Polgara the Sorceress (52 page)

‘I wouldn’t do it that way, your Majesty,’ I replied. ‘Appointing a ruler would just be another form of outside intervention, and if d immediately spawn a fervent oppo
sition. You’d have a revolution up there within a decade, and then you’d have to send fifty legions instead of ten.’

He winced at that. ‘How
do
we select a king, then?’

‘I could devise a test, your Majesty,’ Khanar offered, ‘and we could confer the crown on whichever Sendar scores the highest grade.’

‘But if
you
grade the test, Prince Khanar, you’d still start a revolution,’ I told him. ‘The selection of the King of Sendaria can’t be made by either Tolnedra
or
by Drasnia. It’s going to have to come from within.’

‘A tournament, perhaps?’ Ran Horb said dubiously.

‘These are farmers, your Majesty,’ Khanar reminded him. ‘A battle royal with farm implements could get
very
messy. I suppose we could give the crown to the man who raises the biggest turnip.’

‘Why not hold an election?’ I asked them.

‘I’ve never had that much faith in elections,’ Ran Horb said dubiously. ‘An election’s nothing more than a popularity contest, and popularity’s hardly a measure of any kind of administrative ability.’

‘Ah – your Majesty,’ Khanar said, ‘we’re not talking about a major power here. Sendaria’s a nice enough place, I suppose, but the world’s not going to tremble very hard if the King of the Sendars makes a few mistakes.’ He laughed then, a cynical Drasnian sort of laugh. ‘Why not just turn the whole thing over to the priesthood instead? We just pick somebody who doesn’t stumble over his own feet too often and then instruct the priests to advise the Sendars that this man’s been chosen to rule by the Sendarian God – which God
do
the Sendars worship, by the way?’

‘All seven of them,’ I replied. ‘They don’t know about UL as yet, but they’ll probably include him in their religion as well, just as soon as they find out about his existence.’

‘UL?’ Ran Horb said, sounding puzzled.

‘The God of the Ulgos,’ I told him.

‘You mean that place where all the dragons are?’

“There’s only one dragon, your Majesty, and she doesn’t live in Ulgoland. I don’t think religion would be a good basis for a Sendarian monarchy, though. It’d put the priests in command of the nation, and priests don’t make very
good rulers. Cthol Murgos is a fairly good example of that. I
know
the Sendars, believe me, and I think an election might be the best answer – just as long as
everybody
gets to vote.’

‘Even people who don’t own land?’ Ran Horb asked incredulously.

‘It’s the best way to avoid rebellion later on,’ I reminded him. ‘If domestic tranquility’s what we want, we don’t need some large group of landless non-voters coming up with the idea of redistributing the wealth of the kingdom after a few years.’

‘We can give it a try, I suppose,’ the emperor said dubiously. ‘If it doesn’t work, maybe I
will
have to annex Sendaria. I wouldn’t really want the idea of elections to spread, since I’d probably be the first one voted out of office, but Sendaria’s a special case, I guess. Nobody
really
cares who gets the Sendarian throne as long as he keeps things quiet up there. We definitely don’t need another Arendia on our hands.’ He made a sour face. The Arends are starting to make me very tired. I think it’s time for me to come up with a way to put an end to their perpetual civil war. It’s bad for business.’ Then his eyes brightened. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘now that we’ve solved all the world’s problems, why don’t you go ahead and prove to me that you really
are
Polgara the Sorceress, your Grace.’

‘Oh, dear,’ I sighed.

‘We’ve both been very, very good, my Lady,’ Khanar agreed eagerly, ‘and since we both behaved ourselves so well, don’t we deserve some kind of little treat?’

‘Why am I always surrounded by children?’ I demanded, casting my eyes toward heaven.

‘Probably because you bring out the little boy lurking in every one of us, Polgara.’ Ran Horb was grinning openly now.

‘All right,’ I sighed, ‘but only one. I’m not going to wear myself out just to entertain a pair of naughty little boys who managed to stay out of mischief for half an hour.’

