Guardians of the West

  ‘Which question?’

  ‘What are you doing all the way down in this part of the Vale?’

  ‘There’s something I need to see.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s up ahead somewhere. What is it that’s off in that direction?’

  ‘There’s nothing out there but the tree.’

  ‘That must be it, then. It wants to see me.’

  ‘See?’

  ‘Maybe that’s the wrong word.’

  Beldin scowled at him. ‘Are you sure it’s the tree?’

  ‘No. Not really. All I know is that something in that direction has been—’ Errand hesitated. ‘I want to say inviting me to come by. Would that be the proper word?’

  ‘It’s talking to you, not me. Pick any word you like. All right, let’s go then.’

  ‘Would you like to ride?’ Errand offered. ‘Horse can carry us both.’

  ‘Haven’t you given him a name yet?’

  ‘Horse is good enough. He doesn’t seem to feel that he needs one. Would you like to ride?’

  ‘Why would I want to ride when I can fly?’

  Errand felt a sudden curiosity. ‘What’s it like?’ he asked. ‘Flying, I mean?’

  Beldin’s eyes suddenly changed, to become distant and almost soft. ‘You couldn’t even begin to imagine,’ he said. ‘Just keep your eyes on me. When I get over the tree, I’ll circle to show you where it is.’ He stooped in the tall grass, curved out his arms, and gave a strong leap. As he rose into the air, he shimmered into feathers and swooped away.

  The tree stood in solitary immensity in the middle of a broad meadow, its trunk larger than a house, its widespread branches shading entire acres, and its crown rising hundreds of feet into the air. It was incredibly ancient. Its roots reached down almost into the very heart of the world; and its branches touched the sky. It stood alone and silent, as if forming a link between earth and sky, a link whose purpose was beyond the understanding of man.

  As Errand rode up to the vast shaded area beneath the tree’s shelter, Beldin swooped in, hovered, and dropped, almost seeming to stumble into his natural form. ‘All right,’ he growled, ‘there it is. Now what?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Errand slid down off the horse’s back and walked across the soft, springy turf toward the immense trunk. The sense of the tree’s awareness was very strong now, and Errand approached it curiously, still unable to determine exactly what it wanted with him.

  Then he put out his hand and touched the rough bark; in the instant that he touched it, he understood. He quite suddenly knew the whole of the tree’s existence. He found that he could look back over a million million mornings to the time when the world had just emerged out of the elemental chaos from which the Gods had formed it. All at once, he knew of the incredible length of time that the earth had rolled in silence, awaiting the coming of man. He saw the endless turning of the seasons and felt the footsteps of the Gods upon the earth. And even as the tree knew, Errand came to know the fallacy which lay behind man’s conception of the nature of time. Man needed to compartmentalize time, to break it into manageable pieces—eons, centuries, years, and hours. This eternal tree, however, understood that time was all one piece—that it was not merely an endless repetition of the same events, but rather that it moved from its beginning toward a final goal. All of that convenient segmenting which men used to make time more manageable had no real meaning. It was to tell him this simple truth that the tree had summoned him here. As he grasped that fact, the tree acknowledged him in friendship and affection.

  Slowly Errand let his fingertips slide from the bark, then turned, and walked back to where Beldin stood.

  ‘That’s it?’ the hunchbacked sorcerer asked. ‘That’s all it wanted?’

  ‘Yes. That’s all. We can go back now.’

  Beldin gave him a penetrating look. ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It’s not the kind of thing you can put into words.’

  ‘Try.’

  ‘Well—it was sort of saying that we pay too much attention to years.’

  ‘That’s enormously helpful, Errand.’

  Errand struggled with it, trying to formulate words that would express what he had just learned. ‘Things happen in their own time,’ he said finally. ‘It doesn’t make any difference how many—or few—of what we call years come between things.’

  ‘What things are we talking about?’

  ‘The important ones. Do you really have to follow me all the way home?’

  ‘I need to keep an eye on you. That’s about all. Are you going back now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’ll be up there.’ Beldin made a gesture toward the arching blue dome of the sky. He shuddered into the form of a hawk and drove himself into the air with strong thrusts of his wings.

