"Hammernip?" asked Marion.

"Hamar-gnipe," said Leslie. "'The peak of a crag.' Throwing people off said Leslie. "'The peak of a crag.' Throwing people off hamar-gnipen hamar-gnipen used to be a prime way of sacrificing them to the G.o.ds." She turned to Danny. "I went to college, Marion didn't. So I educate him when I can." used to be a prime way of sacrificing them to the G.o.ds." She turned to Danny. "I went to college, Marion didn't. So I educate him when I can."

"And I spit in her soup," said Marion brightly.

"Our Hammernip isn't much of a crag," said Danny. "More like a hillock. A down. A barrow." He looked at Marion. "I haven't gone to college yet. I just read."

"Darlin'," said Leslie, "everybody on Earth stays alive day to day solely because everyone they meet decides, every single day, not to kill them. For instance, you could gate your way into my chest and pull my heart out right now. Or squeeze it hard and make it stop."

The thought made Danny almost gag. "That's just sick," he said. Yet at the same time, he couldn't stop himself from thinking: Cool. Why didn't I I think of that? think of that?

"Gatemages have done it before," said Leslie.

"We're taking you on as a student," said Marion. "Let that be enough for now."

"Not so fast," said Danny. "You act like you're doing me this big favor and it's okay for you to test me before you'll 'take me on'-but you're not gatemages. You've never known a gatemage in your life. There's no manual on how to do gatemagery or how to train a gatemage. What in the world are you going to teach me?"

"There are certain basics that you don't know," said Marion.

"So tell me."

"Not till the pies are done." Marion went back to the kitchen.

"Isn't he simply maddening?" asked Leslie. "But he's a Cobblefriend, and he's been able to sense the presence of large deposits of both oil and coal in various places, using his credentials as a geologist-he actually did go to college, all the way to a Ph.D.-and the royalties from the wells and mines allow me to maintain my farming habit. I dropped out of college to marry him and put him through school. And in case you're wondering, I'm a beastmage, most specifically a Clawsister, though it hardly seems the right term to use when my heartbeasts are all cows. Still, it's better than 'Udderbuddy.'"

"You're a Cowsister?" asked Danny. "No wonder you have to do the milking."

"They never kick me, if that's what you mean. We get along very well. Sometimes I wish I had an affinity with a different kind of beast. I'd love to experience leaping like a gazelle, or pouncing like a lion, or soaring like a hawk."

"My Uncle Zog is a hawk sometimes. When he isn't a vulture."

"How metaphorically apt," said Leslie. "I once knew Zog, if he's the same one. The way you Families recycle names, it's hard to be sure we're talking about the same man."

"There's only one Zog," said Danny, "and he's an angry, vicious piece of work."

"And yet I don't recall him leaving someone behind with a b.l.o.o.d.y stump of a thumb and a bullet in their brain."

"That's because he eats his kills," said Danny.

Leslie laughed. "Oh, you're funny."

"I wouldn't put it past him," said Danny.

"Well, when he's riding his heartbound, of course he experiences eating whatever the heartbound eats. I can tell you that I know the sweet pleasure of chewing cud, for instance. Yet gra.s.s, half-digested or fresh, has never never pa.s.sed pa.s.sed these these lips." lips."

Danny felt a little relieved, but also disappointed. "I thought the longer you rode your heartbound, the more like them you became."

"In temperament, perhaps, not in diet. I'm very calm, though I'm also skittish and p.r.o.ne to stampede."

"What are the basics you can teach me? Because I could never do any of the things they taught the other kids to do."

"And what was that, exactly?"

"Finding your outself. Making clants. Love and serve the source of your strength. That sort of thing."

"And why do you think you weren't doing those things?"

"Because nothing ever happened."

"And mightn't that have been the fault of your teachers?"

"Maybe," said Danny. "But what would a gatemage 'love and serve'? Doors and windows? And if you don't have have an outself, you can't very well do anything with it." an outself, you can't very well do anything with it."

"Everyone has an outself, Danny. Even the most commonplace drowther, whether he knows how to set it loose or rein it in."

"I don't," said Danny stubbornly.

"Well, then, we have a long way to take you, since you do have one. But let's start by telling you something that is is known about gatemages. You could not make a gate without an outself. Gates are your clants, you see. Each of them is built around a small portion of your outself, and it opens and closes-or disappears completely-under your complete control. Call in your outself, and the gate doesn't just close, it dies. It's gone." known about gatemages. You could not make a gate without an outself. Gates are your clants, you see. Each of them is built around a small portion of your outself, and it opens and closes-or disappears completely-under your complete control. Call in your outself, and the gate doesn't just close, it dies. It's gone."

