Spellslinger (Spellslinger #1)(22)
A hundred questions bubbled through my mind. Why had she summoned me? Why did she live in this shack in the gardens instead of the palace itself? Why had she given me the gold disc that allowed me to continue in the mage trials? All questions to which I very much wanted an answer; none of which, I suspected, she cared about at all. She had no intention of answering my questions. She wanted to know if I could discern hers.
I worked through the permutations of what I had seen of her so far: she chose not to live in the palace, made no attempt at taking power for herself, and thus had little interest in the machinations of clan politics. After staying out of our people’s daily affairs for decades, she’d chosen to involve herself in something as small as the mage’s trials. Further, she’d taken an interest in me. Why? Because my father was the most likely person to become clan prince? There were others in contention, including Ra’meth. Had she spoken to him, or to Tennat? Looking around the cottage, I doubted she’d had any other visitors here for a long time.
‘Take your time,’ she said, betraying impatience in her voice.
She’s nervous. Concerned. It had to be something else … something that would trouble someone who’d long ago lost interest in either dying or living. Something new. Something her own magic couldn’t answer. I let the possibilities and permutations roll through my mind a while longer until I decided to trust the answer – or rather the question – to my intuition. ‘There is only one question that interests you, Mer’esan. It is the one you cannot answer yourself.’
‘Really? I am a learned woman, Kellen. What is this riddle you believe befuddles me so?’
‘Who is Ferius Parfax?’
There was silence between us for a long time before Mer’esan gave a slight bow of her head in recognition. ‘Well done, Kellen, son of Ke’heops. You have earned that little disc in your pocket.’
Mer’esan walked over to a kettle sitting on a small shelf. ‘I would offer you something to eat or drink, but I’m afraid the things I consume at my age would likely make you quite ill.’ She poured something thick and viscous into a blue glass and took a sip. Finally she looked at me over its rim. ‘Did the Argosi show you her cards?’
Instinctively my hand went up to the pocket that held the deck. Mer’esan caught the motion and held out a hand to me. ‘Give them to me,’ she said. I complied and watched as she spread them face up on a wooden countertop. After a moment her eyes narrowed. ‘This isn’t her true deck.’
‘It is,’ I said. ‘She gave it to me yesterday.’
Mer’esan slid the cards back together and handed them to me. ‘This is, indeed, a deck of cards and I’ve no doubt it belongs to this Ferius woman. It does not, however, contain her Argosi cards.’
‘But what is an “Argosi”? Are they related to the Daroman or the Berabesq?’
‘The Argosi aren’t a people,’ Mer’esan replied, taking another sip from her glass. ‘They’re more like … a collection of outcasts. They wander the world, making their way by doing whatever little services will get them money.’
I looked down at the deck of cards and remembered Ferius’s joke about using them to cast spells that moved other people’s money into her pockets. ‘They’re gamblers.’
‘Yes – but that is, I believe, something of a ruse. In truth, one might think of them as …’ She looked up as if reaching for a word.
‘Cartographers?’ I suggested.
The dowager seemed surprised, but then gave a light laugh. ‘Is that what she called herself?’ She didn’t wait for a reply. ‘I suppose “cartographer” is as good a description as any, but the Argosi do not draw maps of places, but rather of people … cultures.’ She tapped the deck in my hand. ‘You understand the meaning of the suits?’
I nodded. ‘Shields for Darome, spells for the Jan’Tep, chalices for—’
‘Chalices for the Berabesq, yes. But look more closely at the individual cards and you’ll see that the particular design on each card reflects part of the fundamental power structure of that society. They call these the “concordances”.’
I rifled through them, picking up one of the face cards in the suit of spells, and noticed then that it showed a picture of a lord magus on it. Another card, this one in the suit of shields, showed a man in armour, a long red cape flowing from his shoulders. The card was titled ‘General of the Armies’. The ace of spells showed an oasis, while that of shields depicted some sort of siege engine about to strike a great stone wall. So each suit shows the foundation and hierarchy of its culture. ‘Ferius had other cards,’ I said then, remembering the ones she’d stuffed back into her waistcoat. ‘She called them “discordances”.’
Mer’esan nodded. ‘They are trumps, of a sort. The Argosi travel to witness the great events that have the power to reshape the world around us; they watch the people and forces that can build and destroy civilisations. They paint these new cards – the discordances – believing that by creating the truest deck they can interpret the course of history.’
There was a strange, twisted logic to it all. If you had a deck that perfectly mirrored the people and events that shaped a culture, it might help you see where that society was headed. ‘Is that why she’s here? Because the clan prince …’