and barred the door behind us.
Salmissra was alone and unguarded. The palace eunuchs were sworn to
protect her, but evidently a eunuch’s oath doesn’t mean all that much
to him if it’s going to involve bleeding. The Serpent Queen was in her
usual place, lounging on her throne and admiring her reflection in the
mirror as if nothing untoward were happening. She looked very
vulnerable somehow.
“Welcome to Sthiss Tor, gentlemen,” she said in a dreamy sort of
voice.
“Don’t come too close,” she warned, pointing negligently at the small
green snakes nervously clustered around her throne.
“My servants have all deserted me, but my little pets are still
faithful.” Her words were slurred, and her eyes seemed unfocused.
“We’re not going to have much luck here, Belgarath,” Beldin muttered to
me.
“She’s so drugged that she’s almost comatose.”
“We’ll see,” I replied shortly. I stepped a little closer to the
throne, and the little green snakes hissed warningly.
“Things haven’t turned out too well here, have they, Salmissra?” I
said to her.
“You should have known what the Alorns would do, though. What
possessed you to have Gorek murdered?”
“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she murmured.
There was a heavy pounding on the barred door.
“Keep those enthusiasts off my back,” I told Beldin.
“All right,” he replied, “but don’t be all day at this.” I could feel
his Will building.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked the dreamy queen.
“Of course. There’s a whole body of literature in my library devoted
to you and your exploits.”
“Good. Then we won’t have to go through all those tiresome
introductions.
I spoke with a couple of your assassins at Riva. One of them told me
that this stupid business wasn’t entirely your idea. Would you care to
elaborate on that for me?”
“Why not?” Her indifference chilled me for some reason.
“About a year ago a man came to Sthiss Tor, and he had a little
proposition for me.
His offer was very attractive, so I took him up on it. That’s really
about all there was to it, Belgarath.”
“What could he possibly have offered you to lure you into exposing
yourself to the vengeance of the Alorns?”
“Immortality, Ancient One, immortality.”
“No man can offer that, Salmissra.”
“The offer didn’t come from a man–or so I was led to believe.”
“Who was this fellow who made you such a ridiculous proposal?”
“Does the name Zedar ring any bells for you, Belgarath?” She actually
looked a bit amused.
A number of things fell into place for me–including the reason for my
instructions not to kill Zedar.
“Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
I suggested.
She sighed.
“That would be a long and tedious story, Old Man.” Her eyelids drooped
shut.
I started to have some suspicions at that point.
“Why don’t you summarize it, then?” I suggested.
She sighed again.
“Oh, very well,” she replied. Then she looked around.
“Does it seem to be getting chilly in here?” she asked with a slight
shudder.
“Will you get on with it, Belgarath?” Beldin demanded irritably.
“I
can’t keep those Alorns out much longer without hurting them.”
“I don’t think we’ve got too much longer,” I told him. Then I looked
at the Serpent Queen.
“You’ve taken poison, haven’t you, Salmissra?” I asked her.
“Naturally,” she replied.
“It’s the Nyissan sort of thing to do, isn’t it?
Convey my apologies to your Alorns. I know they’ll be terribly
disappointed.”
“Exactly what did Zedar say to you?”
“You’re a tiresome old man, Belgarath. All right, listen carefully. I
don’t think I’ll have time to repeat this. Zedar came to me and said
that he was speaking for Torak. He said that the Rivan King was the
only thing standing between Torak and something he wanted, and that
he’d give anything to the person who removed him. The offer was fairly
simple. If I’d kill the Rivan King, Torak would marry me, and we’d
rule the world jointly–forever. Zedar also told me that Torak would
protect me from your Alorns. Did you happen to see the Dragon God on
your way to Sthiss Tor?”
“We must have missed him.”
“I wonder what can be keeping him.”
“Surely you weren’t gullible enough to believe all that?”
She straightened slightly and lifted her chin. She was a remarkably
beautiful woman.
“How old would you say I am?” she asked me.
