Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress

by David Eddings

  ‘In Tolnedra, last I heard. Drasnian intelligence is keeping track of him for me.’

  ‘You’ve got just about everybody in the west doing your work for you, haven’t you, Belgarath?’

  ‘It’s called “delegating responsibility”, brother. There’s a lot going on right now, so I have to stay flexible.’

  ‘Somehow I knew you’d have some facile explanation for the fact that you’re loafing. Don’t get too comfortable, Belgarath. When the time comes, you might just have to be in six or eight places all at the same time. Let’s go see the twins. This business between Zakath and Taur Urgas might have shaken a few more clues out of the Mrin.’

  It hadn’t, though. The Mrin Codex remained as intractable as always. I could only assume that the Necessity knew what it was doing and that it was deliberately keeping me in the dark.

  I don’t think any of us have ever given full credit to the twins for their patient centuries of labor. That pair of gentle Alorn shepherds have been so vital to what the rest of us have done that in a rather special way, they’ve been our guides. We run around the world in response to what they discover. The Necessity usually doesn’t bother to talk to us. It talks to the twins instead. They’ve worn out six or eight copies of the Mrin and the Darine over the years, and the Gods know that I wouldn’t have had that kind of patience, and neither would Beldin. To this very day, if the twins told me to jump, I’d be about four feet up in the air before I even bothered to ask, ‘Which way?’ That’s probably what Aldur had in mind when he first sent for them. The Master’s at least as much a slave to the Necessity as the rest of us are. That’s why we’re all here, I guess.

  Beldin remained in the Vale for a week or so, and then he returned to southern Cthol Murgos to take up his lonely vigil over our Master’s sleeping brother. Not long after he left, I went to Boktor to advise Rhodar of the contention between Zakath and Taur Urgas. King Rhodar wasn’t getting any slimmer, but his mind seemed to be growing even faster than his waistline. He squinted at me shrewdly after I’d told him of the recent events in Mallorea. ‘This isn’t natural, Belgarath. A Murgo king wouldn’t be interested enough in what’s happening in Mallorea to take all that much trouble. There’s a whole ocean between the two countries. Some EVENT’S about to happen, isn’t it? The reports I’ve been getting are raising a strong odor of something momentous in the wind.’

  There wasn’t really any point in trying to hide things from Rhodar. His spies were too good, and his mind was too quick. ‘Why don’t we just say that we’re living in interesting times and let it go at that, Rhodar?’ I suggested. ‘You deal with the ordinary world and let me take care of the other one.’

  ‘Is there going to be a war involved? If so, I’d better start recruiting more men for my army.’

  ‘That’d be premature, and don’t be too obvious about going to a war-footing. Concentrate on this enmity between the Murgos and the Malloreans instead. If it does get down to a war, I don’t want the Angaraks to be all cozy with each other.’ Then I changed the subject. ‘When are you going to get married?’

  ‘Not for a while yet.’ His tone was evasive and his expression slightly embarrassed. Now that I think back on it, I’m almost certain that he already had his eye on Porenn, who was only about thirteen at the time, as I recall.

  I went on to Val Alorn and from there to the Isle of the Winds. I didn’t really have any specific reasons for those trips, but I always like to keep an eye on the Alorns. They have a tendency to get into trouble if you don’t watch them rather closely.

  Then, in 5349, my grandson Darral was killed by a rockslide in the quarry where he worked, and I rushed back to Annath. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, of course, but I went all the same. A death in the family’s not the sort of thing you just let slide, and Polgara has always taken these things very hard. You’d think that Pol and I would have grown philosophical about the notion of human mortality by now, but we hadn’t. I’d loved Darral, naturally. He was my grandson, after all, but I’d steeled myself to the idea that one day he’d grow old and die. It happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Polgara, however, isn’t temperamentally equipped to take this sort of thing philosophically. She always seems to take the death of a loved one as a personal insult of some kind. Maybe her medical studies have had something to do with that. For a physician, death is the ultimate enemy.

  I tried to console her with the usual platitudes, but she wanted no part of that. ‘Just go away and leave me alone, father,’ she told me flatly. ‘I’ll deal with this in my own way.’

