Belgarath the Sorcerer (46 page)

‘You don't need to know that, Brand. He'll be safe. That's all you need to know.' I looked up at the murky sky. ‘How much longer until it gets dark?'

‘A couple of hours anyway.'

I swore.

‘What's the matter?'

‘My daughter and your king are out there in the bay, and that's very cold water. Excuse me a moment.' I sent out my thought again. ‘
Polgara, where are you?
'

‘
We're at the end of the wharf, father. Is it safe to come out yet?
'

‘
No. Stay where you are, and keep out of sight
.'

‘
The boy's getting very cold, father
.'

‘
Heat the water around you, Pol. You know how to do that. You've been heating your bath water for centuries
.'

‘
What are you up to, old wolf?
'

‘
I'm hiding the Rivan King. Get used to it, Pol, because we'll be doing it for quite a long time
.' Then I pulled my thought away from her. ‘All right, Brand,' I said aloud. ‘Let's go up to the Citadel. I want to have a long talk with those Nyissans.'

We went back up the beach and then on to the city gates.

‘Who's going to guard the Orb if you take our king away, Belgarath?' Brand asked me as we started up the stairs.

‘You are.'

‘
Me
?'

‘Of course. You're also going to stand in for the king while he's away.
And
you're going to pass all of this on to your successor. From now on, the Rivan Warder's going to be the only man alive who knows what we're doing - normal man, anyway. Pol and I and my brothers don't quite qualify as normal. We're counting on you, Brand. Don't let us down.'

He swallowed hard. ‘You have my word, Ancient One.'

‘Good man.'

The pair of Nyissan ‘merchants' who had lured Gorek and his family out of the Citadel by sending word that they had gifts from Queen Salmissra were still comatose, and a number of grim-faced Rivans were sharpening knives as they stood guard over them. ‘I'll do it,' I announced. I said it very firmly in order to head off any protests.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not as good at interrogation as my daughter is. If you're really interested in her methods, go talk with King Anheg of Cherek. He was present when she interrogated the Earl of Jarvik. All she seems to have to do is show somebody something - something that must be pretty awful, because they start talking immediately. My methods are a bit more direct. I've always had a fair amount of success with pain. The only difference between
my
approach and that of your run-of-the-mill torturer lies in the fact that I can hurt people without causing them any physical injury. I can keep a man in agony for a week without killing him.

As it turned out, it didn't take me a week. After I'd erased the effects of the assorted narcotics swarming around in their blood, they became very tractable. Evidently there's a certain amount of discomfort involved when your favorite narcotic runs out. I added a few
other
discomforts, and they started begging me to let them talk.

‘It was the queen!' one of them blubbered. ‘We did it because the queen commanded us to do it!'

‘It wasn't her idea, though!' the other one overrode his companion. ‘A foreigner came to Sthiss Tor and spoke with
Eternal Salmissra. It was only then that she summoned us to the throne room.'

‘Have you any idea of who this foreigner might have been?' I asked him.

‘N-no!' he stammered. ‘Please don't hurt me any more!'

‘Relax,' I told him. ‘Is there anything else you'd like to share with me?'

‘One of the young princes escaped us,' the first one blurted. ‘He swam out into the harbor.'

‘And drowned?' one of the Rivan guards demanded before I could head off that question.

‘No. A bird saved him.'

‘A bird?'

‘I wouldn't pay too much attention to him,' I said quickly. ‘Nyissans see things that aren't there all the time.'

The Rivan gave me a suspicious look.

‘Have you ever been really drunk?' I asked him.

‘Well, maybe once or twice.'

‘Nyissans have found ways to get in that condition without beer.'

‘I've heard about that,' he admitted.

‘Now you've seen it. These two were still so drunk when I woke them up that they were probably seeing blue sheep and purple goats.' I looked at Brand. ‘Do we need anything else?'

‘I don't. Do you?'

