 
The First Degree

of Aries

Small Magics:

Book I

S. c. Wende

L. v. Tesseract

December 2016

Prelude

☉♐ ☽♑ ☿R♐ ♀♒ ♂♒ ♃♍ ♄♏

A sky lit bright with nature's pure table setting, candles dancing against obsidian depths, there's something in that scene that flickers all about the senses, uncasing the eye and with it flurries of emotion to tickle beneath such extraordinary lights. And like a truth you've always known, no one has to show it to you, not explicitly. No one has to tell you what you should feel. Such purity and elegance as the night's cool airs and flickering lights speak directly to that uncloaked soul, a shiver and burn you feel all within, quite naturally.

And yet it's so difficult to make something so lovely stay, to make it last. To make it last even a single year is not so easy. To build something beautiful and bold enough to stand all tests of time's uncertainties is so much harder than ever we can conceive. And yet consider again the stars. The settings of their silvery illuminations are an eternal testimony to what is possible, if we have courage to try. More the grace to the hand that placed them.
And even now, after long centuries, we gaze upwards into that poetry of sky, wrapped in soft chill, and it's all there, like a craving, like an addiction calling you towards ever deeper solace, a soft whisper searching for a depth soul, alike unto itself. And the emptiness there is all at once complex, beautiful, full of light, and also never the tranquil felicity that someone might uncarefully ask of it. Certain of the lights, do not give up all their secrets easily. And who then has the patience of a star?
A beginning to these pages was scrivened in August, 1920 and then again 1928. Only a select few copies were made and those passed along in closest secret. You'll soon understand the why of this, even if the reason still eludes you; the story and its telling are so much older. My hope is that you will keep this copy safe, and when you know that fidelity is assured, to reveal it to another.
The calculations required were lengthy. At the last, all dates, conjunctions, and aspects are correct and aligned with the stars and constellations of their own epoch. If you set out to verify this—and I hope that you will have the skills to do so—the planets shall align easily and naturally with the physical lights of the constellations, although dates shall oft vary from the Aristotelian zodiac.
Astrology is at its heart a science, a science looking for beauty in the heavens, and beauty in the souls who look up and watch them. Nearly every recorded culture has practiced it; throughout the world, peoples aligned the plentiful lights of our sky, seeking out meaning to create the eldest, the most stately, and certainly the most lovely of our projective tests. Astrology stands today as an exquisite, detailed collection of the many mysteries and facets of our own human nature, set down and collected through millennia by charlatans, psychologists, and those who had such a keen and sensitive intuition of the mind that we may truthfully name them as psychics.

Therefore you will very likely read—and soon after find—those certain, particular aspects which so precisely, so genuinely, so authentically match within yourself, that they will resonate there within you, as mystical, astrological connections. And in the next breath you may understand even more deeply that each living thing possesses in its way such wonderful and curious emotions. And then as you drift further in your reverie, you may find that this emotion that has sounded so fully all through the depths of your own secret self, is present in all of us.
I hope the purity of that thought brings you loves both unexpected and unpredicted.
–Best

Iridium V. Tesseract

Book 1: The First Degree of Aries

The moon slipped above the horizon just as the sun nestled down beneath it. For a span of time, Samantha watched the moon playing within its partner's light. She studied the fullness of it, swollen, pressing into the night sky. She watched the leaves let down their shimmering shadows to softly dance along the wall, cool moonlight, late summer heat. The warm impressions of the sunset faded, slowly, colors changing, warmth to chills, until the feel of the moonlight completely took over the space within the window. A thought slipped in somehow, into her quiet reflections. ~The light leaves us more quickly now.

Samantha's eyes flitted across the room to the clock—a one handed clock, one hand for the hour—intricately clothed with golden curls of tawdry gilt, a long slender movement, and weights that hung down low through the hole in its oaken shelf. Her eyes followed the quick motion of the pendulum's carry and swing, back and forth, before shifting again to the window to catch the last of the slowly changing light, the shadows moving in the open air.
It seemed to her that if she stayed very still, she could see the motion of that pale, white orb, a full, slow, movement. She watched as it crept along the open pane of the window. And even knowing the light's movement was real, the motion was slow, at the edge of the imperceptible, so as to seem more a subtle illusion. She watched on in fascination, both motions, for some long space of time. The quick mechanical movements of the one seemed to reinforce the slow passage of the other.
At a sound, her moonlight meditations shattered, gracefully. The eerie and splendid sound of bird song broke out in the half light, consuming every other natural music, in that space of the near dark, for one long and lovely moment. Her eyes sought for the creation, the creation to whom the birdsong belonged. Her eyes searched then, for that telltale motion in the dark, until she was called away.

"Come to bed." This voice was a less welcome interruption. Maja Sagittarius had called her away and the woman's voice was not to be denied. Samantha knew that she had must defer to wishes other than her own.

She drew the window slowly, noticing the light thrown from the stained glass border, cascades of disparate color moving smoothly down the wall to rest there over her bed. Then stepping back from the window, she crossed the room quietly, bedimmed the candle near her bed, and then lay awake, aware, thinking on one journey finally coming to an end and another soon beginning. She checked the clock, again, in the soft light, unbuttoned a single button at the top of her nightgown and fanned herself absently, fluttering the material. She kept wondering if she might have caught a glimpse of their destination, not even knowing quite what it would be. As the first stars of evenfall swept down into the window she kissed the tiny golden cross she wore as a charm around her wrist, and was still watching at the window when her eyes closed, a prayer half spoken on her lips.
Dreamless and nescient, she slept.

A   
n awareness of waking came to her slowly the next morning. It was still early, and Maja Sagittarius asked her to dress in the cool half darkness. The routine was the same this morning, as during their journey across. "You are to do as expected. There is tradition and reason in every ritual."
The look on the woman's face was neither unwelcoming, nor was it overly friendly. Samantha didn't argue, she knew better than to argue. She began to dress in the garment she was given.
She had anticipated something of this sort, something of a ritual, something of the ancient and the unusual. But what was not expected was the beauty of the white silk dress. Maja Sagittarius had given her a box, glossy, calendared, white paper. The dress inside the box, the material of it, slipped between the fingers like cool water spilling over rocks within a stream. And another thought caught her as she looked at the dress, another thought that pulled every last bit of the sleep from her eyes. ~It's all about to happen. It's really all about to happen. Months of travel, years of silence, and yet today I'm here...almost here.

~Perhaps I'll have a glimpse of the secrets, or some mysteries even today. She would have at least a glimpse, at least that would be something. And perhaps she would have more, soon. She turned away from the mirror, and then Maja Sagittarius presented her with something absolutely shocking, something completely unexpected. She felt unquiet looking at it. The woman was holding in her hand a white and sable hood, a blindfold.

Samantha thought at first it was a pretty cloth masque for a ball, like a domino, but the eye-holes were covered, completely covered. It didn't matter how elegant it was. Samantha's eyes would not be open and it was more than a bit unnerving thinking about it.
"There are secrets to be kept Samantha, and then there are secrets which shall only be revealed to you in time."
~And this is how such secrets are kept? Samantha took the blindfold. She felt the softness of the material. She felt more than a small touch nerves as she pulled the blindfold's cool cloth down over her eyes. The fabric of the mask fell low, past the tip of her nose, silk dangling loose over her mouth. But Maja Sagittarius's words about secrecy—and the sudden reality of what was happening—truly sank home as the woman drew tight the chords from behind, snugging the cloth mask down tightly against her cheeks.

She could feel the heat of her own breath, hot on her cheeks, hot against the inside of the material of the blindfold. And all the light was gone. She felt dizzy. The shock of losing her sight so completely gave Samantha another moment of pause as to what she was doing.

Maja Sagittarius asked her now a pointed question, "This choice is yours alone. Will you go willingly?"

It was as if the woman was reading Samantha's mind, and speaking her doubts out loud for her.
~Well if I've come so far, I can at least go on then a bit further. Samantha took a deep breath, and nodded toward the sound of Maja Sagittarius's voice. Her lips spoke the quiet, "yes" out from under the darkness of the blindfold.
A silk ribbon was placed into her hands. She felt the touch of it on her fingertips, slippery, cool and soft. The ribbon, this ribbon, was now to be her guide. Samantha was told to feel, for the touch and the tug of it, and to follow along after, wherever the ribbon led her. She held it lightly in her hands at first, then twisted it once over and around her hand, again, several times again, so that it couldn't slip easily from her grasp. Her tensions faded, partly going from her mind as her concentration fixed on her feet and on her hands and on the ribbon as she began her walk through the dark. Samantha followed all the little tugs of the ribbon.

~Now we're passing through the door of the room. And now down the narrow stairwell of the inn. I can smell the bacon. Fresh bread is baking. We're in the big dining room with the tables. The sound of plates and silverware made her sure of it and told her much about what was happening around her.

She followed the tug of the ribbon until she felt a table there, directly in front of her. Then she very carefully sat down at the table, next to Maja Sagittarius. The sounds of food and guests were everywhere, whispering.
Samantha heard clearly the voices of the other guests. She sat listening to them, intently. Some were hardly speaking at the table. She heard the rough sounds of several large sounding men whispering, none too quietly. They were whispering about her.
~Well they can wonder and say all they're want to say. No one knows who I am. It doesn't matter. None of what they say matters.

She smelled the bar maid's perfume like lilies as food was set down, food for Maja Sagittarius. She could hear the guests eating, but there was nothing for herself. She was listening to them eat. And there were the sounds her breath made against the silk. And at each bite the others took, at every tink of a metal fork against the porcelain, Samantha's mouth watered thinking on what they were eating. ~They're having toast. Warm eggs. Juice from oranges. Samantha listened to the persons having breakfast all around her, and somehow she could feel their eyes on her. Then Samantha felt a warm hand touch her on the back of her own.

"It's time now. Take hold the ribbon." It was Maja Sagittarius's voice, "Will you go willingly?"

The same question to her again. Samantha nodded yes under the silk blindfold—the second time—and rose up from the table to follow. She felt the pull of the ribbon as it led her out of the inn and into the warm morning air. The little bob and snap of the ribbon in her hand and the sound of Maja Sagittarius's footsteps were her only guides through the morning mist. ~I know it's misty. It's been misty each morning. And the cool feel of it is on my arms and ankles. She could sense it, the touch, the mist, not a chill, but enough to be certain. And the grass was wet under her shoes.
She heard someone else, another set of footsteps, another sound of someone walking close by. The sound was close enough to make her more nervous than she already was.
~Someone else is following right behind us. Perhaps more than one person following. Sam kept thinking along those lines of worry. ~They are following us. I'm sure of it. We turned, and then they turned.

She kept on thinking these sorts of things to herself, listening to the other footfalls, until she couldn't keep the thought quiet any longer. ~I know it's not my imagination.

She whispered then, toward the empty place in front of her, to the place where she thought that Maja Sagittarius should be, "I think there's someone there behind us, someone following us."

The reply didn't come from the place front where she expected the voice to come from. "There are others also, of course, Samantha. You're not the only one." Maja Sagittarius was suddenly whispering, and whispering so close to her that Sam could feel the warmth from the woman's breath on her ear.
~I'm not the only one. Stupid of me. Of course I'm not the only one. There are others going as well to the tower. Why would I be the only one? She heard the crunch of more soft shoes moving the tiny stones on the path, and in her mind's eye, she could see another girl, dressed in white silk as she was, walking a few paces behind her, holding to her own ribbon. Either it was her imagination or she could hear the girl breathing, the swirl of silk as her dress moving around her feet. ~Or was that the sound of a man's shoe? Strong bells of a tall church or a cathedral rang out from somewhere.
Sam felt the heat of the sun, beginning to warm her skin, and now the pace of the walk was rapid. Every new sound seemed to make her senses more acute. Each crunch of gravel or swish of material made her turn her head as if to look. The cool feeling of the dress and the blindfold perfectly matched the cool feel of the delicate ribbon as it played soft through her hands, little tugs in her fingers. And she could feel a breeze on her skin. ~We're most definitely outside then, still outside, likely on the main street. Sounds told her there were people nearby, people walking with her and around her. She tried to count the number and lost track; there were too many more people now, a busy morning. And she could hear the signs of that business all about her—heels on wooden walks, pieces of whispered conversations. She heard livestock—heavy iron horseshoes falling on cobblestones, bare hooves, jingling bells. ~That one was a large wagon, or a coach, maybe even an elegant chaise-and-four. She heard the wheels, the creak, the high steps of the horses.
The baker cried out his wares for the day—the blueberry pies, danishes, fresh breads—although he stopped shouting briefly as Samantha passed him. Missing breakfast, the fresh breads smelled more heavenly than usual.
Samantha's dress was cool, but the sun seemed to kiss her skin with a odd sort of chill. ~Is that a cloud or is that really the eclipse? Or maybe just a shadow of something'? Could the sun's heat change just from the moon passing in front of it?

Maja Sagittarius had told her that the eclipse today would not be visible and that it would only affect the moon. ~Not visible to anyone or not visible to me? Well of course not visible to me. Damnú aίr. Nothing's visible to me. And here I am following like a bodóinseach. What am I doing here? I don't know anything about magic, or the heavens. I shouldn't have come. I don't even know where I'm going. Samantha felt the first fits of panic and tried to talk herself back to calm. ~Just let go of the ribbon. You can stop it right here. Let go, take off the blindfold and you're done.

"We shouldn't tarry Samantha." Maja Sagittarius tugged the ribbon and quickened the pace. "The occlusion is progressing. Time is close."
~We shouldn't tarry. The occlusion is progressing. By that she means that the eclipse is here.
Maja Sagittarius was walking faster now. Instead of letting go the ribbon, Samantha held to it all the more tightly.

~You want this, truly you want it. You want to see what others can only dream of seeing. Give it a chance, a good chance. Maja Sagittarius is here and so there's nothing to worry over.

