"If Porenn catches you kissing pretty girls, she'll carve out your tripes, Rhodar." King Anheg laughed crudely.
As Aunt Pol made the introductions, Garion drew back a few paces to consider the havoc Lelldorin had caused in one short week. It was going to take months to unravel it, and there was no guarantee that it would not happen again - indeed, that it would not happen every time the young man got loose.
"What's the matter with your friend?" It was the Princess Ce'Nedra, and she was tugging on Garion's sleeve.
"What do you mean, what's the matter with him?"
"You mean he's always like that?"
"Lelldorin-" Garion hesitated. "Well, Lelldorin's very enthusiastic about things, and sometimes he speaks or acts without stopping to think." Loyalty made him want to put the best face on it.
"Garion." Ce'Nedra's gaze was very direct. "I know Arends, and he's the most Arendish Arend I've ever met. He's so Arendish that he's almost incapacitated."
Garion quickly came to the defense of his friend. "He's not that bad."
"Really? And Lady Ariana. She's a lovely girl, a skilled physician and utterly devoid of anything remotely resembling thought."
"They're in love," Garion said, as if that explained everything.
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Love does things to people," Garion told her. "It seems to knock holes in their judgment or something."
"What a fascinating observation," Ce'Nedra replied. "Do go on."
Garion was too preoccupied with the problem to catch the dangerous lilt in her voice. "As soon as somebody falls in love, all the wits seem to dribble out of the bottom of his head," he continued moodily.
"What a colorful way to put it," Ce'Nedra said.
Garion even missed that warning. "It's almost as if it were some kind of disease," he added.
"Do you know something, Garion?" the princess said in a conversational, almost casual tone of voice. "Sometimes you make me positively sick." And she turned and walked away, leaving him staring after her in open-mouthed astonishment.
"What did I say?" he called after her, but she ignored him.
After they had all dined, King Rhodar turned to Belgarath. "Do you suppose we might have a look at the Orb?" he asked.
"Tomorrow," the old man answered. "We'll reveal it when it's returned to its proper place in the Hall of the Rivan King at midday."
"We've all seen it before, Belgarath," King Anheg asserted. "What's the harm in our having a look now?"
Belgarath shook his head stubbornly. "There are reasons, Anheg," he said. "I think it may surprise you tomorrow, and I wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone."
"Stop him, Durnik," Polgara said as Errand slipped from his seat and walked around the table toward King Rhodar, his hand fumbling with the strings of the pouch at his waist.
"Oh no, little fellow," Durnik said, catching the boy from behind and lifting him up into his arms.
"What a beautiful child," Queen Islena observed. "Who is he?"
"That's our thief," Belgarath replied. "Zedar found him someplace and raised him as a total innocent. At the moment, he seems to be the only one in the world who can touch the Orb."
"Is that it in the pouch?" Anheg asked.
Belgarath nodded. "He's caused us all some anxiety along the way. He keeps trying to give it to people. If he decides to offer you something, I don't really advise taking it."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Anheg agreed.
As was usually the case, once Errand's attention had been diverted, he immediately seemed to forget about the Orb. His gaze focused on the infant Barak was holding; as soon as Durnik set him down, he went over to look at the baby. Unrak returned the look and some kind of peculiar recognition seemed to pass between them. Then Errand gently kissed the child in Barak's arms, and Unrak, smiling, took hold of the strange little boy's finger. Gundred and Terzie gathered close, and Barak's great face rose from the garden of children clustered about him. Garion could clearly see the tears glistening in his friend's eyes as he looked at his wife Merel. The look she returned him was strangely tender; for the first time Garion could remember, she smiled at her husband.
Chapter Eleven
THAT NIGHT A SUDDEN, savage storm howled down from the northwest to claw at the unyielding rock of the Isle of the Winds. Great waves crashed and thundered against the cliffs, and a shrieking gale howled among the ancient battlements of Iron-grip's Citadel. The firm set rock of the fortress seemed almost to shudder as the seething storm lashed again and again at the walls.
