In Constellated Wars - Part Six
Yay! I get a Demon tomorrow! This is exciting.
And I am seriously, this close to 25K. I don't know if I'll make it tonight, because I kind of wanted to pin a quilt and maybe watch the special features of the Star Trek Reboot DVD's, so we'll see.
Thierry was used to catching what sleep he could when he had the time to do so, in the fashion of experienced soldiers and Guardsmen. He’d learned to do so as a boy working in his father’s inn, because guests rarely kept regular hours and he was frequently expected to act as a stable boy if the guest had horses. He’d learned to wake at the first tentative knock on the door. Grandmother and Isabelle and Helene were as capable as any man, but Grandmother was old and needed her sleep and Helene looked too gentle to stand up to violence, so he always felt better if he was awake to greet their guests with them. That was Henri’s responsibility now. Thierry hoped Isabelle’s husband was equal to the task.
Joining the Ravensgate Guard had only reinforced what Helene referred to as his terrible sleeping habits. The Guardsmen were expected to take a variety of different shifts, staggering the early morning watch with the day shift as well as the evening and night patrols. As a junior Guardsman, Thierry frequently got the worst of them, although he wondered now if that had more to do with the fact that Aubrey was his mentor, and Aubrey wouldn’t leave off baiting Valeray if you paid him to do so. It was entirely possible that Valeray - who was sneaky and vindictive - had assigned them the worst shifts purely out of a desire to get back at Aubrey, and that Thierry himself had nothing to do with it.
Whatever the cause, Thierry was used to catching naps in between shifts, dropping instantly into sleep and waking at the slightest hint of a threat. He’d used one of Ferran’s herbal pellets for dreamless sleep after that first night at the Oyster Shell. He’d given the other half to Aubrey, since d’Adamo obviously wasn’t going to take one. He contemplated using another one now. He had two left, and it might be worth being dead to the world and the possibility of oversleeping to not see his sisters’ features transposed beneath Mistress Elanore’s. If something happened to any of his sisters -
Well, nothing would. They were safe and sound on the continent, far away from Altera’s mysteries. The plague that had taken the Thaqibans hadn’t crossed the waters, so whatever this was probably wouldn’t either.
Assuming there had been a plague in the first place.
Thierry gave up on sleep and got dressed. He wrote letters to his sisters when he was restless, spinning visions of the strange things he’d learned or seen in Altera in as much detail as he could. He made sure to write to letters to each of his sister’s individually as often as he could, making sure that none of them were favored over any of the others while still trying to remind them that they were each dear to his heart, and precious. It was ruinously expensive, but Thierry counted it well worth the cost to stay a part of their lives in the only way he could.
He didn’t want to write about this: about the case he and Aubrey were working on in secret, although how much longer it would stay so was anyone’s guess. He didn’t want to tell his sisters how it felt to always be on the outside of Altera’s secrets, scrambling for the key to decipher them, the magic words that would lay the city open to him the way it was to d’Adamo and Ferran and Madame Savita.
He went to the Temple district instead. Thierry wasn’t a religious man by any stretch of the imagination, but this, at least, was familiar and soothing. The Temple district was the only place he’d found in all of Altera that looked the way Thierry thought it ought to - the way it would have on the continent. The village where Thierry had grown up hadn’t had temples, but there had been shrines, which were laid out in the same format as the temples, albeit on a much smaller scale. The same principle held true in Altera. It was a small, unexpected kindness, a promise that perhaps even Altera could be home.
He hadn’t seen real temples to Solariel’s demigod-prophet children until he reached Helios City in Carelia. The City of the Sun was a bit like Altera, in that it belonged to no country, despite its geographic location. Helios was the religious heart of the Holy Solarien Empire, and the Temple district within its walls held greater finery than the King’s palace in the capital.
Thierry walked past the temples to each demigod, keeping his head bowed to show respect as he made his way to the courtyard in Solariel’s temple. Solariel’s worship was performed beneath the sun whenever possible, so all of Solariel’s temples had an open air section. Most of them had shrines to Solariel’s divine progeny forming seven separate points along the courtyard.
