"Find something solid to hold on to, Garion," Barak advised as Greldik ordered the anchor raised. "With this following wind, the passage could be interesting." He strode along the narrow deck, his teeth gleaming in a broad grin.
It was foolish. Garion knew that, even as he stood up and began to follow the red-bearded man toward the prow, but four days of solitary brooding over a problem that refused to yield to any kind of logic made him feel almost belligerently reckless. He set his teeth together and took hold of a rusted iron ring embedded in the prow.
Barak laughed and clapped him a stunning blow on the shoulder. "Good boy," he said approvingly. "We'll stand together and look the Bore right down the throat."
Garion decided not to answer that.
With wind and tide behind her, Greldik's ship literally flew through the passage, yawing and shuddering as she was seized by the violent riptides. Icy spray stung their faces, and Garion, half blinded by it, did not see the enormous whirlpool in the center of the Bore until they were almost upon it. He seemed to hear a vast roar and cleared his eyes just in time to see it yawning in front of him.
"What's that?" he yelled over the noise.
"The Great Maelstrom," Barak shouted. "Hold on."
The Maelstrom was fully as large as the village of Upper Gralt and descended horribly down into a seething, mist-filled pit unimaginably far below. Incredibly, instead of guiding his vessel away from the vortex, Greldik steered directly at it.
"What's he doing?" Garion screamed.
"It's the secret of passing through the Bore," Barak roared. "We circle the Maelstrom twice to gain more speed. If the ship doesn't break up, she comes out like a rock from a sling, and we pass through the riptides beyond the Maelstrom before they can slow us down and drag us back."
"If the ship doesn't what?"
"Sometimes a ship is torn apart in the Maelstrom," Barak said. "Don't worry, boy. It doesn't happen very often, and Greldik's ship seems stout enough."
The ship's prow dipped hideously into the outer edges of the Maelstrom and then raced twice around the huge whirlpool with the oarsmen frantically bending their backs to the frenzied beat of the drum. The wind tore at Garion's face, and he clung to his iron ring, keeping his eyes averted from the seething maw gaping below.
And then they broke free and shot like a whistling stone through the churning water beyond the Maelstrom. The wind of their passage howled in the rigging, and Garion felt half suffocated by its force.
Gradually the ship slowed in the swirling eddies, but the speed they had gained from the Maelstrom carried them on to calm water in a partially sheltered cove on the Sendarian side.
Barak was laughing gleefully and mopping spray from his beard. "Well, lad," he said, "what do you think of the Bore?"
Garion didn't trust himself to answer and concentrated on trying to pry his numb fingers from the iron ring.
A familiar voice rang out from the stern.
"Garion!"
"Now you've gone and got me in trouble," Garion said resentfully, ignoring the fact that standing in the prow had been his own idea. Aunt Pol spoke scathingly to Barak about his irresponsibility and then turned her attention to Garion.
"Well?" she said. "I'm waiting. Would you like to explain?"
"It wasn't Barak's fault," Garion said. "It was my own idea." There was no point in their both being in trouble, after all.
"I see," she said. "And what was behind that?"
The confusion and doubt which had been troubling him made him reckless. "I felt like it," he said, half defiantly. For the first time in his life he felt on the verge of open rebellion.
"You what?"
"I felt like it," he repeated. "What difference does it make why I did it? You're going to punish me anyway."
Aunt Pol stiffened, and her eyes blazed.
Mister Wolf, who was sitting nearby, chuckled.
"What's so funny?" she snapped.
"Why don't you let me handle this, Pol?" the old man suggested.
"I can deal with it," she said.
"But not well, Pol," he said. "Not well at all. Your temper's too quick, and your tongue's too sharp. He's not a child anymore. He's not a man yet, but he's not a child either. The problem needs to be dealt with in a special way. I'll take care of it." He stood up. "I think I insist, Pol."
"You what?"
"I insist." His eyes hardened.
"Very well," she said in an icy voice, turned, and walked away. "Sit down, Garion," the old man said.
"Why's she so mean?" Garion blurted.
