Belgarath the Sorcerer (49 page)

We settled on her doorstep, changed back, and I pounded on the door, sending echoes booming back into the house.

After a few moments, I heard Pol's voice just inside. ‘Who's there?'

‘It's me, Pol. Open up.'

She was wearing an apron, and she'd tied a kerchief around her head in a kind of turban. She was holding a cloth-wrapped broom that had cobwebs all over it.

‘What are you doing, Pol?' Beldin asked her.

‘Cleaning house.'

‘By
hand
? Why don't you do it the other way?'

‘It's my house, uncle. I'll clean it any way I choose.'

He shook his head. ‘You're a strange person, Polgara,' he noted. ‘You spend centuries learning all the short-cuts, and then you refuse to use them.'

‘It's a matter of principle, uncle. You don't have any principles, so you wouldn't understand.'

He bowed to her. ‘Score one for you, Pol,' he said. ‘An would y' be willin' t' offer the hospitality of yer splendid house t' a couple o' weary travelers, great lady?'

She ignored his attempt at humor. ‘What do you two want?' She wasn't very gracious about it.

‘We're having a little family get-together at the Vale, Pol,' I told her. ‘It wouldn't be the same without you.'

‘Out of the question.'

‘Don't be difficult, Polgara,' Beldin said. ‘This is important. We need you.' He pushed his way past her into the hallway.

‘Did you chop a road right to my doorstep?'

‘No,' he replied. ‘We flew in.'

I looked around. The light was subdued because all of the windows in the house were covered with rose-vines, but I could see that the entryway to my daughter's house had a highly-polished marble floor and glowing wooden wainscoting. ‘Are you just now getting around to tidying up, Pol?' I asked her.

‘No. Geran and I've been at it since we got here. We're on the third floor now.'

‘You've turned the Crown Prince of Riva into a cleaning boy? It's very democratic, Pol, but isn't it a little inappropriate?'

‘It won't hurt him, father. Besides, he needs the exercise.'

Then Geran came warily down the stairway. He was wearing a dust-stained peasant smock, and he was holding a sword. It wasn't a very big sword, but he handled it as if he knew how to use it. ‘Grandfather!' he exclaimed when he saw me. He ran the rest of the way down the stairs. ‘Did you kill Salmissra?' he asked eagerly.

‘She was dead the last time I looked,' I replied evasively.

‘Did you hit her for me the way I asked you to?'

‘That he did, lad,' Beldin stepped in to cover my tail-feathers. ‘That he did.'

Geran looked a bit apprehensively at the gnarled dwarf.

‘This is uncle Beldin, Geran,' Pol introduced them.

‘You aren't very tall, are you?' Geran noted.

‘It has its advantages, lad,' Beldin replied. ‘I almost never hit my head on a low-hanging limb.'

Geran laughed. ‘I like him, Aunt Pol.'

‘That wears off fairly soon.'

‘Don't carry tales, Pol,' Beldin chided. ‘Let the boy draw his own conclusions.'

‘I think we'd better bring Brand in on this,' I said. ‘We've got a lot of things to talk about, and Brand's the one who's going to have to stand watch over the Orb, so he'll need to know what's coming.'

‘
Do
we know what's coming, father?' Pol asked.

‘Yer unspeakably clever old father's actually devised a way t' make sense outta th' Mrin, me darlin'.'

Geran giggled. ‘I
really
like him, Aunt Pol,' he said.

‘I was afraid you might feel that way,' she sighed. ‘Try not to let it get ahead of you.'

‘You go with Pol back to the Vale,' I told Beldin. ‘Between the two of you, you can hold off anything this side of Torak himself, and Torak's turning to stone at Ashaba. I'll go get Brand, and we'll get down to business.' Then I went outside, blurred into feathers, and flew off toward the Isle of the Winds.

