Polgara the Sorceress (67 page)

‘Polgara?’ Zedar asked incredulously.

‘Thou art quick, Zedar,’ the One-eyed God said. ‘Indeed, our pilgrimage upon the face of this continent hath two
goals – two prizes. The first prize is Cthrag Yaska, my brother’s Orb. The second, and no less important, is Polgara, daughter of Belgarath. She will be mine, Zedar. I
will
have Polgara to wife, and will she, nil she, Polgara
will
be mine!’

I shrieked in the silence of mind and heart at this suddenly revealed horror, and it was only mother’s iron control that kept my terror and revulsion from echoing from the Eastern Escarpment to the mountains of Ulgoland. All thought ceased as I realized that should a direct confrontation between Torak and me ever take place, his Will would crush mine and I’d inevitably succumb to his hideous blandishments. I would become his slave – and worse. I think that had mother not been so totally merged with me, I would have gone mad. Her method of preventing that was fairly direct. She simply suspended my awareness and took over. I have no memory of our owl wriggling back out of Torak’s tin palace nor of taking wing as mother flew us up and up through the rainy darkness.

‘All right, Polgara!’ Her voice at the center of my stunned consciousness was crisp, ‘Snap out of it!’

‘Oh, mother!’ I wailed.

‘Stop that! You had to know about this, Pol, and you had to hear it from his own mouth. Now pull yourself together. We have things that have to be done.’

I looked around and saw that we were much higher than owls usually fly. Our wings were locked and we were making a long, shallow descent toward the mountainous Algarian Stronghold. ‘As soon as we get back, you’d better wake your father and let him know that Torak’s arrived, but he doesn’t need to know about what we just heard. Go ahead and call him, Pol. It takes him a while to start moving when he first wakes up, so we’ll be there before he climbs all those stairs.’

I grimly pushed my revulsion aside.
‘I think you’d better come up here, father,’
I sent my thought out to my snoring parent.

‘Where are you?’
his thought was blurred with sleep.

‘I can’t understand you, father. Just come up the parapet on top of the north wall. There’s something you’d better have a look at.’

‘Keep a tight grip on yourself, Pol,’ mother suggested. ‘He’ll ask questions, and you won’t want to be too specific when you answer.’

‘I do that most of the time anyway, mother.’ I’d pushed my private horror aside enough to be rational.

We swooped in and settled on the parapet just before father came puffing up the steep stairs. He took one look at the form that enclosed me and immediately began to scold me. ‘I’ve asked you not to do that, Pol.’ He couldn’t know, of course, that I wasn’t alone in that assumed form, but
I
was, and I was awed by the depth of mother’s love for this shabby and sometimes foolish old man.

Then mother and I flowed out of our assumed form and she wasn’t there any more. Our separation was actually painful to me. ‘I’m not trying to offend you, father,’ I half-apologized, ‘but I’m following instructions.’ My choice of terms was quite deliberate. The word ‘instructions’ tends to cut off arguments in our family. I suppose that my omission of just
whose
instructions I was following might be considered an untruth – if you want to be picky about it. ‘I think you’d better take a look at that,’ I said then, pointing at the sea of Angaraks advancing through the mist like an incoming tide.

‘I was sort of hoping that they’d get lost, or something,’ father muttered. ‘Are you sure Torak’s with them?’

‘Yes, father. I went out and looked. That iron pavilion of his is right in the center of the crowd.’

‘You did
what?
Polgara, that’s
Torak
out there! Now he knows that you’re here!’

I’d just
seen
Torak, so I didn’t really need to listen to my father’s introduction. ‘Don’t get excited, Old Man. I was
told
to do it. Torak had no way of even knowing I was there. He’s inside his pavilion, and Zedar’s with him.’

‘How long has this been going on?’

I deliberately sidestepped his question. ‘Since he left Mallorea, I’d imagine. Let’s go alert the Algars, and then I think we’ll have time for some breakfast. I’ve been up all night,
and I’m positively ravenous.’ He was obviously very curious about the means I’d used to hide my presence from Torak and Zedar, but the word ‘breakfast’ worked its usual miracle on my father. If you say ‘food’ or ‘beer’ to father, you’ll have his immediate, undivided attention.

After breakfast, we went back up to the parapet to see how Torak and his henchmen planned to assault the Algarian mountain. They started out conventionally, catapulting rocks at the walls, but that had no more effect than a quarter century of rain had. I’d imagine that was very depressing for the catapult crews. Then the Angaraks rolled up huge battering rams, and that was also a waste of time and effort, since the gates weren’t locked.

