A Glimmer of Guile Read online

  "Oh, so you think even I would be able to attend her?" I meant to say it with a smile, but it came out sarcastically.

  He raised his eyebrows. "I thought maybe you'd like a change of scene. I wasn't suggesting anything else."

  "Sorry, Raym. I didn't mean that to be as snippy as it sounded."

  It was tempting, but I had a garden to look after, and besides Raym had seemed restless for the past month or two. We'd been sniping at each other, something we'd managed to avoid for nearly two years. Maybe it was Raym who needed a change of scene, including a change of company. I thanked him but told him I'd rather stay home.

  He looked at me hard with those black eyes of his. "You're right. We see too much of each other as it is."

  After he left I thought about this. Raym and I had become friends, easy in each other's company. Settled, almost. But I remembered what Katra had said, that he lived alone because he liked it. And although there was still much more I could learn from him, it occurred to me that this would always be true. I supposed I'd have to find a place of my own before too much longer.

  A day or two before I expected Raym back, I worked in the garden until midmorning and then went up into the hills about a half-hour's walk from the cottage to dig some roots from the trillium that grew near a small, deep lake there. We would grate, dry, and store them as a tea to ease childbirth; Raym had taken the last of our supply with him to Khori's court.

  When I'd dug and cleaned as much as I wanted, I stripped off my light shift and sandals. They were all I was wearing, since it was a hot day and there was no need for modesty, no one else for miles around. I walked out into the lake, swam for a few minutes in the icy water, and then stretched out in the sunlight on the grassy shore.

  I was awakened in what seemed only a few minutes by the sound of running footsteps on the path, nearly into the clearing. As I stood and hastily grabbed up my shift, I heard Raym's voice, ringing with what sounded like apprehension. "Vivia? Vivia!" I turned to face him.

  He had stopped, frozen in his tracks. When he spoke, his voice was hesitant. "You weren't there, at the house. I--I seemed to see you in the lake. I was afraid..."

  We stared at each other for a long moment, motionless as statues.

  Something happened inside me then, a kind of tremendous fluttering as if I were a tree full of birds that had startled up and then settled briefly, tense and quiet but ready to fly. Time began again and I took a step toward him.

  He held up his right hand as if to ward me off. "Forgive me for disturbing you." His tone was cold. "Come back to the house, please, in a few minutes. We must talk." He turned and strode away.

  I braided my hair, gathered the trillium roots, and followed at a cautious distance. I had no idea what had happened between us, but I knew it was something important, and I felt a curious mixture of eagerness and reluctance to see him again.

  When I arrived, Raym was seated with his back to me on a small stone bench near the stream, his customary place for meditation. I went into the cottage without speaking, changed into trousers and my usual loose tunic, laid the roots on the worktable, and came back out. Now he was facing me, and with great effort I met his eyes. "Raym," I said, "I'm sorry. I should have left a note. But I didn't expect you today."

  He brushed this off with a gesture, as if it were a fly. "No, it was my foolishness. The lady was delivered early, and I tired quickly of the court. There was no reason you should've had to explain, anyway."

  "Was it a boy?"

  "Twin boys. There'll be trouble there in a few years if Khori's not careful. Now, let us forget all of this for the moment, Vivia. Sit here and clear your mind, as you've practiced. When you're ready, come inside. We have some important work to begin."

  Suddenly I knew what he was talking about. Not exactly, as it turned out, but near enough that my heart gave a violent leap. He may have sent me a hint of it with his thoughts. If so, it was intentional, for Raym never gave something away in that manner without meaning to. In any case, I forgot, immediately if temporarily, the incident at the lakeshore. I'd just realized that I was about to attempt something only a handful of witches in the world could accomplish. The Great Shift.

  * * * *

  In an ironic way, the Great Shift is a central element of guile. It's what most people associate with us, why they believe witches can fly--although this is impossible in our own forms--and why they fear us, if they fear us. Most do, whether they want to admit it or not.

