Chapter 1

Siska had been a slave her entire short life.

She did not so much mind being a slave, as she was reasonably well-treated by her mistress, a woman of great age and substantial power in Tressen. However, as in all good things, that came to an end. Tomana, the matron who owned her, had passed away. The inheritor of her properties, a son of Tomana's brother and a Ghantian merchant, had no interest in owning an estate in Tressen. He simply wished to liquidate the properties his sister had held and add the resulting windfall to his already impressive assets. Ghantian law did not allow slavery, per se, and it never occurred to the man, Rendalo by name, that such 'human goods' might be part of the estate. He left it to a local agent to conduct the liquidation for a small commission.

Siska was such an asset.

This was how, a few weeks after her eighteenth birthday, she was dragged before the mob at the central market. She stood behind a wooden scaffold, and wore only her gray tunic and cloth shoes. This garment was the normal attire of slaves, though Tomana had always allowed her slaves to dress as they pleased inside her estate. She had even provided them with an allowance of purchase with which to order material and supplies to craft their own garments.

Tears rolled down Siska's cheeks as she realized that those days of relative happiness were over.

Jeers from the crowd drifted through the supports of the platform over her head and comments were made that she truly did not understand. The blank expression she returned to the taunts caused the men around her, both slaves and slavers, to suddenly become more agitated than before. Siska knew of the relations between men and women, there had been both male and female slaves in Tomana's home, after all. However, she had not been owned by a man, and none of the boys in the estate were near her age.

Her face flushed with more tears as she realized that most of what the men screamed about involved sex, and her buyer would likely use her for his or her pleasure. Another slave, a fairly recent acquisition by the household from outside, leaned toward her and whispered into her ear. "Pray to the One that one of the brothel madams does not buy you."

She looked around. "Which are they?"

"The ones with the red hats." The man jerked his chin toward a small knot of middle-aged women in overly ornate finery with large red hats with red feathers in them to one side. Unlike the men, those women were regarding the slaves standing in the queue with cold, calculating eyes.

Suddenly, Siska wished to be bought by a man.

The crowd worked itself into a frenzy as slaves did not come up for auction often, and for over a dozen to be brought up in one auction, an almost unheard of occurrence. This brought all sorts of people, from peasants just out to watch the show; to the wealthiest men and women on the island, prospective buyers who came to see if they wished to add to their own 'stable'. Siska stood near the tail end of the line, along with two other young women, one older by a year, one younger by two. These three were followed by what the slave auctioneer referred to as 'dregs' - the older men and women who did not have valuable skills. Children under fourteen had to be kept with their mothers, which was a mercy to both, though Siska knew several fathers would never again see any of their children after this day. Nor would she see her mother and brother again.

She watched in horror as people she had known her entire life were sold off to strangers and led off the platform, including her mother, and her brother, Bersamir. The kindly man who ran the stables of Tomana's household, Gerialo, and all the young men in their twenties, who had mentored her in worldly things. Their lessons had not taught her some of the things she was certain she would soon need to know, however, and she now regretted having not taken one or two of them up on their gentle offers in days now past.

The other two girls were before her, and she silently cried as the older girl, named Renna, and the younger, Pamela, were bought by the brothels.

Then her turn arrived.

She mounted the stairs at the goading of the handlers and stood upon the high platform. Siska did not worry overmuch about her appearance, having always approved of her figure, and, from the sounds of the crowd, they did as well. She had a slim waist, long, muscular limbs, and generous curves in good proportions. The men in the crowd suddenly started screaming with renewed vigor. The reaction of the men led her to think she must be highly attractive to them, else their uproar was not to be understood. Comments from the front row about her long golden hair, and her fair, smooth skin seemed to generate titters among the less bawdy of the auction attendees. She even heard comments regarding her startling violet eyes, though most of the men seemed to have tastes that ran a bit south of her eyes.

As she stood, the bidding began. The Brothels quickly outbid all other contestants for ownership of her, then they began to bid among each other. The amounts startled her, after hearing the prices that others fetched. Her brother, for example, brought only two hundred marks of silver, and her mother only one hundred.

One particularly fat mistress screeched out seven hundred and fifty and Siska realized she would soon be the property of a whorehouse. Then, somewhere in the back of the crowd she heard a male voice call out, "One thousand." He had not yelled, yet his voice cut through the din of the crowd like scissors through silk.

The crowd gave a collective gasp and all eyes turned to face the source, including Siska's own. The man wore blue robes and a narrow belt of simple leather. A small ring instantly formed around him, as if the people nearby had just now noticed his presence.

The fat mistress screeched out fifteen hundred, her voice shrill like a harpy's wail. Siska's heart, already low, sank further.

