Belgarath the Sorcerer (51 page)

The Drasnian enclave lay in the northeast quadrant of the fair, so I went there. I didn't look like a merchant, so the Drasnians
seemed
to ignore me, but nothing really escapes a
Drasnian. Of course, the fact that I was scattering recognition signals like a bridesmaid scattering rose-petals at a wedding might have helped a little, too.

Eventually, a small, sharp-faced merchant with a long, pointed nose emerged from his tent with a feigned expression of surprise on his face. ‘Garath!' he exclaimed. ‘Can that really be you? I haven't seen you in ten years! What are you doing in Arendia?' His fingers were very busy telling me that he was a professional spy rather than an amateur, and that his name was Khaldan.

I reined in my horse. ‘Why, strike me blind if it isn't my old friend Khaldan!' I said with a certain enthusiasm. I'd never met him in person, but I definitely knew his father, since I had some plans for his family. Ultimately, a marriage between Khaldan's family and the royal house of Drasnia was going to produce a sharp-nosed little fellow with some rather remarkable talents. Now that I think about it, that sharp-nosed fellow very closely resembled Khaldan, which probably isn't much of a coincidence, if you stop and think about it.

‘Come inside,' Khaldan invited me. ‘We'll have a few tankards, and you can tell me what you've been up to for all these years.'

I dismounted and followed him into his tent. ‘Garath?' I asked him incredulously. ‘Where did you learn about
that
name?'

He touched one finger slyly to his nose - evidently a family trait. ‘State secret,' he replied. ‘The Service knows a great deal about you, Ancient One. How can I help you?'

‘It's nothing very specific, Khaldan,' I replied. ‘I'm going south is all, and I just stopped by to see if there was anything I ought to know about.'

He shrugged. ‘Nothing unusual for Arendia, Ancient One.'

I looked meaningfully at his half-open tent flap.

‘Not to worry, Garath,' he assured me. ‘Nobody's going
to get near my tent who isn't supposed to. We can talk safely.'

‘Maybe, but let's not bandy that “Ancient One” around too much. Is anything major happening between here and the Tolnedran border?'

‘You might want to go around the Barony of Vo Mandor,' he suggested. ‘The Baron's having an argument with one of his neighbors just now.'

I swore.

‘What's the matter?'

‘He's the very man I have to see.'

‘Stay here for a few weeks, then. It won't take him very long to finish up. The Mandor family has quite a reputation here in Mimbre. They're incapable of anything resembling caution, but they've been lucky enough so far that they haven't come up against anything they can't handle.'

‘I know,' I agreed, ‘and that's not going to change very much in the foreseeable future. Are there very many Murgos here at the fair?'

‘Funny you should ask. I was just going to bring it up myself. A Murgo nobleman of some sort rode into the fair a couple days ago. His rank must be fairly exalted, because the other Murgos are falling all over themselves to do what he asks.'

‘Have you picked up his name, by any chance?'

‘I have, and it wasn't by chance. I
am
a professional, old friend. He calls himself Achak, but I've been getting a faint smell of deception there.'

‘What's he look like?'

‘Tall, thinner than most Murgos, and he's got white hair and a long beard that's kind of yellowish. I don't think he's very clean. From what I hear, he smells bad.'

‘Well, well, well,' I said. ‘How very convenient. Now I won't have to go looking for him.'

‘You know him?'

‘I've known him for centuries. The Gorim of Ulgo told
me that he'd come down from Rak Cthol. I've been curious about what he's doing.'

‘Rak Cthol? You're not saying that this Achak fellow is Ctuchik, are you?'

‘Well, I hadn't yet, but I'd have gotten to it eventually, I guess.'

‘Now
that's
a name to reckon with.' His eyes brightened. ‘Would you like to have him killed?'

‘Forget it, Khaldan. You wouldn't be able to get an assassin near him. Besides, I might need him later on. Is he doing anything here - aside from terrorizing all the Murgos?'

‘He's been holding some extended conferences is about all - Murgos, Nadraks, even a few Thulls. What's he doing here?'

‘He's looking for something.'

‘Oh? What's that?'

I slyly touched my nose. ‘State secret,' I replied, throwing his own clever remark back in his teeth. ‘Where's the Murgo enclave? I think maybe I'd better go have another little talk with the Disciple of Torak.'