Garion slept fitfully. There was not only the shriek and bellow of wind and the rattle of sleet against close-shuttered windows to contend with, nor the gusting drafts that blew suddenly down every corridor to set unlatched doors banging, but there were also those peculiar moments of oppressive silence that were almost as bad as the noise. Strange dreams stalked his sleep that night. Some great, momentous, and unexplained event was about to take place, and there were all manner of peculiar things that he had to do in preparation for it. He did not know why he had to do them, and no one would tell him if he were doing them right or not. There seemed to be some kind of dreadful hurry, and people kept rushing him from one thing to the next without ever giving him time to make sure that anything was really finished.
Even the storm seemed to be mixed up in it - like some howling enemy trying with noise and wind and crashing waves to break the absolute concentration necessary to complete each task.
"Are you ready?" It was Aunt Pol, and she was placing a longhandled kitchen kettle on his head like a helmet and handing him a potlid shield and a wooden stick sword.
"What am I supposed to do?" he demanded of her.
"You know," she replied. "Hurry. It's getting late."
"No, Aunt Pol, I don't - really."
"Of course you do. Now stop wasting time."
He looked around, feeling very confused and apprehensive. Not far away, Rundorig stood with that same rather foolish look on his face that had always been there. Rundorig also had a kettle on his head, a pot-lid shield, and a wooden sword. Apparently he and Rundorig were supposed to do this together. Garion smiled at his friend, and Rundorig grinned back.
"That's right," Aunt Pol said encouragingly. "Now kill him. Hurry, Garion. You have to be finished by suppertime."
He spun around to stare at her. Kill Rundorig? But when he looked back, it was not Rundorig. Instead the face that looked at him from beneath the kettle was maimed and hideous.
"No, no," Barak said impatiently. "Don't hold it like that. Grip it in both hands and keep it pointed at his chest. Keep the point low so that, when he charges, he doesn't knock the spear aside with his tusks. Now do it again. Try to get it right this time. Hurry, Garion. We don't have all day, you know." The big man nudged the dead boar with his foot, and the boar got up and began to paw at the snow. Barak gave Garion a quick look. "Are you ready?" he demanded.
Then he was standing on a strange, colorless plain, and there seemed to be statues all around him. No. Not statues - figures. King Anheg was there - or a figure that looked like him - and King Korodullin, and Queen Islena, and there was the Earl of Jarvik, and over there was Nachak, the Murgo ambassador at Vo Mimbre.
"Which piece do you want to move?" It was the dry voice in his mind.
"I don't know the rules," Garion objected.
"That doesn't matter. You have to move. It's your turn."
When Garion turned back, one of the figures was rushing at him. It wore a cowled robe, and its eyes bulged with madness. Without thinking, Garion raised his hand to ward off the figure's attack.
"Is that the move you want to make?" the voice asked him.
"I don't know."
"It's too late to change it now. You've already touched him. From now on, you have to make your own moves."
"Is that one of the rules?"
"That's the way it is. Are you ready?"
There was the smell of loam and of ancient oak trees. "You really m
ust learn to control your tongue, Polgara," Asharak the Murgo said with a bland smile, slapping Aunt Pol sharply across the face.
"It's your move again," the dry voice said. "There's only one that you can make."
"Do I have to do it? Isn't there anything else I can do?"
"It's the only move there is. You'd better hurry."
With a deep sigh of regret, Garion reached out and set fire to Asharak with the palm of his hand.
A sudden, gusting draft banged open the door of the room Garion shared with Lelldorin, and the two of them sat bolt upright in their beds.
"I'll latch it again," Lelldorin said, throwing back the covers and stumbling across the chilly stones of the floor.
"How longs it going to keep blowing like this?" Garion asked peevishly. "How's anyone supposed to sleep with all this noise?"
Lelldorin closed the door again, and Garion heard him fumbling around in the darkness. There was a scraping click and a sudden bright spark. The spark went out, and Lelldorin tried again. This time it caught in the tinder. The young Asturian blew on it, and it grew brighter, then flared into a small finger of flame.