The road was level, smoothed and well cared for. Sam had no trouble keeping the pace, but she was apprehensive, worried she might turn an ankle, one of her feet might suddenly find a hole, a broken cobblestone to trip over. So far as yet, she hadn't stumbled, not even once. ~If I trip, will I tear the silk in the dress? And if I lose the ribbon, will Maja Sagittarius ever turn back for me? Was the eclipse to be the moon passing in front of the sun? Or maybe it was the other way.

Samantha collided with something, with someone. She was shaken up and startled at the sudden stop.

"Careful, child! You have to develop a sense about you. These traditions all go back into long antiquity." There was a scold there in Maja Sagittarius's voice that suddenly kindled Samantha's ire.

~Child?! Really? I'm four and twenty and you don't look to be so much any older than I am. But Samantha bit down her words, kept them in check. It wasn't easy. She wasn't one used to holding back.
~And besides, you of all people know I can't see bloody anything. You gave me the deuced blindfold didn't you. Damnú aίr, woman, you could have warned me before you stopped. Samantha was near to her boiling point, a point her friends were all intimately familiar with.
But just then Maja Sagittarius whispered, "Shhhh! Hold your tongue child."

Although it wasn't natural for her to do so, Sam again checked her emotion. She listened. She heard voices, voices dropping off, then lower, down to whispers, and then to silence. There was something unfriendly about the tone of the whispers, like a room going so suddenly silent that it makes you wonder.

~In all reality, do I have any idea what's happening? This woman's brought you to this town in a carriage with blacked out curtains. We've been traveling a week. You could be anywhere.

She felt, if not a press of bodies around her, the close presence of a large crowd of people, the heat of them, the rustle of the fabric as their clothes brushed near her. ~And how much do I really trust her? The strip of ribbon in her hands tugged forward, then once more. She followed each time a few steps. ~Is something wrong?

Although she felt a large assemblage of people about her, no one was speaking above a whisper. And the horse smell was stronger. There must be a number of horses close by, and people with them. She couldn't quite feel the tight press, but she could sense it around her. She could hear the horses breathing. And then the ribbon went slack. She tugged at it and found that Maja Sagittarius wasn't holding to the other end. No one was.
"Maja Sagittarius?" Samantha whispered loudly enough to be heard, but there was no response. She heard someone cry out, another girl. She felt around in front of her, began to tug frantically at the blindfold trying to get it undone when strong hands grabbed both of hers. She heard another girl, the tone all distress, alarm, and shock.
There was a man's breath was nearby but no words. She was being led, pulled through the crowd, felt another someone, larger, seize her by the wrists, and then so quickly her hands were bound. Another set of hands lifted, lifter her hands, her legs, then all of her up in the air. She heard one more young woman yell out, surprise and fear. She struggled. Samantha's mind was racing now, tumbling into a blind panic. In several more seconds she was laying bent forward across a horse's back like a sack, and someone was binding her hands and feet, tying them in place onto the harness and down near the cinch on the horse's belly.

There was a different voice, a man's voice now, an older voice, "Will you go willingly?" The man's voice was completely unfamiliar to her, rough sounding.
~Just be calm Sam. It's all probably part of the ritual. Just go along with it. "Yes. I'll continue." ~But what happens then if it's not?
Sam felt the horse begin to move; doubled over and tied as she was, the only thing she could possibly do was to try to relax. In a moment more, the horse was trotting, Samantha's belly laying over and across the top of it. ~What really just happened right there? You're on a horse. You've lost Maja Sagittarius, and someone just grabbed you. You're tied you to a horse. You're tied onto a bloody horse! Like a sack of barley.

"Maja Sagittarius." Samantha hissed quietly beneath the blindfold and waited, but she heard no reply.

~What if the woman had dropped the ribbon accidentally and someone else picked it up? What if you didn't follow her just right? What if you went the wrong way, someone else picked it up, led you off, and tied you to a horse?

The horse's gait was nearly as smooth as a canter can be, but every bounce and step knocked a bit more of her wind from her belly. ~I'm blindly riding a horse with no idea at all where it's going. No. Scratch that. The horse may have clear idea where it's going. I'm the clueless one. This is absolute idiocy. And why did you just let all this happen? The man asked, you said yes. Darkness and light Samantha! How stupid does a girl have to be to just say yes like that? Yes, please tie me blindfolded onto a horse. And of course I just go right along with it.
After another minute of bouncing breathless over the horse's back Samantha changed her mind again. ~No. On second thought they've probably hoodwinked the horse also, blind woman, blind horse. It makes perfect sense, preserving their secrets from me, and from this Mr. Equus Esquire. And now the two of us—pair that we are—are about to ride blindly off of some point, off a sheer, rocky bluff and into the ocean at any moment. No one would ever even know. There went Samantha off the edge never to be seen again. And we had all harbored such high hopes for her. She had seemed such a bright girl.
There were no other voices or conversation around her, only the sound of the horse's hooves. She fancied screaming, several times, and thought better of it. ~What would you tell them if someone came for you? And so Samantha waited, anticipating the sensation of falling over a cliff for what seemed like an hour, and then she gave up fearing for it.

~Whatever happens now will just happen. Just relax. Just let it all happen. Finally she sensed the horse's movements slowing. When it finally stopped, Sam heard men's voices. ~Just relax.
"There's a fine one. What do you think?"
"Oh a fine hind if I ever saw one." There was a loud crack and slap as a hand hit her on the bottom.

"No you will not! You will not do that! You will not! Who are you?!" ~Don't let this happen.

"Feisty hind she is. She'll bring a price. Wager for her first go."

"I'll wager for her! How do we settle it?"

"Toss up a coin? Or I'll just give you a fiver."

"Put me down! You will not! Who are you?! Answer me! What are you doing?"

Samantha was still bent over and tied to the back of the horse. She couldn't get her hands free, but she could still yell, and that was exactly what she was doing. She kept screaming, until she heard another girl struggling also. That gave her pause.

_~Where are we? We could be anywhere._ She couldn't see anything under the mask. "Tell me who you are? Where's Maja Sagittarius? Stop this this very instant. Tell me who you are."

The men seemed to be ignoring her. "I let you have my nice pair of boots. The new ones."

"I already have boots, and yours won't fit. Besides, I think she likes me better. Maybe I'll let you have her first for that nice leather belt you've got."
"You will not!! I've never even seen either of you. Don't you touch me again, either of you. Either of you gawking goatherds touch me and I'll slit your throats ear-to-ear."
"Aw how can you say that miss? I 'ave a nice voice, nicer 'an he does. I'm well spoken I am." The voice withdrew a step. "She just tried to bite my hand, she did just bit at it just then. I think it's better we careful wit' her. One a' a time is best. You hold her."

"Point taken. And a fine animal like this one should likely be strung up an tanned all properly. Then after she may settle down and do like she's told."

"Don't you dare do it." Samantha was more than just furious now; real fear had taken hold. She fought, but the men's hands were stronger, so much stronger than her own, and both of her hands were already tied together. In less than a minute, the men had her off the horse, hands lifted up high above her. Her hands were held by what she thought might be a high tree branch. There was quiet for a moment. Samantha kept on trying to kick, but she couldn't quite figure out where they were.

"Dice you for her? Toss a coin?"

"No. Whoever's closest. Closest arrow. Get's first go."

~Arrow?!

"Then I get the first shot."
"No. It's my first shot."
"You're too drunk to even shoot. Give me the bow."

"You will not!!" Samantha was swinging on the rope, dangling. It held her wrists, and she was trying to get free of it.

"Wait on a sec, she's really not a very proper hind without a nice juicy apple in her mouth."

_~Apple?_ Sam felt her hoodwink lift slightly and an apple was pressed firmly into her mouth. She spit it out, back at them as soon as she could. Then she tried to kick, dangling in the air by her wrists.

"I'll wager you fairly... whoevr's closest the apple gets first go of her."

"But she's spit it out."

"I know she's spit it out. What of it?"

"What o' it? Wha' else? She's spit it out, the apple. It's just lyin' there now next to 'er. There's no sport in shootin' arrows fer her mouth, cause not wit' nothin' there in it fer us to shoot at. Wha' r'you sayin' Wha' of it?"

"So don't aim there then."

An arrow came by her side and she heard the quick sound of it cutting the air.

Samantha stiffened up, stopped yelling. She stood very still trying not to move at all. There was a thrumming sound, as if something moving quickly, quivering in a tree trunk. And she had thought she felt something pass through the air, close by to her hip. _~I'm going to kill them. If I ever get free of this, I'm going to kill them, and then feed them to a pig._ Unfortunately she wasn't sure quite which direction the arrow had come from; the voices seemed to be walking around the tree. _~A big pig, an ugly one. And after I feed them to the pig..._
There was another arrow, another hiss in the air.
"I told you you were too drunk. That's nowhere even close to the mark."

"What do you mean, not close? It was close enough to 'er belly."

"We're not aiming for her belly. We're aiming for the apple."

"She might a swallowed some of the apple, I fig're. So if she swallowed some, it should count, then, right? That shot was close to 'er belly."

"But she didn't swallow it, she spit it out."

"So?"

"So...then what's the mark? We're aiming for her belly then?"

"Yeah that's right. Aim right fer her belly. Only l'ght it up first."
"Light it? Like a torch?"
~Torch?!

"Aye that. A lil' mor sportin'."

"All right then. Go on and light it."

"At's it. Light it up first with a little fire. That'll settle her down some."

~No. No. No. She could hear the man turn, the bow creak with its tension as he drew it back, bending it. Samantha listened for the next sound, the one that was sure to come next. She tried to twist away. Then when the sound of the arrow didn't come right away, she struggled to pull her hands down from up above and then stood still again, frozen and listening, trying to twist herself away from the men, then standing very still. In fits, she began to struggle more violently, trying to pull the rope down so that she could bite at it.

She hung there waiting for what seemed an eternity, turning first one way and then the other, listening for the shot to come, then alternately tearing at the rope. She was furious and frustrated and her mind was beginning to contemplate what might really be about to happen to her. ~What are the men doing now? Why are they waiting? What the hell is happening!? What is happening!?

After several minutes she heard a lady's voice speaking very close to her ear. It came from behind, startled her completely, "Samantha, in this place, in this time, you are given a choice."
The voice very clearly belonged to Maja Sagittarius, and now it was speaking very close, right up to her ear, "But there are others who are not so fortunate to have your choice."
Samantha was crazy, frantic, raging, and nearly on the point of tears, tugging at the rope.

Maja Sagittarius continued speaking in a low calm voice, "Is this what you want? Is this who you are? A piece of meat to be hunted? A slave fit for the auction block? Some seductive thing to be tied up and used? Or a prize to be given away or won in a vulgar wager?"

"I'll kill them. I'll boil their little raisins off!"

"Shhh Samantha. This was only a test for you, only a ruse, a part of the ritual. But remember it well. There are things much more frightening than this. And what choices will you make when you find yourself looking into those more frightening things? When a time such as this comes in your life, will you allow those awful things to exist? Submit yourself? Acquiesce to them? Will you go willingly?"

Maja Sagittarius continued her speech in her soothing tones, "Will you help those who will need you, or walk away? The choice will be always, yours alone."
Sam was still shaking as Maja Sagittarius let her hands down. Sam's breathing was panicked, rapid. She was almost sobbing, her belly forced the breath up through her throat, and her thoughts were so scattered it was hard for her to think. But she was also beginning to understand something, something of what had just happened. Something inside of her was beginning to understand it very deeply. And of a sudden, the answer to Maja Sagittarius's question was crystal clear to her.
"I won't go willingly. I won't ever. I'll do right and fight. You show me how to do it and I will I swear it. I swear it I will."

Samantha felt Maja Sagittarius wrap her arms around her. It was a warm hug although brief.

And then after embracing her, the woman began to speak, close into her ear. "You are to be trained as a Maja in the tower Samantha, no small thing. And the threats will very quickly be real. Is this what you want, truly, for yourself? Only you know what has true value to you."

Samantha nodded again beneath the mask. "It's what I want. I want to see what you will will show me."

"Will you go willingly?"

"I will." She kept asking her that question without an answer, like a fickle riddle.
Maja Sagittarius unbound the last bonds around her hands, though she left the blindfold in place. Then she led her across the grass.
"Now repeat as I speak, and remember well each word as I tell them to you." The Maja was whispering, to her, her mouth pressed close to the soft material of the hoodwink, each word coming directly to Samantha's ear. And when the woman had at length spoken—and Samantha had faithfully repeated every syllable of what she'd been taught back to her—something like a necklace or a long chain was draped around Samantha's neck. Holding onto the necklace with both hands, Samantha began to calm down. After several minutes her breathing was nearly regular again.

_~Don't turn back. If you turn back now you'll never see_.

Then Maja Sagittarius helped her climb up onto the horse, helped her grasp the horn of the saddle with blind hands, place her foot with the stirrup, pull herself up. Samantha sat up in the saddle, still with the blindfold, but now riding straight and tall instead of strewn across the horse's backside like a parcel. She held onto the saddle horn tightly with both hands, felt Maja Sagittarius touch her leg and the horse began to move.

She remembered to listen again. The whole forest was there: birds calling to each other in the trees, leaves under the horse's hooves. And with the sounds, the smell the dry, new fallen leaves covering the ground. She wished for the hundredth time that day that she could see, but she listened to the scene unfolding around her.
Over the gentle sway of the horse, and beneath the silky black of her blindfold, she played back in her mind all of the madness that she'd just experienced, examining the impressions that each facet of the day had left on her. ~I'll show them that I'm no piece of meat.
There was a subdued rage burning in her now, a new commitment. She wasn't sure quite what the whole of the feeling was, or whether it was something truly new, or something that had always been there. But she felt it there now, and she knew that she was going to hold onto the feeling.

A   
fter a time riding, the cool feel of a shadow slipped over her skin. ~ _That's not a cloud, it's too dark. We're indoors now. Perhaps we're riding in the shade, or underneath a bridge._ She heard another man's voice—formal in tone—calling out to her. She turned herself toward the voice. The horse stopped as he hailed them.

