A Distant Magic

by Mary Jo Putney

  "We will set you to different tasks so that you will experience nature in new ways. The goal is for you to learn awareness of other ways of seeing."

  That didn't sound too bad. "How long will the initiation take?"

  "At least a fortnight, probably longer."

  He hesitated. "I have duties here. I must oversee the repairs to my ship, and I have leadership responsibilities in the village."

  "Does the village collapse when you are at sea?" Her brows arched. "What is most important, Captain? Choose."

  His concerns vanished. "You're right. The village runs perfectly well without me when I'm gone, and the mission you have offered is the most important undertaking of my life. Do you have any instructions?"

  "A few. This will not be easy, Captain. For years you have lived in the world of action and will. You must release that if you wish to survive initiation." She sighed. "I say again that this is dangerous, Captain, especially for a full-grown man who has not lived among Africans. Even in Africa, there are always some boys who die or become lost between worlds, a fate far worse than simple death. You do not have to do this."

  "Will you send me through time if I am uninitiated?" Her troubled expression was answer enough. "Then I shall make the attempt, and do my best not to think."

  "Not thinking is one of the hardest things one can attempt."

  "I discovered that this afternoon," he said drily. "Where is the African gathering place I must visit for tonight's ceremony?"

  "Tano will meet you here at dusk and guide you there." Adia leaned back in her chair. "And I shall nap. The night will be tiring."

  He stood. If there was a chance he might die of his initiation, he must speak to Jean first. Though he wasn't quite sure what he'd say to her.

  Jean was frowning over a letter when a knock came on her door. "Come in," she called.

  Nikolai entered, looking tall, dark, and sober. "Adia has decided to launch me into the unknown this evening," he said without preamble. "I thought I would bid my farewells in case her direst predictions come true."

  Nerves clenching, she set the quill aside. His dark face was calm, but it was easy to see the tension thrumming through him. He was not precisely afraid, she guessed, but even the boldest man was wary of the unknown. "This seems very sudden. I thought she would spend more time teaching you how to think like an African."

  "She says I think too much already, so the less thinking, the better." Instead of sitting, he wandered to a window and looked over the caldera, where the water shimmered like bronze in the late-afternoon light. "Is she right about the dangers?"

  So he was here for reassurance. "I know nothing about African initiations, but I was taught that dark energies exist side by side with the world we know. Spirits, demons, creatures—call them what you will, but they can cause damage."

  She tried to think what else should be said. "Our spirit and body are connected but separate. If the spirit goes traveling, there is a risk it might not be able to find its way back. Or it might be attacked by one of the creatures of the spirit realm. Either of those things can cause the body to die."

  "And damn one's spirit to suffer everlasting torments?" he asked drily.

  "I wouldn't know about that. Few Guardians travel on the inner planes regularly, and I know of none who have died that way. But...death is possible."

  "Spirits and demons would be easier to accept if I were a religious believer." He stared sightlessly out the window, his profile like granite.

  She doubted he'd welcome the idea that initiation might make him a believer—he must work that out for himself. What useful advice could she offer?

  She thought of the ceremonies she had undergone when she came of age. "If your spirit travels so far there is danger of not returning, try to think of what is most deeply you. The captain, the protector, the outsider—recognize what is the essence of Nikolai Gregorio. That might help bring body and soul together again if they become separated."

  He turned from the window. "I hear the words, but on some level they seem meaningless, like a child's rhyme."

  "I think the words will come alive during the initiation."

  He shrugged, accepting but not believing. "What are you working on?"

  "Letters to my friends in France and my family." She indicated the number of sheets already covered with fine, neat handwriting. "With Adia's help, I managed mind touch with my friends and my brother, so they know not to be frantically worried, but there is concern, of course. Hence, letters to assure them I am well. Louise said that within the next week or so, it should be possible to send messages to France."

  He nodded. "Even if the Justice isn't repaired, another ship should be in soon."

