Ritual Magic

polarity. It is both the product of and the ground for soul. I understand very little about it.
    “You . . .” Rule closed his mouth before he finished that statement—though Sam was probably well aware of what he was thinking. Sam habitually claimed vastly superior understanding of pretty much everything, and not without reason. If the first couple of millennia don’t kill you, you probably do know what you’re talking about most of the time. If the black dragon didn’t understand spirit, who did? Rule kept his voice level. “Do you have a recommendation?”
    Several. First, you need spiritual consultants. Dr. Nettie Two Horses is an obvious choice. I suggest you seek others as well. Second, you need to bring Julia Yu to me on the roof of this building. I will ensorcell her and—
    The outcry was immediate.
    “What?”
    “Absolutely not!”
    “No one is going to ensorcell my sister.”
    “If this is your idea of an expert, Edward, you need to—”
    Madame Yu slapped one hand on the table. “Bah! Stop bleating. You dislike the word ‘ensorcell.’ You understand it not at all. It is a tool, like a surgeon’s knife. It works for good or ill depending on the wielder’s intent and skill.”
    Sam’s chill mental voice took over.
The surgical analogy is appropriate, although in this instance I would liken ensorcellment more to the anesthetic than to the knife. I propose to perform what you may think of as delicate and complex mental surgery on Julia. Without ensorcellment, this would be as brutal as if a cardiac surgeon were to cut open a patient without benefit of anesthesia and saw through his ribs to gain access to his heart. Even if the patient did not die from shock, his screams and writhings would render a successful outcome unlikely.
    That brought a few moments of profound silence. Edward broke it. “If Julia’s memory is gone or—or whatever, what good will this surgery do?”
    Julia’s condition is fragile. Dr. Babbitt is aware of this. He makes several errors, but his observational skill is sufficient for him to recognize what I perceive more directly. He intends to propose that she be incarcerated in a facility where her environment can be regulated in an attempt to shield her from some of the shocks of adapting to a time, place, body, and people she does not recognize or understand.
    Deborah looked horrified. Her voice wobbled as she addressed Dr. Babbitt. “You want to lock her away?”
    The doctor’s eyes were soft with distress. “This wasn’t how I meant to bring it up, nor is that how I’d phrase it, but . . . yes. Essentially I agree with, uh, Sam about her condition. She needs to be in a controlled environment.”
    Such incarceration might delay the fragmentation of her mind. It will not prevent it. An accurate projection of when such fragmentation will become irremediable is not possible, but without my intervention, it may take place quite quickly. I am particularly concerned about the strength of her mother bond. Her mother died forty-five years ago. She is not aware of this.
    “No,” Grandmother said. “She asks for her mother. We make excuses. We have not told her that her mother died many years ago.”
    That is wise. I do not judge her mind capable of sustaining such a shock. Withholding this information is a temporary solution, however. She will either guess the truth or construct elaborate stories to protect herself from that. Already she has begun to do the latter. Eventually these stories will acquire permanence, and there will be no way to supplant them with observable reality.
    Eventually Julia really would be crazy, in other words. Rule’s throat went tight with sudden grief.
    Edward spoke slowly. “You say you can prevent this. How?”
    I propose to buttress certain mental constructs and alter others. I do not go into detail as you lack both the language and the conceptual background to understand, but several of them relate to her temporal sense. I will distort that to mimic the buffering provided by the passage of time. This will give her a better chance of surviving the blow to her mother bond and aid her in accepting her current body and other aspects of reality.
    “A better chance,” Lily repeated. Her voice was level. Her hand gripped Rule’s so tightly his fingertips tingled. “How much better?”
    Substantially better. I do not affix numbers to what is essentially unquantifiable. You should all be aware that, regardless of your individual or