He started first at the shrine of Sandalphon, the eldest, first and fairest of Solariel’s divine children. If he looked up, he knew he’d be able to see Sandalphon’s star, visible even in the early morning light, showing the way through the heavens as Sandalphon’s mortal descendents gave guidance to their people. It was said that the kings and queens who had emerged in the aftermath of the Altagracian empire had the blood of Sandalphon in their veins, and Thierry had seen enough holy artifacts with Sandalphon’s likeness in the City of the Sun to believe it.
Next were the twin shrines to Orifiel and Sachiel, who kept the natural balance and served as Lord of the Woods and Lady of the Waters respectively. They were equal in all respects, serving as the protectors of the wild things within their domains as well as the humans who made their living by them.
After the twins came Harachel, the inventor and innovator, who brought forth new ways while preserving the old. Thierry thought that Harachel was probably the god who looked after Altera the most, with its mixture of nations and scattered customs.
He followed the path from Harachel’s shrine to Isda’s, pausing longer in front of it than he had before any of the others. Growing up in a household of women, Isda had been the goddess he’d heard invoked most often as a boy. He lit a candle to Isda the Bountiful, asking her to watch over his sisters in his absence. Isda protected all women and children, but his grandmother had always maintained that it never hurt to ask.
Thierry paused again at the shrine of Nemamiah the Righteous, the lady of battles, who stood against the Night together with Lahatiel of the Fires. It was strange to think of Nemamiah as the goddess who he owed fealty to now, when he’d always prayed to Solariel or to Isda. But every cadet at the Accademia prayed to Nemamiah, and Thierry had quickly learned to do the same. Nemamiah was a slightly less intimidating patron than Lahatiel of the Fires, whose shrine was the one he was really interested in.
The legends said that it was Nemamiah the Righteous who first realized that humanity could not stand against the encroaching Night, and that she begged her Holy Father to help her turn the tide. Nemamiah was destined to be the last of Solariel’s prophet-children - Solariel Himself had already retreated from the world of men, but returned one last time to sire one last child, who He gave to Nemamiah’s care. And so it was that Lahatiel of the Fires came to be, to bring light into the darkness and shepherd humanity against the Night. Lahatiel’s descendents became the first Helion, and it was their duty to make sure that Solariel’s worship was preserved and that their faith would keep the Night from returning.
There was some debate over whether or not it was Sandalphon or Lahatiel who was the strongest among Solariel’s children. Thierry privately thought that it was neither of them, but there was no arguing that Lahatiel of the Fires was infinitely more frightening than watchful Sandalphon. Sandalphon showed the way. Lahatiel was what happened when you deviated from it - Lahatiel’s Fires burned the wicked, and there was probably no child in all of the Holy Solarien Empire who hadn’t had their parents threaten them with Lahatiel’s Fires for naughty behavior at some point.
“May my prayers serve as fuel for your flames,” he whispered to Lahatiel. “May they burn bright and hot, for we have need of them here.” He lit a candle for himself and the one for the woman Elanor, then lit a third for Phillip Mercier. He left a bronze star as payment for the candles he used and went inside the temple to pray.
*
It was past dawn when Thierry emerged from the temple. The familiar sights and sounds of the temple were a balm against homesickness and loneliness, providing a temporary measure of peace that faded all too quickly.
There was no use in feeling sorry for himself. Homesickness came and went, and loneliness could be buried in work - and the Seven knew he had enough work waiting for him at the Guardhouse. There was always work for the Guard to do. And if work failed there was always the city itself, alien and strange and full of differences to be catalogued and written home about.
The Temple district was just beginning to wake, the early morning silence giving way to voices calling out to each other in their own tongues, a blessed cacophony of noise that served to remind him that he was not alone.
He almost missed the old woman sitting at the crossroads of Campo dei Friari and Calle Solari, the two main streets of the Temple district. The old woman was sitting quietly, not bothering anyone, but something about her caught Thierry’s eye.
