“Tell me where to stop. Choose your first significance.”
Dubro thrust his hands, palms outward, between himself and the flit- tering paper. “No,” he stammered. “I do not choose cards. Illyra chose them.”
The cascade came to an abrupt halt. “If she chose, what is your ques- tion?” she inquired, though surely she suspected the answer.
“She cannot read for those she loves. She would not lay down the cards-but certain ones fell from her hands. I believe that she cannot read for us-but I do not believe she cannot choose.”
“For an overly large man, you are not without perception,” the Terma- gant said between self-satisfied cackles. Dubro folded his hands and said nothing. “Very well, describe the cards you saw.”
“There were five. I’ve heard her name them Orb, Quicksilver, Acom, Ocean, and Emptiness.”
For ten or more years Dubro had stood outside Illyra’s workroom, pointedly ignoring the wherewithal of her craft. Yet he had absorbed something despite the banging of his hammer. His eyes met hers and were not put off by the disbelief that grew there.
“Prime cards each and all,” he averred.
Not to be outdone, the seeress set her own cards back in their silken nest with imperturbably steady hands. “I don’t suppose you noticed the relation of the cards one to another as they lay? Reversed or covering?”
“They’re all from her hands,” he repeated.
“I see.” A lengthy pause between them. “Well, then, I suppose it’s safe to assume the simplest message: all images erect and alone. It will be easiest that way. You do want the simplest interpretation, don’t you?”