Sorceress of Faith

“Sis!” A slight pause. His voice deepened. “I’m a man. I know how to work around my health issues. I plan to live life, not merely exist.”

“All right, all right. You have my blessing. Go and enjoy yourself.” She didn’t know why those phrases rolled from her lips. But they both knew the day-to-day risk he lived with.

“Hey, I was the one with the funny feeling, not you. Make sure Tuck takes care of himself. Oh, and you take care of yourself, too. Uh—by the way, will the weather be good?”

A familiar feeling whispered through Marian. “It should be pleasant but cool to start off with, then showers. Take your rain gear.”

“Will do. Love ya. Bye.” He smooched into the phone and hung up.

When Andrew left Colorado for California, he’d made it clear that he wanted to live as much as he could on his own. He wanted her to pursue her studies in Boulder as she’d planned, so she’d made herself let him go. He had been as desperate to live independently as she had been. Currently he had a housekeeper, a nurse who specialized in caring for people with MS. The matronly woman had separate quarters in his home. Andrew had a car and driver.

Their sibling relationship had actually improved. If he wanted her with him, he knew all he had to do was call.

Tuck rattled in his cage and brought her back to the moment. She studied the pentagram and found her pulse thumping fast. Andrew had phoned just before the ritual. Surely that was a bit of magic in itself. Further, he was trying another new program—could this ritual influence that? She didn’t want to think about what Andrew would do when the disease became more debilitating.

Andrew’s telephone call had thrown Marian’s timing off. She’d have to hurry through the first part of the ritual, use her notes on her PDA. Not perfect. Perhaps she should delay the ritual until next month? She wanted to, to ensure it would go more smoothly, but she dared not.

She walked around the star to her bedroom, stripped out of the soft cotton pants and shirt and folded them. Then she freed her still-damp hair and fluffed it, enjoying the feel of the strands as well as the slight tugging on her scalp as she ran her fingers to the shoulder-length ends.

Returning to the living room, she lit the candles, drew the outer circle, summoned guardian spirits. Palpable energy charged around her. The chanting she’d heard in her dreams sounded as if it came from her stereo, until she couldn’t tell if it was real or only echoed in her mind.

At the last minute, on impulse, she put the plastic ball with her hamster into the center of the pentacle, too. After all, when Andrew’s and her own life changed, so would Tuck’s, even if he only dimly sensed the alteration. He was an essential part of her life, so he should be included.

She stepped into the center of the pentagram and lifted her voice in counterpoint to the music. Lightning flashed. Incredible. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Energy raced through Marian, making her feel powerful, like a goddess, and she laughed. A bright carnelian-red ribbon of light unrolled, then curled around Marian and Tuck. She stared at it in disbelief.

She grabbed Tuck’s plastic sphere. With one small tug, they were swept through a hole, like thread through the eye of a needle.

Power spiked and whirled and changed. She lost her connection with Mother Earth. That deepest connection she’d felt all her life, snipped.

They were somewhere else, in a wind-whipped corridor of dust brown. A corridor to where?

Tuck’s ball was torn from her grasp and she screamed. She looked, listened, reached with all of her senses, flailed arms and legs and couldn’t find him. He’d been her companion for two years. She cried and grieved.

Adrift and alone in pummeling, whistling winds, she felt terror rip through her. Felt no links to anything. Not the earth, not the trees, not the moon or stars. All that she’d recently realized had spoken to her of her place and her life had vanished.

She reached mentally, emotionally for Andrew. Screamed and heard silence again.

Nothing.

3

She found herself on a cold floor.

Marian didn’t believe her senses. It felt as if she was on stone, not the threadbare carpet in her apartment. The scent of the room changed from lily of the valley to jasmine and sandalwood. As she inhaled, the air felt more humid. The space around her seemed larger, sounds echoing.

When she heard ragged breathing not her own, she squeezed her eyes shut, sure she was dreaming. Maybe experiencing out-of-body travel, though that had never happened before. She must be safe in her apartment. She didn’t want to think otherwise.