  So I went on down the street to talk with Geran. ‘What really happened?’ I asked him.

  ‘There must have been some hidden flaw in that rock-face, grandfather,’ he replied somberly. ‘Father and I had both checked it from top to bottom. It seemed completely sound, and there hadn’t been any hints of weakness. The workmen were cutting blocks off the top of the face, and the whole thing just gave way and collapsed. Father was down in the quarry at the bottom of the face, and there was no way he could get out from under it when it came down.’ His face grew angry, and he slammed his fist down on the table. ‘There was no reason for it, grandfather! That face should not have broken away! I’m going to tear that mountain apart until I find out why it happened!’

  I know now why it happened – and who was responsible. That’s one of the reasons that I take an enormous satisfaction in what Garion did to Chamdar down in the Wood of the Dryads.

  Polgara remained inconsolable. There was nothing I could do or say to comfort her. She locked herself in her room and refused to talk to any of us. For a time I was about half afraid that she’d go mad with grief.

  Darral’s wife did.

  It wasn’t too obvious at first. After her initial outburst of grief, she seemed to grow abnormally calm. Two weeks after the funeral, she went back to her normal routine of cleaning house, sweeping off her doorstep, and preparing meals as if nothing had happened. Quite frequently, she even sang while she was cooking.

  I’m sure that there are people out there who’ll say that this is a healthy way to deal with grief, but they’re wrong. The death of a wife or husband is a wound that takes years to heal. Believe me, I know. If my own grief hadn’t been so profound, I’d have recognized the fact that something wasn’t right.

  She cooked the usual meals, and she always set a place for Darral at her table. Then, as evening descended, she’d keep going to the door to anxiously look out into Annath’s single street as if she were anxiously waiting for someone to come home to supper. The signs of her madness were all there. I can’t believe that Pol and I missed them.

  If I’d been just a bit more alert, I’d have realized who’d been responsible for Darral’s death and Alara’s madness. At that point, I’d have torn the world apart looking for Asharak the Murgo, and when I caught him, I’d have cut his throat all the way back to the neck-bone – with a dull saw. It might have taken me a while, but I’d have enjoyed every minute of it.

  Of course I’m a savage. Haven’t you realized that yet?

  I’m not saying here that Alara went stark-staring mad. She just got vague – which is probably even worse, when you get right down to it. As Polgara recovered from her own sorrow, she was obliged to keep a more or less continual watch over Alara, and that turned out to be fairly significant as time went on.

  I took my own sorrow out on the road. Walking thirty miles a day or so will numb almost any emotion, and I definitely didn’t think that a return to the waterfront dives of Camaar would have been a good idea right then.

  I drifted back to the Vale in the late spring of 5351, and Javelin was there, waiting for me. ‘We lost him, Ancient One,’ he confessed with a certain degree of shame. ‘I’ve had people watching him from every possible angle, and one day he simply wasn’t there any more. Chamdar’s a Murgo, and they’re not supposed to be that clever.’

  ‘He’s deceptive, Khendon,’ I sighed. ‘It looks as if I’m going to have t
o put on my walking shoes again. I’d better go find him.’

  ‘Aren’t you getting a little old for this kind of thing, Holy One?’ he asked me with surprising directness. ‘Keeping track of Chamdar was my job. Why don’t you let me locate him?’

  ‘I may be old, Javelin, but I can still run you into the ground any day in the week. Just don’t get in my way. If you do, I’ll run right up your back.’ I hate having people make an issue of my age. Don’t they realize by now that it doesn’t mean anything?

  ‘It shall be as you say, Ancient One,’ he replied with a curt bow. At least he had sense enough to know when to back away.

  I went directly to Tol Honeth to take up the search. As closely as the twins were able to determine, we were within a couple of years of the birth of the Godslayer, and I vividly remembered Chamdar’s audible ruminations back when Gelane had fallen in with the Bear-Cult. Ctuchik had ordered his Grolim underling to kill Iron-grip’s heir, but Chamdar had come up with an alternative to that. He was looking for the chance to be elevated to Disciple status, and thus to step over Ctuchik to deliver the Godslayer and the Orb directly to Torak. He was ambitious, I’ll give him that. I quite literally tore Tolnedra apart, but I couldn’t put my hands on him. He’d stolen a page out of my own book and had laid down various hints and false clues that kept me running from one end of Tolnedra to the other. I didn’t find out exactly how he’d done it until after the tragedy in Annath.

