‘It was fun, wasn’t it, Belgarath?’ Rablek said just a bit wistfully as we were saddling our horses.
‘That it was, my friend.’
‘If you ever get bored, look me up. The mountains’ll always be there, and I can be ready to go again any time you say the word.’
‘Be well, Rablek,’ I said, clasping his hand warmly.
The Nadrak border was still unguarded, and I entered Drasnia with a certain sense of relief. I was a bit surprised to discover that my sudden riches had made me nervous and apprehensive. What a peculiar thing! When I was no more than a poor vagabond, I’d been willing to go anywhere without a second thought. Now that I was rich, my whole attitude had changed.
I rode on down through Algaria at the tag end of the summer of the year 4881, and I reached the Vale just as autumn was turning all the leaves golden. The color suited my mood and reflected the cargo in my pack-saddle. Rablek and I had put the fruits of our labors into stout canvas bags, and I had forty of those bags. It took me hours to carry them all up into my tower.
The next day I built a makeshift kind of forge and cast my gold into bars. Forty bags of gold sounds like a lot, but gold’s so heavy that the bars weren’t really all that big, and when I’d stacked them all in one corner, the pile was disappointingly small. I sat looking at it, idly wondering if I could catch up with Rablek before he left Yar Gurak. There was still a lot of gold left in our creek up there near the border of Morindland, after all.
Well, of course I was greedy. I’ve told you about the kind of person I was before I entered my Master’s service, and some things never change. I’ve thought about that a lot over the years. Every so often, I get a powerful urge to return to that nameless little stream. Then, however, usually in the cold grey light of morning, rationality rears its ugly head. What on earth does a man in my situation need with money? If I really want something, I can usually get it somehow, or I can magic it up, and in the long run, that’d be much easier than digging gold out of the ground. But gold’s so pretty to look at, and so exciting when you find it.
Over the years, I’ve spent a few bars of my horde, but not very many. Most of it’s still around here - someplace.
Excuse me a moment. I think I’ll root around and see if I can find it.
About a year after I’d returned from Gar og Nadrak, Pol sent word to me that Gelane’s wife, Enalla, had finally given birth to a son. They’d been married for about twenty years at that point, and Gelane was approaching his fortieth birthday. Enalla’s childlessness had caused all of us quite a bit of concern. In the light of the significance of that particular family, I’m sure you can see why. Considering the forces at work, we probably shouldn’t have worried, but we did all the same. I journeyed on up to Cherek to have a look at my new grandson, and I found that he looked very much as his father had as a baby - another indication of those forces I just mentioned.
I’m sure you noticed that in my own mind I’d long since discarded all those tedious ‘great-great’s. To me, that long string of sandy-haired little boys were simply grandsons. I loved them all in just about the same way.
Polgara, however, loved each of them a bit differently, some more, some less. For any number of reasons, she was particularly close to Gelane, and she was devastated when he was killed in an accident in the year 4902, exactly nine hundred years after the murder of King Gorek. The twins felt the date to be highly significant, and they tore the Mrin apart trying to find something hinting at what it meant. Garion’s silent friend, however, had remained just that - silent.
I don’t think any of us fully realized just how much Polgara had suffered during those seemingly endless centuries and losses. My primary concern had been with the line, not the individuals. My relationship with those heirs had been sketchy at best, and their passings hadn’t really touched me all that much. I could be fairly philosophical about it. I’d grown used to the fact that people are born, they grow up, and then they die. Everybody loses a few family members if he lives long enough, but Pol’s situation was unique. She’d been intimately involved with all those little boys, and she’d lost them by the score in the course of those nine centuries; grief’s not something you’re ever going to get used to.
I went back to Cherek after Gelane died and took a long, hard look at his son. Then I sighed and went away. He wasn’t the one we’d been waiting for.
