Читать книгу Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress: 2-Book Collection - David Eddings - Страница 22

I’m sure you can understand that I wanted peace in the world at that particular time. A newly married man has better things to do than to dash off to curb the belligerence of others. Unfortunately, it was no more than a couple of years after Poledra and I were married when the Alorn clan wars broke out. Aldur summoned the twins and me to his tower as soon as word of that particular idiocy reached us. ‘Ye must go there,’ he told us in a tone that didn’t encourage disagreement. Our Master seldom commanded us, so we paid rather close attention to him when he did. ‘It is essential that the current royal house of Aloria remain in power. One will descend from that line who will be vital to our interests.’

I wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect of leaving Poledra behind, but I certainly wasn’t going to take her into the middle of a war. ‘Wilt thou look after my wife, Master?’ I asked him. It was a foolish question, of course. Naturally he’d look after her, but I wanted him to understand my reluctance to go to Aloria and my reasons for it.

‘She will be safe with me,’ he assured me.

Safe, perhaps, but not happy about being left behind. She argued with me about it at first, but I led her to believe that it was Aldur’s command – which wasn’t exactly a lie, was it? ‘I won’t be all that long,’ I promised her.

‘Don’t be,’ she replied. ‘One would have you understand that one is discontented about this.’

Anyway, the twins and I left the Vale and started north the first thing the next morning. When we reached the cottage where I’d met Poledra, the she-wolf was waiting for us. The twins were somewhat surprised, but I don’t think I really was. ‘Another of those errands?’ she asked me.

‘Yes,’ I replied flatly, ‘and one does not require company.’

‘Your requirements are none of my concern,’ she told me, her tone just as flat as mine. ‘I will go along with you whether you like it or not.’

‘As you wish.’ I surrendered. I’d learned a long time ago just how useless it was to give her orders.

And so we were four when we reached the southern border of Aloria and began looking for Belar. I think he was avoiding us, though, because we weren’t able to find him. He could have stopped the clan wars at any time, of course, but Belar had a stubborn streak in him that was at least a mile wide. He absolutely would not take sides when his Alorns started bickering with each other. Even-handedness is probably a good trait in a God, but this was ridiculous. We finally gave up our search for him and went on to the mouth of the river that bears our Master’s name and looked out across what has come to be known as the Gulf of Cherek. We saw ships out there, but they didn’t look all that seaworthy to me. A flat-bottomed scow with a squared-off front end isn’t my idea of a corsair that skims the waves. The twins and I talked it over and decided to change form and fly across rather than hail one of those leaky tubs.

‘One notes that you still have not learned to fly well,’ the snowy owl ghosting along at my side observed.

‘I get by,’ I told her, clawing at the air with my wings.

‘But not well.’ She always had to get in the last word, so I didn’t bother trying to answer, but concentrated instead on keeping my tail feathers out of the water.

After what seemed an interminable flight, we reached the crude seaport that stood on the site of what’s now Val Alorn and went looking for King Chaggat’s direct descendant, King Uvar Bent-beak. We found him splitting wood in the stump-dotted clearing outside his log house. Ran Vordue IV, the then-current Emperor of Tolnedra, lived in a palace. Uvar Bent-beak ruled an empire at least a dozen times the size of Tolnedra, but he lived in a log shack with a leaky roof, and I don’t think it ever occurred to him to order one of his thralls to chop his firewood for him. Thralldom never really worked in Aloria, since Alorns don’t make good slaves. The institution was never actually abolished. It just fell into disuse. Anyway, Uvar was stripped to the waist, sweating like a pig, and chopping for all he was worth.

‘Hail, Belgarath,’ he greeted me, sinking his axe into his chopping block and mopping the sweat off his bearded face. I always kept in touch with the Alorn kings, so he knew me on sight.

‘Hail, Bent-beak,’ I replied. ‘What’s going on up here?’

‘I’m cutting wood,’ he told me, his face very serious.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I noticed that almost immediately, but that wasn’t what I was talking about. We heard that you’ve got a war on your hands.’

