FICTION BY JAMES ARTHUR ANDERSON

James Arthur Anderson made his first professional fiction sale to Andrew J. Offutt’s Swords Against Darkness V anthology back in 1979. He has since published short stories and poetry in Weird Tales 4, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Star*line, Spectral Realms, and others. He is the author of several book-length critical studies, including Methods and Meaning in the Novels of Stephen King: a Constant Readers Guide, which was released by McFarland in August 2024. His latest novel, The Scrolls of Ramose, Scribe of Egypt, is forthcoming from Nightmare Press.

Dr. Anderson is Professor Emeritus at Johnson & Wales University, where he taught writing and literature for 37 years before retiring, and currently teaches as an adjunct instructor at East Georgia State College. He holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Rhode Island, where he wrote his dissertation on H.P. Lovecraft. He lives in Garfield, Georgia with his wife, Lynn, a spoiled horse, an ever-growing collection of cats, and a very spoiled dog.

 

FORTUNE’S FOOL
by James Arthur Anderson

 

Keir felt strangely restless. She paced the tavern and looked through the front window. She saw a stranger get off his horse and tie it to the community post. Maybe he would be her next customer?

She wanted to be ready for him. She made her way to her table at the back of the tavern where the lighting was dim. She tugged at her shirt until the chemise underneath showed.

The very fact that she sat alone in the crowded room at a table designed for four and remained unmolested by the rogues and cutthroats who frequented The Rusty Goblet was potent testimony to her reputation with sword and dagger. Though the lusty patrons might gaze upon her supple body with obvious hunger, they knew better than approach her unless it concerned business with the cards. Her exaggerated bravado saved her much aggravation and avoided needless conflict.

She shuffled the cards deftly and waited. The Tarot cards were her talent, but her true gift showed itself in the game of Aldor’s Bluff, an ancient game that had been invented by a feared necromancer.

It was a game that Keir was sure she could never lose. She had beaten the best players in the Kingdom of Dray and they still came for more. What they didn’t know was that her special skill was seeing the hidden cards with her mind, and she would take that secret to her grave.

Lost in her thoughts, she barely looked up as the dark stranger entered the tavern. Another drifter, she thought. But when she regarded him more closely, her interest was aroused.

Brushing a lock of blond hair away from her forehead, she piled the cards in into twin heaps as she watched the stranger. He had a swagger that spelled wealth. And power. A cold anticipation crept up her spine as he walked towards her. This might prove to be a profitable night.

The stranger took the seat directly across from her.

Keir was aware of a sudden silence in the tavern. Several drinkers shifted nervously in their chairs, and the adjacent table was vacated in a hurry. Clad in a black cloak, tight breeches and high black boots, the stranger’s clothing was designed to show off. A heavy steel sword hung from his waist, not the thin rapiers that most of the tavern rogues sported. And it had a golden handle, she noticed, crowed by a precious stone.

He raised his eyes to her and spoke in a voice that almost sang. “Will you read my future?”

She looked at him. “I will,” she said after a long pause. “The price will be a game of Aldor’s Bluff.”

“The stakes?”

Keir raised her eyebrows. “That can be negotiated,” she said, knowing this would arouse him. It was one of her favorite tricks.

He nodded. “Then show me my future.”

“First I must know your name.”

“Hakan.”

Keir silently reshuffled the cards. From experience, she knew he would want to sleep with her, and that would, no doubt, be the stakes he proposed. Of course, he would never win.

Hakan ordered ale for both of them. The bartender, Saris One Eye, brought the drinks and set them down, always careful not to come too near. His empty socket glistened in the dim light. It was rumored that he’d lost the orb to a barbarian fur trader. Keir knew better.

She carefully restacked the cards into three piles. “Choose one from each pile. Place them face down.”

Hakan chose quickly. He is obviously a man of decisiveness, she thought. A good thing to know.

Keir turned the first card slowly and placed it face up on the table. “The Wheel reversed,” she announced. “A change in fortune. For the worse, I’m afraid.”

She turned over the second card. “The Nine of Swords reversed,” she said, suppressing a shudder. “It seems, my friend, that fortune frowns upon you.”

Normally, she would downplay a bad reading, but something about this stranger provoked her to reveal more than she usually would. She couldn’t really understand why.

“There is luck in odd numbers,” he said. “The third card will be very telling.”

She hesitated before turning the next card. “The Fool, reversed,” she announced, and frowned. This was not looking good. This card foretold a bad decision. But she said nothing.