The years continued their stately, ordered procession, and things were quiet in the west for a change. That disastrous defeat at Vo Mimbre had subdued the Angaraks, and they largely left us alone. Chamdar was still lurking around somewhere, but he wasn’t making enough noise to attract my attention, and I was fairly certain that he wasn’t going to appear in Cherek to give Polgara any problems. Chereks are, almost by definition, the most primitive, archetypal Alorns. Drasnians have established a somewhat wary relationship with the Nadraks, and Algars can tolerate the Thulls, but Chereks steadfastly maintain a stiff-necked racial prejudice against all Angaraks. I’ve occasionally tried to explain to any number of Chereks why prejudice isn’t particularly commendable, but I don’t believe I’ve ever gotten through to any of them, largely because I think that Belar got to them first. Don’t get me wrong here, I liked Belar, but, ye Gods, he was stubborn! I sometimes think that the Cherek hatred of all Angaraks is divinely inspired. It suited our purposes during those years, however, since it most definitely kept Chamdar away from Polgara.
The Third Borune Dynasty went on and on; that, all by itself, strongly hinted that something important was in the wind. The Mrin was fairly specific about the fact that the Godslayer’s wife was going to be a Borune princess.
Things had begun to deteriorate in Arendia. The peace we’d imposed on Asturia and Mimbre by marrying Mayaserana to Korodullin began to come apart at the seams, largely, I think, because the Mimbrates refused to recognize the titles of the Asturian nobility. That offended the hotheaded Asturians, and there were any number of ugly incidents during the fiftieth century.
Prosperity returned to Sendaria when the yearly Algar cattle-drives to Muros resumed. The limited trade on the Isle of the Winds was re-established, but foreign merchants were still not allowed inside the city of Riva. The Ulgos didn’t change at all, but Ulgos never do. The Tolnedran merchant princes in Tol Honeth had looked upon the Ulgo participation in the war against Kal Torak as a good sign, hoping that the Ulgos might loosen some of their restrictions on trade. The Ulgos, however, went back to Prolgu, descended into their caves, and slammed the door behind them.
The Nyissans grew increasingly sulky, since their economy was largely based on the slave trade, and when there are no battles, there aren’t any new slaves. Nyissans always pout during an extended period of peace.
Korzeth had completed the reunification of Mallorea - sort of. He delivered a nominally unified empire to his son, but the actual business of welding Mallorea together was accomplished by the Melcene bureaucracy and its policy of including all the subject people in the government.
Kell, like Ulgoland, didn’t change.
Since nothing was really going on, I had the chance to return to my studies, and I rediscovered something that’s always aggravated me. It takes a considerable amount of time to reactivate your brain after you’ve been away from your studies for a while. Study is a very intensive activity, and if you lay it aside for a bit, you have to learn how all over again. I know that it’s going to happen every time, and that’s why I get irritable when something comes up that drags me away from what is, after all, my primary occupation. The long period of relative peace and tranquility gave me about three hundred and fifty years of uninterrupted study time, and I accomplished quite a bit.
Did you really want me to break off at this point to give you an extended lecture on number theory or the principles of literary criticism?
I didn’t really think you would, so why don’t we just lay those things aside and press on with this great work that we are in?
I think it was sometime in the mi
ddle of the fifty-third century - 5249 or 5250 - when I completed something I’d been working on for twenty years or so and decided that it might not be a bad idea for me to go out and have a look around. I slipped down into Cthol Murgos and looked in on Ctuchik.
That’s all I did - just look. He appeared to be busy with his assorted amusements - some obscene, and some merely disgusting - so I didn’t bother him.
Then I went on south from Rak Cthol to see if I could locate the cave where Zedar was keeping his comatose Master. I didn’t have much trouble finding it, because Beldin was sitting on top of a ridge just across the rocky gorge from it. It didn’t look as if he’d moved for several decades. ‘Did you kill Ctuchik yet?’ he asked me after I’d shed my feathers.
‘Beldin,’ I said in a pained tone of voice, ‘why is that always your first answer to any problem?’
‘I’m a simple man, Belgarath,’ he replied, reaching out his gnarled hand with surprising swiftness, snatching up an unwary lizard, and eating it alive. ‘Killing things is always the simplest answer to problems.’
