Belgarath the Sorcerer (43 page)

Then I crumpled and wept like a broken-hearted child.

Iron-grip never fully recovered from the loss of his wife. Of course, he was nearing sixty when Beldaran left us, so it was almost time for Daran to take over anyway. It gave me an excuse to compel Pol to stay on the Isle -
and
to keep her busy. Keeping busy is very important during a time of bereavement. If I'd had something vital to attend to at the time of Poledra's death, things might have turned out quite differently.

I suppose I realized that - dimly - when I returned to the Vale, so I buried myself in my study of the Mrin Codex. I went through it from one end to the other looking for some clue that might have warned me about what was going to happen to Beldaran. Fortunately, I didn't find anything. If I had, I'm sure my guilt would have overpowered me.

About six or seven years had passed when Daran's messenger arrived in the Vale to tell me that Riva Iron-grip had died. Bear-shoulders had died the previous winter, and
Bull-neck and Fleet-foot were both very old men now. One of the disadvantages of a long life-span is the fact that you lose a lot of friends along the way. Sometimes I feel that my life has been one long funeral.

Polgara returned to the Vale a year or so later, and she had a couple of trunks full of medical books with her. There probably wasn't anything in those books that could have helped Beldaran, but I think Pol wanted to make sure. I'm not certain what she'd have done if she'd found some cure that she hadn't known about, but she was as lucky as I'd been.

Things went on quietly in the Vale for about fifty years. Daran got married, had a son, and grew old, while Pol and I continued our studies. Our shared sense of loss brought us closer together. As I delved deeper into the Mrin Codex, my sense of what lay ahead of us grew more troubled, but so far as I could determine, we had everything in place that needed to be there, so we were ready.

Beldin returned from Mallorea near the end of the twenty-first century, and he reported that very little was going on there. ‘So far as I can tell, nothing's going to happen until Torak comes out of his seclusion at Ashaba.'

‘It's pretty much the same here,' I replied. ‘The Tolnedrans have found out about the gold in Maragor, and they've built a city at a place called Tol Rane on the Marag border. They've been trying to lure the Marags into trade, but they aren't having much luck. Is Zedar still at Ashaba?'

He nodded. ‘I guess Burnt-face yearns for his company.'

‘I can't imagine why.'

We quite deliberately didn't talk about Beldaran or about the other friends who'd passed on. We'd all been rather intimately involved with the family of Cherek Bear-shoulders, and we felt the sense of their loss more keenly than we had when other, perhaps more casual acquaintances died.

The rudimentary trade between Drasnia and Gar og Nadrak came to an abrupt halt when the Nadraks began to
mount attacks on towns and villages in eastern Drasnia. Bull-neck's son, Khadar, took steps, and the Nadraks retreated back into their forests.

Then in 2115, the Tolnedrans, frustrated by the Marag indifference to trade, took action. If I'd been paying attention, I might have been able to intervene, but I had my mind on other things. The merchant princes of Tol Honeth started by instigating a nation-wide rumor campaign about the Marag practice of ritual cannibalism, and the stories grew wilder and wilder with each retelling. Nobody really likes the idea of cannibalism, but the upsurge of indignation in Tolnedra was largely spurious, I suspect. If there hadn't been all that gold in the streams of Maragor, I don't think the Tolnedrans would have gotten so excited about Marag eating-habits.

Unfortunately, Ran Vordue IV had only occupied the throne for about a year when this all came to a head, and his lack of experience contributed significantly to what finally happened. The carefully whipped-up hysteria finally crowded Ran Vordue into a corner, and he made the fatal mistake of declaring war on the Marags.

The Tolnedran invasion of Maragor was one of the darker chapters in human history. The legions which swept across the border were not bent on conquest but upon the extermination of the Marag race, and they quite nearly succeeded. The slaughter was ghastly, and in the end it was only that characteristic greed that infects all Tolnedrans that prevented the total extinction of the Marags. Toward the end of the campaign, the legion commanders began taking prisoners - primarily women - and they sold them to the Nyissan slavers who, like vultures, habitually hover around the fringes of almost any battlefield.

The whole business was sickening, but I suppose we owe those barbaric generals a vote of thanks. If they
hadn't
sold their captives the way they did, Taiba would not have been born, and that would have been a catastrophe. The ‘Mother of the Race that Died', as she's called in the Mrin Codex,
absolutely
had
to be there when the time came or all of our careful preparations would have gone out the window.

