Chapter 2: Sar'ha

It's lonely just floating around in the void; I was here without my body due to an accidental spell cast by my sister Sop'ha. But now my mind and spirit was in danger of being destroyed by the void.

I knew that my knowledge of the craft wouldn't help me find my way back, I would need a pole of power to propel me back to my real body, and for that I would need a compatible craft user.

I pictured my library of scrolls, moving through it and reading spells that I'd forgotten about, I reached for a new scroll but found my hand passing through it, I was losing my ability, if I did that then I was lost forever.

Then one scroll seemed to stand out and unfurl before me, it was a spell of summoning. But I didn't need to summon anything! I had to move towards safety. Then the scroll turned on itself around and I realised what it was telling me, by reversing the words it would become a spell of pushing, but I didn't want to move away from my body, I had to return to it!

But there must be a reason why I was being shown this ... but what, if I failed in this then I would be lost forever. I went through the summoning spell selecting where I was going to change it and then spoke out the words into the void.

There was a pull on my spirit, I felt that my soul was being dragged away to its death; I closed my eyes and prayed that the guiding spirit of the worlds would help me in my final seconds of life.

Then I blacked out.

I woke up ... I ... Woke ... UP? I was alive and could think. Had I returned to home? I opened my eyes to find myself in a strange chamber covered by linen? I got out of the bed and looked at my legs ... my legs? Those weren't mine. They were hairy, misshapen and absolutely not mine!

There was a looking-glass on the wall I went to it. But that wasn't me, I blacked out.

I picked myself up off the floor and looked again at the image in the looking glass, it was a man ... I was a man.

I sat back on the bed and pulled the covers around me. I was confused - Just what had happened to me? I concentrated and entered my library, I knew that I had read about transformations before, but this didn't feel like that, this was ... different.

I moved away from the looking glass and went into another chamber, the room was a mess, papers were strewn over the floor and a strange collection of objects surrounded a table, there were a pair of dark windows were standing, except it wasn't in front of the wall and when I spoke they did not respond. I found a recess on each of the windows and pressed my finger into one, the window brightened with the legend 'no connection'?

I pondered this message and then felt my hand move to a large rectangle box on the table, it gave a noise and then the window cleared giving me more strange messages before it came up with a picture which remained in the window. It seems that this was not a window as I knew it, so what was it?

Looking around the chamber I found another picture box, but this one seemed to stand apart, I found another recess which I pressed, immediately there was sound and the picture on the box moved! What was this?

I sat down in front of this new moving picture box and found a rectangular object on the arm of the chair, it had numbers on it, ones that I found I could read, by using one button I found that the sound on the box increased, and then decreased. Another button made the picture change, I kept changing the pictures until I saw a woman talking, I listened to her and she was talking about a war in some distant country. I had to leave this place; they had wars and just spoke about it as if it was normal. How could reasonable beings live like this?

I stumbled back to the bed chamber and threw myself on the bed.

I woke again, it was still night? When I went into the chamber I found there were differences from the last time I had been in here. I noticed a calendar on the wall and some of the dates had been crossed off, I had noticed it earlier and a new date was marked through. So this was a different day.

I concentrated and turned to the television ... how did I know what it was? I had to think about this.

I wasn't transformed; I was in somebody else's body. But why wasn't it a female body? I should have been drawn to a being like myself. But from what I could tell there was nothing known about the craft, well not as far I could tell.

So how could I know about this thing called a television? It had to come from somewhere? Then I realised that the information could only have come from the real mind of the person whose body I was now in. So I was sharing a body now not just living in the body. This made things more difficult.

I had to concentrate on this to try to access whatever was in this persons mind; there was a scroll in my library with the necessary script that would work. I quickly pictured the library and entered it; I notice with shock that there was a dark scroll there now. I haven't had any dark scrolls in my library since my father last checked and removed all dark scrolls 5 years ago.

