“No, what happened? Tell me!” Victoria exclaimed in return. Sophia quickly reported the events of the previous day and how she had seen Peter transformed into a toad and how the group was now in possession of Magdalena’s chalice, and knew Elizabeth was working with George and Magdalena.
Victoria’s eyes grew wide and she shook her head from side to side in disbelief. “Peter transformed into a toad?” she gasped, clapping one hand over her mouth. “How could they? It’s… it’s just like the cards said!”
“What are you talking about, Victoria?” Sophia asked. “What’s just like what cards said?”
Victoria blushed. “I’m sorry,” she began. “It’s just that, that…” Several tourists bumped into her and she was clearly uneasy with whatever it was she had to tell them.
“Here.” Fr. Dmitri grasped Victoria’s shoulder and led the three of them away from the Old Town Hall and towards the restaurants opposite, where the crowds were more thinly spread. “There, now.” He smiled at her. “Now you can tell us. What happened?”
“Oh, Father Dmitri!” Victoria began again. “I’m so… what is the English word? I am so ashamed of what I did the night before last!”
“Well, you are with us again, Victoria,” Sophia reassured her. “The best thing to do is tell us what happened and not worry about it anymore.”
Victoria nodded and took a deep breath. She glanced around them and then began her tale.
“The night before last—on Friday night, it must have been the same night Peter was taking the chalice from Magdalena, now that you tell me about that—I was so frustrated, Father Dmitri, by our failure to identify the pentacle of Prague and reclaim at least one of the magical tools that defend the city. I don’t know a lot about card reading and… and divination… but I know a few simple methods and so I got out one of my tarot books and decided I would use the cards to help identify the pentacle of Prague.”
“A very clever idea,” the priest interjected.
“Thank you,” she said. “There is a way to ask the cards a series of questions that can be answered yes or no. I decided to use that. It involves asking the question correctly and then setting out three cards.” Dmitri nodded. “Are you familiar with it?”
“Yes, I am,” he told her. “Or at least with a very similar procedure that involves setting out three stacks of cards and then taking into account the top card of each stack.”
Victoria nodded. “Yes, the book mentioned that method too. Well, the more of the cards that are upright, the more likely the answer to the question is yes, correct?”
Dmitri agreed with her. “Three upright cards is a definite yes, two upright cards is a probable yes. But three cards upside down is a definite no, and two reversed cards is a probable no. What questions did you ask? What were the answers you received?”
She pulled a crumpled paper from a pocket. “At first, I just started asking questions. Then I decided to make a list and be a bit more organized. I copied the list over in English to show the rest of you.” She held the paper up to him and Dmitri took it. Sophia leaned over to read over his shoulder.
“Questions about the Pentacle of Prague,” was written as a title across the top of the page. There followed a series of questions, written neatly in English, with the answers Victoria had received from the cards to each query.
“Is it small?” “No.”
“Is it large?” “Yes.”
“Is it very large?” “Yes.”
“Is it too large to carry?” “Yes.”
“Does it belong to a private collector?” “No.”
“Does it belong to a museum?” “No.”
“Is it hidden?” “No.”
“Is it on public display?” “Yes.”
“Is it in the Little Town?” “No.”
“Is it in the New Town?” “No.”
“Is it in the Jewish Quarter?” “No.”
“Is it in the Old Town?” “Yes.” That answer was circled and underlined.
Dmitri’s eyes grew wide as he read down the list, as did his wife’s. “Victoria!” Sophia gasped. “This is amazing! You’ve lived here all your life. You must have some idea what the cards were trying to tell you. What large thing, so large that it cannot be carried, is on public display in the Old Town?”
“Well, that’s the problem.” Victoria wrung her hands. “Nothing large that I know of looks anything like a pentacle or pentagram. So I thought there must be some mistake. I asked the same questions again but got these same answers.”
Dmitri looked over the edge of the paper at Victoria. “What did you do then?”
“I—I decided to keep asking other questions, questions that had been worrying me about this whole project to stop George from stealing Magdalena from me.” Victoria bit her lower lip.
“Hmmm.” Dmitri glanced at the paper and then back into Victoria’s eyes. “What might those questions have been? What answers were you given?
Victoria gestured at the paper in his hand. He turned it over and discovered more writing on the back side, more questions with their one-word answers beside them.
Victoria cringed at the memory of that evening.
It was Friday night. Victoria had been using the tarot cards to answer a series of yes-or-no questions in an attempt to identify the mysterious pentacle that she and Fr. Dmitri had gone searching for earlier that day. She scooped up the cards and shuffled them several times. She thought about the other questions she had been harboring, afraid to admit that she was asking them in her head, and then asked the first one aloud.
“Is my friend Magdalena in danger?”
She dealt out three cards. “Yes.”
“Am I in danger for trying to save her?” Victoria asked and set out three more cards on top of the three already on the kitchen table. “Yes.” The answer she had been afraid of receiving.
Did she dare ask the next one that hovered on the edge of her consciousness? Did she really want to know if others were in danger too?
