Magician's Gambit

  Ce'Nedra lowered her eyes and flushed slowly.

  "I've seen village girls play this same game," he continued. "Nothing good ever comes of it."

  "I'm not trying to hurt anybody, Durnik. There isn't really anything of that sort between Mandorallen and me - we both know that."

  "Garion doesn't."

  Ce'Nedra was amazed. "Garion?"

  "Isn't that what it's all about?"

  "Of course not!" she objected indignantly. Durnik's look was profoundly skeptical.

  "Such a thing never entered my mind," Ce'Nedra rushed on. "It's absolutely absurd."

  "Really?"

  Ce'Nedra's bold front collapsed. "He's so stubborn," she complained. "He just won't do anything the way he's supposed to."

  "He's an honest boy. Whatever else he is or might become, he's still the plain, simple boy he was at Faldor's farm. He doesn't know the rules of the gentry. He won't lie to you or flatter you or say things he doesn't really feel. I think something very important is going to happen to him before very long - I don't know what - but I do know it's going to take all his strength and courage. Don't weaken him with all this childishness."

  "Oh, Durnik," she said with a great sigh. "What am I going to do?"

  "Be honest. Say only what's in your heart. Don't say one thing and mean another. That won't work with him."

  "I know. That's what makes it all so difficult. He was raised one way, and I was raised another. We're never going to get along." She sighed again.

  Durnik smiled, a gentle, almost whimsical smile. "It's not all that bad, Princess," he told her. "You'll fight a great deal at first. You're almost as stubborn as he is, you know. You were born in different parts of the world, but you're not really all that different inside. You'll shout at each other and shake your fingers in each others' faces; but in time that will pass, and you won't even remember what you were shouting about. Some of the best marriages I know of started that way."

  "Marriage!"

  "That's what you've got in mind, isn't it?"

  She stared at him incredulously. Then she suddenly laughed. "Dear, dear Durnik," she said. "You don't understand at all, do you?"

  "I understand what I see," he replied. "And what I see is a young girl doing everything she possibly can to catch a young man."

  Ce'Nedra sighed. "That's completely out of the question, you know - even if I felt that way - which of course I don't."

  "Naturally not." He looked slightly amused.

  "Dear Durnik," she said again, "I can't even allow myself such thoughts. You forget who I am."

  "That isn't very likely," he told her. "You're usually very careful to keep the fact firmly in front of everybody."

  "Don't you know what it means?"

  He looked a bit perplexed. "I don't quite follow."

  "I'm an Imperial Princess, the jewel of the Empire, and I belong to the Empire. I'll have absolutely no voice in the decision about whom I'm going to marry. That decision will be made by my father and the Cauncil of Advisers. My husband will be rich and powerful - probably much older than I am - and my marriage to him will be to the advantage of the Empire and the House of Borune. I probably won't even be consulted in the matter."

  Durnik looked stunned. "That's outrageous!" he objected.

  "Not really," she told him. "My family has the right to protect its interests, and I'm an extremely valuable asset to the Borunes." She sighed again, a forlorn little sigh. "It might be nice, though - to be able to choose for myself, I mean. If I could, I might even look at Garion the way you seem to think I have been looking - even though he's absolutely impossible. The way things are, though, all he can ever be is a friend."

  "I didn't know," he apologized, his plain, practical face melancholy.

  "Don't take it so seriously, Durnik," she said lightly. "I've always known that this was the way things have to be."

  A large, glistening tear, however, welled into the corner of her eye, and Durnik awkwardly put his work-worn hand on her arm to comfort her. Without knowing why, she threw her arms around his neck, buried her face in his chest, and sobbed.

  "There, there," he said, clumsily patting her shaking shoulder. "There, there."

  Chapter Three

  GARION DID NOT Sleep well that night. Although he was young and inexperienced, he was not stupid, and Princess Ce'Nedra had been fairly obvious. Over the months since she had joined them, he had seen her attitude toward him change until they had shared a rather specialized kind of friendship. He liked her; she liked him. Everything had been fine up to that point. Why couldn't she just leave it alone? Garion surmised that it probably had something to do with the inner workings of the female mind. As soon as a friendship passed a certain point - some obscure and secret boundary - a woman quite automatically became overwhelmed by a raging compulsion to complicate things.

