The problem of understanding the magic of the indigenous beings of Sartorias-deles is directly related to the problem of understanding those races themselves. Some have bodily form, but to call them human is a danger because those forms might be only projections, or forms taken in order to communicate with humans. Certainly no one has been able to establish gender, much less mammalian attributes, to the Hervithe, the Geres, or the Lake Beings. If they take human form, they choose a gender--but in successive appearances (if it's the same being) the gender might summarily change. Or, if the being wishes to observe and not to communicate, it might choose an animal form--animal senses packing more power than human.

The magic that these beings use seems to waft through time and space like old webs, whereas humans who wish to bend time or space have to sweat out mastery, and the physical cost is daunting. Though there is glancing evidence that the Old Sartorans had better control of this type of magic, but not to the degree of those who were here before humans. No one has successfully established whether the indigenous magic is individual or a result of group action--from a group mind. Or rather, there has always been one who could indeed determine, the Sieratanrael, but by the time a human attained that level of being, words were almost always inadequate and they had a distressing tendency first to be elusive (planting themselves to be a tree for a century or two, just out of curiosity) and second to answer questions in poetic metaphor or in song. Or in light. This might be aesthetically awe-inspiring, but exasperates archivists to the extreme.

So what can be said about the magic of indigenous beings is that it is their matter in the same sense that ground, fire, and other natural resources are the matter humans take and fashion into necessity or art. Their matter just happens to include time, space, and possibly access to dimensions humans don't perceive.

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