“That’s impossible to tell, Salmissra. You take drugs that keep you
from aging.”
“It may look that way, but it’s not really true. Actually, I’m
fifty-seven, and none of my predecessors has lived much past sixty.
There are twenty little girls out in the jungle training to take my
place when I die. I believed Zedar because I wanted to believe him. I
suppose we never outlive our belief in fairy stories, do we? I didn’t
want to die, and Zedar seemed to be offering me a chance to live
forever. I wanted that so much that I chose to believe what he told
me. When you get right down to it, this is all your fault, you
know.”
“Mine? Where did you get that weird idea?”
“If it hadn’t been for the fact that you’re a million years old, I
wouldn’t have been so gullible. If one person can live forever, others
can, as well. You and your brothers are the disciples of Aldur, and
Aldur made you all immortal. Zedar, Ctuchik, and Urvon serve Torak,
and they’ll live forever, as well.”
“Not if I can help it, they won’t,” Beldin threw back over his
shoulder.
She smiled faintly, and her eyes seemed glazed.
“The notion of conferring immortality on his handmaiden doesn’t seem to
have occurred to Issa, so I’ve only got about three more years to live.
Zedar knew that, of course, and he used it to dupe me. I wish there
were some way I could pay him back for that. He got everything he
wanted from me, and all I got was a cup of foul-tasting poison.”
I looked around to make certain that nobody was hiding in one of the
corners.
“Zedar got nothing, Salmissra,” I told her very quietly.
“Your assassins missed somebody. The Rivan line’s still intact.”
She stared at me for a moment, and then she actually laughed.
“What a wonderful old man you are,” she said warmly.
“Are you going to kill Zedar?”
“Probably,” I replied.
“Tell him that the survivor you mentioned is my last gift to him before
you put him away, would you? It’s a petty sort of vengeance, but it’s
all that’s available to a dying old lady.”
“Did Zedar tell you what Torak planned to do once the Rivan King was
dead?” I asked her.
“We didn’t get into that,” she murmured, “but it shouldn’t be hard to
guess. Now that he believes that the Guardian of the Orb is dead,
he’ll probably be paying you a call shortly. I wish I could be in a
corner somewhere to watch the rest of his face crumble when he finds
out that Zedar’s scheme didn’t work.” Her head drooped, and her eyes
went closed again.
“Is she dead?” Beldin asked me.
“Close, I think.”
“Belgarath?” Her voice was only a whisper now.
“Yes?”
“Avenge me, would you please?”
“You’ve got my word on that, Salmissra.”
“Please don’t call me that, Ancient One. Once, when I was a little
girl, my name was Illessa. I was very happy with that name. Then the
palace eunuchs came to our village, and they looked at my face. That
was when they took me away from my mother and told me that my name was
Salmissra now. I’ve always hated that name. I didn’t want to be
Salmissra.
I wanted to keep on being Illessa, but they didn’t give me any choice.
It was either become one of the twenty twelve-year-old Salmissras or
die.
Why couldn’t they let me keep my real name?”
“It’s a lovely name, Illessa,” I told her gently.
“Thank you, Ancient One.” She sighed a long quavering sigh.
“Sometimes I wish–” We never found out what she wished, because she
died before she could tell us.
“Well?” Beldin said to me.
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to hit her?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“Didn’t you promise Prince Geran you would?”
“Some promises can’t be kept, Beldin.”
“Sentimentalist!” He snorted.
“She wouldn’t mind now.”
“I would.” I trans located the little green snakes to the far side of
the throne room, stepped up onto the dais, and arranged the body of the
Serpent Queen on her throne in a position that had some dignity. Then
I patted her gently on the cheek.
“Sleep well, Illessa,” I murmured.
Then I stepped down from the dais.
“Let’s get out of here, Beldin,” I suggested.
“I hate the smell of snakes.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
You’re disappointed, aren’t you?
You wanted a lurid description of my dreadful retribution on the body