Then I went owl – in part because it was easier – and in part because no carnival charlatan could ever hope to duplicate the feat.

I flew around the room on soft white wings for a few moments, then settled on to my chair and resumed my own form. ‘Satisfied?’ I asked them.

‘How
ever
did you manage to do that?’ Ran Horb demanded.

‘It’s fairly simple, your Majesty,’ I replied. ‘All you have to do is think very hard about the form you want and then command your being to take that form. Would you like to see something different? How about a cobra?’

‘Ah – no, thank you. Lady Polgara,’ he answered very quickly. ‘That won’t really be necessary. I’m completely convinced – aren’t you, Khanar?’

‘Oh, absolutely, your Imperial Majesty,’ Khanar replied fervently. ‘I wouldn’t
think
of asking you to turn yourself into a cobra, Lady Polgara.’

‘I rather thought you might both feel that way about it,’ I murmured.

It may have been that conversation in the early autumn of 3817 that had moved Ran Horb to put an end to the civil war in Arendia. In 3821 he concluded a secret treaty with the Mimbrates, and in 3822, the Mimbrates sacked and burned Vo Astur and chased the surviving Asturians into the forest. I know it’s not really very nice, but I
did
take a great deal of satisfaction in the destruction of Vo Astur, since it repaid them for destroying Vo Wacune.

No, I don’t think I’ll pursue that. Gloating isn’t really attractive, so it should be done in private.

Then, in 3827, Ran Horb II set up the election that ultimately produced the first Sendarian King. He made one mistake when he laid down the rules, however. He said that the new king had to receive a
majority
of the votes. That turned the whole business into a six-year holiday in Sendaria. There were seven hundred and forty-three candidates on the first ballot, and the winnowing-out process took a long time. Soon, Sendarians were dividing their time almost equally – mornings devoted to tending the fields and afternoons devoted to electioneering. They had so much fun
that they ignored the fact that the rest of the world was laughing at them.

I
love
those people! When they’re having fun, they don’t care
what
the rest of the world thinks.

The ultimate winner, Fundor the Magnificent, had long since forgotten that he was still a candidate, and his elevation to the throne came as a complete surprise to him – and quite an inconvenience as well. Fundor was an agricultural experimenter who hated the taste of turnips and had been trying for years to replace that vegetable as a staple in the Sendarian diet with the rutabaga. Since nobody in his right mind willingly eats rutabagas, Fundor’s obsession had virtually bankrupted him.

During the course of the six-year-long election, the Sendars had decided to establish the capital of their incipient kingdom at the city of Sendar. Their decision was based on the price of land in that part of Sendaria, and it raised screams of protest from the largely Tolnedran land-speculators in and around Darine, Camaar, and Muros.

Following Fundor’s elevation to the throne, all manner of fortune-hunters flocked to the city of Sendar in the hopes of wheedling noble titles out of their new king. Fundor put them to work instead, holding back titles until he saw how well they performed various tasks. The alien concept of actually working to earn – and keep – a title offended most of the opportunists drawn to his court, but it ultimately produced a noble class with that most rare of aristocratic characteristics, a sense of responsibility.

I drifted around the new kingdom for several years, more or less unobserved, and as time passed I grew more and more certain that our experiment was working out quite well. Sendaria prospered, and the peasants were fairly content. I felt that I’d performed my final duty as the Duchess of Erat satisfactorily and had thus fulfilled my pledge to Ontrose.

Since that was out of the way now, I returned to mother’s cottage and to my studies.

Ran Horb’s system of highways – particularly in Sendaria
– mightily offended the Chereks, of course, since it rendered their unique ability to navigate the hazards of the Cherek Bore largely irrelevant. There were rumblings of discontent coming out of Val Alorn, but since you can’t really sink a highway, there wasn’t very much the Chereks could do about the new state of affairs.

