Polgara the Sorceress (54 page)

When the three of us finally reached the Vale, Geran met the twins, and they fussed over him as much as uncle Beldin had. I began to feel definitely left out.

They
did
let me do the cooking, though – and the cleaning up afterward. Wasn’t that nice of them?

Father and Brand arrived after a few weeks, and we all got down to business. Geran sat quietly on a chair in a corner while we discussed the state of the world and what we were going to do about it.

Evidently my little charge had been greatly impressed with that tired old saw, ‘children should be seen and not heard’. It kept him from asking a lot of questions, though.

Uncle Beltira advised us that according to the calendar of the Dals, the Third Age had ended. All of the prophecies were now in place, and now that we had our instructions, all we had to do was carry them out.

Then uncle Beldin told us that an Angarak general named Kallath was busy unifying all of Mallorea and bringing it under Torak’s domination.

Prince Geran
did
bend the rules once during that discussion. ‘Excuse me,’ he said. ‘What’s supposed to happen in Arendia? Isn’t that the place that scroll you’ve got was talking about when it said something about “the lands of the Bull-God”?’

‘Very good, Geran,’ father complimented the boy’s perceptiveness in identifying the reference contained in the obscure language of the Mrin.

‘There’s going to be an EVENT, your Highness,’ uncle Beltira told him.

‘What kind of event?’ Geran hadn’t quite caught on to the peculiar emphasis my family gave that word.

‘The prophecy we call the Mrin Codex uses the term when it’s talking about a meeting between the Child of Light and the Child of Dark,’ Belkira explained.

‘Who are they?’

‘Nobody, specifically,’ Beldin said. “They’re sort of like titles. They get passed around quite a bit. Anyway, everything’s moving in the direction of one of those EVENTS. If
we’re reading these things right, the Child of Light and the Child of Dark are going to meet in Arendia some time in the future, and the meeting’s probably not going to be a friendly one. I don’t think they’ll be talking about the weather.’

‘A battle?’ Geran asked enthusiastically. He
was
fairly young after all.

I was in the kitchen area fixing supper. “The arrival of this Kallath right at this particular time isn’t a coincidence, is it?’ I suggested.

‘Probably not, Pol,’ father agreed.

‘Excuse me again,’ Geran said. ‘If Torak’s got prophecies of his own, then he knows that something important’s going to happen in Arendia the same as we do, doesn’t he?’

‘I’m sure he does,’ Beldin replied.

‘Do you know what I think?’ the boy said, his brow knitted in concentration. ‘I don’t think that what happened to my family really had anything to do with somebody trying to steal the Orb. I think that Torak was just trying to keep us so busy that we wouldn’t pay any attention to what this Kallath person was doing in Mallorea. If the Nyissans hadn’t murdered my family when they did, one of you would have gone to Mallorea to keep Kallath from taking over the whole place. But you all got so busy punishing the Nyissans that you didn’t pay any attention to what was going on in Mallorea.’ He stopped, suddenly aware of the fact that we were all paying very close attention to what he was saying. ‘Well,’ he added apologetically, ‘that’s what I think anyway, and this Zedar person you all know was probably the best one to fool you, since he knows you all so well.’

‘What have you done to this boy, Pol?’ Beldin growled at me. ‘He isn’t supposed to be thinking this clearly yet.’

‘I taught him to read, uncle,’ I replied. ‘He took it from there.’

‘What a waste!’ the dwarf muttered.

‘I don’t think I followed that, uncle.’

‘The boy and I could have been arguing philosophy instead of molesting fish while we came across the mountains.’

‘You absolutely
have
to tamper with things, don’t you, Pol?’ father said accusingly.

‘Tamper? It’s called “education”, father. Didn’t you tamper with
me?
I seem to remember a long string of “whys” coming from your mouth a few years back.’

‘You always have to make those clever remarks, don’t you, Pol?’ he said with a certain distaste.

‘It’s good for you, father,’ I replied lightly. ‘It keeps you on your toes, and that helps you to ward off senility – for a little while, anyway.’

‘What did you mean by that, Aunt Pol?’ Geran asked me.

‘It’s a game they play, Geran,’ Beltira explained. ‘It embarrasses them to admit that they actually like each other, so they play this game instead. It’s their way of saying that they don’t really hate each other.’

The twins have such sweet faces that I think we tend to forget just how wise they are. Beltira had seen right to the center of our silly game, and his explanation embarrassed both my father and me.

Fortunately, Brand stepped in to cover our confusion. ‘It would seem that my prince is very gifted,’ the Rivan Warder mused. ‘We’ll have to protect that mind.’