"So when Loki closed the gates, he was just calling in his outself?"

"That would close only the gates that he he had made. He closed had made. He closed all all the gates, even those made by long-dead mages." the gates, even those made by long-dead mages."

"But if a gatemage dies, how can his gates continue, if they're clants?"

"What happens to any other mage if someone kills his body while his outself is controlling a clant or riding the heartbound beast?"

"The clant begins to fade," said Danny, thinking back to lessons he'd been taught. "And it keeps going through the motions it was last a.s.signed by the dying mage. They told us that was how legends of ghosts began-people seeing a fading clant from a dead mage."

"And if you die while riding your heartbound?" asked Leslie.

"Then we have a beast that can talk, or at least understand human speech. Which is where the idea of talking animals and werewolves comes from. But the outself gradually fades and gets lost in the mind of the heartbound."

And Danny made the extrapolation to his own magery. "So every gate I've made remains after I die, for a while at least."

"Only the ones you haven't already closed and gathered in."

Danny didn't like confessing a weakness, but how would he learn if he didn't? "I don't even know what that means."

Leslie regarded him steadily for a long moment. "You mean you don't know how to close your own gates?"

"How would I know anything at all?"

"They're all still there? How many?"

Danny reviewed his mental map of his gates. "I'm not sure how to count them. What about the ones that I made twice, once in each direction?"

"I think those are two gates," said Leslie. "They just go the same places."

"I don't know," said Danny. "They feel feel like one gate to me, only doubly strong." like one gate to me, only doubly strong."

Leslie nodded, frowning in thought. "Perhaps that's how gatemages create gates that are strong enough to persist centuries after they die-they knit two or more gates together. I really can't say," said Leslie. "You realize that without a serious gatemage in nearly fourteen centuries, we don't know much, and what we do know is mostly guesswork or logical deduction."

Meanwhile, Danny had been enumerating each group of gates. The largest batch was all the nonce gates he had made inside the Family compound before he knew that he was making gates at all. "I might have overlooked some, but I think I've got about two hundred and fifty gates."

"Mercy me," said Leslie. "All at the same time?"

"Well, I can only go through one at a time. And some of them are just little stutters, getting me through a wall or up a tree. You've got to remember I didn't know I was making them. I didn't know I was going through them. I just thought I was a good runner and climber."

"You do understand that this is extraordinary. Great mages can often maintain up to a dozen separate clants, or ride two heartbeasts at once, sometimes three. But each division of the outself diminishes what remains. You should have run out of outself after the first dozen gates or so. In ancient times, the great gatemages used to treasure their gates, take pride in them, yet always hold a bit of outself in reserve, so they could get out of emergencies."

Danny heard the implication loud and clear: He was doing something even the "great mages" couldn't do.

"Of course, I don't know how much of your outself each gate requires," said Leslie. "Maybe all gatemages can maintain as many as you seem to have, and pretended to have only a few. They can't be that hard to control. After all, the gates don't do do anything, they just sit there, yes?" anything, they just sit there, yes?"

"Unless I move them."

"You can move them?"

"Either end. I can slide the gate over somebody and sort of make them go through it."

"So you can move people through your gates against their will?"

"Do you want me to show you?"

"I want you to promise you will never move me like that."

"Even if you're lying helpless in front of an oncoming train or semitruck and I can gate you out of the way?"

"I will try to avoid getting in the way of large oncoming vehicles," said Leslie, "so it won't come up."

Danny was already learning-but perhaps a little more than they had meant to tell him. And they were learning from him, too. Leslie meant him to know that he had had an outself, that his gates were his clants. But she had had no idea that either end of a gate could be moved or that a single gatemage could maintain so many at once. This seemed to Danny to be useful information. an outself, that his gates were his clants. But she had had no idea that either end of a gate could be moved or that a single gatemage could maintain so many at once. This seemed to Danny to be useful information.

"Since I could never find my outself, I didn't pay much attention when they were teaching the other kids about calling it in. I know there was some kind of danger that the outself could get lost. Or that it could drag too much of your inself with it, and so you could lose track of where your body is. But I don't see how any of it applies to gates. I always know where they are, and where I am. I don't feel feel like there's any part of me like there's any part of me in in them. How can I call them?" them. How can I call them?"

"How can I explain it? When I'm riding my heartbound, I just... gather it in, when I want to return to myself."

"I don't know what that would even mean."

"At least now you know that each gate is is a part of your outself." a part of your outself."

