The woman laughed as Preet walked onto her palm and up her arm. “Faziy will do. Technically I have taken all the charms classes to be granted a mastery, but I had to take leave of the university for a time before I could complete my credential. It was decided I can teach charms to the Upper and Lower Academies while I finish my mastery.” She saw Arram’s eyes go to the items on the shelves and the walls. “Go ahead—look around.”
He did so, listening to the sounds she exchanged with Preet. The teacher knew a number of birdcalls, trying them out when the youngster didn’t respond to blackbird sounds. He thought briefly that they should have realized this might be a problem, but he forgot about that in his fascination with the things on the wall shelves. They ranged from small metal, stone, and straw charms to necklaces, bracelets, dolls, braided or knotted strings, hand-sized mirrors, and wax or clay figures.
There were also several pieces like branches or sticks thickly coated in sand. One of them formed the shape of an O. He stretched his hand out over a slender shape. His hand tingled, and the hairs on the back of his fingers and wrist stood on end.
“Mages of long ago called them fulgurite,” Faziy said over his shoulder. Arram flinched. He didn’t even know the teacher had come up to him. “They are what happens when lightning strikes sand—well, very strong lightning. Beneath the surface it goes solid. We only know this when the sand on top washes off or is blown away.” She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Go on. Pick it up. It was fused a long time ago; it won’t hurt you.”
Arram gently wrapped his hand around a branch of it. He feared it would crumble to pieces, but it was as hard as stone. The tiny prickles raced up his arm again. “There’s lightning still in it!” he exclaimed, letting go.
She chuckled, a lovely, low sound in his ear. “That’s your imagination, my lad. The lightning was gone from these pieces centuries ago. Ages ago. You’ve been to the museum?” Arram nodded. “You’ve seen the skeletons of the giant lizards and birds, the huge elephants? It’s all from that time.”
Arram opened his mouth to argue, and closed it. Whether she had finished her classes to be a master or no, she was close to being one. It was not his place to argue. He did ask, “Why is that round one so different? The others just look like sticks.”
Faziy laughed. “Oh, that! I made that one!”
Arram gawped at her; even Preet squeaked.
Faziy looked down her nose at the little bird. “You’re not even supposed to be able to make sounds like that.” She looked at Arram. “I didn’t say it was easy.”
“You said it requires lightning!” Now it was time for him to squeak.
She smiled. “And it does. I am lucky enough that the lightning snakes find me amusing. When they’re about, sometimes I can coax them to help me do things. But it took years of practice, and knowledge, and study. Half of the time it doesn’t work, because they’re willful creatures.” She flicked the bird on the beak with a finger. “Most of the mages who try it incinerate themselves.”
Arram only grasped one idea out of all that she said. “L-l-lightning snakes?”
Faziy sighed and settled into one of the chairs at the room’s big table. She motioned for Arram to sit in another.
“Among the tribes, it is known that there is magic in far more things than the school mages believe,” she told him. “Well, lightning snakes ride with lightning in the season of storms. Some think they are the lords of lightning and give them names. Some think they are simply creatures like the immortals of old, the centaurs and Stormwings. I think they are more like gods. If there’s a big storm when we have class, I’ll try to show you some. Now, where did you end when you took charms the last time?”
Arram left the class dazed and filled with wonder. Never mind that he had made a botch of a twisted straw-and-wire charm for good crops. The thought of snakes made of lightning enchanted him. He couldn’t wait to see one!
He arrived early to his next class, which gave him private time to introduce Dagani to the sleeping Preet. Dagani eyed the bird and indicated a place where Arram could place her pouch out of the way as he worked.
“Lindhall told Faziy and me about her over lunch,” the master said. “I understand you just came from Faziy’s class.”
Arram nodded. Abruptly he said, “She told me about lightning snakes. Have you ever seen any?”
“No,” Dagani replied slowly, tracing an outline of something on a worktable. It rose, turning and twisting as Arram watched, fascinated. “But the desert shamans create their seemings in the fire. They want the seemings to find the real snakes, and call them to help the warriors in battle.” The outline fattened, turned jagged, and grew golden in color. Jagged wings sprouted in its sides, two pairs. The head formed, long and narrow, with red-orange hot coal eyes. It turned its head toward the door as Ozorne, Varice, and Tristan entered. They’d been chattering until they saw the lightning snake. As it rose to stand on the tip of its tail, flapping its wings, they froze.
The lightning snake hissed. Ozorne and Tristan immediately called up protective shields for themselves and Varice, creating a conflict—their Gifts did not mesh, and they had not thought to make allowance for another mage’s work. Sparks flew along with vile-smelling smoke, making the lightning snake screech. Arram called a breeze that took both smell and sparks out the still-open door, while with a hand gesture Dagani erased her simulacrum.
“I would say we have several lessons for today,” she told her students as the last of the smoke dissolved. “Lesson the first: learn if protection is even needed. Lesson the second: learn if the magics of your allies are compatible with yours. If they are not, work the charm that makes yours compatible with theirs. How many of you read the introduction in The Upper Academy: General Magic?”
Arram and Varice raised their hands. Ozorne and Tristan found someplace else to look.
Dagani rubbed her head. “The word to reveal if the magics of others are compatible with yours, as well as the sigils that make your Gift temporarily compatible with that of those nearby—both of these things are in the introduction. They are in the introduction because they are intended to introduce you to working magic with other mages. We shall practice these things, the four of you, while you decide which living creature you will create as your first simulacrum. Arram, do not choose a lightning snake,” she said when he opened his mouth.
Arram closed it. He’d been going to try just that.
“The larger the choice, the more power it consumes. The more magical the choice, the more power it consumes,” the master warned. “The simulacrum of a lightning snake would kill a beginner before that beginner even completed it.” Dagani looked at them all. “Choose a seat.” She pointed a scarlet-tinted fingertip at Tristan. “Your name?”
“Tristan Denane, Master,” he said, meeting her gaze.
“Tristan, tell me the word which reveals whether another’s Gift is compatible with your own. If you don’t know it, look it up.”