At this point an explanation of the library, we've learnt that as our powers expand our mental library automatically fills with the scripts that we can use, for me they appear as scrolls but my sister Sop'ha tells me that she has sheets of paper; it all depends on the user. In the main these scripts are printed in black on white paper although there are dark scripts with white writing. These 'dark scripts' are dangerous scripts and have to be destroyed, or so the Masters of the Craft have decreed, indeed they ensure that all dark scripts are removed from the apprentices before they infect the user. I moved the scroll into an area which she reserved for all such scripts, in order that I would never be tempted to look at it.

I found the scroll I was looking for; it explained that sometimes spirits would find their like pole, in most cases this would be of the same gender ... but not always. Such was the case now. The scroll also told me how I could access the memories of this person that I was now sharing the body with.

Saying the words on the scroll I staggered with the shock, my mind was flooded with the memories and feelings of this man, this Chris Beaker? How did they know if a name was male or female, and then I knew that I was wrong, what I had assumed was normal in my world obviously didn't apply to all worlds, this was a world of madness.

I went back to the bed and tried to make sense of this Chris Beaker. He was a compuwter programmer, whatever that was and was working at something called a virtual world for others to use to create a life that wasn't theirs.

So that was what that dark screen thing was. It was his work. He would write spells on the compuwter which transformed the words into a land trapped in the box. This was a form of the craft that I had never heard of before.

Using my new knowledge I went to the machine and started it, I logged in using Chris's phrase to open the compuwter — I had a nagging feeling as I thought of the machine in that way, it didn't seem right somehow. I regarded his work, looking at the two screens that I had activated. The same words were repeated in both; I concentrated focusing on Chris's memory and then began entering the words needed to start the work that Chris had been doing.

On one screen words began to display themselves while on the other a representation of the land within the machine was shown. I felt myself smiling as I began using the skill of Chris's memory and reserved an area within the machine world for my use, I made a barrier of negative force, and within it created a being to act on my behalf, making it as close to my real body as possible. ''tis a pity that I cannot move to that being instead of this body' I thought as I worked. Finally the form of the being on the screen was correct, but it still remained lifeless as I had not yet assigned any movements to it, I decided to save the file and close down the program and then turned to watch the 'far-seeing' window for a while.

During this time she noticed that the body I was getting hunger pains. I made my way to the galley area, I found a large white cabinet that had a cold inside and shelves for items, but apart from a wax-type carton which I found out contained milk, there was nothing else of interest, There were some strange boxes in there but I couldn't make up my mind what they contained I didn't know exactly what Chile-con-carne was, so I closed the door. Looking in cupboards I found tins and boxes, on the tins were pictures of the foods that they contained. I opened a tin of fruit and quickly ate the contents.

I returned to the chair in the main chamber and began to think. 'What parts of the craft does this Chris know about?' I wondered and began examining Chris's memory. I could find nothing at all. He seemed to know only about the compuwter and how to manipulate the world within it. So why had I been drawn to this body?

I knew that I was a practitioner of the Craft, with potential to expand my power, so only a body with the same potential power would be acceptable to my spirit ... That was the point, the same potential power? But that would mean that this Chris would have to be just like me. Was that why I was here? So that I could show Chris how to access and use his untapped knowledge?

I stood up and studied the body shaking my head. This Chris had no real exercise regime and his stamina was practically non-existent, I would have to make him repair this, although there were spells that could help him with this, but I would have to prepare him for their meeting - if I could only work out how that would happen.

Going through my library of scrolls and I found the two that I needed, I ensured that they would continue to work while I was no longer in control of this body. I spoke the words and immediately felt a draining sensation, I staggered to my feet and made my way, although unsteadily, to the bed chamber before dropping onto the bed, asleep.

I spent the following week in the same way, casting spells to show Chris what had happened to me, preparing him for the surprise that he was going to receive when I revealed myself to him.

I studied the world as shown in the 'far-seeing' window and then I found more information on something called Google within the information machine (I found I didn't like the word compuwter), that opened new vistas of the world that I hadn't realised. There were people who professed that they were practitioners of the craft, but many of them had spells that were unworkable. I was tempted to show them how to enable the spells in the way they wanted it to work but decided against it.