"How is it that you have arrived here?"
~Remember all the words as Maja Sagittarius taught them to you. "I have come of my own free will, and also of a will beyond mine own. I have traveled unerringly, even those times when I knew not the way."
"Then you may see your way to turn back. Will you go willingly?"

"Though I have not seen all, neither will I turn away. I would travel unseeing in the light, surefooted in the darkness, neither beneath the sunlight, nor wrapped in cold of night. As you see true, be as to me my compass, my guide, my northern star. I shall not go willingly." Samantha continued the ritual. There was a touch of steel in her voice, a confidence that she hadn't had the day before, "This I have sworn and I again promise this to you. The choice is mine alone."

"Then have you a seal of this promise?"

"I have and I wear it now, near to my heart."

"Then if fortune has brought you, enter Samantha Wende and may your stay be welcomed."

The horse began to walk, and they continued on beneath the coolness of the shadows. _~Enter Samantha Wende and may your stay be welcomed._

S   
amantha wasn't sure how much time had passed before the hoodwink finally came off. The change in perception was striking for her when it happened.
She sat in a small office.

~It all looks spectacularly ordinary.

For the first time since morning, she looked around able to take in every detail around her. Sam examined the seal around her neck: a large silver disk, smooth metal, and blank save for a number of dark runes engraved within it. The silver disk on the necklace was twice the size of any coin she'd ever seen or held, and the length given in the silver chain let it dangle low. The small markings around the outside were something she couldn't recognize.

The woman sitting behind the desk wore a silver disk also, very similar to Samantha's, but hers was more elaborate, much more elaborate. Unlike Sam's it was set with three small, colorful jewels. Also, the lady's necklace was decorated with the shape of a moon and a sun, copper set on top of bright silver. It seemed that perhaps one was partially eclipsing the other—the moon the sun or the sun the moon—but she couldn't tell which. She watched as the lady behind the desk ran her fingers through a large stack of papers until she found whatever it was that she had been looking for.
~Shockingly ordinary. All the shelves looked like shelves, the books like books, the desk, a bit messy, covered in papers as so many of them are. ~Should I have expected differently?
"Check that the name listed above is your own."

She looked at the paper. "Yes. I'm Samantha Wende"

"Double check the name and then sign exactly as it's shown."

There was a tone in the woman's voice that made Sam pause, and then examine the document much more thoroughly than she was going to at first. The woman's tones had been exacting. Samantha had thought the paper was vellum, but it felt more like heavy, India paper which had been left to soak in oil, for the length of a century. The paper was slippery with the oil. And some of the liquid pressed off on her fingers as she touched it.

The oiled document named Samantha Wende as a novice in the tower, promised that the undersigned would thoroughly obey all rules, keep all secrets, and show proper respect to her superiors at all times. The paper also promised very dire consequences, if she were not truly the person listed and undersigned.

"What are the dire consequences, if I may ask?"

"Hmm?" The woman looked up from her papers.
"Sorry. I just wanted to ask before I signed, what would these dire consequences be? On the paper I'm signing? You know, out of my own curiosity."
"Are you who you say you are?" The woman's low, rising inflection, her obviously questioning tone, and the single, arching eyebrow on her forehead made it seem quite likely that Samantha might not be that person whom she said she was. And so the woman on the other side of the desk kept this skeptical expression, carefully looking Samantha over, slowly, up and down, for the space of those several long seconds.

"I am. Just like it's written, Samantha Wende."

"Well child, you're signing on oiled parchment with a salamander pen. If you're not who you say you are, then the document will catch fire as soon as you try to forge the name not your own. The beast's claw—the one to whom it once belonged to it—holds tight then onto your wrist as it leaps up, through the flaming paper, to begin devouring you whole and pulling you in bits down into its broiling gullet. It's quite spectacular, I've heard." The woman continued, "Although I've never actually seen it happen, myself."

~Ludicrous. Yet if the woman was having some fun with her, her face and her tone didn't betray any mirth, no sign of jesting in the woman's eyes.

"Well I am Samantha Wende." Samantha tried to sound as confident as she could. ~I think she's trying to scare me into giving something away, some betrayal, or something of nervousness.
The Maja at the desk nodded her head, patronizingly, with a little smile that didn't touch her eyes. She leaned across the desk to deliver Samantha a large and unusual fountain pen. Then the woman in the red dress pulled back rapidly, sitting down low in her chair, and then sliding it back and away, all the way back against the wall of the little room.
~Ludicrous.

The body of the pen was covered in tiny runes and inscriptions. And it ended in a strange claw, not unlike one which some large and unnatural lizard would possess. Samantha looked again at the woman who was now leaning in her chair as far back and away from her as the wall would let her. In fact, the woman's body was pressed nearly all the way into the cushion, the cushion to the wall. She was obviously waiting for Samantha to sign her name.

~Is she the one losing her mind or am I? Sam picked up the pen and then hesitated, holding it. She looked at the claw on the end of the pen carefully. ~It is very realistic. The claws had little chips and scrapes in them as if they had been grasping, grasping and slipping over rough stones, very hot and very rough stones. Several of the scales were missing. The pen began to feel warm in her hand.
~Ludicrous. She touched the tip of the pen to the paper, and her hand immediately caught with a kind of fire so that she pulled it away quickly. It was only a small fire, alike to the sensation of lifting a pan too hot from off the stove, and trying to hold it until you could set it down carefully.
~And then what if she wasn't joking.

_~Well, I am Samantha Wende, so what of it._ Steeling herself, Samantha forced her hand down until the pen touched the paper. The pain came again, and yet through it she began to write. The tiny agony continued on as she swept the tip of the pen across the paper through all the curves of her name. She repeated deliberately under her breath each of the letters in her name, carefully and precisely lettering them across the bottom of the document.

Then she stopped, set the pen back on the desk, and rubbed at her hand until some of the feeling began to flood back into it.

The Maja sitting across from her finally relaxed, as Samantha set the pen down. The woman sat forward in her chair, and leaned over the desk to collect the oily document. Then she smiled, again, and said very cordially, "Thank you and welcome Novice Samantha. You'll need to put that back on." The woman was pointing to the pretty blindfold.

_~Now what was all that? Really, what was all that that just happened there? How much of that was real?_

Sam was escorted—again wearing the pretty hoodwink and holding to the ribbon—to a room with several other ladies of an age with her own, all of them with silver seals like her own. And when all of them had arrived, the novices in total numbered ten.

The girls Samantha met that night were friendly, and soon they were more than friendly, they were friends. It seemed they could all easily talk hours. Soon she was wondering how she'd ever managed her life so long without them.

There was Gwen and also Rhea, and then Naomi, Portia, Shelly, Xin, Margaret, Anna, and a lovely girl with dark hair and very full lips named Cristina Elisa.

They all fell in together talking, going on excitedly about the trip, their homes, the incredible experience of the morning they had just gone through. Everyone kept talking as if, as if they could just continue on like this forever.

"How many do you think we are?"

"Altogether? Maybe twenty."
"It's more than that. It has to be."
"The Maja with the papers to be signed had easily a hundred papers on her desk. So I think they've brought in a hundred novices, at least that many."

"I think you're right about the papers. But I would have said twice that, judging by the stack of papers. I'm guessing at nearly two hundred."

"No it has to be less."

"And those horrible men."

"I kicked one of them, and a pretty good shot too."

"I'm never eating meat, never again. Changed my life. I'm serious."

"And I was starving. No breakfast."

"The smell of those pies and danishes!"

"I thought the horse was never going to stop."

"I can tell fortunes."

At that comment all of the girls stopped talking. They turned and looked over at Rhea. She seemed so sincere. One of the girls actually stood up in her curiosity.

"Well I can. My mother taught me."

"Then will you tell mine if I ask it of you?" The pretty girl with the dark hair was asking. Samantha noted details about her: confident, almost aristocratic, yet also very warm in her presence.
"Future or Past? Which would you like to hear Cristina?"
"Past."

Rhea took her left hand and studied it, carefully. Her fingers traced the little lines and she curled the fingers with her own. After a minute of this study she began to speak.

"Oh well you're from Portugal, or more likely Spain. Your family is well to do. You ride horses often."

The aristocrat smiled. "I like what you're doing, Rhea. But you can tell from my accent where I'm from. And the callouses from horse riding are easy to feel on my fingers. Tell me something that's not so easy."

"Your family is...well traveled, perhaps an ambassador."

"My ring is Spanish silver and my earrings are Egyptian. But you're doing well."

"Your mother was a Maja also. She taught you something of the craft."

"Not quite." Cristina paused, "But still I'm impressed. Excellent good fun. How about you Samantha? Will you try?"
The question hung there in the air, until Samantha nodded her acceptance. She moved closer and sat down next to Rhea extending her hand.
"Future or Past?"

"Either one. Its doesn't matter." Rhea took Samantha's left hand.

"Past: Well I can see you're from up north, Ireland, but your family isn't... or wasn't. It's unusual that this line should cross over like this. You've had a love, but it's over. Over for a while now."

There was something fascinating about Rhea, her energy seemed to draw you in. Samantha was nodding.

Rhea continued, "You've been honest, cared for others, hard knocks, and yet your hands are a bit of a riddle Samantha... It's like... you've lost someone very dear to you before you even knew them. I'm sorry to be so vague. I could be wrong. Maybe there's something I'm just not seeing." Rhea trailed off for a moment. "I might do a better job looking at your future. Let's look at the other." Rhea changed over to the other hand.

"Goodness." Rhea just stared at Sam's palm tracing along it over and over with her finger. The other girls looked on silently.

"Yes...?" Samantha was dying to know what Rhea saw.
And yet Rhea kept on studying for a time, quietly. Finally after minutes had passed, she spoke, "See each of these here is a love, Samantha. Each one of these lines. This one. This one. This one. One, two, three..." Rhea just kept on counting the little lines. "...eleven, twelve... it just keeps going." Rhea's lips were still moving. Finally after a time she looked up. "Well you're either going to be the happiest girl ever, or trapped in some hellish cycle of terrible relationships. Sorry for saying it."
Samantha pulled her hand back quickly away. "Can you tell which one?"

Rhea looked empathetic, but she just shook her head no.

* * * *

In those first few days, no novice was allowed out of quarters, and never without her hoodwink and by escort. Given this, most of their daylight hours consisted of lectures on magic in the room beginning in the morning, and then some additional reading on the magical arts in the library. Late afternoons and nights were for the telling of tales of each other, and of more fortunes with Rhea.

Within those quarters, they shared enough of their life's details that any one of them could now have written the full history of their individual pasts and diaries of most of the dreams they held for their futures.
Gwen's great aunt had been a Maja and she was sure to have the gift, because she had eyes that matched with hers exactly.
Rhea's great grandmother had told fortunes in Romania, and the trade had passed down the maternal line in generations. Her family worked as farmers under Austrian nobles.

Cristina Elisa's father was in truth an ambassador—although he was rarely seen on their large Spanish ranch. And one of her great aunts was a Maja, or so her mother had several times confided to her.

Margaret wanted to learn healing and herbs, and then return to Scandinavia to work as a midwife.

Xin's father had been a fisherman and this was the first time she had traveled more than half a day from home in her life.

Naomi was a dark eyed girl from Persia. "One of the other girls asked her had she ever seen the Caspian Sea, but she shook her head. "My father and my brothers have seen it, but I haven't." and then she added on discreetly with a smile, "...yet."

* * * *

Their clothes came each day, packaged like immaculate gifts. Ten freshly wrapped boxes arrived in the room in the morning. And each arrived with beautiful clothes folded inside of them. The dresses were identical, and always of the best quality. With some confusion and a passing around of boxes, they found that each of the dresses was of a size for them.
The question arose quickly as to who was the one slipping in and putting them there. No one had seen servants.
Inside the boxes were dresses of the same golden color, the color of the box, beautiful—silk, linens, soft strong cotton, wool on the cooler days—all well tailored and fitted, all of them embroidered with a crimson colored lion. Queens would have sent armies after the hosiery they wore. The lavish expense was appreciated, if not completely understood. And the girls preened in front of a small mirror each morning, thinking it a shame that none of them were allowed to go out and show them off.

Their baths were drawn in steaming hot, clean water poured into deep copper tubs and the cakes of soap smelled lightly of perfumes. Samantha thought she'd never felt so fine. She only wished that she could explore, have a look around. They were allowed to see almost nothing, save the library and their own room. That changed soon enough.

"   
The tea and the food."
"Oh I love the food. I adore the food."
"There's no meat, not in any of it."

"But the cheeses, they're divine."

"I could do without the bathing several times a day. How clean do I really need to be to do lessons and read some old stuffy books?"

"I liked the one with Viola, Twelfth Night and Love's Labor Lost."

"You like all the ones with the clever girls in them."

"Maybe I'm seeing something of myself in what I read."

"And speaking those phrases. I think I could say: PONE ME UT SIGNACULUM SUPER COR TUUM UT SIGNACULUM SUPER BRACHIUM TUUM QUIA FORTIS EST UT MORS DILECTIO DURA SICUT INFERUS AEMULATIO LAMPADES EIUS LAMPADES IGNIS ATQUE FLAMMARUM in my sleep. Has anyone heard me say that?"

"I did last night."

"Truly?"

"No. Not truly. By the way, does anyone even know exactly what it means?"
There was a knock at the door and then the door opened.
"We wish you light Maja."

"I wish you light also. All are present and ready."

"Wet hair, but yes Maja. We're all here." Margaret ran out of the bathroom in wet hair and this morning's gold and crimson dress.

"Assemble for your lessons."

And all ten sat down at the large table in their room.

"As you may be aware, it is to be a new moon..."

"Yes Maja." Rhea used the title of respect for the woman.

"In a few hours the new moon will be at the height of conjunction. As she passes within a degree of Mars later tonight some of you may feel the change occurring, and I want you to reflect on this." The woman sounded stern as she urged them, and several of the girls were already taking notes with pen and ink on all that she was saying. "The moon in Leo represents fire and courage. The sun in Leo represents generosity in a leader. As such I will present to you all a single request—a small token of generosity—to be granted by me, to you all, tonight. I would ask you to consider carefully before you ask, as there are some requests of which I would not be able to comply. So please choose wisely in this."
~This is quite unusual. Oh but what should we pick? And before Samantha could decide, one of the girls spoke up.
"Maja, can we see it?"

