Rather than alighting upon Eot as was his reckoning at the time of touching the Divine Die, Baethen was transported to a place within himself. He knew it as Babel, the mortal tower that reaches towards the divinity of Babylon the House-of-the-Gods.

  There, he stood seemingly alone until he looked down upon the mirror, seeing his reflection wearing a half mask of gold. He brought a hand to his face, feeling fresh skin and then momentary relief before his shadow spoke.

  “[Apologies—other side.]” It said simply and Baethen understood.

  He turned to his other cheek and felt the roughness of bismuth and pyrite instead.

  The shadow spoke once more, its voice that of himself but distorted as if a thousand-thousand Baethen Lockes were trapped within its gullet. It was discordance in harmony, revelation in madness and breath in breathlessness—even hearing it speak was like claws raked at the soft insides of his skull and caressed his soul.

  “[Our time art short so We shalt be’eth brief: in three lives hence, We shalt fully awaken as We always haveth. Til Death do Us join’eth, Folly. We, the Fool, leaveth Ourselves a parting gift.]”

  It was as if worms were boring into his ears, as if carrion fowls were already feasting on the dully-aching marrow of his bones; it was as if he heard the most beatiful birdsong, as if the entirety of silence had sound and all was right in the world. Agony and bliss made one; loss and reprieve intermeshed; sorrow and joy conjoined.

  Before its very presence could unravel him from the inside-out, the Fool blinked and collapsed the waking nightmare. Baethen felt himself falling arse over nose, again and again in the blind dark between realms.

  ////

  When his feet touched earth, Baethen had to gird himself lest he let the disorientation throw him to the ground fully. Even then, it was a difficult thing to stand, his body so broken and torn that it might be easier to just take his life and bet on the thereafter.

  It was night and no matter how many times he searched for it, he could find no moon in the sky.

  “Lad, y’alright? What’s got ya spooked.”

  Haviershan looked about the dark firmament and found nothing amiss which meant the wrongness was with him.

  “Just got the wind knocked outta me is all. Translocation did a number on my bones.”

  Still not entirely satisfied, Haviershan cupped his beard and tugged at it.

  “Uh-huh. Let’s get you to Lazarra—she’s got some healing magicks and a thumb for herblore.”

  ////

  The camp around the Evergaol had solidified into a settlement proper though it was barely more established than a township as of yet—the cadre had been within the tower for a round of Eot-time; a temporal dilation that Haviershan measured at about two-and-a-half times the normal flow of Eot. The earthernworks that they’d taken as homes had been fleshed-out with wooden supports and many a foundation had been hollowed-out with earthshaping to form cellars.

  Though cards could do a great deal of magicking, they worked best in tandem with mundane technologies. A card of [Rotward] would be doubly stronger were it used in conjunction with a place that already acted as such. [Endokais-Breath]—stolen from sleeping Eotten, such as the ice-trulls of Endokai, without the need for killing them—could sap the heat from an enclosed space and provide rounds of protection for a larder.

  The same principal applied to the healing poultices that Lazarra slathered upon Baethen’s naked body—except the loincloth he wore then, he was as bare as the day he was born. She’d set his broken limbs with splints enchanted with Moropheshen script, cast the [Lesser-Mend-Bones] spell-card, and bandaged the various middling open wounds that covered him head to toe. Her herblore expertise, though not to the degree of an alchemist proper, neared that of an apothecary; draughts of poppy’s milk and Babylonic incense lulled the pain to sleep.

  By the end of it, Baethen looked and felt more like a mumified Pharamese Pharoh than a man proper. Though, he imagined that those undead god-kings of yore that still ruled the Pharamese til this day did not get chided by their elders like children.

  “Really, lad, you’ve done a number on yourself. The young and foolhardy these days, I’ll tell you…”

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  Baethen doubted they had any elders, excepting, of course, ancient worms, angels, and other immortals.

  It was in these not-so-quite moments that Baethen read through the Hearkening of the Deific-Tarot that summarised the changes to his soul. Like before, it was a moment of disorienting transition, his spiritual self having gone through a drastic metamorphosis once again.

  ////

  Hearken, the [Dealer-of-Fate] stirs awake at the {Player}’s {Victory} over the {Second-Rung} of the {Akashic-Tower} of {Al-Reth?m}! As {Eldest}, [Lockanat] takes {Rearhand} as {Dealer}.

  Scouring [Akashic-Archive] for compatible {Cards} […]

  Compatible {Cards} found; shuffling probabilities set to {[Base]: [One]} over {Mean} […]

  Shuffle complete, {Three-Card-Set: [Tools-of-Dehadolon] ★★} {Drawn} and {Dealt} to {Player}; {Set} put into {Player}’s {Archive}.

  ////

  As far as rewards went, it was more than up to par. Baethen felt a tad disappointed given the previous windfall he’d been spoiled by in the first rung; but cards were cards. There was a greedy-little goblyn in his soul that cackled at having more precious little treasures—

  Wait a lick.

  Fata-Morgana’s name had been stricken from the ledger in his soul and in its place was that of Lockanat, a foreign god he knew nought of but could guess a whole lot of. It sounded Eoviran and an aspect of the Golden-Fool, he reckoned. He did not believe in coincidences when it came to the Gods so that struck the possibility of it being a false cognate right out.

