December 10, 2006
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“Can you find food for us?” she asked, rather vaguely and timidly.
“Hunting takes time, and weapons.”
“I mean, with, you know, spells.”
“I can call a rabbit,” he said, poking the fire with a twisted stick of juniper. “I could call one by name, and he’d come. But would you catch and skin and broil a rabbit that you’d called to you thus? Perhaps if you were starving. But it would be a break of trust, I think.”
“Yes I thought, perhaps you could just …”
“Summon up a supper,” he said. “Oh, I could. On golden plates, if you like. But that’s illusion, and when you eat illusions you end up hungrier than before.” She saw his white teeth flash a moment in the firelight.
“Your magic is peculiar,” she said. “It appears to be useful only for large matters.”
He laid more wood on the fire, and it flared up on a juniper-scented fireworks of sparks and crackles.Ursula K. Le Guin:”The Tombs of Atuan“, Chapter 11
