"What are you doing?" Linara asked, a bit unnerved by the way Raikin was concentrating on the barren field before him. He was clearly in the midst of conjuring some spell and yet he was not using words of power.  

He ignored her. Whatever he was doing required his full concentration. In another few seconds, the field was barren no more. It was populated by a monolith of immense size. 

"What is it?" 

"It is a spaceship that crashed here eons ago," Raikin said. 

"Whatever is a spaceship? And how could it have crashed here eons ago if you just brought it into being with your spell?" Despite her fascination with the monolith, she could no longer fully take her eyes off him. After performing the spell, he was four years older, and the eighteen-year-old Raikin was a lot more fetching to her eyes than the fourteen-year-old version. The price one paid in Bolotaire for such things was already feeling more like a gift than a surcharge. 

"The old crone, Almadra, spoke of a dark wizard who was here, like me, to perfect the balance between science and magic, the precarious balance on which the future of humanity depended. She pointed me to the sites where the ancient ones who used science met with an untimely end. She ordered me to conceal the artifacts, thus giving me time to learn what I could from them, while depriving my alter ego of any such advantage." 

"So why reveal them now?" 

"You'll see." 

"You didn't answer my second question. What's a spaceship?" 

"It was a way to travel between worlds, to fight wars out there..." he said, pointing to the star-studded sky, "for control of entire galaxies." 

"Surely science is but another form of magic." 

"Surely," he chuckled. "But its laws are quite different. And yet, there are commonalities." 

"I want you to explain everything to me." 

The hunger in her voice was the clue into her true nature for which Raikin had been waiting. 

"Hello, Warnak. So nice to finally meet you, at last." 

Linara smiled warmly, before changing into Warnak.  

Raikin's hairs stood on end. "How is it you can be in two places at once?"  

"Technically, I cannot be in two places at once. Not yet. Linara is nothing but a thought projection."  

"Is there a real Linara whom I can hope to meet someday?" 

Warnak smiled. "I find it rather delicious I could make you fall in love with me in such a short space of time." 

"Not you, her." 

"Yes, there is a real Linara. And you will meet and fall in love and all those droll things lovers do. Though I dare say I will be a bit of a distraction through it all." 

The real Warnak landed before Raikin could get out his next question, the mighty dragon disturbing the air with its flapping wings. Raikin thought the gale force winds the dragon was stirring up would unearth his half-buried spaceship. 

With the real Warnak present, his doppelganger morphed back into Linara, which Raikin held protectively close to him. Warnak smiled at Raikin's instinctual move to protect someone he knew not to be real, until Raikin caught himself, and unclasped Linara's hand.  

"God, how is it she's so real? Doesn't seem like I should be able to touch a thought projection." 

"You can't. Your keen desire for her amplifies the power of the magic for me. You're doing most of the work filling in the blanks for yourself." 

The thought made Raikin cringe. Betrayed by my own mind as much as by Warnak.  

Warnak climbed off the dragon and stood inches away, testily, as if daring him to start something. Raikin could smell Warnak's sweat as it vaporized off his body and permeated the air. The complex odor had the peculiar property of making him more docile. Some form of magic. Perhaps a way of making others submit to his will more readily.  

"Bravo, my boy. You've figured out how to keep a far more powerful wizard from destroying you. No small feat." 

"Why would you destroy me, when I'm the only one that will ever give you any sense of sport in a universe that would rapidly grow tiresome without me? You want to win the war, but you want to lose enough battles along the way to keep the game engaging. I alone can grant you both ultimate victory and never-ending learning." 

Warnak chuckled. "And here I thought it was because you knew the secret locations of all these great treasures, not just this one." Warnak took a nut out of a pocket beneath his smock, crushed it in one hand, and again read the contents like tea leaves. "But I see on deeper reflection that you are entirely right."  

Raikin was startled by how much stronger this eighteen-year-old version's sense of self was. He was able to bluff without fear of being called on it because such was his confidence level that he'd find a way to back it up down the road. Then again, the other spell he had cast had been designed to open his crown chakra. Maybe it had worked. Maybe the idea that had popped into his head wasn't so much a bluff as a crown chakra channeling.  

Warnak put his hand up against the ship's side, and the lights of the downed vessel that had not flicked on in hundreds of years came to life. It startled Warnak. He recoiled and jumped back.  

He had to further retreat as the spaceship eased out of its birthing. It righted itself once it was out of the ground, and levitated gently above the crash site.  

