The Harrowing

Tomas smacked the table and stood up. “Great! Let’s get organized.” But Zellara interrupted him.

“Before you begin, would you allow me to perform a Harrow reading?” she asked. “There may be much we can learn from the cards, and it will also help align the spirit world with your quest, to gain their support.”

Everyone looked at each other. Given that Zellara had somehow managed to find all of them, and bring them together by somehow placing Harrow cards on their persons, no one was inclined to doubt the power of the Harrow in her hands. Tomas sat back down.

Zellara took her Harrow deck and began sorting it into its suits: Books, Crowns, Shields, Hammers, Keys, and Stars. Watching the way the cards seemed to dance and float in her hands, there was no doubt she had been doing this all her life. Once they were sorted, she placed each of the six stacks face-down on the table, closed her eyes, and let her hands float above the cards. She stopped above one stack. “Yes – the suit of Keys is what you need right now.” She turned over the cards and sure enough, they were the cards from the suit of Keys. She fanned the cards out face down and asked each person to choose one card. “The Choosing helps align the spirits to each of you individually, before we do a Reading for the group.”

Once everyone had drawn a card, she collected them back without comment, and shuffled the entire deck back together. “I will perform a simple nine-card Reading,” she explained as she suffled. “There will be three columns of three cards each. The first column will reveal the past, the second will describe the present, and the third will illuminate the future.

She passed the deck around the table, allowing each person to cut the cards. Then she held them in her hands, eyes closed and head back. Then she placed the deck in front of her and began turning cards over one by one, and placing them in orderly columns in the center of the table.

The first card showed some undead creature, its face a mask of madness. “The Lost,” she intoned. “It is a card of madness, of loss and emptiness. Your pasts are filled with inexplicable loss, and the world seems to make no sense. But this card, in this position, is misaligned – it’s meaning is changed, and it indicates that clarity of mind can come even under the worst duress.”

The next card showed a skeletal scarecrow, hanging above an impassable patch of briars. Zellara frowned. “The Tangled Briar is a card of ancient deeds. It is not about your pasts – something or someone from long ago is influencing events even today.

The last card in this column showed a large, humanoid crow, flanked by two thieves in bird-masks, hunched over a table full of gold. Zellara nodded. “The Crows is the classic card of murder and violent death, of shocking loss of that which is precious.”

“Together, these cards tell you little that you do not already know about your pasts – they are filled with senseless violence and death. But there is more that has happened that has not yet been revealed, things that are in motion of which you are not yet aware. Let us move on to the present.”

Zellara began laying down a new column of cards. The first showed a man in rags, raising his arms to the blazing sun as the chains on his wrists are shattered. “The Big Sky signifies an epic moment is at hand – an omen of momentous change.” She laid down the next card, a picture of a landslide sweeping away everything in its path. “The Avalanche! This portends disaster, an unthinking, unreasoning thing that overruns all who get in its way. It could be a natural disaster, like an earthquake or storm, or a panicked crowd or furious mob.” She laid down the final card, a peddler in exotic costume. “The Foreign Trader. This is a card of spies and merchants alike – it warns of bargains that have consequences unforeseen by those who make them.”

Zellara stared at the cards intently. “I am not sure what to make of these cards. They hint at things that seem to go far beyond your current quest. I fear that things are happening, or are about to happen, that will sweep you up in their wake.”

She paused for a moment, deep in thought. “Let us see what we can learn of the future.” She laid down the first of the third column of cards. It showed a blue dragon wrapped around a globe, its talons tearing bleeding holes in its surface. “The Tyrant represents someone who does harm to those over whom he holds sway”

“Like Gaedren Lamm,” Shadow whispered.

“Perhaps,” Zellara agreed, “and in this case, the card is misaligned – it indicates that the tyrant can be overthrown.” She laid down another card, this one showing an alligator-like creature in fancy dress, sitting on the back of a slave. Jax gasped. “It’s Gobblegut!” he whispered.

“This card is The Rakshasa,” Zellara explained. “The creature sitting on the back of a slave represents an exterior force imposing itself upon another. This might represent literal slavery, or it could suggest mental or emotional domination.” She turned over the final card. It showed the ghost of a king hovering above a prince weeping at a tomb. “The Empty Throne. It is the card of loss. It says that those who are lost will be with us always, and that they can teach us important lessons if we choose to listen. But here, the card is misaligned. The loss brings bad tidings, not lessons, and the ghosts of the past are restless.”

Zellara looked up from her Reading, her brow furrowed. “Often the messages of the cards are clear to me, but these leave me troubled. The cards’ tidings of the future are especially unsettling. I wish I could tell you more, but the Reading is cloudy.”

“I’ll tell you what I heard,” snorted Wren. “Things were bad in the past, they’re bad right now, and they’re going to be bad in the future. Tell me something I didn’t already know about my life. Death, disaster, and slavery – that sounds just lovely.”