‘Just because it’s simple doesn’t mean that it’s the best way,’ I told him. ‘No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t kill Ctuchik. The twins have been getting some hints out of the Mrin that we’ll need him later, and I’m not going to do anything to get in the way of things that have to happen.’ I looked across the gorge. ‘Is Zedar still in that cave with One-eye?’
‘No. He left a few years back.’
‘Why are you setting down roots here, then?’
‘Because it’s altogether possible that Torak’ll be the first to know when the Godslayer arrives. That might be all the warning we’ll get when things start coming to a head. I’ll let you know when the side of that mountain over there blows out.’
‘Have you any idea of where Zedar went?’
‘I can’t do everything, Belgarath. I’ll watch Torak; Zedar’s your problem. What have you been up to lately?’
‘I proved that three and three make six,’ I replied proudly.
‘That took you three centuries? I could have proved that with a handful of dried beans.’
‘But not mathematically, Beldin. Empirical evidence doesn’t really prove anything, because the investigator might be crazy. Certainty exists only in pure mathematics.’
‘And if you accidentally turn your equation upside down, will that make all of us suddenly fly off the face of the earth?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Forgive me, brother, but I’d much rather trust empirical evidence. I might be a little crazy now and then, but I’ve seen some of the answers you come up with when you try to add up a column of figures.’
I shrugged. ‘Nobody’s perfect.’ I moved around to the upwind side of him. ‘How long’s it been since you’ve had a bath?’
‘I couldn’t say. When’s the last time it rained around here?’
‘This is a desert, Beldin. It can go for years without raining here.’
‘So? I’ve always felt that too much bathing weakens you. Go on home, Belgarath. I’m trying to work something out.’
‘Oh? What’s that?’
‘I’m trying to distinguish the difference between “right” and “good”.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m interested, that’s all. It keeps my mind occupied while I’m waiting for my next bath. Go find Zedar, Belgarath, and quit pestering me. I’m busy.’
To be quite honest about it, though, I wasn’t particularly interested in Zedar’s location. Torak’s condition made Zedar largely irrelevant. I circulated around in the kingdoms of the west instead, looking in on those families I’d been nurturing for all these centuries. Lelldorin’s family was at Wildantor, and they were deeply involved in various crackpot schemes against the Mimbrates. The baron of Vo Mandor, Mandorallen’s grandfather, was busy picking fights with his neighbors, usually on spurious grounds. Hettar’s clan was raising horses, preparing, although they didn’t realize it, for the coming of the Horse-Lord. Durnik’s grandfather was a village blacksmith, and Relg’s was a religious fanatic who spent most of this time admiring his own purity. I had no idea of where Taiba’s family was, and I lost a lot of sleep about that. I knew that her family was someplace in the world, but I’d completely lost track of them after the Tolnedran invasion of Maragor.
I stopped by Tol Honeth before I went north to visit Drasnia and Cherek. I always like to keep an eye on the Borunes. The man on the throne at that time was Ran Borune XXI, who, as it turned out, was Ce’Nedra’s great-grandfather. I’ve mentioned the tendency of Tolnedrans to marry their cousins several times in the past, I think, and Ran Borune XXI was no exception. The Dryad strain in the Borune family always breeds true in female children, and the men of the family are absolutely captivated by Dryads. I think it’s in their blood.
Anyway, Ce’Nedra’s great-grandfather was forty or so when I stopped by the palace, and his wife, Ce’Lanne, had flaming red hair and a disposition to match. She made the emperor’s life very exciting, I understand.
Tolnedrans were still keeping alive the fiction that my name was some obscure Alorn title, and the scholars of history at the university had concocted a wild theory about a ‘Brotherhood of Sorcerers’ out of whole cloth. Some chance remark by Beldin or one of the twins had probably given rise to that, and the creative historians expanded on it. We were supposed to be some sort of religious order, I guess. One imaginative pedant even went so far as to suggest that the enmity between my brothers and me and Torak’s disciples was the result of a schism within the order at some time in the distant past.
