Wizard's Heir (A Bard Without a Star, Book 1) (10 page)

“It never occurred to me when I
was a deer or a wolf.”

“Did you ever consider those
mates as capable of taking another form?”

“No,” Gwydion answered.

“And they never considered it
about you, either,” she said. “I have seen you in several forms, and I have
seen you in the most enticing of all: as someone who has trusted me with your
pain, and your hopes, and your secrets.”

“Is this love, then?”

Ruchalia did not answer for a
long time. When she finally did, she asked him, “What would you give to stay
here with me?”

The question was not what he
expected. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never thought about it.”

“But you
do
have
to think about it,” Ruchalia said. “If it were love, the answer would have
been immediate and unequivocal.”

“And I would have given
everything to stay.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But you
would have known.” She spent a few minutes scratching an itch. “Love is
usually uncompromising, and has as much to do with sex as digestion does with
eating.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Digestion and eating are
certainly connected, wouldn’t you say?” she asked. “But while digestion is why
you eat, it has nothing to do with the pleasure of the palette. And in a
similar way, you could savor food and spit it out, and digestion would never
happen.”

“So love follows from sex…”

“Not quite. It’s not a perfect
analogy.”

“But sex and love can be
intertwined?”

“Yes, and they often are,
especially when it’s not just sex, but mating,” she said. “How many girls do
you think you have bedded?”

“What? I don’t know. Maybe a
couple of dozen?”

“And was it about making them
feel good, or about making you feel good?” When Gwydion didn’t answer, she
nodded. “I’m not judging you. Just showing you that you were not looking for
a physical expression of your deepest feelings, you were looking for fun.”

“So what about us?” Gwydion
said.

“There is love,” Ruchalia
admitted, “but probably not how you conceived of it.”

“Why not?”

She turned to him, and once
again he was impressed with the weight of her age and all the experience that
entailed. This time, however, she did not stop, but forced him to see himself
next to her, very callow and immature, and very, very young. He squirmed at
the recognition. “Then what do we do?” he asked.

Ruchalia returned to the sow he
knew. “Go home,” she said. “Find a nice human girl closer to your own age and
experience. Enjoy your youth with her, but be true to yourself and your
principles. And when it becomes love, you will know it.”

Gwydion stood and looked at the
sun that was setting behind the trees. It occurred to him for the first time
that it wasn’t the sun of his world. He could not tell the difference, but he
felt sure it was there. “It’s time for me to go home, I think. Can you teach
me how to cross worlds?”

“I can,” Ruchalia said. “Are
you ready, or would you like to wait?”

“I may as well do it now,”
Gwydion said. “If I stay much longer, I may forget why falling in love with
you would be so bad.”

“Become human,” she said. “That
is your natural form, and will make it easier to find the bridge across the
Pale.” When he had done what she asked, she said, “Now imagine your own room
at home, every detail you can remember.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Now you are going to pour
yourself from here to there, kind of like shapeshifting, but on the outside,
not the inside.”

Gwydion felt his power flow
outward, and saw a ghostly image of his room appear in front of him. “Like
that?”

“Very good. Now just step from
here to there. You might have a moment of vertigo, and it might feel like you’re
being stretched across a great distance, but it passes quickly.”

Gwydion turned and knelt down
to give her a hug. He wished for a moment that he could see her as a human
again, but did not ask, and if she knew, she gave no indication. Instead, she
snorted and nuzzled against his chest. He stood up, and without looking back,
stepped across the worlds.

His room was not quite as he
remembered. Someone had cleaned up, and it was cold for lack of a fire. He
felt somewhat discombobulated, and lay down on the bed. The room started to
spin, like he had had too much to drink, and he stood up again, hurrying to the
chamber pot before throwing up everything in his stomach.

It took him awhile to feel
normal, and he lay on his bed with images and feelings from his different
shapeshifting swirling through his mind. After some endless time his mind
cleared, and even though he knew he had not assimilated everything yet, he felt
well enough to clean himself up, and begin the climb up to Math’s tower.

