Nicole’s meditation was interrupted by an announcement from the nurse, “Ye have a visitor.”

  When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see a nervous-looking dwarf, with a long, black beard that reached all the way to his belt. He was slightly familiar, though she wasn’t quite sure where she’d seen him. He’d respectfully removed his hat and was holding it in his hands, by its broad brim. He appeared to be wearing new clothes, fresh from a shop, due to the sharp creases that were still present in the shirt sleeves and a price tag that dangled from one of the belt loops of his denim trousers, which had a never-washed look about them. Only the hat looked old and was clearly a favorite.

  Ustrina was asleep in Nicole’s lap.

  “Hello.” As she returned to meditating, Nicole kept her eyes opened and asked, “Are you the anti-mage Lyra sent for?”

  “Me’s the fire chief, Kazic,” the dwarf shook his head with confusion, “but if ye be needing an anti-mage, me is one, though me’s not very good at it. What can me do for ye?”

  That explained where she’d seen him before. She vaguely remembered Kazic helping her out of the crater Ustrina had been born in, but hadn’t recognized him without all the fire gear.

  Nicole told the dwarf the story of the spell stuck inside her head, during which he listened, carefully. His face increasingly creased with worry.

  When she was done, Kazic offered, “Me can probably teach ye the basics of anti-magic, though ye won’t be able to use it, since ye’re not a dwarf.”

  Nicole reassured the dwarf, “It’s something I was able to do as an infant, but I’ve never known how to control it.”

  “Me’ll take yer word for it, then.” Kazic shrugged, “It’s not difficult to summon the power, though it’s hard to master. We’ll need something magical to practice on. Those of us with the talent usually practice on floating lights made by blasters, but me doesn’t have one with me.”

  The common blaster was a magi-tech device that combined magic and technology, using software to define a spell-like effect to cast and electrical power stored in a common power cell to amplify the result to a useful level. Blasters were used both as weapons and tools, since they were so versatile.

  Nicole smiled, “I can make magic lights, easy enough.”

  “Go ahead, then,” Kazic prompted, “and we’ll start yer first lesson.”

  Nicole paused her meditation to produce a line of four floating, magic lights in the air above her bed, which reminded her of lying on her bed as a girl, in The Sanguine Maiden, practicing magic.

  Kazic stepped over and explained, “For dwarves, we usually activate our anti-magic power while thinking about how much we…well, how much we hate wizards.” He looked really embarrassed for a moment, “Me’s sorry, but most of us hate magic and we like wizards even less.”

  “I knew that already.” Nicole chuckled, “I’ve always gotten funny looks from dwarves when they see me cast spells.”

  “Anyway, so to do this-” Kazic reached out and touched one of the floating orbs of light, which vanished, “-me thinks about the day me cousin was attacked and maimed by a wizard. Me has to get angry or it doesn’t work.”

  Nicole considered for a moment and decided to do a little experiment. She concentrated and focused on her magical senses, making the raw magic of the air visible to herself. The room was filled with colorful ribbons of all shapes, sizes and colors, each flitting around or through the room as if each was busy on a task of its own. In the vicinity of the floating lights, blue ribbons were being absorbed by Nicole’s spell, to produce pure, white light.

  “Do that again.” She requested.

  As she watched, analytically, Kazic reached out while concentrating, and many colors of ribbons simply avoided his hand, including the red, blue and purple ribbons, while other colors, primarily metallic shades, such as silver and gold, seemed unaffected. As he touched the light, the ribbons that had been trapped and shaped within it, to produce an effect, were dispersed and they all flowed away at high speed, as if scared by his touch.

  Nicole took a moment to think about how the spell was taking over her mind and focused on how angry that made her feel. She tried to focus that anger around her hand and reached out to one of the lights, which winked out, releasing the trapped ribbons.

  Kazic smiled, “Good job! Me’s never seen a human that can do this. Me didn’t think ye would be able.”

  “Actually, I’m a half-troll and I’ve a unique talent for copying magic of all kinds.” Nicole explained, “Anti-magic is just another way of manipulating magic, believe it or not.”

  Kazic nodded, “Try again, then.”

  Nicole reached out and repeated her success, by forcefully ending the last light.

  “So, ye want to prevent a spell from working inside yer head, right?” Kazic asked, “And if ye can, ye’d like to totally erase that spell?”

