"We'll all drown like rats," Queen Layla wailed in stark terror. "Like rats! Oh, my poor orphaned children."
"Now stop that at once!" Polgara told her.
"The sea monsters will eat us all up," the queen added morbidly, "crunching all our bones with their horrid teeth."
"There aren't any monsters in the Sea of the Winds, Layla," Polgara said patiently. "We have to go. We must be in Riva on Erastide."
"Couldn't you tell them that I'm sick - that I'm dying?" Queen Layla pleaded. "If it would help, I will die. Honestly, Polgara, I'll die right here and now on this very spot. Only, please, don't make me get on that awful ship. Please."
"You're being silly, Layla," Polgara chided her firmly. "You have no choice in the matter - none of us do. You and Fulrach and Seline and Brendig all have to go to Riva with the rest of us. That decision was made long before any of you were born. Now stop all this foolishness and start packing."
"I can't!" the queen sobbed, flinging herself into a chair.
Polgara looked at the panic-stricken queen with a kind of understanding sympathy, but when she spoke there was no trace of it in her voice. "Get up, Layla," she commanded briskly. "Get on your feet and pack your clothes. You are going to Riva. You'll go even if I have to drag you down to the ship and tie you to the mast until we get there."
"You wouldn't!" Queen Layla gasped, shocked out of her hysteria as instantly as if she had just been doused with a pail full of cold water. "You wouldn't do that to me, Polgara."
"Wouldn't I?" Polgara replied. "I think you'd better start packing, Layla."
The queen weakly struggled to her feet. "I'll be seasick every inch of the way," she promised.
"You can if it makes you happy, dear," Polgara said sweetly, patting the plump little queen gently on the cheek.
Chapter Ten
THEY WERE TWO days at sea from Sendar to Riva, running before a quartering wind with their patched sail booming and the driving spray that froze to everything it touched. The cabin belowdecks was crowded, and Garion spent most of his time topside, trying to stay out of the wind and out from under the sailors' feet at the same time. Inevitably, he moved finally to the sheltered spot in the prow, sat with his back against the bulwark and his blue hooded cloak tight about him, and gave himself over to some serious thinking. The ship rocked and pitched in the heavy swells and frequently slammed head-on into monstrous black waves, shooting spray in all directions. The sea around them was flecked with whitecaps, and the sky was a threatening, dirty gray.
Garion's thoughts were almost as gloomy as the weather. His life for the past fifteen months had been so caught up in the pursuit of the Orb that he had not had time to look toward the future. Now the quest was almost over, and he began to wonder what would happen once the Orb had been restored to the Hall of the Rivan King. There would no longer be any reason for his companions to remain together. Barak would return to Val Alorn; Silk would certainly find some other part of the world more interesting; Hettar and Mandorallen and Relg would return home; and even Ce'Nedra, once she had gone through the ceremony of presenting herself in the throne room, would be called back to Tol Honeth. The adventure was almost over, and they would all pick up their lives again. They would promise to get together someday and probably be quite sincere about it; but Garion knew that once they parted, he would never see them all together again.
He wondered also about his own life. The visit to Faldor's farm had forever closed that door to him, even if it had ever really been open. The bits and pieces of information he had been gathering for the past year and more told him quite plainly that he was not going to be in a position to make his own decisions for quite some time.
"I don't suppose you'd consider telling me what I'm supposed to do next?" He didn't really expect any kind of satisfactory answer from that other awareness.
"It's a bit premature," the dry voice in his mind replied.
"We'll be in Riva tomorrow,"Garion pointed out. "As soon as we put the Orb back where it belongs, this part of the adventure will be all finished. Don't you think that a hint or two might be in order along about now?"
"I wouldn't want to spoil anything for you."
"You know, sometimes I think you keep secrets just because you know that it irritates people."
"What an interesting idea."
The conversation got absolutely nowhere after that.
