Castle of Wizardry (43 page)

Queen Porenn looked across the little man's shaking head at Garion. Her face quite clearly revealed that she was aware of Silk's feelings for her. Her look was one of helpless compassion for this man of whom she was fond but not in the way he wished - and combined with that was a deep sympathy for the suffering his visit with his mother had caused him.

Silently Garion and the Queen of Drasnia stood looking at each other. Speech was unnecessary; they both understood. When at last Porenn did speak, her tone was curiously matter-of fact. "I think you can put him to bed now," she said. "Once he's able to cry, the worst is usually over."

The next morning they left the palace and joined an east-bound caravan. The Drasnian moors beyond Boktor were desolate. The North Caravan Route wound through low, rolling hills covered with sparse vegetation and scanty grass. Although it was the middle of spring, there seemed to be a sere quality to the moors, as if the seasons only lightly touched them; the wind, sweeping down from the polar ice, still had the smell of winter in it.

Silk rode in silence, his eyes on the ground, though whether from grief or from the aftereffects of the ale he had drunk, Garion could not guess. Belgarath was also quiet, and the three of them rode with only the sound of the harness bells of a Drasnian merchant's mules for companionship.

About noon, Silk shook himself and looked around - his eyes finally alert, though still a bit bloodshot. "Did anybody think to bring something to drink?" he asked.

"Didn't you get enough last night?" Belgarath replied.

"That was for entertainment. What I need now is something therapeutic."

"Water?"
Garion suggested.

"I'm thirsty, Garion, not dirty."

"Here." Belgarath handed the suffering man a wineskin. "But don't overdo it."

"Trust me," Silk said, taking a long drink. He shuddered and made a face. "Where did you buy this?" he inquired. "It tastes like somebody's been boiling old shoes in it."

"You don't have to drink it."

"I'm afraid I do." Silk took another drink, then restoppered the wineskin and handed it back. He looked sourly around at the moors. "Hasn't changed much," he observed. "Drasnia has very little to reoommend it, I'm afraid. It's either too wet or too dry." He shivered in the chilly wind. "Are either of you aware of the fact that there's nothing between us and the pole to break the wind but an occasional stray reindeer?"

Garion began to relax. Silk's sallies and comments grew broader and more outrageous as they rode through the afternoon. By the time the caravan stopped for the night, he seemed to be almost his old self again.

THE CARAVAN WOUND its slow way through the dreary moors of eastern Drasnia with the sound of mule bells trailing mournfully behind it. Sparse patches of heath, which had but lately begun to bloom with tiny, pink flowers, dotted the low, rolling hills. The sky had turned cloudy, and the wind, seemingly perpetual, blew steadily out of the north.

Garion found his mood growing as sad and bleak as the moors around him. There was one inescapable fact which he no longer could hide from himself. Each mile, each step, brought him closer to Mallorea and closer to his meeting with Torak. Even the whispered song of the Orb, murmuring continually in his ears from the pommel of the great sword strapped to his back, could not reassure him. Torak was a God - invincible, immortal; and Garion, not even yet full-grown, was quite deliberately trekking to Mallorea to seek him out and to fight him to the death. Death was a word Garion tried very hard not to think about. It had been a possibility once or twice during their long pursuit of Zedar and the Orb; but now it seemed a certainty. He would meet Torak alone. Mandorallen or Barak or Hettar could not come to his aid with their superior skill at swordsmanship; Belgarath or Aunt Pol could not intercede for him with sorcery; Silk would not be able to devise some clever ruse to allow him to escape. Titanic and enraged, the Dark God would rush upon him, eager for blood. Garion began to fear sleep, for sleep brought nightmares which would not go away and which haunted his days, making each worse than the last.

He was afraid. The fear grew worse with each passing day until the sour taste of it was always in his mouth. More than anything, he wanted to run, but he knew that he could not. Indeed, he did not even know any place where he could run. There was no place in
all the
world for him to hide. The Gods themselves would seek him out if he tried and sternly drive him to that awful meeting which had been fated to take place since the beginning of time. And so it was that, sick with fear, Garion rode to meet his fate.

Belgarath, who was not always asleep when he seemed to doze in his saddle, watched, shrewdly waiting until Garion's fear had reached its peak before he spoke. Then, one cloudy morning when the lead-gray sky was as dreary as the moors around them, he pulled his horse in beside Garion's. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked calmly.

"What's the point, Grandfather?"

"It might help."

"Nothing's going to help. He's going to kill me."

"If I thought it was that inevitable, I wouldn't have let you start on this journey."

"How can I possibly fight with a God?"

"Bravely," was the unhelpful
reply.
"You've been brave at some pretty inappropriate times in the past. I don't imagine you've changed all that much."

"I'm so afraid, Grandfather," Garion confessed, his voice anguished. "I think I know how Mandorallen felt now. The fear's so awful that I can't live with it."

"You're stronger than you think you are. You can live with it if you have to."

Garion brooded about that. It didn't seem to help much. "What's he like?" he asked, suddenly filled with a morbid curiosity.

"Who?"

"Torak."

"Arrogant. I never cared much for him."

"Is he like Ctuchik was - or Asharak?"

"No. They tried to be like him. They didn't succeed, of course, but they tried. If it's any help to you, Torak's probably as much afraid of you as you are of him. He knows who you are. When you meet him, he isn't going to see a Sendarian scullery boy named Garion; he's going to see Belgarion, the Rivan King, and he's going to see Riva's sword thirsting for his blood. He's also going to see the Orb of Aldur. And that will probably frighten him more than anything."