  Nicole nodded, “The only trouble is how attached it is to my mind.”

  “So, for now, ye want to stop it from spreading and getting worse?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then me’ll give it a go and ye can try to copy it.”

  Nicole nodded and Kazic reached out, to touch her head. Nicole leaned toward the dwarf, but he hesitated, as though nervous.

  “Go ahead, Kazic. Please try.”

  He put his hands on her temples and closed his eyes, in concentration, while Nicole paid close attention to the nagging sensation of the spell digging around in the back of her skull, which had come to feel almost like the mental equivalent of an irritating itch she couldn’t reach. However, what Kazic did immediately stopped the itch and left her with immense relief.

  “Thank you.” Nicole smiled, “That feels so much better.”

  After a few minutes silence, Kazic withdrew his hands and Nicole felt the itch-like sensation spring back.

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  Kazic prompted, “Now put yer hands on yer head and try projecting the effect inside it, just like ye did with the light, but not quite in yer hands.”

  Nicole obeyed and soon found her symptoms relieved, again.

  “Now, try to pull yer hands away and keep going.” The dwarf suggested and explained, “We always start with the hands, but they don’t really matter. It just helps us focus.”

  Nicole smiled, “Like a wizard or witch casting a spell tends to wave their hands, to target, but we don’t actually have to.”

  Gingerly, she lowered her hands, but continued to focus on blocking the flow of magic inside her own head.

  “Still working.” She reported.

  Unfortunately, using anti-magic was just like casting spells, only slightly more tiring, because she’d only just learned. To keep it going required constant mental effort, like straining a muscle. It would be difficult to maintain concentration all day long, but not impossible.

  Kazic found himself looking deep into the eyes of Nicole, even though it was clear she was focused inward and wasn’t really paying attention to him, at the moment. Her blue eyes were like fine sapphires and the longer he looked into them, the more lost he became.

  He worried for Nicole’s safety, after all he’d learned, but was grateful he could do something to help.

  Once again, he found himself idly imagining Nicole with a beard, but quickly shoved the thought from his mind. It was clear from the smooth skin of her chin, she wasn’t about to grow one any time in the future.

  In the end, he was surprised to find Nicole was talking to him and he hadn’t noticed, causing him to shade a little red.

  “What was that?” Kazic asked.

  Nicole repeated herself, “Would you mind staying for a few hours, so I can get some sleep, without the spell growing stronger? I’m exhausted.”

  Kazic felt uncomfortably caught between what he wanted and what he felt was appropriate, because, after all, he’d come to ask Nicole to dinner, which was why he’d bought new clothes, to make a good impression. He wanted to help if he could, true enough, but he realized Nicole had just given him the perfect opportunity. After all, since he’d done something useful for her…

  “On one condition.” Kazic offered, nervously.

  “Name it.”

  He blushed, but quickly blurted out, “Would ye get dinner with me some time?”

  Nicole suddenly realized what the new clothes and Kazic’s constant nervousness were about and smiled at him, warmly. Nicole hadn’t previously considered Kazic in that light, but now that she looked at him, she realized the dwarf was actually rather attractive, fitting two of the three points of tall, handsome and muscular. After all, it wasn’t his fault he was short and he was at least taller than the average dwarf, anyway.

  Why not? After all, Nicole hadn’t been on a date since she arrived on the planet, two years before, despite the fact that the men of Heart Forge seemed to find her attractive, based on the way their gazes lingered on her. She’d been about ready to start asking men out, herself, since they all seemed too nervous to approach.

  Little did Nicole know, but this was because Cha’da had spread word around town that if anyone mistreated Nicole, they would soon find themselves wandering the world as a zombie, for all eternity, continuously moaning the words, “Sorry, Nicole.”

  “Sure, sounds like fun!” Nicole smiled at Kazic and he found himself melting on the inside.

  They discussed how long he could stay, to help her sleep, then Kazic worked himself into a meditative trance of his own, to block magic inside Nicole’s head.

  She set her little dragon on the bed, on her left side, and quickly fell asleep. After a few minutes, the dragon poked its head above Nicole’s body and stared at Kazic with a look of absolute contempt.

  He amused himself by engaging in staring contests with the little reptile, which occasionally growled or hissed and generally acted very defensive of Nicole. The dwarf was there for three hours, but he never once won the contest, despite once keeping his eyes open for close to several minutes.

