Phoenix and Ashes em-4

by Mercedes Lackey

  Alison and her daughters were also up at the manor at least once a week for tea, and Eleanor expected that would change to two or even three times a week before long.

  There was company due at Longacre Park in the first week of June, too—which would probably mean more entertaining. Tea-dances, card-parties, boating on the river, riding on the grounds, as well as tennis and croquet, and more chances for Lauralee and Carolyn to use whatever they could to ensnare Reggie. . . .

  Well, she thought, more than once, If he's stupid enough to let himself be ensnared, then he's not worth wasting time on.

  But she couldn't help contrasting herself with her stepsisters, whenever they sailed out of the house in their modish tennis-dresses or flirty tea-gowns. Once, perhaps, she had been the equal of her stepsisters, and might have been able to pass herself off as belonging in Reggie's social set. Money was still not the equal of breeding in the eyes of some, but it was certainly approaching that equivalency—and to Reggie's generation, perhaps it had achieved equality. At least, so long as one had the right accent, the right education, the right manners and conversation, the right outward appearance.

  Now—well, he might sit with her in a meadow and be amused by her conversation, but her hands were callused and rough with manual labor, her clothing was fit only for the lowest servants, and with those two handicaps, it didn't matter how fine her mind was. If he'd been penniless but blue-blooded, perhaps—but not while he was lord of Longacre Park. With that insurmountable social gulf between them, while he might amuse himself in private, he would never acknowledge the friendship in public.

  And a friend who won't treat me the same, in public as in private, isn't worth having.

  She tried not to feel eaten up with envy as the girls chattered about "dear Reggie" and tormented one another over which he had paid more attention to that day. But it would have been difficult enough to watch them swanning about with their airs and their chatter about going "up the hill." It was very difficult indeed to hear them boasting about "dear Reggie" this and "dear Reggie" that.

  She took what grim solace she could in her study of Elemental Magic. The sooner she mastered that, the sooner she could free herself. And then—well, then she would worry about when she was freed.

  She'd had no trouble getting to sleep; now that it was June, the days were getting longer, and longer days just meant that Alison found more work for her to do. And she was not at all surprised to find herself immediately in a dream.

  The dream began now in a familiar pattern; Eleanor found herself as the Fool, resolutely turned away from the cliff-edge, and passed up the path to the Magician. The Tarot cards were providing the framework for the quest for Mastery; there was no doubt in her mind about that. But this time, the Magician was not Sarah, but a stranger. Still, she asked the right question, became the Magician, and prepared to pass on—

  The Salmon of Wisdom did not appear in the cup now that she had the key to this card. She was able at this point to actually pick up the blade, the cup, the wand and the coin—and yet she sensed she was not able to use more than a fraction of the power in each, not even of her own Element. And she would not—she knew that now—until she had journeyed through all of the Major Arcana. But she needed to prove that she could handle the tools of the four Elements, so she picked each up in turn from the altar, sensed and identified the magical energies in each, then turned and walked up the path that appeared behind her. It led between two severely manicured flowerbeds, and she followed it until she came to a pavilion. She had been here before and knew who awaited her.

  The High Priestess was an ageless woman, seated on a throne, holding a scroll in one hand. Crowned with all three phases of the moon, cloaked in blue, and poised between a black pillar and a white, she also represented Intelligence. The blue robe gave her Element away; it had been no challenge to figure out that it was Air. But not only did she represent Intelligence—more than that, she stood for Balance. The Priestess was all about balance, calm, emotional self-sufficiency. Nothing ever ruffled her feathers. She represented the mystic side of the mind in harmony with the physical side as well, and her negative aspect was to be without true emotion, sterile rather than celibate, to stagnate rather than be in balance, to be emotionally empty rather than controlled. Eleanor had been here before; it had taken some thinking to work out that she should ask "What is the key to Wisdom?" She asked that question now, and she accepted the scroll from the Priestess. As she had become the Magician, so she now became the Priestess, and this had provided her first real temptation. Because she didn't really want to go on to the next card. The Fool was full of questions, the Magician full of knowledge—but the Priestess was full of a calm, balanced, and ordered wisdom. If she had ever dreamed of being "like" anything when she attained her Mastery, it would have been to be like this.

  And yet, that was a trap. She had a long, long way to go yet.

  And that, too, was wisdom. She rose and descended the three shallow steps that led to her throne, and went back into the garden.

  And though she should have left by the same path on which she had entered, instead, it was a path through wildly lush rose beds, intermingled with peonies and lilies, all three perfumes mingling in an intoxication of scent. And when she came to the end of the path, she found herself in another part of the garden, facing another crowned, seated woman. This was her new card.

  The Empress.

  Where the High Priestess was all austerity, The Empress was all abundance. She was crowned with stars, with her foot on the quarter-moon that the High Priestess wore as a crown. She carried a heart in one hand, a scepter in the other. She was stunningly beautiful, and was surrounded by roses, and from the sensuality that infused even the slightest gesture, it was clear that she was as warmly emotional as the High Priestess was austere.

