Poor World by Sherwood Smith Page A

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    â€œWhat?” I almost yelled WE DO NOT! and managed to keep it back.
    But it probably showed in my face because Dejain gave me another of those amused glances, then said, “Black hair, blue eyes, pale skin, small build, but tough. Quick.”
    â€œTough?” I repeated faintly. “I’m not tough.”
    â€œYou’ve courage,” she said. “As for the rest, it’ll come with time, and growth. Kessler will expect you to meet his own high standards — you should probably prepare for that now.”
    â€œHigh standards? You mean, he doesn’t just sit around and direct the fumbl — the final plans?”
    If she noticed the slip, she gave no sign, but continued to mix powders slowly into some kind of concoction.
    â€œOh yes.” She laughed. “He hates showing off, so you might not see him at practice, but the fact is, it took him quite a while to find the best swordmasters, for that meant those who could best him.”
    â€œBut he’s so short, for a grownup!”
    â€œBut quick. And strong. Very. The result of years of single-minded focus on mastery.”
    I thought of Shnit, and said sourly, “It must run in the family.”
    She smiled. “It does indeed.”
    â€œYou know — ?”
    She laughed. “Yes. I’m not as young as I appear, for I’ve been around more than a century. Mastering my own arts.”
    Horror wrung through me — for one of the most telling differences between light magic and dark was in the anti-aging spell.
    Mindful of the possibility of someone on another world getting my records (I got here , after all), here’s a quick explanation. The light magic anti-aging spell works only if you perform it before the change called puberty (disgusting word), which hits people on Sartorias-deles when they reach their full growth. If you try it after, it simply won’t work. But if you do it as a kid and then change your mind and dissolve it, you finish growing. Dark magic will stop you at any age, but if you dissolve the spell, your body catches up with time all of a sudden, and also, it does weird things to you over time.
    Light magic cooperates with the magic of the world, which is why the spells are longer and they are hard to hold — and they sometimes fail. Dark magic forces magic from the world; it, too, is hard to hold, but that’s because there’s so much power built that the spell can consume the magician who isn’t strong enough to hold it. And the magic is spent, it doesn’t go back into the world when the spell ends. That’s where the names come from — dark meaning absence of light, or magic used up. This is why so many dark magic sorcerer-rulers ruin their kingdoms. Clair says they don’t care about the future, they want power now, at any price.
    I almost told Dejain that I’d stopped growing, but held that back. She seemed friendly enough, but little things tweaked at me: Kessler’s ‘absurd sense of loyalty’; her dark magic concoction, which was setting up a vapor that made my head buzz in a weird way; her attitude about Kessler’s goals. Like it was all no more important than a game.
    She’d been talking while I was thinking. Her quiet, sweet voice was almost lost in the eerie, distant buzzings that the vapors in her potion caused in my head.
    â€œ... goal is to reach the point at which there is nothing I do not know how to control, or do not have access to controlling if I so will. My present project here relates to minds and mental access. We used to have these abilities inborn, did you know that? And will again.”
    â€œI didn’t know,” I said. My voice sounded distant as well.
    â€œI learned slowly, on my own, mostly. It will not be so difficult for you. Think of the knowledge. The power you’ll have in ten years!”
    I did, and for a brief time, was tempted to join in wholeheartedly. What could be so