"Can wait, my lady." He offered her his arm, and she took it. "To be quite selfish, it is entirely possible that our combined work will proceed much faster with the devotees of two Disciplines pursuing it. I will be the first to admit that my own Mastery may blind me to possibilities obvious to those of another. And-"
He hesitated, then shrugged. "Never mind," he ended. "It was not important."
But his expression said otherwise, and she raised a skeptical eyebrow at him. "You never look that way unless something is important, Jason," she chided, as they came to the door of the Work Room. "Now, out with it! Else I'll ask your Salamander to ferret it out for me!"
"You would," he growled, but not as if he was really displeased. "Well enough. I am perfectly pleased that you are not pursuing Fire. It is not possible for two Firemasters to remain together in the same area. That was why I had to leave my home and my Master when my Magickal education was complete. However, it is possible for a Firemaster and a Master of either Earth or Air to remain in close proximity. Even-" Was it her imagination, or did his voice grow just a trifle hoarse? "-even in the same dwelling." She cast a sharp glance at him, but his expression was opaque, and she was not certain just what to make of that statement. But he gave her no chance to think about it.
"I have also sent a letter to that charlatan Pao, and gotten his reply," he continued. "The Orientals have slightly different Disciplines than us of the West, as you are aware, and I asked him if it was possible in his experience for a Master of one Element to serve as the teacher for an Apprentice in another." He pulled a set of folded papers from his breast-pocket and waved them, before returning them to the pocket. "According to him, not only is it possible, but it is quite the usual thing in the East. He even sent me suggestions as to how I might employ the Eastern methods in your Western education."
Now she stopped quite dead in her tracks, and turned to stare at him, her lips parted in utter amazement. He gave her a droll and triumphant grin over his shoulder, and tugged on her hand.
"So, Apprentice, as you can see, I am quite prepared to see you through this. You are, as you probably already know, far ahead of most Apprentices of your short experience, simply because you are used to conducting research and are possessed of formidable self-discipline and concentration." His grin widened at her reaction to that astounding statement. "I expect you to achieve Mastery within a year, quite frankly. Perhaps sooner. The Sylphs are gentler creatures than the Salamanders, and less wary; the usual weaknesses of one destined for Air Mastery are a lack of concentration and a general flightiness, and you suffer from neither-if you ever were burdened with such faults, you overcame them long ago. Now, come along, and you'll prove what I already know to yourself."
Once again he tugged on her hand, and she perforce followed him into the Work Room, taking the irrevocable steps down a path that would govern all she did for the rest of her life.
In the end, the conjuration proved just as easy as Cameron had claimed it would be for her. In fact-as she moved through the Work, with its studied gestures, poetic incantations, and all the attendant ritual, she felt a growing sense of joy, of rightness, as if she was doing something she had been born to do. By the time the moment arrived for the actual appearance of the Sylph, her happiness was bubbling out of her like an effervescent spring bubbling into life after being frozen over during the winter. It was all she could do to keep from dancing a little as she spoke the final words.
The Work as written in the reference she had used called for a circle of containment as well as invocation, but Cameron had advised against it, making the alterations in her copy of the diagram himself. "If you wish to follow my example, and persuade your Elementals rather than coercing them, you had better begin as I did, and do without the containment circles altogether."
"Isn't that-well-dangerous?" she had asked, doubtfully. "The book says it is. Without the containment circle, there is no way to be certain the Sylph will cooperate."
"Of course it is!" he had replied. "Friendship is inherently more dangerous than slavery. A friend always has the option to tell you that he will not do something, and that may happen, especially at first. My Salamanders disobeyed me once or twice to test my resolve not to coerce them, and I suspect your Sylphs will do the same, although they may simply confine themselves to impudence. But a slave will never offer his help unasked, and that is what you gain from persuasion rather than coercion."
So, she stood now before the marble altar, trembling with joy and nervousness, and spoke the last words of her invocation, as Jason watched her from outside the chalked diagram.
For a moment, she thought that nothing had happened-that she had failed.
Then, out of nowhere, a lively breeze whirled around her, a breeze full of a sense of laughter, tugging at her garments, teasing her hair until it fell out of its carefully pinned-up coiffure. It stole all of her hairpins and disarranged her clothing, twirling around her faster and faster until she looked as if she had been running up a hill in a strong March wind.
Then it gave a final tug on her sleeves, formed into a tiny vortex in which all of her hairpins danced, and dropped down onto the altar. Then it wasn't a vortex at all, but a creature that could have been the original for all of the illustrations in every children's fairy-book ever written.
She had not been quite certain what to expect, since the Salamander was so patently unhuman, but this ethereal, semitransparent creature was quite human in appearance. It had a narrow face with a pointed chin, high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes tilted upwards at the outer corners. It was androgynous, disturbingly pretty, more-or-less "clothed" in long, flowing, pale hair and what seemed to be a series of gauzy, ever-moving scarves, and even had a suggestion of transparent hummingbird-wings at the small of its back. The colors of the Salamander were intense golds, reds, and oranges-the colors of this creature were the palest of blues, violets, and pinks. The expression on its face suggested that its chief motivation was mischief, and now Rose understood why Sylphs were notoriously difficult to control.
