Enchanters' End Game

  ‘It’s nothing to worry about, Lady Polgara. You can fix it, can’t you? You know—’ Ce’Nedra made a little gesture with her hand that was meant to look magical.

  Polgara gave her a long, chilly look.

  King Anheg of Cherek, accompanied by the broad-shouldered Rivan Warder, approached them. ‘Did you have a nice climb?’ he asked Rhodar pleasantly.

  ‘How would you like a punch in the nose?’ Rhodar asked him.

  King Anheg laughed coarsely. ‘My,’ he said, ‘aren’t we grumpy today? I’ve just had some news from home that ought to brighten your disposition a bit.’

  ‘Dispatches?’ Rhodar groaned, hauling himself wearily to his feet.

  Anheg nodded. ‘They sent them up from down below while you were getting your exercise. You’re not going to believe what’s been going on back there.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘You absolutely won’t believe it.’

  ‘Anheg, spit it out.’

  ‘We’re about to get some reinforcements. Islena and Porenn have been very busy these last few weeks.’

  Polgara looked at him sharply.

  ‘Do you know something?’ Anheg said, holding out a folded dispatch. ‘I wasn’t even aware of the fact that Islena knew how to read and write, and now I get this.’

  ‘Don’t be cryptic, Anheg,’ Polgara told him. ‘What have the ladies been up to?’

  ‘I gather that after we left, the Bear-cult began to make itself a bit obnoxious. Grodeg apparently felt that with the men out of the way, he could take over. He started throwing his weight around in Val Alorn, and cult members began to surface in the headquarters of Drasnian intelligence in Boktor. It looks as if they’ve been making preparations for something for years. Anyway, Porenn and Islena began passing information back and forth, and when they realized how close Grodeg was to getting his hands on real power in the two kingdoms, they took steps. Porenn ordered all the cult members out of Boktor – sent them to the most miserable duty posts she could think of – and Islena rounded up the Bear-cult in Val Alorn – every last one of them – and shipped them out to join the army.’

  ‘They did what?’ Rhodar gasped.

  ‘Isn’t it amazing?’ A slow grin spread across Anheg’s coarse face. ‘The beauty of the whole thing is that Islena could get away with it, while I couldn’t. Women aren’t supposed to be aware of the subtleties involved in arresting priests and noblemen – the need for evidence against them and so on – so what would be gross impropriety on my part will be laughed off as ignorance on hers. I’ll have to apologize to Grodeg, of course, but it will be after the fact. The cult will be here, and they’ll have no honest reason to go back home.’

  Rhodar’s answering grin was every bit as wicked as Anheg’s. ‘How did Grodeg take it?’

  ‘He was absolutely livid. I guess Islena faced him down personally. She gave him the choice of joining us or going to the dungeon.’

  ‘You can’t put the High Priest of Belar in a dungeon,’ Rhodar exclaimed.

  ‘Islena didn’t know that, and Grodeg knew that she didn’t. She’d have had him chained to the wall in the deepest hole she could find before anybody had gotten around to telling her that it was illegal. Can’t you just see my Islena delivering that kind of ultimatum to the old windbag?’ There was a note of fierce pride in Anheg’s voice.

  King Rhodar’s face grew very sly. ‘There’s bound to be some rather hot fighting in this campaign sooner or later,’ he noted.

  Anheg nodded.

  ‘The Bear-cult prides itself on its fighting ability, doesn’t it?’

  Anheg nodded again, grinning.

  ‘They’d be perfect for spearheading any attacks, wouldn’t they?’

  Anheg’s grin grew positively vicious.

  ‘I imagine that their casualties will be heavy,’ the King of Drasnia suggested.

  ‘It’s in a good cause, after all,’ Anheg replied piously.

  ‘If you two have quite finished gloating, I think it’s time I got the princess in out of the sun,’ Polgara told the two grinning monarchs.

  The fortified positions atop the escarpment bustled with activity for the next several days. Even as the last of the Cherek ships were raised up the cliffs, the Algars and Mimbrates extended their depredations out into the Thullish countryside. ‘There aren’t any crops standing for fifty leagues in any direction,’ Hettar reported back. ‘We’ll have to go out farther to find anything else to burn.’