‘I'll send some men along to guard you.'

‘That won't be necessary. Ctuchik's not here for a confrontation - not with me, anyway. As soon as he finds out that I know he's here, he'll probably go back to Rak Cthol where he belongs. Did he come here alone?'

‘No. He's got a Grolim priest with him - a sycophant, obviously. If Ctuchik decides to get belligerent, you'll be up against two of them, so I'd be a little careful.'

‘Numbers don't really mean all that much to me, Khaldan. Where's the Murgo enclave?'

‘Over on the west side of the fair. Murgos live in black tents, so you can't miss it.'

‘Good.' I stood up. ‘I'll be back in a little while.' I went outside his tent, remounted, and rode on across the fair to the Murgo enclave. ‘You there,' I said to the first Murgo I
encountered. ‘I need to talk with Achak. Where do I find him?'

‘Achak doesn't talk to foreigners,' he replied insolently.

‘He'll talk to
me
. Go tell him that Belgarath's here to see him.'

His face went visibly pale, and he hurried off to a large tent in the middle of the enclave. He came back a moment or so later, and his manners had improved noticeably. ‘He'll see you,' he said.

‘Somehow I thought he might. Lead the way, friend.'

He did that, though he didn't seem to care much for the idea. I got the feeling that he didn't want to be within five miles of what he expected to happen when I went into ‘Achak's' tent.

Ctuchik wasn't alone. The Grolim Khaldan had mentioned was hovering in the background with a servile expression on his face. ‘Awfully good to see you again, old boy,' Ctuchik said with one of those bleak smiles pasted to his too thin face. ‘It's been a long time, hasn't it? I was beginning to think I might have offended you.'

‘Your very existence offends me, Ctuchik. What persuaded you to come down off your mountain-top? Did the stink of your temple finally start to turn your stomach?'

‘Blasphemy!' the hovering Grolim gasped.

‘Is
he
serving any purpose?' I asked Ctuchik, jerking my thumb at the Grolim.

‘He's my apprentice, Belgarath. I'm teaching him the business.'

‘Aren't you getting a little above yourself, old boy? Are you taking your own disciples now? Torak might not approve.'

‘He's a servant, Belgarath, not a disciple, and Torak more or less allows us to do as we please. You might think about that the next time Aldur sends you off on some fool's errand. If you'd like to change Masters, I could put in a good word for you.'

‘One turncoat in the family's quite enough, Ctuchik, and
I'm not going to change sides when I'm winning.'

‘
Are
you winning, Belgarath? How strange that I hadn't noticed that. You might as well get to know my servant here. I expect you'll be seeing a lot of him from now on.' He looked at the Grolim. ‘Chamdar, this is Belgarath, first disciple of the God Aldur. Don't let his foolish exterior deceive you. He can be troublesome at times.'

‘One does one's best,' I said with a little smirk. I looked more closely at the Grolim. He had scarred cheeks like a Murgo, but there was something a bit different about him. There was a certain boldness about him, and a burning ambition in his eyes that I don't think Ctuchik was aware of. ‘You're wasting your time here, Ctuchik,' I said then. ‘You're
not
going to find my daughter, no matter how many Murgos you send west, and you're certainly not going to find her yourself. Something like that would have shown up in our instructions.'

‘We'll see,' he replied distantly. ‘It was awfully good of you to stop by, old chap. I could have shown Chamdar here a picture of you, but a picture wouldn't have captured the real you.'

I actually laughed. ‘You're sending a boy to do a man's work, Ctuchik,' I told him. ‘I'm not going to lead your underling anywhere near Polgara.'

‘We'll see about that, too. Sooner or later, something's bound to come up that'll force you to go to where she is.'

‘You've never met my daughter, Ctuchik. Believe me, she can take care of herself. Why don't you take your Grolim and go home? The Godslayer
is
coming, and there's not a thing you can do about it.'

‘That particular EVENT hasn't been decided yet, old boy.'

‘It
will
be,
old
boy, and I don't think you're going to like the way it turns out. Are you coming, Chamdar?'

‘Coming?' he demanded, sounding baffled. ‘Coming where?'

