Sorceress of Faith

by Robin D. Owens

  His dark sapphire gaze fixed on hers, he stood linked between Alexa and another Marshall. Determination and promises flowed to her from him, through the emotional link that widened as their gazes locked. He nodded, then turned his head to look at Andrew. His eyes softened, a smile close to pity curved his lips.

  Marian scowled. How dare he pity her brother!

  “First question,” Alexa called in English as soon as the last word of the Summoning chant ended. “Did you bring potatoes? You know they don’t have fries here.”

  Marian laughed and Andrew grinned.

  Lady Knight Swordmarshall Thealia Germaine cut the Ritual Circle by withdrawing her hands from those on each side of her and humming an atonal note.

  Alexa strolled toward them, smiling at Andrew. “Hi, you must be Andrew. I’m Alexa.”

  Andrew took a step, wavered. Marian reached to brace him, but he shrugged her hand away and paced forward steadily, holding out his hand. “Andrew Reston.”

  Marian and Andrew had just stepped from the center pentagram to between the star-points when a screaming whoosh sounded behind them.

  The shriek came from a thin, weedy young Circlet who yelled, “The maw opened. Danger. Danger! I saw it. An immense pulse of Darkness straight here—carrying horrors.” He crumpled.

  Wing beats and cries came from above. Volarans had risen to scream challenge to a dreeth, diving at it, clamping teeth on the fragile wings.

  Marian whirled to see monsters pouring into the confined circle of the stands, trapping the Lladranans and her and Andrew—hulking renders, slayers ruffling their spines, the soul-suckers with twisting tentacles. Five black splotches of manlike sangviles glided toward them. She stood petrified.

  But Lladranans fought in three dimensions.

  Alexa whirled and ran to Bastien. He shrilled a whistle and a mighty volaran dipped near to the ground. Bastien threw Alexa onto the steed, then jumped on behind her. An egg-shaped force field snapped around them. They whipped out their batons and Bastien yelled a war cry as they flew straight for the dreeth’s distended belly.

  Their Chevaliers, Pascal and Urvey, Koz and Perlee and others called their volarans and followed.

  The Marshalls coalesced into Pairs, then into a team, stripped their robes from their armor and waded into the fight, faces grim. A Powerful Song of destruction vibrated from them in low tones.

  Most of the Circlets and Scholars stood as frozen as Marian. Bossgond wielded a staff that sent invisible energy, frying a slayer.

  Sinafin in hawk-form flew over Marian and dropped a brithenwood branchlet on her head, screaming, Fight! That jolted Marian from immobility. She caught the branch before it fell to the ground, held on hard. To her surprise, the twigs melded into the main stem, the forks came together, and she had a strong, beautiful wand that Sang of life.

  Others were dying. Marian saw a male Chevalier Pair fall beneath five renders, ripping them apart.

  Fight. It was a whisper inside her that had to grow fast, that had to stir her body into action. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know how. She had to try.

  Jaquar ran to them, his telescoping staff the size of a wand. His lips were pulled back in a grin. He’d torched a sangvile and yelled in triumph.

  Behind him followed a soul-sucker, and another speeding sangvile. “Watch out—” She’d meant to warn him, but he caught Andrew in a football tackle and draped him over his shoulder, running for the dubious safety of the deserted Tower.

  Cold fingers encircled her ankle. Power stilled in her, began to drain. She looked down in horror to see a sangvile move its head to her calf, lips protruding.

  Fight! Fire! Fire killed these things. She was the Mistress of Lightning. Fight before she died!

  The Massster sssends his greetingsss, the evil thing hissed in her mind—violation enough to enrage Marian.

  She pointed her new wand at it and shouted, “Fire!” Summoning Power from the anger of Amee in the ground beneath her. She allowed it to sear through her to free her wits, roll down her arm and charged from the wand to strike the sangvile and shrivel it to ash.

  Her first kill.

  She felt no remorse, only dedication to the cause of freeing this planet from the Dark that sought to claim it. She wouldn’t stand aside. She’d learn to fight. This was her home now, these people her family as much as Andrew. She would defend them to her death.

  Shuddering, she took a few seconds to scan the battleground. Most of the Scholars had fled after Jaquar, who was organizing them. Several Circlets stood ready before him.

