Michael Stackpole - Chartomancy

“Was that the miracle, Lord?”

“No, not quite. Watch.” He picked up a handful of sand, raised it to face height between them, then slowly let it drift down. Using the mai, he caught the falling sand and held it suspended as a small sphere in the air. “Nor is this, yet.”

She said nothing, but watched the sand intently.

Again Jorim located the sand through the mai, and this time used the connectedness of it all. He slowly began to rebalance it so it would become warmer and warmer. As it began to heat up, he recalled his previous error and used the mai to alter another balance. Very carefully, while allowing the heat to continue to rise, he shifted the balance of the sand from solid to fluid.

When he’d first arrived on the Stormwolf in the land of the Amentzutl, he’d noticed a number of things which were common in the Nine, but nonexistent among the Amentzutl. One was horses, and the other was the wheel-at least as something to be used for more than a toy. While some on the expedition wanted to brand the Amentzutl as hopelessly primitive, wheeled transport was highly impractical in their rugged, mountainous land. When the expedition’s military had used war chariots against the Mozoyan, the Amentzutl had been impressed and even credited him with a miracle in their production.

One other thing the Amentzutl lacked was knowledge of glass. Jorim’s knowledge of it was not much more than basic, but he did know that sand, if heated enough, would become a thick, viscous fluid that could be shaped. While he had none of the skills of a glass artisan, mai and his ability to control it did give him some tools to manipulate the glass.

The sand sphere began to glow and give off light, easily illuminating the joy on Nauana’s face. Even Shimik keened with delight from the doorway. As the glow built, Jorim kept careful control of the sand, slowing the flow of mai into heat and pushing more into making it fluid. Curiously enough, it continued to get warm, which made sense. It is melting, which requires heat no matter what. By shifting that balance, I force it to become hotter.

The sand melted into glass and hung there, a miniature sun, blazing away. Using mai he constricted it around its equator and split the glowing yellow mass into two teardrops. He rounded both of them off and saw a look of pure wonder and joy on Nauana’s face.

And now to see if I can do the last of it.

Ever since he had noticed that things had a truth to them, he had been drawn to studying it. Though he was restricted from using magic outside the training sessions, he did spend a lot of time sensing the truth of things and defining them in mai. As he learned to see them, he began to understand the Amentzutl cosmology and could identify things by their sense in mai. He’d even had Iesol hide common items in a sealed wooden box and he’d been able to pick out what they were sight unseen.

Concentrating, he drew the truth of the table into his mind, then projected that into the glass. The twin orbs merged, then flattened out into a low disk. Three small legs dripped down and froze in place.

Nauana gasped and covered her mouth with a hand.

Jorim smiled and reached out to touch her essence with mai. As he did so he realized he’d not tried that with any living creature before, and he didn’t know what to expect. From the surface he felt her physically. Much as he had done with the table, he projected that sense of her into the glass.

The glass flattened itself into a thin disk that rotated between them. Though it still glowed, it remained thin enough that he could see her through it. The glass molded itself over the image of her features, sculpting itself to her face. The high cheekbones, the straight nose, the full lips. The glass flowed back to define her jaws and her ears. It even followed the shape of her head and flowed down over her neck and shoulders to become a perfect bust, save for her eyes.

The glass could not capture her eyes, so it thinned and holes opened, allowing him to look through it and to her.

And in doing that, he pushed past the surface and found her truth.

Heat pounded back through him, part blush, part fear, his and hers, and joy and delight and… so many emotions he could not catalogue them all. They flowed in a vast river of rainbow colors, with eddies and shoals, swift currents and places where the water remained almost still. While the river and its flow remained strong, the composition of it shifted.

Barely aware of what he was doing, he lowered the glass to the table. Setting it atop the remaining pile of sand, he reached past it with a hand. He gestured and she rose, as did he. Jorim came around the table and took her in his arms. He brought his mouth to hers and they kissed.

The instant their lips touched, all he had felt through mai intensified. Physical sensation flowed along the same routes as the magical, confirming what he knew. Then it grew as he caught her sensing him through mai and he opened himself to her, showing her who he was, what he was.

Unaware of moving, but realizing they had moved, Jorim found himself lying down with her on his bed. Neither of them wore much, and slipping a couple of knots relieved them of their loincloths. He stretched out beside her, his right hand drifting about an inch above her skin. From shoulder, over her breast, past a tight nipple and down the swell, over her flat stomach to hip and upraised thigh, he could feel her in the mai. He lowered his hand to her flesh, on top of her thigh, and slowly slid it back up, inch by inch. The smooth warmth of her skin, the pulse of blood beneath it, the twitch of muscles, the silky caress of hair, all of it combined with what he could sense. He caught the thrill running through her both in the mai and the way she lifted her chin as he stroked her breast. He let a finger circle her nipple and could feel the sensations ripple through her body.

He wanted her intensely and furiously. He had always found her beautiful beyond imagining. Her gentle teaching, her faith in him, had always represented a greater sense of who she was. But now, linked to her through the mai, he could see so much more.

She looked him in the eyes, but said nothing. Then new sensations pulsed through the mai. He closed his eyes and watched as she opened herself to him. He had been able to read her physically before, then emotionally, but he never could have seen who she was in her mind. He could not have found her secrets without destroying her.

But what he would never take, she freely offered. He saw her as a child, born into the caste of the maicana. She had gone through the lessons she had shared with him. He saw her teachers in the way she had taught him and learned she had been terribly gifted. As much as I have learned, she learned faster, and before she was even nine years old.

He watched her in other studies as she learned about the end of the calendar cycle. Her teachers warned her of the horrors of centenco. From them he heard of the promise which was Tetcomchoa’s return. He caught her firm conviction that only Tetcomchoa could save them from whatever was coming, and her resolve to be the best she could to help him.

She spent hours praying to Tetcomchoa. She offered sacrifices. She created prayers and songs. She rebuffed suitors, not because she did not like them, but because courting, marriage, and family would all be distractions from what she knew would be her life. She was prepared for Tetcomchoa’s return.

The day of his arrival floated through her mind. Jorim entered the chamber at the Temple of Tetcomchoa’s apex. The sun backlit him, so all she saw was a silhouette at first. She had expected him to be taller. The braids in his hair confused her for a moment, then she stepped from the shadows and took a closer look at him. His robe was decorated with the coiled serpent, the god’s sign.