None of us reacted. We had always known a sacrifice had been involved with the creation of the decks. That it was a witch wasn’t a surprise.
Lainie shuffled each of the arcanas, then began shuffling all the cards into one deck. She glanced at my tablet, where I’d been recording the readings and anything of importance she said. Hunt and peck.
“The energies,” she said, “combine differently when they’re used together. Interesting.” She placed the deck on the table and addressed FireWind. “Ask a personal question—an important question, because intent matters—and cut.”
FireWind said, “What is Nell’s tree’s purpose?” He cut the deck and Lainie laid out a quick Celtic Cross pattern. She turned the top card over and said, “Death reversed. I’m not gifted in reading, but I’m pretty sure this is not death so much as rebirth, re-creation. Do you want me to read the other cards I’ve laid out?”
“Not necessary,” FireWind said. “Nell and I were about to try a reading without the Death card.”
Lainie removed the Death card and reshuffled the deck, and FireWind read the deck. The psy-meter readings had changed, with Psion 3 greatly decreased. Lainie reinserted the Death card, removed other cards, and the readings were still off, but now in Psion 4. She said, “Interesting.”
“What would happen if we did a reading in the null room?” I asked.
“Experiment time,” Lainie said, regathering the cards. “We don’t all need to go.”
“I’ll assist,” FireWind said.
T. Laine stood and led the way; I sat at the conference table a while longer and finally looked at Tandy. He had observed and filmed the entire reading, and I could see the little light that indicated Clementine was still recording. I pointed at Clementine’s light, and Tandy touched a display. The light went dark.
“It’s only recording in the null room now,” he said. “You’re upset. I can feel it.”
The three lightning strikes that gave him the reddish Lichtenberg lines tracing across and through his skin, like forking veins in leaves, had also given Tandy the gift of empathy. It was deeper and more encompassing than Margot’s truth sensing, and it often made him the unit’s counselor whether he wanted that job or not.
“The Blood Tarot. It’s black magic. Blood magic,” I said.
“Yes.”
“My power—” I stopped and thought about what I wanted to say, letting the memories of the land’shungerflow through me. The roots in my hands twitched with need and my bones began to ache. “My power, my oneness with the earth, caused an oak tree to mutate and grow into the vampire tree. It needs blood. Soulwood needs blood. So is my power blood magic? Am I a dark magic practitioner?” It was a question I had asked myself before and still had no answer for.
Tandy leaned back in his chair and laced his hands across his stomach. It was his “listening pose,” and meant he was giving me his entire attention, his expression thoughtful. “Any power, any position, any authority,” he said slowly, “anyenergycan be used for good or for evil. Atomic energy was created for warand for the deaths of millions of civilians. That power becamemore. Now it’s nuclear bombsandclean nuclear powerandnuclear medicine.
“People enter politics to do good, then get caught up in making money and holding on to control, forcing their world view and their people view and their religious view onto others, though they started out altruistic and wanting to make things better.” He gave a small shrug. “For your magic? It depends on your goals and whether you let your focus narrow too much, whether you stop learning and growing and loving. And it depends on how and when you hold back and say no to the hunger you feel. Can you still say no to the desire for the blood of your enemies, Nell?”
I partially evaded his question. “The tree is having more and more problems not taking human blood meals.”
“The tree isn’tyou, Nell. The tree is a new life-form. I’m only askingyou. And possibly your land. Is Soulwood’s desire for blood and for killing your enemies harder to fight?”
I shuffled the energies and desires in my mind the way FireWind had shuffled the cards. The tree’s needs and the land’s needs were not the same. I had been thinking of them as the same, but they were distinctly different and worked together only when necessary. The land wanted to grow and protect and, when possible, wanted the blood of battle and war. The tree and the Green Knight wanted to capture, feed, control, and force its will on the land and on me. But it had no real power to do that. I considered the warmth of Soulwood. As I did, it filled me, sleepy and languorous as a stretching cat.
It seemed to see the roots in my belly and in my hands. In my mind’s eye, I held them up to the warmth of Soulwood, and the heat gathered there. The pain in my hands eased.
That was…different.
I answered Tandy’s question. “No. It isn’t. It’s easier. Huh. Thank you.”
Tandy tilted his body back to the screens and typed a fast line or two. “Just so you know, according to quantum mechanics, everything is created of the same particles as energy—light, matter, meditation and prayer, sound and vibration, space and time, electromagnetism. Magic is just energy used in ways some people can’t see or understand.”
I considered that as his eyes tracked things on his screens. I said, “When I commune with my land, I see underground. When I commune with the tree, I see a different reality.”
Tandy’s reddish eyes shot back to mine. He relaxed again and assumed his listening pose.
I looked at my woody nails and plucked off a leaf that was trying to unfurl. “I see a reality that’s a lot like things in movies, like an overlay of imagery, a place that’s matter, energy, and lifeonandinthe land, in the earth itself. When I talk to the tree, it’s a different reality. A green landscape and a knight and a stallion.”
The empath said, “So…the tree…some…thing, someone, is directing that energy, organizing it into patterns you can understand.”
I looked up quickly to see if he was making fun. He wasn’t. And now I let him hold my gaze. “Yes. It—he—calls himself the Green Knight.”
Tandy nodded thoughtfully. “He’s self-aware and acts with purpose?”
