The Summoning (8 page)

“All right,” I said. “Then you need to hear this, too.” I nodded to Richard.

Richard raised his head, and met her eyes as he spoke. “The Eater of Souls will come first,” he told her. “Look for the signs. Look for the trail. Of the two of them, this one can cause the greater harm.”

Tamara’s expression gave nothing away. She continued to glare at him.

I said, “Is there a way of checking this out?”

“It would divert important resources but, yes, we can look into it.”

Richard took a step toward her. His body radiated tension, and his voice was dead earnest when he spoke, but honestly, he was a pretty sight, with his fair hair just a little tangled at the ends, and his blue eyes darkly troubled in the face of her hostility. Part of me feasted on the sight of him, and part of me was pissed at the distraction.

“Whatever you think of me, Madam,” he said, his voice low, “I am an enemy of the Eater of Souls. I know he is coming. I can feel it, and I know he is a herald of the World Snake. I can be useful in the fight against both of them. I have been, in the past. With these.” He took out his tarot deck and laid it on the table.

She smiled then, in disbelief. “To help to save the city, you are going to read tarot for us?”

Before Richard could reply, there was a shifting around us. The bears caught each other’s eyes and looked toward the back door. The really big one, that had a long face and huge hands, looked over at Tamara. “So… anything else you want us to stomp for you?”

She smiled at them and shook her head. “No. Thank you.” She glanced at Richard and then said to me, rather pointedly, “I take it that my good friends may continue with their afternoon’s leisure?”

I shrugged. The big one and two others were already on their way out. The scarred one called Jacob held his ground. His bear aspect had disappeared, but he was still awfully impressive as a man. He was big, but there was a weight to him, a sense of controlled power. He told me, “Out in the woods they are saying that the wolf kind are missing a daughter.”

My anger flamed. After all this time, and all my care, to face betrayal now! I raised my head to look him in the eye. It was a long way up. I thought of going with my sudden fury and growing larger, just to see what he’d do, but I realized it would take a fair while to get as big as he was now. And anyway, he was a bear. Bears get awfully big themselves. A wolf can take a bear, but it’s better not to try. So I said, “Oh? And will the wolf kind soon hear of another place they should be looking?”

He smiled. “I don’t think so. We bears know how to keep our counsel. Not like some, who cry their business from the hilltops.”

“It is said of the bears…” I began, stung.

“Yes?” His smile broadened, and he inclined forward to loom over me.

“That they are graceful, courteous and brave,” I finished.

“That is all true,” he admitted gravely, straightening.

“And very vain.”

He laughed, and the other bear in the doorway laughed, too. Jacob lifted a hand to Tamara and went out.

Tamara motioned me to an empty chair and cleared a corner of her huge table, piling a box of linen shawls on top of a stack of catalogues on the counter behind her. She had dark brown skin and an angular frame, and her every movement was precise, like a dancer. She sat down in the chair on the other side of the table’s corner. She didn’t offer a chair to Richard. He went to stand against the counter behind my chair. Her face might have been a model for one of the carved masks that hung in her store, with a heavy brow and sculpted cheekbones. Her expressions were as precise as her gestures. She was in her mid-thirties, but her eyes were older. She looked me over now with professional thoroughness.

“This is a new occurrence, and full of omens: one of the wolf kind with a demon in her service.” She gave Richard another long, hard look, and then asked me, “Where is he from? How did he come to you?”

I motioned to Richard to answer that question. He stepped up and began, “I was raised by the magician John Dee in 1583—”

Tamara head went back and she launched into a peel of laughter. “Dr. John Dee? Oh, no—”

“It is so,” Richard replied stiffly.

“That amateur, that charlatan, that credulous old fool!” Tamara said when she could get out the words past her laughter. Finally she wiped her eyes. “So he did do it. He raised a demon.”

“Or angel,” Richard said, his chin lifting.

Her hand waved in the air at the detail. “Don’t you know what you are?” She shook her head. “Oh, goodness. Wait till I tell my sisters. Oh dear. Wait till I tell my mother!” She looked at Richard a little more kindly. “And you’ve been stuck here ever since?” When he nodded in answer, she surmised, looking him over, “Then you came here to learn about yourself.”

