Phoenix and Ashes (43 page)

The
Empress nodded. “What else am I? Remember, that what is within me is
within you.” When Eleanor was not forthcoming, she laughed. “Oh
come now. That beautiful man? You would have to be stone, which I know you are
not.”

As
the Empress’s words stung and dug at her, Eleanor had felt herself
blushing more and more hotly, and when the woman finished her sentence, it was
with fury and bitterness that she allowed her temper to burst out.

“
Yes,
curse you
!” she cried. “
I do fancy him, and I have as much
chance of being more than a kind of pet or mascot to him as I have of flying
his aeroplane
!”

She
waited, hot with embarrassment and anger, daring the Empress to say
anything—

“I
am power,” the woman said, with a secret little smile. “There are
many sorts of power.”

“Like
Lilith’s?” Eleanor countered. “Using your body to get what
you want?”

“Ah,
now, you have your mythology mixed.” The Empress laughed.
“Lilith’s offense was that she would not obey Adam, for she was
created his equal, from the same clay and on the same day as he. For that she
was banished, and God created subservient Eve from Adam’s own flesh. Or
so,” she finished, with a chuckle, “the myth would tell us. And
yes, there is power to be found in providing something that someone wants,
isn’t there? And if someone wants something very badly, it becomes a
weapon in your hand.”

“It’s
a weapon I’d be ashamed to us,” Eleanor replied, and then
wondered—ashamed because it’s underhanded, or because I’m
afraid?

“And
if you could have the way of using the weapons of the senses as your stepmother
does?” the Empress persisted. “If you knew by using them, you could
have the young man for yourself, taking him away from your stepsisters?”

She
lifted her chin and stared. “I wouldn’t,” she said
shortly—but then, flushed again, and dropped her chin, and with a sick
feeling, admitted, “Or—maybe I would. But I wouldn’t do it to
make him my slave the way
she
would!”

“Ah!”The
Empress stood up, a beatific smile on her face taking the place of the
too-knowing expression. “There you are, my dear! That is what you needed
to see! That it is
how
we use the tools we are given, not the tools
themselves, nor even the fact that we use them, that makes all the difference.
Passion reversed is manipulation that leads to slavery. Passion proper is
freedom. But both are passion—”

She
took one blood-red rose from the bouquet she held, and extended it to Eleanor.
“I am as much Passion—Fire—as I am the Fertility of
Earth,” the Empress continued. “It does not do to forget that. Pass
on, little Fool and seek the next stage of your growing.”

Eleanor
took the rose, and the moment she did so, the landscape around her changed.

She
was no longer in a garden.

Instead,
she was on a vast and empty plain. In the distance were mountains; dividing the
mountains from the plain was a powerful, swiftly-moving river.

Seated
before her, on a massive, square-built throne, was a man. He was dressed in
archaic-looking armor, but it was very rich; gold-chased and engraved. He wore
a crown and carried the traditional emblems of rule, the orb and scepter. As he
looked down at Eleanor from his throne, she understood why the books called the
Emperor a “difficult” card…

So
she began her trial of the Emperor, by showing her own temper and
determination.

“Not tonight,
I think!” she impudently announced to that stern face, and turning away,
summoned true sleep with a wave of her heavily perfumed rose.

June 21, 1917
Broom, Warwickshire

I’M NOT GOING
TO BOTHER with trying to teach you anything now,” Sarah said, as Eleanor
finished recounting her latest dream-conquest, the Tarot card of the Lovers.
She had conquered the Emperor far more easily than she had thought she
would—but then, he was an easy card to understand. Not an easy card to
handle
,
but easy to understand.

Secular
power, intensely masculine, warlike, patriarchal… the embodiment, in a
way, of all the traits that men found admirable. And, in the
inverse—rigid, bound by tradition, unable to change,
territorial—all the things that had turned the war into a disaster. His
Element was Fire, a fire so fierce that nothing grew on his plain, so in his way
he was as much an embodiment, even in proper position of sterility, as the
Empress was of fertility… a curious pairing.

