Polgara the Sorceress (87 page)

It had been quite cold for a week or more, but there hadn’t been any fresh snow, so the village itself and all the surrounding area was criss-crossed with footprints that went off in all directions. I concentrated my search to the north, the direction Alara had usually taken on those futile quests of hers, but once again, Chamdar was ahead of me. This time, she went south. Although it was dangerous, I sent out brief spurts of searching thought, but I still couldn’t find her. That seemed very odd to me. I kept ranging back and forth in wide arcs, and eventually reached an open meadow back in the forest. There were deer tracks, rabbit tracks, and lots of bird tracks out in that meadow, but no human footprints. Alara had not gone north.

I judged that it was very close to midnight by now, and it was bitterly cold out there in that dark forest. I’d already covered the north, the northeast and the northwest in my methodical search. Since Annath lay at the bottom of a gorge, sheer cliffs blocked off the east and west. That left the southern quarter, and I was at least five miles away from that.

At that point, I threw caution to the winds and changed form. If that happened to alert Chamdar, that was just too bad. As cold as it had become, Alara’s main danger now lay in the distinct possibility that she’d freeze to death before dawn. I absolutely
had
to find her.

I had no way of knowing that not long after I’d left Ildera’s bedside, her false labor became genuine. Geran tried desperately to find me, but of course he couldn’t. The local midwife attended Ildera during the birth, and Garion was bom shortly after midnight.

I was nowhere near, but fortunately, the delivery wasn’t too difficult. Ildera was an Alom, after all, and Alom women are all designed for childbirth.

It took me all night to find Alara. Her body lay at the foot of a fairly high cliff six or eight miles south of the stone quarry. That explained why I’d been unable to find her with my mind when I’d first discovered that she was missing. The frozen condition of her body was a clear indication
that she’d died before I’d even become aware of the fact that she’d wandered off.

I was absolutely devastated when I found her, and I wept and tore at my hair, blaming myself again and again.

Then I suddenly stopped, staring in horror at the thick column of smoke rising from Annath in that first faint light of the dawn of Erastide. Something was burning in a village made entirely of stone!

I swallowed my grief, and as it subsided, I sensed my father’s presence. He was much closer to the fire than I was.
‘Father!’
It was almost a silent scream.

‘You’d better get back here, Pol!’
he replied bleakly.
‘Now!’

I have no idea whatsoever of how I traveled those miles from Alara’s frozen body to Geran’s burning house. For all I knew, I translocated myself, and that’s very dangerous out there in the mountains. If there happens to be a peak in your way, you’ll go
through
it, not around, and that’s not the sort of thing I’d care to experiment with.

Father was kneeling over a small, blanket-wrapped bundle in the door yard, and Geran’s solid stone house was totally engulfed in flames. ‘What happened here, father?’ I almost shrieked at him.

‘It was Chamdar!’ he roared back at me, his eyes filled with vengeful fury. ‘What were you thinking of, Pol? Why did you run off like that?’

The question cut into me like a knife, and now, even after all these years, I can still feel it twisting inside me.

I looked at Geran’s familiar stone cottage now engulfed in impossible flame, and tears were streaming from my eyes. ‘Is there any hope at all?’ I asked father, though I knew there wasn’t.

‘None,’ he answered shortly, wiping his own eyes with a deliberately rough hand. ‘They’re both already dead.’

My entire family had been destroyed in a single night, and no matter how I squirmed and tried to evade it, I knew that it was my fault. ‘I’ve failed, father!’ I cried out in anguish. ‘I’ve failed!’

“There’s no time for that now, Pol!’ he snapped. ‘We’ve got to get the baby out of here. Chamdar got away from me, and he could be anywhere.’ Father’s reddened eyes grew hard as he looked at the fire erupting from the very stones of the cottage. He was quite obviously considering some unpleasant things to do to Chamdar.