It took Brand and me about three weeks to travel from the Isle of the Winds to the Vale, largely because nobody in his right mind goes through Ulgoland. When we arrived, we found that they'd started without us. The twins had picked up where I'd left off, and they'd roughed in the next several centuries. ‘Nothing much seems to be happening, Belgarath,' Beltira told me. ‘So far as we can tell, the prophecies are concentrating on events in Mallorea. Are you and Brand hungry? Pol and I can fix something to eat if you'd like.'

‘A light snack, maybe. Something to tide us over till suppertime.'

Pol rose and went over to the kitchen area. I looked around for Prince Geran. He was sitting quietly on a chair in the corner. I've noticed that characteristic again and again in his family. Some children absolutely
must
be the center of attention. The long line of little boys in Garion's family, though, are so self-effacing that you hardly notice them. They watch and listen, but they keep their mouths shut. It's a very good trait. You seldom learn anything while your mouth's flapping. He was wearing very ordinary clothes. Polgara was already beginning to come up with ways to make the heirs to the Rivan throne as inconspicuous as possible.

‘Oh, something else,' Belkira added. ‘The Third Age has ended. We're in the Fourth Age now. Evidently a Dal went to Ashaba, and the minute he laid eyes on Torak, the Third Age ended.'

‘That's a relief,' I replied.

‘How so?'

‘It means that we've got all our instructions. The Third Age was the Age of Prophecy. If it's ended, it means that we've been told what's going to happen and what to do about it. Nothing else is going to come along to confuse the issue. What's going on in Mallorea that's so interesting?'

He picked up his copy of the Mrin, referred to the concordance, and unrolled the scroll until he found the index mark he wanted. ‘The Darine simply says that one man will gain ascendancy over all Mallorea. Here's what the Mrin says. “And it shall come to pass that children shall be exchanged in the kingdoms of the east, and one such child shall ascend the throne of one kingdom by marriage and shall achieve dominion over the other by threat of force. And he shall make one of that which was once two. And in the joining of the two shall the way be cleared for the EVENT which shall take place in the Lands of the Bull God.” That's about as far as we've gotten so far.'

‘What's
that
to do with anything?' I demanded.

‘The one it's talking about was a young Angarak named
Kallath,' Beldin explained, ‘and his name made a very loud noise in Mallorea. The Angaraks and the Melcenes had been stepping around each other rather carefully for a long time - the Angaraks have more manpower, but the Melcenes had elephant cavalry. Neither side wanted war. That exchange of children was a Melcene idea. It was supposed to promote greater understanding between the two races. When Kallath was about twelve or so, he was sent to the island of Melcena to grow up in the house of the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the emperor's court. He got to know the daughter of the Melcene Emperor, and they got married. That technically made Kallath the heir to the Melcene throne. He was ambitious, and he was an Angarak, so the other candidates started having fatal accidents. He was also the youngest member of the Angarak General Staff at Mal Zeth,
and
the Governor General of the District of Delchin in eastern Mallorea Proper. He had a capital at Maga Renn, which just
happened
to be snuggled up against the Melcene border - and he already had a power base in Angarak territory. If anybody could unite all of Mallorea, it was Kallath.'

‘Evidently that's what happened,' Brand noted.

‘Excuse me,' Prince Geran said politely. ‘What's supposed to happen in Arendia?'

‘An EVENT, your Highness,' Beltira told him.

‘What kind of event?'

‘The Mrin uses that word when it's talking about a meeting between the Child of Light and the Child of Dark.'

‘A battle?' The young Alorn's eyes brightened.

‘Sometimes it is,' I told him, ‘but not always. I was involved in one of those EVENTS, and there were only two people there.'

Polgara was busy in the kitchen area, but she was obviously not missing very much. ‘It's peculiar that this Kallath came along so recently,' she mused, wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I don't suppose it's just a coincidence, is it?'

‘Not very likely, Pol,' I said.

‘Excuse me again, please,' Prince Geran said in that diffident, self-effacing tone. ‘If we're coming up on one of those EVENTS you mentioned, wouldn't Torak know about it, too?'

‘Inevitably,' Beldin growled.

‘We can't really surprise him then, can we?'