People started talking—not in English but in what sounded like mangled French. As part of pleasing her mother, Marian had learned French and spoke it like a native. This wasn’t true French. She thought her heart would jump from her chest it pounded so hard. This couldn’t be happening. If she kept her eyes closed, it would all go away and she’d be home and safe and never dabble with magic ever again.

With one singing ripple of chimes, her whole body arched involuntarily. Despite her will, her eyelids flew open.

A circle of faces peered down at her, all slightly Asian in appearance with dark eyes set in golden-toned skin. Marian gaped. An older woman with golden streaks of hair at each temple and compressed lips held up both hands palms outwards.

“Vel coom,” she said.

With only a little deciphering, Marian translated the word into “Welcome.” She wasn’t sure what to do. She still couldn’t connect to Mother Earth, let alone Andrew. Of course this whole thing could be a hallucination, or worse, madness.

What should she do?

“Vel coom!” the woman shouted, gesturing for Marian to get up.

Why didn’t the woman help her? Marian squinted and saw flowing lines of—energy? electricity? the Force? between her and the circle of richly robed figures. There were at least sixteen people surrounding her, evenly spaced along the large circle, pairs dressed alike. Swords were sheathed at their hips. From what she could see, the figure on the floor beneath her was a huge pentacle—a star in a circle—larger than hers, about fifteen feet.

She licked her lips and felt the dampness. The floor was cold flagstones under her, not carpet. Her breath caught in her throat as her mind spun with possibilities that she really didn’t want to consider, sorting and analyzing. Her brain told her she wasn’t on Earth, and she was in the midst of strong magic.

And she was lying in a big circular stone room, with wooden rafters and high windows around the top.

She wanted to think of anything except that she was in a different place. Naked.

Just the thought of her nudity made her flush—probably from her toes to her hairline.

The people continued to stare.

Since it didn’t look like they were going to approach, it was time to put reality to the test and rise and—she gulped—pretend she wasn’t ashamed of her body.

Marian stood with shoulders back, hips tucked, stomach sucked in, hoping her blush wasn’t as red as it felt. Keeping within one point of the star, she walked about five feet to where the others stood, outside the circle of flowing red energy-lines. Visible magic. If she weren’t so scared, she’d be impressed. Everything looked fascinating, would be fascinating, if she could engage more of her mind than her emotions. But dreams ran on emotions. This had to be a dream.

Her brain said it was, but her senses contradicted that notion. Her emotions spiraled out of control until she controlled the panic gritting her teeth. Act logically! Observe, at least.

The women were all as tall as she—at least five foot eight—the men taller. They all had black hair, dark eyes and golden skin—and silver or golden streaks of hair at one or both temples.

Marian pointed to a gray cloak a woman wore and made the motion of swirling it around her. Unfortunately, in response to her actions most of the men’s gazes locked on her breasts. She wanted to melt into the floor.

Marian cleared her throat. Was this real? Why were so many people here if she’d only needed one teacher? “Where? Um—when? I don’t know—May I have the cloak, please?”

The woman who’d spoken earlier stared at her, frowning.

All she wanted to do was find a corner and hide. That thought reminded her of Tuck and she forced back tears. He was gone. What chance did a hamster in a plastic ball have in the winds of that corridor?

This experience had already cost her more than she’d expected, Tuck.

But she’d stood around long enough. She’d act as if this was real, try and figure out what was going on, get her act together. Be bolder, take action. Take control.

Ka-Boom! Thunder rattled the silver gong at the edge of her vision. The gong responded with a low echoing tone. A flash of light blinded her. Heat and vibration struck her, sent her flat to the pavement again.

She blinked but could not see. She rolled to her side.

Arreth! The word rang strange in her head, but the image of herself, still on the floor in the point of a carnelian-red pentagram, teased her mind. Stay? Cloth brushed against her ankle—someone was in the pentacle with her!