‘Why did you let him escape?’ I asked, realizing that I hadn’t been the only one who’d failed that night.

‘I didn’t have any choice,’ father explained. “That idiot threw the baby at me. There’s nothing we can do here, Pol. Let’s move!’

I reached down and tenderly lifted the baby. I turned back the blanket and looked for the first time into the face of the Godslayer. It was a very ordinary face, but the whole world seemed to reel as I looked into those drowsy blue eyes. Someday he might indeed slay a God, but right now, he was just a sleepy, orphaned baby. I held him very close against my heart. Chamdar’d have to go through me to get this one.

‘I suppose we’d better come up with a name for him,’ father said. ‘People might talk if we just call him “Godslayer”.’

‘His name’s Garion, father. Ildera and I decided on that months ago.’

‘Garion? Not bad, I guess. Where did you come up with it?’

‘Ildera had a dream. I think there might have been some tampering involved. She told me that his real name would be “Belgarion”, but that we should call him “Garion” until he grows up.’ I steeled my heart. ‘Chamdar’s got a lot to answer for, doesn’t he?’

‘Indeed he does,’ father replied in a flinty kind of voice, ‘and I’m personally going to see to it that it takes him at least a week to do all his answering. What happened to Alara?’

‘She’s dead too, father. She fell off a cliff. We’ll have to bury her on our way out of town.’

‘Make that
two
weeks!’ he grated. ‘I’m sure I can come up with a way to keep Chamdar alive for at least that long.’

‘Good!’ I said. ‘I’ll take Garion to safety. You go after Chamdar. Take notes, father. I want
lots
of details when you tell me about it.’ I was feeling at least as savage as father was at that point.

‘Not a chance, Pol.’ Father said it regretfully. ‘I’ve got to get the two of you to safety first. Our main responsibility’s wrapped up in that blanket. I’ll deal with Chamdar after I know you’re safe.’

We left the now collapsing house and followed the snow-covered road on down past the quarry, and then we set off through the trees to the base of the cliff that had claimed Alara. About all we could really do was to pile rocks over her, and we couldn’t even mark her grave. Her gravestone’s in my heart, though, and I’m sure it’ll always be there.

Father stole a she-goat from an isolated farmstead, and I devised a nursing bottle. The little nanny-goat seemed actually fond of Garion, and probably wouldn’t have objected to nursing him. I didn’t really think that’d be appropriate, though. The goat probably thought I was being silly, but over the centuries, goats have learned to expect humans to be silly, I suppose. Father and I stuck to the woods on our journey down to the low country, and he was very careful to erase our tracks in the snow as we went.
If it’d been up to me, I’d have left those tracks where they were and set off signal fires to attract Chamdar or any of his Grolim underlings. I was feeling vengeful, and I
really
wanted to kill Angaraks about then.

We avoided all roads and camped out in caves or under fallen trees. It took us several days to reach the foothills, and we came out on to a fairly well-traveled road near the village of Outer Gralt. We didn’t go into the town, but continued on, making our way toward my house on the shores of Lake Erat, the place I always go when things fall apart.

As it always is when I’ve been away for a long time, the interior of the house was chill and dusty. I built a fire in the kitchen stove while father went on out beyond the rose-thicket to have a word with the twins.

He came back shivering. He dutifully stamped the snow off his feet at the door, looking longingly at my roaring stove.

‘Don’t bother,’ I told him. ‘You have to milk the goat. She’s in the stable. You’d better feed her as well.’

‘Couldn’t I just-?’

‘No, father. You’re up and moving now, and I know how hard it is to get you started again once you’ve settled down. Get your chores done first,
then
you can sit down by the stove.’

He sighed and went back out. There were some things I needed back in the house, so I deposited Garion in a drawer so that I could search unimpeded. An open drawer’s a very good place to stow a newborn infant, did you know that?

