Master of Fire - 8. Student Mages

The room that held Master Fitzgerald’s workbench, library, laboratory and who knows what else was in the basement of the college. In fact, it was below most of the basement; several flights of stairs descended to it.

“In all the stories, mages built their laboratories at the top of tall towers,” Marty said.

“A mage will establish his laboratory—if possible—where magic is strongest,” Master Fitzgerald said.

“Oh, I understand,” said Marty.

“Understanding is good, but not understanding can be much more rewarding,” Master Fitzgerald said. “What about what I said do you understand?”

Marty blushed. “Nothing, Master. I spoke too quickly.”

“Then that shall be the first lesson. The second lesson is this: magic is everywhere on World. Everywhere that we know of, that is. It is not equal in power everywhere nor all the time, but ebbs and flows like the tide. Where it flows, it is stronger, and our work is easier. Where it ebbs, it is weaker, and we must work harder to snare the power we need for a spell. Some places and some things seem to concentrate magic. Certain old mountains, an occasional oak forest, a workbench such as this,” Fitzgerald gestured to the massive stone block that was in the center of the room, “hold or concentrate magic. The mountains and oaks seem to do that naturally…it is in their nature. The workbench, here, holds magic because it has been used by mages for centuries, aeons, perhaps.”

*****

“What was the first lesson?” Fitzgerald asked.

“It’s better for a student if he not understand,” Marty said. “Or speak too quickly.”

“An interesting way of saying it,” Fitzgerald said. “But is it true? Why or why not?”

“Because if I don’t understand, I’ll work harder to understand, and that’s what learning is,” Marty said.

“Very good,” Fitzgerald said. “Chandler, what’s the second lesson?”

“Magic is a field, like the field that guides a compass. Like that field, it changes from place to place and over time,” Chandler replied.

Rudy gasped, and covered his surprise with a paroxysm of coughing. The compass is the greatest secret of the Sailors Guild, he thought. Kedron would be in a lot of trouble if his father—if anyone—found out he told me about it, and how it worked. And Chandler … Marty, too…seems to know exactly what it is!

Chandler didn’t notice, or ignored Rudy, and continued. “That field, well, perhaps contains isn’t the right word, but it’s the best one I know, now, contains energy that can be removed and used, if you know how.”

Fitzgerald nodded. “Another very good summary. However, Chandler—and this goes for Marty, too—don’t speak of compasses to anyone other than Rudy and me, and then only in this room. Yes, Rudy,” he added, to Rudy’s even greater surprise, “I know you know about compasses…you left a magnetized needle on the workbench not too long ago.

“The compass,” the old mage added, “is part of the arcana of the Sailors Guild. And if you understand the field that governs the compass, you already know more than most sailors.”

“What is the third lesson?” Fitzgerald continued.

“Don’t do magic unless you know what you’re doing,” Marty and Chandler answered in chorus.

*****

If you don’t believe what is, you are ignorant.
If you believe what is not, you are superstitious.
—Origin unknown

It was Master Fitzgerald’s custom to invite the students of the college to his home on the third evening of First Market. He would enjoy a thimble of brandywine. The boys were served small beer, or offered ale or wine. Chandler, reluctant to befuddle his brain, preferred small beer. One night, however, the other tween prevailed upon him to try some wine.

“This isn’t what they serve in the public houses,” Jacob said. “It’s from my uncle’s vineyards on the southwestern slope of the hills. It tastes of the sunlight the grapes capture in the late summer…”

Alvin, the boy who had taken Rudy’s place at the desk in the front hall the day Marty and Chandler arrived at the College, snickered at that. “Sunlight has no taste! And it’s just chemistry.” He had only recently begun to study the properties of matter that were the necessary foundation of many spells. Like most people with newfound knowledge, he was anxious to share his.

“It is the taste of sunlight!” Jacob protested. “Master?” He turned to Fitzgerald for support.

“Hmmm.” Master Fitzgerald turned to Rudy. “What do you think, Rudy?”

Rudy, the youngest of the students save Marty and Chandler, and whose training did not yet include chemistry, was at a loss to answer his master. Then his memory and imagination began to fill his mind and mouth with words.

“It is true,” he said, “that sunlight can be captured. It is true that sunlight has a taste.”