I never bothered to correct all those wild misconceptions because they helped me to gain access to whichever Borune or Honethite or Vorduvian currently held the throne, and that saved a lot of time.
It was winter when I reached Tol Honeth and presented myself at the palace. Winters are not particularly severe in Tol Honeth, so at least I hadn’t been obliged to plow through snowdrifts on my way to the imperial presence.
‘And so you’re Ancient Belgarath,’ Ran Borune said when I was presented to him.
‘That’s what they tell me, your Majesty,’ I replied.
‘I’ve always wondered about that title,’ he said. Like all the Borunes, he was a small man, and his massive throne made him look just a bit ridiculous. ‘Tell me, Ancient One, is the title “Belgarath” hereditary, or were you and your predecessors chosen by lot or the auguries?’
‘Hereditary, your Majesty,’ I replied. Well, it was sort of true, I guess, depending on how you define the word ‘hereditary.’
‘How disappointing,’ he murmured. ‘It’d be much more interesting if all those Belgaraths had been identified by some sign from on high. I gather that you’ve come to bring me some important news?’
‘No, your Majesty, not really. I happened to be in the vicinity, and I thought I might as well stop by and introduce myself.’
‘How very courteous of you. One of my ancestors knew one of yours, I’m told - back during the war with the Angaraks.’
‘So I understand, yes.’
He leaned back on that red-draped throne. ‘Those must have been the days,’ he said. ‘Peace is all right, I guess, but wars are much more exciting.’
‘They’re greatly overrated,’ I told him. ‘When you’re at war, you spend most of your time either walking or sitting around waiting for something to happen. Believe me, Ran Borune, there are better ways to spend your time.’
Then his wife burst into the throne room. ‘What is this idiocy?’ she demanded in a voice they could probably have heard in Tol Vordue.
‘Which particular idiocy was that, dear heart?’ he asked quite calmly.
‘You’re surely not going to send my daughter to the Isle of the Winds in the dead of winter!’
‘It’s not my fault that her birthday comes in the winter time, Ce’Lanne.’
‘It’s as much your fault as it is mine!’
He coughed, looking slightly embarras
sed.
‘The Rivans can wait until summer!’ she stormed on.
‘The treaty states that she has to be there on her sixteenth birthday, love, and Tolnedrans don’t violate treaties.’
‘Nonsense! You cut corners on treaties all the time!’
‘Not this one. The world’s peaceful right now, and I’d like to keep it that way. Tell Ce’Bronne to start packing. Oh, by the way, this is Ancient Belgarath.’
She flicked only one brief glance at me. ‘Charmed,’ she said shortly. Then she continued her tirade, citing all sorts of reasons why it was totally impossible for her daughter, Princess Ce’Bronne, to make the trip to Riva.
I decided to step in at that point. I knew that Princess Ce’Bronne wasn’t the one we were waiting for, but I didn’t want the Borunes getting into the habit of ignoring one of the key provisions of the Accords of Vo Mimbre. ‘I’m going to Riva myself, your Imperial Highness,’ I told Ran Borune’s flaming little wife. ‘I’ll escort your daughter personally, if you’d like. I can guarantee her safety and make sure that she’s treated with respect.’
‘How very generous of you, Belgarath,’ Ran Borune stepped in quickly. ‘There you have it, Ce’Lanne. Our daughter will be in good hands. The Alorns have enormous respect for Ancient Belgarath here. I’ll make all the arrangements personally.’ He was very smooth, I’ll give him that. He’d lived with his empress long enough to know how to get around her.
And so I escorted her imperial little highness, Princess Ce’Bronne, to the Isle of the Winds for her ritual presentation in the Hall of the Rivan King as the Accords of Vo Mimbre required. Ce’Bronne was as fiery as her mother and as devious as her grand-niece. What she couldn’t get by screaming, she usually got by wheedling. I rather liked her. She sulked for the first few days on board the ship that carried us north, and I finally got tired of it. ‘What is your problem, young lady?’ I demanded at breakfast on our fourth day out from Tol Honeth.
Belgarath the Sorcerer Page 73
