Salamander

by David D. Friedman

  Mari nodded. "Not clever enough for you, or high born enough for me, but a nice boy, and pleasant company."

  "You mean to marry? Is that what you think about when you meet boys?"

  "One of the things. College is pleasant, but life is out there waiting for me."

  There was another long silence; Ellen broke it. "Why are you here?"

  Mari gave her a curious glance. "You think I shouldn't be?"

  "You aren't really interested in magic, except that you find it as interesting as you find everything else. You aren't at all interested in the mathematics you need to properly understand it. You don't need it to make a living—you don't have to make a living. And this is not the best place to meet the kind of husband you want. I am glad you are here; you are the nicest person I have met here so far and one of the two most interesting. But I do not understand why you came."

  "You remember,” Mari asked, “the first time we talked, I asked you about witches and mages?"

  Ellen nodded.

  "Well, father is very up to date, and witches are useful, especially healers. My brother would probably have died two years ago, or, had he lived, been a cripple, were it not for ours. But they are not entirely respectable. I don't mean it as an insult to you or to your mother, but if a noble admitted his daughter to be a witch he would be daring others to make something of it.

  "Mages are different. The kingdom was founded by a mage king. His Majesty’s younger brother trained at the College and is supposed to have helped the King with all sorts of things. So when word spread that the College was training women as mages … ."

  "Your father decided that was a respectable thing for his daughter to do?"

  "Not just respectable. And not just useful; father can always hire mages, after all. But it was a new thing, and he wanted to be part of it. And our healer told him that I had talent … ."

  "What did she say about your talent?"

  Mari shook her head. "That I had it. That I could be trained as a mage."

  Ellen considered the matter briefly, decided that truth was, as usual, better than the alternative. "You do have talent. But you do not have very much. If you learn to be very clever at using it—which will take a lot of work, but you are clever—you can do things with what you have. Joshua has more talent than you do but he's a lazy fool who will never bother to learn to use it properly. He just wants to go back home and tell people he is a mage. And he is not clever. You could be better than him. But you can never be very good. I'm sorry, but it's true."

  Mari looked down a moment, then up, smiled at her friend. "Do you always tell people the truth?"

  "Almost always. It’s easier. If I were cleverer than I am, and understood people the way you do, perhaps I could do better than that, but I'm not. There is too much complication in the world; I don't want to make any more."

  "Thank you, at least this time. Being a powerful mage out of a storybook isn't what I care about, even if it is fun to imagine. After all, a mage is not what I am really going to be. But I would like to be able to do something with what talent I have, enough to be useful at least to me, and maybe to my family. Something that I did, not just something I was."

  The two were silent for a while. "You seem very sure about how much talent people have,” Mari said. “Can you see it, the way you see the barrier down on the other side of the wall?"

  Ellen nodded.

  Mari looked around; the orchard was empty. "The magisters must be able to see it too, I suppose; that's how they know who to admit. Can they see what kind of talent you have? You seem reluctant to show it."

  "Mother warned me that some of the other students, if they knew what I was, would be jealous, and would make it unpleasant for me."

  "Because you are a fire mage?"

  "Yes. Partly that. Women aren't supposed to be fire mages."

  "Can't some of the students, at least some of the older ones, see what you are, the same way you can see what I'm not?"

  "I don’t let them. I veil—like putting a globe of dark glass around a candle. Just enough so I seem like everyone else here, with a glimmer. It’s hard. For me to pretend not to be a mage at all would be easier."

  "What about the magisters? Can they tell?"

  "If I veil, I veil against everyone. Some of the magisters are probably skilled enough to see what I am doing if they looked closely. I think one of them saw the first day, before I got in the habit."

  "If the magisters are more powerful, have more talent, couldn't they just see right through your veil?"

  Ellen hesitated, and again decided in favor of truth. "They aren't more powerful. I think I'm the strongest mage in the college. That's the other half of why I veil."

  "Stronger even than Coelus?"

  "Coelus is not that strong. The magisters are not here for their strength. There are more powerful mages outside the college than any of them. What is special about the magisters is that they understand magic and can teach it. A lot of mages know how to do magic but don't really understand what they are doing. Most of them, I think. That is why we are here.

  "What is special about Coelus is not the strength of his talent. Even in the college there are stronger mages. But he can find out things nobody knew before. Most of the spells mages use they learn from other mages; he is one of the few who create new ones. Even fewer invent spells they cannot themselves do—Coelus may be the only one. That is the beauty of theory. It lets you figure out what you could do if you were a water mage, even though you are a fire mage. Then you show it to a water mage and he goes and does it."

  The two girls sat quietly for a while, Mari thinking, Ellen watching a pigeon snatch crumbs then retreat to a safe distance to eat them. Finally Mari spoke. "How do you think that pigeon got in? Do you suppose he pecked at the entrance chime, and Magister Gatekeeper opened to let him through the sphere?"

  Ellen smiled at the image. "He must have come through with some of us; this isn't the first time I've fed him.”

