“I see.” Again her brow furrowed. “Mattus felt the same way,” she said. “We had to all but drag him there when…”
“When what?”
She hesitated. “When he came of age.”
I gestured toward the face-down card. “Does it mean anything? My finding the Courts of Chaos?”
“Every action has meaning with the Trumps. They reflect the world around them.”
“What is the meaning this time?”
“I… cannot say.”
I swallowed, suddenly uneasy again. Cannot say—or won’t? Her choice of words left me wondering, and her suddenly nervous manner gave me the distinct impression that she hadn’t told me everything she’d seen.
An unsettling thought came to me. I tapped the back of the Chaos card.
“This isn’t where we’re headed, is it?”
“No, Juniper is about as far from the Courts of Chaos as you can get. Hopefully far enough to keep us safe.”
Safe from what? Hell-creatures? Someone or something else?
I bit back my questions, though—call it pride or my own obstinate nature, but I thought it prudent to watch and learn. I would keep my queries to a minimum, and try to make them brief and unassuming.
Freda scooped up her deck of Trumps and sorted through them, finally pulling out a card that showed a sleepy, moss-draped castle atop a distant hill. She passed the card across to me.
“This is Juniper,” she said. “At least, as it used to be. Aber painted it about two years ago.”
In front of the hill sat a small, peaceful looking village, with perhaps seventy or so brick-and-mortar buildings with yellow-thatched roofs. Before and beyond stretched verdant acres of farmland and rich pastures, dotted with houses and barns, small ponds and even a broad blue stream. Juniper looked like any of a dozen small keeps in Ilerium, and unlike the Courts of Chaos, it didn’t make my skin crawl. That alone made me feel a lot better.
“A lot can change in two years,” I said.
“It has.”
As I stared, the tiny cows, sheep, and horses sketched with unerring skill began to move across the fields. I swallowed and forced my attention back to Freda. She took the card when I offered it.
“What’s different now?” I asked.
“An armed camp surrounds it—Father’s troops, of course. Juniper is not under siege, at least not yet, but it has grown loud and dirty. I do not think it will ever be the same again.”
I nodded. Wars did that. A year of battling hell-creatures had forever changed Ilerium, and not for the good.
“Since Juniper has changed so much,” I said slowly, hoping to get another clue as to the nature of these mysterious Tarot cards, “will your Trump still work?”
“Yes… after a fashion. It just takes longer. The essence of the place remains the same even as the landscape changes.”
I handed back her Juniper card. With a sad little sigh, Freda put it with the rest of her cards, shuffled them once, and stashed them away in a small wooden box. It looked like teak, inlaid with an intricate mother-of-pearl pattern of a lion.
“You said Aber made all your cards?” I asked. Might as well try to gather as much information as I could since she seemed to be in a more talkative mood now.
“Yes.” She smiled, eyes far off, and I could tell she liked her brother. “He is good at it, too… almost as good as Father, though Aber tends to make fun of everyone when he draws them.” She focused on me. “I wonder how he will draw you… nicely, I hope. I do think he will like you.”
I snorted. “Why should he bother drawing me?”
“Why not? He draws everyone and every place he thinks might be useful. He must have hundreds or even thousands of Trumps stashed away in his rooms by now. I do not know where he possibly keeps them all.”
I glanced out the window. Still rolling green hills, still a dozen odd horsemen with extra joints in their arms. We had to be nearing our destination, I thought, since the landscape hadn’t changed much. Either that, or Dworkin was now resting up from all his magics.
“Do you know how much longer we’ll be traveling?” I asked.
“Father did not tell you?”
“He was… vague.”
“It is wise to be careful when traveling,” she said with a slight incline of her head. “I am sure it is for our safety.”
“Then tell me more about Juniper.”
“What is there to tell? It is a remote Shadow. I think Father once hoped to retire there to a quiet life of study and reflection, but all these attacks have forced him to be a man of action. It is against his nature, but he can be a man of action… a hero… when he chooses. Or when he is forced to be.” She peeked out the window. “We are close now. I do recognize this land.”
“All things considered,” I said, “this has been one of the worst nights of my life.” Only my mother’s death seemed more terrible. “All told, I’d rather be home. At least I knew where I stood there… or thought I did.”
A look of profound sadness crossed her face as I said that, and I realized I’d unintentionally touched upon a sensitive topic—home.
“I’m sorry,” I said, the truth suddenly dawning on me. “Your home… it’s gone, isn’t it? Was it attacked by hell-creatures, too?”
She nodded. “I called it Ne’erwhon,” she said. “It was… beautiful. And peaceful. And they destroyed it when they tried to take me. Father rescued me just in time.”
Her story sounded disturbingly similar to mine, and I said as much.
“Father has been rounding up a lot of people,” she said. “As soon as he discovered his friends and relatives were being hunted down, he set out to rescue every one of us. That is why there is such a gathering at Juniper now.”
“I had no idea,” I said.
“None of us did.” Freda forced a yawn. “It has been a long trip for me, and I am growing tired. I hope you do not think it rude, but…”
She leaned back and closed her eyes.
“Not at all,” I murmured.
She’d found the perfect way to escape my questions. And just as the answers were getting interesting, too.
I sat back, waiting patiently until her breathing grew steady and I saw her eyes start to dart beneath their lids. Let her dream of better days; work remained.
Making as little noise as possible, I gave the carriage a quick search. No papers, no scrolls or books, no magical crystals that shot lines of fire. A small lever to the side operated some hidden mechanism—probably to open the door.