‘Well?’ she asks, gesturing with her right hand, which holds a woven basket full of provisions. ‘Are you going to stand there gawping or will you come inside?’
‘Inside?’ I follow the line of her gaze and see, there just behind her, a blue-painted wooden door, and over the door a sign. Divinations, it reads.
I look to her again, and see she’s smiling.
‘Look, thank you. For a moment there …’
But I fall silent again, struck by her beauty. Those violet eyes … now where have I seen those before?
Only as I take the first step there’s a voice in my head.
‘Ten jumps and then no more,’ it says. ‘You are at the very limits here, Otto.’
Limits?
All I know is that I feel the growing strain of it, each time my body’s rendered into atoms? And is that why I can’t remember? Have I stretched my memories to an intolerable thinness? Stretched taut and then snapped back. To here. To Baturin.
She’s staring at me now as if I’m a strange one. And maybe I am.
I take a step then stop. ‘Look, I … I don’t even know your name.’
I say that and instantly feel a fool, because I do. She’s Mariya Beskryostnov. At least, that’s what that rogue, Golubintzev, called her.
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘You’re Mariya.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m Otto … Otto the nemets.’
Yes, and Otto the forgetful.
463
Inside, embalmed, or so it seems, in a haze of sweet-scented perfumes and incense sticks, is her living room, a place of richly coloured silks and satins, of embroidered cushions and Persian wall-hangings, of comfy sofas and rich piled carpets, not to speak of the burning candles and the gold-framed mirrors and …
Divinations. I understand that now.
In the centre of it all is a low table. She makes me take a chair facing her across it. A table upon which is carved and painted a hundred strange devices, its rich decoration matching that of the room.
She smiles, then unfastens the fur at her neck and pulls it off to reveal a long, flowing dress of brilliant red, trimmed with an edging of blue and green and yellow. The kind of thing Russian peasants wear to church or on special days. Her earrings are large and colourful, while about her wrists are a dozen bangles that make a musical sound whenever she moves her hands, which is often. About her neck are a collection of various gold and silver charms. Only I am a man, and as a man my eyes are drawn to the curve of her breasts beneath the cloth, the fullness of her figure. Yes, and her eyes.
It’s that last that disturbs me most – that throws me – because it reminds me, vaguely yet strongly, of other days and other eyes. But whose I do not know.
Seeing where my eyes dwell, she smiles and touches herself there, then turns away, moving across to a small wall of shelves, on which are many things – books, cards and trinkets among them.
‘Have you travelled very far to come here, Otto?’
Have I? Damned if I know. Yet it seems so, so I nod.
‘From Germany?’
Again I nod.
She turns back. In her hand now is an illustrated box of cards. I recognise them at once. The Tarot. Are these the cards she saw me in? If so, what significance has that?
She places the box between us on the table, then, seating herself across from me, tips the cards out and hands them to me.
‘Shuffle them, Otto. Ten good shuffles, then hand them back.’
I do as she asks, taking the cards from her, and as I do, so my fingers brush against hers; that brief contact is like an electric shock, or a jolt of static.
We jerk our hands apart … and laugh.
‘The power’s strong in you, Otto.’
Only how do I answer that? And what kind of power does she mean? The power to change universes? I have that. But the kind of power that speaks of magic? In that I don’t believe. I am, after all, a logical man.
I shuffle the cards – ten times – then hand them back to her.
‘Have you ever had your cards read, Otto?’
If I have then it’s completely slipped my memory.
‘No, I …’
‘It’s all right,’ she says, her voice softening, as she lays out the cards in what I recognise as a Celtic Cross. ‘There’s nothing complex about a reading, Otto. It’s all … intuitive, I guess you’d say.’
Yes, and look where intuition has got you, Otto. Sat here with a gypsy woman in a town that’s due to be burned to the ground sometime in the next twenty-four hours. What sense does any of this make?
Only I say nothing, just sit there, waiting to see where this road will lead.
I watch her reach out to turn the first of the cards, and notice, as she does, that her fingernails are painted with tiny gold circles against the red, like coins in blood.
For a moment I watch her hands, fascinated, then meet her eyes again.
She’s watching me.
I look away. ‘So?’
‘So we begin.’
And she turns the first card.
‘You must remember, Otto. The cards are all connected. Each one has individual meaning, but you must grasp the bigger picture. Nothing within the tarot is on its own.’
Only I’m not really listening. I’m staring at the turned card, reversed as it is to my view.
‘Strength’ it reads. Or, in German, Starke. Which is what we time agents would wish each other before we jumped from the platform in Four-Oh.
The first jump of ten.
For a moment I feel disoriented, like I’ve got up too fast. Only I’m still seated.
‘Strength,’ she says, her whole face lighting in a warm smile. ‘See how the woman seeks to control the lion, the beast within, which represents our emotions. Note how patient she is. How courageous.’
‘And the symbol?’
‘The symbol?’
‘Above her head. The infinity sign. The lazy eight.’
‘Oh, that. That is the Lemniscate. It’s a geometrical representation of energy, of its endless and eternal nature.’
‘I see. And do any other cards carry this sign?’
