The lion charged. His huge body a mass of rippling muscle headed straight for me. I wanted to run. My mind screamed to run, but I didn’t. I stayed still, waiting for the impact. I grabbed a handful of sand, and let my power well up inside me. I heard my heart pounding as the lion’s paws thudded toward me. So close. So very close.
Paws and heartbeats.
Wait.
Paws and heartbeats.
Wait.
Paws and heartbeats.
Now! I jumped aside just as the lion nearly plowed into me. I grabbed onto his mane and pulled my body onto his back, clutching him tight. The crowd silenced for a moment. The lion twisted, trying to bite my side, to drag me off his back with his teeth. I heard more roars from the other side of the arena. More roars? I looked behind me and saw Hoarders unchain two more lions. Panicked, I jerked my gaze to the Arcana. Their mouths sagged open, surprise clear on their faces. But Death, his eyes were locked on mine. He started to stand. I knew he would try to stop this. I knew he would ruin everything.
I shook my head. No.
I closed my eyes and clutched the lion.
Everything has a soul; everything has strength that lives within them.” The Moon said so. I reached for the animal’s soul. The lion’s jaws clamped down on my shoulder and I was flung off of him, skidding in the sand. My skin screamed in pain. I rolled onto my back as the three lions paced toward me. This was it. This was the moment. I closed my eyes. I placed my palms on the sand and reached.
The lions’ souls reached back.
They surrounded me, and one stepped over me so I felt its heat and fur hovering above. The lion’s roar shook my body. The people in the arena screamed and cheered. For once, they weren’t the ones being beaten, being broken. I couldn’t even muster anger toward them. I had hid in the shadows alongside them, quivering in the dark praying the Hoarders didn’t find me, drag me out of my hole, use me up until I was a corpse, not even good enough to bury in the ground.
The lion roared again and his muzzle lowered to me, his teeth grazing my skin. I didn’t try to run. I stayed submissive below him. I let go of the pitiful knife and placed my hands on his fur hide. I felt the ache of his hunger, the broken bones in his body, but deeper than all of that I felt his tired soul resting in my hands. Flashes of wide open spaces, sunlight, and running with the wind whipping through its mane were replaced by iron cages, rotten meat, and spear slashes.
I held all of their souls in my hands and whispered. I am the quiet whispering of your soul. I feel your strength in my grasp. I feel your mercy. I opened my eyes to see the lion’s face above my own. I can set you free. I just need to live, I just need your mercy. I will set you free. Their souls wildly bucked and trembled in my hands. They were confused, but they sensed my urgency, my plea, my promise. The crowd grew silent once more. I released my hands from the lion’s hide and began edging my way out from beneath him. None of them moved as I shuffled to my feet, blood, sweat, and sand sticking to my back.
In the blazing sun, a girl stood in an arena bleeding with her whole city watching. As the girl stood, three lions bowed their heads. That girl was me. As the lions bowed, the crowd gasped. I turned to where the gold seats stood. The Arcana did not suppress their smiles. They stood and made their way to the edge of the seats to remove the barrier between the public and the king and his Hoard. My eyes scanned the people. They stood murmuring and confused. A girl mastered the lions, a girl had tamed beasts with a touch. They all looked so frail, so afraid, so weak, so broken. Fear cripples the soul until there is no strength or fight left. I just hoped I would have something to reach for. I knelt, touching my fingers to the sand.
“Strength isn’t always about physical capabilities, it is about giving strength to the part of ourselves that need it most,” Death said one night as we stared out of the chamber window into the dark city.
“And what do they need most? What do they need to fight?”
“Hope,” he said. “We all need just a bit of hope to believe we are strong enough to fight and strong enough to win.”
So that was what I gave them. A girl could face a lion and win. A people—as broken as these—could rise up and take back their city, and bring a king to his knees. Their souls—so many—were trembling bodies all around me, pressing down. But I didn’t have to reach for them. They were already reaching for me.
