Chapter 1

Wendy trembled as the door slowly creaked open before her.

This was a tradition. She knew that. Or thought she knew. Like much in the occult, let alone among witches, knowledge was power, and thus rare. False rumors were spread, to keep the ignorant suppressed. Truth was also spread by rumor, in the hopes it would be assumed to be false. Thus, those on the lowest rungs, like Wendy, absorbed it all, assumed all was true until shown to be false. After all, when everything seemed to be possible, what could be dismissed out of hand?

Peering into her Mistress's inner chamber, Wendy began to wish she had dismissed this one.

Slowly, bare feet not wanting to step on stone which suddenly felt as cold as death, she moved inside. Every apprentice did this. Snuck into the rooms of their teacher/master/lord. Peered around, not disturbing anything, hoping to learn some nugget of knowledge to help them, then ran like hell. A rite of passage. To succeed, was to know your own strength, know your limits were NOT your limits. Failure...

Well, you never found a "former" apprentice witch among the living.

Wendy kept her eyes off the nude boy strapped to the table. She needed to focus, concentrate. Mistress Quinnia would not be gone forever. Might not be gone now, for all she knew. The call could have been nothing, or maybe she'd magic her way there and back, appearing suddenly in front of the traitorous teen. Time was an unknown variable, a spell component with inexact limits. She had to be quick, yet careful. Speed without skill was as useless as skill without speed.

The room was well lit, for being underground. Oil lamps hung from thick ceiling beams, turned low when the room was empty of its owner but now bright due to the haste of her departure. Rough stone lined the walls, crumbling mortar filling the gaps. There were water stains, running down the walls in many places, but the smooth stone floor was dry. Shelves filled two of the walls end to end, books and bottles crammed into every inch of space. They were neat, free of dust, and well organized. Wendy recalled the tattered volumes she was given to use, falling apart, parts of pages missing. So, Mistress Quinnia wasn't the shambling slob she had thought. That, alone, had made this worth while.

In the far corner was the bed, neatly made, furs clean. Well they should be, given the time Wendy had spent in the past year cleaning those goddess awful things. She avoided the area, suspecting if there were any protective spells they might be there. If there were such things. Her knowledge, let alone skill, was lacking.

Her nude body, for clothing was not to be wasted on lowly beings such as her, slowly circled the room. Wendy's fingers itched as she passed priceless books of knowledge. She wanted to open them, let her eyes drink from them. It would be years, decades, if ever, before such knowledge would come to her. She could take a book. Take a dozen. Flee. Flee with the knowledge, train herself. Others had done it. At a cost, yes, but...

Once again standing before the open door, Wendy finally allowed herself to look at the long table that dominated the center of the room. It was made of a thick, solid oak. Sturdy, unyielding. Lying on its surface, arms and legs stretched and tied down, lay a boy. Teen. He, like her, was nude. He, like her, was a servant of the witch Quinnia. His fate, though...

The boy was blond, hair spread out on the table around his shoulders. White skin, almost abnormally so, was stretched over a thin, bony frame. His maleness ... she quickly looked away from it. It was hard, stretching up and over his belly. In desperation Wendy looked at his face.

Blue eyes looked silently back at her. He said nothing. He didn't have to. Those eyes said it all. He knew his fate. Knew ... she was not going to help him.

Wendy bit her lower lip. She did not know much about magic. Worse, she did not know what she didn't know, or if what she did know was right. The boy, though, was obviously to be used. He was male, after all, and Quinnia female. Magic had a gender. To cast male magic, you needed male components. Female magic, female components. Magic came from life. Thus...

Luckily, life did not have to be lost to be used, although the whispered rumor was that it could be. Power came from the life-force unique to each gender. For women ... it came from that which gave life to the next generation. Blood, the blood shared with the unborn baby. For males ... sperm, giver of life. Such components need not be human, and what little magic Wendy had managed to master had been practiced on animals. The phrase "like getting sperm from a mouse" was sadly now not an abstract saying. For you couldn't use your own blood, or sperm. The whole point of magic was adding power to your internal will, using that to project on and change the world. To use your own inner reserves would be to quickly drain yourself for even the smallest spell. Thus, masters in the craft collected ... servants, to provide what they needed.

Wendy swallowed hard. She was not such a servant. Such creatures did not live long, it was said. The boy before her ... the beautiful, blond boy...

"You disappoint me, girl."

Wendy whirled.

Mistress Quinnia stood in the doorway, leaning on her staff. Her black eyes, peering out from behind scraggly black hair, froze the teen. Her black robe clad body, though lean, seemed to fill the exit, blocking all thought of escape. With a sigh, which seemed to hold a genuine touch of regret, the witch looked around the room.

"I will be honest, I thought you had already been here. Thought you had moved something, in fact, almost defying me to confront you. I had liked that, one reason I moved up your training. To find you here now..." She shook her head, eyes going back to the trembling girl. "I looked hard to find someone like you. I will have to look harder next time."

Wendy was going to die. It could take days, or weeks, but she would die. As surely as the boy next to her. She had to escape! But how? HOW? She knew no magic! No magic this creature did not know she knew, at least! Goddess, how could she be so STUPID!

The witch took a step into the room. Wendy backed up, moving down the table. Her hands cast out, trying to grab something, anything. Something she could throw. Use. Nothing! Nothing...

Almost as if drawn to it, her right hand touched the boy's hard member.

The spell came to her mind out of nowhere. She must have seen it, obviously. Read it in some book, at some time. One did not invent spells out of pure fantasy. Wendy could see the words, letters burning the blue of male magic before her eyes. She could feel her hand curl around the soft burning hardness of the boy, feel the energy. She saw Mistress Quinnia pause, eyes narrowing. That was all she needed.