Motel Six. Washington State. Not far from the coast.
The car stops. It's electric; it runs on water.
Of course, that could describe almost everything in the vicinity. This is the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest electric-power producing facility in the world. To stand before the titanic concrete structure, to feel the hum and roar that goes up from the whirling turbines and the chained spirit of the King Columbia, forced into servitude on his merry way to the coast, is to stand in the shadow of the might of man's works.
(And so fell Lord Perth, and the countryside did shake with his thunder.)
The driver of the car is a small, compact woman with honey-colored skin and amber eyes as sharp and mellow as a glass of good whiskey. Beside her is a man from the Colville Tribes Administration. He's here as an observer, and because he's one of a group of small handful of people, most of them but not all First Nations, who can find the damn crack to begin with.
She's sixty-one years. Sitting now in the back of the car she objects to the whole business. Her heart is like a fist. She's in an ancient leather jacket, battered beyond belief, one sleeve empty. She's black, or so she thinks of herself these days, with wavy hair the color of iron, bound tight in a bun. The windows are tinted and give her back her own face and her face gives away nothing at all. The driver opens the door and she goes into the dam.
Into the crack.
And so, at last, in your despair... you come to me.
"Sometimes you're right," says the woman with one arm. "Mostly you aren't. Or we can't understand you. But we have to roll the dice now. We need to know what's happening."
What's happening? echoes the voice in the darkness. It's a man's voice, high and a little wheedling, with a touch of music in it.
"Things got out of hand," she says. Her other woman doesn't flinch, but her eyes darken. "We had to use the an-cal in a big way. The government is pushing hard and they're getting squirrelly. They say we have to..." She trails off.
"I need to know the future."
Eyes move in the dark; flick up to the girl. Neverborn, it says, calm, and she starts forward, but when her mother holds up her hand, she stills herself.
Patient: You think I'm crazy. The hand comes out of the shadows and lays a deck of cards on the cement floor. They're small and cheap cardboard, with a grey checkerboard pattern on the back. But I'm just growing old.
The gunslinger lowers herself to the ground, painfully. She, too, is growing old. He lays a card in the center. THE ROSE. He passes over it without explanation. The next card goes in the corner. An ill-favored man.
The Apache. So many thugs and murderers with clubs in their hands, gunslinger! Now it's the man from the Administration Office's turn to darken.
Next corner. The World. It shows a woman with a banner, nude, standing on the firmament. We are the foundations of the Earth. His fingers touch the corners, the weird figures blowing winds into the center. Matthew, Mary, Luke and John. Gone but not forgotten.
Next corner. The Shipwrecked Sailor, reversed. The card is upside down; the blonde man with eyes like pearls, clinging to the wreckage, drawn into the whirlpool, now looks like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, riding her besom through the vortex. But who throws out the line, gunslinger? Answer me that!
He goes on, not waiting for any reply.
The Crown. There's only two kinds of evil in this world, gunslinger. She--
The hand fists.
We see but in part, and thus is the mirror of prophecy darkened. None of this is what it seems.
"Go on," the gunslinger says, her voice low and toneless.
There are other worlds than these, mutters the voice in the shadows. O lost, and by the wind grieved.
"Go on," she says again, with command in her voice, and he does.
He lays the last card over the rose. The web. The net. It's drawn over the world, gunslinger, and it's closing. You are surrounded by enemies. I cannot tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
But the words on the card say THE SPIDER, and his finger strays to the corner, where the spider lurks, a ball of black with tiny red gleaming eyes. It is not sleeping. It is not lazy.
It's very hungry. And it's VERY angry. The finger trembles.
"There's one more," the gunslinger says, and the hand slips back into the shadows.
Plaintive: You won't like it.
"Go on."
THE LOVERS. True love, gunslinger, says the voice, defeated. Two girls, one dark and one light. But not for you.
She begins to move, rising fast, almost crossing into the darkness, and the girl's hand closes tightly on one shoulder. It has only three fingers. "Mia."
I told you you wouldn't like it, sighs the voice. I'm only a messenger.
They get up to leave. Wait! it calls desperately. Let me go, please. I helped you. I'm lost and between but I did what I could so let me go! Something hits the darkess with a desperate thud, like a bird flying into its own reflection.
Let me be relased! You have that power.
Alice Bailey looks back, murder in her hazel eyes. "Never," she spits. "Never for you."
There's something like a sob in the shadows, but the gunslinger is unmoved.
"You know what you did. And you will stay here and you will pay. Until the ends of the world."
Please.
They go, Alice Bailey telling her daughter to call the House of Arch, to check on the balloon, to get ahold of Taos and--
There's not much time left.