The boy continued, “I know this to be true, for it was written a hundred lifetimes ago by the great High Master Mage who set the foundations of the walls of the City of Barrone, and whose apprentices were the first students of this college.”

*****

Ashton at night was a frightening place. A dismal swamp surrounded the town on three sides. The swamp extended all the way to the seacoast where Barrone now lies. At night, eerie lights flickered and darted over the waters of the swamp, among the reeds and the cypress trees. Everyone believed that the lights were the ghosts of Evil men who had died in the rapids of the river or who been killed by the lizards and crocodiles that lurked in the bayous. It was said that the murk of the water and the heaviness of the air pressed down the Evil in these men’s spirits, trapping them there, and preventing them from being reborn.

“There’s no swamp at Ashton,” Dennis said. “I should know, for that’s where I was born.”

“And a spirit can’t be trapped like that,” Cody added. His uncle was a cleric, and Cody had been an acolyte for a ten-year. When his interest in magical theory exceeded his interest in the temple arts, he enrolled in the College of Magic.

“There was and they could,” Rudy said. “Back then, anyway. Now, do you want to hear this, or not?”

The other boys shushed Dennis and Cody. Even Alvin, who suspected that Rudy was about to refute his assertion that sunlight neither had taste nor could be captured, was anxious to hear what the boy had to say. Rudy was a great teller of stories, both those he had read and his own.

The men and tweens who walked the parapets at night saw flickering lights weaving over the swamp. “Dead man’s lantern,” one guard would say. “Evil spirit,” another would reply. “Ghost of a bloody murderer,” the first added.

“I’m frightened,” thought the third guard, a boy who had just become a tween and who was standing watch for the first time. Secretly, the boy was ashamed of his fear, and resolved that he would find a way to overcome it.

The next day, the tween went to his Great-Great-Grandmother and told her of his fear. “How can I overcome this fear?” he asked.

“There are many ways to deal with fear, and many tools to help. Light is one such tool,” she said.

The boy was puzzled. “How can the Light help?”

“Not the Light,” his Grandmother replied, “but light.”

“We have torches,” the boy said, “but their light will not reach the swamp.”

“Then you need a greater light,” the woman said. “Come back tomorrow.”

That night, the boy again stood watch. His fear was stilled only slightly by the promise that his Grandmother would find a cure. The older guards continued to tease him, but again he held his fear to himself.

As soon as dawn signaled the end of the watch, the boy rushed to his Grandmother’s house, expecting to have to waken her. However, she was already awake and standing on the roof of the house. Seeing the boy running toward her, she gestured for him to come to the roof.

When he reached the roof, the boy saw that his Grandmother had a sunflower in a terra cotta pot. “Watch the flower,” the woman said.

The boy was impatient, but knew his Grandmother to be a wise woman, and did as she bade. As the sun sailed across the sky, the flower turned so that its face pointed always toward the sun. “The flower knows the sun, and knows the sun to be its source of light,” the boy’s Grandmother said. “The flower captures the light of the sun in its leaves and petals. When the flower dies, the light is freed.” She turned away from the flower and looked at the boy. “When you live, you also capture sunlight just as you capture boy magic. If you are a good person, you also capture some of the Light. When you die, the sunlight is freed when your body is burned; the Light you captured will help the Sorter decide who you will be in your next life.”

The boy was a little uncomfortable hearing his Grandmother talk about gathering boy magic; that was part of the Mysteries that women were not supposed to know, but he nodded. “I understand. But how will that help…?”

“Sunlight is one kind of light,” she continued, interrupting his question, “and the Goodness we call the Light is another. The things you see in the swamp are not the souls of evil men. The light comes from the bad air of the swamp that bubbles through the water from the rotting plants below. The bad air burns when it reaches the surface. The light you see is the sunlight that was stored in those plants, being released. It is the same gas that sometimes escapes from the sewers in summer. It is the same air you expel when you fart.”

The boy blushed to hear his Grandmother say that word, but again nodded his understanding. “But what about the light you said I would need?”

“The light is the light of knowledge,” his Grandmother said. “There is little that conquers fear better than knowledge.”

*****

“That was a fine story,” Master Fitzgerald said. “And what the Grandmother said was correct.”

“But what about taste?” Alvin protested. “You said sunlight had taste!”