Now that made sense to me. I looked up at Richard. He stood still as a dog that’s sighted game, so I could tell at once that he was interested, but he shook his head and answered her. “What I seek is protection from the Eater of Souls. Protection I will only gain if he is defeated.”

She raised her brows at this, considering him. “And what you claim to offer us is what you may see in the cards?”

“It’s more than that. These were given me by Dr. John Dee, who made them answer to me, so that I could answer to him. They will speak the truth to me of any question my master puts to me, present, past, and future. There are always questions that need answers, insights against the enemy it is useful to have.”

Tamara lifted her hands, unbelieving. “But you are the Enemy!” she cried, pointing at him. “You are of the Enemy’s get.”

Richard flushed to his ears. He raised his eyes and met hers for once. “Then isn’t it useful to know what the Enemy wants you to know?”

She considered for a moment, her head to one side. I said, “Isn’t there a way to test what he’s saying?”

Then she held out her hands for the cards. “Let me see your tarot deck.”

He looked at me, and I nodded for him to hand them over. She glanced briefly at the pattern on the back, then she turned the cards over and spread them out on the table, now uncovering one, now covering another up again. She frowned at the medieval-looking paintings, their gaudy coloring, their seeming motion. She looked up at Richard. “What kind of deck is this?”

“It’s based on one of the Lombardy copies,” he answered.

She drew apart a couple of the face cards with two of her long fingers. “These were never in the Lombard deck.”

“If I may?” Richard reached across the table, moved two cards aside to reveal one showing a bear holding a club, destroying some twisted creature on the ground. Strength, said the caption, in gothic lettering. Tamara stared at the bears, lifted the card from the table, stared at it again, then up at Richard.

“They change,” Richard explained. “It’s one of the ways they talk to me. Look.” He drew out another. Against a background of stars, a dark-skinned woman in a blue robe, with cymbals in her hands, danced, eyes shut, above a precipice. The Priestess, the caption said. “I have never seen this aspect of the Priestess either, before today. And I have used this deck for four hundred years.”

She took the card and gazed at it for a long moment. “Then by all means,” she said at last, “you must do a reading.” She let the card fall on the table.

Richard looked at me. “Sure,” I said. “Go ahead.”

He gathered up the cards while Tamara cleared a place at the table between us. When she finished, Richard rearranged the space for himself, making the clear place twice as large as she had. He shuffled the deck deftly despite the largeness of the cards, then handed the deck to Tamara.

“You must ask your question of the cards,” he told her. “You may say it aloud or not, as you please. When you are ready, cut the cards and return them to me.”

She cut the cards, turning them as she did so. She cut them again, pulled out a few cards, fed them into the deck in another place, her long fingers deft and precise. “How many times do I cut them?” she asked, smiling.

“You may cut them or shuffle them till Doomsday, if that is your wish.”

Still smiling, she handed them back to him. Richard held them for a moment in both hands, and then began dealing them out, face down. He put one in the center of his space and crossed it with the other, then put one each up, down, right, left, saying, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—”

“Don’t you blaspheme—” Tamara shot to her feet.

Richard stopped, the fourth card of the cross he was making on the table still in his hand. He said, in the same patient voice, “This is the way I was taught to do it.”

She glared at him a long moment, then sat down again, lifting her hand for him to continue. He laid the fourth card, murmuring now under his breath, then laid two more to the right above the cross he had made, and two more to the left and below. When he finished he had three interlocking squares with a cross in the middle of it. He studied the pattern for a moment, then he said, “I’m sure you know how this works…”

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen the cards laid out that way before.”

“It isn’t very different. It’s just the way I was taught.” He lifted the center card and turned over the one under it, saying, “This represents the questioner—” He stopped, puzzled. It was not The Priestess, the dancer that he had showed her before, but a young woman with very dark skin, beautifully robed, her eyes downcast, pouring liquid from one jug to another in her hands. Temperance, said the inscription at the bottom of the card. Above her, there were bright stars in a dark blue sky.

Tamara was looking at the card with as much interest as Richard was. “Go on,” she said. She then smoothed her face of all other expression.