Uvar had little pig-like eyes, and he squinted at me around that huge broken nose of his. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that. It’s not much of a war really. I can deal with it.’

‘Uvar,’ I told him as patiently as I could, ‘if you plan to deal with it, don’t you think it’s time you got started? It’s been going on for a year and a half now.’

‘I’ve been sort of busy, Belgarath,’ he said defensively. ‘I had to patch my roof, and winter’s coming on, so I have to lay in a store of firewood.’

Can you believe that this man was a direct ancestor of King Anheg?

To hide my exasperation with him, I introduced the twins.

‘Why don’t we all go inside?’ Uvar suggested. ‘I’ve got a barrel of fairly good ale, and I’m a little tired of splitting wood anyway.’

The twins, with an identical gesture, concealed the grins that came to their faces, and we went into Uvar’s ‘palace,’ a cluttered shack with a dirt floor and the crudest furniture you can imagine.

‘What started this war, Uvar?’ I asked the King of Aloria after we’d all pulled chairs up to his wobbly table and sampled his ale.

‘Religion, Belgarath,’ he replied. ‘Isn’t that what starts every war?’

‘Not always, but we can talk about that some other time. How could religion start a war in Aloria? You people are all fully committed to Belar.’

‘Some are a little more committed than others,’ he said, making a sour face. ‘Belar’s idea of going after the Angaraks is all very well, I suppose, but we can’t get at them because there’s an ocean in the way. There’s a priest in a place off to the east somewhere who’s just a little thick-witted.’ This? Coming from Uvar? I shudder to think of how stupid that priest must have been for Uvar to notice!

‘Anyway,’ the king went on, ‘this priest has gathered up an army of sorts, and he wants to invade the kingdoms of the south.’

‘Why?’

Uvar shrugged. ‘Because they’re there, I suppose. If they weren’t there, he wouldn’t want to invade them, would he?’

I suppressed an urge to grab him and shake him. ‘Have they done anything to offend him?’ I asked.

‘Not that I know of. You see, Belar’s been away for a while. He gets homesick for the old days sometimes, so he takes some girls, a group of warriors, several barrels of beer, and goes off to set up a camp in the woods. He’s been gone for a couple of years now. Anyway, this priest has decided that the southern kingdoms ought to join us when we go to make war on the Angaraks, and that it’d probably be more convenient if we all worshiped the same God. He came to me with his crazy idea, and I ordered him to forget about it. He didn’t, though, and he’s been out preaching to the other clans. He’s managed to persuade about half of them to join him, but the other half is still loyal to me. They’re fighting each other off there a ways.’ He made a vague gesture toward the east. ‘I don’t think the clans that went over to him are so interested in religion as they are in the chance to loot the southern kingdoms. The really religious ones have formed what they call “the Bear Cult”. I think it’s got something to do with Belar – except that Belar doesn’t know anything about it.’ He drained off his tankard and went into the pantry for more ale.

‘He’s not going to move until he finishes cutting firewood,’ Belkira said quietly.

I nodded glumly. ‘Why don’t you two see what you can do to speed that up?’ I suggested.

‘Isn’t that cheating?’ Beltira asked me.

‘Maybe, but we’ve got to get him moving before winter settles in.’

They nodded and went back outside again.

Uvar was a little startled by how much his wood pile had grown when he and I went back outside again. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘now that that’s been taken care of, I guess maybe I’d better go do something about that war.’

The twins and I cheated outrageously in the next several months, and we soon had the breakaway clans on the run. There was a fairly large battle on the eastern plains of what is now Gar og Nadrak. Uvar might have been a little slow of thought, but he was tactician enough to know the advantage of taking and holding the high ground and concealing the full extent of his forces from his enemies. We quietly occupied a hill during the middle of the night. Uvar’s troops littered the hillside with sharpened stakes until the hillside looked like a hedgehog, and his reserves hunkered down on the back side of the hill.

