Then Brand took counsel with his advisers. And Belgarath said to him, "Torak is not dead. He only sleeps. For he is a God and cannot be slain by any mortal weapon."
"When will he awaken?" Brand asked. "I must prepare the West against his return."
Polgara answered, "When once again a King of Riva's line sits on his northern throne, the Dark God will waken to do war with him." Brand frowned, saying, "But that is neverl" For all knew that the last Rivan King had been slain with his family in 4002 by Nyissan assassins. Again the woman spoke. "In the fullness of time the Rivan King will rise to claim his own, as the ancient Prophecy foretells. More cannot be said."
Brand was content and set his armies to cleaning the battlefield of the wreckage of Angaraks. And when that was finished, the kings of the West gathered before the city of Vo Mimbre and held council. Many were the voices raised in praise of Brand.
Soon men began crying that Brand should henceforth be chosen as ruler of all the West. Only Mergon, ambassador of Imperial Tolnedra, protested in the name of his Emperor, Ran Borune IV. Brand refused the honor, and the proposal was dropped, so that there was again peace among those assembled in council. But in return for peace, a demand was made of Tolnedra.
The Gorim of the Ulgos spoke first in a loud voice. "In fulfillment of the Prophecy, there must be promised a princess of Tolnedra to be wife unto the Rivan King who will come to save the world. This the Gods require of us."
Again Mergon protested. "The Hall of the Rivan King is empty and desolate. No king sits upon the Rivan throne. How many a princess of Imperial Tolnedra be wed with a phantom?"
Then the woman who was Polgara replied. "The Rivan King will return to assume his throne and claim his bride. From this day forward, therefore, each princess of Imperial Tolnedra shall present herself in the Hall of the Rivan King upon her sixteenth birthday. She shall be clad in her wedding gown and shall abide there for three days against the coming of the King. If he comes not to claim her, then she shall be free to return to her father for whatever he may decree for her."
Mergon cried out. "All Tolnedra shall rise against this indignity. No! It shall not be!"
The wise Gorim of the Ulgos spoke again. "Tell your Emperor that this is the will of the Gods. Tell him also that in the day Tolnedra fails in this, the West shall rise against him and scatter the sons of Nedra to the winds and pull down the might of the Empire, until Imperial Tolnedra is no more."
At that, seeing the might of the armies before him, the ambassador submitted to the matter. All then agreed and were bound to it.
When that was done, the nobles of strife-torn Arendia came to Brand, saying, "The king of the Mimbrates is dead and the duke of the Asturians also. Who now shall rule us? For two thousand years has war between Mimbre and Asturia rent fair Arendia. How may we become one people again?"
Brand considered. "Who is heir to the Mimbrate throne?" "Korodullin is crown prince of the Mimbrates," the nobles replied. "And to whom descends the Asturian line?"
"Mayaserana is the daughter of the Asturian duke," they told him. Brand said, "Bring them to me." And when they were brought before Brand, he said to them, "The bloodshed between Mimbre and Asturia must end. Therefore, it is my will that you be wed to each other and that the houses which so long have warred shall thus be joined."
The two cried against the judgment, for they were filled with ancient enmity and with the pride of their separate lines. But Belgarath took Korodullin aside and spoke in private with him. And Polgara withdrew Mayaserana to a separate place and was long in converse with her. No man learned then or later what was said to the two young people. But when they returned to where Brand waited, Mayaserana and Korodullin were content that they should be wed. And this was the final act of the council that met after the battle of Vo Mimbre.
Brand spoke to all the kings and nobles one final time before departing for the north.
"Much has been wrought here that is good and shall endure. Behold, we have met together against the Angaraks and they have been overthrown. Evil Torak is quelled. And the covenant we have made here among us prepares the West for the day of the Prophecy when the Rivan King shall return and Torak shall wake from his long sleep to contend again for empire and dominion. All that may be done in this day to prepare for the great and final war has been done. We can do no more. And here, perchance, the wounds of Arendia have been healed, and the strife of more than two thousand years may see its end. So far as may be, I am content with it all.
