Guardians of the West

  ‘Garion,’ she said firmly, ‘in our particular family there’s no such thing as a private problem. I thought you knew that by now. Exactly what is the difficulty with Ce’Nedra?’

  ‘It’s just not working, Aunt Pol,’ he said disconsolately. ‘There are things that I absolutely have to see to by myself, and she wants me to spend every waking minute with her—well, at least she used to. Now we go for days without seeing each other at all. We don’t sleep in the same bed any more, and—’ He looked suddenly at Errand and coughed uncomfortably.

  ‘There,’ Polgara said to Errand as if nothing had happened. ‘I guess you’re presentable now. Why don’t you put on that brown wool cape and go find Durnik? Then the two of you can go down to the stables and visit the horse.’

  ‘All right, Polgara,’ Errand agreed, slipping down off the stool and going to fetch the cape.

  ‘He’s a very good little boy, isn’t he?’ Garion said to Polgara.

  ‘Most of the time,’ she replied. ‘If we can keep him out of the river behind my mother’s house. For some reason, he seems to feel incomplete if he can’t fall into the water once or twice a month.’

  Errand kissed Polgara and started toward the door.

  ‘Tell Durnik that I said the two of you can enjoy yourselves this morning,’ she told him. She gave Garion a direct look. ‘I think I’m going to be busy here for a few hours.’

  ‘All right,’ Errand said, and went out into the corridor. He gave only the briefest of thoughts to the problem which had made Garion and Ce’Nedra so unhappy. Polgara had already taken the matter in hand, and Errand knew that she would fix things. The problem itself was not a large one, but it had somehow been exploded into something of monstrous proportions by the arguments it had caused. The smallest misunderstanding, Errand realized, could sometimes fester like a hidden wound, if words spoken in haste and in heat were allowed to stand without apology or forgiveness. He also realized that Garion and Ce’Nedra loved each other so much that they were both extremely vulnerable to those hasty and heated words. Each had an enormous power to hurt the other. Once they were both made fully aware of that, the whole business could be allowed to blow over.

  The corridors of the Citadel of Riva were lighted by torches held in iron rings protruding from the stone walls. Errand walked down a broad hallway leading to the east side of the fortress and the steps leading to the parapet and the battlements above. When he reached the thick east wall, he paused to look out one of the narrow windows that admitted a slender band of steel-gray light from the dawn sky. The Citadel was high above the city, and the gray stone buildings and narrow, cobblestone streets below were still lost in shadows and morning mist. Here and there, lighted windows gleamed in the houses of early risers. The clean salt smell of the sea, carried by an onshore breeze, wafted over the island kingdom. Contained within the ancient stones of the Citadel itself was the sense of desolation the people of Riva Iron-grip had felt when they had first glimpsed this rocky isle rising grim and storm-lashed out of a leaden sea. Also within those stones was that stern sense of duty that had made the Rivans wrest their fortress and their city directly from the rock itself, to stand forever in defense of the Orb of Aldur.

  Errand climbed the flight of stone stairs and found Durnik standing at the battlements, looking out over the Sea of the Winds that was rolling endlessly in to crash in long, muted combers against the rocky shore.

  ‘She finished with your hair, I see,’ Durnik noted.

  Errand nodded. ‘Finally,’ he said wryly.

  Durnik laughed. ‘We can both put up with a few things if they please her, can’t we?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Errand agreed. ‘She’s talking with Belgarion right now. I think she wants us to stay away until they’ve talked it all out.’

  Durnik nodded. ‘That’s the best way, really. Pol and Garion are very close. He’ll tell her things when they’re alone that he wouldn’t say if we were around. I hope she can things straightened out between him and Ce’Nedra.’

  ‘Polgara will fix it,’ Errand assured him.

  From somewhere in a meadow high above them where the morning sun had already touched the emerald grass, a shepherdess lifted her voice to sing to her flock. She sang of love in a pure, unschooled voice that rose like bird song.

  ‘That’s the way love should be,’ Durnik said. ‘Simple and uncomplicated and clear—just like that girl’s voice.’