The elderly were rare in Altera, which belonged primarily to the young and the strong - those able to act as colonists and willing to uproot themselves and their families for the sake of a new life elsewhere. At fifty, Cathal Verducci was probably one of the oldest people in the city, but the woman sitting at the crossroads looked much older than that. She looked like his grandmother had, before she’d died, her face seamed and lined with years and sorrow, which made her sixty at the very least. Too old to adapt and start over, which made whichever family member had brought her here indifferent best and outright cruel at the worst.
Thierry found himself crossing the footbridge to reach her before he was aware of what he was doing.
The old woman looked up as he drew close, and he saw that she was sitting on a sturdily constructed stool, with a small table in front of her. The stool and the table were well-made and obviously cared for.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked.
The old woman looked up at him, her eyes sharp and startlingly blue. “No,” she said, sounding amused. “But I think perhaps I can be of some help to you.”
“Ah,” said Thierry. His grandmother had never been prone to mad fits as she grew older, but Old Mother Deveraux’s wits went wandering the older she got. She lost track of time and relived conversations that she’d had with her years dead husband and small children, despite the fact that her children were long since been grown and had children of their own. Thierry had never minded being mistaken for one of them. Old Mother Deveraux had been harmless, and it was simple kindness that made him humor her.
Maybe this old woman was the same.
She smiled at him, showing a collection of stained, crooked teeth. “A silver moon to read your stars,” she said.
Thierry blinked. “What?”
The old woman gestured to the deck of cards sitting on the table. “A silver moon to read your stars,” she repeated, slower this time - trying to make sure he could understand her, Thierry thought, although it wasn’t the nonexistent language barrier that was causing his confusion.
Solariel’s worship didn’t exactly forbid fortune telling. There was a brisk trade in it at Carnival, when the night stretched on too long and everyone waited for the coming dawn that would herald the birth of a new year. But that was only during Carnival. The rest of the time fortune telling was looked down on, regarded as trickery and the petty sort of superstition that only uneducated people and foreigners believed in. Rumor had it that the Thaqibans believed a man’s fate was written in the stars, but no civilized person believed in such things.
A silver moon was a bit expensive to indulge in what was nothing more than superstition, but Thierry suspected the old woman might not get very many customers. He’d not begrudge an old woman the right to earn her meals the only way she could.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’d like that.”
He gave the old woman a silver moon and watched, bemused, as she shuffled the painted cards, laying eight of them out in a half-circle around the edge of the table and placing the rest of the deck in the middle. He recognized the pattern. It was called the Hemisphere - it was a game for children. He’d learned it from his grandmother, who’d always cautioned him not to take it seriously. It was meant to amuse, not predict, and she never let him forget it.
It appeared he’d wasted his moon, but it was worth it, to be kind.
The old woman flipped the first card over, revealing a blue-black background and painted stars.
Thierry started. That was no deck of playing cards. The old woman was using a star deck, one of the rare bits of Thaqiban culture that had trickled over into the East. The cards were painted with constellations, each card reflecting an actual constellation. The deck was divided into seasons, showing stars that could be seen on the continent in Summer, Spring, Winter and Fall. The stars for Summer were yellow, Spring was green, Winter was blue and Fall was red.
“The Winding River,” the old woman said. “A journey.”
Thierry waited, but that seemed to be all she had to say about that.
The old woman turned the next card over. “The Hunter.”
“Strength,” Thierry guessed, because that was what he’d always been told, when Helene told him stories of how Hunter had come to live in the sky.
“Questions,” the old woman corrected, looking at him curiously. “The Hunter means questions in Winter - strength is for Spring.”
“Oh,” said Thierry. He kept silent while she turned over the rest of the cards, revealing the Great Serpent, the Wolf and the Direwolf, the Nightingale and the Sword and finally the Broken Ring of Stars - Winter constellations, every one.
Thierry put his hand on the ninth card before the old woman could turn it over, more than a little unnerved and annoyed with himself for being so. It was sleight of hand, that was all, or perhaps she hadn’t shuffled the cards well enough.