Rudy looked uncomfortable for a moment, but was rescued by Marty’s freshman-level general science. “The sunlight that is captured by the grapes is stored as sugar; the sugar is flavored with the trace elements in the soil where the grapes are grown. Sunlight has a taste. It is the taste of sugar, and it is sweet.”

*****

Before Master Fitzgerald could begin the next day’s lesson, Chandler posed a question. “Master,” the boy began, “when Rudy told the story of the boy who conquered his fear with knowledge, he said that Light would help decide who you would be in your next life. Do people here believe in reincarnation?”

Fitzgerald raised his eyebrows. “Do you not?” he asked. Before either Marty or Chandler could answer, he spoke again. “That was not a proper response from a teacher, but once again you surprised me. Hmmm. It seems that I have forgotten that to be a good teacher, one must also be a student. I will answer your question, but first, please tell me what you believe about the animus.”

Seeing the puzzled looks on the boys’ faces, he added, “the spirit? soul?”

“Oh,” Marty said. He looked at Chandler, who nodded. Marty continued. “When I was a child, I was taught that the soul of a good person would survive the death of the body, and would live in heaven forever with the creator of the universe…who we called God, and who we worshiped.”

“Did everyone believe that?” Fitzgerald asked.

“No,” Marty replied. “My grandmother’s people believed that everyone’s soul went to another world, pretty much like the regular world—the one we came from, I mean—and lived pretty much like they did before, but with better hunting and fishing, and an easier time farming. I don’t know what happened after they died in that world—if they died, I mean. I’m not sure.”

Chandler chimed in. “A lot of people believed in reincarnation, but that you were reincarnated as, oh, a rat or a snake or a cockroach if you were evil, or as a cow if you were good. After a lot of reincarnations, if you learned something each time, and got better, you’d go to another plane of existence called nirvana, which only means, I guess, something like peaceful bliss.

“Some people believed that the life you had was the only existence, and that you just disappeared like a candle flame when the candle was blown out,” Chandler added.

“Marty, you said that you were taught that Good people went to the sky to live with the creator. What about people who weren’t Good?” Fitzgerald asked.

“They went to Hell,” Marty said. “That’s funny. I can still say that word! But it’s not in this language.” He paused, and thought a minute. “It doesn’t have any meaning here!”

Marty thought a moment while Fitzgerald waited patiently. “Hell was a place of eternal punishment. Some said it was full of fire and brimstone; others said each person was punished according to his own evil; and others said that simply being denied a place in heaven was the worst possible punishment.”

“Chandler, would you say that the people who believed in extinction were in the majority?” Fitzgerald asked.

“No, Master,” Chandler replied soberly. “I think they were a small minority. I think most people believed in some sort of life-after-death, or wanted very badly to believe in something better than their actual life. Wanting very, very badly to believe something that’s unbelievable is about the best definition of faith I can think of.”

“I have a little understanding of what you have been taught; now, please tell me what you believe,” Master Fitzgerald instructed the boys.

Marty and Chandler looked at one another. Marty spoke first. “When I was a child, I believed in God and Heaven, and that if I were good, I’d end up there. When I realized how different I was from the other boys, I blamed God, and hated him. Then two things happened. I accepted my difference, and I realized that in order to hate God I would have to believe in him. It was then, I think, that I stopped believing in God, and decided that this life was the only one I’d ever have.”

Chandler had been thinking very hard. “Master, I don’t know what I believe. I was not happy in my life, and I wanted there to be something better, but I don’t think I ever thought that there would be. If that makes any sense.”

The mage nodded. “It’s the beginning of understanding. Go on.”

“I told you once that I wanted to follow a boy we knew from our world to this one. I didn’t tell you why,” Chandler said. “I heard their oath. I can’t believe nobody else noticed! The knight—his name was David—swore to teach and protect George. But, he also swore to cherish him. That’s a lot more than just taking care of him, it’s a lot more than just loving him, too. I wanted to be in a world where a boy can make that kind of promise to another boy.”

What Marty and Chandler then told Master Fitzgerald made the mage deeply sad. Chandler explained that his unhappiness came from having to hide his homosexuality. Marty had explained that his homosexuality was the difference between him and other boys; it was the difference for which he blamed God.