Once the legions had wiped out the Marags, the Tolnedran gold-hunters rushed into Maragor like a breaking wave. Mara, however, had his own ideas about that. I've never really understood Mara, but I understood his reaction to what the Tolnedrans had done to his people very well, and I whole-heartedly approved, even though it took us to the brink of another war between the Gods. To put it quite simply, Maragor became a haunted place. The spirit of Mara wailed in insupportable grief, and horrors beyond imagination appeared before the eyes of the horde of gold-hunters who swept into the basin where Maragor had been. Most of them went mad. The majority of them killed themselves, and the few who managed to stumble back to Tolnedra had to be confined in mad-houses for the rest of their lives.

The spirit of Nedra was
not
pleased by the atrocious behavior of his children, and he spoke
very
firmly with Ran Vordue about it. That accounts for the founding of the monastery at Mar Terrin. I was rather pleased about Mar Terrin, since the greedy merchants who'd started the whole thing were, to a man, among the first monks who were sent there to comfort the ghosts of the slaughtered Marags. Forcing a Tolnedran to take a vow of poverty is probably just about the worst thing you can do to him.

Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. Belar and Mara had always been close, and the actions of the children of Nedra offended Belar mightily.
That
was what was behind the Cherek raids along the Tolnedran coast. The war-boats swept out of the Great Western Sea like packs of coursing hounds, and the coastal cities of the empire were sacked and burned with tiresome regularity. The Chereks, obviously acting on instructions from Belar, paid particular attention to Tol Vordue, the ancestral home of the Vorduvian family. Ran Vordue IV could only wring his hands in
anguish as his native city was ravaged by repeated Cherek attacks.

Ultimately, my Master had to step in and mediate a peace settlement between Belar and Nedra. Torak was still our main concern, and he was quite enough to worry about without
other
family squabbles cropping up to confuse the issue.

After the destruction of Maragor and after the ensuing punitive raids along the Tolnedran coast by Cherek berserkers had died down a bit, an uneasy peace settled over the western kingdoms - except for Arendia, of course.
That
tedious war went on and on, in some measure perhaps because the Arends couldn't think of any way to stop it. An endless series of atrocities and counter-atrocities had turned hatred into a religion in Arendia, and the natives were all very devout.

Pol and I spent the next few centuries in the Vale, quietly pursuing our studies. My daughter accepted without comment the fact that she wasn't going to age. The peculiar thing about the whole business in her case was the fact that she really
didn't
. Beldin and the twins and I had all achieved the appearance of a certain maturity. We picked up wrinkles and grey hair and a distinguished look. Pol didn't. She'd passed her three hundredth birthday, and she still looked much the same as she had at twenty-five. Her eyes were wiser, but that's about as far as it went. I guess a sorcerer is
supposed
to look distinguished and wise, and that implies wrinkles and grey hair. A woman with grey hair and wrinkles is called a crone, and I don't think Pol would have liked that very much. Maybe we all wound up looking the way we thought we
ought
to look. My brothers and I thought we should look wise and venerable. Pol didn't mind the wise part, but ‘venerable' wasn't in her vocabulary.

I think I might want to investigate that someday. The notion that we somehow create ourselves is intriguing.

Anyway, I think it was early in the twenty-fourth century
when Polgara began going out on her own. I tried to put my foot down the first time, but she rather bluntly told me to mind my own business. ‘The Master told
me
to take care of this, father. As I recall,
your
name didn't even come up during the conversation.'

I found that remark totally uncalled for.

I waited for a half a day after she'd ridden out of the Vale on her Algar horse, and then I followed her. I hadn't been instructed
not
to, and I was still her father. I knew that she had enormous talent, but still -

I had to be very careful, of course. With the exception of her mother, Polgara knows me better than anybody else in the world ever has, and I rather think she could sense my presence from ten leagues away. I expanded my repertoire enormously as I followed her north along the eastern border of Ulgoland. I think I altered my form on an average of once every hour. I even went so far as to take the form of a fieldmouse one evening as I watched her set up camp. A hunting owl quite nearly ended my career that time.

My daughter gave no sign that she knew I was following her, but with Polgara, you never really know. She crossed the mountains to Muros, where she turned south toward Arendia.
That
made me nervous.

As I'd more or less expected, she was accosted by Wacites on the road to Vo Wacune. Arends are usually very polite to ladies, but this particular group appeared to have left its manners at home. They questioned her rather rudely and told her that unless she could produce some kind of safe-conduct, they'd have to take her into custody.

You would not
believe
how smoothly she handled that. She was right in the middle of delivering a blistering remonstrance, and between one outraged word and the next, she simply put them all to sleep. I probably wouldn't even have noticed it if she hadn't made that tell-tale little gesture with one hand. I've talked with her about that several times, but she still feels the Word that releases her Will
is not quite enough. She always seems to want to add a gesture.