“What does this mean?” he demanded.
The old woman slapped his hand away and turned the last card over. Six red stars made up the Phoenix, the only non-Winter card among the lot.
“There’s danger here, for you,” the old woman said. “You’re newly come to Altera, I wager, and you’re not likely to grow old unless you act with care.”
“The same could be said of any new-made Guardsman,” Thierry said, glowering. “If that’s the journey your cards speak of, I’ve little enough to worry about.”
The old woman sighed. “Young things,” she muttered. “Listen, boy, and listen well. Yours is not the only journey in the cards - it merely intersects with another’s, one who has traveled a far greater distance than you can imagine, and it would be in your best interests not to cross such a one as that. The intersection of your journeys has brought you questions and choices, all of which are fraught with danger. The Wolf will bring you home and the Direwolf will bring you death, and which one you choose is entirely up to you.” The old woman’s tone irritated tone suggested that she didn’t care which of the two Thierry picked, but it wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest if he picked the Direwolf’s path by accident.
“Darkness is coming,” the old woman said. “You’re at the heart of it, poor boy, so be careful of your allies.”
“What allies?” Thierry asked, his unease blossoming into something that felt very much like fear. “I don’t know anyone here but the Guard.”
“Don’t you?” the old woman asked. “The stars say otherwise.”
Thierry bit his lip so he wouldn’t snap at her. The stars were silent, nothing more than scattered shards of Solariel’s glory. The stars meant nothing, and only superstitious fools and mystics believed that they did.
“Choose wisely,” the old woman warned him. She looked down at the Phoenix card again and murmured, “Or maybe that’s for them to do.”
“What?”
The old woman shook her head. “More fools they, if it is.”
“What?” Thierry stared at her. Maybe she was like Old Mother Deveraux, muttering nonsensical things in the guise of telling fortunes. “Where are your children, old mother?” he asked gently. “Shall I take you home to them?”
“Boy, if you mean to imply that I’m infirm, I’ll box your ears,” the old woman snapped.
Thierry blinked. Damned if she hadn’t used exactly the same tone his grandmother would have when she thought he was being stupid. “I’m sorry,” he said meekly. “I didn’t mean to offend you - it’s just, this makes no sense.”
She patted his cheek. “You’re a good boy, for all that you’re an idiot,” she told him kindly. “Learn to listen to what other people tell you every once in awhile, eh?”
“Everyone tells me to listen, and then they don’t tell me anything!” Thierry retorted, before he could stop himself. This was insane. He was arguing with an old woman he’d just met over the revelations a star deck had to offer, as if he was some sort of mystic or a Thaqiban, to believe in such foolishness.
It was possible that the old woman was right, when she called him an idiot.
“Young things,” the old woman said again. “All impatience and high drama.” She shook her head and gathered up her cards, shuffling them into the deck at random. She left the Nightingale, the Sword and the Broken Ring for last. “Sometimes the interpretation of the cards can be literal,” she informed him. There was a hint of warning in her tone that told him to pay attention, but Thierry had no idea what she wanted him to pay attention to.
After a moment the old woman sighed, apparently giving up on him as a lost cause. “Try the Market,” she advised. “You’ll feel better after you’ve got something in your belly. Young people always do.”
“I … Thank you, ma’am,” he said, for lack of anything else to say.
She waved him aside and turned her attention to the cards again, dealing them out in the half-circle Hemisphere again.
Thierry turned away just as the first card revealed the Phoenix, which was a symbol for new life and rebirth.
Why then, did she not look more pleased to see it?
Thierry shook his head to clear it. It was superstition, nothing more. The only useful bit of advice he’d received for his silver was to go get something to eat and that, at least, was advice he was only too happy to follow.
21860 / 50000
(43.72%)
And it should be evident from my description of the star deck that it's been a really long time since I sat down and listened to anyone use tarot terminology at me. This makes me sad. Also, if I do anything with this, that part needs editing liek whoa, so it sounds cooler.
