hand or arm. Do not let yourself become the stone. You must make it a part of you, not the whole of you.”
I laughed at the thought. “Surely I couldn’t become something like this.”
There was no humor in her expression. “You could.”
“Is it difficult to return from a state like that?” I asked. Her seriousness was sobering.
“What do you think the chances are that the stone in your hand will suddenly decide to become a human being?” she replied.
“Oh.”
“Stop thinking about it and listen. Clear your mind and focus on the stone. Don’t be dismayed if it takes a while, just listen,” she repeated.
I did as I was told. Hopefully no one would tell Penny that, she might take it as a hopeful sign. The most difficult part was ‘clearing’ my mind. In the past when I had listened to the earth, or even the wind, it wasn’t very hard. Both of those things were large and in their own way very loud… finding the voice of one small stone, amidst the background noise of everything around me… that was a different matter entirely. I never did succeed in clearing my mind, not completely anyway, but I didn’t need to. Soon after I began to focus and clear my mind of its usual clutter I started to hear the voice of the stone in my hand. It wasn’t particularly well defined, but once I started paying attention it was fairly easy to find. “I can hear it,” I announced.
“Are you sure?” my strange companion asked.
“Yes, I wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t,” I replied in annoyance.
“Listen carefully and include its voice within your own. Make it a part of your own self. Once you can identify with it I want you to change it,” she said.
“Change it in what way?”
“Any way you wish,” she clarified.
Typical, I thought. “Thanks for your guidance,” I said dryly, and then I got serious. Focusing I listened until the stone did indeed feel as if it were an extension of my own being. It was a curious sensation, but it felt completely natural. It was only afterward, when I had withdrawn myself that it seemed strange to me.
Once I had made the stone a part of myself I tried to think of something interesting to do with it. The most obvious thing would be to cause it to relax… which would result in it falling apart like sand. I think that is what my new ‘teacher’ expected. Given my contrary nature I decided to try and surprise her. Drawing on past experiences I thought of the first time I had experienced my gifts as a mage, the day I had saved Star from the river. On a whim I coaxed the stone into reshaping itself, molding it to resemble my memory of the beautiful horse. It was a shape far more delicate than you might expect to see in stone, especially at that scale.
I had done similar things frequently with metal, using my power to help shape the metal in my hands but this was different. It still required the use of my imagination, but there was no sensation of effort. I did not force the change myself, I asked… no I showed the stone my vision and it obliged me by taking that form for itself. When I had finished I looked up to see Moira’s reaction. “How is that?”
Her face was impassive, “Very good, better than most when they first attempt it.” Though she gave little outward sign I could sense a feeling of shock in her. She hadn’t expected what I had done. More importantly, she was trying to avoid letting me know I had surprised her.
“How good?” I asked pointedly.
“Too good,” she admitted. “You’re a danger to yourself.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I chuckled wryly. “I didn’t like it then and I still don’t.”
“This is no laughing matter. You need a meillte, several in fact, so they can rest. In my day someone like you would have at least three,” she declared.
“Why three? I don’t see the advantage of having more than one.”
“There isn’t for you. It gives them the opportunity to rest. Three would be enough that one could keep an eye on your mental state at all times, even while you slept,” she explained.
“That seems excessive, what would I do while sleeping?”
“Probably nothing, but possibly anything.”
“How many of these ‘miellte’ did you have?” I asked.
“Two… I wasn’t judged sensitive enough to warrant a watcher while I slept. The last archmage to require three was my friend, Gareth Gaelyn,” she said promptly.
That seemed odd. Gareth Gaelyn had supposedly been defeated in battle with Balinthor, while Moira later went on to defeat the dark god, yet he had required more watchers? That doesn’t make sense, I thought. “If he was more powerful why did he fail… where you succeeded?” As I said it I immediately realized it was rude, but sometimes my mouth gets the best of me.
“Power… you have to stop thinking like that! An archmage does not possess power! He becomes power. Because of this no archmage is intrinsically more powerful than another; the difference lies in the ease with which they can adapt themselves. Gareth’s talent made him a brilliant shape-shifter, something most archmages avoid. It also made it easy for him to attempt something that would have daunted a mage with more caution, someone more aware of their own limits!” she spat out angrily.
“I did not meant to offend,” I hastily apologized. At the same time I was mentally reviewing what she had said. Shape-shifting wasn’t something I had read of in the few books I had had a chance to study so far. The term was intriguing, while also being frightening in its implications. I stayed silent for a while before speaking again, “If you don’t mind telling me… what did he do?”
She watched me for a moment, as if considering her words. “We were being driven from the Kingdom of Garulon. It was the first time we had met the shiggreth and they were something of a surprise for us. Balinthor had kept them hidden from us until that day and they overwhelmed our defense of the capital. Because we had not faced such creatures before we had no idea what they could do… or how to fight them. We lost the city and the army routed. Thousands died in the span of a few hours and those of us still able to keep order withdrew, seeking to escape the chaos. The fear and despair drove Gareth to attempt something radical. He was desperate or he would never have done it.” She stopped then and turned her back on me, as if to hide her face. Despite her alien body her demeanor was entirely human, as were the emotions I felt running through her.
I waited.
“He became a dragon,” she said at last.
Apparently I had used up my supply of ‘wisdom’ because in my surprise I interrupted, “I thought dragons were only fairy tales.”
“They are, or rather, they were… until that day. Gareth had always been fascinated with the stories. In a moment of desperation he sought to create the beasts he had dreamed of from the stories of childhood. I am not sure if his fear and anger twisted his imagination, or if it was purely a foolish thing to begin with, but the dragon he became was a creature of fury and destruction. It tore into the enemy, tossing them about as if they were dolls, incinerating those it could not reach with its claws. Very few of the shiggreth that had come against us survived, and even the avatar of Balinthor left the field, rather than face the dragon directly.”
“The history book I found did not mention any of this,” I said.
“I doubt any of the scholars would have written of it. The shame of it stained his memory. Before that day Gareth had been well respected and loved by all that knew him,” she replied.
“But it sounds as if he succeeded. What went wrong?” I already had a fair inkling of what she might tell me, but I wanted to hear it in her own words.
“After he had killed as many of the enemy as he could find he turned on what was left of the defenders of Garulon. He slaughtered friend and foe alike. Few survived, apart from those I was able to hide.”
I had expected something tragic. If anything it helped put my own experiences in perspective, especially the end of the recent war with Gododdin. At least I didn’t kill my own people, I thought. “What happened after that?” I asked finally.
“We hid for days, waiting for the dragon to leave, but the creature was cunning. Like a cat it waited, catching those who revealed themselves. Eventually, when I felt him leave I emerged from my hiding place in the earth and gathered up those few others who had managed to escape. The dragon that had been Gareth was gone. Whether it still lives or died long ago I have no idea.”
We talked for a short while after that, but our conversation had taken on a dark tone and I had lost my enthusiasm for it. Eventually I decided to return to the castle. I had had enough of dark tales and tragic endings. My own life had nearly become one after all.