His uncle showed no surprise
when he entered in through the door. “Welcome home, nephew.”

Gwydion bowed deeply, but said
nothing. Math gestured him up to the dais. “Look through these windows,” he
said. “The winds enter here from every corner of Glencairck and beyond. Can
you hear them?”

Gwydion looked out at the
mountains, but at first all he could hear was the normal sound of the wind. He
thought for a moment that he could hear words, but nothing distinct, more like
a crowd of whispering people. He strained to hear more, but finally shook his
head in frustration. “Nothing,” he said.

“You’re using your ears too
much,” Math advised. “What you’re trying to hear goes beyond sound.”

Gwydion almost started to
complain that it was impossible, but then he had a very clear image of talking
with Ruchalia. Wondering if it was something like that, he took a deep breath
and opened himself to the wind.

“And you’ll be a blithering
fool to your last breath!”

The voice was not Goewin’s, but
it was a woman’s. There was some mumbling, and then he heard the woman again.
“Nothing but excuses! Worth less than the spit you put into them!”

He began to hear other voices.
Few were as clear as the first, but they began to rise above the level of
muttering, and caught snatches of conversation coming from all direction. Math
nodded at the wonder on his face, and said, “Welcome to a new world.”

Gwydion walked across the courtyard towards the hall, amazed
by the sounds of the wind. He felt as though his ears had been stuffed with
cotton before, but Math had pulled it out. He heard whisperings of men, true,
but he also heard the voices of the air itself, teasing the earth and tickling
the trees. Just as he went through the doors, he wondered if he would be able
to sleep with all the noise.

The hall was bright and crowded
as usual, but the wind here was different. It had a fat and stuffy voice that
knew little of outside. It smelled of beer and smoke, and lapped at the roast
on the table. Gwydion heard it murmuring to its mother, the fire, complaining
that it wanted to see the world. And he felt tendrils calling from the roof as
they fulfilled that dream.

“Gwyd!”

The hand on his chest stopped
him, and he followed it to his cousin’s face. “Oh. Hello, Gil.”

“What’s the matter with you?
First you’re gone for over a month, and now you walk the length of the hall
like you’re in a dream.”

“Don’t you hear them?”

“Hear who? Everyone’s talking
at once.”

“The winds.”

Gil took him firmly by the
shoulder and steered him to a table in one of the wicker partitions. He pushed
Gwydion down into a chair, and sat next to him. “Look,” he said, “Everyone
knows you’re going to be the full on designated heir in a few months. And
everyone knows you spend hours locked up with Math and Goewin. But if you
start talking about hearing the winds, people will hate you all the same.”

“What?” Gwydion said. “Gil,
you’re not making any sense.”

“Oh, yes I am. It’s like this:
Math is respected and loved for his abilities, because... well, because he’s
Math. But you’re not.”

Gwydion turned the words over
in his head, wondering where he had heard something similar. It clicked in his
mind and he said, “They’re jealous.”

“Frightened is more like it,”
Gil said. “Damnation, I’m your best friend, and it still gives me the willies.”

Gwydion smiled. “Ah, now you
get to find out why you shouldn’t have beaten me with that claymore.” The way
Gil paled made him laugh.

Gwydion watched how people
treated him over the next few days, and used his growing abilities to hear the
whispers that they didn’t want him to hear. He could only hear people in the
same room with him, but he went through all of the common areas at one point in
the day or another. Many wondered if he was under some kind of enchantment,
and Math encouraged this idea, as well as the fact that it would wear off after
some time. It loosened many tongues to speculate. And the wind brought it all
to his ears.

All around the caer, they
pointed and spoke about what he was becoming, and there was hope mixed with the
fear, and not a little envy. The kitchen lasses giggled and speculated who he
might pursue next. The arms masters mumbled about having to teach a spoiled
brat. The charioteers remained confident that their skill was still beyond his
reach. Gil bragged about him, and made his abilities out to be more than they
were. The farmers who worked the fields just outside of the caer walls looked
at him in the courtyard or while eating in the hall, and wondered to each other
what kind of leader he might be.

