Chapter 10: T I N S A L

 

Fantasy with a twist; akin to an alternate Assassin’s Creed, where tarot cards are the weapons.

Bronwyn, a woman scorned, loses her honour, status, and her leg, and now the time has come to exact retribution.

Zanderin, a sorcerer bound to her, waves his magic over the attention seeking cards, each with a name attached, and every card becomes a symbol of doom. This is a cosmic deck, dealing in fate. Via his swift carriage, hooded and cloaked, he is the harbinger and assassin.

Terra meets her betrothed, Rhodry, when Zanderin gifts his first card. Rhodry and Zanderin are connected, and everyone linked to them is on Bronwyn’s list of names.

TINSAL is about bloodlines, secrets, and a controlled society. As the cards are dealt, death follows, until the endgame moves to Castle Tinsal itself.

Chapter 10

 HILL DWELLER

  

The simple pleasures are the greatest treasures.

~ The Sine Handbook

 

 

IN THE HILL COUNTRY, far beyond the Merripen’s and their landscaped garden, up in the slopes where mist hung, the kind that Terra favoured for romance and inspiration, there was a stone hut hidden amongst other stones, shaded by trees great and leafy all year.

Unless one knew of it, one would not find it.

Nearby, a waterfall tumbled into the wide river below, its thunderous cacophony serving to conceal the inadvertent noises which accompanied habitation.

An ancient axe hung above the skewed lintel, but its edge, upon close inspection, was revealed as sharp. Clearly someone did not trust to isolation alone.

Amaris knew this about the man who chose solitude in the back of this beyond. He trusted few. He chose this life rather than remain in the proximity of city hypocrites and rural socialites. Many would hang him in an instant; others believed him a legend. No one knew where he hid - for hiding it was; had she not told him thus many times?

She knew him, the real man behind the beard and cloud of unkempt hair, and she knew this place. A long time ago she brought him here for healing, a clandestine region known only to her family. She was the last who knew of it now; the family secret would die with her, and he would never reveal it either.

Breathless when she finally attained the plateau, she took a moment to confirm she had not been followed, setting the unwieldy basket down. A loud meow announced the cats survived the jostling.

“I’ll let you out now, darlings,” she whispered, trying to still her uneven breathing. She was unfit, not that fitness mattered at this point. She would be dead within the hour.

He was a shadow under the trees above the precipice. She caught movement, a shadow darker than others weaving through the trees, and knew he had marked her arrival. He would come when he was ready to face her.

Shaking her head over his stubborn waywardness, she knelt to undo the basket’s clasp. Moments later four felines stood with tails quivering upright, eyes darting. One was a slim black, another as white as the snows of winter, another was a striped ginger, the loudmouth of the quartet, and the last one was shiny grey, with the bluest cats’ eyes ever. He was the youngest, but also the boldest, and was already leader. He was her favourite, although she would never admit to playing favourites. He cared for his little family very well. The black was his brother, the white his mother, and the ginger was a stray who wandered into their country cottage one day and never left.

Much like the man in this rocky hideaway.

“Mist, go,” she coaxed.

The grey cocked a blue eye at her, his tail whisking from side to side, and then he stepped into the undergrowth. He did not look back, and her heart was heavy. The others followed, and they did look back. She barely swallowed a sob.

And then she sensed him behind her.

Slowly she turned.

Bright green eyes stare into hers. Green into green.

“Kell,” she sobbed, “I have come here to die.”

  

ZANDERIN HELD TWO CARDS up to the light.

Both were already bound to names upon Bronwyn’s whim. There would be consequences if he did not deliver as she expected. But here, now, there was an alteration in nuance she could not be aware of. Change he, too, was surprised by.

A choice lay before him. Did he modify nuance, and therefore the fates of all involved in this cosmic tarot Bronwyn of Tinsal had set her hard heart to? Or did he turn around and walk away, to pretend even to himself that he had not witnessed a dead man walking along a precipice?

How well the man managed to disappear. How enlightening.

His previous self, it appeared, had much in common with this particular man. Both of them managed to utterly vanish.

Kell Sindaland’s card went to his niece, Terra. She inherited the Arbiter because justice had to be served, but her card was also about virtue, for virtue was inherent in seeking the truth for justice to reign supreme. Never mind her skills of negotiation, though; had her virtue been compromised already? Society would say it was so, purely because she clambered without sanction into a stranger’s carriage, and no matter if that stranger was also her betrothed. In which scenario she deserved her card. On the other hand, a priest entered at the opportune moment. Perhaps her virtue could be argued for.

As once Bronwyn argued for hers.

And yet, whatever the dispute, Terra and the Arbiter were now bound and it could not be altered. Binding of such a nature should only be changed once. Or it was moot. Card. Name. Fate. Nuance.

Arbiter for Kell, first binding. Undone.

Now Arbiter for Terra, second binding. Entrenched. It was too late now to alter her fate.

That change of binding set a precedent, however, one even Bronwyn would hark to. A precedent Zanderin could now employ to save one man’s life … and thereby return the fate of death to one previously marked for it.

