Читать книгу Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress: 2-Book Collection - David Eddings - Страница 39

Pol and I stayed on the Isle of the Winds for about a month after Daran was born. There wasn’t anything urgent calling us back to the Vale, and it was a rather special time in our lives. Beldaran was up and about in a few days, and she and Pol spent most of their time together. I don’t think I’d fully understood how painful their separation had been for both of them. Every now and then, I’d catch a glimpse of Polgara’s face in an unguarded moment. Her expression was one of obscure pain. Beldaran had inexorably been drawn away from her – first by her husband and now by her baby. Their lives had diverged, and there was nothing either of them could do about it.

Algar Fleet-foot left for Vo Wacune after a week or so to have a talk with the Wacite Duke. Evidently, the idea which had come to him in that mountain pass had set fire to his imagination, and he really wanted to explore the possibility of establishing a permanent cattle-fair at Murnos. Raising cows has its satisfactions, I suppose, but getting rid of them after you’ve raised them is something else. If I’d paid closer attention to the implications of his notion, I might have realized just how profoundly it would affect history. Revenues from that fair financed the military adventures of the Wacites during the Arendish civil wars, and the profits to be made in Muros almost guaranteed a Tolnedran presence there. Ultimately, I suppose, that cattle-fair was responsible for the founding of the Kingdom of Sendaria. I’ve always felt that an economic theory of history is an oversimplification, but in this case it had a certain validity.

Meanwhile, I hovered on the outskirts of my little family waiting for the chance to get my hands on my grandson. You have no idea of how difficult that was. He was Beldaran’s first child, and she treated him like a new appendage. When she wasn’t holding him, Polgara was. Then it was Riva’s turn. Then it was time for Beldaran to feed him again. They passed him around like a group of children playing with a ball, and there wasn’t room for another player in their little game.

I was finally obliged to take steps. I waited until the middle of the night, crept into the nursery, and lifted Daran out of his cradle. Then I crept out again. All grandparents have strong feelings about their grandchildren, but my motives went a little further than a simple desire to get all gooey inside. Daran was the direct result of certain instructions my Master had given me, and I needed to be alone with him for a few minutes to find out if I’d done it right.

I carried him out into the sitting room where a single candle burned, held him on my lap, and looked directly into those sleepy eyes. ‘It’s nothing really all that important,’ I murmured to him. I refuse to babble gibberish to a baby. I think it’s insulting. I was very careful about what I did, of course. A baby’s mind is extremely malleable, and I didn’t want to damage my grandson. I probed quite gently, lightly brushing my fingertips – figuratively speaking – across the edges of his awareness. The merger of my family with Riva’s was supposed to produce someone very important, and I needed to know something about Daran’s potential.

I wasn’t disappointed. His mind was unformed, but it was very quick. I think he realized in a vague sort of way what I was doing, and he smiled at me. I suppressed an urge to shout with glee. He was going to work out just fine. ‘We’ll get to know each other better later on,’ I told him. ‘I just thought I ought to say hello.’ Then I took him back to the nursery and tucked him into his cradle.

He watched me a lot after that, and he always giggled when I winked at him. Riva and Beldaran thought that was adorable. Polgara, however, didn’t. ‘What did you do to that baby?’ she demanded when she caught me alone in the hall after supper one evening.

‘I just introduced myself, Pol,’ I replied as inoffensively as possible.

‘Oh, really?’

‘You’ve got a suspicious mind, Polgara,’ I told her. ‘I am the boy’s grandfather, after all. It’s only natural for him to like me.’

‘Why does he laugh when he looks at you, then?’

‘Because I’m a very funny fellow, I suppose. Hadn’t you ever noticed that?’

She glowered at me, but I hadn’t left her any openings. It was one of the few times I ever managed to out-maneuver her. I’m rather proud of it, actually. ‘I’m going to watch you very closely, old man,’ she warned.

‘Feel free, Pol. Maybe if I do something funny enough, I’ll even be able to get a smile out of you.’ Then I patted her fondly on the cheek and went off down the hall, whistling a little tune.

