“Elise has reminded me that it’s time to make camp. And he’s right. It’s late,” Gwydion replied absently, as he grabbed the saddlebags.
“He talks to you?” Arthur asked in astonishment.
More than you do, Gwydion thought to himself. But he was relieved to hear Arthur speak at last. “In a way,” Gwydion replied as he shuffled through the bags for something to eat—something that didn’t require cooking. “It’s something that telepaths can do with animals. You don’t exactly talk with them—by which I mean that animals don’t communicate with words. But you can sense what they are feeling, which is why they call it Far-Sensing. Telepaths talk to other people with their minds, too, which is called Wind-Speaking.” He set out bread and cheese on the top of a flat rock, and gestured for Arthur to begin eating. Gwydion himself wasn’t really hungry and he decided it would be a good idea to take a look around to be sure they were not being followed.
Without even thinking to tell Arthur what he was doing, Gwydion sat down on the ground, closed his eyes, and sent his awareness out of his body to hover over the clearing. He saw his own body sitting there, motionless and barely breathing, and Arthur’s astonished expression. He scouted the land around them. Far to the north he saw lights, and, investigating closer, found a small farmstead. No problem there, the settlement was over five leagues away. As he scouted east he came close to Tegeingl, but shied away from investigating further. He scouted south and west, but saw nothing to alarm him.
Satisfied, he returned to his body. As he did so, he became aware the Arthur was frantically tugging at his sleeve, begging him to wake up. Gwydion was appalled at the fright on his nephew’s face. The child must have been terrified, thinking that his uncle was deserting him, leaving him all alone in the great forest.
Hesitantly, Gwydion took the hysterical boy in his arms. “I’m sorry, Arthur. I should have explained. I was doing something we call Wind-Riding. It’s a thing that clairvoyants can do. We leave our bodies for a short time, and we can see other places far away. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“I—I wasn’t scared,” Arthur lied.
“Oh, I know you weren’t. Probably you were just a little startled, weren’t you?”
Arthur nodded. “Could—could I do that?”
“Maybe someday. Clairvoyants can do another thing called Life-Reading. That’s when they lay hands on someone and can ‘see’ what might be ailing them. That’s why the Dewin are our doctors. Now, would you like to help me gather some wood for the fire?”
Arthur moved off, picking up branches from the forest floor and piling them in the center of the clearing, looking back often to be sure that Gwydion was still there. When enough wood had been gathered, Gwydion told Arthur to stand back. He stared at the pile of wood until it began to glow and then suddenly burst into flames.
“I’ve seen Griffi do that,” Arthur said in a confidential tone.
“Yes. Griffi is a Druid.”
“How do you do that?” Arthur asked, curiously.
“It’s something all psychokinetics do. It’s called Fire-Weaving. There are other things we can do, too, like moving objects with our minds. That’s called Shape-Moving.”
“You can do everything,” Arthur said, in an admiring tone.
“Some people have a combination of two gifts. My father was both psychokinetic and clairvoyant. Your great-uncle Myrrdin is clairvoyant and telepathic. But most people who have the gift are only one thing. People who are telepaths become Bards. Those that are clairvoyants become Dewin. And psychokinetics become Druids. But only the Dreamer has all three gifts, plus others besides. The Dreamers practice something called precognition, which is being able to see the future. Sometimes, if it’s very important, we can also do something called retrocognition, which is the ability to see events from the past. There are many Bards and Dewin and Druids in Kymru. But in each generation there is only one Dreamer.”
“And that’s you.”
“That’s me.”
“I can’t do anything,” Arthur said sadly.
“Oh, maybe you will, one day.”
They settled down by the fire to eat and Gwydion absently scratched at his beard.
“Why do you do that?”
Gwydion stopped, and looked over at Arthur. “Because it itches,” he said flatly.
“Oh,” the boy said, understanding that further comments would be unwelcome.
After they finished their meal Gwydion rolled out a blanket for Arthur to sleep in. Arthur bundled himself up, and laid on the ground, watching the fire.