Of course, that could describe almost everything in the vicinity. This is the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest electric-power producing facility in the world. To stand before the titanic concrete structure, to feel the hum and roar that goes up from the whirling turbines and the chained spirit of the King Columbia, forced into servitude on his merry way to the coast, is to stand in the shadow of the might of man's works.
(And so fell Lord Perth, and the countryside did shake with his thunder.)
The driver of the car is a small, compact woman with honey-colored skin and amber eyes as sharp and mellow as a glass of good whiskey. Beside her is a man from the Colville Tribes Administration. He's here as an observer, and because he's one of a group of small handful of people, most of them but not all First Nations, who can find the damn crack to begin with.
She's sixty-one years. Sitting now in the back of the car she objects to the whole business. Her heart is like a fist. She's in an ancient leather jacket, battered beyond belief, one sleeve empty. She's black, or so she thinks of herself these days, with wavy hair the color of iron, bound tight in a bun. The windows are tinted and give her back her own face and her face gives away nothing at all. The driver opens the door and she goes into the dam.
Into the crack.
And so, at last, in your despair... you come to me.
"Sometimes you're right," says the woman with one arm. "Mostly you aren't. Or we can't understand you. But we have to roll the dice now. We need to know what's happening."
What's happening? echoes the voice in the darkness. It's a man's voice, high and a little wheedling, with a touch of music in it.
"Things got out of hand," she says. Her other woman doesn't flinch, but her eyes darken. "We had to use the an-cal in a big way. The government is pushing hard and they're getting squirrelly. They say we have to..." She trails off.
"I need to know the future."
Eyes move in the dark; flick up to the girl. Neverborn, it says, calm, and she starts forward, but when her mother holds up her hand, she stills herself.
Patient: You think I'm crazy. The hand comes out of the shadows and lays a deck of cards on the cement floor. They're small and cheap cardboard, with a grey checkerboard pattern on the back. But I'm just growing old.
The gunslinger lowers herself to the ground, painfully. She, too, is growing old. He lays a card in the center. THE ROSE. He passes over it without explanation. The next card goes in the corner. An ill-favored man.
The Apache. So many thugs and murderers with clubs in their hands, gunslinger! Now it's the man from the Administration Office's turn to darken.
Next corner. The World. It shows a woman with a banner, nude, standing on the firmament. We are the foundations of the Earth. His fingers touch the corners, the weird figures blowing winds into the center. Matthew, Mary, Luke and John. Gone but not forgotten.
Next corner. The Shipwrecked Sailor, reversed. The card is upside down; the blonde man with eyes like pearls, clinging to the wreckage, drawn into the whirlpool, now looks like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, riding her besom through the vortex. But who throws out the line, gunslinger? Answer me that!
He goes on, not waiting for any reply.
The Crown. There's only two kinds of evil in this world, gunslinger. She--
The hand fists.
We see but in part, and thus is the mirror of prophecy darkened. None of this is what it seems.
"Go on," the gunslinger says, her voice low and toneless.
There are other worlds than these, mutters the voice in the shadows. O lost, and by the wind grieved.
"Go on," she says again, with command in her voice, and he does.
He lays the last card over the rose. The web. The net. It's drawn over the world, gunslinger, and it's closing. You are surrounded by enemies. I cannot tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
But the words on the card say THE SPIDER, and his finger strays to the corner, where the spider lurks, a ball of black with tiny red gleaming eyes. It is not sleeping. It is not lazy.
It's very hungry. And it's VERY angry. The finger trembles.
"There's one more," the gunslinger says, and the hand slips back into the shadows.
Plaintive: You won't like it.
"Go on."
THE LOVERS. True love, gunslinger, says the voice, defeated. Two girls, one dark and one light. But not for you.
She begins to move, rising fast, almost crossing into the darkness, and the girl's hand closes tightly on one shoulder. It has only three fingers. "Mia."
I told you you wouldn't like it, sighs the voice. I'm only a messenger.
They get up to leave. Wait! it calls desperately. Let me go, please. I helped you. I'm lost and between but I did what I could so let me go! Something hits the darkess with a desperate thud, like a bird flying into its own reflection.
Let me be relased! You have that power.
Alice Bailey looks back, murder in her hazel eyes. "Never," she spits. "Never for you."
There's something like a sob in the shadows, but the gunslinger is unmoved.
"You know what you did. And you will stay here and you will pay. Until the ends of the world."
Please.
They go, Alice Bailey telling her daughter to call the House of Arch, to check on the balloon, to get ahold of Taos and--
There's not much time left.