She asked the question and gasped as she set out the Three of Swords slicing through the heart suspended among the clouds, the Nine of Swords with its young girl holding her face in her hands as nine blades hung ominously above her, and the Hanged Man—who looked serene despite his imminent death. There was not a sign of hope in any of them.
“Yes!” she wrote down on the paper. There was a large exclamation point after this one.
“Does that mean being killed?” She cringed as The Tower, the Devil, and the Ten of Swords with its sword-pierced corpse all came up. “Yes!” she recorded. There were two exclamations points after that one. Not only were the cards all upright, but their basic messages were all those of despair, seemingly underlining the danger they all faced.
Several questions that were are various ways of phrasing the same request for information followed.
“Does Magdalena want to go with George if he leaves Prague?”
“Does Magdalena think she is in love with George?”
“Will Magdalena refuse to be my friend if we stop George?”
She turned up a variety of cards to answer these and saw The Knight of Cups, the Knight of Wands, the Queen of Swords, and Two of Cups among them. The same word answered each of these questions: “Yes.”
Victoria took a deep breath. “I’m risking my life and losing my friend, no matter if we stop George or not.” She felt the moisture welling up in her eyes even as her throat grew dry and tight. A tear slipped down one cheek. “I’ve asked other people to risk their lives and it may not even be possible to achieve what I really wanted in the first place, to save Magdalena.”
She stared at the cards and the paper in front of her. She gathered up the cards again into the deck, shuffled and prepared to ask one last question. She skipped a line on the paper and wrote out what she hardly dared to want to know.
“Is it possible for us to stop George?”
Holding her breath, she drew the three cards off the top of the deck and laid them out.
She was sorry she had formulated the question before she had even let go of them.
The Page of Cups. A gallantly dressed young man conversing with a fish that peered at him over the rim of the chalice he held.
The Eight of Cups. A man, walking into the hills, away from chalices stacked in two rows beside the steep banks of a river.
The Five of Cups. A black-cloaked figure, head bowed, staring at three overturned cups on the ground and ignorant of the two behind him, still upright.
All three cards were upside down. Reversed. An answer, clear and unambiguous. “No.”
Victoria burst into tears, her head collapsing onto her arms on the table.
She wept longer than she realized or could have accounted for, even if time had held any meaning for her. Exhausted with grief and despair, she slipped into a dark and dreamless sleep. Rousing herself groggily from the table several hours later, one side of her face numb from the pressure of lying on her arms and her sleeves drenched from the tears she had shed and the saliva that had pooled from her mouth, she stumbled to her bed and pulled the sheets over her face. Hearing the birds waken and dimly aware that sunlight had returned to the world outdoors, she buried herself in the sheets even further and cried again.
There seemed no reason to climb out from under her sheets. No reason to find the academics she had gathered by lighting that candle in her footprint. No reason to keep looking for the elusive pentacle. Only death and disappointment waited for her beyond her bed. Why go looking for them? Better to wait and let them come looking for her. Better to hide, and maybe death and disappointment would overlook her and forget to come back for her. Eventually, she crawled out of the bed just long enough to make her way to the bathroom and get a glass of water from the kitchen. But then, seeing the cards still scattered on the tabletop where she had left them, she darted back into her bedroom and slammed the door, as if that could keep at bay whatever she was afraid of. She cowered there, in the dark of her room, on the edge of her bed. She felt paralyzed by fear. She could feel the tension in her body, helplessly bracing herself as if she expected the world to tilt and drop her into the dark void gaping at her feet.
Hours later, she found herself curled up atop her sheets.
“I must have fallen asleep again as I sat there,” she realized. Stiff and aching, she had trouble moving her joints but struggled to pull herself into a tight ball. She pressed her hands against the sides of her head and drifted into darkness again.
Darkness. Silence. At some point, Victoria realized that she was wandering in a vast emptiness so dark she could not have seen her hand even if she had the strength of will to hold it before her eyes. Too exhausted to fear, too drained to care, she stumbled forward a few steps and stopped. Maybe this was the place she could hide, where she could be safe from whatever she was running from.
How long she stood there, she could never say. It seemed an eternity, but whether that was because time had no meaning there or because she had no interest in measuring time, she did not know. At some point, however, a glint of light in the distance caught her attention and she snapped her head up.
The light drew closer and as it did, Victoria was forced to avert her eyes. The light, especially in contrast to the darkness, was simply too brilliant, too intense to look on directly. She gazed at the periphery of the light, focusing on the tendrils of glory intermingled with the tendrils of the surrounding darkness. She was aware, however, of a figure in the depths of the brilliance that was the source of the light. Or, perhaps, the figure was a window through which the light was able to pierce the darkness. In any case, there was now something—no, someone—standing before Victoria. She had the sense—based on what, she couldn’t say—that the figure was both androgynous and beautiful, youthful and yet older than time. Victoria, overcome by the presence, could not bring herself to respond to her visitor, but simply waited, and as she waited, she realized that the tiniest spark of hope had ignited within her for the first time since she had begun shuffling the deck of cards.
