Allegories of the Tarot (11 page)

He clenched his jaw when I finally met his gaze, the
sun blotting out most of his face. I could tell he held his breath. I knew
because he always did when he was nervous. It almost made me laugh. But I knew
he would sense death here today. And while I knew he wouldn’t say, I wondered
if he sensed my own. The horn blew out a loud and long cry. I pivoted away from
the Arcana’s seats high up in the distance. It was time.

Death
took a wet cloth and cleaned my back of the blood from the twin’s whips. His
fingers were gentle against my skin. “I wish there was another way.”

I
exhaled sharply. “We shouldn’t wish for things we can’t have. We need to work
for the things we can.” I sat up, holding my bloody shirt against my chest. “We
can have our Zorilah back, Death...” All of the Arcana were called by their
Mark, but with Death’s fingertips still on my back and my face so close to his,
it felt wrong to call him that. I had learned all of the Arcana had been taken
from their families, all once had names and homes and people who loved them. I
didn’t know Death’s name and in that moment, I wanted to. “What was your name?”

His sigh was so fragile and delicate in the dark. “I
don’t even remember. I was taken so young.” He moved his fingertips over my
scarred hand,
then
traced them up my arm, my neck, and
to my cheek. “I am glad you still have a name, Alina.”

The lion charged. His huge body a mass of rippling
muscle headed straight for me. I wanted to run. My mind screamed to run, but I
didn’t. I stayed still, waiting for the impact. I grabbed a handful of sand,
and let my power well up inside me. I heard my heart pounding as the lion’s
paws thudded toward me. So close. So very close.

Paws and heartbeats.

Wait.

Paws and heartbeats.

Wait.

Paws and heartbeats.

Now!
I
jumped aside just as the lion nearly plowed into me. I grabbed onto his mane
and pulled my body onto his back, clutching him tight. The crowd silenced for a
moment. The lion twisted, trying to bite my side, to drag me off his back with
his teeth. I heard more roars from the other side of the arena. More roars? I
looked behind me and saw Hoarders unchain two more lions. Panicked, I jerked my
gaze to the Arcana. Their mouths
sagged
open, surprise
clear on their faces. But Death, his eyes were locked on mine. He started to
stand. I knew he would try to stop this. I knew he would ruin everything.

I shook my head.
No.

I closed my eyes and clutched the lion.

Everything has a soul; everything has strength that
lives within them.” The Moon said so.
I reached for the animal’s
soul. The lion’s jaws clamped down on my shoulder and I was flung off of him,
skidding in the sand. My skin screamed in pain. I rolled onto my back as the
three lions paced toward me. This was it. This was the moment. I closed my
eyes. I placed my palms on the sand and reached.

The lions’ souls reached back.

They surrounded me, and one stepped over me so I felt
its heat and fur hovering above. The lion’s roar shook my body. The people in
the arena screamed and cheered. For once, they weren’t the ones being beaten,
being broken. I couldn’t even muster anger toward them. I had hid in the
shadows alongside them, quivering in the dark praying the Hoarders didn’t find
me, drag me out of my hole, use me up until I was a corpse, not even good
enough to bury in the ground.

The lion roared again and his muzzle lowered to me,
his teeth grazing my skin. I didn’t try to run. I stayed submissive below him.
I let go of the pitiful knife and placed my hands on his fur hide. I felt the
ache of his hunger, the broken bones in his body, but deeper than all of that I
felt his tired soul resting in my hands. Flashes of wide open spaces, sunlight,
and running with the wind whipping through its mane were replaced by iron
cages, rotten meat, and spear slashes.

I held all of their souls in my hands and whispered.
I am the quiet whispering of your soul. I
feel your strength in my grasp. I feel your mercy.
I opened my eyes to see
the lion’s face above my own.
I can set
you free. I just need to
live,
I just need your mercy.
I will set you free.
Their souls wildly bucked and trembled in my hands.
They were confused, but they sensed my urgency, my plea, my promise. The crowd
grew silent once more. I released my hands from the lion’s hide and began
edging my way out from beneath him. None of them moved as I shuffled to my
feet, blood, sweat, and sand sticking to my back.

In the blazing sun, a girl stood in an arena bleeding
with her whole city watching. As the girl stood, three lions bowed their heads.
That girl was me. As the lions bowed, the crowd gasped. I turned to where the
gold seats stood. The Arcana did not suppress their smiles. They stood and made
their way to the edge of the seats to remove the barrier between the public and
the king and his Hoard. My eyes scanned the people. They stood murmuring and
confused. A girl mastered the
lions,
a girl had tamed
beasts with a touch. They all looked so frail, so afraid, so weak, so broken. Fear
cripples the soul until there is no strength or fight left. I just hoped I
would have something to reach for. I knelt, touching my fingers to the sand.

“Strength
isn’t always about physical capabilities, it is about giving strength to the
part of ourselves that need it most,” Death said one night as we stared out of
the chamber window into the dark city.

“And what
do they need most? What do they need to fight?”

“Hope,” he said. “We all need just a bit of hope to
believe we are strong enough to fight and strong enough to win.”

So that was what I gave them. A girl could face a lion
and win. A people—as broken as these—could rise up and take back their city,
and bring a king to his knees. Their souls—so many—were trembling bodies all
around me, pressing down. But I didn’t have to reach for them. They were
already reaching for me.

“We.
Are.
A. Strong.
People.”
My words
were quiet and deliberate, but I knew their souls could hear. I opened my eyes
and scanned the crowds. “We are a strong people,” I shouted, raising my arms to
the sky. I felt their souls careening towards the light, reaching up, up, up
from weeds and dirt, fear and desperation. I felt their souls unfurling around
me. I felt their strength like I did the sun.