"Hail, then, and farewell!"
He turned from them and rode north with the grizzled man who was Belgarath and the queenly woman who was Polgara by his side. They took ship at Camaar in Sendaria and set sail for Riva. And Brand returned no more to the kingdoms of the West.
But of his companions are many tales told. And of that telling, what may be true and what false few men may know.
PART ONE - ARENDIA
Chapter One
VO WACUNE WAS NO MORE. Twenty-four centuries had passed since the city of the Wacite Arends had been laid waste, and the dark, endless forests of northern Arendia had reclaimed the ruins. Broken walls had toppled and been swallowed up in the moss and wet brown bracken of the forest floor, and only the shattered stumps of the once proud towers moldered among the trees and fog to mark the place where Vo Wacune had stood. Sodden snow blanketed the mist-shrouded ruins, and trickles of water ran down the faces of ancient stones like tears.
Garion wandered alone down the tree-choked avenues of the dead city, his stout gray wool cloak drawn tight against the chill, and his thoughts as mournful as the weeping stones around him. Faldor's farm with its green, sun-drenched fields was so far behind him that it seemed lost in a kind of receding haze, and he was desperately homesick. No matter how hard he tried to hold onto them, details kept escaping him. The rich smells of Aunt Pol's kitchen were only a faint memory; the ring of Durnik's hammer in the smithy faded like the dying echo of the last note of a bell, and the sharp, clear faces of his playmates wavered in his remembrance of them until he could no longer be sure that he would even recognize them. His childhood was slipping away, and try though he might he could not hold on to it.
Everything was changing; that was the whole problem. The core of his life, the rock upon which his childhood had been built, had always been Aunt Pol. In the simple world of Faldor's farm she had been Mistress Pol, the cook, but in the world beyond Faldor's gate she was Polgara the Sorceress, who had watched the passage of four millennia with a purpose beyond mortal comprehension.
And Mister Wolf, the old vagabond storyteller, had also changed. Garion knew now that this old friend was in fact his great-great grandfather - with an infinite number of additional "greats" added on for good measure - but that behind that roguish old face there had always been the steady gaze of Belgarath the Sorcerer, who had watched and waited as he had looked upon the folly of men and Gods for seven thousand years. Garion sighed and trudged on through the fog.
Their very names were unsettling. Garion had never wanted to believe in sorcery or magic or witchcraft. Such things were unnatural, and they violated his notion of solid, sensible reality. But too many things had happened to allow him to hold on to his comfortable skepticism any longer. In a single, shattering instant the last vestiges of his doubt had been swept away. As he had watched with stunned disbelief, Aunt Pol had erased the milky stains from the eyes of Martje the witch with a gesture and a single word, restoring the madwoman's sight and removing her power to see into the future with a brutal evenhandedness. Garion shuddered at the memory of Martje's despairing wail. That cry somehow marked the point at which the world had become less solid, less sensible, and infinitely less safe.
Uprooted from the only place he had ever known, unsure of the identities of the two people closest to him, and with his whole conception of the difference between the possible and the impossible destroyed, Garion found himself committed to a strange pilgrimage. He had no idea what they were doing in this shattered city
swallowed up in trees, and not the faintest idea where they would go when they left. The only certainty that remained to him was the single grim thought to which he now clung; somewhere in the world there was a man who had crept through the predawn darkness to a small house in a forgotten village and had murdered Garion's parents; if it took him the rest of his life, Garion was going to find that man, and when he found him, he was going to kill him. There was something strangely comforting in that one solid fact.
He carefully climbed over the rubble of a house that had fallen outward into the street and continued his gloomy exploration of the ruined city. There was really nothing to see. The patient centuries had erased nearly all of what the war had left behind, and slushy snow and thick fog hid even those last remaining traces. Garion sighed again and began to retrace his steps toward the moldering stump of the tower where they had all spent the previous night.