"She isn't," Mister Wolf said. "She's angry because you frightened her. Nobody likes to be frightened."
"I'm sorry," Garion mumbled, ashamed of himself.
"Don't apologize to me," Wolf said. "I wasn't frightened." He looked for a moment at Garion, his eyes penetrating. "What's the problem?" he asked.
"They call you Belgarath," Garion said as if that explained it all, "and they call her Polgara."
"So."
"It's just not possible."
"Didn't we have this conversation before? A long time ago?"
"Are you Belgarath?" Garion demanded bluntly.
"Some people call me that. What difference does it make?"
"I'm sorry," Garion said. "I just don't believe it:"
"All right," Wolf shrugged. "You don't have to if you don't want to. What's that got to do with your being impolite to your Aunt?"
"It's just " Garion faltered. "Well-" Desperately he wanted to ask Mister Wolf that ultimate, fatal question, but despite his certainty that there was no kinship between himself and Aunt Pol, he could not bear the thought of having it finally and irrevocably confirmed.
"You're confused," Wolf said. "Is that it? Nothing seems to be like it ought to be, and you're angry with your Aunt because it seems like it has to be her fault."
"You make it sound awfully childish," Garion said, flushing slightly.
"Isn't it?"
Garion flushed even more.
"It's your own problem, Garion," Mister Wolf said. "Do you really think it's proper to make others unhappy because of it?"
"No," Garion admitted in a scarcely audible voice.
"Your Aunt and I are who we are," Wolf said quietly. "People have made up a lot of nonsense about us, but that doesn't really matter. There are things that have to be done, and we're the ones who have to do them. That's what matters. Don't make things more difficult for your Aunt just because the world isn't exactly to your liking. That's not only childish, it's ill-mannered, and you're a better boy than that. Now, I really think you owe her an apology, don't you?"
"I suppose so," Garion said.
"I'm glad we had this chance to talk," the old man said, "but I wouldn't wait too long before making up with her. You wouldn't believe how long she can stay angry." He grinned suddenly. "She's been angry with me for as long as I can remember, and that's so long that I don't even like to think about it."
"I'll do it right now," Garion said.
"Good," Wolf approved.
Garion stood up and walked purposefully to where Aunt Pol stood staring out at the swirling currents of the Cherek Bore.
"Aunt Pol," he said.
"Yes, dear?"
"I'm sorry. I was wrong."
She turned and looked at him gravely.
"Yes," she said, "you were."
"I won't do it again."
She laughed then, a low, warm laugh, and ran her fingers through his tangled hair. "Don't make promises you can't keep, dear," she said, and she embraced him, and everything was all right again.
After the fury of the tide through the Cherek Bore had abated, they sailed north along the snow-muffled east coast of the Cherek peninsula toward the ancient city which was the ancestral home of all Alorns, Algar and Drasnian as well as Cherek and Rivan. The wind was chill and the skies threatening, but the remainder of the voyage was uneventful. After three more days their ship entered the harbor at Val Alorn and tied up at one of the ice
-shrouded wharves.
Val Alorn was unlike any Sendarian city. Its walls and buildings were so incredibly ancient that they seemed more like natural rock formations than the construction of human hands. The narrow, crooked streets were clogged with snow, and the mountains behind the city loomed high and white against the dark sky.
Several horse-drawn sleighs awaited them at the wharf with savage looking drivers and shaggy horses stamping impatiently in the packed snow. There were fur robes in the sleighs, and Garion drew one of them about him as he waited for Barak to conclude his farewells to Greldik and the sailors.
"Let's go," Barak told the driver as he climbed into the sleigh. "See if you can't catch up with the others."
"If you hadn't talked so long, they wouldn't be so far ahead, Lord Barak," the driver said sourly.
"That's probably true," Barak agreed.
The driver grunted, touched his horses with his whip, and the sleigh started up the street where the others had already disappeared. Fur-clad Cherek warriors swaggered up and down the narrow streets, and many of them bellowed greetings to Barak as the sleigh passed. At one corner their driver was forced to halt while two burly men, stripped to the waist in the biting cold, wrestled savagely in the snow in the center of the street to the encouraging shouts of a crowd of onlookers.
