The Blind at the Crossroads

Lara stepped across creaking wood into the heart of the old shack. She didn’t want to be there as much as any person who’d come before her hadn’t wanted to be there. Here, in the old and rotting shack lived an oracle, a witch, a collector, really a woman known as many things by many different people. Lara preferred the name that was most true and just so happened to be what the woman called herself. Scavenger. The only true disciple of the rotting god, she had built a home for herself in the rotting remains of what might have been a bakery once. Both Scavenger and the building she occupied were tied to their god’s power and as such the place had gained a rather ominous reputation when it blinked out of existence and appeared somewhere else.  

Perhaps she hated the place because of what she knew about it, unsettling shop keeper and twisted god. Maybe she just couldn’t stand it because being surrounded by ghosts was a terrible feeling. Half rusted clocks stood waiting on countertops, their hands stuck at the precise time that damage and death had struck. Books with burned or eaten away pages lined shelves. The entire air hummed with magic from all over the world. Scavenger, a name fit for a servant of a god of decay, collecting all that might be valuable from fallen cities, temples, and villages that Deran wished to visit.  

Eventually the reason that Lara was here in this horrid place wandered back to her. The brown, half-blind, cat winding around her legs before hoping up onto the counter that Lara was resting against. It inclined its head toward her and looked back to where they both knew Scavenger was waiting. She knew, the thing that had once been human eons ago, whenever something or someone entered her shop. The thing liked waiting, entreating her visitors to admit to what they were seeking help from. Lara scowled at the cat. She straightened, still bracing her hands on the counter top.

“Come out!” She called, “I know you’re waiting.”

Without pretense the woman appeared, as though she had been tucking away stray pieces of paper and candle stubs. Of course, she wasn’t as menacing as stories made her out to be but that didn’t make her any less unsettling. Lara took in the long white hair that was gathered on top of her head, her bronze skin that seemed to glow just a little with life, the clothes she wore that were almost pristine, and the grace to her movements. Scavenger smiled when she set eyes on Lara, it pronounced the small white and pink flowers blooming on one side of her face. Lara did not smile back nor did she allow enough space in the silence for Scavenger to fill with the idle pleasantries she enjoyed. Lara suspected it made her feel more human.  

“I need a reading done,” She said stiffly.

The other woman smiled a bit wider, “Well it is good to see you too, after all this time. What type of reading dear? There are so many.”

“One with cards should be fine, I don’t need anything too specific.” 

The cat had shifted away from Scavenger when it had appeared and now dug it’s claws into the near flesh of Lara’s arm. It’s displeasure obvious. She moved her arm away, let the god do whatever it liked, it had picked her to help with his silly little mission so he was not going to complain. Lara spared only a glance at the cat before refocusing on Scavenger. She was watching the dragon rider with thinly veiled curiosity.  

Lara made a vague gesture with her hand, “Are we going to discuss what type of payment I might need or will we continue this awful little staring contest of yours?”

“You used to be much more comfortable here, Dragon Rider,” Scavenger sighed, “but, yes I suppose payment must be discussed.”

The dragon rider narrowed her eyes at the other woman, that wasn’t really a woman anymore, and said, “Yes, well times change. People get older. What do you want for the reading?”

“What do you want from the reading?”

“I need to know about the paths in front of me,” the god masquerading as a cat batted at her arm, Lara huffed and corrected her statement, “Specifically I need to know about the paths that have to do with resurrection or redemption.”

Scavenger’s smile was concerningly wide, a crown of bright yellow flowers sprouted through her white hair and curled down around her ears. Lara sent up a silent prayer to her goddesses that this would not end horribly. It was very likely that Scavenger would have her pay with something outrageously important to her. She thought briefly of the tattoos that covered her arms, how boldly her magic was put on display. For a moment the dragon rider hated the little god performing as a cat between her arms. This was his fault and she would blame him such if this little reading had her mourning something awful.  

Lara didn’t notice that the disciple of the rotting god had shifted it’s focus to the half-blind cat until she was speaking again.

“Normally, those types of things would be very costly,” those brown eyes laced with the faintest bit of fever bright green slid over Lara’s arms, the faded dragon rider symbol embroidered on her bag. She returned to the cat that Scavenger knew was not a cat, “but, this one is so brave for coming here that I’ll think nothing of this visit”The cat hissed and bit at Scavenger’s too close hand. Vines and red flowers emerged from the thing’s deep bronze skin before the cuts remedied themselves. Lara did not flinch at the sight of flesh straining against the movement of greenery beneath it.  

