While the young forester spent many hours poring over old elven histories and discussing the nature of magic, it was not in Aeron's nature-or Fineghal's, for that matter-to spend too much time indoors. From time to time, the elven lord allowed Aeron to set aside the books for a few days and accompany him on his treks through the forest. Under the early morning frosts of winter, the forest was breathtakingly beautiful, alive with the constant trickle of ice and water from every branch and rocky face.
On one occasion early in the winter, a week or so before the end of the year, Fineghal sent Aeron to the tower library to search out a text on the ancient history of the elven folk. "You've asked me enough questions about the old lands of the elves," he said. "Go read about them for yourself." With an exasperated sigh, Aeron returned to the library and began to search for the text in question.
Fineghal's library was not very well organized. The ancient elf had read every tome within, and his memory for such things was so phenomenal that he almost never needed to refer to them again. Even if he did, the elven sorcerer welcomed the excuse to ransack his bookshelves and surprise himself with what he happened across while in search of the book he really wanted. Like him, Aeron could rarely resist the urge to rummage and wander through the hundreds of tomes, plates, and scrolls.
An hour or more passed as Aeron explored the depths of Fineghal's collection, browsing through a dozen books that had nothing whatsoever to do with elven history. He'd just given up on one corner of the shelf when he spied a slender spellbook in a tooled-leather jacket. "What's this?" he asked himself. Fishing it out, Aeron moved over in front of a window and began to page through it.
The cover was marked with an unknown wizard's sigil, but the frontispiece was a thin sheet of beaten gold, stamped with arcane lettering. Aeron peered at it for a moment before he recognized the script as ancient Elvish. "Rhymes of Magic and Wonder?" he murmured. "A bardic spellbook . . ." His curiosity piqued, Aeron carried the book to a table and sat down to read. He skimmed over a pair of simple spells he already knew, past a dozen or more that he didn't, and then found himself hovering over a page marked, "The Changing of Form."
The changing of form, Aeron thought. He glanced out the window, where a lonely hawk wheeled and cried over the rocky cliffs. Involuntarily he glanced at the door, even though he knew Fineghal had left the tower to walk the nearby forest. So far, Aeron had spent his time working with lesser magics until he had a number of those well in hand. But this seemed a much more formidable spell, an enchantment of some potency. I wish I'd known how to do this when Raedel and his friends set after me last summer, he thought bitterly. To turn into a bird and fly away ... or to change into a bear and tear their arms off, that would be something. I'd never need to fear him again.
"Fineghal would be angry," Aeron said aloud. He hadn't attempted to lock a spell in his mind using rhymes such as this book contained; he'd only attempted the feat with Fineghal's spell tokens. He took a deep breath and composed himself, studying the long set of lyrics, trying to impress them into his memory. After an hour, he finally rubbed his eyes and admitted defeat, leaning back. It's a rhyme, he thought. Maybe you commit it to memory by reading it aloud.
Steeling himself, Aeron began to read aloud the lilting words of the spell. Even as he spoke the first words, he sensed the gentle stirrings of the Weave at work, while the printing in the spellbook vanished as he read it. He recognized two unpleasant facts at the same time: first of all, he was actually casting the spell, not committing it to memory; second, he would have to read swiftly and certainly in order to finish it before the words vanished altogether. Trying to remain calm, Aeron picked up his pace, until the words tumbled from his mouth in a high-pitched declamation that rang throughout the tower.
A shimmering emerald glow began to play over his hands and arms. Aeron kept reading, pushing his wonder and growing fear to the back of his mind. He considered abandoning the enchantment altogether, but decided that he could carry through with it. "I can do it," he muttered aloud during a break in the lyrics. Then he plunged into the last stanza, blindly channeling all his strength into the effort before him.
He spoke the last word, and his world exploded into emerald agony. Terrible pains wracked his entire body, shooting through each joint. His skin flared with pain as if liquid fire had been poured over his body. Aeron screamed, and in midshriek, his howl changed to the raucous cry of a seabird. The pain receded almost as quickly as it had started, leaving him floundering on the floor awkwardly.
He blinked his eyes, trying to make sense of his surroundings. There was something wrong with his vision; the colors were washed out, and there seemed to be a dark bar in the center of his view, making it difficult to look straight ahead. He turned his head to one side, and suddenly realized that his body had changed to that of a seagull. It worked! he thought exultantly. Experimentally he spread his wings, wondering how one actually took flight.
His wing tips began to glow green. He opened his mouth to protest, but nothing but a squawk came out. The horrible agony of the change came over him again, even worse than before. In a matter of moments, his feathered wings shrank and vanished as he writhed on the floor. He thrashed his legs, but a dark, scaly coil twisted through his fading eyesight. When the pain stopped, he tried to right himself but only succeeded in rolling over. What am I now? he thought miserably. As it turned out, he didn't have time to concern himself with the question, since he started to change again almost immediately.
This time the green fire left him as some kind of mouse or rat, lost in the now titanic library. He chittered in fear and ran in a small circle, uncertain of whether he wanted to remain in this shape or to chance something worse. The spell gave him no choice, and after an eternity of bone-snapping agony, he found himself encased in an armored shell, with ridiculously tiny limbs.
Something seized him and lifted him into the air. From an impossible distance, Fineghal's face peered into his. The elf spoke, but Aeron heard not a sound. He tried to reply, but he couldn't tell if he'd even opened his mouth. With a thump, he was set down on the table, and he watched the gigantic figure gesticulate with his hands. The emerald aura flickered brightly, and Aeron endured one final transformation. When he was capable of coherent speech again, Aeron looked up shakily at Fineghal and said, "Thank you. How did you end it?"
"A simple dispelling," Fineghal snapped. "May I ask how you started it, Aeron?"
Weakly Aeron pointed at the leather-covered book. "I read it out of that tome."
Fineghal's eyes widened. "Do you have any idea how foolish that was? How easily you might have been killed? Think, Aeron! What if you had changed yourself into a fish? You would have asphyxiated right here on the floor!"
"I only wanted to see if I could do it," Aeron replied.
"Then why not throw yourself off the roof of the tower to see if you've learned to fly?" Fineghal barked.
"If you didn't want me to read some of these tomes, Fineghal, you should have warned me," Aeron retorted. "How was I to know that what I did was dangerous?"
"I placed more trust in your common sense." Fineghal snorted and turned away, examining the book. He looked at the blank page in disgust. "Do you realize that you also erased a very rare and valuable copy of that spell?"
"Erased? How?"
"It's possible to cast spells of this sort by reading them out of the book. But the magical energy must come from somewhere, so if it was not locked in your mind, it consumed itself. It is gone."
"I tried to memorize it, but I couldn't," Aeron said.