  ‘I know,’ Errand said. ‘Polgara said we could go visit the horse—whenever you’re finished up here.’

  ‘Of course,’ Durnik said, ‘and we could probably stop by the kitchen and pick up some breakfast along the way.’

  ‘That’s an awfully good idea, too,’ Errand said.

  The day went very well. The sun was warm and bright, and the horse frolicked in the exercise yard almost like a puppy.

  ‘The king won’t let us break him,’ one of the grooms told Durnik. ‘He hasn’t even been trained to a halter yet. His Majesty said something about this being a very special horse—which I don’t understand at all. A horse is a horse, isn’t it?’

  ‘It has to do with something that happened when he was born,’ Durnik explained.

  ‘They’re all born the same,’ the groom said.

  ‘You had to have been there,’ Durnik told him.

  At supper that evening, Garion and Ce’Nedra were looking rather tentatively across the table at each other, and Polgara had a mysterious little smile playing across her lips.

  When they had all finished eating, Garion stretched and yawned somewhat theatrically. ‘For some reason I’m feeling very tired tonight,’ he said. ‘The rest of you can sit up and talk if you’d like, but I think I’ll go to bed.’

  ‘That might not be a bad idea, Garion,’ Polgara told him.

  He got to his feet, and Errand could feel his trembling nervousness. With an almost agonizing casualness he turned to Ce’Nedra. ‘Coming, dear?’ he asked, putting an entire peace proposal into those two words.

  Ce’Nedra looked at him, and her heart was in her eyes. ‘Why—uh—yes, Garion,’ she said with a rosy little blush, ‘I believe I will. I seem to be very tired, too.’

  ‘Good night, children,’ Polgara said to them in tones of warm affection. ‘Sleep well.’

  ‘What did you say to them?’ Belgarath asked his daughter when the royal couple had left the room hand in hand.

  ‘A great many things, father,’ she replied smugly.

  ‘One of them must have done the trick,’ he said. ‘Durnik, be a good fellow and top this off for me. He passed his empty tankard to Durnik, who sat beside the ale barrel.

  Polgara was so pleased with her success that she did not even comment on that.

  It was well after midnight when Errand awoke with a slight start.

  ‘You’re a very sound sleeper,’ a voice that seemed to be inside his mind said to him.

  ‘I was dreaming,’ Errand replied.

  ‘I noticed that,’ the voice said drily. ‘Pull on some clothes. I need you in the throne room.’

  Errand obediently got out of bed and pulled on his tunic and his short, soft Sendarian boots.

  ‘Be quiet,’ the voice told him. ‘Let’s not wake up Polgara and Durnik.’

  Quietly they left the apartment and went down the long, deserted corridors to the Hall of the Rivan King, the vast throne room where, three years before, Errand had placed the Orb of Aldur in Garion’s hand and had forever changed the young man’s life.

  The huge door creaked slightly as Errand pulled it open, and he heard a voice inside call out, ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘It’s only me, Belgarion,’ Errand told him.

  The great Hall was illuminated by the soft blue radiance of the Orb of Aldur, standing on the pommel of the huge sword of Riva, hanging point downward above the throne.

  ‘What are you doing wandering around so late, Errand?’ Garion asked him. The Rivan King was sprawled on his throne with his leg cocked up over one of the arms.


  ‘I was told to come here,’ Errand replied.

  Garion looked at him strangely. ‘Told? Who told you?’

  ‘You know,’ Errand said, stepping inside the Hall and closing the door. ‘Him!’

  Garion blinked. ‘Does he talk to you, too?’

  ‘This is the first time. I’ve known about him, though.’

  ‘If he’s never—’ Garion broke off and looked sharply up at the Orb, his eyes startled. The soft blue light of the stone had suddenly changed to a deep, angry red. Errand could very clearly hear a strange sound. For all of the time he had carried the Orb, his ears had been filled with the crystalline shimmer of its song, but now that shimmer seemed to have taken on an ugly iron overtone, as if the stone had encountered something or someone that filled it with a raging anger.

  ‘Beware!’ that voice which they both heard quite clearly said to them in tones which could not be ignored. ‘Beware Zandramas!’