The breakaway clans and Bear-Cultists who had camped on the plain woke up the next morning to find Uvar staring down their throats. Since they were Alorns, they attacked.

Most people fail to understand the purpose of sharpened stakes. They aren’t there to skewer your opponent. They’re there to slow him down enough to give you a clean shot at him. Uvar’s bowmen got lots of practice that morning. Then, when the rebels were about half-way up the hill, Uvar blew a cow’s-horn trumpet, and his reserves swept out in two great wings from behind the hill to savage the enemy’s rear.

It worked out fairly well. The clansmen and the cultists didn’t really have any options, so they kept charging up the hill, slashing at the stakes with their swords and axes. The founder of the Bear-Cult, a big fellow with bad eyesight, came hacking his way up toward us. I think the poor devil had gone berserk, actually. He was frothing at the mouth by the time he got through all the stakes, anyway.

Uvar was waiting for him. As it turned out, the months the King of Aloria had spent splitting wood paid off. Without so much as changing expression, Bent-beak lifted his axe and split the rebellious priest of Belar from the top of his head to his navel with one huge blow. Resistance more or less collapsed at that point, and the Bear-Cult went into hiding, while the rebellious clans suddenly became very fond of their king and renewed their vows of fealty.

Now do you see why war irritates me? It’s always the same. A lot of people get killed, but in the end, the whole thing is settled at the conference table. The notion of having the conference first doesn’t seem to occur to people.

The she-wolf’s observations were chilling. ‘One wonders what they plan to do with the meat,’ she said. That raised the hackles on the back of my neck, but I rather dimly perceived a way to end wars forever. If the victorious army had to eat the fallen, war would become much less attractive. I’d gone wolf enough to know that meat is flavored by the diet of the eatee, and stale beer isn’t the best condiment in the world.

Uvar was clearly in control now, so the twins, the wolf, and I went back to the Vale. The wolf, of course, left us when we reached Poledra’s cottage, and my wife was in my tower when I got there, looking for all the world as if she’d been there all along.

Belmakor had returned during our absence, but he’d locked himself in his tower, refusing to respond when we urged him to come out. The Master told us that our Melcene brother had gone into a deep depression for some reason, and we knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t appreciate any attempts to cheer him up. I’ve always been somewhat suspicious about Belmakor’s depression. If I could ever confirm those suspicions, I’d go back to where Belzedar is right now and put him someplace a lot more uncomfortable.

This was a painful episode, so I’m going to cut it short. After several years of melancholy brooding about the seeming hopelessness of our endless tasks, Belmakor gave up and decided to follow Belsambar into obliteration.

I think it was only the presence of Poledra that kept me from going mad. My brothers were dropping around me, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

Aldur summoned Belzedar and Beldin back to the Vale, of course. Beldin had been down in Nyissa keeping an eye on the snake-people, and we all assumed that Belzedar had still been in Mallorea, although it didn’t take him long to arrive. He seemed peculiarly reluctant to join us in our sorrow, and I’ve always thought less of him because of his peculiar attitude. Belzedar had changed over the years. He still refused to give us any details about his scheme to retrieve the Orb – not that we really had much opportunity to talk with him, because he was quite obviously avoiding us. He had a strangely haunted look on his face that I didn’t think had anything to do with our common grief. It seemed too personal somehow. After about a week, he asked Aldur for permission to leave, and then he went back to Mallorea.

‘One notes that your brother is troubled,’ Poledra said to me after he’d gone. ‘It seems that he’s trying to follow two paths at once. His mind is divided, and he doesn’t know which of the paths is the true one.’

‘Belzedar’s always been a little strange,’ I agreed.

‘One would suggest that you shouldn’t trust him too much. He’s not telling you everything.’

‘He’s not telling me anything,’ I retorted. ‘He hasn’t been completely open with us since Torak stole the Master’s Orb. To be honest with you, love, I’ve never been so fond of him that I’m going to lose any sleep over the fact that he wants to avoid us.’

‘Say that again,’ she told me with a warm smile.

‘Say what again?’

