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To say that all the wizards were like cheese in butter, no. But they lived decently: they didn’t have to worry about food and shelter. And when a monster came out of the woods, they had to get some gold: what better way to smoke a stinking grisna out of a barn than with witches’ candles? Who else but a magician could drive away a dragon?

Everyone bowed to them when they met, invited them for tea and coffee, invited them to weddings, and to funerals to weep, to light a fire for spirits. Beautiful!

They were called to serve from neighboring lands too: the local wizards were always in short supply, and they also often went to Ilfania, to the roots, for training.

She herself was born there. Lucky. She had been under Gartanda’s wing, and she’d been in cromlech – magic circle – all her childhood. And how she learned to make potions was astonishing. For love, for battle, for health, and for sickness. Sweet as honey or the cries of lovers, and bitter as wormwood or heartbreak.

With her potions and brews she traveled halfway around the world. She had seen such wonders. She saw the wild seas with flying ships-like-birds on them (she never sailed herself, though – she was terribly nauseated, until she turned green and warts popped out), and rocks, high and smooth, like heavenly fortresses, rivers and deserts, hills and valleys…