I considered the possibility of the horse. A horse can run very fast for short periods, but he soon tires, and he’s not very much brighter than the eagle. I decided against taking the form of a horse and moved on to other possibilities. An antelope can run for days without tiring, but the antelope is a silly creature, and too many other animals on this vast plain looked upon him as a food-source. I didn’t really have the time to stop to persuade every passing predator to go find something else to eat. I needed a form with speed and stamina and a sufficiently intimidating reputation to keep other creatures at a distance.
After a while it occurred to me that all the traits I was looking for were to be found in the wolf. Of all the creatures of the plain and forest, the wolf is the most intelligent, the swiftest, and the most tireless. Not only that, no sane animal crosses a wolf if he can possibly avoid it.
It took me a while to get it right. Beldin had taught us all to assume the form of a bird, but I was on my own when it came to putting on fur and paws.
I’ll admit that I botched it the first few times. Have you ever seen a wolf with feathers and a beak? You really wouldn’t want to. I finally managed to put all thoughts of birds out of my mind and came much closer to my idealized conception of what a wolf ought to look like.
It’s a strange sort of process, this changing of form. First you fill your mind with the image of the creature you want to become, and then you direct your Will inward and sort of melt yourself into the image. I wish Beldin were around. He could explain it far better than I can. The important thing is just to keep trying – and to change back quickly if you get it wrong. If you’ve left out the heart, you’re in trouble.
After I’d made the change, I checked myself over rather carefully to make sure I hadn’t left anything out. I’d imagine that I looked just a bit ridiculous groping at my head and ears and muzzle with my paws, but I wanted to be certain that other wolves wouldn’t laugh at me when they saw me.
Then I started across the grassland. I soon realized that my choice had been a good one. As soon as I got used to the idea of running on all fours, I found the shape of the wolf quite satisfactory and the mind of the wolf most compatible with my own. After an hour or so, I was pleased to note that I was covering the ground at least as fast as I had when floundering through the air as an eagle. I quickly discovered that it’s a fine thing to have a tail. A tail helps you to keep your balance, and it acts almost like a rudder when you’re making quick turns. Not only that, when you have a fine, bushy tail, you can wrap it around yourself at night to ward off the chill. You really ought to try it sometime.
I ran north for a week or so, but I still hadn’t come across any Alorns. Then on one golden afternoon in late summer I encountered a young she-wolf who was feeling frolicsome. She had, as I recall, fine haunches and a comely muzzle.
‘Why so great a hurry, friend?’ she said to me coyly in the way of wolves. Even in my haste, I was startled to find that I could understand her quite clearly. I slowed, and then I stopped.
‘What a splendid tail you have,’ she complimented me, quickly following up on her advantage, ‘and what excellent teeth.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied modestly. ‘Your own tail is also quite fine, and your coat is truly magnificent.’ I admired her openly.
‘Do you really think so?’ she said, preening herself. Then she nipped playfully at my flank and dashed off a few yards, trying to get me to chase her.
‘I would gladly stay a while so that we might get to know each other better,’ I told her, ‘but I have a most important errand.’
‘An errand?’ she scoffed with her tongue lolling out in amusement. ‘Whoever heard of a wolf with any errand but his own desires?’
‘I am not really a wolf,’ I explained.
‘Really? How remarkable. You look like a wolf, and you talk like a wolf, and you certainly smell like a wolf, but you say that you are not a wolf. What are you, then?’
‘I am a man.’ I said it rather deprecatingly. Wolves have strong opinions about certain things, I discovered.
She sat, a look of amazement on her face. She had to accept what I said as the truth, since wolves are incapable of lying. ‘You have a tail,’ she pointed out, ‘and I have never seen a man with a tail before. You have a fine coat. You have four feet. You have long, pointed teeth, sharp ears, and a black nose, and yet you say you are a man.’
‘It is very complicated.’
‘It must be,’ she conceded. ‘I think I will run with you for a while, since you must attend to this errand of yours. Perhaps we can discuss it as we go along, and you can explain this complicated thing to me.’
‘If you wish,’ I rather liked her and was glad by then for any company. It’s lonely being a wolf sometimes. ‘I must warn you though, that I run very fast,’ I cautioned her.
She sniffed. ‘All wolves run very fast.’
And so, side by side, we ran off over the endless grassland in search of the God Belar.
‘Do you intend to run both day and night?’ she asked me after we had gone several miles.
‘I will rest when I grow tired.’
‘I am glad of that.’ Then she laughed in the way of wolves, nipped at my shoulder, and scampered off.
I began to consider the morality of my situation. Though my companion looked quite delightful to me in my present form, I was almost positive that she would seem less so once I resumed my proper shape. Further, while it’s undoubtedly a fine thing to be a father, I was fairly certain that a litter of puppies might prove to be an embarrassment when I returned to my Master. Not only that, the puppies would not be entirely wolves, and I didn’t really want to father a race of monsters. But finally, since wolves mate for life, when I left my companion – as I would eventually be compelled to do – she would be abandoned, left alone with a litter of fatherless puppies, and subject to the scorn and ridicule of the other members of her pack. Propriety is very important to wolves. Thus, I resolved to resist her advances on our journey in search of Belar.
I wouldn’t have devoted so much time and space to this incident except to help explain how insidiously the personalities of the shapes we assume come to dominate our thinking. Before we had gone very far, I was as much or more a wolf as my little friend. If you should ever decide to practice this art, be careful. To remain in a shape too long is to invite the very real possibility that when the time comes to go back to your own form, you may not want to. I’ll quite candidly admit that by the time the young she-wolf and I reached the realms of the Bear-God, I’d begun to give long thoughts to the pleasures of the den and the hunt, the sweet nuzzlings of puppies, and the true and steadfast companionship of a mate.
At length we found a band of hunters near the edge of that vast primeval forest where Belar, the Bear-God, dwelt with his people. To the amazement of my companion, I resumed my own shape and approached them. ‘I have a message for Belar,’ I told them.
‘How may we know this to be true?’ one burly fellow demanded truculently. Why is it that Alorns will go out of their way to pick a fight?
‘You know it’s true because I say it’s true,’ I told him bluntly. ‘The message is important, so quit wasting time flexing your muscles and take me to Belar at once.’
Then one of the Alorns saw my companion and threw his spear at her. I didn’t have time to make what I did seem natural nor to conceal it from them. I stopped the spear in mid-flight.
They stood gaping at that spear stuck quivering in the air as if in the trunk of a tree. Then, because I was irritated, I flexed my mind and broke the spear in two. ‘Sorcery!’ one of them gasped.
‘Amazing level of perception there, old boy,’ I said sarcastically, imitating Belmakor at his best. ‘Now, unless you’d all like