Sam

As they proceeded through the crowd, Sam found that people were running games and competitions between the farm buildings and downslope toward the cluster of large tents that made up the guest accommodations.

Number Three had set up a (likely fraudulent) shell game with old beat-up pewter mugs and an acorn on a broad wood plank. He refused to let Will play, probably because he knew cheating would be useless against him, and glared suspiciously until they wandered off.

"Heya, Gug!" Sam called out when they neared the maypole.

"Hello!" the troll replied breathlessly without breaking stride. He made another circuit of the maypole, and when he neared them again added: "This is very very fun!"

Sam laughed. "Looks like it!" She glanced over at Will, who was looking pointedly away from her. "So, Mr. Grumpypants—wanna give it a shot?"

"You know I don't dance," Will replied. "Besides, I have an excuse," he gave his bum leg a few soft claps, "so tough."

"Boo. Fine. Maybe you'll soften up once I get you drunk."

"I don't plan on drinking very much tonight. What about you, though? You told me you did some drinking during your travels."

"Oh, hell no. Once was plenty for me, thanks. That time I got blackout drunk really scared me straight."

Will chuckled. "I figured as much."

They continued downhill, and Sam noticed a badly painted signboard hanging from one of the canvas tents advertising the services of a fortune teller. She immediately insisted they go there, and Will relented with only a minimal amount of whining. Maybe the festive mood really was getting to him.

They ducked inside the darkened tent, only illuminated by a thin strip of sunlight filtering through the half-open flap behind them and the soft, pulsing glow of a foggy crystal ball sitting atop a round table. A man sat behind the table, pondering the orb while running his hands along its smooth surface. His face was all shadows and sharp contours from the insufficient light it emitted. He had thin hair, thin lips, and thin fingers, and generally looked like a bit of a weirdo.

"Welcome, Sam Darling and Will Greene!" the man announced in a loud, dramatic voice without looking up. "I have been expecting you!"

Will snorted, folding his arms. "Is knowing our names supposed to impress us?"

"I am not trying to impress anyone," the man replied, suddenly speaking very softly; almost whispering. "I merely aim to enlighten and delight. Now, please sit!"

A pair of wooden chairs slid from the left and right-hand sides of the tent, flying unassisted through the air to touch down in front of the table. Will made another disgusted noise, but stopped grumping around when Sam elbowed him in the ribs.

"You don't have to be so critical all the time," she said sternly. "Ever heard of suspension of disbelief, dude?"

"You can't expect me to take this seriously. The guy is obviously a hack."

"I do expect it, actually."

"Fine. Whatever. Let's just do this."

They got seated, and the fortune teller finally deigned to look at them. Judging by what she could make out of his sheet, he was a Level 10 Entertainer-Scholar. He was clad in a purple robe that looked something like a bad Halloween wizard costume, the roomy sleeves hanging long and trailing across the tabletop, slitted on top to let his sheet show through.

"My name is Corvin," the man said smoothly. "Corvin the Incomparable! Are you ready, dear friends, to be shocked, dazzled, and amazed?"

"How much are you charging us for this?" Will asked.

"For you? Nothing! I must confess, I am simply dying to know the fates of such influential individuals. I couldn't possibly accept payment."

"Fine. Then, what are we supposed to do?"

"Nothing at all, dear guest. Just sit back and watch the magic happen!" With a snap of his fingers, a black void—nearly imperceptible against the shadowy backdrop—opened up, and the fortune teller held out his hand to catch what appeared to be a deck of cards that was spat out of the circular piece of non-existence. Then the void vanished, and Corvin took the deck out of its box and began rapidly shuffling the cards, hands flashing with almost impossible agility.

"These are my trusty fate cards," he explained, "once blessed by the angel Stentoria herself; Seraph of Fortune, as you may know. With these, I shall be able to divine all—of your selves, your pasts, your futures. Would you like to know more?"

"Yes!" Sam replied before Will could get out some snarky rejoinder. "Please, go ahead."

Corvin's face split in an inhumanly wide grin. "Good choice, Sam Darling—may I call you Sam?—after all, knowledge is power. And we all want power."

"You may. And, uh, I guess so?"

"Sam it is. Well then, let's begin with a personal reading for you." After a final riffle of leaping cards, Corvin tapped the bottom of the deck on the tabletop to line it up flush, then flicked three cards off the top that arced over the crystal ball and landed on their side of the table, face-down. "Now, flip those over one at a time, and let's see what you got."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Sam obliged. She took the rightmost one and flipped it. The card had a picture of a little happy-looking fellow holding a bindle, with some writing at the bottom. "Number zero," she said. "The Fool."

Corvin nodded along in an exaggerated show of being deep in thought, stroking his pointed chin. "Ah, yes, of course. This makes sense. And the next?"

Sam flipped over the middle one. This one depicted a golden sun with a grinning face shining down on a verdant crop field. "Number nineteen. The Sun."

"Aha! Brilliant! And the last one?"

She flipped the leftmost one. It featured a very muscular and very naked man wrestling a lion, prying open its jaws. "Number eight. Strength."