Pol and I left the Isle a few weeks later. Anrak sailed us across the Sea of the Winds to that deeply indented bay that lies just to the west of Lake Sendar, and we landed at the head of the bay where the City of Sendar itself now stands. There wasn’t a city there at the time, though, just that gloomy forest that covered all of northern Sendaria until about the middle of the fourth millennium.

‘That’s not very promising-looking country, Belgarath,’ Anrak told me as Pol and I prepared to disembark. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have me sail you on around to Darine?’

‘No, this is fine, Anrak. Let’s not risk the Cherek Bore if we don’t have to.’

‘It’s not all that bad, Belgarath – or so they tell me.’

‘You’re wrong, Anrak,’ I said quite firmly. ‘It is that bad. The Great Maelstrom in the middle of it swallows whole fleets just for breakfast. I’d rather walk.’

‘Cherek war-boats go through it all the time, Belgarath.’

‘This isn’t a Cherek war-boat, and you aren’t crazy enough to be a Cherek. We’ll walk.’

And so Anrak beached his ship, and Pol and I got off. I wonder when the practice of beaching ships fell into disuse. Sailors used to do it all the time. Now they stand off a ways and send passengers ashore in longboats. It’s probably a Tolnedran innovation. Tolnedran sea-captains tend to be a bit on the timid side.

My daughter and I stood on that sandy beach watching Anrak’s sailors straining to get his ship back out into the water. When she was finally afloat again, they poled her out a ways, raised the sails, and went off down the bay.

‘What now, father?’ Pol asked me.

I squinted up at the sun. ‘It’s mid-afternoon,’ I told her. ‘Let’s set up a camp and get an early start in the morning.’

‘Are you sure you know the way to Darine?’

‘Of course I am.’ I wasn’t, actually. I’d never been there before, but I had a general idea of where it was. Over the years, I’ve found that it’s usually best to pretend that I know what I’m doing and where I’m going. It heads off a lot of arguments in the long run.

We went back from the beach a ways and set up camp in a rather pleasant forest clearing. I offered to do the cooking, but Pol wouldn’t hear of it. I even made a few suggestions about cooking over an open campfire, but she tartly told me to mind my own business and she did it her own way. Actually, supper didn’t turn out too bad.

We traveled northeasterly through that ancient forest for the next couple of days. The region was unpopulated, so there weren’t any paths. I kept our general direction firmly in mind and simply followed the course of least resistance. I’ve spent a lot of time in the woods over the years, and I’ve found that to be about the best way to go through them. There’s a certain amount of meandering involved, but it gets you to where you’re going – eventually.

Polgara, however, didn’t like it. ‘How far have we come today?’ she asked me on the evening of the second day.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I replied, ‘probably six or eight leagues.’

‘I meant in a straight line.’

‘You don’t follow straight lines in the woods, Pol. The trees get in the way.’

‘There is a faster way to do this, father.’

‘Were you in a hurry?’

‘I’m not enjoying this, old man.’ She looked around at the huge, mossy trees with distaste. ‘It’s damp, it’s dirty, and there are bugs. I haven’t had a bath for four days.’

‘You don’t have to bathe when you’re in the woods, Pol. The squirrels don’t mind if your face is dirty.’

‘Are we going to argue about this?’

‘What did you have in mind?’

‘Why walk when we can fly?’

I stared at her. ‘How did you know about that?’ I demanded.

‘Uncle Beldin does it all the time. You’re supposed to be educating me, father. This seems to be a perfect time for me to learn how to change my form into one that’s more useful. You can suit yourself, of course, but I’m not going to plod through this gloomy forest all the way to Darine just so you can look at the scenery.’ Pol can turn the slightest thing into an ultimatum. It’s her one great failing.

There was a certain logic to what she was saying, however. Wandering around in the woods is enjoyable, but there were other things I wanted to do, and the art of changing form is one of the more useful ones. I wasn’t entirely positive that her talent was that far along yet, though, so I was a little dubious about the whole idea. ‘We’ll try it,’ I finally gave in. It was easier than arguing with her.

