Alice looked about her. “You’re the most curious cards I’ve seen.”
“That’s because we’re a tarot pack. If we weren’t so curious, we wouldn't have troubled the future, and so couldn’t tell you it.”
“You mean troubled to learn of the future,” Alice corrected him.
The Fool appeared offended. “I mean what I said. If we hadn't troubled the Future, we couldn’t tell it how sorry we are.”
Alice was puzzled by that, though she proceeded bravely.
“But you foretell the future.”
“No,” said the Fool. “We four tell it.” And he indicated the Falling Tower, the Devil, the Magician and himself.
Gene Wolfe is the author of The Book of the New Sun..