Sorceress of Faith (61 page)

Mahlyar
staggered to his feet and swept his right arm out, claws extended, gleaming and
sharp. Sent a dark ray shooting.

With
a thought, electrical Power rippled around her, shielding her. Nothing could
get through from outside.

The
next blue bolt of fire from her fingertips tore open his chest. She reached in
and ripped out his blackened heart. It shriveled as she closed her fist around
it, nails digging in. He screamed and the world shook.

The
forcefield around them popped like a bubble and all the energy that they had
confined and not used swept into her. Powerful energy, clean, sparkling,
snapping energy, like a thunderstorm rolling through her and leaving lightning.
She staggered and fell to her knees, dropped her head.

I
will take that
,
Sinafin said in a tuneful voice. A beak pressed at her right fist, thrust
through her fingers, snapped up the small stone heart in her hand.

“My
God,” someone said in English. Female. Alexa. “Shit, Marian, when you learn to
fight you don’t mess around.” Her voice wobbled. “Ripped out the heart. Shit. I
think I need to sit down.”

A
presence joined Marian on the ground. She felt it to her left.

She
was full to bursting with Power, her skin stretched tight, the inner flesh of
her lips turned out. All her senses were…off. She hoped they weren’t fried, but
suspected they were, along with her brain synapses. All fried. Poor Marian. Too
bad. Such potential.

But
she’d always known she’d come to this.

She
heard whispering, then Bossgond said loudly, “She will never have such Power
again. It is the best time for her to raise her Tower, I say!” He walked up to
Marian and she saw him as a wavy ripple of shades of yellow in the air. The
gold tone was particularly striking and she stared at it.

“Ahem.”
Bossgond cleared his throat. “Marian, it is time to raise your Tower.”

Raise
her Tower!
The stunning idea nearly jolted her from the Power daze. She’d heard, read,
thought a lot about that, but she wasn’t ready. Oh no. Hadn’t she overcome
enough challenges today?

Someone
took her elbows and lifted her to her feet. She didn’t want to be upright or to
think. She’d just look at the pretty gold—

“Marian,”
said Alexa. “You’re staring at Bossgond’s crotch.”

Oops.

“Marian.”
Another male voice, reverberating across all the chords of her being. Soft,
tender, caressing her name. Jaquar, who drew close.

She’d
have thought Jaquar would be shades of red, like his maroon robe, but he was
blue. From the palest gray-blue, icy-white blue to deep indigo. And the most
beautiful blue was his eyes.

“Beautiful
blue eyes,” she said.

“Yes,
yes,” Bossgond snapped. “Let’s get you to Alf Island. I know the place there
that called to you.”

“Heart
to heart, soul to soul. Cleave. Transfer. Go. Come…” She wanted Jaquar’s heart
and soul to cleave to her own.
Cleave
was a word used in the Christian
marriage ceremony, wasn’t it?

“Take
her other arm, Jaquar, and let’s
move
before her brain explodes with an
overload of Power!”

Just
escaped brain being eaten to face brain exploding…Some days you couldn’t win.
Marian giggled.

Bossgond
continued shouting orders. “Transfer to Alf Island through the innermost
pentacle. It has remnants of Power, too. We need to get her there and started
on her Tower raising
fast
, so she can use this energy before it burns
her out.”

She
stared at the yellow banner that was Bossgond. He flapped in the breeze,
agitated. She’d never seen him so disturbed, never heard him emphasize his
words in normal speech. Then came a time that bent and twisted.

“This
is something I don’t want to miss,” shouted Alexa. “We’ll follow on our
volarans.”

Wind
and fire and water. The scent of wildflowers so perfect that she wept and felt
tears sizzle dry on her skin.

Her
feet connected with the land and the rootedness shocked her clear to her heart.
This was
her
land. Her place, forever.

The
yellow waves of air approached, holding a large peacock-colored pearl. Bossgond
placed the lovely pearl on her shoulder.