‘No, I guess that just about covers it.' I waved one hand and put the two assassins back to sleep. I
didn't
want that one to talk about birds any more.

 

Certain versions of THE BOOK OF ALORN mention that story about the bird. Now you know where it came from. I've ridiculed the idea every time it came up, but there were still Rivans who believed it.

 

‘What should we do with these two?' the fellow with the quick questions asked me.

I shrugged. ‘That's entirely up to you. I've got what I needed out of them. Coming, Brand?'

The two of us left the prison cell and went directly to Brand's private quarters. ‘You realize that this means war, don't you, Belgarath?' he said to me.

‘I suppose so,' I agreed. ‘It'd look suspicious if we didn't mount a punitive expedition against Nyissa at this point. Let's not do anything out of character. I don't want people to start making wild guesses right now.'

‘I'll send messages to Val Alorn, Boktor, and the Algarian stronghold.'

‘Don't bother. I'll take care of that myself. Now let's go fish my daughter and your king out of the bay. I want a ship moved to the end of the main wharf. Have the sailors tie it up there and then go ashore. I don't want anybody at all on board. Then you and I are going to take a little trip.'

‘Belgarath! I can't leave now!'

‘You'll have to. I don't know how to sail a ship. We've got to get Polgara and Prince Geran to the coast of Sendaria, and we can't let anybody else know they're on board.'

‘I can sail the ship, Belgarath, but I'm going to need a crew.'

‘You've got one. Pol and I'll take care of manning your sails. We'll drop anchor a few miles north of Camaar. Pol will take the prince into hiding, I'll go to Val Alorn, and you'll go to Camaar to commandeer a crew from any Rivan ships in the harbor and get back here as quick as you can to start mobilizing. Let's go down to the harbor.'

When the ship had been moved and the sailors had gone down the wharf to the city, I sort of sauntered out to the end and stood looking ostentatiously out to sea. ‘Pol,' I said quietly, ‘are you still there?'

‘Where else
would
I be, you old fool?'

I let that slide by. ‘Stay where you are,' I told her. ‘Brand's coming around with a small boat.'

‘What took you so long?'

‘We had to wait until it got dark. I don't want anybody to see what we're doing.'

‘What were you talking about earlier - that business about hiding the Rivan King?'

‘We don't have any choice, Pol. The Isle of the Winds isn't safe for the boy. We have to get him away from the Orb. Torak knows exactly where it is, and if the boy stays anywhere near it, we'll be able to count on a steady stream of assassins coming here to try to kill him.'

‘I thought Salmissra sent the assassins.'

‘She did, but somebody else put her up to it.'

‘Who?'

‘I'm not sure. The next time I see her, I'll ask her.'

‘Under the circumstances, you might have a little trouble getting into Sthiss Tor.'

‘I rather doubt that, Pol,' I answered grimly. ‘I'm going to take a few Alorns with me.'

‘A few?'

‘The Chereks, the Rivans, the Drasnians, and the Algars. I'm going to take all of Aloria with me when I go, Pol. I don't think I'll have any trouble getting into Sthiss Tor at all.' I glanced over my shoulder and then looked back out to sea. ‘Here comes Brand with the boat. We'll get you and the boy safely aboard ship, and then we'll sail.'

‘Sail? Where?'

‘Sendaria, Pol. We'll decide what we're going to do when we get there.'

Even though the assassination of Gorek and most of his family was foreordained and necessary, I still have twinges of guilt about it. Maybe if I'd been just a bit more alert, I'd have interpreted that passage in the Mrin an hour - even a half-hour - sooner, and Pol and I could have reached Riva in time. Maybe if Pol hadn't argued with me for quite so long -

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Sometimes it seems when I look back on my life it's nothing but a long string of regretful ‘maybe's. The ‘maybe' that really stands out, though, is the one that suggests that I'm not emotionally equipped to deal with predestination. It makes me feel helpless, and I don't like that. I always seem to think that there might have been something I could have done to change the outcome. A turnip can just sit there saying ‘What will be, will be.' I'm supposed to be a little more resourceful.