‘Not really,' Beltira said. ‘We're all more or less guided by our instructions.'

‘Do you know what I think?' Geran said. ‘I don't think that what happened to my family had anything to do with the Orb or where it is, or who's taking care of it. This Kallath person was doing something that Torak wants to happen. He knows that we know about it - because of those prophecies. We'd have tried to stop Kallath, so Torak sent Zedar out to do something to distract us. You all ran off to Nyissa to punish Salmissra for killing my family, and that left Kallath - or whoever came after him - free to finish up the job that Torak needed to have done. Killing my family was a -' He paused, groping for a word.

‘Diversion,' Belkira supplied. ‘You know, Belgarath, I think this boy's hit the nail right square on the head. We all know Zedar, and he knows us. He knew exactly how we'd react to the murder of Gorek and his family. Something crucial was going on in Mallorea, and you and Beldin and the Alorns were down in Nyissa when it happened. We were all looking one way, and Torak and his people were slipping something past us while our attention was distracted.'

Beldin swore. ‘It fits, Belgarath,' he said to me. ‘It fits Torak, and it fits Zedar. How could we have been so stupid that we didn't see it?'

‘Natural talent, I suppose,' I replied glumly. ‘I think we've been had. Congratulations, Prince Geran. You came up with an answer we'd have pounded our heads on the wall for weeks to discover. How did you manage to pick it out so quickly?'

‘I can't take any credit, grandfather,' the boy replied
modestly. ‘My tutors had started to teach me history before the Nyissans murdered my family. They were telling me about some of the things that used to happen in Tolnedra. As I understand it, the Vorduvians were very good at this sort of thing, and so were the Honeths.'

‘What a mind this boy has!' Beltira marveled. ‘He put it all together in the blink of an eye!'

‘And we'll have to protect that mind - and what's going to come after it,' Polgara said, with that steely glint coming into her eyes. ‘Zedar might have hoped that the assassination would extinguish the Rivan line, but the Ashabine Oracles obviously told Torak otherwise.'

‘Does that mean that my prince has to stay in hiding?' Brand asked

‘It seems to point that way doesn't it?' Beldin replied.

‘Who's going to protect him?'

‘That's
my
job, Brand,' Polgara told him, removing her apron.

Then something happened that very rarely has. ‘Dost thou accept this responsibility freely, my daughter?' It was Aldur's voice, and we all turned around quickly, but he wasn't there - only his voice and a peculiar blue light.

Polgara immediately understood the implications of the question. The element of conscious choice has always been rather central to the things we do. I'll admit that I sort of blunder into things now and then, but there always comes that moment when I'm required to choose. Pol had come face to face with one of those choices, and she knew it. She crossed the tower room and laid her hand on Geran's shoulder. ‘Freely, Master,' she replied firmly. ‘From this day hence,
I
shall protect and guide the Rivan line.'

And in the moment that she said it, I felt one of those peculiar clicks inside my head. Pol's choice had been one of those things that had to happen. I'm not sure exactly why, but I felt a sudden urge to leap into the air with a wild cry of exultation.

 

Looking back at it now, I realize that Pol's choice was one of those EVENTS we keep talking about. Her choice ultimately led to Garion, and Garion in turn led to Eriond. At the time, we'd all assumed that our Necessity had given something up when it'd agreed to the separation of Geran from the Orb. I think we were wrong there. That separation was a victory, not a defeat.

Don't look so confused. I'll explain it to you - all in good time.

 

After she'd freely accepted her responsibility, Polgara started giving orders. She does that all the time, you know. ‘The Master has laid this task upon
me
, gentlemen,' she told us firmly. ‘I don't need any help, and I don't need any interference. I'll hide Geran, and I'll make such decisions as need to be made. Don't hover over me, and don't try to tell me what to do. And don't,
please
don't stand around staring at me. Just stay away. Do we agree?'

Of course we agreed. What else could we do?