‘Don't be childish. As soon as I'm outside this tent, your
Master's going to tell you to follow me. It'll be much easier for both of us if we just ride along together.'

‘That's for my Master to decide,' he replied coldly.

‘Suit yourself. I'll be riding south from here. If you happen to lose track of me, I'll be in Tol Honeth in a couple of weeks. Ask around when you get there. I shouldn't be too hard to find.'

Then I turned and left the tent.

Polgara looked upon the centuries she was obliged to spend in the boisterous Alorn kingdoms as a period of exile. Pol's fond of individual Alorns, but as a race they tend to set her teeth on edge. She yearned to go back to Sendaria. The Sendars aren't as courtly as the Wacite Arends were, but they're a polite, civil people, and civility's very important to my daughter.

I devoted quite a bit of time during those years providing entertainment for the ambitious Chamdar. Every so often, I'd come out of the Vale, randomly select some obscure village in Sendaria or northern Arendia, and kill several Murgos there. Chamdar, of course, would leap to the conclusion that I'd killed them because they were getting too close to Polgara. He'd rush to the place and spend five or six years following the various false trails I'd laid down for him. Then the trails would peter out on him, and we'd start all over again someplace else. I'm sure he knew exactly what I was doing, but he didn't have any choice but to respond. The fact that he didn't age over the centuries was an indication of
some
status in Grolim society. He wasn't exactly a disciple, but he was the next thing to it, I suppose.

In the meantime, Polgara remained safe - if not content - in Cherek, or Drasnia, or Algaria. Her common practice during those years was to apprentice a youthful heir to some artisan in a village or small town; and then when the young man reached maturity, she'd set him up in business - much in the way she had with Darion in the forty-fifth century. I never did find out where she got the money for all those business ventures. She invariably posed as a member of the young man's family, an older sister, a cousin,
very frequently an aunt, and even once or twice as the young man's mother. The families she thus created were so ordinary that random travelers - or random Angaraks - probably didn't even notice them. I'm sure it was all very tedious for her, but she'd taken on the chore of hiding the heirs of her own free will, and Pol has a very strong sense of responsibility.

My contribution - keeping Chamdar away from her - was fairly peripheral, but I like to think that it helped, if only a little bit. I'd also periodically looked in on all those families I was juggling, and every now and then I'd ease on down into Cthol Murgos to see what the opposition was up to.

Murgo society is unlike any other on the face of the earth, largely because it's built along military lines. They don't have principalities down there; they have military districts instead, each with its own general. Because of the Murgo obsession with racial purity, Murgo women are kept closely confined, so you never see any women on the streets - just men, all in chain-mail. Over the course of the centuries, the various military commanders have passed the spurious crown of Cthol Murgos around, so there've been Goska Dynasties, Cthan Dynasties, Hagga Dynasties, and recently, Urga Dynasties. It didn't really matter who sat on the throne in Rak Goska, however, because Ctuchik, that walking cadaver, has always ruled Cthol Murgos from his turret in Rak Cthol.

The twins continued to work on their concordance, and Beldin maintained his surveillance in Mallorea. Everything sort of plodded along until the middle of the forty-ninth century with nothing very much happening. It was one of those quiet periods that crop up from time to time in the history of the world. Then there was a total eclipse of the sun in the spring of 4850. An eclipse isn't all that unusual, so we didn't pay much attention to it - at least not at first. This one was fairly unique, in that it seemed to trigger a significant climate change. Would you
believe
that it rained
off and on for twenty-five years? We almost never saw the sun.

Several months after that eclipse, Beldin came back from Mallorea with some news we'd all been waiting for. He clumped, dripping, up the stairs to my workshop. ‘Miserable weather,' he muttered. ‘I haven't been really dry for the last three months. Have you got anything to drink? I think I'm chilled all the way to the bone.'

‘I don't happen to have anything right now,' I told him. ‘Why don't you go call on the twins?'

‘Later, maybe.' He slumped down in a chair by the fire and pulled off his soggy shoes. ‘It's finally happened, Belgarath,' he told me, wriggling his toes.

‘What has?'

‘Old Burnt-face has finally come out of Ashaba.'

‘Where did he go?'

