Hair On Fire? Check

I'm running in feverish circles and have been since mid-December. Ah the life of an accountant at year-end. W2s, 1095s, 940s, 1099s, and a thousand other forms with odd alpha numeric designations keeps rearing their ugly heads and reigniting the flames in my hair just as I thought I had them out.

Hopefully come February my world will sort itself out enough to devote brain matter to something other than work...like writing.  Meantime here's a chunk of the next chapter in "Dragons." Hope you enjoy it.

-Wayne

Training...Kind Of

        I sat there inside of a circle I'd drawn in the dirt with my dagger staring at an orcish rune I had also scribed in front of me inside of the circle. Valsh tells me it should help me focus while I try to reach my gift. All it's done so far is give me a headache. Every time I stare at it another image jumps into my mind and distracts me. I've never been able to concentrate for very long. I'm just too easily distracted. I'd harnessed that tendency to help build situational awareness, but I've never been able to turn it off. Consequently, my head is fucking killing me from trying.

        "GODDAMIT! This is just not going to work! Valsh, I'm just not gonna be able to do this. Every time I just start to concentrate on this scribbling a crescent moon keeps popping into my mind."

        I stood up and stepped forward to leave the circle and smashed my face into the invisible barrier. Valsh almost fell off of the log he was sitting on when he saw that.

        "Well," he said around choked laughter, "you can obviously close a circle. You can control the magic in The Bar to get where you want to go...most of the time, so you touch magic, believe it or not. Break the circle with your dagger before you break your nose."

        In spite of his confidence in my ability, I wasn't convinced. What he didn't mention was that it had taken me the better part of a morning to be able to close the circle. The other side of it was that I really wasn't interested in learning this shit. If Valsh was right, I really didn't have a choice. According to him, once that tap is on it doesn't turn off. It would continue to open and eventually drown me if I didn't learn to control the flow. Fuck...my...life.

        "What I do not understand," he continued, "is why the symbol isn't working. It is a meditation technique that has been used for millennia by my people."

        I looked him square in the eye and said, "Maybe that's the problem. You remember how well trying to train me like you'd train a pup worked last time don't you?"

        That brought another round of his raucous laughter as I took my dagger and broke the circle. I picked up a dirt clod and bounced it off his rock head. He stopped laughing for a second and then burst out even louder than before.

        "You are right, of course," he said once he calmed down. "I should have learned then that I cannot teach you using our ways. Try it again, but this time draw the symbol that keeps presenting itself to you. I am beginning to think that maybe it is your gift trying to tell you to do it your own way."

        I walked over to my packs and said, "After lunch. I'm starving like I've been working out all morning. I would never have guessed that this shit would be so much fucking work."

        We spent about an hour eating and talking. Food and water helped my headache go away, at least until Valsh started talking about magic and his theories on exactly what was going on with me. That put the pain right back in the old brain bucket.  When I finally gave the “migraine salute” by pinching the bridge of my nose, he stopped talking. That’s when I realized I could feel tension in the air that wasn’t coming from me.

        I looked up to see Valsh sitting stone still and staring behind me. If I didn’t know any better I would have thought he was afraid. Nah, not Valsh. Then I noticed he was chanting under his breath, gathering power to himself.

        “Tole. Do not move if you wish to live,” he said as he rose and unleashed a strike at something behind me.

        Then he sat back down with a look of complete and utter disbelief on his face. Now he was afraid. His hands were shaking, so I drew my daggers and spun.

        Serilla was there in her true form. Something in my mind told me she was getting ready to eat Valsh. I put my daggers away and started walking to her. I heard Valsh trying to move. That was when I realized she had countered what he had thrown at her and locked him in place. He was completely at her mercy, and I am willing to bet that was a new sensation for him.

        “Valsh. Meet my employer,” I said gesturing to Serilla. “Serilla, this is Valsh. Please don’t eat him.”

        She shimmered into her human form and walked towards me saying, “Are you sure, Killer? I’ve never eaten anything like him before. He might be delicious.” She smiled at me.

        “I’m sure. Why are you here?”

        I heard Valsh draw his first deep breath since this all began as she turned to me and said, “In all truth, I was watching you through the link from our Communion. I could tell you had not moved yet, and then I felt you touch the magic of my world. I did not know what that meant, so I came to make sure you were unharmed. I arrived to find you sitting and talking to that. What is that? It is NOT of my world.”

        I tried really hard not to laugh...I swear. I didn’t do a good job, but I tried. Serilla raised an eyebrow at me, and I got myself under control.

        "That is Valsh," I said with a flourish and a bow. "He is an orc and the shaman to the Deep Valley Tribe of the world called Orta'ahn, and he's one of the very few beings I've met in the multiverse that I consider a friend. We have been through a scrape or two since my first job for him almost...shit...two years ago. Has it been that long, Valsh?"

        "It has indeed," he said as he got to his feet. "What manner of creature are you? I have never been at anyone's mercy like I was just now. It was a truly memorable experience, but not one I would like to repeat."