Prince Geran might have tried to outlast mother on the spinach business, sitting stubbornly in his chair without touching it until dawn or later, but it was rapidly coming up on the high point of his day. For the past several months, mother had been reading to him after she’d settled him down in his bed, and it was no ordinary book she was reading. This book had been written by his very own Aunt Pol, and he knew most of the people who appeared in the later pages. He knew Barak and Silk, Lelldorin and Mandorallen, Durnik and Queen Porenn, and Hettar and Adara. Aunt Pol’s book was almost like a family reunion.
‘Have you finished?’ mother asked him after he’d laid his fork down.
‘Yes, mother.’
‘Have you been a good boy today?’ Geran wondered what mother might do if he said, ‘No.’
He prudently decided not to try it. ‘Very good, mother,’ he said instead. ‘I didn’t break a single thing.’
‘Amazing,’ she said. ‘Now I suppose you’d like to have me read to you?’
‘If it’s not too much trouble, mother.’ Geran knew the value of the polite approach when he wanted something.
‘Very well,’ mother said. ‘You go pop into bed, and I’ll be along just as soon as I get Beldaran settled in for the night.’
Geran got up, kissed his father good night, and went to his bedroom. He set his candle down on the little table beside his bed and looked around quickly, giving his room a quick pre-emptive survey. It wasn’t too bad, but just to be on the safe side, he kicked the worst of the clutter under his bed.
‘One is curious to know why you do that each night,’ Wolf said.
‘It is a new custom,’ Geran replied, moving his ears with his fingers. ‘One believes that if one’s mother does not see what is lying on the floor of one’s den, one’s mother will not talk about it.’
Wolf’s tongue lolled out in wolfish laughter. ‘One notices that you are quick to learn,’ he said. Then he hopped effortlessly up on to the bed, yawned and curled himself up into a furry ball the way he always did.
Prince Geran looked around and decided that the room was probably neat enough. Sometimes Geran’s ‘things’ got ahead of him, and the only real disadvantage of having mother read to him every evening was the opportunity it gave her for a daily inspection. It seemed to Geran that mother had an unwholesome obsession with neatness. He’d frequently tried to explain to her that when he had his ‘things’ spread out on the floor, he could find exactly what he wanted almost immediately, but that when he put them all away as she wanted him to, it took hours to find what he wanted and that the search immediately returned everything right back to the floor where it had been in the first place. She’d listen patiently each time, and then she’d repeat the rather worn-out command, ‘clean this pig-pen up’. He had once – and only once – suggested that the chore was beneath his dignity and that one of the servants should do it. He still shuddered at the memory of her reaction to that particular suggestion. He was positive that had there been a good following wind that day, mother’s speech would have been clearly audible on the Sendarian coast.
He climbed up into his bed and placed several pillows on the side nearest the candle so that mother could prop herself up while reading. He reasoned that if she were comfortable, she might read longer. Then he snuggled down under the bolster, wriggling his feet down underneath Wolf. The really keen thing about having Wolf sleep with him was how warm Wolf was. Geran’s feet never got cold.
After a little while mother came into the room with Aunt Pol’s book under her arm. She absently scratched Wolf’s ears, and Wolf’s golden eyes opened briefly, and he wagged his tail a couple of times in appreciation. Then his eyes closed again. Wolf had told Geran that he was quite fond of mother, but Wolf wasn’t very demonstrative, since he felt that it wasn’t dignified.
Mother climbed into bed, plumped up the pillows Geran had placed there for her use, and then tucked her feet under one corner of his down-filled bolster. ‘Are you warm enough?’ she asked him.
‘Yes, mother. Everything’s just bully.’
She opened the book on her lap. ‘Where were we?’ she asked.
‘Aunt Pol was looking for the crazy lady out in the snow,’ Geran replied. ‘At least that was what was happening when I fell asleep.’ Then a momentary apprehension came over him. ‘You didn’t go on without me, did you?’ he asked.
She laughed, ‘Geran dear, this is a book It doesn’t run off or disappear once if s been read. Oh, speaking of that, how are your lessons coming?’
