Keleios poured water in a small empty pot. She had not been able to get the right kind of wood for this particular fire, so she planned to cheat. She placed a fire-protect spell on her hands. It glimmered briefly just behind her eyes, then she could not see it. It was a matter of trust that when she picked up the fire, it would not burn her. A matter of trust and confidence in her own sorcery.
She scooped up the fire in one hand. The blaze flared in the wind, sparking against the darkness. Keleios looked at the fire, concentrating on its wavering orange-red depths, studying its heat without fearing it. She concentrated, and it flared a tiny column of burning. Another thought and it burned to the low orange of embers. It flickered stronger, following her thoughts.
She nearly lost concentration, distracted by the fire's dance in the shining surface of her arm guards. She drew her mind back to the work at hand. It was a bad sign, being distracted by light. It spoke of dream sickness. She was vision prophet as well as dream, so she was doubly at risk.
Keleios touched the flame briefly, curling it to her will. Her concentration was pure. She was ready for the levitation.
It was a different sort of spell from calling fire. Instead of calling something out of nowhere, one touched an object with nothing and made it move. There were no lines of power, no dim glows, to let one know that one was on the right track. The thing either moved or it didn't.
The water-filled pot floated upward, then hovered above the flame. She waited. Even with magic fire it took time.
The water began to simmer. Keleios reached her free hand to the small earthenware bowl. She took tiny but equal amounts of anise seed and fragrant valerian root from it. She placed them gently in the bubbling water.
Keleios checked the time by the clock tower and its striking of the quarter hour.
More waiting. Keleios had had potion to ward off nightmares, nearly a week's supply, but she had run out last night. A potion that merely allowed a peaceful night for a frightened child blocked prophecy in a dream prophet.
Keleios was courting dream sickness and knew it. Too much fragrant valerian was poisonous, and she knew that, too. She had the beginnings of dream sickness already. She was easily distracted at odd moments and caught herself listening to voices that were not there. She was being foolish. Fear makes a person foolish from time to time.
An evil dream was waiting for her. She was afraid to sleep, afraid to dream, afraid not to dream. Keleios hated prophecy. From its first touch prophecy had never helped her. It was the most useless of magics.
Whatever waited for her was something awful. She had never felt such a crashing on her mind, not even when she dreamed of her mother's death. This would be worse; she wasn't sure she could face it. It was a child's fear and she cursed herself for it, but she could not bring herself to have the dream.
The tower clock struck. She set the pot on the white gravel pathway to cool. She flung the fire into the darkness, and it vanished in a cascade of sparks. She canceled the fire-protect spell. Conserve sorcery -- it had been a rule drummed into her mind these last three years. Though sorcery was instant magic and powerful, it was easily depleted and left the spellcaster drained and magicless.
She thought of cold, the cool autumn cold that first blows near the door in November. Not too cold, or she would freeze the potion solid and ruin it. She wanted only to cool it.
Keleios secured cheesecloth over the pot with a string and strained the liquid into the cup. A little water from the fountain restored the volume lost in simmering.
Keleios held the cup in her hands. Another dreamless night lay in her hands. The moon rose free of the castle towers. It bathed the rose garden in silver and grey and blackest black. The towers were midnight silhouettes against the rising moon.
The tallest tower soared black and perfect, velvet in the moonlight: the tower of prophecy. It mocked her, tall and menacing, a challenge.
Keleios squeezed the wooden cup in her hands, and it cracked, spilling the potion down her hands and forearms. Her decision was made. She would go to the tower tonight, unguarded, with nothing but her