"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 vivid shades of gray-more shades of gray than he'd ever suspected existed. His vision was so sharp that he could make out bugs on leaves far below him. One caterpillar in particular caught his eye, looking so fat and juicy, and Tas found himself circling back, savoring the notion of a tasty snack. Seconds before diving on the hapless worm and gulping it down his eager beak, Tasslehoff realized what he was about to do and shuddered, ruffling his feathers.

"Yuk! Selana, I almost ate a bug!" he howled.

Seeing the distress on his brown and black face, Selana spoke directly to his mind again. "You're acting on instinct," she told him. "Remember, you're a bird now."

"How can I forget?" he said. The thrill of flying was better than he had ever imagined, and he had imagined it a lot in his short life. Whenever he had thought about it in the past, though, he had pictured himself in his own body, flapping his arms, or in the body of some majestic bird of prey, like an owl.

Suddenly he felt heavier, more massive. The wind had not changed, but it tossed him around much less. His wings had tremendous power, his vision was unbelievably keen. He spotted a mouse skittering among some barrels in an alley and circled, watching the succulent tidbit going about its business, unaware it was being watched.

A mental scream jarred Tasslehoff. Looking up, he saw Selana swooping near.

"Tasslehoff! Stop fooling around and keep your mind on sparrows!"

Suddenly Tas understood why he felt differently; he had become an owl. He pumped his outstretched wings twice and shot forward, then spiraled upward on a pillar of warm air. The power and grace of this body was exhilarating. "Let me stay like this, Selana, just until we reach the castle." Tas's voice pleaded in Selana's mind.

"We'll be noticed for sure," she replied sharply. "Sparrow!"

Reluctantly, Tas focused on the tinier bird form again. In a moment he felt lighter once more.

"That's better," he heard Selana say. "Look down, and you'll see that we've flown over the stream." Indeed, within seconds they were past the ramparts with their stone sentries.

"I've gotten us as far as my knowledge will take us," said Selana. "Where should we look now?"

Earlier, Tasslehoff had spotted a building with a "Gaol" sign over the door. He suspected the mage would have moved Flint and Tanis there, because it would be more secure. Still, it never hurt to look around, study the lay of the castle. "Come on," he said, waving Selana down beside him as he swooped low across the crenelated roof of a guard tower, centrally located to afford a view of comings and goings at the keep, across the courtyard.

Tas settled down next to a few other birds-mostly other sparrows with a few fat pigeons, all of which edged away, instinctively suspicious. The sun felt good warming his feathers, and Tas's eyes drooped lethargically.

"Don't get lazy and start snoozing in the sun," warned his companion in her low voice. She pecked him lightly with her beak.

"Ow!" Tasslehoff's dark, beady eyes flew open. "I wasn't! I was squinting, to see better in this bright light." He ruffled up his feathers and slid a bird's width away.

"Never mind," Selana responded. "Where do we go from here?"

"See the building with the 'Gaol' sign on it?" he asked. The building abutted the curtain wall and was joined to the keep by a cloister, an open-sided, covered walkway. "If we're lucky, they've been taken there. If not, they're still far underground, which will be much harder to get in and out of." Tas scanned the jail building for bird-sized entrances. "Let's fly to that high window near the back wall. We can get inside from there."

Seconds later they had crossed the open space and were perched on the window ledge. Tas peered into the gloom and was surprised at how quickly his eyes adjusted to the dim light. The room was obviously a cell. A heavy wooden door with a metal grate closed off the entrance. The window where they stood was too narrow for any human to squeeze through and would have been tight even for Tasslehoff, at his usual size.