David Eddings - Polgara the Sorceress

It wasn’t exactly a noise. I felt it more than I heard it, but it still seemed to rattle my teeth.

‘Now do you see what I mean?’ Belkira asked me.

‘Yes. That’s quite a sound, isn’t it?’

‘I’m glad you enjoyed it.’

They went on piling restrictions on me for quite some time. ‘Is that all?’ I asked finally. They were beginning to make me tired.

‘There’ll be more, Pol,’ Beltira said. “Those are just the things you need to know right now. Like it or not, your education’s just begun. You’ve got to learn to control this gift. Study very hard, Pol. Your life probably depends on it.’

‘ Just smile and agree with them, Polgara ,’ mother’s voice advised me. ‘ I’ll take care of your education myself. Smile and nod and keep the peace when they try to instruct you, Pol. Don’t upset them by doing anything unusual while they’re around.’

‘ Whatever you say, mother ,’ I agreed.

And that’s how I really got my education. My uncles were frequently startled by just how fast I picked things up. They no sooner mentioned a particular feat than I did it – flawlessly. I’m sure they all thought they had a budding – but very dirty – genius on their hands. The truth of the matter was that mother had already taught me those rudimentary tricks. My mind and mother’s mind had been linked since before I was born, and so she was in a much better position to gauge the extent of my understanding. This made her a far better teacher than my uncles. It was about then that uncle Beldin left on some mysterious errand, and so my education fell on the twins’ shoulders – at least they thought it did. In actuality, mother taught me most of what I know.

I naturally told my sister about what had happened. Beldaran and I didn’t really have any secrets from each other.

Her face became rather wistful. ‘What was it like?’ she asked me.

‘I’ll show you how,’ I told her. Then you can find out for yourself.’

She sighed. ‘No, Pol,’ she replied. ‘Mother told me not to.’

‘Told? You mean she’s finally talking to you?’

‘Not when I’m awake,’ Beldaran explained. ‘Her voice comes to me when I’m dreaming.’

‘That’s a terribly cumbersome way to do it.’

‘I know, but there’s a reason for it. She told me that you’re supposed to do things. I’m just supposed to be.’

To be what?’

‘She hasn’t told me yet. She’ll probably get around to it one of these days.’

And that sent me away muttering to myself.

Mother told me about several of the things I might be capable of doing, and I tried them all. Translocation was a lot of fun, actually, and it taught me how to muffle the noise. I spent whole days bouncing rocks here and there about the Vale.

There were many tricks mother explained to me that I wasn’t able to practice, since they required the presence of other people, and aside from the twins and Beldaran, nobody else was around. Mother rather sternly told me not to experiment with Beldaran.

What my uncles chose to call my ‘education’ took me away from my Tree and my birds for extended periods of time, and I didn’t like that very much. I already knew about most of what they were telling me anyway, so it was all very tedious and monotonous for me.

‘ Keep your temper, Polgara ,’ mother told me on one occasion when I was right on the verge of an outburst.

‘ But this is all so boring !’ I protested.

‘ Think about something else, then .’

‘ What should I think about ?’

‘ Have the twins teach you how to cook ,’ she suggested. ‘ Humans like to stick their food in a fire before they eat it. It’s always seemed like a waste of time to me, but that’s the way they are .’

And so it was that I started to get two educations instead of one. I learned all about translocation and about spices at almost the same time. One of the peculiarities of our gift is the fact that imagination plays a very large part in it, and I soon found that I could imagine what a given spice would add to whatever dish I was preparing. In this particular regard I soon even outstripped the twins. They measured things rather meticulously. I seasoned food by instinct – a pinch, a dollop, or a handful of any spice always seemed to work out just right.

‘That’s too much sage, Pol,’ Beltira protested when I dug my hand into one of his spice-pots.

‘Wait, uncle,’ I told him. ‘Don’t criticize my cooking until you’ve tasted it.’

And, as usual, the stew I was preparing came out perfect.

Beltira was a little sullen about that, as I recall.

And then there came a very important day in my life. It was the day – night actually – when mother revealed the secret of changing shape.

‘ It’s really quite simple, Polgara ,’ she told me. ‘ All you really have to do is form the image of the alternative shape in your mind and then fit yourself into it .’

Mother’s idea of ‘simple’ and mine were miles apart, however.

‘ The tail-feathers are too short ,’ she said critically after my third attempt. ‘ Try it again .’

It took me hours to get the imagined shape right. I was almost on the verge of giving up entirely. If I got the tail right, the beak was wrong – or the talons. Then the wing-feathers weren’t soft enough. Then the chest wasn’t strong enough. Then the eyes were too small. I was right at the edge of abandoning the whole notion when mother said, ‘ That looks closer. Now just let yourself flow into it .’ Mother’s ability to see into my mind made her the best teacher I could possibly have had.

As I started to slip myself into the image I’d formed, I felt as if my body had turned into something almost liquid – like honey. I literally seeped into that imaginary shape.

And then it was done. I was a snowy owl. Once again, mother’s intimate contact with my mind simplified things enormously. There are far too many things involved in flying for anyone to pick it up immediately, so mother quite simply instilled all those minuscule shifts and dexterity in my mind. I thrust with my soft wings, and I was immediately airborne. I circled a few times, learning with every silent sweep of my wings, and those circles grew inexorably wider.

There’s an ecstasy to flying that I won’t even try to describe. By the time dawn began to stain the eastern horizon, I was a competent bird, and my mind was filled with a joy I’d never known before.

‘ You’d better go back to the tower, Pol ,’ mother advised. ‘ Owls aren’t usually flying in the daytime .’

‘ Do I have to ?’

‘ Yes. Let’s not give our little secret away just yet. You’ll have to change to your own form as well .’

‘ Mother !’ I protested vehemently.

‘ We can play again tomorrow night, Pol. Now go home and change back before anyone wakes up.’

That didn’t make me too happy, but I did as I was told.

It was not long after that that Beldaran took me to one side. ‘Uncle Beldin’s bringing father back to the Vale,’ she told me.

‘Oh? How do you know that?’

‘Mother told me – in a dream.’

‘A dream?’ That startled me.

‘She always talks to me in my dreams. I told you about that already.’

I decided not to make an issue of it, but I reminded myself to have a talk with mother about it. She always came to me when I was awake, but for some reason she spoke to my sister in the hazy world of dreams. I wondered why there was such a difference. I also wondered why mother had told Beldaran about our vagrant father’s homecoming and hadn’t bothered to let me know about it.