Ah, well -

 

It took us the usual two days to reach the Sendarian coast. Brand's eyes got a little wild the first time I reset his sails without even getting up from where I was sitting. That happens fairly often, you know. Despite the fact that people are
intellectually
aware of sorcery, when the real thing happens right in front of their eyes, it tends to upset them. I'm not sure what he'd expected, though. I'd told him that Polgara was going to be lending a hand with the mechanics of sailing that ship, but he should have known better. Prince Geran was only about six years old, and he'd just watched his entire family being murdered. He needed Pol far more than I did. I'd only said it to Brand to head off one of those
tiresome arguments about the possible and the impossible.

Have you ever had that peculiar feeling that what's happening now has happened before? One of the reasons you have is because it's really true. The interruption of the Purpose of the universe had locked everything in one spot, and time and events were simply marching in place. This might help to explain those ‘repetitions' Garion and I used to talk about. In
my
case, though, I not only get the feeling that something's happened before, but also a slightly different feeling that something's going to happen again. I got that feeling with bells on it as we approached the Sendarian coast.

It was a blustery morning in early summer with the clouds playing ducks and drakes with the sun, and Polgara and the young prince had just come up on deck. It wasn't particularly warm, and Pol drew the little boy protectively close and half-enclosed him with her blue cloak just as the sun momentarily broke through. Somehow that brief image seemed to freeze and lock itself in my mind. I can still call it back with absolute clarity - not that I really have to. I've seen Polgara hovering over a long succession of sandy-haired little boys with that obscure pain in her eyes once or twice in every generation for the past thirteen hundred years and more. Protecting those little boys wasn't the
only
reason she'd been born, but it was certainly one of the important ones.

We dropped anchor in a secluded cove about five miles north of Camaar, and then we went ashore in the ship's longboat. ‘Camaar's that way,' I told Brand, pointing south.

‘Yes, Ancient One, I know.' Brand was polite enough not to take offense when somebody pointed out the obvious.

‘Round up a crew and get back to Riva,' I instructed. ‘I'll go to Val Alorn and tell Valcor what's happened. He'll be along with his fleet to pick you and your army up in a couple of weeks, I'd imagine. I'll talk it over with him when I get to Val Alorn. Then I'll go talk with the Drasnians and the Algars. I think we might want them to go overland
while you and Valcor sail south. I want to come at Nyissa from both sides. We'll probably all get there about midsummer.'

‘Good time for a war,' he noted bleakly.

‘No, Brand. There's
no
good time for a war. This one's necessary, though. Salmissra needs to be persuaded to keep her nose out of things that don't concern her.'

‘You seem to be taking this very calmly.' It was almost an accusation.

‘Appearances can be deceiving. I can get angry later. Right now I've got to map out this campaign.'

‘Will you be coming down with Valcor?'

‘I haven't exactly decided yet. In any case, we'll all get together again in Sthiss Tor.'

‘See you there, then.' He went over and dropped to one knee in front of Geran. ‘I don't think we'll see each other again, your Majesty,' he said sadly. ‘Good bye.'

The little boy was red-eyed from weeping, but he straightened and looked his Warder full in the face. ‘Good bye, Brand,' he said. ‘I know I can count on you to take care of my people and to guard the Orb.' He was a brave little boy, and he'd have made a good king if things had turned out differently.

Brand rose, saluted, and started off down the beach.

‘Are you going back to your mother's cottage?' I asked Pol.

‘I don't think so, father. Zedar knows where it is, and I'm sure he's told Torak about it. I don't want visitors showing up when I'm not expecting them. I still have that manor house at Erat. That should be safe enough until you get back from Nyissa.'

‘You haven't been there for a long time, Pol,' I objected. ‘The house probably collapsed years ago.'

‘No, father. I asked it not to.'

