Polgara the Sorceress (50 page)

I took some satisfaction in the knowledge that the army that had destroyed Vo Wacune and killed my beloved Ontrose was annihilated on that frosty autumn afternoon. That was the first part of my revenge.

The second part came somewhat later.

After our victory at Muros, Wacite refugees began streaming across the border, and I was a bit hard-pressed to find places to lodge them and supplies enough to feed them. Malon served as my eyes and ears – and hands – so he was a very busy man throughout that winter. We built new villages – mostly on my own estates – and my storehouses provided food. The conditions and diet were hardly luxurious, but my new subjects got through the winter. Malon had predicted that Wacite refugees of a suitable age
would be eager to join my army, and he wasn’t far off the mark on that score. I instructed Halbren to enlist them in new battalions led by former officers in the Wacite army. Those officers took on the chore of training the new recruits, and that left Halbren and my other generals free to defend the southern border.

Though I was still more or less confined to mother’s cottage by my father’s continued surveillance, Malon and I were growing more and more adept at our peculiar form of communication. When we’d set up the southern army headquarters in Muros, I actually had done a few things to our ‘enchanted room’ to make it possible for a selected few to also use it to communicate directly with me – just in case. I’m certain that father or one of the twins hiding nearby to watch me were convinced that I’d been rendered insensible by what had happened at Vo Wacune, but actually the blank look on my face was usually an indication that I was deep in conversation with Malon or one of my generals.

The Wacite patriots across the River Camaar continued to ambush and murder Asturians, of course, but far more importantly, they also passed word to us of Asturian troop movements and military buildups. I probably knew more about the location and condition of Garteon’s army than he did. My real advantage, though, was strategic. I chose
not
to follow up my victory in the battle of Muros by invading Asturia or the former Wacune. There was no real need for me to do that, since I was getting everything I wanted without raising a finger. The mass migration of Wacite refugees across the river was effectively depopulating northern Wacune, and without serfs to work the land, Garteon’s conquest hadn’t gained him a single thing. All he had to show for his enormous expenditure were empty forests and weed-choked, unplowed fields. My Wacite spies kept me informed about Asturian troop concentrations, so every time Garteon tried to make another river crossing, I was ready for him. It wasn’t long until Asturian soldiers – and eventually Garteon’s generals – began muttering about ‘witchcraft’ and other absurdities, and that worked to my advantage as well. After my forces had easily repulsed a few tentative attempts to cross the river, the Asturians became
convinced that ‘the witch-woman of Muros’ knew their inmost thoughts, and a sudden epidemic of timidity broke out in the Asturian ranks. I’m fairly certain that Garteon’s tame Grolim knew better, but for some reason he wasn’t able to convince the Asturian army that I couldn’t turn them all into toads with a wave of my hand. The legend of ‘Polgara the Sorceress’ was too deeply ingrained in the Arendish consciousness to be dispelled by simple scoffing.

Then we had a stroke of luck. Had Garteon and his Grolim remained in Vo Astur, there’d have been no way for us to get at them, but finally Garteon absolutely
had
to go have a look at what his army had done to Vo Wacune. Gloating about a triumph is probably very natural, but it can be terribly dangerous sometimes. It was about a year after the battle of Muros, in the autumn of 2944, that the Duke of Asturia and his Angarak friend left Vo Astur –
alone,
if you can believe that – and traveled to the ruins of my beloved city.

Malon Killaneson had always religiously passed all information on to me just as soon as it fell into his hands, but this time he didn’t. He disappeared instead. I was more than a little startled – frantic would be a better word – when General Halbren’s voice broke in on my harvesting of my garden to advise me that Malon was nowhere to be found.

Horrid visions of Asturian assassins flooded my mind even as I went falcon and almost tore off my wings getting to Muros. Malon was the one indispensable man in my entire duchy.

The first thing I did upon my arrival was to order General Halbren to have his soldiers turn Muros upside down and shake it until everything fell out. All manner of interesting – and illegal – things came to light, but there was no sign of Malon.