  Now, this was a card that Eleanor had not yet gotten past. Not that she didn't know all the meanings; her Element was Earth, she represented creativity, fertility in all things, grace and beauty. She was very aware of herself and very sure of herself. She had power, but it was the power to direct, rather than to lead or to order. Eleanor felt she had far more in common with the intellectual ascetic, the High Priestess, than this Lady of Venus.

  The negative aspect was, of course, unbridled sensuality, but Eleanor felt herself very uncomfortable with sensuality of any sort.

  "I don't see," she said to the Empress, in a voice that sounded rather high and nervous rather than confident, "what you have to do with me."

  The three-moon headdress she wore as the High Priestess felt horribly heavy in that moment.

  The Empress smiled a slow, languid smile, full of promises. "You don't deny you're a woman?" she drawled.

  Eleanor tried not to squirm. "Not that it does me any good," she complained—the words jumping out of her mouth before she could think. "No one pays the least attention to me."

  "That's your stepmother's doing," the Empress said, in a purr. "She doesn't want anyone to think of you as a human being, much less a woman. But until you reconcile yourself to the fact that you are a woman, and you can be bound by your womanhood or freed by it, you won't get past me."

  "Freed?" Eleanor snorted. "Nobody is freed by womanhood! We aren't even allowed to vote! Why—"

  "That has not always been so, and it will not be forever," the Empress replied, bending to sniff her roses. "That is not to the point—the point is you. You must embrace all sides of yourself to pass any card. Body as well as mind. What am I?"

  "Umm—" Eleanor found herself blushing. "Ah—" "Sensuality. Rejoicing in the physical. If your head is strong and full of thoughts, but your body is weak, where are you?" The Empress tilted her head to the side. "Where is the balance in that, High Priestess? Or perhaps I should say—pretty Fool." And in that moment Eleanor's robes vanished and she was back in the garb of the Fool again.

  "Weak? Me?" Eleanor snorted again. "With all the work I have to do?"

  "Ah, but do you take pleasure in
that fine young body of yours, or merely allow it to carry your head around?" The Empress yawned.

  "And just what is there to take pleasure in?" Eleanor demanded angrily. Why this card made her so angry, she could not have said, but it did, and made her terribly uncomfortable as well.

  "Please. Haven't you two working eyes, two fine ears?" the Empress replied with scorn. "There are meadowlarks by day, and the scent of flowers—by night, the moon and the cool, soothing breeze. Your body is healthy and strong, and work comes easily to it. You are young, and when the song of spring sings in your veins, you feel the quickening of the earth all around you. You have more, much more, than many of those that you know possess. You are not dead or dying, maimed or ill, how can you not take pleasure in these things?"

  "Um—" well, she had been doing just that. "I suppose—I suppose you must be right—"

  "And young men," the Empress persisted, looking both wise and sly. "Haven't you felt longing for—"

  "No!" she exclaimed, feeling her face flush hotly.

  "Too soon, too soon, you protest too much and too soon," the Empress declared, laughing, holding up the heart she held for Eleanor's inspection. "You silly child! Do you think I do not know?"

  Her face flamed so redly it was painful. No! She hadn't longed after Reggie! Not really. After all, he didn't think anything of her, so why should she think of him? It wasn't even remotely possible, anyway. . . .

  "And who does it harm to admit that side of yourself?" the Empress murmured, hooding her eyes with heavy lids. "Who is going to tell Reggie? Not I, certainly. My dear, my dear, these things must be taken from your path! I cannot give you the rose to let you pass until you examine and accept what is in your own heart! Who am I going to tell, after all?"

  Her face burning, Eleanor opened her mouth, shut it, opened it— then turned and fled.

  The little dog yapped at her heels, sounding angry at her. She ignored him as she ignored the roses whose thorns caught at her clothing and tried to stop her, as she fled out of the garden, out of the dream, and—

  —and woke up with a start.

  It was still dark. It had felt as if she had been in the garden for hours, but by the moon shining in her window, she knew it couldn't have been more than an hour or two.

  She was panting and winded as if she really had run through that garden, and her heart pounded, the loudest sound in the room.

  What was I so frightened of?

  Not for the first time, she wondered just who—or what—the Tarot creatures really were. At first she had thought that they were images and archetypes out of her own mind, but she had shortly realized that they knew things she didn't. And they acted in ways that seemed entirely independent of her mind. Like the Empress, for instance.

  Why was I so upset with what she said?

  She did not like the Empress, not even in her proper position. She was too knowing, too lush, too—too sensual. Too much of everything, actually. The Magician had been a wealth of knowledge, cool and aloof after that first time of being Sarah, the High Priestess was someone that Eleanor could admire, wise, controlled, and ascetic. But the Empress! She was—she was—

  She's like Alison, when Alison is in one of her queen-of-everything moods. . . .

  And as she lay there, staring at the ceiling, letting her thoughts settle into a pattern again, she gradually understood what was going on. The key to the Empress, that had eluded her for several nights now, finally came into her grasp.

