To you, your repute may seem minor, the thing flashed. But to me, a Slash of Andromeda 2,500 years of Sol after your time, there is no greater name than Sib—than Brother Paul. You are the creator of the Cluster Tarot, one of the great forces in the shaping of the contemporary scene.
Cluster Tarot? Brother Paul did not place that one. Surely some misunderstanding there. For the moment, another matter was more pressing: the time span. Two thousand five hundred years after his time? That would be about the year 4,500! And this was a sapient creature of another galaxy, Andromeda! What a jump he had taken! "But who are you, friend? I can't just call you Slash, can I?"
I am Herald the Healer—though I am in sore need of healing myself!
"Ah, heraldry," Brother Paul said. "I have often admired the herald's art, though I supposed that would be forgotten in your century, if indeed it can really be known in Andromeda."
It survives, it flourishes, Herald flashed. Especially in your Cluster Tarot.
Brother Paul shook off the misplaced reference again. "No matter. Come, creature of the future: let us explore together. Where are we, and what is our purpose?"
And the Andromedan explained: he had been injured during a visit to the Planet Mars of System Sol in Segment Etamin in Galaxy Milky Way of the Cluster—injured by a laser strike from an enemy spaceship. He had been dug out of the rubble and taken to something called a Tarot Temple where they practiced Animation Therapy to reconstitute minds. Herald had conjured Brother Paul from the distant past to aid in this reorientation.
Did that mean that Herald of Andromeda was the real person while Brother Paul himself was a figment of the imagination of an entity 2,500 years yet uncreated? That was a difficult concept to accept completely! "I suffer from some confusion," Brother Paul said, feeling dizzy.
The Andromedan flashed a laser beam on him, and Brother Paul abruptly felt more secure. Apparently he could exist in this framework so long as his companion believed in him. After all, he had visited the human colony in the Hyades, in Sphere Nath, three hundred years after his time; this was merely a greater extension of that mechanism. What do you wish to know, Sibling Patriarch?
"Just call me Brother, if you don't mind." Brother Paul cast about for a suitable starting point to enable him to relate to this alien properly. "Let's start with this: why did you conjure a human being instead of a creature of your own type?" What did he really wish to know? Everything—but it was obviously not his purpose here to aggrandize his personal curiosity. Not directly at any rate. He had been on a quest for the future of Tarot, but that had to wait; his human conscience would not allow him to neglect an entity in need.
I loved a female, of your species, the creature confessed.
This absolute alien loved a human girl? How was this possible? But Brother Paul concealed his confusion. "So did I, so did I! There is nothing like a sweet, pretty girl is there!"
Nothing in the Cluster! Herald agreed. I was in Solarian host, and she—
Solarian—that would be a creature associated with the star Sol—or a human being. And host—but better not to make assumptions. The way of Antares might not be that of Andromeda. "Let's start just a little further back," Brother Paul said. "This matter of—Solarian hosts?"
After your time, Herald said. Naturally you have not encountered it. Today we shift from body to body, since our identities are incarnate in our auras. Transfer the aura—perhaps you call it soul—and—
Confirmation! "The soul! You can move souls from body to body?"
We can. We do, Brother. Though I am a Slash of Andromeda, I can inhabit the body of one of your kind. In that form, I naturally react in the manner of—
"Ah, yes. As a human being, you could take an interest in a human girl. Sorry I was slow to grasp your meaning. No doubt if I were to occupy a Slash body, I would pay similar respects to Slash females." That seemed impossible; he could not at the moment imagine an animate light-emitting disk harrow with sex appeal. But intellectually he could concede the validity of the concept. "Yet you are of completely different species, so no lasting emotion exists—
On the contrary! Aural love is absolute..
"Love is the Law—Love under Will," Brother Paul agreed—then paused, realizing that that was what Therion liked to say. Was Herald the Slash another manifestation of Therion ready to lead him into yet another aspect of Hell? Alien miscegenation, Slash breeding with Human?