‘Love. It’s a nice word, and you don’t say it very often.’

‘You know how I feel about you, dear.’

‘One likes to be told.’

‘Anything that makes you happy, love.’ I will never understand women.

Beldin and I spoke together at some length about Belzedar’s growing aloofness, but we ultimately concluded that there wasn’t very much we could do about it.

Then Beldin raised another issue that was of more immediate concern. ‘There’s trouble in Maragor,’ he told me.

‘Oh?’

‘I was on my way back from Nyissa when I heard about it. I was in a hurry, so I didn’t have time to look into it very deeply.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Some idiot misread one of their sacred texts. Mara must have been about half-asleep when he dictated it. Either that, or the scribe who was writing it down misunderstood him. It hinges on the word “assume”. The Marags are taking that word quite literally, I understand. They’ve taken to making raids across their borders. They capture Tolnedrans or Nyissans and take them back to Mar Amon. They have a big religious ceremony, and the captives are killed. Then the Marags eat them.’

‘They do what?’

‘You heard me, Belgarath. The Marags are practicing ritual cannibalism.’

‘Why doesn’t Mara put a stop to it?’

‘How should I know? I’m going back down there as soon as the Master allows me to leave. I think one of us had better have a long talk with Mara. If word of what’s going on gets back to Nedra or Issa, there’s going to be big trouble.’

‘What else can go wrong?’ I exploded in exasperation.

‘Lots of things, I’d imagine. Nobody ever promised you that life was going to be easy, did they? I’ll go to Mar Amon and see what I can do. I’ll send for you if I need any help.’

‘Keep me posted.’

‘If I find out anything meaningful. How are you and Poledra getting along?’

I smirked at him.

‘That’s disgusting, Belgarath. You’re behaving like some downy-cheeked adolescent.’

‘I know, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.’

‘I’m going to go call on the twins. I’m sure they’ll be able to put their hands on a barrel of good ale. I’ve been in Nyissa for the past few decades, and the Nyissans don’t believe in beer. They have other amusements.’

‘Oh?’

‘Certain leaves and berries and roots make them sooo happy. Most Nyissans are in a perpetual fog. Are you coming to visit the twins with me?’

‘I don’t think so, Beldin. Poledra doesn’t like the smell of beer on my breath.’

‘You’re hen-pecked, Belgarath.’

‘It doesn’t bother me in the slightest, brother.’ I smirked at him again, and he stumped away muttering to himself.

The Alorn clan wars re-erupted several times over the next few hundred years. The Bear-Cult was still agitating the outlying clans, but the kings of Aloria were able to keep things under control, usually by attacking cult strongholds and firmly trampling cult members into the ground. There’s a certain direct charm about the Alorn approach to problems, I suppose.

I think it was about the middle of the nineteenth century when I received an urgent summons from Beldin. The Nyissans had been making slave-raids into Maragor, and the Marags responded by invading the lands of the snake-people. I spoke extensively with Poledra and told her in no uncertain terms that I wanted her to stay in the Vale while I was gone. I asserted what minimal authority a pack-leader might have at that point, and she seemed to accept that authority – although with Poledra you could never really be entirely sure. She sulked, of course. Poledra could be absolutely adorable when she sulked. Garion will probably understand that, but I doubt that anyone else will.

I kissed my wife’s pouty lower lip and left for Maragor – although I’m not sure exactly what Beldin thought I might be able to do. Attempting to rein in the Marags was what you might call an exercise in futility. Marag men were all athletes who carried their brains in their biceps. The women of Maragor encouraged that, I’m afraid. They wanted stamina, not intelligence.

All right, Polgara, don’t beat it into the ground. I liked the Marags. They had their peculiarities, but they did enjoy life.

The Marag invasion of Nyissa turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. The Nyissans, like the snakes they so admired, simply slithered off into the jungle, but they left a few surprises behind to entertain the invaders. Pharmacology is an art-form in Nyissa, and not all of the berries and leaves that grow in their jungles make people feel good. Any number of them seem to have the opposite effect – although it’s sort of hard to say for sure. It’s entirely possible that the thousands of Marags who stiffened, went into convulsions, and died as the result of eating an apparently harmless bit of food were made ecstatic by the various poisons that took them off.

