Queen of Sorcery

  "That should be enough," Wolf judged, releasing Garion's hand.

  "Who was the old man?" Garion asked.

  "My Master," Wolf replied.

  "What happened?" Durnik asked, his face concerned.

  "It's probably better not to talk about it," Aunt Pol said. "Do you think you could build a fire? It's time for breakfast."

  "There are some trees over there where we can get out of the wind," Durnik suggested.

  They all remounted and rode toward the trees.

  After they had eaten, they sat by the small fire for a while. They were tired, and none of them felt quite up to facing the blustery morning again. Garion felt particularly exhausted, and he wished that he were young enough to sit close beside Aunt Pol and perhaps to put his head in her lap and sleep as he had done when he was very young. The strange thing that had happened made him feel very much alone and more than a little frightened. "Durnik," he said, more to drive the mood away than out of any real curiosity. "What sort of bird is that?" He pointed.

  "A raven, I think," Durnik answered, looking at the bird circling above them.

  "I thought so too," Garion said, "but they don't usually circle, do they?"

  Durnik frowned. "Maybe it's watching something on the ground."

  "How long has it been up there?" Wolf asked, squinting up at the large bird.

  "I think I first saw it when we were crossing the field." Garion told him.

  Mister Wolf glanced over at Aunt Pol. "What do you think?"

  She looked up from one of Garion's stockings she had been mending. "I'll see." Her face took on a strange, probing expression.

  Garion felt a peculiar tingling again. On an impulse he tried to push his own mind out toward the bird.

  "Garion," Aunt Pol said without looking at him, "stop that."

  "I'm sorry," he apologized quickly and pulled his mind back where it belonged.

  Mister Wolf looked at him with a strange expression, then winked at him.

  "It's Chamdar," Aunt Pol announced calmly. She carefully pushed her needle into the stocking and set it aside. Then she stood up and shook off her blue cloak.

  "What have you got in mind?" Wolf asked.

  "I think I'll go have a little chat with him," she replied, flexing her fingers like talons.

  "You'd never catch him," Wolf told her. "Your feathers are too soft for this kind of wind. There's an easier way." The old man swept the windy sky with a searching gaze. "Over there." He pointed at a barely visible speck above the hills to the west. "You'd better do it, Pol. I don't get along with birds."

  "Of course, father," she agreed. She looked intently at the speck, and Garion felt the tingle as she sent her mind out again. The speck began to circle, rising higher and higher until it disappeared.

  The raven did not see the plummeting eagle until the last instant, just before the larger bird's talons struck. There was a sudden puff of black feathers, and the raven, screeching with fright, flapped wildly away with the eagle in pursuit.

  "Nicely done, Pol," Wolf approved.

  "It will give him something to think about." She smiled. "Don't stare, Durnik."

  Durnik was gaping at her, his mouth open. "How did you do that?"

  "Do you really want to know?" she asked.

  Durnik shuddered and looked away quickly.

  "I think that just about settles it," Wolf said. "Disguises are probably useless now. I'm not sure what Chamdar's up to, but he's going to be watching us every step of the way. We might as well arm ourselves and ride straight on to Vo Mimbre."

  "Aren't we going to follow the trail anymore?" Barak asked.

  "The trail goes south," Wolf replied. "I can pick it up again once we cross over into Tolnedra. But first I want to stop by and have a word with King Korodullin. There are some things he needs to know."

  "Korodullin?" Durnik looked puzzled. "Wasn't that the name of the first Arendish king? It seems to me somebody told me that once."

  "All Arendish kings are named Korodullin," Silk told him. "And the queens are all named Mayaserana. It's part of the fiction the royal family here maintains to keep the kingdom from flying apart. They have to marry as closely within the bloodline as possible to maintain the illusion of the unification of the houses of Mimbre and Asturia. It makes them all a bit sickly, but there's no help for it - considering the peculiar nature of Arendish politics."

  "All right, Silk," Aunt Pol said reprovingly.

  Mandorallen looked thoughtful. "Could it be that this Chamdar who so dogs our steps is one of great substance in the dark society of the Grolims?" he asked.