Hello,
Marian
,
Tuck said, nuzzling her neck.

Tuck!
She was back.
She was home.

“Raise
your Tower, Fifth Degree Circlet Marian Dale Harasta!” Bossgond thundered the
command, brooking no denial.

Marian
responded instinctively.

And
it started. The first of her Power siphoned from her, coalescing into a
three-dimensional image of the perfect Towers for her, and her mind cleared.
She smiled. Who could have guessed?

They
were square. She’d wanted square after all the round towers she’d inhabited.
They weren’t simple, but a Victorian fancy of what castle towers should look
like. How fun. How amusing to plant this here on Amee.

Power
encased her. She could do anything. She could raise these towers!

So
she settled into her balance, digging her toes into the rich dirt that was
nothing like the soil of Colorado. Tuck dug in, too, his claws into her
shoulder.

She
sorted the Power inside her. The stronger tune of Amee herself wound through
Marian’s blood, and she felt the energy of the land settle in her belly.

She
swayed a little to catch the spray of the incoming surf on her face, distilled
the Power of Water: surging, ever flexible, ever changing, yet strong enough to
carve beaches and canyons. The hidden, secret, infinitely unknowable depths of
the oceans flooded her with energy. She hunkered down to hold the Power. But it
had blinded her, so she raised her arms, tilted her face to the sun to feel the
warmth of it, of fire.

A
solar flare licked her body, burned through her to mix with, then separate from
the water energy. From swollen, cracked lips she said, “Wind! Air!” It whirled
around her, buffeting her, and she laughed, for she could feel only the touch
of the air and what she contained within herself, could not see, or hear or
taste the spray of the tide on her lips. For an instant the wind brought all
the dark, rich scents of Amee. Then that sense, too, vanished as a whirlwind as
it spun inside her.

She
thought she shrieked with joy, with the incredible Power. It tugged at her in
four directions—a pleasure-pain tempting her to succumb to the elements, be
torn apart in ecstasy. She danced with it, the streams of Power whirling around
her in rainbow of colors, surging through her in great chords of melody so
beautiful she thought she might splinter into iridescent shards.

A
great tug of something else, some other Song, shuddered through her. A quiet,
strong melody of love and lust and yearning. Jaquar. It was easier to remember
his name than hers. Marian? Yes, she was Marian. Once of Earth and now of Amee.

And
by the Power she would raise her Tower.

She
screamed with laughter at the simple rhyme, but it focused her, made her
concentrate, harnessing the Power—so hard, so difficult when it raged
wild—shaping it, harder still—did she pant, sweat, turn bloodless with the
effort? And fling it into the shape of two connected towers—like Tower Bridge
of London.

Too
great an endeavor for both towers and the bridge and the walkway. So the bridge
shrank and Marian fell and felt the hard ground of Amee cut into her knees. And
still she strove to
build
, to manifest in reality what she knew in her
mind. No bridge, but instead of arches for traffic to pass through, the bottom
stories were solid! She grunted with effort.

“Done!”
someone shouted. “Let the Power go!”

What
Power? It was all used up. Marian fell to her side, and the tiny bit remaining
of the four elemental Powers trickled from her grasp into…Tuck? He’d hopped
onto the ground and now bathed in the last shining remnants of her Power.

Feeling
came first. Jaquar cradled her in his arms, but the Song of Amee linked her to
the planet and the grass was cool against her calves. She had Towers and a
world and a man.

Then
she noticed the exquisite mixed fragrance of sweet grass and flowers and sea
spray.

“Well
now,” Alexa said, and Marian could
feel
her hearing sharpen. “That’s a
sight I never thought to see again.” Alexa chuckled.

As
if Alexa’s words were a spell—and they could be, couldn’t they? Alexa was as
strong in Power as she, though trained in a different discipline—Marian’s
blindness faded and overbright colors and shapes replaced it. She blinked and
blinked again, and found herself staring at Alexa, who stood holding Marian’s
brithenwood staff and her own Jade Baton. Alexa gazed at the two Towers of
Tower Bridge. They were connected with a little Victorian fancy of a walkway on
the fourth level.

