Belgarath the Sorcerer (34 page)

‘Why?'

I was getting a little tired of this. ‘It's not my idea, Pol,' I told her. ‘I made the amulets because Aldur told me to make them. Now put it on and stop all this foolishness. It's time for us all to grow up.'

She gave me a peculiar look and fastened her amulet about her neck.

‘And now we are three,' Beldaran said warmly.

‘Amazing,' Polgara said tartly. ‘You
do
know how to count.'

‘Don't be nasty,' Beldaran told her. ‘I know that you're more clever than I am, Polgara. You don't have to hit me over the head with it. Now come back home where you belong.'

I could have berated Pol for months on end about that, and she probably would have ignored me. When Beldaran said it, though, she agreed without any argument. And so we went back to the tower and set up housekeeping.

Things were relatively peaceful, oddly enough. Beldaran managed to keep Polgara and me from each other's throats, at least, and could persuade her to wear her amulet, when Pol found a way to circumvent my lock. My blonde daughter had been right. Polgara was much more intelligent than she was. This is not to say that Beldaran was stupid. It was just that Pol's one of the most intelligent people I've ever known - bad-tempered, of course, but extremely intelligent.

 

I'm sorry, Pol, but you are. It's nothing to be ashamed of.

 

As soon as she got to the tower, Pol took over in the kitchen. Beltira and Belkira had taught her how to cook, and she absolutely loved the business of preparing food. She was very good at it, too. I've never really paid all that much attention to what I eat, but when every meal that's set before you is a banquet, you start to notice it.

This is not to say that everything was all sweetness and light. Pol and I
did
have an occasional spat.

You know, that's one of the silliest words in any language. Spat: It sounds like something gooey hitting the floor.

This all went on for about three years, and during that
time Polgara and I began to develop a pattern that we've more or less faithfully followed for over three thousand years now. She makes clever comments about my various habits, and I generally ignore them. We don't scream at each other, and we seldom swear. It's not so much that we don't
want
to on occasion, but we learned to behave ourselves out of consideration for Beldaran.

It was not long after the girls' sixteenth birthday when Aldur paid me another visit. Pol and I had gotten into a fairly serious argument that evening. In passing, I'd mentioned the fact that it was about time for her to learn how to read. You wouldn't
believe
how much that offended her.

‘Are you calling me stupid?' she demanded in that rich voice of hers, and things went rapidly downhill from there. To this day I don't know why it made her so angry.

Anyway, I went to bed in a foul temper, and I slept fitfully.

‘Belgarath, my son,' I knew the voice, of course.

‘Yes, Master?'

‘I would have thine house joined with the house of the guardian of the Orb.'

‘Is it a Necessity, Master?'

‘Yea, my beloved disciple. This, however, is the gravest task I have ever called upon thee to perform. From the joining of thine house with the house of the Rivan King shall descend the ultimate Child of Light. Choose, therefore, which of thy daughters thou shalt give to the Rivan King to be his wife, for in the joining of the two houses shall a line invincible be forged that shall join my Will with the Will of my brother, Belar, and Torak himself may not prevail against us.'

I was tempted. Lord knows I was tempted, but I already knew who was going to be Riva's wife. He'd described her to me in great detail on that day when we'd forged his sword, and she did
not
have dark hair.

Beldaran was ecstatic when I told her of my decision. ‘A king?' she exclaimed.

‘Well, technically, I guess. I don't know that Riva thinks of himself that way, though. He's not very interested in ceremony or show.'

‘What does he look like?'

I shrugged. ‘Tall, dark hair, blue eyes.' I went over to the wash-stand and filled the basin with water. ‘Here,' I said to her, ‘I'll show you.' And I put the image of Riva's face on the surface of the water.

‘He's
gorgeous
!' she squealed. Then her eyes narrowed slightly. ‘Does he have to wear that beard?'

‘He's an Alorn, Beldaran. Most Alorn men wear beards.'

‘Maybe I can talk to him about that.'

Polgara's reaction was a bit peculiar. ‘Why did you choose Beldaran?' she asked.

‘Actually I didn't,' I replied. ‘Riva did - or he had the choice made for him. He's been dreaming about her ever since he landed on the Isle of the Winds. It was probably Belar who put Beldaran's face in Riva's dreams. Belar's partial to blonde girls.'

