Hands of Fate - Part 2

Hands of Fate - Part 2

With the first round done, the Crone performed her final act as dealer. She drew the first card from the deck and turned it upright for all to see. The Harp. That could only mean one thing. Crone passed the deck to Euphony. She would be dealer this round.

Euphony smiled a wan smile as she took the deck. Her curse was to never stop playing, so even while she cut and shuffled with her right hand, she plucked a haunting melody from her harp with her left.

"Will all present play?" she said, voice distilled harmonies.

Everyone nodded or otherwise marked their assent. Khor grunted and bit into his bronze peach. It crunched between his teeth and crumbs of fruit dropped to his bare chest. The juices spat and crackled as they hit his lightning whorl tattoos.

"So it shall be," she said and began flicking out cards. They flew from her bone white skeletal fingers like arrows from a bow.

As Euphony dealt, Nyxanda, first daughter of darkness, leaned over and rubbed against Khor's side. "Big and skilled," she said in a hushed whisper that reached every corner of the room. "Just how I liked them." Her eyes sparked. "And so very, very big. Would you like to share your fruit with me? I'm sure that we could... Enjoy it together." She rubbed his inner thigh and then his cock proper. The immense organ stirred.

"Demon whore want prize," he grunted. "Demon whore should play better. If want, Khor fuck hard. Maybe skill like pox."

Nyxanda hissed and turned away.

Once everyone had their three cards, Euphony turned to the Old Emperor. "Will you place a bet, Emperor?" she asked.

The ancient man slowly nodded.

"I pledge the service of Old Powers -- the dark things in caves." He placed a totem on the table. It was made from stone, a crudely shaped figurine with a great gaping mouth. Unseen shapes moved behind his rheumy eyes." He burnt all three of his cards and drew replacements.

Nyxanda looked long at her cards but finally shook her head. "Woe is me," she said and fluttered her full, smoky eyes at the table; her gaze turned sour when she reached Khor, though. "I do not like the feel of my cards this round." She placed the cards in the Underworld -- the Tower, the Hanged Man and the Virtuous Savant.

"Khor gives service of thane," bellowed Khor. "Khor promises a year and a day's service of Black One Eye, Killer of Storms, Slayer of Mountains, Razor of Cities!" Bet placed, he swapped two of his card. Discarded were the Miser and the Broken Crown.

"Crone?" asked Euphony. "Will you play?" Her harp hand plucked a haunting refrain.

The Crone masticated her toothless gums as she cradled her cards in her dry old hands. "Oh yes, oh yes indeed I will. I am a wizened hag, old and weary, but I yet have my vassals, oh don't I yes. Why just this day, the Queen of the Ichthyophagi and Troglodytae offered up to me her first born child and all I needed do was curse the painted whore who sought her crown. That child then. Blood of kings, blood of sea, blood of stone."

She discarded one card, the Burning Eyes, and cackled over its replacement.

The Queen of Summer pulled the initiate from between her legs. "Rise, Lybie, rise."

"Mistress," she whimpered, lip trembling. A sheen of sex juices made the olive skin of her face shine.

"Oh hush, you," said the Queen and kissed her initiate's forehead. "I shall try my hardest to win." She looked towards the table. "I wager my initiate Lybie. She is skilled in many of my magics and talented in the arts of love."

"It is acceptable," said Euphony as she plucked at seemingly random strings. "Chancellor?"

Long shadows brought out strange lines on Malleus' pinched face. He burnt his cards. "I shall follow our demonic companion and forgo this round. There is an ominous pallor about it."

"Very well. Delirium?" said Euphony. Strange disharmonious notes entered her music that threatened its very structure.

Delirium let his head roll from side to side. Her eyes swirled with impossible possibilities. His neither male nor female face appeared wrecked in indecisions.

"I shall," she said. "I shall... Have a drink I think!" He flipped over the back of his chair like an acrobat and padded towards the bar.

Euphony gathered up Delirium's cards and put them in the Underworld unburnt. They were the Starving Man, the Oases and the Turncoat. Prophetic indeed.

"I shall now deal the World," said Euphony and laid out the first grouping of public cards. Each hit with a sharp crack as her bone fingers pressed it down.