He sighed. ‘All right – I guess. The book my tutor’s got me reading isn’t very interesting. It’s a history book. Why do I have to have a Tolnedran tutor, mother? Why can’t I have an Alorn one instead?’
‘Because Tolnedrans are better teachers than Alorns, dear.’ Mother did have opinions, Geran had noticed.
She leafed her way through the last third of Aunt Pol’s book. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘here we are.’
‘Before you start, mother, could I ask a question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Aunt Pol can do magic, can’t she?’
‘She doesn’t really like that term, Geran, and neither does your grandfather.’
‘I won’t use it in front of them, then. If she can do magic things, why didn’t she just wiggle her fingers and make the crazy lady not crazy any more?’
‘I guess there are some things that magic can’t do.’
That was a terrible let-down for Prince Geran. He’d long felt that some training in magic might be very useful when he became king. The people in father’s government always seemed to be worrying about money, and if the king could just wave his hand and fill the room with it, they could all take the rest of the day off and go fishing, or something.
Mother took up the story of Aunt Pol’s search for the madwoman, Alara, and it seemed to Geran that he could almost see the frigid mountains and dark forests around the village of Annath as Aunt Pol continued her desperate search. He almost held his breath, hoping that the gloomy part he was sure was coming might be averted. It wasn’t, though.
‘I hate it when a story does that, he said.
“This isn’t exactly a story, Geran mother explained. ‘This really happened exactly the way Aunt Pol says it did.’
‘Are we going to get to any happy parts soon?’
‘Why don’t you stop asking questions and find out?’
That seemed totally uncalled for to Geran.
Mother continued to read, and after a few minutes, Geran raised his hand slightly, even as he would have in his classroom. ‘Could I ask just one question, mother?’
‘If you wish.’
‘How did grandfather know that Chamdar was burning down that house?’
‘Your grandfather knows all kinds of things, Geran – even things he’s not supposed to know. This time, though, I think that voice he carries around in his head told him about it.’
‘I wish I had a voice inside my head to tell me things. That might keep me out of a lot of trouble.’
‘Amen!’ mother agreed fervently. Then she went on with the story.
When she got to the part about Aunt Pol’s house on the shores of Lake Erat, Geran interrupted again without even thinking about it. ‘Have you ever been there, mother? – Aunt Pol’s house, I mean.’
‘A couple of times,’ mother replied.
‘Is it really as big as she says it is?’
‘Bigger, probably. Someday she might take you there and you’ll be able to see it for yourself.’
‘That’d be just bully, mother!’ he said excitedly.
‘What is it with this “bully” business?’
‘All the boys my age say that a lot. It sort of means “very, very nice”. It’s a real good word. Everybody uses it all the time.’
‘Oh, one of those. It’ll pass – eventually.’
‘What?’
‘Never mind.’ Then mother went back to her reading.
Prince Geran’s eyelids began to
droop when the story got as far as Faldor’s farm. That part wasn’t really very exciting, and somewhere during that endless discussion of how to make a pot of stew, the Crown Prince of Riva drifted off to sleep.
The little boy’s regular breathing told Queen Ce’Nedra that she’d lost her audience. She slipped a scrap of paper between the pages of the book, and then she leaned back reflectively.
Aunt Pol’s book had filled in all the gaps Ce’Nedra had noticed in Belgarath’s book – and then some. The wealth of characters, many of them the towering figures of legend, quite nearly filled the Rivan Queen with awe. Riva Iron-grip was here, and Brand, the man who’d struck down a God. Beldaran, the most beautiful woman in history, was here. Asrana and Ontrose had nearly broken Ce’Nedra’s heart. Aunt Pol’s book had virtually erased the entire library of the History Department of the University of Tol Honeth and replaced it with what had really happened.
The staggering march of history was right here on the Rivan Queen’s lap. She opened it again and read the part she loved the most, that quiet little scene in the kitchen at Faldor’s farm when Polgara was no longer the Duchess of Erat, but merely the cook on a remote Sendarian farm. Rank meant absolutely nothing there, however. What really mattered was Polgara’s gentle, unspoken realization that in spite of all his flaws and his seeming desertion of her mother before she and Beldaran were born, Polgara really loved her vagabond father. The animosity she’d clung to for all those centuries had been rather gently evaporated.
