Sorceress of Faith (8 page)

He
also ignored most of the Marshalls. Jaquar immediately went to Bastien
Vauxveau, who was talking to his wife, the Exotique Alexa. Jaquar tapped
Bastien on the shoulder. “Come along, I have some propositions. One for you and
one for Alyeka.”

Bastien
turned to Jaquar with gleaming eyes. “We’ll be glad to negotiate.” He sent a
glance to the other Marshalls. “They don’t need us.”

Alexa
sighed and spoke in heavily accented Lladranan. “I got here too late.”

“You
weren’t supposed to interfere at all,” Bastien scolded.

“I
don’t mind flouting the Marshalls, but the Singer knows what she’s doing and
she said not to take part in the Summoning.”

“Huh,”
Alexa said, glancing around as if she was afraid the Singer was watching. “We
weren’t part of the ritual, but I did want to help her understand. It was
miserable for me.” She set her mouth and swept out of the Temple.

For
a small woman, she moved fast. Jaquar thought her locomotion might be aided by
her great Power. Alexa wanted to hurry, thus the Song swept her along.

When
Jaquar exited, he stopped under the Temple’s portico to let his eyes adjust to
the moonlight. It was a beautiful spring night and the Marshalls’ Castle looked
magnificent, as always. But Jaquar sensed a distinct change in the atmosphere
since he’d last been here. At that time, under all their trappings of Power,
the Marshalls had been fearful. The magical boundaries of Lladrana were falling
and the Exotique they’d Summoned to reverse this had just left. They’d
discovered the sangvile in their walls.

Just
that easily, remembering the sangvile dimmed the evening for Jaquar. Alexa,
who’d been waiting for Bastien and him, put a hand on Jaquar’s arm.

“I
heard about your parents.” She pronounced every word carefully, clearly. “I’m
sorry for your loss.”

Jaquar
grunted.

Bastien
threw an arm around Jaquar’s shoulder, squeezed and let go. “You have
propositions for us?”

If
he wanted vengeance—
justice
, he’d need help from these two. He twisted
his mouth into the semblance of a smile. He must not have done too well,
because Alexa took a step back and her hand fell to the Marshall’s baton she
wore on her left hip.

Jaquar
switched his gaze to Bastien, who was shorter than he and more solidly made.
“You have the best stable of flying horses. I want a volaran, preferably one
you raised from a foal.” It seemed he’d be doing a lot of traveling and
volaranback would be the easiest, least energy-consuming way.

Now
Bastien clapped a hand on Jaquar’s shoulder. “We’ll deal.”

“And
I want to talk to Alyeka about the new Exotique….” Jaquar noted Alexa’s scowl
at the word and corrected himself. “Marian. I want to consult Alyeka about
Marian
.”

Alexa
sent him an approving look. “Let’s discuss this in our suite,” she said. With a
whirl of blue-green robes she took off down the cloister walk.

Renewed
hope filled Jaquar. He wasn’t finished yet. Somehow he’d get the woman back.

5

M
arian awoke to
the sound of waves pounding against rock, different from her white-noise
machine. Opening sleepy eyes, she stared at a rounded stone wall—not white
plaster. She shot up in bed and memory rushed back. She was not home in her
apartment, not in Boulder, not in Colorado, not in the United States of
America. She wasn’t even on Earth—she reached for that basic connection…and
felt nothing.

She’d
had no nightmares, but shivered as she recalled the ones she’d had in the past
month. The druids could have been the Marshalls. Other parts of those dreams
could happen here on Lladrana. Could they possibly have been more than
dreams—like a foretelling of the future? Fingers clutching her blankets, she
stared around her.

A
beautiful, stained-glass partition showing flowers in a meadow stood a few feet
from the end of the bed. To her right and left, the stone wall curved out of
sight. She was in a tower room of the Sorcerer Bossgond.

“Lladrana,”
she whispered, and the word seemed to sink down, down, echoing through the
floor, through the two stories beneath her, into the ground—and sent a
resonance back. The faint, broken notes of a beautiful, sad melody rose to
strum in her mind like a sobbing violin. She shook her head, but the song
remained, hovering in the back of her brain.

Inhaling
deeply, she tasted the faint tang of salt, and noted the waves again. She was
on an island. Beyond the glass partition she saw bright sunlight from the
windows on the far tower wall. She’d traveled through a wind-whistling space,
but not outer space—another dimension?

Her
stomach rumbled, and she focused on her hunger…and finding a bathroom. Last
night she’d merely stumbled into the room, found the bed behind the glass
partition. Letting the cloak drop where she stood, she had crawled under the
covers. She’d shivered, then visualized heat surrounding her body and it had
happened. Magic? Maybe.