The Tolnedran highway system extended far beyond Sendaria, however, and its real impact was felt more in the southern kingdoms. The first contacts between various Tolnedran entrepreneurs and the Murgos were tentative and very wary, but before long the goods of the Angarak kingdoms began to appear in the market-places of Tol Honeth, Tol Borune, Tol Horb, and Tol Vordue. Murgo hostility began to soften, and the trade between east and west changed from a trickle to a flood.

Now nothing happens in Cthol Murgos without Ctuchik’s open consent, so it was obvious to my family that Torak’s disciple, crouched atop that gloomy peak in the middle of the Wasteland of Murgos, was ‘up to something’. In all probability, Ctuchik wasn’t really ‘up to’ anything more serious than spying and subverting a few Tolnedrans, but as my father and uncle Beldin were to discover after the war with Nyissa, their former brother, Zedar the apostate, had been more creative. His offer of immortality had enlisted the aid of the aging Queen Salmissra in Sthiss Tor, and that significantly altered history.

But that came a bit later. Following the establishment of the Kingdom of Sendaria, I devoted myself almost exclusively to the study of that pair of prophecies, the Mrin and the Darine, and I began to catch brief, tantalizing glimpses of ‘the Godslayer’. Clearly, I was going to be intimately involved with this titan, but as time went on and I probed more deeply, I began to get the strong impression that he
wasn’t
going to come riding out of nowhere garbed in shining armor, trailing clouds of glory, and announced by earthquakes and thunderclaps.

The turn of the millennium occasioned some serious celebration in the kingdoms of the west, but aside from noting that the year marked my two thousandth birthday, I paid very little attention to it.

In the early spring of 4002 I once again remembered that if I planned to eat the following winter, I’d probably better get to gardening. I set my studies aside for several weeks to concentrate on playing in the dirt.

I was spading up my vegetable garden when father swooped in. I knew immediately that something serious was afoot, since my father only flies – usually as a falcon – in emergencies. He blurred back into his natural form, and his expression was agitated. ‘I need you, Pol!’ he said urgently.

‘I needed you once, remember?’ I said it without even thinking. ‘You didn’t seem very interested. Now I get to return the favor. Go away, father.’

‘We don’t have time for this, Polgara. We have to go to the Isle of the Winds immediately. Gorek’s in danger.’

‘Who’s Gorek?’

‘Don’t you have any idea at all about what’s happening in the world beyond the edge of your garden? Has your brain shut down? You can’t evade your responsibilities, Pol. You’re still who you are, and you’re coming with me to the Isle of the Winds even if I have to pick you up in my talons and
take
you there.’

‘Don’t threaten me, Old Man. Who’s this Gorek you’re so worried about?’’

‘He’s the Rivan King, Pol, the Guardian of the Orb.’

“The Chereks patrol the Sea of the Winds, father. No fleet in the world can get past their war boats.’

‘The danger’s not coming from a fleet, Pol. There’s a commercial enclave just outside the walls of the city of Riva.
That’s
the source of the danger.’

‘Are you insane, father? Why did you permit strangers on the Isle?’

‘It’s a long story, and we don’t have time to go into it right now.’

‘How did you find out about this supposed danger?’

‘I just dredged the meaning out of a passage in the Mrin Codex.’

That
brushed away all my scepticism. ‘Who’s behind it?’ I demanded.

‘Salmissra, as closely as I can determine. She has agents in that enclave who’ve been ordered to kill the Rivan King
and his entire family. If she manages to pull it off, Torak wins.’

‘Not as long as
I’m
still breathing, he doesn’t. Is this more of Ctuchik’s games?’

‘It’s possible, but it’s a little subtle for Ctuchik. It might be Urvon or Zedar.’

‘We can sort that out later. We’re wasting time, father. Let’s go to the Isle and put a stop to this.’

The shortest route to the Isle of the Winds involved crossing Ulgoland. Most sensible people avoid that whenever possible, but this was an emergency, and father and I would be several thousand feet above the hunting grounds of the Algroths, Hrulgin, and Eldrakyn. Our brief encounter with Harpies just before we flew over Prolgu, however, was highly suspicious. So far as I’m able to determine, that was the only time anyone has ever seen them. Their semi-human form makes them appear far more dangerous than they really are. A human face does not automatically indicate human intelligence, and their lack of a beak makes them a second-rate bird of prey. Father and I evaded them rather easily and flew on.

