Book 2 Ch 31: Ascendance

To rise in parliament is to become a target. To fall in parliament is to become a failure.

• High Minister Proust

The next few days passed by less eventfully. There were some more scattered visions and Solomon continued to decipher the journals, but there wasn’t much of note. The visions provided only brief glimpses between dreams and now that his uncle had mana his journals mostly dealt with his experimentation with different spells and the accumulation of knowledge. It had some value, but he didn’t exactly list the spells as one would in a grimoire. He simply named them and described their use, which didn’t provide Solomon with much to work off of.

There was one more Arcana meeting before he’d arrive in Manacht, and he very carefully drew the sigils necessary for his joining it. Once he was done, he pushed his mana into the circle.

There was a moment of blackness, and then he found himself standing in the grand ballroom of the Arcana.

The space was louder and seemed to be much more full than usual. He saw all manner of lesser arcana milling about and among them he was surprised to see that the Major Arcana all seemed to be in the ballroom as well. He’d grown used to seeing them looking down at them from above, so the sight of them among their lessers surprised him.

He saw the empress surrounded by a number of lesser arcana that were laughing or nodding emphatically at everything she said. The Lovers were lounging on a couch and being fed grapes by what looked to be Ten of Wands. The Magician, Judgement, and The Devil were all gathered together, speaking while the lesser arcana all orbited them, too afraid to join in. Death stood alone in a corner, looking out at everyone with her empty eye sockets.

Aside from those he recognized, there were several he didn’t. He saw a man wearing fine silk robes and a crown that seemed to be carved from a single ruby, and a sceptre in his hand. He was being attended by the Queen of Cups and the King of Wands, who leaned forward to hear his every utterance as if it was the word of a god. A woman with a halo of shifting arcane symbols and a number of magical flying creatures was floating idly through the air above everyone else, seemingly ignoring them, and another man sat on a throne in the corner with a sphinx on either side of him. A lesser Arcana would approach him and he would simply vanish, reappearing in another corner with a smirk on his face.

Solomon walked along the edges toward the pillar where he saw the Knight of Pentacles already in her usual spot, but stopped and turned toward Death. He approached her without caution or hesitation, drawing eyes and whispers as he did so.

When her eyeless gaze turned to him he could swear he saw the faintest hint of amusement in the tilt of her head.

“Death,” he said with a respectful nod.

“Page,” she responded and with the one word he confirmed that hers was the voice of the necromancer he saw in his vision.

“Things seem a bit more lively today,” he said, gesturing to the rest of the room.

“Aside from my little corner here, yes.” She looked him up and down. “You’ve had quite the meteoric rise haven’t you? And even beyond that I can sense some other changes as well. Your mana… it’s developing a very particular feel to it.”

She lifted a hand and moved it toward him, he stayed still watching as it passed through the mana that made up his body.

“The kind of changes that only come from being near to death.”

“Would you be willing to let me know what’s going on?”

She laughed, a surprisingly light sound coming from a hollow skull.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“Go. You will get no information from me, but you’ll know soon enough anyway.”

He nodded respectfully and walked away, moving back toward where the Knight of Pentacles was waiting for him.

“Page,” she said with a nod.

“Knight,” he responded, leaning against the wall next to her.

“Courting Death?” she asked with a hint of amusement in her voice.

“I don’t believe that I’m her type,” he responded with a wistful sigh. “I was mostly attempting to see what was going on.”

“Why not ask me first?”

“Do you know?”

“No, but I have some guesses.”

“Such as?”

“I believe we’re about to have another request from the Major Arcana. Like the hunt for Brogdan I told you about. I also believe they may be ascending someone to the Major Arcana. It’s been some time, but I’ve heard whispers that all of the other Major Arcana usually attempt to attend when that happens. Us lesser Arcana simply get an additional nudge from The World to attend.”

“I felt no such nudge.”

“You attend every meeting anyway, as do I. Some of our more scholarly peers though have a tendency to forget.”

Solomon looked thoughtfully out at the group.

“Who do you think is ascending?”

“I have a guess, but they likely won’t let us know until later, if that’s what’s going on at all.”

“And you don’t care to share your guess?”

“I’ll let you know for a silver.”

“I’m afraid you’ve already drained me dry.”

She chuckled. “I don’t believe you have the capacity to be a poor man.”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

She shook her head. “Some simply can’t fall that far from the heights at which they stand. Certainly they can reach what they consider poor, but true destitution eludes them.”

“You presume quite a lot about me.”

“What else have we to do here but trade magics and speculate about one another?”

He nodded, taking her point, and excused himself to the ledger room. He gave a quick glance at what was being offered, and after he found nothing that interested him he shifted to see if anyone had responded to his own requests. While the request for information on using ancestral weapons while not of the required bloodline was unmarked, the request for an advanced list of runes and sigils had been. He smiled, making a note to have each of the spells written out for The Seven of Pentacles when he left the meeting. With a greater understanding of sigils and runes he could finally make progress on unraveling the purpose of the markings on the suit of armor, the repository access spell, and whatever the extra sigils his uncle had worked into the mana transference spell were.

He had his guesses for all of them. The mana transference he guessed had been something to smooth out the initial transition that he’d struggled with. As there was overlap with the spell for accessing the arcana and the one for accessing the repository he assumed it was a piece of animancy. The suit of armor had something to do with blood, that was one that most eluded his understanding.

Just as he was leaving the ledger room he felt a kind of vibration in his mana form. It was softer than when the meeting was ending, but clearly an indication that something was about to happen.

He moved out into the hall, and found everyone assembling before a stage that had not existed a moment before. The Major Arcana were all arrayed in a line with the Magician in the center of them all. Some spaces between each of them were empty, either for major tarot spaces that had not been occupied or for those that had died, Solomon was uncertain.

Solomon went to stand next to the Knight of Pentacles, and just as he and a few other stragglers arrived the magician raised his hand and there was silence. Not people quieting from the gesture, just instant magical silence.

The Magician cast his glowing gaze across all of them, runes bleeding off his form in myriad colors as he moved his head from left to right.

“The major Arcana today have the privilege of welcoming someone to our ranks. She is well known to you as a capable and generous member of our organization. She has recently demonstrated a piece of spellcraft, an alchemy unlike any we have seen. As such, we are pleased to welcome the Queen of Pentacles to the Major Arcana.”

He gestured, and behind him stood the Queen of Pentacles. She had a solemn smile behind her mask. Solomon wasn’t certain, but she seemed to look younger than when he’d last spoken with her. There were no lines on her face and there was a greater brightness to her eyes that could not be explained away only by excitement. He guessed that that was what she accomplished, some kind of concoction to restore youth and vigor.

The magician stepped toward her and held an open palm in front of her face.

“The Queen of Pentacles is no more. From here on, you shall be known as Temperance.”

The mana that made up the Queen of Pentacles began to brighten and shift. Where she’d stood before as a queen, she now had great red wings extending from her back and a halo of gold. Around her floated two cups that poured neverending red liquid from one to the other. From where Solomon was looking, he couldn’t tell from which cup the liquid originated.

There was applause from both the major and lesser arcana as Temperance flared her wings, her youthful smile widening.