to the young priest were the shadowy images he had seen dancing atop shoulders. Cadderly said nothing immediately about his dreams, though, not quite certain of how they fit into anything, and also a bit afraid of what they might reveal.
"The spells you speak of are not so unusual to one of priestly magic," the wizard said when the obviously exasperated young man had finished his worrisome tale. "Many can be duplicated by a wizard as well, such as the manipulation of light. As for the shadows, well, clerics have been able to determine the general weal of individuals for centuries."
"Aurora," Cadderly replied, speaking the one word he had been able to decipher from that particular chant. "I do not understand how 'the dawn' would affect such a spell." Belisarius scratched his graying beard. "That is unusual," he said at length. "But is 'the dawn' the only meaning of the word? When was this wondrous tome penned?" Cadderly thought for a moment, then had his answer. "Aurora," he said firmly, "aura " He looked up to the wizard and smiled widely.
"Aurora means aura," Belisarius agreed, "or at least it used to, referring to the emanation of light, of good, surrounding an individual. There you have it, then, a clerical spell to be sure. Perhaps that is what has happened to you, only you have not yet learned to interpret what you see." Cadderly nodded, though he did not really agree. He certainly knew how to - or felt how to - interpret the dancing and fleeting shadows; that was not the problem.
"I have witnessed extreme examples of clerical magic," Cadderly replied, "but these powers, I fear, are different. I do not study the spells before I call on them, as do the priests at the library. I make no preparations at all - as with the illusion that I defeated before your eyes. I did not expect you to challenge me so. I was not even expecting you to know I had come to visit."
Cadderly had to pause for a long moment to compose himself, and during the silence, Belisarius mumbled almost constantly under his breath and scratched at his bushy beard.
"You know something," Cadderly declared, his words sounding like an accusation.
"I suspect something," Belisarius replied. "Since the Time of Troubles, there have been increasing reports of individuals with internal magical powers."
"Psionics," Cadderly said immediately.
"You have heard of them, then," the wizard said. He threw his wiry arms out wide in heightened resignation. "Of course you have," he muttered. "You have heard of everything. That is what is so very frustrating about dealing with you."
The dramatics pulled a smile out of Cadderly and allowed him to relax back in the comfortable leather seat.
Belisarius seemed truly intrigued, as though he desperately hoped his guess was correct. "Might you be a psioni-cist?" he asked.
"I know little about them," the young priest admitted. "If that is what is happening to me, then it is happening without my assistance or approval."
"The powers are not so different from those of a wizard," Belisarius explained, "except that they come from the individual's mind and not the external powers of the universe. I am well acquainted with your mental abilities." He snickered, obviously referring to his spell book, which Cadderly had replaced from memory alone. "That type of prowess is the prime element of a psionicist's power."
Cadderly considered the words and gradually began to shake his head. "The power I manipulated in this tower was external," he reasoned. "Could psionics interact so with a wizard's spell?"
Belisarius patted a knobby finger against his lower lip, his frown revealing the snag in the logic. "I do not know," he admitted. The two sat quietly, digesting the details of their conversation.
"It does not fit," Cadderly announced a moment later. "I am the receptacle of the power and the transmuter of the power to the desired effect, of that much I am sure."
"I will not argue " Belisarius replied, "but such power must have a conduit - a spell, if you will. One cannot simply tap into the external energies of the universe on a whim!"
Cadderly understood the growing excitement in the wizard's voice. If Belisarius was wrong, then the wizard's entire life, his hermitlike devotion to his magical studies, might be revealed as an exercise in futility.
"The song" Cadderly muttered, suddenly realizing the truth of it all.
"Song?"
"The Tome of Universal Harmony" the young priest explained. "The book of Deneir. Whenever I have used the powers, even unconsciously, as with the