  To her surprise, Chalmon and Venetria had joined Bossgond. A ragged Song rose from the three as they struggled to work as a unit, fighting a dreeth. Venetria used her staff to coat the creature’s wings with ice, and it crashed. Bossgond and Chalmon shot a thick sizzling stream into it, firing it.

  Chevaliers fought on foot or volaranback. Some had fallen, but their bravery and skill in facing the monsters and dispatching them impressed Marian.

  The Marshalls were awesome to see—targeting a dreeth or a specific group of horrors, swooping down, and dispatching them. Not one Marshall—Sword or Shield—appeared to have a scratch.

  Marian limped to the Tower where Jaquar was forming the Scholars and Circlets into a defensive semicircle. She couldn’t see Andrew but sensed he was behind the line.

  As she walked, she swung her wand like a weapon, shooting fire at the horrors—cutting two soul-suckers in half, setting a render afire. She learned not to shut her eyes as the fire hit, not to flinch as death claimed a beast. Her left foot that the sangvile had leeched onto was numb and dragging behind her, slowing her.

  A scream of pain split the air above her. Marian looked up to see a small dreeth flame a rider and volaran. The rider fell and hit the ground two feet from Marian with a sickening thud. Marian pivoted, struggled to keep her balance.

  It was Perlee.

  “Nooo!” an anguished man shouted in her ear. Koz jumped from his own volaran, flung himself at Perlee, lifted her.

  She was dead.

  “No,” he whispered, rocking her. “It can’t be. This can’t be right. This isn’t fair.”

  Even Marian knew that life was rarely fair, and war never was, and this was her first battle. She swallowed hard, averted her gaze from the burned and broken Perlee. Setting a hand on Koz’s large, trembling shoulder, she cried, “Come.”

  So many monsters. How could they all have appeared? A black death ray straight from the maw to here.

  She shivered, pulled on Koz’s arm. “Come! We aren’t safe here.”

  He lifted a pale face, blind eyes staring. “She’s my Pairling, we’re bonded. She can’t die. Not without me. She can’t go away without me. She can’t abandon me.” It was a chant of his own. A chant rejecting death. A futile Song.

  Thudding footfalls approached. Pascal, the head of Alexa’s Chevaliers, stopped near them. “Perlee’s gone, Koz. We have a fight to finish.” His words were harsher than his tone. “Come along.”

  Koz did nothing.

  Pascal stooped and pulled Perlee’s sword from her loose fingers. To Marian’s horror, he yanked Perlee from Koz’s grasp, lifted her sword and plunged it into her body, through it, into the ground. Marian choked.

  Perlee’s body sank into the ground until all that showed was a depression of darker green grass, and her sword stood upright like a gravestone.

  Koz roared in despair and swung at Pascal, who ducked, grabbed the man’s arm and snapped, “Let’s go. Horrors are advancing. Protect the Exotique!”

  Looking down at her with dull eyes, Koz moved between her and a group of monsters rampaging toward them.

  Adrenaline shooting through her, Marian ran haltingly toward the Tower, the men at her back. She plunged through the defensive line a moment before the horrors caught up with them.

  The men joined the ranks and turned and fought. Jaquar stepped up with them as the beasts hit the line.

  The battle had come to the Tower.

>   Jaquar, Pascal and Koz cut down the first wave of six—three renders, a soul-sucker and two slayers.

  As a slayer died, it flung its spines into the defenders. A female scholar fell.

  So did Andrew.

  Marian screamed, her cry resounding off the black stones of the Tower. She rushed to his side, found the yellow spine sticking out of his shoulder. Without thought she grabbed it—acid seared her palm. Pain scoured her. She kept her gaze locked on Andrew.

  His face was pale, beaded with sweat. He tried to smile. “Guess…I’ve…had…it. Not much of an…adventure.”

  “Nooo!” she moaned.

  Jaquar was there. “The jerir, do you have it?”

  Marian stared at him.

  “The jerir!” he repeated.

  She fumbled in her pocket where she’d put the bottle, dug it out. He ripped it from her hand, unstoppered it and poured it into Andrew’s wound, then found the energy stone in Andrew’s pocket and set it atop the injury.