No, it did not matter. Brother Paul had survived this much of Hell and perhaps been somewhat cleansed. He was not about to be led into further compromise. He would do what was right because it was right. If Herald were an aspect of Therion—well, who needed help more than Therion did? In fact, with the retrospect of several thousand years, he could not even call Therion evil; in the fourteenth century roles had been reversed with Lee playing the persecutor and Therion the persecutee. How did that little saying go? "There's so much good in the worst of us, and bad in the best of us, it ill behooves the most of us to talk about the rest of us." Whoever had said that had really understood human nature. Therion had a lot of good in him, many admirable qualities despite some appalling lapses. And surely Satan was cauterizing out those lapses by forcing him to play the role of an insane king...
With that reconciliation of attitude, Brother Paul felt an exhilaration akin to Redemption. He had learned something by his experience in Hell. He had learned caution in judging, lest he be judged himself. Maybe in time he would master the art of forgiveness that he preached.
Love is the Law—Love under Will, Herald echoed in pretty flashes. I do not know whether that is a universal truth, but it is true for me. I suffer grievously the loss of my Solarian bride. Life means little to me without her.
"Tell me more about this," Brother Paul urged. "I do not know how I can help, but I will do what I can."
I cannot face it directly, yet.
"Approach it obliquely," Brother Paul said. "You summoned me—"
Yes. I was flashing through the Cluster Tarot Triumphs in order, in the standard reorientation program, and—
There it was again. Maybe he was here to learn the future of Tarot. If his own quest related to Herald's problem, he should check it out. "I am familiar with a number of versions of the Tarot deck, but not this 'Cluster' you mention. Does it most nearly relate to the Waite, or Thoth, or Light, or—?"
I know nothing of these names. It is the one you created on Planet Tarot. Don't you remember?
Brother Paul shook his head. "I have created no deck, except in the sense that I may have expurgated the original Waldens' deck to protect—"
Perhaps you called it by another name. It may be that it was termed Cluster after your death.
Brother Paul thought about that. He had not yet finished his life; he could not speak for what he might do in later years if he survived the Animation sequence. He was dissatisfied with conventional Tarot decks, including that of the Holy Order of Vision. Only the original Waldens deck suited him now, and that one had been lost to the world since 1392, though there was no longer any reason for it to be hidden.
It burst upon him like the Vision of Saint Paul: he could restore the Waldens deck and give it back to the world! He could undo the damage he had done, now that the world was safe for genuine Tarot. "That so-called Cluster deck—does it have five suits?"
Certainly.
"And thirty Triumphs? One hundred cards in all?"
You remember it now! That is the one. And the Ghost has fifteen alternate faces, for those who require forty-four Triumphs or an extra suit.
Fifteen faces for the Ghost card? That did not match the Waldens' deck! Still, the puzzle seemed to have been partly solved. "I believe what happened was that I restored the original Tarot, and later generations elaborated and retitled it. I deserve no credit for creating it; that belongs to the anonymous people six hundred years before my time. And I have nothing to do with any temple."
My knowledge of ancient history in alien Spheres is inexact, Herald said di
plomatically. But I am certain you are the Founder.
And who could say what might be attributed to him after his death when he could not protest? Pointless to discuss it further. "I came here to assist in your problem, not mine. What is most meaningful to you?"
There was some confusion, but in due course the Andromedan nerved himself to respond. You ask what is meaningful to me? It is my Solarian child bride, burned for possession, though innocent—
"Possession? Of what? A proscribed drug?"
Of alien aura.
"Oh. You said it was possible to transfer the soul from one body to another." This would have made very little sense if he hadn't interviewed Antares! "And some souls—some auras are not permitted in some bodies—some hosts? So they punish—"
Abruptly Herald projected the image of a castle: a medieval edifice of Earth complete with turrets and a moat as big as a lake. It was very like the structure Brother Paul had sought in the first Animation. This one was under siege with strange wheeled creatures driving along a gravel ramp or fill extending from one shore across the water toward the outer wall.
"The Tower of Truth!" Brother Paul breathed. "Or is it the Dungeon of Wrong?"
The Slash did not respond directly. The view expanded. The effect was of flying across the lake and into the forbidding island fortress. More soul travel!
In the central courtyard was a great bonfire—and in that fire, suspended from a bar, was a lovely nude young girl. The flames were leaping up around her legs which she vainly tried to lift out of the heat.
