Moongather by Jo Clayton

minute. “The hands showed me how to draw a lot of funny marks.”
    â€œPictures of sounds, child.”
    Because he sounded amused, she sniffed, and complained, “Hands don’t talk, Ser Noris. How’m I ever going to tell which mark means which sound?”
    â€œLearn the marks.” He yawned, drawing back from her mentally as well as physically.
    She sensed she’d moved too fast; this was like taming a wild and wary beast. So he wouldn’t send her away, she said hastily, “What is a Noris, Ser Noris?”
    â€œMmmm.” He lay back on the pillows staring into the wavering shadows dancing across the distant ceiling. “A Noris is a shaper. Wind and water and stone answer his words. A Noris is a reacher into strange subworlds that would frighten you, child. A tamer of demons. A focus of forces great enough to rock the world. A Noris is a man of terrible power forever shut off from the greatest power of all.” The bitterness in the last words made her regret that she’d asked the question, but the soft voice swept on, leaving the bitterness behind. “You should have asked what is a Nor, child.” He reached out and stroked Serroi’s curls, an absent-minded caress he was not even aware he was giving her. “Nor is the generic term for what I am. There are several kinds of Nor. Some are weak futile creatures who because they have mastered a few cheap tricks delude themselves into believing they belong among the mighty; often they serve as priests of the Flame among the Sons of the Flame, only group foolish enough to pander to their egos. These are the Norids, the street Nor. Some Nor are good competent journeyman sorcerers, but they need elaborate paraphernalia or their spells will go awry; they need the incense and the candles of dead man’s fat, cat’s cradles, pentacles, sigils, talismen. They can be arrogant and foolish and they often reach beyond their grasp and end up food or slaved to the demons they seek to raise. You’ll find them in the courts of those kings who like to bask in a second-hand sort of power, preening themselves that they control men who control such wonders. These are the Norits.” He sat up suddenly, staring into the dimness over her head. “Finally there are the word-masters who by much study and inborn gifts move beyond the need for apparatus, who need nothing but the actualizing WORDS to command what we are permitted to command. And there are those who try to push the limits of what we control back until … it’s not as easy as it looks.” He blinked, suddenly back with her from whatever dream he kept secret in his heart. “No, child, it’s not so easy. One doesn’t simply learn the words and bellow them into the wind. Each of the great words rests on vast amounts of study and discipline and denial, on a preparation invisible beneath the surface. I walk, my little Serroi, in the middle of a web of potencies woven over the many lifetimes I’ve known; I speak the WORD and a part of the web is actualized. I speak another WORD and it sinks back into the web.” The corner of his mouth turned up as he gazed down at her blank face. “But you don’t understand a word of this, do you.” His eyes twinkling, he reached down and stroked the tips of his fingers along the side of her head, then across her brow, something no one else had ever done. His fingers caressed the eye-spot and she felt a flush of warmth, a great rush of love for him. She could have curled up beside him and let him go on petting her forever, content as a chinin pup after a long day’s play.
    He dropped his hand onto his knee. “Go to bed, child. We’ll talk again tomorrow. You can tell me about your special gifts.”
    Confused and dazed, Serroi wobbled onto her feet and walked silently from the room, leaving the Noris staring into the flames, brooding over something, perhaps turning in again on