Spell Blind Read Free Page B

I’m afraid of the fancier stuff or anything like that. I carry a cell phone, and use it when I have to. But I’ll choose a handshake and a personal conversation over cell phones and social media any day of the week. I’m a purist at heart.
    Of course, that begs the question, what is a purist doing with a seven-hundred-dollar espresso machine? I have no answer. My personal philosophy remains a work in progress.
    My coffee was still brewing when the figure began to materialize in the corner by my doorway. It was insubstantial at first, a faint glimmering, like reflections of moonlight on a mountain stream. Gradually it grew more distinct, taking the form of a man, tall, broadly built. But always he kept that rippled, glowing appearance, as if he were composed entirely of luminous waters. If others had been there with me, they would have thought that a ghost had come to my office. And they wouldn’t have been too far off.
    To be precise, he was a runemyste, one of thirty-nine ancient weremystes who had been sacrificed by the Runeclave centuries ago, their spirits granted eternal life, so that they could be guardians of magic in our world. It’s easier to call him a ghost, but he gets touchy about that. This particular runemyste—my runemyste, I guess you could say—was named Namid’skemu. I called him Namid. He was once a shaman, what most people would call a medicine man, of the K’ya’na-Kwe clan of the A’shiwi, or Zuni nation. The K’ya’na-Kwe were known as the water people, and they were, in their day, a powerful clan, steeped in the spiritual realm of their people. Today their line is extinct. Unless you count Namid.
    I saw only a small fraction of what Namid did to guard against those who would use magic for dark purposes, and I understood even less. But one of his duties was to instruct me in the ways of runecrafting.
    I can’t say why Namid took an interest in me. As I’ve already admitted, I’m not the most powerful myste in the world; not even close. But I know that he was once my father’s instructor and I think that on some level he held himself responsible for my father’s descent into madness. I also know that he answers to a spirit council made up of his fellow runemystes, and from what I gather, they don’t allow members of their council to engage in magical charity or indulge their guilt. So apparently, like my dad before me, I’m weremyste enough to have earned Namid’s attention. I know for a fact that the magic is strong enough in me to have cost me my job. Namid would probably say that you couldn’t measure sorcery by degrees, that you either were a weremyste—a runecrafter, as he called those who used magic—or you weren’t. And he’d have been right. Being a weremyste was a lot like being a cop: once it was in your blood, that was it.
    I nodded to the glowing figure. “Hey, Namid. What’s up?”
    “Ohanko,” he answered, his voice fluid and resonant, like the rush of deep currents over stone. Ohanko was what he usually called me, although he had other names for me as well. All of them were in his language, and most of them he saved for those times when I’d really ticked him off. I only understood one or two of the others, but Ohanko I knew. It meant, roughly, “reckless one,” and I guess I had earned it over the years.
    He stood there, staring at me. His eyes shone from his face, like bright, cold flames reflected off the surface of a wind-swept lake. I’d never actually touched Namid—not to shake his hand, or pat him on the shoulder, or sock him in the mouth, which I often wanted to do. I wasn’t even certain that it was possible. But I would have loved to try it, just once, just to feel what it was like. I imagined it would be like plunging my hand into an icy creek.
    “Well?” I asked, uncomfortable under his gaze. “What do you want?”
    “You need to practice your runecrafting.”
    “Not today, Namid. I have a headache.” I grinned hoping to soften the