The voice was from Rhea again.

"By it, you're speaking of the conjunction, of tonight's conjunction."

"I was Maja. Would it be possible to let us see it?" Even in the question, Rhea's voice sounded confident. "I would be surprised to learn that a place such as this had no observatory, or lacked a place for observing celestial changes in the heavens. As the conjunction is only minor, there may be only a few people viewing it. If it were allowed, perhaps we could see it for ourselves."

The tall woman in the distinguished looking blue and white shawl considered the request a moment. She seemed to be calculating in her head. Then she began to nod as she thought it through. "Do all the others here agree?"

~That one there is absolutely brilliant. We can use the conjunction as the perfect excuse to get out of this stuffy little room for a while.

The others were nodding their head vigorously in the affirmative also.

"Then it's settled. Be ready to go two hours before sunset. You can all eat when you return. There will be some light refreshment in the observatory."
~What a splendid and utterly refreshing idea!

"   
Ninety eight, ninety nine, one thousand four hundred" Margaret was counting in a breathless whisper.

~Oh what an appalling and wretchedly vexing idea this was. I should have known. Two hours before sunset! My legs won't move another step. How many stairs can there be in one place?

"thirty five, forty, forty one..."

"We must be close Sam. We must be almost at the top. I mean, how tall can a tower possibly be?"

Samantha's breath was hot against the silk mask of the blindfold. She felt like she was going to faint. She'd felt like she was going to faint since half an hour ago.

"Maja can we rest again?" The voice asking was Gwen's.

~Rest, yes another rest. Rest would be good.

"We don't want to miss the conjunction. We should hurry a bit actually."
~No good. No rest. No rest for the wicked. "Hold onto my shoulder Gwen. Up we go again."
"But the ribbon Sam. I've lost hold of the ribbon."

"And you're afraid my good Gwendolyn that we'll now lose our way. But oh no, me thinks we know the way my dear Gwen. Me thinks we knows the way quite well."

"Up then? A little further?"

"Indeed." If Gwen could have seen Samantha's face she would have seen her smiling ear-to-ear.

F   
inally, as they reached the top, the hoodwinks came off. Samantha felt like she was going to pass out.

_~Sunset._

She could tell from the color of the light streaming in from outside. Some of the novices were sitting on the floor already, others were still heaving for their breath or standing on shaky legs at the stairwell. Of their party, only Maja Nimbus was looking well; she looked perfect actually, refreshed, smiling, breathing easily.

~How on earth did she do that? She doesn't look even a bit winded.
There were several other women up here also, women in azure and white robes like the one Maja Nimbus wore, women whom Samantha had never seen before. And there were complex instruments. _~Probably for looking at the sky and at the stars._ There was also a table covered with fruits, cool water and juices. Rhea brought Samantha a sip of water and Samantha could hardly drink it, gasping between little sips of it.
"A bit of hike to get here."

"A bit...of a hike! A bit...of a hike...the woman says." Samantha tried to keep her voice down. "How many...Margaret? How many steps?" She could barely get the words out.

"One-thousand eight-hundred and sixty, I think. But I'm going to count them once again on the way down, just to be sure."

"One-thousand eight...hundred and..."

"Oh, but you should see the view Sam."

"The view? It's a good? Worth it Rhea? It was worth all the effort?"

"More than worth it."

Rhea hardly looked out of breath either. _~Unbelievable. Two hours of stairs. The woman could climb a mountain._ Several other novices were stumbling out of the stairwell, falling to the floor as they took off their hoodwinks.
"You should really have a look Sam. You're going to miss the conjunction if you wait."
"I'm coming." Samantha pulled herself off of the floor with effort and began climbing up to have a look from the top of the platform. There were several more stairs, then there was a deck leading to a large half circle open to the sky. The wood beneath her feet felt solid, very secure. It was only as she approached the open air that she began to feel dizzy, nearly losing her balance. ~Oh heavens. If one were to fall past that edge... One-thousand eight-hundred and sixty steps down. Samantha backed away several paces from the edge, knelt down on her wobbly legs.

"Be careful. The call of the void is strong up here. Sam. It's easier if you stay low to the floor."

~The call of the void. Samantha edged herself closer, closer to the edge and the open air, slowly, until she could see the shape of the moon's shadow against the strength of the sunset, and several stars just beginning to appear near to it in the sky.

"That bright one is Venus. You can just see it there."

"Oh Rhea, it's like a vision. It's like the whole, the whole world opening up, to show us a sky like that. I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful sunset."

A chill ran all through her shoulders and up along her scalp and the back of her head. Far off to one side, she watched Venus flicker above the horizon. She wanted to look all around, but the observatory only opened toward the west. She crept a little further toward the edge.
"Just incredible isn't it?"
Samantha nodded. She kissed the little gold cross she wore on her wrist as a charm, watching the sky in awe.

"Do we have to go down right away?"

_~Oh heavens Rhea. Don't even ask a question like that. Not yet._ Samantha looked at Maja Nimbus. _~Please say no._

"No, we can stay and look around for a while."

~   
Thank heavens.

A woman called out to Maja Nimbus, "Angela, can I call you away from your novices a moment for an opinion on something?"

"Of course, my dear." Maja Angela Nimbus turned to the group. "Enjoy the sky ladies. You have all of it for a few minutes, all to yourselves."

"   
I've just witnessed the most obscene thing I've ever seen in my life."

The girls were expected to study in the late afternoons and all of them sat around a large table in the library. Each had a stack of books and were taking notes with a quill pen and ink. Gwen sat down quickly at the table and joined them. As she did, all of the girls kept staring at her with anticipation.

"Well Gwen... tell us." It was Rhea, "You can't just come out and say something like that and then suddenly hush up about it."

The other girls were nodding.

Gwen continued but her voice was lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, "I just saw a girl walking with two young men."
The girls were all silent waiting for more.
"And..."

"And she was holding hands with both of them, both boys." None of the girls were talking now and so Gwen continued to add emphasis, "At the same time. Walking together."

"Could be just friends out and walking together."

"Maybe she hasn't decided which of them she likes better."

"If they were pretty, she could marry both of them. It would be like a harem, only just the opposite."

"Rhea, you're terrible."

"Perhaps she just felt unwell and merely needed several strong gentlemen to lean on."

And then, Naomi said something, "What if they were taking her away? We should tell someone about it. Like a kidnapping."

"How old was she? Was she a Maja or a novice?"

"Yes did you see the seal? What did the seal look like Gwen?"

"I didn't see the seal. But I did see her ankles and legs under the hemline of her dress." Gwen paused, "So whatever the case was, you know what she was wanting."
There was a silence among the girls. The sting of Gwen's comment hung there for a moment. Finally Cristina Elisa spoke quietly and everyone turned to listen, "Would you let a hem line dictate to you who you are? If she wants to walk with boys, she should be allowed to walk with boys."
Most of the girls found it hard to argue with Cricket's statement; her logic sounded so very reasonable.

"You're right Cricket, she should be allowed to do as she likes. There's no harm in it."

"And we don't even get to chose what we wear."

"I still vote for the harem."

"One is already so much trouble, more than enough trouble."

"Do you want to hear a ghost story?"

"Naomi, do you even have to ask us? Of course we want to hear a ghost story."

"Well..." And here Naomi paused for dramatic effect until everyone was listening. "I heard that the tower has a ghost, a real ghost. And that when she was alive, she was a dragon, or a dragon's daughter, or something like that. Now that she's dead, she lures people down into the catacombs, and seduces them as a beautiful spirit. Then she she pulls back your hair and cuts your throat with a long black knife. Afterwards she wears the blood of the ones she takes."
After several seconds of thought one of the girls asked, "So if she were a dragon's daughter, how does she fit down in the tunnels?"
"Well she is a ghost."

"Perhaps they're big tunnels."

"Right, wouldn't a dragon's daughter also then be a dragon?"

"Perhaps a very small one?"

"Stories to scare the children."

"Ludicrous nonsense."

"I believe in spirits though, the real ones though. You know there are real ones, real spirits."

"Oh no it's like knocking on a mirror by candlelight, it's spooky but there's nothing really there."

But as they sat chatting in a small section of the enormous library, their discussion was disrupted by a very odd looking girl. She walked right up to the table quietly, and watched them without speaking.

She was a very slender girl, holding a bag the size of a person's head as she walked around their table several times. She looked around at each of them as if she were studying the unusual and curious objects on exhibit in some museum's display. Her eyes lingered a long time to look at each of the girls and then she offered up only the single word.
"Fortunes?"
Her tone was soft, meek, pleading. The very oddness of her demeanor and her introduction caused all of the girls to pause and look at her. Margaret spoke first.

"Rhea can read them, she appears to have the gift of it."

The unusual girl said nothing, she continued to hold the bag out in front of her, moving shyly, quietly around the table. She walked softly. Her hair was a tangled mess of pale yellow. She stared at each of the girls in turn, studying them closely before then turning to the next one. Samantha looked past her stringy, unkempt hair and noticed that the dress she wore was beautiful and very neatly pressed. Her eyes held an odd expression, almost blank, terribly shy, trembling. All of the girls paused, curious, and also a little on edge.

"Look at her seal, Sam. It's the moon and sun. She's one of them, a Maja." Rhea was whispering to Samantha, perhaps a bit too loudly as all of the girls were silent and this part of the library vacant of other souls. Unlike the nearly blank seal around Samantha's own neck, the seal this girl was wearing held a silver crescent moon eclipsing a blazing copper sun. Set into it were two gemstones: one a dark red ruby near the top and a violet sapphire opposite. "If she's a Maja do we then, have to do as she says? Perhaps we should just oblige her."
Samantha spoke first simply because she felt that no one else was going to, "If you'd like to read one of our fortunes? I'll have a go."
The girl turned to Samantha holding the bag far out in front of her with both hands. As she did this she looked at Sam's eyes, and then at her shoulder, and then her gaze ran down the length of Samantha's arm to her hand, as if it took time for her eyes to travel. Then her gaze flicked up and locked with Samantha's. She pulled at the draw strings to open up the mouth of the bag even wider.

"Reach in my bag."

It was a quiet command, no longer shy, but neither was it loud. Although the voice was subdued, the tone of it gave Samantha much reason to pause. The girl's eyes and her unusual mannerisms marked her as quite touched, more than a little touched.

~Well what can it hurt?

The girl's smile curled just around the corners of her mouth, "Curiosity killed the kitten." She began to giggle.

"What did you say?"

The girl said nothing. She just pulled the drawstrings to the bag open till they gaped.
Samantha reached in with her hand as the girl continued to pull the drawstrings on the bag as wide open as they would go. Sam slipped her hand deeper inside, felt the cool tiles, like little slippery fish moving around betwixt her fingers. ~They feel so unusual. What are they made out of? And then the next thought. ~Should I be doing this?
Some of the tiles felt cooler than the others, some warmer, some hot. Most were hard to grasp onto. Some of them felt like they were actually swimming away from her touch as she tried to hold onto them with her fingers. ~The girl kept such an odd expression. But she couldn't hold onto one in particular. Oh just pick one and be done with it. When she thought that she had the one tile in particular, and somehow it felt right, she finally had a firm grasp of it and drew it out of the bag.

"Ha!" The girl's shout startled her. "You're to fall in love tonight." The girl's tone was suddenly very animated, highly, opposite of her shy tone earlier.

"No you're holding it wrong, someone is to fall in love with you. Ha! Someone is to fall in love with you! No..." And then her face turned from the warm smiling, gloating animation towards something so much uglier, so much wilder, so much more unbalanced.

The girl with the bag looked like she could hardly control her nerves. And she stood frozen like that, for the space of a dozen heartbeats. She grew ever closer to coming completely unhinged, each passing second.
The girl looked wild now, her face a mask of pain. And when she finally spoke, there was something in her voice like a tea whistle screaming and about to let loose and pop, "What have you done?"
"Sam we should go." It was Anna whispering in her ear. "Really I think we should go."

"Why would you do that? Why would anyone do that?!" The Maja with the wild yellow hair was furious.

"I'm sorry. I don't know it. Whatever it is that I've done, I'm sure I didn't mean to do it." Samantha drew back into her chair in confusion and slid it another foot until she bumped into Anna.

"You've broken it. You've broken my tile."

Sam looked down to see two little pieces of tile, now cracked, separated, there in her hand.

"I didn't mean to. I promise I didn't. I'm sorry. I mean, I hardly touched it." Samantha dropped the two pieces on the table.

"You've broken my tile!" The girls fury was in full boil.

"She's like a queen with a wooden crown, Sam." Anna was whispering close to her ear, "We should go before she completely loses herself. Really."
Samantha stood up.
"You've broken my tile!!" Her face looked as though it would crack in half like the little porcelains of tile. And the girls were standing up now.

Samantha walked with them, away with her group as they filed on quickly through the rows of books. The group of girls crossed the library toward a section far away. And as Samantha looked back, the girl with the bag was still standing there, alone, smoldering.

"That one's much more scary than the ghost story."

S   
amantha took to studying by herself in the very back of the library so as to avoid seeing the woman with the wild yellow hair. Beside her, a tall clock with a long pendulum ticked softly as she composed lines of orderly notes with a long quill pen. It was as she was leaning over, with her nose in a book a tall girl with strong, high cheekbones walked up to her and introduced herself.
"I'm Dana, Dana Blackpool." The girl sat down in a chair across from Samantha and extended her hand. Samantha noticed the silver seal around the girl's neck and counted three pearls set down the center.
~She seems very normal at least. "Samantha Wende, a pleasure to meet you."

"I'm to make myself available to tutor you and to help you along."

"Wonderful, I have a million questions for you then."

"I'll answer them the best as I am able to."

Samantha paused before asking, "Everyone goes on about living light, liquid light, inner light, you have to draw the light to bind a spell. What is this light? Is it a real thing?"

