Sorceress of Faith

But her full-moon ritual had been about discovering why she’d experienced odd sounds and nightmares. Now she knew. Golden Raven had said she’d meet a teacher. She had. Now she had to figure out how all this could help Andrew.

“Marian.” The rich, deep voice of Bossgond seemed to echo around the room. It certainly reverberated inside her mind. She turned her head to see a tube running down the wall next to her bed, with a flared opening like a trumpet.

“Marian, the oeuf is cooling.”

She struggled to one elbow, then the second. “I’m coming,” she replied in French—the language she’d been speaking for hours now—except for that tiny exchange with Alexa.

Alexa! While wallowing in her own fear she’d forgotten Alexa—someone who’d already come from Colorado, had experiences she could share with Marian. She was pitifully grateful that she didn’t have to take everything on faith, walking into a fog without a clue as to the landscape around her. Alexa would help her. Marian was not alone.

Just the thought of the other woman energized her.

“I’ll be right there,” she called out to Bossgond, a Sorcerer who would teach her magic.

She stretched, feeling her muscles pull, feeling something inside her that had been squashed and cramped, unfurl—a butterfly-breaking-open-her-cocoon feeling.

She would practice wonder, learn all she could of magic, in relation to herself and to Andrew. He’d expect her to live life in the moment, wring everything she could out of each experience, good or bad, not worry about being in control or making mistakes.

So she put on the shoes and forced herself to admire the feel and look of them. Then she marched to the toilet closet and took some tissue and blew her nose, washed her face with water from a tap.

Then she went out her door to find out if “oeuf” meant egg.

She ascended the stairs to Bossgond’s quarters one floor above her own. When she reached the door there was something like a harp hanging on it. She pondered for a moment and decided it must be a doorbell or a knocker. Running her thumbnail over the strings released a ripple of sound that echoed through the tower and plucked a couple of strings inside her, too—excitement and anticipation.

Bossgond opened the door, wearing a short tunic that showed his bony knees, a large yellow bird embroidered on the front. The garment was cut so full that it hung on his slight frame. He stood aside and Marian entered.

His space looked much like hers—windows letting in spring sunlight, shelves all around the room, a desk, bathroom closet and a partition hiding the bedroom. But it was as warm as a summer’s day—and the warmth felt more natural than the central heating she was used to at home. Perhaps it was the humidity, or the scents the air carried—fading spring blossoms and the start of summer.

The word oeuf meant omelette—a mild cheese omelette along with croissants and hot chocolate with whipped cream. They ate at a table near his fireplace. The fire flickered rainbow flames and Bossgond let her watch them, examine the room and eat in peace.

When they finished, with a wave of his hand the dirty dishes disappeared. If she were on Earth she could have marketed that for a fortune—but where did the dishes go, and would they return? If they returned, would they be the same dishes, but clean? How clean would they be? Would bacteria still live—

Bossgond chuckled. “I see many questions in your eyes,” he said, enunciating each word.

Marian nodded and he nodded back. Apparently that was the same, too, nodding as agreement.

He rose slowly and his joints popped. She frowned. He could make the dishes disappear but had trouble rising? With motions and two or three attempts at rephrasing the question, she made herself clear.

“I have great Power,” he said, rubbing his fingers together in a gesture like the one that meant “money” back home. “And my will and the Power make magical tasks easy, but my body is old and physical tasks are not easy.”

Marian wanted to know how old he was, but it was rude in her culture to ask and she didn’t know the rules of this society. She just looked concerned and nodded again.

He pointed to the center of the room where three thick oriental-looking rugs were layered. Huge pillows lay atop them along with several small tables that held objects: odd bottles—and were those wands?—and a couple of knives.

Marian hoped the knives were used ritually and practically, like in Wicca, and not for bloodletting and sacrifice. From the corner of her eye she studied Bossgond. She could take him in a physical fight, but if he used magic she was sure she could be bound and gutted in the blink of an eye. She shuddered.

The old man chuckled again and went to lower himself to the rugs. He sat cross-legged, palms up on his knees and sent her a quizzical glance.