  More than ever she wished she could stop with the High Priestess. And she knew that she couldn't, that she would have to dream herself back; not tomorrow or the next night, but tonight. She had to face this and face it now, with the knowledge fresh in her mind.

  She closed her eyes, moved around on her lumpy mattress until she was completely comfortable, then began taking slow, even breaths. She concentrated, not on the dream she wanted to re-enter, nor her surroundings. She concentrated on herself, on relaxing every muscle in her body, starting with her face. She felt muscles let go that she didn't even know were tensed as she worked her way from her head, to her shoulders, to her arms . . . felt herself starting to drift, as the night-sounds faded away from around her, and she felt as if she was floating, and . . .

  And she found herself back on the edge of the cliff, in the person of the Fool.

  She stared down at the abyss below her for a moment. The bottom was lost in haze and darkness; she'd never been able to see it. Oddly, that made it seem less dangerous, as if she could throw herself over the edge, spread her arms, and fly.

  And the Fool in her would have been willing to give that a try, for the Fool had no fear and not a great deal of good judgment.

  Resolutely, she turned from the cliff and took the path into the garden.

  The Magician was not waiting at his altar, but the accoutrements were still there. But this time, Eleanor took the dagger with her when she went on. The dagger—the representative of her own Element. She couldn't wield that power yet, but now she knew she had to have a channel through which to use it when she did master it. And this time, she didn't change to the Magician herself when she passed the altar.

  That was new.

  The High Priestess smiled when she saw the dagger stuck into Eleanor's belt, and wordlessly handed her the scroll. This time, for the first time, Eleanor unrolled it, and saw, painted in brilliant colors, miniatures of the first three cards she had encountered. There were empty lozenges outlined in gilt for the remainder of the Major Arcana that she had yet to pass through.

  "Wisdom," she said aloud, looking up at the High Priestess, "is knowing how much you don't know."

  "That is truly the greatest wisdom," the Priestess said. "You see, you have a long way to travel now."

  Eleanor hesitated a moment with one foot on the path that would lead her to the Empress, despite her earlier resolution. Did she have to face the card now? Couldn't it wait?

  But the scroll gave her no other options. She clenched her teeth, and marched into the perfume of hundreds of flowers that always surrounded the Empress.

  Surrounded? This time it seemed as if she was walking through a maze of rose-hedges! Getting to the Empress this time was no easy task, and it wasn't helped by all of the inviting nooks, the shaded seats, the tempting bowers she had to pass on the way. But Eleanor set her chin, and went on.

  Finally she turned a corner, and there the Empress was, head tilted exquisitely to the side, lush lips curved in a slight smile, quite as if she left only a second ago. Well, in this dream-world, perhaps she had.

  Eleanor marched straight up to the foot of her throne, stood before the embodiment of the card, hands on her hips, and scowled. "I don't like you," she announced.

  Her only answer for a moment was a slow, lazy smile. "And why would that be, child?" the Empress purred.

  "Because you're like her," Eleanor replied, allowing her bitterness to show. "Everything is a weapon or a tool to get what she wants with her. Things that should just be, she has to twist and shape and use. Beauty, wit—" she blushed "—the—the sensual things. They're all weapons to get power! And that's what she's teaching her daughters. There's never enough power over people for her!"

  "Ah, now you see," the Empress replied, with a knowing nod. "I am power, little Fool, I am a ruler. Above and before all else, I am a ruler, and everything that comes into my hand is, indeed, to be used, whether my aspect is reversed or proper. And if you are to pass, little Fool, you must acknowledge that you understand what power is, and does, not just to those around you, but to you, yourself, inside."

  Gritting her teeth, Eleanor acknowledged that with a curt nod. "Power can be open or hidden, but that doesn't stop it from affecting you." Eleanor agreed angrily. "In fact, the power that is probably the strongest is the power that no one sees or realizes is there. And when you control that sort of power, you can control anything else you wish to."

  "And that one day, if you master your magic, you, too, will be the Empress—" the card p
ersisted. "And you, too, will know that all that comes into your hand will be a tool."

  "But I can choose not to use the tools!" Eleanor all but shouted. "I can choose not to manipulate!"

  "And that, too, is manipulation. Life is manipulation." The Empress smiled her slow, sweet smile. "Think, pretty Fool. You must manipulate or be manipulated, and choosing not to choose is still a choice."

  "Then I choose to do as little as I may!" she responded. "Only enough to keep others from manipulating me!"

  The Empress nodded. "What else am I? Remember, that what is within me is within you." When Eleanor was not forthcoming, she laughed. "Oh come now. That beautiful man? You would have to be stone, which I know you are not."

  As the Empress's words stung and dug at her, Eleanor had felt herself blushing more and more hotly, and when the woman finished her sentence, it was with fury and bitterness that she allowed her temper to burst out.

  "Yes, curse you!" she cried. "I do fancy him, and I have as much chance of being more than a kind of pet or mascot to him as I have of flying his aeroplane!"