His choice now whether to allocate one of these two cards within his clasp to Kell Sindaland instead, thereby saving the life of the one it was originally marked for.

  

Earlier

THE WITCH AMARIS DID not see him.

He desired to witness how she would achieve her promised demise, and thus followed when she left her cottage lugging a basket filled with meowing cats. Their unhappy sounds masked his tread at first, as the trees hid him from her sharp gaze. She looked back repeatedly. Later he fell right back and employed his abilities to track her scent.

The climb nearly undid him. Too long now had he bent over scrolls and accruements. Little did he exercise his body the way he did his mind. Every gasping breath had been worth the result before him.

The cats had vanished.

And Amaris and Kell stared at each other as if they were of stone not flesh.

Were they lovers still?

  

Now

“ARE YOU ILL?” Kell asked in his gravelly tones.

He remained expressionless, although that could have something to do with her inability to read him, what with all that hair around.

Amaris inhaled breath for serenity. “No, I am not ill, but there is something very wrong in the ether of life at present. Bronwyn of Tinsal is on the warpath.”

He finally moved … to spread his hands wide. A gesture to say he could not care less. That was a war he had already fought.

She bit back an oath, knowing it would not aid her now. “I told you years ago that Zanderin intensifies his study of sorcery, and I also told you the day would come when she will use his new knowledge. Kell, that day has come. You know what happened the first time he unleashed it as an untried boy; imagine what he is capable of now.”

His palms, made rough in living off the land, lifted to tame his hair. From somewhere a leather thong appeared, and he tied the black cloud away from his face. Immediately his noble features leapt out. Kell Sindaland might be country born, but someone in his line of descent was pure royalty.

She caught her breath. He could still affect her.

Amaris had not met Lily Merripen, Kell’s older sister, but had no doubt that particular lady possessed patrician features also. She made a good marriage, after all, for a country born, and did it without a betrothal waiting in the wings.

“What is Zanderin up to?” Kell asked as he proceeded to tamp his long beard with firm strokes. “And why does that send you here to die?”

In answer she delved into her skirt’s pocket and came forth with her tarot card. She held it up. “I am marked. Rather than have Zanderin lay his hand or his weapon into me to kill me, I prefer to die in my way. Here, where there are no witnesses.”

He took the Visionary card from her, and stared at it. “I am here. A witness.”

“You must leave this place within the hour.”

Kell lifted his head. “No.”

“Yes. Your niece Terra, remember her? Beautiful, betrothed, with a bright future awaiting her? We spoke of her just last month. She is given a card in your stead. She stands in your place now as marked. If you have anything left there in that cold heart of yours, you will put an end to it.”

“Cosmic Tarot? Truly? This is an Al Kari myth and has no place in this narrow-minded society,” he rebutted.

“Not for Bronwyn. Not when Zanderin waves his crystals over them. And this may be an actual Al Kari deck and you must confirm that before confronting her.”

He gazed up into the sombre heaven. “I have no fucking intention of confronting that crazy bitch again.”

“Kell, I don’t think you have a choice but to do so.” Her tone was sad.

“Which card is for Terra?”

“Arbiter.”

He looked at her again, frowning. “Arbiter? A speaker, a negotiator … ah. Justice.” Silence ensued for a time as he mulled that over. “The fucking bitch. Amaris, how do you know any of this is fact?”

She snatched her card from him and slapped it against his chest. “This is a fact. Zanderin came to me earlier - fact. And as for the rest … well, he didn’t gift me the Visionary card for no reason, now did he? Whatever you choose to believe about the realms of sorcery, know now for a fact that I am a witch. I do see … I have seen.”

Kell took the card and tore it into pieces, and then he cursed, the kind of vitriolic expletives one usually associated with drunkards … and soldiers.

  

TWO CARDS. AND GIVEN where Sindaland was and how he was an unknown entity, only one could be named for him and thus become his.

Zanderin nodded, returning a card to his pocket, holding the chosen one up. Very well, it was time to employ precedent.

He placed the tarot selection at eye level against the trunk of a tree Kell Sindaland had to pass by if he was to descend his hill enclave for the flatness of society’s lands, and proceeded to hammer a nail into it.

Both nail and hammer were of sorcery.

As was the fresh binding.

Somewhere a man went on with his life, and would never know how close he came to time shortened. He would never now play Cosmic Tarot. Zanderin hoped the man did something with his second chance. He might check in on him a few years from now…

He tapped the card as he left, offering a smile to the peaks yonder. No need to stay, to witness. Amaris would keep her word. And Kell would leave here.

The Outsider suited him.

The Outsider was a card of contemplation, a man who desired peace and solitude. A lonely wanderer from places far away in abode and thought; clearly what Kell Sindaland sought to achieve when vanishing from society. He was not in this present seeking action or decision. There might be feelings of frustration and discontent in his withdrawal, but he no doubt hoped for illumination and clarity. He was an outsider.

The Outsider could also be a wise and inspirational person, someone to shine a light on matters cryptic and confusing; someone who saw issues in a manner that altered nuance. Kell Sindaland was a dangerous man.

Indeed, a fitting card.

T I N S A L