The next card confirmed her fear. The Tower. A collapse.

She regarded him in silence and looked deeply into his eyes. A wave of dread passed through her. It was the same feeling she’d experienced the night before her husband and her son had been killed. She felt herself shiver.

There was no doubt about it. The cards were never wrong. And her intuition, her second sight only strengthened her dread. Unless he changed his course of action, Hakan would be dead before the dawn. While the cards didn’t specifically predict his death, they all pointed to calamity, unless steps were taken to prevent it. But Keir’s instincts, her gift, revealed the strong odor of death, a terrible death, a living hell, for his soul would never rest in peace. All of her senses foretold it, and the cards only confirmed her intuition.

She was suddenly angry with herself for caring about what happened to this man. She thought she was beyond that. He was nothing to her. Nothing.

She shook off any empathy that tried to slip past her defenses, and she was left with a profound urge to be far away. When she looked at this stranger now, all she could see was a putrid, rotting corpse, and the very real odor of death drifted from him. This is why she had stopped doing readings, she reminded herself. The damned things spoke to her, and sometimes—most times—she didn’t like what they had to say. And they reminded her of things she would rather forget.

“The cards are bad,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

“I know you’re forbidden to tell certain things. But it doesn’t matter. I don’t believe in them. They’re just cards. Pieces of paper.”

“Then why did you ask me to read them?”

He laughed and took a long swig of beer. “It was just an excuse—to meet you.”

Keir shifted uncomfortably. That urge to be far, far away was just getting stronger, as was the dread that seemed emanate from him. Sometimes she thought she was cursed and anyone who tried to get near her was destined to suffer. Maybe that was the price of her gift, she’d often thought. She didn’t even want his gold, now. It, too, might be cursed.

“Well, you have met me,” she said. “If you have no further business, then be gone. And if I were you, I would hide until dawn, whether you believe in the cards or not.”

Hakan laughed loud and long, drawing nervous looks from the other patrons.

“But you forget, my dear. I owe you a game of Aldor’s Bluff.”

“I won’t hold you to the game.”

“But I insist. The stakes sounded very interesting.”

“I must warn you, I never lose at Aldor’s Bluff. Never.”

“Then since you never lose, I will set the stakes.”

Keir wanted nothing to do with this man and had to block the urge to run away. But her pride demanded she stay. She had a reputation to uphold.

“I’m listening.”

“If I defeat you in a game, then I will claim you for my wife.”

Now it was Keir’s turn to laugh. But it was a hollow laugh, tempered by dread.

“And if I win?”

“Then you shall have all of these,” he said, and emptied a pouch with a fortune’s worth of jewels onto the table.

She couldn’t help but to stare at the sparkling gems. She could instantly see that they were genuine. She thought about what those jewels could bring her. Freedom! She would never have to sit in a dark tavern again, trying to make money that had been lost to her when her husband died and could not support her any longer.

She figured he mistook her hesitation as indecisiveness. Their eyes locked for a moment, then she watched as he removed a dagger from his belt. She prepared herself for a fight, but he calmly placed it on the table.

“To sweeten the pot: an enchanted dagger,” he said, “taken from the lair of Daegal, the fire demon. The breath of the demon has forged the blade, and it cannot be broken by man nor beast.”

Keir picked the blade up and examined it carefully. It really was enchanted. The same voice that spoke through the cards told her it was. There was no other blade like it in the known world and it talked to her—seduced her. She decided that she must have it.

“We will play.”

“Good. Deal the cards. One hand takes all.”

Keir took her time dealing the cards. Aldor’s Bluff was quite simple. Each player was dealt ten cards, then picked and threw away until he had ten cards of the same suit. The major cards such as The Hermit and Judgement could be used as any suit. While the game involved some luck, the skill came in keeping track of and analyzing the cards that were thrown away. And, since she could envision the unseen cards, Keir knew exactly how to play her own.

She dealt the cards slowly and deliberately, one at a time, then placed the deck on the table between herself and her opponent. Despite her usual confidence, her hands trembled as she picked up her hand and studied it. She quickly pulled her cards close to steady her hands. No one must sense her nervousness. Three Swords, one Wand, two Pentacles, and two Cups, along with the free cards of Strength and The Hanged Man. Five Swords to start, then. Not a bad hand.