  "He'd like to be," Wolf answered. "Zedar and Ctuchik are Torak's disciples, and Chamdar wants to be one as well. He's always been Ctuchik's agent, but he may believe that this is his chance to move up in the Grolim hierarchy. Ctuchik's very old, and he spends all his time in the temple of Torak at Rak Cthol. Maybe Chamdar thinks it's time that someone else became High Priest."

  "Is Torak's body at Rak Cthol?" Silk asked quickly.

  Mister Wolf shrugged. "Nobody knows for sure, but I doubt it. After Zedar carried him away from the battlefield at Vo Mimbre, I don't think he'd have just handed him over to Ctuchik. He could be in Mallorea or somewhere in the southern reaches of Cthol Murgos. It's hard to say."

  "But at the moment, Chamdar's the one we have to worry about," Silk concluded.

  "Not if we keep moving," Wolf told him.

  "We'd better get moving then," Barak said, standing up.

  By midmorning the heavy clouds had begun to break up, and patches of blue sky showed here and there. Enormous pillars of sunlight stalked ponderously across the rolling fields that waited, damp and expectant, for the first touches of spring. With Mandorallen in the lead they had ridden hard and had covered a good six leagues. Finally they slowed to a walk to allow their steaming horses to rest.

  "How much farther is it to Vo Mimbre, grandfather?" Garion asked, pulling his horse in beside Mister Wolf.

  "Sixty leagues at least," Wolf answered. "Probably closer to eighty."

  "That's a long way." Garion winced as he shifted in his saddle.

  "Yes."

  "I'm sorry I ran away like that back there," Garion apologized.

  "It wasn't your fault. Chamdar was playing games."

  "Why did he pick me? Couldn't he have done the same thing to Durnik - or Barak?"

  Mister Wolf looked at him. "You're younger, more susceptible."

  "That's not really it, is it?" Garion accused.

  "No," Wolf admitted, "not really, but it's an answer, of sorts."

  "This is another one of those things you aren't going to tell me, isn't it?"

  "I suppose you could say that," Wolf answered blandly.

  Garion sulked about that for a while, but Mister Wolf rode on, seemingly unconcerned by the boy's reproachful silence.

  They stopped that night at a Tolnedran hostel, which, like all of them, was plain, adequate, and expensive. The next morning the sky had cleared except for billowy patches of white cloud scampering before the brisk wind. The sight of the sun made them all feel better, and there was even some bantering between Silk and Barak as they rode along - something Garion hadn't heard in all the weeks they'd spent traveling under the gloomy skies of northern Arendia.

  Mandorallen, however, scarcely spoke that morning, and his face grew more somber with each passing mile. He was not wearing his armor, but instead a mail suit and a deep blue surcoat. His head was bare, and the wind tugged at his curly hair.

  On a nearby hilltop a bleak-looking castle brooded down at them as they passed, its grim walls high and haughty-looking. Mandorallen seemed to avoid looking at it, and his face became even more melancholy.

  Garion found it difficult to make up his mind about Mandorallen. He was honest enough with himself to admit that much of his thinking was still clouded by Lelldorin's prejudices. He didn't really want to like Mandorallen; but aside from the habitual gloominess which seemed characteristic of all Arends and t
he studied and involuted archaism of the man's speech and his towering self confidence, there seemed little actually to dislike.

  A half league along the road from the castle, a ruin sat at the top of a long rise. It was not much more than a single wall with a high archway in the center and broken columns on either side. Near the ruin a woman sat on horseback, her dark red cape flowing in the wind.

  Without a word, almost without seeming to think about it, Mandorallen turned his warhorse from the road and cantered up the rise toward the woman, who watched his approach without any seeming surprise, but also with no particular pleasure.

  "Where's he going?" Barak asked.

  "She's an acquaintance of his," Mister Wolf said dryly.

  "Are we supposed to wait for him?"

  "He can catch up with us," Wolf replied.

