Read Ars Magica for Free Online Page A

sacrifice?”
    â€œI have no art, but I have eyes. A magus gave them to me. They see what is there to see.”
    Gerbert stared at his hands. Square hands, clever-fingered, as able with hoe or adze as with the pen, but no good at all with a sword: a peasant’s hands, or an artisan’s. The body beyond them was nothing to notice, neither tall nor short, neither broad nor narrow, neither weak nor exceptionally strong, simply there. He looked like what he was. A poor freeman’s son in the black habit of Saint Benedict’s Rule. Mages —   “Mages look like Master Ibrahim.”
    â€œMages look like anything at all. Do you judge a child’s intelligence by the prettiness of his face?”
    â€œBut I don’t look like anything,” said Gerbert.
    â€œYou look like yourself. To these eyes, as I see you now, a very presentable young monk, somewhat pinched with petulance. And a white light that is your spirit, that names you seeker and scholar and, if you have the strength, magus.”
    Gerbert looked at him and thought that, perhaps, he understood. It had been the same with Brother Raymond. The master could see what the pupil was; could guide him, even if he went where the master could not follow.
    Brother Raymond would never have expected it to end in this. “Then you give me leave? I’m to study the Art? And the Quadrivium, too — you won’t take that away from me?”
    â€œCertainly not,” said Hatto. “The Art and the arts belong together. You will have both.”
    â€œFrom both of you.”
    â€œIf your excellency will permit.”
    Gerbert looked down, abashed. He had been getting well above himself. Now, much too late, he remembered who he was, and who Hatto was. Hot shame burned at all he had said to his lord and teacher.
    â€œHumility can be overdone,” said Hatto, “but a modicum thereof has been known to be useful. Remember that, Brother.” His words were stern, but then he smiled. “Or at least, remember what tact is. You’ll need it if you’re to deal with mages.”
    â€œI’ll try, my lord,” Gerbert said.
    â€œDo that. Now, sir: shall we see to the singing of vespers?”

4.

    Gerbert had cause to remember humility. Or perhaps the bishop had meant humiliation.
    The Quadrivium had its difficulties, but those were never too great for Gerbert’s wits. They were quick, quicker than anyone’s, and he never tried to deny it. But they were of little use in mastering magic.
    Spells, yes. Even spells in languages dead since before the Flood. Letters, words, rituals — his mind drank them all and found them sweet. Yet they were only trappings.
    â€œMagic is deeper than words,” Ibrahim told him. “Magic goes down to the heart of things. Reason and logic help to define it, but beneath reason and logic, magic is. Your mind must learn it all, names, spells, powers, workings of will in heaven and earth. Then it must forget them. Only by forgetting may it master them.”
    oOo

    â€œThat is nonsense!”
    Ibrahim had set Gerbert to work recording and remembering the names of the Jinn under the earth and the Afarit of the air, and gone away on business of his own. He often did that. It was a method of his: giving the pupil free rein, he called it. He simply pointed Gerbert to his library, set him a task, and left him to it.
    He had a library. Oh, indeed. In Gaul the word could encompass half a dozen books in a locked chest in an abbey’s closet. This was wealth unimaginable: a whole room fun of books. Gerbert had been set to count them once, and to mark the resting place of each. There were a hundred and forty-four. Not all or even most were books of magic — those were locked in the chest in the corner, under the seal of Solomon woven in a rug worth nigh as much as the books themselves. The rest lay on shelves built to their measure, and there were wonders among them. When