‘This is ridiculous, father. You're going to marry my sister off to a complete stranger.'

‘They'll have plenty of time to get to know each other.'

‘How old is this Alorn?'

‘Oh, I don't know - probably in his late thirties.'

‘You're going to marry Beldaran to an old man?'

‘I'd hardly call thirty-five or forty old, Pol.'

‘Naturally you wouldn't, since you're thirty-five or forty thousand yourself.'

‘No. Four, actually.'

‘What?'

‘I'm
four
thousand, Pol, not forty thousand. Don't make it any worse than it already is.'

‘When is this absurdity going to take place?'

‘We have to go to the Isle of the Winds first. It shouldn't be too long after that. Alorns don't believe in long engagements.'

She stormed out of the tower muttering curses.

‘I'd sort of hoped she'd be happy for me,' Beldaran sighed.

‘She'll come around, dear.' I tried to sound hopeful about it, but I had some fairly serious doubts. Once Polgara got something in her mind, it was
very
hard to get her to turn around.

Things might have gone a little better if we'd been able to start out immediately, but it was still winter, and I had no intention of dragging my daughters out in bad weather. Beldaran put the time to good use sewing on her wedding gown. Polgara, however, took up residence in the tree again, and she steadfastly refused even to talk to us.

It was about a month after I'd made the decision when Riva's cousin Anrak showed up in the Vale with another Alorn. ‘Ho, Belgarath!' the boisterous Anrak greeted me. ‘Why are you still here?'

‘Because it's still winter.'

‘Oh, it's not all that bad. Riva's getting impatient to meet the girl he's going to marry.'

‘How did
he
find out about it?'

‘He had another one of those dreams.'

‘Oh. Who's your friend?'

‘His name's Gelheim. He's a sort of an artist. Riva wants a picture of his bride.'

‘He knows what she looks like. He's been dreaming about her for the last fifteen years.'

Anrak shrugged. ‘He just wants to be sure you've picked the right one, I guess.'

‘I don't think Belar and Aldur would have let me make a mistake, do you?'

‘You never know. Sometimes the Gods are a little strange. Have you got anything to drink?'

‘I'll introduce you to the twins. They make fairly good beer. They're Alorns, so they know how it's done.'

Beldaran and Anrak hit it off immediately, but Polgara was a different matter. It started out innocently enough
one morning when Anrak came by just after breakfast. ‘I thought you had two daughters,' Riva's cousin said to me.

‘Yes,' I told him. ‘Polgara's a little unhappy with me right now. She's living in a tree.'

‘It doesn't sound to me as if she's quite right in the head. Does she look like her sister?'

‘Not too much, no.'

‘I thought they were twins.'

‘That doesn't always mean that they look alike.'

‘Where's this tree of hers?'

‘Down in the center of the Vale.'

‘I think I'll go down and have a look at her. If Riva's going to get married, maybe I should, too.'

Beldaran giggled.

‘What's so funny, Pretty?' he asked her. It was his favorite nickname for her.

‘I don't think my sister's the marrying kind, Anrak. You can suggest it to her, if you'd like, but leave yourself plenty of running room when you do.'

‘Oh, she can't be
that
bad.'

Beldaran concealed a smirk and gave him directions to the tree.

His eyes still looked a bit startled when he came back to the tower. ‘Unfriendly, isn't she?' he noted mildly. ‘Is she always that dirty?'

‘My sister doesn't believe in bathing,' Beldaran replied.

‘She doesn't particularly believe in good manners, either. I could probably clean her up, but that mouth of hers might cause some problems. I'm not even sure what some of those words mean.'

‘What did you say to her to set her off?' Beldaran asked him.

‘I was honest,' Anrak replied with a shrug. ‘I told her that Riva and I usually did things together, and that as long as he was going to get married, I might as well, too - and since she wasn't attached …' He scratched at his beard. ‘That's about as far as I got, actually.' He looked slightly
injured. ‘I'm not used to having people laugh at me. It was a perfectly honorable suggestion. It wasn't as if I'd made an improper proposal.' He went across the room to look into Beldaran's mirror. ‘Is there something the matter with my beard?' he asked. ‘It looks all right to
me
.'

‘Polgara's not particularly partial to beards, Anrak,' I explained.

‘She didn't have to be so insulting though, did she? Do I
really
look like a rat hiding in a clump of bushes?'