That subterranean little game Aunt Pol and her father had played with each other for centuries had produced a surprise winner, a winner they hadn’t even realized was taking part in their game. They’d spent three thousand years nipping at each other in half-serious play, and for all that time, the wolf Poledra had watched them play, patiently waiting for them to squirm around into the exact position where she wanted them to be, and then she had pounced.
‘You’d understand that, wouldn’t you, Wolf ?’ she murmured to her son’s companion.
Wolf opened his golden eyes and thumped his tail briefly in acknowledgment on the bed.
That startled Ce’Nedra just a bit. Wolf seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. Who was this Wolf, anyhow? She quickly pushed that thought into the back of her mind. The possibility that Wolf might not be who – or what – he seemed was something Ce’Nedra wasn’t prepared to deal with just now. For now, the discovery that Poledra had won that game was enough for one evening.
Reluctant or not, though, there was one realization that crashed in on the Rivan Queen. Her husband’s family predated the cracking of the world, and there was no getting around the fact that it was the most important family in human history. When Ce’Nedra had first met Garion, she’d rather scornfully dismissed him as an illiterate, orphaned scullery boy from Sendaria, and she’d been wrong on all points. She herself had taught Garion how to read, but she was forced to admit that all she’d really done had been to open the book for him. She’d almost had to run to keep up with him once he’d learned the alphabet. He’d washed a few pots and pans in Faldor’s kitchen, but he was a king, not a scullery boy. Garion wasn’t a Sendarian, either, and as for his being an orphan, he was the farthest thing in the world from being an orphan His family stretched back to the dawn of time. Ce’Nedra had fretted about the possibility that her husband might outrank her, but he didn’t just outrank her, he transcended her. That really went down hard for the Rivan Queen.
She sighed. A whole group of unpleasant realizations were crowding in on Ce’Nedra. She glanced at her own reflection in her son’s smeary mirror, and she lightly touched her deep red hair with her fingers. ‘Well,’ she sniffed, ‘at least I’m prettier than he is.’
Then she realized just how ridiculous that final defense was, and she laughed in spite of herself. She threw up her arms in surrender. ‘I give up,’ she said, still laughing.
Then she slipped out of bed, tucked the bolster up under Geran’s chin and lightly kissed him. ‘Sleep well, my dear little Prince,’ she murmured.
Then, not knowing exactly why, she stroked Wolf’s head. ‘You too, dear friend,’ she said to him. ‘Watch over our little boy.’
The Wolf looked at her gravely with those calm golden eyes, and then he did something totally unexpected. He gave the side of her face a quick, wet lick with his long tongue.
Ce’Nedra giggled in spite of herself, trying to wipe her cheek. She threw her arms around Wolf’s massive head and hugged him.
Then the Rivan Queen blew out the candle, tiptoed out of the room, and quietly closed the door behind her.
Wolf lay there on the foot of Geran’s bed looking at the dying fire in the fireplace with those golden eyes of his for quite a long time. Everything seemed to be as it was supposed to be, so Wolf sighed contentedly, stretched his muzzle out on his front paws, and went back to sleep.
About the Author
David Eddings was one of the original masters of epic fantasy. During a writing career that spanned more than three decades, David and his wife Leigh co-authored over thirty bestselling novels and created some of the world’s most loved characters. The Belgariad, The Malloreon, The Elenium and The Tamuli series are among their most famous work..
Also by David Eddings
THE ELENIUM
Book One: The Diamond Throne
Book Two: The Ruby Knight
Book Three: The Sapphire Rose
THE TAMULI
Book One: Domes of Fire
Book Two: The Shining Ones
Book Three: The Hidden City
By David and Leigh Eddings
Belgarath the Sorcerer
Polgara the Sorceress
The Rivan Codex
The Redemption of Althalus
THE DREAMERS
Book One: The Elder Gods
Book Two: The Treasured One
Book Three: Crystal Gorge
Book Four: The Younger Gods
About the Publisher
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United Kingdom
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United States
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Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress Page 168
