Belgarath the Sorcerer (64 page)

We usurped Aldorigen's throne room for our conference, largely at Mandor's insistence, and after we'd spent a couple of hours complimenting each other, we got down to business. Ormik, the king of the ever-practical Sendars, spoke first. Ormik was a rather dumpy, unassuming sort of fellow, but he was a lot shrewder than he looked. ‘Gentlemen,' he started, ‘and Lady Polgara - it seems to me that we've got too good an opportunity here to pass up. This is one of those rare occasions when most of the rulers of the western kingdoms are gathered in one place, and the recent unpleasantness put us all on the same side for a change. Why don't we take advantage of this temporary sense of brotherhood to smooth over all the little disputes that have
cropped up over the years? If we can hammer out a set of accords, we might have some reason to be grateful to Kal Torak.' He smiled faintly. ‘Wouldn't it be ironic if he came to bring war and the result of his little adventure was peace?'

‘We've still got a few little odds and ends to take care of, Ormik,' Rhodar said. ‘There's an Angarak army occupying Drasnia, and I'd like to persuade them to pack up and go home.'

‘And I've still got some Murgos camped around the Stronghold,' Cho-Ram added.

Then Eldrig took the floor, and I think he got a little carried away. ‘Aloria can deal with the few rags and tatters of Angarak still inside her borders,' he told us.
That
made me prick up my ears. I've periodically used the word ‘Aloria' myself, usually to rally the Alorns when I needed them to do something, but Eldrig's rather casual introduction of a name that hadn't really meant anything since the time of Bear-shoulders made me more than a little nervous. When some Alorn starts talking about Aloria, it's usually a sign that he's a member of the Bear-Cult, and there was a sizeable army of Alorns camped right on Tolnedra's northern border. ‘We've got something a little more momentous to discuss here,' the aged King of Cherek continued. ‘We've seen something happen here that's never happened before. A God was overthrown right before our eyes. I'm sure the other Gods had a hand in that, and Brand was their instrument. I don't know about the rest of you gentlemen, but that suggests something very interesting to me. My copy of the Mrin Codex speaks of a Godslayer who'll become Overlord of the West. Very well, then. I watched Brand kill Torak with my own eyes, and I'm ready to take the next step. Cherek acknowledges Brand's Overlordship. If we've all got one ruler, those disputes Ormik spoke of will evaporate.'

‘He's got a point there,' Cho-Ram said thoughtfully. ‘Brand and I get along fairly well, so I think Algaria can
join Cherek in this. I'll acknowledge Brand's Overlordship too.'

Those
idiots
! Brand wasn't the one the Mrin was talking about! It was Garion, and he hadn't even been born yet!

‘I suppose we might as well make it unanimous,' Rhodar chimed in. ‘The Children of the Bear-God speak as one. Brand is Overlord.'

‘Aren't we going a little fast here?' Ormik protested. ‘I'm part Alorn myself, and I'd be more than willing to accept Brand as Overlord. I'll go wherever he tells me to go, but I think I'd like to hear from Tolnedra, Ulgo, Arendia, and Nyissa before I start making plans for a coronation. We've got all the armies of the west camped right here. If those of us who happen to be Alorn rush into something exotic and offend the non-Alorn rulers, we could have a second battle of Vo Mimbre before the blood even dries off the grass from the first one.'

Then the oily, reptilian Podiss, the emissary of Queen Salmissra, rose. ‘The king of the Sendars speaks wisely. Much have I marveled at the readiness of sovereign kings to submit to the Overlordship of a man of no known heritage. Brand isn't even the King of the Isle of the Winds. He's nothing more than a caretaker. I don't even have to send to Sthiss Tor for instructions about this. Eternal Salmissra will
never
swear fealty to a nameless Alorn butcher.'

‘You Nyissans have very short memories, Podiss,' Eldrig said angrily. ‘If you haven't got a history book with you, I'll send for one. You might want to look over the chapter that deals with what happened to Nyissa in the year four thousand and two after Salmissra murdered King Gorek.'