As I mentioned before, General Halbren was a blocky professional soldier who’d been second in command of my army. His overall attitude was far more Sendarian than it was Wacite. He was solid, dependable, and almost totally unflappable. His very presence calmed me, and I was in great need of calming just then. ‘Malon’s simply not here, your Grace,’ he reported to me on the morning after his
soldiers had torn Muros apart. ‘No one’s seen him since the day before yesterday. He had a meeting in that office of his with a group of Wacite patriots. After they left, he stayed in his office until almost midnight, and then he left the building. I’m certain of the time, because I questioned the man who was on guard at the main entrance personally. Malon’s lodgings are at an inn two streets over, and his rooms showed some evidence of a hasty departure.’

‘I think we can rule out an assassination then, General,’ I said. ‘Assassins rarely take the trouble to carry off the body after they’ve finished.’

‘True, your Grace.’

‘The fact that Malon had time to stuff a few things into a bag sort of eliminates abduction, too, wouldn’t you say?’

‘It’s probably safe to say that, my Lady.’

‘That would seem to indicate that he left voluntarily –
without
bothering to let me know where he was going.’

That isn’t at all like him, your Grace,’ Halbren noted. ‘Malon
always
consults with you before he takes any action.’

‘It’s possible that those Wacites brought him some news about a family emergency of some kind, but I still think he’d have spoken with me before he left.’

‘I’m sure of it, your Grace.’

‘Did anyone else go into his office after the Wacites left?’

‘No, your Grace. The guard at the door and the officer in charge of the night staff would have seen anyone, I’m sure.’

‘When did the Wacites leave?’

‘Three hours after sunset, your Grace.’

‘And Malon left about two hours later?’

‘Approximately, your Grace.’

‘Let’s go have a look at his office, General. We might find some kind of clue there.’

Halbren made a rueful face.

‘Something wrong, Halbren?’ I asked him.

‘I was just wondering where my brains had gone, your Grace. The notion of searching his office never occurred to me. I tend to respect other people’s privacy.’

‘A commendable trait, General, but a little misplaced this time. Let’s go see what Malon left on his desk.’

As it turned out, there wasn’t anything on Malon’s desk. He was a compulsively neat man, so he put things away when he was done with them. I knew him very well, however, and I knew that he’d have a hiding place – for his jug, if nothing else. Finding that hiding place wasn’t very hard for me, since I’ve got certain advantages when it comes to finding things. There was a hidden drawer in his desk that
did
have the usual half-full jug of spirits. It
also
had a map of Wacune in it as well, and when I opened the map, Halbren and I immediately saw the inked-in line that traced a course from the northern border of Vo Wacune to the site of the former capital – a course that obviously avoided all the main roads and quite probably followed trails known only to forest bandits.

‘Could he have gone down there, your Grace?’ Halbren asked.

‘I’m almost certain he did, General, and I’m going to speak to him at some length about that. He knows better than to run off on his own. You can have your men ask around, but I’m positive that Malon’s across the River Camaar into Wacune by now.’

‘Some emergency, perhaps?’

I shook my head. ‘No, Halbren. I’ve trained him not to deal with emergencies personally. He’s here to pass along my orders, not to run off to try to take care of things himself.’ My eyes narrowed. ‘When we
do
find him, he’d better have some very good excuses for this little excursion.’

General Halbren and I got to know each other even better during the two weeks that Malon spent in Wacune. I liked Halbren. In some ways he represented a transition between Arendish impulsiveness and Sendarian sensibility. Moreover, we were both angry with Malon for his unexplained disappearance. Halbren sent word to his own contacts down in Wacune, asking them to scour the forests in an all-out search for my wandering seneschal.

That took, as I’ve said, two full weeks, and when the Wacites finally
did
locate Malon, he was already on his way back to Muros.

I spent the better part of a day polishing the grand remonstrance I fully intended to shower down on my friend, but
I never got the chance to use it. Malon looked tired, but at the same time jubilant, when General Halbren delivered him into my clutches. He had one of those irrepressible grins on his face that reminded me of Killane himself.

‘Now, don’t y’ be after scoldin’ me until y’ve heard me story, yer Grace,’ he said as he entered. Clearly, he’d seen the storm brewing in my face.

‘You’re in trouble, Malon,’ Halbren told him.

