Sorcerer's Luck by Katharine Kerr

happen, and nothing did. Tor came upstairs in a few minutes, and
we sat down in the living room.
    â€œMaya, look,” he said. “You’ve got a real talent for sorcery. Did you know that?”
    â€œNo, I didn’t.” I tried to smile. “I don’t want to, either.”
    â€œWhat are you afraid of?”
    â€œWho says I’m afraid?”
    Tor considered me for a couple of uncomfortable minutes. He arranged his nerdy
smile and shrugged. “None of my business. Sorry. So what do you think of the
job?”
    I shocked myself by finding it hard to speak. I wanted to scream, I don’t want this
talent! I’m so getting out of here! The rational part of my mind thought about
the money. I took a deep breath.
    â€œI guess it’s okay,” I said. “It depends on what happens next.”
    â€œThe darkest moon night’s almost past. The lunar energies, they’ll disrupt the
sendings. And so will you if there are any.”
    â€œWell, we can hope I will. How long—”
    â€œPrime time’s over as soon as the first sliver of the new moon appears in the sky.”
    â€œSo things will be cool after that?”
    â€œI only wish. Look, he’s got to be really powerful to send illusions like that. But you
turned them aside. That means he’s lost this first round. He’ll try something
different next, I bet.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œI don’t know, but he’s not going to just give up.” Tor spoke quietly, calmly. “You felt
the malice, didn’t you? He hates me, whoever he is.”
    That night I went to bed with the question, stay or quit? Rationally I knew I should turn
down the job, get out of the flat, forget I’d ever met Tor Thorlaksson. The
money wasn’t enough to keep me there. I could find another part-time job if I
really tried. No one would ever make me talk in a language I didn’t know again.
    But I kept thinking about the theory behind what I’d seen. I could remember my father
talking about the astral tides and elemental forces that influenced magical
actions. Tor’s “energies” fell into the same category, I figured. If only I
could figure out how to tap them! I realized that if I came to trust Tor,
really trust him, then maybe he could teach me how to deal with my disease. I
needed élan, life force, magical energy. He knew how to get it—maybe.
    Â Even if it sounds far-fetched and crazy, you snatch at any hope you see when you know you
could be dead before you hit thirty.

Chapter 3
    I went straight to school from Tor’s place on Monday. When I came back to my basement
studio that afternoon, the smell of mildew hit me in the face. Somewhere there
had to be another leak. I walked around, examined the ceiling and the walls,
saw nothing—then looked behind the tin box of the shower. Gray mold clung in a
filigree on the wall. I nearly screamed, but I reminded myself that I had a
little extra money. I could buy cleanser to kill the mold and a bag of sponges
without jeopardizing my food budget.
    Monday’s mail brought me my monthly check from the burger joint. I parked near my bank
and walked over to the ATM in the bright hot afternoon. The sunlight hurt my
eyes even though I was wearing sunglasses. Standing on the concrete sidewalk
made my knees and ankles ache, a danger warning, symptoms of low élan. In a few
minutes, I knew, I’d start to sweat, but I felt cold, clammy rather than too
hot. In the small crowd at the machine, one rude guy stood way too close to me.
As the line moved, I started forward, then abruptly stopped. He plowed into me.
During the couple of seconds we were in contact, I managed to suck up some of
his élan, which hovered like thick mist around him. It seemed to slide down my
throat like a comforting sip of brandy.
    â€œJeez,” he said. “Sorry.”
    The two middle-aged women in front of me made loud remarks about pushy young