Now little tendrils of light were spinning out from each of the beams, reaching out until they met in a kind of latticework. When this had spread to the canvas overhead, Tarma began to notice that the wind, which had been howling and tugging at the canvas, had been cut off, and that the shelter was noticeably warmer as a result.
Kethry sagged then, and allowed herself to half-collapse against Rodi's bulk.
'Took less than I might think, hmm?'
'Any more comments like that and I'll make you stay outside.'
'First you'd have to fight Kessira. Have some dinner.' Tarma passed her half the rabbit; it was still warm and amazingly juicy and both of them wolfed down their portions with good appetite, nibbling the bones clean, then cracking them and sucking out the last bit of marrow. With the bones licked bare, they finished with the roots of Tarma's gleaning, though more than half of Tarma's share went surreptitiously to Kessira.
When they had finished, the sun was gone and the storm building to full force. Tarma peeked out the curtain of tent-canvas at the front of the shelter; the fire was already smothered. Tarma noticed then that the light-web gave off a faint illumination; not enough to read by, but enough to see by.
'What is -- all this?' she asked, waving a hand at the light-lattice. 'Where'd it come from?'
'It's a variation of the fire-shield I raised; it's magical energy manifesting itself in a physical fashion. Part of that energy came from me, part of it was here already and I just reshaped it. In essence, I told it I thought it was a wall, and it believed me. So now we have a 'wall' between us and the storm.'
'Uh, right. You told that glowing thing you thought it was a wall, and it believed you -- '
Kethry managed a tired giggle at her partner's expression. 'That's why the most important tool a magician has is his will; it has to be strong in order to convince energy to be something else.'
'Is that how you sorcerers work?'
'All sorcerers, or White Winds sorcerers?'
'There's more than one kind?'
'Where'd you think magicians came from anyway? Left in the reeds for their patrons to find?' Kethry giggled again.
'No, but the only 'magicians' the Clans have are the shamans, and they don't do magic, much. Healing, acting as advisors, keepers of outClan knowledge -- that's mostly what they do. When we need magic, we ask Her for it.'
'And She answers?' Kethry's eyes widened in fascination.
'Unless She has a damn good reason not to. She's very close to us -- closer than most deities are to their people, from what I've been able to judge. But that may be because we don't ask Her for much, or very often. There's a story -- ' Tarma half smiled. ' -- there was a hunter who'd been very lucky and had come to depend on that luck. When his luck left him, his skills had gotten very rusty, and he couldn't manage to make a kill. Finally he went to the shaman, and asked him if he thought She would listen to a plea for help. The shaman looked him up and down, and finally said, 'You're not dead yet.' '
'Which means he hadn't been trying hard enough by himself?'
'Exactly. She is the very last resort -- and you had damned well better be careful what you ask Her for -- She'll give it to you, but in Her own way, especially if you haven't been honest with Her or with yourself. So mostly we don't ask.' Tarma warmed to Kethry's interest, and continued when that interest didn't flag. This was the first chance she'd had to explain her beliefs to Kethry; before this, Kethry had either been otherwise occupied or there hadn't been enough privacy. 'The easiest of Her faces to deal with are the Maiden and the Mother, they're gentler, more forgiving; the hardest are the Warrior and the Crone. Maiden and Mother don't take Oathbound to themselves, Warrior and Crone do. Crone's Oathbound -- no, I won't tell you -- you guess what they do.'
'Uh,' Kethry's brow furrowed in thought, and she nibbled a hangnail. 'Shamans?'
'Right! And Healers and the two Elders in each Clan, who may or may not also be Healers or shamans. Those the Crone Binds are Bound, like the Kal'enedral, to the Clans as a whole, serving with their minds and talents instead of their hands. Now -- you were saying about magicians?' She was as curious to know about Kethry's teaching as Keth seemed to be about her own.
'There's more than one school; mine is White Winds. Um, let me go to the very basics. Magic has three sources. The first is power from within the sorcerer himself, and you have to have the Talent to use that source -- and even then it isn't fully trained by anyone I know of. I've heard that up north a good ways they use pure mind- magic, rather than using the mind to find other sources of power.'
'That would be -- Valdemar, no?'