‘When?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘Why not now?’

‘Because it’s getting dark. I don’t want you flying into a tree and breaking your beak.’

‘Whatever you say, father.’ Her submissive tone was fraudulent, naturally. She’d won the argument, so now she could afford to be gracious about it.

She was up the next morning before it got light, and she’d crammed my breakfast into me before the sun came up. ‘Now, then,’ she said, ‘let’s get started.’ She really wanted to try this.

I described the procedure to her at some length, carefully going over all the details while her look of impatience grew more and more pronounced.

‘Oh, let’s get on with it, father,’ she said finally.

‘All right, Pol,’ I surrendered. ‘I suppose you can always change back if you turn yourself into a flying rabbit.’

She looked a little startled at that.

‘Details, Polgara,’ I told her. ‘This is one case when you really have to pay attention to details. Feathers aren’t that easy, you now. All right. Don’t rush. Take it slowly.’

And, of course, she ignored me. Her eyebrows sank into a scowl of intense concentration. Then she shimmered and blurred – and became a snowy white owl.

My eyes filled with tears immediately, and I choked back a sob. ‘Change back!’

She looked a little startled when she resumed her own form.

‘Don’t ever do that again!’ I commanded.

‘What’s wrong, father?’

‘Any shape but that one.’

‘What’s wrong with that one? Uncle Beldin says that mother used to do it all the time.’

‘Exactly. Pick another shape.’

‘Are you crying, father?’ she asked with a certain surprise.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.’

‘I didn’t think you knew how.’ She touched my face almost tenderly. ‘Would some other kind of owl be all right?’

‘Turn yourself into a pelican if you want to. Just stay away from that shape.’

‘How about this one?’ She blurred into the form of a tufted owl instead. She was a mottled brown color, and the sprigs of feathers sprouting from the sides of her head altered that painful appearance enough so that I could bear to live with it.

I drew in a deep breath. ‘All right,’ I told her, ‘flap your wings and see if you can get up off the ground.’

She hooted at me.

‘I can’t understand you, Pol. Just flap your wings. We can talk about it later.’

Would you believe that she did it perfectly the first time? I should have had suspicions at that point, but I was still all choked up, so I didn’t think about it. With a few strokes of those soft wings she lifted herself effortlessly off the ground and circled the clearing a few times. Then she landed on a tree-branch and began to preen her feathers.

It took me a while to regain my composure, and then I went over to her tree and looked up at her. ‘Don’t try to change back,’ I instructed. ‘You’ll fall out of the tree if you do.’

She stared down at me with those huge, unblinking eyes.

‘We’re going in that direction.’ I pointed northeasterly. ‘I’m not going to turn myself into a bird because I don’t fly very well. I’ll take the shape of a wolf instead. I’ll probably be able to keep up with you, but don’t get out of sight. I want to be close enough to catch you if something goes wrong. Keep an eye on the sun. We’ll change back about noon.’

She hooted at me again, that strange hollow cry of the tufted owl.

‘Don’t argue with me, Polgara,’ I told her. ‘We’re going to do this my way. I don’t want you to get hurt.’ Then, to avoid any further argument, I slipped into the form of the wolf.

Her flights were short at first. She drifted from tree to tree, obediently staying just ahead of me. I didn’t have any difficulty keeping up with her. By mid-morning, however, she began to extend the distance between perches, and I was obliged to move up from a sedate trot to a lope. By noon I was running. Finally, I stopped, lifted my muzzle, and howled at her.

She circled, swooped back, and settled to earth. Then she shimmered back into her own form. ‘Oh, that was just fine!’ she exclaimed with a sensuous shudder of pure pleasure.

I was right on the verge of an oration at that point. She’d pushed me fairly hard that morning. It was her smile that cut me off before I even got started, though. Polgara seldom smiled, but this time her face actually seemed to glow, and that single white lock above her forehead was bright as a sun-touched snowbank. Dear Gods, she was a beautiful girl! ‘You need to use your tail-feathers just a bit more,’ was all I said to her.