That must have made the Angarak generals suspicious, because the Thulls were given the honor of making the first assault. Any time an Angarak army encounters something dirty or dangerous, they always send in the Thulls. Several regiments of the thick-bodied, dull-eyed Thulls rushed through the gates. They wandered through the labyrinthine maze inside for a while, and then the Algars and Drasnians rose from their places of concealment atop the walls of the unroofed maze and annihilated the Thullish regiments to the last man. I’m sure that the massed troops outside heard all the screaming, but they chose not to come inside to find out what was happening. I thought that was moderately tacky, but I privately approved. Torak’s brute-force attacks weren’t likely to gain him entry, and if he planned to propose marriage to me, he was going to have to get inside first.

During the night after the failed assault, the Algars amused themselves by catapulting dead Thulls into the Angarak encampment, and then when murky dawn put in her appearance, the Algar horsemen who’d been savaging the flanks of Torak’s army as he’d marched south arrived and very quietly encircled him. His foraging parties found out about that as soon as they rode out in search of food. Torak himself didn’t need to eat, but his army did, and they were on very short rations for the next several years.

Things settled down after a week or so, and father and I concluded that the siege of the Stronghold would probably
continue for a number of years and that our continued presence wouldn’t really serve any purpose. We had things to do elsewhere, so we decided to go back to the Isle of the Winds. Before we left, though, I had one more talk with Gelane.

This is very exciting, Aunt Pol,’ the little boy said.

The excitement wears a little thin after a while, Gelane.’

‘How long do these siege things usually last?’

‘Several years, usually.’

‘That long? Don’t the people outside get tired of it? Can’t they see that they’re not going to get inside?’

‘They’re soldiers, Gelane. Sometimes it takes soldiers a little longer to think their way through things than it does ordinary people.’

‘You don’t like soldiers, do you. Aunt Pol?’

‘They’re all right – as individuals. It’s when you lump them together into an army that their brains desert them. I want you to be very careful here, Gelane. Stay out of sight, and don’t stand in front of any open windows. One of the reasons Torak has for being here is that he wants to kill you.’

‘Me?
Why me? What’d I ever do to him?’

‘It’s not anything you’ve done, Gelane; it’s what you
might
do sometime in the future.’

‘Oh?’

‘You – or your son, or your son’s son, or somebody on down the line of sons that’ll descend from you – is going to kill Torak. If he kills you now, he won’t have to worry about that.’

His eyes grew very bright at that. ‘Maybe I’d better get a sword and start practicing,’ he said enthusiastically.

‘Oh, dear,’ I said, realizing my mistake when it was too late. You don’t
ever
want to suggest heroism to a little boy. He shouldn’t even know what the word
means
until he’s at least twenty. ‘Gelane,’ I said patiently, ‘you’re only six years old. Right now, you couldn’t even
lift
a sword, much less swing one. Here’s what you should do. There’s a pile of rocks in the southeast corner of the maze in the middle of the Stronghold.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen them.’

‘The best thing for you to do is to pick up one of those rocks and carry it up the stairs to the top of the Stronghold. Then you take it over to the battlements and drop it on the Angaraks outside the walls.’

‘I’ll bet they wouldn’t like that at all, would they?’

‘Not very much, no.’

‘What do I do then, Aunt Pol?’

‘Go get another rock.’

‘Those rocks look awfully heavy.’

‘Yes, they do, don’t they? That’s the idea, though, Gelane. Picking up heavy things is a good way to make your muscles bigger, and you’re going to have to be very strong if you’re going to get into a sword-fight with Torak.’

‘How long will it take – to get big muscles, I mean?’

‘Oh, I don’t know – six or eight years, maybe. Possibly ten.’

‘Maybe I’ll learn how to shoot a bow and arrow instead.’

‘That might be more interesting. Look after your mother, Gelane. I’ll come by from time to time to see how you’re coming along with your archery.’

‘I’ll practice a lot, Aunt Pol,’ he promised.

I hope you took notes there. The secret word in dealing with little boys is ‘diversion’. Don’t forbid things. Make them sound unpleasant instead. Boyish enthusiasm diminishes in direct proportion to the amount of sweat involved.

Trust me. I’ve been doing this for a long time.