Dawn was touching the eastern horizon when we flew over Camaar. We were both on the verge of exhaustion, but we grimly flew on out over the lead-grey waves of the Sea of the Winds. My wings seemed almost on fire, but I drove myself to keep going. I’m not really sure how father managed, since he doesn’t really fly all that well. Father surprises me sometimes.

We were crossing the harbor at Riva, and my eyes were fixed on the grim battlements of the Hall of the Rivan King when mother’s voice cracked sharply in my mind.
‘Pol! Down there – in the harbor!’

I looked down and saw something splashing quite a ways out from the gravel beach.

‘It’s a little boy, Pol. Don’t let him drown!’

I didn’t even think. Changing form in midair isn’t really a good idea. For a moment as you blur from one form to the other you’re totally disoriented, but as luck had it I was still looking at the water after I’d shed my feathers. I arched forward and plunged down, tensing my body for the shock of impact with the surface of the harbor. The jolt would
have been much worse had I been higher, but it still quite nearly knocked the wind out of me.

My dive took me deep down into the bone-chilling water, but I arched myself and shot toward the surface, coming up into the light and air only a few feet from the floundering little boy whose eyes were filled with terror and whose flailing arms were barely keeping him afloat.

A few strokes brought me to his side, and then I had him. ‘Relax!’ I told him sharply. ‘I’ve got you now.’

‘I’m drowning!’ he spluttered, his voice shrill.

‘No, you’re not. You’re safe, so stop waving your arms around. Just lay back and let me do the swimming.’

It took a little persuading to unlock the death grip of his arms around my neck, but I eventually got him calmed down and lying on his back while I towed him toward the end of one of the wharves jutting out into the bay. ‘See how much easier it is when you don’t fight the water?’ I asked him.

‘I almost had the knack of it,’ he assured me. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever tried to swim. It’s not too hard, is it?’

‘You should probably practice in shallower water,’ I suggested.

‘I really couldn’t, ma’am. There was this man with a knife after me.’

‘Polgara!’
father’s voice came to me.
‘Is the boy all right?’

‘Yes, father,’ I replied out loud, not even realizing that my voice was audible to the little boy. ‘I’ve got him.’

‘Stay out of sight! Don’t let anybody see you!’

‘All right.’

‘Who were you talking to?’ the boy asked.

‘It’s not important.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘To the end of that wharf. We’ll hide there and keep very quiet until the men with the knives have been driven off.’

‘All right. Is the water always this cold?’

‘It was the last time I was here.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before, ma’am.’

‘No. We only just met.’

‘That would explain it then.’ He was such a matter of fact little fellow. I liked him immediately.

‘It’s probably best not to talk quite so much,’ I told him. ‘Gulping in a gallon or so of water right now wouldn’t be good for you.’

‘If you say so.’

We reached the end of the stone wharf, and both of us grabbed hold of a rusty iron ring to which ships were usually tied.

‘What happened back there?’ I asked him.

‘My grandfather took us all down to the shops on the beach,’ the little boy replied. ‘Somebody there wanted to give us some presents. When we got to their shop, though, they all pulled out their knives. I’ll bet they’ll be sorry they did that. My grandfather’s the king here, and he’ll be very angry with them about that. I’m really cold, ma’am. Can’t we get out of the water?’

‘Not yet, I’m afraid. We want to be sure it’s safe before we do that.’

‘Do you come here to the Isle very often?’ His calm way of talking reassured me just a bit. Evidently the assassination attempt had failed.

‘What happened back there on the beach?’ I asked him.

‘I’m not really sure, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘Mother told me to run just as soon as the fellow with all his hair shaved off pulled out his knife. He was between me and the city gate, so the only place left to go was out here in the water. Swimming’s a little harder than it looks, isn’t it?’

