True Colors (Elder Races #3.5)(16)

“The Primal Tarot has forty-nine cards in the deck,” she said. “The Major Arcana in this Tarot are the seven gods in their prime aspects—or how most people know of them.” She set the first card on floor between them and named it. “Taliesin, the god of the Dance, is first among the Primal Powers because everything dances, the planets and all the stars, other gods, ourselves. Dance is change, and the universe is constantly in motion. Then there’s Azrael, the god of Death; Inanna, the goddess of Love; Nadir, the goddess of the depths or the Oracle—legend has it that Nadir is the one who gave the Primal Tarot to the Elder Races.”

“When was that supposed to have happened?” he asked.

“Around the third century, or at least that’s the age of the earliest known Primal Tarot. Then there is Will, the god of the Gift; Camael, the goddess of the Hearth; and Hyperion, the god of Law.”

He studied each card as she laid them out, the famous green eyes of Death, the seven royal lions that pulled Inanna’s chariot, the dark sense of vastness captured in the stars in Nadir’s gaze. The cards were arresting but not quite beautiful. They were too uncomfortable for that.

He murmured, “Someone with real Power used these once.”

“I think it’s the person who created them,” Alice said. “The rest of the cards are the Minor Arcana. The gods have their major aspects, and then they have all their minor aspects. Take Azrael. Death is his major aspect, but in the Tarot deck, he has six other minor aspects. He’s also the god of regeneration and green growing things, and he’s known as the Hunter, and he’s also the Gateway or passage. See?”

“Yes,” Gideon said. He was growing fascinated despite himself.

“Inanna’s easy, her minor aspects are Love in its manifestations—romantic, platonic, etc.—and also love’s opposite, which is apathy. Taliesin’s major aspect is the dance, or change, but there’s also stasis, or the pauses between measures in the dance. Some of Will’s other aspects are the wanderer or sacred stranger, and sacrifice, and also greed.” As she talked, she laid out the Minor Arcana in lateral rows underneath the Major cards, six under each, until all forty-nine were placed on the floor. “Camael has both the sacred fool and old wisdom, and Hyperion may be law, but he’s also the trickster.”

“So where do the four and the two come in?” he asked.

“They come in the spreads.” She gathered the cards up and shuffled them swiftly. “There are three classical card spreads used in Primal Tarot readings, but really it’s just one original spread with more detail added in the other two. All the other card spreads were created or invented some time after the original three. The person who gets the reading is supposed to be the one to shuffle the cards and lay them out. The first card is called the Primus, or the primary force or influence in one’s life at the time of the reading. Sometimes it’s called the keystone card of the spread. The interpretation of all the other cards is always based on this one.”

She pulled out a card and laid it on the floor. They gazed down at Azrael’s emerald green painted eyes.

Lord Death.

“Well, that’s more apropos today than I would have liked,” she muttered. “There are three layers to a spread—the Primus, Secondus and Tertius—and it matters if a card is right-side up, or reversed. The top part is what you’re working toward, either a goal or some unforeseen event. The bottom is where you’re coming from. The right side has negative influences, and the left is positive. The last two cards at the top actually have to do with the future.” She set down the last card and looked at Gideon. “Is that the pattern you were talking about?”

He stared down at the cards. “Hell yeah,” he said. “That’s it. He’s attempting divination. That’s why he does it in the days leading up to the Masque. The bastard’s trying to talk with the gods.”

Chapter Five

The Dance

Gideon shocked her when he leaned forward and planted a swift kiss on her forehead. “You’re miraculous,” he said. He smiled, nose-to-nose with her, and she smiled back. “Do you know how many fancy PhDs and profilers have studied the Jacksonville case and never got that? I’ve got to call Bayne.”

He strode out of the room. Full of warmth from his praise, Alice looked down at the full card spread for the first time. Her smile slipped away and she went numb.

All seven of the Death cards were laid out. It was a pure spread.

She had never seen a pure spread before, just as she had never seen a royal flush in poker. Today seemed to be a day of rare firsts. Normally she would have contemplated the spread and let her mind roam free to let the whisper of Power in the cards tell her what they would. While she had told Gideon the truth and she didn’t have much Power, the cards sometimes had a mind of their own.

But she couldn’t handle the implications of this kind of reading tonight. Her mind felt bruised and dull, incapable of hearing the still, small voice in the cards. If they had anything to say to her, it was going to have to wait. She scooped up the deck, tucked it away in the silk-lined box, and pushed to her feet with the slow, awkward movements of the emotionally and physically exhausted.

Gideon had moved to the kitchen. She could hear him pacing and talking. He had frightened her so much just hours earlier. How had his huge, energetic presence become such a comfort so quickly? She knew if he wasn’t already planning to spend the night, she would ask him to stay.