My work on the avatar was improving, I now had her responding to words entered on the letter machine and then I found an eye that would copy my face and words onto a smaller window in the avatar's world, this was set to start up when a particular set of words were used.

I had also gone through my library to find a scroll that would help me to meet up with Chris in the spirit realm, there was an area which practitioners of the craft could spiritually meet each other, I found the scroll and made a note of the wording of the script, there was a warning that this took much stamina from the caster and so until Chris was of a power we would only have a short time, before the body demanded refreshing, it had been known for some to return to their bodies to find that they were dying, I made sure that this would be passed onto Chris.

I have a problem, it seems that rather than preparing Chris for the meeting of ourselves my 'dreams' have been interfering with Chris' well being, he has taken to seeing a doctor of the mind. I hadn't thought of this, somehow I had to make him find my avatar, push him to listen to her and then to me.

I found that I was getting more time in Chris' body due to the sleeping drafts he was taking, I realised that although Chris's mine was sleeping I was still using his body, so that was why the body was tired, plus the spells that were working on his stamina and memory also took up power from the body. I was eating more food for him, trying to build up the energy he was losing, but it was difficult as the foods he was buying did not help in this.

I found a scroll in my library that would induce sleep within a person should a phrase be uttered or read, this was so that should Chris ask a question that my avatar couldn't answer I would be able to take the body over and find out the answer for Chris. I thought I could add a new program I found on the information machine, it was called a dictionary and would enable the avatar to understand most words used by Chris, but before I could add it I felt the signs of Chris awakening and I lost consciousness.

I've done it! I've managed to meet up with Chris. I have to admit that I was surprised by his acceptance of me and my story. He's shown a degree of control over the spirit realm that has surprised me, it is unusual for someone to achieve this so quickly. For me it was weeks before I could even change the ground colour but for Chris to be able to manipulate the realm to that degree shows that he is potentially greater than our known wizards.

I left Chris to find his power, after giving him his first scroll, which turned into a book with many pages, most of which were blank — they would fill themselves as his knowledge grew — and I placed it into the area of his mind that I called the library.

In the next few nights I was surprised at the speed in which he developed both his virtual world in the machine as well as how his library was growing, then I found his first black book ... what was I to do about it, I had nowhere to take it to. I tried to explain to Chris the dangers of such books, but he didn't seem to understand, just kept on about balances, I tried to understand what he meant.

It seems that Chris believed in good being balanced by evil, without one there couldn't be the other? I didn't understand this it wasn't something I'd been told, all I knew was that we had to follow the rules laid down by the ancient masters, they were the ones that decreed all black scripts had to be destroyed.

When I told Chris this he asked 'why?' ... I couldn't answer him. I didn't know why this was; it had just been accepted by our people - it was the only time we had an argument.

"Look Chris you need to destroy these black books of yours, they are dangerous." I told him once catching him reading a black tome.

Chris shook his head, "But this is amazing, I didn't know that you could cast such a spell." He said and tried to describe it to me.

"NO CHRIS, I don't want to hear about it, they have been banned for a reason. You can't read it." I told him, I knew about these things and he didn't.

"So you say, but because your people were blinkered by the past you try to ignore it. Just because some old man tells you no you accept his words?" Chris moved his book away from my hands.

"I have to; we're only supposed to study the white scripts, because we know they're safe." I pointed out to him.

"So what happens to the black scripts, are they destroyed?" Chris said sounding interested. I hesitated in my answer, to be honest I still don't know what was done with the dark spells, all I knew was that they were removed by the masters, but just what did happen to them? Chris picked up on my silence. "You have no idea have you? What if they are using them for their own reasons? Where did Sop'ha's spell come from, the one that pushed you here? Couldn't that have been from a dark script?"

I was shocked that Chris would even think of such a thing. "No, she wouldn't do that. We can't even look at a black script without it affecting us. She wouldn't ... couldn't touch a black script." I told him