  Chapter Five

  As soon as it was daylight, the two of them went in search of Belgarath. Errand could sense that Garion was troubled and he himself felt that the warning they had received concerned a matter of such importance that everything else must be set aside in the face of it. They had not really spoken much about it during those dark, silent hours while they sat together in the Hall of the Rivan King, waiting for the first light to touch the eastern horizon. Instead, they had both watched the Orb of Aldur closely, but the stone, after that one strange moment of crimson anger, had returned to its customary azure glow.

  They found Belgarath seated before a recently rekindled fire in a low-beamed hall close to the royal kitchens. On the table not far from where he sat lay a large chunk of bread and a generous slab of cheese. Errand looked at the bread and cheese, realizing suddenly that he was hungry and wondering if Belgarath might be willing to share some of his breakfast. The old sorcerer seemed lost in thought as he gazed into the dancing flames, and his stout gray cloak was drawn about his shoulders, though the hall was not cold. ‘You two are up early,’ he noted as Garion and Errand entered and came to join him by the fiireside.

  ‘So are you, Grandfather,’ Garion said.

  ‘I had a peculiar dream,’ the old man replied. ‘I’ve been trying to shake it off for several hours now. For some reason I dreamed that the Orb had turned red.’

  ‘It did,’ Errand told him quietly.

  Belgarath looked at him sharply.

  ‘Yes. We both saw it, Grandfather,’ Garion said. ‘We were in the throne room a few hours ago, and the Orb suddenly turned red. Then that voice that I’ve got in here—’ He tapped his forehead. ‘—said to beware of Zandramas.’

  ‘Zandramas?’ Belgarth said with a puzzled look. ‘Is that a name or a thing or what?’

  ‘I don’t really know, Grandfather,’ Garion replied, ‘but both Errand and I heard it, didn’t we, Errand?’

  Errand nodded, his eyes still on the bread and cheese . . .

  ‘What were the two of you doing in the throne room at that hour?’ Belgarath asked, his eyes very intent.

  ‘I was asleep,’ Garion answered. Then his face flushed slightly. ‘Well, sort of asleep. Ce’Nedra and I talked until quite late. We haven’t talked very much lately, and so we had a lot of things to say to each other. Anyway, he told me to get up and go to the throne room.’

  Belgarath looked at Errand. ‘And you?’

  ‘He woke me up,’ Errand replied, ‘and he—’

  ‘Hold it,’ Belgarath said sharply. ‘Who woke you up?’

  ‘The same one who woke Garion.’

  ‘You know who he is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you know what he is?’

  Errand nodded.

  ‘Has he ever spoken to you before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you knew immediately who and what he is?’

  ‘Yes. He told me that he needed me in the throne room, so I got dressed and went. When I got there, the Orb turned red, and the voice said to beware of Zandramas.’

  Belgarath was frowning. ‘You’re both absolutely positive that the Orb changed color?’

  ‘Yes, Grandfather,’ Garion assured him, ‘and it sounded different, too. It usually makes this kind of ringing noise—like the sound a bell makes after you strike it. This was altogether different.’

  ‘And you’re sure that it turned red? I mean it wasn’t just a darker shade of blue or something?’

  ‘No, Grandfather. It was definitely red.’

  Belgarath got up out of his chair, his face suddenly grim. ‘Come with me,’ he said shortly and started toward the door.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Garion asked.

  ‘To the library. I need to check on something.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Let’s wait until I read it. This is important, and I want to be sure that I’ve got it right.’

  As he passed the table, Errand picked up the piece of cheese and broke off part of it. He took a large bite as he followed Belgarath and Garion from the room. They went quickly through the dim, torchlit corridors and up a steep, echoing flight of narrow stone steps. In the past few years Belgarath’s expression had become rather whimsical and touched with a sort of lazy self-indulgence. All trace of that was gone now, and his eyes were intent and very alert. When they reached the library, the old man took a pair of candles from a dusty table and lighted them from the torch hanging in an iron ring just outside the door. Then he came back inside and set one of the candles down. ‘Close the door, Garion,’ he said, still holding the other candle. ‘We don’t want to be disturbed.’

