Hand of Grace

Training

Anne was supposed to assassinate someone. She was not stupid and it didn't take a genius to figure that out. What did require a prestigious amount of brain power was trying to figure out how she, a bookish lawyer who exercised to keep from getting fat rather than to stay in shape, was supposed to accomplish something that was straight out of a movie. They didn't even have guns in this world, just arrows and bolts. She'd last used a bow and arrow in high school. How exactly was this all supposed to work out? That last question wasn't rhetorical. It was directed at God, Jove, whatever He liked to be called, as she laid in a bed that wasn't her own.

He didn't answer.

She picked at her brunch the next day. It felt like she had just eaten and she wasn't hungry and she had a slight headache. She hadn't slept very well last night. No surprise there. She was sleeping in a strange bed in a strange world. At least the food wasn't weird... She had been given various types of breads and jellies, two hard-boiled eggs, a large sausage and an assortment of fruit that looked like grapes, strawberries and cantaloupe. No live snakes or jellied monkey brains in sight. Cheese would be nice though. There had been a soft white cheese with her dinner last night. Teles had told her what they called it, but she didn't remember what he'd said. She'd only absently noted that it wasn't called "cream cheese." All of this was washed down with a light strawberry cordial.

Lucille her handmaiden hovered nearby, ready to serve her more refreshment at a moment's notice. Teles had been waiting in the parlor when she awoke. He'd introduced Lucille, explained that he would be back in a few hours after he met with the queen and then he'd put Lucille to work. The woman had scrubbed her clean, since she evidently incapable of doing a good job by herself, done her hair, measured her for clothes, fitted her in another one of those wrap dresses and sat her down for her meal. As she ate, Lucille lectured on the glorious modern history of Lled.

Anne listened attentively for the first twenty or so minutes, but by her third glass of cordial, she was bored of listening to the woman's monotone voice. Her rendition sounded like a bad recording of the Book of Leviticus. She started interrupting to ask personal questions until the woman gave up and started to speak about her own life, albeit in short, staccato responses. Through her pestering, Anne learned that the woman had been a trained governess for children of noble birth, that her husband was a merchant, and her only daughter married to a blacksmith. She had been contracted to care for one of the children in the palace, some official's daughter, Anne didn't quite catch the name, when Teles had recruited her.

Anne was grateful for the consideration, although she would have preferred someone closer to her own age. Someone her own age wouldn't be pursing their lips with such disgust as they witnessed her poor skills in curtsying or learned about her inability to sew. Anne ignored it as best she could. Lucille's world was very different from Earth. No doubt the woman would be completely lost if she spent a few hours in Virginia.

Anne channeled her annoyance into focusing on some of the books that Lucille had brought during early afternoon. Four were history books, but one addressed the history of cubi in Lled. When Lucille left the suite with the dishes, Anne chose one and curled up on the sofa to read. When she returned a while later, the woman mentioned practicing curtsying again, but Anne raised her eyes, not her face, to level her an even look. Bookish or not, her profession did grant her a level of deference that she was used to. She was not about to be bossed around by the help. Lucille clamped up and wandered away.

After several hours engrossed in her reading, Anne paused to stretch. So cubi could do magic on this world, she mused to herself. The only problem was that it someone felt wrong to call it magic. She continued reading for another hour and recanted her previous thought about magic. Magic was what Gaians called the ability to manipulate the world when that ability originated from the Dark. In other words, all magic was black magic here. Her book indicated that what cubi could do, however, was a portion of the creative powers that Jove (or God) had imparted to them. It was power. Plain and simple, raw power. Gaians had no other word for what cubi could do, the book claimed, but Anne noted that it also didn't define what exactly cubi could do. It talked about cubi helping in battles, but didn't say how. It described how they healed, but didn't describe a method. It said that they constructed, but didn't say what.