What about the takwin, the ibis-hounds? Were they angelic guides then, and not spirit thieves? Was part of the road to Immortality a vanquishment of the flesh?
Nine hundred sparks. The number made my tongue numb. All those souls, cast upon an unknown path. Was it the road to Dissolution or Immortality?
The fourth card in Nicols' query was the inverted Nine of Cups. The root, Malkuth, where the soil is black and our unconscious grows unexpected passions. The inverted Nine was an affirmation of his entry into the world of the Mysteries. The start of his path.
Where does it lead?
Fifth was the Prince of Swords. Across the top of the page, he had written "MARKHAM."
We are all your princes.
I grimaced. My brain was already linking my recollections of Doug on the Wheel-blood-drenched and broken-to his neurological pain memory. I witnessed and experienced his death as the Chorus mapped all the memories into one composite. The Prince of Swords had been in my future and, now, as part of Nicols' future, it was behind us. A bottleneck passed, nothing more than a distorted legacy that I would imperfectly remember. Part of me. Broken, but still part of me.
Nicols' immediate future was the Three of Swords, Crowley's "Sorrow," the pain that shouldn't be denied. The hurt subsumed into the magus in order for him to ascend. The betrayal inherent in this sacrifice was tempered by love, but that didn't make the pain go away. It just made it tolerable. That was the failing of Milton's Morningstar. He couldn't understand that God never stopped loving him. Even as he fell.
The last four cards were a precognitive glimpse into the ruddy water of possibilities and permutations, and for the first, I was heartened to see that Nicols had drawn the Four of Disks. These were the Four Watchtowers, the Enochian citadels that held the keys to the elemental magicks, and they were the heart of the magus' empire. The card hinted at an attainable gnosis in spite of Nicols' larval state.
I've tried to guide him. .
The next card was the Princess of Cups, and I tried to recall Crowley's interpretation. He deviated with the Cups. Is she like the Prince? No, the earthy part of water, the grounded source of inspiration. The artesian spring of Mind. What was the connection?
My eighth card had been the Priestess. An equally obtuse reference; it hadn't been Kat, after all. Was the Princess another thread we couldn't fathom?
I sighed, and moved on to the next card. Secrets still hidden. Nicols' penultimate card was the inverted Two of Wands, and I smiled. This one I knew. Who wasn't afraid of new experiences?
But those new experiences led to the last page: the Tower. A lightning bolt blows off the crown-this was Kether, after all, the pure Wisdom of the Sephirotic Tree-and kings tumble out of the ruined building. Falling into the sea of darkness that surrounds the tower.
Nicols glanced over. "Yeah, I'm fucked, aren't I? That one is never good."
"It's all relative," I admitted. "You've got it written right here. 'Nothing is ever lost; it is simply transformed.' "
"It was moderately entertaining when Piotr tried to make me feel better about pulling it," he said with a tight smile, "but in light of what I've seen today, it's sort of lost its charm."
"The Tower isn't about physical destruction," I explained. "Nor does it mean complete annihilation. It's all relative to the situation you are in. It is a destructive resolution-yes, no bullshit there-but that doesn't equate to your death or my death or the destruction of the Universe as we know it. It just means things are going to be resolved, and the resolution is going to be painful."
"The Three of Swords," he said. "That's a physical hurt, isn't it? I've got that one coming, don't I?"
That looks like it hurts. I shook off the image of Doug's face, his single eye livid against the burned outline of the pentacle. Scarred by the sign of the earth. "Yeah. The road to the Tower is bloody."
"Wonderful," he muttered.
Images from the Arena swam in my head: the ragged edge of the sword severed the ligaments in Doug's wrist; the blood, black in the shadow-spawning firelight, hot on my legs and bare feet; the first Hollow Man to burn, his blood bubbling out from his mouth and ears as it tried to flee the inferno of his combusting organs. And the others, the Hollow Men who had Seen through him and found me staring back at them.
Paved with good intentions, slick with blood: the road to the Tower.
"If we face the Tower with fear, it will be us who fall from its crown," I said. "That's what the Three of Swords is telling you. The Two of Wands-the card right before the Tower-is your fear, John. I'm not an idiot; I've got my own terror to get a hold of before we find Bernard. That's what the Two of Wands represents: you have every reason to be scared shitless. But the Three of Swords says the pain has a limit. The fear can be conquered; the obstacles can be overcome. You just have to be ready for the course to be difficult."
I flipped back through to the page with the Four of Disks on it. "You've got the Watchtowers at your back," I said. "You started with the Ace of Disks, one of the most powerful cards in the deck. These two cards say your walls are strong; you have the means to build a sanctuary from the pain. This is a reading of transformation, John. It's a destruction of the old flesh and a rebirth into the realm of the light.
"As an adept, this would be a very good fortune to get." I was trying to spin this in as positive a light as possible. A focused Will opened many doors for a magus, and such focus required a belief in the possibility of success. "The path to enlightenment is hard and painful. It is supposed to be. It's not for everyone; the obstacles can seem impossible." I tapped the page. "But this reading? You can do it. You can reach the other side."
"Okay, Deepok, enough with the cheerleading. I get the picture." He looked at the open folder in my lap. "Well," he added. "I don't, entirely. But I get the message. I do have one question, though: How? How are we supposed to find Bernard? It's a big fucking city, and you and I don't know it well enough to turn over the right rocks before we run out of time."
"No," I said. "We don't." I realized what the Princess of Cups represented, what my own Priestess meant. "We need to find someone who can tell us. We need to find a local oracle. We need to find someone like Piotr who knows the city well enough to guide us."
"People who know the flow of a city," he said, echoing what I had told him days ago and layering in his own knowledge of city informants. "Cab drivers, bartenders, drug dealers, doormen."
I nodded. "Yeah, someone on the ground. Someone who would hear a whisper as soon as it started." I struggled to find the right concept. "The Princess is a feminine principle. She's not the Goddess figure like the Empress, but she's of the same ilk." I thought of what Kat had said about her relationship with the Hollow Men. I am their Whore-Goddess; I am the fertile earth in which they bury themselves so that their spirits may be freed.
"Strip clubs," Nicols said. "We need to hit the strip clubs."
XXV
When we reached Portland, I let Nicols guide us through the mirrored rooms of the clubs. A professional courtesy call to the Portland Police Department let them know he was in town. A low-key canvas of some of the strip clubs in the city. Part of an early intel reconnaissance for an SPD case was the story. Mollified by his contact and always eager to maintain ties with fellow officers, the detective he spoke with gave him a list of hot spots.