I looked to their faces. They were the same people
from only moments before: dirty, skinny, bruised, but there was a set to their
features,
a straightness
in their spine. I pointed my
gaze to the king and his Hoard. I felt the souls soaking up the light and
latching onto my strength. In one slow, ominous motion, they all turned in
unison towards the gold seats. The Arcana had cleared the path to the Black
Souls. I shuddered before I could say the rest. I looked to Death. His soul was
in my hands, too.

His voice echoed in my mind.
Today is a day of Death, Alina. But it isn’t our day to die. Today is a
day of Rebirth. Not mourning. Today we fight. Today, we make our world new.
Today, the world is ours.
I held onto his words, and reached to all the
souls swirling around me.

My voice was a war cry piercing the silence. “We are a
strong people. And today, we will fight. Today, Zorilah is ours!”

Chaos erupted. The Arcana unsheathed their swords and
charged. The lions roared and ran towards the Black Souls. The people were
glorious warriors even in their tattered rags because their souls were strong
and their spirits determined. I fell to my knees, a trickle of blood dripping
from my nose. I shook from bearing the weight of so many souls, but as I looked
to the chaos before me, as I saw the blood of the king and the Hoarders spill
against the earth, I smiled.

I saw Death then. I knelt in the sand, watching as the
dark promise of my dreams came true before my eyes:
from these ashes, we
will rise.

From these ashes, we will rise and be free.

***

Rochelle grew up wanting to be a novelist, but tucked away her stories
when she entered high school. She graduated summa cum laude with a degree in
Political Science and Communication when she was twenty years old. After years
away from her writing, Rochelle picked up a pen and started fleshing out a
character sketch that she outlined when she was twelve. That sketch was the
start of the
Ashes and Ice
story, her debut novel that was published in
2013. Her debut rocked bestseller charts only hours after its release. She
plans on releasing its sequel in 2014. Rochelle lives in the DC metro area with
her husband and daughter. By day, she works as a behavioral therapist and life
coach. By night, she is a dreamer and is busy tapping out new stories on her
keyboard. You can find her here:
rochellemayacallen.com

***

THE HERMIT

The Hermit

By Red Tash

As I strolled through the flea market, the memory came
unbidden: a gypsy tent awash with blood—deep reds and purples fading to brown
before my eyes; the amber eye of the dragon, disembodied, palmed in the bloody
hand of a child. The child looked up at me, a tiny girl with a hooked nose and
silent tears streaming down her face. “My brother,” she said, before choking on
her sobs.
“My brother.”

I was too late to Autumnfell. Too late to save the boy
from the sacrifice the birth of a dragon demands. The least I could do was save
his sister. Her parents were easily glamoured into believing she had been
consumed by the beast, and so that night, I helped her bundle her things into a
shoulder pack and away we went, two vagabond seekers on the road to fortune.

Gypsies are a superstitious lot, and the fate of a
true witch among them has never been kind. Zelda could have been burned at the
stake if she angered the wrong man. Angering men seemed to be one of her
talents.

“Hey, mister!
How much for the old lamp?”

My reverie broken, I turned to find a greasy-haired
wheeler-dealer with a paunch that told me he’d earned his keep over the years. He
smelled like much-handled cash and warm peppermint, and his thick glasses
magnified his eyes so much it hurt to look at him.

I held the lantern and let a bit of the Light spill
out onto the man’s booth. Beneath its glow, I saw forgeries, hidden gems,
stolen goods, you name it. The true history of each of his wares was revealed
under the lamp’s beam, and he gasped before the sight of it. He took off his
glasses, wiped the lenses hastily on his plain white t-shirt, and put them back
on. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, before pointing up at the lamp. “Don’t
supposed you’d be willing to part with that, then,” he whispered, picking up an
old axe head the Light revealed as a relic of Abe Lincoln’s.

“I cannot,” I said. “But enjoy the profits of your
knowledge, my son,” I said, nodding at the axe head in his hand. “Could you
point me toward the fortune teller’s booth?”

A few steps away, a blinking neon sign advertised

YOUR
FUTURE

flash

YOUR
PAST

flash

YOUR
LIFE

flash

YOUR
DEATH

A brilliant blue palm blinked off and on beside it. Above,
a yellow moon repurposed from a beer-branded bar sign was glamoured to display
Zelda’s knowing smile. The effect was uncanny, as though the hook-nosed gypsy
moon watched passers-by, deciding their fates, waiting for them to come inside
and pay to hear the news of their imminent fortunes.

It was uncanny, and it was true.

A thousand plastic orbs on a beaded curtain caught the
Light and cascaded before my eyes. I waved them away, their veil of magic
stronger than their cheap appearance promised, and entered the tent of one
Madame Zelda, fortune teller.

Inside, a cozy waiting area greeted me, bedecked in
mismatched, overstuffed furniture I believe is now called “shabby chic.” Under
the Light, I could tell Zelda had owned the pieces when they were, in fact, “brand
new chic” and simply kept them until they reached their present states. Funny
how people hold on to things, well past their time.

My lamp muted itself to match the dim lighting inside
the tent. I saw a series of curtains leading to three different subsections of
the tent. Every shade and pattern of burgundy and purple paisley was loosely
sewn or stitched together. Hints of pink and gold were everywhere. A string of
amber lights lined the edge of the room, at the ceiling.

The industrial fluorescents of the Trolling for
Bargains flea market filtered in through the canopy, bathing everything in
Madame Zelda’s tent with a reddish glow. The light she had harnessed welcomed
relaxation, contemplation, peace. It seemed business was good.

A pair of teenage girls with red, puffy eyes waited
for the fortuneteller to call them beyond her curtain. The girls looked up at
me when I entered, and then away, as if I weren’t there.
Suited
me fine.
My record with young women was abysmal.