“That’s fine,” Wiz said. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. Whatever that stuff is, it works like a charm.”
“Oh, it’s not a charm,” Moira said seriously. “Just a healing potion. With the proper charm I could heal your hands instantly, but that would take magic and it might attract attention.” She moved away from him to check the contents of the pot.
“You’re a magician, right?” he asked, trying to recapture the moment.
Moira shrugged. “In a small way. I am a hedge witch.”
“That’s interesting. What does a hedge witch do?”
“What do I do? Oh, herbs and simples. A little healing. Some weather magic. I try to warn of dangers, find lost objects and strayed animals.” She lifted the pot off the fire and produced two wooden bowls and horn spoons from her pack.
“Eat now,” she said. “You can use a spoon well enough even with your hands.”
The mixture in the pot looked awful but tasted surprisingly good. The tartness of the fruit and the rich saltiness of the meat blended well with the bland barley.
“Is Bal-Simba a hedge witch too?”
Moira laughed, a delightful sound. “No, Bal-Simba is of the Mighty.” Her face clouded. “Probably he is the Mightiest of the Mighty now that Patrius is dead.” She returned to her eating.
“What do the Mighty do?” Wiz asked in an effort to keep the conversation going.
“They are our greatest wizards. They teach the other orders, they help wherever great magic is required, they study arcane lore and they try to protect us from the Dark League.” She sighed. “These days mostly they try to protect us from the Dark League.”
“Why aren’t they protecting us then?”
Moira looked annoyed. “They are protecting us, Sparrow. Bal-Simba stayed behind to cast false trails to confuse the League’s agents who sought to spy us out. The whole North is protected by the Watchers of the Council of the North who blunt the League’s efforts to use their magic here. Even now the Watchers are doubtless holding off the League’s efforts to search us out. Just because you cannot see the works of the Mighty, never doubt they protect you, Sparrow.”
“Sorry.”
“You should be sorry.”
They sat in uncomfortable silence.
“What’s magic like?” Wiz asked at last.
“Like?” Moira asked, puzzled. “t’s not like anything. It simply is . Magic is the basic stuff of the World. We swim in a sea of magic like fish in the ocean.”
“And you can make it work for you?”
“A magician can make magic work for himself or herself. But there are very few magicians. Perhaps one person in one hundred has any talent at all for magic and far, far fewer ever become truly skilled.”
Wiz studied the effect of the firelight on her hair and eyes. “How do you learn to do magic?”
“You find a magician to take you as an apprentice. Then you study and practice and learn as much as you can. Eventually you either cannot learn more or you must travel to find a more advanced teacher.”
“But there aren’t schools or anything?”
Moira snorted. “Magic is a craft, Sparrow. It cannot be learned by rote like sums or the days of the week.”
“How did you learn?”
“There was a hedge witch in the village that took me in after . . . after I left home. He taught me what he could. Then I traveled to the Capital and studied under some of the wizards there.” She sighed. “I did not have talent of a high order so I became hedge witch for the village of Blackbrook Bend.”
“So, how do you work magic?”
“First you must know what you are doing,” Moira said. “Then you must perform the appropriate actions with the proper phrases. If you do it correctly and if you make no mistakes, then you make magic work for you.”
Wiz gestured with the stick he had used to poke up the fire. “You mean if I wave a magic wand and say—uh—’bippity bobbity boo’ then . . . ?”
A lance of flame shot from the smouldering end of the stick into the heart of the campfire. The blaze exploded in a ball of incandescent white and an evil orange column soared above the tops of the trees. Wiz gasped for breath in the suffocating blast of heat. Through the haze and blinding glare he saw Moira, on her feet and gesturing frantically.