"I wish we could walk up to the castle and take this at the last minute," she muttered to herself, "but we can't risk being seen. We must pick a form that travels fast."
"You mean like a horse?" Tasslehoff suggested.
"I mean something inconspicuous." Selana nibbled on a fingernail again as she thought. "A bird, perhaps."
"Great!" cried Tas. "I've always wanted to fly. A falcon—say, how about a condor? They're really tough. Or maybe a giant goatsucker bird. . . ."
"I don't even know what that is. Look, Tasslehoff," Selana said with great patience, "we're trying to keep from being seen. We have to pick a common bird, so we'll blend in."
Just then, a small brown-and-gray bird swooped into their stoop, searching for crumbs. "Like this one right here," added Selana.
"A sparrow? They're awfully small and unimpressive," Tas pouted.
"They're perfect," said Selana, unstoppering the vial. She touched it to her lips, but before swallowing she looked intently at the kender's eager face. Selana had never even heard of kender before coming to the land. Tasslehoff, the only kender in her acquaintance, seemed true and sincere enough, but unpredictable. She paused. "This is not a game, Tasslehoff. This could be a dangerous thing we're about to do. Promise me that you'll stay close to me and not waste time."
"Now who's wasting time?" the kender said archly, tapping his foot with impatience.
Selana rolled her eyes, then tilted the vial again and sipped just a little less than half of its contents. Eyeballing what remained, she took one last, small sip, then handed the potion to Tasslehoff.
Eyes as round as full moons, the kender absently set down the loaf of bread and tossed back the remainder of the acrid potion without hesitation.
"I don't feel any different," he said straightaway, running his hands over his slender frame for confirmation. Then his throat began tingling, as if his tongue were falling asleep. The sensation spread quickly, down his throat, pooling in his stomach, then raced through every portion of his body, ending with what felt like a tiny, swirling "pop" in his fingers and toes. Then the tingling was gone, replaced by a feeling of great awareness.
"I feel fantastic! What do we do now?"
"Just think about being a bird," Selana said. "There's no better way to explain it in your language. You must relax, and just picture it. If you try too hard, you will fail."
Tasslehoff watched in amazement as delicate trails of sparkling amber raced around Selana. In a wink the sea elf was gone, replaced by a tiny bird with unusually large eyes, fluttering in her place.
"Selana?" Tas asked, grinning enormously. "That was really neat! I—"
The little bird landed on Tas's shoulder and chirped impatiently.
"OK, I get it, I'll hurry," said the kender. Shutting his eyes tightly to focus, he strained to imagine his arms covered with feathers and flapping at his sides. Popping one eye open, he gasped upon seeing the speckled gray wings where his arms used to be. Looking down, he saw—feet! He wasn't a bird, he was a kender with wings! Something chirped and flapped frantically around his head. Without pausing to see who might be watching, Tas closed his eyes again. He remembered Selana's advice and breathed deeply, visualizing a sparrow.
Absorbed in this activity, Tas suddenly realized that the world sounded larger and more full of echoes, that his nostrils were filled with scents he had never noticed before—stones and earth and pollen mingled with buzzing insects and crashing footsteps. A sudden, strong breeze buffeted him and lifted him off his feet. Startled, his eyes flew open. All the colors were gone from the world, leaving only black and white.
"Hey, Selana!" he tried to say, but the sound that came out of his mouth was clicks and chirps. Fluttering above the brick walk, he peered down his nose and saw the reason: he had a beak! He stretched out his arms and felt feathers catch the wind. This is even better than teleporting, he thought to himself.
Tasslehoff raised his wings and soared upward. He dipped one wing and swooped across the stoop, misjudged the distance, and brushed his wing tip across the bricks of the wall. Steadying himself as he turned toward open space, he worked at learning to control his new body by testing its features. Just when he thought he understood how everything worked, the wind rushed up across the side of a building and tossed him about like a leaf.
"Tasslehoff, don't fight the currents," said a voice vaguely like Selana's but with a strange accent. Tas scanned around until he spotted the sea elf-turned-sparrow flying circles several dozen yards away. Her voice had seemed much closer than that, he thought.
"Yes, it's me you're hearing," the little bird said, her feathered crown bobbing, "but I'm not actually speaking. I've cast a spell that will allow us to 'think' at each other, otherwise we couldn't communicate at all. If birds speak to each other, I don't know how, and we haven't got the time to learn.
"We don't have time to enjoy ourselves, either," her soft voice continued inside Tas's head. "Work with the currents—let them lift you. It's a lot like swimming."
Tasslehoff found that comparison little help, since he had done almost as little swimming as flying in his eighteen years. Still, he followed the advice and found that the air tides were less troublesome.
Selana let him experiment for a few more minutes before asking, "Do you feel confident enough to set off for the castle yet? We really must hurry."
Tasslehoff bobbed his tufted head eagerly. With a wave of her wing signaling Tas to follow, Selana darted up into the sky above the pristine streets of Tantallon. Hot in pursuit, Tas flapped along behind her, feeling much, he thought, like a baby bird on its first flight from the nest.
Ah, the world looks much different through the eyes of a bird, said Tas to himself. He saw everything in
