Once upon a time there lived a very clever girl who was good at absolutely everything.

The very clever girl was the only daughter of her doting parents, who loved her very much but understood her very little. Her father was a steelworker, and when he saw her strength and force of will he thought maybe she would follow him and take up a trade. Her mother disagreed: spotting her daughter's careful hand and excellent memory, she thought the very clever girl would be an herbalist or healer like her. The very clever girl, however, had very different aspirations, ones she knew her loving parents were very unlikely to understand.

From a young age, the very clever girl knew that she wanted to become a wizard. And when she set out to do or be something, it was very rare that anything gave her pause.

On the very clever girl's tenth birthday, she decided that she had waited quite long enough to become a wizard. She slipped out of her home while her mother and father were occupied making her favorite foods. Her parents had forbidden her to go further than the end of the street until she was older--fortunately, she knew a wizard who lived only two doors down. It was with purpose that she strode down the little street where her family lived, and she rang the wizard's doorbell with the gravitas of a general.

The wizard who lived two doors down was the prompt sort of wizard, and as such opened the door in only a few seconds. He was very surprised to see the very clever girl on his doorstep, but his surprise did not show--he was not the sort of wizard who admitted to being undignified in any way.

"Little girl," the wizard signed. "It is your birthday, when you ought to be with your friends and family. What are you doing on my doorstep?"

"My friends won't be here for hours, and my parents are busy," the very clever girl answered. "I am ten years old today, and it's high time that I learned to be a wizard. I have thought carefully, and decided that you would be best suited to teach me."

Her manner was matter-of-fact in that way in which young girls are the unquestioned masters, and the wizard was very amused. "Is that so? And why is it that I am the best suited to teach you?"

"First, Keegan and Idessa say that you have magic which calls to the earth itself, making stones dance and hot lava flow. Their mother is a witch, so they're likely to know. Is it true?"

The wizard nodded, for his wizardry could indeed do such wondrous things and more.

"Second, you live only two doors down. My parents have forbidden me from going past the end of the street, so this is a very convenient location."

"A sensible point," the wizard acknowledged.

"Finally, my mother considers you faultlessly polite but thoroughly disreputable nonetheless. I would very much like to learn this skill, and I expect that I will pick that up while you teach me how to be a wizard."

The wizard was impressed with the very clever girl's reasoning. However, he was not yet convinced of the arrangement. "All excellent reasons. However, there is another question you must answer. Why is it that I, a wizard of great power, should want to teach you?"

"Because," the very clever girl answered. "I will be the best student you could ever hope to have. I will be faster, and smarter, and more talented than you could ever hope and I will make you proud to have taught me."

"A proud boast," signed the wizard. "But there is more to being a wizard than pride."

"I have been better than good at everything else I have tried," the very clever girl argued. "Why should I think that wizardry will be any different? If I work much harder to be a wizard than anything else, I should succeed like I always do and more."

The wizard frowned for the first time, and the very clever girl abruptly felt much less clever.

"It is true that you have been good at everything you have tried," allowed the wizard. "However, wizardry is very unlike anything you have ever done, and not many people are suited for it. I must make sure you are capable of learning what I intend to teach you, and for that I will need four tests. Do not move. I will return in a moment."

With that, the wizard closed his door and left the very clever girl on his doorstep. If he were a different sort of wizard, he would have left her to his own devices while he prepared himself a cup of tea. Fortunately, he was not this type of wizard--in a moment, he returned with a white, rough-textured rock in his hand.

"If you wish to be my student, here is what you must do." The wizard gave the rock to the very clever girl. "First, you must learn what sort of stone this is. Second, learn where it came from. Third, you must break it in half. Finally, you must tell me how you did all three of these things without speaking in a language known to any living man. Do this, and I will take you as my student and make you a wizard of unimpeachable skill."

The very clever girl considered this a strange set of tests, but she accepted the rock and the tests with ferocious resolve, and the very next day she set about her tasks.

