Mirror Bound

He greeted both me and Paul with a kiss, and a private wink that promised a tall tale in the privacy of our own home. George poured them both a cup of coffee, and of course they each took a slice of pie was well, then sat down for the news.

Now, Paul mentioned the deaths of women and children in a factory downstream, preceded by the demise of large numbers of fish in the same area. 'Could it be that this factory is dumping waste in the river, poisoning it downstream?' he asked out loud.

George answered: 'Of course it is possible, but one would have to prove it to the council before measures could be taken. Do you know that one member of the city council is a mage? Of a different discipline, but still a mage.'

'I most certainly did not know that,' Paul admitted, 'maybe we can go there for help. But first we need to get those photographs, I don't think we can wait on the council to step in, by then trees and faeries are dead. I say we still get the photographs and free the faeries tonight, then see if we can get evidence and support to close it or at least sanitise it.

That may take weeks, the faeries don't have that much time. And besides, they are a source of magic, freeing them will leave the owner severely limited in his evil plotting.'

We all agreed that the faeries should be freed tonight, and that if at all possible, we would take a look at that pool of something on the terrain, it was very shady and might have something to with the deaths downstream.

And somewhere this week I'd take Paul to the council house, and we'd try to find the mage there, especially if there was evidence of pollution from the factory.

Now George wanted to address the greenhouse, they had come to the conclusion that they wanted to accept Paul's offer to build it together with me. They wanted us to draw up a rough sketch, and an estimate of the costs involved.

I felt thrilled and nervous at the same time. This meant I could really start a business with Paul, but it also meant the responsibility would be mostly mine. I decided I would save my insecurities for Paul to address during dinner, and I left it to Paul to thank the couple for the opportunity.

'And if it turns out well,' George said, 'Ilsa had a plan as well, for a more public place on a site in the city.'

Lukas said cheekily: 'We've heard of it, daring plan.' George gave him a playful cuff around the ears, saying: 'She told me it was your idea in the first place.'

Laughing, Lukas had to admit to this, and Paul shook his head theatrically: 'You realise he has hoofs and horns, don't you George? He'll lead all of you into temptation.' George clearly thought this hilariously funny, and replied: 'Thanks for the warning Paul, but I'm afraid I'm already lost. Better save yourselves.'

'And lose the chance to earn some good hard money? No way!' was Paul's comment.

But suddenly he was serious again, asking George: 'You know Melissa here has guardian potential, don't you?' George nodded and said: 'I can see it, too. She's developing quickly, you're a good teacher, Paul.'

'Maybe too quickly,' Paul said, 'she unconsciously reached out for a ley-line today, instead of using my personal power, and she didn't even notice the difference until I contacted her mind and she recalled she hadn't felt the bond earlier.

Her fireball was perfect, her control excellent. Is that safe? Have you heard of mages using ley-lines this early?' Both Frances and George agreed that if I could control the power, it was all right to use it, but to be really careful not to accidentally touch a node.

'That reminds me, Paul,' George said, 'thanks for taking the shield off Lukas from a distance, it was...interesting.' Paul smiled: 'I thought you might think so, he can put one up himself if he wants to, and if that didn't work you were there with him.'

'It was so interesting, we have a question for you: would you agree to let me take on his training in the arts? His talent is unique, and I have more experience with different kinds of magic. Not his exactly, so there will be a lot of experimenting involved, and of course both of you will be involved deeply, but I'd like to get to the bottom of his connection of love and magical energy.' 'So there is a connection?' Paul exclaimed.

Then: 'Is this what you want, Lukas?' Lukas nodded. 'Then I'll be happy to let you have the training of him, I already hoped you might take an interest in him, I've never had an apprentice before Melissa, you've been doing it for years. It is a once in a lifetime chance for him, you are a much more suitable teacher for his talent.'

'I'm glad to hear that,' George said, 'and I want to start by hearing both your accounts of how he came into your life, for his story doesn't quite fit with what I know of the species that abducted him and the world he originated from.'

I was amazed, I had never realised that George was so much more accomplished as a mage than Paul, I knew Paul had the greatest respect for him but he sounded positively deferential just now, and in addition it seemed as if our host knew a lot about other dimensions as well.