‘I’m terrible sorry t’ have caused y’ both so much concern,’ Malon apologized, ‘but I was perfectly all right, don’t y’ know. A distant cousin o’ mine who lives down in Wacune brought me some information a couple o’ weeks ago, an’ I saw right away that here was me chance t’ surprise her Grace here w’ a bit o’ an early birthday present, don’t y’ know. Don’t y’ just love surprises, me Lady?’

‘Not really, Malon. They usually involve bad news.’

‘Not this time, Lady-O,’ he said gaily. ‘As it turns out, some o’ me Wacite relatives dropped by t’ tell me that Duke Garteon an’ his Murgo friend had been seen in th’ vicinity o’ the ruins o’ Vo Wacune, an’ I thought it might be a golden opportunity t’ settle some old accounts as has been naggin’ at y’. I put almost th’ entire Killaneson family t’ work on it, but it still took th’ better part o’ a week t’ track down yer enemy. Him an’ that Murgo was bein’ very careful, don’t y’ know. Anyway, th’ short of it is that we found th’ two o’ them, an’ I set up a little ambush t’ welcome ‘em t’ Wacune.’

‘You idiot!’ I stormed at him. ‘That Murgo is a Grolim!’

‘He might o’ bin, yer Grace, but he didn’t do no Grolimin’ after we stuck a dozen or so arrows in ‘im, don’t y’ know. As I remember it, he
did
start t’ shout somethin’ just before all them arrows swept him out o’ his saddle. Anyhow, Duke Garteon drove his spurs all th’ way into his horse an’ tried t’ make a run fer it, but we’d had th’ foresight t’ stretch a rope across the trail about chest high, an’ it picked ‘im right outta his saddle as he tried t’ ride through it.’

‘You captured him?’ I exclaimed.

‘That we did, me Lady. That we did.’

‘Where is he?’

‘That would sort o’ depend on how well he’s bin keepin’
up w’ his religious obligations, me Lady,’ my seneschal replied a little evasively.

‘What did you do with him, Malon?’ I bored in.

‘Well, me Lady. We all talked it over while he was layin’ on th’ ground tryin’ t’ git his breath back – th’ fall off his horse havin’ knocked th’ wind outta ‘im, don’t y’ know. When we first went after ‘im, it’d bin our intent t’ capture ‘im an’ deliver ‘im up t’ yer Grace fer disposal as y’ might see fit, but now that we had ‘im an’ got th’ chance t’ look ‘im over, we seen what a disgustin’, weasely little rascal he was, an’ I jist couldn’t bear th’ thought o’ insultin’ y’ by bringin’ such a mangy dog into yer presence. Th’ more we talked it over, th’ more it was that we couldn’t bring ourselves t’ dignify ‘im w’ no formal proceedin’s, don’t y’ know. As we saw it, he jist didn’t deserve that kind o’ consideration.’

‘What did you do to him? Get to the point, Malon.’

‘Well, me Lady, we had this here miscreant as we didn’t think was really worth th’ effort o’ feedin’ an’ guardin’ all th’ way back t’ Muros, an’ we had this here rope as had just jerked ‘im out o’ his saddle, an’ there was all them lovely trees handy. Since everythin’ was there anyway, we took it as a sign from th’ Gods, so we hung ‘im right there on th’ spot.’

General Halbren burst out with a roar of laughter at that point.

‘I should probably tell yer Grace that he didn’t take it none too well,’ Malon continued. ‘He kept screamin’ that he was th’ Duke o’ Asturia, an’ that we couldn’t do this t’ him – but as it turned out, we could. If y’d like t’ see ‘im fer yerself, I could draw y’ a map, me Lady. Unless somebody’s happened across ‘im an’ cut him down, he’s probably still decoratin’ that tree down there, don’t y’ know.’

Halbren laughed even harder.