Only Bethyl said nothing, which
made it hard for him to fathom what went on behind her eyes.

Gwydion also noticed the
changes in himself, trying to match what he heard with what he felt. Some
days, he thought that he had somehow grown beyond his own body, and become one
of the winds. Other times, he felt very insignificant, as though his
experiences had made him somehow less instead of more. He knew he did not act
the same as before, and yet he didn’t feel all that different. He still
enjoyed watching all the young women, some of whom courted him almost openly,
but he just shook his head at their advances. He accepted every criticism from
the arms masters without complaint, but inwardly weighed both their words and
their intentions. At the same time, he was kinder to those who had escaped his
notice before; the servants and artisans that he had always just accepted as a
part of life became real people to him, with their own cares and concerns.

He had been back just over a
week when Mari came to visit her brother. Gwydion heard about it from the
winds long before she arrived, and so did not show any surprise when her
arrival was announced at dinner one evening. Gil looked at the page, then at
Gwydion. “You knew she was coming?”

“Yes.”

“What about Arianrhod?”

Gwydion shook his head. “She
has been coughing too much recently, and your mother didn’t feel she was up to
the trip.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Gil
demanded. “That’s
my
family.”

Gwydion shrugged. “I heard
about it from the winds a couple of days ago. It was just one of those things,
and I didn’t think about telling you. I’m sorry.”

Gil pulled back from him. “I
don’t know which is creepier,” he said. “That you know, or that you are sorry
for not mentioning it.”

Gwydion said nothing, but
waited for Mari to join them. She kissed each on the cheek, and sat down to a
bowl of hot soup which she drank gratefully. “That hits the spot,” she said. “It’s
not really a good for season for travel.”

“So why did you?” Gil asked.

“Because Mother wanted me to
check on you,” she said. “She worries that you don’t have sense enough to keep
yourself warm.”

“I’m fine,” Gil said. “I don’t
know why she’s worried.”

“Because that’s what mothers
are supposed to do,” Gwydion said.

Mari looked at him. “You haven’t
asked about Ari yet.”

“That’s because he already
knows,” Gil said. “The winds told him.”

“You’re hearing the winds now?”

“I am,” Gwydion said. At her
continued stare, he said, “What?”

“You just seem to be very
unlike yourself.”

“I keep telling him that,” Gil
said, “but he doesn’t listen to me.”

“Am I better or worse?” Gwydion
asked.

She shrugged. “It’s hard to
tell. But it’s more than just hearing the winds isn’t it?”

Gwydion stopped with a bite of
bread halfway in his mouth. He lowered it slowly and focused his attention on
her. “Why do you say that?”

She smiled, with a touch of
mystery. “Women hear things that are beyond sound sometimes. It’s not magic,
it’s just intuition.” She cocked her head at him, and he felt like they were
suddenly alone. “And if I had to guess, some major things have happened in
your life recently that have shaken you up pretty badly. You are not yourself
because usually you would hide behind flippancy and bravado. But right now you
are just hidden.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “For
mere intuition, it comes across as very deep magic.” He looked down at his
hands, and the smile faded. “I am not sure what I am supposed to do with
myself, with everything that I have learned and experienced.”

She studied him for a moment. “Use
it,” she said.

The idea caught him off guard.
“What?”

Patiently, she said, “Math has
been training you to be not just a Lord, but a leader and a man of power. Put
that training to use.”

“But how?”

She touched his arm lightly. “I
don’t even know what you learned, so I can’t tell you. But I have full
confidence that you are smart enough to figure it out.”

“Thank you,” he said, and the
spell was broken. The noise and voices of the hall came back in a rush, and
they spent the rest of the evening in small talk, including Gil and others who
stopped by the welcome Mari back to the Caer. But in the back of Gwydion’s
mind, a plan began to form.