‘Yes, father,’ she said, still smiling. ‘What now?’

‘We’ll rest a bit,’ I decided. ‘When the sun goes down, we’ll start out again.’

‘In the dark?’

‘You’re an owl, Polgara. Night’s the natural time for you to be out flying.’

‘What about you?’

I shrugged. ‘Night or day – it doesn’t matter to a wolf.’

‘We had to leave our supplies behind,’ she noted. ‘What are we going to eat?’

‘That’s up to you, Pol – whatever’s unlucky enough to cross your path, I’d imagine.’

‘You mean raw?’

‘You’re the one who wanted to be an owl, dear. Sparrows eat seeds, but owls prefer mice. I wouldn’t recommend taking on a wild boar. He might be a little more than you can handle, but that’s entirely up to you.’

She stalked away from me muttering swear words under her breath.

I’ll admit that her idea worked out quite well. It would have taken us two weeks to reach Darine on foot. We managed it the other way in three nights.

The sun was just rising when we reached the hilltop south of the port city. We resumed our natural forms and marched to the city gate. Like just about every other city in the north in those days, Darine was constructed out of logs. A city has to burn down a few times before it occurs to the people who live there that wooden cities aren’t really a good idea. We went through the unguarded gate, and I asked a sleepy passer-by where I could find Hatturk, the clan-chief Algar had told me was in charge here in Darine. He gave me directions to a large house near the waterfront and then stood there rather foolishly ogling Polgara. Having beautiful daughters is nice, I suppose, but they do attract a certain amount of attention.

‘We’ll need to be a little careful with Hatturk, Pol,’ I said as we waded down the muddy street toward the harbor.

‘Oh?’

‘Algar says that the clans that have moved here from the plains aren’t really happy about the break-up of Aloria, and they’re definitely unhappy about that grassland. They migrated here because they got lonesome for trees. Primitive Alorns all lived in the forest, and open country depresses them. Fleet-foot didn’t come right out and say it, but I sort of suspect that Darine might just be a stronghold of the Bear-Cult, so let’s be a little careful about what we say.’

‘I’ll let you do the talking, father.’

‘That might be best. The people here are probably recidivist Alorns of the most primitive kind. I’m going to need Hatturk’s cooperation, so I’m going to have to step around him rather carefully.’

‘Just bully him, father. Isn’t that what you usually do?’

‘Only when I can stand over somebody to make sure he does what I tell him to do. Once you’ve bullied somebody, you can’t turn your back on him for very long, and Darine’s not so pretty that I want to spend the next twenty years here making sure that Hatturk follows my instructions.’

‘I’m learning all sorts of things on this trip.’

‘Good. Try not to forget too many of them.’

Hatturk’s house was a large building constructed of logs. An Alorn clan-chief is really a sort of miniature king in many respects, and he’s usually surrounded by a group of retainers who serve as court functionaries and double as bodyguards on the side. I introduced myself to the pair of heavily armed Algars at the door, and Pol and I were admitted immediately. Most of the time being famous is a pain, but it has some advantages.

Hatturk was a burly Alorn with a greying beard, a decided paunch, and bloodshot eyes. He didn’t look too happy about being roused before noon. As I’d more or less expected, his clothing was made of bear-skins. I’ve never understood why members of the Bear-Cult feel that it’s appropriate to peel the hide off the totem of their God. ‘Well,’ he said to me in a rusty-sounding voice, ‘so you’re Belgarath. I’d have thought you’d be bigger.’

‘I could arrange that if it’d make you feel more comfortable.’

He gave me a slightly startled look. ‘And the lady?’ he asked to cover his confusion.

‘My daughter, Polgara the Sorceress.’ I think that might have been the first time anyone had ever called her that, but I wanted to get Hatturk’s undivided attention, and I didn’t want him to be distracted by Pol’s beauty. It seemed that planting the notion in his mind that she could turn him into a toad might be the best way to head off any foolishness. To her credit, Pol didn’t even turn a hair at my somewhat exotic introduction.

