An Encounter

A young girl I knew once met a wizard. What her name was I forget: I know not how or why they came together, nor have I learned whither either of them has travelled since, for she was a child of seven years when their eyes met, and he but a prentice mage in his first practice of magic, and none too sure of his skill. Perhaps it was for this reason she was unaware of his calling, or, more likely, she had no ability of her own to sense the magic latent in him; and the silver amulet of his protection lay hidden beneath his shirt, which was damp from his morning's exertion and clung to his skin. Nor was he a striking figure to look at. Somewhere in the lore it is said that wizard apprentices must be thin and gangly, or perhaps instead small and awkward, wearing owl lenses and a sorcerer's hat far too big for them. This one was no exception - except for the hat, the existence of which would have puzzled him far more than it would have her, as he did not have her advantages, having never imagined such a thing.

Why she approached him must remain a mystery. All I know is that she, passing on her way to school, saw him running from house to house, delivering printed advertisements for little pay: for wizards too must eat, and stave and charm are no longer free passage in a world of numbers and facts which has abandoned its beliefs. Most on his route resented his deliveries and to many he was invisible altogether by a far more effective magic than any he commanded then: but she, young elf-child, smiled at him.

That should have been the end of it. He was tired, he had been studying for most of the previous night books both of power and otherwise; and he had been walking much of that morning in a fine misty rain, brooding over his own inadequacies and the mad wisdom of a teacher who, far from abating a simple rainstorm, chose to go dancing delightedly in puddles.

But, almost involuntarily: he smiled back.

Indeed it was impossible to refuse her. It was a magic unrelated to anything he had ever studied. Before he even thought to defend himself he found he had no defence. No doubt her mother had warned her time and time again about the dangers of speaking of strangers and especially such a one, clearly at the very lowest dregs of society - and yet here was the golden opportunity: could she have resisted it any more than he? She began to tell him most earnestly about her lost pet, and how could he but sit down and listen?

What weighs just another small, scruffy dog on the scales of the world? What weighs the sorrow of a forced parting, a demand for a grown-up understanding nevertheless not understood? Crying out soundlessly, stripped of the ruthless barricade in which he had so long since encased himself from tears and from laughter, he found himself reaching for a power for the first time familiar as a part of himself, for the first time answering easily to his certain touch: and there in the balance between reason and love he made of himself a channel for another's grief, and then for the loss of that grief, and then for the loss of memory itself.

She never noticed, although her parents sometimes wondered at the dancing ray of sunlight which had made itself over into their child. But the wizard knew: and his knowledge was his loss. Who, having tasted of the forbidden fruit, can ever return into ignorance?

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