“We. Are. A. Strong. People.” My words were quiet and deliberate, but I knew their souls could hear. I opened my eyes and scanned the crowds. “We are a strong people,” I shouted, raising my arms to the sky. I felt their souls careening towards the light, reaching up, up, up from weeds and dirt, fear and desperation. I felt their souls unfurling around me. I felt their strength like I did the sun.
I looked to their faces. They were the same people from only moments before: dirty, skinny, bruised, but there was a set to their features, a straightness in their spine. I pointed my gaze to the king and his Hoard. I felt the souls soaking up the light and latching onto my strength. In one slow, ominous motion, they all turned in unison towards the gold seats. The Arcana had cleared the path to the Black Souls. I shuddered before I could say the rest. I looked to Death. His soul was in my hands, too.
His voice echoed in my mind. Today is a day of Death, Alina. But it isn’t our day to die. Today is a day of Rebirth. Not mourning. Today we fight. Today, we make our world new. Today, the world is ours. I held onto his words, and reached to all the souls swirling around me.
My voice was a war cry piercing the silence. “We are a strong people. And today, we will fight. Today, Zorilah is ours!”
Chaos erupted. The Arcana unsheathed their swords and charged. The lions roared and ran towards the Black Souls. The people were glorious warriors even in their tattered rags because their souls were strong and their spirits determined. I fell to my knees, a trickle of blood dripping from my nose. I shook from bearing the weight of so many souls, but as I looked to the chaos before me, as I saw the blood of the king and the Hoarders spill against the earth, I smiled.
I saw Death then. I knelt in the sand, watching as the dark promise of my dreams came true before my eyes: from these ashes, we will rise.
From these ashes, we will rise and be free.
***
Rochelle grew up wanting to be a novelist, but tucked away her stories when she entered high school. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Political Science and Communication when she was twenty years old. After years away from her writing, Rochelle picked up a pen and started fleshing out a character sketch that she outlined when she was twelve. That sketch was the start of the Ashes and Ice story, her debut novel that was published in 2013. Her debut rocked bestseller charts only hours after its release. She plans on releasing its sequel in 2014. Rochelle lives in the DC metro area with her husband and daughter. By day, she works as a behavioral therapist and life coach. By night, she is a dreamer and is busy tapping out new stories on her keyboard. You can find her here: rochellemayacallen.com
***
THE HERMIT
The Hermit
By Red Tash
As I strolled through the flea market, the memory came unbidden: a gypsy tent awash with blood—deep reds and purples fading to brown before my eyes; the amber eye of the dragon, disembodied, palmed in the bloody hand of a child. The child looked up at me, a tiny girl with a hooked nose and silent tears streaming down her face. “My brother,” she said, before choking on her sobs. “My brother.”
I was too late to Autumnfell. Too late to save the boy from the sacrifice the birth of a dragon demands. The least I could do was save his sister. Her parents were easily glamoured into believing she had been consumed by the beast, and so that night, I helped her bundle her things into a shoulder pack and away we went, two vagabond seekers on the road to fortune.
Gypsies are a superstitious lot, and the fate of a true witch among them has never been kind. Zelda could have been burned at the stake if she angered the wrong man. Angering men seemed t
o be one of her talents.
“Hey, mister! How much for the old lamp?”
My reverie broken, I turned to find a greasy-haired wheeler-dealer with a paunch that told me he’d earned his keep over the years. He smelled like much-handled cash and warm peppermint, and his thick glasses magnified his eyes so much it hurt to look at him.
I held the lantern and let a bit of the Light spill out onto the man’s booth. Beneath its glow, I saw forgeries, hidden gems, stolen goods, you name it. The true history of each of his wares was revealed under the lamp’s beam, and he gasped before the sight of it. He took off his glasses, wiped the lenses hastily on his plain white t-shirt, and put them back on. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, before pointing up at the lamp. “Don’t supposed you’d be willing to part with that, then,” he whispered, picking up an old axe head the Light revealed as a relic of Abe Lincoln’s.
“I cannot,” I said. “But enjoy the profits of your knowledge, my son,” I said, nodding at the axe head in his hand. “Could you point me toward the fortune teller’s booth?”