It was about noon on the day before Erastide when Greldik's icecoated ship tacked heavily into the sheltered harbor of the city of Riva on the east coast of the Isle of the Winds. A jutting promentory of wind-lashed rock protected the harbor basin and the city itself. Riva, Garion saw immediately, was a fortress. The wharves were backed by a high, thick city wall, and the narrow, snow-choked gravel strand stretching out to either side of the wharves was also cut off from access to the city. A cluster of makeshift buildings and low, varicolored tents stood on the strand, huddled against the city wall and half buried in snow. Garion thought he recognized Tolnedrans and a few Drasnian merchants moving quickly through the little enclave in the raw wind.
The city itself rose sharply up the steep slope upon which it was built, each succeeding row of gray stone houses towering over the ones below. The windows facing out toward the harbor were all very narrow and very high up in the buildings, and Garion could see the tactical advantage of such construction. The terraced city was a series of successive barriers. Breaching the gates would accomplish virtually nothing. Each terrace would be as impregnable as the main wall. Surmounting the entire city and brooding down at it rose the final fortress, its towers and battlements as gray as everything else in the bleak city of the Rivans. The blue and white sword-banners of Riva stood out stiffly in the wind above the fortress, outlined sharply against the dark gray clouds scudding across the winter sky.
King Anheg of Cherek, clad in fur, and Brand, the Rivan Warder, wearing his gray cloak, stood on the wharf before the city gates waiting for them as Greldik's sailors rowed the ship smartly up to the wharf. Beside them, his reddish-gold hair spread smoothly out over his greencloaked shoulders, stood Lelldorin of Wildantor. The young Asturian was grinning broadly. Garion took one incredulous look at his friend; then, with a shout of joy, he jumped to the top of the rail and leaped across to the stone wharf. He and Lelldorin caught each other in a rough bear hug, laughing and pounding each other on the shoulders with their fists.
"Are you all right?" Garion demanded. "I mean, did you completely recover and everything?"
"I'm as sound as ever," Lelldorin assured him with a laugh. Garion looked at his friend's face dubiously. "You'd say that even if you were bleeding to death, Lelldorin."
"No, I'm really fine," the Asturian protested. "The young sister of Baron Oltorain leeched the Algroth poison from my veins with poultices and vile-tasting potions and restored me to health with her art. She's a marvellous girl." His eyes glowed as he spoke of her.
"What are you doing here in Riva?" Garion demanded.
"Lady Polgara's message reached me last week," Lelldorin explained. "I was still at Baron Oltorain's castle." He coughed a bit uncomfortably. "For one reason or another, I had kept putting off my departure. Anyway, when her instruction to travel to Riva with all possible haste reached me, I left at once. Surely you knew about the message."
"This is the first I'd heard of it," Garion replied, looking over to where Aunt Pol, followed by Queen Silar and Queen Layla, was stepping down from the ship to the wharf.
"Where's Rhodar?" Cho-Hag was asking King Anheg.
"He stayed up at the Citadel." Anheg shrugged. "There isn't really that much point to his hauling that paunch of his up and down the steps to the harbor any more than he has to."
"How is he?" King Fulrach asked.
"I think he's lost some weight," Anheg replied. "The approach of fatherhood seems to have had some impact on his appetite."
"When's the child due?" Queen Layla asked curiously.
"I really couldn't say, Layla," the king of Ch
erek told her. "I have trouble keeping track of things like that. Porenn had to stay at Boktor, though. I guess she's too far along to travel. Islena's here though."
"I need to talk with you, Garion," Lelldorin said nervously.
"Of course." Garion led his friend several yards down the snowy pier away from the turmoil of disembarking.
"I'm afraid that the Lady Polgara's going to be cross with me, Garion," Lelldorin said quietly.
"Why cross?" Garion said it suspiciously.
"Well-" Lelldorin hesitated. "A few things went wrong along the way-sort of."
"What exactly are we talking about when we say 'went wrong - sort of?'"
"I was at Baron Oltorain's castle," Lelldorin began.
"I got that part."
"Ariana - the Lady Ariana, that is, Baron Oltorain's sister-"
"The blond Mimbrate girl who nursed you back to health?"
"You remember her," Lelldorin sounded very pleased about that. "Do you remember how lovely she is? How-"
"I think we're getting away from the point, Lelldorin," Garion said firmly. "We were talking about why Aunt Pol's going to be cross with you."
