Belgarath the Sorcerer (36 page)

Armored Alorns swung the great doors of the Hall of the Rivan King open, and Beldaran, all in white, stepped into the precise center of that doorway. I knew it was the precise center because I'd measured it eight times and cut a mark into the stones of the floor that's probably still there. Beldaran, pale as the moon, stood in that framing archway while all those Alorns turned in their seats to crane their necks and look at her.

Somewhere, a great bell began to peal. After the wedding, I went looking for that bell, but I never found it.

Then my youngest daughter was touched with a soft white light that grew more and more intense.

Polgara, wrapped in a blue velvet cloak, stepped forward to take my arm. ‘Are you doing that?' she asked me, inclining her head toward the shaft of light illuminating her sister.

‘Not me, Pol,' I replied. ‘I was just going to ask if
you
were doing it.'

‘Maybe it's uncle Beldin.' She slightly shrugged her shoulders, and her cloak softly fell away to reveal her gown. I almost choked when I saw it.

Beldaran was all in white, and she glowed like pale flame in that shaft of light that I'm almost certain was a wedding gift from the funny old fellow in the rickety cart. Polgara was all in blue, and her gown broke away from her shoulders in complex folds and ruffles trimmed with snowy lace. It was cut somewhat daringly for the day, leaving no question that she was a girl. That deep blue gown was almost like a breaking wave, and Polgara rose out of it like a Goddess rising from the sea.

I controlled myself as best I could. ‘Nice dress,' I said from between clenched teeth.

‘Oh, this old thing?' she said deprecatingly, touching one of the ruffles in an off-hand way. Then she laughed a warm, throaty laugh that was far older than her years, and she actually kissed me. She'd never willingly done that before, and it startled me so much that I barely heard the alarm bells ringing in my head.

We separated and took the glowing bride, one on either arm, and, with stately, measured pace and slow, delivered up our beloved Beldaran to the adoring King of the Isle of the Winds.

I had quite a bit on my mind at that point, so I more or less ignored the wedding sermon of the High Priest of Belar. Anyway, if you've heard one wedding sermon, you've heard them all. There came a point in the ceremony, though, when something a little out of the ordinary happened.

My Master's Orb began to glow a deep, deep blue that almost perfectly matched the color of Polgara's gown. We were all terribly happy that Beldaran and Riva were getting married, but it seemed to me that the Orb was far more impressed with Polgara than with her sister. I'll take an oath that I really saw what happened next, although no one else who was there will admit that he saw it, too. That's probably what half-persuaded me that I'd been seeing things that weren't really there. The Orb, as I say, began to glow, but it always did that when Riva was around, so there was nothing really unusual about that.

What
was
unusual was the fact Polgara began to glow as well. She seemed faintly infused with that same pale blue light, but the absolutely white lock at her brow was
not
pale. It was an incandescent blue.

And then I seemed to hear the faint flutter of ghostly wings coming from the back of the hall.
That
was the part that made me question the accuracy of my own senses.

It seemed, though, that Polgara heard it, too, because she turned around. And with profoundest respect and love, she curtsied with heart-stopping grace to the misty image of the snowy white owl perched in the rafters at the back of the Hall of the Rivan King.

All right, don't beat me over the head with it. Of
course
I should have realized that something very peculiar was going on. But if you'll just stop and think about it for a moment, I believe you'll understand. You'll recall that Poledra's apparent death had driven me quite mad. A man who has to be chained to his bed has problems. Then I'd spent two or three years pickling my brains in the waterfront dives in Camaar and another eight or nine entertaining the ladies of Mar Amon, and during all that time I saw a
lot
of things that weren't really there. I'd grown so accustomed to that sort of thing that whenever I saw something unusual, I just shrugged it off as another hallucination. The incident at Beldaran's wedding
wasn't
a hallucination, but how was
I
supposed to know that? Try to be a little more understanding. It'll make a better person of you.

 

And so Beldaran and Riva were married, and they were both deliriously happy. There were other things afoot in the world, however, and since the Alorn Kings were all on the Isle of the Winds anyway, Beldin suggested that we might want to seize the opportunity to discuss matters of state. All sorts of nonsense has been written about the origins of the Alorn Council, but that's how it really started. The Tolnedrans have been objecting to this rather informal yearly gathering for centuries now - largely because they aren't invited. Tolnedrans are a suspicious people, and any time they get word of a conference of any kind, they're absolutely certain that there's a plot against them at the bottom of it.

Polgara sat in on our conference. She didn't particularly
want
to, right at first, but I insisted. I wasn't going to give her an opportunity to wander about the citadel unsupervised.

I'm not sure that our impromptu conference really accomplished very much. We spent most of the time talking about the Angaraks. None of us were happy about their presence on this side of the Sea of the East, but for the moment there wasn't much we could do about it. The distances were simply too great.

