He’d decided not to bring his Tarot deck with him. No matter that he was a magical adept, the Oxford location was daunting. Being a center of English druidic magic, certain spots might be heavy with magical interference. Background count, the scholars termed it-places where powerful residues of emotion or repeated magical operations made most magical, or adept, work difficult. Ii was said that the druids knew how to harness the background count for their own purposes. Geraint deliberately avoided contact with most English druids, and wasn’t about to do anything that might alert them to his presence and activities now. Most of all, though, he never knew what the Tarot might reveal, so how could he guess what someone magically snooping might detect?
Still waiting for Francesca, he’d meditated awhile at his desk then shuffled the cards and spread them out for a reading. So engrossed and absorbed was he in his thoughts that he didn’t hear her open the front door with the magkey, only becoming aware of her presence when she crept upon him.
“Do I cross your palm with silver?” she said with a grin. She got a frosty glare in return.
“Don’t trivialize this, Fran. You know me well enough that I wouldn’t use it if it didn’t work.”
That chastened her. Eager to placate him, she asked Geraint to tell her what the spread meant, pointing to the first card with its explosion of yellow-red plumes surrounding a crackling pillar of energy.
“Ace of Wands. I wanted to know where we stood at this point. It doesn’t tell me very much. An ace is a starting point, wands are intuition, energies in a general sense. So the card says energies are unleashed, we are all expending energy in different directions. It’s vague, but it fits; we’re all in different places, and we’re all chasing leads, not sure where we may end up.”
“Who’s the old geezer?” she asked, moving onto the next card. Geraint turned to her with the hint of reproach in his expression.
“The Hermit. Me, actually. I asked where I was in all this. He’s rather solitary, introspective, detached from the world. I think he’s telling me to back my own judgment and not depend too much on others. If we get into an argument, my dear, I’m afraid you’re going to lose.”
She laughed and tossed back her hair. “You’re just saying that to intimidate me so I’ll give you your own way. I know you.”
“No, really. See,” he said. “This is you.” The card showed a green-cloaked figure seated atop a stone pedestal, waving a sword in the air in a defensive posture. Princess of Swords. The card shows you’re going to be very practical and down-to-earth, but you just might be missing something. Smart but not creative, the Princess. No offense meant, Fran. Bear with me.” He moved to the fourth card lying on the desk.
I asked how our part of things would go. I asked for two cards: one to show the most important problem we might face, a second to show the final outcome. In this context the Five of Coins says that something is unsettling and worrying. The foundations of what we’re doing aren’t quite right somehow. But the Six of Swords, that looks good. It says that our little trip will be successful, but we may encounter some unforeseen difficulty. It’s all right, though,” he continued, catching her look of uncertainty.
“I’ve just asked about Serrin. The Magician, of course. He’s doing what he’s good at. We’ve got no problems there. Since it’s his own personal symbol in the deck, it also tells me this reading is working. I was just about to ask about Rani, how she’s going to figure in what we decide to do next.” He turned the next card face-up.
Francesca whistled in admiration. “Oh, that’s a fabulous design.” A great red and silver rod stood strong against an azure background, with a glaring sun at one end and a crescent moon encompassing a darker blue sphere at the other. Crisscrossed behind the rod stood eight arrows, red-shafted, with silver fletching and silver crescent moons for arrowheads.
Geraint nodded gravely. “Nine of Wands. Strength. Looks like she won’t let us down.”
“Strength? Isn’t there another card called that? The one with the woman and the lion? Haven’t I seen that?”
“Yes, but this card was given the same title by the original designer of the deck. Different meaning, too. Maybe he ran a bit short on names after a while. Nine of Wands says final success, a moment of glory.” He felt a little uncertain. The card was a good omen, pure and simple; it was powerful, radiant, victorious.
Geraini felt a sudden twinge in the left side of his brain, urging him to see something else in that card, something related to him. His own response to it. He flipped up a final card.
The Hanged Man.
Ankh and wise serpent at his feet, the dancing, swaying figure was head-down on the card, an inversion that caught Francesca unawares, as it did most people the first time.
“Hmm. Looks like I have something to learn about her. I won’t find out by making any effort, either. It'll come in its own good time.” He drew the cards back into the deck, shuffled it once, then swathed the deck in its black silk.
“Time to go, Francesca. You ready?”
Geraint remembered the Hanged Man as they checked in at the Imperial, or rather the Hanged Man nagged at his own mind. He put it out of his consciousness as he limped to the elevator, Francesca taking the magkeys and walking imperiously before the baggage-trundling porter. No sooner had they arrived at their suite and shut the door than Geraint was tapping a number into the telecom.
“Russell? Great. We’re here now.” On the way here he’d used the car’s portacom to make a provisional appointrnent. “When can you fit me in?”
The cheerful, fresh-faced man on the screen looked down at something on his desk and waved nonchalantly. “Let me see. Old churn, helped us with the Mitsuyama grants two years back, never comes up to a college feast with me, might have run off with my wife if I hadn't been such an attentive husband… oh, how about next March?”
“Russell, what do you mean? Amanda’s far too good for me. And the last college feast I came to gave me food poisoning.” Francesca glanced at Geraint joking at the face on the screen and decided to take a shower.
“Oh yes, nice little strain of salmonella that one. Half of Oxford was down with it for a week or two. Well, Geraint, how about seven this evening? Come round to the Radcliffe, old boy. I should still be sober then.”
By the time Francesca had showered and changed, Geraint had his evening arranged. Seven o’clock at Oxford’s famous infirmary, nine o’clock at the research laboratories of the Biotechnology Department complex. That took care of both Geraint’s leg and the pharmacological helpers he needed, and in that order. Francesca began setting up the Fuchi decks, attending to the most important part of their business.
They worked in virtual silence for half an hour, reconfiguring the decks to change the ID chips installed by the Lord Protector’s officials. It wasn’t desperately difficult, but it was delicate. Any mistake would set off an alert that would scream its way to the local Administrative Bureau, calling officialdom down on their heads in a matter of minutes. With all that done, they demolished the first pot of coffee.
The next pot was sunk as they planned the general tactics of their hit on Transys Neuronet’s London system. Francesca had the SAN number, so they knew where to get in. In broad terms they also knew what they wanted to get at. The problem was figuring out how to deal with what stood in their way. After half an hour of discussion they’d sketched out a plan.