As he approached, he saw Mister Wolf and Aunt Pol standing together some distance from the ruined tower, talking quietly. The old man's rust-colored hood was turned up, and Aunt Pol's blue cloak was drawn about her. There was a look of timeless regret on her face as she looked out at the foggy ruins. Her long, dark hair spilled down her back, and the single white lock at her brow seemed paler than the snow at her feet.
"There he is now," Mister Wolf said to her as Garion approached them.
She nodded and looked gravely at Garion. "Where have you been?" she asked.
"No place," Garion replied. "I was thinking, that's all." "I see you've managed to soak your feet."
Garion lifted one of his sodden brown boots and looked down at the muddy slush clinging to it. "The snow's wetter than I thought," he apologized.
"Does wearing that thing really make you feel better?" Mister Wolf asked, pointing at the sword Garion always wore now.
"Everybody keeps saying how dangerous Arendia is," Garion explained. "Besides, I need to get used to it." He shifted the creaking new leather sword belt around until the wirebound hilt was not so obvious. The sword had been an Erastide present from Barak, one of several gifts he had received when the holiday had passed while they were at sea.
"It doesn't really suit you, you know," the old man told him somewhat disapprovingly.
"Leave him alone, father," Aunt Pol said almost absently. "It's his, after all, and he can wear it if he likes."
"Shouldn't Hettar be here by now?" Garion asked, wanting to change the subject.
"He may have run into deep snow in the mountains of Sendaria," Wolf replied. "He'll be here. Hettar's very dependable."
"I don't see why we just didn't buy horses in Camaar."
"They wouldn't have been as good," Mister Wolf answered, scratching at his short, white beard. "We've got a long way to go, and I don't want to have to worry about a horse foundering under me somewhere along the way. It's a lot better to take a little time now than to lose more time later."
Garion reached back and rubbed at his neck where the chain of the curiously carved silver amulet Wolf and Aunt Pol had given him for Erastide had chafed his skin.
"Don't worry at it, dear," Aunt Pol told him.
"I wish you'd let me wear it outside my clothes," he complained. "Nobody can see it under my tunic."
"It has to be next to your skin."
"It's not very comfortable. It looks nice enough, I suppose, but sometimes it seems cold, and other times it's hot, and once in a while it seems to be awfully heavy. The chain keeps rubbing at my neck. I guess I'm not used to ornaments."
"It's not entirely an ornament, dear," she told him. "You'll get used to it in time."
Wolf laughed. "Maybe it will make you feel better to know that it took your Aunt ten years to get used to hers. I was forever telling her to put it back on."
"I don't know that we need to go into that just now, father," Aunt Pol answered coolly.
"Do you have one, too?" Garion asked the old man, suddenly curious about it.
"Of course."
"Does it mean something that we all wear them?"
"It's a family custom, Garion," Aunt Pol told him in a tone that ended the discussion. The fog eddied around them as a chill, damp breeze briefly swirled through the ruins.
Garion sighed. "I wish Hettar would get here. I'd like to get away from this place. It's like a graveyard."
"It wasn't always this way," Aunt Pol said very quietly. "What was it like?"
"I was happy here. The walls were high, and the towers soared. We all thought it would last forever." She pointed toward a rank patch of winter-browned brambles creeping over the broken stones. "Over there was a flower-filled garden where ladies in pale yellow dresses used to sit while young men sang to them from beyond the garden wall. The voices of the young men were very sweet, and the ladies would sigh and throw bright red roses over the wall to them. And down that avenue was a marble-paved square where the old men met to talk of forgotten wars and long-gone companions. Beyond that there was a house with a terrace where I used to sit with friends in the evening to watch the stars come out while a boy brought us chilled fruit and the nightingales sang as if their hearts were breaking." Her voice drifted off into silence. "But then the Asturians came," she went on, and there was a different note then. "You'd be surprised at how little time it takes to tear down something that took a thousand years to build."
"Don't worry at it, Pol," Wolf told her. "These things happen from time to time. There's not a great deal we can do about it."