Corvin hummed to himself, tapping with long nails as his spidery hands wandered over the crystal ball. "Yes. Yes, I see it all now." He glanced at her, then looked back into the glass ball that swirled with glittery liquid like some cheap nicknack you might buy at a tacky gift shop. He leaned in close, pinching one eye shut and throwing the other wide, getting closer to the thing until his eyeball nearly touched the glass. "The cards… they tell me that you are a happy, carefree person who can withstand all of life's challenges. You excel in those things you set your mind to, and you are a good influence to others. However!" He snatched back a fist, then raised one finger. "On the flipside, you can be naive at times. You tend to favor simple solutions over reading into the nuances of a situation, and you have a tendency to ignore unpleasant truths." The fortune teller opened his raised hand, and the three cards she had been given flitted back into his waiting palm. He shuffled them in with the rest while humming to himself. "Also," he said without looking up, "your favorite food… is… waffles with whipped cream and strawberry jam."

Sam gaped. "That's totally right!" Most of it had been if not wrong, then at least generic enough that it didn't really mean much. But how could he know her favorite food? Well, one of them, anyway. She hadn't told anyone about it since coming to the Frontier—not even Will.

Will scowled through his closed eyes, head tilted in his curious owl sort of way. "All right. Now do me."

"Just one moment, Will—may I call you Will?—I sense that I am not quite finished with Sam's reading." He pondered another moment. "Hmm, hmm, hmm… What am I missing? Hmm… I wonder…" The strange man lit up. "Ah, yes! You have more than one favorite food! The others are… steak… and pineapple pizza."

"Wow! How did you do that?!"

"Huhuhu," Corvin tittered. "I did very little. It is the cards that told me."

"If it's the cards that do the talking," Will interjected, "then what's the ball for?"

Corvin sped him a sour look. "I will forgive your ignorance. A layperson cannot be expected to understand the intricacies of my craft."

Will gave a derisive snort at that. "If you say so."

"Enough of that now! Allow me to give you your reading." Corvin shuffled rapidly, cards flashing, then flicked three new ones across the table. "Please reveal them one at a time, the same way as your partner."

Will pointed to one face-down card. Without flipping it, he announced: "Number twelve. The Hanged Man." He moved one over. "Number eighteen. The Moon." And the final one. "Number thirteen. Death."

"Show-off," Sam muttered.

He just gave her a smug little smirk.

"Your powers of perception are impressive," Corvin commended, head bobbing on his thin neck. "Indeed, perhaps nearly as good as mine—although, I am of course incomparable.

"Which leads me to your reading." The fortune teller peered deeply into his crystal ball, nodding and humming and clicking his tongue as though he were having a heated internal discussion with himself. Suddenly coming away, he fixed Will with his wide-eyed gaze and said: "I can see that you are a deep thinker with insights into matters dark and obscure. However, you have a tendency to get lost in yourself, and you nurture an unhealthy desire to tame the untamable.

"One thing to note is the fact that the Death card really is not as ominous as it sounds. It doesn't symbolize literal death, but rather rebirth, rejuvenation, new beginnings. Out with the old, in with the new. You are currently undergoing such a renewal in fact; both spiritually and physically.

"Also, your favorite food is… chicken curry with rice."

The lid of Will's blind eye flickered with displeasure. He pawed at his sad one.

"Was he right?" Sam asked. "Is that your favorite food?"

"Yes," he replied reluctantly. "That aside, you're cheating with the cards. You stack the deck when you shuffle."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Corvin replied with a predatory grin. "I assure you, my readings are one hundred percent accurate and honest."

"I guess that makes you a liar and a cheat."

"Tut tut. Such rudeness. Really, you wound me."

Will got up to leave. Sam tried to pull him back down, but he was beyond her reach before she could catch him and was already hobbling toward the tent flap.

"Don't leave now!" Corvin called, back to shuffling his cards. "I haven't even given you your love compatibility rating!"

Sam's mouth went into an eager O when she heard that. Now, that was something she could get behind. She looked between Will and the fortune teller, but the former was already ducking outside. At last, she was forced to go after him, offering muttered apologies to Corvin for cutting the session short.

"You're always welcome back if you change your minds!" he called with a cackling laugh as they left.

"How did he do that?" Sam asked, half-jogging to catch up with Will's labored trudge as they went back uphill.

"I don't know," Will said. Clearly, that bothered him a lot. "He didn't read our minds, I know that much. If he had, I would have felt it."

"Then…"

"No idea. But don't speak to that guy again. Something about him felt off."

"I mean, he looked a bit odd, but…"

"Not the way he looked, or the way he talked, or even the whole spiel he was trying to sell. Something else. I can't really put my finger on it."

"Huh. Well, if you say so."

Will flashed her a quick smile. "Good. Glad you're willing to listen for once." Then his mirth leaked from his face, replaced by a deep frown. "Wait. Your favorite food is pineapple pizza?"

"Only one of them!" Sam replied defensively.

"That's even worse! That just means you're cheating on actual good food with absolute trash."

"Oh, come on. It's good!"

"You disgust me. You're a disgusting woman."

"Heeey, too far…"

Will sighed somewhat sheepishly. "All right, sorry. Pineapple pizza is still gross, though."

"Man, fuck you!"

He just laughed in reply, head thrown back. It was one of those rare genuine laughs that made her stomach buzz with joy.

Maybe this party was a good idea after all.

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