"A common pastime," Barak told Garion. "Winter's a tedious time in Val Alorn."
"Is that the palace ahead?" Garion asked.
Barak shook his head. "The temple of Belar," he said. "Some men say that the Bear-God resides there in spirit. I've never seen him myself, though, so I can't say for sure."
Then the wrestlers rolled out of the way, and they continued.
On the steps of the temple an ancient woman wrapped in ragged woolen robes stood with a long staff clutched in one honey hand and her stringy hair wild about her face. "Hail, Lord Barak," she called in a cracked voice as they passed. "Thy Doom still awaits thee."
"Stop the sleigh," Barak growled at the driver, and he threw off his fur robe and jumped to the ground. "Martje," he thundered at the old woman. "You've been forbidden to loiter here. If I tell Anheg that you've disobeyed him, he'll have the priests of the temple burn you for a witch."
The old woman cackled at him, and Garion noted with a shudder that her eyes were milk-white blankness.
"The fire will not touch old Martje," she laughed shrilly. "That is not the Doom which awaits her."
"Enough of dooms," Barak said. "Get away from the temple."
"Martje sees what she sees," the old woman said. "The mark of thy Doom is still upon thee, great Lord Barak. When it comes to thee, thou shalt remember the words of old Martje." And then she seemed to look at the sleigh where Garion sat, though her milky eyes were obviously blind. Her expression suddenly changed from malicious glee to one strangely awestruck.
"Hail, greatest of Lords," she crooned, bowing deeply. "When thou comest into throe inheritance, remember that it was old Martje who first greeted thee."
Barak started toward her with a roar, but she scurried away, her staff tapping on the stone steps.
"What did she mean?" Garion asked when Barak returned to the sleigh.
"She's a crazy woman," Barak replied, his face pale with anger. "She's always lurking around the temple, begging and frightening gullible housewives with her gibberish. If Anheg had any sense, he'd have had her driven out of the city or burned years ago." He climbed back into the sleigh. "Let's go," he growled at the driver.
Garion looked back over his shoulder as they sped away, but the old blind woman was nowhere in sight.
Chapter Thirteen
THE PALACE OF KING ANHEG Of Cherek was a vast, brooding structure near the center of Val Alorn. Huge wings, many of them crumbled into decay with unpaned windows staring emptily at the open sky through collapsed roofs, stretched out from the main building in all directions. So far as Garion could tell there was no plan to the palace whatsoever. It had, it seemed, merely grown over the three thousand years and more that the kings of Cherek had ruled there.
"Why is so much of it empty and broken down like that?" he asked Barak as their sleigh whirled into the snow-packed courtyard.
"What some kings build, other kings let fall down," Barak said shortly. "It's the way of kings." Barak's mood had been black since their encounter with the blind woman at the temple.
The others had all dismounted and stood waiting.
"You've been away from home too long if you can get lost on the way from the harbor to the palace," Silk said pleasantly.
"We were delayed," Barak grunted.
A broad, ironbound door at the top of the wide steps that led up to the palace opened then as if someone behind it had been waiting for them all to arrive. A woman with long flaxen braids and wearing a deep scarlet cloak trimmed with rich fur stepped out onto the portico at the top of the stairs and stood looking down at them. "Greetings, Lord Barak, Earl of Trellheim and husband," she said formally.
Barak's face grew even more somber. "Merel," he acknowledged with a curt nod.
"King Anheg granted me permission to greet you, my Lord," Barak's wife said, "as is my right and my duty."
"You've always been most attentive to your duties, Merel," Barak said. "Where are my daughters?"
"At Trellheim, my Lord," she said. "I didn't think it would be a good idea for them to travel so far in the cold." There was a faintly malicious note in her voice.
Barak sighed. "I see," he said.
"Was I in error, my Lord?" Merel asked.
"Let it pass," Barak said.
"If you and your friends are ready, my Lord," she said, "I'll escort you to the throne room."
Barak went up the stairs, briefly and rather formally embraced his wife, and the two of them went through the wide doorway.
