could see down into the clear inside of the stone. He looked at Idalia inquiringly.
'A rock?' he asked dubiously.
'We can use almost anything, but crystals and gemstones are easiest to work with,' she told him. 'Keystones—even if the Mage Council does use a version of them—are not in themselves a bad thing. We can use them, too. High Magick and Wild Magic both require payment, even if they don't call it 'payment' in High Magick. The power to change things has to come from somewhere. In High Magick, it comes from the citizens of the City as well as from the Mages themselves—which wouldn't be so bad, if the citizens were told about it and given some choice in the matter.' She shook her head.
'You probably already know that part of managing the costs of a spell of the Wild Magic can be done by banking personal energy against a future request. The way to do that is by storing your personal energy in a keystone—or several keystones, as each one will only hold so much energy— and then emptying them at need. Of course, using a keystone costs more in banked energy than if you cast a spell in the regular way—probably because stored energy isn't 'coming from the heart,' but sometimes, especially for small things, it's just more practical to use a keystone in order to avoid Magedebt.' She smiled. 'After all, you don't want to have to go out rescuing a nest of fledgling birds, as it were, every time you want to use a little Finding Spell! So I'm going to show you how to make a keystone.'
'Now?' Kellen said, recoiling. After what it had taken to get here, he wasn't sure he ever wanted to have anything to do with magic—High, Wild, or any other kind—ever again.
'Relax,' Idalia said, looking amused at his skittishness. 'It won't hurt. And it isn't a spell, so there's no question of paying a price for the work. Just relax. This won't hurt. If there was ever anything harmless in magic, this is it—why, once you've made the stone, I won't be able to use the power in it. You, and only you, will be able to access it.'
Unlike the Talismans…
'What you need to do is feel your way into the stone. Pour yourself into it, the way water pours into a cup, and when you pull back, just leave a little of yourself behind.' She gave his hand an encouraging pat. 'I'll show you now.'
Kneeling before him, she clasped her strong callused hands over his, folding his reluctant fingers around the stone. 'Relax,' Idalia repeated firmly. 'This stone has been used before. It knows the way.'
For a long moment nothing happened. Kellen felt awkward and a little silly; all he was aware of was his surroundings—the sunshine, the fresh air, the birdcalls, and the unfamiliar trees. Despite his previous experiences with the Wild Magic, a part of him insisted that this wasn't magic. Magic was incense and incantations done in the hours of darkness, long elaborate memorized rituals and hours of painstaking preparation. It couldn't be this simple, this natural.
Then the stone seemed to grow warm in his hands, as if the blood that flowed through his veins were flowing through the stone as well. He felt a faint distant tugging—and then, as if some instinctive part of him had gotten the idea—he pushed…
—And then Idalia's hands were on his shoulders, steadying him as he slid sideways, suddenly dizzy and weak. He leaned against her, blinking dazedly, feeling as if he'd just run for miles.
'Too much too soon, little brother!' Idalia said, laughing and ruffling his hair. 'You don't do anything by halves, do you?' She plucked the keystone from his fingers and dropped it back into the basket.
'I guess not,' Kellen said weakly. He took a deep breath and sat up again, pushing the dizziness away with an effort of will. 'So that's how you charge a keystone?' he asked, trying hard to sound as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
'Usually it's not so dramatic,' Idalia answered dryly. 'Usually, the Wildmage doesn't try fully charging a stone when he's still recovering from a mauling. But yes, that's how it's done. They won't replace the personal price the Wildmage has to pay for the larger spells, of course. But they're a help.'
'Idalia.' Kellen hesitated, then plunged on. He had so many questions, and even if he wasn't completely sure he could trust her answers, there was no one else he could ask. 'Why is that? Why does the price… change? Why is it so, well, peculiar? I did two different Finding Spells, and both times, the price was… well, it was nothing like anything I ever studied in the High Magick. And I didn't exactly get what I asked for, either.'
'I think it's all a matter of balances,' Idalia answered slowly, as if she had to think hard before she spoke. 'I'm not sure. I've worked most of this out from The Book of Stars, which—as you've probably discovered— is the most difficult to understand of the three Books. I believe that what our own power does is enable us to make our requests of—some Great Power. I can't explain it any better than that.'
'The Eternal Light?' Kellen asked stumblingly. The Eternal Light was the only Great Power he'd ever heard of.
'Nothing that bloodless and impersonal,' Idalia said dismissively. 'The High Mages like to make everything abstract and completely removed from the real world, but I don't think the Powers that made us are anything like their Eternal Light. The Elves have their own explanations and names for it all, and they're nothing like the Eternal Light. Better, I think.' She brooded for a moment. 'Let's just call them 'the Gods,' and leave it at that. And I think the Gods need people here in the world to make minor adjustments now and again to keep things running properly; the Elves say that They don't meddle in the affairs of mortals lightly, and that when they choose to, They need mortal hands to do those things—but that They will neither command nor compel, only make an exchange. That's