Grimly, the Marags pressed on, stopping occasionally to roast and eat a few prisoners of war. They reached Sthiss Tor, the Nyissan capital, but Queen Salmissra and all of the inhabitants had already melted into the jungles, leaving behind warehouses crammed to the rafters with food. The dim-witted Marags feasted on the food – which proved to be a mistake.

Why am I surrounded by people incapable of learning from experience? I wouldn’t have to see too many people die from ‘indigestion’ to begin to have some doubts about my food source. Would you believe that the Nyissans even managed to poison their cattle herds in such a subtle way that the cows looked plump and perfectly healthy, but when a Marag ate a steak or roast or chop from one of those cows, he immediately turned black in the face and died frothing at the mouth? Fully half of the males of the Marag race died during that abortive invasion.

Things were getting out of hand. Mara wouldn’t just sit back and watch the Nyissans exterminate his children for very long before he’d decide to intervene, and once he did that, torpid Issa would be obliged to wake up and respond. Issa was a strange God. After the cracking of the world, he’d simply turned the governance of the snake-people over to his High Priestess, Salmissra, and had gone into hibernation. I guess it hadn’t occurred to him to do anything to prolong her life, and so in time she died. The snake-people didn’t bother to wake him when she did. They simply selected a replacement.

Beldin and I went looking for the then-current Queen Salmissra so that we could offer to mediate a withdrawal of the Marags. We finally found her in a house deep in the jungles, a house almost identical to her palace in Sthiss Tor. She’s probably got those houses scattered all over Nyissa.

We presented ourselves to her eunuchs, and they took us to her throne room, where she lounged, admiring her reflection in a mirror. Salmissra – like all the other Salmissras – absolutely adored herself.

‘I think you’ve got a problem, your Majesty,’ I told her bluntly when Beldin and I were ushered into her presence. ‘Do you want my brother and me to try to end this war?’

The snake-woman didn’t seem to be particularly interested. ‘Do not expend thine energy, Ancient Belgarath,’ she yawned. All of the Salmissras have been virtually identical to the first one. They’re selected because of their resemblance to her and trained from early childhood to have that same chill, indifferent personality. Actually it makes them easier to deal with. Salmissra – any one of the hundred or so who’ve worn the name – is always the same person, so you don’t have to adjust your thinking.

Beldin, however, managed to get her attention. ‘All right,’ he told her with an indifference that matched her own, ‘it’s the dry season. Belgarath and I’ll set fire to your stinking jungles. We’ll burn Nyissa to the ground. Then the Marags will have to go home.’

That was the only time I’ve ever seen any of the Salmissras display any emotion other than sheer animal lust. Her pale eyes widened, and her chalk-white skin turned even whiter. ‘Thou wouldst not!’ she exclaimed.

Beldin shrugged. ‘Why not? It’ll put an end to this war, and if we get rid of all the assorted narcotics, maybe your people can learn to do something productive. Don’t toy with me, Snake-Woman, you’ll find that I play rough. Let the Marags go home, or I’ll burn Nyissa from the mountains to the sea. There won’t be a berry or a leaf left – not even the ones that sustain you. You’ll get old almost immediately, Salmissra, and all those pretty boys you’re so fond of will lose interest in you almost as fast.’

She glared at him, and then her colorless eyes began to smolder. ‘You interest me, ugly one,’ she told him. ‘I’ve never coupled with an ape before.’

‘Forget it,’ he snarled. ‘I like my women fat and hot-blooded. You’re too cold for me, Salmissra.’ That was my brother for you. He was never one to beat around the bush. ‘Do we agree then?’ he pressed. ‘If you let the Marags go home, I won’t burn your stinking swamp.’

‘The time will come when you’ll regret this, Disciple of Aldur.’