A few steps away, a blinking neon sign advertised
YOUR FUTURE
flash
YOUR PAST
flash
YOUR LIFE
flash
YOUR DEATH
A brilliant blue palm blinked off and on beside it. Above, a yellow moon repurposed from a beer-branded bar sign was glamoured to display Zelda’s knowing smile. The effect was uncanny, as though the hook-nosed gypsy moon watched passers-by, deciding their fates, waiting for them to come inside and pay to hear the news of their imminent fortunes.
It was uncanny, and it was true.
A thousand plastic orbs on a beaded curtain caught the Light and cascaded before my eyes. I waved them away, their veil of magic stronger than their cheap appearance promised, and entered the tent of one Madame Zelda, fortune teller.
Inside, a cozy waiting area greeted me, bedecked in mismatched, overstuffed furniture I believe is now called “shabby chic.” Under the Light, I could tell Zelda had owned the pieces when they were, in fact, “brand new chic” and simply kept them until they reached their present states. Funny how people hold on to things, well past their time.
My lamp muted itself to match the dim lighting inside the tent. I saw a series of curtains leading to three different subsections of the tent. Every shade and pattern of burgundy and purple paisley was loosely sewn or stitched together. Hints of pink and gold were everywhere. A string of amber lights lined the edge of the room, at the ceiling.
The industrial fluorescents of the Trolling for Bargains flea market filtered in through the canopy, bathing everything in Madame Zelda’s tent with a reddish glow. The light she had harnessed welcomed relaxation, contemplation, peace. It seemed business was good.
A pair of teenage girls with red, puffy eyes waited for the fortuneteller to call them beyond her curtain. The girls looked up at me when I entered, and then away, as if I weren’t there. Suited me fine. My record with young women was abysmal.
There was no place to sit and neither of them moved to offer an old man a seat, so I leaned on my staff and waited. I was accustomed to being on my feet. I could wait a little longer to sit. I’d been avoiding Zelda for decades. I could wait a little longer for her.
“Zat’s what you fink, daaaaahling,” her familiar voice purred through the curtain.
The teens stopped their sniffling.
“’That’s what you think?’ Is she talking to us?” one of them asked the other.
A curtain moved and the heavily draped figure of an Eastern European woman with jet-black hair and huge, knowing eyes filled the space. Behind her, a muted television played Days of Our Lives, backlighting the one and only Zelda. Despite her robes, she cut a surprisingly shapely hourglass in the doorway before loosing the curtain with lacquered nails as long as talons in shades of amber. Zelda’s skin was flawless with the exception of the shade of foundation she’d chosen, but here in the red light of her indoor caravan tent, the effect was quite fetching. She glowed like an old gypsy Mona Lisa.
She glanced down at the lantern at my feet as she dismissed the teenagers. “No, Zelda no see you girls today, so sorry.”
“But, we paid you already!” one of them gasped, before dissolving into tears.
“Zelda,” I said. “Surely you can find it in your heart to help these young ladies. It does seem like an emergency.” I spoke so quietly, the sobs of the teens would have washed out my voice to anyone else’s ear. Not Zelda’s, though. She could hear me across the miles if necessary. Such was the attachment of student to master.
Zelda narrowed her eyes and nodded. “Very well, but I see no good things for zees girls.” She shrugged then pulled the curtain back to another room in the tent, indicating the girls should enter.
Zelda glared as I started after them. I lifted my lantern and shone it about the room. “You would prefer I waited out here and had a look around?”
Zelda stepped out of my way and allowed me into the small reading room.
The girls were already seated, one of them with her head down on the table. Her friend eyed me, asking Zelda “Is he going to watch?” The crying girl lifted her head.
By all rights, I could have taken over the conversation, but I waited for Zelda to answer. My authority in the situation was not important. I was curious to see how she’d handle this.
“Yes, um, my darlings, you are in for a treat today. Madame Zelda, she is old, yes? She is old and wise, but zis man...zis man was Zelda’s teacher, girls. He is even wiser, and his gifts are...well, Zelda cannot begin to say. It is not every day that a seer of his abilities comes to the Trolling for Bargains flea market in Laurents County, Indiana.” She pulled out her chair and sat, a look of triumph on her face.
