Chaining the Lady

Chaining the Lady is the second Cluster book. Melody, a product of Flint and the Andromedan’s mating in Cluster, must save the Milky Way Galaxy and create a place where creatures can transfer without limitations. Melody must survive in worlds unknown and alien to her and she does that where others fail when her aura augments her skills and abilities.

The book opens with the discovery that Andromeda, the enemy galaxy of the first novel, has discovered the secret of involuntary hosting: a Kirlian aura that is sufficiently stronger than that of an individual can take possession of that individual. Andromeda has secretly infiltrated the highest levels of government in Sphere Sol and its allies and resurrect its plot to steal the energy of the Milky Way.

Melody of Mintaka, a direct descendant of Flint of Outworld and his Andromedan nemesis, has a Kirlian aura of well over two hundred. She is pressed into service to “possess” and interrogate a captured Andromedan transferee. Melody, hosted in the young and beautiful body of Yael of Dragon, must, like her progenitor Flint, find a way to defeat the Andromedan threat and save the galaxy.

The mysterious Ancients are present again in the form of their artifacts and sites. The themes of Tarot and of various myths of Sphere Sol (in this case that of Perseus and Andromeda) play a big part this novel. The InterSphere fleet of starships has forms analogous to the Tarot suits of Disks, Cups, Wands, and Swords.