"Well!" it said, quite cheerfully. "It certainly took you long enough! We thought you'd never get up the courage to call us!"
She took a step nearer, and the elfin creature widened its eyes playfully until its eyes were twice their original size. She stared into them, distracted and entranced; she had never seen eyes like those before, as blue as the skies over the desert, as infinite, and as hypnotic.
"So, what will you have of me?" it murmured, in a soft, silken voice, a voice that beguiled and bewitched her. "Shall I show you the world? Everywhere the Air goes, we go. I can show you anything, anywhere. Would you care to hear music? The Air carries all music-I can bring you the voice of Caruso, the piano of Rachmaninov, the violin of-"
Behind her, Jason cleared his throat. Only that, but it jarred her back to sanity and out from under the hypnotic spell of those eyes, that voice. And now she understood the danger the Sylph represented, the danger of the Lotus-eater, the opium-smoker, the one who dreams without direction and purpose. This was the first test ro see if she could withstand the temptation of the endless dream.
"I would really prefer if we made the Pact first," she murmured diffidently. "Please, it would really be better so. And once the Pact is sworn, you may depart if you wish."
That was a departure from the standard-if she had cast a containment circle, she would have said, "I give you leave to depart." But Jason's Salamanders came and went as they wished when he did not specifically need them, and he took no harm from them-if she was to follow in his footsteps, she must give the Sylphs the same freedom.
The books had all warned that when presented with the Pact that bound Magician and Elementals, the Sylph might turn angry and refuse to swear-another reason for the containment circle, which would prevent it from departing until it had sworn on behalf of all its kind.
But that did not happen, not this time; this seemed to be another example in favor of Jason's policy of cooperation instead of
coercion. It laughed, long and merrily. "Too clever, too cautious, too disciplined to be caught!" it crowed. "You will be a good friend, and a good Master. Very well, Rosalind Hawkins, we will swear the Pact with you, for you will not abuse it, but neither will you be seduced by us!"
It remained solemn-although its eyes danced with merriment-just long enough to repeat the phrases that bound them Magickally together. But the moment the Pact was sworn, it became a laughing breeze again, and whirled around the room one more time, before vanishing.
And it took all her hairpins with it.
Rose sat down, all in a heap, right where she was, feeling completely drained of energy and emotion. Jason allowed her to remain long enough to catch her breath, then crossed the now-superfluous chalked lines to extend a hand to her.
She looked up at him without taking his hand. "It nearly had me," she said, reaction to what she had so narrowly escaped setting in. "It nearly pulled me in, and I would never have come out again."
"And depending on whether or not I could persuade the Sylphs to listen to my Salamanders, I would either have spent several days trying to bring you back, or regretfully sent what was left of you off to a lunatic asylum," he replied gravely. "Yes. I could not warn you; you had to face that danger, that temptation, all yourself. Now you see the danger inherent in treating with the Sylphs. The Salamanders invite one to unregulated passion when they first appear; the Sylphs to losing one's self in dreaming. The Gnomes tempt to the extreme of sloth, self-indulgence, and if you will forgive me-sexual excess; and the Undines to the extreme of self-deception, particularly where one's own abilities are concerned. That is the danger with all the Elementals; they can entice the would-be Magician into fatal excess of the worst kind-the kind that always lives within him, because of his unbalanced Nature." "You didn't tell me-the books didn't tell me-" She felt somehow shocked and betrayed.
"They hinted at it-though I will admit that I did not," he told her. "As I said, your Master is not permitted to give you an obvious warning; it is a test, and one you had to face without a real warning. You wouldn't understand it until you felt it for yourself. Now you do. And you will never fall prey to it, because you did not in your moment of greatest vulnerability." He shrugged. "From this moment on, your Mastery is largely a matter of increasing skill and practice. You have learned the trick of juggling; now you will simply learn to add more balls until you can juggle as many as I can."
He offered her his hand again; this time, she took it, but she was still shaken. "If you hadn't cleared your throat-"
"That is why I am the Master. It was my duty to remind you of yours." Now he smiled. "My own Master made a particularly cutting remark about fools who let their emotions get the better of them to one of his Salamanders when I was in danger of forgetting my priorities. You required a much subtler reminder, and that in itself is impressive. I cannot speak for every Apprentice, but I suspect most of them require prodding by their Masters at the moment of truth."
"Oh." She said nothing more, but felt immensely relieved that she had not done as badly as she had thought.