But when she looked at her opponent’s hand, the vague sense of dread turned into an outright shiver of fear. The cards were blank to her! She concentrated, using all of her powers. There was nothing. She never experienced this before. How could it be?

He grinned at her, as if he knew exactly what she was trying to do. And she had the distinct feeling that he could see her hidden cards. With a sinking feeling, she realized that his sorcery was stronger than her own. It was unnerving, but she managed to keep her self control.

They took turns playing the cards and after three tries she had gained another Sword. But she was playing blind. Her mouth had gone dry and she felt beads of sweat on the back of her neck. She regretted her bravado now, but it was too late to back down.

After six more turns, she had gained two more Swords and the card of Temperance. One more Sword and she would win. For the first time, she thought that she might be able to survive this cursed game.

She threw away her last Cup and picked—the Ace of Pentacles. Hakan drew and his eyes sparkled for an instant. Keir read his face and, though she couldn’t see his hand, she knew that he, too, needed just one more card.

She chose another from the deck. It was the Two of Cups. A useless card. Hakan picked and frowned at his card. Good, she thought. His draw is no better.

Keir paused to take a sip of beer. The drink cleared her mind and calmed her nerves. Maybe he was bluffing. Maybe he couldn’t read her cards after all. Maybe she was granting him more power than he deserved.

She summoned her strength and concentrated all of her mental resources on the next card. It was no longer a matter of winning the knife. Her pride was at stake. Her reputation. And she would never leave the tavern with him, even if he did win. She knew he was doomed to die. Not leaving the tavern was his first mistake. If he beat her at Aldor’s Bluff, that would be his second.

She threw the Two of Cups away and drew again. It was the Queen of Wands. She swore under her breath.

The stranger picked his card. His face remained expressionless as he threw down his hand, nine Wands and the card of Death.

“You lose,” he said. “I claim you as my bride.”

Her breath escaped her, and a sudden sense of vertigo washed over her brain. It was as if she were somewhere else and watching this scene through a dense fog. She immediately gathered her wits and shook it off.

“You cheat!” she sneered, and drew her sword with practiced ease. “You’ve used sorcery.”

The crowd gasped and drew back, leaving an empty circle around them.

“And your sorcery has failed you,” he said. “But I didn’t expect you to submit easily.”

He drew his own sword and smiled, showing his teeth.

“I claim my prize.”

Keir jumped over the table and lunged with her blade. The stranger stepped back and parried and then grinned. It was as if he were playing with her. That enraged her even more.

“Die, you bastard!” she screamed, as her sword dodged her opponent’s lunge and struck flesh, right through the middle of his throat. She drove the point home until it scraped his spine and pierced through to the back of his neck.

He dropped his blade and took two steps back. Keir let go of the sword that had now skewered him completely. A sense of relief washed over her as she admired her handiwork and waited for him to fall.

But he did not fall. He placed both hands on her sword and withdrew it and it dripped blood, then he dropped it on the floor. A smile broke out on his pale lips.

“The cards showed my past,” he said softly, as if speaking to a child. “I have no future. I am already dead, killed by the fire demon. But I took his knife. And now I take you for my bride.”

He reached out a cold hand toward her.

For the first time in her life, Keir felt terror, a deep paralyzing terror that froze her brain, froze her feet to the floor, and stopped her very breath. Then she felt his touch on her arm, colder than the ice winds of Menruse. His touch was so cold that it burned.

She threw herself backward and crashed into the table where she had sat. He took a step closer.

“Do not fight a dead man’s embrace,” Hakan said.

Then Keir remembered. She reached behind her, and as if by instinct, she felt her hand wrap around the pommel of the enchanted knife. She clutched it with all her strength, whirled around, and drove the blade home, into the stranger’s chest.

“Then die again!” she screamed, twisting the blade all the way in to the hilt.

The handle turned red hot and she let it go as it blistered the palm of her hand. Hakan’s eyes went wide and he looked down at the flaming death sticking into his chest.

“Thank you,” he wheezed, spitting blood. “I foresaw this. Thank you for setting me free from the curse of the fire demon.”

Then his words expired in a flash of flame and the sound of thunder.

Keir watched, paralyzed by shock.

When the smoke cleared, only ashes remained, with a knife half buried in the embers.

Trembling, Keir bent down and picked up the knife, which was cool to the touch now. She slipped it into her belt and retrieved her sword. Then, wide-eyed, she looked around the room and scowled at the stunned crowd before dashing out the door and sprinting back to her one-room house in the forest.