Her skin was an alien tint of green or blue, but her features were immediately familiar. "Carolyn!" Brother Paul gasped in sudden anguish. His daughter!
Herald flashed at him questioningly, and Brother Paul realized that the Slash did not perceive the same identity. The girl was not, could not be, the original Carolyn; she would have lived and died in the twenty-first century. Yet this was her surrogate, perhaps her far future descendent, his Daughter-image, the innocent child. Here she had grown to early nubility—as well she might in twenty-five centuries!—and she was beautiful. If her character matched what Brother Paul had known, it was no wonder Herald had loved her. To know her was to love her, whatever the situation! Brother Paul himself loved her—but that was not competitive with Herald's love; it was the natural complement.
But such conjecture was a waste of thought in the present crisis. "This was real?" Brother Paul demanded, appalled by the flames, the obvious and horrible torture. Carolyn—in the flames of Hell! Had Satan lied to him, sparing her from the sacrificial knife at the Black Mass only to claim her in this far worse fashion? "In this far future, this age of intergalactic empire and the concourse of myriad sapient species via the miracle of the transfer of auras, this happens?" Yet obviously it did.
Oh, help me, Patriarch! She is my beloved!
The image disappeared, perhaps abolished by Brother Paul's own revulsion. Patriarch? If he were sure that any descendant of his would perish barbarically, chained in flames, he would never beget the line! "In the face of such a loss, there is little I can offer except my own grief." But that would not solve anything! He tried to continue: "Though I hope there is some feasible way for you to find relief." How utterly, inanely callous he sounded—yet if he had spoken the way he felt, it would have been a cry of simple pain and horror: oh, Satan, you saved your worst torture until last!
Then show it me! the creature flashed. This Healer needs healing!
Show him—yet what was there? How could death itself be negated? Especially when Brother Paul was only visiting this time as an incorporeal aura. "Perhaps a Tarot reading would help."
This is the Temple of Tarot. But no mere Animation can satisfy me long, I need reality, not illusion.
An interesting comment in this situation. Brother Paul had traversed so many levels of illusion he was not sure whether he would ever recover reality. Still, he had to believe that some things were constant, and the Andromedan had a good, solid orientation. "The Tarot reveals reality. Shall we try a spread?"
The Cluster Satellite Spread is best.
"I haven't heard of that one. Suppose you describe it, and I'll lay it out." Brother Paul found a deck of cards in his hand. He shuffled them, resisting the temptation to look at their faces. What was important was that they related to Herald's need, and he was sure they did.
Deal them into five piles, the Slash flashed. The piles signify DO, THINK, FEEL, HAVE and BE.
Brother Paul dealt them out face down. What an interesting set of representations! Surely they matched the five suits, which in the Waldens deck stood for WORK, TROUBLE, LOVE, MONEY, and SPIRIT. In the popularized version, anyway, that matched the superficial titles. The fundamental meanings were much closer to those Herald had listed. He had seen how they also equated to the medieval elements of society: Peasant, Soldier, Priest, Merchant, and the whole class of rootless people like entertainers, gypsies (who had not actually come on the European scene by 1392), and criminals. It was an intellectual challenge to line things up by fives. The Rhine experiments had used five symbols; did these also match the Tarot suits? Square, circle, cross, star, and wavy lines. The wavy lines obviously stood for water or the suit of Cups; the circle was a disk or Coin; the cross would be a Sword. But the square, now—well, four sticks, clubs, or scepters could form a square, so that might be the suit of Wands. And the star, like the Star of Bethlehem, signaling the location of the holy spirit of Jesus—that would be Aura. Somewhat forced, maybe, but still—
He had come to the end of the cards. Now they were in five piles, twenty cards to a pile. The mode of this new layout came to him. "Your Significator, the card that most nearly represents you—that should be the King of Aura." For he was abruptly aware that Herald the Healer had a phenomenal aura; he could feel it impinging on his own. Not since Jesus Christ had he experienced its like. Perhaps that was what had really reached out across the millennia to summon him. "We must locate that card."
You are of equivalent aura yourself—as of course you would be, the Andromedan flashed.