"But surely I didn't do this?" Warnak said. 

"But surely you did." 

"Explain it to me." 

"Your ability to quickly learn the magic of any of Hitara's topographical zones, work it better than locals who'd spent their whole lives there... Did it not occur to you how you could do this?" 

"I always figured it was raw talent." 

"That's hardly an explanation." 

"Okay, so why don't you explain it to me?" 

"The planet's magnetic fields fluctuate wildly, its intensity and electrical properties are different from region to region. The magnetic field of your own body goes into resonance with these changing magnetic fields very quickly. Once in phase, you're able to intuit how the magic of the region is procured, and amend your conjuring style accordingly. Your level of entrainment goes beyond even what most locals are capable of, and magnifies your abilities a hundredfold, lending increased power to your magic. So much so that you can conjure whatever it is you imagine. It's also the reason you have to keep a tight lid on your mind, or risk becoming fodder for your own demons." 

"You figured this out all courtesy of your scientific explorations of Hitara?" 

"Not entirely. My science is not yet so advanced that I can prove any of this. I seem to intuit things." 

"Perhaps you entrain well to the magnetic fields, as well?" 

"Perhaps my mind does at least, even if I can't manage the full body response of which you're capable. The seven primary chakras of our energy bodies each have their own attunement with these fields. But then you know that. You must have visited Chakly first. Without sufficient mastery of chakra balancing, you couldn't accelerate your learning curve."  

"Just luck of the draw." 

"You appear to have six of the chakras far more in phase than I." 

"Only, not the most important one. Why is that you think?" 

"The heart and mind are meant to be in phase so that earth and heaven unite. With a poisoned heart your mind cannot lock into phase with your crown chakra. This is a safety feature, if you will, a stopgap to ensure those who would misuse their powers never get to do so on a great enough level to be a serious threat to all life." 

Warnak smiled disarmingly. He morphed into Linara and brushed her hand against Raikin's cheek. Her voice turned to honey. "Submit to me. I can show you love like you've never known. Help me keep my heart pure in order that my mind may open further."  

"I see you've spent some time in Shiftly," Raikin said. "Not surprising you can now outdo the shapeshifting of the locals." 

"How did you know this wasn't just another thought projection?" 

"I just knew." Actually the light show around Warnak changed each time he went into magnetic resonance with a different region of Hitara to wield his magic. Raikin had only slowly become conscious of being able to see his aura and what it meant. His third eye must have been opening, slaved to the seventh chakra, so the seat of higher knowing could help him to understand what was going on.  

Raikin took a step back. He was repulsed by Warnak's blacker motives, enough to be turned off from any thought of melding mind, body, or spirit with him. He was clearly grooming himself for the position of The Lord of Darkness. 

Still looking like Linara, Warnak petted his dragon on the snout to calm it, as it had become agitated by seeing its master shift. Unable to get her to settle, he changed back from Linara to Warnak to finally quiet the beast down. "Projectar, by the way," Warnak said, "is the valley in which thought projection magic is perfected. Should you decide to pick up this skill to assist you in your travels."  

"We all have strengths and weaknesses, Warnak. And for each of us the challenge is the same, not to add to our list of powers in an effort to become impregnable, but to find greater balance. A man quick to action and judgment like yourself might try slowing, and giving my propensity for calm impartiality and inner reflection a go. Show patience, and the universe will be yours. To try to take by force what is not meant for you to grasp will only delay things." 

Warnak grunted. "Strange the way you speak. Unmitigated truth, pure as sparkling water. You don't temper anything though you would be wiser to. Why is that?" 

This was all as new to Raikin as it was to Warnak. He had no idea where any of this was coming from, though he sensed if he asked, those answers too would be forthcoming. But he must really want to know the truth, without a drip of fear or reservation. "The truth shall set you free, Warnak. Your fears, on the other hand, will imprison you forever from that which you seek." 

Was this a spirit guide that had taken him over to ensure he gained the leverage against Warnak? Was this his own immortal soul with all its past life wisdom and memories opening a channel to him because of the threat Warnak posed? Could Warnak himself be toying with him, making him feel all powerful and all knowing so he would be confident enough to breathe easily around him, and thereby give up the secrets of the other hidden keys? The wisdom was pouring in from his seventh chakra, but it could still be coming from anywhere. Maybe with additional calm and meditation he could push past his own fear to get to the real answer.  

"Why do you distrust your fears so? I find mine rather great tutors." 

