The Raven Ring (21 page)

Jonystra blinked, as if this was not the response she had been expecting. “Thank you, Mobrellan. We shall try it, then.” She smiled at Daner once more and gestured toward the end of the table. “If you will stand there, my lord, you may watch, but do not speak or move suddenly during the charting. It would be distracting for both of us.”

“My gracious thanks to you, Luck-seer.” Daner, his expression one of admiring interest, took up the position Jonystra had indicated.

“Now, Freelady, if you will sit here, we may begin.”

With a twinge of misgiving, Eleret tugged the end of the bench a little farther out, to give herself more room to move, and sat down. As she did, she let her hand brush the hilt of her knife for reassurance.

“Come closer, please,” Jonystra said. “You must be able to see the cards, and I must see you.”

Eleret slid along the bench. Now her back was to Daner, and the candle at Jonystra’s elbow threw light in her eyes. She could not see Mobrellan, either, but with the width of the table between them she would have plenty of warning if he tried to come at her. Eleret shifted again, as if trying to find a more comfortable position. Better, but not much. She still could not see Mobrellan or Daner, and the candle still made watching Jonystra’s face difficult, but at least now she did not have to stare directly into the light each time she looked up from the table.

“Are you ready? Good.” Jonystra’s voice was soft and soothing. “Think of a question for the cards, something about your future that you wish to know. Don’t tell me what your question is, just think about it. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” The only questions Eleret could think of at first had nothing to do with the future: What was Jonystra hoping to do? Why were so many people interested in Tamm’s kit? Who had told the Syaski who she was and how to find her? Why did the raven ring seem so important, and how many people knew about it? Finally, she settled for wondering what effect the raven ring would have on her future. The way things had been going, it was sure to have some.

“You have your question? Hold it clear in your mind.” Jonystra stretched one hand out imperiously. “Mobrellan! The cards.”

A white blur appeared in the darkness on the far side of the table and floated toward Jonystra’s hand, becoming squarer and more solid-looking as it drew nearer. The effect was impressive; with the candlelight in her eyes, Eleret could barely see Mobrellan’s hands deposit the packet in Jonystra’s outstretched palm. Jonystra drew her arm back slowly, then turned. “Think once more of your question, and turn back the covering,” she said, offering the packet to Eleret. “Be careful not to touch the cards.”

White silk slid smooth and cool under Eleret’s fingers, and fell away from a stack of cards with gilded edges. Jonystra smiled. “Study the cards that will tell your future and think, for the third time, of your question.”

She did not seem to mean that Eleret should hold the cards herself, so Eleret continued to look at them. The top card showed a symmetrical maze of dark red lines on a black background. Blood red, thought Eleret, like blood on a battlefield, except that spilled blood was never so neatly arranged.

Jonystra’s hands moved under the silk that lay between them and the cards. The cards stirred and shifted, separating, turning; and mixing together once more in a pattern as intricate as the maze painted on their backs. As they lifted to glide past each other, Eleret glimpsed fragments of the pictures on their other side: a hand holding a teacup, an outstretched wing, a Shee woman’s startled eyes, half a skull. With a start, she remembered that she was supposed to be thinking of her question.
The raven ring,
she reminded herself.
What should I do with the ring
? It wasn’t exactly the way she had put it the first time, but Eleret did not really care. If the change confused Jonystra’s cards, that was Jonystra’s problem.

“Enough.” Jonystra pulled the cards back, flipping the silk up to cover them once more. Her eyes were wide, and her breathing was a little fast, as if she had just climbed a steep slope or finished splitting a pine log. Closing her eyes, she bowed her head over the packet.

Eleret darted a look across the table. Mobrellan was a motionless shape, a place where the shadowy gloom thickened into darkness. From the corner of her eye, she saw Daner nod once; then Jonystra raised her head and Eleret’s attention snapped back to her.

“Now, Freelady, as I lay out your chart, think for the fourth and final time of the question you would have answered.”

As she spoke, Jonystra unfolded the silk and set her fingertips against the top card. Eleret did not see the point of thinking about her question now; it was too late to change the order of the cards, even if thinking could influence the way Jonystra shuffled them. Still, there seemed no harm in following this direction, so once again Eleret concentrated on the raven ring.

