Free Nawashi by Gray Miller Page A

glowing warmth that
covered his sweat-covered skin and kept it from growing chill. As
the last ball of pain dissolved, he felt the now-unfettered energy
swirl through him, the pulse of the flow gradually merging with the
slow beat of his heart and the two disappearing within each other
just as he realized Alan and Elyse had removed the last of the cups
from his back.
He opened his eyes.

V
“You need a Focus.”
    Brian looked up from the glass of Earl Grey at
Ada, the Wiccan priestess, who was seated on the floor cross-legged
in front of the plush couch he lay in. Sullivan sat next to him to
the left, one burly arm cast out behind Brian’s head. Elyse was on
his other side, her hand gently rubbing his arm, with Alan next to
her massaging her neck. The two healers had paid a price in tension
from the exertions of the evening, and back rubs had been exchanged
all around before Ada had called them all into the living room for,
as she put it, a War Council.
“I’m not trying to be a smartass, but just to be
sure: you’re not talking about a car, are you?”
She smiled. “No. A Focus in your particular branch
of the Path is a sort of funnel… no, that’s not right. An aiming
device, perhaps would be more accurate… a way for the energies
which you can create with your art to be sent through them towards
whatever task is necessary to be done.”
“What is it?”
    “Better to ask who is it, unless you are the kind
of Man who objectifies that much.” Her voice held just the
slightest note of disapproval, and Brian found himself glad that he
was not that kind of Man, not at all. “Have you ever met a person
who, when they walk into a room, will make both men and women catch
their breath? The kind of person who can’t help but draw your eye,
your ear, your attention? Not the ones who seek it, through garish
decoration or expensive baubles; the ones who seem to do it without
trying.”
Brian thought immediately of an actor he’d known in
college, James Marqueson, a man with a deeply resonant voice and a
presence that had brought to life the both the roles on the stage
and the drama in his personal life. He recalled Marqueson’s
obliviousness to his effect on the opposite (and often the same)
sex. “Yeah, I’ve known some people like that. Lucky bastards.”
“Sometimes, perhaps. They often have more problems
than you would think, though. Imagine trying to find time to be
alone when everyone wants your company. Imagine trying to be
inconspicuous in a crowd when every eye is turned to you.”
“Regardless, those people are natural focal points
for the energy that you produce. Most of them end up in some field
that makes use of their natural draw for the public eye, whether it
be acting, educating, or politics.”
“The thing is, while the power you create is
immense, you can control it up to a certain point, but no further.
With the mark Vashte laid on you, your rope work will cause even
more Power to accumulate, and without a release and a direction to
send them, you’ll again become a target for the Repressors.”
    “Couldn’t I just… not do rope
work? After all, I do have vanilla sex occasionally...”
“Could you? Of course that would be the easiest
answer. Look inside yourself; could you lead a fulfilled life
without ever using your weaving patterns again?”
Brian bowed his head again to his tea, and did as
she asked, looking into his own desires and needs… and finding a
true need to use the strands to weave round and through the others
he interacted with on that sort of level, to find that connection.
He tried to take it out, to push it aside, but even as it moved
within his mind it always came back.
He felt Sullivan’s hand tighten on his shoulder
sympathetically. “Don’t worry, bucko, it’s always that way when you
find a fetish. Hell, you have it easy; you can untie your knots and
start over. I’m eventually going to run out of skin to stick the
inky needle into.”
Alan reached over and patted