  Many guilish people are able to read and influence feelings, to perform illusions, even to move objects and make fire with an effort of the mind. All these things, Raym had explained to me, are ordinary human powers, although little understood and often unsuspected except in those of us who possess them to a high degree. The Great Shift is the only true magic possessed by people of guile, the only feat that can't be explained as a natural force. Although, Raym confessed, maybe that meant only that he couldn't explain it. The mystery of the Great Shift, he added, tends to color all those more common powers, so that those who discover that they possess them often deny them, even to themselves.

  "The real difference between you and a good many others," he said when I'd told him about my first inklings of guile, "is that your ability to send feelings to someone else intrigued you when you discovered it. And you were honest with yourself. Mostly it frightens people, so they pretend it didn't happen. They guard against its happening again. But you, Vivia, were fearless, and another word for fearless is reckless. Remember that. It'll keep you humble."

  That morning, however, I felt a pleasant thrill that was far from humble. Only a few people of guile could actually accomplish the Great Shift. The ladies Keln and Harken, both at Ladygate, were two. The Red Prince's witch was another. There were others, Raym said, but they were in different parts of the world.

  He himself was an adept in the mystery, although he had never demonstrated this ability in my sight. "I use it sometimes to travel. And sometimes to observe, without being noticed. It's a real shift, Vivia, a material change from one physical essence to another, and it shouldn't be used frivolously. It drains one's strength. And while it doesn't change what one is, one's human nature, it affects it. If you take the form of a tiger, some of that creature's ferocity will come to you. If you take the form of a cricket... Well, you see what I mean. And you must never take the form of a non-living thing. If one does that, one loses the ability to shift back."

  "But what is it really?"

  "A mystery, as I've said. One sent from God, like all mysteries and all gifts, to be used according to our choice for good or ill. That's all I can tell you. When I show you the secrets of the Great Shift, you must never reveal them to a non-initiate until you've judged that person worthy of receiving them. It would be no shame to you if a worthy initiate proved incapable of the Shift, but a terrible shame if one, capable but undeserving, learned its secrets."

  He had now, apparently, judged me worthy, and it wasn't easy to clear my mind as he'd directed. But eventually I felt ready, and I went into the cottage.

  What I learned that day was something I must not reveal. I can say, though, that my first Shift involved certain words, an object that Raym had kept hidden by illusion, even from me, who by that time had acquired enough skill to see through most of that sort of thing, and a succession of steps followed carefully and exactly. After a length of time, I began to feel an odd and not entirely pleasant tingling everywhere, as if I were about to disintegrate.

  Raym had not touched me, nor had he looked at me. He had been gazing into the thing he'd brought out and placed on the table between us, while speaking in a low voice that rang with overtones and pausing as I repeated what he said. Now he looked up, searchingly, into my face. "What are you feeling?"

  It was a struggle to speak. "My bones are full of air," I finally told him.

  "We'll go down to the stream now." He smiled, and pocketed the object.

  We went out of the cottage and toward the stone bench. I f
elt as if I was floating.

  Just above the riffle, two pairs of wild geese had settled on the bank. I'd seen them there for several days with their goslings, green-gray, lanky, foolish-looking chicks that would be fledged out by fall, ready to fly with the others. The adults looked toward us now, curious but not startled.

  I turned to Raym and saw that he was beautiful and strong, with his wings folded sleekly against his body, his gray and black and iridescent feathers shining in place. He stroked my back, once and very lightly, with his beak. It was the first time he'd ever touched me except with the force of his guile. We lifted off the ground together and flew up swiftly, pushing ourselves through the currents of the air, following the stream's course until we were high above the trees.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  That first Great Shift was definitely the most fantastic experience of my life. My thoughts and memories remained my own; even my senses were still mine, but were enhanced by the senses and the instincts of the creature whose form I had assumed. I was myself but I was also a wild goose, visually aware, by minute turnings of the head, of everything above, below, and to both sides of me. The balance, orientation, and silent speed of flight were exquisite, as was my awareness of Raym's position and motion, slightly ahead and to my right.