"Oh yes."

"Can you show me then? No one will."

Dana paused. "I could but it's usually not productive. It's better that I coach you. I shouldn't spend time showing you little parlour tricks."

Samantha paused. "Why not? Why not just one, one little parlour trick. I think it would be helpful."

"Time is of the essence. And it's not at all helpful. You have to build your own pool of light, awaken the tempest. Then you'll see. Really."
"That sounds like stuff and nonsense, like you're just putting me on for fun."
"To the uninitiated it probably does."

"And yet you can work spells."

"Yes of course." Then Dana spoke more modestly, "Some. Not all. I'm only an Arch Novice."

"But won't you show me? At least show me something."

"It's very strongly recommended that I don't." Dana drew a breath and continued speaking, "I'm really not even supposed to talk of it, before. Some girls go home Samantha, the ones who won't, the ones who can't, the ones who will fail. And the ones who go home would dismiss anything I did as some slight of hand, or trick of the light, even if I did show them everything. Or worse, you might only understand in part. More dangerous that."

Dana went on, "And that's the whole trouble. You'll never believe if I just tell you, or even if I show you. And you might begin to think the magic is something external, when it's really just the opposite. If I made something catch on fire, some would say that I had planned it, or that I'd tricked you somehow. Do you see? And besides..." And here Dana was whispering, "They frown on any kind of fire in the library. Far too many books to do it safely."

"But I wouldn't really. I don't think I would..."
"Oh you say that, but it's better that you take the first step yourself, move slowly, so you understand."
"And so everything's to be a secret then."

"For a time. For now. Just let nature take its course."

Samantha wrinkled her brow and asked the woman in the green dress, "Well is there anything you can show me then? Something helpful."

"Alright hold your hand out and be quiet about it. I'll tell you your fortune. I'm not likely to cause trouble in the library with something so small as that. We'll pretend that I'm teaching you palmistry."

Samantha snatched her hand away, a little too quickly. "No, Dana, it's alright. I've had some...bad experiences with fortunes lately. Very bad. Can we just leave telling fortunes alone for now?"

Dana smiled and said, "As you like. We can read up on care and breeding of falcons—a subject that I'm especially fond of. And I can show you round the grounds if you like. There's a few of us having a party out on the lawn. Would you like to come? I'll make it an official invitation. I'm inviting you to come out tonight."

_~She seems very nice._ "Well I think that I'd love to, but is it allowed? For a novice? Secrets and whatnot. Can a novice go along?"
"I'm a novice too, an arch novice. Just a little ahead of you. And it is allowed, if I escort you."
Samantha nodded to the woman in the green dress in a way that she would very much like to go along.

"Splendid. It's settled then. Well...let's have a look at this book, and at this one. And...now this is one of my very favorites." She was speaking while she took several books down from the nearby shelf.

As Dana held the first book to open it, Samantha read the title on the gilded binding: Secret Runes and Writings. Then Samantha looked disconcerted as Dana ran her finger along an utterly blank page, seeming to glean information from the process, moving her finger along slowly, as if tracing the lines and following the blank words. Samantha saw that all of the pages, all of them they had flipped to, were completely blank.

Then Dana slid the book over to her as if for Samantha to peruse the blank pages.

"Look at this one here." Dana continued flipping through the pages of another. "And this one, right here."

Samantha looked at her, incredulous. _~Either she's gone mad or I have._ Every page of every book Dana had given to her was blank.

"Am I missing something?"
"Hmmm?"
"Dana these are all blank pages. Are you just having fun with me?"

"Oh no. No. I promise you no Samantha. Although it doesn't surprise me a bit. Well it's of no consequence. No, it is of consequence. Tremendously. I mean how do they expect anyone to learn anything, if they're keeping it all locked away. I mean it's ridiculous..."

Samantha didn't understand, not at all. She didn't understand enough to even ask a proper question.

Dana gave her a very significant look—impressing upon her the serious nature—and then brought Samantha's hand up to touch her own necklace, wrapping Samantha's fingers around the seal. As her fingers touched Dana's seal, the page burst into life. Inked lines and gold leaf filled every one of the pages with clear, albeit highly arcane knowledge. And the pictures, beautifully intricate pictures all through the text, and between the lines. In short, the pages of the books were now full and rich with text.

_~This isn't a parlour trick_. "Dana that's incredible."

The woman in the green dress gave her that same stern, earnest, and highly significant look again. "Care of falcons is very exciting." She gave Sam the same look again. "You'll also have to read Libro de la caza de las aves by Pero López de Ayala. There are other, more modern texts on falconry, but it's best to read from the originals."

L   
ate that afternoon, Sam was chatting as always with the girls.

"Reach in my bag!"

"Oh stop. You're bothering Samantha. And I'm sure she's a very nice person, at other times when people aren't destroying her properties."

"I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to break it. I hardly touched the thing."

"We know. We know."

There was a rap at the door and Samantha answered it to find Dana waiting for her outside. She was wearing a different green dress, but the same loosely netted veil that she had been wearing earlier.

"You'll need your hoodwink while we're still inside the hallways."

Samantha turned back toward the group of girls. "Gwen will you be so kind as to hand me my blindfold. Dana's come to escort me to a party." Samantha was so used to wearing the pretty hoodwink that she hardly noticed it now.
"Oooh, a party Sam?"
"Lucky you."

"Can they all go with us too Dana?"

"No. I can only bring one. Next time I'll be sure to bring along more friends."

"Maybe I should stay here then."

"No. Go on Sam. Go out and see something."

Samantha wrinkled her brow, "But if you all can't come out too."

"No. You have to go! Come back with some new secrets to whisper to us. We've exhausted all of ours already."

It took just a little more convincing and Samantha went with Dana. Wearing her hoodwink and holding to her ribbon, she followed Dana through the hallways and toward the party happening outside on the lawns.

J   
ust as her feet felt the first cool grass bristling under her feet, Dana stopped leading her. She touched Samantha on the shoulder, and took off the blindfold. The first sights Samantha's eyes beheld overwhelmed.
She saw The Towers, unmistakable in the distance. ~How are they not falling! They go up nearly to the sky!
After a few moments of reflection Samantha asked, "Dana, who could have built these things?"

"Someone who really wanted them to be there, I guess."

~They call them towers, or spires, but with all of their decoration, they're more like seven slender cathedrals. That one's the observatory in The Tower of Sky, one thousand eight hundred and sixty steps up. It doesn't seem possible. And there is the tower of light.

Sam's next surprise was the fireworks display, and the enormous size of the lawn party spread out on the grounds. "Dana I had expected something small, there could be nearly a thousand people out there."

"Are you coming?" Dana had already walked several steps ahead through the grass.

Sam began to walk again and her gaze fell back to The Tower of Sky—rising up to split the western sky, with other spires beyond. Surrounding her in the fields were seven spires round the edges, all of them connected by a high wall. The spires were magnificent—each unique, adorning the skyline. And they shrank in size when she compared them with The Tower of Light in the center of the grounds. She studied the whole of it in light of the sunset while she walked.
"   
All of this is the courtyard? The inside grounds?"
"Surprised?"

"It would take a good horse and an afternoon to ride a circle around it."

"Not quite." Dana smiled and continued, "But we do have very good horses here."

Behind her she saw rows of stained glass windows, thousands of them set into the high wall. She had turned around completely several times trying to fathom the whole of it and set it in her mind.

"Are you coming? We were going to a party, remember?"

"Yes." Samantha was so lost in the visual feast of her surroundings that she had stopped walking again. She stood turning in a circle, trying to capture all of it, then jogged forward across the grass to catch up with her friend. Together they walked toward the crowd.
I   
t had taken the two girls the span of twenty minutes to cross the lawn to the party. The sun sat on the horizon and now there were only a few traces of daylight left. In minutes, even those last rays were soon slipping down from the night sky.
A number of torches had been set out on the grass. The music was loud and boisterous. Sam and Dana walked into the crowd wearing their gold and crimson dresses, watching as the people cooked, ate, sipped at their drinks and laughed. Men and women were all serving up the cool drinks, cooking for lines of waiting people. Everything made her feel beautiful here, the half light, the dress, the energy from the festival. She saw fifty couples dancing all together, all holding hands in a big circle. Samantha stood mesmerized, watching them.

Dana whispered to her, "Would you like it it if I found you a partner for the dance?"

"I will if you will." Samantha was smiling.

Dana nodded and pulled her by the hand, "Then let's. Later I'll introduce you to my brother. I'm sure you'll like meeting him."
D   
ana found partners for them quickly and Samantha danced several times round a huge circle, changing partners with a dozen different men in a single dance. Between the dances, they sipped at cool wine poured over ice and fruit and ate something spicy and sweet as it came up off the grills. ~Like pumpkin or sweet potato, only I've never had it like this.
A friend of Dana's came up and whispered something to her. Then the girl who had walked up turned and said something to Samantha, "If you haven't caught a lion yet Samantha, there's still time!"

Samantha tapped Dana on the shoulder, "What on earth is she talking about?"

"Last day of Leo, people are celebrating, like a madness."

Dana's friend ran off, pulled a boy up out of the crowd to dance with her.

"Why are they celebrating the last day of Leo?"

Dana gave Sam a look and then supplied an enigmatic answer. "Because tomorrow they won't be able to. First Libra is a long way away. Come on Sam! There's my brother Devon. I want you to meet him."

Samantha's whirlwind of introduction to Dana's brother was exceedingly brief. Dana walked her up to a tall, handsome boy, put Samantha's hand into his and said, "Take her dancing. She likes it." Then Samantha was swept up into the tall boys arms and the two of them began to caper around the big circle with all the other couples.
"I'm Samantha." She thought she should introduce herself properly to the dark eyed boy. After all, she was already dancing with him.
"Devon Blackpool."

~And his eyes match his name almost exactly. "Am I dancing this right? I just learned it tonight."

"You're doing fine. There's not really a wrong way."

~He seems nice, a nice smile. Reasonably well mannered.

The lady partners all switched backwards to the partner behind them, and so Sam fell back to another partner and watched Devon for several measures dancing in front of her with another girl. ~And he has rather good hair.

The music changed again, and Sam was passed back to another boy, and then again to another. After a dozen choruses and a dozen different partners, the music changed again suddenly sending all the girls running back around the inside of the circle to catch back up. As she found Devon, they both immediately fell back into the step with the music.
"So where do you hail from Miss Samantha Wende?"
"North. Old country." Sam was out of breath.

"Do you have dances like this up there?"

"Yes we have dances, but no, not quite like this one."

"Do you want to rest a while and try it again?"

Samantha nodded, Devon held her hand and they walked back out of the circle. ~He's holding my hand. Is that just a courtesy? Or does it mean something?

As they joined up with Dana, her brother spoke to her, "Your friend's a brilliant dancer." Devon was looking at his sister Dana, but she was now staring off into the crowd. She checked her pocket watch quickly in the torch light, then snapped the lid shut. She seemed annoyed, less pleasant.

"Then you should dance with her another." Dana was speaking to the both of them without turning her head. She had crawled up on a fence to watch the crowd, her pretty green dress draped behind her.

Devon nodded and asked Sam if she like more wine. Samantha said she would and he left briefly to get it.

"How do you like him?" Dana spoke without turning her head. She was intently watching the crowd from the fence post. Her demeanor was now a bit icy.
~Him or dancing with him? "I'm having a good time."
"   
I'm glad that you are."

After dancing, eating, and sipping cool iced wine for several hours, Samantha felt the wonderful tiredness of her efforts all through her. The crowd was thinning and Samantha was searching it for her new friend.

_~She's not on the fence post. Where could she have gone?_

It was hours past dark and Sam felt she was pushing her luck staying at the party later. Still, she didn't want to leave without Dana; she was counting on her to escort her back to her own room. Devon didn't know either.

"I don't have any idea where my sister's gone off to Sam. But I can certainly walk you back if you need."

"You may have to. But where would she have gone off to? And she didn't say anything about it."

"I don't know. Maybe she found that person that she was looking for. It's possible she could have gone back to her room also."
"But I was expecting that she'd be here. You don't see Dana anywhere?"
Devon shook his head.

After several more minutes looking, Sam consented to accept Devon's offer to escort her and the two of them set off across the grass toward the wall. As they walked, Devon held her hand again. ~Well he seems gentlemanly. Samantha locked her fingers in with his, and felt a little thrill as she did it. The moon had dipped down past the horizon and so they walked in the cool shadow of the starlight.

"I'm sorry my sister left without telling you."

"Well I'm still glad that I came out tonight. I'll have some stories to tell. Oh! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry." Samantha almost tripped over a couple lying there in the grass.

"You all right Samantha?"

"Yes it just startled me. I didn't expect to see a couple in the grass like that."

Devon walked another hundred yards, past the kissing couple, and then he sat down, pulling Samantha down to sit with him. And as she sat down, he laid himself back in the grass to look up at the stars.

"That constellation up above is Perseus."

"Which one?"
"Right there. See that bright star is on his hip."
"Perseus, really? What did he do?"

"He cut off Medusa's head."

"Ew."

"And there above him is Andromeda."

"Did she have her head cut off too?"

"No. Her mother chained her naked to a rock to be fed to a horrible sea monster."

"Sounds very bad for her."

"Well Perseus rescued her in time so she was OK."

"Lucky for her then."

"But then her parents wouldn't let her marry Perseus."

"So wait. Stop. She's chained to a rock and told who she's supposed to marry and she just allowed all of this to happen to her? Yes mum please chain me to some rock as a snack for the giant fish and of course I'll marry whoever it is you want me to?"

Devon paused and thought a moment in what she was saying, "You know, I'd never really thought about it that way Samantha. It's an interesting point you're making."

Samantha pointed. "Oh look. I know that one. It's the dipper."
"Yes. It's actually part of the great bear."
"It's a bear? Really? Oh yes I can see it now. And the little dipper... Devon what was that?!" Samantha heard a sound and she sat up quickly. Devon had had his arm around her, but now she looked all about for the source of the noise. The sound was a woman's voice, out somewhere over in the grass. "What was that noise?"

