“Do you think you can find a solution?”
“I hope so I would hate to have to release him from apprenticeship. It would go harder on him than had I never chosen him.” His face showed his genuine concern. “It is confusing, Tully I think you’ll agree he has the potential for a great talent. As soon as I saw him use the crystal in my hut that night, I knew for the first time in years I might have at last found my apprentice. When no master chose him, I knew fate had set our paths to cross. But there is something else inside that boy’s head, something I’ve never met before, something powerful. I don’t know what it is, Tully, but it rejects my exercises, as if they were somehow . . . not correct, or . . . ill suited to him. I don’t know if I can explain what I’ve encountered with Pug any better. There is no simple explanation for it.”
“Have you thought about what the boy said?” asked the priest, a look of thoughtful concern on his face.
“You mean about my having been mistaken?”
Tully nodded. Kulgan dismissed the question with a wave of his hand “Tully, you know as much about the nature of magic as I do, perhaps more. Your god is not called the God Who Brought Order for nothing. Your sect unraveled much about what orders this universe. Do you for one moment doubt the boy has talent?”
“Talent, no. But his ability is the question for the moment.”
“Well put, as usual. Well, then, have you any ideas? Should we make a cleric out of the boy, perhaps?”
Tully sat back, a disapproving expression upon his face. “You know the priesthood is a calling, Kulgan,” he said stiffly.
“Put your back down, Tully. I was making a joke.” He sighed. “Still, if he hasn’t the calling of a priest, nor the knack of a magician’s craft, what can we make of this natural ability of his?”
Tully pondered the question in silence for a moment, then said, “Have you thought of the lost art?”
Kulgan’s eyes widened. “That old legend?” Tully nodded. “I doubt there is a magician alive who at one time or another hasn’t reflected on the legend of the lost art. If it had existed, it would explain away many of the shortcomings of our craft.” Then he fixed Tully with a narrowed eye, showing his disapproval. “But legends are common enough Turn up any rock on the beach and you’ll find one. I for one prefer to look for real answers to our shortcomings, not blame them on ancient superstitions.”
Tully’s expression became stern and his tone scolding. “We of the temple do not count it legend, Kulgan! It is considered part of the revealed truth, taught by the gods to the first men.”
Nettled by Tully’s tone, Kulgan snapped, “So was the notion the world was flat, until Rolendirk—a magician, I’ll remind you—sent his magic sight high enough to disclose the curvature of the horizon, clearly demonstrating the world to be a sphere! It was a fact known by almost every sailor and fisherman who’d ever seen a sail appear upon the horizon before the rest of the ship since the beginning of time!” His voice rose to a near shout.
Seeing Tully was stung by the reference to ancient church canon long since abandoned, Kulgan softened his tone “No disrespect to you, Tully. But don’t try to teach an old thief to steal. I know your order chops logic with the best of them, and that half your brother clerics fall into laughing fits when they hear those deadly serious young acolytes debate theological issues set aside a century ago. Besides which, isn’t the legend of the lost art an Ishapian dogma?”
Now it was Tully’s turn to fix Kulgan with a disapproving eye. With a tone of amused exasperation, he said, “Your education in religion is still lacking, Kulgan, despite a somewhat unforgiving insight into the inner workings of my order.” He smiled a little. “You’re right about the moot gospel courts, though. Most of us find them so amusing because we remember how painfully grim we were about them when we were acolytes.” Then turning serious, he said, “But I am serious when I say your education is lacking. The Ishapians have some strange beliefs, it’s true, and they are an insular group, but they are also the oldest order known and are recognized as the senior church in questions pertaining to interdenominational differences.”
“Religious wars, you mean,” said Kulgan with an amused snort.
Tully ignored the comment. “The Ishapians are caretakers for the oldest lore and history in the Kingdom, and they have the most extensive library in the Kingdom I have visited the library at their temple in Krondor, and it is most impressive.”
Kulgan smiled and with a slight tone of condescension said, “As have I, Tully, and I have browsed the shelves at the Abbey of Sarth, which is ten times as large. What’s the point?”