~*~

Ten year old girls, however clever, are generally lacking in comprehensive books about geology and mineralogy. After scouring her meager collection for any clue about the nature of the rock, she sat despondent on her front steps. The library was not closer than the end of the street, and her parents were very busy and unable to take her there for the hours she required to discover what the rock might be. Her mood turned sour, and she glared at the unassuming stone in her hands as though it and not the wizard was the cause of her frustration. For a good moment she considered tossing the stone into the street and abandoning her ambitions--the trouble with being good at absolutely everything meant that she was not accustomed to serious obstacles.

No sooner had the thought entered her mind, however, than she heard a friendly voice saying hello. The girl looked up and saw one of her closest friends: the very cheerful boy.

"Why are you frowning?" The very cheerful boy asked. "It's a beautiful day, and you look like you want to throw that rock at somebody."

"I don't really want to throw it at anyone," she replied. "But this stone has been nothing but trouble already, and it's only been a day. I need to learn what kind of rock it is, and if I fail I will never become a wizard. What can I do, since I can't go to the library to look for books on rocks?"

The very cheerful boy considered her question, then smiled. This was not a very unusual thing for him, but the sight of it cheered her up even before the words that next came out of his mouth: "You might not be able to go to the library, but my parents are librarians. I have all sorts of books at my house, and there might be a book on rocks for you. Would you like to come and look?"

The very clever girl could have shouted for joy; the very cheerful boy, seeing that she was not willing to do such a thing, kindly shouted for joy on her behalf. The two of them went to the very cheerful boy's house, and together found a book which identified the stone as uncarved marble. As the very clever girl pored over the pages, another of her friends came in: the very reckless boy.

"What are you doing here?" The very reckless boy asked. "I'm in here all the time to see Rudi, but you almost never visit."

"I have to learn what kind of stone this is if I am to ever be a wizard," the very clever girl answered. "This is a piece of marble, but I also have to know where it comes from. This book has so many places where marble can be quarried, and I have no way of knowing where this particular piece was found."

"That sounds like a puzzle," the very reckless boy said, and sat beside her. "Where did you get it? Maybe that will be a clue."

"I got it from the wizard two doors down from my house. It's a test, and who knows where he got it, or how long ago."

The very reckless boy nodded seriously. "And why did he have it?"

The very clever girl began to answer, then paused, frowning at the rock in her hand. It was really a most unattractive and unassuming thing, entirely unlike the gorgeous, polished marble she saw as statues and monuments. Why would a wizard, elegant in dress and speech and capable of shaping the earth to his will leave such a thing untouched and unrefined?

"Because it meant something to him," she realized aloud. "It had meaning the way it was. Maybe it's a piece of his home, since his wizardry is concerned with stones. But where is his home?"

"Greece," the very reckless boy said immediately. "My godmother is from the same country, and she says he was a very famous wizard there."

The very clever girl did whoop aloud that time, and hugged him tightly for a moment. Then she said goodbye to both him and the very cheerful boy, and turned her mind to the final task.

~*~

Breaking the rock in half proved a somewhat more challenging prospect than the very clever girl anticipated. She first tried to smash it against the sidewalk, but found that the stone far far sturdier than the concrete. She followed this attempt by attempting to drop it from a high place--this too was unsuccessful, and eventually her mother scolded her for throwing rocks about willy-nilly. Pleading with her father for power tools earned her nothing but a strange look, as her father understood her very little and had no intention of blunting his best saw for no reason.

A week passed with the girl applying every ounce of her cleverness to the task with no success. It was only on the weekend that she heard a knock at her door. The very clever girl answered it only to find her friend the very strong girl.

"Where have you been all week?" The very strong girl asked. "You promised you would come and play after school, but our friends said you've been throwing rocks at the ground for hours."

"I had to," said the very clever girl. "I have to break this rock in half or I'll never become a wizard. But I have no useful tools, nor any magic to break it. What am I to do?"

The very strong girl stared at her for a moment, incredulous. "For a very clever girl, you really don't think things through. How long have we known each other?"

"Nearly all of my ten years," admitted the very clever girl.

"And who are my grandparents?"

"The god of the light and the god of the air."