‘That’s my job, Brand,’ I told him.

‘Polgara,’
mother’s voice came to me at that point,
‘listen very carefully. The Master has a question to ask you.’

Then we all sensed the Master’s presence. We couldn’t see him, but we knew that he was there. ‘Dost thou accept this responsibility freely, my daughter?’ he asked me intently.

This
was the task I’d accepted at Beldaran’s wedding. I’d sworn to take it up then, and nothing had really happened in the past two thousand or so years to make me change my mind. A great many things fell into place at that point. In a sense, the two eons which had passed since I’d first pledged myself to take up this task had merely been preparation – an education, if you will. Now I was ready to be Geran’s guardian and protector – no matter where EVENTS would take him or the line which would descend from him. I’d already pledged my word to accept this responsibility, but evidently the Master wanted confirmation. ‘I accepted
this task freely once before, Master,’ I replied, laying my hand rather possessively on Geran’s shoulder, ‘and I accept it freely now. Truly, I shall guard and guide the Rivan line for so long as it be necessary. Yea, even unto the end of days, if need be.’

As I said it, I felt a peculiar sort of surge, and I seemed to hear a vast ringing sound echoing from the farthest star. Quite clearly my affirmation of my previous vow was an EVENT of the first magnitude. I’d done a few fairly important things before, but this was the first time that the stars had ever applauded me.

‘Well then,’ I said to my some what awed family, ‘now that we’ve settled that, supper’s almost ready, so why don’t you gentlemen go wash your hands while I set the table?’

If you choose to look at it in a certain light, my acceptance of the task was automatic, even instinctive. My little epiphany on board the ship that carried us from the Isle of the Winds as I’d comforted the grief-stricken Geran lay at the core of my willingness to devote the rest of my life to the descendants of my sister and Riva Iron-grip. The line was of my blood – my pack, if you will – and rearing and protecting each child in the line was an obligation I’d have accepted even had the Master not extracted that pledge from me.

But there was another, less wolfish, reason for my ready acceptance. I was fully convinced that the death of Ontrose had closed certain doors to me. I was certain that I’d never marry or have children of my own. The rearing of my sister’s descendants would fill that aching emptiness.

The following morning I was seized with an almost overpowering urge to leave the Vale. It was as if my reaffirmation of my pledge had opened a whole new chapter in my life, and I wanted to get on with it. Looking back, however, I’ll confess that my motives were a little less admirable. My pledge had made Geran mine, and I wanted to keep him all to myself.

Isn’t it odd the way our minds work sometimes?

Anyway, my sandy-haired charge and I left the Vale after a few days, and the dependable, mottled Squire carried us back up into the Sendarian mountains. I was really in no great hurry to get home, so our pace was leisurely. I’m sure Squire approved of that. I’ve observed that horses lie a lot. A horse loves to run, but he always behaves as if it’s a terrible imposition when you ask him to do that.

‘What was it like, Aunt Pol?’ Geran asked me one evening
after supper when we’d spread our blankets on the ground, the camp-fire had burned down to embers, and the close and friendly darkness was enfolding us. ‘I mean, what was it like to grow up in the Vale surrounded by magic and sorcerers the way you were?’

‘My sister and I hadn’t really known any other kind of life, Geran, so it didn’t really seem particularly unusual to us.’

‘She was my grandmother, wasn’t she? – your sister, I mean.’

‘Your ultimate grandmother, yes.’ I stepped around some things rather carefully. Geran didn’t really need to know about mother just yet. I lay back and looked up at the stars. ‘Our father was off in Mallorea when we were born,’ I told him. ‘He and Bear-shoulders and the boys were stealing the Orb from Torak.’

‘It wasn’t really stealing, was it? I mean, the Orb belonged to us in the first place after all. Torak’s the one who stole it.’

‘Well, he stole it from the Master, but it amounts to the same thing, I guess. Anyway, my sister and I were raised by uncle Beldin.’

Geran giggled. ‘I
like
him,’ he said.

‘Yes, I noticed.’ Then I continued with a slightly sanitized version of my childhood in the Vale. Geran listened eagerly. If you want a little boy’s undivided attention, tell him stories. After a while, however, he drifted off to sleep, and I fell silent. I watched the endless progression of the stars for a while, noting that a couple of the constellations had moved since I’d last taken a good look at them. And then I too slept.