"When was the first time you met him?" Garion suddenly wanted the old man to talk - to tell stories as he had so long ago. Stories somehow always helped. He could lose himself in a story, and for a little while it might make things bearable.

Belgarath scratched at his short, white beard. "Let's see," he mused. "I think the first time was in the Vale - it was a very long time ago. The others had gathered there - Belzedar, Beldin, all the rest - and each of us was involved in his own studies. Our Master had withdrawn into his tower with the Orb, and sometimes months would pass during which we didn't see him.

"Then one day a stranger came to us. He seemed to be about the same height as I, but he walked as if he were a thousand feet tall. His hair was black and his skin was very pale, and he had, as I remember, greenish-colored eyes. His face was beautiful to the point of being pretty, and his hair looked as if he spent a lot of time combing it. He appeared to be the kind of person who always has a mirror in his pocket."

"Did he say anything?" Garion asked.

"Oh, yes," Belgarath replied. "He came up to us and said, 'I would speak with my brother, thy Master,' and I definitely didn't care for his tone. He spoke as if we were servants - it's a failing he's always had. Still, my Master had - after a great deal of trouble - taught me at least a few manners. 'I shall tell my Master you have come,' I told him as politely as I could manage.

"'That is not needful, Belgarath,' he told me in that irritatingly superior tone of his
. '
My brother knows I am here.'"

"How did he know your name, Grandfather?"

Belgarath shrugged. "I never found that out. I assume that my Master had communicated with him - and the other Gods - from time to time and told them about us. At any rate, I led this over-pretty visitor to my Master's tower. I didn't bother to speak to him along the way. When we got there, he looked me straight in the face and said, 'A bit of advice for thee, Belgarath, by way of thanks for thy service. Seek not to rise above
thyself
. It is not thy place to approve or disapprove of me. For thy sake I hope that when next we meet thou wilt remember this and behave in a manner more seemly.'"

" 'Thank
you for the advice,' I told him-a bit tartly, I'll admit. 'Will you require anything else?'

"'Thou art pert, Belgarath,' he said to me
. '
Perhaps one day I shall give myself leisure to instruct thee in proper behavior.' And then he went into the tower. As you can see, Torak and I got off on the wrong foot right at the very beginning. I didn't care for his attitude, and he didn't care for mine."

"What happened then?" Garion's curiosity had begun to quiet the fear somewhat.

"You know the story," Belgarath replied. "Torak went up into the tower and spoke with Aldur. One thing led to another and finally Torak struck my Master and stole the Orb." The old man's face was bleak. "The next time I saw him, he wasn't nearly so pretty," he continued with a certain grim satisfaction. "That was after the Orb had burned him and he'd taken to wearing a steel mask to hide the ruins of his face."

Silk had drawn closer and was riding with them, fascinated by the story. "What did you all do then? After Torak stole the Orb, I mean?" he asked.

"Our Master sent us to warn the other Gods," Belgarath replied. "I was supposed to find Belar - he was in the north someplace, carousing with his Alorns. Belar was a young God at that time, and he enjoyed the diversions of the young. Alorn girls used to dream about being visited by him, and he tried to make as many dreams come true as he possibly could - or so I've been told."

"I've never heard that about him." Silk seemed startled.

"Perhaps it's only gossip," Belgarath admitted.

"Did you find him?" Garion asked.

"It took me quite a while. The shape of the land was different then. What's now Algaria stretched all the way to the east - thousands of leagues of open
grassland.
At first I took the shape of an eagle, but that didn't work out too well."

"It seems quite suitable," Silk observed.

"Heights make me giddy," the old man replied, "and my eyes were continually getting distracted by things on the ground. I kept having this overpowering urge to swoop down and kill things. The character of the forms we assume begins to dominate our thinking after a while, and although the eagle is quite splendid-looking, he's really a very stupid bird. Finally I gave that idea up and chose the form of the wolf instead. It worked out much better. About the only distraction I encountered was a young she-wolf who was feeling frolicsome." There was a slight tightening about his eyes as he said it, and his voice had a peculiar catch in it.

"Belgarath!"
Silk actually sounded shocked.

"Don't be so quick to jump to conclusions, Silk. I considered the morality of the situation. I realized that being a father is probably all well and good, but that a litter of puppies might prove embarrassing later on. I resisted her advances, even though she persisted in following me all the way to the north where the Bear-God dwelt with his Alorns." He broke off and looked out at the gray-green moors, his face unreadable. Garion knew that there was something the old man wasn't saying -something important.

"Anyway," Belgarath continued, "Belar accompanied us back to the Vale where the other Gods had gathered, and they held a council and decided that they'd have to make war on Torak and his Angaraks. That was the start of it all. The world has never been the same since."

"What happened to the wolf?" Garion asked, trying to pin down his grandfather's peculiar evasion.

"She stayed with me," Belgarath replied calmly. "She used to sit for days on end in my tower watching me. She had a curious turn of mind, and her comments were frequently a trifle disconcerting."

"Comments?"
Silk asked. "She could talk?"

"In the manner of the wolf, you understand. I'd learned how they speak during our journey together. It's really a rather concise and often quite beautiful language. Wolves can be eloquent - even poetic - once you get used to having them speak to you without words."