The Wacites went to sleep instantly, without bothering to close their eyes. She even put their horses to sleep. Then she rode off, humming softly to herself. After she'd gone a couple of miles, she gathered her Will again, said, ‘Wake up,' and waved her hand once more.

The Wacites were not aware of the fact that they'd just taken a nap, so it appeared to them that she'd simply vanished. Sorcery or magic, or whatever you want to call it, makes Arends nervous, so they chose not to follow her - not that they'd have known which way she'd gone anyway.

She hadn't given me any details about the nature of her little chore in Arendia, so I still had to follow her. After that encounter in the forest, though, I did so more out of curiosity than any real concern for her safety. I knew that she could take care of herself.

She rode on to Vo Wacune, and when she reached the gates of the city, she imperiously demanded to be taken to the palace of the duke.

Of all the cities of ancient Arendia, Vo Wacune was by far the loveliest. The cattle-fair at Muros was very profitable for the Wacite Arends, so they had plenty of money to spend on architecture. There were marble quarries in the foothills lying to the east of the city, and marble-sheathed buildings are always prettier than structures made of other kinds of rock. Vo Astur was built of granite, and Vo Mimbre's made with that yellow-colored stone that's so abundant in southern Arendia. It went further than that, though. Vo Astur and Vo Mimbre were fortresses, and they
looked
like fortresses, blocky and unlovely. Marble-clad Vo Wacune, however, looked like a city seen in a dream. It had tall, delicate spires, broad, shady avenues, and many parks and gardens. Anytime you read a fairy-tale that describes some mythic city of unspeakable beauty, you can be fairly certain that the description is based on Vo Wacune.

I paused in a grove of trees just outside the gates and
watched Pol enter the city. Then, after a moment's consideration, I changed form again. Arends are very fond of hunting dogs, so I took the form of a hound and followed along. The duke would assume that I was
her
dog, and she'd assume that I was
his
.

‘Your Grace,' she greeted the duke with a flowing curtsy. ‘It is imperative that we speak privately. I must disclose my mind unto thee out of the hearing of others.'

‘That is not customary, Lady -?' He left it delicately hanging in the air. He
really
wanted to know who this queenly visitor was.

‘I will identify myself unto thee when we are alone, your Grace. Unfriendly ears are everywhere in poor Arendia, and word of my visit must not reach Vo Mimbre nor Vo Astur. Thy realm is in peril, your Grace, and I am come to abate that peril. Let us not alert thine enemies to mine advisement of thee, and my name alone would so alert them.'

Where
had
she learned to speak in that archaic language?

‘Thy manner and bearing are such that I am inclined to give ear unto thee, my Lady,' the duke replied. ‘Let us go apart so that thou mayest give me this vital instruction.' He rose from his throne, offered Pol his arm, and led her from the room.

I padded along behind them, my toenails clicking on the floor. Arendish nobles always give their hunting dogs the free run of their houses, so nobody paid any attention to me. The duke, however, shooed me out when he and Pol went into a room just down the hall. That wasn't really any problem, though. I curled up on the floor just outside with my head almost touching the door.

‘And now, Lady,' the duke said, ‘prithee divulge thy name to me.'

‘My name's Polgara,' she replied, dropping the flowery speech. ‘You might have heard of me.'

‘The daughter of Ancient Belgarath?' He sounded stunned.

‘Exactly. You've been receiving some bad advice lately, your Grace. A Tolnedran merchant's been telling you that he speaks for Ran Vordue XVII. He does not. The House of Vordue is
not
offering an alliance. If you follow his advice and invade Mimbrate territory, the legions will
not
come to your aid. If you violate your alliance with the Mimbrates, they'll immediately ally themselves with the Asturians, and you'll be swarmed under.'

‘The Tolnedran merchant has documents, Lady Polgara,' the duke protested. ‘They bear the imperial seal of Ran Vordue himself.'

‘The imperial seal isn't that difficult to duplicate, your Grace. I can make one for you right here and now, if you'd like.'

‘If the Tolnedran doth not speak for Ran Vordue, then for whom?'

‘He speaks for Ctuchik, your Grace. The Murgos want strife in the west, and Arendia, already torn by this unending civil war, is the best place to set off new fires. Do with the deceitful Tolnedran as you will. I must go to Vo Astur now, and then on to Vo Mimbre. Ctuchik's scheme is very complex, and if it succeeds, its ultimate goal will be war between Arendia and Tolnedra.'

‘That must not be!' the duke exclaimed. ‘Divided as we are, the legions would crush us!'

‘Precisely. And then the Alorns would be drawn in, and general war would break out. Nothing would suit Ctuchik better.'

‘I will wring confirmation of this foul plot from the Tolnedran, Lady Polgara,' he said. ‘Of that I give thee my pledge.'