First was the Black Forest. The heavy oils showed great brooding pine trees, growing so thick that no light touched the ground inside.

Second came the King's Road. The card showed a long and well maintained road winding through the country.

Finally was the Axe. The card depicted a great iron axe, half impaled in a tree.

"Emperor?" asked Euphony.

"I again pledge Old Powers -- the never-seen monsters of the forest." He withdrew a second totem, this one made from the thigh bone of some great animal and covered with tiny tool marks.

He discarded two cards from his hand, the maximum allowed during the second round of betting and burnt both. The First Musician dealt the replacements and his eyes narrowed slightly at what he saw.

Khor squinted as he stared at his cards but finally chucked his entire hand into the Underworld.

"Khor doesn't like the wagers this round," he muttered to himself.

Discarded were the Western Sky, the Lion and the Black Storm Cloud, a potentially potent combination but perhaps not for this World.

"Crone?" said Euphony.

"Yes, yes," said the Crone. "I pledge three favours from the Sisters of Night, the secret coven who rule at the heart of that decadent state Lemuria."

"Queen?"

Smiling slightly, the Queen of Summer burnt her cards and placed them face down in the Underworld.

"Mistress!" wailed Lybie. Tears clung to her large smoky eyes.

"No more talking, dear." She pushed Lybie back between her spread legs. "I have a better use for your tongue and you're mine for a little longer yet."

"Ethos," said Euphony, "the actor. The subject of our prophecies." She drew a card and laid it next to the World. The smiling face of the Child looked out, a messy haired boy with rosy cheeks.

The Crone and the Old Emperor were silent as they considered the card. An archetype like the Youth, the Child would define the fates to come. To go against its nature would be to weaken the working and surely lead to defeat

"Emperor?"

"I pledge the third Old Power -- the shadows in deep water." He withdrew a fish-bone talisman, the individual bones connected by hand beaten river copper. It swung in his ancient trembling fingers, the bones appearing to swim like a living fish.

He discarded a card and for the second time that night placed the Thief unburnt into the Underworld. Murmurs travelled round the table. Euphony supplied a replacement.

Euphony turned to the Crone and her music rose in a rising terminal, mimicking a question.

"Old and haggish, I may be," said the Crone, "but rich in other things I am. By blood, bone and older debts, I bind to the winner of this hand the monster Rrendel, slayer of heroes."

Euphony nodded. "And so the final card." She drew it and placed it face down on the table. "The River defines course and action in prophecy. The River accepts or rebukes the Underworld. The River can destroy and create." She flipped the card with her bone fingers and pushed it to the table with an audible click.

The Liminal Warden. An indomitable guard to the edges of all things and a strong River, to be sure. The Underworld would have little effect on the coming prophecies. Before those prophecies could be made, though, there was one final round of betting.

The Emperor sat still as stone in his chair, ancient robes loose around his decrepit body. "I pledge the kingship of wolves," he said.

The shock was palatable.

"Too much," hissed Nyxanda. Even to the first daughter of darkness and child of the seed eschaton, this was a shock.

Malleus, Chancellor of the Dread College, looked at the Emperor from darkly questioning eyes.

Khor grunted.

Euphony turned to the Crone. "Will you match this bet?" she asked.

The Crone narrowed her bog iron eyes. "Evil, cunning man," she said in a low whisper to her cards. "We have duelled of old but to barter this?" She looked up and said, "I pledge my place as polemarch of ravens."

Euphony nodded slowly and tension entered her music. "Crone, Emperor, make your destinies."

The Old Emperor moved first. In a voice of graves, he said, "To know the past is to know the future so I shall speak legend.

"I remember when men were young. The world was a dark place, then, and we were prey not hunters."

He placed down the Hunter card, showing a fearsome warrior armed with a throwing spear.

"The land was a single great forest and we huddled around fires against its terrors. Dark things moved and lived beneath the trees. They lived under the earth, beneath the water and in the sky.And we learnt that only blood could keep them at bay. I was king so I commanded the blood. I decreed the sacrifice."

He placed down the Sacrifice. The card showed an offering burning before a statue of a great god.