I’ve never really approved of informal justice, since there’s a huge potential for mistakes implicit in the business, and it’s very hard to un-hang somebody if you start having second thoughts. This case was an exception, however, since I saw several immediate advantages in Malon’s rough and ready approach to the sometimes complex business of criminal justice. For one thing, it would lift the spirits of the Wacite refugees crowding the southern reaches of my domain, and by extension would also cheer up the native inhabitants. More importantly, however, the event was likely to distract the Asturians. As long as Garteon had been around, Asturia had concentrated on the annexation of my domain to the exclusion of all else. Now, at least part of their attention would be diverted by the fascinating business of choosing the departed duke’s successor.

I looked at my grinning seneschal. ‘All right, Malon,’ I said to him, ‘I don’t entirely approve, but what’s done is done, so let’s take advantage of it. I want everybody in the entire duchy to hear about your tittle adventure. Feel free to boast, my friend. Then I want you to draw a map of the approximate location of Duke Garteon’s remains and give it to General Halbren here.’

‘Did your Grace want me to retrieve the carcass?’ Halbren asked.

‘No, General, we’ll let the Asturians do that. Give the map to the talkiest priest of Chaldan you can find. Tell him what happened and then ask him to deliver the map to Vo Astur. I want everybody in Asturia to hear the happy news, and no Arend will ever try to make a priest keep his mouth shut about anything.’

General Halbren stifled his laughter and bowed his acknowledgment.

‘I wouldn’t be after expectin’ much work t’ git done
around here fer a couple o’ weeks, yer Grace,’ Malon cautioned. ‘Th’ celebration’s likely t’ go on an’ on an’ be very noisy, don’t y’ know.’

‘That’s all right, Malon,’ I shrugged. ‘The harvest’s over now anyway, and the people can catch up on their work later.’ Then I laughed. ‘Oh, Malon,’ I said, ‘what am I going to do with you?
Please
don’t run off like that again.’

‘I’ll try t’ remember that, yer Grace,’ he promised. ‘Now, if y’ll excuse me, I’d better git t’ drawin’.’ He looked at General Halbren. ‘Me map ain’t goin’ t’ be too exact, General,’ he apologized. ‘I won’t be able t’ give y’ th’ tree’s first name, don’t y’ know.’

‘Oh, that's all right, Malon,’ Halbren forgave him. ‘The Asturians are woodsmen, so they enjoy wandering around among the trees looking for things.’

‘I’m after thinkin’ that Duke Garteon might not o’ bin th’ most popular man in all Asturia,’ Malon mused. ‘If he irritated his own people as much as he irritated us, our little celebration on this side o’ th’ river might just spread, don’t y” know.’

‘All right, gentlemen,’ I told them, ‘quit gloating and get back to work. I’ve got to go back to mother’s cottage before my father starts dismantling the Sendarian Mountains searching for me.’

The celebration of Duke Garteon’s entanglement lasted for about six weeks., I’m told. Laughter and good cheer ran from Muros all the way down the River Camaar to its mouth, and the rest of the duchy took it up from there. I’m almost sure that Malon had been right and that there were some subdued celebrations in Asturia as well.

Duke Garteon had no heir, and so his death put an end to the domination of Asturia by the Oriman family. The inevitable squabbles among assorted Asturian nobles about possession of the throne in Vo Astur so completely occupied their minds that hostilities more or less came to an end along my southern frontier. There was no overt peace-treaty, of course, but there never is in Arendia. Arends can draw up a declaration of war that’s an absolute jewel of elegance, but the wording of a peace-treaty somehow escapes them.

Father and the twins were still watching me, so I began to renovate mother’s cottage that winter, largely to persuade them that I was taking my supposed career as a hermitess very seriously. I re-thatched the roof, replaced the doors and broken windows, and re-mortared several tiers of stone blocks along the tops of the walls. I’m sure that Durnik wouldn’t have approved of the means I used to accomplish those renovations, but after I’d hit myself on the thumb with a hammer a couple of times, I neatly stacked all my tools in a corner and did it the other way.

In the spring I put in a vegetable garden. Radishes and beans aren’t as pretty as roses, but they taste better, and if you can grow roses, you can certainly grow vegetables. Father evidently took my work at the cottage to mean that I’d shaken off any suicidal impulses, because he began to relax his surveillance.

As things settled down in my duchy, I heard less and less frequently from Malon. Now that the crisis had passed, he and General Halbren no longer needed much supervision. They knew what needed to be done, so they had no real reason to pester me.