She squared her shoulders. There was nothing she could do this minute except scream and fight for her life if he meant her harm. So she sank down across from him. To her amazement, her gown needed no adjusting: it flowed out of her way when she sat.

“First we’ll determine how strong your Power is and whether you will be a good apprentice for me,” he said, lifting his arms shoulder height, hands angled up as if pressing against an invisible wall. “Do as I do.”

Marian mimicked him, putting her hands up. There was enough space between them that they had a few inches between their hands and didn’t touch.

Bossgond hummed, and invisible pressure against her palms snapped Marian’s hands back to her shoulders. He smiled, but kept the pressure steady.

Magical arm wrestling? Marian narrowed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath. She felt her own will, and something else—Power?—surge through her body, tingle through her hands, leave the hollow of her palms to push against his, be stopped against a barrier.

She concentrated, found a pool of energy within herself, drew it up and sent it out in a ragged stream against his Power. His hands trembled. Marian set her teeth, visualized a river of force inside her, welling up from the deep pool, turning into a torrent pouring from her hands to crash against Bossgond’s wall. His hands snapped back to his shoulders.

Looking surprised, he frowned, then pushed back at her. She kept the Power steady against the strong force of his for what seemed an eternity that drained her and started her panting—perhaps only a minute. Then she slumped back against the pillow. Bossgond’s Power followed her, taking her breath, then vanished.

“Extraordinaire,” he said.

She heard his voice around buzzing in her ears. Gentle, inexorable fingers clamped around her wrists and brought her upright again. Her lungs pumped and the dress seemed to soak up her sweat and release a floral scent. Huh. Wriggling her legs and bottom, shifting her shoulders, she stared at the man from under lowered lashes.

He was inscrutable. Like a certain little green, pointy-eared Master of the Force.

Her own personal taskmaster. Great. She knew now that she hadn’t given the green guy’s students the sympathy they had deserved.

“Next test,” Bossgond said, raising his hands, palms vertical again.

Marian didn’t think she could twitch a finger, but managed to tilt her hands up from her wrists.

“To see how well we will do as Circlet and Apprentice,” Bossgond said.

Marian suppressed a grimace. She knew the word “apprentice.” It made her feel like she was ten again—maybe younger, just starting elementary school—though, she was a beginner at magic.

She didn’t even have the basic socialization of any child brought up in this culture—what constituted rules of magic?

But Alexa seemed to have managed a position of high status, and in a relatively short a time, if Marian’s recollection of the coat Alexa had worn in the vision was right. It was last winter’s jacket, so she would have purchased it no earlier than the fall….

A sting against her palms brought her back to find her teacher frowning at her from under silver eyebrows. Her cheeks flamed. She’d let her attention wander! Oh yes, just like a kindergartner. Heat flushed her neck, too. She’d disappointed a prof—not good. She prided herself on being an exceptional student.

So she dipped her head in apology. “Excusez moi.”

Bossgond nodded solemnly. “Attencion,” he said.

She nodded again, kept her gaze fastened on his face, her mind on what would come next. Her stomach tightened. She hated pop quizzes. How could you get a perfect score without practice?

“Follow me,” Bossgond said. He moved his hands far apart, cocked his head.

Intent on him, she moved her hands apart, too. Then he began gesturing, doing odd things with his hands, arms, face.

Marian mirrored him, watching. Finally, he returned to his original position.

“Now you move and I will follow,” he said.

This was the strangest activity Marian had ever done with a teacher. Tentatively she set her hands together as if in prayer. He did the same. A little bolder, she tilted her head, grinned. He did the same. So they continued, Marian leading, until he said, “Fini.”

When her eyes met his, he said, “Now we move together, but neither of us leads.”

That sounded very strange. So she watched him and when he moved his hands a little she followed, but leaned to one side, and he did so, too. It was…balance. More than that, it was a connection, knowing how they should move together, and in her mind she began to hear a stream of musical notes weaving into a melody. A couple of minutes later, they brought their hands together, palm to palm, and a huge flare of energy burst from her, dazzling her with its lightning brightness, its orchestral chord thundering in her ears, her mind.