The man stepped forward and the crowd parted before him. He eyed the fat mistress dismissively, then looked up at Siska. "Three thousands," he said in a quiet voice. The crowd was now nearly silent, and his voice sounded normal again.

The crowd gasped again and looked toward the mistresses in their little knot. The fat one threw up her hands in frustration and stormed out of the crowd, leaving a wake of jostled people behind her. The auctioneer chuckled in Siska's ear. "You just made my year, gel," he said, and pressed two silver coins into her palm. "I always reward the high earners, it brings me luck." She cupped her hand around the coins and looked at them briefly, they were full mark coins. She closed her fingers over them and kept them closed.

The man walked behind the scaffold, where a table had been set up. Papers were signed and a large sack of money changed hands with many handshakes and nods among the men. The auctioneer stamped the parchment with a large, ornate seal of gilded foil and handed it over to the man in the robes. She went to him and stood behind him quietly, as the handlers had instructed her to do. She wore neither manacles nor hobbles; slaves on Murder Isle had nowhere to run except into the slums. Those were reputedly more dangerous than any owner's home, from the horrid and frightening tales that came to her in the estate.

The man looked at her, up close now. He was not as old as she initially supposed, only in his middle years. But his face bore lines, giving him a careworn look and deep knowledge brooded behind those eyes. She realized she regarded a wizard. He seemed to glow faintly.

He looked at her carefully for a moment. "Come," he said, and did not look back toward her as he turned and walked through the milling crowd. The filthy streets soiled her cloth shoes within steps as he led her down several roads and around a few large warehouses. They were leaving the heart of the city, and the buildings were becoming more spread out, with lawns about them. Finally, he turned onto a small lot where a well-built but small home sat among a few large, gnarled trees.

The sun had been setting as the auction ended and the night was taking over the sky by the time they walked up to the door of that little house. Auroras began to dance among the stars flickering against the black mat of the sky. Siska stopped and regarded the nightly show, which still amazed her every time she saw it.

The man stopped and watched her, then followed her gaze. "You see the colors don't you?" he asked.

She blinked and turned to face him. "Yes, master, of course I do," she replied, smiling nervously.

He nodded. "You know most people only see white, don't you?"

"I know no one else seemed as interested in them as I, master," she said, turning her eyes up to the coruscating curtain of light. "Only my mother said anything about the colors."

A tiny smile broke the man's stoic expression. "I may yet buy your mother, though she is too old to begin now."

Siska looked at him. "Begin, master?" she asked.

He nodded. "I bought you for a reason, Siska," he said. "And not the reason you believe now." She felt his eyes roam over her form in the skimpy slave's slip. "Though that reason would have been well worth the money."

Blushing deeply, she tried to not smile at his forwardness. "Master, I need no compliments, as I am yours to command as you wish."

"Believe me, that thought is ever present in my mind," he murmured, "But, I would be remiss in my duties to my profession if I were to relegate you to such a fate." He touched a pendant on a chain about his neck that was fashioned in the form of a tiny dragon, it's wings spread wide, as if in flight, with a loop of the tail serving as a place for the chain to hold it.

Siska then looked up into his brown eyes. "I thought you might be a wizard, master," she said. "You glow like one."

With a resonant chuckle, he opened the door to the little house. "I surely am that," he said, "And so are you."

She stared after him as he walked into the darkened house. "Come in, please," he said, waving toward her. She followed him in and watched silently as he uncovered a light stone. Her mistress had owned many of the handy spheres. Even the slaves used them for navigating the manor at night. They had been taken from the slaves, however, and sold off with the other assets.

She looked about the cluttered common room. A well-appointed room, in her judgment, with furniture of high quality, if not overly decorated, she judged. However, it lay in a state of disarray. Books were piled on nearly every horizontal surface: floors, tables, and even in some of the chairs. Loose papers intermingled with the texts and large piles of unbound parchment were scattered about the room.

Unable to resist, she said, "It seems you need me more than you think, master."

He smiled broadly, watching her look around the overfilled room. "Indeed," he said, his face trying to appear serious, though not succeeding very well. "That shall be your first task as my apprentice, to put my notes and books in order."

She froze solid for a moment. "A - apprentice?" she gasped, the word coming out almost like a sneeze. "You bought me to become your apprentice?" she finally added, her voice quavering with excitement and not a little fear.

"Of course," he said. "You did not think me so lonely that I would pay three thousand marks for a girl, no matter her beauty, simply to be able to bed her, did you?"

She blushed again, this time not for the compliment, but for her feeling of foolishness.