When we reached my house I noticed something peculiar. I’d visited it any number of times since I’d buried it in roses, and it’d always seemed almost unbearably lonely. It was an empty place that hadn’t been meant to be empty, but now that sense of loneliness wasn’t there any more. Geran was there with me, and that was all I really needed. I decided that we could probably forego the house-cleaning. Geran had learned to live with the loss of his family, and he now seemed to want to spend most of his time in my
library with my copies of the Mrin and Darine. Eventually, he reacted to the Mrin with the same sense of frustration it stirred in all of us. ‘It doesn’t make sense, Aunt Pol!’ he exclaimed one evening, banging his fist on the table.

‘I know,’ I replied. ‘It isn’t supposed to.’

‘Why do we all waste so much time on it then?’

‘Because it tells us what’s going to happen in the future.’

‘But if we can’t make any sense out of it, how does that help us?’

‘Oh, we can make
some
sense out of it if we work with it. It’s all jumbled together that way to keep people who don’t have any business knowing what’s going to happen from finding out.’

‘You mean it’s written in code?’

‘You could put it that way, yes.’

‘I think I’ll stick with the other one – the Darine. It’s easier to read and it’s not so splotched up with ink-smears.’

‘Whatever suits you, Geran’

I was more than a little surprised – and pleased – to discover that my young nephew had a surprisingly quick mind. He’d been raised as an Alorn, and you don’t really expect to find brains in an Alorn – except for the Drasnians, of course. A Drasnian’s intelligence, however, is devoted almost exclusively to swindling his neighbors, so he doesn’t waste it on things philosophical.

Geran and I lived quietly in our secluded house for several years. He needed time to grow up, and I needed time to get used to my new occupation. He was about twelve or so, and his voice was beginning to change, when a notion came to him that was surprisingly acute. ‘Do you know what I think, Aunt Pol?’

‘What was that, dear?’

‘I’ve been working on this for a while, and it sort of seems to me that you and grandfather and our uncles live outside of time and the world the rest of us live in. It’s almost as if you lived someplace else – only it’s right here at the same time.’

I laid my book aside. ‘Go on, Geran,’ I urged him.

“This other world you live in is all around the rest of us, but we can’t see it. There are different rules there, too. You
all have to live for thousands of years, and you have to learn how to use magic, and you have to spend a lot of time reading old books that none of us can understand. Then, every once in a while, you have to come out into our world to tell the kings what they’re supposed to do, and they have to do it, whether they like it or not. Anyway, I’ve been sort of wondering why. Why do we need two worlds this way? Why not just one? Then it came to me. It’s even more complicated than I thought, because there aren’t just two worlds, but three. The Gods live in one world – out there among the stars – and ordinary people like me live right here on this one where nothing very unusual ever happens. You and grandfather and the uncles live in the third one – the one that’s between the world of the Gods and the world of ordinary people. You live there because you’re our connection to the Gods. The Gods tell you what’s supposed to be done, and you pass the instructions on to us. You live forever, and you can do magic things and see the future and all that because you were chosen to live in that special world between the Gods and the rest of us so that you can guide us in the right direction. Does that make any sense, Aunt Pol?’

‘A great deal of sense, Geran.’

‘There’s more.’

‘I rather thought there might be.’

‘Torak’s out there in the world of the Gods, too, and he’s got people living in the in-between world the same as you and the others do.’

‘Yes. We’re called disciples. Torak’s disciples are Urvon, Ctuchik, and Zedar.’

‘Yes. I read about them. Anyway, Torak has the idea that
one
thing’s going to happen, and our Gods believe that it’s going to be something else.’

‘That sums it up fairly well, yes.’

‘Then the war of the Gods never really ended, did it?’

‘No. It’s still going on.’

‘Who’s going to win?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Aunt Pol!’
He said it with a note of anguished protest in his voice. ‘Your whole library’s filled with all these
prophecies and you
still
don’t know who’s going to win?
Some
book here
has
to come right out and tell us.’

I waved at the shelves. ‘If there is, it’s in there somewhere. Feel free to browse your way through. Let me know if you find it.’

‘That’s not fair!’

I laughed and gathered him in my arms impulsively. He was such a dear, serious boy!

‘Well, it’s not, is it?’ he grumbled.

I laughed even more.

As Geran approached his sixteenth birthday, I realized that if the line of the Rivan King were to be continued, it was time for me to take him out into the world so that he could find himself a wife. I gave some thought to where we might want to live, and Sulturn seemed like a good place to me. Mother, however, had different ideas about that
‘No, Pol,’
her voice came to me one night,
‘not Sulturn, Muros.’

‘Why Muros?’

‘Because that’s where the young lady he’s going to marry lives.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Her name’s Eldara.’

‘That’s an Algar name.’

