Guardians of the West

  ‘I’m going to need two horses,’ he said, skipping the customary courtesies. ‘The best you have. I have to be in the Vale of Aldur before the week is out.’

  The herd master, a fierce-looking Algar warrior in black leather, looked at him speculatively. ‘Good horses are expensive, your Majesty,’ he ventured, his eyes coming alight.

  ‘That’s beside the point. Please have them ready in a quarter of an hour—and throw some food in a saddlebag for me.’

  ‘Doesn’t your Majesty even want to discuss the price?’ the herd master’s voice betrayed his profound disappointment.

  ‘Not particularly,’ Garion told him. ‘Just add it all up, and I’ll pay it.’

  The herd master sighed. ‘Take them as a gift, your Majesty,’ he said. Then he looked mournfully at the Rivan King. ‘You do realize, of course, that you’ve absolutely ruined my whole afternoon.’

  Garion gave him a tight, knowing grin. ‘If I had the time, good herd master, I’d haggle with you for the whole day—right down to the last penny—but I have urgent business in the south.’

  The herd master shook his head sadly.

  ‘Don’t take it so hard, my friend,’ Garion told him. ‘If you like, I’ll curse your name to everyone I meet and tell them all how badly you cheated me.’

  The herd master’s eyes brightened. ‘That would be extremely kind of your Majesty,’ he said. He caught Garion’s amused look. ‘One does have a certain reputation to maintain, after all. The horses will be ready whenever you are. I’ll select them for you myself.’

  Garion made good time as he galloped south. He kept his horses fresh and strong by changing mounts every two or three leagues. The long journey in quest of the Orb had taught him many ways to conserve the strength of a good horse, and he utilized them all. When a steep hill stood in his path, he slowed to a walk and made up the lost time on the long downhill slope on the other side. When he could, he went around rough terrain. He stopped for the night late and was on the move again at first light in the morning.

  Steadily he moved south through the knee-high sea of waving prairie grass lying lush and green under the warm spring sun. He avoided the man-made mountain of the Algarian Stronghold, knowing that King Cho-Hag and Queen Silar, and certainly Hettar and Adara, would insist that he stop over for a day or so. Regretfully, he also passed a league or so to the west of Poledra’s cottage. He hoped that there would be time later to visit Aunt Pol, Durnik, and Errand. Right now he had to get to Belgarath with the passage of the Codex he had so carefully copied and which now rode in the inside pocket of his doublet.

  When at last he arrived at Belgarath’s squat, round tower, his legs were so tired that they trembled under him as he swung down from his lathered horse. He went immediately to the large, flat-faced rock that was the door to the tower. ‘Grandfather!’ he shouted at the windows above, ‘Grandfather, it’s me!’

  There was no answer. The squat tower loomed silently up out of the tall grass, etched sharply against the sky. Garion had not even considered the possibility that the old man might not be here. ‘Grandfather!’ he called again. There was still no answer. A red-winged blackbird swooped in, landed atop the tower, and peered curiously down at Garion. Then it began to preen its feathers.

  Almost sick with disappointment, Garion stared at the silent rock that always swung aside for Belgarath. Although he knew that it was a serious breach of etiquette, he pulled in his concentration, looked at the rock, and said, ‘Open.’

  The stone gave a startled little lurch and swung obediently aside. Garion went in and quickly mounted the stairs, remembering at the last instant to step up over the one where the loose stone still lay unrepaired. ‘Grandfather!’ he called up the stairway.

  ‘Garion?’ the old man’s voice coming from above sounded startled. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘I called,’ Garion said, coming up into the cluttered, round room at the top of the stairs. ‘Didn’t you hear me?’

  ‘I was concentrating on something,’ the old man replied. ‘What’s the matter? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I finally found that passage,’ Garion told him.

  ‘What passage?’

  ‘The one in the Mrin Codex—the one that was missing.’

  Belgarath’s expression grew suddenly tense, even wary. ‘What are you talking about, boy? There’s no missing passage in the Mrin Codex.’

  ‘We talked about it at Riva. Don’t you remember? It’s the place where there’s that blot on the page. I pointed it out to you.’