  Lelldorin, the ‘Archer’ mentioned in the Mrin, was born in 5352, but I didn’t have time to look in on the Wildantor family, since I was too busy ripping up the paving stones in Tol Honeth looking for my elusive Grolim adversary. After a while, I started to get irritable.

  Javelin returned to Tol Honeth to help me, and he shrewdly prevailed on the Drasnian ambassador to try to enlist the aid of Ce’Nedra’s father in the search. Tolnedran intelligence isn’t really a match for what the Drasnians can come up with, but it would have put more eyes out there on the streets. Ran Borune XXIII wasn’t having any of that, though. He was involved in some rather delicate trade negotiations with the representatives of Taur Urgas, and he wasn’t inclined to do anything at all to disrupt those negotiations, so he withheld the services of his assorted spies and informers. I liked Ran Borune, and I adore his daughter, but he was greedy, and the prospect of getting his hands on all that red Murgo gold turned his head, so Javelin and I got no help whatsoever from Tolnedran intelligence.

  Finally, in the late summer of 5354, I gave up entirely. It was obvious by now that the various clues I’d been frantically chasing up and down the length and breadth of Tolnedra were no more than false trails. For once, Chamdar had outsmarted me. I was absolutely certain that he wasn’t in Tolnedra anymore, so I gave Javelin the thankless task of chasing down all the fictitious ‘Chamdars’ that the Grolims were inventing for our entertainment and took myself off to Arendia.

  And the Grolims there were as busy as the ones in Tolnedra had been. I’ll give Chamdar credit here. He’d learned all the lessons I’d given him over the centuries very well. I heard stories about ‘Asharak the Murgo’ every time I turned around, and the stories got wilder and wilder every day. Grolims are schemers, to be sure, but there’s no sense of art in their schemes. They always go to extremes. I think it’s a racial flaw.

  Then, when I was riding north out of Vo Mimbre, I encountered a handsome young fellow in full armor sitting astride a prancing war-horse. I recognized the crest of the Mandor family on his shield. ‘Well-met, Ancient Belgarath!’ Mandorallen greeted me in that booming voice of his. I have been in search of thee!’ Mandorallen was only about seventeen at that time, but there was already an impressive muscularity about him.

  ‘What is it this time, Mandorallen?’ I demanded.

  ‘I have been, as thou doubtless knowest – for certes, all things are known to thee – at Vo Ebor, where my dear friend and guardian, the baron of that fair domain, hath been providing instruction unto me in the knightly arts, and –’

  ‘Mandorallen, get to the point!’

  He looked a little injured by that. ‘In short,’ he said – as if a Mimbrate could ever say anything in short. ‘Thy brethren, Beltira and Belkira, came but recently to Vo Ebor and besought me that I should seek thee out Straightway I went to horse, and, thinking that thou wert still in Tol Honeth, I posted southward that I might bring thee news that thy gentle brethren felt might be of interest unto thee.’

  ‘Oh? What news is this?’

  ‘I confess that I have no understanding of the true import of their message, but I am instructed to advise thee that a certain kinswoman of thine is with child, and that thy daughter, whom I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting – though I yearn for the day when I shall be privileged to greet her and respectfully bend my knee unto her –’

  ‘All right, Mandorallen, I get the message.’

  ‘This news, I presume, is of some significance?’

  ‘Moderately so, Sir Knight.’

  ‘Might I know its import?’

  ‘No, you might not. You don’t need to know what it means. Turn around and go back to Vo Ebor. You have performed your duty, Sir Knight, and I thank you. Now go home.’

  I’ll take this opportunity to apologize for my abruptness to the Knight Protector. All I really wanted him to do was to get out of sight so that I could go into paroxysms of exultation. Ildera was pregnant! The Godslayer dozed beneath her heart!

  I broke off my fruitless search for Chamdar at that point, since it was fairly obvious that I wasn’t going to find him. I went on up to Asturia to have a look at Lelldorin, and I came away with the knowledge that he was indeed the Wildantor we’d been waiting for. Everything was coming together the way it was supposed to, so I crossed Ulgoland to the Vale.