And I am seriously, this close to 25K. I don't know if I'll make it tonight, because I kind of wanted to pin a quilt and maybe watch the special features of the Star Trek Reboot DVD's, so we'll see.
Thierry was used to catching what sleep he could when he had the time to do so, in the fashion of experienced soldiers and Guardsmen. He’d learned to do so as a boy working in his father’s inn, because guests rarely kept regular hours and he was frequently expected to act as a stable boy if the guest had horses. He’d learned to wake at the first tentative knock on the door. Grandmother and Isabelle and Helene were as capable as any man, but Grandmother was old and needed her sleep and Helene looked too gentle to stand up to violence, so he always felt better if he was awake to greet their guests with them. That was Henri’s responsibility now. Thierry hoped Isabelle’s husband was equal to the task.
Joining the Ravensgate Guard had only reinforced what Helene referred to as his terrible sleeping habits. The Guardsmen were expected to take a variety of different shifts, staggering the early morning watch with the day shift as well as the evening and night patrols. As a junior Guardsman, Thierry frequently got the worst of them, although he wondered now if that had more to do with the fact that Aubrey was his mentor, and Aubrey wouldn’t leave off baiting Valeray if you paid him to do so. It was entirely possible that Valeray - who was sneaky and vindictive - had assigned them the worst shifts purely out of a desire to get back at Aubrey, and that Thierry himself had nothing to do with it.
Whatever the cause, Thierry was used to catching naps in between shifts, dropping instantly into sleep and waking at the slightest hint of a threat. He’d used one of Ferran’s herbal pellets for dreamless sleep after that first night at the Oyster Shell. He’d given the other half to Aubrey, since d’Adamo obviously wasn’t going to take one. He contemplated using another one now. He had two left, and it might be worth being dead to the world and the possibility of oversleeping to not see his sisters’ features transposed beneath Mistress Elanore’s. If something happened to any of his sisters -
Well, nothing would. They were safe and sound on the continent, far away from Altera’s mysteries. The plague that had taken the Thaqibans hadn’t crossed the waters, so whatever this was probably wouldn’t either.
Assuming there had been a plague in the first place.
Thierry gave up on sleep and got dressed. He wrote letters to his sisters when he was restless, spinning visions of the strange things he’d learned or seen in Altera in as much detail as he could. He made sure to write to letters to each of his sister’s individually as often as he could, making sure that none of them were favored over any of the others while still trying to remind them that they were each dear to his heart, and precious. It was ruinously expensive, but Thierry counted it well worth the cost to stay a part of their lives in the only way he could.
He didn’t want to write about this: about the case he and Aubrey were working on in secret, although how much longer it would stay so was anyone’s guess. He didn’t want to tell his sisters how it felt to always be on the outside of Altera’s secrets, scrambling for the key to decipher them, the magic words that would lay the city open to him the way it was to d’Adamo and Ferran and Madame Savita.
He went to the Temple district instead. Thierry wasn’t a religious man by any stretch of the imagination, but this, at least, was familiar and soothing. The Temple district was the only place he’d found in all of Altera that looked the way Thierry thought it ought to - the way it would have on the continent. The village where Thierry had grown up hadn’t had temples, but there had been shrines, which were laid out in the same format as the temples, albeit on a much smaller scale. The same principle held true in Altera. It was a small, unexpected kindness, a promise that perhaps even Altera could be home.
He hadn’t seen real temples to Solariel’s demigod-prophet children until he reached Helios City in Carelia. The City of the Sun was a bit like Altera, in that it belonged to no country, despite its geographic location. Helios was the religious heart of the Holy Solarien Empire, and the Temple district within its walls held greater finery than the King’s palace in the capital.
Thierry walked past the temples to each demigod, keeping his head bowed to show respect as he made his way to the courtyard in Solariel’s temple. Solariel’s worship was performed beneath the sun whenever possible, so all of Solariel’s temples had an open air section. Most of them had shrines to Solariel’s divine progeny forming seven separate points along the courtyard.