‘I could probably go into that forest to the east of the moors and burn down those cities the Nadraks are building there,' Dras rumbled in that deep voice of his, ‘but there wouldn't be much point to it. I don't have the manpower to occupy all that wilderness. Sooner or later I'd have to pull out, and then the Nadraks would just come back out of the woods and rebuild.'

‘Have there been any contacts with them?' Pol asked.

He shrugged. ‘A few skirmishes is about all. Every so often they come out of the mountains, and then we chase them back. I don't think they're very serious about it. They're probably just testing our defenses.'

‘I meant peaceful contacts.'

‘There's no such thing as peaceful contacts between Alorns and Angaraks, Polgara.'

‘Perhaps there should be.'

‘I think that's against our religion.'

‘Maybe you should reconsider that. I understand that the Nadraks are merchants. They might be interested in trade.'

‘I don't think they've got anything I'd want.'

‘Oh, yes they do, Dras. They've got information about the Murgos, and
they're
the ones we're really interested in. If anyone's going to cause us trouble, it'll be the Murgos. If we can find out from the Nadraks what they're doing, we won't have to go down to Rak Goska to investigate for ourselves.'

‘She's got a point, Dras,' Algar told his brother. ‘My people have had a few contacts with the Thulls, but you
can't get very much information out of a Thull. From what I hear, the Nadraks don't care very much for the Murgos, so they probably wouldn't mind passing information along.'

‘Can you actually climb the Eastern Escarpment to get to Mishrak ac Thull?' Cherek asked him with a certain surprise.

‘There are some ravines that cut down through the escarpment, father,' Algar replied. ‘They're steep, but they're passable. The Murgos patrol the western frontier of Mishrak ac Thull, and every so often one of those patrols comes down onto the plains of Algaria - usually to steal horses. We'd rather they didn't do that, so we chase them back.' He smiled faintly. ‘It's easier to let
them
find those ravines for us than to go looking for them ourselves.'

‘There's a thought,' Dras noted. ‘If the Murgos want horses, couldn't we interest them in trade, too?'

Algar shook his head. ‘Not Murgos, no. Their minds don't work that way. One of my clan-chiefs questioned a Thull who actually knew his right hand from his left. The Thull said that Ctuchik's at Rak Goska. As long as
he's
dominating Murgo society, there won't be any peaceful contacts with them.'

‘Pol's right, then,' Beldin said. ‘We're going to have to try to work through the Nadraks.' He squinted at the ceiling. ‘I don't think this Angarak migration poses much of a threat - at least not yet. There weren't all
that
many people in Cthol Mishrak to begin with, and Ctuchik's got them spread out fairly thin. The real threat is still Mallorea. I think I'll go back there and keep an eye on things. The Angaraks on this continent are just an advance party. They're probably here to build supply dumps and staging areas. You won't have to start sharpening your swords until the Malloreans begin coming across. I'll keep my ear to the ground over there and let you know when the military moves north out of Mal Zeth toward the bridge.'

Polgara pursed her lips. ‘I think we might want to establish closer ties with the Tolnedrans and the Arends.'

‘Why's that, dear sister?' Riva asked her. He was her brother-in-law now, and he automatically used that form of address. Family's an important thing to Alorns.

‘We might need their help with the Malloreans.'

‘The Tolnedrans wouldn't help unless we paid them to,' Cherek disagreed, ‘and the Arends are too busy fighting with each other.'

‘They live here too, Bear-shoulders,' she pointed out, ‘and I don't think they'd want Malloreans on this continent any more than we would. The legions could be very helpful, and the Arends have been training for war since before Torak split the world. Besides, Chaldan and Nedra would probably be offended if we all went off to war and didn't invite them to come along.'

‘Excuse me, Polgara,' Dras rumbled, ‘but how did you learn so much about politics? As I understand it, this is the first time you've ever been out of the Vale.'

‘Uncle Beldin keeps me posted,' she replied, shrugging slightly. ‘It's always nice to know what the neighbors are up to.'

‘Is there any point to involving the Nyissans or the Marags?' Riva asked.

‘We should probably make the offer,' I said. ‘The current Salmissra's a fairly intelligent young woman, and she's as concerned about the Angaraks as we are. The Marags wouldn't be of much use. There aren't that many of them, and the fact that they're cannibals might make everybody else nervous.'

Beldin laughed that ugly laugh of his. ‘Tell them to start eating Angaraks. Let the Murgos get nervous.'

‘I think maybe we'd all better start thinking about going home,' Cherek suggested, rising to his feet. ‘The wedding's over now, and if the Malloreans
are
coming, we'd better start getting ready for them.'

And that was more or less the extent of the first Alorn Council.

‘Is it always that much fun?' Polgara asked me as we were returning to our quarters.

‘Fun? Did I miss something?'

‘Politics, father,' she explained, ‘all this business of trying to guess what the other side's going to do.'

‘I've always rather enjoyed it.'

‘I guess you really
are
my father, then. That was
much
more fun than leading young men around by their noses or turning their knees to water just by fluttering my eyelashes at them.'