Though I appeared to be tending to my vegetable garden that following summer, I was actually doing a great deal of thinking. The steps I’d taken to make my duchy efficient and humane were producing an effect I hadn’t fully anticipated when I’d put them in place. A feudal system requires more or less constant supervision. My emancipation of the serfs and the establishment of a coherent legal system had prepared the way for self-government. I was rather ruefully obliged to admit that what I’d really done was quite neatly put myself out of a job. The people of my duchy didn’t actually need me any more. I hoped that they still had some affection for me, but by and large, they could take care of themselves. To put it succinctly, my children had all grown up, packed, and left home.

To further facilitate the maturing of my people, I gave Malon some instructions concerning the management of my own estates, and I knew that those practices would spread to the estates of my vassals. I told him that we were going to let the practice of day-labor with a set wage-scale fall
into disuse and replace it with the renting out of farmsteads. This was the next logical step toward independence and responsibility. My rents were not exorbitant, nor were they a fixed amount. They were a percentage of the income derived from the crops instead. As time went on, we’d gradually decrease that percentage until it was no more than a token. I wasn’t actually
giving
them the land, but it came fairly close to that. The token rent encouraged industriousness, and the entire procedure helped to induce
that
sterling virtue into the fundamental character of the Sendars.

It may come as a surprise to dear old Faldor that his family’s been paying me rent for the use of his farm for generations now.

In time, of course, Malon and Halbren grew old and passed on. I went to my manor house for Malon’s funeral, and then I had a long talk with his son, a surprisingly well-educated man who, for reasons I could never understand, had chosen to use only his surname, Killaneson. Even though I didn’t understand his decision, it gave me a rather warm feeling of continuity. Killaneson rarely broke into the Wacite brogue except when he was excited, but spoke instead in polite language which has come to be quite standard in my former domain.

‘Do you understand what I’m trying to do, Killaneson?’ I asked him when I’d finished explaining the system of rents.

‘It looks to me as if your Grace is trying very hard to evade her responsibilities,’ he replied with a faint smile.

‘You might put it that way, my friend, but I’m actually doing this out of fondness for these people. I want to gently herd them in the direction of independence. Grownups don’t really need to have mother tell them when it’s time to change their clothes. Oh, one other thing, too. Why don’t we let that “Erat” business fall into disuse. This land was called “Sendaria” even before anybody lived here. Let’s go back to that name. The designation of the people here as “Eratians” has always set my teeth on edge, for some
reason. Encourage them to start thinking of themselves as “Sendarians”.’

‘Why not do that with a proclamation, your Grace?’

‘I’d rather not make it that formal, Killaneson. My goal here is to just quietly fade out of sight. If we do this right, a few generations from now, nobody will even remember the Duchess of Erat.’

Killaneson’s voice had an almost childish note when he said, ‘Please don’t run off and leave us alone, Mommy.’

‘Stop that,’ I chided him.

Then we both laughed.

It was at the end of the thirty-first century that the debacle in the harbor at Riva took place. The Tolnedrans, convinced that there was vast hidden wealth on the Isle of the Winds, sent a fleet north to try to persuade the Rivans to open their gates to do business. The Rivans weren’t really interested, so they methodically sank the Tolnedran fleet instead. Things were very tense for a while, but after the Cherek Ambassador at Tol Honeth advised Ran Borune XXIV that the Alorn kingdoms would demolish Tolnedra in response to any hostilities directed at the Isle, things settled back down to normal.

The Honethites succeeded the Borunes in the imperial palace at Tol Honeth. Say what you will about the Honeths, they
are
probably the best administrators of all the great families of the empire, so things quieted down.

As we moved into the early years of the thirty-second century, I began to reduce the staff of my manor house on Lake Erat until there were finally only a few caretakers there. I made arrangements for the rest of the Killaneson family, and I gradually began to fade from the memories of the people who had formerly been subject to me. They called themselves Sendarians now, and I had largely receded into history books and folk-lore.

