Maude turned her dark eyes to Prin. “This is really going to be exciting and fun. None of you accept what I tell you without questions. Now, to your question. Your father may have blown things up with his powers, but the powers that made the explosions were a concentration of power drawn from elsewhere. In some form, it returned to its origination, much as my tea has cooled.”
Prin said, “But it destroyed.”
“The use of his magic destroyed other things, but the power did not destroy itself. Let me try to explain better. If a mage wants an explosion, he draws power from another source and concentrates it. If he wants a lightning bolt, he draws energy from iron, or flint, or copper. Just a little from the source, or sources, then combines it into one flash of lightning that lasts an instant. Like my tea, the origin of the power will work its way back to equilibrium.” Maude sipped her warm tea, and with a slight smile, she refilled her cup.
Prin said, “I think I understand. If I put my finger in your hot tea, I’ll burn it. The tea remains tea, but my finger hurts.”
Maude said, “There, I knew such a complex subject would be understood by the three of you with one explanation.”
Prin and Maude looked at Sara and Brice, then laughed at the confused expressions.
Brice said, “Can I ask questions, too? I know I was supposed to be quiet, but I don’t understand. What puzzles me most is the difference in a mage and a sorceress. It seems they are the same.”
Maude drew in a breath to speak but was too slow. Prin leaped to her feet and almost shouted in excitement, “I know. Can I tell him?”
Maude motioned with a gentle wave of a hand, giving Prin the floor.
“Sir James explained it to me. He said, if you have a mule that refuses to pull your wagon, a mage will transform the straw clinging to the mule’s butt by lighting it on fire. The mule will feel the burn back there and snap awake, hopefully walking faster to get away from the source of the pain. But a sorceress would cast a spell telling the mule a good meal is waiting just over the crest of the next hill. The mule would walk faster to get the meal. Same end result, just different ways to reach it.”
“And that,” Maude said with a wide grin, “is the perfect explanation.”
Brice said, “Hey, I think I understand. Sort of.”
Maude still watched Prin from the corner of her eye, the teacup almost, but not quite, touching her lips. She said, “Would you like to explain why a person cannot be both?”
Prin said, “To be both a mage and sorceress? The answer is, no, it cannot happen. They are like fire and water. You can’t mix the two magics.”
“That is what I’ve always learned from those who taught me, so I guess it must be true.”
She still held Prin fixed with her green eyes. Prin pulled herself away and said, “I’m going to go look at the gardens.”
Once out the door, she tried to relax. Maude knew too much. Sara knew she was also a mage, but somehow Maude seemed to know everything. At least, she knew Prin was not an ordinary sorceress if there was such a thing.
She strode down the winding stone paths as if she had a destination, but eventually slowed at the beauty of the garden. Each plant was perfect. The grass was cut at an even height, and there was not a single weed in sight. She estimated the garden more than a hundred steps in any direction.
Near the far end of the garden, she found fruits she had never seen and wondered if the trees had been grown with particular climates because it felt hotter and wetter than nearer the house. Prin glanced at the house and stumbled to a stop.
From this angle, Maude’s house was no larger than the building where they had rented the apartment on the upper floor! She recalled the hallway that continued out of sight from the door to her room where she’d counted at least ten more doors on each side. Where was that hallway when looking at the outside of the house?
Magic. It had to be. The ordinary-looking house, as seen from the street, didn’t match what was inside. The main room alone would fill the house she looked at. It’s bigger inside than outside.
Prin placed that idea aside, but with the intention of asking about it when she went back inside. She made a small turn, searching for the magic Maude had indicated she would find in the garden. There were several places where the shimmer of spells drew her attention, but she didn’t know what any did so she stayed away.
Her mind drifted to the city of Indore, and to the dog she’d purchased to guard their home. It had a small yard, but the dog would love to have a yard like this one to run around in. She missed the dog, even though she’d never had one, and she looked forward to strolling the bazaar with it on a leash. She would feel safer with the dog to protect her.
But her mind wasn’t fully concentrating on the dog or the small yard. It was adding ideas, sifting through what she knew and what she didn’t. Calculating. Drawing information from there and inserting it here.
She snapped her fingers, understanding what her mind was trying to tell her. She had looked at Maude’s home from outside, including the wall and garden it contained. But it was a small house located in the vast city of Gallium, with a walled yard, no larger than others in the area, which meant the garden was no bigger than her yard at the house in Indore.
The yard was like the endless corridor inside. The entire garden was under a spell to make it seem larger when standing in it. When she left Maude’s home next time, she would stand in the street and take a full measure.
Instead of frightening her, Prin felt reassured. Maude lived in the center of a city much larger than Indore without detection and had done so her whole life. If she and Sara could learn only a portion of what she knew—they could use it to go home.
Shoulders back, chin up, she strode to the entry to the main room and pulled the door open. The furniture had shifted to a more intimate setting, with a sofa facing Maude’s chair so close their knees almost touched.
Brice was talking. Prin sat on the end of the couch and listened. The story was just an expanded version of his slip-ups as a mage. During a drought, rain once fell only on his father’s farm. At another time, two boys attacking him had been blown back several steps by a wind that didn’t push him, giving him the advantage. There were other small incidents. Word had spread in the village, and he had been sent away before harm came to him, and he had joined the crew of the ship, where other incidents occurred. He was put ashore in Gallium with the excuse of needing to reduce costs.
Maude said, “You had no idea you are a mage?”
“I knew people didn’t like me, and strange things happened, but no. I had never heard the word mage until another sailor accused me.”
“Not unusual,” she said. “In most rural communities, nobody has ever seen a real mage. What they hear are stories of drawing lightning down to slay their enemies in great storms and other nonsense like that.”
Sara said, “But people do know about sorceresses.”
“They do, and they don’t,” Maude said. “The real sorceress can create attractions, but any gypsy or faker can sell what looks to be the same, and often convince the buyer of the quality of their goods.”
“But, they are not real,” Sara protested.
Maude gave her a faint smile and said, “Perhaps, but they often work and reinforce the belief. Suppose a young woman purchases an imitation, but worthless ‘spell’ from a gypsy or charlatan, and she uses it on the young man she’s interested in. She eagerly confronts him while expecting him to react by being attracted to her. When the young man senses she is interested in him, he naturally becomes interested in her. They marry, and the girl tells everyone she knows of the wonderful spell that brought them together.”