Emptiness.
Julien swerves his head left and right before doing a slow pivot.
Nothing. Just an endless whiteness all around him. Everything blends together. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. Earth and sky. There is no indication of Julien’s surroundings being inside or outside.
No hysterical screaming. Instead, only a silence that is deafening.
Lost, Julien looks at the leather pouch in his left hand, gifted by the mysterious stranger. He tries to ban the image of the steel-pierced body from his mind. Unsuccessfully. Julien sinks to his knees. With trembling hands, he fumbles to untie the string while holding onto Delphine’s card.
Inside, he is surprised to see a deck of cards. They are covered in blood. Julien frantically flicks through it. He wipes the blood away and lays the cards out in front of him in order.
Halfway through, Julien starts to notice the gorgeous designs. Not even the most intricate deck of the exhibition came close. It reminds him of… Delphine’s card! Upon comparing them, he discovers that the backs sport the same motif.
Once they’re all laid out – four suits, fourteen cards to a suit, and an additional twenty-two cards – an inconsistency jumps out at him. Not all cards have a picture in their frame. In fact, most of the suits are incomplete. Only one suit is near completion. It misses just one card: the number ten. The suit is that of blades. Or spades, Julien thinks.
Suddenly, the framed art starts fading. Julien jumps up.
One by one, the images disappear, leaving empty frames behind. Only two cards retain their image. Delphine’s ‘Sun’ and a card titled ‘The World’.
It depicts a strange world – wild landscapes, oceans, mountains, castles, villages, and more. He cannot fathom how it all fits on one card.
Completely captivated, Julien is stunned when it ejects a kaleidoscope of bright light. Blinded by the sudden burst of colors, he does not see how a majestic hall manifests in the empty space around him.
~o~
Julien sways. Spreading his arms out, he attempts to regain his balance. He keeps his eyes shut, his head reeling from the assault on his vision.
“What just happened?” he groans, massaging his temples.
Julien counts to ten, the minute rubbing of his fingertips slowly banishing his discomfort. Then he carefully opens his eyes, and his mind goes blank at the result of yet another impossible warping of reality.
He does a slow three-sixty. On six broad walls, landscapes pass by in bird’s-eye view. They are breathtaking vistas. Rough streams cut through massive mountains and yielding fields alike. Pine forests grace the heights, and deciduous trees cover much of the lower reaches. Figures move in the distance, too small to recognize but undeniably there. As he turns, wide-eyed and awestruck, he notices five large, ornately carved, marble archways in the middle of the hall. They are surrounded by tall pillars that draw Julien’s gaze upwards to an arching ceiling covered with an immense fresco.
“Wow! The Louvre is nothing compared to this,” he whispers.
A crackling sound at his feet startles him. Julien looks down and, within the pile of cards he had dropped, he sees a collection of sparks bouncing around. He jumps back, keeping his eye on the unnatural phenomenon. The sparks grow into ten orbs of light. They float up and form two pentagrams, one on a horizontal plane and one on a vertical one. From their centre, a tendril of light reaches down and connects with one of the cards. It pulls it in. Before a gaping Julien, the card takes a vertical position at the height of his chest, an arm’s length away. It starts to glow.
The shine that envelops the card starts pulsing, and a window is projected right in front of Julien with the number zero above it. In the window, a figure materializes. It’s a blond man wearing a motley costume and a wide grin on his face, carrying a knapsack over his shoulder. He winks at Julien. The light intensifies, and bright beams are fired. They punch right through him.
A disembodied voice speaks, “Binding process initiated.”
A burning sensation spreads rapidly throughout his limbs. It is as if his muscles are being torn apart. Julien screams. His body seizes up. Then the pain spreads. A stabbing sensation in his chest. Pounding temples. A thousand scorching needles behind his eyes.
Julien’s screams die in his throat as he loses consciousness, lying in the middle of a pile of cards.
~0~
The surface at his back is quite unpleasant. Julien shivers. He keeps his eyes firmly shut. Please, let it be a dream. A bizarre dream. I fell out of bed. This is just the floor. He cracks an eye open and is surprised by a large see-through screen filled with text that dominates his vision. He hears a voice in his head.
“Binding complete. The Fool’s fate is now yours. His power and knowledge are at your disposal. Don’t like it? That’s too bad.”
As the voice falls silent, the screen disappears. The transparent visage of a man in colorful garb is standing over him. “Look who has finally come around. You’d do well to get up.”
Julien groans as he does just that, his hands sliding over the cards surrounding him. “What…?”
“Who? Where? How? Why? All very popular words I hear at a first meeting. But we don’t have much time.”
The man points at the half-full, blue meter that hovers just at the edge of Julien’s vision below a crimson one.
“So pay attention.” He raises a hand and sums up. “I am the Fool. We are standing at the edge of Tarotia. Magic. It’s all very complicated. You and I are to embark on an epic journey to save a world. Well, attempt to do so anyway. And lucky you gets to pick our first destination. In this glorious hall are four gates. One leads to the Kingdom of Blades, another to the Kingdom of Cups, and the others to the Kingdoms of Wands and Pentacles. You pick one. You walk through it. And our adventure begins.”
Julien shakes his head. Four? He could have sworn that… He looks at the centre of the room and counts again. “And the fifth gate?”
“What?! Five gates?”
Julien points to a fifth gate, which displays a question mark on top of the arch.
“Well, that’s new!” The Fool starts pacing as he mumbles. “An extra kingdom? Impossible! There are only four suits.”
Really? There is one thing out of place for him here, and he loses his shit? Julien approaches the Fool and clears his throat. “So, I know that the fifth gate is troubling you, but could you please–”
“Fifth gate? Not accessible. Files not found–”
“Bring me up to speed?”
“Incomplete…”
Ignoring him, the Fool just walks on.
“Hello!!!” Julien reaches out to grab him by the shoulders. His hands, however, pass right through the odd man. “Hey! Snap out of it!” Keeping pace, he waves in front of the apparition’s face. No result. “Arrgh!”
Julien turns away. His gaze passes over the cards and the pouch lying next to them. He bends over and collects them all up. Had the cards brought him here? Would one be able to bring him back? Maybe ‘The World’ card?
As the Fool rambles on, Julien goes through the entire pile only to discover that they are all now blank, save for an inscription at their top. At a glance, he spots symbols with either an Arabic number or letter at the centre and Roman numerals. In the middle of the pile, he spots one card with an image of the Fool. Above it is the number zero.
No answer there. He still decides to hang on to them and puts them in the pouch, which in turn he stows into one of the large pockets of his shorts. Now what? He looks at the gates. Maybe they will offer a clue? He tries to tune out the rambling of the Fool and walks to the gates.