Phoenix and Ashes em-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  Sarah was not in much better case. She couldn't keep her mind on business either. Finally, after the third attempt at scrying by flame, she threw up her hands.

  "It's not going to happen," she said, with a snort of disgust. "Your mind isn't on it, and neither is mine. What's got you all of a pother, anyway?"

  "Reggie," Eleanor said, wrinkling her nose, and described the quarrel. Even though they had made it up, she was still annoyed with him. It was difficult not to be.

  I'll try to settle my mind so I don't go to sleep on it—but how could he have been so obtuse?

  "Men!" Sarah said, with a dismissive contempt. "A dog's more protective, and a cat will catch mice, but a man causes more problems than he cures, I swear it. I'd have been angry too, in your place."

  Reluctantly, Eleanor felt moved to defend him. "He did apologize," she admitted. "Eventually."

  "And then he ran right back to his pack at the pub, where they are all maligning the female race even as we speak," said Sarah, with just a touch of a sneer. "I know; I heard his motorcar go by and stop at the Broom. By the time he motors home, he'll be feeling perfectly justified in speaking every word he said."

  Eleanor felt her temper flare again, and throttled it down. "Well, then I hope he has a hangover for his pains," she replied. "Why are you so out-of-sorts?"

  "Something nasty is out there tonight," Sarah said abruptly, and uneasily, casting a glance at the windows, where the curtains were drawn tight against the dark. "It can't pass the bounds I put on the village, but I can feel it pressing against them. Whatever it is—or they are, since I can't tell if it's one thing, or several—they're angry."

  Eleanor felt her annoyance with Reggie melting away. "What is it?" she asked, urgently. "More of those Earth-goblins?"

  But Sarah shook her head. "No. I'd recognize those. This is very different. More of this world than the goblins are. No, it's something else. If I didn't know better—and come to think of it, maybe I don't—I'd say it was spirits. Ghosts."

  Eleanor blinked. "Ghosts?" Somehow it had never occurred to her that, along with Elemental Magic and everything else, ghosts might be real, too. "But why would ghosts be trying to get into the village?"

  "Now, that's where you have me," Sarah admitted candidly. "I don't know. Ghosts usually don't leave the spot where they're rooted. Sometimes it's a place they loved, sometimes it's one where they had something terrible or wonderful happen to them, but mostly it's where they died or their bodies are buried. It takes a lot to uproot them, and a great deal more to set them to some new task of haunting. That's why I can't imagine why or how it could be spirits."

  Eleanor shivered, and cast a glance towards the windows herself. "What else could it be?"

  "I don't know," Sarah replied, and shook her head. "Whatever it is, it won't disturb anyone inside the bounds, and outside, well, you'd have to be able to see them, and most people can't." She pulled on her lower lip with her teeth for a moment. "I'm inclined to think at the moment that it's just a blow-up left over from May Eve. That's one of the four Great Holy Days when the boundaries between the spirit world and the real world are thinned. Witches—well, we tend those doorways on those days—let the ones that want just to look in on their loved-ones out, and keep the doors open so they can all go back at daybreak. You know the old song, where the lady's three sons come back to her? She called them on May Eve—'I wish the wind would never cease, nor flashes in the flood, till my three sons return to me in earthly flesh and blood.' "

  "But—" Eleanor began.

  Sarah shook her head. "Can't tell you more than that; it's witch's business. But like every other job, witches have been lost to the war, and if one of those doors wasn't tended—or if it was opened by someone inexperienced who let it slip closed too early—" She shrugged. "If that's all it is, then they might be angry because they know a witch is in this village, and they want me to let them through."

  "Well, why don't you?" Eleanor asked, reasonably.

  "Because I don't know what door it is." She sighed. "If things don't improve, I'll have to arrange something, but otherwise, we're probably better off leaving well enough alone. There's always the chance they'll find their own way over. There's help on the Other Side if they truly want back."

  Eleanor wanted to ask more, but the look on Sarah's face told her that she wasn't going to get anything more, so she changed the subject. "One of the books I found in the library talked about fortune-telling cards," she said instead. "And the one they talked about seemed—well, it seemed to make more sense than some of the other things I was reading."

  Sarah's tense expression eased. "Ah. The Tarot. I can see where that'd be useful, and fit right in with your mum's notes. Wait a moment."

  She turned and went to a cupboard, bringing out something rectangular wrapped in silk. She set the package down on the table and unwrapped it. It was an oversized deck of cards.

  "These are the Tarot cards," Sarah said, picking up the well-worn pasteboards, and separating out one smaller stack from the rest. "The ones that'll be the most use to you right now, for giving you things to think on, are these—"

  She fanned out the cards in her hand; Eleanor could see that they didn't look anything like playing cards. They were pictures, like the one she'd seen in the book, called Strength.

  "These are the cards called the Major Arcana, the most powerful in that there's the most meaning packed into them, and the most symbolism. There's twenty-two of them, and this," she pulled one out of the deck "is the first, the last, or the card that travels through the whole deck. And in this case, since you're the Seeker right now, this card represents you, on your journey through the Powers as you try to master them."