He started first at the shrine of Sandalphon, the eldest, first and fairest of Solariel’s divine children. If he looked up, he knew he’d be able to see Sandalphon’s star, visible even in the early morning light, showing the way through the heavens as Sandalphon’s mortal descendents gave guidance to their people. It was said that the kings and queens who had emerged in the aftermath of the Altagracian empire had the blood of Sandalphon in their veins, and Thierry had seen enough holy artifacts with Sandalphon’s likeness in the City of the Sun to believe it.
Next were the twin shrines to Orifiel and Sachiel, who kept the natural balance and served as Lord of the Woods and Lady of the Waters respectively. They were equal in all respects, serving as the protectors of the wild things within their domains as well as the humans who made their living by them.
After the twins came Harachel, the inventor and innovator, who brought forth new ways while preserving the old. Thierry thought that Harachel was probably the god who looked after Altera the most, with its mixture of nations and scattered customs.
He followed the path from Harachel’s shrine to Isda’s, pausing longer in front of it than he had before any of the others. Growing up in a household of women, Isda had been the goddess he’d heard invoked most often as a boy. He lit a candle to Isda the Bountiful, asking her to watch over his sisters in his absence. Isda protected all women and children, but his grandmother had always maintained that it never hurt to ask.
Thierry paused again at the shrine of Nemamiah the Righteous, the lady of battles, who stood against the Night together with Lahatiel of the Fires. It was strange to think of Nemamiah as the goddess who he owed fealty to now, when he’d always prayed to Solariel or to Isda. But every cadet at the Accademia prayed to Nemamiah, and Thierry had quickly learned to do the same. Nemamiah was a slightly less intimidating patron than Lahatiel of the Fires, whose shrine was the one he was really interested in.
The legends said that it was Nemamiah the Righteous who first realized that humanity could not stand against the encroaching Night, and that she begged her Holy Father to help her turn the tide. Nemamiah was destined to be the last of Solariel’s prophet-children - Solariel Himself had already retreated from the world of men, but returned one last time to sire one last child, who He gave to Nemamiah’s care. And so it was that Lahatiel of the Fires came to be, to bring light into the darkness and shepherd humanity against the Night. Lahatiel’s descendents became the first Helion, and it was their duty to make sure that Solariel’s worship was preserved and that their faith would keep the Night from returning.
There was some debate over whether or not it was Sandalphon or Lahatiel who was the strongest among Solariel’s children. Thierry privately thought that it was neither of them, but there was no arguing that Lahatiel of the Fires was infinitely more frightening than watchful Sandalphon. Sandalphon showed the way. Lahatiel was what happened when you deviated from it - Lahatiel’s Fires burned the wicked, and there was probably no child in all of the Holy Solarien Empire who hadn’t had their parents threaten them with Lahatiel’s Fires for naughty behavior at some point.
“May my prayers serve as fuel for your flames,” he whispered to Lahatiel. “May they burn bright and hot, for we have need of them here.” He lit a candle for himself and the one for the woman Elanor, then lit a third for Phillip Mercier. He left a bronze star as payment for the candles he used and went inside the temple to pray.
*
It was past dawn when Thierry emerged from the temple. The familiar sights and sounds of the temple were a balm against homesickness and loneliness, providing a temporary measure of peace that faded all too quickly.
There was no use in feeling sorry for himself. Homesickness came and went, and loneliness could be buried in work - and the Seven knew he had enough work waiting for him at the Guardhouse. There was always work for the Guard to do. And if work failed there was always the city itself, alien and strange and full of differences to be catalogued and written home about.
The Temple district was just beginning to wake, the early morning silence giving way to voices calling out to each other in their own tongues, a blessed cacophony of noise that served to remind him that he was not alone.
He almost missed the old woman sitting at the crossroads of Campo dei Friari and Calle Solari, the two main streets of the Temple district. The old woman was sitting quietly, not bothering anyone, but something about her caught Thierry’s eye.
