First Apprentice

Chapter 2

One hour passed then two. My bow danced across the strings as magic flowed unused through the soles of my feet, dissipating. The tightly coiled spring inside me slowly unwound. The urge to shift lessened, but never disappeared. The piano player, calling him a pianist attributed a level of skill he didn't posses sober, passed out at some point. I recalled the thunk as he hit the floor, but wasn't sure when. It didn't matter anyway. Someone shoved him into a corner while another took his place.

Spoons clacked like tambourines and stamping feet substituted for drums, joining my wild melody as I flowed from one song to the next. Old campaign songs I learned as a child mingled with the jigs the sailors favored. Sometimes the piano kept up, others not. When he lost the melody, I'd slip inside his mind and force-fed him the tune note by note.

Then black flames licked the corner of my vision. Fire pooled in my stomach as my magic boiled within me. My world narrowed to my violin and magic. Channel. Push. Get it out before I exploded or someone died. Not quick enough. The flames roared higher as magic clogged the channel I created between my feet and the earth. The pressure built. My magic slipped out of my control and into my fingertips, poured into my music, and linked with my audience.

Mostly weak yellows and a few greens, they didn't resist. They couldn't. As one, they stood and moved towards the dance floor. Tables scraped across the wooden floor as men shoved them against the walls. An unintended compulsion, I realized, but didn't stop playing.

If I stopped, we all died. If I continued, they danced a few songs while I bled off the excess magic. Simple and safe. It had happened before and would happen again.

Pain lanced through my brow as if someone shot me with an invisible arrow. My aura color shifted. The jet black shot through with midnight blue I'd had since birth darkened to a pure black so dark it seemed to suck in the light around it, signaling yet another power increase. The flow reversed, rushing towards my brow. The song faltered as I threw everything I had into stopping it before it reached the spot between my eyes and forced my body to shift.

Three buds - left shoulder, right shoulder, and heart - marked my human, humanoid Dracon half-state, and wraith forms. The four-pointed star between my eyes signaled a form I couldn't use, yet. Mark of the demon, they called it. If my magic touched it, my body might dissolve into a wraith or sprout scales.

If that happened in public and the Dracon found me...No! I wouldn't allow it. I was in control, not my magic.

Gritting my teeth, I imagined a wet blanket enveloping me, smothering the flames. Pain flared.

A cool presence seeped into my mind. Selim.

His navy aura entwined with my own, drawing my magic away from me. Runes danced in front of my eyes like dust motes, shrouding the dancer in fog, as Selim wove a seal. Red flames roiled higher. His seal shattered.

"Damn it!" He tried again. My magic batted his aside effortlessly. "Feed it to me," he ordered.

"But the law – "

"Is meaningless if you're dead. Don't summon. Just feed." Then his presence disappeared.

My eyes fluttered closed. My fingers moved across the strings like they had a mind of their own as my conscious fled the bar and slipped into the Gates' dimension.

A wall of sound welcomed me.

Screeching violins, thudding bass drums, a trumpeted herald, war pipes. A soprano sang a lament. Her voice soared through the upper register then hesitated as if she'd forgotten the words. A tortured scream rent the air.