Sorceress of Faith

She “zoomed out,” noted fat cumulus clouds and some wispy ones. She hadn’t taken any science courses in years, wished she recalled more about weather. She smiled. Weather, with a capital W, was now her focus of study. She was a potential Weather Magician. How cool!

“We will try to move the clouds.” Bossgond’s hands tightened over hers. “Feel the essence of the clouds, their density and shape.”

Was that like the exercise of “be a cloud” that profs in the Drama Department taught? Bossgond’s mind led her to a cloud that showed gray at the bottom, yet puffed up white and pretty near the top. It was humongous.

She shut her eyes and focused on sensation. She seemed to be floating in the sky, but not as she had before, not herself, Marian, but Cloud. She floated stomach-down, and the portion of her body closest to the ground felt heavy and full of liquid. For the first time in her life her ass felt airy. She couldn’t prevent herself from thinking of it as a huge billowing cloud, and giggled.

Bossgond hissed. His irritation nudged her, and control of the cloud slipped from her grasp. It rained. Thankfully nothing happened to her real body.

“See if you can move the cloud,” Bossgond said, disapproval clear.

She pushed her cloud. Nothing happened, except that she got a visual of her hands penetrating cool air. She tried something different. She was now separate from the cloud and grappled to encompass it. With her mind she formed a tiny membrane from air molecule to air molecule of the cloud, then pushed. It moved. She pushed again, and it slid rapidly through the air. Having fun, she set her mind against it and shoved. It turned into a streak of white.

“Whee!” Marian cried. She was flying, chasing a cloud.

Bossgond made a strangled sound and fell backward, away from her.

She stopped, withdrew her consciousness from the weather globe and shifted around to see what was wrong.

He was holding his head as if he had a migraine.

“Bossgond?” she asked.

The mage winced. “You are Powerful. I didn’t expect you to be able to move the cloud so easily, so fast and far. I never could,” he grumbled.

“You have other talents.” Marian scooted behind him and started massaging his temples, wondering why she felt compelled to reassure him. He grunted, then sighed with pleasure.

“Of course,” he said, but he didn’t sound as sarcastic as she’d expected. He huffed out a breath. “You are a naturally gifted student in Power. It happens sometimes, that there are geniuses.”

An inner glow of pleasure lit her. Of course, she’d been a professional student all her life and knew she learned quickly…not that this was learning so much as revealing, discovering something deep inside her, something she was meant to be.

Bossgond said, “Naturally the Song would bring someone innately Powerful to the Tower Community.”

That evening after another mediocre meal, Marian joined Bossgond in the ritual room. He began to Sing the blood-bond ceremony and she joined in when she could. When he picked up a small, sharp knife and strips of linen, she froze. What was she getting into?

Bossgond smiled reassuringly. “We will be bound together for four hours—the correct amount of time for a bond between Master and Apprentice. There are both lesser and greater bonds, depending upon the length of the binding. A Pairing-Marriage bond is a full night and day.”

She nodded and tried to relax as he took her arm and shoved up her sleeve, concentrating on something else—like how glad she was that neither of them had drunk a lot at dinner.

His voice deepened with mystery, with mastery as he cut her arm. The pain was slight, but she yelped and stared as he inserted a little tube in her arm. It looked as if he’d encased a whole vein. Then he slit open his own arm and captured a vein.

Exactly how much blood would they be exchanging? This whole thing involved a lot more than she’d realized.

After they were linked, they finished Singing the ceremony, Marian in a low tone, experimenting with using her voice and Power. Even before they snuffed the last candle, she could feel his blood inside her, weighty with age, with Power, but also…murky.

With his blood came memories, strange and distorted and flickering too fast before her mind’s eye for her to catch and analyze them.

As the minutes passed, through Bossgond, Marian’s small tune merged with the planet’s. Wonder grew inside her.

She found herself panting, and regulated her breath—yoga breaths. Slowly, they left the top ritual floor and descended to Bossgond’s study. He’d placed a small desk and chair next to his larger one, along with the big glass sphere that contained Marian’s planet.

His mouth moved and a second or two later she heard his distorted voice, not beautiful now, but beating at her ears.