  Eleanor looked down at it; the card showed her what looked like a young man, dancing on the edge of a cliff. There was a little dog at his feet, the sun overhead, and he held a rose in one hand, and a stick with a bundle on the end, like a Traveler, in the other.

  "The Fool," she read aloud, and looked up. "Why is that me?"

  "Well, you've had all that study; when you look at the stories about King Arthur and the Grail, who do they call the Perfect Fool, and why?" Sarah countered.

  "Percival," she replied immediately. "Because he was innocent, unschooled. He could ask questions no one else would, because he didn't know he shouldn't."

  "And that's our Fool," Sarah replied, tapping the card with one finger. "The Fire in his card is his intelligence; he burns with curiosity and the need to know things He's perfectly innocent; he breaks the rules because he doesn't know they're there and doesn't know he should abide by them. Sometimes that's for good, and sometimes it can bring disaster. He's the Seeker, who moves from card to card looking for wisdom. He's fearless, because he doesn't know he should fear. He isn't worried about being on the edge of the cliff, because he isn't thinking about the next minute when he might fall off, he's thinking about right now, and besides, for all he knows, he'll step out into the empty air and it'll hold him."

  Eleanor studied the card closely. "So if he's concentrating on now, he isn't looking forward?"

  Sarah nodded. "That's the negative side of him. He's not at all in the spirit, and very much in the body. He breaks rules that sometimes shouldn't be broken and will bring him grief when they are. He can fall off that cliff. He means change, but change isn't always good."

  She paused, waiting. Eleanor sensed she was waiting for her pupil to come up with some answers of her own. "So, this concentration on his physical body—that's his Earth aspect? It looks to me like he's mostly Fire and Earth. Not much water symbolism here. Of course, though, there's Air—the Air he could step off into."

  Sarah nodded. "Change might be the Water aspect, but mostly the Fool is Intellect and Passion, and that's Air and Fire. Which makes him even more appropriate for you."

  She turned over a second card, this one showing a man in a white robe and a red cloak. He stood among roses and lilies, with a rose-vine overhead. He had a wand in his hand and was
next to a table on which were a cup, a knife, another wand, and a disk. There was something like the number eight lying on its side hovering like a halo above his head. Eleanor read the card's name aloud. "The Magician."

  "What else can you tell me?" Sarah asked.

  She studied it, and was struck by the objects on the table, which reminded her of something in one of the Alchemy books. "That's all four Elements, there," she said, pointing to the table. "The Cup is Water, the Disk is Earth, the Wand is Air and the Knife is Fire. So he has command of all of the elements?"

  "Or he hasn't yet chosen which one his Element is," Sarah countered. "That wand he's holding is a symbol of his power, not of a particular Element. He's the symbol of the mind, too, like the Fool, but in his case, it's Creativity, not Intellect He knows what he wants out of Heaven and Earth, and so long as he stays focused, he'll get it."

  Eleanor studied the card further. "But he can run right over the top of you to get what he wants," she said slowly. "Which is the negative side of him; selfish and self-centered. So he's like the Fool in that way, in a way, their negative side is being self-centered."

  "Good!" Sarah applauded. "And what else?"

  "Well, if his positive side is that he can get anything if he can stay focused, then I guess his weakness is that he's likely to lose concentration and be scattered." She pondered that for a moment. "So, where this card is all elements, I'd say that the Magician himself is mostly Air?"

  "That's how I've always seen him, but remember he's a channel for all of them, more so than most other cards. So he gets being charming and attractive from Earth, he gets a streak of passion and genius from Fire, he gets independence and the willingness to break rules from Air, and the ability to handle power and make changes from Water." Sarah got up and went back to her cupboard, taking out a similar wrapped bundle. She pulled a second card out, and laid it beside the Magician. This one, too, was labeled the Magician, but it wasn't a ceremonial Magician. This one looked like a circus trickster, a charlatan, who was juggling cups and balls. "This is an older version, from a deck I don't use much. It shows you the Magician's darker side."

  "A cheat, a stage-magician," Eleanor said at once. "I can see—his dark side is that charm used to gull people, the intellect used to practice deception, the willingness to break rules can make him a criminal, and Water can sweep away everything, leaving you with nothing."

  "Very good!" Sarah replied. "And those two cards are enough to think about for one night, so the lesson is over. Did you say you had a book that talked about the Tarot in alchemical terms?"

  She nodded.

  "Then go home and read what it has to say about the Fool and the Magician." Sarah folded her cards back up in their silk and put them away. "We'll look at another card tomorrow. Meanwhile, you think about these tonight."

  Eleanor took her leave, and made her way back to The Arrows well before her sprig of rosemary withered. She went to bed and followed Sarah's orders, reading about and thinking about those two cards until she fell asleep—

  At which point she found herself in dreams, dressed in clothing of a medieval Italian page, dancing on the edge of a cliff with the sun high overhead and not a cloud in the sky. . . .