  Errand pulled himself up onto the chestnut stallion’s back. His pensive mood was somehow communicated to the animal; instead of a gallop, the horse turned and walked north, back toward the cottage nestling in its valley.

  The boy considered the message of the eternal tree as he rode slowly through the golden, sun-drenched grass and, all lost in thought, he paid but little attention to his surroundings. It was thus that he was not actually aware of the robed and hooded figure standing beneath a broad-spread pine until he was almost on top of it. It was the horse that warned him with a startled snort as the figure made a slight move.

  ‘And so thou art the one,’ it snarled in a voice which seemed scarcely human.

  Errand calmed the horse with a reassuring hand on its quivering neck and looked at the dark figure before him. He could feel the waves of hatred emanating from that shadowy shape and he knew that, of all the things he had ever encountered, this was the thing he should most fear. Yet, surprising even himself, he remained calm and unafraid.

  The shape laughed, an ugly, dusty kind of sound. ‘Thou art a fool, boy,’ it said. ‘Fear me, for the day will come when I shall surely destroy thee.’

  ‘Not surely,’ Errand replied calmly. He peered closely at the shadow-shrouded form and saw at once that—like the figure of Cyradis he had met on the snowy hilltop—this seemingly substantial shape was not really here, but somewhere else, sending its malevolent hatred across the empty miles. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘I’m old enough now not to be afraid of shadows.’

  ‘We will meet in the flesh, boy,’ the shadow snarled, ‘and in that meeting shalt thou die.’

  ‘That hasn’t been decided yet, has it?’ Errand said. ‘That’s why we have to meet—to decide which of us will stay and which must go.’

  The dark-robed shape drew in its breath with a sharp hiss. ‘Enjoy thy youth, boy,’ it snarled, ‘for it is all the life thou wilt have. I will prevail.’ Then the dark shape vanished.

  Errand drew in a deep breath and glanced skyward at the circling Beldin. He realized that not even the hawk’s sharp eyes could have penetrated the spreading tree limbs to where that strange, cowled figure had stood. Beldin could not know of the meeting. Errand nudged the stallion’s flanks, and they moved away from the solitary tree at a flowing canter, riding in the golden sunlight toward home.

  Chapter Seven

  The years that followed were quiet years at the cottage. Belgarath and Beldin were often away for long periods of time, and when they returned, travel-stained and weary, their faces usually wore the frustrated look of men who have not found what they were looking for. Although Durnik was often on the stream bank, bending all of his attention to the problem of convincing some wary trout that a thumbnail-sized bit of polished metal with a few strands of red yarn trailing behind it in the current was not merely edible but irresistibly delicious, he nonetheless maintained the cottage and its immediate surroundings in that scrupulously tidy condition which announced louder than words that the proprietor of any given farmstead was a Sendar. Although rail fences, by their very nature, zigzagged and tended to meander with the lay of the ground, Durnik firmly insisted that his fence lines
be absolutely straight. He was quite obviously constitutionally incapable of going around any obstacle. Thus, if a large rock happened to intrude itself in the path of one of his fences, he immediately stopped being a fence builder and became an excavator.

  Polgara immersed herself in domesticity. The interior of her cottage was immaculate. Her doorstep was not merely swept but frequently scrubbed. The rows of beans, turnips, and cabbages in her garden were as straight as any of Durnik’s fences, and weeds were absolutely forbidden. Her expression as she toiled at these seemingly endless tasks was one of dreamy contentment, and she hummed or sang very old songs as she worked.

  The boy, Errand, however, tended on occasion toward vagrancy. This was not to say that the was indolent, but many of the chores around a rural farmstead were tedious, involving repeating the same series of actions over and over again. Stacking firewood was hot one of Errand’s favorite pastimes. Weeding the garden seemed somehow futile, since the weeds grew back overnight. Drying the dishes seemed an act of utter folly, since, left alone, the dishes would dry themselves without any assistance whatsoever. He made some effort to sway Polgara to his point of view in this particular matter. She listened gravely to his impeccable logic, nodding her agreement as he demonstrated with all the eloquence at his command that the dishes did not really need to be dried. And when he had finished, summing up all his arguments with a dazzling display of sheer brilliance, she smiled and said, ‘Yes, dear,’ and implacably handed him the dishtowel.

