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Sorceress of Faith

Excerpt :

Jaquar stood naked in the alcove that held his magical supplies and looked into the round ritual room of his tower. A faint blue-green steam eddied and flowed along the lines of the pentacle. His shoulders tensed at the thought of Plane Walking + leaving his body behind to float astrally through a different layer of existence. He was an Adept at Weather Control and Plane Walking, but had been focused on the second craft for the last three weeks.

Putting off the moment when he'd have to look in the Enhanced Mirror, the last step before the ritual, he turned back to the work counter and set his hand on the upper leaf in a huge book.

He'd made the book himself. Each sheet was a non-physical plane he'd traveled. They were arranged in the same layers as the planes themselves. A being existed on many planes, but a good plane-walker like himself could separate himself from his body and explore one layer at a time.

The leaf he'd turned to was the plane he'd visit. One of seething, low emotions + evil emotions only. A plane for monsters, not humans. But he was tracking a monster. The monster which had killed his adoptive parents.

A tinkling of bells marked that the ritual should be started within a half-hour. Jaquar inhaled deeply and went to the left end of the narrow alcove. There he unfolded the three-paneled mirror. To ensure he didn't get lost amongst the planes, he had to know himself, and for that he used the mirror.

He scanned his physical appearance. He was taller than the average Lladranan male, had filled out in maturity. His strong body appeared nothing like the abandoned street boy Simone and Torrence Dumont had found and raised. But the awful inner loneliness of the boy before he'd known them now filled him again. He'd once thought he'd never feel that desolation again.

His body showed a few childhood scars. His eyes were still the hated deep blue. Some ancestor had not been Lladranan.

He'd lost weight since the death of his adoptive parents, but not so much that it would compromise his strength. His black hair touched his shoulders and looked limp, not as shiny as it should. The silver streaks denoting power had visibly spread over the past three weeks as he'd searched for the evil thing that had killed his parents, battened on them and sucked them dry of magic and energy and life.