Can Djana literally curse Dominic Flandry so that he will never have the woman that he really wants? This ability seems to go way beyond ordinary telepathy or psychokinesis. In the James Bond text that we have been reading, the Japanese fishing community believes that the devil himself has come to live in the castle on the promontory but that the Jizo guardians (and here) will send a man across the sea to kill him...
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Paul:
There's a novel, *Rendezvous: South Atlantic* by Douglas Reeman, about a British auxiliary merchant cruiser (AMC) in World War II. One subplot is the captain's budding romance with a WREN, cut short when the Germans sink a ship on which she's traveling, and she's not among the survivors.
A few months later, the AMC is in Trincomalee. The captain, having finished some official business ashore, is a bit at loose ends, and wanders into a restaurant. Almost immediately upon being seated, he realizes he's not really hungry, and is about to depart when the owner comes to his table, making cordial small talk and telling the captain "It is not yet time" for him to leave.
After a few more remarks, the proprietor says, "Now you may leave. Somehow I feel that your hurt will be easier to carry." The captain leaves the restaurant — and within minutes, encounters the WREN by chance in the street. She'd been reassigned off the transport just before it sailed. None of her letters telling him of the change have reached him yet.
I can hear the *Twilight Zone* music playing in my mind. That restaurant owner, with his eerily appropriate sense of when it would be time for the captain to depart.... It was the first — and last — time I've seen anything like that in Reeman's work.
Also, going back to James Bond, *Live and Let Die* had the young woman Solitaire, who did some pretty accurate fortunetelling. In the movie, at least, this was assisted by her tarot cards; I don't recall for the book.
Oh, and I just checked something I didn't think to earlier: the all-caps "WREN" is incorrect terminology; it should've been "Wren" because it's not an acronym. *Mea culpa*.
Kaor, Paul!
In A CIRCUS OF HELLS we do see Ydwyr the Seeker investigating what some called "magic" and others "psi powers." But the datholch did not think Djana had an unusually large ability to "wish" other people to do what she wanted. So, while she might have been able to make Flandry be a little less able to be happy with a single woman, I would not exaggerate this.
Sean
Sean:
Theoretically, IF such powers ARE real, the intensity of Djana's anger at that moment might have amplified her effectiveness.
Kaor, Paul!
A good point. I should have thought of that and I agree with you.
Sean
Sean:
And I have used my own powers to cloud your mind into thinking I'm Paul.
[Sinister laugh]
Kaor, DAVID!
Blast and cuss words, I did it again! (Smiles)
Sean
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