‘Mal Zeth. Where else? He's deposed the current emperor and taken personal command of the Mallorean Empire.' He sneezed. ‘You're the expert on Old Angarak. What does the word “Kal” mean?'

‘King and God. It's a Grolim usage that was fairly prevalent at Korim. It's sort of fallen into disuse - probably because Torak's been holed up at Ashaba for the last three eons or so.'

‘Burnt-face has a long memory, then. He calls himself “Kal Torak” now, and he's making sure that everybody in Mallorea recognizes the name.'

‘Is he mobilizing?'

‘Not yet. At the moment, he's busy de-secularizing Mallorea. He's re-introduced the joys of religion. Urvon's having a field day. His Grolims are butchering everybody they can lay their hands on. The temples from Camat to Gandahar are running knee-deep in blood.'

‘Let's go talk with the twins. We'd better see what the Mrin has to say about this.'

‘You'd also better hustle your tail-feathers north to warn the Alorns.'

‘In a bit. I want look at the Mrin first.'

‘I don't have much time, Belgarath. I've got to go back to Mallorea. I don't want Kal-Torak to sneak up on you with several million Malloreans.'

‘I'm almost sure I'll hear him coming.'

‘Where's Pol now?'

‘At Aldurford in northern Algaria.'

‘You'd better tell her to come home.'

‘We'll see. I'm not going to do anything until I find out what the Mrin has to say.'

The twins became very excited when Beldin told them that Torak had finally came out of Ashaba, and they immediately went to work. Beldin stumped around, growing increasingly impatient.

‘Please brother,' Beltira told him, looking up from his copy of the Mrin, ‘sit down someplace. We're trying to concentrate.' It was one of the few times I've ever seen either of the twins display anything remotely resembling irritability.

After about an hour, Belkira slapped his hand down on the Darine triumphantly. ‘Here it is!' he exclaimed. ‘I
thought
I remembered it.'

‘What does it say?' Beltira demanded.

‘It's that passage about the eclipse. It says, “Behold! The sun shall fall dark, and the sky shall endlessly weep, and it shall be a sign that the King returneth, and the God also”.'

‘It got the part about the sky weeping pretty close,' Beldin noted.

‘We misread it,' Beltira confessed. ‘It's only talking about one of them, not both.'

‘Will you two
please
try to make sense?' Beldin exploded.

‘We've been looking in the wrong direction,' Beltira explained. ‘We thought the passage meant that the Rivan King would re-emerge and that Torak would come out of Ashaba at the same time. It doesn't have anything to do with the Rivan King, though. It's only talking about Torak, since he's both King and God in Angarak. That eclipse and
the foul weather we've had since then warned us that this was coming, but Iron-grip's heir's over fifty right now, so we discounted the possibility. We're sorry, Belgarath.'

‘I'd have probably missed it as well, Beltira. Don't blame yourselves. Where's the corresponding passage in the Mrin?'

Belkira checked their concordance and then took up the third scroll of the Mrin and unrolled it until he found the index mark he was looking for. ‘It's right here,' he said, handing me the scroll and pointing at the mark.

‘“Behold!”' I read it aloud. ‘“In the day that the sun falls dark at noon and the skies are veiled shall the King re-emerge, and shall he journey to the seat of power and put aside the one who hath stood in his stead.”'

‘I can see how you missed that one, brothers,' Beldin said to the twins. ‘It's ambiguous enough so that it could very well mean the Rivan King. What does it say next, Belgarath?'

‘“And he shall confer with his tributary kings,”' I read on, ‘“instructing all in that which they must do, and in the fullness of time shall he gather his forces and shall move to confront the other Child. And the one of them shall be a God, and the other shall be like unto a God, and the jewel shall decide the outcome in the lands of the children of the Bull-God.”'

‘Arendia?' Beldin said. ‘Why Arendia?'

‘There've been hints of that before,' Beltira said. ‘
Something
important's going to happen in Arendia.'

‘What else does it say?' Beldin asked me.

I read the next line, and then I started to swear.

‘What's wrong?' Beldin demanded.

‘It just broke off. Now it's talking about “The Mother of the Race That Died”.'

‘Beltira and I'll work with it some more,' Belkira told me.