I found a cradle and some baby clothes back in the house. Over the years, quite a few babies had been bom there, and I seldom throw anything away that I might need later. By the time father returned with a pail of warm goat’s milk, Garion was dressed, lying in an eight-hundred year old cradle, and holding a little rattle that had been made generations ago.

‘I think it’s colder down here than it is up in the mountains,’ father noted, holding his hands out over the stove.

‘It just seems that way, father. Were you able to contact the twins?’

‘Oh, I got them, all right. I just hope they understood what I was saying to them when I said we needed them in the rose-garden.’

‘I’m sure they did.’

‘I’m still going to stay here until they arrive.
Then
I’m going to track down Chamdar and settle this once and for all. I should have killed him a long time ago.’

‘You’re starting to sound like uncle Beldin.’

‘Beldin’s approach to problems might be simplistic, Pol, but it
does
have the charm of being permanent.’ Then he looked at me gravely. ‘Have you decided where you’re going to take the baby yet? I probably ought to know the name of the town.’

‘I don’t think I’ll go to a town, father – not this time. Towns have a tendency to leak information. I don’t like being at the mercy of the gabbiest old drunkard in town. I think I’ll try an isolated farm instead, and I’m going to do something differently this time.’

‘Oh? What’s that ?’

‘I’ve always made a point of telling the young man in question who he really is so that he understands the necessity for ordinariness.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Some of them haven’t been very good actors. Sometimes they get carried away – probably because they’re related to you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You over-act, father. I’m sorry, but you do. You go to extremes. I’ll fix it so that Garion doesn’t
have
to act.’

‘How do you plan to manage that ?’

‘It’s simple, father. I just won’t tell him who he is. I’ll let him find it out for himself. I’ll raise him as an ordinary farm boy, and he’ll
believe
that he’s an ordinary farm boy. Acting won’t be necessary. All he’ll have to do is just be himself.’

‘I think that might be a little dangerous, Pol. He’s bound to find out eventually who
you
are. You give that away a dozen times a day.’

‘Then I’ll have to learn to control myself, won’t I?’

He shook his head stubbornly. ‘It won’t work. There are
dozens of books out there that describe you all the way down to your toenails.’

They won’t mean very much to him if he can’t read, will they?’

‘Pol! He’s going to be a king! You can’t put an illiterate on a throne!’

‘Dras Bull-neck worked out fairly well, as I recall.’

That was three thousand years ago, Pol. The world was different then.’

‘Not all that much different, father. If it bothers you so much, you can teach him how to read after he’s been crowned.’

‘Me? Why me?’

I gave him a smug little smirk that spoke volumes, and then let it drop.

The twins arrived the following morning to take over father’s guard-duty, and my vengeful parent went off in search of Asharak the Murgo.

I spent the rest of that winter in the kitchen with Garion – and with whichever of the twins wasn’t on guard duty at the moment. I planned to leave just as soon as the weather broke, and I didn’t see much sense in heating the whole house, so I kept the kitchen doors closed. The kitchen had a large iron stove, and that suited me right down to the ground. The other rooms had fireplaces, which are pretty, but not very efficient.

Garion and I grew very close during those interminable months. He was a loveable baby, and I owed him a great deal because of my ghastly failure at Annath. His mind was barely awakened, but a bit of gentle probing gave me a few hints about what he’d become, and a few more hints about how much trouble I’d have raising him without losing my mind. This boy was going to be a challenge.

Spring eventually arrived, and after the mud had dried on the local country lanes, I selected a few of my most nondescript dresses, some odds and ends of clothing for Garion, and bundled them all up in a slightly threadbare blanket. Then I bade the twins goodbye and set out with my bundle slung over one shoulder and Garion in my arms and my goat trailing along behind me.

I reached the village of Upper Gralt, which wasn’t at all like Outer Gralt, by late afternoon. I went to a seedy-looking inn and haggled down the price of a single room for the night. I wanted to give the impression of teetering perilously on the brink of poverty. After I’d fed Garion and put him down for the night, I went on back downstairs to have a word with the innkeeper. ‘I’m looking for work,’ I told him.

