This is the original 'Pieces of Faith' story by Tikl.  This is the first magic based story I ever found on the Internet way, way back in the 1990s.  I found it in some newsgroup along with it's sequel and it was this story that made me realize that I wasn't the only one.  Now, all these years later and now we have a community of magic/NBM/sawing lovers who have made excellent stories and photomanipulations.  As far as I can tell, this is the grand-daddy of 'em all that helped our community get started on the Internet.