The method of prediction with the cards must be considered a sign of witchcraft.
Adhering Others to the Law , [[Vironymous_Magnus?]], Long Count 977.2
And drawn on the greater Arcana are cards which clearly show the hand of the Christian mind and genius, and let no one realize otherwise: these cards bear the marks of the one true world, from whence we came, and to whence we go. There is no greater faith but to use the cards well and wisely, that we might return to the sight of the lord, with his moon above us, and his son above us as well. The Steps to The Adept in Faith, Sir John of Egdon, Long Count 977.5 And thence he turned that card that called is the Magician, and he knew that doom was upon him, for the place in the reading was that of his enemy. Within the annae, he sickened and then died. But knowing this he left behind his will to have the magician tortured to confession and then killed, and so was ended the career of one John of Egdon, who once, was knight, but who was blighted from the world by his evil magicks and foul cavorting with other men, in defiance of the scriptures. The [[Wageners]] of Sin, [[St. Adolphus]] the White, Long Count 980.1 And when the council declared that the cards should be banned, that was the final straw. Many gathered in the streets at dawn and marched through the towns. And when the councilors tried to put down the gathering with blade and club and cudgel, they found more than half the guard against them. For you see, there had long been a drought of good coin, and people had come to use the cards as cash, banning the cards would have paupered half of the city. The guards turned against the council, carried them out of the town, and buried them in the acid swamp, their skin eaten away by the foul odors there. St. Adolphus died there cursing them all to the brimstone. At which point the son of Sir John laughed, “You will drink them before I eat them.” When the soldiers of the [[King]] arrived, they found town cleaned of the rebellious council, and the stadt in the hands of men of good character, who happily would swear fealty. When questioned about the cards, they called them a sign of loyalty, for the Emperor was upon them, the [[Emperor over the Sea]], to whom all owed allegience, even if none had ever seen him. History of Rebellions Against Lawful Lords, [[Michael the Blind]], Long Count 989.3 The use of the portals to the other word, drawn as cards, is a lower art, but vital, for in it lies the sharpening of the wits and the senses. Until it is possible to reach through them and into true sight. Treatise on [[Magicks]], [[Albertus Trimaris]], Long Count 997.4
Long Count Date: 998.11.91
She wended her way back to her room. It was on reaching it that she had a dilemma - sleep again until the next day, at which point her carefully planned schedule would be out of alignment, or sleep through the remainder of the night and through the next day, or, simply stay awake out of terror of another dream.
Yes, she told her self, terror. She did not want another dream.
That settled matters for her – she opened the awning out onto the sky above and saw that dawn was already coming, a bright yellowish shooting star passed overhead, and then several more. And then several more after that. He room faced the east, and she should not be seeing this, shooting stars came near dusk, not dawn. It must have been a meteorite, or other large object which fragmented and fell. Normally she would have taken an odd event, and the sky is filled with them, as nothing unusual. Since she was not a great star watcher, she normally would have filed it away for future reference.
Now it held her transfixed and she watched carefully. But she found she could not stay awake. And soon she was aware, without there having been any real break, that she was not looking at the real sky, nor at the real room. Instead she could see the bright cluster of circumpolar stars, invisible from her room, and she was aware of objects, perhaps living ones, in the room, as if there were animals asleep. She looked around, and sure enough, there were snakes and reptiles asleep on the stone floor, stretching and seemingly dreaming.
And then, in a startled moment, she was awake, with the sun streaming in. She reflexively went over, opened her personal box, took out her journal, and wrote down:
Long Count 998.11.91
But made no entry other than. “I am embarking on a dangerous course.”
There was only one thing to do, and it was the thing that had always given her comfort before: she went to have her fortune told, to a sybil who plied her trade among the canvas tents in the Agora. She felt a comfort in the bazaar, of being able to buy her truth or whatever else. A few bits of coin, of which she had more than anyone suspected, would bring her comfort. She spent extravagantly only very rarely, but on this, she was willing to splurge. She pulled out her strong box, counted out the coins she would need, and a bit more in case, and closed it. Within were gold coins from the Arabic lands, silver ones [[denarii?]] from the Latin Republic, and, of course, the bronze spending money. How she obtained it was one of her secrets: she cast fortunes herself. It would have shocked the university, which strictly forbade the use of decks of cards or coins for fortune telling. But it was lucrative, and she was good at it, always saying enough advice and mixing in observation and vague predictions. She knew she was, not a fake, but not in any sense using some special sight.