  Errand was hardly overburdened with unremitting toil, however. In point of fact, not a day went by when he did not spend several hours on the back of the chestnut stallion, roaming the grasslands surrounding the cottage as freely as the wind.

  Beyond the timeless, golden doze of the Vale, the world moved on. Although the cottage was remote, visitors were not uncommon. Hettar, of course, rode by often and sometimes he was accompanied by Adara, his tall, lovely wife, and their infant son. Like her husband, Adara was an Algar to her fingertips, as much at home in the saddle as she was on her feet. Errand was very fond of her. Though her face always seemed serious, even grave, there lurked just beneath that calm exterior an ironic, penetrating wit that absolutely delighted him. It was more than that, however. The tall, dark-haired girl, with her flawless features and alabaster skin, carried about her a light delicate fragrance that always seemed to tug at the outer edges of his consciousness. There was something elusive yet strangely compelling about that scent. Once, when Polgara was playing with the baby, Adara rode with Errand to the top of a nearby hill and there she told him about how the perfume she wore originated.

  ‘You did know that Garion is my cousin?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We had ridden out from the Stronghold once—it was in the winter when everything was locked in frost. The grass was brown and lifeless, and all the leaves had fallen from the bushes. I asked him about sorcery—what it was and what he could do with it. I didn’t really believe in sorcery—I wanted to, but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe. He took up a twig and wrapped some dry grass around it; then he turned it into a flower right in front of my eyes.’

  Errand nodded. ‘Yes, that’s the kind of thing Garion would do. Did it help you to believe?’

  She smiled. ‘Not right away—at least not altogether. There was something else I wanted him to do, but he said that he couldn’t.’

  ‘What was that?’

  She blushed rosily and then laughed. ‘It still embarrasses me,’ she said. ‘I wanted him to use his power to make Hettar love me.’

  ‘But he didn’t have to do that,’ Errand said. ‘Hettar loved you already, didn’t he?’

  ‘Well—he needed a little help to make him realize it. But I was feeling very sorry for myself that day. When we rode back to the Stronghold, I forgot the flower and left it behind on the sheltered side of a hill. A year or so later, the whole hillside was covered with low bushes and these beautiful little lavender flowers. Ce’Nedra calls the flower “Adara’s rose,” and Ariana thought it might have some medicinal value, even though we’ve never been able to find anything it cures. I like the fragrance of the flower, and it is mine in a sort of special way, so I sprinkle petals in the chests where I keep my clothes.’ She laughed a wicked sort of little laugh. ‘It makes Hettar very affectionate,’ she added.

  ‘I don’t think that’s entirely caused by the flower,’ Errand said.

  ‘Perhaps, but I’m not going to take any chances with that. If the scent gives me an advantage, I’m certainly going to use it.’

  ‘That makes sense, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh, Errand,’ she laughed, ‘you’re an absolutely delightful boy.’

  The visits of Hettar and Adara were not entirely social in nature. Hettar’s father was King Cho-Hag, Chief of the Clan-Chiefs of Algaria, and Cho-Hag, the nearest of the Alorn monarchs, felt that it was his responsibility to keep Polgara advised of the events which were taking place in the world beyond the boundaries of the Vale. From time to time he sent reports of the progress of the bloody, endless war in southern Cthol Murgos, where Kal Zakath, emperor of Mallorea, continued his implacable march across the plains of Hagga and into the great southern forest in Gorut. The Kings of the West were at a loss to explain Zakath’s seemingly unreasoning hatred of his Murgo cousins. There were rumors of a personal affront at some time in the past, but that had involved Taur Urgas, and Taur Urgas had died at the Battle of Thull Mardu. Zakath’s enmity for the Murgos, however, had not died with the madman who ruled them, and he now led his Malloreans in a savage campaign, evidently designed to exterminate all of Murgodom and to erase from human memory all traces of the fact that the Murgos had ever even existed.