  He was almost certain that her transparent little game with Mandorallen had been aimed at him, and he wondered if it might not be a good idea to warn the knight to spare him more heartbreak in the future. Ce'Nedra's toying with the great man's affections was little more than the senseless cruelty of a spoiled child. Mandorallen must be warned. His Arendish thick-headedness might easily cause him to overlook the obvious.

  And yet, Mandorallen had killed the lion for her. Such stupendous bravery could quite easily have overwhelmed the flighty little princess. What if her admiration and gratitude had pushed her over the line into infatuation? That possibility, coming to Garion as it did in those darkest hours just before dawn, banished all possibility of further sleep. He arose the next morning sandy-eyed and surly and with a terrible worry gnawing at him.

  As they rode out through the blue-tinged shadows of early morning with the slanting rays of the newly risen sun gleaming on the treetops above them, Garion fell in beside his grandfather, seeking the comfort of the old man's companionship. It was not only that, however. Ce'Nedra was riding demurely with Aunt Pol just ahead, and Garion felt very strongly that he should keep an eye on her.

  Mister Wolf rode in silence, looking cross and irritable, and he frequently dug his fingers under the splint on his left arm.

  "Leave it alone, father," Aunt Pol told him without turning around.

  "It itches."

  "That's because it's healing. Just leave it alone."

  He grumbled about that under his breath.

  "Which route are you planning to take to the Vale?" she asked him.

  "We'll go around by way of Tol Rane," he replied.

  "The season's moving on, father," she reminded him. "If we take too long, we'll run into bad weather in the mountains."

  "I know that, Pol. Would you rather cut straight across Maragor?"

  "Don't be absurd."

  "Is Maragor really all that dangerous?" Garion asked.

  Princess Ce'Nedra turned in her saddle and gave him a withering look. "Don't you know anything?" she asked him with towering superiority.

  Garion drew himself up, a dozen suitable responses to that coming to mind almost at once.

  Mister Wolf shook his head warningly. "Just let it pass," the old man told him. "It's much too early to start in on that just now."

  Garion clenched his teeth together.

  They rode for an hour or more through the cool morning, and Garion gradually felt his temper improving. Then Hettar rode up to speak with Mister Wolf. "There are some riders coming," he reported.

  "How many?" Wolf asked quickly.

  "A dozen or more - coming in from the west."

  "They could be Tolnedrans."

  "I'll see," Aunt Pol murmured. She lifted her face and closed her eyes for a moment. "No," she said. "Not Tolnedrans. Murgos."

  Hettar's eyes went flat. "Do we fight?" he asked with a dreadful kind of eagerness, his hand going to his sabre.

  "No," Wolf replied curtly. "We hide."

  "There aren't really that many of them."

  "Never mind, Hettar," Wolf told him. "Silk," he called ahead, "there are some Murgos coming to
ward us from the west. Warn the others and find us all a place to hide."

  Silk nodded curtly and galloped forward.

  "Are there any Grolims with them?" the old man asked Aunt Pol.

  "I don't think so," she answered with a small frown. "One of them has a strange mind, but he doesn't seem to be a Grolim."

  Silk rode back quickly. "There's a thicket off to the right," he told them. "It's big enough to hide in."

  "Lets go, then," Wolf said.

  The thicket was fifty yards back among the larger trees. It appeared to be a patch of dense brush surrounding a small hollow. The ground in the hollow was marshy, and there was a spring at its center.

  Silk had swung down from his horse and was hacking a thick bush off close to the ground with his short sword. "Take cover in here," he told them. "I'll go back and brush out our tracks." He picked up the bush and wormed his way out of the thicket.

  "Be sure the horses don't make any noise," Wolf told Hettar. Hettar nodded, but his eyes showed his disappointment.

  Garion dropped to his knees and wormed his way through the thick brush until he reached the edge of the thicket; then he sank down on the leaves covering the ground to peer out between the gnarled and stumpy trunks.