‘That stands to reason, Pol, since her father’s an Algar. His name’s Hattan, and he’s the second son of a clan chief. He married a Sendarian woman when his clan drove a herd of cattle to Muros. He settled down there and went into business as a cattle buyer. He has connections with all the Algar clans, so he’s very prosperous. Take Geran to Muros, Pol. Let’s get him married off.’

‘Whatever you say, mother.’

I thought it over and decided that Geran and I would need a certain status. A prosperous merchant probably wouldn’t be
too
excited about marrying his daughter off to some country bumpkin. Clearly, Geran and I would have to go to the city of Sendar. I was going to need some money.

Squire was an elderly horse by now, but he was still sound, even though he did puff a bit when he went uphill. I had Geran dust off and polish one of the small carriages in the barn while I packed some respectable clothes for us
in a stout trunk, and in the late spring of the year 4012, my young charge and I set out across Sendaria to the capital city of Sendar. It was a nice time of year for a trip, and there was nothing pressing about our journey, so I let Squire set his own pace. We went southwesterly, and after a few days we reached the crossroads where the country lane we were following intersected with the imperial highway.

‘Which way here, Aunt Pol?’ Geran, who was driving our little carriage, asked me.

‘South, Geran, toward Medalia. Then we’ll take the high road to Sendar.’

‘All right. Move along, Squire.’

Our ancient horse sighed and plodded on.

Medalia had changed a great deal during the centuries since I’d last been there. Sendaria was a peaceable kingdom now, so the defensive wall that’d surrounded Medalia when it’d been a part of my duchy had fallen into disrepair. I disapproved of that, but I decided not to make an issue of it.

It was a week or so later when we reached Sendar, and we took rooms in a substantial inn. After dinner, I went through our trunk and laid out assorted finery for us. ‘Do we really have to dress up like that, aunt Pol?’ Geran asked with a certain distaste. It was definitely time to get him out of the country and back to civilization.

‘Yes,’ I told him quite firmly. ‘We’re going to the palace tomorrow morning, and I’d rather not have to go in through one of the servants’ entrances.’

‘Are we going there to see the king?’

‘No, not really. Our business is with the Royal Treasurer. We
might
have to talk with the king to get our business taken care of, though, depending on how thick-headed the Treasurer is.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘We need money, and I have plenty of that here. I have to persuade the Treasurer that I’m who I say I am and that the money belongs to me.’

‘Isn’t it a little dangerous to trust all your money to somebody else? He might try to cheat you.’

‘Sendarians are very honest, Geran. I don’t think the
Treasurer would do that – and if he has, I have ways to persuade him that he’s made a mistake.’

And so, early the next morning, Prince Geran and I went to the palace of King Falben of Sendaria and to the solidly built wing of that palace that was the repository of the royal treasury. There was the usual delay before we were admitted to the musty-smelling office of the Royal Treasurer. Over the years I’ve noticed that people who are preoccupied with money always seem to have that same odor about them. Money’s almost always locked up somewhere, and nobody who takes care of it ever seems to think of opening the windows to air the place out.

Baron Stilnan, the Royal Treasurer, was a very serious man whose office walls were covered from floor to ceiling with bookcases filled to overflowing with leather-bound account books. There was an almost religious hush in the baron’s office. That’s appropriate, I guess, since money
is
a religion to the man who spends all his time counting it.

‘I know you’re busy, your Excellency,’ I said after Geran and I had been escorted into his office and had seated ourselves, ‘so I’ll get right to the point. Quite some time ago my family placed certain funds in the care of the crown. I’m here to withdraw some of that money.’

‘I’d need verification of that, Lady –?’

‘We can get to names and other things later, your Excellency. The funds in question are recorded in Volume One of your account books – page 736, if I remember correctly.’

He looked dubious, but he went to his bookshelf and pulled down the last volume on the left of the top shelf.

‘You’ll find a sealed piece of parchment pinned to the page, Baron,’ I advised him. There’s a word written on that parchment. It’s a sort of password that’s there to identify me.’ I pushed a scrap of paper with the name ‘Ontrose’ written on it across his desk. ‘I think you’ll find that this is the word.’

Baron Stilnan blew the dust off the heavy account book, leafed through, found the page, and unpinned the parchment. This is the royal seal of King Fundor the Magnificent!’ he exclaimed.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I know. Fundor was kind enough to take
over the management of the account. The name I gave you matches the name on the parchment, doesn’t it?’

‘Yes, it does. The entry says that the original deposit was made by the Duchess of Erat. Are you her descendant, madame?’

‘I
am
the duchess, Baron, and I haven’t any descendants.’