  "No rush. I need time to work on the letters." She smiled wryly. "It's awkward to explain that one has been kidnapped by a revenge-seeking pirate, but really, all is well. One's family tends to disapprove of kidnapping."

  "You fear that your brother will come chasing after you and get himself killed?"

  "That, or that he might kill you," she said tartly. "You're a dangerous man, Nikolai, but so is Duncan. Better you not meet like two rams banging heads."

  He smiled at the image. "I have promised not to seek vengeance against him."

  "He has made no such promise about you." She toyed with the quill. "There are two sets of letters. One set addresses the current situation. The other is a farewell if you and I go flying off through time. I assume that if that happens, we will probably not come back to this year even if we're successful. I want my family to know that I go willingly, and am glad for a chance to serve." Her smile was a little brittle. "That I went to my death as a proper Guardian."

  His gaze returned to the view outside the window. "It's hard to believe in death in a place of such peace and beauty."

  "Death can come in a heartbeat even in a drawing room."

  "Or on an uninhabited island. Adia and the other priests are taking me to Diabolo, across the caldera. It should be…interesting." He crossed the room to her desk. "If we don't meet again in this lifetime, I hope you know peace in your future, Jean Macrae." He bent and kissed her, not with the passion they had shared earlier, but with wistful tenderness. His mouth was warm and inviting.

  "I don't want peace," she whispered, blinking back tears. "I want life. Challenge. Meaning." All of those qualities that were so visible in Nikolai.

  She stood to return his kiss, her arms sliding around his broad chest. Her lips were slow and tender as she tried to express what she could not fit into words. She felt the same yearning and concern in him. They had traveled far from the passionate embrace on the black sand beach, and she felt closer to him now than when their bodies had been intertwined.

  For a mad instant she considered lying with him so she would at least have that memory if he failed to return, but her inner guidance still said that intimacy would be profoundly wrong now. Refusing to accept that they might never meet again, she said briskly, "You will be back, Nikolai. Battered and tempered and shaped in ways we can't predict. But you will be back." She managed a teasing smile. "Because we have unfinished business, you and I."

  Chapter

  TWENTY-TWO

  Nikolai spent the rest of the day taking care of as much business as possible. The pile of work prevented him from thinking too much. He managed to submerge himself deeply enough in his accounts that he was surprised when Tano arrived at the house at dusk. His friend appeared in the door of the study wearing only a loincloth and beads, his dark skin shining as if oiled.

  Nikolai blinked. "Am I overdressed?"

  Tano smiled a little. "Most will be dressed as I, but the choice is yours."

  Nikolai didn't like the idea of exposing his bare skin to a group, though he supposed that was the kind of vanity he should release. As a compromise, he said, "For future ceremonies, I shall devise a loincloth. For now, I'll remove my coat and waistcoat." He stripped off his outer garments so that he wore only shirt and breeches and boots. Then he followed Tano
into the falling night. "Where are we going?"

  "Our ceremonies take place in the cellar of one of the ruins on the west side of the island," Tano explained. "That is the largest of the old villages."

  "Ceremonies have taken place regularly?" Nikolai asked, surprised.

  "Of course. Surely you have heard the drums."

  He had, but hadn't thought much of it beyond assuming that some of the African-born liked drumming. Despite his own African blood, he had never been invited to join any ceremonies. Was he not African enough? Too intimidating because he was the leader? Or too well known as a man who concentrated on the visible world?

  All of those things, perhaps. Even if he had been invited, he probably wouldn't have accepted.

  Now that he was listening, he became aware of the drums. Though drumming wasn't uncommon on Santola, he'd never truly listened to the sound. The closer he came to the source, the more the pounding rhythms saturated his body, echoing the beat of his blood through his veins.

  They reached the ruins of the largest of the old villages as full dark fell. Tano led them on an erratic route through the weeds and tumbled stones.