  When I got home, the twins advised me that Ildera would be delivered about midwinter.

  ‘Polgara’s going to move the family not long after the child’s birth,’ Beltira told me.

  ‘That’s probably not a bad idea,’ I said. ‘We’ve all been in and out of Annath quite frequently for about fifteen years now, and Chamdar’s on the loose out there somewhere. It’ll be safer if Pol moves on. Is Alara improving at all?’

  Belkira shook his head sadly. ‘She still refuses to accept the fact that her husband’s dead. Polgara’s tried everything she can think of to bring her out of it, but nothing’s worked yet.’

  ‘A change of scene might bring her around,’ I suggested.

  ‘It’s hard to say.’ He didn’t sound very hopeful about it.

  The twins and I talked about it at some length, and we agreed that I should probably go to Sendaria and let myself be seen in places other than Annath. The Grolim prophecies, and probably the Ashabine Oracles as well, were certainly keeping Ctuchik advised, so I was sure that he knew of the Godslayer’s imminent birth and the fact that he’d be born in Sendaria. It was time for me to start pulling Chamdar out of position, so I put on my story-teller’s costume and went to Sendaria.

  I stopped by the city of Sendar to look in on the new king, Fulrach, and his giddy wife, Layla. Don’t misunderstand me here. I love Layla. She’s probably got the biggest heart in the world, but she was awfully silly as a girl – and almost perpetually pregnant. I sometimes wonder how Fulrach found time to run his kingdom.

  Then I went out into the countryside. I tramped the back roads and country lanes of central Sendaria all during the autumn and early winter of that year, and I’m positive that Chamdar’s Grolims were watching my every move. I didn’t go out of my way to make it difficult for them.

  It was almost Erastide by now, and my sense of anticipation was growing stronger. Erastide is a major holiday in Sendaria, since it fits so neatly into the traditional ecumenicism of the Sendars. The date of the holiday – midwinter – is really quite arbitrary. The creation of the world didn’t happen on a single day, but I guess the clergy just picked a day at random for the yearly celebration. As the holiday approached, I moved from Darine to Erat
to Winold with a growing conviction that Erastide this year was going to be something rather special. It was the kind of thing Gallon’s friend would do.

  I was completely out of touch, of course. We’d had evidence in the past that the Grolims have ways of listening when we communicate with each other in our rather peculiar way, and the upcoming EVENT was so important that we didn’t want to inadvertently give Chamdar anything to work with. In retrospect, I can say that our extreme cautiousness was probably a mistake.

  Polgara and I have gone over what happened in Annath that winter again and again and again, and we can now see exactly where we both made our mistakes. The death of Darral should have alerted us, for one thing. As Geran had suspected, that rockslide that had killed his father had not been a simple accident. In some way that we’ve never been able to determine, Chamdar had located my daughter and the family she’d protected for over thirteen centuries, and Darral’s death – minder, I can call it – was just the first step in his elaborate plan.

  Alara’s insanity was the second step, I’m afraid, and Pol and I both missed it.

  My daughter tells me that Alara’s condition had worsened that fall, and that she’d taken to wandering off into the surrounding mountains in search of her husband. I’m sure that Chamdar had a hand in that too; the Grolims are expert at tampering with the minds of others, after all.

  At any rate, it was on the day before Erastide when Ildera went into false labor, and Polgara had gone from Darral’s house to the far end of the village to examine her, and Alara – at Chamdar’s instigation, I’m sure – had seized the opportunity to go off into the nearby mountains in search of her husband. Pol returned to Darral’s house and found that Alara was gone. It’d happened several times before, and Pol, quite naturally, went out to look for her.

  And that’s how Chamdar got Pol out of the way. She’s blamed herself about that for years, but it wasn’t her fault.

  I’m convinced now that Ildera’s false labor was also Chamdar’s doing. You almost have to admire how carefully he orchestrated the events during those dreadful two days. Once Pol had left the village, Ildera’s false labor turned into the real thing. There were other women in the village who knew what to do, of course, and Garion was born shortly after midnight on Erastide.