“Three questions. Ask in your heart and mind, but do not speak them to me. Shaizan shall answer, not I.”
Selena held her hand to her heart, to the cold draft that emanated always from her breast, wondering if it was blasphemous to do this, wondering if the Two-Faced God would be angered by this betrayal, wondering if it was a betrayal at all if her own god would not hear her pleas; and wondering, lastly, if An-Lan was merely a magnificent show woman with a keen instinct for reading people and nothing more.
The cold from her wound chilled her hand. Selena closed her eyes and asked her three questions.
Will I find passage to Isle Saliz?
Will I find love?
How will I close the wound?
The second question surprised her as she hadn’t intended to ask something so irrelevant to her mission. But it had popped into her mind, unbidden, from some deep recess below the wound. A foolish question. A waste. There will be no love for me, not while I bear the wound. But done was done.
When she opened her eyes An-Lan’s smile was gentle, kindly. “Very good, child. And now the god answers.”
Still shaking her hand—the opals clacked within—she put her other on the white ceramic bowl and gave it a spin. It wasn’t a hard spin, certainly not hard enough for more than one or two rotations. Yet the bowl spun around and around, faster and faster, until its sigils were a blur.
“Your first question,” An-Lan said, and tossed one opal of the ten into the spinning bowl.
Selena flinched, half-expecting the gemstone to come flying back out. Instead, it seemed to vanish into the bowl that spun like a vortex. A small plume of pale smoke rose and she watched, awed as an image appeared within the cloudy depths.
A ship under sail rode turbulent waters. The sails strained at their rigging as a storm bore down, tossing the vessel on caps bearded white while lightning flashed above. Selena peered harder, imaging she could see the ship’s crew.
“The answer to your first question is the Voyage,” An-Lan said.
“A voyage?”
“The Voyage. What you see in the smoke are the words of Shaizan. Centuries of study to learn their meaning. This one. The Voyage. A voyage for you. Very soon, you depart. You will travel far…farther than you expect.” She studied the storm-tossed ship with a frown. “Your destination is dark and thick with danger. You are like a light in that darkness, driving it back as the Shining face of your god does when the moon is full. But beware for the dark will try to swallow you, consume you, to make you something like itself. That is all I see.”
The smoke vanished. The bowl slowed to a stop. The opal was gone.
Selena shifted. It means little. A trick of smoke and words to scare me, to lend weight to her ‘vision’ which is nothing more than rumors of my need to get off this island.
An-Lan rattled the nine remaining opals in one hand and set the bowl to spinning again with the other. “Your second question.” She tossed an opal into the bowl where it disappeared into another plume of smoke.
The image that appeared was a man’s face, one half smiling and charming, the other half skeletal with a black oval eye socket and exposed teeth that grinned obscenely. The man wore a top hat such as the kind the troubadours wear at their traveling shows, and behind him were items tossed as if from a juggler’s hand: knives, pistols, and gold doubloons.
An-Lan’s mouth drew down.
“The Trickster,” she said. “A bad omen. I know not of what you asked, but I tell you child, that if a man such as this comes into your life, you would be wise to…”
Selena watched as the seer, as if acting not of her own volition tossed another opal. The Trickster visage disappeared and was replaced by two hands—man’s hands—held out in entreaty.
“Is that the answer to my third question?” Selena asked. “You said I had three…?”
“No, child. Another stone was required for your second question.”
Will I find love? Selena felt her cheeks redden. This is foolish…
An-Lan looked up. “The Supplicant. A confusing draw, I admit. I take it to mean another man, but no.” She frowned, looking at the smoke as though she could see through it. “When I look into the smoke, I see two people and yet…Shaizan is telling me that the Supplicant and the Trickster are linked somehow. In what way, I cannot see. That is for you to know when the time comes.”
Selena nodded, though she could not say she understood what An-Lan or her smoke and stones meant. They mean nothing, she thought but found herself holding her breath when the seer released the opal that was meant to answer the question about her wound. The bowl spun, the opal vanished, and a new smoky funnel rose up.
This time a rose, full-petaled and blooming, with a droplet of blood dripping from its single thorn appeared in the smoke.
“The Sacrifice. A tragic omen. I see a figure lying on the sand, wounded, bleeding. This person will die for you to set you free. That is all I see.”
“Ilior,” Selena whispered, icy dread clutching her heart.
“Perhaps it will be this Ilior. Perhaps not. It is not for you or I to say as we sit here now, comfortable and safe in my shop. When the time comes, you will know.”
An-Lan made to put the satchel of opals away, now diminished by four, and then stopped, confused. She cocked her head as though listening to something only she could hear. “Another stone,” she breathed. She looked up at Selena. “You are powerful, child, that a god, not your own, wishes to speak so much to you.”
An-Lan tossed the opal into the spinning bowl and sucked in a breath as a new image resolved itself. Even without knowing its meaning, the image in the smoke frightened Selena in some deep part of her; the core of herself where the god’s wound truly began.
Blackness. A deep well of impenetrable dark. A hole in the air in which all light died. Even as she stared, helpless to look away, Selena saw from her periphery the candles in the shop dim, their flames growing small until they were hardly more than a pale blue drop clinging to their wicks. The very light in the room seemed drawn to the circle of black, as if it were sucking it in. Selena’s heart thudded with familiar terror.
“My wound,” she breathed.
The seer raised her eyes to meet Selena’s. “This image is called Abyss. In all the readings I have ever done, I’ve never…” She stopped the bowl from spinning by pinching its lip with two fingers. The smoke dissipated. She swallowed and forced a smile. “Well. The god has answered. That is all I see.”
“But what does it mean?” Selena asked. “That question, of all of them, was the most—”
An-Lan held up a hand. “Say nothing to me of your questions. The god has spoken and the answer is silence. More than silence. The Abyss. It is where the gods go to die. Shaizan cannot help you and so then neither can I.”