"Have you got any idea what time it is?" Garion asked as his friend lighted the candle.
"Some hours before dawn, I imagine," Lelldorin replied.
Garion groaned. "It feels like this night's already been about ten years long."
"We can talk for a while," Lelldorin suggested. "Maybe the storm will die down toward dawn."
"Talking's better than lying here in the dark, jumping at every sound," Garion agreed, sitting up and pulling his blanket around his shoulders.
"Things have happened to you since we saw each other last, haven't they, Garion?" Lelldorin asked, climbing back into his own bed.
"A lot of things," Garion told him, "not all of them good, either."
"You've changed a great deal," Lelldorin noted.
"I've been changed. There's a difference. Most of it wasn't my idea. You've changed, too, you know."
"Me?" Lelldorin laughed ruefully. "I'm afraid not, my friend. The mess I've made of things in the past week is proof that I haven't changed at all."
"That will take a bit of straightening out, won't it?" Garion agreed.
"The funny part about it all is that there is a perverse sort of logic about the whole thing. There wasn't one single thing you did that was actually insane. It's just when you put them all together that it starts to look like a catastrophe."
Lelldorin sighed. "And now my poor Ariana and I are doomed to perpetual exile."
"I think we'll be able to fix it," Garion assured him. "Your uncle will forgive you, and Torasin probably will, too. He likes you too much to stay angry for long. Baron Oltorain is probably very put out with you, but he's a Mimbrate Arend. He'll forgive anything if it's done for love. We might have to wait until his leg heals up again, though. That was the part that was a real blunder, Lelldorin. You shouldn't have broken his leg."
"Next time I'll try to avoid that," Lelldorin promised quickly.
"Next time?"
They both laughed then and talked on as their candle flickered in the vagrant drafts stirred by the raging storm. After an hour or so, the worst of the gale seemed to pass, and the two of them found their eyes growing heavy once more.
"Why don't we try to sleep again?" Garion suggested.
"I'll blow out the candle," Lelldorin agreed. He got up out of bed and stepped to the table. "Are you ready?" he asked Garion.
Garion slept again almost immediately, and almost immediately heard a sibilant whisper in his ear and felt a dry, cold touch. "Are you ready?" the whispering voice hissed, and he turned to look with uncomprehending eyes at the face of Queen Salmissra, a face that shifted back and forth from woman to snake to something midway between.
Then he stood beneath the shimmering dome of the cave of the Gods and moved without thought to touch the unblemished, walnut-colored shoulder of the stillborn colt, thrusting his hand into the absolute silence of death itself.
"Are you ready?" Belgarath asked quite calmly.
"I think so."
"All right. Put your will against it and push."
"It's awfully heavy, Grandfather."
"You don't have to pick it up, Garion. Just push it. It will roll over if you do it right. Hurry up. We have a great deal more to do."
Garion began to gather his will.
And then he sat on a hillside with his cousin Adara. In his hand he held a dead twig and a few wisps of dry grass.
"Are you ready?" the voice in his mind asked him.
"Is this going to mean anything?" Garion asked. "I mean, will it make any difference?"
"That depends on you and how well you do it."
"That's not a very good answer."
"It wasn't a very good question. If you're ready, turn the twig into a flower."
Garion did that and looked critically at the result. "It's not a very good flower, is it?" he apologized.
"It will have to do," the voice told him.
"Let me try it again."
"What are you going to do with this one?"
"I'll just " Garion raised his hand to obliterate the defective bloom he had just created.
"That's forbidden, you know," the voice reminded him.
"I made it, didn't I?"
"That has nothing to do with it. You can't unmake it. It will be fine. Come along now. We have to hurry."
"I'm not ready yet."
"That's too bad. We can't wait any longer."