She spun free. Suddenly she was looking down on her body, hand-to-hand with Bossgond, in a round tower room. Then she was in the room above them, where she saw the star pentagram that had brought her. She rose above the tower to see a large island, the green coast of an unfamiliar land, then drifted even higher until she saw how the world curved.

Free.

Terrified. There was nothing to hold her here—no bond with this planet, this land. She still couldn’t feel any link to Earth or Andrew, and wherever that corridor was that she’d entered Lladrana from, it didn’t seem to be a physical place she could find.

Marian floated, unable to control her magic that had pushed her from her body. The Power was so strong she was unable to move her spirit-self even a smidgeon.

A slight breeze could blow her away.

6

Bossgond’s strong hands squeezed hers. “Come back!” His resonant voice trembled through her wavery self and she plummeted into her body. She clung to his hands, stared at his homely face with her physical eyes. Her body trembled.

“You have returned,” Bossgond said. “Good.” He separated his fingers from hers one by one and stood up stiffly. “I will get you hareco—a drink to help you settle.”

Leaning back on the huge, firm pillow that braced her, Marian hoped it wasn’t some pitiful herbal tea. Good black tea would be nice, or—

She smelled it. Coffee! And she murmured a prayer of thanks. Bossgond handed her a mug and she inhaled the fragrance. Hot, dark coffee. She drank greedily, while he sipped from a matching mug. The pottery had a big yellow bird emblazoned on it, but she was too shaken to ask about the icon.

“Your first lesson will be in grounding.” He frowned, and the small black streak in his golden hair seemed to darken, or perhaps the rest glowed.

Marian pressed her lips together. She understood what he said well enough, and she wasn’t that much of a kindergartner that she didn’t know what “grounding” was—making sure you were solid in your body before doing magic.

Keeping her voice even, she set aside her mug and said, “This will be hard. I do not have a link—” she hooked her two index fingers together “—to Amee. My link to Exotique Terre is broken.” Her chin wobbled at the thought. She grabbed her mug and sipped again—something she could understand, coffee.

Bossgond patted her shoulder awkwardly and took his place again. “From my observations, it seems as if Exotique Terre has little magic,” Bossgond said, as she drained the last, lovely gulp from her mug.

Exotique Terre was what he’d called the globe of Earth the night before. Marian didn’t know what to say, so she shrugged.

“A Power like yours would not have been so stifled, so bound until it struggled to get free, here on Amee.” The old man’s tone was laced with disapproval of her previous world. “You are far beyond the age of the standard Apprentice.” He snorted. “But perhaps it is good that you are an adult. I have little patience.”

He’d been fine with her so far, but she sensed she was a novelty to him.

The meaning of his words sank in. “From your observations? You can see into my world?”

“Indeed,” he said, and waved to something that looked like an enormous set of binoculars on a stand, aimed at a series of mirrors that reflected infinitely. She couldn’t figure out how the device worked, didn’t know if she dared to ask to see her old world.

She yearned to know that Andrew was all right.

Bossgond came and took the empty mug from her, offered his hand to help her up. As she took it, the song between them uncurled again. He nodded.

“We have a small bond, which will grow. It is good.”

After she was on her feet, he released her. “Come, we must remedy your lack of a link with Amee as soon as possible.” He held out his hand and a walking stick flew into it.

Marian gulped.

Nodding to the table holding the wooden wands, he said, “Choose a walking stick.”

His words made her uneasy, but she walked to the table and picked up each in turn. The dark red one felt the best, as if it were an extension of her arm. She repressed the urge to wave it and say “abracadabra” or “kalamazam.” Instead she handed it to Bossgond.

He grinned in satisfaction and said, “Staff!”

The wand grew into a walking stick as high as her head—looking like a rod or wand from a tarot deck.

Bossgond handed it to her, and when she grasped it this time, a low note sounded and the thing vibrated. Small twigs appeared, then sprouted greenery, then ivy twined up the staff, spreading silver and gold leaves. She stared at it open-mouthed, and again her memory was prodded—by the vision Bossgond had shown her in his crystal ball when they’d first met. She’d had a staff just like this. No wonder he smiled—either he’d foreseen this, or he had deduced her Power correctly. What else wasn’t he telling her?