  Belgarath’s look grew disgusted. ‘You came here and interrupted me over that?’ His tone was scathing.

  Garion stared at him. This was not the Belgarath he knew. The old man had never treated him so coldly before. ‘Grandfather,’ he said, ‘what’s wrong with you? This is very important. Somebody has somehow obscured a part of the Codex. When you read it, there’s a part you don’t see.’

  ‘But you can see it?’ Belgarath said in a voice filled almost with contempt. ‘You? A boy who couldn’t even read until he was almost grown? The rest of us have been studying that Codex for thousands of years, and now you come along and tell us that we’ve been missing something?’

  ‘Listen to me, Grandfather. I’m trying to explain. When you come to that place, something happens to your mind. You don’t pay any attention to it because, for some reason, you don’t want to.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ Belgarath snorted. ‘I don’t need some rank beginner trying to tell me how to study.’

  ‘Won’t you at least look at what I found?’ Garion begged, taking the parchment out of his inside pocket and holding it out.

  ‘No!’ Belgarath shouted, slapping the parchment away. ‘Take that nonsense away from me. Get out of my tower, Garion!’

  ‘Grandfather!’

  ‘Get out of here!’ The old man’s face was pale with anger, and his eyes flashed.

  Garion was so hurt by his grandfather’s words that tears actually welled up in his eyes. How could Belgarath talk to him this way?

  The old man became even more agitated. He began to pace up and down, muttering angrily to himself. ‘I have work to do—important work—and you come bursting in here with this wild tale about something being missing. How dare you? How dare you interrupt me with this idiocy? Don’t you know who I am?’ He gestured at the parchment Garion had picked up and was holding again. ‘Get that disgusting thing out of my sight!’

  And then Garion suddenly understood. Whatever or whoever it was that was trying to conceal the words hidden in that strange blot of ink was growing desperate, driving Belgarath into this uncharacteristic rage to keep him from reading the passage. There was only one way to break that strange compulsion not to see. Garion laid the parchment on a table, then coldly and deliberately unbuckled the heavy belt running across his chest, removed Iron-grip’s sword from his back, and stood it against the wall. He put his hand to the Orb on the pommel of the sword and said, ‘Come off.’ The Orb came free in his hand, glowing at his touch.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Belgarath demanded of him.

  ‘I’m going to have to make you see what I’m talking about, Grandfather,’ Garion said unhappily. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, but you have to look.’ He walked slowly and deliberately toward Belgarath, the Orb extended before him.

  ‘Garion,’ Belgarath said, backing away apprehensively, ‘be careful with that.’

  ‘Go to the table, Grandfather,’ Garion told him grimly. ‘Go to the table and read what I found.’

  ‘Are you threatening me?’ Belgarath demanded incredulously.

  ‘Just do it, Grandfather.’

  ‘We don’t behave this way toward each other, Garion,’ the old man said, still backing away from the glowing Orb.

  ‘The table,’ Garion repeated. ‘Go over there and read.’

  Sweat was standing out on Belgarath’s forehead. Reluctantly, almost as if it were causing him some obscure kind of pain, he went to the table and bent over the parchment s
heet. Then he shook his head. ‘I can’t see it,’ he declared, though a burning candle stood right beside the sheet. ‘It’s too dark in here.’

  ‘Here,’ Garion said, reaching forth with the glowing Orb, ‘I’ll light it for you.’ The Orb flared, and its blue light fell across the sheet and filled the room. ‘Read it, Grandfather,’ Garion said implacably.

  Belgarath stared at him with an almost pleading expression. ‘Garion —’

  ‘Read it.’

  Belgarath dropped his eyes to the page lying before him, and suddenly he gasped. ‘Where—? How did you get this?’

  ‘It was under that blot. Can you see it now?’

  ‘Of course I can see it.’ Excitedly Belgarath picked up the sheet and read it again. His hands were actually trembling. ‘Are you sure this is exactly what it said?’

  ‘I copied it word for word, Grandfather—right off the original scroll.’

  ‘How were you able to see it?’

  ‘The same way you are—by the light of the Orb. Somehow that makes it clear.’

