Mage

And from the vision came a voice, and it was Gilandor's, yet not completely his, for something of Aren's was in it, and it asked him, "Who are you?"

"I am Aren, and I am lost."

The voice was stern: "You are more than Aren. You are the High Mage. How can you be lost? Have you not found magic?"

"I hold the staff of the High Mage, but I do not feel like the High Mage. What makes me High Mage? Only the determination of others."

"It is not so!" cried the vision in a loud, stern voice. Then Gilandor lifted high his hands and cried, "See!"

The world changed. There was darkness, and lightning and thunder, and again light. Aren felt the earth throbbing within him, and the sky was his mind, the wind his thoughts, and the waters ran through his veins. The mages sat upon his brow, and the kings of the realm were his arms. He felt the pains where sorcerers rent his body to call forth daemons from another world, and dragons crawled along his spine. And parts of himself he could not feel at all, where the worst of sorcerers blocked the light of the Powers. Then he was himself once more, yet a current of what he had seen ran through him, and the staff was in his hand, though he had not brought it with him. And he felt the staff to be at once with him and in the larger realm in which he had been, and a current ran strongly through the staff, and through it into him.

Gilandor was before him, and spoke again: "Before, you were High Mage in name only, for you kept too much of the old Aren; and there was a lack in you which I could not fill. Now the Powers have given, and the Powers have taken away, and you know; and you must be that which you can be; and perhaps, your loss may be restored. I tell you now, Aren of Halrynd, student of Gilandor: In the name of the great Powers, you are High Mage of Elfree. Do not fail."