Many things, she thought. The old sorcerer wasn’t revealing anything he didn’t want her to know, and he probably thought she knew more than she did. Her ignorance would impede them both.

He took her hand and led her to the stairs, and they wound their way down the tower to arched, double wooden doors. Marian watched intently as he slid the bar on the door to the side and into iron brackets attached to the stone wall. She’d be getting more than magic lessons, more than the sociology of a new culture—she’d learn more about architecture, too. So much to learn! It excited her.

Bossgond shoved open the door and they walked out into a small area paved with large gray flagstones, then into springy green grass. The wind whisked their garments around them, tugged at Marian’s hair. He set a hand on her head and said, “Alam,” and her hair settled around her head. Neat trick, but she rather missed the fingers of the breeze caressing her scalp.

The sunlight was yellow, clouds wispy white against a sky not quite as blue as a Colorado spring sky. Marian shifted her shoulders as she saw forested hills rolling to the horizon. She was used to a view of the Flatirons and Rocky Mountains. She was accustomed to a campus full of buildings, professors and students, not a lonely island tower with one brilliant Sorcerer.

Bossgond pulled on her hand and they circled the great tower, over bony rock, slippery moss and sweetly scented grass, until they were almost halfway around. He stilled, closed his eyes, cocked his head, then opened his lids and nodded once. “No one watches.”

That was good to know—another trick Marian would like to learn. A person couldn’t depend on atavistic itching between the shoulder blades. Bossgond squatted, gestured to her to do the same, then indicated the top of a stone at the bottom of the tower wall that looked well buried. He licked his finger and wiped off some dirt, and Marian saw a tiny outline of a bird. Bossgond’s heraldic bird—she’d figured that much out. He whispered a word that was taken from her ears by the wind and a cube of moss and earth around the stone lifted as if cut. Another sighing two-note whistle and the stone removed itself. Bossgond waved for her to look into the darkness.

She had to wait a moment for her eyes to adjust before she could see a rough pyramid point inside the hollow.

“The keystone of the tower,” Bossgond said. “The proof that a person has become a Circlet Sorcerer or Sorceress is when they raise their own tower with their Power.”

Marian swallowed.

He reached in and caressed the keystone, smiling as if he petted a beloved animal.

Marian thought of her lost hamster Tuck and sniffled. What on Earth—on Amee—did these people do for handkerchiefs? And where would they put them? She hadn’t noticed any pockets—but as she thought of them, four flapped against her skin. Interesting.

“If this stone is found and destroyed, my tower will fall. I may or may not be hurt, depending on whether I am in the tower and how much of my Power I have invested in my tower at the time. At the moment you are not Powerful enough to do me harm, and when we Bond by Blood as Master and Apprentice, we will be incapable of harming each other. Any secrets will never be able to pass our lips.”

Blood-bond. Right. The idea should have deterred her, but it didn’t. Blood played a large part in various cultures’ rituals to symbolize a connection between people. She considered it a small price to pay for knowledge.

“You understand?” asked Bossgond.

Marian nodded, tucking the information and ramifications away to consider later. She reached in and touched the keystone. A little current ran through her—not soothing like her connection to Mother Earth had been—and she twitched. She couldn’t imagine grounding herself with this rock; there was too much energy.

Bossgond sighed, shrugged. “Not a good stone for you to link to.” With a wave of his hand the tower stone and the cube of sod settled back into place, looking as if they’d been undisturbed for centuries. “This is my Tower on Alf Island. But it is not the first Tower. We will walk to old Mortig’s Tower. Perhaps that will be better for you.”

They set off briskly and a minute later Marian bumped into a sizzling invisible barrier. She yelped and jumped back.

On the other side of the…forcefield, Bossgond smirked at her. Then he stepped up before her, touched his index finger to the barrier and “cut” a door for her. She lifted her chin and swept through past him.

“When we bond you will be able to enter or leave at will. I will also show you the courtesy portal for well-intentioned visitors.”

