Room Five: The One Who Draws the Cards

Two things seem to scare everyone; ghosts and nightmares. But what I really want to know is, does fate cast a blind eye to the faithful/

A dreaming man wakes, sweat covering his body and soaking down into the sheets and bedding under him.  He cannot remember what he had dreamt, but, on every attempt, he sees clearly the image of a skeletal soldier riding a horse across a wartorn battlefield where the bodies are as common as the grass itself and even the leaves of the trees dripped with the blood of the dead.  Still tired, he rolls to the left and quickly returns to his slumber.

---

Warming his hands over a disembodied flame, the seer feels the presence of a visitor approaching.  Even though it had been replaced nearly a week before, the seer could still feel a chilling wind blowing through it.

The flame extinguished itself as a robed figure entered the room.  Startled, the seer turned to the man, smelling the stink of the spirit world that came wafting in with him.

"What brings you, creature?"  Asked the seer hesitantly.

"I came for a reading."  The phantomesque had soft yet manacing voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.  As the seer made his way to his seat he crouched especially low trying to see under the specter's hood.  However, he saw nothing but the same darkness that could be found in any deep corner in the room.

The marble inlay of the table glowed furiously when the phantom sat, yet, even with this light, none of the specters features could be seen.  It was if his face absorbed the magical light as if it were a part of him.  The seer could not help but to think that death himself was sitting in front of him.

The deck, which sat in the middle of the table was consumed by the light of the table and split itself in two.  Two cards appeared before him;  the Magician and Judgment.  However, the faces of the cards remained nearly blank.  The only image that could be seen was a swirling colorless abyss.

"Have you ever wondered what fate will ask of you in return for your service to it?"  The specter droned in its booming monotonous dirge of a voice.

"I believe it has asked enough of me already."  The seer moaned.

"Hmm."  The specter groaned. Even this low noise was onimous.  The left sleeve of his animate robe rose and a card dissapeared from the right deck which glowed briefly beforehand.  Before him the card of the Fool materialized.  He chuckled grimly.

The seer became uncharacteristicly flushed.  He cleared his throat.  "So, uh, what is this all about?  I am not vain enough to consider that someone of your..."  He stopped to clear his throat again, perhaps pausing to find the courage to address the phantom.  "Stature, would come visit me for kicks."

"I am only here to to get a reading.  Nothing more.  Just a visit to see what it is you are doing with your talents."  His head, or at least what you could consider to be his head, rose to face the seer.

"An evaluation?"  The seer began to move nervously in his seat, much to the phantoms amusement.  His low rumble of a chuckle that came from the phantom caused the seer to fidget even more vigorously.  The laughing became louder and the seer pulled himself upright in the seat, becoming still as a stone.  This quelled the specter's intreague.

Without even a ruffling of his robes the magicked creature called another card in front of him.  "Yes, we are interested in your use of ancient magicks.  Things of such power must be tightly regulated."  To which he added darkly, "I'm sure you understand."  His tone sent shivers through the entire body of the seer.  This was not a product of the phantom dark magicks, but a response to pure and unadultereated fear.

"Yes."  Replied the seer, sounding utterly defeated.  Only now did he realized that the his visitor had drawn a card at all.  Craning his neck to see the small print he read, "Death", and again shivered.

"Why did you sentance the man who last drew this card to death?"  The seer felt the weight of the phantom's magic pressing down on his chest.

"He knew the risks;  I made sure he was well aware of the potential consequences.  You must remember that it is not I, nor random chance, nor the hands of the queriant that choose the card, but their minds;  their intent."  Underneath the light cloak and calm speech, the seer was sweating.

"And this absolves you of responsibility?"

"Yes."  Said the seer with only the vaguest hint of uncertianty in his voice.

"We shall see."  Murmured the robed figure.  Those words left an echo in the seer mind.  Another card materialized before the phantom, and as if there was nothing ever there, the robes collaped in a heap in the seat across the table from the seer.

The seer pulled a cane from a large vase beside and poked at the robes hesitantly.  Once he was sure the creature was gone, he moved to the cards, restacking them and returning them to their silk pouch.  As he replaced the cards he noticed that there were not figures on three of the cards.  

On the card of the Fool was a middle aged man;  his head hung in sorrow and a gun resting on a table beside him.  On the Magician was a young boy in a meticulously cleaned room.  The boy was sleeping in a small single bed.  Finally, and most shockingly, the seer found a mirror image of himself looking up in shock and holding his chest, as if in pain, on the cards of Death.

Both cards of Judgement remained relatively blank.

The seer, who could not wait to be rid of the remnants of the phantom's presence, rushed the burn the robes in the relit flame.

But, even with the robes gone, the specter's final words continued to ring in his head.