with me, anyway. As soon as he finds out that I know he’s here, he’ll
probably go back to Rak Cthol where he belongs. Did he come here
alone?”
“No. He’s got a Grolim priest with him–a sycophant, obviously. If
Ctuchik decides to get belligerent, you’ll be up against two of them,
so I’d be a little careful.”
“Numbers don’t really mean all that much to me, Khaldan. Where’s the
Murgo enclave?”
“Over on the west side of the fair. Murgos live in black tents, so you
can’t miss it.”
“Good.” I stood up.
“I’ll be back in a little while.” I went outside his tent, remounted,
and rode on across the fair to the Murgo enclave.
“You there,” I said to the first Murgo I encountered.
“I need to talk with Achak. Where do I find him?”
“Achak doesn’t talk to foreigners,” he replied insolently.
“He’ll talk to me. Go tell him that Belgarath’s here to see him.”
His face went visibly pale, and he hurried off to a large tent in the
middle of the enclave. He came back a moment or so later, and his
manners had improved noticeably.
“He’ll see you,” he said.
“Somehow I thought he might. Lead the way, friend.”
He did that, though he didn’t seem to care much for the idea. I got
the feeling that he didn’t want to be within five miles of what he
expected to happen when I went into
“Achak’s” tent.
Ctuchik wasn’t alone. The Grolim Khaldan had mentioned was hovering in
the background with a servile expression on his face.
“Awfully good to see you again, old boy,” Ctuchik said with one of
those bleak smiles pasted to his too-thin face.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I was beginning to think I might
have offended you.”
“Your very existence offends me, Ctuchik. What persuaded you to come
down off your mountaintop? Did the stink of your temple finally start
to turn your stomach?”
“Blasphemy!” the hovering Grolim gasped.
“Is he serving any purpose?” I asked Ctuchik, jerking my thumb at the
Grolim.
“He’s my apprentice, Belgarath. I’m teaching him the business.”
“Aren’t you getting a little above yourself, old boy? Are you taking
your own disciples now? Torak might not approve.”
“He’s a servant, Belgarath, not a disciple, and Torak more or less
allows us to do as we please. You might think about that the next time
Aldur sends you off on some fool’s errand. If you’d like to change
Masters, I could put in a good word for you.”
“One turncoat in the family’s quite enough, Ctuchik, and I’m not going
to change sides when I’m winning.”
“Are you winning, Belgarath? How strange that I hadn’t noticed that.
You might as well get to know my servant here. I expect you’ll be
seeing a lot of him from now on.” He looked at the Grolim.
“Chamdar, this is Belgarath, first disciple of the God Aldur. Don’t
let his foolish exterior deceive you. He can be troublesome at
times.”
“One does one’s best,” I said with a little smirk. I looked more
closely at the Grolim. He had scarred cheeks like a Murgo, but there
was something a bit different about him. There was a certain boldness
about him, and a burning ambition in his eyes that I don’t think
Ctuchik was aware of.
“You’re wasting your time here, Ctuchik,” I said then.
“You’re not going to find my daughter, no matter how many Murgos you
send west, and you’re certainly not going to find her yourself.
Something like that would have shown up in our instructions.”
“We’ll see,” he replied distantly.
“It was awfully good of you to stop by, old chap. I could have shown
Chamdar here a picture of you, but a picture wouldn’t have captured the
real you.”
I actually laughed.
“You’re sending a boy to do a man’s work, Ctuchik,” I told him.
“I’m not going to lead your underling anywhere near Polgara.”
“We’ll see about that, too. Sooner or later, something’s bound to come
up that’ll force you to go to where she is.”
“You’ve never met my daughter, Ctuchik. Believe me, she can take care
of herself. Why don’t you take your Grolim and go home? The Godslayer
is coming, and there’s not a thing you can do about it.”
“That particular EVENT hasn’t been decided yet, old boy.”
“It will be, old boy, and I don’t think you’re going to like the way it
turns out. Are you coming, Chamdar?”
“Coming?” he demanded, sounding baffled.
“Coming where?”
“Don’t be childish. As soon as I’m outside this tent, your Master’s
going to tell you to follow me. It’ll be much easier for both of us if
we just ride along together.”
“That’s for my Master to decide,” he replied coldly.
“Suit yourself. I’ll be riding south from here. If you happen to lose
track of me, I’ll be in Tol Honeth in a couple of weeks. Ask around
when you get there. I shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
Then I turned and left the tent.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Polgara looked upon the centuries she was obliged to spend in the
boisterous Alorn kingdoms as a period of exile. Pol’s fond of
individual Alorns, but as a race they tend to set her teeth on edge.
She yearned to go back to Sendaria. The Sendars aren’t as courtly as
the Wacite Arends were, but they’re a polite, civil people, and
civility’s very important to my daughter.
I devoted quite a bit of time during those years providing
entertainment for the ambitious Chamdar. Every so often, I’d come out
of the Vale, randomly select some obscure village in Sendaria or
northern Arendia, and kill several Murgos there. Chamdar, of course,
would leap to the conclusion that I’d killed them because they were
getting too close to Polgara. He’d rush to the place and spend five or
six years following the various false trails I’d laid down for him.
Then the trails would peter out on him, and we’d start all over again
someplace else. I’m sure he knew exactly what I was doing, but he
didn’t have any choice but to respond.
The fact that he didn’t age over the centuries was an indication of
some status in Grolim society. He wasn’t exactly a disciple, but he
was the next thing to it, I suppose.
In the meantime, Polgara remained safe–if not content–in Cherek, or
Drasnia, or Algaria. Her common practice during those years was to
apprentice a youthful heir to some artisan in a village or small town;
and then when the young man reached maturity, she’d set him up in
business –much in the way she had with Darion in the forty-fifth
century. I never did find out where she got the money for all those
business ventures. She invariably posed as a member of the young man’s
family, an older sister, a cousin, very frequently an aunt, and even
once or twice as the young man’s mother. The families she thus created
were so ordinary that random travelers–or random Angaraks–probably
didn’t even notice them.
I’m sure it was all very tedious for her, but she’d taken on the chore
of hiding the heirs of her own free will, and Pol has a very strong
sense of responsibility.
My contribution–keeping Chamdar away from her–was fairly peripheral,
but I like to think that it helped, if only a little bit. I’d also
periodically look in on all those families I was juggling, and every
now and then I’d ease on down into Cthol Murgos to see what the
opposition was up to.
Murgo society is unlike any other on the face of the earth, largely
because it’s built along military lines. They don’t have
principalities down there; they have military districts instead, each
with its own general.
Because of the Murgo obsession with racial purity, Murgo women are kept
closely confined, so you never see any women on the streets–just men,
all in chain mail. Over the course of the centuries, the various
military commanders have passed the spurious crown of Cthol Murgos
around, so there’ve been Goska Dynasties, Cthan Dynasties, Hagga
Dynasties, and recently, Urga Dynasties. It didn’t really matter who
sat on the throne in Rak Goska, however, because Ctuchik has always
ruled Cthol Murgos from his turret in Rak Cthol.
The twins continued to work on their concordance, and Beldin maintained
his surveillance in Mallorea. Everything sort of plodded along until
the middle of the forty-ninth century with nothing very much
happening.
It was one of those quiet periods that crop up from time to time in the
history of the world. Then there was a total eclipse of the sun in the
spring of 4850. An eclipse isn’t all that unusual, so we didn’t pay
much attention to it–at least not at first. This one was fairly
unique, in that it seemed to trigger a significant climate change.
Would you believe that it rained off and on for twenty-five years? We