She considers, then smiles once more. ‘Well, there’s The World … the Two of Pentagrams and, of course, The Magician.’
‘But here … what does it mean here?’
‘It means …’ And she laughs – a pretty laugh – then reaches out to touch my hand. ‘Our passions, too, are a form of energy. Let them run wild and they will damage us. Some Diviners call this card “Power”, and the Lemniscate channels that power.’
‘In a loop,’ I say, and she nods and smiles and takes her hand away.
And turns the second card. ‘This next card “crosses” you.’
I stare at it a moment, mouth open, then reach out and pick it up.
‘Otto, you can’t—’
‘Where did you get this pack? Who gave it to you?’
The card is Death, but that is only half of it, for Death in this picture is Kolya, and his men, who fill the landscape beyond his unmistakable figure, are all his ‘brothers’.
She takes it back from me, a touch perturbed by my reaction. ‘I bought this on my travels in the southlands, from an ancient Ottoman … a Turk, you might call him … But why do you ask?’
‘This one …’ And I reach across to place my finger on the figure of Death. ‘I know him.’
She laughs, slightly awkwardly this time. ‘Everyone knows him. He is “The One Who Cannot Be Avoided”.’
‘Is that his other name?’
‘Oh, he has many names. But that card, Death, is not death as you and I might experience it, but transformation. A transition to a new level of existence.’
‘I see.’
Only I don’t. Kolya is Kolya, and that’s him on the Death card, and there has to be a reason for that. But I let it pass. I need to know just what the other cards have on them that relate to me.
She turns the third card. ‘This card relate
s to the unconscious and to what’s going on in the depths of us.’
The card is The Lovers. I look at it and nod. That’s Hecht in the top half of the card, that fiery figure, like an Archangel, his wings spread wide.
I look at her anew. Is she just an innocent, or is she, like me, an agent?
She shakes her head; the barest of motions. ‘This card … on its own … well, I would say that, while you appear to be very much in control of your passions, even, dare I say it, something of a cold fish, beneath it all, in the very depths of you, you’re …’ She meets my eyes. ‘Who is she, Otto?’
‘I don’t know. It’s like I’ve forgotten.’
‘And yet she’s there … in your subconscious.’
Yes, and if I close my eyes I almost see her.
The fourth card is Judgement.
‘Another Major Arcana card,’ she says, surprised.
But I’m not listening. This time I’m shocked, because beneath the figure of the trumpet-blowing angel is a peasants’ cart and on that cart two figures, their naked bodies as pale as death as they wake to new life on the Day of Judgement.
Me and she, partners in death. Whoever she is.
‘Are you all right?’ she asks, suddenly concerned. ‘Only you’ve lost all colour.’
‘I’m fine, I … No, I’m fine.’
Only it’s like I’m suddenly separated from her by a sheet of glass. Her lips move but no words seem to emerge.
The fifth card is … The Hanged Man.
‘Odin,’ I say. ‘That’s Odin and he’s hanging upside down from the Tree of Worlds.’
‘That’s right,’ she says, surprised. ‘He’s on an inner journey … one that links to the Strength and Lovers cards. All three of these suggest that you will only find wisdom through controlling your emotions.’
‘And yet I seem a cold fish …’
‘What you seem and what you are. They are different things, no, Otto?’
‘So it would seem.’
The sixth card – the last of the first part of the reading – is The Tower.
This card surprises me. It’s different in kind from all those that preceded it. So full of anger. So full of violence.
The tower itself is struck by lightning. Rain falls from a cloudy sky. As the tower bursts into flame, men fall to their death.
‘The world re-cast,’ she says.
The death of the old, I think. Change.
‘Change,’ she says, as if in echo to my thought.
The kind of change that erases worlds and puts others in their place.
She is staring at the cards, a strange expression on her face. ‘All six in the Major Arcana.’
‘Is that strange?’
But she doesn’t answer, merely reaches across and turns the seventh – the first card of the four that run in a straight line from the past into the future.
The Magician.
She laughs, but it’s a nervous laughter. This is clearly not going the way she’d thought it would.
I study the card. Over the Magician’s head is the symbol for infinity. The lazy eight. The snake eating its tail, or the Lemniscate, as they call it.
As for the magician himself, he seems a relatively young man. No greybeard, this. In his right hand is his wand, while on the table in front of him are the implements of his pseudo-scientific powers.
‘The Magician,’ she says, her voice almost a whisper. ‘The gateway to the Divine. The very conduit of the higher powers.’ She looks to me. ‘Just see what cards Fate has dealt you, Otto.’
Yet she seems perturbed, shaken almost by the reading. Seven cards and not a single one from the Minor Arcana. Not a single cup or wand, not one pentacle or sword. What were the odds on that? How likely was it?
This once she does not dwell, but turns the eighth card hurriedly. ‘The High Priestess …’
I put my hand out. ‘Can I see that?’
She hesitates. This reading is slipping away from her. Even so, she hands the card to me, then sits back, studying me.
I’m silent a moment, taking in the details of the card, then look back at her. My heart is racing. Was this my lover in some other past or future?