The elderly were rare in Altera, which belonged primarily to the young and the strong - those able to act as colonists and willing to uproot themselves and their families for the sake of a new life elsewhere. At fifty, Cathal Verducci was probably one of the oldest people in the city, but the woman sitting at the crossroads looked much older than that. She looked like his grandmother had, before she’d died, her face seamed and lined with years and sorrow, which made her sixty at the very least. Too old to adapt and start over, which made whichever family member had brought her here indifferent best and outright cruel at the worst.
Thierry found himself crossing the footbridge to reach her before he was aware of what he was doing.
The old woman looked up as he drew close, and he saw that she was sitting on a sturdily constructed stool, with a small table in front of her. The stool and the table were well-made and obviously cared for.
“Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked.
The old woman looked up at him, her eyes sharp and startlingly blue. “No,” she said, sounding amused. “But I think perhaps I can be of some help to you.”
“Ah,” said Thierry. His grandmother had never been prone to mad fits as she grew older, but Old Mother Deveraux’s wits went wandering the older she got. She lost track of time and relived conversations that she’d had with her years dead husband and small children, despite the fact that her children were long since been grown and had children of their own. Thierry had never minded being mistaken for one of them. Old Mother Deveraux had been harmless, and it was simple kindness that made him humor her.
Maybe this old woman was the same.
She smiled at him, showing a collection of stained, crooked teeth. “A silver moon to read your stars,” she said.
Thierry blinked. “What?”
The old woman gestured to the deck of cards sitting on the table. “A silver moon to read your stars,” she repeated, slower this time - trying to make sure he could understand her, Thierry thought, although it wasn’t the nonexistent language barrier that was causing his confusion.
Solariel’s worship didn’t exactly forbid fortune telling. There was a brisk trade in it at Carnival, when the night stretched on too long and everyone waited for the coming dawn that would herald the birth of a new year. But that was only during Carnival. The rest of the time fortune telling was looked down on, regarded as trickery and the petty sort of superstition that only uneducated people and foreigners believed in. Rumor had it that the Thaqibans believed a man’s fate was written in the stars, but no civilized person believed in such things.
A silver moon was a bit expensive to indulge in what was nothing more than superstition, but Thierry suspected the old woman might not get very many customers. He’d not begrudge an old woman the right to earn her meals the only way she could.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’d like that.”
He gave the old woman a silver moon and watched, bemused, as she shuffled the painted cards, laying eight of them out in a half-circle around the edge of the table and placing the rest of the deck in the middle. He recognized the pattern. It was called the Hemisphere - it was a game for children. He’d learned it from his grandmother, who’d always cautioned him not to take it seriously. It was meant to amuse, not predict, and she never let him forget it.
It appeared he’d wasted his moon, but it was worth it, to be kind.
The old woman flipped the first card over, revealing a blue-black background and painted stars.
Thierry started. That was no deck of playing cards. The old woman was using a star deck, one of the rare bits of Thaqiban culture that had trickled over into the East. The cards were painted with constellations, each card reflecting an actual constellation. The deck was divided into seasons, showing stars that could be seen on the continent in Summer, Spring, Winter and Fall. The stars for Summer were yellow, Spring was green, Winter was blue and Fall was red.
“The Winding River,” the old woman said. “A journey.”
Thierry waited, but that seemed to be all she had to say about that.
The old woman turned the next card over. “The Hunter.”
“Strength,” Thierry guessed, because that was what he’d always been told, when Helene told him stories of how Hunter had come to live in the sky.
“Questions,” the old woman corrected, looking at him curiously. “The Hunter means questions in Winter - strength is for Spring.”
“Oh,” said Thierry. He kept silent while she turned over the rest of the cards, revealing the Great Serpent, the Wolf and the Direwolf, the Nightingale and the Sword and finally the Broken Ring of Stars - Winter constellations, every one.
Thierry put his hand on the ninth card before the old woman could turn it over, more than a little unnerved and annoyed with himself for being so. It was sleight of hand, that was all, or perhaps she hadn’t shuffled the cards well enough.