  ‘You find many Murgos?’ Barak asked the hawk-faced man.

  ‘A few.’ Hettar shrugged. ‘Not enough to make it interesting, but we run across one every now and then.’

  ‘How’s Mandorallen doing?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him for a few days,’ Hettar replied. ‘There’s a lot of smoke coming from the direction he went, though, so I imagine he’s keeping busy.’

  ‘What’s the country like out there?’ King Anheg asked.

  ‘Not bad, once you get past the uplands. The part of Thulldom along the escarpment here is pretty forbidding.’

  ‘What do you mean by forbidding? I’ve got to haul ships through that country.’

  ‘Rock, sand, a few thornbushes and no water,’ Hettar replied. ‘And it’s hotter than the backdoor of a furnace.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Anheg said.

  ‘You wanted to know,’ Hettar told him. ‘Excuse me.

  I need a fresh horse and some more torches.’

  ‘You’re going out again?’ Barak asked him.

  ‘It’s something to do.’

  Once the last of the ships had been raised, the Drasnian hoists began lifting tons of food and equipment that soon swelled King Fulrach’s supply dumps within the forts to overflowing. The Thullish prisoners proved to be an invaluable asset, carrying whatever burden they were told to carry without complaint or hesitation. Their coarse features shone with such simpleminded gratitude and eagerness to please that Ce’Nedra found it impossible to hate them, even though they were technically the enemy. Slowly, bit by bit, the princess discovered the facts that made the lives of the Thullish people such an unrelieved horror. There was not a family among them that had not lost several members to the knives of the Grolims – husbands, wives, children, and parents had all been selected for sacrifice, and the thought uppermost in every Thull’s life was to avoid the same fate at any cost. The perpetual terror had erased every hint of human affection from the Thull’s makeup. He lived in dreadful isolation, without love, without companionship, without any feeling but constant anxiety and dread. The reputedly insatiable appetite of Thullish women had nothing whatsoever to do with morals or lack of them. It was a simple matter of survival. To escape the knife, a Thullish woman was forced to remain perpetually pregnant. She was not driven by lust, but by fear, and her fear dehumanized her entirely.

  ‘How can they live that way?’ the princess burst out to Lady Polgara as the two of them returned to their makeshift quarters in the stout blockhouse which had been erected inside the walls for the use of the leaders of the army. ‘Why don’t they rebel and drive the Grolims out?’

  ‘And just who’s supposed to lead a rebellion, Ce’Nedra?’ Polgara asked her calmly. ‘The Thulls know that there are Grolims who can pick the thoughts from a man’s mind as easily as you’d pick fruit in an orchard. If a Thull even considered organizing some kind of resistance, he’d be the next one dragged to the altar.’

  ‘But their lives are so horrible,’ Ce’Nedra objected.

  ‘Perhaps we can change that,’ Polgara said. ‘In a way what we’re trying to do is not only for the benefit of the west, but for the Angaraks as well. If we win, they’ll be liberated from the Grolims. They might not thank us at first, but in time they might learn to appreciate it.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t they thank us?’

  ‘Because if we win, dear, it will be because we’ve killed their God. That’s a very hard thing to thank someone for.’

  ‘But Torak is a monster.’

  ‘He’s still t
heir God,’ Polgara replied. ‘The loss of one’s God is a very subtle and terrible injury. Ask the Ulgos what it’s like to live without one. It’s been five thousand years since UL became their God, and they still remember what it was like before he accepted them.’

  ‘We are going to win, aren’t we?’ Ce’Nedra asked suddenly, all her fears flooding to the surface.

  ‘I don’t know, Ce’Nedra,’ Polgara answered quietly. ‘No-one does – not me, not Beldin, not my father, not even Aldur. All we can do is try.’

  ‘What will happen if we lose?’ the princess asked in a tiny, frightened voice.

  ‘We’ll be enslaved in exactly the same way the Thulls are,’ Polgara replied quietly. ‘Torak will become King and God over the entire world. The other Gods will be banished for ever, and the Grolims will be unleashed upon us all.’

  ‘I won’t live in that kind of world,’ Ce’Nedra declared.

  ‘None of us would care to.’

  ‘Did you ever meet Torak?’ the princess asked suddenly.