The old mage quizzed the boys carefully. He sat back in his chair and thought for a long time. Then he said, “Marty, Chandler, had you not told me, I could not have conceived such a world. To deny love in any form? To persecute boys, men, girls, women for loving one another? To deny them, for no other reason, rights available to other citizens? You left a place of great evil.

“It is likely,” he said after some thought, “that there are some good people in your world. Let us hope that someday they will prevail.”

“And,” Marty added, “that someday we may return to our world and be a part of the battle for good, there.”

Marty did not see the emotions that flashed across Chandler’s face.

*****

“What happened to the horse you rode through the gate into this world?” Rudy asked one evening.

“Um…it wasn’t a horse,” Chandler said.

“Huh? What was it, then?” Rudy asked. “Not a unicorn, surely. As cute as you are, you couldn’t have been virgins!”

“Rudy!” Master Fitzgerald called from the corner by the fire. “Fantasy is fine in your stories, but remember that Marty and Chandler are still learning. No myths without facts, youngster!”

“Yes, master,” Rudy said, humbly. But, there was a twinkle in his eye.

“Are unicorns real?” Marty asked.

“Yes, although I’ve never seen one,” Rudy answered. “They’re supposed to live mostly in the mountains west of Barbicana.”

Marty and Chandler nodded. They’d become devoted students of the College’s maps, and knew of that Elven city.

“You don’t have to be a virgin to ride one, although a lot of people believe that. Unicorns are magic, though.”

“How are they magic?” Chandler asked.

Rudy looked helplessly at his mentor. Master Fitzgerald answered for the boy. “Unicorns capture magic much like your body captures boy magic. Just as an adult can use his own magic, the unicorn can use the magic it captures to help blur its appearance. This provides it protection from ignorant and foolish people who would kill the animal for its blood or horn.”

“Why would they want…oh,” Marty said. “It’s myth, then, that a unicorn’s blood and horn hold magic, or have magical properties?”

“Yes,” Master Fitzgerald answered. “An unfortunate myth that the horn can detect poison and that the blood can cure disease and injury. Charlatans and witches would have hunted the animals to extinction if it were not for their magical camouflage.”

*****

“Boys who grow up on this world learn a great deal about magic from their male relatives. Most boys also learn a bit of craft magic as they grow up. I understand you’ve learned a bit about boy magic, and learned some craft magic while you were on the farm. However, there is so much that everyone knows that you do not know,” Master Fitzgerald began the next lesson. “I suppose I should start in the beginning.” He paused, and thought for several minutes before continuing.

“Aeons ago, for reasons no longer known, the study and practice of magic was divided into three disciplines. Actually, I don’t know that the decision was deliberate and conscious, or if the divisions simply evolved. Nor are they absolute; there is a lot of overlap.

“Those magic users who dealt with life—healing, animal husbandry, agriculture, herbology, and so forth—became one branch. Those who dealt with physics—the study of cause and effect, chemistry, force and power, energy—they became the second branch. Those who use magic without necessarily seeing or understanding it—those who use it to build, to create—they are the third branch. They are the craftsmen: the smith who molds, forges, mixes, and shapes metal; the mason who joins bricks with mortar; the potter, the weaver, the seamstress, who use magic to shape and strengthen their products. We at the College of Magic are the second branch. We deal with action and reaction, with the tiny links that open and close to create and destroy chemical compounds, and with the energies that are light and heat.

“The magic of life, and the healing arts—where your gift seems to lie, Marty—are the purview of the clerics. There is a large temple in Barrone, and I want you to study there.”

“Master Fitzgerald, you know how I feel about god and the people who worship him—and teach their superstitions. Even to become a healer, I don’t want to associate with clerics or priests or temples…”

“But, these people do not worship the god of your world—or of any other, for that matter!” Fitzgerald was puzzled.

“Then do they worship light?” Marty asked. “That’s just as bad.”

“No, Marty,” Fitzgerald said. “They worship nothing. Why do you think so?”

“Because that’s what clerics do in temples!”

By this time, Rudy had abandoned any pretense of studying, and was staring across the table.

“Why is the word you use to name these people, cleric, and the word you use to name the place they work, temple?” Chandler asked. “Why is it that Marty and I hear words we associate with religion when you talk of these people?”

“I do not know,” Master Fitzgerald said.

*****

“Chandler! I’ve got it!” Two tendays later, Marty burst into Master Fitzgerald’s underground workroom. “Whoa! What’s going on?”