"I'm getting to it, Garion. Well-to put it briefly - Ariana and I had become - well - friends."
"I see."
"Nothing improper, you understand," Lelldorin said quickly. "But our friendship was such that - well - we didn't want to be separated." The young Asturian's face appealed to his friend for understanding. "Actually," he went on, "it was a bit more than 'didn't want to.' Ariana told me that she'd die if I left her behind."
"Possibly she was exaggerating," Garion suggested.
"How could I risk it, though?" Lelldorin protested. "Women are much more delicate than we are - besides, Ariana's a physician. She'd know if she'd die, wouldn't she?"
"I'm sure she would." Garion sighed. "Why don't you just plunge on with the story, Lelldorin? I think I'm ready for the worst now."
"It's not that I really meant any harm," Lelldorin said plaintively.
"Of course not."
"Anyway, Ariana and I left the castle very late one evening. I knew the knight on guard at the drawbridge, so I hit him over the head because I didn't want to hurt him."
Garion blinked.
"I knew that he'd be honor-bound to try to stop us," Lelldorin explained. "I didn't want to have to kill him, so I hit him over the head."
"I suppose that makes sense," Garion said dubiously.
"Ariana's almost positive that he won't die."
"Die?"
"I hit him just a little too hard, I think."
The others had all disembarked and were preparing to follow Brand and King Anheg up the steep, snow-covered stairs toward the upper levels of the city.
"So that's why you think Aunt Pol might be cross with you," Garion said as he and Lelldorin fell in at the rear of the group.
"Well, that's not exactly the whole story, Garion," Lelldorin admitted. "A few other things happened, too."
"Such as what?"
"Well - they chased us - a little - and I had to kill a few of their horses."
"I see."
"I specifically aimed my arrows at the horses and not at the men. It wasn't my fault that Baron Oltorain couldn't get his foot clear of the stirrup, was it?"
"How badly was he hurt?" Garion was almost resigned by now.
"Nothing serious at all - at least I don't think so. A broken leg perhaps - the one he broke before when Sir Mandorallen unhorsed him."
"Go on," Garion told him.
"The priest did have it coming, though," Lelldorin declared hotly.
"What priest?"
"The priest of Chaldan at that little chapel who wouldn't marry us because Ariana couldn't give him a document proving that she had her family's consent. He was very insulting."
"Did you break anything?"
"A few of his teeth is about all - and I stopped hitting him as soon as he agreed to perform the ceremony."
"And so you're married? Congratulations. I'm sure you'll both be very happy just as soon as they let you out of prison."
Lelldorin drew himself up. "It's a marriage in name only, Garion. I would never take advantage of it - you know me better than that. We reasoned that Ariana's reputation might suffer if it became known that we were travelling alone like that. The marriage was just for the sake of appearances."
As Lelldorin described his disastrous journey through Arendia, Garion glanced curiously at the city of Riva. There was a kind of unrelieved bleakness about its snow-covered streets. The buildings were all very tall and were of a uniform gray color. The few evergreen boughs, wreaths, and brightly-hued buntings hung in celebration of the Erastide season seemed somehuw to accentuate the stiff grimneess of the city. There were, however, some very interesting smells coming from kitchens where Erastide feasts simmered and roasted under the watchful eyes of the women of Riva.
"That was all of it, then?" Garion asked his friend. "You stole Baron Oltorain's sister, married her without his consent, broke his leg and assaulted several of his people - and a priest. That was everything that happened?"
"Well - not exactly." Lelldorin's face was a bit pained.
"There's more?"
"I didn't really mean to hurt Torasin."
"Your cousin?"
Lelldorin nodded moodily. "Ariana and I took refuge at my Uncle Reldegin's house, and Torasin made some remarks about Ariana - she is a Mimbrate after all, and Torasin's very prejudiced. My remonstrances were quite temperate, I thought - all things considered - but after I knocked him down the stairs, nothing would satisfy him but a duel."
"You killed him?" Garion asked in a shocked voice.
"Of course I didn't kill him. All I did was run him through the leg - just a little bit."