“First comes your past, from support to opposition,” Jonystra said. She turned the first card face up on the table.

Snow gleamed on the top of a rocky gray mountain. Halfway down, a shadow cut across the stone; a road circled the base of the mountain. Jonystra nodded in satisfaction. “The Mountain is the base of your support; it stands for security, but also for unused potential.” She laid another card to the left of the first.

Eleret barely stifled a gasp. A woman warrior with chestnut hair stood proud and wary in the center of the card, a glowing sword in her right hand. At her feet, a white leopard crouched as if preparing to leap at whatever danger faced the two of them, while behind them a curtain of fire blocked their retreat. A second, more careful look told Eleret that the woman’s resemblance to her mother was limited to her hair color and profession, but the shock of recognition, however mistaken, stayed with her for a moment longer.

“The Lady of Flames,” Jonystra said, oblivious to Eleret’s reaction. “Also called the Swordswoman. It is a powerful card, and a good one, but the position it holds is weak. She has helped you in the past, but you cannot expect her to do so in the future.”

It’s meant to be Mother after all.
Eleret swallowed hard and tried to concentrate as Jonystra placed the next card to the left of the Lady. This one looked safer: an empty birdcage hung in a room with stone walls. Brightly colored feathers lay scattered on the floor beneath it.

“The Seven of Feathers. A card of obstacles, in the position of the beginning of obstacles. Temptation and illusion lie in your past.”

Again, Jonystra turned up a card. As she laid it in place, completing the row of four, her face paled and Eleret felt the raven ring tighten against her forefinger. The card showed a tall, indistinct form standing beside a long table, on which lay a shattered diamond, a broken feather, a burned-out candle, and a cracked crab shell. It was impossible to tell where the form ended and the shadows around it began; the only clearly visible portion of the figure was its hand, reaching toward the table. A wisp of black smoke trailed from its fingertips.

“The Mage Trump,” Jonystra whispered. “The source of opposition, the hidden threat rooted in your past.” She glanced up, as if she expected to find the anonymous shape reaching toward her from the shadows. On the far side of the table, Mobrellan shifted. Jonystra raised her chin defiantly and turned back to Eleret. “The Mage is dangerous and powerful, but it—he—is not an
immediate
threat to you. Your other cards will tell us more.”

Quickly, Jonystra laid two more cards just above the first two she had set out. “These cards are in the nearer past, though like the Mountain and the Lady of Flames they, too, support your desires. Ah, the Priest of Flames and the Two of Stones. A man of good intent and some potential, and a balance of opposites. Good cards, but not strong. Your recent opposition…”

The card was upside down, so it took Eleret a moment to make sense of the picture. A man robed in red stood at the top of a short flight of stone steps. Fire shot from his outstretched hand to a hearth below, sending flames roaring up a chimney. At the foot of the stairs, the ghostly outline of a white cat contemplated the dangling ends of his belt.

“The Mage of Flames, reversed,” Jonystra said in a voice that shook slightly. Eleret looked up in time to see her glance across the table once more. “A powerful and intelligent man, who is and will be your strongest opposition.” She hesitated, then pressed her lips together and reached for the next card.

Behind her, Eleret felt Daner shift, and then Jonystra laid the final card in the second row. “Three of Shells, reversed. Loss and emotional pain, which may cloud your judgment. Be wary, and think carefully on your decisions.”

Jonystra paused, her fingers touching the next card. “The next two rows will tell your future, advising what you should do and what people will help or hinder you. Listen closely, and remember. This is the beginning of your future.”

As she spoke, she laid the first card in the next row. She stopped, frowning. Eleret looked at the card: a jester juggling three flaming torches.

“Well?” Eleret said after a moment. “What does it mean?”

“Three of Flames,” Jonystra said automatically. “Surprise or unexpected actions. It is…an odd position to find such a card.”

“Really?” Eleret thought of all the surprises she’d had since she picked up her mother’s kit—had it only been that morning? She still didn’t understand most of what had happened; it seemed almost reasonable to expect more surprises in the near future. “I don’t think so.”