Chandler and Rudy stood in the middle of the workroom; in fact, they were standing on top of the massive stone workbench. The ceiling, some ten feet above Chandler’s head, blazed with light: hundreds of points of light—so many that only by squinting could Marty distinguish individual ones.

“Lasers,” Chandler said. “Well, not really, but pumped electrons, falling back to their original orbit, emitting photons—” He stopped talking, abruptly, and jumped down from the workbench. “What do you mean, you’ve figured it out?”

“These clerics, who aren’t really clerics, are the same as priests on our world, except without god,” Marty said. “It’s just that what they do, and how they do it are so much like what priests and monks and nuns do on Earth, that our minds interpret the words we hear to mean priests and monks and nuns and temples and churches.”

“Um, yeah,” Chandler said. He grinned. “Except that they’re definitely not celibate.” One of Cody’s friends from the temple was a frequent overnight guest at the college.

“No,” Marty returned Chandler’s grin. “And two of the clerics are married…or whatever they call it…and have children.”

“Well, we knew that,” Chandler said. “I mean, Cody’s father is a priest, or whatever. So, what do you think of the lights?”

“You said lasers and pumped electrons,” Marty said. “How can we say those things?”

“It’s how they do the Mage Light spell,” Chandler said. “They use magic to pump energy into something, like a metal ring. The energy—not magic, but magically controlled energy—kicks the electrons up an orbit. When they fall back, they emit photons of light. Everybody knows the spell. Well, almost everybody. Rudy showed me. You can learn it, too. I’ll show you.”

“Yeah, and that’s going to work about as well as the illusion spell you tried to show me,” Marty said. His voice became bitter. “I’ll never be able to do anything…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. First, because his voice choked in his throat as he began to cry; second, because Chandler’s arms were around him pushing Marty’s face into Chandler’s chest.

“Oh, Marty, you will learn,” Chandler said. “You can already do so much…”

“Yeah, but it’s all innate, and that’s dangerous,” Marty said.

Marty felt another set of arms around him, and realized that Rudy had come down from his perch on the workbench. Rudy kissed the back of Marty’s neck. “Come on, Marty,” he said. “Let’s the three of us blow the world off its axis.”

Marty relaxed. It was impossible to feel sorry for himself, knowing how much these two boys loved him.

*****

“So, where did you get all the rings?” Marty gestured to the ceiling, still ablaze.

“Not rings,” Chandler said, “the aluminum and chrome studs from the saddlebags. Rudy helped me stick them to the ceiling.”

“That was the hard part,” Rudy said. “Tedious, really. Chandler wanted them evenly spaced. He said something about anal-retentive, but it didn’t make sense…” He giggled.

“Light is energy; magic is energy,” Chandler intoned as if he were quoting a universal truth. “I wanted the light to be even, but I also wanted the energy from the lights to be even so it wouldn’t interfere with a spell.”

Marty snapped shut his mouth, a little awed by Chandler’s talent, and his intellect. I wouldn’t have thought of that, he thought.

*****

Master Fitzgerald nodded approvingly at the lights on the ceiling, and then began the lesson with a question. “You said that you were guided here by something that belonged to someone from this world. Do you still have it? May I see it?”

Marty nodded, and took the parchment from his pocket. “I’ve kept it…it was written in our language in our world. Now it’s written in whatever we’re speaking…” The boy’s voice trailed off.

Fitzgerald examined the parchment, at one point squinting and looking at it from the corners of his eyes. “The form of the oath is standard, and not unlike others with which I am familiar. The parchment and the writing, however, are unusual. They have a residue of magical energy that—somehow—is still attached to them. How long have you had this?”

“A little over three months before we left our world, and a month and three ten-days here,” Marty said. Ten-days…and not weeks. Whatever it is, it’s still changing me. “It’s doing it again!” The boy’s voice was anguished, and tears sprang to his eyes.

“What is it?” Master Fitzgerald asked as he put his hand on Marty’s forehead. “What is troubling you?” he added.

Marty sat quietly for a few minutes. The flush left his face and his breathing returned to normal. He gulped, and began. “Ever since we got to this world, something’s been messing with my—our—minds. It changed our language, and took away words that we used to know. There are things we know—things we can think about—but we can’t say them! And, it changed our bodies, too.”

