Blood Oath

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I was re-reading Tuck, and when the bit with the blood oath and the therapist came up my mind got to wondering what might happen if a different sort of patient needed one.

My mind kept nagging and this is the result.


Yeah, OK, I freaked out back when it started. But it's actually surprising that that was all I did.

Except, of course, I couldn't tell anybody why I'd freaked out. Which is why I've been seeing a therapist.

She's not too bad, and it's not like I didn't have problems before. She could help with those.

Alas, that still didn't explain my freak-out. And her guesses were getting a bit too close to stuff that could either get her in trouble or be really bad for me. Getting tossed in a nuthouse would be bad. Being effectively defenseless there could be fatal or worse.

But today I accidentally said something under my breath. Well, I thought that's what I'd done. Apparently I said it a bit louder than I intended and Sheila caught it.

"Did you just say something about a blood oath?"

Oh hell. Saying stuff out loud without intending to could be really bad for folks like me.

She misunderstood the look on my face.

"It's OK. A few others have wanted that sort of assurance. It's a bit unusual, but not something I'm going to freak out over."

That's what you think, I thought to myself.

She wouldn't let it drop, so I said I'd think about it and get back to her next week.

We spent the rest of the visit with me trying to come up with answers that weren't lies, about the stuff that'd worried my parents. Things like my refusing to go to the church we'd been going to before things changed.

I managed to get away with saying the minister and a few other people creeped me out without having to go into detail about why.

I did some research over the next week and managed to come up with something that I thought would work. It was risky, but if it worked it'd beat having to dodge around things. Avoiding mistakes was hard enough, but the wording made things even harder. I needed to slip a few things by, and that made it a lot wordier than I liked.

Inscribing the oath on parchment was a pain, especially since I didn't want to have to use up more sheets of my supply. One mistake and I'd have to destroy the sheet (which would be a pain in and of itself).

All too soon, I was sitting in front of Sheila and pulling the tube with the carefully rolled sheet out of my bag.

I held my breath as she read it. Her eyebrows quirked a bit at some of it, but she finally nodded.

She surprised me by pulling out some alcohol wipes and a box of sharps to get the blood.

I think I surprised her when after we'd both applied bloody thumbprints over our signatures, I took out a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide and insisted that we use it to clean the blades before they went into the sharps container. No way did I want my blood or her blood where it could be gotten at if I could prevent it.

"Well, can you tell me now?" she asked.

I looked at her and then invoked the spell. She froze in place.

"I'm sorry, but there was no other way."

Then I removed the box from my bag and set things up. I placed the candles at the cardinal points and took my athame.

I raised the athame and went to the first candle.

"Saint Raphael, Healer, Guardian of Wind and Tempest, may we be guarded and healed in mind and soul and body this night."

I could feel Sheila's surprise as the candle lit.

I carefully laid out the boundary as I went to the second candle.

"Saint Michael, Defender, Guardian of Eden, protect us in our hour of need."

It lit and I proceed to the third. It was getting harder to move as the power built.

"Saint Gabriel, Heavenly Herald, carry our supplications to Our Lady."

The fourth point.

"Saint Uriel, Dark Angel, come gently, if you must, and let all fear die here within this place."

Returning to the east, where I had begun, I drew the final stroke which bound the circle, then raised my blade in salute a second time.

I think even Shiela felt the wards close.

I laid the athame on the desk and released the bonds on Sheila.

"Again, I'm sorry, but it's the only safe way to talk about any of it."

She stared at me for a moment after a quick test showed her she could move again.

"Wha... what is that?" she got out.

I assumed she meant the faintly glowing walls inside the walls of her office.

"Wards. They prevent anything outside from listening in. Or getting in."

"You mean like magic or something?" her tone was clearly skeptical.

"Yes. Exactly. Magic, evil spirits, and a whole host of things I wish I didn't know about."

"But that's fantasy!"

"Was it fantasy when you couldn't move?" I asked. "I'm sorry I had to do that, but I couldn't let you argue or interrupt. If anything had noticed the spells before I got the wards up it'd have been bad. Mostly for you."

She sat and thought for a few minutes.

"You... you invoked angels. No, archangels. So much for your parents fears that you were turning pagan."

Good. She was actually thinking, in spite of the impossible seeming situation.

"I can't blame them too much. Being so adamant about that 'church' and the books on magic and stuff, I guess it was a natural assumption. And being thought pagan provides a good bit of misdirection if anybody who knows the truth about magic is trying to get to me."

"So why did you not want to go to that church?"

"OK, the short version is that I started to discover my talents and early on I started seeing things normal people can't. Fortunately, I kept my mouth shut and had learned enough to realize that I wasn't hallucinating before we moved. So when I saw what that minister and some other others there had riding them, I had to stay away."

"Riding them?"

"Let's just say that there are things other than humans in the world. And some are not good or nice. Some like to use religion as a cover for feeding or worse. If they'd spotted me it'd have been bad."

"I'm having trouble accepting this."

"I don't blame you. I was lucky enough to run into a few people early on who got me steered to some things that could help."

"Let me guess. Most of the troubles you got sent here for have to do with your talent/abilities/whatever-the-hell it is."

"Pretty much. Mind you, that doesn't mean you can't help me. With the oath we signed, I can protect you enough to tell you the truth. And even if you don't know anything about magic, you probably can help me get my head straight."

[not sure where to take it from here, or even *if* I should take it from here]

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Comments

You can't leave us hanging.

