Phoenix and Ashes

So the smaller one's "footprint" of influence was, the better.

Alison had gotten away with as much use of magic as she had because she had confined it mostly to one single person—Eleanor. Hedging one person in with spells did not make much of an effect on the rest of the world.

Now it was Eleanor's turn, and the best course of action now seemed to be to work on the spells already in existence. That meant, at the moment, persuading the spell that kept pulling her back to the hearth that it had never been meant to call her back when she went beyond the grounds of The Arrows—that instead its boundary was much farther. It would return to its previous state when she took her attention off it, of course, but that didn't happen at once, and in fact, the more she worked at this, the longer she had before it reverted.

The village was very quiet at this time of night. A dog barked out in the distance, and nearer at hand, the trees rustled as a breeze tumbled among their leaves. Inside there was only the pop and crackle of the small fire in the fireplace, and the sound of their breathing.

"I think," Sarah said, when she had been working at her spellcasting for the better part of an hour, "that if we could just find a way to dig up your finger and destroy it, that would break the spell."

Eleanor slowly released the spell she had been manipulating; she could see it in her head, like a cat's cradle of lines of magical power. It remained as she had left it, and she turned her attention to Sarah, who was watching her with solemn eyes. They'd had this discussion before. "But you're still not sure," Eleanor said flatly. She looked across the table into Sarah's eyes, and saw what she expected to see. Once again, Sarah had attempted to unravel the complexities of the spells around Eleanor, and once again, she had not been able to decipher them.

Sarah shook her head. "I'm not powerful enough to read all those spells she's tangled up around you. I just can't keep them separate in my mind. I think destroying the finger would break them all, but there's a chance that destroying the finger would make them bind more tightly."

"I'm not willing to take that risk," she replied, with a frown. "If I can achieve the Sun, that's the card of freedom and problems solved, and it's a Fire card. I'll have the knowledge, the wisdom and the power to use Justice's sword, and I can cut myself free of the spell-bindings." She paused a moment, and added, "They say it's a simple card. If I can pass through it soon . . ."

She didn't specify what she meant by "soon." She had eight more cards to pass through before she reached the Sun. She had yet to face Death ... or even the Hanged Man. Truth to be told she didn't want to face either, but it had to be done. The Hermit had not been as frightening or as difficult as she had thought, but the Wheel of Fortune had been terrifying. One wouldn't think that an abstract concept like that would be frightening, but—

But it hadn't been abstract. It had been the whole world up there, looming in a sky that was half storm and half calm, with terrible energies crackling through it all, and the realization that a single turn of the Wheel could set random factors into motion that could doom all her plans.

And even as she had gazed up at it in awe—for it had looked nothing at all like the card, except in that it was a wheel, or at least wheel-shaped—she had felt herself and all the world coming apart, then returning together again, in what she came to understand was a cycle of creation and destruction, of death and rebirth, and she had grasped things for that moment that she couldn't even begin to articulate now. But evidently she had grasped them correctly, for the huge, looming Wheel settled, and a little more knowledge and power settled into her mind, and she was given to understand that she had passed this test, too.

So it was understandable that at this moment she really didn't want to think what the Death card was going to be like. It would have been easier on her nerves if the card had been called Transfiguration, or something of the sort.

Sarah gave her an odd look. "This isn't the path I would have seen you taking," she said at last. "Your mother was always so impatient, the Fire in her wanting to take things quickly—"

"Which isn't always a good idea. I think perhaps this business of using the Tarot to teach me was the best thing that could have happened to me." Eleanor grimaced, and rubbed the joint of her right thumb with her left hand, easing a little ache there. "Much though I would like to make things happen faster, I'm learning about the strengths and weaknesses of the other three Elements as I go, and I hope that means I won't be as vulnerable."