‘Sendaria's a different country now, Pol, and the Sendars don't even remember the Wacite Arends. An abandoned house almost invites somebody to move in.'

She shook her head. ‘The Sendars don't even know it's there. My roses have seen to that.'

‘I don't follow you.'

‘You wouldn't
believe
how big a rose-bush can get if you encourage it just a bit, and I had
lots
of roses planted around the house. Trust me, father. The house is still there, but no one's seen it since the fall of Vo Wacune. The boy and I'll be safe there.'

‘Well, maybe - for the time being, anyway. We'll come up with something else after I've dealt with Salmissra.'

‘If it's safe, why move him?'

‘Because the line has to be continued, Pol. That means he has to get married and produce a son. We might have a little trouble persuading some girl to break through a rose thicket to get to him.'

‘Are you leaving now, grandfather?' Geran asked me, his small face very serious. For some reason
all
of those little boys have called me that. I think it's in their blood.

‘Yes, Geran,' I told him. ‘You'll be safe with your Aunt Pol. There's something I have to attend to.'

‘I don't suppose you'd care to wait a little while?'

‘What did you have in mind?'

‘I'd sort of like to go along, but I'm too little right now. If you could wait a few years, I'll be old enough to kill Salmissra myself.'

He was an Alorn, all right.

‘No, Geran. I'd better take care of it for you. Salmissra might die of natural causes before you grow up, and we wouldn't want that, would we?'

He sighed. ‘No, I suppose not,' he agreed reluctantly. ‘Would you hit her once or twice for me, grandfather?'

‘You have my absolute word on that, boy.'

‘Hard,' he added fiercely.

‘Men!' Polgara muttered.

‘I'll keep in touch, Pol,' I promised her. ‘Now get off this beach. There might be more Nyissans lurking about.'

And so Polgara took the grieving little prince up past
Lake Sulturn toward Medalia and Erat, and I changed form once again and flew due north toward Val Alorn.

In the hundred and seventy-five years or so since Ran Horb II had founded the kingdom of Sendaria and a former rutabaga farmer named Fundor had been elevated to the throne, the Sendars had been busy - mostly cutting down trees. I don't entirely approve of that. The notion of killing something that's been alive for a thousand years just so you can plant turnips seems a little immoral to me. Sendars, however, are compulsively neat, and they just adore straight lines. If the Sendars start building a road and a mountain gets in their way, the notion of going around it never occurs to them. They'll cut through it instead. The Tolnedrans tend to be the same way. I suppose it stands to reason, though. The Sendars are a peculiar mixture of all races, so a few Tolnedran characteristics were bound to be a part of their nature.

Don't get me wrong here. I
like
Sendars. They're a little stuffy sometimes, but I think they're the most decent and sensible people in the world. Their mixed background seems to have purged them of the obsessions that infect other races.

 

How did I get off on that? You really shouldn't let me digress that way. We'll be at this forever if I don't stick to the point.

 

Anyway, when you view it from above, the kingdom of Sendaria resembles nothing quite so much as a checkered tablecloth. I flew over the capital city of Sendar and continued on toward Lake Seline. Then there was a cluster of mountains, and Sendaria finally came to an abrupt end at the Cherek Bore. I won't repeat the dreadful pun some witty fellow came up with by playing around with the ambiguity implicit in the word ‘bore'.

The tide was rushing out of the Gulf of Cherek when I flew over the Bore, and the Great Maelstrom was whirling
around, joyously trying to pick boulders up off the bottom. It doesn't take much to make a whirlpool happy.

Then I flew up the east coast of the peninsula past Eldrigshaven and Trellheim, and I finally reached Val Alorn.