The door opened, and the duke stepped over me. After your dogs have been underfoot long enough, you don't even see them any more.

Polgara, however,
didn't
step over me. ‘All right, father,' she said to me in withering tones, ‘you can go home now. I can manage here without you very well.'

And, as a matter of fact, she did. I still followed her,
though. She went to Vo Astur and spoke with the Asturian Duke in much the same way as she had with the Duke of Vo Wacune. Then she went on to Vo Mimbre and alerted them as well. In that one single journey, she dismantled something that had probably taken the cadaverous Ctuchik ten years to build. He'd never met her, and he already had reason to hate her.

She explained it all to me when we got back to the Vale -
after
she'd taken me to task for trailing along behind her. ‘Ctuchik's got people here in the western kingdoms who don't really look that much like Angaraks,' she told me. ‘Some of them are modified Grolims, but there are others as well. Have you ever heard of the Dagashi?'

‘I can't say that I have,' I replied.

‘They're a group of paid assassins based somewhere to the south of Nyissa. They're very good spies as well as highly skilled murderers. At any rate, the Murgos have discovered gold in that spine of mountains that runs northeast from Urga to Goska, so Ctuchik can afford to bribe Tolnedrans.'

‘
Anybody
can bribe Tolnedrans, Pol.'

‘Possibly, yes. At any rate, his spies have been enlisting various Tolnedrans to present the three duchies here in Arendia with spurious offers of alliance that supposedly come from Ran Vordue. Ran Vordue, of course, doesn't know anything about them. The idea was that when the legions didn't turn up to assist the people who were expecting them, the Arends would attack northern Tolnedra in retaliation. Northern Tolnedra is Vorduvian territory, and the emperor would respond by crushing the Arendish duchies one by one. Once the Alorns heard about it, they'd believe that the empire was trying to expand its borders, and they'd take steps. It was a very clever plan, actually.'

‘But you put a stop to it.'

‘Yes, father, I know. We might want to keep an eye on Ctuchik. I think he's planning something. He's not trying
to stir up all this mischief just for the fun of it.'

‘I'll watch him,' I promised her.

Beldin returned from one of his periodic trips to Mallorea not long after that, and he told us that nothing much was going on there. ‘Except that Zedar's left Ashaba,' he added, almost as an afterthought.

‘Any idea of where he's gone?' I asked.

‘Not a clue. Zedar's as slippery as an eel. For all I know, he's hiding out at Kell. What's going on with the Nadraks?'

‘I don't follow you.'

‘I came back from Mallorea that way, and they're massing up about ten leagues east of the Drasnian border. I'd say that they're planning something major.'

I started to swear. ‘
That's
what it was all about!'

‘Talk sense, Belgarath. What's been happening?'

‘There'd been a certain amount of limited trade back and forth across that border. Then the Nadraks started getting belligerent. They made a few raids into Drasnia, and Bull-neck's son chased them back into the woods. It's been quiet up there for quite some time now.'

‘I think it might get noisy again fairly soon. The Nadrak cities are almost deserted. Every man who can stand up, see lightning, and hear thunder is camped out in the woods a day's march from the border.'

‘We'd better warn Rhonar.'

‘Who's he?'

‘The current king of Drasnia. I'll take a run up there and let him know what's happening. Why don't you go up into Algaria and see if you can find Cho-Dan, the Chief of the clan-chiefs? Let's get some Algar cavalry just north of Lake Atun.'

‘Don't the Algars have a king any more?'

‘The title's sort of fallen into disuse. The Algars are nomads, and clan's more important to them than nation. I'll go to Boktor, and then over to Val Alorn to warn the Chereks.'

Beldin rubbed his hands together. ‘We haven't had a war in a long time,' he said.

‘I haven't missed them all that much.' I scratched at my beard. ‘I think maybe I'll run on down to Rak Cthol and have another little chat with Ctuchik as soon as the Alorns are in place. Maybe I can head this off before it gets out of hand.'

‘Spoilsport. Where's Pol?'

‘Over in Arendia - Vo Wacune, I think. Ctuchik's been playing games there, too. Pol's keeping an eye on things. Let's go alert the Alorns.'

King Rhonar of Drasnia received my news with a certain amount of enthusiasm. He was as bad or worse than Beldin. Then I went on across the Gulf of Cherek to Val Alorn and talked with King Bledar. He was even worse than Rhonar. His fleet sailed for Kotu the next day. I rather hoped that Beldin could keep a tight leash on the Alorns when they got to the Nadrak border. Pol and I had just spent several centuries trying to keep a lid on open hostilities here in the west, and this incipient confrontation threatened to blow that lid off.