"I wouldn't worry. It's almost midnight Samantha."

"Almost midnight yes." Samantha sighed. ~Heavens, it's almost midnight. "Yes! It's very late. I should be getting back."

"Can you see Jupiter? The bright light there?" Devon paused for a moment looking into her eyes, questioning. There was something there he wasn't saying, not all of it.

Samantha nodded back at him quickly, in a way that meant that she definitely should really be getting back now, right now, very soon.

Devon stood himself back up from the grass, dusted off, then offered Samantha his hand. The two of them walked hand in hand until they reached the high wall with the stained glass windows. Samantha saw an open doorway in the tall wall just a few steps away from them. There were gas lamps glowing softly beyond the doorway.
Devon turned to her. "You'll need your blindfold again."
Samantha pulled the gold and crimson silk out from her pocket and waved it for a brief moment in front of her. Then she hid it just behind her, near the small of her back, and held it there between both of her hands at once. Devon reached both of his hands around her waist, and paused there for a long moment standing very close in front of her. Then he took the blindfold from her hands. Still standing close, he held the hoodwink open just in front of him.

Samantha paused a moment looking up at him, and then moved her head to allow him to pull the cool silk down over her eyes. As he was drawing the strings down, she felt his arms brush lightly against her shoulders. Then he took both of her hands softly in his. ~His hands felt warm and strong. She couldn't see him, but she could feel his breath and knew he must be looking down at her. She just kept waiting.

She recognized the pleasurable scents of a man's breath. Something in a certain man's breath could be so intoxicating, more than any perfume. She felt the excitement of her own body remembering something that it had forgotten, up til now. ~Maybe he will. Just wait. She stood slightly on tiptoe. ~Maybe.

A bell began to toll the midnight hour and Samantha felt him gently lifting up her chin. Her heart raced. His lips pressed softly onto hers. And his lips were warm. She opened her mouth a little, felt his shoulders, his face, his chest, taking in the shape of him with her touch instead of her eyes.
She kissed him with her eyes closed, pressing up and into him. She couldn't have seen anything if she'd wanted to to, but still she closed her eyes tight. And when the twelve o'clock chimes finally stopped, so did the kiss.
S   
he felt a ribbon pressed into her hands and followed the light pull of it quietly into what she thought was a doorway. She could feel the evenness of the floor under her feet; she was walking inside now. Her body felt as light as a feather. And when they stopped, Samantha spoke.

"Devon I wanted to..."

"Oh no dear." But it was a woman's voice talking to her. "He left you at the outside doorway. You're back now. This is your room."

~He left me at the outside doorway. And I didn't even know. "Well thank you then, for taking me back."

~He left me outside.

S   
amantha was half asleep thinking about her kiss from several nights ago when she heard tiny bells sing out softly from the many clocks in the room. ~This is unreasonably early.

Yet the alarm on the clocks were ringing diligently, tiny bells; the other novices stirring. ~Everyone's already getting dressed now.

Samantha kept her eyes closed for a few moments longer still thinking about the kiss. ~And now they're probably all buttoning up their white dresses. I know they're going to be white because yesterday they were white, and again the next day, and the sun is in virgo.

"Is she going to get up?"

"She'd better. Rules and order, the sun's in Virgo now."
Samantha lay very still on the bed, hanging on for those all important last few seconds of pretended sleep. ~It's really inevitable now Samantha, you have to get up. She opened one eye, saw a white dress with precise blue patterns running along the hemline waiting for her there near the foot of the bed. ~I knew it.
Samantha smiled with her success, head pressed firmly into the pillow, and then she sat up. "Very nice dresses ladies. You all look lovely."

"We didn't want to wake you. You looked so happy and you were making little kissing sounds while you were sleeping."

"I was not making any little kissing sounds!"

"You weren't Sam. She's only teasing."

The other novices were all pulling on and buttoning the last buttons of their rather businesslike dresses: neatly pressed, no belt, high collar, hem down past the ankle with those precise tiny blue patterns on the foulard print, loose on the hips, long sleeves ending in trim cuffs.

Samantha rolled out of bed and picked up her own dress, threw it on quickly. She looked for hosiery and finding none began buttoning up the dress along the front until it reached the neckline. ~How do they get them to fit, perfectly, every time? I've never once seen a tailor, or a sempstress come about, not once. The dress, although rather prim, fit well, and so after putting it on, Samantha had a look at it. She was peering in the mirror next to one of the other girls. ~The workmanship of it is positively amazing. Certainly no little skill went into its making. It just doesn't have a lot of... Samantha wasn't quite able to put her finger on it. She was still staring at herself in the mirror when the knock at the door came.
"We wish you light Maja."
"I wish you all light also. All are ready?"

"Nearly." Sam pulled on the slippers, noticed how the crimson on the woman's dress contrasted so distinctly with the pastels colors on her own. And also on the woman's dress, the symbol of The Crimson Tower. She remembered the look of it perfectly, twin horns of flame, curling up toward each other near the apex. As the woman turned around she noticed the long queue of hair, a thick rope of brown that hung down to the back of her legs. Samantha picked up the blue and white hoodwink before walking to the door. "OK. Now I'm ready."

Sam heard the door open again and a lady's hand led her out into the hallway. Holding the now familiar silk ribbon and following its pull and the footstep sounds of the other girls she had time to think in the darkness. ~War. Valor. Passion. Fire and light. She's one of the Maja from The Crimson Tower. We go seven hundred and fifty four steps then left, one-hundred and thirty eight steps then left again. Margaret had given them the precise count of it and Samantha had counted the steps several times. She felt she could almost navigate perfectly in the blindfold darkness, even without holding to the ribbon. ~We've passed the seven hundred and fifty four steps. She listened to the rustle of fabric and the quiet sounds of soft shoes on a smooth stone floor, echoing against a large hallway.
When Samantha removed her blue and white blindfold she found herself in a large room, different room: long rows of red cushions set wall-to-wall, with a wide cut corridor passing between them, candles on two low, tables that framed a stone archway. An assortment of books, and unusual artifacts were placed on the tables also Several Maja were sitting in the large, ornate chairs placed near the front.
Samantha sat herself down in the fifth row back and counted seventy novices in identical dresses. ~So many? Cricket was right that there would be more of us.

The day began with lectures on magic and meditation, then moved on to readings from selected passages of texts. Incantation, spellcraft, religions, the lectures touched on all points. The readings on poetry and the history of magic were especially interesting to her.

_~And this is the same one they read to us yesterday._ She had heard it before, but she still listened to the woman.
Laksminkara was made to wait outside the castle belonging to her new husband until the stars above aligned in a position more auspicious for her to enter in and go into him. While waiting there outside his palace, she witnessed the prince—her own promised husband—returning from a hunt with a lifeless carcass. A doe had been thrown over the back of his horse and tied there.
It was at this point that one of the novices in a white dress was summoned to the front. She walked through the open archway near the table as the woman continued the story. The telling continued.

Abhorred by the cruelty she saw, and revolted by the thought of wedding such a man, Laksminkara poured out all of the many treasures she had with her—fine silks, silver, gold, the total of her royal dowry—onto the ground. She left it all for the poor. And then she fled, with only the clothes she wore and few things she carried with her.

Samantha was listening yet also trying to stay awake. ~This is what happens when you're up till all hours reading. And then as an afterthought, ~And dancing with boys. You have yourself to blame.

While fleeing from her would be husband, over the rough countryside, it began to rain. As the rains fell, Laksminkara climbed high up upon a smooth rock and let the warm waters wash over her while she meditated. An eclipse broke through the clouds and she saw the moon enveloping the sun, half-light, and then darkness. She found her lamp as to light it. Instead of putting her hand upon her flint, she drew out a small gem from the bag in the dark. She couldn't tell what she was holding until the lamp was lit. And it was there that she first drew the light.
~And she lit the first spark. And she began to teach the other Maja. Did she build the towers? No. Laksminkara was older. But how long have those towers have been here? Next she'll probably start talking about Quintesse Lumenai and drawing forces from the seven lights.
"Quintesse Lumenai, the liquid light, is life energy."

Samantha slumped down lower, setting her elbow on her knee and propping her chin up with her hand. _~Less reading tonight. You can't drink the whole ocean in an evening._ But there was too much to learn and very little time.

Another novice in a pure white dress was summoned to the front. She also spoke briefly to one of the women in the crimson dresses, and then walked through the open archway between the tables. Samantha wondered again what they were doing in there beyond the archway.

The Maja speaking continued, "The life within you naturally draws this light, but then you must direct it. It's much easier to draw than to control. And in order to succeed you must have not only the words, the intention, and the focus, but the energy and feeling of the magic within you."
These words were also dull to Samantha, boring her towards a kind of pleasant sleepy delirium. She'd heard them repeated to her every day since she'd been here. ~Yes, I know. Draw the light and the tempest. Bring them both together, one focus, one purity of intention, then direct it. We're a living magnet for these energies...
"...and your own life force is akin to a magnet. The more alive the mind, the stronger it is. We are vitalizing and strengthening that magnet. You must draw the light, focus yourself, purify it, and only then can you direct it."

_~Is magic so difficult to learn naturally or do they go out to all new lengths to make it so?_ More novices had since been summoned up to the front, each one disappearing through the archway, returning after a time. One that had left earlier returned a few minutes later than the one before her. _~And that one there, that one that was sitting in the front. Where did she go to? Did she even come back?_

The woman speaking changed to a new subject. Now the Maja in crimson began to read from another book, a legend. This one Samantha had never heard before. She described a princess Tikal who went out to meet her lover at twilight. The Egyptian Princess Tikal was smiling at Osim as she knelt by the Nile to caress him with her delicate, soft fingers. She giggled when Osim kissed her gently on the neck. And the Maja's voice never wavered or stopped as she read. She didn't stop as Princess Tikal's lover kissed her shoulder and then her neck. But the woman did stop very suddenly at the part where princess Tikal lay down and Osim's hand began caressing her belly. ~Why is she reading this? What can any of this possibly have to do with magic?
And then another thought occurred to Samantha. ~And why stop reading just when Osim kissed her on the neck and started caressing her on the belly? You could at least keep on a little further, just a little.
Sam's head was suddenly filled with visions of herself as the Egyptian princess, welcoming her lover to caress her own, soft belly. Her mind drifted on this thought a little further. ~Would Devon kiss my neck like that? She thought that he might if she asked him to. But what she really wanted was for a man to guess that she might like it and try. ~He should be able to guess it, guess that I would like him to try and kiss my neck. I might even tell him not to several times, and then let him. If I don't ask him, then it wouldn't be at all improper of me, because he would just be doing exactly as he liked.

She was still thinking about her midnight kiss, and wondering for the dozenth time what was beyond that archway, when a reading of a short poem snapped her back from out of her reverie.
~How much time has passed? Did I doze off for a moment?
The Maja who had come for them that morning was at the front and was looking right at her, right directly at her. The summons to the front was perfectly obvious, though the woman hadn't moved, or even lifted a finger.

~My turn then, is it? I guess now I can find out for myself what secrets are beyond the archway.

Samantha walked to the front, nodded deferentially, respectfully, to the woman wearing the jeweled seal and the red dress.

"We wish you light Novice Samantha. Mark the time."

"   
Five lights above horizon. Venus and Mercury. Mars, Sun, and Saturn." Samantha named five of the seven lights.

"And the moon? How lies Proserpina?"

Samantha noticed the other woman's hair, the one reading, that long dark cascade of black that she had swept forward to drape over one shoulder of her crimson dress. The woman's hair nearly reached to the floor. She turned back to the woman next to her.
"Descending draconic in Capricorn."
The woman nodded, placed a glittering red jewel in her hand. At a nod from the woman Samantha passed through the archway.

Samantha examined the gem first. It was the size of a hummingbird's egg. It looked like a ruby. _It can't possibly be a ruby._ Samantha looked again at the sparkling glassy object in her hand. _~Can it be a ruby?_

The thing she noticed was pool of water in the center of the room. Samantha walked toward it thinking about how empty the room felt. She sat down on her hip on the low stone that surrounded the fountain.

There was a man was standing next to her.

And he was blindfolded.

She hadn't seen him until her eyes found a different sense, in the new light. And the room was large, large enough to echo all the sounds as her hand touched the water, the sound across the stones, shuffling sounds that reflected back to make her nervous, moving slowly, now. You could have filled the room around her with a hundred people, ten times that number. But it was empty, save for Samantha, and the man. It was impossible not to make a sound as she moved now; the sound of her shoe was constantly clicking, and scratching even though she hardly moved it. The volume of the sound made her try to keep very still.
Five long colored curtains hung, floor to ceiling on the walls, with room enough between each of the colored hangings that large expanses of the bare stone wall separated each one of the curtains from the others. The long curtains were far, removed, from the others, space between them.
_~Something doesn't feel right. I should have been listening. They probably told us what to do when I was drifting off. Stupid Samantha. You're always doing that._ Samantha advanced, walked, toward the man, nervously looking about. There was now no doubt as to who or what he was, no doubt in her mind at all.

And there was a key, hanging, from a thin silk ribbon, his silk ribbon, the color of crimson, the ribbon was, it was there around the man's neck.

~Why does this not feel right?

His skin seemed to glow, and flicker, a subdued light, almost like a rising ember, before it cools, and falls back down to earth. Other than the man, the key, the five lavish colored wall hangings, the room was empty.

~Because he's a tempest.

Samantha looked back through the arch from whence she'd come. A single Maja stood post in the archway, watching but saying nothing, not even looking at her. The woman was a world away from her.
~I should have been listening. This is all some kind of test. And several of the other girls didn't come back. Do I even know what happened to them? Did they fail? Maybe they failed, and then they sent them home. If I fail will just disappear like they did? Will anyone even know what's happened?
Samantha approached the man, looked at the key, on its crimson and black ribbon hung there on his neck.

~His? Or its?