Now that she was on her feet, and the initial shock had worn off, she was able to think again. There would always be one Sylph about her now, waiting and watching. Whether or not it came when she called and did as she asked would be largely a matter of concentration and willpower-and her ability to persuade it. Jason no longer had to persuade his Salamanders, in no small part because they were in the habit of obeying him. She had to remember that although the Sylph had looked human, most of them were not particularly intelligent. Once they got into the habit of obeying her, they wouldn't think of doing otherwise.
It might also do things just because it thought she would like them done; and a rare, very intelligent Sylph would perform actions even because it thought she needed them done. Jason's "pet Salamander" was certainly inclined that way. It held intelligent conversations with him, and even contradicted him if he was wrong. Perhaps one of her Sylphs would develop that kind of intelligence.
She had not realized that Jason had led her out of the Work Room until she found herself standing beside the sofa in the study.
She started to turn to go back to clean up the mess she had left behind. "The Work Room-" she said, vaguely. "The mess-" She couldn't have the Sylph erase the diagrams and clean up the remains of the invocation-that was impossible, by the Pact that bound her to the Sylphs and vice versa.
He put both hands on her shoulders and pushed her gently down onto the sofa. "The Salamanders can take care of the mess," he said. 'That is another aspect that is useful about having two Disciplines operating in the same household. My Salamanders are perfectly free to clean up after Air Work, and your Sylphs are permitted to clean up after Works of Fire. They will even enjoy doing so. Here-"
He handed her a cup of restorative tea, and she drank it down, thankfully. Her exhaustion was largely a matter of nerve and emotion-the effects of reaction after having successfully completed what really had been a dangerous task. In a moment or two, she would feel better.
But for right now, I believe I would really prefer to sit here on the couch!
Finally, after fifteen or twenty minutes, her nerves felt steady again, and her hands had stopped shaking. In all that time, Jason had not said a word. He simply sat in his chair and watched her carefully, as if he was studying her. Perhaps he was; after all, he was a Master, and it was part of his obligation to be aware of the mental, physical, and emotional state of his Apprentice.
"Did this happen to you?" she demanded.
He evidently understood precisely what she meant. "The reaction? Of course. But I am curious about something." He leaned forward, and focused on her intently. "When you became comfortable with your role-when you were thinking about nothing except the work, how did it feel to you?"
"How did it feel?" she repeated. It felt wonderful, but how do I describe that? "It felt-I'm not certain. I think I must have felt the way an opera singer feels, when everything comes together in a perfect performance. As if I was born to do this, as if nothing in the world was more natural or right for me. There was a joy, a feelings of completion, a feeling of coming home-" She shook her head. "All that, and more. I can't describe it properly."
He sat back, and there was no mistaking the satisfaction in his eyes. "You don't have to. This was something du Mond never felt, and I should have known then that there was something wrong with him. The true Magician, the one who is born to it, comes to his work with pleasure, and not as if it is work. I suspect this must be the case with anyone who is doing what he is truly suited to, whether he be a Magician or a singer, a poet or a priest, or even a plumber. You had that joy about you; this is what you were born to do."
So he has felt the same way! She had thought perhaps that the feeling had been chimerical-or even simply the effect of her own imagination.
"You won't always have so pure an experience," he warned. "No singer has a perfect performance every night, after all. But some of that joy will always be there for you, reminding you of the moments when it does all come together into a perfect whole." He sighed wistfully. "The only other time I have ever felt that perfection was when I was riding Sunset. Now, I dare not go near him, for fear that I'll frighten him."
She put down her cup and got to her feet, extending her hand to him. "That reminds me-I have something I would like to show you," she told him. "That is, if you think we have time for a brief stroll outside."
"Outside?" He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged, and stood up. "Well, why not? After all, there's no one here to see me, is there?"
"Precisely." She said nothing more, but simply led him down the stairs to the side door-the one leading to the stables. He followed her as far as the walk, then stopped when he realized that she was heading towards Sunset's paddock.
"We can't go there-" he protested.
She stopped, and turned around to face him. She had not put her hair up after the encounter with the Sylph, and the wind flirted
with it. "I have been doing other reading," she said, "but as a horseman, you can probably confirm what I read. Just how good is a horse's eyesight?"
"Not very," he admitted. "They tend to rely as much on scent and sound as on sight. That is one reason why they are so prone to shying at things they don't expect. They can sense movement very well, but they have to stare fixedly at something they don't recognize in order to identify it."
"And are you afraid that you would frighten Sunset because of the way you look-or because your scent has changed?"
"The latter," he said, puzzled. "But-"
"But I have had your Salamander bring me your shirts for the past month and more, and I have been leaving them overnight in Sunset's stall to familiarize him with your new scent!" she said triumphantly. "He was a bit alarmed at first, but evidently there was enough of the old 'you' in the new scent to reassure him. Now he is quite used to it. Won't you please at least try to see if he'll accept you?" she begged shamelessly, looking up into his troubled eyes. "He misses you so much-and I am simply no real substitute for you. Even the company of poor old Brownie is not enough to make up for your loss."
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