Paul now replied: 'I'll tell you all I know, but Melissa of course was the main witness.' I asked: 'Do you want me to tell you now?'

Sitting back as if preparing to enjoy a long story, George said confirmingly: 'If you please, it may be important, I think his family may be looking for him.' When George posed this staggering possibility I looked at Lukas to see how this idea affected him, and though I could see it was not a surprise to him as it was to us, his sweet face seemed to show a flash of intense longing followed by fear.

I decided to ask him to explain when we were back home, now I would relate the story as I had lived it. 'It started a few months ago, on one of the first days of spring. I bought a paper-maché object that looked like a mirror, framed in a gnarled branch. The mirror was not real, it was painted, and a head stuck out, looking exactly like Lukas but totally hairless and with large, curved horns.

Paul warned me that it was magical and that it might change my life and my feelings for him, I had a bad crush on him for weeks already and he told me that night that we wanted to return my love but was afraid to get hurt. That gave me hope, but I thought the talk of magic was balderdash, I had never heard of magic being real.

The man we bought it from was new to me, I'd never seen him on the market before. He was grimy, oldish, with greasy hair and a greasy beard. He thought we were married. He called it folk-art.

Paul hung it over the hearth, and he talked about it as if it was a person. That night I woke up from a crashing noise coming from the living-room.

I went there to investigate and saw nothing, except the mirror-like thing, lying on the floor face up, but without the head and the hand, I forgot to tell you, there was a hand sticking out as well. I put the mirror on the table, face up again. I kind of expected the creature to be in the room with me, thinking Paul had known it would come out, that it was a kind of test.

The thought didn't frighten me. Listening carefully I heard a sound behind the hearth, and saw a bit of mottled skin behind it. I stroked it, feeling sorry for a creature that felt the need to hide from me. It shivered, but after a while a bit of horn showed and a bit more skin. It was hurt.

When I called him as if he were a stray dog or cat, he jumped on my lap, held on to me, his back was sticky with blood and he felt really emaciated and cold. After some time I had to get up, my legs were buckling, he got up too and was as tall as a man, and clearly a man, frighteningly thin and very scared.

He gestured me to put away the mirror, and with gestures asked me to wrap it in a black cloth, and keep it upside down. He was very afraid of it.

I gave him some bread and cheese to eat and some water to drink, cleaned the wounds and gave him a shirt to put on over the wounds and to stay warm. We exchanged names, so I knew he could talk, but not in a language I knew.

Then I took him to bed with me, he looked so forlorn and cold, where else could I have put him? He crawled close to me and fell asleep immediately. The next morning, he tried to make love to me without my consent and I stopped him and became very angry.

He was under the bed in a heartbeat, shivering in fear. I felt sorry and called for him. He jumped on my lap again, and I explained I was still a virgin, and that he had to ask before he did that. He asked, and I consented.

His attempt had felt really good, I wanted to make love sometimes, and I realised that waiting on Paul would take a very long time. Besides, somehow I knew he needed it badly, needed it to live. So he very carefully made love to me for my first time ever.

It was good, I wasn't sorry. We could communicate now, he spoke his language and I mine, and I just knew what he'd said. You knew too, didn't you?'

I looked at Lukas and he nodded, clearly deeply touched by my remembrance of our first meeting. In a thick voice he said: 'I could understand you. But to be honest, I don't remember very much of that first meeting, you describe me as someone hardly rational, a starved and much abused animal-like man, and I think I must have been just that.

My reactions seem to have been very primal, I can usually control my urges.' 'But you were very polite, and your voice in my head was even eloquent, not brutish. And your lovemaking was tender, considerate. You were not a beast. You may have been in a dream-like state, but you were not like a starving animal.

Making love improved you a lot, isn't that true?' Lukas nodded again: 'I remember more after that, you left me and I hid in the shower room.' I nodded. 'I had an appointment with Paul for a magic lesson, and I was a bit ashamed I had made love an unknown creature whilst I was so much in love with him.