  20

  May 3-21,1917

  Broom, Warwickshire

  MAY THIRD HAD DAWNED IN rain, and it kept raining all day long, a steady pour that made Eleanor reluctant even to venture to Sarah's cottage, much less to the meadow. Not that she ever thought that she would have met Reggie there. No, if he'd been kept away merely because he wanted to give rides to kiddies in his motorcar, the prospect of a soaking would certainly keep him inside four walls.

  So Eleanor had stayed where she was, took the opportunity to further increase her wardrobe, and when she wasn't obeying Alison's spells, studied her books diligently. The dream she'd had the previous night, of being the Fool, had given her impetus. It had been vividly realistic, too; she'd felt nothing but euphoria and a curiosity about absolutely everything. No fear, none at all, when she'd stopped dancing for a moment, leaned over, and stared into the abyss below her. In the dream, the thought that she might fall had not even flitted across her mind. No fear, when she stared up into the sky, straight at the blazing sun, wondering what it was. Fortunately, it was the sun of the card, and not of reality; bright though it was, and hot, too, it didn't blind her. Of course, that had been in retrospect. At the time, all she had thought was, What is that? Why is it so hot? Can I reach it?

  She had half-awakened, but no more than that, fallen asleep again, to find herself, still the Fool, in a garden of roses and lilies, though she had no idea of how she had gotten there. She followed a path—then she was at the end of the path suddenly, and there was an altar there. On it were a cup, a scepter, a golden disk the size of a dinner-plate, and a sword. Behind the altar was someone in a white robe and a red cloak, with a broom in her hand. A broom, because it wasn't a man, as in the card, it was Sarah.

  "So, what do you see?" the Magician asked. Eleanor said the first thing that came into her mind—not an answer, but a question.

  "What cup is that, and what does it hold?"

  Sarah nodded. "Good. Come and find out for yourself." She leaned the broom against the altar, picked up the cup, and held it out to Eleanor, just like a priest offering the sacrament. Eleanor came and took it from her, and drank from it—

  And suddenly, it was she who was in the white robes and red cloak and behind the altar, and Sarah and her broom were nowhere to be seen. But even as, when she had been the Fool, her mind was full of questions, now it was full of knowledge.

  She put the cup down, dazzled by all of the things flooding through her thoughts, when a voice interrupted her from the table.

  "Well, now that you have Wisdom, you ought to know what to do with the other three Gifts," the voice said, and she looked down at the Cup to see that it was much larger, nearly the size of a washtub, and there was a great salmon sticking its head out of the water and looking up at her. "Well?" said the salmon. "With all that Wisdom, what are you going to do next?"

  She looked at the other three items; her hand moved towards the sword, then she stopped.

  "Quite right," said the salmon, sounding like something out of Alice's Adventures. "You aren't nearly strong enough to wield the Passion of Fire. What else is there?"

  Her hand hovered between the Coin of Earth and the Wand of Air, and she had just started to reach for the latter—

  When she woke up. It was dawn, and time to get to work.

  It was still raining, and didn't look as if it was going to stop at any time soon. So that day was a repeat of the previous one, and at least she finished sewing all the rest of her new wardrobe, because the weather cleared off in the night, and by teatime of the fifth, there was the sound of a motorcar and Alison and the girls chugged into the old stable that now served as a garage.

  There was nothing to make into what Alison would have called a "decent" tea and dinner except tinned stuff, of course. And in any event, it was too late for Eleanor to start anything, so as Eleanor hauled their baggage up to their rooms, they tidied themselves up, then pulled the motor back out again to go to the Broom Hall Inn for tea and order that a dinner be sent around. And life went right back to normal.

  Neither Alison nor the girls noticed Eleanor's new clothing, nor did anyone note books missing from the library. They were all very full of chatter about London—there were Americans moving through now, and Lauralee was very taken with them. She kept exclaiming about how tall they were.

  As for Alison, she acted like a cat that had gotten into cream. Whatever she had done while she'd been gone, she was very pleased with it, and herself.

  So things went back to the way they had been, except that every two or three days, Eleanor would slip away after the household was in bed, and get down to Sarah's cottage, which was where Sarah would take out her cards and they would go over all of the ones that she had already seen as Eleanor tried to glean a little more
meaning out of them. Then Sarah would lay out a new one.

  There was no chance to get out to the meadow. But as May became June, she certainly heard enough about Reggie. The campaign to ingratiate themselves into the Longacre circle was well underway, and twice-weekly tennis-parties were the artillery pounding away at the gates. Longacre had its own courts, and Lady Devlin loved to both watch and play. Even though Reggie couldn't play because of his knee, he always came to watch his mother—and Alison and both girls were good enough to give her ladyship a good game of doubles. This, of course, was according to what Alison told her little coterie of the Broom elite over tea.

  Eleanor knew the truth. Of course they were good enough—because of magic. They'd shown no aptitude before this, but one of the things that had come back from London had been a set of three tennis raquettes with a faint feeling of magic about them. Eleanor had no doubt, no doubt at all, that Alison had somehow stolen someone's tennis-prowess and put it into those raquettes.