  Silk, walking backward and swing his bush, was sweeping leaves and twigs from the forest floor over the tracks they had made from the trail to the thicket. He was moving quickly, but was careful to obliterate their trail completely.

  From behind them, Garion heard a faint snap and rustle in the leaves, and Ce'Nedra crawled up and sank to the ground at his side. "You shouldn't be this close to the edge of the brush," he told her in a low voice.

  "Neither should you," she retorted.

  He let that pass. The princess had a warm, flowerlike smell; for some reason, that made Garion very nervous.

  "How far away do you think they are?" she whispered.

  "How would I know?"

  "You're a sorcerer, aren't you?"

  "I'm not that good at it."

  Silk finished brushing away the tracks and stood for a moment studying the ground as he looked for any trace of their passage he might have missed. Then he burrowed his way into the thicket and crouched down a few yards from Garion and Ce'Nedra.

  "Lord Hettar wanted to fight them," Ce'Nedra whispered to Garion. "Hettar always wants to fight when he sees Murgos."

  "The Murgos killed his parents when he was very young. He had to watch while they did it."

  She gasped. "How awful!"

  "If you children don't mind," Silk said sarcastically, "I'm trying to listen for horses."

  Somewhere beyond the trail they had just left, Garion heard the thudding sound of horses' hooves moving at a trot. He sank down deeper into the leaves and watched, scarcely breathing.

  When the Murgos appeared, there were about fifteen of them, mailshirted and with the scarred cheeks of their race. Their leader, however, was a man in a patched and dirty tunic and with coarse black hair. He was unshaven, and one of his eyes was out of line with its fellow. Garion knew him.

  Silk drew in a sharp breath with an audible hiss. "Brill," he muttered.

  "Who's Brill?" Ce'Nedra whispered to Garion.

  "I'll tell you later," he whispered back. "Shush!"

  "Don't shush me!" she flared.

  A stern look from Silk silenced them.

  Brill was talking sharply to the Murgos, gesturing with short, jerky movements. Then he raised his hands with his fingers widespread and stabbed them forward to emphasize what he was saying. The Murgos all nodded, their faces expressionless, and spread out along the trail, facing the woods and the thicket where Garion and the others were hiding. Brill moved farther up the trail. "Keep your eyes open," he shouted to them. "Let's go."

  The Murgos started to move forward at a walk, their eyes searching. Two of them rode past the thicket so close that Garion could smell the sweat on their horses' flanks.

  "I'm getting tired of that man," one of them remarked to the other.

  "I wouldn't let it show," the second one advised.

  "I can take orders as well as any man," the first one said, "but that one's beginning to irritate me. I think he would look better with a knife between his shoulder blades."

  "I don't think he'd like that much, and it might be a little hard to manage."

  "I could wait until he was asleep."

  "I've never seen him sleep."

  "Everybody sleeps-sooner or later."

  "It's up to you," the second replied with a shrug, "but I wouldn't try anything rash - unless you've given up the idea of ever seeing Rak Hagga again."

  The two of them moved on out of earshot.

  Silk crouched, gnawing nervously at a fingernail. His eyes had narrowed to slits, and his sharp little face was intent. Then he began to swear under his breath.

  "What's wrong, Silk?" Garion whispered to him.

  "I've made a mistake," Silk answered irntably. "Let's go back to the others." He turned and crawled through the bushes toward the spring at the center of the thicket.

  Mister Wolf was seated on a log, scratching absently at his splinted arm. "Well?" he asked, looking up.

  "Fifteen Murgos," Silk replied shortly. "And an old friend."

  "It was Brill," Garion reported. "He seemed to be in charge."

  "Brill?" The old man's eyes widened with surprise.

  "He was giving orders and the Murgos were following them," Silk said. "They didn't like it much, but they were doing what he told them to do. They seemed to be afraid of him. I think Brill's something more than an ordinary hireling."

  "Where's Rak Hagga?" Ce'Nedra asked. Wolf looked at her sharply.

  "We heard two of them talking," she explained. "They said they were from Rak Hagga. I thought I knew the names of all the cities in Cthol Murgos, but I've never heard of that one."

  "You're sure they said Rak Hagga?" Wolf asked her, his eyes intent.