‘It takes some practice, that’s all.’

‘I didn’t have much time for practice. Would it be polite for me to ask what your name is?’

‘I’m known as Polgara,’ I told him.

‘I’ve heard of you. Aren’t you related to me?’

‘Distantly, yes. You might say that I’m your aunt. And what’s your name?’

‘I’m Geran. They call me “Prince Geran”, but I don’t think that means very much. My oldest brother’s the one who’s going to get to wear the crown when he grows up. I’ve been thinking about being a pirate when I grow up. That’d be pretty exciting, don’t you think so, Aunt Pol?’

There it was again. I sometimes think that every little boy in the world automatically calls me ‘Aunt Pol’. I smiled
at him. ‘I’d have a talk with my parents – and my grandfather – before I decided on piracy as a career, Geran,’ I suggested. ‘They might have a few objections.’

He sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right, Aunt Pol, but it
would
be exciting, wouldn’t it.’

‘I think it’s over-rated.’

We clung to that rusty iron ring at the end of the wharf, shivering in the cold. I did what I could to warm the water in which we were immersed, but nobody could heat the entire Sea of the Winds, so about all I could do was to take the edge off the chill.

After an hour or so – which seemed like an eternity – father’s voice came to me 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.’

‘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.’

The significance of his reference to the shivering little boy at my side was not lost on me. Clearly, Salmissra’s assassins had succeeded in butchering King Gorek and almost all the members of the royal family. Geran’s flight from the scene had spared him the horror of witnessing the disaster, and so he didn’t seem to know that he was now an orphan. He’d have to be told, of course, and I knew exactly upon whose shoulders
that
unpleasant task would fall.

It was well after dark when father and Brand, the Rivan Warder, finally came down to the harbor. The four of us, father, Brand, Prince Geran and I, boarded an unoccupied ship and sailed out into the harbor with father manning the sails, without even bothering to rise from the bench upon which he sat. I took the shivering little prince belowdecks, dried him off and created some dry clothes for him.

Then I went back up on deck to have a word with father. ‘There were no other survivors, I gather?’ I asked him.

‘Not a one. The Nyissans were using poisoned daggers.’

‘The boy doesn’t know. He ran away before the killing started.’

‘Good. Those Nyissans were very efficient.’

Then it
was
Salmissra who was behind it.’

‘Yes, but somebody else put her up to it.’

‘Who?’

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

‘How do you plan to get into Sthiss Tor?’

‘I’m going to depopulate the Alorn kingdoms to provide myself with an escort. Then I’m going to march through Nyissa like some kind of natural disaster. I’ll chase the Snake People so far back into the trees that they’ll have to import daylight. You’d better tell the boy that he’s an orphan.’

‘Thank you.’ I said it in a flat, unfriendly tone of voice.

‘You’re better at that sort of thing than I am, Pol. It might make him feel better if he knows that I’m going to destroy Nyissa in retaliation.’

‘He’s only a little boy, father, and his mother was just killed. I don’t think the idea of retaliation’s going to comfort him very much.’

That’s about the only thing we’ve got to offer him right now. You’re going to have to fill in for his mother, I’m afraid.’

‘What do I know about raising little boys, father?’

‘You didn’t do too badly with Daran after your sister died, Pol. I’m sorry to saddle you with this, but there’s no one else available, and the boy absolutely
must
be protected. You’re going to have to hide him. This assassination has “Angarak” printed all over it, and Ctuchik’s got prophecies of his own that’ll advise him that there’s a survivor. The West’s going to be awash with Grolims before the year’s out. The protection of that little boy is the most important thing any of us are going to do right now.’

‘I’ll take care of it, father.’ Then I went back below decks to break the news to the little prince.

He wept, of course, and I tried my best to comfort him.