  Mandorallen had stopped his horse near the woman and dismounted. He bowed to her and held out his hands to help her down from her horse. They walked together toward the ruin, not touching, but walking very close to each other. They stopped beneath the archway and talked. Behind the ruin, clouds raced in the windy sky, and their enormous shadows swept uncaring across the mournful fields of Arendia.

  "We should have taken a different route," Wolf said. "I wasn't thinking, I guess."

  "Is there some problem?" Durnik asked.

  "Nothing unusual - in Arendia," Wolf answered. "I suppose it's my fault. Sometimes I forget the kind of things that can happen to young people."

  "Don't be cryptic, father," Aunt Pol told him. "It's very irritating. Is this something we should know about?"

  Wolf shrugged. "It isn't any secret," he replied. "Half of Arendia knows about it. A whole generation of Arendish virgins cry themselves to sleep every night over it."

  "Father," Aunt Pol snapped exasperatedly.

  "All right," Wolf said. "When Mandorallen was about Garion's age, he showed a great deal of promise-strong, courageous, not too bright the qualities that make a good knight. His father asked me for advice, and I made arrangements for the young man to live for a while with the Baron of Vo Ebor - that's his castle back there. The baron had an enormous reputation, and he provided Mandorallen with the kind of instruction he needed. Mandorallen and the baron became almost like father and son, since the baron was quite a bit older. Everything was going along fine until the baron got married. His bride, however, was much younger - about Mandorallen's age."

  "I think I see where this is going," Durnik remarked disapprovingly.

  "Not exactly," Wolf disagreed. "After the honeymoon, the baron returned to his customary knightly pursuits and left a very bored young lady wandering around his castle. It's a situation with all kinds of interesting possibilities. Anyway, Mandorallen and the lady exchanged glances - then words - the usual sort of thing."

  "It happens in Sendaria too," Durnik observed, "but I'm sure the name we have for it is different from the one they use here." His tone was critical, even offended.

  "You're jumping to conclusions, Durnik," Wolf told him. "Things never went any further. It might have been better if they had. Adultery isn't really all that serious, and in time they'd have gotten bored with it. But, since they both loved and respected the baron too much to dishonor him, Mandorallen left the castle before things could get out of hand. Now they both suffer in silence. It's all very touching, but it seems like a waste of time to me. Of course I'm older."

  "You're older than everyone, father," Aunt Pol said.

  "You didn't have to say that, Pol."

  Silk laughed sardonically. "I'm glad to see that our stupendous friend at least has the bad taste to fall in love with another man's wife. His nobility was beginning to get rather cloying." The little man's expression had that bitter, self mocking cast to it Garion had first seen in Val Alorn when they had spoken with Queen Porenn.

  "Does the baron know about it?" Durnik asked.

  "Naturally," Wolf replied. "That's the part that makes the Arends get all mushy inside about it. There was a knight once, stupider than most Arends, who made a bad joke about it. The baron promptly challenged him and ran a lance through him during the duel. Since then very few people have found the situation humorous."

  "It's still disgraceful," Durnik said.

  "Their behavior's above reproach, Durnik," Aunt Pol maintained firmly. "There's no shame in it as long as it doesn't go any further."

  "Decent people don't allow it to happen in the first place," Durnik asserted.

  "You'll never convince her, Durnik," Mister Wolf told the smith. "Polgara spent too many years associating with the Wacite Arends. They were as bad or worse than the Mimbrates. You can't wallow in that kind of sentimentality for that long without some of it rubbing off. Fortunately it hasn't totally blotted out her good sense. She's only occasionally girlish and gushy. If you can avoid her during those seizures, it's almost as if there was nothing wrong with her."

  "My time was spent a little more usefully than yours, father," Aunt Pol observed acidly. "As I remember, you spent those years carousing in the waterfront dives in Camaar. And then there was that uplifting period you spent amusing the depraved women of Maragor. I'm certain those experiences broadened your concept of morality enormously."

  Mister Wolf coughed uncomfortably and looked away.

  Behind them, Mandorallen had remounted and begun to gallop back down the hill. The lady stood in the archway with her red cloak billowing in the wind, watching him as he rode away.