  In Tolnedra, Emperor Ran Borune XXIII, the father of Queen Ce’Nedra of Riva, was in failing health; and because he had no son to succeed him on the Imperial Throne at Tol Honeth, the great families of the Empire were engaged in a vicious struggle over the succession. Enormous bribes changed hands, and assassins crept through the streets of Tol Honeth by night with sharpened daggers and vials of those deadly poisons purchased in secret from the snake-people of Nyissa. The wily Ran Borune, however, much to the chagrin and outrage of the Honeths, the Vordues, and the Horbites, had appointed General Varana, the Duke of Anadile, as his regent; and Varana, whose control of the legions was very nearly absolute, took firm steps to curb the excesses of the great houses in their scramble for the throne.

  The internecine wars of the Angaraks and the only slightly less savage struggles of the Grand Dukes of the Tolnedran Empire, however, were of only passing interest to the Alorn Kings. The monarchs of the north were far more concerned with the troublesome resurgence of the Bear-cult and with the sad but undeniable fact that King Rhodar of Drasnia was quite obviously declining rapidly. Rhodar, despite his vast bulk, had demonstrated an astonishing military genius during the campaign which had culminated at the Battle of Thull Mardu, but Cho-Hag sadly reported that the corpulent Drasnian monarch had grown forgetful and in some ways even childish in the past few years. Because of his huge weight, he could no longer stand unaided and he frequently fell asleep, even during the most important state functions. His lovely young queen, Porenn, did as much as she possible could to relieve the burdens imposed upon him by his crown, but it was quite obvious to all who knew him that King Rhodar would be unable to reign much longer.

  At last, toward the end of a severe winter that had locked the north in snow and ice deeper than anyone could remember, Queen Porenn sent a messenger to the Vale to entreat Polgara to come to Boktor to try her healing arts on the Drasnian king. The messenger arrived late one bitter afternoon as the wan sun sank almost wearily into a bed of purple cloud lying heavy over the mountains of Ulgo. He was thickly wrapped in rich sable fur, but his long, pointed nose protruded from the warm interior of his deep cowl and immediately identified him.

  ‘Silk!’ Durnik exclaimed as the little Drasnian dismounted in the snowy dooryard. ‘What are you doing al
l the way down here?’

  ‘Freezing, actually,’ Silk replied. ‘I hope you’ve got a good fire going.’

  ‘Pol, look who’s here,’ Durnik called, and Polgara opened the door to look out at their visitor.

  ‘Well, Prince Kheldar,’ she said, smiling at the rat-faced little man, ‘have you so completely plundered Gar og Nadrak that you’ve come in search of a new theater for your depredations?’

  ‘No,’ Silk told her, stamping his half-frozen feet on the ground. ‘I made the mistake of passing through Boktor on my way to Val Alorn. Porenn dragooned me into making a side trip.’

  ‘Go inside,’ Durnik told him. ‘I’ll tend to your horse.’

  After Silk had removed his sable cloak, he stood shivering in front of the arched fireplace with his hands extended toward the flames. ‘I’ve been cold for the last week,’ he grumbled. ‘Where’s Belgarath?’

  ‘He and Beldin are off in the East somewhere,’ Polgara replied, mixing the half-frozen man a cup of spiced wine to help warm him.

  ‘No matter, I suppose. Actually I came to see you. You’ve heard that my uncle isn’t well?’

  She nodded, picking up a glowing-hot poker and plunging it into the wine with a bubbling hiss. ‘Hettar brought us some news about that last fall. Have his physicians put a name to his illness yet?’

  ‘Old age.’ Silk shrugged, gratefully taking the cup from her.

  ‘Rhodar isn’t really that old.’

  ‘He’s carrying a lot of extra weight. That tires a man out after a while. Porenn is desperate. She sent me to ask you—no, to beg you—to come to Boktor and see what you can do. She says to tell you that Rhodar won’t see the geese come north if you don’t come.’

  ‘Is it really that bad?’

  ‘I’m not a physician,’ Silk replied, ‘but he doesn’t look very good, and his mind seems to be slipping. He’s even starting to lose his appetite, and that’s a bad sign in a man who always ate seven big meals a day.’

  ‘Of course we’ll come,’ Polgara said quickly.