"That's like saying that gravity makes things fall. Naming it doesn't mean you understand it or can affect it in any way."

"You know how it feels when you send out out your outself." your outself."

"I know how it feels when I make a gate," said Danny. "You're telling me it's a sending of my outself, but it still feels like... making a gate."

They sat and looked at each other.

"This isn't working," said Danny. "Everybody but but me knows what you mean by 'gathering in your outself.' And you have no idea what it feels like to make a gate. Why are you so sure they're the same thing?" me knows what you mean by 'gathering in your outself.' And you have no idea what it feels like to make a gate. Why are you so sure they're the same thing?"

"I'm not sure."

This was discouraging. There was going to be too much of the blind leading the blind in this "education" he was launching into.

Yet it was also exhilarating to be discussing magery with someone who didn't regard him with pity or dread or contempt. To be spoken to as an equal, or at least as someone worthy of respect. Just the fact that these two, like Stone, took him seriously as a mage-maybe a great mage-changed his estimation of himself. Things like mooning the security guy at the library didn't feel so funny and clever anymore. Danny realized now that they were the actions of a defiant child, someone who feels small and weak and therefore has to show contempt for power-if he thinks he can get away with it.

I have this rare and frightening power, he thought, and all I could think of to do with it was bare my b.u.t.t and say nanner-nanner, because I knew they couldn't punish me.

But how much of the behavior of Lokis and Mercuries in the legends and Family histories came out of precisely that same childish sense of being inferior and yet capable of escaping punishment?

So he wanted to keep this adult conversation with Leslie going. "I'm trying to think," he said, "what it is that I love and serve to gain the power to make gates. If If gatemagery really works according to the same principles as all the other magics." gatemagery really works according to the same principles as all the other magics."

"No one knows," said Leslie. "Some say that gatemages don't love or serve anything, which is why they're so dangerous and irresponsible and childish."

That stung a little, but since Danny had just been thinking the same thing, he couldn't really take offense.

"But in recent years, in discussions among the Orphans, a theory has has come up." come up."

"I'd love to hear it, because as far as I know, I tried with all my heart to love and serve trees, potato plants, mice, dogs, and rock, to no effect. They didn't notice I was there, except the plants, and they withered."

"It takes time."

"It takes time to get really good at it," said Danny. "But for those with a real affinity, it takes no time at all for some spark spark to show up. Like me-whatever it is I have an affinity for, I never knew I was 'loving and serving' it. I just had the power to make gates, and then it was a reflex. Automatic. I didn't even know I was gating." to show up. Like me-whatever it is I have an affinity for, I never knew I was 'loving and serving' it. I just had the power to make gates, and then it was a reflex. Automatic. I didn't even know I was gating."

"So do you want to know the theory?" asked Leslie.

"All ears," said Danny.

"s.p.a.cetime," said Leslie.

"So I'm, like, the servant of physics?"

"That's science, not magery," said Leslie with only a little contempt. "Physics is measuring measuring it; you it; you change change it." it."

"Okay, so I love and serve s.p.a.cetime. I can't say it makes no no sense, because how does it make sense to love and serve stone or lightning or water? But s.p.a.cetime? That's kind of... sense, because how does it make sense to love and serve stone or lightning or water? But s.p.a.cetime? That's kind of... everything. everything. How can I love and serve How can I love and serve everything everything?"

"It's the bed in which everything else exists, but it's not, in itself, anything."

"Now, see, that has to be offensive. To s.p.a.cetime, you know? Which is why you can't make gates." Danny grinned.

"Danny, being flippant and making jokes isn't going to help you."

Danny felt abashed, but then his defiant streak made him think of a contrary argument. "How do you know it isn't isn't going to help me?" asked Danny. "How do you know jokes aren't how s.p.a.cetime is loved and served? I mean, s.p.a.cetime is the causal universe, right? The set of relationships between everything that exists in s.p.a.ce, which implies dimension, and in time, which implies causality." Danny was rather proud of being able to toss out these terms, though he was pretty sure he barely understood them. going to help me?" asked Danny. "How do you know jokes aren't how s.p.a.cetime is loved and served? I mean, s.p.a.cetime is the causal universe, right? The set of relationships between everything that exists in s.p.a.ce, which implies dimension, and in time, which implies causality." Danny was rather proud of being able to toss out these terms, though he was pretty sure he barely understood them.

"You must be a whiz of a student," said Leslie. "A real show-off in cla.s.s. But I do understand you. Besides, I married a cla.s.s show-off."

"You know the saying 's.h.i.t happens'?" asked Danny.