“Study the continents, the contours of the land, and especially the weather.”

Marian stared at the sphere, but minutes passed before her eyes focused. She swallowed. Everything was so overwhelming! She chose a cloud—studied it as it floated over the continent, changed shapes, absorbed other clouds and became a weather front. Her heart pounded dully in her chest.

Bossgond fiddled with lenses on his desk. Glimmers of his thoughts came with the flow of memories.

A few minutes after the second hour, Bossgond abruptly quit his work and they went back to the ritual room, where they relaxed in lounge chairs. This was easier, as she didn’t have to struggle with the input from his mind as he worked.

Slowly, slowly, without the distraction of her studies or his, relaxing in the chair, Marian regained her equilibrium and could snatch bits of Bossgond’s knowledge, process it, understand it. Comprehension of the language came first, and she smiled faintly. Lladranan culture celebrated the Singer—a prophetess oracle—and the Song, what they called the Divine. It made sense that she “heard” the language in her blood, trickling to her brain, opening new paths.

Too aware of her own memories flowing to Bossgond, Marian let Bossgond’s most personal ones zoom past her. She knew he’d had two long-term lovers, that the relationships hadn’t been totally satisfying. He probably learned all about her mother—and Andrew. Perhaps he could help with Andrew. At least Bossgond now knew how much she loved her brother and why it was imperative for her to return to Earth.

Then Marian “saw” the northern boundary of Lladrana, the fence posts and magical forcefield boundary strung between them. The fence posts blackened and fell, the border gaped. Monsters invaded. Horrible, hideous, evil-looking things that brought nausea, so she pushed the thoughts away.

She experienced worms in the rain. Most died when they hit the ground, some tunneled into the earth. Frinks.

Some people opened mouths to the frinks, were consumed by them inside until they turned into monsters within a human skin. Mockers.

From a colorful whirl of views through the binoculars, Marian picked out Alexa—at a graduation, at a funeral, hiking up a mountain trail at night, walking through a silver arch.

Alexa choosing a baton. Alexa in battle—grisly images…Marian shook her head sharply, no! She didn’t want to see that. Not now, not yet.

A new fence post—Alexa grinning, holding a helmet under her arm.

Marian herself at her work-study job in the Engineering Department. On a date with Jack Wilse. Talking to her mother. Hugging Andrew.

She pulled her thoughts back to the here and now—to the shrouded room around her, the cupboards that held the globes of Amee and Earth she’d seen the night before. The clock showed three hours had passed and seemed to tick with her heartbeat.

Bossgond made a strangled noise. She glanced at him—a gray tinge had crept under his skin. His breath was ragged.

“I can’t bear it,” he mumbled. “Your world is too difficult to contemplate. Too harsh.”

Marian thought that being invaded by terrible monsters was worse than Denver traffic, which she’d been thinking of. But she reached for the linen strips that bound their arms together.

“No!” Bossgond cried, sitting straight up. “This needs a delicate touch.”

She understood him much better now, so she leaned back. As he began to chant over the bindings, her blood slowed and dizziness hit her. He carefully separated their arms. The tubes had dissolved. A hollow sigh of relief escaped him.

After a few more chanting words, his hard fingertip ran up her arm, sealing her wound and leaving cold fire in its wake. Bossgond wrapped one strip along her arm and sang a simple healing tune that made Marian smile. She was feeling sleepier and sleepier. Had Bossgond siphoned her own energy into himself, thinking it was his right as her master? She didn’t like that thought or the dark parade that followed. Maybe he’d been acting all day, and now she was about to become a sacrifice. Bad. Very bad. How could she have been so gullible?

Darkness swooped down on her.

Maps tucked under his arm, Jaquar followed Chalmon up his Tower stairs to his study. The other Sorcerer radiated irritation, probably still upset at Jaquar’s behavior in claiming Exotique Marian the day before. Or perhaps it was that Jaquar had gathered a circle of Sorcerers and Sorceresses to watch the Dark’s nest, and they were reporting to him.

Before Jaquar’s parents died, Chalmon had considered himself the leader of their generation of the Tower Community. Jaquar, like most, had gone his own way and done small tasks for Chalmon as requested, and if they cost little.