Hatturk’s bloodshot eyes took on a rather wild look. ‘My house is honored,’ he said with a stiff bow. I got the distinct impression that Hatturk wasn’t used to bowing to anybody. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Algar Fleet-foot tells me that you’ve got a crazy man here in Darine,’ I told him. ‘Polgara and I need to have a look at him.’

‘Oh, he’s not really all that crazy, Belgarath. He just has spells now and then when he starts raving. He’s an old man, and old men are always a little strange.’

‘Yes,’ Polgara agreed mildly.

Hatturk’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d just said. ‘Nothing personal intended there, Belgarath,’ he hastened to apologize.

‘That’s all right, Hatturk,’ I forgave him. ‘It takes quite a bit to offend me. Tell me a little bit more about this strange old man.’

‘He was a berserker when he was younger – an absolute terror in a fight. Maybe that explains it. Anyway, his family’s fairly well-off, and when he started getting strange, they built a house for him on the outskirts of town. His youngest daughter’s a spinster – probably because she’s cross-eyed – and she looks after him.’

‘Poor girl,’ Pol murmured. Then she sighed rather theatrically. ‘I imagine I’ve got that to look forward to as well. My father here is stranger than most, and sooner or later he’s going to need a keeper.’

‘That’ll do, Pol,’ I said firmly. ‘If you’ve got a couple of minutes, Hatturk, we’d like to see this old fellow.’

‘Of course.’ He led us out of the room and down the stairs to the street. We talked a bit as we walked through the muddy streets to the eastern edge of town. The idea of paving streets came late to the Alorns, for some reason. I put a few rather carefully phrased questions to Hatturk, and his answers confirmed my worst suspicions. The man was a Bear-Cultist to the bone, and it didn’t take very much to set him off on a rambling diatribe filled with slogans and clichés. Religious fanatics are so unimaginative. There’s no rational explanation for their beliefs, so they’re free to speak without benefit of logic, untroubled by petty concerns such as truth or even plausibility.

‘Are your scribes getting down everything your berserker’s saying?’ I cut him off.

‘That’s just a waste of time and money, Belgarath,’ he said indifferently. ‘One of the priests of Belar had a look at what the scribes had taken down, and he told me to quit wasting my time.’

‘King Algar gave you very specific orders, didn’t he?’

‘Sometimes Algar’s not right in the head. The priest told me that as long as we’ve got THE BOOK OF ALORN, we don’t need any of this other gibberish.’

Naturally a priest who was a member of the Bear– Cult wouldn’t want those prophecies out there. It might interfere with their agenda. I swore under my breath.

The Darine Prophet and his caretaker daughter lived in a neat, well-tended cottage on the eastern edge of town. He was a very old, stringy man with a sparse white beard and big, knobby hands. His name was Bormik, and his daughter’s name was Luana. Hatturk’s description of her was a gross understatement. She seemed to be intently examining the tip of her own nose most of the time. Alorns are a superstitious people, and physical defects of any kind make them nervous, so Luana’s spinsterhood was quite understandable.

‘How are you feeling today, Bormik?’ Hatturk said, almost in a shout. Why do people feel they have to yell when they’re talking to those who aren’t quite right in the head?

‘Oh, not so bad, I guess,’ Bormik replied in a wheezy old voice. ‘My hands are giving me some trouble.’ He held out those big, swollen hands.

‘You broke your knuckles on other people’s heads too many times when you were young,’ Hatturk boomed. ‘This is Belgarath. He wants to talk with you.’

Bormik’s eyes immediately glazed over. ‘Behold!’ he said in a thunderous voice. ‘The Ancient and Beloved hath come to receive instruction.’

‘There he goes again,’ Hatturk muttered to me. ‘All that garbled nonsense makes me nervous. ‘I’ll wait outside.’ And he turned abruptly and left.

‘Hear me, Disciple of Aldur,’ Bormik continued. His eyes seemed fixed on my face, but I’m fairly sure he didn’t see me. ‘Hear my words, for my words are truth. The division will end, for the Child of Light is coming.’

