“What about using my own mind, the way you do? It would be wonderful to talk the way you and the bear do. Could I learn that too?”
“Well,” Hiero said, “you could, I’m sure. It’s just a talent and not a particularly uncommon one, either. But, unlike casting the Forty, which is more or less instinctive, mind speech and the other mind attributes, up to and including telekinesis, the manipulation of solids by mental force—that’s a rare gift, incidentally—all have to be taught. And, once taught, practiced, practiced constantly. I started at the age of ten, and many of the Abbey scholars started earlier still. Some actually get selected when they can barely talk, on the basis of some very complicated tests. So, you see, it’s not all that easy.”
They rode in silence along the beach for a little way, and then in a small voice, she asked, “Do you mean I can’t learn at all, that I’m already too old?”
“Good Lord, no,” the surprised Hiero said. “I’ll try to teach you myself when we have a moment. I simply meant it takes training, discipline, practice, and time. You may be a marvel at it and go extra fast.”
Before he could even move, she had whipped around, eyes gleaming, and given him a tremendous hug. “Wonderful! Can we start now, right away?”
“Well, I, uh, well, that is, I hadn’t…”
Most of the day passed quickly, in doing lessons. Actually, Hiero thought to himself, it was probably a damned good idea to have to recall all the basics he had learned in the Abbey schools. Luchare was very clever and she was also willing to work. The one thing she apparently wanted above all else in the world was to talk to Gorm and Klootz, and this was the goal Hiero held out to her as a reward. But he spoke bluntly first.
“Now listen to me, carefully. The shield for your own thoughts is the most important thing you can learn, and it has to be learned first.”
When she wondered why, he explained that, with a decent mind shield, a child could evade the grip of the most skilled adept alive, as long as the two were not either very close physically to one another or linked by an emotional bond of some kind.
“But if you start sending messages without any ability to defend yourself, why, the Unclean could actually grab your mind, take control of it, and force you either to go to them or else to do whatever they wanted, commit murder, maybe, or anything! Even with a conscious shield, or the ability to create one, if you use the powers of your mind too widely, then another mind can home in on you, as if you were a target. That’s what they’ve been trying to do to me for the last week, and it took quite a while to stop them completely from annoying me.