‘Polgara exaggerates sometimes,' Beldaran told him. ‘She takes a little getting used to.'

‘I don't think it'd work out,' he decided. ‘I'm not trying to insult you, Belgarath, but you left a lot of the bark on that one when you were raising her. If I decide that I
really
want to get married, I think I'll choose a nice Alorn girl. Sorcerese girls are a little too complicated for me.'

‘Sorcerese?'

‘Isn't that what your race is called?'

‘It's a profession, Anrak, not a race.'

‘Oh. I didn't know that.'

Gelheim drew several pictures of Beldaran, and then he left. ‘Tell Riva that we'll be along in the spring,' Anrak told him.

Gelheim nodded, then started out through the dreary tag-end of winter. He was almost as close-mouthed as Algar was.

Anrak spent much of his time at the twins' tower, but he came by one day to tell me about Riva's progress on the hall he was building at the upper end of the city. ‘Actually, it's a little showy for my taste,' he said somewhat critically, ‘not that it's got all that many frills or anything, but it's awfully big. I didn't think Riva was that full of himself.'

‘He's following instructions,' I explained. ‘The Hall of the Rivan King is there to protect the Orb, not the people who live inside. We definitely don't want Torak to get his hands on it again.'

‘There isn't much danger of that, Belgarath. He'd have
to get past Dras and Algar first, and Bear-shoulders has a fleet of war-boats patrolling the Sea of the Winds. One-eye might start out with a big army, but there wouldn't be very many of them left by the time they reached the Isle.'

‘It doesn't hurt to take a few extra precautions.'

The weather finally broke about a month later, and we started making preparations for the trip.

‘Are we almost ready to leave?' Beldaran asked one fine spring afternoon.

‘I don't think we need to bring the furniture,' Beldin said a bit sourly. Beldin believed in traveling light.

‘I'll go get Polgara, then,' she said.

‘She won't come, Beldaran,' I said.

‘Oh, she'll come, all right.' There was an uncharacteristic hint of steel in my younger daughter's voice.

‘She doesn't approve of this wedding, you know.'

‘That's her problem. She
is
going to attend, whether she likes it or not.' It was easy to underestimate Beldaran because of her sweet, sunny disposition. She rarely asserted any kind of authority, largely because she didn't have to. We all loved her so much that she usually got what she wanted without making any fuss about it. When one of us crossed her, however, she could be
very
firm. She'd been a bit disappointed that the twins wouldn't be going with us, but somebody had to stay in the Vale, and the twins weren't really comfortable in the presence of strangers.

I think I'd have given a great deal to have heard the conversation between my daughters when Beldaran went to the tree to fetch Pol. Neither of them would talk about it afterward. But though Polgara was a bit sullen, she
did
come with us.

We skirted the eastern border of Ulgoland, of course, but that was standard practice in those days. Beldin scouted ahead. We weren't really expecting any trouble, but Beldin never missed an opportunity to fly.

 

I wonder how he and Vella are getting along. She doesn't have her daggers any more, but I'd imagine that her beak and talons sort of make up for that.

 

The weather was particularly fine that year, and the snow had largely melted in the passes through the Sendarian Mountains. When we reached Muros, Anrak went on ahead. ‘Riva's instructions,' he explained. ‘As soon as I get to the coast, I'm supposed to send word to him. He'll bring a ship and meet us in Camaar.'

‘Do we really think it's safe to take father back to Camaar?' Polgara said with just a hint of spitefulness. But both the girls were a little nervous in Muros. Sometimes I forgot about the fact that they'd never been out of the Vale before, and strangers made them uncomfortable. Muros wasn't much of a town in those days, but it still had more people in it than my daughters were used to.

We hired a carriage there and rode down-river in style. When we reached Camaar, I did
not
revisit the waterfront. We took lodgings in one of the better inns in the main part of town, and I let Beldin go find Anrak.

‘Riva's on the way,' Anrak assured us when Beldin brought him to our inn. ‘He's probably crowded on several acres of sail. He
really
wants to meet you, Pretty.'

Beldaran blushed.

