wander. The growth of my independence was evidently important.
I think I was about six or so when I finally discovered the Tree
which stands in the middle of the Vale. My family has a peculiar
attachment to that Tree. When my father first came to the Vale, it
was the Tree that held him in stasis until the weather turned bad
on him. Ce’Nedra, who is a Dryad, after all, was absolutely
entranced by it, and she spent hours communing with it. Garion
has never spoken of his reaction to the Tree, but Garion had other
things on his mind the first time he saw it. When Eriond was quite
young, he and Horse made a special trip just to visit with it.
It surprised me the first time I saw it. I could not believe that
anything alive could be that huge. I remember the day very well.
It was early spring, and a blustery wind was bending the grass in
long waves atop the knolls in the Vale and scudding dirty grey
clouds across the sky. I felt very good and oddly free. I was quite
some distance from uncle Beldin’s tower when I topped a long, grassy rise
and saw the Tree standing in solitary immensity in the
next valley. I’ll not cast any unfounded accusations here, but it just
so happened that a break in the clouds permitted a single shaft of
sunlight to fall like a golden column upon the Tree.
That got my immediate attention.
The Tree’s trunk was much larger than uncle Beldin’s tower, its
branches reached hundreds of feet into the air, and its lateral limbs
shaded whole acres. I stared at it in amazement for a long time, and
then I very clearly heard – or felt – it calling to me.
I somewhat hesitantly descended the hill in response. I was wary
about that strange summons. The bushes didn’t talk to me, and
neither did the grass. My as yet unformed mind automatically
suspected anything out of the ordinary.
When at last I entered the shade of those wide-spread branches,
a strange sort of warm glowing peace came over me and erased my
trepidation. Somehow I knew that the Tree meant me no harm. I
walked quite resolutely toward that vast, gnarled trunk.
And then I put forth my hand and touched it.
And that was my second awakening. The first had come when
father had laid his hand upon my head in benediction, but in some
ways this awakening was more profound.
The Tree told me although ‘told’ is not precisely accurate, since
the Tree does not exactly speak – that it was – is, I suppose
the oldest living thing in the entire world. Ages unnumbered have
nourished it, and it stands in absolute serenity in the center of the
Vale, shedding years like drops of rain from its wide-spread leaves.
Since it pre-dates the rest of us, and it’s alive, we’re all in some
peculiar way its children. The first lesson it taught me – the first
lesson it teaches everyone who touches it – was about the nature of
time. Time, the slow, measured passage of years, is not exactly what
we think it is. Humans tend to break time up into manageable pieces
– night and day, the turning of the seasons, the passage of years,
centuries, eons – but in actuality time is all one piece, a river flowing
endlessly from the beginning toward some incomprehensible goal.
The Tree gently guided my infant understanding through that
extremely difficult concept.
I think that had I not encountered the Tree exactly when I did, I
should never have grasped the meaning of my unusual life-span.
Slowly, with my hands still on the Tree’s rough bark, I came to
understand that I would live for as long as necessary. The Tree was
not very specific about the nature of the tasks which lay before me,
but it did suggest that those tasks would take me a very long time.
And then I did hear a voice – several, actually. The meaning of
what they were saying was totally clear to me, but I somehow knew
that these were not human voices. It took me quite some time to
identify their source, and then a rather cheeky sparrow flittered
down through those huge branches, hooked his tiny claws into the
rough bark of the Tree a few feet from my face, and regarded me
with his glittering little eyes.
‘Welcome, Polgara,’ he chirped. ‘What took you so long to find
us?’
The mind of a child is frequently willing to accept the unusual
or even the bizarre, but this went a little far. I stared at that talkative
little bird in absolute astonishment.
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he demanded.
‘You’re talking!’ I blurted.
‘Of course I am. We all talk. You just haven’t been listening. You
should really pay closer attention to what’s going on around you.
You aren’t going to hurt me, are you? I’ll fly away if you try, you
know.’
‘N-no,’ I stammered. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
‘Good. Then we can talk. Did you happen to see any seeds on
your way here?’
‘I don’t think so. I wasn’t really looking for seeds, though.’
‘You should learn to watch for them. My mate has three babies
back at the nest, and I’m supposed to be out looking for seeds to
feed them. What’s that on your sleeve?’
I looked at the sleeve of my smock. ‘It seems to be a seed of some
kind – grass, probably.’
‘Well, don’t just stand there. Give it to me.’
I picked the seed off my sleeve and held it out to him. He hopped
off the side of the Tree and perched on my finger, his head cocked
and his bright little eye closely examining my offering. ‘It’s grass,
all right,’ he agreed. Then he actually seemed to sigh. ‘I hate it when
all there is to eat is immature grass-seed. It’s early in the season,
and those seeds are so tiny right now.’ He took the seed in his beak.
‘Don’t go away. I’ll be right back.’ Then he flew off.
For a few moments I actually thought I’d been dreaming. Then
my sparrow came back, and there was another one with him. ‘This
is my mate,’ he introduced her to me.
‘Hello, Polgara,’ she said. ‘Where did you find that seed? My
babies are very hungry.’
‘It must have caught on my sleeve up near the top of that hill,’ I
ventured.
‘Why don’t we go up there and have a look,’ she suggested,
brazenly settling on my shoulder. The first sparrow followed his
mate’s lead and perched on my other shoulder. All bemused by this
miracle, I turned and started back up the grassy hill.
‘You don’t move very fast, do you?’ The first sparrow noted
critically.
‘I don’t have wings,’ I replied.
‘That must be awfully tedious.’
‘It gets me to where I’m going.’
‘As soon as we find those seeds, I’ll introduce you to some of the
others,’ he offered. ‘My mate and I’ll be busy feeding the babies for
a while.’
‘Can you actually talk to other kinds of birds?’ That was a startling
idea.
‘Well,’ he said deprecatingly, ‘sort of. The larks always try to be
poetic, and the robins talk too much, and they’re always trying to
shoulder their way in whenever I find food. I really don’t care that
much for robins. They’re such bullies.’
And then a meadowlark swooped in and hovered over my head.
‘Whither goest thou?’ he demanded of my sparrow.
‘Up there,’ the sparrow replied, cocking his head toward the
hilltop. ‘Polgara found some seeds up there, and my mate and I have
babies to feed. Why don’t you talk with her while we tend to
business?’
‘All right,’ the lark agreed. ‘My mate doth still sit upon our eggs,
warming them with her substance, so I have ample time to guide
our sister here.’
‘There’s a seed!’ the female sparrow chirped excitedly. And she
swooped down off my shoulder to seize it. Her mate soon saw
another, and the two of them flew off.
‘Sparrows are, methinks, somewhat overly excitable,’ the lark
noted. ‘Whither wouldst thou go, sister?’
‘I’ll leave that up to you,’ I replied. ‘I’d sort of like to get to know
more birds, though.’
And that began my education in ornithology. I met all manner of
birds that morning. The helpful lark took me around and introduced
me. His rather lyrical assessments of the varied species were
surprisingly acute. As I’ve already mentioned, he told me that sparrows
are excitable and talky. He characterized robins as oddly aggressive,
and then added that they tended to say the same things over and
over. Jays scream a lot. Swallows show off. Crows are thieves.
Vultures stink. Hummingbirds aren’t really very intelligent. If he’s
forced to think about it, the average hummingbird gets so confused