Two days later, he stood in
front of Math and said, “I want to explore shapeshifting more.”

Math looked at him with the
inscrutable stare that used to make Gwydion squirm. This time, though, he met
it squarely. “Explain your plan,” Math said.

“I want some time to try on
other forms, on my own terms, not yours.”

“You think that I forced you
into certain scenarios?”

“I know you did,” Gwydion
said. “It taught me the lessons that I needed to learn, but I have not felt
like I have been able to return to myself.”

“And you think that more shapes
will help you?” Math asked with smile.

“I do,” Gwydion said. “You
introduced me to shapeshifting in order for me to change my perspective, and it
did. But it did not teach me how to assimilate those different perspectives
into my life. Right now I feel disjointed and not whole. Spending all my time
confined to the Caer is not helping.”

“You have taken three different
shapes—”

“Four,” Gwydion said.

“I wasn’t counting you turning
back to a human,” Math said.

“Neither was I. Ruchalia
taught me how to turn into a squirrel.”

“Did she now?” Math said. “That
was unexpected. How was it?”

“Very limiting,” Gwydion said.

“So what do you intend to try?”

“I want to become a bird, and a
fish. And possibly a tree.”

“That last seems like Ruchalia’s
influence again,” Math said. He sighed. “I wonder if it wise sending you to
her world.”

“What’s done is done,” Gwydion
said.

“So it is,” Math said with a
smile. “Still, this step is large. Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I have to try it,” Gwydion
said. “Otherwise I will wander about feeling split between the worlds.”

Math rested his chin in his
hand, and Gwydion waited. The only sound was an occasional rustle from
Goewin. “Very well,” he said at last. “I will grant you leave to explore
various forms, but I have one restriction: you must stay in this world.”

Gwydion bowed his head, and
said, “As you wish.”

“And if you encounter any
trouble,” Math said, “call my name. I will hear you and find you, no matter
what shape you may have taken.”

It took Gwydion less than an
hour to pack, throwing extra clothes and food into a rucksack, and putting on a
couple of extra layers to stay warm. He did not speak to anyone, feeling a
certain need to rush, as though he were afraid he might shapeshift at any
moment. He took a quick look around his room, and grabbed his harp and his
sword, just to be safe. Then he left, slipping through the front gate without
even the kerns on watch noticing his passing.

The fields beyond the caer
provided little cover, and he crossed them quickly. The snow was not too deep,
but pulled at his ankles, slowing him as he headed to a small wood. Once in
the comforting embrace of the trees, he stopped to think. He had rushed
through what he wanted to do, and now that it was time to do it, he felt a
certain reluctance.

The cold began seeping into his
legs and hands, and he began pushing deeper into the woods, trying to figure
out why he had been driven from the caer to shapeshift, and now did not want
to. He quickly realized that he would be completely on his own this time, and
that scared him some. He had never needed or wanted to be alone, and here in
the trees, even the winds were quiet.

He stopped under a pine tree so
thick that underneath its spreading branches there was no snow, only a thick
layer of needles. He sat with his back against the huge rough trunk. A few
small breaths of breeze brought him far away voices and the smell of resinous
sap. He pulled out his harp and began playing, which made him focus. He
played several light and simple songs, letting the familiar peace and comfort
of the strings fill him and calm him. When he felt more confident of his
choice, he put the harp away and stood up. Stepping away from the tree he held
the image of a raven in his mind, and poured himself into it.

The world became larger, and he
found himself hopping instead of walking. He also found that his mind was
thankfully clear and sharp.

He lifted his wings and looked
at them. They felt huge, but disarmingly light. He made a few flaps just to
see how they felt, and lifted himself easily a few inches off the ground. The
motion surprised him; he thought he was going to be waving his whole arm, but
instead it felt more like he was waving his hands, mostly due to the control he
felt. He flapped harder, and he rose above the trees to see the forest
stretching away before him, wheeling around, he saw Caer Dathyl in the
distance, looking almost insignificant.