why extreme distance (and the conventions for measuring distance between realities are very arbitrary but generally useful) stops Trump from functioning.
"Does that clear things up?"
Folly's eyes light up. "It *is* like waves," she says. "--like finding the best place to set up your speakers so that everything sounds perfect from your end of the couch, except then you carry the place around with you instead of having to go back to it every time...." Her eyes focus on a point in the middle distance as she pictures space rippling like soundwaves around points of dense reality.
She blinks and looks at Dworkin again.
"Is, um, is *that* why it's bad for us to have children?" she asks. "R-- Random said we shouldn't, that it would... that there would be tragedy if we did. I... uh, I mean...." She feels her cheeks burning as she realizes how that came out. "Not him and me, I mean, any of us. It - it's because we're...." She casts about for the right word, and settles on the one Dworkin had used. "We're too dense, yes? And it pulls reality around in funny ways, like rocks in a cheesecloth...?"
He sighs. "No. I need you to know the maths to explain that. We may need to revisit that in a few centuries. It wouldn't be a Universe I'd be proud to say I'd made if *Random* could damage it just by being. It protects you from chaos, you see. Worst case we just need more patterns. And better ones."
"Well, but I'm not sure how keen Random would be to loan out his shiny---"
Folly feels a weird fluttery sensation just to the right of her belly button. It's like a triple beat, syncopated.
She flushes, lays a hand over her belly, and drops her gaze with a small, apologetic smile. "Forgive me, I'm showing all the patience of a small child demanding to know the 'why' of everything, and right this instant...." It's not entirely clear whether she's apologizing to Dworkin or to the flutter in her gut.
She raises her eyes again and looks at Dworkin. "You're right, of course -- it's probably time for me to wrestle with the maths myself for a while, to figure out what I really do know and don't know, to formulate more meaningful questions and really understand the answers." Her fingers tighten very slightly over her belly. "And also -- I think it's time for a snack. You wouldn't have any more of that fruit about, perchance? Or... or spareribs and ice cream?" she adds hopefully.
He looks at her. "Did no one teach you to make things you want? Climb down. There's some over near the Giant. Look behind the blue-ish cactus."
Folly gives Dworkin a grateful smile. "They've started teaching me, yeah, but I'm not very good yet. I wasn't sure how I'd manage out here where, as you pointed out, there are fewer probabilities to work with. I, um, I won't be disturbing the Giant, will I?"
"Hmpf. He's self-disturbing. Don't bother talking to him unless you in need of poorly reasoned philosophy."
He looks at her again. "You're right. You would benefit from either a few more years here or some time to yourself to grow on your own."
"Part of me would love to stay and study more with you, pester you with all of my questions until I understand, but...." Folly's smile grows both wry and wistful. "I am rapidly approaching the point at which the distraction of being separated from those I love is as great as that of being surrounded by them. I should return to them soon, before they start to worry, and before I burst with all the things I've been saving up to tell them. But I'll carve out quiet time to study each day -- mostly on my own, but where I can look in on them, and they on me. And when next we meet, you and I, I'll have a whole new batch of questions for you...." She grins at Dworkin, the eager spark still shining in her eyes. She looks as if she might spontaneously hug him in joy and gratitude.
"Will you have a little food with me before we go?" she asks.
"Actually, my plan is to leave after you climb down, so as to be good and gone before you get back. I think coming back for ribs-and-ice-cream would spoil the exit, don't you?"
Folly's eyebrows arch. "Perhaps. Well, assuming the keeping-this-place- safe-for-people sorceries still hold after you've gone. 'Cos suddenly not being able to breathe, or having the clouds fall like boulders onto my head as soon as you leave, would spoil the exit *worse*. For me, anyway." She grins. "Although, you know, dramatic! Full points for style."
She lowers her voice and adds conspiratorially, "I should warn you, I'll probably try to sneak a good-bye hug in anyway. It's my way."
Dworkin pouts, but doesn't seem to mean it. "And people wonder why I don't take students. Don't stay too long after I leave and you should be fine.
"Where are you going next?" he says, brightening.
"Homeward," Folly replies. She sounds a bit apologetic for not having a more entertaining answer. "I need to talk to Martin about... a lot of things, and find out if there've been plans made for the memorial service for Cousin Adonis. Did you know him? I quite liked him, even if---"
A shadow crosses her face as she remembers, in rapid succession, the story of his death, the day that she met him, and the reason she had to spend that whole day in Heather Vale.
He nods, apparently missing the emotions playing across Folly's visage. "We'd met. I always wondered what Julian was getting at with him."
"Oh, dear, are we too far away from Amber or Xanadu to trump? That might change my plans somewhat...." She frowns thoughtfully. "Well, not the final destination, but definitely the method...."
"Let me think... Yes, I've determined that they will work to either of those locations." He shakes his head, his hair flopping around. "I have to be careful doing that. Technically that will move the shadow, but it won't notice..."
"Like what happened to Tir na Nog'th?" Folly asks, intrigued.
"No, " he says, shaking his head, "that was different. More along the lines of how a shadow changes what shadows are close to it based on changes in that shadow. A shadow may be an inhospitable snow-bound ice-age emptiness and only a thousand years later be overrun with little furry guys generating heat by burning compressed lizard parts. What once was close and easy to walk to or even bleed through from is now distant, do you see?" He looks at her.
She nods. "So the real measure of the distance between shadows is 'similarity'...." Her eyes unfocus a little bit as she pictures all of shadow, stretched out like an infinite-dimension tapestry, each stitch infinitessimally different from the ones adjoining it in any direction, each thread a path to another world....
He nods. "It's a practical measure, derived from travel time multiplied by rate of travel where n-dimensional travel is immaterial to actual progress. Rate of change times time equals change. Of course the work to achive a certain rate is variable, and measuring it depends on the iso-linearity of probabilistic resistance. The equations end up being quite elegant..." He pauses when he mentions equations, and then changes the subject.
"Anyway, The Land of Youth is different. It's anchored. Or was." Dworkin stands.
"It lost its anchor when th---?" Folly begins, puzzled, but cuts herself off with a laugh and a shake of the head.
"No, you've already been more than patient with me, I really should move on to working these things out for myself now." She smiles fondly and respectfully at Dworkin. "You've given me much to think about, and an excellent starting place. Thank you." She emphasizes the sentiment with a humble bow, student to master.
He smiles. "You remind me of my best student, you know. Except for the part about liking Random. Now off you go, get your spare-ribs and ice-cream and then back to the areas with a positive slope with you. I'll see you around, I expect."
Folly bites the inside of her bottom lip for a moment, but musters a genuine smile for her great-grandfather. "I certainly hope so," she says. "You are always welcome to visit me." As promised, she gives him a fond farewell hug.
Folly turns and surveys the landscape, making sure she still has her bearings, and begins her climb back down the butte.
The thumb smells delicious. Other than that, [she makes it to the bottom without incident].
Last modified: 26 October 2005