  Andrew jerked in her arms. She thought she saw his soul rise from his body. “No!” she cried. “Stay, stay with me.”

  With her own strong Song, Powered by physical and emotional pain, she encased him, drew him close. Held him. His soul hovered, then slipped halfway back into him.

  Jaquar grabbed her hurt hand, took a vial from his pocket and upended fiery liquid over her palm and fingers. Her vision darkened. She fought it back.

  Battle cries and roars came from the line. She turned her head to the protective rank of Circlets fighting. She saw Marshalls—Alexa and Bastien—zooming down on the monsters from behind.

  Two Circlets fell. Then a render’s powerful swipe hit Koz, swept him off balance, and his head hit the stone wall.

  As Marian watched, the battle moved to the Tower, with all the monsters attacking, then the Marshalls and Chevaliers cut the horrors to shreds.

  A shout of triumph rose. Soon all the survivors entered the Tower, which had become a hospital zone.

  Marian stayed with Andrew, who struggled for life, laboring to breathe. She didn’t let go of his Song, kept re-weaving the bond between them.

  The two Castle Medicas who had helped Summon Andrew and Marian arranged the wounded around them, used their Power to heal. The Marshalls had consulted with the Medicas regarding Andrew, and Marian hated that he’d heard their whispered conclusion. He was an Exotique, too unknown and frail to be healed by a Marshalls’ Circle. They could not help.

  Would not help.

  The Marshalls Healing Circle dealt only with the worst Chevalier casualties, slowly and steadily. They fought death and won.

  Nor would the Marshalls help Koz. The Medicas frowned over the Chevalier. “He has a concussion. We have healed it, yet he does not respond.” They shook their heads over him, then went on to other wounded.

  The Scholars and Circlets had set up a Healing Circle, too, under Chalmon’s direction, with Bossgond a part of it. Marian could sense from where she sat that the Circle wasn’t as strong or as steady as the Marshalls’. Not as well practiced.

  Something she’d definitely remedy in the future…

  She didn’t want to think of a future without Andrew. Had never wanted to imagine a life without her brother. She wasn’t ready for his death so soon after the triumph of arriving in Lladrana.

  Jaquar stayed with her, sitting beside her but not touching, keeping a low Song of comfort running between them. Now and then he would leave to join the Healing Circle. She missed him, then. He was only across the floor from her, but she missed him.

  She prayed. The day crept by with agonizing slowness.

  Finally Andrew’s breath rattled in his chest. His eyes opened and his gaze fixed on hers.

  Marian, he whispered in her mind.

  She jerked, her fingers tightening on his hand.

  Andrew. She infused her mental voice with all the love she felt for him. I’m sorry—

  No! I’m not. He managed a smile. An adventure. Live, Marian. Live large.

  Andrew—

  No, listen to me. A hoarse sound that might have been the beginning of a chuckle escaped his lips. Look, I have learned something new today. To mind-speak. Listen to me.

  He rolled his eyes toward Koz, who moaned. Medicas gathered around him. I want his body.

  36

  She flinched in shock. No!

  Andrew projected mentally, I learned something else today, too. I can see souls. His is leaving. He doesn’t want his body. He is abandoning it, following his lady into death.

  No!

  Yes. He is not fighting to survive, to live like we have. Like I am.

  Andrew was right. She and Andrew had always struggled—against their mother—to live as individuals. Andrew had fought to live with his condition, sometimes from moment to moment, as he fought to live now.

  Koz surrendered to death. His mind did not want to overcome the shock of his head injury because he was devastated by the loss of his Pairling. Even now, as life drained from his eyes, his etheric self, his soul, began to rise and separate from his body.

  It is a big, strong, virile body, and I want it.

  “No.” But she whispered.

  Yes. Come on, sis. You and I have read enough science fiction and fantasy, enough philosophy, watched enough flicks to know it can be done!

  A bubble of sheer incredulity caught in her throat. I can’t—

  You can! You have great Power here. You have friends and allies and people bonded and indebted to you who will help. This is no time to lack faith in yourself!

  But deep inside something gibbered insidiously, I can’t.

  You must! Look, his spirit is leaving, and you have me. You’ll get all of me. Put me inside his body!