That was what I’d been waiting to hear. It confirmed that Bormik was the voice of prophecy, and what he’d been saying all these years had contained vital information – and we’d missed it! I started to swear under my breath, and to think up all sorts of nasty things to do to the thick-headed Hatturk. I glanced quickly at Polgara, but she was sitting in a corner of the room speaking intently to Bormik’s cross-eyed daughter.

‘And the Choice shall be made in the holy place of the children of the Dragon-God,’ Bormik continued, ‘for the Dragon-God is error, and was not intended. Only in the Choice shall error be mended, and all made whole again. Behold, in the day that Aldur’s Orb burns hot with crimson fire shall the name of the Child of Dark be revealed. Guard well the son of the Child of Light, for he shall have no brother. And it shall come to pass that those which once were one and now are two shall be rejoined, and in that joining shall one of them be no more.’

Then Bormik’s weary old head drooped, as if the effort of prophecy had exhausted him. I might have tried to shake him awake, but I knew that it would be fruitless. He was too old and feeble to go on. I stood, picked up a quilt from a nearby bench, and gently covered the drowsing old man. I certainly didn’t want him to take a chill and die on me before he’d said what he was supposed to say. ‘Pol,’ I said to my daughter.

‘In a minute, father,’ she said, waving me off. She continued to speak with that same low intensity to the cross-eyed Luana. ‘Agreed, then?’ she said to the spindly spinster.

‘As you say, Lady Polgara,’ Bormik’s middle-aged daughter replied. ‘A bit of verification first, if you don’t mind.’ She rose, crossed the room, and looked intently at the image of her face in a polished brass mirror. ‘Done!’ was all she said. Then she turned and looked around the room, and her eyes were as straight as any I’ve ever seen – very pretty eyes, as I recall.

What was going on here?

‘All right, father,’ Pol said in an off-hand sort of way. ‘We can go now.’ And she walked on out of the room.

‘What was that all about?’ I asked her as I opened the front door for her.

‘Something for something, father,’ she replied. ‘You might call it a fair trade.’

‘There’s our problem,’ I told her, pointing at the brutish Hatturk impatiently waiting in the street. ‘He’s a Bear-Cultist, and even if I could dragoon him into transcribing Bormik’s ravings, he’d let the priests of the Bear-Cult see them before he passed them on to me. Revisionism is the soul of theology, so there’s no telling what sort of garbage would filter through to me.’

‘It’s already been taken care of, father,’ she told me in that offensively superior tone of hers. ‘Don’t strain Hatturk’s understanding by trying to explain the need for accuracy to him. Luana’s going to take care of it for us.’

‘Bormik’s daughter?’

‘Of course. She’s closest to him, after all. She’s been listening to his ravings for years now, and she knows exactly how to get him to repeat things he’s said in the past. All it takes is a single word to set him off.’ She paused. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘here’s your purse.’ She held out my much-lighter money pouch, which she’d somehow managed to steal from me. ‘I gave her money to hire the scribes.’

‘And?’ I said, hefting my diminished purse.

‘And what?’

‘What’s in it for her?’

‘Oh, father,’ she said. ‘You saw her, didn’t you?’

‘Her eyes, you mean?’

‘Of course. As I said, something for something.’

‘She’s too old for it to make any difference, Pol,’ I objected. ‘She’ll never catch a husband now.’

‘Maybe not, but at least she’ll be able to look herself straight in the eye in the mirror.’ She gave me that long-suffering look. ‘You’ll never understand, old wolf. Trust me. I know what I’m doing. What now?’

‘I guess we might as well go on to Drasnia. We seem to have finished up here.’ I shrugged. ‘How did you straighten her eyes?’

‘Muscles, old wolf. Tighten some. Relax others. It’s easy if you pay attention. Details, father, you have to pay attention to details. Isn’t that what you told me?’

‘Where did you learn so much about eyes?’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t. I just made it up as I went along. Shall we go to Drasnia?’