He explained that prophecy sometimes guided a war wizard. If combat was called for, such a man could envision a battle plan, or wield a blade, or sometimes focus the force of his rage into destructive power, or do the opposite and call forth his ability to heal the gravely injured. He said that in his case, if a stronghold and defenses were needed to protect people he also knew how to build them because he was a maker. All of those things and more, added together, he said, made up his unique ability as a war wizard.

She recalled how his eyes lit up when he explained that makers were more, though. They were actually artists, he said, and true artistic ability was as rare among wizards as it was among those without the gift. And, like true artistic ability, a lot of people thought they had it, but few actually did.

According to Baraccus, this genuine artistic ability enabled exceptional makers to use magic in creative ways that others had never imagined. He said that all new spells, all new forms of magic, all new uses for spells, were first envisioned by these kinds of makers.

Baraccus had told her that while a number of wizards could make things, the same as the ungifted could make things, it was this component of artistic ability in creating new things that took it to another level and made true makers more rare than true prophets.

That was also part of the reason that people feared them. They could conceive of and conjure what had never before been done. New things were frequently treated with suspicion, while new things having to do with magic were usually treated with great suspicion.

Baraccus held that without makers magic would stagnate, its scope left to accidental discoveries and to those who learned what to do through rules, formulas, and methods. Without that element of imaginative artistic ability, the gifted couldn’t expand on magic or build it into new forms. Without makers to show them new ways, show them new forms of magic, the gifted were left with doing only that which been done before.

Magda had always heard that there were rules and procedures that had to be followed in order to make magic work properly. She thought it must be rather like baking bread, that it had to be done correctly. She asked Baraccus how a maker could get magic to work properly if they weren’t following rules, formulas, and methods.

He laughed and asked how she thought all those things arose in the first place. Where did the rules originate? Where did the formulas come from? How were the methods first discovered?

Who created the first shield? Who first used the gift to mend a broken bone? Who first cast wizard’s fire?