In one quick motion, she gathered her deck of Tarot cards into a neat stack and set it in front of me. She tapped the top card once with her index finger.
“This deck has forty-six Trumps. Shuffle them well, then turn the top one. Let’s see what they tell us.”
Chuckling, I shook my head. “I don’t believe in fortune telling.”
“I do not tell fortunes. As Father says, even in Chaos there is a grand pattern emerging, truths and truisms if you will. The Trumps reflect them. Those who are trained—as I am—can sometimes see reflected in the cards not only what is, but what must be. Since the whole family is gathering in Juniper right now, it might be best for us to know where you stand… and who will stand with you.”
Giving a shrug, I said, “Very well.” I didn’t think it could hurt.
I picked up the cards. The backs had been painted a royal blue, with a rampant lion in gold in the middle. They were a little thicker than parchment, but hard and chill to the touch, with a texture almost like polished ivory,
I cut them in half, shuffled them together a couple of times, then set them down in front of Freda. The palms of my hands tingled faintly. A light sweat covered my face. Somehow, touching the cards had made me distinctly uncomfortable.
“Turn the first Trump,” she said.
I did so.
It showed Dworkin, but he was dressed as a fool in red and yellow silks, complete with bells on his cap and long pointed shoes that curled at the toes. It was the last thing I had expected to see, and I had to choke back a laugh.
“That’s ridiculous!” I said.
“Odd…” Freda said, frowning. “The first turned is usually a place, not a person.” She set the card to the side, face up.
“Meaning… ?” I asked.
“Dworkin, the center of our family, who is now or will be the center of your world.”
I said, “Dworkin is no fool.”
“What matters is the person pictured on the card, not his clothing. Aber made these cards for me. Everyone knows he’s a bit of a prankster.”
Suddenly I had a new name to remember: Aber. Aber the prankster. I thought I might like him. And she seemed to assume I knew who he was.
“Turn another card,” she told me.
I did so. It depicted a younger man, fifteen or sixteen years old at most, dressed in yellows and browns. Without a doubt, he had to be another of Dworkin’s children—they shared the same eyes and strong chin. He wore a hat adorned with a set of preposterously large elk antlers and looked slightly bored, like he wanted to be off on adventures instead of having to sit for this miniature portrait. He held up a broadsword with both hands. It looked too long and too heavy for him. Somehow, he struck me as familiar, though I would have sworn we had never met—or had we?
Freda sucked in a surprised breath.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Alanar,” she whispered.
Again, the name didn’t sound familiar, but I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling he and I had met somewhere before. I could half picture him lying in a pool of blood… but where? When?
“Maybe he’s coming back,” Freda said.
“No,” I said with certainty. “He’s dead.”
“How do you know?” she asked, searching my eyes with her own. “You haven’t met him.”
“I—don’t know.” I frowned, fumbling for the memory, finding it elusive. “Isn’t he dead?”
“He’s been missing for more than a year. Nobody’s heard from him or been able to contact him, even with his Trump. I thought he was dead. Everyone does. But none of us has any proof.”
Contact him… with his Trump? I looked down at the card, puzzling over that odd turn of phrase. Stranger and stranger, I thought.
“If you haven’t seen a body,” I said, trying to sound comforting though I knew it was a lie, knew that he was dead, “there is reason for hope.”
She shook her head. “Our enemies do not often leave bodies. If he is dead, we will never know it.”
I found myself agreeing. After battles, we had seldom been able to recover our dead comrades from lands the hell-creatures controlled. What they actually did with the corpses remained open to conjecture—and the guesses were never very pleasant.
Eyes distant, Freda shook her head sadly. I realized that she had cared deeply for young Alanar. We had something in common, then; I had lost Helda… she had lost her brother.
Swallowing, I reached out and gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze. “Best not to dwell on it,” I said softly. “These have been hard times for everyone.”
“You are right, of course.” Taking a deep breath, Freda placed Alanar’s card on the table, a little below Dworkin’s jester and to the right. Next to each other, their resemblance was even more striking. Clearly they were father and son.
“Pick again,” she said, indicating the Trumps.
Silently, I did so. It was another young man, this one dressed in browns and greens, with a wide pleasant version of Dworkin’s face. A faint dueling scar marked his left cheek, but he had a genial smile. He carried a bow in one hand and what looked like a wine flask in the other. A trickle of wine ran down his lips and beaded underneath his chin.
A young drunkard, the card seemed to suggest.
“Taine,” Freda announced, keeping her expression carefully neutral.
“I don’t know him,” I said.
“I think he is dead, too.”
“I’m sorry.”
We went through four more cards rapidly. Each showed a man between the ages of twenty and forty. Most bore some resemblance to Dworkin—either the eyes, the shapes of the faces, or the way in which they held themselves. His offspring almost certainly, I decided. It seemed he’d kept busy with a number of women over the years. How many children had he sired? And with such a large family, how had he still found so much time to spend with me during my own youth—all the while pretending to be unmarried? The next time I had him alone, I intended to ask.
Each of these cards Freda placed below Dworkin’s, circling the edge of the table. In all, counting Alanar and Taine, she thought four of Dworkin’s sons were dead. I didn’t recognize either of the other two.
Then I turned over a card that showed a man with my face, only his eyes were brown to my blue. He dressed all in dark browns and yellows, and he held a slightly crooked sword almost defiantly. I didn’t know if it was a private joke, but certainly the crooked sword seemed to imply one.
“Who is he?” I asked hesitantly. He looked familiar, too. Where had we met? And when?
“Do you know him?”
“He looks a lot like me…”
I held the card a minute, just staring at it, until she took it out of my hand and placed it below the others.
“Mattus,” she said. “His name is Mattus.”
“He’s dead, too,” I said numbly.
“How do you know?” she demanded, voice rising sharply.
I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t now. It’s like… like an old memory, distant and hazy. Or maybe a dream. I can almost see it, but not quite. I only know he was in it, though, and I saw him die.”
“What happened to him?” she went on. “How did he die?”
I shook my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t quite remember,” But I felt certain it hadn’t been pleasant, though I couldn’t bring myself to say so to Freda. I didn’t think she’d take the news well. Clearly she had cared for Mattus.
She sighed.
“Maybe it was only a dream,” I told her, trying to sound a little reassuring, a little hopeful, though deep inside I knew it for a lie. “Perhaps they are both still alive, somewhere.”
“Do not dismiss your dreams so easily. They are often powerful portents of the future. Over the years, I have had hundreds of dreams that proved to be true. If you say both Alanar and Mattus are dead, and you saw them die in a dream, it may very well be so.”