After a quick walk away from the sun—west, then—of about a half hour, they reached the remnants of tower walls about five feet high. Bossgond showed her the hidden keystone to this, too. She started to touch the thing and electricity zipped between her fingers and the stone, shocking her. She fell back on her bottom with an outraged cry.

Bossgond creaked a laugh, helped her up, dusted off her seat and strode off in another direction. As they walked, Bossgond told her about his island.

He had demonstrated the strongest Power in several generations when he was a youngster and had piqued the interest of the Powerful Mortig. The choice of islands was always given to the most Powerful first. Bossgond had held Alf Island for many years.

Alf was about a hundred miles across and had everything a person would want—fresh streams full of fish, hills, forests, glades. His tower was near enough to the coast and a small harbor to appreciate the waves without being threatened by any flooding or crumbling ground. A paradise to Bossgond.

It sounded pretty good to Marian, too, though she was sure she’d miss mountains.

She thought back to when she’d hovered over the island. The shape was a little like Australia.

After an hour-and-a-half walk they came to a depression in the ground, too close to the rocky edge of the island to be altogether stable. The circle of flat stones was barely visible, but Power still radiated, drawing her.

Bossgond stood back and watched, but she strode to the hidden keystone with confidence. This one didn’t vibrate quite right, either, but it felt better than either of the others.

Bossgond shook his head. “You are not of Amee, so no previous keystone will tune to you easily. Perhaps you will find a better place than this as you range the islands. For now, let us do the grounding here.”

To Marian’s embarrassment, she found herself lying on her stomach, arms angled down a few feet to the keystone. When she curled her hands around the pyramid-shaped rock, Power shot through her, erasing any exhaustion, starting a tingle racing in her veins.

Bossgond sat cross-legged beside her and placed a hand on her back, rubbed it. It felt nice, gentle, avuncular. She closed her eyes and let her mind sink into a quiet pool, only feeling—the warmth of the ground beneath her, the small breeze around her. And with three hummed notes, Bossgond sent her into a deep trance.

Distantly she heard his voice instructing her. Under his spell, she sang to the stone and it reverberated one note, two, three back to her, and she felt a small tether to Amee.

With a soothing chant, Bossgond lifted her from her trance, brought her into clear-headed wakefulness. Again she felt energized. She laughed in delight at the connection with a world-song again, though this particular planet-melody was heart-wrenchingly sad.

She stood and stretched, limbering up after her time lying so still on the ground.

Bossgond looked at her, then at the circle of grass and stones. Then he gazed out to the sea, his face impassive. “If we do well together and you do not want another island or a manor on the mainland, I will grant you the right to raise another tower on the island.” The corners of his lips curved slightly upward. He gestured. “You may choose where you please, as long as it is outside my protective ring around my tower.”

The forcefield they’d crossed. She nodded.

His expression turned grim and he raised a finger. “If we do well together.”

His tone was that of a man who’d been crotchety for decades.

When they returned to the Tower, Bossgond led her back upstairs for lunch. She sat at the table and he set a plate and silverware for them both. Then he put a few empty platters between them. He went to a cupboard and came back with a box.

Taking a crumb of bread, he put it on one platter, then added a bit of dried fruit, a few strings of jerky. As Marian stared, Bossgond passed his hands over the dishes and sang a long Songspell. The breadcrumb turned into a large loaf of bread dusted with flour, the jerky became four thick slices of roast beef, the fruit plumped into apples.

Under Marian’s fixed gaze, Bossgond cut a piece of each and put it back into the magical box, then returned the box to the cupboard.

When he returned, he sang a little blessing, then made a sandwich and dug into his reconstituted meal.

Hesitantly, Marian sliced a piece of bread—wishing there was some Dijon mustard—and put a slice of roast beef on it. She took a bite, chewed and swallowed.

The food was plentiful but tasteless. The victuals had to be nutritious because Bossgond was still alive and he’d probably been eating this way for years. No wonder he was so scrawny.

After finishing off an apple and half her sandwich, Marian said, “Don’t you cook?”