Still, I told him everything. He was shocked by a real person coming out of a piece of art, he had expected the magic to loosen me up, start going out, date other men. And he was more shocked when I told him about the loving, but though I felt ashamed, I didn't regret it, I knew it had been important.

Paul came with me to check on Lukas, he was gone, hidden, Paul found him easily, I went to him, he had seen Paul's magic with sight. Paul heard him speak and spoke back in Greek. They could communicate with language, I still did with, feelings, I guess.

The next days Lukas and I made love often, he still seemed to need it badly. Paul taught him metal crafts by day. His condition improved and he learned English fast. He really hated it that Paul repressed his feelings for me, and clearly had totally different customs than us.

But we've grown a lot closer since then, I knew Lukas would see other people, but I got together with Paul and have been ever since. Lukas and him have grown closer too, Lukas loved Paul from early on, but Paul needed more time. We share a lot now.'

Paul, looking almost grey again, swallowed once, hard, then spoke up: 'I was very, very jealous all the time. It made me act, made me forward. Melissa would probably have given up on me if Lukas hadn't made me so jealous.

But I loved him as well, it was difficult. And I want to add, that I wrapped the mirror in black velvet sprinkled with salt water with rowan-extract, and put it away in the deepest, darkest cabinet in my cellar. If you want to examine it, you can come visit or take it home with you.

Can you please sit with me?' This to me, in a pleading voice that wrenched my heart. I sat on his lap, held him, reached out with my mind to share my boundless love for him.

He accepted the touch and we sat in report until he revived a little. What was it with him, he still seemed so insecure, and vulnerable.

Having caught my question, he said, softly: 'Yesterday with Lukas, I relived my loneliness as a child with my uncaring parents, and as a young man, when my sister stopped loving me, and my new family was lost to me. Those memories are now still there, but distant.

The memories of loving you so desperately and seeing you with another man, not understanding the nature of your connection to him, those memories are still fresh and very painful.

I'm still so very much afraid to lose you. I'm afraid the strong bossy man you fell in love with was just a role I played, this scared, vulnerable boy may be the real me.'

Now, Lukas seemed to come to life, and clearly saying: 'Nonsense,' he came towards us. I gave up my place on Paul's knees to him, though I did hold on to Paul's hand and his mind. Lukas now kissed Paul on the lips, until Paul gave in and returned the kiss wholeheartedly.

I could literally feel Lukas' talent at work again, removing the pain and the doubts out of his past from his more recent memories. It was done quickly, Paul didn't really suffer from these memories anymore, being reminded of the events just raked them up once more.

But since we were going out to hunt tonight, he could not afford to be distracted or weakened by memories or doubt. Lukas just speeded things up. Lukas lost energy at the normal rate, but it was replenished as quickly as it was pulled out of him.

That was interesting. Now Lukas' shield came up again, his own shield, and he took Paul's head by the jaws firmly, then said to him: 'You are a strong bossy man, that is your nature, make no mistake.' Then he embraced Paul, laying his head on his shoulder for a while, and relinquished his seat back to me. Back on Paul's lap I just felt very content, very secure.

Now George, having witnessed Lukas' talent in action, was very much interested, that was easy to see, but he controlled himself admirably, and said: 'I will contemplate what you told me, and I do want to see that mirror.

I have a working theory that I want to check. Those abductors are an alien race that does nothing for fun, they only work for money. Someone must have paid them to abduct Lukas to their world, and his home-world can easily connect to theirs and back.

Lukas was not treated well, but he was not tortured either. Just starved of love and food, his innate power taken away from him and a beating now and then. No mutilations, death threats, real torture. Your father has some nasty enemies, I guess they'd just kill you and dump your body in a hole somewhere, why bother hiring expensive mercenaries to rough you up a little?

What caused you to lose so much consciousness that you behaved as instinctively as you did until you gained your energy back by making love.

I put it to you, Lukas, that something drained your magical power totally, and that thing, a portal between our world and the mercenaries'. Why would a portal appear just at the moment you needed one most? I dare state that it was not coincidence, that your escape was planned by the person who hired you abducted, namely your father, and that accidentally it came out on our world instead of your own.