  Below us were forests, fields and meadows, cattle and sheep and people working in their fields like tiny toys carved out of scraps of wood, only these moved by their own power. Streams and ponds were like cool blue strips and shapes of polished metal, reflecting the sky. Above and beside and even enveloping us at times were clouds. Once or twice we saw them pass beneath our wings like springy piles of floating fleece casting their shadows on the land below. Below and around us larks and swallows and doves darted and called. Once, far above us, I saw a great bird of prey, its broad wings shifting on invisible currents as it hunted with eyes even sharper than my own.

  I think I might have gone on flying until I was exhausted, but when Raym began to glide downward, I was led by instinct to follow, and when we saw a heart-shaped lake below us we slid to a smooth stop on its cool, soft surface. We propelled ourselves to the shore and stepped out onto the grass. In his mind, Raym said a word, and in my mind I repeated it. And then he was standing beside me in his common tunic and trousers of brown homespun, with his black hair springing out around his narrow face and his eyes sharp with concern. I couldn't for the moment identify what was wrong, and so I asked him.

  The sound that came out of my mouth was both ridiculous and horrible. I realized suddenly that Raym was towering over me. I hadn't changed back.

  "No, Vivia," he said quickly. "Don't try to speak. And don't be afraid. Clear your mind and be calm. I'll help you."

  He sat cross-legged on the grass in front of me, fixing me with his gaze. I felt utterly idiotic and was badly scared. I'd heard the stories of the girls turned into swans, and a few into worse things than swans.

  Raym hadn't helped me to shift in the first place; I'd done it on my own, following his guidance. But I couldn't make the shift out of the form now, and I didn't know if he could help me with that or not. If not, the prospect wasn't cheery. I tried to clear my mind, but it was impossible. He sat there for a long time, concentrating intensely, speaking in that soft voice full of overtones. At last he sighed. He picked me up and covered my head with his hand, pushing it down into the crook of his arm. It felt strangely calming, and then I was asleep.

  When I awakened the first thing I did was raise my hand so I could see if it really was a hand. It was. Relieved and exhausted, I let my arm fall back beside me where I lay on the ground.

  After a few minutes Raym made me sit up. He looked as if he hadn't slept in two nights. "Sorry, Vivia. That was my fault."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I hurried it, all of it. You needed more time at the beginning and I didn't give it to you. I should have explained more carefully how the return would be accomplished, and we should have come out of the Shift immediately, before we came here. Before we were both spent."

  "Why didn't we, then?" I was badly shaken, and it seemed to me Raym had just told me he'd put me in grave danger.

  He sighed. "It went so well. You did it so easily. And it consumes so much energy. If we'd shifted and then come back to our own forms, we'd have had to wait at least several hours until the next time. Then we'd have had to stay somewhere along the way overnight, and that could've been dangerous, in the changed form. If you take a predator's form, you're relatively safe, but as we were, we ought to have been with a larger flock, and even then there's always danger of being prey."

  Or we could've waited until tomorrow, couldn't we? I knew there was something he wasn't telling me, and I knew it was something I didn't want to hear. So I didn't ask. My heartbeat had slowed. "We should have been hawks, then? Not geese?"

  "Something like that. Although hawks are territorial, so we'd have been challenged by others when we flew through their space."

  "I see. But if something attacks, couldn't you come out of the Shift?"

  "I could," he said. "It's not an ideal situation, though. For one thing, a predator--a wolf, a wildcat, maybe--might attack anyway. You can frighten an animal, but you can't put a spell on it. Their brains don't work that way." He paused. "And for another thing, coming out of the Shift, like going into it, requires a calm state of mind, at least the first few times one does it." He looked uneasy. "That's why I had to make you unconscious, just now. To suggest the change to you while you were that way."