‘We know enough to get started, Belgarath,' Beldin said. ‘You and I both have things to do, and the twins can work better without the two of us hanging over their shoulders.
I'm going back to Mallorea. You'd better go alert the Alorns -
and
find a safer place to hide Polgara. There's nothing at Aldurford but the river and a lot of open grassland.'

I grunted and stood up. ‘You're probably right,' I agreed. ‘I don't care much for running off on just a few hints, but there's no help for it, I guess.'

‘We'll stay in touch,' Beltira promised. ‘We'll let you or Pol know just as soon as we pinpoint anything else that seems significant.'

‘I'd really appreciate that, brother,' I replied.

I flew north from the Vale to the Algarian Stronghold and found out from the caretakers there that Cho-Ram XIV, the current Chief of the clan-chiefs of Algaria, was in the vicinity of Lake Atun up near the Drasnian border.

 

I'm sure that name rings a bell. Royal families habitually repeat names. It's a silly custom, but at least it doesn't strain anybody's creativity.

 

It only took me two days to locate the fourteenth Cho-Ram. He was a fairly young man, and he customarily wore clothing made of horse-hide and shaved his head - except for a flowing scalp-lock that hung down his back like the tail of a horse. Now that I think back on it, he looked a great deal like Cho-Hag's adopted son, Hettar.

‘It's about time,' was all he said when I told him that Torak was coming. He was obviously a true descendant of the close-mouthed Algar Fleet-foot.

‘He isn't coming to pay a social call,' I said acidly.

‘I know.' Then he grinned wolfishly at me.

Alorns!

‘You'd better gather your clans,' I advised.

‘How long have we got?'

‘I'm not sure. Mallorea's a big place, and it's going to take Torak a while to gather his forces. Beldin's there, though, so he'll be able to give us a little advance notice.'

‘That's all we really need, isn't it? I'll call the clans in,
and we'll all go down to the Stronghold. I'll be there when you need me.'

‘Is Khalan still king in Drasnia?'

‘No. He died last fall. His son Rhodar wears the crown.'

‘I'd better go to Boktor and talk with him. Keep a sharp eye on the Eastern Escarpment. Something important's going to happen in Arendia, so the Murgos might come down the cliff to try to soften you up before Torak gets here. You're sitting on his logical invasion route.'

‘Good.'

‘
Good
? What do you mean, good?'

‘I won't have to go looking for him.'

‘Was your grandmother an Arend, by any chance?'

‘
Belgarath
! What a thing to suggest!'

‘Never mind. Get to work. I'll go talk with Rhodar, and then go to Val Alorn and see Eldrig.'

 

Notice that I'd already broad-jumped my way to an erroneous conclusion. Both Mishrak ac Thull and Algaria were open grasslands, and Torak was going to be leading a very large army. It didn't even occur to me that he'd try to take all those troops through the Nadrak Forest.

 

Rhodar I of Drasnia was not nearly as corpulent as his namesake five centuries later, but he was still fairly stout. He was a descendant of Bull-neck, though, so a certain bulk was understandable. We ran a lot of that off him during the next twenty or so years. I alerted him to what was happening in Mallorea and then left him mapping out his defenses with his generals while I flew on to Val Alorn.

King Eldrig of Cherek was not exactly what you'd call a true representative of his race. More often than not his tankard held water instead of beer, for one thing, and he was a scholarly man for another. He was a great deal like Anheg in that respect. About the only difference is the fact that Anheg
will
take a drink on occasion.

‘Arendia?' he said when I told him what was coming.

‘That's what the Mrin says.'

‘Are you sure? Torak's coming west to get the Orb, isn't he? The Orb's not in Arendia; it's at Riva.'

‘The twins are still hammering at the Mrin. They might be able to dig out an explanation. All we've got so far is the fact that the EVENT's going to take place in the lands of the children of the Bull-God. Unless something's changed, that means Arendia.'

Eldrig scratched at his iron-grey hair and stared at his map. ‘I suppose Torak
could
swing through Mimbre and then turn north to the hook of Arendia to come at the Isle from the south. If we just happened to be in his way, there
could
be some kind of confrontation down there.'

I also looked at his map. ‘There's no real point in running off there until Torak makes his move,' I said. ‘You'd better get word to Brand. Tell him that I'll come to the Isle in a little bit. I've got a couple of other things to attend to first.'