Fairy Godmother

Sometimes she felt as if she was learning so much so fast that her head was stuffed full of it all, and if she had to master one more thing, her skull was going to burst.

While Witches and Hedge-Wizards tended to control and direct magic by using things, (creating complicated potions and talismans), the Sorcerers and Sorceresses controlled magic with words using a special language of words of binding and loosing, that minutely described the effects a magician wanted. But a full Wizard or a Godmother worked strictly by will and intention. Oh, that sounded so very easy! But you had to learn how to focus yourself completely, so that nothing distracted you; you had to learn how to chart an exact course and commit yourself completely to the course you had decided on. And you had to learn to think on your feet, so that you could frame something that would steer The Tradition in the way you wanted it to go the moment that an opportunity presented itself.

This was why Arachnia, despite her best effort, had not thwarted The Tradition with her pseudo-curse. This was why Elena, shaking with fear and effort, had been able to counter the curse in a way that satisfied The Tradition. Faced with her first crisis, she had been so focused on it that by the time her will had been imposed there was no room for The Tradition to move except in the direction she wanted it to. Thanks to all her reading, she had known enough of The Tradition by then to be able to give it the path of least resistance in the direction she wanted it to go.

But the more practiced she became, the more experience she had, the more important the ability to focus would become. She would not have that fear to narrow her concentration down to the sharpest point. With familiarity came, if not contempt, certainly a loss of urgency; she had to learn how to make up for that with internal focus.

Wizards and Fairy Godmothers did more than merely counter curses; they also tested and guided Questers and dispensed punishments to seekers who failed the tests.

The little old lady in the woods, who after being treated kindly, dispensed the clues that a Quester needed to find his goal — those were Godmothers. The ferryman who had the answers to questions — also Godmothers, or Wizards. The hag at the bridge, the watcher at the door —

And when there was more than one Quester, when, for instance, it was a Quest by several young men, only one of whom would be worthy, it was the job of the Godmothers and Wizards to test these seekers to find the one who was worthy to pass on. And, if they did not measure up, to allot a punishment or send them in another direction that would, hopefully, teach them and correct their behavior. Many a Prince who had failed the test of kindness on the way to the captive Princess later became the hero of his own story — or, at the least, became the wise and virtuous King of his own land at the death of his father.

That was Godmother and Wizardly magic.

Wizards were fewer than Godmothers, and usually elected to be solitary, apart from the dwellings of men, living in caves or wild forests as hermits. But because Godmothers often acted as the local White Witches, they also had to learn Witchery in order to help their communities and maintain their fictive disguises; thus, Elena had not one, but two sets of lessons to master.

Of the two, the Witchery was the easiest; in fact, so far as she was concerned, it was something of a doodle. All you had to do was to follow the recipe to create the potion, whose purpose was determined by the ingredients. Then you infused the potion with a touch of power. Witches and Hedge-Wizards worked in subtle ways, attempting to make their influence felt, not at the crisis, but before there was any hint of a crisis. They operated at the lowest level of magic, where small changes might bring larger results. As a result, even the most powerful of Witches generally used the smallest amount of magic needed in order to bring about the desired result. More often than not, they did not use magic, as such, at all.

For instance — being kind to the abused and exploited stepdaughter of a neighbor...giving her encouragement and the odd meal, helping her to cope with a cup of tea and a word of advice. Yes, Elena's neighbors had been Witches — both of them. And, among many other things, they had kept a careful eye on Elena, guiding her, keeping her spirit from being crushed. Had she ever truly wanted, with all her heart, to become ordinary, they would have called on Madame Bella to come and take the weight of all of that Traditional Potential away from her, and she probably would have managed to find either a kind husband, or a position as a maid-of-all-work, when Madame Klovis departed on her search for another wealthy victim to wed. Probably the latter, though there was no telling for certain.

As it was, when they knew that Elena was determined to escape, no matter what it took, they had called Madame Bella to examine this potential Apprentice for herself. Those were the voices that Elena had heard that night, murmuring over the wall next door.

For their part, Sorcerers and Sorceresses intervened when things had gone so wrong that only enormous magical effort could save the day. They accompanied heroes and heroines on the quests, and when they did, the odds were usually stacked against them. They often watched over the children who would become heroes as they were raised in hiding. They fought at the side of heroes when the armies of good and evil clashed. They could go their entire lives without ever fulfilling that particular destiny, however, so they also served another set of functions. They often assisted Godmothers; they frequently devised the trials and tests that lesser questers had to pass. And, perhaps because of their affinity for language and deep, long thought, they were frequently mystics, being sought for their wisdom as well as their magic. A Sorcerer's life was often spent in long years of patient study and waiting, and it sometimes ended in a frenetic and peril-filled span of mere months. When there was combative magic darkening the skies, it was most often the Sorcerers and Sorceresses who were in the thick of it.

Yet, such times were few, and it was just as well that this was so, or the landscape would have been shattered by the scope of such conflicts. Most Sorcerers and Sorceresses never once raised a wand in anger. They lived and died in their distant, lofty towers, seldom venturing out, studying the heavens and the earth in splendid isolation unless someone happened to call upon them for some trifle or other.

Elena decided rather quickly that she would not much enjoy being a Sorceress.

She might have enjoyed being a Witch, but —

But could she have ever acted as her neighbors did, remaining apart from the people she served, staying out of their day-to-day quarrels, living in her town, yet apart from it? Witches and Hedge- Wizards could not take sides, could not become involved, dared to make no judgments, allowing events to judge themselves.

She didn't think so; she could not just stand apart from things and let them run their course without trying to set them right. She would never, for instance, have been able to stand being next door to her younger self, seeing how that self was mistreated by Madame Klovis. In fact, she probably would have marched right in one fine day after a beating and turned Madame and her two daughters into toads.

It was the passion to set things right that defined the Godmother and the Wizard; and this was also why they did not live among the people. To be a Godmother meant that you