A peculiar thought came to me as I held the sobbing little boy in my arms. I don’t think I’d ever actually come to grips with a certain stark reality. Mother was not born a human, and that quite clearly meant that I was part wolf. Though I didn’t have paws, a shaggy tail, or sharp teeth, I
did
have certain wolfish traits. Wolves are pack animals,
and they all share in the responsibility of caring for the puppies, regardless of which particular female gave birth to them. My comforting of this grieving, sandy-haired little boy was instinctive, growing out of the need to protect the pack.

Once I’d come face to face with that fact, several decisions followed automatically. I needed a safe, well-hidden den first of all. Mother’s cottage would
not
serve that purpose. It was too exposed and too many people knew where it was. Next, I needed a reliable source of food. The answer, of course, was obvious. My rose-choked manor house on Lake Erat had long since been forgotten, and it was virtually invisible. Moreover, the grounds around it were fertile, and I could easily grow vegetables among the rose bushes and periodically drift out on silent wings at night to poach rabbits and an occasional sheep. The manor house would provide safety and food. Prince Geran might be a little wild and uncivilized when he grew up, but at least he’d still be alive.

I also discovered that thinking wolfishly gave me a tremendous amount of insight into mother’s character. Everything she’d done – even including her seeming desertion of my sister and me – had been done to defend the pack.

‘Naturally, Pol,’
her voice came to me out of nowhere.
‘Are you only just now coming to realize that? You really ought to pay more attention, you know.’

Geran was so overcome with grief that we didn’t really talk very much during the two days we were at sea on our way to the coast of Sendaria, but when we reached a cove some five miles north of Camaar and went ashore, he pulled himself together enough to be able to speak coherently with Brand. He asked the Rivan Warder to take care of his people and to guard the Orb. Geran’s family has always taken those two responsibilities very seriously, and despite the fact that the boy had been far down the line of succession before his entire family had been murdered, he’d clearly received instruction in the important things.

After Brand left for Camaar to commandeer a crew for his return voyage to the Isle, I spoke briefly with father, advising him of my plan to hide my new charge at my
manor house on Lake Erat He had objections, of course. Father always has objections when I tell him that I’m going to do something. He should have saved his breath, because, as always, I overrode his quibbles. You’d think that after two thousand years he’d have learned not to try to tell me what to do, but some people never learn, I guess.

Geran, his small face very serious, asked his ultimate grandfather to chastise the Serpent Queen for murdering his family.

Then father left for Val Alorn to begin gathering forces for his intended invasion of the land of the Snake People.

‘Where are we going, Aunt Pol?’ Geran asked me.

‘I have a house here in Sendaria, Geran,’ I told him. ‘We should be safe there.’

‘Have you got lots of soldiers there?’

‘No, Geran. I don’t need soldiers in that particular place.’

‘Won’t that be sort of dangerous? What I mean is that the snake lady probably still wants to kill me, and she’s got those people with poisoned knives working for her. I’m not very big yet, so I couldn’t really protect you from them.’

He was such a dear, serious little boy. I took him in my arms and held him very close for a while, and I think we both rather liked that ‘Everything’s going to be all right, Geran,’ I assured him. ‘Nobody knows that the house is there, and it’s very hard to get to it’

‘Did you put a spell on it?’ he asked eagerly. Then he flushed slightly. ‘That wasn’t very polite was it, Aunt Pol? I’ve heard all kinds of stories about how you can do magic things – like casting spells and turning people into frogs and things like that – but you haven’t given me permission to talk about those things, so I shouldn’t have just come right out and said it that way, should I?’

‘It’s all right, Geran,’ I said. ‘We’re part of the same family, so we don’t really have to stand on ceremony, do we? Let’s go back in among the trees. This beach is right out in the open, and we
do
have enemies out there looking for us.’

‘Whatever you say, Aunt Pol.’

We struck out from the beach in the general direction of
Lake Sulturn, staying on the back roads and country lanes. I bought food at an isolated farm house, and the young prince and I camped out that first night. After the boy had fallen asleep in my arms, I started to think about logistics. We hadn’t really covered very much ground that day, and I definitely wanted to get further inland. That open beach was just too close for my peace of mind.