“You are too kind. I really only want to observe.” Smiling to the girls, I added, “Checking up on an old pupil, right?” I pulled out a chair and sat. We were quite the quartet around the little table.
They smiled, then one blurted out her question. “I want to know how long my Mom has to live.” She almost didn’t get the words out before the sobs began.
Zelda pulled out a deck of tarot cards from a shiny wooden box. She shuffled and cut the deck, then slowly flipped the first card so it faced her. From my vantage point, I could see it, but the girls could not. Death. I tapped the card as Zelda let it fall, and it transformed into another.
“Ah, my darling, you have drawn the de—ha ha—my darlings, zis is Temperance.” She pointed to the wings on the angelic figure, and eyed me before continuing. “Zees mean your mother, she protected by guardian angel. Is Mommy sick, darling?”
The girl began to sob so deeply she could not speak. Her friend patted her around the shoulders before looking at Zelda pleadingly. “Is there anything else you can tell? Her mother has cancer. The doctors say it’s not the good kind.”
“No good cancers, darlings,” Zelda murmured, as if discussing the weather, or what movies were playing. She shuffled and drew again. Death. This time, she lay the card down without flipping it.
“No, darling. I only see Mommy surrounded by peace and love.” She reached out and patted the young girl’s hand.
“I want to see the card,” her friend said.
“No, you don’t want to see any more cards,” Zelda said, firmly.
The teen reached out to take the card and Zelda grabbed her by the wrist. Whispering, she warned the girl, “Never touch a witch’s totem. Never. You understand?” The amulet that had lay fallow around her neck now crackled with fiery flame. The eye of the dragon swung heavily beneath Zelda’s neck, just before her heart. The girl’s hand turned white as Zelda calmly gripped her wrist like a tightening vise. “It is good thing your friend no watching you. You take her home, buy her ice cream, you watch zee chick flicks all night, okay? Tomorrow you make sure she spend lots of time with Mommy, as much time as possible, you understand?” She hissed it so angrily, the teen’s face turned white. As w
hite as her blood-deprived hand.
When the girls were gone, Zelda hopped right up. “You like a glass of mead, Friend?”
“Ah, like old times? Of course.”
She brought me the goblet and I watched her face closely.
“What? You never big talker, Friend, but you come all zis way and zay nothing? Zelda not so soft, you know. Zelda take it.”
I reached out for her deck and drew a card. Without looking, I knew it. Strength. As she stared at me I studied the face which had once been the model for the very card I held in my hand. “Time has changed you, Zelda, but soft isn’t a word I’ve ever associated with you.”
“You zink I should tell girl her dying mother has no hope? Share your wisdom, oh, wise one. Zelda not forget, you only one card above her in ladder. Beside, in zees many years, who to say we cards not change our aspects, eh? Are we not to grow? Or is zat only for human fools? Sometimes I think we cards biggest fools of all.”
“If only I could have been permitted to be your proper teacher, Zelda. “ After the lesson I’d learned at Monte Carlo, I’d never again denied a talented girl her teachings, no matter what the Merlins had to say on the matter. Still, my lessons to Zelda were behind closed doors, totally on the hush-hush, and she was never able to come out as a sorceress in training. After the Tarocco deck was published and our rogue wizard academy run out of Italy, we scattered. I was lucky to place her in a nunnery while the rebel son of the head Merlin fled to Britain with my apprentice and me.
I hadn’t meant to abandon Zelda there, but when I’d come back to check on her, she was gone. She’d hidden herself well, too, taking up with the trolls and immigrating to America. Only in the past thirty years had I realized we both ended up in the same Indiana territory—me, an emissary of the new wizard order, working case files on a freelance basis, she as a...well, that was why I was here. What exactly was she doing?
“Hard for me to believe someone with Strength such as yours would be content telling five dollar fortunes to country rubes. Seems an awful waste of talent.”
Allegories of the Tarot Page 9