  Then he vanished. It took a moment for Nikolai to realize that his friend had ducked into a twisting tunnel that led downward. Nikolai followed, using caution after he banged his head on the irregular ceiling.

  At the end of the short tunnel was light, and the full power of the throbbing drums. The ceremonial space appeared to be the cellar of a sizable building. Open to the sky, it was lit by a blazing fire in the center. Perhaps two dozen people, both men and women, sat in a large circle around the fire. Only the men drummed. Tano said quietly, "Because we are few and of many tribes, both men and women attend. We need to share our heritages to keep us strong."

  Nikolai knew them all, of course—there were no strangers on Santola—but those present looked different tonight, and he couldn't immediately identify everyone. The men wore loincloths, the women little more. Some also wore ropes of beadwork, headdresses, and other more exotic body decorations that included feathers and animal skin and painted markings slashed across dark skin.

  Not all the skin was so dark—as his eyes adjusted to the erratic light of the fire, he saw that some of the mixed-blood Santolans were present. One was Louise. He always thought of her as French, but tonight she was African.

  Silently Tano found a place in the circle and sat down. Nikolai sat next to him, wanting a friend close in this strange place. He looked around for Adia, but didn't see her. The only sound was the drums.

  He closed his eyes and let the drumming penetrate his body. The thundering waves numbed his mind, eased the separation between his body and the world around him. There was magic in these instruments. They were a choir of harmonious rhythms, he realized. Sometimes a solo drummer would explode to the foreground with virtuoso work, then later fade back into the chorus and another player would take the lead.

  The rhythm changed and a cry pierced the night. He opened his eyes to see Adia dance into the circle. He recognized her more from her energy than her appearance, for she was almost unrecognizable. Nude except for beads, she was slashed with white paint in a skeleton-like pattern. She whirled around the circle several times before halting and gesturing at the fire with both hands. The flames turned violet and flared high into the sky, taller than the average house.

  The violet light dazzled, making it difficult to see anything else. Even closing his eyes didn't eliminate the light. He opened them again, his senses filled with the light and the bone-stirring hammer of the drums. Gradually he began to see hints of movement from the corners of his eyes, movement that vanished when he looked directly at it.

  He forced himself to be still and wait. Abruptly he realized that he was seeing small people, men and women perhaps two feet tall. They were unmistakably Africans, dark of skin and dressed in the simple wrapped garments of the Dark Continent. Were these the ancestors? Perhaps. Or maybe they were another kind of being that possessed spirits but not bodies. One, an old man, walked toward him. Through him, causing a clammy shiver.

  Adia began speaking in a language he couldn't identify. The sounds were ancient, primal, as if this was the first tongue spoken by mankind. Her voice rose and fell. Sometimes it was so soft it was obliterated by the drums, other times so powerful it echoed from the lava stones of Santola. The small beings drew around her, watching and dancing to the sound of her voice and the drums, weaving in hypnotic patterns.

  He realized that sweat was pouring off him. Some of the heat was from the fire, whose towering flames still burned as high as a building, far brighter than the fuel could support. But heat also blazed from Adia, a human heat more potent than the flames.

  She raised her hand, and he saw that she carried a long polished stick crowned with beads and feathers. Had she always held it, or had it appeared from nowhere?

  She gave a call of summoning, and three of the people sitting in the circle rose to join her. There were two men and a woman, and they were painted with the same white skeleton marks. One of the men was of mixed blood, his skin noticeably lighter than the others. Nikolai was glad to see that a mixed-blood could achieve priestly power.

  She pointed her staff at Nikolai. Without words, he knew that meant he should come. He rose and joined her. The four priests surrounded him, and they walked from the gathering place, surrounded by the thunder of the drums.

  He could think a little more clearly when they were out in the open air, farther from the drumming. The rest of the island was silent, and he saw only a bare scattering of lights from the main village. He had discovered Santola with his mage's intuition and thought he knew every square yard of the main island, yet he felt as if he'd been transported to an alien land. Was this one of the different worlds Adia spoke of?