  Chapter 4

  By the third month their regular lunch gatherings in the orchard or, if it was raining, the cloister next to it, were being referred to as Ellen's seminar. Edwin, Jon, Mari, and Ellen were the regulars, with Alys and several other first years dropping in from time to time.

  Mari continued to provide cheese; Alys accused her of doing it to remind the others of just how bad refectory food was compared to the real world. Conversation almost always started with something one of the others wanted Ellen to explain, then drifted in almost any direction, from Jon's precise, professional explanation of what was in the sausage they were eating and how it got there, which put Alys off sausages for two weeks, to Mari's well informed and irreverent view of the upper reaches of kingdom politics.

  This afternoon the questioning started with Jon and dealt with a topic of practical concern to all of them.

  "I know the elements, and the natures, that they are basis stars, along with some other things. Don't understand how each provides a full description of magic, but if you and Magister Coelus say so, must be true. Also don't understand how this fits into mage types—fire mages and water mages. Fire and water are elements. But there are also healing mages, used to be called witches, and war mages. Are healing and war elements as well, or points of another star magisters haven't gotten round to confusing us with yet?"

  Ellen thought for a moment before answering: "It's complicated."

  "It's always complicated." That was Edwin; Ellen, ignoring him, continued: "Mages get described both by what they do and by how they do it. A weaving mage is one whose power is mostly in the weaving point of the combinatorial basis star. A healing mage is one who uses power to heal people. One way of healing people is by weaving, not cloth but damaged flesh. So a healer might be a weaving mage.

  "But she doesn't have to be, because there are other talents that can be used to heal—including all of the points of that same star. A mage with power to refine could filter poisons out of blood, or fuse the poison with somethi
ng else to render it harmless; fusing is refining done backwards, like weaving and untangling. So a healer is one who has learned ways of using magic to heal. A weaving mage or a refining mage is someone who uses that particular kind of magic."

  Jon cut into the conversation: "Just as some farmers are good with animals, some good at spotting weeds and pulling 'em, some strong, and some clever about what crops to plant where.”

  Ellen nodded. Edwin joined in. “So a war mage is one trained to use his skills for war? A fire mage would burn the enemy up, a water mage flood them, or a damp mage make their tents mildew?" The last got a laugh from Alys, a smile from Ellen.

  "Mildew might even be more effective than the rest, over time,” Ellen said. “A war mage uses his talents for war, some more effective than others, but practically anything can be used if you are clever. Mari's changing a road sign could be effective if it sent an army off in the wrong direction. We are born with talents that we can’t change, but we can decide how we use them. That is what the third year tutorials are mostly about, for those who choose to stay for the third year."

  "But how much choice do you really have?" That was Mari. "If you are a fire mage," she deliberately kept her tone level, "healing, or farming, or most other things are not really an option, because they are not things fire can do."

  Ellen shook her head. "Powers are hardly ever pure. A fire mage is not someone who can only do fire, but one who is better at doing fire than at doing other things. Combine fire with refining and you can draw gold out of the ground, if you are good enough at it. And if you are mostly fire, but a little refining, your fire can provide the power and your refining control it.

  "Most mages are a mix of talents, strongest at one but with some power in others. A pure mage can’t do much; there is a limit to what you can build out of pure fire or pure air. A fire mage with a little earth talent, or an air mage with a little earth, can do a lot more, get most of the power for a spell or a construction from one point, then structure it with the talent from another, or several others."

  Mari nodded. "So the strongest mage of all would be one with all four points of a star, or all four points of all the stars?"

  "Not the strongest." Ellen paused a moment, trying to see how to explain. "A mage with all four elements would be the most flexible. He could do more things, but since he wouldn't have much power in any element, he couldn't do much of anything. And one star would be enough. If you have all four elements, then you have everything; you just have to learn how to combine them. That's why the theory Magister Coelus teaches, which some of you think doesn't matter, really does. It is the theory that tells you how it all fits together, how someone with the right elemental talents can learn to do spells out of natural or combinatorial magic."

  Edwin shook his head. "Theory matters to you and to Magister Coelus. It doesn't matter to me, though I do my best to understand it. I am going to learn the spells to do what I want with the talents that I have. Someone else can figure out what those spells are. Magister Bertram is my guide to how I can use my skills to get the results I want. That isn’t magical theory at all, just the same problem everyone faces, mage or not. Mages merely have extra ways of solving it."

  Ellen nodded. “That you know you need to learn how to use spells is precisely why you and Mari will be better mages than those who only learn how to cast them. Learning spells may make you a mage. But not a very useful one. That’s why there were very effective mages a hundred years ago, back when how a mage could use air and fire to do the same spell as a mage with heat was still a puzzle."

  The students were silent for some minutes, thinking about this, till the front gate bell sounded time for the afternoon lecture.

  ***

  "Come in"

  It was the girl student, the special one. Ellen.

  "You wanted to speak to me, Magister Coelus?"

