Part 22 (1/2)
”Hammernip?” asked Marion.
”Hamar-gnipe,” said Leslie. ”'The peak of a crag.' Throwing people off said Leslie. ”'The peak of a crag.' Throwing people off hamar-gnipen hamar-gnipen used to be a prime way of sacrificing them to the G.o.ds.” She turned to Danny. ”I went to college, Marion didn't. So I educate him when I can.” used to be a prime way of sacrificing them to the G.o.ds.” She turned to Danny. ”I went to college, Marion didn't. So I educate him when I can.”
”And I spit in her soup,” said Marion brightly.
”Our Hammernip isn't much of a crag,” said Danny. ”More like a hillock. A down. A barrow.” He looked at Marion. ”I haven't gone to college yet. I just read.”
”Darlin',” said Leslie, ”everybody on Earth stays alive day to day solely because everyone they meet decides, every single day, not to kill them. For instance, you could gate your way into my chest and pull my heart out right now. Or squeeze it hard and make it stop.”
The thought made Danny almost gag. ”That's just sick,” he said. Yet at the same time, he couldn't stop himself from thinking: Cool. Why didn't I I think of that? think of that?
”Gatemages have done it before,” said Leslie.
”We're taking you on as a student,” said Marion. ”Let that be enough for now.”
”Not so fast,” said Danny. ”You act like you're doing me this big favor and it's okay for you to test me before you'll 'take me on'-but you're not gatemages. You've never known a gatemage in your life. There's no manual on how to do gatemagery or how to train a gatemage. What in the world are you going to teach me?”
”There are certain basics that you don't know,” said Marion.
”So tell me.”
”Not till the pies are done.” Marion went back to the kitchen.
”Isn't he simply maddening?” asked Leslie. ”But he's a Cobblefriend, and he's been able to sense the presence of large deposits of both oil and coal in various places, using his credentials as a geologist-he actually did go to college, all the way to a Ph.D.-and the royalties from the wells and mines allow me to maintain my farming habit. I dropped out of college to marry him and put him through school. And in case you're wondering, I'm a beastmage, most specifically a Clawsister, though it hardly seems the right term to use when my heartbeasts are all cows. Still, it's better than 'Udderbuddy.'”
”You're a Cowsister?” asked Danny. ”No wonder you have to do the milking.”
”They never kick me, if that's what you mean. We get along very well. Sometimes I wish I had an affinity with a different kind of beast. I'd love to experience leaping like a gazelle, or pouncing like a lion, or soaring like a hawk.”
”My Uncle Zog is a hawk sometimes. When he isn't a vulture.”
”How metaphorically apt,” said Leslie. ”I once knew Zog, if he's the same one. The way you Families recycle names, it's hard to be sure we're talking about the same man.”
”There's only one Zog,” said Danny, ”and he's an angry, vicious piece of work.”
”And yet I don't recall him leaving someone behind with a b.l.o.o.d.y stump of a thumb and a bullet in their brain.”
”That's because he eats his kills,” said Danny.
Leslie laughed. ”Oh, you're funny.”
”I wouldn't put it past him,” said Danny.
”Well, when he's riding his heartbound, of course he experiences eating whatever the heartbound eats. I can tell you that I know the sweet pleasure of chewing cud, for instance. Yet gra.s.s, half-digested or fresh, has never never pa.s.sed pa.s.sed these these lips.” lips.”
Danny felt a little relieved, but also disappointed. ”I thought the longer you rode your heartbound, the more like them you became.”
”In temperament, perhaps, not in diet. I'm very calm, though I'm also skittish and p.r.o.ne to stampede.”
”What are the basics you can teach me? Because I could never do any of the things they taught the other kids to do.”
”And what was that, exactly?”
”Finding your outself. Making clants. Love and serve the source of your strength. That sort of thing.”
”And why do you think you weren't doing those things?”
”Because nothing ever happened.”
”And mightn't that have been the fault of your teachers?”
”Maybe,” said Danny. ”But what would a gatemage 'love and serve'? Doors and windows? And if you don't have have an outself, you can't very well do anything with it.” an outself, you can't very well do anything with it.”
”Everyone has an outself, Danny. Even the most commonplace drowther, whether he knows how to set it loose or rein it in.”
”I don't,” said Danny stubbornly.
”Well, then, we have a long way to take you, since you do have one. But let's start by telling you something that is is known about gatemages. You could not make a gate without an outself. Gates are your clants, you see. Each of them is built around a small portion of your outself, and it opens and closes-or disappears completely-under your complete control. Call in your outself, and the gate doesn't just close, it dies. It's gone.” known about gatemages. You could not make a gate without an outself. Gates are your clants, you see. Each of them is built around a small portion of your outself, and it opens and closes-or disappears completely-under your complete control. Call in your outself, and the gate doesn't just close, it dies. It's gone.”
”So when Loki closed the gates, he was just calling in his outself?”
”That would close only the gates that he he had made. He closed had made. He closed all all the gates, even those made by long-dead mages.” the gates, even those made by long-dead mages.”
”But if a gatemage dies, how can his gates continue, if they're clants?”
”What happens to any other mage if someone kills his body while his outself is controlling a clant or riding the heartbound beast?”
”The clant begins to fade,” said Danny, thinking back to lessons he'd been taught. ”And it keeps going through the motions it was last a.s.signed by the dying mage. They told us that was how legends of ghosts began-people seeing a fading clant from a dead mage.”
”And if you die while riding your heartbound?” asked Leslie.
”Then we have a beast that can talk, or at least understand human speech. Which is where the idea of talking animals and werewolves comes from. But the outself gradually fades and gets lost in the mind of the heartbound.”
And Danny made the extrapolation to his own magery. ”So every gate I've made remains after I die, for a while at least.”
”Only the ones you haven't already closed and gathered in.”
Danny didn't like confessing a weakness, but how would he learn if he didn't? ”I don't even know what that means.”
Leslie regarded him steadily for a long moment. ”You mean you don't know how to close your own gates?”
”How would I know anything at all?”
”They're all still there? How many?”
Danny reviewed his mental map of his gates. ”I'm not sure how to count them. What about the ones that I made twice, once in each direction?”
”I think those are two gates,” said Leslie. ”They just go the same places.”
”I don't know,” said Danny. ”They feel feel like one gate to me, only doubly strong.” like one gate to me, only doubly strong.”