“What does this mean?” he demanded.
The old woman slapped his hand away and turned the last card over. Six red stars made up the Phoenix, the only non-Winter card among the lot.
“There’s danger here, for you,” the old woman said. “You’re newly come to Altera, I wager, and you’re not likely to grow old unless you act with care.”
“The same could be said of any new-made Guardsman,” Thierry said, glowering. “If that’s the journey your cards speak of, I’ve little enough to worry about.”
The old woman sighed. “Young things,” she muttered. “Listen, boy, and listen well. Yours is not the only journey in the cards - it merely intersects with another’s, one who has traveled a far greater distance than you can imagine, and it would be in your best interests not to cross such a one as that. The intersection of your journeys has brought you questions and choices, all of which are fraught with danger. The Wolf will bring you home and the Direwolf will bring you death, and which one you choose is entirely up to you.” The old woman’s tone irritated tone suggested that she didn’t care which of the two Thierry picked, but it wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest if he picked the Direwolf’s path by accident.
“Darkness is coming,” the old woman said. “You’re at the heart of it, poor boy, so be careful of your allies.”
“What allies?” Thierry asked, his unease blossoming into something that felt very much like fear. “I don’t know anyone here but the Guard.”
“Don’t you?” the old woman asked. “The stars say otherwise.”
Thierry bit his lip so he wouldn’t snap at her. The stars were silent, nothing more than scattered shards of Solariel’s glory. The stars meant nothing, and only superstitious fools and mystics believed that they did.
“Choose wisely,” the old woman warned him. She looked down at the Phoenix card again and murmured, “Or maybe that’s for them to do.”
“What?”
The old woman shook her head. “More fools they, if it is.”
“What?” Thierry stared at her. Maybe she was like Old Mother Deveraux, muttering nonsensical things in the guise of telling fortunes. “Where are your children, old mother?” he asked gently. “Shall I take you home to them?”
“Boy, if you mean to imply that I’m infirm, I’ll box your ears,” the old woman snapped.
Thierry blinked. Damned if she hadn’t used exactly the same tone his grandmother would have when she thought he was being stupid. “I’m sorry,” he said meekly. “I didn’t mean to offend you - it’s just, this makes no sense.”
She patted his cheek. “You’re a good boy, for all that you’re an idiot,” she told him kindly. “Learn to listen to what other people tell you every once in awhile, eh?”
“Everyone tells me to listen, and then they don’t tell me anything!” Thierry retorted, before he could stop himself. This was insane. He was arguing with an old woman he’d just met over the revelations a star deck had to offer, as if he was some sort of mystic or a Thaqiban, to believe in such foolishness.
It was possible that the old woman was right, when she called him an idiot.
“Young things,” the old woman said again. “All impatience and high drama.” She shook her head and gathered up her cards, shuffling them into the deck at random. She left the Nightingale, the Sword and the Broken Ring for last. “Sometimes the interpretation of the cards can be literal,” she informed him. There was a hint of warning in her tone that told him to pay attention, but Thierry had no idea what she wanted him to pay attention to.
After a moment the old woman sighed, apparently giving up on him as a lost cause. “Try the Market,” she advised. “You’ll feel better after you’ve got something in your belly. Young people always do.”
“I … Thank you, ma’am,” he said, for lack of anything else to say.
She waved him aside and turned her attention to the cards again, dealing them out in the half-circle Hemisphere again.
Thierry turned away just as the first card revealed the Phoenix, which was a symbol for new life and rebirth.
Why then, did she not look more pleased to see it?
Thierry shook his head to clear it. It was superstition, nothing more. The only useful bit of advice he’d received for his silver was to go get something to eat and that, at least, was advice he was only too happy to follow.
21860 / 50000
(43.72%)
And it should be evident from my description of the star deck that it's been a really long time since I sat down and listened to anyone use tarot terminology at me. This makes me sad. Also, if I do anything with this, that part needs editing liek whoa, so it sounds cooler.