"How can you run somebody through just a little bit, Lelldorin?" Garion demanded of his friend in exasperation.
"You're disappointed in me, aren't you, Garion?" The young Asturian seemed almost on the verge of tears.
Garion rolled his eyes skyward and gave up. "No, Lelldorin, I'm not disappointed - a little startled perhaps - but not really disappointed. Was there anything else you can remember?-Anything you might have left out?"
"Well, I hear that I've sort of been declared an outlaw in Arendia."
"Sort of?"
"The crown's put a price on my head," Lelldorin admitted, "or so I understand."
Garion began to laugh helplessly.
"A true friend wouldn't laugh at my misfortunes," the young man complained, looking injured.
"You managed to get into that much trouble in just a week?"
"None of it was really my fault, Garion. Things just got out of hand, that's all. Do you think Lady Polgara's going to be angry?"
"I'll talk to her," Garion assured his impulsive young friend. "Maybe if she and Mandorallen appeal to King Korodullin, they can get him to take the price off your head."
"Is it true that you and Sir Mandorallen destroyed the Murgo Nachak and all his henchmen in the throne room at Vo Mimbre?" Lelldorin asked suddenly.
"I think the story might have gotten a bit garbled," Garion replied. "I denounced Nachak, and Mandorallen offered to fight him to prove that what I said was true. Nachak's men attacked Mandorallen then, and Barak and Hettar joined in. Hettar's the one who actually killed Nachak. We did manage to keep your name - and Torasin's - out of it."
"You're a true friend, Garion."
"Here?" Barak was saying. "What's she doing here?"
"She came with Islena and me," King Anheg replied.
"Did she-?"
Anheg nodded. "Your son's with her - and your daughters. His birth seems to have mellowed her a bit."
"What does he look like?" Barak asked eagerly.
"He's a great, red-haired brute of a boy." Anheg laughed. "And when he gets hungry, you can hear him yell for a mile."
Barak grinned rather foolishly.
When they reached the top of the stairs and came out in the shal
low square before the great hall, two rosy-cheeked little girls in green cloaks were waiting impatiently for them. They both had long, reddish-blond braids and seemed to be only slightly older than Errand. "Poppa," the youngest of the two squealed, running to Barak. The huge man caught her up in his arms and kissed her soundly. The second girl, a year or so older than her sister, joined them with a show of dignity but was also swept up in her father's embrace.
"My daughters," Barak introduced the girls to the rest of the party. "This is Gundred." He poked his great red beard into the face of the eldest girl, and she giggled as his whiskers tickled her face. "And this is little Terzie." He smiled fondly at the youngest.
"We have a little brother, Poppa," the elder girl informed him gravely.
"What an amazing thing," Barak replied, feigning a great show of astonishment.
"You knew about it already!" Gundred accused him. "We wanted to be the ones to tell you." She pouted.
"His name's Unrak, and he's got red hair just the same as you have," Terzie announced, "but he doesn't have a beard yet."
"I expect that will come in time," Barak assured her.
"He dells a lot," Gundred reported, "and he hasn't got any teeth."
Then the broad gateway to the Rivan Citadel swung open and Queen Islena, wearing a dark red cloak, emerged from within, accompanied by a lovely blond Arendish girl and by Merel, Barak's wife. Merel was dressed all in green and she was carrying a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. Her expression was one of pride.
"Hail Barak, Earl of Trellheim and husband," she said with great formality. "Thus have I fulfilled my ultimate duty." She extended the bundle. "Behold your son Unrak, Trellheim's heir."
With a strange expression, Barak gently set his daughters down, approached his wife, and took the bundle from her. Very gently, his great fingers trembling, he turned back the blanket to gaze for the first time at his son's face. Garion could see only that the baby had bright red hair, much the same color as Barak's.
"Hail, Unrak, heir to Trellheim and my son," Barak greeted the infant in his rumbling voice. Then he kissed the child in his hands. The baby boy giggled and cooed as his father's great beard tickled his face. His two tiny hands reached up and clutched at the beard, and he bur rowed his face into it like a puppy.
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