Scavenger stepped back from the counter and waved so that Lara would follow her deeper into the shop. They passed through curtains that took up a small portion of the back wall into a small alcove. Here there sat shelves brimming with oracle and fortune teller’s tools. Various bones sat in small jars with labels written in a shaky hand. Cards from all around the world, some that had so much magic they felt like holding live fire, others that felt like nothing but the loss of magic in return for something else. Boxes full of shattered glass that were meant to become a person’s fated life. Lara sat at the table that stood in the center of the small space. The cat jumped up onto her lap, peering too curiously over the table for the disguise to be convincing. Not that the god she was helping was fond of fooling the people that came across him.  

Scavenger joined them at the table with a deck of cards that looked like they might just be as old as the two women sitting at the table. The oracle, the witch, the collector, laid out the first five cards with great care face down on the table. Lara knew what to do next even if she didn’t understand exactly how Scavenger intended to read the fortune with the cards already chosen. So, without prompting she pressed her fingers briefly to each of the five cards. Dust marked her fingertips when she drew her hand back.

Instead of flipping over the cards, or even just rearranging them with just as much care as she had placed them on the table Scavenger placed them back into the deck. Her hands moved in small jerking motions as she shuffled them about. For all of the finesse in her grander movements, Deran had never been able to make his plants and his rot mimic those smaller infinitely more complicated ones. Still the cards were shuffled and eight new cards were drawn and placed on the table face up. Each a different path, a crossroads of eight.

At this, the god-cat jumped from Lara’s lap to the table. Taking no care of the cards as he wound his way about them, discerning their meaning. Scavenger did not say anything as she lifted a hand and shoved the god-cat backwards off the table. Lara looked back in his direction for a moment before returning to the eight cards. The eight paths that had to do with resurrection or redemption. They were laid out in no real pattern, almost like everything else following a path of flowing water or roots searching for better soil.  

First she saw one that was simply labeled death, a skull rendered in the warmest gold hues to distract from the way it was contorted into a scream. The second and third both showed pools of water , almost as if the deck had come with two duplicates, the only difference between the two was whether the sun or moon shown back in the waters reflection. The fourth also had no label, the card taken up completely by a blue background with nothing but a lone figure in the center, simply floating within, nothing to tell of suffering or joy. Again there were another set of twin cards or rather Lara thought of them as twin cards, the fifth showed an altar like the ones found in the star fields. There was a hooded figure kneeling beside it, even without seeing their face Lara thought she knew who was there painted kneeling in a thousand-year-old card. Lara also felt as though the subject of the sixth card was something of her own mind. A hand cuffed in glass and with glittering silver rings that looked like an intricate lattice work inside a building, it reminded her of a cleverly built weapon. She frowned for a moment at those two cards, wondering at the familiarity. Movement drew her to the last pair of cards, the seventh containing a closed book in the center of the card above and below it were the same book open, on version blank the other filled with script. It and the eighth were the only other two cards to have labels. Chance the seventh said. Eight was labeled clarity, it showed a crossroads with the figure very clearly turning back to go the way they came. Lara thought that was clear enough.

Scavenger laid her arms out against the table, brow quirked in that odd offering expression she made. Lara sat back against the wall and gestured for her to speak.

“Sacrifice something to redeem something else,”she pointed to the card labeled death, “make a deal with one,”she jabbed at the second card, “or the other,”another jab to the third, “a literal or metaphorical end to recreate the one you wish to redeem or resurrect,” Scavenger gestured at the fourth card.

Lara thought that sounded suspiciously like sacrifice but allowed the oracle to continue.

She held up the pair of familiar looking cards, “two paths that could be one, get more to join this god of yours in his quest and find reward. You know as well as I that waiting is always an option,” Scavenger tapped the seventh card labeled chance, “And finally, as always you could stop and leave this specific set of crossroads. Go and choose a different issue to be a part of, a new set of paths to travel down,” Scavenger slid the eighth card off of the table and back into the deck. Lara smiled a little at the always there option, leaving, running. Great risk often meant great loss, the option of turning her back on this was always there.  

The dragon rider smiled for the first time at the woman known as witch, oracle, collector and so many more. She thanked her for the time Scavenger had given her and left the awful little shack. She repeated her options in her head, even as the god-cat wound around her legs and bade her look at him. Sacrifice, deals, revelation for redemption, help either from one or from two, chance, or running.  

She would not run, that was a given and as Lara climbed onto the back of her dragon and made sure everything was secure. Lara could always wait to see if time would bring this annoying god his prize, but she doubted she could actually wait that long. She had no mind for sacrifice or reflection. Deals could always be made though she doubted either the sun or moon would forgive the god still pretending to be a brown cat. There was always help, though she did not like that she was contemplating it.

Lara launched into the sky, the god that was a cat hiding in one of her bags. She could still feel his pleasure though, at the intention that he was finding in her heart. The half-blind god might just get his eye and his divinity back.