She
hopped from the bed and her feet sank into a luxurious rug of jewel-toned
colors. The long gray cape she’d borrowed from one of the Marshalls who’d
summoned her lay like a dark cloud against the carpet. She frowned as she
picked it up. Though it had braided frog-fastenings all the way down the front,
she didn’t consider it viable clothing, but since it was all she had, she
swirled it around her, pushed her arms through the slits and looped the frogs.
Feeling a little better—and warmer—she noticed shelves on the far side of the
bed where a stack of clothes were folded. She’d investigate later.

Though
the glass partition didn’t rise as far as the stone ceiling, it ran along this
portion of the tower ending at the wall to her right. To her left, there was
space enough for a doorway. When she walked around the partition, she saw that
the bedroom was approximately a third of the whole room. The other two-thirds
looked like a study, except for a small, carved wooden closet protruding
halfway down the round wall in front of her. The closet door faced her. She
hurried to it, opened the door and sighed in relief at the sight of an
old-fashioned toilet with the tank near the ceiling.

When
she was done, she left the closet in search of a sink and found multiple ones
behind the closet. On the far side of the sinks was a counter that held
glassware, like an old alchemist’s setup.

Then
came the door to the stairway and, after the door, a huge desk. Shelves lined
the room, except for the three large window embrasures and a fireplace. A small
grouping of two chairs and a love seat sat in front of the fireplace close to
the stained glass.

It
was charming, but not home. How long would she be here? She only wanted help
for Andrew, then she’d leave.

A
horn blew and Marian jumped. Bossgond’s voice came to her.
Breakfast and
lessons in fifteen minutes
. None of the words were hard, so she grasped the
meaning and hurried back to the clothes shelves in the bedroom.

She
touched the yoke of a royal-blue velvet garment, then lifted it and found
herself holding a long gown with embroidered yellow birds. It seemed to be her
size.

Additionally,
she had a green dress, a maroon one and a black gown—all with little yellow
birds and narrow three-quarter-length sleeves.

Though
the blue robe had looked and felt heavy when she held it, the minute she put it
on it seemed like gossamer. It molded around her breasts and lifted them, and
Marian squeaked in surprise. Built-in magical bra! This would take some getting
used to. The gown sent warmth to her skin—reflecting her own heat?

Marian
looked dubiously at the one pair of footwear on the floor, tucked under the
lowest shelf. They appeared more like pouches to put over her feet than actual
shoes. Picking them up, she found they had soft leather uppers and springy
insoles. When she turned them over she saw a material that looked like fine
scales. Snake?
Dragon?

Anyway,
they looked far too big for her, and the uppers stuck up in folds. She couldn’t
see any laces.

Bracing
a hand against the wall—it was warm to her touch—she slipped on one of the
shoes. It felt lined with fur and she hummed with pleasure at the soft
silkiness. Then the pouch tightened, molding to foot and ankle. She tottered,
stumbled, took a few steps to regain her balance and fell onto the bed. She
stared at her foot. Not only had the slipper conformed to her body, but it had
turned the same color as her gown and now had little yellow birds all over it.
She wiggled her feet—one shod, one bare. The one with the shoe felt better.
Magical shoes.

Her
heart jumped. What if she couldn’t take it off? “Off!” she ordered.

Nothing
happened.

She
hooked her thumbs inside the shoe and pushed down. The shoe slid off her foot,
tickling her sole, and plopped to the floor.

All
right; one of them could come off. But if she put on both, would she dance to
her death? There were plenty of folklore stories about shoes and mutilation,
like Cinderella.

For
a moment she just stared at the shoes, realizing that she was in a place far,
far different from home. That it seemed somewhat like Earth accentuated her
shock—she judged this place by Earth experiences, concepts, standards, and they
might not apply. Any move she made, thinking she knew the outcome, could be
wrong and lead her to her doom.

She
fell back on the bed, hands over pounding heart, touching the cloth that seemed
like velvet but could be anything—fur, skin,
plastic wrap
for all she
knew. Even her senses could be lying to her. Perhaps nothing here was real.

And
if she continued to think that way, to challenge everything—her senses, her
mind, her experiences—she’d go mad. To her horror, tears dribbled from her
eyes.

This
should be such an incredible, fascinating experience for a true scholar! A
whole new world to learn, a new aspect of her own self—and magic!—to explore
and master. She should be thrilled.

Instead,
she wanted to curl up into a fetal position and pull the covers over her head.

Bossgond
was waiting for her. With breakfast. Even the thought of food couldn’t move
her.

She
was flipping out over a pair of shoes.

They
were magic shoes.

Now
her nose was clogged. She’d need to go to the toilet closet and get some
tissue-stuff she’d found there. It was in a roll and had felt like regular
toilet paper. She’d just used it, not scrutinized it. Who knew what it was?

Was
she going to let panic over the thought of a new world, a
magical
world,
paralyze her?

Wrong
question.

The
right question was, How
long
was she going to let panic paralyze her?

Marian
had always thought of herself as willing to learn new things, explore new
ideas—perhaps she’d even been snobbish about that quality. In fact, she was a
coward.

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.