Shaman by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff Read Free Book Online Page B

to crawl inexorably toward their target. Rhys parried them with blazing balls of white light and desperately prayed he could win the battle without drawing on the bottomless pit of black magic the Adversary was sucking up.
    Somewhere in the morass of pulsing, claustrophobic dark and blood-flame, he seized upon the idea that he was fighting not one, but two Adversaries: Zarber/Mordred and the darker side of Rhys/Myrddin. He indulged in that briefly; the ancient allegory of light on dark, the rationale of deeply buried evils and cinder-core morals, then he put an abrupt stop to it.
    No , he thought. Stop that. That’s not me. I’m not tempted to use Black Magic, I only think I should be. I’ve no intention of changing my nature. None!
    And, like a petulant playwright, Rhys Llewellyn appeared from behind the dream proscenium and rewrote the scene. The “Tempting of Myrddin” was replaced with a straightforward duel to-the-death.
    He awoke in a barrage of blood red magic, and lay sweating and wondering if he knew enough White Magic to save Arthur Pendragon’s kingdom... or was that Danetta Price’s company?
    Oh, hell! he thought, his head throbbing with suddenly acknowledged pain. Go soak your ego. It’s not even the company; it’s just a damn contract! An important contract, though, he had to admit. If it wasn’t important, Danetta Price would still be on Jamal.
    Plagued by dour images of nice guys finishing dead last, Rhys pondered his alternatives and wondered why, in Human history, it seemed that ethical businessmen had to struggle against being sucked into the undertow generated by their less scrupulous (and often more successful) competitors. Why did it rarely (except perhaps in the presence of a Divine Revelator), work the other way around? Why couldn’t the good apples cause the bad ones to bob to the top of the barrel?
    His mind foundered on the mixture of metaphors, making his headache seem suddenly much worse. He got up and groped for the medicine dispenser at the back of the bunk-side unit. His hands collided with the little pile of fetishes, talismans, and herbal concoctions Pa-Lili had given him during his last visit. He growled irritably and gathered them up, intending to put them away in his sporran.
    â€œLight,” he said, and the cabin’s VA dimmer obeyed immediately.
    He was tucking the little pouches and vials away into the various pockets when he remembered that one of them was supposed to be a headache remedy. He peered into the bag.
    â€œOkay, Alice. Is it the mushroom, the cookie, or the small bottle?”
    It was a small purple bottle. He studied it momentarily, recalled the three word incantation that was supposed to accompany the administration of the cure, and put three droplets onto his tongue. He grimaced. If it didn’t work any better than it tasted, he was in for a bad night.
    He called out the light and rolled back onto his bunk, quite literally falling asleep before his head hit the pillow. His remaining dreams were decidedly more positive.
    o0o
    â€œYou’re awfully perky this morning.” Danetta Price studied Rhys’s glowing face curiously. “Nice dreams?”
    â€œAfter I took one of Pa-Lili’s herbal cures. Before that, I was having nightmares.”
    Danetta raised ash blonde brows. “What about?”
    Rhys nearly blushed, recalling his grandiose self-image. “I guess it boils down to a fear that I was going to have to become a Zarber clone in order to compete with him.”
    Danetta nearly choked on her coffee. “God forbid!” She glanced at him sharply. “Do you think that’s necessary?”
    â€œNo, I don’t.”
    â€œGood,” she said, but continued to look at him, eyes looking for some discrepancy between word and manner. “Are you sure?”
    He smiled at her. “Absolutely. Why should I change to accommodate him?”
    She shook her head. “You have a