Teller of Fate
First Movement: The Birth of a Teller of Fate
Chapter Eight
Scorn.
At the sound of that name came the memory of the Syrat. In the odd moments she’d been aware of the Dark Man’s spell on her cards, the numb lethargy it had caused had been soothed by a broth Tathar had given her.
Each episode, however, had left its residue of despair. The old elf kept saying she’d be fine.
Dævara knew he worried, though. For the last few days, since she’d broken the Dark Man’s spell, her connection with the cards had grown in strength.
When her awareness of them dancing had been absent, it had been because she was busy with the pleasures of the senses; of the tastes and smells of skin and fluids and the feel of turgid flesh; of orgasms felt and given; of sleep, delicious sleep in the company of lovers.
Now, all her past had come back, a past she had unconsciously hoped to lose.
“Dævara? Did you hear me?”
“Aye. I heard. Uhm…what happens now?” Everything began to look fuzzy. A buzzing started in her ears. She couldn’t tell up from down any longer, the feeling of the Syrat was gone. Dævara felt herself falling. Tathar’s grip on her tightened.
From the look on his face, he was deeply troubled. Getting a firmer grip, he began to move. “Let’s get home, first. You need rest and clothes.” He smiled at her.
Her humour had entirely deserted her. She felt weak. The loss of the Syrat was upon her. It was so far away. Already the lassitude felt stronger than it ever had. “Tath…I feel—”
“I know, love. I know. We’ll soon have you home.”
She remembered nothing after those words.
⁂
Dævara woke once again to the feel of the sheets. She was in her room. She opened her eyes at the sound of murmured conversation and saw Tathar and the female elf with silver-streaked sea-green hair, Ansrith, the old elf’s primary mate. They concluded their dialogue as Dævara turned her head. With a kiss and a hug, the woman left.
Tathar saw that she was awake and came to sit on the edge of her bed, his look of concern softening into a smile. “How do you feel, Dævara?” He took her hand.
She gave his hand a squeeze meant to be reassuring, “Weak. Weaker than before, I vow. What’s happening to me, Tath?”
He sighed. “It’s the soul wound, as you’ve probably guessed.”
“I’m dyin’.” It wasn’t a question.
“I honestly don’t know. Ansrith is one of the best healers we have, and she doesn’t know exactly what the separation between you and the Syrat will do. There’s little actual lore on it.”
“Why is that?”
“Mostly I suppose because there are so few copies of the Syrat in existence. Counting yours, only thirteen decks exist; ten of them are in Convocation worlds. I’ve not been able to find evidence that a Teller and Syrat have ever been forcibly separated before.”
She was silent for a time, staring off in the distance. In her mind’s eye she saw the face of the Dark Man with its cruel smile. She turned to her companion, “I want my cards back, Tath, and I mean to get ‘em, I do. Have you found Scorn, and can I get there?
“I found out most everything there is to know about your home world. Getting back will be a problem. You see, it’s no longer there.”
“What d’ya mean? I left it only a few weeks ago, I did. What could’ve happened to it?”
He frowned and rubbed his brow, “How to explain. This place—” he indicated the world beyond the windows—“exists in its own time. In the Aions beyond it, time moves on, leaving us behind, as-it-were. It’s possible to enter here from any time, as time is measured in the Thirty Aions. Dæv, you came forward almost a hundred millennia when you passed through the Portal you made.”
“I didn’t know a Portal could connect separate times as well as spaces.”
“I’m not surprised. Your mother likely didn’t know.”
“How did my spell do that, then?”
“I’d have to know what the spell was, to say. Perhaps you cast it incorrectly. Where did you intend to go?”
“Only someplace friendly to magick.”
“Not very specific, though any Convocation Aion would fit the bill.”
Another thoughtful pause. Then, “What happened to Scorn, Tath?”
“I don’t know. It was part of a cluster of stars that went dark in quick succession a few millennia after the end of the Templar War.”
“So, the cards are gone, then.”
His smile remained as he shook his head, “You forget time’s true nature. A Portal back in time to Scorn is possible. I don’t recommend going back to get them, though.”
“Why?”
“The risk is too great.”
“To me? ’Cause I don’t care about that. I’ll have the cards, Tath.”
Tathar was shaking his head. “The risk is to more than you. That Portal is meant for travel between worlds of the Convocation; all of them, like this one, self-contained Aions. Your coming through from outside shouldn’t have been possible. I’m still trying to figure out how you managed to get the Syrat to do that.”
Dævara felt crestfallen, “Is there no way to get them, then?”
“I think there might be. You see, Ansrith found something when she examined you that I hadn’t the skill to discern. Your lethargy worsens because the wound keeps getting worse, rather than healing. The wound won’t close because it keeps getting ripped open.”
“By what?”
“By the Syrat, of course. Your connection to it is tearing, but it remains. It won’t go so long as you live. I’m torn, Dæv. There is an ongoing risk to the Elven Convocation because of this open connection. The surest way to close it is to sever your connection to the Syrat. The link would close at once.”
“But I’d die.” She felt a frigid dread.
“I should have this done, for the sake of all elfkin, but I cannot. That leaves only one way.”
“I have to get me cards back, I do.”
Tathar nodded gravely.
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, July 2026
© Gideon Jagged
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