"Once every year, when the sun was low and the day was at its shortest, I commanded my subjects come to me. They came at my word and at my command. They came with their families, with the young and the old, the strong and the weak, the great and the common.

"And from among those gathered I chose a sacrifice. That year, the year of the Red Sky and the Ice Rains, I chose a child. The blood needed to be strong. The blood needed to be pure.

"My warriors brought him to me. They were powerful and there was no escape. We placed him on the stone and as the sun failed, I brought down the axe. His blood fed our protections. His blood paid our debts. His blood let us grow. His blood averted ruin."

He placed his last card down: Ruin. The card showed a village raised and set aflame by unseen dark terrors in the night.

Prophecy finished, the Old Emperor slumped into his chair. His old bones were tired and he watched through milky eyes as his prophecy moved through the cards. It was slow and sluggish, and to the senses of the assembled powers, weak.

The Crone cackled to herself as she readied her cards.

She placed down her first card, the Plague.

"A pox to drive the child from his home,
"A road to take him far from hearth and stone.
"A dark forest to contain a cure,
"Or is it only a lure.

"A black witch to make a threat,
"And powers potent to make him fret.
"But to get her magic to cure the pox,
"The child will need be cunning, like a fox.

She placed down her second card -- the Spellbook, the card showing a leather bound tome of arcane knowledge.

"He goes to her cottage and is welcomed in,
"But is it truth or does she want his skin?
"He spies her arts and he spies her lore.
"And in her books he learns far more.

"But the witch finds out and sets pursuit,
"And all the child can do is run from her brute.
"Through forest, road and village he flees,
"Until all he can do is stand and wheeze.

She placed down her third card -- the Saviour, a glittering knight in silvered armour.

"But a saviour comes, a woodsman true.
"And using his axe cuts the brute clean through,
"And with his stolen knowledge of magic,
"The child cures the pox and averts a fate truly tragic."

The Crone's completed prophecy swept away the Old Emperor's like chaff in the wind.

"The Crone has won," said Euphony as she gathered up the cards on the table and set to shuffling the deck. "To her go the spoils."

The Queen of Summer drew Lybie from between her legs and pushed her towards the Crone. "To your new mistress, now. Go!" She swatted the girl on her shapely rear.

For her part, Lybie jumped at the contact and scurried over to the Crone. She knelt before the hag and lowered her head. A cascade of black ringlets fell down, baring her olive neck.

"Mistress," she said. "How might I please you?"

The Crone slowly rose from her chair on bony legs and stood hunched over Lybie.

"Rise, girl, Rise."

Slowly Lybie stood. A hopeful expression showed on her face. It disappeared when the Crone drove her taloned fingers through Lybie's chest and into her heart.

The Crone changed. Her paper thin skin gained a healthy glow. Her hair, once spun cobwebs, turned black and lustrous. Her face tightened and the wrinkles disappeared. White teeth broke from her bloody gums. Her breasts grew pert. She stood straight, back unbent for the first time in decades.

The very opposite happen to Lybie. She jerked as the colour drained from her face. Her body spasmed as her very vitality was robbed from her. She collapsed to the ground, barely breathing, her body a near desiccated husk. Her youth was gone, stolen.

Over her stood the Crone-no-longer. Now she was a witch in the prime of life and power.

"Was that really necessary?" asked the Queen of Summer, a slightly exasperated tone to her voice. "If you only wanted her youth, I could have supplied someone just as young and saved myself a skilled servant."

"Yes," said the witch. "The time when a meagre meal might revive my youth are long past. Only those of power will satisfy me and even then, only for so long. I will exhaust her youth in a day and then be the Crone once more. But for now I am the Witch Queen again."

The Queen of Summer huffed but didn't push the point.

"Might I suggest a short break," said Euphony, "before we continue for the next round? I think such will serve to sooth nerves." On her harp she played notes like running water.

"A fine suggestion," said the Witch Queen, "but first?" She pointed to the deck.

Euphony finished collecting the cards and shuffled one handed. After a few seconds, she dealt and flipped the top most card: the Scholar.

All eyes turned to the Chancellor of the Dread College.

"Malleus," asked Euphony, "will you deal the next hand?"

Malleus nodded. "I will," he said, and the table broke for their break.

Continued in Part 3...

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