Very interesting concept, and well written. I am looking forward to see where this will go.

I like the idea that
a) the magic is based on judao/christian belief system,
b) religion is used by others to provide a feeding ground, and
c) he sill feels he needs a therapist to get his head on straight.

Please continue, I want to see where this goes.

Contrary to popular belief

Brooke Erickson's picture

Contrary to popular belief Christian magic has a *long* history. And it does tie back into Jewish magical traditions.

Of course, trying to tell your average Christian that gets you (at best) a long lecture about being misled by Satan...

James Blish did a good job of working with historical magical traditions for his novel Black Easter and it's sequel.

Mercedes Lackey went into some of the same sort of thing in her Diana Tregare stories.

There are others. (I swiped the warding from one of Deryni books, which also use a lot of Christian magic)

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

Christian magic.

I was not implying that it does not, just that it is rare to see someone using it, for the very reasons you describe.
I have read Black Easter, but do not recall the name of the sequel (or if I have read it), as well as most of Mercedes Lakey's work.

The sequel was "The Day After

Brooke Erickson's picture

The sequel was "The Day After Doomsday". Baen Books published them in an omnibus volume titled "The Devils Day" in 1980.

You might want to check out the Deryni books by Katherine Kurtz. They are set in a sort of alternate history Wales.. Lots of magic with a Christian base (and non-Christian as well)

Her Templar books are modern day and have lots of magic as well.

And an old classic from the 70s has a lot of the right "feel":
Excalibur by Saunders Anne Laubenthal

An Arthurian quest set in 70s Mobile Alabama.

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

Yummy

I like the beginnings of your story, and I am looking forward to where you go
with this.
Every other major religons in the world has its own branch of mystic study, that allowes the talented to interact with the subtle energies around us. It is great to see someone give a good effort to discribe the Christian system.
Looking forward to more.

Huggles
Bailey's miss behaving feary
Michele.

With those with open eyes the world reads like a book

celtgirl_0.gif

Well, I'm definitely *not*

Brooke Erickson's picture

Well, I'm definitely *not* going to describe it very clearly. Too many folks "meddle" as it is.

"Do not try this at home. The character(s) are trained professionals. You could place your immortal soul in peril."

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

I always like

someone taking something old and making something new out of it. This just screams that it has some great potentials. Given some of the hate and intolerance in some religions it's very reasonable that unsavory unseen things might be using that to feed. I read somewhere that Buddhist monks with their peaceful reputation were brutally attacking others so I guess no religion is immune to the hunger of those things.

I also like the Archangel angle. :) Very nice!

Strange but I have a story now that I'm trying to find time to post, that has those who can see/sense that other world being thought of as crazy.

Please continue if you can. Maybe we can get John of W to comment. He's always good for ideas!

Hugs
Grover

Unless I am mistaken,

Christianity and magic fused to become Voodoo and Earth Magic/Gaea.

    Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

You are mistaken. Voodoun is

Brooke Erickson's picture

You are mistaken.

Voodoun is a synthesis of some West African religions and borrowings from Christianity.

A lot of Latin American traditions have combined native religious practices with bits stolen from Christianity.

But Christianity has had (and still has) its own *magical* traditions going back a couple of millennia (and incorporating a lot of Greek (Gnostic) and Jewish (Kabbalah) practices)

Real magical traditions are a lot more complex than the stuff you run across in most fantasy works.

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

Oh, hey, there it is...

Page of Wands's picture

Just found it on the author's page, but it's all up as .txt files. I don't suppose it's up anywhere with actual formatting?

There's Ellen's site, but

Brooke Erickson's picture

There's Ellen's site, but Tuck is *released* as plain text files. No "formatting".

http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes/main.htm

In fact posting it "formatted" violates the terms it's released under.

ps. Blood Oath is *way* from "canon" Tuck. :-)

Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks

Formatting? We don't need no steenkin' formatting!

When I started writing Tucker back in 1997 or so, I made the decision to stick to ASCII text, since not everyone and everything could read HTML at the time. I couldn't necessarily read (actually 'render') HTML if I was booting off a 1.44MB floppy, which back in those days I did quite a lot.

In fact, waybackwhen, I could put DOS, my favorite DOS editor (which I'm still using), and quite possibly all the existing Tuck, onto one floppy; a self-contained Tuckwriting assembly. Now I'm out to three or more, alas...

Ellen, Internet Lich and 22nd level Necromancer of Threads

Good start...

I hope that you continue this story.

Hugs,
Tamara Jeanne

Good start...

I hope that you continue this story.

Hugs,
Tamara Jeanne

Oops!

Sorry for the duplicate comment post. My computer hickuped or something.

Good start...

I hope that you continue this story.

Hugs,
Tamara Jeanne

Hanging!

You're off to a good start. Don't freeze up now!

Interesting begining

Please continue, looks promising.
Thanks

Magic

the most natural force of nature other than love itself. Nothing really mysterious, it just is is all! We all have the ability to use it. It's a matter of belief, acceptance, respect, confidence.

Vivien

Let it take you

where the magic flows, it will show you the way.

Goddess Bless you

Love Desiree

well written...

... and intriguing, and a heck of a good start. I couldn't tell you where to take it, but this story definitely should go on.

Great Start

A well written powerful concept. Where to take it? Perhaps if you can not worry but be open, it will take you where it needs to go. Good Luck.
Joani