that he forgets exactly how to hover in mid-air. Owls aren’t really
as wise as they’re reputed to be, and my guide referred to them
rather deprecatingly as ‘flying mouse-traps’. Seagulls have a grossly
exaggerated notion of their own place in the overall scheme of
things. Your average seagull spends a lot of his time pretending to
be an eagle. I normally wouldn’t have seen any seagulls in the
Vale, but the blustery wind had driven them inland. The assorted
waterfowl spent almost as much time swimming as they did flying,
and they were very clannish. I didn’t really care that much for ducks
and geese. They’re pretty, I suppose, but their voices set my teeth
on edge.
The aristocrats of birds are the raptors. The various hawks,
depending on their size, have a complicated hierarchy, and standing
at the very pinnacle of birddom is the eagle.
I communed with the various birds for the rest of the day, and
by evening they had grown so accustomed to me that some of them,
like my cheeky little sparrow and his mate, actually perched on me.
As evening settled over the Vale I promised to return the next day,
and my lyric lark accompanied me back to uncle Beldin’s tower.
‘What have you been doing, Pol?’ beldaran asked curiously after
I’d mounted the stairs and rejoined her. As was usual when we
were talking to each other privately, Beldaran spoke to me in ‘twin’.
‘I met some birds,’ I replied.
“‘Met”? How do you meet a bird?’
‘You talk to them, Beldaran.’
‘And do they talk back?’ Her look was amused.
‘Yes,’ I answered in an off-hand manner, ‘as a matter of fact, they
do.’ If she wanted to be snippy and superior, I could play that game,
too.
‘What do they talk about?’ Her curiosity subdued her irritation
at my superior reply.
‘Oh, seeds and the like. Birds take a lot of interest in food. They
talk about flying, too. They can’t really understand why I can’t fly.
Then they talk about their nests. A bird doesn’t really live in his
nest, you know. It’s just a place to lay eggs and raise babies.’
‘I’d never thought of that,’ my sister admitted.
‘Neither had I – until they told me about it. A bird doesn’t really
need a home, I guess. They also have opinions.’
‘Opinions?’
‘One kind of bird doesn’t really have much use for other kinds
of birds. Sparrows don’t like robins, and seagulls don’t like ducks.’
‘How curious,’ Beldaran commented.
‘What are you two babbling about now?’ uncle Beldin demanded,
looking up from the scroll he’d been studying.
‘Birds,’ I told him.
He muttered something I won’t repeat here and went back to his
study of that scroll.
‘Why don’t you take a bath and change clothes, Pol,’ Beldaran
suggested a bit acidly. ‘You’ve got bird-droppings all over you.’
I shrugged. ‘They’ll brush off as soon as they dry.’
She rolled her eyes upward.
I left the tower early the next morning and went to the small
storehouse where the twins kept their supplies. The twins are
Alorns, and they do love their beer. One of the major ingredients in
beer is wheat, and I was fairly sure they wouldn’t miss a small bag
or two. I opened the bin where they kept the wheat and scooped a
fair amount into a couple of canvas bags I’d found hanging on a
hook on the back wall of the shed. Then, carrying the fruits of my
pilferage, I started back for the Tree.
‘Whither goest thou, sister?’ It was my poetic lark again. It occurs
to me that my affinity for the studied formality of Wacite Arendish
speech may very well have been born in my conversations with that
lark.
‘I’m going back to the Tree,’ I told him.
‘What are those?’ he demanded, stabbing his beak at the two bags
I carried.
‘A gift for my new-found friends,’ I said.
‘What is a gift?’
‘You’ll see.’
Birds are sometimes as curious as cats, and my lark badgered me
about what was in my bags all the way back to the Tree.
My birds were ecstatic when I opened the bags and spread the
wheat around under the Tree, and they came in from miles around
to feast. I watched them fondly for a time, and then I climbed up
into the Tree and sprawled out on one huge limb to watch my new
friends. I got the distinct impression that the Tree approved of what
I had done.