  ‘Astonishing,’ the old man said. ‘I wonder —’ He went quickly to a cabinet standing by the wall, rummaged around for a moment, and then came back to the table with a scroll in his hands. He quickly unrolled it. ‘Hold the Orb closer, boy,’ he said.

  Garion held out the Orb and watched with his grandfather as the buried words slowly rose to the surface just as they had in the shrine.

  ‘Absolutely amazing,’ Belgarath marveled. ‘It’s blurred, and some of the words aren’t clear, but it’s there. It’s all there. How is it possible that none of us noticed this before—and how did you discover it?’

  ‘I had help, Grandfather. The voice told me that I had to read it in a certain kind of light.’ He hesitated, knowing how much pain what he had to say would cause the old man. ‘And then, Poledra came to visit us.’

  ‘Poledra?’ Belgarath spoke his wife’s name with a little catch in his voice.

  ‘Someone was making Ce’Nedra do something in her sleep—something very dangerous—and Poledra came and stopped her. Then she told me that I had to go to the shrine in Drasnia and read the Codex and she specifically told me to take the Orb along. When I got there and started reading, I almost left. It all seemed so stupid somehow. Then I remembered what they had told me and I put it together. As soon as I started reading by the light of the Orb, that feeling that I was wasting my time disappeared. Grandfather, what causes that? I thought it was only me, but it affected you, too.’

  Belgarath thought a moment, frowning. ‘It was an interdiction,’ he explained finally. ‘Someone at some time put his will to that one spot and made it so repulsive that no one could even see it.’

  ‘But it’s right there—even on your copy. How is it that the scribe who copied it could see it well enough to write it down, but we couldn’t?’

  ‘Many of the scribes in the old days were illiterate,’ Belgarath explained. ‘You don’t have to be able to read in order to copy something. All those scribes were doing was drawing exact duplicates of the letters on the page.’

  ‘But this—what was it you called it?’

  ‘Interdiction. It’s a fancy word for what happens. I think Beldin invented it. He’s terribly impressed by his own cleverness sometimes.’

  ‘The interdiction made the scribes pile all the words on top of each other—even though they didn’t know what the words meant?’

  Belgarath grunted, his eyes lost in thought. ‘Whoever did this is very strong—and very subtle. I didn’t even suspect that someone was tampering with my mind.’

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘Probably at the same time the Mrin Prophet was speaking the words originally.’

  ‘Would the interdiction keep working after the person who caused it was dead?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then—’

  ‘Right. He’s still around somewhere.’

  ‘Could it be this Zandramas we keep hearing about?’

  ‘That’s possible, I suppose.’ Belgarath picked up the sheet Garion had copied. ‘I can see it by ordinary light now,’ he said. ‘Apparently once you break the interdiction for somebody, it stays broken.’ He carefully read the sheet again. ‘This is really important, Garion.’

  ‘I was fairly sure it was,’ Garion replied. ‘I don’t understand it all, though. The first part is fairly simple—the part about the Orb turning red and the name of the Child of Dark being revealed. It sort of looks as if I’m going to have to make another one of those trips.’

  ‘A long one, if this is right.’

  ‘What’s this next part mean?’

  ‘Well, as nearly as I can make it out, this quest of yours—whatever it is—has already started. It began when Geran was born.’ The old man frowned. ‘I don’t like this part that says that blind choice might make the decision, though. That’s the sort of thing that makes me very nervous.’

  ‘Who is the Beloved and Eternal?’

  ‘Probably me.’

  Garion looked at him.

  Belgarath shrugged. ‘It’s a little ostentatious,’ he admitted, ‘but some people do call me “the Eternal Man”—and when my Master changed my name, he added the syllable “Bel” to my old one. In the old language “Bel” meant “beloved.”’ He smiled a bit sadly. ‘My Master had a way with words sometimes.’

  ‘What are these mysteries it talks about?’

  ‘It’s an archaic term. In the old days they used the word “mystery” instead of “prophecy.” As cryptic as some of them are, it sort of makes sense, I guess.’