“It should not be there,” Jonystra said, half to herself. “Perhaps the next—The Demon? No. That isn’t right. How—”

Jonystra broke off, her face white and her hands shaking visibly. Simultaneously, the raven ring tightened on Eleret’s forefinger, and a sharp prickling sensation ran around the finger below the band. Her left hand dropped to the hilt of her dagger and drew it without conscious thought, just as Daner gave a wordless exclamation and surged forward.

“What do you mean by using spells in my household, Luck-seer?” Daner demanded.

“I can’t…I’m not…” Jonystra swayed where she sat, her eyes fixed on the stack of cards in her hands.

“Luck-seer!” Daner took hold of Jonystra’s shoulder and shook her, none too gently. “Explain yourself.” His eyes were narrowed in concentration, and the air around him had the faint but unmistakable smell of the high meadows after a thunderstorm. Eleret slid away from the two of them, reaching right-handed for a raven’s-foot as she did. If there was magic going on, she wanted as much space between herself and it as she could conveniently manage.

“I can’t…can’t hold,” Jonystra gasped. “No!”

Blue fire flared ceiling-high from the cards she clutched. Daner staggered back, his hands raised to shield his face. The raven ring pricked Eleret’s finger once more, hard and sharp. On the far side of the room, something made a pinging noise, as if a coin had just fallen on the stone floor.

The fire burned brighter, fanning out from the deck and lighting every corner of the room. Eleret had just time to notice that Mobrellan had disappeared; then, with a cry of pain and horror, Jonystra tried to throw the flaming cards from her. As they slid reluctantly out of her hands and scattered across the cloth-draped table, the blue flame vanished.

Jonystra’s elaborately arranged hair was burning in a frizzle of fire and an acrid smell. Without thinking, Eleret leaned toward her. Her right hand jabbed the raven’s-foot into the table, then grabbed the unlit portion of Jonystra’s hair and pulled it taut, while her left hand rose and swung. Her knife sliced through the piled-up coils, cutting loose most of the burning section and sweeping it forward onto the table. Eleret slapped at the bits of flame that remained on Jonystra’s head. She didn’t have much time, she knew. The falling cards had tipped over the candle, and odds were that either the tablecloth or the cards would catch fire in a minute or two.

Suddenly the light grew stronger, and Eleret knew that her time had run out. She threw herself sideways off the back of the bench, away from the burning tabletop, her right arm sweeping Jonystra along with her. Jonystra cried out again, and struggled weakly, but Eleret was too strong for her. As they crashed to the floor, Daner’s voice shouted a single word, and the light vanished.

Eleret kept a grip on Jonystra, who sobbed once and then was quiet. As she pulled her knees up, disentangling them from the bench, Daner’s voice came out of the darkness above her. “Eleret? Are you all right? Where are you?”

“Here. Don’t step on me.”

The faint rustle of movement stopped. “Where?”

“On the floor. Can you give us some light?”

“Making light is more difficult than—”

The door burst open, spilling lamplight into the room around the outline of a man with a drawn sword. Immediately, Eleret let go of Jonystra, shifted her hold on her dagger, and rolled out of the triangle of light. She came to her knees, poised to throw.

“Daner! What’s all the noise? Loren’s Luck, what a mess!” Baroja said.

With a tiny sigh of relief, Eleret lowered her arm. She glanced around the room once more, then resheathed her dagger as Daner said tiredly, “Baroja, what are you doing here?”

“I was just coming to see what was taking you so long, and I heard shouting. What happened? Didn’t your Cilhar lady like what my Luck-seer told her?”

“Later, Baroja. Right now, just bring us a lamp.”

“Oh, very well, but I want an explanation, mind.”

“So do I,” Eleret muttered as Daner’s cousin retreated into the hall in search of a light. “Most definitely, so do I.”

FIFTEEN

E
LERET HAD JUST TIME
to climb to her feet before Baroja returned, carrying a hanging lamp filched from one of the wall sconces outside. In Baroja’s hands, the lamp lit barely a quarter of the room and cast long black shadows across most of that.

“Where’s Mobrellan?” Eleret said, peering uneasily into the gloom on the far side of the room.

“Who?” Baroja swung the lantern, sending shadows dancing and making it impossible to tell if anyone was hiding. Fingering the hilt of her dagger, Eleret backed up, closer to the door.