Then Mergon stood up. ‘Let's not start threatening each other, gentlemen. This is supposed to be a peace conference, remember?' He paused thoughtfully. ‘I yield to no one in my admiration for the Rivan Warder. I greet Lord Brand in the name of my emperor, and extend him an invitation to come to Tol Honeth so that Ran Borune may honor him as befits the foremost warrior of the west. Let us not, however,
rush into unchangeable decisions in the first flush of admiration and gratitude. I'm sure that noble Brand would be the first to agree that the arts of war and the arts of peace have very little in common, and they're seldom linked in one man. A battle is soon over, but the burdens of peace grow heavier with each passing year.' He paused again, and then he spoke rather firmly. ‘I'm troubled by this talk of Aloria, gentlemen. I've heard of Cherek and Drasnia and Algaria, and all the world knows about the Isle of the Winds and unassailable Riva. But where is this Aloria? What are its boundaries? Where is its capital? There hasn't been a place called Aloria since the days of Cherek Bear-shoulders. I'm startled by this sudden re-emergence of a kingdom long buried in the mists of antiquity. Imperial Tolnedra must deal with mundane reality. We can't send emissaries to the court of the King of the Fairies. We can't conclude a treaty with the Emperor of the Moon. We can only have commerce with earthly kingdoms. Myth and legend, however grand, can't enter into the affairs of the empire; not if we want to keep any kind of stability in the world.'

I could see Eldrig's face getting redder and redder. Mergon was definitely pushing his luck.

‘I'm puzzled about something else as well,' Ran Borune's spokesman went on. ‘Why have you all suddenly decided to disregard long-standing covenants and treaties? You've all signed those treaties with the empire, and now you're just throwing them out the window. Is it really wise to offend Ran Borune? Particularly in view of the size of his army?'

‘Listen to me, Mergon,' Eldrig growled pugnaciously. ‘Aloria's where I say it is, and I've got a big enough army to back me up. If you want to go back to Tol Honeth to report what we've decided here, go right ahead. My war-boats move fast enough that I'll probably be there before you make it. If I have to, I'll explain the situation to Ran Borune myself. Then I'll go on to Sthiss Tor and do the same for Salmissra.'

‘That should do, Eldrig,' the Gorim said at that point. ‘We're starting to approach that second battle of Vo Mimbre that King Ormik mentioned. One battle here is quite enough, wouldn't you say? You Alorn kings want to appoint Brand Overlord of the West - because he's an Alorn. Tolnedra and Nyissa don't mind honoring him, but they're not really interested in submitting to his Overlordship -
also
because he's an Alorn. Let's back away from this incipient war. We've managed to get enough people killed already. The plain fact is that no one man can rule the entire west, so let's just drop that notion right here and now. I think I know Brand well enough to know that he wouldn't accept that crown if you offered it to him.'

‘Well put, Holy Gorim,' Brand agreed fervently. ‘I hate to disappoint you, Eldrig, but I'm
not
this Overlord of yours. Go find somebody else to saddle with the title.'

‘We can't just do
nothing
, Brand!' Eldrig protested. ‘You killed Torak. We've got to find
some
way to honor you for that. How about a contribution from all our treasuries or something?'

‘A suggestion, perhaps?' Gorim interposed. ‘Why not give Brand an imperial Tolnedran princess to be his wife? That's probably the greatest honor Tolnedra can bestow.'

‘I've already got a wife, Holy One,' Brand told him, ‘and only a madman wants more than one. I don't need a crown; I don't need a Tolnedran princess; and I don't need the treasuries of the other kingdoms. What do Rivans need with treasure?' He put his hand on his shield. ‘In case you hadn't noticed, we've already got one, and our race has guarded it with our lives for over two thousand years now. Would you inflict another treasure on us to guard? How many lives do we have? The Gorim's right. I can't sit in Riva and run the world. If something came up somewhere in Nyissa or down in the Caves of Ulgo, it'd be months before I even heard about it. Not only that, I serve Belar. I think we might offend Nedra and Issa and Chaldan if I assumed some kind of Overlordship, not to mention that
UL might object. If there
is
going to be an Overlord, the appointment's going to have to come from the Gods, not from men.'

It was at that point that I decided to put down this nonsense for good and all. I stood up.

‘Gladly will we hear the counsel of the Eternal Man,' Gorim murmured.