“Victoria.” The being finally addressed her. The voice was light and songlike, gentle and loving. It made her both want to throw herself into the figure’s arms and yet stand up taller, straighter and not disappoint the being but live up to its hopes and expectations for her. The echoes of the greeting reverberated in her head and it felt like a great joy and satisfaction was already slipping from her grasp like clear, cold spring water running through her fingers.
“Victoria.” The figure repeated her name. “You cannot stay here.” Was the figure’s voice one that she heard with her ears or did it communicate directly with her mind? She wasn’t sure.
“Why… why not?” she stammered in response, her mouth feeling clumsy and her words sounding leaden in comparison with the voice of the one who addressed her.
“You cannot hide from your fears here,” she was told. “He only grows stronger, feeding on the despair and fear of others. You must run to confront him, not run to hide from him.”
“But he… George… the one you mean, correct…? The cards said we could not defeat him!” Victoria burst out.
The figure surrounded by glory gave the impression of shaking its head, sadly.
“Victoria, the cards tell what may be, not will be. It depends on the question you ask and how it is phrased, the perspective you see the situation from. Is the outcome of the battle a victory or a defeat? It depends on who asks the question. Even the act of reading the cards influences and changes the outcome of the questions you ask,” the figure told her.
“So the reading was nothing but lies?” she wanted to know.
“No, not lies. The cards reveal living, fluid potential and possibilities, not dead certainties. At least, when the questions involve other people,” the light answered. “There always remains the quality of freedom that must be taken into account. Do not ever surrender to the darkness because you think there is no hope or because you have forgotten that others are still free to act. That betrayal, the assumption that the ability of another to choose has been taken away, is greater than any betrayal you may think you have experienced. ‘Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted… hath lifted up his heels against me.’ Has Magdalena, your most dear friend, turned against you? Do not turn against her in turn. It is your steadfast adherence to your most true self that provides the yardstick by which you will be judged, Victoria.”
“So… Magdalena can still be saved? George might still be defeated?” Victoria’s heart leapt into her throat.
“Might. Perhaps. But not if you have already surrendered to the dark. That is what the darkness wants: your surrender before you have even properly begun the combat. ‘As for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity and settest me before thy face forever.’ Is it truly your most true self to give up Magdalena to the dark without a struggle, no matter what she thinks she wants, having been persuaded by the dark?” The light seemed to smile at her.
“So I should go back? I should go back and…” She was not sure what the next step ought to be.
“Yes. Go back. Find the pentacle.” The light nodded and seemed to raise its hand in a gesture that was at once both blessing and dismissal.
“Wait! Who are you?” she asked, as the figure seemed to be receding into the distance. Or was it Victoria who was moving?
“I? I am one who watches—” was the only answer she was given and it was cut off as Victoria found herself back in her room, curled up on her bed, stiff and aching, her cheeks covered with the salt of her dry tears. It seemed to be late morning or midday, given the light attempting to pierce the gloom of her shuttered room. She struggled to untangle her limbs and sat up. After a while, she made her way to the bathroom to wash her face.
It had been dark. There had been a figure of light. Had she been dead? Had she hovered in some half-dead state? Had she chosen to live again or had the figure sent her back? She did not know and it did not change what she had to do. She needed to hunt down the pentacle if there was to b
e any chance at all of saving her friend and overcoming George.
“So, I was on my way to the Angel House to find you and the others at the conference,” Victoria concluded. “I got dressed, crossed the bridge, and was crossing the Old Town Square here when I was trapped in the crowd and you jostled me.”
Fr. Dmitri exchanged a glance with Sophia as Victoria finished recounting her experiences. “We need to find the pentacle,” Victoria reminded them, reaching for the paper in the priest’s hand. “We need to sort through these clues and find it.”
“Yes, you are right,” Sophia agreed. “These hints do seem to narrow the possibilities of what should be the focus of the search.”
Suddenly there was a whirring of gears and a creaking of hinges above them. The crowd around them on the square froze and looked up. The doors above the clock were opening as the figures of the apostles began their hourly procession. The figure of death beside the clock face shook its hourglass. The crowd cheered as the bells rang noon. Greed jangled the coins in his moneybag.
The final apostles gave their benediction to the crowd as the last echoes of the bells died away. The wooden doors creaked shut again and the hordes of people below milled about and dispersed. The tour groups made their way to various corners of the square or down one of the many side streets leading away from the square. Individual tourists wandered off to find lunch or sit on a bench around the corner from the clock or along the Hus Memorial across the square. Dmitri, Sophia and Victoria were rapidly left nearly alone in front of the Astronomical Clock.
“What were the clues to the pentacle’s identity again, Victoria?” Sophia asked. “It is large, too large to carry, yes?”
“Yes.” Victoria rustled her paper. “It is very large, too large to carry and on public display in the Old Town.” She gestured about them. “It must be somewhere very nearby. But I can’t see it. Could it be hidden on one of the turrets of the Tyn church, do you think?”
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 74