  Polgara nodded. ‘Once or twice – the last time was at Vo Mimbre just before his duel with Brand.’

  ‘What’s he really like?’

  ‘He’s a God. The force of his mind is overwhelming. When he speaks to you, you must listen to him – and when he commands, you must obey him.’

  ‘Not you, certainly.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand, dear.’ Polgara’s face was grave, and her glorious eyes were as distant as the moon. Without seeming to think about it, she reached out, picked up Errand and sat him on her lap. The child smiled at her and, as he so often did, he reached out and touched the white lock at her brow. ‘There’s a compulsion in Torak’s voice that’s almost impossible to resist,’ she continued. ‘You know that he’s twisted and evil, but when he speaks to you, your will to resist crumbles, and you’re suddenly very weak and afraid.’

  ‘Surely you weren’t afraid.’

  ‘You still don’t understand. Of course I was afraid. We all were – even my father. Pray that you never meet Torak. He’s not some petty Grolim like Chamdar or a scheming old wizard like Ctuchik. He’s a God. He’s hideously maimed, and at some point he was thwarted. Something he needed – something so profound that no human could even conceive of it – was denied to him, and that refusal or rejection drove him mad. His madness is not like the madness of Taur Urgas, who, in spite of everything is still human. Torak’s madness is the madness of a God – a being who can make his diseased imaginings come to pass. Only the Orb can truly withstand him. I could perhaps resist him for a time, but if he lays the full force of his will upon me, ultimately I’ll have to give him what he wants – and what he wants from me is too dreadful to think about.’

  ‘I don’t exactly follow you, Lady Polgara.’

  Garion’s Aunt looked gravely at the tiny girl. ‘Perhaps you don’t at that,’ she said. ‘It has to do with a part of the past that the Tolnedran Historical Society chooses to ignore. Sit down, Ce’Nedra, and I’ll try to explain.’

  The princess sat on a rude bench in their rough chamber. Polgara’s mood was unusual – very quiet, even pensive. She placed her arms about Errand and held him close, nestling her cheek against his blond curls as if taking comfort from the contact with this small boy. ‘There are two Prophecies, Ce’Nedra,’ she explained in her rich voice, ‘but the time is coming when there will only be one. Everything that is or was or is yet to be will become a part of whichever Prophecy prevails. Every man, every woman, every child has two possible destinies. For some, the differences are not all that great, but in my case, they’re rather profound.’

  ‘I don’t quite understand.’

  ‘In the Prophecy which we serve – the one that has brought us here – I am Polgara the sorceress, daughter to Belgarath and guardian to Belgarion.’

  ‘And in the other?’

  ‘In the other, I am the bride of Torak.’

  Ce’Nedra gasped.

  ‘And now you see why I was afraid,’ Polgara continued. ‘I’ve been terrified of Torak since my father first explained this to me when I was no older than you are now. I’m not so much afraid for myself, but more because I know that if I falter – if Torak’s will overpowers mine – then the Prophecy we serve will fail. Torak will not only win me, but all of mankind as well. At Vo Mimbre, he called to me, and I felt – very briefly – the awful compulsion to run to him. But I defied him. I’ve never done anything in my life that was so hard to do. It was my defence, however, that drove him into the duel with Brand, and only in that duel could the power of the Orb be released against him. My father gambled everything on the strength of my will. The old wolf is a great gambler sometimes.’

  ‘Then if—’ Ce’Nedra could not say it.

  ‘If Garion loses?’ Polgara said it so calmly that it was quite obvious that she had considered the possibility many times before. ‘Then Torak will come to claim his bride, and there will be no power on earth sufficient to stop him.’

  ‘I would sooner die,’ the princess blurted.

  ‘So would I, Ce’Nedra, but that option may not be open to me. Torak’s will is so much stronger than mine that he may be able to take from me the ability or even the desire to will myself out of existence. If it should happen, it may very well be that I’ll be deliriously happy to be his chosen and beloved – but deep inside, I think that a part of me will be screaming and will continue to scream in horror down through all the endless centuries to the very end of days.’

  It was too horrible to think about. Unable to restrain herself, the princess threw herself on her knees, clasped her arms about Polgara and Errand, and burst into tears.