She
hadn’t had much difficulty with the Hierophant, either—who was to
spirituality what the Emperor was to the secular world. Both ruled by law, by conformity,
by order. Both concentrated on the obvious sources of control and power,
ignoring the ones within—the male counterparts to the High Priestess and
the Empress, with all that this implied. Law, infallibility (presumed or
actual), an intolerance for the “heretical” and the
rebellious—

It
had occurred to Eleanor that the world had been run by men of that stamp for
some time now, and look where it had gotten everyone. And it had also occurred
to her that both the Emperor and the Hierophant would expect softness and
conciliation out of a female, not confrontation. The Emperor, given his
Empress, would expect manipulation; the Hierophant would expect submission.

So
confrontation was what she had given them. She had stood her ground and told
them both the truth about what their traits, taken to extreme, had done to the
world—truly
conquering
the cards instead of merging with
them—with their own weapons of order, law, and logic. Unable to face her
logic, they had faded away, leaving behind the heady taste of secular and
sacred power.

But
the Lovers—that was another uncomfortable card. Not the least of which
because Eleanor had gone through the Hierophant’s rigidly designed,
mathematically precise temple to find herself in the garden behind it, and
there she discovered she was facing the original—and stark
naked—Adam and Eve. It was quite a shock to her senses and her
sensibilities. She had never seen
anyone
else naked before.

Much
less a man. She had literally leapt back with a yelp, and averted her eyes from
the two figures, who appeared not at all uncomfortable with their nude state.
Which was odd—because hadn’t the Fruit of the Tree made them
ashamed? These two were not at all embarrassed.

And
yet, there was nothing remotely sexual about them. The Empress had had more
sensuality and erotic attraction, fully clothed, than both of the Lovers put
together.

Nevertheless,
Eleanor hadn’t known where to look, and her face had been flaming as red
the roses in the Empress’s garden.

She
should have
known
this was coming, after all, she had seen the card in
Sarah’s deck. But somehow it had come as a complete surprise and shock,
and she had been so dumbstruck she hadn’t known what to do.

The
Archangel of the card had stepped in to save her from dying of embarrassment, shooing
the two away. They had gone off to sit under the tree with the serpent in it,
to immediately begin to quarrel about who had tempted whom, and whose fault it
was that everything had gone wrong.

They
sounded like a couple of children, and that was when Eleanor understood why
they were so devoid of eroticism. They
were
children. Children without
the innocence of the Fool, for they had already learned how to lay blame, to
lie, and quarrel.

The
Archangel sighed, and shook his head sadly. It was odd; he looked exactly like
the Archangel portrayed on the card—which meant, at least to
Eleanor’s eyes, he didn’t look all that much like an angel at all.
More like an androgynous man with wings. There was none of the glow, of the
majesty, that she would have thought would be the hallmarks of a real angel.

He’s
an image, a reflection—the symbol for something, rather than the actual
thing
, she decided.
And an image created by someone who hasn’t
ever seen the real thing, or even taken much thought of what one should look
like
. It had always seemed to her that there ought to be a reason why the
first thing an angel said when it appeared was “Fear not.”
Presumably, the mere sight of one was enough to strike fear into the hearts of
those who saw him.

This
angel looked as if he was more likely to say “Welcome to the garden, have
a seat” than “fear not.”

“It
wasn’t so much that they tasted the fruit,” the Angel said to the
empty air, carefully not looking at Eleanor. He sounded exasperated, like a
teacher with two dunces for pupils. “It was that they lied about it, and
then tried, and
keep
trying, to blame each other. He forgives
everything, you know, so long as you admit you did it and are properly sorry
for it—”

He
glanced at Eleanor, and now he looked sorrowful. “They began with such
promise, and yet one small thing has kept them from fulfilling that
promise.”

“Responsibility,”
Eleanor said, instantly, before the Angel could get in another word.
“They’re not taking responsibility for what they did—so
that’s the reversed position for this card, isn’t it? This card
represents responsibility. And choices, and temptation, and balance between
male and female—” The words kept tumbling out of her, as if she had
turned on a spigot. “You’re part of it too, since you—you
aren’t Michael, are you?”

