But Idalia was occupied with retrieving two tankards from the mantel and the cider-jug from the cold-cellar beneath the floor.
'Now. Come and learn,' she said, handing one to him once they were full.
There was a tiny spring-fed pond behind the cabin that they used for their drinking and washing water. Kellen knew that Idalia also used it as a scrying pool—the bottom was littered with keystones, and for a while after he'd found out about that, he'd been a little nervous about drinking water charged with magic—but since nothing bad ever happened, and both Idalia and Shalkan drank the water too, he'd gotten over his case of nerves.
Scrying was something he'd heard discussed before, though the City Mages never did it around Apprentices. Idalia had only done the spell a couple of times since he'd come to the Wildwood, and each time she'd invited him to watch and learn. At first, Kellen had thought it would be pretty much a waste of time—from what little Anigrel had been willing to tell him about the workings of the High Magick, watching another Mage do magick was about as interesting as watching someone else solve a Maths problem—but he'd been surprised to discover that he could see and hear everything Idalia did when she scryed. He wasn't sure if that was because he was in some sense her apprentice, or because the Wild Magic was simply more generous in its nature than the High Magick he'd previously studied.
But where the High Mages used scrying to keep an eye on the lands beyond the City, there didn't seem to be a good reason for Idalia to use the spell, for all they'd looked at were places they had already been and could easily walk to. When he'd asked why she was showing him the spell, Idalia told him that scrying wasn't the sort of thing a Wildmage tended to use very often, unless he or she wanted to keep an eye on a friend or loved one from afar, or unless he or she had the feeling that the Wild Magic itself wanted it done, though it was a skill that every Wildmage learned.
Since at the moment, she didn't have anyone or anything she needed to watch over, it was more something that Idalia did now and then whenever she felt it was a good idea to do it, letting the Wild Magic itself dictate what the scrying showed her. That still struck Kellen as a rather slipshod way to run a magical system. Doing something whenever you felt like it, rather than by a regular schedule of times and observances—where was the discipline, the craft, in that?
But Wild Magic and High Magick were as un-alike as the Wildwood and the formal gardens of Armethalieh. Both had flowers in them… and there the resemblance ended. Applying the standards of the one to the other was a good way to get a headache, as far as Kellen could figure out. He wondered if one of the reasons Idalia was so good at Wild Magic— and he was so bad at it—was because he'd gotten High Mage training and she hadn't. Maybe she had fewer preconceptions to unlearn. Maybe women were just better suited to becoming Wildmages in general, because of their generally more flighty and chaotic natures.
Oh, better not even let Idalia catch you thinking of thinking that! You know it isn't true, not even a little bit! But there has to be some reason she's so much better at this stuff than I am…
Other than the reason he didn't even want to consider. Not even for a moment. Not even in jest. That he was Tainted. Or she was.
Idalia reached the edge of the spring and knelt down, motioning Kellen to kneel beside her. She rolled up her sleeve and fished around in the spring among the keystones, for all the world like a housewife testing the freshness of hen's eggs.
'Ah. Plenty of power for a few more spells here. And I think it's time you actually learned this one, rather than just watching me do it.' She rocked back on her heels and took a deep drink of her cider.
Kellen stared at her in horror. Him? Learn to scry? Now? He'd never felt less like doing magic in his life!
'You remember what's involved?' Idalia prompted. 'The ingredients?'
'I, uh, I—' For a moment Kellen's mind went numbingly blank, then he remembered reading the spell in The Book of Moon and from watching Idalia. 'Fern leaf. Cider—or wine, if you don't have any cider. Mead will do, if you don't have either of those. Fruit of the earth, though. Four drops into the water, then float the leaf on the surface.'
'Good,' Idalia said encouragingly. 'And… ?'
This was just like Undermage Anigrel's lessons, Kellen thought resentfully, for just a moment. Recite back what you've memorized, but never get a chance to use it…
But she had said he was going to use it. ' 'You who travel between Earth and Sky, show me what you see.' But, Idalia, how do you know what you'll see?'
'You don't, really,' Idalia said. 'Unless you're doing a specific search— and remember that the more specific you get, the higher the price,' Idalia reminded him. 'Oh, you can have something in mind, and then, if you're lucky you might get that, but with the Wild Magic, you see what you need to see, not what you want to see. Even if you don't understand what you see—and often you won't—it's more important to see those things than to just get caught up in serving your own desires. Lately I've been trying to keep an eye on the City—endless Council meetings, mostly about how everyone outside of the walls is a covert or overt enemy of the City— trying to find out if they know you escaped the Hunt. I haven't heard anything about you, though.'
She'd been watching the Council? Why hadn't she told him? So he wouldn't worry? And why hadn't she had him scrying? Because she knew he'd fail? Or because she knew he'd see… something else? Something she didn't