  ‘Ho! Garion! Belgarath!’ The voice came to them from outside the tower.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Belgarath asked. ‘Did you tell anybody you were coming here?’

  ‘No,’ Garion frowned, ‘not really.’ He went to the window and looked down. A tall, hawk-faced Algar with a flowing black scalp lock sat astride a lathered and exhausted-looking horse. ‘Hettar!’ Garion called down to him, ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘Let me in, Garion,’ Hettar replied. ‘I have to talk with you.’

  Belgarath joined Garion at the window. ‘The door’s around on the other side,’ he called down. ‘I’ll open it for you. Be careful of the stone on that fifth step,’ he cautioned, as the tall man started around the tower. ‘It’s loose.’

  ‘When are you going to fix that, Grandfather?’ Garion asked. He felt the faint, familiar surge as the old man opened the door.

  ‘Oh, I’ll get to it one of these days.’

  Hettar’s hawklike face was bleak as he came up into the round room at the top of the tower.

  ‘What’s all the urgency, Hettar?’ Garion asked. ‘I’ve never seen you ride a horse into the ground like that.’

  Hettar took a deep breath. ‘You’ve got to go back to Riva immediately, Garion,’ he said.

  ‘Is something wrong there?’ Garion asked, a sudden chill coming over him.

  Hettar sighed. ‘I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, Garion, but Ce’Nedra sent word for me to get you as fast as I possibly could. You’ve got to go back to Riva at once.’

  Garion steeled himself, a dozen dreadful possibilities arising in his imagination. ‘Why?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Garion—more sorry than I can possibly say—but Brand has been murdered.’

  Part Three

  ALORIA

  Chapter Seventeen

  Lieutenant Bledik was one of those sober-minded young Sendarian officers who took everything very seriously. He arrived at the Lion Inn in the port city of Camaar promptly on time and was escorted upstairs by the aproned innkeeper. The rooms in which Garion and the others were staying were airy and well-furnished and looked out over the harbor. Garion stood at the window holding aside one of the green drapes and looking out as if it might be possible to penetrate all those leagues of open water and see what was happening at Riva.

  ‘You sent for me, your Majesty?’ Bledik asked with a respectful bow.

 
‘Ah, Lieutenant, come in,’ Garion said, turning from the window. ‘I have an urgent message for King Fulrach. How fast do you think you can get to Sendar?’

  The lieutenant considered it. One look at his sober face told Garion that the young man always considered everything. Bledik pursed his lips, absently adjusting the collar of his scarlet uniform. ‘If I ride straight through and change horses at every hostel along the way, I can be at the palace by late tomorrow afternoon.’

  ‘Good,’ Garion said. He handed the young officer the folded and sealed letter to the Sendarian king. ‘When you see King Fulrach, tell him that I’ve sent Lord Hettar of Algaria to all of the Alorn Kings to tell them that I’m calling a meeting of the Alorn Council at Riva and that I’d like to have him there as well.’

  ‘Yes, your Majesty.’

  ‘And tell him that the Rivan Warder has been murdered.’

  Bledik’s eyes widened, and his face went pale. ‘No!’ he gasped. ‘Who was responsible?’

  ‘I don’t know any of the details yet, but, as soon as we can hire a ship, we’re going across to the island.’

  ‘Garion, dear,’ Polgara said from her chair by the window, ‘you explained everything in the letter. The lieutenant has a long way to go, and you’re delaying him.’

  ‘You’re probably right, Aunt Pol,’ he admitted. He turned back to Bledik. ‘Will you need any money or anything?’ he asked.

  ‘No, your Majesty.’

  ‘You’d better get started then.’

  ‘At once, your Majesty.’ The lieutenant saluted and went out.

  Garion began to pace up and down on the costly Mallorean carpet while Polgara, dressed in a plain blue traveling gown, continued to mend one of Errand’s tunics, her needle flashing in the sunlight streaming through the window. ‘How can you be so calm?’ he demanded of her.

  ‘I’m not, dear,’ she replied. ‘That’s why I’m sewing.’

  ‘What’s taking them so long?’ he fretted.

  ‘Hiring a ship takes time, Garion. It’s not exactly like buying a loaf of bread.’