“Hear me out, kid,” Aahz said, raising a restraining hand. “I made a mistake, and that mistake has dumped us into a situation that needs a master magician. More than a master magician’s abilities, we need a master magician’s conscience. Do you follow me?”
“No, “I admitted.
“Not surprising,” Aahz sighed. “That’s why I tried to trick you into completing this mission instead of explaining it. So far, all your training has been on physical abilities without developing your professional conscience.”
“You’ve taught me to keep one eye on the profits,” I pointed out defensively.
“That’s not what I mean, kid. Look, for a minute forget about profits.”
“Are you feeling okay, Aahz?” I asked with genuine concern. “You don’t sound like yourself at all.”
“Will you get off my back, kid,” he snarled. “I’m trying to explain something important!”
I sank into a cowed silence. Still I was reassured. Aahz was definitely Aahz.
“When you were apprenticed to Garkin,” Aahz began, “and even when you first met me, you didn’t want to be a magician. You wanted to be a thief. To focus your energies behind your lessons, I had to stress how much benefit you could reap from learning magik.”
He paused. I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. He was right, both in his recollections and his interpretation of them.
“Well,” he sighed, “there’s another side to magik. There’s a responsibility … a responsibility to your fellow practitioners, and, more importantly, to magik itself. Even though we have rivals and will probably acquire more if we live that long, and even though we may fight with them or beat them out for a job, we are all bound by a common cause. Every magician has a duty to promote magik, to see that its use is respected and reputable. The greater the magician, the greater his sense of duty.”