‘I know this woman. I don’t know where from, or in what circumstances, but … I know her.’
Mariya shakes her head. ‘You cannot possibly know her, Otto. These cards … they are several centuries old. And the woman here … she’s just the abstract of a woman.’
‘No,’ I say and shake my head. ‘I know her.’
‘You mean she looks like someone you know.’
Someone I know very well indeed. But where she lives and what her name is escapes me. In the card she sits on a throne between two pillars, surrounded by all manner of symbols, magnificent and powerful.
Mariya takes the card back from me.
‘The Priestess speaks directly to the inner voice,’ she says. ‘Her domain is the unconscious. Perhaps that’s why you think you know her, just as you think you know your Inner Self.’
‘I don’t believe that. I know her.’
Only I can see she doesn’t believe me. But then, why should she? Unless she’s a time agent like myself. But then, why this charade?
‘Show me the last two.’
That flirtatious element has gone from her face. This reading has soured her mood.
She turns the ninth card. It’s The Wheel Of Fortune. I see her intake of breath and know that this all means something to her.
‘Fate,’ she murmurs, in the quietest of voices. ‘Destiny itself. It’s all connected, Otto. Our fortunes rise and fall, as the great Wheel turns, but for some …’
She turns the last, the ‘outcome card’ as she calls it, impatient to see the whole of it. I see how she looks from one part of the spread to another, piecing it all together, a look of genuine, unfeigned awe in her eyes.
‘Oh, Otto … The Star. It lights your way into the future. It …’ She reaches across and takes my hands in hers. ‘Oh my word, what a reading! I have never seen the like! You … you’re very special, Otto. The Child of Fate. But you must look to what is inside you. Must follow what your inner self decrees, trusting that before all else. You see, The Star is a card of Faith, and its presence here in the tenth place is Fate telling you that you must have faith in the powers within you. Allied with The Tower, it is a powerful omen. Great change is coming to your life, but also great understanding. Few are given such an insight into the workings of Fate. But you …’
Mariya looks beyond me suddenly, and I turn, sensing someone else in the room. Her hands fall away from mine.
‘Ernst!’
Ernst scowls at the woman, dismissing her at a glance. ‘You must come, Otto. Things are happening.’
Mariya puts out a hand, as if to stop me rising from my chair. ‘You can’t go. Not now. I have barely begun—’
Ernst huffs impatiently. ‘There’s no time to waste with all this clap-trap! Come, Otto! We’re needed.’
I nod. Yet I’m tempted to delay and ask the woman what else she sees in the cards. How she explains those aspects that seem to be intimately related to me.
I stand, pushing back my chair.
‘You must go,’ I say, looking to her. ‘Leave Baturin right now or lose your life. Menshikov is coming, and he intends to raze the town to the ground and leave no survivors.’
She laughs. ‘It cannot be. There was nothing in the cards.’
‘Maybe. But then I came. And things changed, no?’
She nods uncertainly, then looks at the spread before her on the table. For a moment her whole being seems focused on the cards, as if she sees something other than what normal sight might reveal, and then she looks to me again. Meets my eyes and, almost without thought, hands me The Star.
‘Take it, Otto. Let it be your light in dark times.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Ernst says, uncharacteristically tetchy. ‘Bring on the goat’s entrails!’
But in the moment before we jump I meet h
er eyes and smile and let my lips say thank you, registering the shock in her face as first Ernst and then I vanish into the air.
Three
A Few Short Words in Ge’not
464
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘So what’s so important?’
‘They’re trying to change it, Otto. In the one place where it can’t be changed.’
‘Who?’ I ask, wondering if Kolya has made an appearance during my brief absence.
‘Germans … Russians, too. Dead men.’
I wonder what he means by that, but he quickly explains.
‘Someone’s gone back, way back, and left instructions. Brief notes in ge’not. And always for agents who, within hours, would be dead. Time-dead.’
‘And have any of them been successful? Have any of them survived and made a significant change?’
‘Not a single one, but—’
‘But what? You know as well as I that part of the loop is woven so deeply into the weft of Time that nothing can change it. Not in its essence, anyway, and not without damaging reality itself. As for details, well, they don’t really matter, do they? They change temporarily, and then change back.’
June 2747 we’re talking of now. In the final days before the bombs fell.
Only in my head I’m still in Baturin, in 1708.
‘The Tower,’ I say, as if placing a piece in a puzzle. ‘The same pattern. Eternally repeated.’
Ernst frowns deeply. ‘What in Urd’s name, Otto? Get all of that nonsense out of your head. It’s superstition, that’s all it is.’
I look to him. ‘I’d agree, old friend, only there were things on those cards specific to me. There was a woman – I don’t know where I’ve met her, but …’
‘Katerina,’ he says gently.
And I see her face again, in a flash that’s just as quickly gone.
‘Who was she?’
‘Not now.’
‘But …’
‘Not now,’ he repeats. ‘As for this other matter, I don’t think we can avoid it. It’s failed so far, but that’s not to say that they won’t find a way …’
‘How often are these intrusions?’
The Master of Time: Roads to Moscow: Book Three Page 35