It was meant to bring you back home with a talent, but it got you lost in a different dimension instead.

Now it was Lukas' turn to relive memories, and wonder how his own father could ever put him through such abuse and despair. And I was happy that he turned to us for comfort, though it was as incomprehensible to me that someone would do that to his own son.

His dazed look reminded me of the abused creature behind my hearth, and I opened my arms in welcome and said: 'Come'. He was in my arms in a fraction of a second, and in Paul's as well as a natural consequence of my sitting on his lap.

'But why would he do that?' was Lukas' heart-rending question.

'Fear and exposure, as well as physical and mental exhaustion have been known to awaken latent magical talents. Self preservation, so to say. Could you pick up feelings before you went through that ordeal?' George asked.

Lukas answered: 'No I couldn't. And I couldn't heal myself by making love. And I couldn't mentally communicate with people speaking another language either. I could only hide really well.'

George said: 'I'm sorry, Lukas. They probably didn't mean to strand you in a dimension virtually impossible to reach. The chances of being found are still incredibly slim.'

Now Lukas sounded really hurt and angry: 'Don't count on it, my father is a god. He can achieve quite a lot of impossible things. Apparently even give his worthless son magic, no matter what the cost.'

Of course we looked at him to see if he meant that statement. 'Yes, I said my father is a god. Hermes. Messenger of the gods, fastest thing on our world. I knew I was a disgrace to him, but not to what extent, or to what lengths he'd go to remedy it. If he wants to, he will find me, and he'll take me back, in chains if necessary. Please don't let him take me.'

With this plea my indomitable goat-man turned into a miserable heap of near-humankind, tearing my heart out in his sadness and fear. Paul and I enclosed him in our arms, ready to protect him from his greatest fear, his own father.

But George was not so certain of his approaching doom: 'Lukas, there are a million worlds and as many dimensions, how is he ever going to find you?

There is no clue near that hole of where you went, no place to start searching. Don't worry, I didn't mean to upset you so much, I'm sorry.'

He looked at Lukas helplessly, I supposed he was stunned how fear of his father could reduce his self-assured lover to a scared boy in a second. Of course, George had probably forgotten that both Lukas and Paul were still very young, only a few years older than his son, whom I had already concluded was still very much a boy.

And even older, self-sufficient boys needed their mother sometimes, which Frances realised all too well.

She said: 'Let's all have another cup of coffee, and another slice of this lovely pie. Lukas, I'm sure George is right, he has studied travel between dimensions and it is very difficult. Even a god will find himself challenged with such odds, and as gods are not used to adversity, he'll probably give you up for lost, most likely has already. After turning your captors into frogs for failing their assignment.'

And to be sure, Lukas looked up, smiling at the image of those horned devils reduced to frogs: 'They'd improve in looks.' Frances retorted: 'And in taste, especially to herons and storks.'

The grim atmosphere was broken, the guys were back to their usual selves. We couldn't stay in one chair in a heap if we wanted coffee and pie, so we sat in a chair each, but we did keep a close mental contact.

Sometimes a person just needed that, whatever their age or the profession of their father. A god! That meant Lukas was half a god, but he wasn't that special, maybe a god wasn't either if one didn't worship him.

I made a solemn vow to myself, that I'd learn all the magic I could as fast as I could, and that if Lukas' dad ever turned up in a mean mood, he'd have to get past me to get at my lover.

Chapter 32

All those memories and emotions had left me hungry, and I enjoyed the coffee and pie. Then we confirmed a time to free the faeries and left for home, eager to be together, or maybe to do some physically demanding work in the guys' case.

With the bicycles and Lukas running we were home within ten minutes, a bit early for dinner, so the guys indeed wanted to put some more work in. I finished my calculations quickly, emptying my mind in the process, and went downstairs to watch them work.

They both seemed to have their equilibrium back, and I asked : 'Lukas, can you work and talk at the same time?' His answer was exactly as I hoped: 'With this job, sure, what is it?'

I exclaimed: 'Come on, Lukas! You promised us all the sordid details! Must I beg you to speak up? How was it?'