"Tragic," the Earl of Seline murmured, shaking his head as they all went up the stairs to the palace door.
"Hardly that," Silk said. "After all, Barak got what he wanted, didn't he?"
"You're a cruel man, Prince Kheldar," the earl said.
"Not really," Silk said. "I'm a realist, that's all. Barak spent all those years yearning after Merel, and now he's got her. I'm delighted to see such steadfastness rewarded. Aren't you?"
The Earl of Seline sighed.
A party of mailed warriors joined them and escorted them through a maze of corridors, up broad stairs and down narrow ones, deeper and deeper into the vast pile.
"I've always admired Cherek architecture," Silk said sardonically. "It's so unanticipated."
"Expanding the palace gives weak kings something to do," King Fulrach observed. "It's not a bad idea, really. In Sendaria bad kings usually devote their time to street-paving projects, but all of Val Alorn was paved thousands of years ago."
Silk laughed. "It's always been a problem, your Majesty," he said. "How do you keep bad kings out of mischief?"
"Prince Kheldar," King Fulrach said, "I don't wish your uncle any misfortune, but I think it might be very interesting if the crown of Drasnia just happened to fall to you."
"Please, your Majesty," Silk said with feigned shock, "don't even suggest that."
"Also a wife," the Earl of Seline said slyly. "The prince definitely needs a wife."
"That's even worse," Silk said with a shudder.
The throne room of King Anheg was a vaulted chamber with a great fire pit in the center where whole logs blazed and crackled. Unlike the lushly draped hall of King Fulrach, the stone walls here were bare, and torches flared and smoked in iron rings sunk in the stone. The men who lounged near the fire were not the elegant courtiers of Fulrach's court, but rather were bearded Cherek warriors, gleaming in chain mail. At one end of the room sat five thrones, each surmounted by a banner. Four of the thrones were occupied, and three regal-looking women stood talking nearby.
"Fulrach, King of Sendaria!" one of the warriors who had escorted them boomed, striking the butt of his spear hollowly on the rush-strewn stone floor.
"Hail, F
ulrach," a large, black-bearded man on one of the thrones called, rising to his feet. His long blue robe was wrinkled and spotted, and his hair was shaggy and unkempt. The gold crown he wore was dented in a place or two, and one of its points had been broken off
"Hail, Anheg," the King of the Sendars replied, bowing slightly. "Thy throne awaits thee, my dear Fulrach," the shaggy-haired man said, indicating the banner of Sendaria behind the one vacant throne. "The Kings of Aloria welcome the wisdom of the King of Sendaria at this council."
Garion found the stilted, archaic form of address strangely impressive.
"Which king is which, friend Silk?" Durnik whispered as they approached the thrones.
"The fat one in the red robe with the reindeer on his banner is my uncle, Rhodar of Drasnia. The lean-faced one in black under the horse banner is Cho-Hag of Algaria. The big, grim-faced one in gray with no crown who sits beneath the sword banner is Brand, the Rivan Warder."
"Brand?" Garion interrupted, startled as he remembered the stories of the Battle of Vo Mimbre.
"All Rivan Warders are named Brand," Silk explained.
King Fulrach greeted each of the other kings in the formal language that seemed to be customary, and then he took his place beneath the green banner with its golden sheaf of wheat that was the emblem of Sendaria.
"Hail Belgarath, Disciple of Aldur," Anheg said, "and hail Lady Polgara, honored daughter of immortal Belgarath."
"There's little time for all this ceremony, Anheg," Mister Wolf said tartly, throwing back his cloak and striding forward. "Why have the Kings of Aloria summoned me?"
"Permit us our little ceremonies, Ancient One," Rhodar, the grossly fat King of Drasnia said slyly. "We so seldom have the chance to play king. We won't be much longer at it."
Mister Wolf shook his head in disgust.
One of the three regal-looking women came forward then. She was a tall, raven-haired beauty in an elaborately cross-tied black velvet gown. She curtsied to King Fulrach and touched her cheek briefly to his. "Your Majesty," she said, "your presence honors our home."
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