He
shook his head. “Raphael.”

She
nodded. “Raphael, whose sign is Mercury and whose element is Air; the
positive of Air is freedom and an unbounded imagination, and the negative
aspect of Air is carelessness and light-mindedness—”

It
seemed as if some of the Magician’s knowledge was with her now, and
couldn’t wait to get out. The more she babbled, the more symbols she saw
here—temptation, in the form of the Tree and the Serpent, but more
knowledge too. There was another tree, without a Serpent twined around it; it
balanced the other. What did that tree represent?

If
the first one is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, what is the other one
?
It seemed to be covered with little flames rather than leaves or fruit. Was
it a sort of Burning Bush
?
That was another kind of knowledge—

“And
Fire,” the Archangel said, helpfully. “Don’t forget
that’s there too.” He nodded at the tree.

There
was something about that Tree that should be ticking off memories and
wasn’t. As if the back of her mind recognized the symbolism, but
wouldn’t talk to the front of her mind about it.

She
nodded, fixing her eyes on the Angel’s face so she wouldn’t have to
look at the two naked people sprawled inelegantly beneath the tree. If they
weren’t physically upside-down, their position was close enough to make
them look “reversed.”

“Of
course—passion again, but it has to be passion in balance with everything
else. And of course there’s the Serpent and the Tree from the
Garden—that’s Earth—” But she wasn’t quite
grasping it.

“Ah,
but what is the thing that you must take from them? The symbol of the power
that’s here?” the Archangel asked shrewdly. “It was the cup
from the Magician, the scroll from the High Priestess, the Empress’s
rose, the Emperor’s orb, the Hierophant’s crown—”

“Knowledge,
wisdom, passion, power, law—” she said aloud, thinking very hard.
There was a problem here. The Lovers were both stark naked and had nothing in
their hands.
Balance, responsibility—what represents that
?
Choices—making
good ones and bad ones
—There was no symbol of any of these things
anywhere about.

There
were still the apples on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, but—

But
I’ve already had knowledge, and anyway, I don’t think that’s
the answer
.

She
looked at the Archangel sharply. “It’s nothing I have,” he
replied, with one perfect eyebrow raised at the exact angle required to convey
admonition. “And don’t even think about pulling out one of my
feathers. Do that, and you’ll find me treating you like something other
than a lady.”

Well,
whatever these Tarot creatures were—one thing that they were
not
was to actually be what they appeared to be. This one might wear the outer
semblance of an angel, but she didn’t think even a minor one of the
cherubim would talk like that, much less an archangel. Which, she had to admit,
was something of a relief. She really didn’t want to have anything to do
with a real angel.

Adam
and Eve were looking bored, and had even given up on their quarrel while they
waited for her to come up with the symbol of what she must take from them.

What
could it be?

Wait,
what if it wasn’t something
material
? This card was about
balances, and there couldn’t be anything more heavily weighted in favor
of the
earthly
as a symbol than everything that stood in front of her.
Except that the dominating Element of this card was Air. So—did it follow
that what she was to take was the opposite, immaterial balancing earthly?

“The
kiss of peace,” she said, sure now of herself. “From both of
them.”

“Oh,
well done!” the Archangel applauded, as Adam and Even came towards them
at a wave of his hand. Eleanor tried not to look, but it wasn’t easy,
when the two of them bracketed her and leaned forward to kiss her cheeks at the
same time. She closed her eyes, but she could still
feel
them there,
and as their lips brushed her cheeks, she felt her face flaming.

And
that was the moment—

“That
was the moment,” Eleanor said, swallowing hard. “I have gotten
something from every one of the cards I passed through—something that
stayed with me, that is. But from the Lovers—” She shivered, and
looked up at Sarah. “
Responsibility
, Sarah! It all came to me,
then, just before I fell into sleep. Responsibility! The burden of making the
right choices! I—I—” She couldn’t put into words what
she had felt at the moment; it was just very big, and very heavy, and she was
only beginning to see the edges of it. But part of it was that she wasn’t
just responsible for herself… she was responsible for however she
affected everyone she came into contact with.