There was no denying that Polgara's interdiction made sense, so I didn't see her very often during the next five centuries or so - or at least so she thought. I managed to keep track of her, however, even though she moved around a lot. Her general strategy was to submerge herself and the heir to the Rivan throne in the general population - usually in Sendaria. Sendaria's a great place for anonymity, because racial differences don't mean anything there, and Sendars are too polite to question people about their backgrounds. But even the politest Sendar's going to start getting curious about someone who doesn't age, so Pol seldom stayed in the same place for more than ten years.

That habit of hers gave me all sorts of entertainment. Finding someone who doesn't want to be found isn't the easiest thing in the world, and Pol became very skilled at misdirection. If she told her neighbors that there was a ‘family emergency' in Darine, you could be fairly sure that she was actually bound for Muros or Camaar. Once during the forty-third century, it took me eight years to track her down. Her elusiveness didn't really bother me much. If she could hide from
me
, she could certainly hide from anybody else.

She'd ordered me to stay away from her, so I grew quite proficient at disguises, although in my case I didn't have to rely on wigs and false noses. A man who can change himself into a wolf or a falcon doesn't have much trouble modifying his face or general physique.

Usually after I'd located her, I'd just drift into whatever town or village she was currently living in, snoop around a bit, and then drift back on out again without even talking with her.

I've always had a great deal of admiration for the Tolnedran system of highways. It made traveling much easier, and I had to travel a great deal during the early centuries of the fifth millennium. I did
not
, however, approve of Ran Horb's treaty with the Murgos that opened the South Caravan Route.

At first, the Tolnedran trade with the Murgos was a one-way sort of business. Tolnedran merchants followed the caravan route to Rak Goska, conducted their business, and then came home with their purses filled to overflowing with that reddish-colored gold that comes out of the mines of Cthol Murgos.

Following the Alorn invasion of Nyissa, however, the Murgos developed an absolute passion for trade, and after a century or so it seemed that I couldn't turn around any place in Tolnedra, Arendia, or Sendaria without seeing a scarred Murgo face.

The Tolnedrans spoke piously about the ‘normalizing of relations' and the ‘civilizing influence of commerce,' but I knew better. The Murgos were coming west because Ctuchik had told them to come west, and commerce had nothing to do with it. The fact that the Rivan line was still intact loomed rather large in
all
the prophecies, and Ctuchik sent his Murgos to look for Polgara and the heirs she spent that part of her life protecting.

It finally came to a head early in the forty-fifth century. Polgara was in Sulturn in central Sendaria with the current heir and his wife. The young man's name just happened to be Darion.

 

I'm sure you noticed the similarity. It's Polgara's fault, really. Polgara
adores
traditions, so she speckled the Rivan line with repetitions and variations of about a half-dozen names. Polgara
can
be creative when she has to be, but she'd really rather not if she can possibly avoid it.

 

Anyway, Darion was a cabinet-maker, and quite a good one. He had a prosperous business on a side street down near the lake, and he lived upstairs over his shop with his wife, Selana, and with his aunt.

Does that sound at all familiar?

I was in Val Alorn when word reached me that the old Gorim of Ulgo had died and that there was a new Gorim in the caves under Prolgu. I decided that it might be a good idea for me to go to Ulgoland and introduce myself. I always like to stay on good terms with the Ulgos. They're a little strange, but I rather like them.

Anyway, it was mid-autumn when I heard about it. I was going to have to hurry if I didn't want to get snowbound in the mountains, and so I took the first ship that left Val Alorn for Sendaria - a ship that just ‘happened' to be bound for the capital at the city of Sendar rather than the port at Darine. I could probably call that pure luck, but I've got some doubts about that.

The weather was blustery, so it was four days later when I wound up on a stone wharf in Sendar on a grey, cloudy afternoon. I bought a horse and took the Tolnedran highway that ran southeasterly toward Muros. About midway between Sendar and Muros, the highway just ‘happened' to pass through Sulturn. Sometimes I get very tired of being lead around by the nose. Garion's friend can be so obvious at times.