Val Alorn had been there for a very long time. I think there was a village in that general vicinity even before Torak cracked the world and formed the Gulf of Cherek in the process. The Chereks settled down to make a real city out of it after I divided Aloria. Bear-shoulders needed something to keep his mind occupied and off the fact that I'd just relieved him of most of his kingdom, I guess. To be perfectly honest about it, I've always found Val Alorn to be just a bit on the bleak side. The sky over the Cherek Peninsula is nearly always cloudy and grey. Did they
have
to make their city out of grey rock as well?

I settled to earth just south of the city and went around to the main gate that faced the harbor. Then I navigated the narrow streets where piles of dirty snow still lay in the shady places, and eventually reached the palace and was admitted. I found King Valcor carousing with his earls in the great throne room. Most of the time the throne room of the Kingdom of Cherek resembles nothing so much as a beer-hall. Fortunately, I arrived about midday, and Valcor hadn't had time yet to drink himself into insensibility. He was boisterous, but there's nothing very unusual about that. Chereks, drunk or sober, are always boisterous. ‘Ho, Belgarath!' he bellowed at me from the throne, ‘come in and join us!' Valcor was a burly fellow with muddy brown hair and a vast beard. Like so many overly muscular men I've known, he'd gone to flab as middle age crept up on him. He wasn't exactly fat, but he was working on it. Despite the fact that he was the king, he was wearing a peasant smock with beer-stains down the front.

I walked past the blazing fire-pit in the center of the hall and approached the throne. ‘Your Majesty,' I greeted him perfunctorily, ‘You and I need to talk.'

‘Any time, Belgarath. Pull up a seat and have some beer.'

‘Privately, Valcor.'

‘I don't have any secrets from my earls.'

‘You will have in just a few minutes. Get up off your behind, Valcor, and let's go someplace where we can talk.'

He looked a little startled. ‘You're serious, aren't you?'

‘War does that to me.' I chose the word carefully. It's one of the few words that'll get an Alorn's attention when he's been drinking.

‘
War
? Where? With whom?'

‘I'll tell you about it just as soon as we're alone.'

He stood up and led me to a nearby room.

Valcor's reaction to the news I brought him was fairly predictable. It took me a little while to calm him down, but I finally persuaded him to stop swearing and chopping up furniture with his sword long enough to listen to me. ‘I'm going on to talk with Radek and Cho-Ram. Get your fleet ready and call in the clans. I'll either come back or send word to let you know when to start. You'll have to stop by the Isle of the Winds to pick up Brand and the Rivans on your way south.'

‘I'll deal with Salmissra myself.'

‘No, you won't. Salmissra's insulted the whole of Aloria, and the whole of Aloria's going to do something about it. I don't want you to offend Brand, Radek and Cho-Ram by taking things into your own hands. You've got work to do, Valcor, so you'd better sober up and get cracking. I'm going on to Boktor. I'll be back in a couple of weeks.'

It was about dawn of the following day when I reached Boktor. Since there were very few people about, I settled on the battlements of King Radek's palace. The sentry up there was noticeably startled when he turned around and saw me standing in a place he'd just passed. ‘I need to talk with the king,' I told him. ‘Where is he?'

‘I think he's still asleep. Who are you? And how did you get up here?'

‘Does the name Belgarath ring any bells for you?'

He gaped at me.

‘Close your mouth and take me to Radek,' I told him. I get
so
tired of having people gawk at me when I'm in a hurry.

King Radek was snoring when I reached the royal bed-chamber. The royal bed was seriously mussed up, and so was the royal playmate, a busty young woman who immediately dived under the covers when I entered. I jerked open the drapes at the window and turned around. ‘All right, Radek,' I barked, ‘wake up!'

His eyes popped open. Radek was a fairly young man. He was tall and lean, and he had a decidedly hooked nose. Drasnian noses seem to go off in all directions for some reason. Silk's nose is so pointed that from certain angles he looks like a stork, and Porenn's husband had a little pug nose that wasn't much bigger than a button. I hadn't had much chance to look at the nose of the young lady who'd burrowed under the covers when I'd entered. She'd moved fairly fast, and I'd been more interested in other things.