I
did
have to come out of my seclusion at mother’s cottage a few times, though. In the mid-thirty-second century, the Bear-Cult in Cherek persuaded King Alreg that Sendaria was a natural extension of his kingdom, and that Belar, the Alorn God, would be angry if Cherek failed its religious obligation to annex my former duchy. Once again I was
going to have to try to talk some sense into some thick-headed Alorns. After one particularly offensive earl named Elbrik had stormed ashore and looted Darine, I went falcon and flew on up to Val Alorn to have a few words with the King of Cherek. I settled on to the battlements of Alreg’s rambling palace and went on down several flights of stairs to his smokey throne-room.

King Alreg was an enormous man with a great, bushy blond beard. Despite the fact that there was no real need for it, he wore a steel helmet and a chain-mail shirt as he lounged, beer tankard in hand, on his oversized throne. Quite clearly, Alreg considered himself to be a warrior king.

One of the mailed guards at the door seized my arm as I entered. ‘You’re not supposed to be in here, woman!’ he said roughly to me. ‘Men only in Alreg’s throne-room!’

‘Did you want to keep that hand?’ I asked, pointedly staring at the offending member.

‘Now, see here, woman–’ He
did
let go of my arm, though.

Then he went rolling across the rush-strewn floor as the force of my Will struck him full in the chest. I enhanced my voice to make myself audible over all the drunken babble. ‘Alreg of Cherek!’ I thundered, and the very walls shook to that overwhelming sound.

The King of Cherek, obviously about half drunk, reeled to his feet. ‘Who let that woman in here?’ he demanded.

‘I let myself in, Alreg,’ I told him. ‘You and I are going to have a talk.’

‘I’m busy.’

‘Get un-busy – right now!’ I strode on down past the smoky fire-pit in the center of his barn-like throne-room, bowling over any Cherek warriors who tried to get in my way. Even in his slightly befuddled state, Alreg realized that something unusual was going on. I reached the foot of the dais upon which his throne stood and fixed him with a very unfriendly stare. ‘I see that the seat of Bear-shoulders has descended to a drunken fool,’ I noted scathingly. ‘How sad. I know he’d be disappointed.’

‘You can’t talk to me that way!’ he blustered.

‘You’re wrong, Alreg. I can talk to you any way I choose.
Get that barbarian Elbrik out of Darine immediately!’

‘You can’t order me around! Who do you think you are?’

But one of the more sober men standing just behind him had gone very pale. ‘Your Majesty!’ he said to his king in strangled tones, ‘that’s Polgara the Sorceress!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Alreg snapped. “There’s no such person!’

‘Look at her, your Majesty! Look at that white streak in her hair! That’s Polgara, daughter of Holy Belgarath! She can turn you into a toad if she feels like it!’

‘I don’t believe in any of that nonsense,’ Alreg scoffed.

‘I think you’re about to have a religious conversion, Alreg,’ I told him.

That ‘turn him into a toad’ business had been floating around for eons, you know, and most of the time it’s been nothing more than a tired old joke. What would be the point of doing something like that? This time, however, the notion had been planted at just the right moment. I was going to have to do
something
to Alreg to get his attention, and, although the sober Cherek noble who’d recognized me had probably just thrown the expression out at random, it
had
planted the idea, and the more I thought about it, the more the notion appealed to me. For once, an absolute absurdity would serve my purpose as well or better than anything else.

I wanted to make the entire process visible, so this time I did it in a slightly different way. Rather than simply injecting Alreg into the image of a toad, I altered his features one by one. It occurred to me that I didn’t really need the whole toad – just its head and feet. I could leave the rest of Alreg intact.

Alreg’s head slowly began to change shape, flattening out until it had a reptilian cast. His eyes were now at the top of his head, and they began to bulge upward. Since his eyes were already bulging anyway, that part wasn’t too hard. Then I dissolved his beard and extended the corners of his mouth.

‘No!’
It came out of that lipless mouth in kind of a squeaky croak. I’d decided that it might be useful if he could still talk. Then I altered his hands and feet into the flipper-like
appendages of the amphibian. I slightly modified his hips, shoulders, knees, and elbows, and with shrill, pathetic croaks, the King of Cherek sank down into that frog-like crouch on the seat of his throne. Then I added the warts.