Since I was there anyway, and since I was getting a little saddle-sore, I decided to disguise myself and take a couple days off to do a little constructive snooping. I rode back into a grove of trees on a hill just outside Sulturn, dismounted and formed an image in my mind that was about as far from my real appearance as I possibly could make it and then flowed into it. The horse seemed a little startled. His new owner was quite tall, and he had coal-black hair and a bushy beard of the same color.

I rode on down into Sulturn, took a room in a run-down inn on the west side of town, and nosed around until
evening. I asked innocuous questions and kept my eyes open. Pol and her family were still here, and all seemed normal, so I went back to the inn for supper.

The common-room of the inn was a low-ceilinged place with dark beams overhead. The tables and benches were plain, utilitarian, and unvarnished, and the fireplace smoked. There were perhaps a dozen people there, a few locals drinking beer from copper-bound wooden tankards, and several travelers eating the unappetizing stew that's the standard fare in Sendarian inns from Camaar to Darine. Sendaria produces a lot of turnips, and turnip stew isn't one of my favorite dishes.

The first face I really noticed when I entered belonged to a Murgo. He was wearing western-style clothes, but his angular eyes and the scars on his cheeks left no doubt about his race. He sat near the fireplace plying a rather tipsy Sendar with beer and talking about the weather.

Since he wouldn't be able to recognize me anyway, I strode over, took a seat at the table next to his, and told the serving wench to bring me some supper.

After the Murgo'd exhausted the conversational potentials of the weather, he got down to business. ‘You seem well-acquainted here,' he said to the half-drunk Sendar across the table from him.

‘I doubt that there are ten people in all of Sulturn that I don't know,' the Sendar replied modestly, draining his tankard.

The Murgo bought him another. ‘It seems that I've found the right man, then,' he said, trying to smile. Murgos don't really know how to smile, so his expression looked more like a grimace of pain. ‘A countryman of mine was passing through here last week, and he happened to see a lady that took his eye.' A Murgo even
looking
at a non-Murgo woman? Absurd!

‘We have some real beauties here in Sulturn,' the Sendar said.

‘My friend was in a hurry, so he didn't have time to
introduce himself to the lady in question, but when he found that I was coming here, he begged me to find out what I could about her - where she lives, what her name is, whether or not she's married - that sort of thing.' He tried to smile again, and this one wasn't any better than the first had been.

‘Did he describe her to you?' the Sendar asked. What a dunce! Even if the Murgo's transparent fiction had been true, he'd have had a description. In his case, however, he had no problem at all. Ctuchik had probably engraved a portrait of Polgara on the inside of his eyeballs.

‘He said that she was quite tall and very beautiful.'

‘That describes a lot of the ladies here in Sulturn, friend. Did he give you any other details?'

‘She has very dark hair,' the Murgo said, ‘but the thing that really stood out in my friend's mind was the fact that she's got a white streak in her hair - just above her brow.'

The Sendar laughed. ‘That's easy,' he said. ‘Your friend's been taken with Mistress Pol, the aunt of Darion the cabinet-maker. He's not the first, but you might as well tell him to try his luck somewhere else. Mistress Pol's not interested, and she goes out of her way to let people know that. She can blister the bark off a tree from a half mile away.'

I swore under my breath. I was going to have to have a talk with Pol about that. What good did it do to hide if she didn't change her name, her appearance, or her temperament?

I didn't really need to stay any longer. The Murgo had what he wanted, and so did I. I pushed back my bowl of watery turnip stew, got up, and left.

The streets of Sulturn were nearly deserted, and a chill, gusty autumn wind howled around the corners of the solid stone houses. Heavy clouds covered the moon, and the few torches that were supposed to illuminate the streets were flaring and guttering as the wind tore at them. I didn't really pay too much attention to the weather, though. I was
more interested in whether or not there might be another Murgo following me. I doubled back several times, circled around through the narrow, nearly dark streets, and came at Darion's cabinet-shop from the far side.

