he was different, but he did not really understand why. He seemed to have abilities that the other children

did not have.

he was different, but he did not really understand why. He seemed to have abilities that the other children

did not have.

Paul's mother had been part Navajo and part Chicano, acurandera, a healer who had practiced folk

medicine. Some people believed she was a witch. But she could not heal herself when she developed

lymphatic cancer and she had died when Paul was still an infant. She had often wished, Paul's father told

him, that she could go back East and study what she called "the white man's magic," in the school where

the legendary Merlin Ambrosius had taught. By then, everyone had heard about how Merlin had revived

from his enchanted sleep of two thousand years and how he had brought back the old, forgotten

discipline of magic, known as thaumaturgy.

Santa Fe was not among the first cities to receive the benefits of magic. The art of thaumaturgy was an

exacting discipline, requiring years of study and a great deal of devotion. It took time for the first of

Merlin's disciples to attain proficiency in the art and more time for them to reach the level where they

could take on students of their own. The Collapse was slow in ending and the reconstruction of society

based on the thaumaturgic arts took longer still. In time, universities throughout the world were once

more filled with students, many of them going on to graduate schools of thaumaturgy administered by the

International Thaumaturgical Commission, with local Bureaus of Thaumaturgy regulating the practice of

the arts. Yet most adepts had gravitated to the larger urban centers, which had experienced the worst

effects of the Collapse. The smaller towns and cities of the world, and all the rural areas, were the last to

receive the benefits of magic.

There were still no adepts in Santa Fe when Paul was born. His mother had never had the opportunity to

study thaumaturgy, nor could she bear to leave Santa Fe, which she had always believed was a place of

power that nurtured her gift. Sam Ramirez had made up his mind that his son would have the chance his

mother never had. He made sure that Paul took his studies very seriously and he saved his money. When

Paul was old enough, Sam Ramirez wrote to Professor Ambrosius himself, telling him about his son and

asking if it was possible for Paul to study with him.

Merlin replied, saying that magic use was not something that just anyone could learn. The old knowledge

had been long forgotten, relegated to myth and legend, and once it had returned, the thirst for it was

great. However, while some people seemed to have a natural affinity for it, others could only master the

very simplest of spells while others still, the vast majority, possessed no talent for it whatsoever. Even the

most basic of spells eluded them completely, no matter how hard they worked at them. Merlin had

written that magic use required a certain talent that not everybody had, just as not everybody had the

natural ability to become a writer, or an opera singer, or a champion athlete. But, wrote Merlin, if what

Sam Ramirez said about his son's sensitivity was true, then that indicated that he possessed a natural

potential of a very high order and if Sam could arrange for his son to come to Boston and be interviewed,

there was a good chance that Paul could get a scholarship. However, Merlin cautioned, there was no

guarantee.

It was enough for Sam Ramirez. He made the long wagon trip to Houston with his son, where they

boarded a schooner bound for the Atlantic Coast. It had been the first time either of them had ever been

aboard a sailing vessel and both of them were violently seasick throughout most of the trip. But the long

journey had been worth it. After they arrived in Boston, Merlin himself had interviewed Paul and had

reviewed his academic record. The result was that Paul was accepted to Harvard College on a