  "I see," I said again. "Well, now we're here, and it is late in the day, so we'll have to find somewhere to stay in our own forms until we can start back."

  "Ladygate is only an hour or so away. We'll bypass the town and court and go directly there."

  "I can stay there," I agreed. "But they don't let men spend the night, I think. Not even you, Raym. You'll have to go back to Horok's court."

  He shook his head. "I'll rest and then start back home tonight, as soon as I've seen you safe."

  This was what I hadn't wanted to know. "You won't wait for me?"

  "Ah, Vivia. No, I won't wait for you. You're not coming back with me, you see. Have you completely forgotten what happened this morning? When I woke you on the shore of the lake, there above the cottage?"

  "Nothing happened." But of course something had. I felt a flutter of it again even as I spoke, when I met his eyes. He looked away quickly.

  "Something would have, believe me." We'd started to walk around the shoreline to where the stream began to make its way through the woods above Heart Hall. "I told you a long time ago, when you came to me, Vivia, that I'm a man as well as a wizard. You were a woman then, but I don't think you knew it yet. You know it now. And I can no longer pretend that I don't."

  I knew exactly what he meant, exactly. And without thinking even for a moment, I caught his arm and pulled him around to face me. "Then don't pretend," I said in a fierce whisper. "I don't want you to pretend."

  "Take your hand away, Vivia," he said. "I won't use guile to make you do it. You must do it yourself, of your own will."

  I pulled my hand back. Touching Raym had been breathtaking, like touching a bolt of lightning.

  "Listen to me carefully," he went on. "You are a powerful woman, and your time is only beginning. You'll be a greater witch than Keln was, greater far than Harken, greater than Orath. Greater than I am, possibly. What we both want is something most human beings want. It's our nature.

  "The blame would be mine if I were to give in to it. We'll see each other again, I hope, when you're older, and when we're both stronger in our resolve. For now, you've learned everything I can teach you. You need to go on, learn from the companionship of other women. In time you'll outgrow that, too. Until then..."

  He took something from his pocket. "This is yours." He handed me the pendant I'd given him that first day. "Keep it, to remember...all of us. Katra. Your father. Me." He started to walk again.

  I pocketed the pendant and caught up
with him.

  "What happened today... Was that what happened between you and Katra? She wouldn't tell me, but now I wonder. Did something happen? Was that why her guile was less than it might have been?"

  He faced me. "Katra was a lovely woman, as you know. She had a strong power of sympathy and a quick mind. Almost nothing more. I could have taken very little from her of what she was. Maybe nothing at all, but there would've been no way to know that until too late. I chose not to find out. Her gift wasn't a great one, but it was important to her. And we were both very young."

  I chose, he'd said. Not she. Not we. It was why Katra hadn't talked about him much. Why she wanted him to have the amethyst.

  "And your own gift?"

  He looked at me coldly and started walking again. "My own gift does not require that sacrifice."

  * * * *

  And so I came to Ladygate. I've already said what I found there, quarreling and distrust. The great lady, Keln, had already begun to fail and had been replaced by Harken. The older witches, who'd been Keln's sisters, and sisters to the least gifted young novice as well, offering friendship and guidance, stayed on under Harken but withdrew into their own company. The younger ones formed cliques, indulging themselves in gossip. When I saw where I was, I bitterly regretted the incident that had come between Raym and me.

  At the same time, I began to understand it better. As my dreams of him became more vivid I realized reluctantly that he'd been right. Human love could take many forms, and the form it had been about to take between the two of us would probably have cost me more than it was worth.

  You'll be greater than Orath, he'd said, and I couldn't forget his saying it. Could the satisfaction of a vulgar appetite, one shared with every other animal in the world, compensate for losing that possibility? Even if it cost Raym nothing of his own powers, and he'd said clearly enough that it would not, wouldn't we have come to resent each other very soon for the loss of mine? Gradually I grew impatient with my dreams, refused to entertain them, and eventually they stopped.