  ‘Now, now, there’s no need to cry, Ce’Nedra,’ Polgara told her gently, smoothing the sobbing girl’s hair with her hand. ‘Garion has still not reached the City of Endless Night, and Torak is still asleep. There’s a little time left. And who knows? We might even win.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Once the Cherek fleet had been raised, the pace of activities within the fortifications began to quicken. King Rhodar’s infantry units began to arrive from the encampment at the Aldur River to make the tortuous climb up the narrow ravines to the top of the escarpment; lines of wagons from the main supply dumps freighted food and equipment to the base of the cliff where the great hoists waited to lift the supplies up the mile-high basalt face; and the Mimbrate and Algar raiding parties moved out, usually before dawn, in their now far-flung search for as yet unravaged towns and crops. The depredations of the raiders, their short, savage sieges of poorly fortified Thullish towns and villages, and the mile-wide swaths of fire that they cut through fields of ripe grain had finally swung the sluggish Thulls into poorly organized attempts at resistance. The Thulls, however, inevitably raced to the last point of Mimbrate attack and arrived hours or even days too late, to discover only smoking ruins, dead soldiers, and terrified and dispossessed townsmen, or, when they attempted to intercept the swiftly moving Algars, they normally found only acre upon acre of blackened earth. The raiders had moved on, and the desperate attempts of the Thulls to catch up with them were entirely futile.

  The notion of attacking the forts from which the raiders operated did not occur to the Thulls, or if it did, it was quickly dismissed. The Thulls were not emotionally suited to attacking heavily defended fortifications. They much preferred dashing about, chasing fires, and complaining bitterly to their Murgo and Mallorean allies about the lack of support they were receiving. The Malloreans of Emperor ‘Zakath stead-fastly refused to emerge from their staging areas around Thull Zelik. The Murgos of Taur Urgas, however, did make a few sorties in southern Thulldom, in part as a gesture toward the notion of Angarak unity – but more, King Rhodar surmised, as a part of their overall maneuvering for position. Murgo scouts were even occasionally discovered in the vicinity of the forts themselves. In order to sweep the area clear of these prying Murgo eyes, patrols went out every day from the forts to range through the arid hills. The parched, rocky valle
ys near the forts were randomly searched by Drasnian pikemen and platoons of legionnaires. Algar clansmen, supposedly resting from their long-range raids, amused themselves with an impromptu game they called ‘Murgo hunting.’ They made a great show of their frequent excursions and piously insisted that they were sacrificing their rest time out of a sense of responsibility for the security of the forts. They did not, of course, fool anybody with their protestations.

  ‘The area does need to be patroled, Rhodar,’ King Cho-Hag insisted. ‘My children are performing a necessary duty, after all.’

  ‘Duty?’ Rhodar snorted. ‘Put an Algar on a horse and show him a hill he hasn’t seen the backside of yet, and he’ll always find an excuse to go take a look.’

  ‘You wrong us,’ Cho-Hag replied with a look of hurt innocence.

  ‘I know you.’

  Ce’Nedra and her two closest companions had watched the periodic departure of the lighthearted Algar horsemen with increasingly sour expressions. Though Ariana was perhaps more sedentary in her habits and was accustomed, as all Mimbrate ladies were, to waiting quite patiently while the men were out playing, Adara, Garion’s Algar cousin, felt her confinement most keenly. Like all Algars, she felt a deep-seated need to have the wind in her face and the thunder of hoofs in her ears. She grew petulant after a time and sighed often.

  ‘And what shall we do today, ladies?’ Ce’Nedra asked the two of them brightly one morning after breakfast. ‘How shall we amuse ourselves until lunchtime?’ She said it rather extravagantly, since she already had plans for the day.

  ‘There is always embroidery,’ Ariana suggested. ‘It doth pleasantly occupy the fingers and eyes while leaving the mind and lips free for conversation.’

  Adara sighed deeply.

  ‘Or maybe we might go and observe my lord as he instructs his serfs in their warlike preparations.’ Ariana usually found some excuse to watch Lelldorin for at least half of each day.

  ‘I’m not sure that I’m up to watching a group of men murder hay bales with arrows again today,’ Adara said a bit waspishly.