He saw her chagrined look and said, "I would have paid much just for your touch. But for your mind, I would have paid thrice the price I did."

"Master, how can I be so valuable? I am just a girl of eighteen and hardly lettered," she said. "Surely you could easily get a slave-scribe for much less." She hastily added, "I can write, mind, master, but I'm not the best that I knew at it." If he had read the document that the slave auctioneer had given him regarding her history, he would know that, of course. Most of her marketable skills had been listed on that one long piece of parchment.

He sat in one of the two chairs not being used to store books and papers. "A scribe, yes," he answered. "But a person with the potential to become a powerful wizard, no. Believe me, Siska, you have that potential. You could become greater than I, and I am powerful." He twitched two fingers toward her and she felt herself lifted from the floor by an unseen touch. Her feet dangled in the air over the carpeted floor and she floated toward him slowly, bobbing slightly as he regarded her.

"Master, please stop, you're scaring me," she begged, her voice filling with panic.

He grinned maliciously and said, "Make me. Use you mind to stop me."

She looked at him curiously for a moment, then closed her terrified eyes. Her brow furrowed in concentration. Then she opened them. "I cannot, master, please," she said.

"You're not even trying," said Phillip, with almost a casual air, moving a single digit to the side.

Siska shot across the room, screaming as the wall loomed toward her. She stopped inches from it, her whole body quivering at the sudden stop. Her hands moved to push against the wall and she was jerked back by the unseen force, flipping end over end the room cartwheeling in her vision.

"Stop!" she yelled, grasping for passing furniture and the ceiling joists as her hands shot past them. Seeking for Phillip she saw long, slender tendrils of some wispy material extending from his fingertips. "Please, master!"

The force changed, gripping her by one ankle. Siska struggled with the hem of her short tunic, trying to maintain modesty as it slipped up to her armpits. She again saw the cloudy white strands of ethereal matter. It entwined the wrist of her left hand and she tried to pull it away, partially ripping her tunic's hem as her fingers clenched at the cloth.

For a long moment, she flew through the air, unsupported, and another tendril grabbed her about the waist, stopping her head from striking the floor by less than a hand's span. Her fingers found the matter about her waist and gripped it, it felt cool and slimy, her grip tenuous.

Siska was panting now, her arms straining to pull the tendril from her waist. It began lifting her again, the floor receding as her feet touched the ceiling.

"No!" she wailed as she started falling again. A flash of light moved through her mind and she felt something deep inside her mind shift, a connection made or broken in her thoughts. In an instant, the cords of white matter were in her grip firmly and she felt them loosening their hold on her.

The floor raced up toward her again and she ground her teeth, focusing herself on that grip and on the change in her mind that allowed that grip to exert force on the tendrils. She stopped as before, just short of hitting the polished wooden boards, almost touching the floor and grunted as she ripped the strands of ether from her waist.

Phillip bounced back and the tendrils seemed to snap at him, vanishing as they retracted. Siska thudded to the floor and lay there for a long moment, gasping for air and trying not cry. "You did not have to do that," she growled, rising to her knees then standing. Her glower was full of pent heat and anger. One hand clutched at the lower hem of her tunic, straightening it. The other hand gripped the arm of one of the padded chairs, helping to support her as she stood on trembling knees.

He blinked at the vitriol she exuded and a smile returned to his features. "Good. Get angry, Siska," he said. "But, before you hate me, think on what you just did."

She stopped her tirade a moment and looked down at her fists, still trembling from her anger and the test of strength that Phillip forced upon them. "I tore your spell from me before you could dash my brains out," she said, still looking angry, but with a hint of confusion creeping in at the edges of hostility.

"Indeed you did," he said, "How many people do you think could have done that?"

She swallowed hard. "Few?" she ventured, though more a question than an answer. She pulled her tunic closed over her exposed breasts and tried to prevent the tears that were welling in her violet eyes, but they rolled down her cheeks.

Again, the wizard nodded. "Few. Yes," he said. "Very few. Perhaps one in a thousand could have tried. One in a million could have done it. Most would not have even seen the filaments of mana that connected us." He paused a moment. "As far as your tattered garments, I would not concern myself with them, apprentice. You shall be receiving more appropriate attire come the morning."

The chair squeaked slightly as he pushed up off of it. "For now, however, you shall provide me a service I have not had in months from a woman."

Her eyes instantly dropped, and her face flushed again. "Of course, master." She said, the tone in her voice had gone from angry to dead in an instant, as if she had sent her emotions elsewhere for the duration of this odious task that would soon be pressed upon her. She shrugged, and the tunic slipped from her shoulders, exposing her slim figure fully to him. To her own surprise, she was not terribly upset at what loomed before her.