  No, Santola had not changed, he was the one who had moved from his normal awareness. He felt like an observer, set apart from his body, as the group reached the shore. A narrow, crudely made log canoe was pulled up on the coarse sand. He hadn't known there was such a craft on the island. It was becoming very clear that he knew less of Santola than he'd thought.

  The two priests launched the boat. Nikolai started to help, but a sharp gesture from Adia stopped him. He was motioned into the center of the boat with a man and woman in front of him and the other two behind.

  Moonlight silvered the water as they glided across the caldera to Diabolo. Nikolai tried to remember the island, which he'd visited once or twice in his early years on Santola. It was a narrow, jagged crescent that jutted up from the sea, smaller and more vertical than the main island.

  They reached the shore, and the priests pulled the boat onto a sliver of beach, the hull scraping harshly. The shore was fairly flat for fifty feet or so before rising into a steep hillside. Adia stepped from the canoe and scooped up a stack of blankets, then walked to the middle of the flat area. The other priestess brought several sacks of supplies.

  "Where…?" Nikolai's question was stilled when Adia touched her finger to her lips in the gesture for silence. The white slashes of paint made her look inhuman in the moonlight. She was no longer the civilized Londoner who had learned the language and manners of a well-bred Briton, but a dangerous priestess of dark mysteries.

  Still without speaking, each priest picked up a blanket and settled down to sleep for what remained of the night. Nikolai was glad to see that there was a blanket for him, for the night was chilly without a fire.

  He rolled into his blanket and prepared to sleep, knowing the morning would begin the real initiation. He should get what rest he could.

  But sleep wouldn't come. Stars splashed lavishly across the sky, and he found he couldn't close his eyes to them. As a sailor he knew stars and constellations well, but tonight the stars seemed alive. They pulsed and shimmered with meaning, brighter and more compelling than he'd ever seen them before.

  They seemed to be singing, too. Not in words. More like a chorus of notes, individually discordant yet somehow in ha
rmony when taken together. He listened in case there was a message for him, but heard nothing except haunting, distant chords.

  He fell asleep to the music of the spheres, and woke when a soft voice said, "Captain."

  He tensed even as he remembered that he was on Diabolo, the barren, hell-born island opposite Santola. Adia stood beside him. The body paint was gone, and she wore a simple wrapped gown and turban. No longer African priestess, but an African woman who reminded him of his grandmother, who had always worn a similar turban.

  He sat up and she handed him a cup of steaming tea and a bread roll. The tea was sweet and flavored with cardamom, the roll a little stale. The other priests were consuming a similar breakfast. Though it was past sunrise, the interior of the caldera was still shadowed.

  When everyone had finished the meager meal, Adia rose and gestured for them to follow. Medicine bag slung over her shoulder, she picked her way along the edge of the water for some distance before turning up a twisty ravine. The group was about halfway to the top of the hill when she turned left into a cave. Which was interesting since Nikolai had never heard that Diabolo contained any caves.

  Yet this was certainly a cave. The narrow entrance opened into a sizable area. Most caves had scents of animal occupants, but not this one. It smelled—ancient.

  As she entered, Adia raised her hand, and violet fire appeared on her palm. The light illuminated a large space, roughly circular in shape and with a roof perhaps ten feet high. At the back, a cleft led deeper into the hill.

  Adia placed the violet fire on one wall. It clung to the stone like a torch, burning steadily without fuel. She threw a handful of powder into the flame and acrid smoke began to fill the cave. Nikolai coughed, blinked his eyes, and realized that the subtle glow of magic was also beginning to fill the space.

  Turning away from the fire, Adia drew her companions into a circle. "You must find the missing pieces of yourself, Captain. We will do what we can to set you on the right path, but ultimately the journey is one you must make alone. I do believe it is possible that you can do this successfully, or I would not allow it."