  In the end, when his free time was up, he woke Nicole, they said their goodbyes and he left, to get to the fire station for his next shift. There was a certain lightness to his step, because he was happy to have gained the promise of a date, once Nicole was out of the hospital.

  Lyra returned at nearly noon, to find Nicole somewhat more relaxed than in the middle of the night, though she appeared locked in deep meditation. She was sitting up with her eyes tightly closed, while Ustrina sat on one shoulder, apparently surveying the room for danger.

  The little dragon looked Lyra right in the eye and she immediately knew it was a challenge, reminding her of the time she spent wandering the world, alone, to get to know herself. On a particular rainy day, she’d wandered into a cave, seeking shelter, only to meet the gaze of two yellow-orange eyes, reflecting the light from outside. Next came the deep growl of the bear, to which Lyra responded by spreading her arms wide, to make herself look bigger, while she slowly backed away. Lyra was amused the little dragon was giving her the same kind of look.

  “Nicole.” Lyra called out, “I’ve got the nullifier.”

  Since there was no response, Lyra approached to tap her daughter on the shoulder, but Ustrina responded by producing a spurt of flame in her face, as a warning! It wasn’t more than six inches long, but Lyra backed away, as the natural troll aversion to fire rose within her. The little dragon’s face twisted into something akin to a look of victory and she flapped her wings, with excitement!

  Nicole was snapped out of her meditation by one of the little dragon’s wings hitting her in the face, causing her to scold, “Ustrina, no!”

  Since she’d lost concentration, the mental itch of the spell quickly came back.

  Quite oddly, the little dragon seemed to understand her words, because she folded up her wings on her back, then hung her head low, as though pouting.

  That’s when Nicole noticed Lyra, “Oh, you’re back!”

  Lyra handed over a thin, black headband, a small, rectangular device with a belt hook and what looked like a plug-in charging station for the device, saying, “I got the nullifier made, but I haven’t been able to find an anti-mage to teach you, yet.” She looked irritated, “This town has gone downhill since your father retired and people seem to have forgotten all he did for them.”

  “Don’t worry about finding me a teacher, anymore. I was visited by a friend this morning and he taught me.” Nicole explained and asked, “How does this work?”

  “Put the headband on, then switch on the little belt pack.”

  Nicole donned the headband and examined the belt pack for a switch or activation button. She located and slid a little recessed power switch on the side, which caused one of the wider surfaces to light up as a display, showing a list of switch-like controls labeled with color names, including black, red, blue, purple and silver, as well as several others. Nicole immediately puzzled out that the colors matched up with colors of magic ribbons. She worked through the list and switched on every color of magic she personally knew how to wield, including black for necromancy, blue for common magic, red for rage magic and purple for troll song. She was surprised to see quite a few other colors she’d never heard of being used and wondered how someone had figured out how to block such esoteric sources of magic.

  Having selected and approved the list of magic colors, she activated it and was immediately relieved of the mental itching.

  “So much better and I don’t even have to concentrate to keep it at bay.” Nicole breathed a sigh of relief.

  Lyra nodded, “Just don’t get complacent. Somehow, we’ve got to find a way to get that spell out of your head or you’ll never be able to use magic again. You won’t be able to regenerate head wounds with it on, either. Do you have any idea what this Kurg thing is?”

  Nicole sighed, in frustration, “Not really. I just know it started with that odd hexagonal coin I got on my birthday.”

  “You should try talking to Maeldoon, since he mailed it to you. He might know more, but at the least, you’ll find out why he sent it.” Lyra reached into her pocket and produced the coin, handing it over, “I brought it with me, because I figured having it on hand might help.”

  “Thanks.”

  Nicole held the coin up to the light and watched as the metal reflected light sources that didn’t exist, making it almost look like it was glowing.

  Lyra muttered, “It’s really odd and reminds me of mythril, the way it gleams.”

  “What is mythril, anyway? Chemistry was my best subject in school and everyone I’ve asked, aside from Cha’da, who was the first to tell me about it, insists it doesn’t actually exist.”

  Lyra sighed and leaned forward, to whisper, “Do you feel up to leaving the hospital?”

  Nicole shrugged and whispered back, “I’m a little over-tired, but I think I can manage, why?”

  “I know an expert on metals that don’t exist. He might be able to tell you more about that thing, at least from a physical standpoint.”