  Wordlessly, Garion shut the solid oak door. Belgarath went over to the wall, lifted his candle and began to run his eyes over the row upon row of dusty, leather-bound books and the neatly stacked, silk-wrapped scrolls. ‘There,’ he said, pointing to the top shelf. ‘Reach that scroll down for me, Garion—the one wrapped in blue silk.’

  Garion stretched up on his tiptoes and took down the scroll. He looked at it curiously before handing it to his grandfather. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘This isn’t the Mrin Codex, you know.’

  ‘No,’ Belgarath told him. ‘It isn’t. Don’t get your attention so locked onto the Mrin Codex that you ignore all the others.’ He set down his candle and carefully untied the silver tassled cord binding the scroll. He stripped off the blue silk cover and began to unroll the crackling parchment, his eyes running quickly over the ancient script. ‘Here it is,’ he said at last. ‘“Behold,”’ he read, ‘“in the day that Aldur’s Orb burns hot with crimson fire shall the name of the Child of Dark be revealed.”’

  ‘But Torak was the Child of Dark,’ Garion protested. ‘What is that scroll?’

  ‘The Darine Codex,’ Belgarath told him. ‘It’s not always as reliable as the Mrin, but it’s the only one that mentions this particular event.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ Garion asked him, looking perplexed.

  ‘It’s a bit complicated,’ Belgarath replied, his lips pursed and his eyes still fixed on the passage in question. ‘Rather simply put, there are two prophecies.’

  ‘Yes, I knew that, but I thought that when Torak died, the other one just—well—’

  ‘Not exactly. I don’t think it’s that simple. The two have been meeting in these confrontations since before the beginning of this world. Each time, there’s a Child of Light and a Child of Dark. When you and Torak met at Cthol Mishrak, you were the Child of Light and Torak was the Child of Dark. It wasn’t the first time the two had met. Apparently it was not to be the last, either.’

  ‘You mean that it’s not over yet?’ Garion demanded incredulously.

  ‘Not according to this,’ Belgarath said, tapping the parchment.

  ‘All right, if this Zandramas is the Child of Dark, who’s the Child of Light?’

  ‘As far as I know, you are.’

  ‘Me? Still?’

  ‘Until we hear something to the contrary.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Haven
’t we had this conversation before?’ Belgarath asked drily.

  Garion’s shoulders slumped. ‘Now I’ve got this to worry about again—on top of everything else.’

  ‘Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself, Garion,’ Belgarath told him bluntly. ‘We’re all doing what we have to do, and sniveling about it won’t change a thing.’

  ‘I wasn’t sniveling.’

  ‘Whatever you call it, stop it and get to work.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ Garion’s tone was just a trifle sullen.

  ‘You can start here,’ the old man said, waving one hand to indicate all the dusty books and silk-wrapped scrolls. ‘This is perhaps one of the world’s best collections of prophecy—western prophecy at least. It doesn’t include the Oracles of the Mallorean Grolims, of course, or the collection that Ctuchik had at Rak Cthol or the secret books of those people at Kell, but it’s a place to start. I want you to read your way through this—all of it—and see if you can find out anything at all about this Zandramas. Make a note of every reference to “the Child of Dark.” Most of them will probably have to do with Torak, but there might be some that mean Zandramas instead.’ He frowned slightly. ‘While you’re at it, keep an eye out for anything that has to do with something called “the Sardion” or “Cthrag Sardius.”’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know. Beldin ran across the term in Mallorea. It might be important—or it might not.’

  Garion looked around the library, his face blanching slightly. ‘Are you telling me that this is all prophecy?’

  ‘Of course not. A lot of it—most if it probably—is the collected ravings of assorted madmen, all faithfully written down.’

  ‘Why would anybody want to write down what crazy people say?’

  ‘Because the Mrin Codex is precisely that, the ravings of a lunatic. The Mrin prophet was so crazy that he had to be chained up. A lot of very conscientious people went out after he died and wrote down the gibberish of every madman they could find on the off chance that there might be prophecy hidden in it somewhere.’