  She had no time to prepare, no knowledge of how to do this thing. If it could be done. She wanted to deny that she could help. But Koz and Andrew were both in the arms of death. With luck she could save one. Andrew.

  Linking Andrew’s limp hand with Koz’s, she put her hands around the men’s joined fingers, felt the last pulsing energy of them both. She sensed how Koz was bound to the tiny echo of Perlee’s Song and yearned to follow. Sensed how Andrew craved to live. As she balanced the rhythmic Songs of them, sweat slid down her face, her back, and her own true melody wavered.

  Someone’s hands curved over her shoulders. Jaquar. She should not be able to bear it, but he sent her strength and she used it. A gray form lifted from Koz, sped to where another shade—Perlee?—hovered. They merged and vanished. Pain speared Marian’s head, her vision narrowed to Andrew’s face. She gulped breaths but found no air.

  Jaquar’s grip dug into her shoulders. He was a rock she leaned on.

  The Medicas drew back from Koz’s body.

  “No! Stay!” Marian commanded. She forced her hand to drop Andrew’s limp fingers. “I have my brother and he wants to live. He will take this body. Keep it alive!”

  They stared at her. One rubbed his forehead. “I have never seen a soul transfer. I don’t know how it’s done.”

  Marian didn’t, either. She lifted her chin, kept Andrew close, wrapped tight in her love. With a thick tongue, she said, “I am a Sorceress, a Circlet of the Fifth Degree, I will do this.”

  Enthralled, the three Medicas stared at her. The leader nodded decisively. “We will keep the body alive.”

  She glanced at Andrew. The minute thread of life connecting his soul broke. There was a snap, an inner snap of Andrew separating from his body. The full weight of him, his will, his soul, his character, his personality fell on her and they spun into blackness, unconsciousness threatened. She gritted her teeth, but barely felt the action. Shoulders hunched, she fell forward.

  Send me in, Marian, please, please, please, begged Andrew, like the child he’d been once.

  She couldn’t deny him then, and couldn’t deny him now.

  Wearily, lifting Andrew’s being like a weight too heavy to be borne, she fumbled for Koz’s hand, sensed the emptiness of his shell, knew the shape of al
l the crannies and caverns of him.

  Someone moaned—was it her? Straining, she poured Andrew’s essence into the body, tucked him in as if into a bed. The body jerked, ripping Andrew and Koz’s hand from her slippery grasp. She grabbed, but missed him.

  Bossgond was there, his hand linked to her right. Jaquar was on her other side, his fingers encompassing her left hand. And they were connected to all the Circlets on the field. Chalmon and Venetria poured energy into her. Everyone gave her support. Power trickled into her from unrecognized sources.

  She reached with all her heart and mind and soul and recaptured Andrew, his whole being, and held him close, matched his whimpers with her own, turned them into hums of comfort.

  Here is the body before you, Bossgond said. The heart, the mind, the soul cavity. Do! We will help.

  Marian was afraid. What if—

  You cannot doubt yourself! Bossgond snapped. You must have faith that you can do this.

  Marian strengthened her will, let Andrew flow from her keeping, guided him into the body, holding him safe—for another stretch of seconds before her doubts ambushed her again. She fought them with the love she felt for Andrew, with the affection she felt from Bossgond, with the Powerful support she felt from Jaquar, but the transfer slowed.

  Inside her head, Bossgond insinuated thoughts opposing the voice of her self-doubt. Why do you think that you must achieve perfection or you will fail?

  Because I have always failed and it must be because I am not perfect. But with the admission, her heart felt lighter and more of Andrew sparkled into the body. Bossgond was distracting that part of her mind that doubted and letting her magic and Power do what needed to be done!

  What have you failed at? Bossgond asked mildly.

  Having my mother love me. Keeping Andrew safe. The failures rose huge in her mind.

  Bossgond seemed to consider that. Perfection cannot be achieved. You can only do your best with the resources that you have. You did not fail with your mother. Your mother was the one who could not give you what you needed. It was a lack in her.

  I wanted too much.

  Take the love I feel for you as a father, Bossgond said, and it poured into her. Love from the man, his pride in her, in her accomplishments filled her. She saw with awe that he thought she was beautiful, mind and body.