The Book of the Blessed

“Take these,” Ash handed Anson a deck of cards.

These were not ordinary playing cards, but the cards Anson had seen him use in divination, and Anson said: “You’re letting me touch them?”

“Shuffle them, but do not look at them. These things work only by touching,” Ash said.

As Anson shuffled the long, thick cards, Ash said, “Long ago, when the Ayl first came, their priests, the devotees of their old gods, could call down lightning from the sky, and many of their blood possessed the shape change. They were mighty lords of power, but that power passed.”

Ash put out his hand, and Anson handed back the cards. Now, in a skillful move that impressed Anson, Ash spread out the cards in a fan before him and then said, “Pick one.”

Anson reached forward, but the magician touched his hand gently.

“Do not simply snatch. Wait. Let them speak to you.”

Anson sat there, and he did not know how to let the cards work on him. He felt, primarily, bothered, a little queasy, and finally he reached for one.

“Turn it over,” Ash commanded.

The prince did so, and he saw a warrior, a knight on the back of a white horse. His hair was fair, fairer than Anson’s own, and his raiment was pale blue, again, paler than the usual cloak and tunic Anson wore.

“Another,” Ash commanded. “And lay it over the first.”

Anson did so, and when he turned if over, his stomach lurched and he wanted to stop looking. Beautifully painted, though, were ten swords, dripping blood, and then Ash said, “and take another, and another. And now another.”

And so Anson took out a card with a man rowing away, and people in the boat, their backs to him. Six swords were raised in the boat, and the next one was of golden cups in the light of the moon, and a man was walking away as well. The next, of a man hung upside down, reminded Anson of the Hanging God, and now Ash said, “Take a last one.”

Ash sucked in his breath.

“What is it?”

Ash shook his head.

“The first card is you. A warrior, even, in some ways, with your markings. He is crossed by ten swords, the sign of sorrow, weariness and… for reasons that are your own to know, regret. In the next card is the healing of your pain, the six swords, going away. Perhaps a pilgrimage, though maybe a flight. To a monastery? I do not know.”

The doubtful look on Anson’s face said that he did know, and that a monastery was not likely.

“I do not know what manner of journey it is,” Ash said, “But the next card, the Eight of Cups, confirms there will be one. The man is walking away. He is walking away from everything he knew.”

“Then might it more than confirm it?” Anson said. “Might it mean not that I should go on a retreat, but that I should end my old life. Totally?”

“Only you would know this, Prince.”

“But what do you know?”

Ash looked at him, opened his mouth, was silent for a while and then, finally said, “Your reading is right.”

“And then the last card?”

“The Magus.”

“Is that you?”

“No,” Ash said. “That card means you. It is as I said, if you have the Skill you must learn it, and twice tonight you have shown that you do.”

“Then maybe it means I should go with you?” Anson said. “Maybe it means I am supposed to leave when you leave.”

Ash said nothing, and then Anson said, “Well, can you prophecy?”

“I have walked in the future,” Ash said, “and in the past. But these things are not done lightly, not even for a beloved kinsman and a prince. But you do not need me to walk in the future. What do you want?”

“I want to be with you.”

Ash nodded

“I came because your father wanted me to see to you and to ask council about what to do in his last days as King over this land. But I came for my own reasons, for I always have my own reasons.”

Ash shook his head.

“The Magus card is you. Perhaps your soul sickness is not merely from fighting battles, but from fighting the wrongs ones. Perhaps you should be walking my path.”

“And if I fail?”

“Then you fail,” Ash said, not looking at Anson, almost as if he was talking to himself. “What is wrong with failure?”

“Will you teach me something tonight?”

“I never teach after sundown,” Ash said, taking out a cigarette and handing one to Anson.

“When I saw you, it was as if you were really there,” Anson said.

“And so I was.”

“I confess, I was almost ashamed.”

Ash said nothing.

“You don’t ask why.”

“I don’t need to ask why. And I don’t need your embarrassment.”

“We have never discussed the past,” Anson said. “We have never discussed what has passed between us.”

Ash seemed to be making a decision. He sat up higher in his chair.

“We can if you would like.”

“Before you were always going away. You couldn’t stay. I think I could have left with you, only I did not know it then.”

“There were things we both had to do. And you were still affected by the war.”

“I still am,” Anson said. “But now you are here now. And I am going to be with you. Do you think, perhaps…?”

Anson let the words linger, the cigarette burn away in his hand. He said:

“I would put Pol away. And all the foolishness. I would stop doing foolish things.”

Ash wasn’t even talking and finally Anson said, “Or maybe you don’t even want that. Maybe I’m just saying foolish things now.”

“Ansa,” Ash said.

Anson looked at him.

“I do not fault you for… anything. You have to know that. But you come here, now, with the smell of two men and all night rut on you. You have scarcely finished fucking Austin and Pol.”

Anson opened his mouth, but Ash put a hand up.

“I am no stranger to pleasure,” Ash said. “How could I be? But for tonight let us only be friends and keep silence.”

Anson looked as if he wished to say more, but he simply nodded, sat low in his seat, and kept smoking.