Father and I left the Stronghold at first light the next morning and flew west to Camaar. We spent the night in our usual inn and flew on to Riva to gather up the Alorn kings. Then we sailed south in a small fleet of Cherek war-boats.

Ran Borune himself met us on the wharves, and that was most unusual. The politics of the situation here were very murky, though, so Ran Borune went out of his way to avoid offending the sometimes prickly Alorn kings. I liked Ran Borune. He was a small man, like all members of the Borune family. Father’s introduction of the Dryad strain into the Borune line had done some rather peculiar things. A pure
Dryad for example, would never give birth to a male child, but their tiny size carried over into the men of the family, and you’ll seldom see a male Borune who tops five feet.

To avoid offending Tolnedran sensibilities, father and I had hinted around the edges of an outright lie, leading our southern allies to believe that the names ‘Belgarath’ and ‘Polgara’ were in the nature of hereditary titles passed down through generations in order to impress gullible Alorn monarchs. I’m told that a whole sub-division of the history department at the University of Tol Honeth has devoted years to the study of us, and they’ve even gone so far as to devise a genealogy of this mysterious family that wields so much power in the kingdoms of the north. The Duchess of Erat, for example, was ‘Polgara VII’, and during the Angarak invasion, I was ‘Polgara LXXXIII’.

I’m not certain if that sub-department’s still functioning, but if they are I’m probably currently referred to as ‘Polgara CXVII’.

Isn’t that impressive?

The emperor was accompanied by his Chief of Staff, General Cerran. Cerran was an Anadile, a member of a southern Tolnedran family that’s always been closely allied with the Borunes. We were lucky to have Cerran, since the man was a tactical genius. He was a blocky, no-nonsense sort of fellow with heavy shoulders and no sign of the paunch that almost all men develop in their fifties.

The Alorn kings had arrived in Tol Honeth some weeks ago, and they joined us and we all trooped up the hill to the imperial compound, and Ran Borune advised us that the Imperial War College was at our disposal for our strategy sessions. It was a pleasant building, but its most significant feature was the fact that all the maps were there. A nation that’s spent well over a thousand years building roads is going to have a lot of maps, and I’d imagine that if someone were really curious, he could find a map somewhere in the War College that’d show the precise location of his own house.

Although we worked at the Imperial War College, we lived in the various Alorn embassies. It’s not that we wanted to keep secrets, it was just that guests in the imperial palace seem to attract followers. I won’t use the word ‘spies’, but I think you get my point.

Father’s ploy of hinting that the Drasnian Intelligence Service, even as dislocated as it had been by the Angarak invasion, was providing the information we were actually getting from other sources gave the Tolnedrans a graceful way to avoid accepting things they weren’t prepared to look straight in the face. A Tolnedran will go to absurd lengths to maintain his staunch belief that there’s no such thing as magic. It’s a little awkward sometimes, but we’ve always managed to work our way around it. Deep down, we all know that it’s pure subterfuge, but as long as we all behave as if we believe it, relations with the Tolnedrans can go smoothly.

Thus, when uncle Beldin arrived in Tol Honeth to report what he’d seen in southern Cthol Murgos, we passed him off as a Drasnian spy. Beldin’s had a lot of experience at spying anyway, so he was able to pull it off rather well. General Cerran found uncle’s report of the friction between Ctuchik and Urvon particularly interesting. ‘Evidently, Angarak society’s not as monolithic as it seems,’ he mused.

‘Monolithic?’ Beldin snorted. ‘Far from it, general. If Torak didn’t have his fist wrapped firmly around the heart of every one of his worshipers, they’d all be gleefully butchering each other – which is more or less what’s happening in southern Cthol Murgos right now.’

‘Maybe if we’re lucky, both sides will win,’ Cho-Ram suggested.

‘In the light of this Murgo distaste for Malloreans, how long would you say that it’s going to take Urvon to march his army across southern Cthol Murgos, Master Beldin?’ Cerran asked.

‘Half a year at least,’ Beldin said with a shrug. ‘I think we can count on the Murgos to make the march interesting.’

‘That answers one question anyway.’

‘I didn’t follow that, general.’

‘Your friend here – and his lovely daughter of course –
have told us that this fellow who calls himself “Kal Torak” feels a powerful religious obligation to be in Arendia on a certain specific date.’

‘It’s a little more complicated than that, but let that slide – unless you’d like to hear an extended theological dissertation on the peculiarities of the Angarak religion.’