Richard turned over the card that he had laid across the first. The Eight of Swords. “This is what crosses her. The card represents strife, a coming battle—”

“I know what the cards mean,” Tamara interrupted. “Go on.”

“I don’t,” I told them. I had a cousin who once experimented with tarot, so I’d seen a deck before, but I didn’t know anything about interpreting them.

Richard answered obediently. “The first card is Temperance. It is supposed to represent the questioner. It means harmony, someone engaged in right action, in balance and what is good in the world.” Tamara gave a little nod of agreement. “The second card is what is crossing the person, what is keeping them from what they want. The Eight of Swords represents strife, or war, or a battle to be fought.” He turned over the card to the left. There was the dancing Priestess, finally. “This is what lies in the questioner’s past, that is fueling the present question. The Priestess represents both knowledge attained and knowledge being sought.” He hesitated a moment, looking at Tamara, then continued, turning over the bottom card of the first square. The Five of Swords. “This card represents a recent event that is propelling the problem asked by the questioner. The Five of Swords represents strife or a problem caused by an absence.” He glanced at Tamara, but her face showed nothing, gave nothing away. He turned over the card to the right of the central card. It showed a pair of winged horses drawing a chariot across the sky. The Chariot, the gothic letters affirmed. Richard stood staring down at the card. “Difficulty and danger,” he said. “Possibly during a journey. The position represents what lies in store for the questioner either in the present, or in the immediate future. This card—” he put his hand over the card at the top of the center square “—shows the outcome of the questioner’s immediate problem.” He turned over the card, revealing a picture of a tower being hit by lightning, its top exploding, and people falling out of it every which way. Cool! It was upside down. “The Falling Tower represents a cataclysm to the accustomed order, of a person, a government or an organization. Being reversed alters its meaning somewhat, so that it symbolizes an inability to effect positive change in a situation.” He glanced over at Tamara, whose face was as expressionless as ever, but whose eyes showed she was caught up in the reading, full of thoughts. I could tell that this wasn’t the sort of reading that was going to end with a journey over the water and a handsome stranger with a mind for love. I guess she could, too. “Should I continue?” Richard asked her.

She broke her concentration to glance up at him, lifting an impatient hand. “Yes. Please, go on.”

Richard looked at me, and I nodded. He turned over the lowest card to the left. A smiling woman, crowned, sat on a medieval throne. In her right hand she held a staff. Her left hand was held out in just the gesture Tamara had made in trying to assess Richard’s nature from the air. It may have been just because the cards were so old, but the woman seemed to have dark skin. “The Queen of Wands,” Richard said. He glanced briefly at Tamara. “This is where the questioner stands at this time. A noble woman, gracious and good, powerful and kind.” He turned over the card above and to the left of it. “This is the world the questioner dwells in at this time,” he explained. It showed a sheaf of sticks, with a motto across the middle. It took me a moment to realize the letters were upside down. “The Nine of Wands, reversed. This card represents the expectation of adversity, soon to arrive. Reversed, the adversity becomes more difficult, or even impossible to overcome.” He glanced at Tamara again, but continued without speaking. He reached to the upper right-hand card and turned it over. “This represents the hopes of the questioner, in the present situation.” It was the Sun. Richard smiled at the card, and touched it with his fingertip. “The sun represents a victory. A glorious outcome.” He reached up to the top card of the top right-hand square. “And this represents the outcome of the question taken as a whole.” He turned over the card, and even I didn’t need an explanation. It was a moment before Richard pronounced the word. “Death. Not necessarily the loss of life,” he added quickly, “but failure, or a complete change of circumstances.” He lifted one hand and made a gesture encompassing the whole layout of the cards. He said, with decision, “This is a clear and powerful reading, Madam, but it is not yours. For you to evoke such a strong reading on behalf of someone else, you must be deeply attached to her. This woman is strong in will, powerful in herself, young of heart, and closely allied to you, in craft and in blood. This is your mother, Madam, who is an ally of yours in a great battle soon to come. She hopes for a victory, through her wisdom, her strength, and that of her allies.” He touched the final card again. “She will have a victory, one that she creates through her exertions, but not the one that she desires. Let us hope, for all our sakes, that it is not as bad as this.” He touched the card representing Death, and then turned it over, out of our sight.