  He looked up at her. A little short, a little broad, simply dressed. Not a woman who would stand out in a crowd. Face plain but not ugly. And, as had become increasingly clear, a mind easily matching her carefully concealed talent.

  "I have a project. A very important project, I believe. It requires the help of several mages; I would like you to be one of them."

  There was a long silence as she considered the matter.

  "Would not one of your colleagues be better suited to help you?"

  "Most of my colleagues can see nothing new in magery for the past fifty years and look for nothing new for the next hundred. I expect to have Maridon's help, and perhaps I can get one of the others. But to do the project properly requires four mages, one for each of the four elements. Or the four points of one of the other stars, but the elements are easiest. I am Air, Maridon is Earth. We need Fire and Water, and you are Fire.

  "Besides, even if I could get help from another magister, you, student or not, are the strongest fire mage in the College. I think you know it. If you did not why would you choose to veil?"

  She was silent for a space, then asked: "What is your project?"

  "You know that two mages can pool—we discussed it in class last month."

  Ellen nodded.

  "Mostly, pooling is done by two mages of the same sort, two fire mages or two refiners. It is possible but much less common and more difficult for two mages to combine different talents for a single work. I believe it is how the containment sphere was crafted, fire and weaving together."

  She looked up startled, started to speak, stopped.

  Coelus continued: "The records are not clear on how it was done, but that is the only explanation I can see, and I have examined the sphere closely.

  "I believe I have discovered a way in which four mages, one for each point of a basis star, can pool. The pool then spans all magery. Better still, it can be used to pull more and more magery into the pool, from mages of all sorts and even from ordinary people.

  "Think how much we could do with the pooled talent of fifty mages and five hundred, or five thousand, or fifty thousand ordinary people, each adding his trifle of talent to the pool, pouring it through a trained mage. Almost unlimited power to end a plague, to heal even someone at the point of death, to build a road or monument, to do things that no single mage, whatever his talent, could do before. And since the pool would span the whole range of magery, the power could be used for anything.

  "Half the courses in the curriculum are a waste of time for you; you already know them. That has been clear for months. I could set up a course of independent study to teach you the theory behind the Cascade Effect, get your help with the research…"

  She interrupted. "The people you pull in; must they give their consent to lend you their magery?"

  "How could they? We are not talking about a group of four or five mages but about hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of people, most not mages, and the mages among them would be mostly half-trained. Not one mage in ten is a graduate of the College. How could I ask all of them, and, if I could, how could they understand what I was asking them to do?"

  "I thank you for the offer, Magister Coelus. If you wish to instruct me in theory, I will be happy to learn. But I will not aid you to take what is not freely given."

  "You will not … ."

  "I will not help you to take from mages their power, or from common people the magery that aids them in growing their crops, hunting their game, without their consent, whatever purpose you propose to use it for."

  He looked at the girl in astonishment, felt for words to explain. "You don't understand. There is so much to be done, so little power to do it with. A river floods. With enough magery in the hands of a water mage with proper skills, we could divert the water to where it would be harmless. A plague kills hundreds, mothers and fathers"—his voice faltered—"leaving behind orphaned children. Enough power in the hands of a healer could see the plague when it first struck, cure everyone before the sickness spread farther. So much to do, and we are so weak.

  "You are young, sheltered. If you had seen … . I c
annot make you aid me. But consider the needless deaths and misery that might happen if you do not."

  She shook her head. "My mother is a healer; I have seen sickness enough. Men with gaping wounds that she has closed. When you have seized her power to shift a flood, on whose hands will be the blood of those she cannot heal?"

  There was a long silence. Ellen nodded to Magister Coelus, turned, left the room.

  * * *

  "She won't help."

  Maridon looked up from his desk. "Come in, sit down, tell me about it. Was she afraid she might get hurt if something went wrong?" Coelus sat down, shook his head slowly.

  "That wasn't it. She thought what we wanted to do was wrong."

  Maridon looked puzzled. "How can it be wrong to gather the power needed to make the world a better place?"

  "She was unhappy over using power without the mages' consent, even though I explained why we couldn't possibly ask everyone. She ..."

  Maridon cut in before Coelus could finish. "Some youngsters are like that, especially girls. They worry too much about following rules, not enough about what it takes in the real world to get anything done. High and noble principles sound very well, but they do not count much in the balance against what we can accomplish once we have the Cascade working.

  "It is something we will have to watch out for; youngsters are not the only ones who miss the bigger picture. I would not be in the least surprised if Dag reacted the same way; you know what an icicle he is about keeping to the bounds. Good thing he is off looking for more talent.

  "In fact, it might be better if you leave out the Cascade when talking to the others. Just describe what we want to do as a pooling of four mages to span all of magery and make possible all combinations. That is impressive enough to get their attention, but not enough to start the more rigid of our colleagues nattering at us."

  Coelus still looked worried. "You don't think she's right? She is worried about what might go wrong while we were draining off mages' power into the Cascade."