'Indeed we did.' He felt a flicker of amusement at her boldness. 'Very well, Rose, we can begin where we left off last night.'
He was not paying a great deal of attention to anything but the cadence of her reading once she began. He allowed the chair to take all of his weight, and stared into the obsidian mirror at her image as she slowly puzzled her way through the complicated German grammar of the first of the night's volumes. It was not an easy task to wade through this book, and Cameron was impressed by her fluency.
As she paused to decipher a particular word, she evidenced a flash of humor. 'I beg your pardon for taking so long with this sentence,' she said without looking up, 'But I sincerely hope that this fellow's grasp of Fire Magick was better than his penmanship and skill at writing, or I fear he came to a warm end.'
Cameron was surprised into a dry chuckle. 'I believe you can be easy on that score,' he replied. 'I am given to understand that he died peacefully in his bed at an extreme old age.'
She continued on for a bit further, then frowned, flipped ahead a few pages, then stopped altogether. 'Excuse me, Jason, but I think the reason you wish me to read this next section is for my benefit, and not yours.'
Once again she surprised him with her acuity. 'Your point?' he asked.
'While I have no objection to the principle, this man's handwriting is wretched, his spelling worse, and his grammar, even for a German, worse still.' She looked at the speaking-tube directly, as if she was looking straight at him. 'I think you would do your ears and my eyes a great deal of good if you would give me your understanding of a person's Magickal Nature, since that seems to be the subject of this particular segment of the volume.'
'She has a point,' the Salamander chuckled. 'You hated that book when Ridgeway wanted you to read it, and for the same reasons she dislikes it.'
Only too true. He considered his own state for a moment. Was he personally fit to give anyone a coherent explanation of anything?
Possibly. Just possibly. 'I will try, Rose,' he acknowledged, 'but you must bear in mind that my approach is modern, and tends to the rational and scientific, insofar as Magick can be either of those things. The solution I am searching for may be in more mystical realms and if your understanding is purely modern you may not translate later documents with the appropriate slant.'
'Then I will set this aside to read later, in stronger light,' she promised, and marked the book, placing it back on the table. Then she settled back in her chair, but rather than folding her hands in her lap, to his surprise she took a leather-covered notebook from the table and picked up a pencil, preparing to take notes!
He almost commented on that, and caught himself just in time. He could not let her know that he was able to watch her, or she might be offended. Worse, she might be angry, angry enough to demand to be released from this position.
I need her skills. There is no escaping the fact.
'Very well, if you are ready-' He cleared his throat, feeling a trifle self-conscious. Well, I cannot possibly bore her worse than those ancient professors she had to listen to. 'According to the System of Magick which we all use, as calculated by Pythagoras, all Magickal Power is embodied in the creatures of the Four Elements. If a human-or any other earthly creature, I suppose, but at the moment we are only concerned with humans-wishes to work Magick, he must do so through the intermediary of creatures of the Element which he commands.'
She nodded as she made notes. 'Just as an aside, are there any other creatures that work Magick?' she asked.
'For certain, I am only aware that the whales and dolphins have a few Magick-workers among their kind,' he said. 'They work Water Magick, of course. There are rumors of other creatures, Man-Apes in both the Himalayas and the forests of the Northwest, for instance, but nothing I can confirm. If they do exist, these creatures are extremely secretive and are rarely even glimpsed. It is believed that they would do anything to avoid contact with humans.'
'I suppose,' she said, touching the end of the pencil to her lips as she thought, 'That if they were working Magick, it would be to hide their presence from our own species, so you never would find out for certain, would you?'
He coughed. 'A point, I grant you. Well, to get back to the subject, as described by Herr Alexander Metzeger, whose handwriting you so despise-'
She flushed very prettily.
'-every human has all four Elements commingled in his Magickal Nature. Most of them possess exactly equal amounts of all four, and thus, command no Magick for themselves. It is only when there is an imbalance that one can work Magick, for it is only when there is an imbalance that a human comes near enough to the Nature of the Elemental that he can communicate with and command them.'
She scribbled fiercely in her little book, and he paused to allow her to catch up. 'Would that be something like a blind man having acute hearing?' she hazarded.