  Baethen did not quite know what to think when the thought of his connection to the Mad-God appeared within his skull. It was disconcerting, an unease worse than having Fate looking over his shoulder because Fate was a known quantity, as it were—Lady Luck liked to make the lives of mortals into ironic tragedies.

  Loken was a mercurial beast, just as unknowable as the Night-God Alunariat.

  ////

  Hearken, due to {Clause-Strain} the {Player}’s {Hand} incurs {How-the-Cards-Fall}!

  [{Cards} {Collapsed}]: {[Scarwright], [Run-Like-the-Wind].}

  Hearken, the {Player}’s {Hand} rouses with {Unbound-Arcana} and {Untethered-Gnosis}!

  Scouring [Akashic-Archive] for compatible {Cards} […]

  Compatible {Cards} found; shuffling probabilities set to {[Base]: [Two]} over {Mean} […]

  Shuffle complete, {Single-Card: [Pillarspine] ★★★} {Drawn} and {Dealt} to {Player}; {Card} shuffled into the {Player}’s {Hand}, joining the {Two-Card-Set: [Nightvault-Painted-Prison]}.

  ////

  So far as rivenings done in the midst of battle went, Baethen had been somewhat lucky so he’d lost only two cards to a single collapse this time around; [Echo-of-Alabastron] had gone from a thirteen card deck at its conception to a nine card deck by the time he’d left the Tower. He’d have to check later with the newly-arrived cartomancer to see the degree of scarification he’d done to his soul but, so far as he saw it, it was minimal.

  Similar to using a token of [Tabula-Rasa] to raze one’s Hand and reshape it, the rivening had also reshuffled some of Baethen’s cards; they’d changed sets and many a meld had relinked to new, more compatible cards. This, he knew, did not come without price—scars of the soul could be subtle things and drastic changes to one’s spirit foretold of coming madness and malady.

  Having abused a sin-brand for so long, Baethen now was quicker to anger and slower to calm. Little things that would’ve slipped off his mind like water off a leviathan’s back now irked him something fierce. Other changes were sure to become apparent to him in the coming Round of rest before he once again returned to delving the Tower. And not all of them would be so mild as a bad temper.

  One thought led to another which got Baethen looking at the remnant stump of his lost limb: his left hand and forearm were well and truly gone, nothing surviving past the elbow. He had no one but himself to blame for that and he did not blame himself overmuch. That hand had been clad in wormscale once and he was glad to be rid of it.

  He would excise the devil’s arcana from his soul as soon as he could walk to the cartomancer’s tent which felt not soon enough. It was like having maggots incubating in your flesh—he wanted it out now.

  ////

  ({Archetype}: [Prime]) Selected; {Player}’s ({Hand}: [3//3]) {Drawn} as follows:

  [Echo-of-Alabastron] ★★★ ({Nine-Card-Deck} - {Unlinked})

  [Tools-of-Dehadolon] ★★ ({Three-Card-Set} - {Unlinked})

  [Clouded-Fiefsight] ★ ({Single-Card} - {Unlinked})

  ////

  [Echo-of-Alabastron] ★★★ ({Nine-Card-Deck} - {Unlinked}) shuffled as follows:

  ? [Imp-of-Serpents] ★★ ({Three-Card-Set} - {Linked} [Echo-of-Alabastron] ★★★)

  [Lesser-Juggler-of-Fire] ★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Parlour-Tricks] ★)

  [Lesser-Narguile-of-Night] ★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Parlour-Tricks] ★)

  [Throat-of-Salamadara] ★★★ ({Single-Card} - {Unlinked})

  ? [Cycle-of-the-Crucible] ★★ ({Three-Card-Set} - {Linked} [Echo-of-Alabastron] ★★★)

  [Flawed-Steelheart] ★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Scoric-Wormscale-hide] ★★)

  [Leaden-Stomach] ★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Scoric-Wormscale-hide] ★★)

  [Slag-and-Scale] ★★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Strike-While-the-Iron-is-Hot] ★)

  ? [Nightvault-Painted-Prison] ★★★ ({Three-Card-Set} - {Linked} [Echo-of-Alabastron] ★★★)

  [Pillarspine] ★★★ ({Single-Card} - {Unlinked})

  [Mercurial-Inksmith] ★★★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Strike-While-the-Iron-is-Hot] ★)

  [Sunder-the-Mirror] ★★★ ({Single-Card} - {Linked} [Strike-While-the-Iron-is-Hot] ★)

  ////

  Having unliked cards within a deck was sign of impending collapse—imagine a house without any load-bearing pillars, roof ready to fall should someone even look at it too intently. He’d have to buy a carte-blanche, deathtallow candles and watersmoke incense to attempt a linking ritual at the cartomancer. His father once had reason to do the same, his profression of card mule a dangerous one.

  Baethen had survived two unplanned, unbalanced rivenings so far but he would not risk another. Father still couldn’t count any higher than twenty after botching the bank-teller’s set some turns back.

  It was with a shudder that Baethen let sleep take him to blessedly-dreamless Babylon.