Phoenix and Ashes

'Now, silly child, look at that note, why don't you?' Sarah said, half fondly, half scolding, giving Eleanor's shoulders a little shake. 'In her best copper-plate handwriting, and phrased as formally and stiff as an invitation to Lady Devlin to tea! Your mother was a simple village girl, child! She loved to read, but writing things? For her, when you wrote something, it was formal, stiff, and important! Well, except when you were writing down recipes. I don't think she ever wrote a letter in her life, not even to me, her best friend! Your father might have written her a love-letter or two, but she certainly didn't write any back! Do you understand what I'm saying? She could no more have written anything sentimental than—than commanded an Undine!'

The words penetrated the fog of her distress—and more than that, they made sense, perfect sense. Slowly the grief faded. 'So she—'

'Yes, you green-goose, she loved you more than her own life,' Sarah scolded. 'She loved you enough to spend hours writing down everything she knew about Fire Mastery! And this from a woman who, I know for a certain fact, would rather have scrubbed out the wash-house on hands and knees than pick up a pen.' Put like that—

Eleanor freed herself from Sarah's motherly embrace, smiled wanly at her, and wiped her eyes with her own apron-corner. 'I suppose I am being silly.'

Sarah shook her head, fondly. 'No, you were being perfectly natural. If you go on weeping, though, you will be acting in a very silly and selfish manner. Have you looked at the book yet?' Eleanor shook her head.

'Then it can wait until you've had some supper.' As practical as ever, Sarah drew her out into the kitchen where they put together mushrooms and eggs and wild herbs that Sarah had brought with her, along with careful gleanings from Alison's stores. Only when both of them were finished, the dishes and pans washed and put up, and everything tidy again, did Sarah go out to the parlor and return with the book and the lamp.

'Let's have a good look at this, shall we?' she said, conversationally.

An hour later, and Sarah was sitting there shaking her head, while Eleanor's head ached from trying to understand what was written in the pages of that copybook.

'Now I know I never want to be a Master,' Sarah said decisively. 'I like things plain! Plain as plain! I like earth to be Earth and not—' she waved her hand helplessly, 'Not Erda and Epona and gnomes and fertility and not wrapped up in symbols and fables!' She frowned. 'I like things to be one thing and not like one of those silly dolls you open up and find another, and another, and another.'

Eleanor blinked, her eyes sore, and rubbed both temples with the tips of her fingers. 'It's going to take me a long time,' she admitted. 'I can—it's like reaching for something on the top shelf that I can't see. I can barely touch it, make out the edge of it, but I know it's there, and if I can just reach a little further, I know I can grasp it—'

'Well, if that's what your mother mastered, all I can say is that I had no idea.' Sarah looked forlorn. 'She seemed so—ordinary.'

'It was all inside her,' Eleanor mused, shutting the book with a feeling that if she looked too much longer at those words they would start dancing about in her mind. 'I wonder where she learned it all? She doesn't say. She must have found some great Master to learn from, but who?'

Sarah sat back in her chair and reached for her teacup. 'Now that is a good question. I don't know who the Masters are, for the most part. They like to keep it that way, so people don't have a chance to let things slip. Other Masters know, of course, but that's all within their own circle.' She frowned. 'And another thing; the Masters in that circle are almost always men. Hmm. . . .'

'You think she must have found a lady Master of Fire? A secret one?' Eleanor asked eagerly.

'Or one found her. There is that old saying that when the student is ready, a teacher will find her.' Sarah nodded. 'And there's no telling who it would have been; she was from Stratford-on-Avon, so it wouldn't be anyone I could point a finger at. Stratford's always produced its share of odd ones and wizards, and it's not so much of a city that a Master would feel uncomfortable there. Not like London or Glasgow or Manchester.' She licked her lips. 'The more I think on it, the more that makes sense. I remember her telling me that the magic ran in her family, but deep; her grandsire was a Master, but not her father. Huh. Maybe 'twas her grandsire found her the Fire Master.'

'Well, whoever it was, he or she was like a university don,' Eleanor replied ruefully. 'This—this is—oh!'

An idea had suddenly occurred to her, and she sat up straight. 'What? What?' Sarah asked sharply.

'I just realized that I recognize this!' she said 'From the medieval history I was studying for the examinations to get into Oxford. This is alchemy—alchemy and medieval mysticism! The 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin' sort of thing! Maybe it was some sort of don she was studying with—'

'Well, it's like no way that I was taught or even heard of, but if it works well