And in the moment that she said it, I felt one of those peculiar clicks
inside my head. Pol’s choice had been one of those things that had to
happen. I’m not sure exactly why, but I felt a sudden urge to leap
into the air with a wild cry of exultation.
Looking back at it now, I realize that Pol’s choice was one of those
EVENTS we keep talking about. Her choice ultimately led to Garion, and
Garion in turn led to Eriond. At the time, we’d all assumed that our
necessity had given something up when it’d agreed to the separation of
Geran from the Orb. I think we were wrong there. That separation was
a victory, not a defeat.
Don’t look so confused. I’ll explain it to you–all in good time.
After she’d freely accepted her responsibility, Polgara started giving
orders. She does that all the time, you know.
“The Master has laid this task upon me, gentlemen,” she told us
firmly.
“I don’t need any help, and I don’t need any interference. I’ll hide
Geran, and I’ll make such decisions as need to be made. Don’t hover
over me, and don’t try to tell me what to do. And don’t, please, don’t
stand around staring at me. Just stay away.
Do we agree?”
Of course we agreed. What else could we do?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
There was no denying that Polgara’s interdiction made sense, so I
didn’t see her very often during the next five centuries or so–or at
least so she thought. I managed to keep track of her, however, even
though she moved around a lot. Her general strategy was to submerge
herself and the heir to the Rivan throne in the general
population–usually in Sendaria. Sendaria’s a great place for
anonymity, because racial differences don’t mean anything there, and
Sendars are too polite to question people about their backgrounds. But
even the politest Sendar’s going to start getting curious about someone
who doesn’t age, so Pol seldom stayed in the same place for more than
ten years.
That habit of hers gave me all sorts of entertainment. Finding someone
who doesn’t want to be found isn’t the easiest thing in the world, and
Pol became very skilled at misdirection. If she told her neighbors
that there was a “family emergency” in Darine, you could be fairly sure
that she was actually bound for Muros or Camaar. Once during the
forty-third century, it took me eight years to track her down. Her
elusiveness didn’t really bother me much. If she could hide from me,
she certainly could hide from anybody else.
She’d ordered me to stay away from her, so I grew quite proficient at
disguises, although in my case I didn’t have to rely on wigs and false
noses. A man who can change himself into a wolf or a falcon doesn’t
have much trouble modifying his face or general physique.
Usually after I’d located her, I’d just drift into whatever town or
village she was currently living in, snoop around a bit, and then drift
back on out again without even talking to her.
I’ve always had a great deal of admiration for the Tolnedran system of
highways: it makes traveling much easier, and I had to travel a great
deal during the early centuries of the fifth millennium. I did not,
however, approve of Ran Horb’s treaty with the Murgos that opened the
South Caravan Route.
At first, the Tolnedran trade with the Murgos was a one-way sort of
business. Tolnedran merchants followed the caravan route to Rak Goska,
conducted their business, and then came home with their purses filled
to overflowing with that reddish-colored gold that comes out of the
mines of Cthol Murgos.
Following the Alorn invasions of Nyissa, however, the Murgos developed
an absolute passion for trade, and after a century or so it seemed that
I couldn’t turn around any place in Tolnedra, Arendia, or Sendaria
without seeing a scarred Murgo face.
The Tolnedrans spoke piously about the “normalizing of relations” and
the “civilizing influence of commerce,” but I knew better. The Murgos
were coming west because Ctuchik had told them to come west, and
commerce had nothing to do with it. The fact that the Rivan line was
still intact loomed rather large in all the prophecies, and Ctuchik
sent his Murgos to look for Polgara and the heirs she spent that part
of her life protecting.
It finally came to a head early in the forty-fifth century. Polgara
was in Sulturn in central Sendaria with the current heir and his wife.
The young man’s name just happened to be Darion.
I’m sure you noticed the similarity. It’s Polgara’s fault, really.
Polgara adores traditions, so she speckled the Rivan line with
repetitions and variations of about a half-dozen names. Polgara can be
creative when she has to be, but she’d really rather not if she can
possibly avoid it.
Anyway, Darion was a cabinetmaker, and quite a good one. He had a
prosperous business on a side street down near the lake, and he lived
upstairs over his shop with his wife, Selana, and with his aunt.
Does that sound at all familiar?
I was in Val Alorn when word reached me that the old Gorim of Ulgo had
died and that there was a new Gorim in the caves under Prolgu. I
decided that it might be a good idea for me to go to Ulgoland and
introduce myself. I always like to stay on good terms with the
Ulgos.
They’re a little strange, but I rather like them.
Anyway, it was mid-autumn when I heard about it. I was going to have
to hurry if I didn’t want to get snowbound in the mountains, and so I
took the first ship that left Val Alorn for Sendaria–a ship that just
“happened” to be bound for the capital at the city of Sendar rather
than the port at Darine. I probably could call that pure luck, but
I’ve got some doubts about that.
The weather was blustery, so it was four days later when I wound up on
a stone wharf in Sendar on a grey, cloudy afternoon. I bought a horse
and took the Tolnedran highway that ran southeasterly toward Muros.
About midway between Sendar and Muros, the highway just “happened” to
pass through Sulturn. Sometimes I get very tired of being led around
by the nose. Garion’s friend can be so obvious at times.
Since I was there anyway, and since I was getting a little saddle sore
I decided to disguise myself and take a couple days off to do a little
constructive snooping. I rode back into a grove of trees on a hill
just outside Sultum, dismounted, and formed an image in my mind that
was about as far from my real appearance as I possibly could make it
and then flowed into it. The horse seemed a little startled. His new
owner was quite tall, and he had coal-black hair and a bushy beard of
the same color.
I rode down into Sulturn, took a room in a rundown inn on the west side
of town, and nosed around until evening. I asked innocuous questions
and kept my eyes open. Pol and her family were still here, and all
seemed normal, so I went back to the inn for supper.
The common room of the inn was a low-ceilinged place with dark beams
overhead. The tables and benches were plain, utilitarian, and
unvarnished, and the fireplace smoked. There were perhaps a dozen
people there, a few locals drinking beer from copper-bound wooden
tankards and several travelers eating the unappetizing stew that’s the
standard fare in Sendarian inns from Camaar to Darine. Sendaria
produces a lot of turnips, and turnip stew isn’t one of my favorite
dishes.
The first face I really noticed when I entered belonged to a Murgo.
He was wearing western-style clothes, but his angular eyes and the
scars on his cheeks left no doubt about his race. He sat near the
fireplace plying a rather tipsy Sendar with beer and talking about the
weather.
Since he wouldn’t be able to recognize me anyway, I strode over, took a
seat at the table next to his, and told the serving wench to bring me
some supper.
After the Murgo’d exhausted the conversational potentials of the
weather, he got down to business.
“You seem well acquainted here,” he said to the half-drunk Sendar
across the table from him.
“I doubt that there are ten people in all of Sulturn that I don’t
know,” the Sendar replied modestly, draining his tankard.
The Murgo bought him another.
“It seems that I’ve found the right man, then,” he said, trying to
smile. Murgos don’t really know how to smile, so his expression looked
more like a grimace of pain.
“A countryman of mine was passing through here last week, and he
happened to see a lady that took his eye.” A Murgo even looking at a