"I could have done something, father," she replied, looking off into the ruins. "But you wouldn't let me, remember?"
"Do we have to go over that again, Pol?" Wolf asked in a pained voice. "You have to learn to accept your losses. The Wacite Arends were doomed anyway. At best, you'd have only been able to stall off the inevitable for a few months. We're not who we are and what we are in order to get mixed up in things that don't have any meaning."
"So you said before." She looked around at the filmy trees marching away in the fog down the empty streets. "I didn't think the trees would come back so fast," she said with a strange little catch in her voice. "I thought they might have waited a little longer."
"It's been almost twenty-five centuries, Pol." "Really? It seems like only last year."
"Don't brood about it. It'll only make you melancholy. Why don't we go inside? The fog's beginning to make us all a bit moody." Unaccountably, Aunt Pol put her arm about Garion's shoulders as they turned toward the tower. Her fragrance and the sense of her closeness brought a lump to his throat. The distance that had grown between them in the past few months seemed to vanish at her touch.
The chamber in the base of the tower had been built of such massive stones that neither the passage of centuries nor the silent, probing tendrils of tree roots had been able to dislodge them. Great, shallow arches supported the low stone ceiling, making the room seem almost like a cave. At the end of the room opposite the narrow doorway a wide crack between two of the rough-hewn blocks provided a natural chimney. Durnik had soberly considered the crack the previous evening when they had arrived, cold and wet, and then had quickly constructed a crude but efficient fireplace out of rubble. "It will serve," the smith had said "Not very elegant perhaps, but good enough for a few days."
As Wolf, Garion and Aunt Pol entered the low, cavelike chamber, a good fire crackled in the fireplace, casting looming shadows among the low arches and radiating a welcome warmth. Durnik in his brown leather tunic was stacking firewood along the wall. Barak, huge, redbearded, and mail-shined, was polishing his sword. Silk, in an unbleached linen shirt and black leather vest, lounged idly on one of the packs, toying with a pair of dice.
"Any sign of Hettar yet?" Barak asked, looking up.
"It's a day or so early," Mister Wolf replied, going to the fireplace to warm himself.
"Why don't you change your boots, Garion?" Aunt Pol suggested, hanging her blue cloak on one of the pegs Durnik had hammered into a crack in the wall.
Garion lifted his pack down from another
peg and began rummaging through it.
"Your stockings, too," she added.
"Is the fog lifting at all?" Silk asked Mister Wolf. "Not a chance."
"If I can persuade you all to move out from in front of the fire, I'll see about supper," Aunt Pol told them, suddenly very businesslike. She began setting out a ham, a few loaves of dark, peasant bread, a sack of dried peas and a dozen or so leathery-looking carrots, humming softly to herself as she always did when she was cooking.
The next morning after breakfast, Garion pulled on a fleece-lined overvest, belted on his sword, and went back out into the fog-muffled ruins to watch for Hettar. It was a task to which he had appointed himself, and he was grateful that none of his friends had seen fit to tell him that it wasn't really necessary. As he trudged through the slushcovered streets toward the broken west gate of the city, he made a conscious effort to avoid the melancholy brooding that had blackened the previous day. Since there was absolutely nothing he could do about his circumstances, chewing on them would only leave a sour taste in his mouth. He was not exactly cheerful when he reached the low piece of wall by the west gate, but he was not precisely gloomy either.
The wall offered some protection, but the damp chill still crept through his clothes, and his feet were already cold. He shivered and settled down to wait. There was no point in trying to see any distance in the fog, so he concentrated on listening. His ears began to sort out the sounds in the forest beyond the wall, the drip of water from the trees, the occasional sodden thump of snow sliding from the limbs, and the tapping of a woodpecker working on a dead snag several hundred yards away.
"That's my cow," a voice said suddenly from somewhere off in the fog.
Garion froze and stood silently, listening.
"Keep her in your own pasture, then," another voice replied shortly. "Is that you, Lammer?" the first voice asked.
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