I thought about that for quite a long time that morning, but I was
still baffled about just exactly how I’d come by this unusual talent.
‘It’s the Tree’s gift to you, Polgara.’ It was mother’s voice, and
suddenly everything became clear to me. Of course! Why hadn’t I
thought of that?
‘Probably because you weren’t paying attention,’ mother observed.
In the years that followed, the Tree became like a second home
to me. I spent my days on my favorite perch with my skinny legs
stretched out on the huge limb and my back against the massive
trunk. I fed my birds and we talked. We came to know each other
better and better, and they brought me information about the
weather, forest fires, and occasional travelers passing through the
Vale. My family was always carping about my shabby appearance,
but my birds didn’t seem to mind.
As those of you who know me can attest, I have an occasionally
sharp tongue. My family was spared all sorts of affronts because of
my fondness for the Tree and its feathered inhabitants.
The seasons rolled by, and Beldaran and I grew into an awkward
coltishness – all legs and elbows. And then one morning we
discovered that we had become women during the night. There was
some fairly visible evidence of the fact on our bed-clothing.
‘Are we dying?’ Beldaran asked me in a trembling voice.
‘Tell her to stop that, Polgara!’ mother’s voice came to me sharply.
That was something I could never understand. Mother talked to me
directly, but she never intruded into Beldaran’s mind. I’m sure there
was a reason for it, but mother never got around to explaining.
‘What’s happening, mother?’ I demanded. To be honest about it, I
was quite nearly as frightened as my sister was.
‘It’s a natural process, Polgara. It happens to all women.’
‘Make it stop!’
‘No. It has to happen. Tell Beldaran that it’s nothing to get excited
about.’
‘Mother says that it’s all right,’ I told my sister.
‘How can it be all right?’
‘Shush. I’m trying to listen to mother.’
‘Don’t you shush me, Polgara!’
‘Then be still.’ I turned my attention inward. ‘You’d better explain
this, mother,’ I said. ‘Beldaran’s about ready to fly apart.’ I didn’t really
think it -,was necessary to admit that my seams were starting to come
undone as well.
Then mother gave us a somewhat clinical explanation for the
bloodstains on our bedding, and I passed the information on to my
distraught sister.
‘Is it going to go on forever now?’ Beldaran asked me in a
trembling voice.
‘No, only for a few days. Mother says to get used to it, because
it’ll happen every month.’
‘Every month?’ Beldaran sounded outraged.
‘So she says.’ I raised up in bed and looked across the room
toward Uncle beldin’s bed – the place where all the snoring was
coming from. ‘Let’s get this cleaned up while he’s still asleep,’
‘Oh, dear Gods, Yes!’she agreed fervently. ‘I’d die if he found out
about this.,
I’m fairly sure that our misshapen uncle was aware of what was
happening, but we never got around to discussing it, for some
reason.
Uncle Beldin has theorized about when the members of my
extended family develop what father calls ‘talent’, and he’s
concluded that it emerges with the onset of puberty. I may have had
something to do with that conclusion. I think I was about twelve
or so. It was that time of the month’ for Beldaran and me, and my
sister was feeling mopey. I, on the other hand, was irritable. It was
all so inconvenient! Mother had mentioned the fact that ‘something
might happen’ now that Beldaran and I had reached a certain level
of maturity, but she was a little vague about it. Evidently, it’s sort
of necessary that our first venture into the exercise of our ‘talent’
be SPOntaneous. Don’t ask me why, because I haven’t got the faintest
notion of a reasonable explanation for the custom.
As I remeniber the circumstances of that first incident, I was
dragging a large bag of wheat down to the Tree to feed my birds.
I was muttering to myself about that. Over the years my birds had
come to depend on me, and they were not above taking advantage
of my generosity. given half a chance, birds, like all other creatures,
can be lazy. I didn’t mind feeding them, but it seemed that I was