‘Glad or not, you're going to get it,' I said bluntly. ‘What in the names of all the Gods possessed you to come up with this absurd idea, Eldrig? Brand's not the one who's going to be the Overlord. Surely you realize that.'

Eldrig looked a little embarrassed. ‘Well, he
did
beat Torak, didn't he? I thought I could take it one step further, is all.' Then he threw up his hands. ‘All right, I was pushing. I'll admit it. I was hoping that this was the final EVENT. I wanted it to happen during my lifetime, so I thought I might be able to bend the prophecy a little. I was probably wrong. I'm sorry. The Mrin
could
mean Brand, though, couldn't it?'

‘Absolutely not,' Beltira told him. ‘The Rivan King is going to be Overlord, not the Rivan Warder.'

‘Well,' Eldrig floundered weakly, ‘I thought that Brand was almost the same as a king.'

‘Not from where
I
sit, I'm not,' Brand told him.

‘Just forget that I even mentioned it,' Eldrig gave up.

‘You can count on that,' I said.

‘The Overlord
will
come, though, Belgarath,' the Gorim reminded me.

‘I know.'

‘Will you be here to guide him?'

‘Probably so. I don't feel any symptoms of incipient mortality coming over me yet. Pol and I'll take care of it when the time comes. We've been at it for a long time now.'

‘The Mrin
does
say that the Overlord's going to marry a Tolnedran Princess, you know.'

‘I know all about it, Gorim. I'm the one who introduced the Dryad strain into the Borune line to get ready for it.'

‘What
is
this Mrin thing you people keep talking about?' Mergon demanded. ‘I thought that the Mrin was a river in Drasnia.'

‘It's an Alorn holy book, your Excellency,' Pol told him. ‘It foretells the future.'

‘I'm sorry, Lady Polgara, but nothing foretells the future.'

‘It hasn't been wrong yet, your Excellency,' Beltira disagreed.

‘That's probably because it's so general that it doesn't really mean anything,' Mergon scoffed.

‘No, actually it's very specific. It's hard to read, but once you unravel it, it tells you exactly what's going to happen.'

‘Only if you believe, Master Beltira. I've seen the holy books of other races, and they mean absolutely nothing to me.'

‘That's probably Nedra's doing, Mergon,' I said. ‘Nedra doesn't like mysticism of any kind. You've got a very practical God. Let's move along, gentlemen. If we're going to come up with a set of accords here, we'd better get at it - unless you'd all like to just sign blank pieces of parchment. I could fill in the contents later, if you'd rather do it that way.'

‘Nice try, Belgarath,' Beldin chuckled. ‘Just exactly what has to be in these accords?'

I turned to the twins. ‘You two are the experts. What does the Mrin say? How much should we nail down, and how much can we just leave open?'

‘I think we'll want to establish the marriage of the king and the princess,' Beltira replied. ‘That almost has to be agreed upon.'

‘And the Overlordship as well,' Belkira added. ‘That
must
be in the accords so that there won't be any question about it when the time comes. The Rivan King's going to have to give certain orders, and the kings of the other nations are going to have to obey them. Otherwise Torak's going to win next time.'

‘
Will
you people talk sense?' Mergon burst out. ‘There
is
no Rivan King. That line died with King Gorek.'

‘Oh, just tell him, Belgarath,' Rhodar said disgustedly. ‘He'll argue about it for a week if you don't.'

‘And have him spread the information all over Tol Honeth? Be serious, Rhodar.'

‘I'm a diplomat, Belgarath,' Mergon said in an offended tone of voice. ‘I know how to keep secrets.'

‘You might as well go ahead and tell him, father,' Polgara told me. ‘He's going to start making some educated guesses anyway before we go much further with this.'

I looked around at the assembled kings and emissaries. ‘I'll have an oath of silence on this, gentlemen,' I said. ‘Those of you with ambassadorial rank can tell your rulers, but I don't want this going any further.' I gave them all a hard look, and they mumbled their agreement. ‘To put it very shortly,' I told them, ‘the Rivan line did
not
die out when Gorek was killed. One of his grandsons survived. The line's still intact, and someday one of that line will return to Riva and resume his throne.
That's
the information that doesn't leave this room. We've had enough trouble protecting those heirs without their existence becoming general knowledge.'