Master Fitzgerald waited, but it was Chandler who filled in the gaps in Marty’s story. “We had hair on our bodies…not a lot, like a bear, but a little, and more under our arms and, uh, in the groin area. When we got here, we didn’t. That’s what Marty meant about changes to our bodies.

“The language we spoke, English…that went away. Well, some of it, anyway. And we had this language. There are a lot of words we don’t have any more, not even the words for the work my mother did and a lot of what we studied in school. But all the words for war, weapons, killing…” Now, Chandler’s voice broke. He felt Marty’s arms around him, and returned the hug.

“I take it,” Fitzgerald said after the boys had settled down, “I take it that tenday was not a common measure of time?”

“No, we counted by seven-days, and we had a word for that…but not anymore.”

“And what did your mother do that you cannot say? Can you describe it?”

Chandler began. “My mother uh…interceded…negotiated…when people bought and sold property, and was paid for doing that.”

“She was a merchant? Operated a warehouse?”

“No, master, the sale of land…of farms…of houses and the land on which they sat.”

“Hmmm,” the mage said. “All the land in Arcadia and Elvenhold is owned by the crown. Buildings and businesses may be bought and sold, but the only person involved besides the seller and buyer is an official—the city reeve or a cleric, perhaps—who records the transfer and accepts the buyer’s oath of fealty on behalf of the crown. There is no word because there is no need for it. That’s interesting, but not, I think, what’s really troubling you.”

“No, master,” Chandler said. He took a deep breath. “My father was a soldier, and I learned a lot about war from his books. Marty played games—not quite the same as Canasta and the ball game the boys play—that dealt with war…but…imaginary and safe war. When the game was over, all the players went back to their homes and their beds.

“We lost a lot of words, but we know all the words in this language for war, for soldiers, for battle, for weapons, for killing, and for death. It frightened us. It still does.”

“That is because we are at war,” Master Fitzgerald said. “For at least 250,000 years, which is as long ago as any history I know of, we have been at war. Battles do not occur every day. No, there are long periods of time between battles—perhaps thousands of years. But then, for reasons we do not know, Dark will begin to raise armies…to invade Light’s territories…to make war. Arcadia and Eblis, to our south, have been at peace for more than, oh, 10,000 years. In the past century, however, trade has dwindled; pirates flying black and gold flags have preyed upon our shipping. Do you remember Douglas’ story about Master Morant? That he was lost in the storm? There is reason to believe that he was lost to pirates and not to weather.

“The tension between Arcadia and Eblis is coming to a head. Evil is rising.”

Master Fitzgerald paused. When he continued, he spoke slowly and softly. “Boys, it is said that Good attracts Evil…that wherever there is good, there will be an attempt by evil to extinguish it…and that exceptional Good attracts exceptional Evil. I believe that the opposite is true: that Evil attracts Good…that when Evil arises, the Light will attempt to block it. I believe that you two came here—or were brought here—perhaps not entirely of your own free will. I believe you have a destiny with us, a destiny that will lead you into grave danger.

“I will do everything I can to help you find your way home…I have not explicitly said that, but I should have. On the other hand, it may not be possible. Will you both earnestly strive to learn all you can to protect yourself—and the Light—from Evil? Please do not answer immediately…this is not a promise to be made lightly.”

Chandler smiled at the pun. It’s the same in this language as in English, even though the words are different, he thought. He looked at Marty. That boy nodded.

“Master, we will make that promise. The other boys here? Have they made a similar promise?”

“Oh, yes. It is part of their oaths of apprenticeship.”

Chandler looked at Marty, again. Again, Marty nodded. “Will you accept us as apprentices?” Chandler asked.

Fitzgerald smiled and nodded. “I will, and right gladly, too.”

Two days later, their oaths were witnessed not only by the other boys, but also by the Fitzgerald family. Afterwards, Kedron had hugged Chandler and whispered to him, “I was very jealous when you came to our house the first time. Rudy and I had been friends for a long while. I was very happy when I found that rather than losing a friend, I had gained two more.”

“I’m happy, too,” Chandler said. “My old home was ruled by jealousy, my new home is ruled by sharing and by love. I’m so glad we found you.”

Rudy singled out Marty, and offered a similar message. Marty thanked the boy, but Rudy felt that Marty’s heart was not in it.