used for base ends, it becomes weak and noxious .... Of course, even a
sorcerer gets paid. And wizards, as you know, live with lords, and have what they wish." Diamond was listening intently, frowning a little. "So, to be blunt about it, if you have this gift, Diamond, it's of no use, directly, to our business. It has to be cultivated on its own terms, and kept under control -- learned and mastered. Only then, he said, can your teachers begin to tell you what to do with it, what good it will do you. Or others," he added conscientiously. There was a long pause. "I told him," Golden said, "that I had seen you, with a turn of your hand and a single word, change a wooden carving of a bird into a bird that flew up and sang. Pre seen you make a light glow in thin air. You didn't know I was watching. I've watched and said nothing for a long time. I didn't want to make too much of mere childish play. But I believe you have a gift, perhaps a great gift. When I told Master Hemlock what I'd seen you do, he agreed with me. He said that you may go study with him in South Port for a year, or perhaps longer." "Study with Master Hemlock?" said Diamond, his voice up half an octave. "If you wish." "I, I, I never thought about it. Can I think about it? For a while-- a day?" "Of course," Golden said, pleased with his son's caution. He had thought Diamond might leap at the offer, which would have been natural, perhaps, but painful to the father, the owl who had -- perhaps -hatched out an eagle. For Golden looked on the Art Magic with genuine humility as something quite beyond him -- not a mere toy, such as music or tale-telling, but a