Marian
looked at them, delighted. She never would have thought that her “perfect”
image of a tower would be these fussy buildings. What a fabulous house. And
Ritual room. And study. What wondrous things she could do in a place like that.

“Two,”
Jaquar said, and his chest rumbled against her. “Two. For you and Bossgond? Or
for you and Andrew?”

Marian
tried to speak, but coughed. Her throat was dry. Had she been screaming as
she’d thought?

Bossgond
squatted down near them, held a wineskin to her lips. She drank gratefully,
uncaring that some of the thick mead trickled down her chin.

“I
thought.” She met Jaquar’s eyes and saw anger there—and deep hurt. That wasn’t
acceptable. She wanted his smile. Clearing her throat again, she said, “I
thought for me and Tuck.”

Jaquar’s
hurt flashed out of existence. He laughed. “That hamster is
prancing
.”

Tuck
scrabbled up the side of her leg, danced up her thigh to her stomach. Her mouth
dropped open. He was a rainbow-furred hamster. He sat back on his haunches,
something large in his right cheek pouch. She had the suspicion that it was a
shriveled stone heart and didn’t want to contemplate that.

Tuck
said, “I am pleased. But I do not need a whole Tower.”

He
nuzzled her neck, then hopped off her to the ground and
grew
. Marian
goggled, then stared some more when he was joined by a matching foot-long
rainbow-colored hamster.

Sinafin.

“We
will make a little turret and take turns living here and with Alexa.” Tuck came
up and his tongue darted out to lick her chin. “Thank you. I shall live long
and have Powerful offspring.”

“Huh,”
she said, and tried to sit. It was beyond her strength, but Jaquar moved so she
was propped in a sitting position against him. He held the wineskin now.
Bossgond had risen and moved away to join everyone else in surveying the
Towers.

“Perhaps,”
Marian whispered, “you’d like to live with me in one Tower and we could use the
other for our studies?”

Jaquar
shook his head.

Her
stomach tightened and the mead turned sour in her mouth.

“They’re
square,” he pointed out, “and silly looking. My masculinity might be called
into question.”

Bastien,
Alexa’s Pairling, had wandered back and now snorted. “I think they’re fine
Towers. If you don’t want them, I bet I could convince Alexa—”

Jaquar
hugged Marian tight. His heart was thumping hard, but his voice was cool. “I
want them, and Marian.” He glanced up at Bastien. “I’ll use your worthless self
as witness. I hereby formally ask Marian to Pair-bond with me in a
coeurdechain.”

Bastien
snorted again. “You Sorcerers, always so formal. Why don’t you just kiss her?”

So
Jaquar did, and she felt the Song that rose between them twine them together.
His total self opened to her and she responded. She tasted the true intensity
and richness of life that could be found in giving and sharing love with a
partner.

She
broke the kiss and touched his cheek, smiling. “I look forward to exploring
every aspect of our lives and our world with you.”

Then
she studied the people around her. To her amazement Andrew-Koz was there,
swaying in the hold of a massive Swordmarshall, eyelids heavy.

She
jumped up and ran to hug him. His arms came around her, but he didn’t hug her
back as he always had. Her heart flipped into her throat. “Andrew?”

He
blinked. When he answered, his words slurred. “I think you should call me Koz.”
He was speaking Lladranan! Of course he knew French, and Marian had tried to
teach him rudiments of the language on Earth. Did the brain have language patterns—?
Her mouth dried.

“Koz?”
She stepped back, and his arms fell to his side.

“Yep,”
he said in English, and that reassured her a little. He switched back to
Lladranan. “And I think I’ll live in Horseshoe Hall at the Marshalls’ Castle.
I’m a Chevalier now.” He puffed out his chest, but it was a larger chest than
he’d had and he overbalanced.