She easily recognized the symbol emblazoned on the key. It was a symbol from her studies, the symbol of the man, or a symbol of the spirit, whatever he was, emblazoned large as life. _~Fire. The symbol, the symbol on the key is fire. This one's a certainly a tempest, just like they said we would find._ A chill went all down her back as she thought about what she was doing, about what she was thinking, and then about to do.

She moved closer, only feet away now, then closer, only inches. Each time she moved, he did not. Each time she moved, he stayed still, perfectly. It made her bolder and more nervous. He didn't move.

~I feel like...

She couldn't put her finger on what it felt like and leaned very close, watching, anxious, she could feel the heat from him, without touching, without touching him. Her hand passed close, judging now, whether she could, touch. Was she being audacious or just foolish. Her fingers were nearly, nearly on him.
And he was less like a man, more alike to a stone set on a mantelpiece.
~No, warmer. Like a hearth fire. Unnatural. And yet a fire glowing. A fire unmoving. There he has the key.

Cautious, lest her hands awaken him before she could acquire that prize what she sought. It made her fingers the more nervous of the work. A touch of sweat, hands trembling, trying not to touch, or even to brush him.

"Leave the key within the lock."

The key had hit the floor as she jumped back from him. She stepped back and almost fell over because she had been holding her breath, before he spoke to her, as the ribbon slipped free of the knot, finally, and the man's voice startled her nerves to pieces. Before this moment, that creature hadn't moved, not at all, not breathed, nor stirred, nor even twitched.

But it was his voice, only his voice, only the movement of his lips; the man was perfectly still, he was unnaturally still, and apparently unseeing behind the mask. If Samantha didn't already have the key loose, she was sure she never could have tried for it a second time, not then, not after he had spoken to her, not like that. But there was the key, now lying on the warm stone tiles by his feet.
She moved cautiously, sliding her hand across the floor to pick up the key from where it had fallen. The key was hot in her hand, brassy, gritty on her hand, black with a crimson rune, larger than it should be and heavy in her hand. _~Leave the key within the lock. But I don't see any locks._ She looked around the room again. _~That doesn't mean that there isn't one somewhere._
Five large colored curtains hung on the walls and there was no other exit except the archway she'd come in through.

_~Where is it then?_ Samantha held tight to the key and looked around at the large empty room. Her eyes went over the floor, to the walls around her, then to the man. _~No not a man, a tempest._ She walked fifty paces over, to the wall, to the long lush, gold curtain, to the wall. She walked to the long curtain.

~Keep your head Samantha. You have to keep your wits about you.

Sliding the plush material aside, she slipped herself, between the smooth velvet of the fabric and the wall. The velvet slid warm, against her arm and her shoulder as she walked behind the curtain, until she found another tall archway with a narrow door behind the curtain. _~The door and the keyhole._ Placing the key within, she heard the smooth motion of the lock drawing, sliding. The key turned within. As the door fell away Samantha stepped through into the passageway.
~Leave the key within the lock.
She obeyed, left the fire key and its long dangling silk ribbon in the lock behind the golden curtain and walked forward into the passage.

She let the door close behind, her. In several paces more, she saw a candle moving in the darkness, a shape walking, walking with a candle. The motion of it was sweeping down the passageway.

She followed after, trailing her hand along the pitch dark wall for balance, eyes fixed now on the woman far in front of her and the light from the moving candle. Following her, she stepped out into another large room, higher ceilings, soaring archways, red-black colors, alight as if lit with torches, all in shades of red and black.

The woman turned as if to speak to her, as if she was a guide, "You must light them all." The woman holding the candle wore an ornate blindfold. There were red gemstones set into the eyes of the golden cloth. "You must light all of them."

Samantha took a step backwards, back towards the doorway, and turned to find she was alone, alone on a ledge.
And here she saw islands of stone between herself and the next doorway. _~Where did she go to? Where did the door go?_
There was a kind of glow from fires smoldering, down below, each island with a tall golden candlestick, each candlestick holding a single candle, each unlit.

~ _And what's down below them?_ As she turned to look, there was a candle next to her, a tall candle in a tall golden candlestick. It was already lit, already burning.

_~Did the candle light up all on its own? A moment ago? Or was it already burning? Darkness and light! You've just taken a key from off a tempest's neck. You have to expect things like this to happen._ Samantha stood staring at the candle's flame a moment, and then turned her attention back to the open room with the many soaring bridges of black stone.

They were narrow walkways, narrow black stone walkways arching between the small islands of black stone. They led between the islands of stone, and there was no floor, at all in the room, excepting for the islands, narrow paths of the walkways, and then the islands, and the paths connecting. And there was almost no floor except the arching bridges.

~Think Samantha. You have to keep your head and I feel like I'm losing my mind.
Samantha walked cautiously to the edge of the small stone island on which she was standing, looked down into the warm reddish glow so many feet below. A touch of vertigo overcame her. She stepped back, away from the edge, and the depth.
The woman Samantha had followed called out again, "As you step near to a candle, each candle will light. Two candles across a bridge will set a bridge alight between them. You'll not recross, never go back the way you came, never back. So think before you walk. The exit is here."

The voice came from across the room, the woman standing opposite, far across, next to another distant door. Samantha could see the woman, her red and gold dress, too far to see clearly.

Only by crossing several of the narrow bridges could she reach that place across the room. She should have been afraid, yet there was an excitement building, inside of her, an excitement that pushed away the fear, kept it down. _~Then this is also to be another test._

"You mustn't tarry. Think carefully before you walk Samantha."

_~Well which is it?_ Samantha's eyes flitted about the room as her mind raced to find the answer. _~Six islands round the outside, one in the center. Seven candles in all. The paths all cross and twist._
She counted quickly, _~Twelve bridges, each maybe forty paces, wide enough for one to walk on easily, but not two people together. And what does she mean they will light?_ Samantha stopped deliberating when the floor beneath her feet began burning.
_~Best guess then. Quickly. Try not to look down._ Samantha walked out the twenty paces across the first bridge and then spun around. _~You musn't tarry._ _Damnú aίr!_

The bridge behind her was burning.

The narrow bridge she'd just half crossed had broken out into tall open flames. The walkways twisted and crossed, one leaping over another, almost finely arched bridges, black rainbows spanning the golden-red heat below her. And behind her the bridge caught fire, the moment she stepped off from it, the moment the second candle lit, the moment after it would have caught her dress on fire. The stone floor below the candle was burning also. _~You mustn't tarry._

~ _They're all lighting up, everything, all of themselves, all on their own. And the bridges seem twisted._ The sense of this might have been one of terror, but somehow for Samantha, it was all a feeling of awe, excitement, exhilaration.

She fled, and her spirit thrilled. She felt no risk of falling, no risk from the fire. The fires lighting by themselves made her heart beat faster, her nerves tingle, her stomach tighten. She felt wondrously alive.
She stood on the next island, right near the candle, thinking quickly as she could. _~Five candles left, eleven bridges. There has to be a pattern. What's the pattern? Think of it. Quickly._
She walked across another walkway, and then another. The sense of awe and wonder kept building. Each caught fire in her as each candle lit and each bridge leapt with a new flame.

She had forgotten a moment ago that she was wearing a flowing white wedding dress with red and gold runes embroidered into it. The long train of the dress swept backwards behind her, flames moving their tendriled fingers along the weaves of the material. It would have taken the work of eight fiery handmaidens to carry the train of her dress. Her long trailing sleeves were burning and she crushed the flames out under her slipper.

As the next candle lit, several bridges began to burn at once. She feared for a moment that the whole room was catching fire, all around her, or she would be trapped. The fire and the heat was with her, yet she held her wits about her, all the time thinking, always.

~The bridge betwixt any two lit candles will burn. And I have to get the pattern right or the flames will trap me on one of the islands. Quickly.

She tried not to think on consequences, felt the bold fearlessness of someone who has no time to second guess. She walked across two more of the bridges. The whole room was glowing, candles, fiery pathways. She didn't bother to stop again to put out the dress, tall flames licked along parts of it, following after her. Nearly every bridge was burning
_~One place. One place left to go._ She crossed the pathway quickly ascending the arch and running down the other side. And as the last candle lit up, every bridge in the room was burning, a fiery conflagration around her and behind her. The thrill of it held her.
She turned, watched the room burn, awestruck, exultant. Samantha felt chills come all over her, even in the heat. Surprise, and power, and every nerve lit up like a candle inside of her. This was magic on a scale she'd never thought possible. _~And heaven forbid a mistake. Best not to think..._

The woman with the blindfold was gone.

And the next doorway was open.

Silence. As she slipped past the space in the narrow archway, she turned again.

She took a last look at the room, behind her. Silence everywhere. Every candle out. Every bridge cool, quiet stone. Quiet. All of the flames were gone. It was as if nothing at all had ever happened.

And another chill swept over her. The cool and the quiet was more jolting to her sense than the fires.
It was all gone, left her feeling uneasy, as if perhaps none of it had happened.
_~No. It was real. I felt the heat. The candles lit._ And as if in silent testimony, both of the tiny sleeves of her dress were singed, hardly an inch above her bare arms, and also the gold hem of it was singed. ~The red dress. There's no train on the dress. There never was a train on the dress. Because this afternoon my dress was white, almost pure white, they all were. The sun is in virgo, white for virgo. My dress is white.

The color of her dress was gold and dark crimson.

It was such an odd feeling, after what she'd seen. It left her reeling, off-balance and unsure of herself.

~The woman. The woman with the blindfold.

She gathered her gold and crimson dress about her, smoothing it as she watched the quiet, the quiet of the room. Then she turned to stride several paces through the exit of the high open archway.

Entering that room adjoining, she saw a single unlit candle in a fine golden candlestick, all sitting in the middle of a rosewood table, and a golden cloth. Then she saw a woman, and then another.

The room was small. It was relaxed and it was warm. And gathered around the table and the candlestick, dressed like five guests setting out for a fine evening's ball, were two of the Maja. Several attendants were with them.
Samantha instantly noted the women's dresses. ~Red. All of them in gold and red. She noticed the jewelry they wore, large, red jewels set in gold. The attendants wore them also, such unusual rings on their fingers. ~Enormous ruby rings on all of them.
It made Samantha think about the jewel the woman had given her earlier, and she now looked down into the empty place in her hand, where it should have been. She looked into the empty place in the palm of her hand where the ruby should have been. _~I've lost it. Darkness and light! I've lost the jewel._

A woman who wore a large ruby dangling from her neck motioned for Samantha to sit down in the chair.

"You are beneath the archway, Samantha."

_~Where did I lose the ruby? Did I drop it on one of the arched bridgeways? Or by the pool of water?_ She wasn't thinking correctly, not as she should be. _~Maybe I dropped it in the room, behind the curtain with the key? I remember the key. I took the key from off a man's neck._

"Some here are spirits, some here are messengers, some here are guides, and some guides take you places. You should sit it will be easier." The woman motioned to the heavy rosewood chair with gold runes in it.
Samantha crossed the room, to the chair, sat down quickly, tried to catch her breath. As she looked up, at the unlit candle on the table, a male attendant behind her began brushing her hair out, in long strokes. It was harder for her to think.
"The old word for light was fire, or lamp, or candle. A light was a fire and fire was a light."

She thought it very odd that a man should begin brushing her hair. Samantha said nothing, didn't ask him to stop. She looked at each of the women as she took in the details around her. Two women were dressed in fine red dresses with jeweled necklaces. The attendants were dressed well also but in a less lavish style, except for the two jeweled rings each of them wore on their hands, on their fingers, rubies like the one that she had lost. ~Each of those rings is worth a queen's fortune.

"First lit, those fires, they kept the animals at bay, drove back the terrors of the night. Light was a symbol for knowledge." The woman's words were hypnotic.

The seat of the chair was covered in a smooth cushioned fabric. The armrests splayed out wide, like the back of the chair they were dark wood, carved with intricate designs. The chair would have seated a large man; Samantha had more than enough room to stretch out and recline. There were several red gemstones set into the smooth, rosewood arms of the chair.
"A flame was knowledge from ancient times, a separation; tree of knowledge; tree of light; tree of flames. Like the sun. All words. All symbols."
She sat, waiting for something else to happen. The man was brushing her hair. The questions were running, all through her, mind. ~What is all of this, happening, here? And why is this man brushing my hair like this? And the fires, they all went out on their own at once. Those bridges lit like liquid fire. And there's a ruby set into the rosewood chair. And why is there a ruby in a rosewood chair? Why would someone do such a thing, unless you were a queen or something? The answers came to her, slipped to her from out of her thoughts. ~They're tempests. They're all tempests! All of them are. Or maybe no. They're the Maja. This is a test. Is it a part of the test? I don't know what's happening. How much of this is even real?

Almost as if sensing her thoughts, two girls picked up Samantha's hands, began calmly tending to her fingernails with small and delicate nailfiles, with scented lotions, with gentle motions of the hands.

Her nerves were awake, all awake. She felt every touch of the brush, felt every pull of the hair, felt every delicate touch as the nailfile brushed across her fingernails. Her heart was racing, not terror, not excitement, both together. She began to relax, to close her eyes. It was hard to relax. It was hard not to relax.
"There is something primeval about fire. You can sense it when you look closely."
Their hands worked over her, gently, and they would stop, occasionally they would stop, let their hands glide gracefully up her arms, touch the skin.

"The light of the faithful, the light of the wicked, to know good and evil. The fire of faiths."

~You can't relax. This is crazy. And you've lost the ruby. What does it mean that you've lost the ruby?

Yet, the attentions felt, wonderful. Especially with her nerves alive; it was tender; it was sublime, an awakening, the places on her skin. The attendants were stroking each arm with jeweled fingertips, long strokes, light, so light, up and down her arms, across the backs of her hands.

So much at once, pulling, like her world was falling away, uncemented, as if it was separating, drawing itself, into several oh so lovely pieces, fragments, fragments, drifting and colliding.

~You're losing your mind.

And yet even if the whole of the world should come undone for her, she felt she would accept it, incredibly alive.