"That's right." The very strong girl reached out and took the rock in her hands. Her muscles tensed, and after a moment she snapped the rock in half as easily as if it was a piece of candy. She tossed the pieces back and stomped off with a huff. "Next time, be more like the wizard you admire so much--don't use wizardry as an excuse to be late."

The very clever girl, not feeling very clever at all, watched her go and found she had nothing to say.

~*~

Another week passed, then another. The very clever girl wrote up a tidy summary of how she had passed the tests and set about finding a language which no living man spoke. However, she soon realized a key problem: she had no way to learn a language unless someone spoke it. Old languages, new languages, dead languages, rare languages--it seemed whenever she thought she found a new prospect, some obscure academic or hoary elder already knew it. This brought her no end of frustration, and eventually she realized she needed the ear of her most helpful friend, the very sensible boy.

The very sensible boy lived in a house directly across from her own: it was painted white and immaculately scrubbed even in the depths of winter, and the roof was a practical dark green. The very clever girl walked up to the house and rapped on the door. After a moment, the very sensible boy opened the door.

"What is it?" He asked. "I've hardly heard a word from you in weeks, and now you show up at my door looking like you've only now clawed your way out of school."

"I need your help," the very clever girl told him. "How can I tell the wizard that I passed his stone tests without using a language spoken by anyone alive? Do I need to make up my own?"

"Obviously not," said the very sensible boy. "If you make up a language, then clearly you'll speak it. That would do no good, and take too long besides."

The very clever girl grimaced, for she had come to the same conclusion. "Well then, what am I to do?"

"What did the wizard say exactly?"

The very clever girl was very clever indeed, and repeated the entire conversation from memory. The very sensible boy merely shook his head.

"What nonsense. I can't believe you bothered me for this. The wizard said you had to tell him without speaking. Would he be a very good wizard if he couldn't even read?" The very clever girl was dumbstruck. The very sensible boy then closed the door in her face, as it was cold and the heat of the tidy little house was leaking out while they spoke.

The very clever girl dearly wanted to wrench open the door and punch him, which was a common reaction to the very sensible boy. However, she realized that he was right--her notes would speak to the wizard for her. She stomped out of the yard and kicked the mailbox for good measure. Her foot hurt afterwards, but she thought it was well worth the ache.

~*~

"So you have passed my tests," signed the wizard to the very clever girl. He had carefully perused her notes, and found them most admirably kept.

"I have," said the very clever girl. "Will you now take me as your student?"

"I will," the wizard agreed. "However, I have already taught you several lessons crucial to wizardry. You are a very clever girl. I wonder if you learned them without being told?"

The very clever girl thought back to the tests. "The test of the nature of the stone. To be a wizard, you must learn not just what things appear to be--you must learn what they are, no matter how thoroughly you have to investigate to find out."

"Very true. What about the stone's origin?"

The very clever girl thought harder. "You kept that stone rough and unpolished because it reminded you of your homeland. The stone had no value as it was--except to you. Therefore, a wizard must not only understand what things are, but what they mean to other people."

The wizard was delighted, though he was not the sort of wizard who showed such things. "And the test of the breaking?"

"I understood the stone, but that wasn't enough to change it. I needed more strength than I had to do what was necessary, and no amount of knowledge would change that."

"Very good, but why did I ask you to tell me all these things without speaking a language known by anyone alive?"

The very clever girl racked her brains for a long moment as the wizard waited patiently. The promptest wizards, it is important to note, are those which best understand patience.

"Because...because language needs people. Its power comes from people, and without a person to speak it language fades into nothing. Sharing who we are, however, is more basic and more flexible."

"Truly you will be my greatest student, to see so much so quickly," the wizard signed. "There is only one lesson left: what truth connected all these tests? By what truth did you succeed where you might have passed?"

The very clever girl thought and thought, but she had no answer for the wizard. The wizard watched her solemnly.

"I said you would be my greatest student, and you will be. However, know this: until you learn the final lesson of the stone test, you will not achieve mastery. Be not ashamed: the best lessons come in time, and you have a great deal to learn from me yet."

The very clever girl went into the house of the wizard, and there she learned a great many things.