Antares had said the same. Extremely high aura—that notion jogged something. Something highly significant. There must be a fundamental connection between aura and Animation—
Then the card came up, breaking the chain of thought. "Here it is in Pile Two: THINK. In my terms, TROUBLE or MAGIC, that I'm sure has metamorphosed in your day to SCIENCE."
But my problem is FEEL, Herald protested.
"Perhaps the Tarot is telling you that the solution lies in your thinking rather than in your emotion. We can at least explore the possibilities." But privately he doubted. What mode of thinking could justify the burning of an innocent young woman? "Now how does this 'Cluster' spread go?"
Following Herald's directions, Brother Paul formed the layout. He started with the Significator, crossed it with Definition, and followed with cards to the South, West, North, and East, forming a cross. "Past, Present, Future, and Destiny," Brother Paul murmured, appreciating the simplicity of it. "Modified Celtic layout."
Celtic? the Andromedan flashed, perplexed.
"A spread of my day, having little if anything to do with the historical Celts. This spread of yours seems to be oriented on fives, and it rather appeals to me. The spreads of my day may have been less precise." But again he was dubious; how could five cards define a problem as aptly as ten or twenty cards?
Brother Paul considered the cards he had dealt. The Significator was crossed by the Three of Aura, labeled Perspective or Experience. Because it was sidewise, he could not tell which aspect dominated; probably both applied. Regardless, it was relevant. The card in the PAST location was—
Brother Paul paused, amazed and gratified. "Ah, the vanity of the flesh!" For the card was Vision, eighteenth Triumph in the Waldens' deck, and it was illustrated by the scene he had visited from The Vision of Piers Plowman. He must have had a hand in this, for though that classic was contemporary with the Waldenses in the fourteenth century, the Wa
ldens' Tarot had not used this particular illustration. He could not remember now what they had used, but not this. He must have successfully re-created the deck, drawing at least to some extent on his own experiences.
Half bemused by his growing awareness of his own complicity in the shaping of this deck, Brother Paul moved on through the Cluster Satellite Spread, tracing Herald's problem. Yet revealing as the messages of the cards might be to the Andromedan, they spoke with perhaps even greater eloquence to Brother Paul himself. For these cards were not as a rule illustrated by medieval scenes; the court cards were alien creatures and the Triumphs—
He was unable to grasp or retain the whole of the illustrations for the Triumphs. Many related to concepts that seemed not to exist in his own framework, though they obviously derived from the basic notions of the Waldenses. Here in Animation the cards became mind-stretching aspects of the future universe, and all he could do was absorb as much of it as possible without critical examination. His assimilation came in diverse gouts, but the overall picture was roughly this:
After the Fool period of mankind's history the expansion of Sphere Sol slowed, stabilizing at a radius of about a hundred light years. The farthest human settlement was Planet Outworld whose people were green; the King of Swords had a picture of Flint of Outworld, a high-aura native of this facet. But the Tarot in its multiple variations continued to expand explosively, knowing no Spherical or species boundaries. The Animation effect of Planet Tarot was exported to other planets, though it was proscribed by Sphere Sol. The Tarot symbols took on four dimensional attributes that multiplied the effectiveness of divinatory readings. Alien missionaries carried Animation Tarot across the Milky Way Galaxy. Most Spheres adopted variations of the 100 card Cluster deck, but some used the 78 card decks or other sizes. Temples of Tarot were established among the wheeled Polarians (78 cards), and the swimming Spicans (100 cards), and the musical Mintakans (114 cards, counting the variations of the Ghost). In just a few short centuries Tarot ranged thousands of light years, coming to dominate the culture of the great conglomeration of species that formed the mighty interstellar empire called Segment Qaval, whose dominant sapients resembled nothing so much as vertical crocodiles. Then Tarot leaped a million light years to Galaxy Andromeda and Galaxy Pinwheel. Sophisticated interstellar organizations drew on Tarot for symbols, such as the Society of Hosts whose card was Temperance: the soul or aura being transferred from the living vessel of one host to another. Indeed, the proper designation for that card was Transfer. In a devious but compelling sense, Tarot helped organize the entire local Cluster of galaxies.
Anthony, Piers - Tarot 3 - Faith of Tarot Page 18
