Even Papa couldn’t tell if the room at the top of the south tower was a classroom or a laboratory… at a guess the magical equivalent of a physics teaching lab. One wall was solid shelves, crowded with bottles and arcane hardware and glassware. Before it stood a chest of drawers four feet high and eight feet long, with a top made of slate… a laboratory bench if ever there was one. Another wall was covered with a thinner slab of slate, already having geometric designs chalked on it. Before it stood a table strewn with parchment around a large open book, obviously being used as a desk. The far wall held a chart of the heavens, with rather fanciful zodiacal symbols.
Most of the room’s floor was clear space, but with sand sunken four inches into it, twelve feet square.
Beyond that, the windows were casements filled with glass, instead of the usual arrowslits, but with heavy curtains to either side of each… just the kind you would need to darken the room completely, keep drafts out, but also keep light in at night. Several lampstands stood about, with two more lamps on the worktable and one on the desk.
It was a very businesslike room, but the business to which it was devoted was magic.
Friar Ignatius, lean, tonsured, and robed, watched as Papa recited a poem, and a phoenix appeared, burst into flame, then faded from sight. The friar nodded. “An excellent demonstration of illusion for one who has had no training for his Gift, Senor Mantrell… but perhaps your education in poetry has made you something of a wizard already.”
“Then that would be true of Jimena, too,” Papa said.
“It would indeed, as I can see from the formidable concentration with which she recites. In fact, she brings the verse to life so intensely that I hesitate to call it reciting.” Friar Ignatius faced the two of them.
“You both have great powers, but I see already a difference in your talents.”
“Difference?” Mama looked from Papa to the friar, wide-eyed. “What difference? We are both magicians, are we not?”
“Yes, but there are differences between magic-workers, in emphasis and sometimes even in powers. One is more skilled in healing, another more in the making of wondrous objects, a third in bringing living creatures to him out of thin air. Even in wizards whose power is war, one may be better suited to defense, and another to offense.”
“You mean not all wizards can do all magics?” Papa asked.
“That is true, but is not what I meant. Most magicians can do most magics; it is a question of each one’s greatest strength, of what each does best.”
“Then what is my talent?” Mama asked.
“Your talent is to bind spells that others cast, bind them so fast that they cannot hurt you or any whom you protect… and to bind others by spells of your own,” Friar Ignatius answered.
Papa frowned. “Do you say that she can compel others to obey her?”
“No.” Ignatius turned to him. “It is more subtle than that. Her spell binds folk to wish to do those things that make her happy.”
“Well, that is true, certainly.” Papa slid an arm around Mama’s shoulders and smiled down into her eyes.
“I have known it since I met her… but do you say it is in fact magic, not merely metaphorically?”
“Fact! Metaphor!” Friar Ignatius threw up his hands in exasperation. “What use are such words when you speak of magic? She has the power… what else do you need to know?”
“Nothing,” Papa admitted, gazing deeply into Mama’s eyes.
She smiled up at him and pressed more closely against him. “But there is more to it than metaphor here, Ramon. What I did in New Jersey, I did without knowing. Here, I can do what I intend… and by nothing more than reciting verse!”
Friar Ignatius nodded. “And the verse puts your wishes into harmony with the forces of this world, so that they can manifest as action. Remember, though, that you must always end your verse with a command for the action you desire.”
Mama still smiled up at Papa. “Can I compel even you, then?”
“Me most of all,” Papa answered. “You always have.”
“Ah, but that was by asking, or telling you what I desired. I did not command.”
“Nor could you here in Merovence either, Dame Mantrell,” said Friar Ignatius, “for your husband is a wizard as powerful as yourself, though not in the same fashion.”
Papa looked up, frowning at the interruption of their little idyll. “What is the manner of my power, then?”
“Would it surprise you to know that your aptitude was for the magics of war?”
Papa gazed at the friar, then abruptly smiled. “No, not really.”
“Attempt it,” said Friar Ignatius. “Recite a verse that would light a fireball for you to hurl.” He took Papa’s arm, stretched it out, and cupped the palm. “Make it appear right there, but floating above the skin, and tell it to burn everything but you. Remember, when you ‘throw’ it, you only direct it… propel it by thought expressed as spoken words, not by the force of your arm.”
Papa frowned for a moment, then chanted,
A ball of fire exploded into life above his palm. Even though it was a very small sphere, perhaps the size of a bonbon, Mama and Papa both flinched.
Friar Ignatius did a little, too. “Does it hurt?”
“No, not at all,” Papa said. “I must have done correctly when I specified that it not burn me.”
“Well done, Master Mantrell! Indeed, you scarcely seem a novice at all!” Then the friar frowned. “But why have you made it so small… and how?”
“Well, this is just an experiment,” Papa said. “I don’t want to risk any more damage than I must. But do you not know ‘how’ yourself?”
“No.” The friar smiled sadly. “I have the interest, but not the talent. You did not state its size in words.
How did you do it?”
Papa shrugged. “This is as I pictured it in my mind when I chanted the verse.”
“Ah! So your intention manifests, even though it is not stated.” Friar Ignatius nodded. “Yes, you do have the talent indeed.”
“Thank you, Father. Now that I have the fireball, what do I do with it?”
“Hurl it at that spot of damp on the wall.” The friar pointed toward a block next to the window. “It needs drying anyway. But remember, even though you make the motions of throwing, you must tell it where to go.”
“Don’t tempt me,” Papa muttered, then wound up like a Yankees pitcher, chanting,
“Will Tennyson forgive you?” Mama murmured.
Papa hurled the fireball anyway… overhand. It arced away, homed unerringly on the damp spot, and struck the wall, exploding in a shower of sparks. Mama and Papa ducked. The sparks landed on the wooden workbench, a heap of parchment on the desk, a leatherbound grimoire… and Friar Ignatius’ robe.
The friar yelped as flame blossomed on his arms and chest. Mama caught up a pitcher of wine and poured it on each of his burns while Papa started swatting out little blazes all over the laboratory.
Somehow, they got them under control and put them all out.
“Are you all right, Father?” Mama asked anxiously.