  "I heard them too," Garion told him. "That was the name they used - Rak Hagga."

  Mister Wolf stood up, his face suddenly grim. "We're going to have to hurry then. Taur Urgas is preparing for war."

  "How do you know that?" Barak asked him.

  "Rak Hagga's a thousand leagues south of Rak Goska, and the southern Murgos are never brought up into this part of the world unless the Murgo king is on the verge of going to war with someone."

  "Let them come," Barak said with a bleak smile.

  "If it's all the same to you, I'd like to get our business attended to first. I've got to go to Rak Cthol, and I'd prefer not to have to wade through whole armies of Murgos to get there." The old man shook his head angrily. "What is Taur Urgas thinking of?" he burst out. "It's not time yet."

  Barak shrugged. "One time's as good as another."

  "Not for this war. Too many things have to happen first. Can't Ctuchik keep a leash on that maniac?"

  "Unpredictability is part of Taur Urgas' unique charm," Silk observed sardonically. "He doesn't know himself what he's going to do from one day to the next."

  "Knowest thou the king of the Murgos?" Mandorallen inquired.

  "We've met," Silk replied. "We're not fond of each other."

  "Brill and his Murgos should be gone by now," Mister Wolf said. "Let's move on. We've got a long way to go, and time's starting to catch up with us." He moved quickly toward his horse.

  Shortly before sundown they went through a high pass lying in a notch between two mountains and stopped for the night in a little glen a few miles down on the far side.

  "Keep the fire down as much as you can, Durnik," Mister Wolf warned the smith. "Southern Murgos have sharp eyes and they can see the light from a fire from miles away. I'd rather not have company in the middle of the night."

  Durnik nodded soberly and dug his firepit somewhat deeper than usual.

  Mandorallen was attentive to the Princess Ce'Nedra as they set up for the night, and Garion watched sourly. Though he had violently objected each time Aunt Pol had insisted that he ser
ve as Ce'Nedra's personal attendant, now that the tiny girl had her knight to fetch and carry for her, Garion felt somehow that his rightful position had in some way been usurped.

  "We're going to have to pick up our pace," Wolf told them after they had finished a meal of bacon, bread, and cheese. "We've got to get through the mountains before the first storms hit, and we're going to have to try to stay ahead of Brill and his Murgos." He scraped a space clear on the ground in front of him with one foot, picked up a stick and began sketching a map in the dirt. "We're here." He pointed. "Maragor's directly ahead of us. We'll circle to the west, go through Tol Rane, and then strike northeast toward the Vale."

  "Might it not be shorter to cross Maragor?" Mandorallen suggested, pointing at the crude map.

  "Perhaps," the old man replied, "but we won't do that unless we have to. Maragor's haunted, and it's best to avoid it if possible."

  "We are not children to be frightened of insubstantial shades," Mandorallen declared somewhat stiffly.

  "No one's doubting your courage, Mandorallen," Aunt Pol told him, "but the spirit of Mara wails in Maragor. It's better not to offend him."

  "How far is it to the Vale of Aldur?" Durnik asked.

  "Two hundred and fifty leagues," Wolf answered. "We'll be a month or more in the mountains, even under the best conditions. Now we'd better all get some sleep. Tomorrow's likely to be a hard day."

  Chapter Four

  WHEN THEY ROSE the next morning as the first pale hint of light was appearing on the eastern horizon, there was a touch of silvery frost on the ground and a thin scum of ice around the edges of the spring at the bottom of the glen. Ce'Nedra, who had gone to the spring to wash her face, lifted a leaf thin shard from the water and stared at it.

  "It's much colder up in the mountains," Garion told her as he belted on his sword.

  "I'm aware of that," she replied loftily.

  "Forget it," he said shortly and stamped away, muttering.

  They rode down out of the mountains in the bright morning sunlight, moving at a steady trot. As they rounded a shoulder of outcropping rock, they saw the broad basin that had once been Maragor, the District of the Marags, stretching out below them. The meadows were a dusty autumn green, and the streams and lakes sparkled in the sun. A tumbled ruin, looking tiny in the distance, gleamed far out on the plain.