Fire Angels

Chapter 11 Part 3 Tomas words make Dion doubt Shad.

I longed to understand the Wanderers' magic better. They had made that amazing iron necklace that cast its own magic even as it disabled mine. They had turned our dangerous hideout in the forest into a kind of idyllic picnic using this miraculous magic circle. The magic I had learned was powerful, but its power was limited by the fact that it could be detected and defended against by other people using the same magic. The effect of this balance of aggressive and defensive magic was to make magical power little more useful than skill in swordplay. Now here I was leading an entirely civilized life with warm baths, hot food and healing magic, under the very noses of people were searching for us by every means available.

Several times I witnessed groups of searchers walking out of the forest into the stone circle and disappearing where the stones began. Shad and I could not resist running to the other side of the circle to see where they came out. This amused the Wanderers no end. They followed us, laughing and shouting encouragement and helped us find the suddenly re-emerging searchers. We would all stand at the edge of the circle calling out rude and provocative remark at their unaware backs. Even the priest mages with their magic crystals were unaware of us.

I examined the standing stones closely and found the same group of runes at the bottom of each. I did not recognize any of them, but I taught myself to copy them exactly as they were. When I was safe again, I planned to try using them with magical power and seeing where they got me. But as I was practicing these runes into the dust, someone put a foot out and rubbed them out. I looked up and saw Beg standing over me.

"Knowing just the runes will not do you any good, Enna Clever," she said chuckling a little.

"Then what will?" I cried. "Will you show me?"

"No," said Beg plumping herself down in the sun nearby. It was left to Shad to try and explain something of Klementari magic.

"I do not think you can do magic like the Wanderers unless you believe in the connectedness of all things as we do," said Shad. "You must be able to feel the life force in the world around you. You draw power into yourself from your connection with the lifeforce that flows through everything."

I could not imagine it. My power came from within me. This sounded like religious magic which drew its strength from the strength of beliefs of groups of people channeled through power crystals. But religious magic was not a strong magic and it was perfectly detectable.

"This all sounds like a kind of primitive animism," I said without thinking. "Mages have no time for religion. Its just superstition."

He smiled. "I'm only trying to make it easier for you to understand."

"I'm sorry." I said realizing how unguardedly I had spoken and how rude it sounded.

"You are entitled to think as you wish. I simply think you are wrong."

"Then you believe in these spirits in trees and rocks."

"It's not like that," he laughed. "For many years I went to church like a good little New Person, but I could never see Aumaz as a god up in the heavens needing his son Tansa as a messenger, because it seemed to me he was a part of all the things around us and that I could feel him when I was in the forest choosing wood and in the workshop carving it. I realize it's a heresy, but it's a pretty common heresy in the south, especially among half breeds like me and you. Now I do the morning chant again, I realize that Aumaz had just become the word I used for lifeforce and spirit."

"I don't know why Beg couldn't have explained this," I grumbled.

"The New People only treated the Klementari well while they had reason to fear them. When that power was gone, so was the fair treatment. Most Wanderers have good reason to resent the New People.