It was after nightfall, so the shop was closed, but the lights in the windows of the living quarters upstairs clearly announced that Darion and his family were home. I didn't pound on the door. There wasn't any point in disturbing the neighbors. I picked the lock instead, went inside, and blundered around in the dark until I found the stairs. I went up them two at time, fumbled around until I found the lock on the door at the top, and picked that one as well.

The door opened into the kitchen, and I'd have recognized it as Polgara's even if I'd entered it somewhere on the far side of the moon. It was warm and cheerful, and it was arranged in that familiar way all of Polgara's kitchens have been arranged. Pol and her little family were eating supper at the kitchen table when I slipped into the room. ‘Pol!' I hissed sharply, ‘We've got to get you out of here!'

She came quickly to her feet, her eyes blazing. ‘What are you doing here, old man?' she demanded. So much for disguises, I guess.

Darion stood up. I hadn't seen him since he was a child. He was quite tall, and there was a certain bulkiness to his shoulders that reminded me of Dras Bull-neck. ‘Who is this man, Aunt Pol?' he demanded.

‘My father.' she replied shortly.

‘Holy Belgarath?' His voice was startled.

‘That “holy” might be open to some question,' she said dryly. ‘I told you to stay away from me, father.'

‘This is an emergency, Pol. We've got to leave Sulturn right now. Have you ever thought of hiding that white lock? It makes you awfully conspicuous, you know.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘There's a Murgo at an inn not a half-mile from here. He's been asking after you. Worse yet, he's been getting answers. He knows exactly where you are. Gather up what
you need, and let's get out of here. I don't know if he's alone or not, but even if he is now, he won't be for long.'

‘Why didn't you kill him?'

Darion's eyes went very wide. ‘Aunt Pol!' he gasped.

‘How much does he know?' I asked, pointing at Darion.

‘As much as he needs to know.'

‘That's a little vague, Pol. Does he know who he is?'

‘In a general sort of way.'

‘I think it's time for a few specifics. You'd better pack a few things. We can buy more in Kotu.'

‘
Kotu
?'

‘There are too many Murgos snooping around here in Sendaria. It's time for you to move to one of the Alorn kingdoms. Throw some things together while I explain the situation to Darion and his wife.'

‘I still think you should have killed the Murgo.'

‘This is Sendaria, Pol, not Cherek. Dead bodies attract attention here. As soon as you're ready, I'll go buy some horses.'

‘Get a wagon instead, father. Selana's pregnant. I'm not going to let you bounce her around in a saddle.'

‘Congratulations, your Majesty,' I said to Darion.

‘What did you say?'

‘Congratulations.'

‘No, the other - that “your Majesty” business.'

‘Oh,
Polgara
!' I said irritably. ‘This is ridiculous! How many other facts haven't you told him? Start packing, and I'll explain things to him.' I turned back to the heir. ‘All right, Darion, listen carefully - you too, Selana. I won't have time to repeat this.' I glossed over a number of things. As you may have noticed, this is a
very
long story. After about fifteen minutes, though, Darion and his wife at least knew that he was the heir to Iron-grip's throne and why we had to avoid Murgos.

‘I can't just leave my shop behind, Ancient One,' he protested.

‘I'll set you up in business again once we get to Kotu. You'll have to abandon this one, I'm afraid.'

‘Go get a wagon, father,' Pol told me.

‘Where am I going to be able to buy a wagon at this time of night?'

‘Steal one, then.' Her eyes had gone flinty.

‘I've got a two-wheeled cart,' Darion said. ‘I use it as a hand-cart to deliver furniture. It's a little rickety, but it's got two shafts. I suppose we could come up with some way to hitch a horse to it. It might be a bit crowded, but the four of us should fit in it.'

I suddenly laughed. ‘How very appropriate,' I said.

‘I didn't quite follow that.'

‘A very old friend of mine used to travel around in a rickety two-wheeled cart.' Then I had an idea - a very good one, even if I do say so myself. ‘I think a fire might be useful here,' I suggested.

‘A fire?'