Which was all the more reason she valued the Sibyl, who did have such things. It ccured to her, as she took the steps two by two out towards the market, that part of what she did not like, was that if there was a “gift” of sight involved, that it had not come about through her own efforts and studies, which were voluminous, but because of being in front of a bush that caught fire. It was not fair. It was not fair. It. Was. Not. Fair.
Before she was even really aware of it, she was in the middle of the market, which opened as soon as there was enough twilight, and ran until the last bit of zodiacal light had faded. It was already in full swing, and she rapidly found the familiar canvas tent, with its decorative signs hung from the poles inside. She ducked in, the flap being open, and sat down. She and the sybil – a woman no older than 50 annae – were good friends, and talked beauty and gossip as much as anything more serious. But she had the coins out, and tossed them in the bowl and issued the ceremonial invitation. She was very formal, because this was very important.
She then, and only then looked at the face of the sybil, and saw, rather than a friendly face, smiling at her coming, an angry one.
“I heard, of course, how you treated Amalthea.”
It had not even occurred to March, who kicked herself mentally for using a name which she did not in reference to herself, that the sybil would not be on her side.
“What. Well, I’m sorry, I will certainly apologize to her. What did I do wrong?”
At this point the woman settled herself in, adjusted the knit tunic beneath which her heavy breasts hung, and began.
“Wrong? The sight, she offered you, the sight. For the merest glimpse of which I have worked my whole life. I’ve had two, maybe three moments, where I felt close to it. Do you know what it means? You, you could be gifted. What else is there? Isn’t it what you’ve told me you wanted.”
March stopped.
“But I want to earn it.”
“It’s always a gift, or seems that way. Why were you, alone, where you were? Because your sense drew you there. There is no coincidence, your sense drew you to be awakened.”
But then the Sybil straightened. And stared out with almost unseeingly blank eyes and said:
“I accept these coins of true weight, in return for the true weight of your fate.” She moved her hands smoothly over the bowl, scooped the coins out with all her fingers, softly placed them on the scales and set three weights against them. It seemed magic, but her fee was well known to her, and she knew the weights of most common coin combinations by sight. Memory back, not vision forward, made it seem as if she could do it without looking.
“First, you have had a forward dream. It bears on you like a weight, and drags your fate down. You must unburden yourself to those whom it belongs, or suffer it yourself.”
Seldom had the sybil spoken in such a way with her, seldom had the cadences been as pure of the old tongue, the dialect of the theatre, been in her mouth.
“Second,” at this point the prose voice broke entirely, and she went to verse, which, while not of high quality, was more than she was almost always capable of on the spur of the moment:
“I give thee the mad god’s ear, And you will ride on the spirit of fear, And find it then an older friend, Who makes from bright beginning a colder end.”
Then a pause, and the sybil slouched forward and then convulsed upwards, and her voice rose an octave, as if some unknown force pulled on her:
“I sing of Arms, and of men in flower of arms born from steely forges, and [[Lucifer’s]] hammer laid heavy upon the anvil of Marduk, brightly shining as a star, even though, scourge upon two worlds that both will learn a meaning for the word, Krakatoa.”
At this point the Sybil straightened up, March expected a wink, a grin, a half suppressed smile, something, anything, that would say that this had been a performance. The Sybil pressed the coins back into March’s hand. “Go, this evening, to Amalthea, that last was true site. I saw the volcano at the roof of the world explode, and engines belching soot and screeching fire. It is real, or could be real. You have been chosen, and heard the untold.”
March sat for only a moment, and then rose from cross legged. “I thank thee thrice and three times thrice.” It was the ritual formula, but March almost sobbed the last syllable. She knew that outside the flap of the tent was a new life, that here, somehow, her childhood was over, and she was entering to an adult world. Even though she was not yet an adult. A name, a calling, a dream, a purpose.
But, as yet, no understanding. She it felt bitter in her mouth, because, truthfully, she knew that the Sybil was no longer a friend, and that her life of games and cards and scrolls had forcibly come to an end. She wove her way through the [[Hogarthian?]] crowd, with people already talking and bargaining and drinking as the morning session was moving under the tents as the sun climbed upwards, wrapped in her own thoughts and the meaning of this new moment.