Samantha studied the candle, unlit. Everything was so unusual, so unearthly. But the all the lovely pieces of her world were drifting further apart.
~So far apart.
So far apart that Samantha began to lose her grasp of it. Their touches were alike unto the finest orchestrated chamber music, caressing her skin and her senses in gentle and careless wisps.

~I took a key writ with the symbol of fire from off a man's neck. I took it from a man's neck and left it hanging in a golden doorway.

"Do you remember the poem I read to you earlier?" As if reading her thoughts, the women spoke to her from out of the silence around her.

"Yes Maja, I remember." _~Was it her that read the poem? Was it actually her?_

Samantha wasn't herself. The woman looked like the one who had been reading to them earlier, with the long hair over one shoulder. _~When did she get here? How did she get in here?_

Sam's hair was thoroughly brushed. Lovely locks lay across the chair. Strong hands rubbed along her shoulders and upper arms. The other lady attendants continued manicuring her hands and nails with the pleasant oils, the delicate file, and long caresses of their jeweled fingertips, the oils that smelled like cinnamon, and something else.

The woman began reading from a book.

"Come Slowly – Eden!
Lips unused to Thee –
Bashful – sip thy Jessamines –

As the fainting bee..."

The young women with the files put their hands on Samantha's knee, moving with a single spirit, fingers curling just inside, began rubbing at it lightly, like they had along her arms, like they had gently along her arms, like the hands on her shoulders.

"Samantha, do you know what the poem means?"

Samantha's mind caught on the question being asked, and on the single word: Jessamines.

She felt the touch of the boy's hands on her shoulders. _~No, he's older than a boy. He's a young man._ Thinking about the poem pulled Samantha's attentions back into something more like the present, gave her clarity. Twice today that poem had brought her back from out of her deep reveries.

Looking down at them, the women wore ornate blindfolds, oddly shaped, animalistic masks.

~It's something delicate and very beautiful. The word Jessamine has poetry about it.

They wore masks in red and gold. Samantha thought it odd. The attendants sat back-to-back between her feet. The rings matched so perfectly the lush crimson color of the woman's dress, of her own dress.
_~It can't be the same woman who was reading the poem earlier._
The two attendants moved almost with one mind, in synchronicity. It surprised her to feel the attendant's hands lightly on flowers of her red stockings, like they had caressed her arms, moments before, warm, snug against the flesh of her, as if the two women were moving with the same purpose. The man's hands on her shoulders slid further up her neck and into her hair. One of the attendants moved the tall golden candlestick and set it directly in front of her.

"Can you tell me what the poem means, Samantha?"

"It's something beautiful. It's something lovely."

Samantha felt a cool ruby—one the man wore on his strong fingers—slide down her neck, slowly circle along her neck, cross into a more sensitive place, there on her neck, along her shoulder. The cooling touch of it found a point that made the chill run through her.

One of the attendants looked up at Samantha. Her eyes seemed to be posing a question, waiting for a response. Samantha looked at the unlit candle, then down into the attendant's eyes.

Each of the ladies kept their legs around her ankles, snugly. She felt their hands watched them slide over her crimson stockings.

~Such beautiful rings.
They wore them on each hand, rings set with large rubies.
Samantha thought their hands felt almost as soft as flower petals, brushing so lightly they hardly lifted the material. ~My dress. And then Samantha felt another little tremble sweep down over her, like a chill, only warmer. ~What was that?

"They're unlocking the lines of light."

Samantha thought the woman standing next to her was real, she was much less sure about the others. ~Some here are spirits, some here are messengers...

"And they're asking your permission Samantha, to assist you." The woman's voice was almost hypnotic. Samantha noticed the way the woman's hair curled, hanging by the side of her face, just touching across her cheek as she spoke.

~Asking my permission? She looked at the candle, then at the Maja, then at the attendant's hands moving just underneath the hem of her own dress. As Samantha looked down into their eyes, she saw the questioning look in them. She saw it there even though she didn't know exactly which question they were asking. ~And on her necklace, there's the symbol again. The old word for light was fire...

She gave a little nod and the cool soft hands moved an inch higher up her tall, crimson colored stockings. Samantha's senses flooded, every nerve tingling.
The Maja standing beside her began reading from her book again. "Come slowly Eden lips unused to thee..." The woman's voice was like warm honey pouring out of a flower and straight into Samantha's thoughts.
The other attendant's hand ran through Sam's hair. With one hand he pressed one ruby snug against her shoulder, the other moved along the length of her neck. The two women below were caressing gently along each leg. _~Tempests, all of them._ She looked at the candle. And in a rush at once, Samantha knew fully what the poem meant. And this new awareness brought another shiver into her.

"...Bashful sip thy Jessamines..." The rhythms and images in the woman's words seemed to flow right through and settle into Samantha's consciousness.

"Purify them each as they awaken, lest they take hold of you." The other Maja was speaking to her also now. "You may connect all that you feel to the spiritual, to the beauty around you, and also within."

~Purify.

Then another of the rubies settled into her skin, delicately, cool, then more firmly, a place on leg that made every sense come alive. It seemed to burn there like a warm ember, almost to the point of pain, indescribable, yet with a kind of beauty in it. And a line between her shoulders and her leg seemed glow with the same warmth, almost as if a path of liquid fire was connecting them.
~What's happening?
"Purify them each as you feel them, a warm heart, beauty and kindness. Fire unchecked..."

Samantha could hear the words, but she was having trouble focusing, on anything except the touch.

Another ruby settled into a soft point on the back of her arm, she never would have expected such a reaction from such a place. It burned like a lovely warm ember. Samantha tried to slump deeper into the chair, almost like a reflex.

Another ruby found a perfect place, began to burn, a finely sculpted fiery rainbow of sensation. Samantha felt her body nearly lift from the chair. The lines of heat and liquid light seemed to connect, all through her, across her skin, deeper within.

"You must light them all Samantha."

It was the woman with blindfold. Samantha reached forward, stretching upwards to touch the unlit candle with both of her hands. The wax felt suddenly warm under her fingertips. ~That word, Jessamines... I've never heard the word before and now somehow my entire body knows exactly what it means.

"The flame."

Sam spoke her articulately practiced syllables, but the candle stayed dark. She could feel so much, stirring within her, now. ~Is this it? What I'm feeling? Quintesse Lumenai? The attendants were looking up at her once again with that same expectant question; their eyes asked again each time.
Samantha nodded to them, and found she was shivering again before their hands moved another small inch further up her beautifully patterned stockings. Somehow the shivers warmed all through her.
"Again Samantha. The candle." Her voice was a quiet yet hypnotic command.

Samantha spoke her words and felt a little surge somewhere inside her, like another pinch of heat that melted hot instead of truly burning. ~Closer.

The candle was still out. Her body felt a growing tingle. _~The woman with the blindfold._ Warm shivers ran through her and she felt her confidence rising. Samantha felt out of breath now.

The attendant's eyes looked up at her and they were asking again, the same silent question. They were asking it again, the one they had asked each time before. And a wild, lascivious thought came through Samantha's mind. ~Each time I fail, they'll move their hands higher, those cool, soft hands will move a little higher onto my skin. And the pull of this thought began to overpower, fight within her. ~Why am I thinking this?

Her eyes closed and her breath caught as a thought burned hot through her mind, and then the heat curled and slipped back across her shoulders. She willed herself to look down at the attendants and nod. She tried to do it, but instead she just sat there, breathing, quick and shallow breaths.
~This is all crazy. What am I feeling? The heat in her shoulders, slipped its way up into her neck, and then up onto the back of her scalp, and then flooded back down over her again. She tried to stand up from the chair. The attendants held her.
As their hands moved along her legs, they looked up at her, as if they could see from beneath the jeweled masks. Something inside her was powerful and yet beautiful, and the feeling of it was so thrilling and so scary and wild and perfect. Little melting sparks of magic were flitting all along and down her scalp. She locked eyes with the attendant. ~Just tell them. Just let them. Just let them do it. And then she nodded yes to them again.

She waited for the span of heartbeats as the attendant's cool fingers traced beyond where the fabric of her stockings stopped, playing along the soft skin above her stockings. Cool rubies touched her and Samantha's breath came out in a slow shudder. She felt the warm tingles flood up over her from near where their fingertips brushed, rubies in the rings, cool as starlight, then warm, then hot like embers.

"The candle."

Samantha spoke her syllables and there was just a little spark, more a glow than a light, but a real one now. ~That was it. Oh heavens, that was magic. That was real. The liquid fire rushed all through her, nearly lifting her out of the seat. Her body felt like a dozen tingling butterfly wings were caressing her all over at once and their wings were making little sparks.
"Again. The candle."
The syllables spilled out between her lips; they were practiced, fluid and perfect, but the effort required in saying them increased so dramatically. The light resisted her, it was like trying to hold onto slippery drops of rain within her fingers, only thicker, heavier, and warm nearly to the point of burning. She couldn't quite hold onto them.

She finger to the candle wick. There was a bigger glow from the candle, but no flame. She saw the tempests moving, dancing, almost writhing. Their jeweled hands were still tight against her skin as they smiled, as another ruby touched her soft skin and she heard a woman's voice call out, lovely, gently, languishing, her own voice as it burned.

"The candle."

Her whole being filled with light. The heat of it concentrated beneath the jeweled fingertips to flood out over her skin, but it was inside of her also. The candle flame flashed, burned, twice hotter still—a large dancing flame now, releasing several rivulets of slippery wax to run down the full length of the candle. She tried to stand up, but the attendants wrapped around her, like climbing vines across the red flowers of her stockings.
And her dress was so much shorter now than she remembered it being. The fire red runes across the hemline didn't quite reach to her knees. And Gwen was looking up at her from underneath one of the animal masks, "You know what she was wanting."
The man smiled, from underneath the blindfold, the key around his neck. The smell was hot cinnamon and ashes around her.

She began a prayer that she had known since girlhood. The light racing through her felt limitless.

Like a vision, as her thoughts changed, the world changed around her. The women in the masks were gone, all of them, so was the candle. The man was gone. She stood up, turned to run, through the archway...

.   
..three steps beyond it, catching her breath. Her body was trembling. She felt incredible. She was holding onto a red jewel, looking down at one of the unlit candles outside the archway.
"Mark the time Samantha."
Her hand went out to the candle, touched it before she had time to think about what she might be doing, reaching out, as if compelled to do it. And the candle lit, lit at the soft touch of her finger. The burn of the little flame against her finger brought her back. She looked around the room, and much had changed. More than half the girls had gone, almost all of them, leaving the room mostly empty.

"Samantha, mark the time."

~Perhaps an hour passed. "Five lights above horizon, the sun in Virgo. Virgo also for Venus, Mercury, War, and Saturn. The moon in Capricorn." Then Samantha remembered the three jewels on the woman's seal, curtsied, and then added the formal courtesy at the end, "Maja."

~Why did I say War instead of Mars? I said that War was in Virgo.

The woman in the red dress apparently thought little of it, or hadn't noticed. She instead turned to the woman beside her, "It's nice to have so many of the lights in Virgo, more well behaved than they usually are. She's fine." The Maja next to her, the one with the long hair over one shoulder was now taking notes. And then she was speaking to someone else, another woman, a woman behind her, someone Samantha hadn't seen and didn't know. Other than those three women, she was alone. 
The woman next to her turned back to Samantha, noticing the lit candle, the candle she had lit with only a touch. Then the woman knelt, cupped the flame with her hand, and blew out the candle. "You've done very well, Novice Samantha. You'll take a seat over there until someone comes for you."
_~Is it done? Is it over?_ The four women with the rings, the ones who had been... They were gone, as was the man with the blindfold and the key.

Samantha opened her hand to give back the ruby she had been holding onto so tightly.

~I never lost it! How much of all of that was real?

She watched quietly, watched as the Maja collected the jewel from her hand, the ruby she had thought was lost, the one that she had been holding to so tightly all along that her fingers could now hardly open. And the chair, the heavy rosewood with rubies set into the armrest, was gone. There was a strong smell of cinnamon and ashes coming from everywhere, all around her. It was like a perfume in the room, mixing in the air with the smell of warm ashes and molten wax.

The woman in the red dress only smiled warmly as she tied a piece of red silk around Samantha's wrist, securing it in place. It was a piece of red silk, the width of a finger with a tiny golden sun pinned onto it.

Samantha walked across the room and sat on the little bench as was instructed. She was shaking, flushed with her success, so much that she could hardly keep herself still. Her hands kept smoothing the folds of the material in her white dress. And she was looking at the bracelet.
~Red silk. Gold sun. Where are all the other girls?
The Maja there in the hallway asked Samantha for her white silk hoodwink with a word of, "There's no need to put it on. Accepted Samantha will you follow?" And then the woman led her along the hallway by a slender ribbon.

_~Accepted?_ Samantha sat down on a bench, and waited there several minutes. Then someone touched her softly on the shoulder and led her inside a small, warmly lit room. Once inside the room, the woman threw the blindfold in a basket.

Samantha watched everything around her. _~It all seems so normal now, like nothing's happened. The man the key, the chair. It's all like it never happened._ Her white dress showed no burns or marks.

Samantha kissed her little gold cross as she was in the habit of doing. _~The woman at her desk, she looks busy with something, some paperwork or something. W_ _hat is it she's writing?_

Samantha couldn't see and so she looked up at the high ceilings in the small room, around at the decorations. All of them were very elegant, all very normal. _~What just happened? What just happened to me in there?_
Eventually the woman did look up from her writing to ask, "Your name?"
"Samantha Wende"

The woman bent down and continued writing in the ledger several more moments. Samantha stared into the candle flame on the desk while she waited for the woman, watching the wax slide, drip down like slow falling rain into the cup. _~Where are all the other girls?_

The woman finally looked up again and she handed Samantha a ring and a silver seal, both with a single white pearl set into them. The pearl in the seal was near the top, near where the seal met the chain of the necklace. On the whole, the silver circle was very simple in its design—very much like the first she'd been given—but now with a single inset pearl. She thought it was the loveliest thing she'd ever set eyes on, because she knew what it meant. _~It means I've passed. It means I've passed their test._

Perhaps it was knowing...