‘Sorry, but I’m not hiring right now.’

That wasn’t what I had in mind,’ I told him. ‘Do you know of any local farmers who might need a good cook or housekeeper?’

He frowned, scratching at one cheek. ‘You might try Faldor,’ he suggested. ‘Some of his farmhands were by last week, and they said that Faldor’s cook’s starting to slip quite a bit. She’s getting old, and she’s slowing down. Faldor’s men were complaining about the meals always being late and only about half-cooked. It’s coming on toward planting time, and if a farm kitchen’s falling apart at planting time or harvest time, the farm hands start looking for new jobs. Faldor’s got a big farm, and he can’t plant it all by himself. If there’s not an opening for a cook right now, there probably will be in just a few weeks.’

‘Where’s his farm?’

‘About a day’s walk off toward the west. Faldor’s a good-hearted fellow, and even if he can’t hire you right away, he’ll make sure that you and your baby don’t go hungry. Just follow that road that leads west out of here toward the Medalia highway. Faldor’s place is the only one on the south side of the road, so you can’t miss it.’

‘I’ll find it,’ I assured him. ‘Thank you for the information.’ Then I checked on my goat out in the stables, climbed back up the stairs, and went to bed, nestling Garion close in my arms.

The next morning dawned clear and bright. I fed Garion and we were on the road leading off toward the west soon after the sun had peeped above the horizon. I knew exactly where I was going and I now had a sense of purpose, so my goat and I stepped right along.

It was about mid-afternoon when we topped a rise and
saw a large neat farmstead lying about a half mile south of the road in the next valley. It looked almost as if it were walled in, but that wasn’t actually the case. The farm buildings were laid out in a square, with the barns, stables, and work-shops on the ground floor and the sleeping rooms for the farm hands lining a second floor gallery. All the buildings faced inward onto a large open compound, and everything was all in one place. The largest building stood at the back of the compound opposite that main gate. It was neat, well-organized, and convenient.

I definitely approved of what I saw, though it all may have been arranged so that I would well in advance. I went on down the hill and entered the compound, a little puzzled at what sounded very much like a bell singing out in measured tones.

As soon as I entered, I saw that what I’d been hearing hadn’t been a bell, but the sound of a smith hammering on a glowing horseshoe in his open-fronted smithy.

That, of course, explains how I missed the sound of that secret personal bell of mine. It was artfully concealed in the sound of that hammer on the steel anvil.

The smith’s hammering had a steady, no-nonsense rhythm to it, announcing that here was a fellow who was serious about his work. He was a rather plain-looking young man, about twenty-five and of medium height and deceptively medium build. The heavy sound of his hammer spoke volumes about just how strong he really was. He wore an ordinary tunic and a bum-spotted leather apron. That made a lot of sense. When you work with white-hot metal, you should really have something sturdy between your skin and the work.

I waited until the smith turned and quenched the horseshoe in the water barrel beside his anvil, sending up a cloud of steam. ‘Excuse me, Master smith,’ I said politely, shifting Garion in my arms, ‘have you any idea of where I might find farmer Faldor?’

Then he turned to look at me. I rather liked his open, honest face. ‘He’s probably in his counting-room at this
time of day, Mistress,’ he replied politely in a pleasant voice.

‘Thank you,’ I said, inclining my head. ‘Now we come to the more technical questions. Exactly where is farmer Faldor’s counting-room?’

He laughed, and I noticed that he had very even, white teeth. His laugh was open and honest. I was taking to this man right away. I knew instinctively that he could be a very good friend. ‘Why don’t I just show you the way, Mistress?’ he offered, laying down his hammer. ‘My name’s Durnik, by the way.’

‘And mine’s Pol.’ I curtsied slightly. ‘I’m happy to make your acquaintance, Goodman Durnik.’