"Very well, if you are ready—" He cleared his throat, feeling a trifle self-conscious. Well, I cannot possibly bore her worse than those ancient professors she had to listen to. "According to the System of Magick which we all use, as calculated by Pythagoras, all Magickal Power is embodied in the creatures of the Four Elements. If a human—or any other earthly creature, I suppose, but at the moment we are only concerned with humans—wishes to work Magick, he must do so through the intermediary of creatures of the Element which he commands."
She nodded as she made notes. "Just as an aside, are there any other creatures that work Magick?" she asked.
"For certain, I am only aware that the whales and dolphins have a few Magick-workers among their kind," he said. "They work Water Magick, of course. There are rumors of other creatures, Man-Apes in both the Himalayas and the forests of the Northwest, for instance, but nothing I can confirm. If they do exist, these creatures are extremely secretive and are rarely even glimpsed. It is believed that they would do anything to avoid contact with humans."
"I suppose," she said, touching the end of the pencil to her lips as she thought, "That if they were working Magick, it would be to hide their presence from our own species, so you never would find out for certain, would you?"
He coughed. "A point, I grant you. Well, to get back to the subject, as described by Herr Alexander Metzeger, whose handwriting you so despise—"
She flushed very prettily.
"—every human has all four Elements commingled in his Magickal Nature. Most of them possess exactly equal amounts of all four, and thus, command no Magick for themselves. It is only when there is an imbalance that one can work Magick, for it is only when there is an imbalance that a human comes near enough to the Nature of the Elemental that he can communicate with and command them."
She scribbled fiercely in her little book, and he paused to allow her to catch up. "Would that be something like a blind man having acute hearing?" she hazarded.
"Good!" he applauded. "Yes, that is an excellent analogy. It may be that because the Magician has that lack in one Element, he becomes more perceptive in another, as the blind man does. There is a danger attendant in having an imbalance, which is that you are vulnerable in the area in which you are the most deficient, and most often, that is the Element that is the opposite of your own."
"How far can the imbalance go?" she asked. "How—how far can the sensitivity to one Element be taken?"
"To the point where only a Master would be able to find the traces of any elements other than the one that the Magician—or would-be Magician—in question commands," he told her. "That is why no one can command more than one Element. By simply having that surplus of one, you of necessity drop the rest below even that of a 'normal' man." He frowned, and thought of an analogy, since she seemed to favor analogies. "Think of a square table, with marbles rolling about on the surface. Tilt it towards any one corner, and only that corner will fill with marbles. That is the way Magickal Nature operates, and it is just as well."
"Why?" she asked.
He had been expecting that question. "Because the Elementals are jealous creatures. They would never tolerate sharing a Magician with creatures of any other Element. Even if a person somehow managed to get a surplus in two Elements rather than one, he would be much better advised to simply concentrate on the one he preferred. The Elementals of his two Elements would be constantly bickering with each other, wasting time and energy, and interfering with his plans."
"They sound like naughty children," she commented, with a smile she did not know he could see.
He snorted. "They are like naughty children," he told her. Actually, he had thought of another simile, but it was not a polite one. "Well, that, in essence, is what Herr Metzeger has written in the section of his book you wished to set aside for the moment."
She made a face. "He took forty pages to say that?" she responded incredulously.
"With more elaboration, which you can read if you choose. He goes on at some length about the characteristics of each Element, how you can tell if a child has that imbalance in his Magickal Nature that will make him suitable for an Apprentice, and how the characteristics of the Magickal Nature carry over into the personality." Cameron paused for a moment to let a wave of light-headedness pass. "You might find all that useful. If you pay close enough attention, you will be able to decipher a person's Magickal Nature without ever using anything but your wit and your five senses to do so."
"Is that what you do?" she asked boldly.
He barked a short laugh. "No," he told her truthfully. "I don't have to. I am a Firemaster, and I have my Salamanders do it for me. They can tell with a simple look what a person's Magickal Nature is."
She had that contemplative look again. She's thinking of something. This could be interesting. I wonder if she is going to ask me what her Magickal Nature is, and if she could be a Magician. But the question she asked was not the one he expected. "Could a Master of one Element teach an Apprentice of another?"
"Well, that is an interesting question." He thought it over for a moment. "In theory, I don't know why not—in fact, according to some of the old books you will be reading, the great Masters of the past did so. The discipline is the same, only the spells and Ordeals differ. The one drawback would be that if the Apprentice got himself into trouble the Master would not be able to command the Elementals of the Apprentice to return to their places."
"You stressed the word, command. Could he do something else to save his Apprentice from his own folly?"
Dear God, she was quick! "He might, if his command of his own Elementals was strong enough, be able to persuade his Apprentice's Elementals to leave the Apprentice alone." He shook his head, forgetting she could not see him. "I would not care to try such a tactic with any Elemental but the Sylphs, however. They are the most forgiving and tolerant, and the least likely to anger. Gnomes are slow to anger, but when enraged, they are implacable, and Undines I could not handle at all, obviously."
"Obviously." She picked the book back up. "Thank you, Jason. You have saved my eyes a terrible strain. On to the rest of Herr Metzeger's pearls of wisdom however atrociously written they are."
He settled back again as she resumed her reading, but his mind was still on the last question she had raised.
Her Nature was Air; the Salamander would not have bothered to mention that unless she was powerful enough in Air to command the Magick. Should he make the experiment she suggested, and try training her himself? It would certainly obviate the problem that most Masters and Apprentices had, that as soon as the Apprentice became a Master, one or the other had to seek a new home. A Master of Fire and one of Air could even dwell side-by-side in the same building with no ill effects....
Could I? Should I? Who would it hurt? I don't think she's stupid enough to do anything that would get her in real trouble; the only question would be if she could pass her Ordeals, and that would be out of my hands if she was an Apprentice in Fire rather than Air.
It was a question that continued to coil in the back of his mind through the rest of the evening, and even followed him into his dreams that very night.
CHAPTER EIGHT
From the moment that she had accepted Magick as a reality, Rose had leapt out of bed every morning with anticipation that was not in the least hampered by her knowledge that Jason Cameron was a dangerous and possibly unbalanced man, and that this situation might turn hazardous at any moment. That didn't matter—perhaps it even put a frisson of exhilaration into the arrangement, for there was nothing quite like skirting the edge of danger to put a certain zest in living. But this morning Rose awoke with her sense of excitement and adventure dimmed, and for a good reason. Today, so Jason had informed her last night, Paul du Mond would return to the mansion. Cameron had reiterated his request that she not reveal her new-won knowledge of Magick, and she had been quick to repeat her agreement. Paul represented danger too, but not of the sort she preferred to court. She was suspicious of his motives and his morals, and he was altogether too sly for her liking.