‘Ah, me little sweetie,’ he replied in that outrageous Wacite brogue. ‘I’ve regretted many things in me long, long life, don’t y’ know, but I’ll be after tellin’ y’ one thing, darlin’. Matin’ with a snake ain’t likely t’ be one of ‘em.’ Then his face hardened. ‘This is the last time I’m going to ask you, Salmissra. Are you going to let the Marags go, or am I going to start lighting torches?’

And that more or less ended the war.

‘You were moderately effective there, old boy,’ I complimented my brother as we left Salmissra’s jungle hideout. ‘I thought her eyes were going to pop out when you offered to burn her jungle.’

‘It got her attention.’ Then he sighed. ‘It might have been very interesting,’ he said rather wistfully.

‘What might have?’

‘Never mind.’

We nursed the limping Marag column back to their own borders, leaving thousands of dead behind us in those reeking swamps, and then Beldin and I returned to the Vale.

When we got there, our Master sent me back to Aloria. ‘The Queen of the Alorns is with child,’ he told me. ‘The one for whom we have waited is about to be born. I would have thee present at this birth and at diverse other times during his youth.’

‘Are we sure he’s the right one, Master?’ I asked him.

He nodded. ‘The signs are all present. Thou wilt know him when first thou seest him. Go thou to Val Alorn, therefore. Verify his identity and then return.’

And that’s how I came to be present when Cherek Bear-shoulders was born. When one of the midwives brought the red-faced, squalling infant out of the queen’s bedroom, I knew immediately that my Master had been right. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just did. Cherek and I had been linked since the beginning of time, and I recognized him the moment I laid eyes on him. I congratulated his father and then went back to the Vale to report to my Master, and, I hoped, to spend some time with my wife.

I went back to Aloria a number of times during Cherek’s boyhood, and we got to know each other quite well. By the time he was ten, he was as big as a full-grown man, and he kept on growing. He was over seven feet tall when he ascended the throne of Aloria at the age of nineteen. We gave him some time to get accustomed to his crown, and then I went back to Val Alorn and arranged a marriage for him. I can’t remember what the girl’s name was, but she did what she was supposed to do. Cherek was about twenty-three when his first son, Dras, was born, and about twenty-five when Algar came along. Riva, his third son, was born when the King of Aloria was twenty-seven. My Master was pleased. Everything was happening the way it was supposed to.

Cherek’s three sons grew as fast as he had. Alorns are large people anyway, but Dras, Algar, and Riva took that tendency to extremes. Walking into a room where Cherek and his sons were was sort of like walking into a grove of trees. The word ‘giant’ is used rather carelessly at times, but it was no exaggeration when it was used to describe those four.

As I’ve suggested several times, my Master had at least some knowledge of the future, but he shared that knowledge only sparingly with us. I knew that Cherek and his sons and I were supposed to do something, but my Master wouldn’t tell me exactly what, reasoning, I suppose, that if I knew too much about it, I might in some way tamper with it and make it come out wrong.

I’d gone to Aloria during the summer when Riva turned eighteen. That was a fairly significant anniversary in a young Alorn’s life back then, because it was on his eighteenth birthday that a description of him was added to his name. Four years previously, Riva’s older brother had become Dras Bull-neck, and two years after that, Algar had been dubbed Algar Fleet-foot. Riva, who had huge hands, became Iron-grip. I honestly believe that he could have crushed rocks into powder in those hands of his.

Poledra had a little surprise for me when I returned to the Vale. ‘One wonders if you have finished with these errands for a time,’ she said when I got home to our tower.

‘One hopes so,’ I replied. We didn’t exactly speak to each other in wolvish when we were alone, but we came close. ‘One’s Master will decide that, however,’ I added.

‘One will speak with the Master,’ she told me. ‘It is proper that you stay here for a time.’

‘Oh?’

‘It is a custom, and customs should be observed.’

‘Which custom is that?’

‘The one which tells us that the sire should be present at the births of his young.’

I stared at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I demanded.

‘I just did. What would you like for supper?’