Free Nor Iron Bars A Cage by Kaje Harper

that’s all.”
    “But where did the other kinds of magic go? Did people just forget how to do the spells, or wouldn’t they work anymore?
    “No one knows.”
    “Couldn’t you call up the ghost of an old mage and ask?”
    “Believe me, it’s been tried. But you can only call spirits who are still hanging around the material world. Spirits who have strong reasons to linger. I guess true mages don’t. You also have to have a focus, an object that was precious or personal to the ghost you’re calling. The custom of burning the dead mage with all his personal effects was probably intended to help prevent that.” I’d guess I’d inadvertently been following ancient tradition, when I gave Meldov his send-off by fire.
    “So all that stuff from the old tales is lost?”
    “Perhaps some of it never was true. But there are enough artifacts like that tower to say that mages once had talents that no one now can duplicate.”
    “And no one wrote that stuff down, to pass it on?”
    “That was Meldov’s holy quest. Finding an old book that would unlock the secrets of the mages. He never did though, no matter where he looked. You know, the plague years coincide with the passing of the last true mages. Meldov theorized that maybe in the dark years that followed, when a lot of people died and books were burned to keep warm, the secrets passed out of human keeping. He still thought they might be out there somewhere. He summoned other old spirits to question about it, but never learned more than that.”
    Tobin shuddered and I almost laughed. He didn’t know the half of it.
     He said, “I can understand wanting to know. But summoning spirits sounds uncanny. Not something I’d care to do. Although I guess, if that’s where your talents lie…”
    “I was fourteen when he apprenticed me and began teaching me the basics. You remember.” I’d been flying high as a kite, because the marvelous Meldov had chosen me. “He told me I had a rare gift, but I’d have to earn true apprenticeship. Lots of basic chores, of course, and languages the hard way.”
    “There’s an easy way?”
    I shuddered in my turn. “Oh yes.” Eventually I said, “When I was sixteen he began including me in the rituals. You were gone on your first campaign by then, and he told me I was ready. Summoning takes strength of will and attention to detail. Get the spell wrong, let your attention slip, and the revenant spirit may escape, either back out of reach or loose to haunt somewhere. Two people can hold fixed attention better than one, and two people checking the spellcraft means fewer mistakes.”
    “Could anyone do it then? Raise a ghost? If they know the right spells?”
    “I don’t think so. Meldov said we were special, that the focus of will needed to complete a spell was something not many men could accomplish. He said sorcerers were ninety percent training, but without the ten percent spark all the training in the world would be useless.”
    “And you had the spark.”
    “So it seems.” There, that was the easy part done with. I could stop there. Tobin had said he wouldn’t push me. But perhaps telling him just a bit more would help him understand my reactions. I hadn’t expected to ever share this with anyone, but then I hadn’t anticipated ever seeing Tobin again.
    “When I was almost eighteen, things began to change. Meldov had always liked the nighttime more than the day. Since most summoning spells work far better in the darkness, he’d taken to waking at dusk and going to bed at daybreak.”
    “I’ve heard most sorcerers do that. I know the king usually consults his mages after dark.”
    “Maybe. But in the past Meldov would sometimes spend daylight hours awake too, working well past a summer dawn or even working straight through from one night to the next. So I was surprised to realize as winter became spring that he was still going to bed with the sun that year even as the nights got shorter, and not rising until dark.