And then Garion woke up. He felt oddly light-headed, as if his troubled sleep had done him more harm than good. Lelldorin was still deep in slumber, and Garion found his clothes in the dark, pulled them on and quietly left the room. The strange dream nagged at his mind as he wandered in the dimly lighted corridors of Iron-grip's Citadel. He still felt that pressing urgency and the peculiar sense that everyone was waiting impatiently for him to do something.
He found a windswept courtyard where snow had piled up in the corners and the stones were black and shiny with ice. Dawn was just breaking, and the battlements surrounding the courtyard were etched sharply against a sky filled with scudding cloud.
Beyond the courtyard lay the stables - warm, smelling of fragrant hay and of horses. Durnik had already found his way there. As was so frequently the case, the smith was uncomfortable in the presence of nobility, and he sought the company of animals instead. "Couldn't you sleep either?" he asked as Garion entered the stable.
Garion shrugged. "For some reason sleep just made things worse. I feel as if my head's stuffed full of straw."
"Joyous Erastide, Garion," Durnik said then.
"That's right. It is, isn't it?" In all the rush, the holiday seemed to have crept up on him. "Joyous Erastide, Durnik."
The colt, who had been sleeping in a back stall, nickered softly as he caught Garion's scent, and Garion and Durnik went back to where the small animal stood.
"Joyous Erastide, horse," Garion greeted him a bit whimsically. The colt nuzzled at him. "Do you think that the storm has blown over completely?" Garion asked Durnik as he rubbed the colt's ears. "Or is there more on the way?"
"It has the smell of being over," Durnik answered. "Weather could smell differently here on this island, though."
Garion nodded his agreement, patted the colt's neck and turned toward the door. "I suppose I'd better go find Aunt Pol," he said. "She was saying something last night about wanting to check my clothes. If I make her look for me, she'll probably make me wish I hadn't."
"Age is bringing you wisdom, I see." Durnik grinned at him. "If anyone wants me, I'll be here."
Garion put his hand briefly on Durnik's shoulder and then left the stable to go looking for Aunt Pol.
He found her in the company of women in the apartment that appeared to have been set aside for her personal use centuries before. Adara was there and Taiba, Queen Layla and Ariana, the Mimbrate girl; in the center of the room stood Princess Ce'Nedra.
&nbs
p; "You're up early," Aunt Pol observed, her needle flickering as she made some minute modification to Ce'Nedra's creamy gown.
"I had trouble sleeping," he told her, looking at the princess with a certain puzzlement. She looked different somehow.
"Don't stare at me, Garion," she told him rather primly.
"What have you done to your hair?" he asked her.
Ce'Nedra's flaming hair had been elaborately arranged, caught at brow and temples by a gold coronet in the form of a band of twined oak leaves. There was some rather intricate braiding involved at the back and then the coppery mass flowed smoothly down over one of her tiny shoulders. "Do you like it?" she asked him.
"That's not the way you usually wear it," he noted.
"We're all aware of that, Garion," she replied loftily. Then she turned and looked rather critically at her reflection in the mirror. "I'm still not convinced about the braiding, Lady Polgara," she fretted. "Tolnedran ladies don't braid their hair. This makes me look like an Alorn."
"Not entirely, Ce'Nedra," Adara murmured.
"You know what I mean, Adara - all those buxom blondes with their braids and their milk-maid complexions."
"Isn't it a little early to be getting ready?" Garion asked. "Grandfather said that we weren't going to take the Orb to the throne room until noon."
"That's not really that far off, Garion," Aunt Pol told him, biting a thread and stepping back to look critically at Ce'Nedra's dress. "What do you think, Layla?"
"She looks just like a princess, Pol," Queen Layla gushed.
"She is a princess, Layla," Aunt Pol reminded the plump little queen. Then she turned to Garion. "Get some breakfast and have someone show you the way to the baths," she instructed. "They're in the cellars under the west wing. After you've bathed, you'll need a shave. Try not to cut yourself. I don't want you bleeding all over your good clothes."
"Do I have to wear all that?"
She gave him a look that immediately answered that question - as well as several others he might have asked.
"I'll go find Silk," he agreed quickly. "He'll know where the baths are."