‘Disgusting,' Polgara muttered. I knew that this was all going to come to a head eventually. Polgara's discontent about her sister's impending wedding was probably quite natural. There were ties between my daughters that I couldn't even begin to understand. Polgara
seemed
to be the dominant twin, but she was the one who automatically spoke in plurals - which is usually the sign of the submissive sister. To this very day, if you're impolite enough to ask Polgara how old she is, she'll probably say something like, ‘We're about three thousand - or so.' Beldaran's been gone for a long time, but she still looms very large in Polgara's conception of the world.

I think that someday I'll have a long talk with Pol about that. The world-view of someone who's never really been alone might be very interesting.

And then Riva arrived in Camaar. I'm sure that the citizens noticed him. It wasn't so much the fact that he was seven feet tall that got their attention. I think it might have had something to do with the way he tried to walk straight through anything or anyone standing between him and Beldaran. I've seen people who were in love before, but
nobody
has ever taken it to such extremes as Riva did.

When he came into the room at the inn - Beldin was quick enough to get the door open for him before he walked right through it - he took one look at my blonde daughter, and that was it for him.

Beldaran had been practicing a pretty little speech, but when she saw Riva's face, she lost it entirely.

They didn't
say
anything to each other! Have you ever spent an entire afternoon in the room with two people who don't talk at all, but just sit gazing into each other's faces?

It finally got to the point that it was embarrassing, so I spent the afternoon looking at Polgara instead. Now,
there
was a study for you. There was so much naked emotion in that room that the air almost seemed to crackle with it. At first Polgara looked at Iron-grip with open and undisguised hostility. Here was her rival, and she absolutely hated him. Gradually, however, the sheer force of the absolute adoration with which Riva and Beldaran gazed at each other began to impress itself upon her. Polgara can keep her emotions from showing on her face, but she can't control her eyes. I watched those glorious eyes of hers flicker back and forth from steely grey to deepest lavender as her conflicting emotions struggled within her. It took her a long time. Polgara isn't one to give up easily. Finally, however, she sighed a long, quavering sigh, and two great tears welled up in those eyes. She quite obviously realized that she had lost. There was no way she could compete with the love between her sister and the Rivan King.

I felt a sudden wave of sympathy for her at that point, so I went over to where she was sitting and took her dirty hand in mine. ‘Why don't we step outside, Pol?' I suggested gently. ‘Get a bit of air?'

She gave me a quick, grateful look, nodded mutely, and rose to her feet. We left the room with dignity.

There was a balcony at the end of the hallway outside the room, and we went there. ‘Well,' she said in an almost neutral tone of voice, ‘I guess that settles that, doesn't it?'

‘It was settled a long time ago, Pol,' I told her. ‘This is one of those Necessities. It
has
to happen.'

‘It always comes back to that, doesn't it, father?'

‘Necessity? Of course, Pol. It has to do with who we are.'

‘Does it ever get any easier?'

‘Not that I've noticed.'

‘Well, I just hope that they'll be happy.' I was so proud of her at that moment that my heart almost burst.

Then she suddenly turned to me. ‘Oh, father!' she cried with a broken-hearted wail. She clung to me in a sudden storm of weeping.

I held her, saying, ‘There, there.' That's one of the stupidest things a man can possibly say, but under the circumstances, it was the best I could manage.

In time she got it under control, and she sniffed, a particularly unlovely sound.

‘Use your handkerchief,' I told her.

‘I forgot to bring one.'

I made one for her - right there on the spot - and offered it to her.

‘Thank you.' She blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes. ‘Is there a bathhouse in this place?' she asked then.

‘I think so. I'll ask the innkeeper.'

‘I'd appreciate it. I think it's time I got cleaned up. I don't really have any reason to be dirty any more, do I?'

Somehow that one escaped me.

‘Why don't you go out and buy me a decent dress, father?' she suggested then.

‘Of course, Pol. Anything else?'

‘A comb and brush, perhaps.' She took hold of one tangled lock, pulled it forward, and looked at it critically. ‘I suppose I really ought to do something about my hair, too.'

‘I'll see what I can find. Would you like a ribbon as well?'

‘Don't be ridiculous, father. I'm not a maypole. I don't need decorations. Go talk to the innkeeper. I
really
want to take a bath. Oh, incidentally, just a plain dress. This is Beldaran's party, not mine. I'll be in my room.' And she went off down the hallway.

I located the bathhouse for her, and then I went looking for Anrak. I found him and Beldin in the taproom on the main floor of the inn. ‘Go find me a dressmaker,' I told him.