“True enough,” I admitted, curious to find that I had laid the heavens stick first.
“This second row speaks of your character.” She looked at the two signs set upright beside each other. “Lightning, so you see yourself as creative, the Zephyr, so you consider yourself lucky.” She looked at the reversed runes on the other visible faces of the sticks. “How do other people see you? The Storm suggests they find you difficult, prone to disagreement. The Wellspring? They think you conceal a great deal.”
I smiled at her. She could try reading what I was concealing beneath my cheery unconcern if she liked.
She lifted the sticks to reveal the runes laid face to the leather. “And these speak of your true self. The Chime sounds for resolve, decisiveness. The Harp is a sign of craft, of skill, of cleverness.”
So Rusia was a shrewd judge of character, even on slight acquaintance. And news of newcomers runs around any village like a dog with a bone in its mouth. She’d doubtless been listening to gossip all day.
“What about the rest?” I pointed to the bottom row of three.
“Your mother, yourself and your father,” she said.
“Go on.” We might as well see this through. There might be something to this if Rusia could tell me anything of significance about my parents.
She showed me the Pine, first of the runes set upright and facing me. “Your mother is strong like the tree yet flexible enough to weather a storm.”
I’d certainly seen my grandmother’s anger come down like summer thunder, my mother passive yet ultimately resisting her fury.
“But there’s also adversity there. The Forest,” Rusia frowned as she looked at the next rune along. “That’s for resourcefulness but also for loss, getting lost. Reeds next, for flexibility but also for weakness.”
I kept my face a mask of polite interest, ignoring recollection of my mother’s laments, over being saddled with a minstrel’s bastard and then over her cowardice in not following him. But surely any combination of runes could be interpreted to strike a resonance from any life?
“I’ve heard those traits linked to those signs but plenty of others besides,” I said cautiously. “Tormalins call the Reeds Drianon’s sign for faithfulness in marriage. In Caladhria they signify Arimelin’s whispers carrying dreams.”
“Rusia always knows which aspect applies,” Yefri said, as if surprised I needed to ask. The others all nodded fervent agreement.
Rusia looked at me for a moment before considering the runes on the reverse faces. “For your father, the Wolf, that’s ambition but also hunger unsatisfied. The Oak is strength, vigor in life, but also stubbornness, hollowness. The Salmon, for travel, for fertility.” She smiled a little. “But also for a compulsion overriding all else. We can stop if you like,” she offered.
She knew full well my father had been a traveling musician, there was no ingenuity needed for these so-called insights. I spread my hands. “May as well finish what we’ve started.”
“Very well.” She picked the runes up to look at the hidden symbols on the bottom-most faces. “As their child, you have the Mountain, endurance and vision but also a lonely rune. The Stag, that’s for speed and courage, but can suggest running from things that you fear. The Sea, that’s power, hidden depths, but a lack of direction as well.”
I gave her a quelling look.
“The runes read your birth and family correctly, don’t they?” demanded Gevalla.
I took a slow breath before answering. “Well enough, in some senses.”
“Then let’s see what your future holds.” Salkin shifted his shoulder behind mine, keen to move closer. I smiled, a touch apprehensive, but I could hardly pull out now.
“Not just the future.” Rusia pointed at the three remaining rune sticks, the ones set at angles to the original layout. “What is just past, where you are at present and what is to come.”
Given the bizarre events I’d been caught up in over the past year and a half, any interpretation that even came close might suggest this was more than sideshow chicanery.
“The reversed runes are your recent past,” Rusia explained. “Fire, a new passion, maybe even true love.” She smiled at me and I grinned despite myself. “The Eagle, signs or omens, travel?” I nodded. “The Drum, secrets revealed, a break with something…” She looked uncertain.
I managed to look unconcerned. “I travel a lot, true enough.” Maybe they did have the missing fifth here.
Rusia looked at the three upright runes. “The Ushal…”
“The what?” I queried. “We call that the North Wind.”
“Outdwellers have lost much. Look at the rune, the wind coming off the mountains. It is the Ushal, the cold killing wind that comes off the heights in the cold days of winter.” Rusia looked serious. “Opposite to the Teshal, what you call the Zephyr, the warm wind from the southern seas that brings rain and life.” Her words tailed off, her manner distracted.
“So what does the Ushal mean for my present?” I prompted.
Rusia shook herself a little. “It’s either a destiny or something missing. Are you seeking something? Broom, that’s taking care of something, or maybe a blessing? The Calm, well, that could be a truth, study perhaps?” She looked frankly baffled.
“The mage and I have come to learn of Forest songs,” I offered.
“These are your runes, not his,” she said tartly. Again she fell silent, gazing perplexed at the symbols.
“So what of Livak’s future?” Salkin was sitting so close I guessed he was keen to figure in my immediate fate.
Rusia lifted the runes with reluctant hands. “The Plains. A lifetime, more than that, endlessness, timelessness. Or maybe just an inheritance.” She shrugged. “The Horn, a summoning, important news, but it might be for good or ill, perhaps a warning. The Earth, that’s success, hard work, some grand event.” She was speaking quickly now, running a hand through her hair. “You’ll know better as the moons unfold the seasons, but these are powerful runes, the pattern suggests something important.”
Doubtless I would, certainly it would be easy enough to find truths in such vague generalizations if I went looking for them. But what of her flights of fancy that had landed uncomfortably close to the mark?
Rusia was looking concerned again. “You are going to be moving on, aren’t you? If you’re going to be bringing down a storm on your head, I’d rather you did it somewhere else.” She was absolutely convinced of the truths revealed in the patterns, I realized. So who was she deceiving, herself or me?
“Let me have them.” Gevalla held out her hand. “I’m wondering whether I should travel beyond the wildwood this summer.” She laid six sticks in two rows of three. “The positive signs in the top row are reasons why I should travel, the negative ones below are reasons why I should not,” she explained.
“Is this just for journeys?” I asked.
“Or any question where you are looking for a yes or a no.” Nenad spoke up for the first time. I saw him looking at Gevalla with hope in his eyes and listened to see if he tried to influence her reading of the runes one way or another as the six of them discussed the symbols and their relevance to
Gevalla’s own wishes, her family, what travel might mean for her and for others. Nenad didn’t seem to be pushing any particular course and they all seemed to be taking it very seriously. Rather than try to follow the intense discussion, I drew my own pouch of runes out of a pocket, a shorter set carved in bone in the Caladhrian style, and fingered the little charms.
“You can’t lay a second reading in any one day.” Rusia looked up. “And it won’t work for you anyway, not unless you believe it will.”
I sat and thought for a while longer about the various symbols, the interpretations Rusia had given for them, and did a few calculations on the likelihood of those runes falling in those places and aspect. Then I looked for all the reasons Rusia’s guesswork could be intelligent enough to seem accurate. Did she have more than four-fifths on her side of the scale?