"The universe is just a giant wish machine. Its sole purpose is to give you everything you desire. Even if what you desire is not in your best interests. It seems to understand that we think our way through things better if we experience them first as something more than just ideas in our heads. We seem to need that total immersion in the real world to truly understand things. Someone who conjures phantoms with the mind as readily as he morphs flesh and bone should understand this deeply." 

"Your mind is intoxicating to me. I simply must have more access to it." 

"Your own mind is even more intoxicating, if only you would serve truth instead of being a plaything for your fears." 

Warnak smiled condescendingly at him, though Raikin knew it was just his way of protecting himself from feeling inferior.  

He returned his attention to the levitating ship. An eerie hum emanated from it that was growing louder, pushing past the ability of either of them to ignore it. 

"You say I am doing this, then how am I doing it?" 

"The fields you're attuned to are electro-magnetic. Strong enough to course electrons through the ship's wiring even in the absence of an energy source. In effect, you have become that energy source. That explains the lights, anyway. The levitation, on the other hand, is a more direct effect of the magnetic aspect of the fields, and less due to their electrical properties." 

"You know I will take every drop of information I squeeze from you and use it to bend the universe to my will. And yet you tell me what I want to know, anyway. Why? Of what strategic advantage is that?" 

"Once you grasp that the truth shall set you free, more as a lived truth, one that is embodied in every cell, than as some mere intellectual construct, my work is done. There is little left but to let the purification process continue. Sinners make the best saints, Warnak. Let that be your way of surpassing me." 

Warnak laughed. "You are quite the manipulative one yourself, little one." 

Warnak's line made Raikin more conscious of the fact that although there was just one year separating them now, Warnak still saw him as the fourteen year old. It also raised another good point. "How is it you haven't aged in Bolotaire for the magic you procured here, first with the thought projection, then with the morphing?" 

"Ah, but I have aged. Not so easy to tell the difference between nineteen and twenty-three as it is between fourteen and eighteen." 

"'Little one.' Interesting choice of words. Unless you're trying to goad me into revealing some more treasures to you, at the cost of aging myself further so we're on more equal footing." 

"I don't know why I bother to manipulate you, since you are ready to give away all." 

"Tell you what. I'll play a game with you. If you learn to fly this ship before I learn to fly the other..." 

"There is another!" Warnak seemed to salivate at the prospect.  

"Then I will give them both to you. And I can think of no way to give you a better head start than to see that I bump into the real Linara on my way to the other site. Who better to delay me?" 

Warnak laughed. "You are perhaps a better strategist than I imagined. And I see you've given me a problem sufficiently engrossing that there will not be enough of my attention left over to lead you down the garden path again with thought projections. Only the real Linara will do this time." 

"And so my genius becomes increasingly transparent to you." 

Warnak laughed at the cockiness. It seemed to endear Raikin to him more so than any of his other virtues. "She will die, you know, if you try to take her away from Hitara. She won't even make it out of her own valley. So if you plan on flying through the heavens with her on your spaceship, let me burst your bubble from now." 

"You leave that science project to me. A relatively simpler one to flying that ship, I assure you." 

Warnak again put his hand up to the floating craft, and it moved in response to his gentle touch. He wanted to play with his new toy more than anything. But he wanted this budding friendship with Raikin to last forever. Maybe he could win points by giving Raikin what he wanted. What was it to him? He could snatch Linara away from Raikin anytime he desired. Maybe holding her hostage once she had had more of a chance to sink her fangs into him, get him truly addicted to her, would prove quite the ticket for playing Raikin like a fiddle.  

"She lives in Muritana. It will take you days to reach her, time enough for me to master this ship."  

Reading his insidious intent, Raikin said, "Something tells me we'll like each other better if we play nice." 

Warnak thought about it. He decided he'd give Raikin's theory a try. He could always drag out the monster inside him later. And so far, Raikin hadn't lied about giving him what he wanted. 

"Enjoy your lady love, while I bring the universe down around your heads," Warnak said, turning his attention to finding a way inside the ship. 

"Hope you don't mind me borrowing your dragon? That way it won't take so long to reach her. I wouldn't want to give you too much of an advantage." 

"Let's hope you're every bit as determined to rejoin me after you've met her." 

"Don't be a jealous lover, Warnak. We are like day and night to one another. We complete each other in ways no other two people ever could." 

Warnak motioned to the dragon. It bent to allow its new rider. Raikin hopped onto its back and beat a path for Muritana on its flapping wings.