The air within the tent was close, soured by human sweat. Heboric wanted nothing more than to leave, to escape all this, yet he sensed Sha’ik clinging to him, a spiritual grip as desperate as anything he’d felt from her before.
‘Show once more the new Unaligned.’
Yes. For the thousandth time.
Scowling, Bidithal searched through the Deck, then drew out the card, which he laid down in the centre of the goat-hair mat. ‘If any of the new arrivals is dubious,’ the old man sneered, ‘it is this one. Master of the Deck? Absurd. How can one control the uncontrollable?’
There was silence.
The uncontrollable? Such as the Whirlwind itself?
Sha’ik had clearly not caught the insinuation. ‘Ghost Hands, I would you take this card, feel it, seek to sense what you can from it.’
‘You make this request again and again, Chosen One,’ Heboric sighed. ‘But I tell you, there is no link between the power of my hands and the Deck of Dragons. I am of no help to you-’
‘Then listen closely and I shall describe it. Never mind your hands-I ask you now as a once-priest, as a scholar. Listen. The face is obscured, yet hints-’
‘It is obscured,’ Bidithal interrupted in a derisive tone, ‘because the card is no more than the projection of someone’s wishful thinking.’
‘Cut me off again and you will regret it, Bidithal,’ Sha’ik said. ‘I have heard you enough on this subject. If your mouth opens again I will tear out your tongue. Ghost Hands, I will continue. The figure is slightly above average in height. There is the crimson streak of a scar-or blood perhaps-down one side of the face-a wounding, yes? He-yes, I am certain it’s a man, not a woman-he stands on a bridge. Of stone, shot through with cracks. The horizon is filled with flames. It seems he and the bridge are surrounded, as if by followers, or servants-’
‘Or guardians,’ L’oric added. ‘Your pardon, Chosen One.’
‘Guardians. Yes, a good possibility. They have the look of soldiers, do they not?’
‘On what,’ Heboric asked, ‘do these guardians stand? Can you see the ground they stand upon?’
‘Bones-there is much fine detail there, Ghost Hands. How did you know?’
‘Describe those bones, please.’
‘Not human. Very large. Part of a skull is visible, long-snouted, terribly fanged. It bears the remnants of a helmet of some sort-’
‘A helmet? On the skull?’