‘You're a cruel woman, Polgara.'

‘I'm glad you realize that, father. It wouldn't be much fun at all to catch you unawares.' She gave me one of those obscure little smiles. ‘Watch out for me, father,' she warned. ‘I'm at least as dangerous as you are or Torak is.'

 

You
did
say it, Pol, so don't try to deny it.

 

Our parting from Beldaran wasn't one of the happier moments in our lives. My love for my blonde daughter had been the anchor that had hauled me back to sanity, and Polgara's ties to her twin sister were so complex that I couldn't even begin to understand them.

Beldin and I talked at some length before we separated. He promised to keep me advised about what was going on in Mallorea, but I had a few suspicions about Beldin's motives for going back there. I had the feeling that he wanted to continue his discussion of white-hot hooks with the leprous-looking Urvon, and there was always the chance of coming across Zedar in some out-of-the-way place. There are nicer people in the world than Beldin.

I wished him the best of luck - and I meant it. There are nicer people than me out there as well. ‘Grat is not nice, after all.

My brother left from the headland just south of the harbor at Riva, spiraling upward on lazy wings. Pol and I, however, left by more conventional means. Bear-shoulders took
us to the Sendarian coast in that dangerously narrow war-boat of his. Even though I'd helped to design them, I don't
like
Cherek war-boats. There's no denying that they're fast, but it always feels to me whenever I board one that it's right on the verge of capsizing. I'm sure Silk understands that, but Barak never will.

Pol and I took our time returning to the Vale. There was no real hurry, after all. In a curious sort of way, Beldaran's marriage made peace between Polgara and me. We didn't talk about it, we just closed ranks to fill in the gap that had suddenly appeared in our lives. Pol still made those clever remarks, but a lot of the bite had gone out of them.

It was midsummer by the time we got home, and we spent the first week or so giving the twins a full description of the wedding and of Pol's conquests. I'm sure they noticed the change in her appearance, but they chose not to make an issue of it.

Then we settled back in. It was after dinner one evening when Polgara raised something I'd been cudgeling my brains to find a way to bring up myself. As I remember, we were doing the dishes at the time. I don't particularly like to dry dishes, since they'll dry themselves if you just leave them alone, but Polgara seems to feel a kind of closeness in the business, and if it made her happy, I wasn't going to disturb the uneasy peace between us by objecting.

She handed me the last dripping plate, dried her hands, and said, ‘I guess it's time for me to start my education, father. The Master's been harping on that for quite some time now.'

I almost dropped the plate. ‘Aldur talks to you, too?' I asked her as calmly as I could.

She gave me a quizzical look. ‘Of course.' Then the look became offensively pitying. ‘Oh,
come
now, father. Are you trying to say that you didn't
know
?'

I know now that I shouldn't have been so surprised, but I'd been raised in a society in which women were hardly more than servants. Poledra had been an entirely different
matter, of course, but for some reason the implications of what Polgara had just told me were profoundly shocking. The fact that Aldur had come to her in the same way that he came to me was an indication of a certain status, and I simply wasn't ready to accept the idea of a female disciple. I guess that sometimes I'm just a little too old-fashioned.

Fortunately, I had sense enough to keep those opinions to myself. I carefully finished drying the plate, put it on the shelf, and hung up the dishtowel.

‘Where's the best place to begin?' she asked me.

‘The same place I did, I suppose. Try not to be offended, Pol, but you're going to have to learn how to read.'

‘Can't you just tell me what I need to know?'

I shook my head.

‘Why not?'

‘Because I don't
know
everything you'll need to learn. Let's go sit down, Pol, and I'll try to explain it.' I led her over to that part of the tower that I devoted to study. I'd never even considered building interior walls in the tower, so it was really just one big room with certain areas devoted to certain activities. We sat down at a large table littered with books and scrolls and obscure pieces of machinery. ‘In the first place,' I began, ‘we're all different.'

‘What an amazing thing. How is it that I never noticed that?'

‘I'm serious, Pol. This thing we call “talent” shows up in different ways in each of us. Beldin can do things I wouldn't even attempt, and the others also have certain specialties. I can give you the basics, but then you'll be on your own. Your talent's going to develop along lines that'll be dictated by the way your mind works. People babble about “sorcery”, but most of what they say is pure nonsense. All it is - all it
can
be - is thought, and each of us thinks differently. That's what I meant when I said you're on your own.'

‘Why do I need to read, then? If I'm so unique, what can your books tell me that'll be of any use?'

‘It's a short-cut, Pol. No matter how long you live, you're
not going to have time to rethink every thought that's ever occurred to everyone who's ever lived. That's why we read - to save time.'

‘How will I know which thoughts are right and which ones aren't?'

‘You won't - at least not at first. You'll get better at recognizing fallacies as you go along.'

‘But that'll only be my opinion.'

‘That's sort of the way it works, yes.'

‘What if I'm wrong?'