  They were five days on the road before they reached the River Arend, the boundary between Arendia and Tolnedra. The weather improved as they moved farther south, and by the morning when they reached the hill overlooking the river, it was almost warm. The sun was very bright, and a few fleecy clouds raced overhead in the fresh breeze.

  "The high road to Vo Mimbre branches to the left just there," Mandorallen remarked.

  "Yes," Wolf said. "Let's go down into that grove near the river and make ourselves a bit more presentable. Appearances are very important in Vo Mimbre, and we don't want to arrive looking like vagabonds."

  Three brown-robed and hooded figures stood humbly at the crossroads, their faces down and their hands held out in supplication. Mister Wolf reined in his horse and approached them. He spoke with them briefly, then gave each a coin.

  "Who are they?" Garion asked.

  "Monks from Mar Terin," Silk replied.

  "Where's that?"

  "It's a monastery in southeastern Tolnedra where Maragor used to be," Silk told him. "The monks try to comfort the spirits of the Marags."

  Mister Wolf motioned to them, and they rode on past the three humble figures at the roadside. "They say that no Murgos have passed here in the last two weeks."

  "Are you sure you can believe them?" Hettar asked.

  "Probably. The monks won't lie to anybody."

  "Then they'll tell anybody who comes by that we've passed here?" Barak asked.

  Wolf nodded. "They'll answer any question anybody puts to them."

  "That's an unsavory habit," Barak grunted darkly.

  Mister Wolf shrugged and led the way among the trees beside the river. "This ought to do," he decided, dismounting in a grassy glade. He waited while the others climbed down from their horses. "All right," he told them, "we're going to Vo Mimbre. I want you all to be careful about what you say there. Mimbrates are very touchy, and the slightest word can be taken as an insult."

  "I think you should wear the white robe Fulrach gave you, father," Aunt Pol interrupted, pulling open one of the packs.

  "Please, Pol," Wolf said, "I'm trying to explain something."

  "They heard you, father. You tend to belabor things too much." She held up the white robe and looked at it critically. "You should have folded it more carefully. You've wrinkled it."

  "I'm not going to wear that thing," he declared flatly.

  "Yes, you are, father," she told him sweetly. "We might have to argue about it for an hour or two, but you'll wind up wearing it in the end anyway. Why not
just save yourself all the time and aggravation?"

  "It's silly," he complained.

  "Lots of things are silly, father. I know the Arends better than you do. You'll get more respect if you look the part. Mandorallen and Hettar and Barak will wear their armor; Durnik and Silk and Garion can wear the doublets Fulrach gave them in Sendar; I'll wear my blue gown, and you'll wear the white robe. I insist, father."

  "You what? Now listen here, Polgara-"

  "Be still, father," she said absently, examining Garion's blue doublet.

  Wolf's face darkened, and his eyes bulged dangerously.

  "Was there something else?" she asked with a level gaze.

  Mister Wolf let it drop.

  "He's as wise as they say he is," Silk observed.

  An hour later they were on the high road to Vo Mimbre under a sunny sky. Mandorallen, once again in full armor and with a blue and silver pennon streaming from the tip of his lance, led the way with Barak in his gleaming mail shirt and black bearskin cape riding immediately behind him. At Aunt Pol's insistence, the big Cherek had combed the tangles out of his red beard and even rebraided his hair. Mister Wolf in his white robe rode sourly, muttering to himself, and Aunt Pol sat her horse demurely at his side in a short, fur-lined cape and with a blue satin headdress surmounting the heavy mass of her dark hair. Garion and Durnik were ill at ease in their finery, but Silk wore his doublet and black velvet cap with a kind of exuberant flair. Hettar's sole concession to formality had been the replacement of a ring of beaten silver for the leather thong which usually caught in his scalp lock.

  The serfs and even the occasional knight they encountered along the way stood aside and saluted respectfully. The day was warm, the road was good, and their horses were strong. By midafternoon they crested a high hill overlooking the plain which sloped down to the gates of Vo Mimbre.