“Torak isn’t supposed to, but the Mrin doesn’t say anything about his
disciples.”
“If the prohibition’s absolute, Zedar might be in for a nasty shock,”
Belkira added.
“I’m not sure what it’d do to one of us if nothing happened when we
spoke the Word to release the Will, but I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t care
to find out.”
“Zedar’s probably desperate enough to try it,” Polgara told him.
“Torak gave him an ultimatum.” She frowned.
“We all know Zedar well enough to know that he’d rather not risk his
own skin, but there are Grolims out there. He might order them to try
to use Will and Word against us. If a few Grolims get turned to stone,
Zedar could use that as an excuse when Torak called him to account.”
“We could speculate all night about that,” I told them.
“To be on the safe side, we’re going to have to assume that they’ll try
it and that it’ll work. If it doesn’t, fine; if it does, we’d better
be ready.”
Mergon’s expression was very pained.
“We’re just talking shop, your Excellency,” Pol told him.
“It’s a family trait, and it doesn’t really concern you. I’m sure
Nedra won’t be angry with you if you happen to hear some things you
aren’t supposed to.”
“My cousin might be, though,” he replied.
“Ran Borune’s not entirely unreasonable, Mergon,” I said.
“A lot of things have happened recently that he doesn’t understand. A
few more won’t unhinge him.” I looked around.
“I think we’ve covered just about everything,” I told them.
“We might as well try to get some sleep. I think we’ll all need to be
alert tomorrow.”
I didn’t follow my own advice, of course, but I’ve learned to get along
without sleep when I have to. I caught Pol in the dim corridor outside
the throne room.
“I think we’d better start moving people,” I told her.
“I’ll go tell Cho-Ram and Rhodar to start closing up the gap between
them and Torak’s east flank. Then I’ll go talk with Brand and Ormik
and have them ease down from the north. I want those soldiers to be in
place and fresh when Beldin gets here day after tomorrow.”
“Do you want me to do it?” she offered.
“No. I’ll take care of it. I couldn’t sleep tonight anyway. Keep an
eye on things here, Pol. Zedar might decide to get an early start.”
“I’ll take care of it, father. Would a suggestion offend you?”
“That depends on the suggestion.”
“Use the form of an owl. That falcon of yours doesn’t see all that
well in the dark, and Zedar might have alerted his troops to keep an
eye out for wolves.”
“I’ll think about it. I’ll try to be back by morning, but if I’m not,
you’ll have to handle things here for a while. Don’t let Mandor open
that gate again.”
“I’ll see to it. Have a nice flight, father.” I think that Polgara’s
the only person in the world who can say something like that without
sounding ridiculous.
I took her advice about the owl, but I did not assume Poledra’s
favorite form. I used an ordinary horned owl instead. Once I got out
past the Angarak armies, though, I went wolf. Owls don’t really fly
very fast, and I was in a hurry.
I woke Cho-Ram and Rhodar, and they sent for the Ulgo, Brasa, who
commanded the Gorim’s forces.
“Don’t make any contact with Kal Torak’s army,” I cautioned them.
“He knows you’re here, but he isn’t going to do anything about it
unless you force him to.”
“Can Vo Mimbre hold?” Rhodar asked.
“I think so. The Mrin says that Torak’s going to be engaged before the
golden city for three days. It doesn’t say anything about him getting
inside.”
“That could be open to interpretation, Belgarath,” Cho-Ram objected.
“Just about everything in the Mrin’s open to interpretation, Cho-Ram,
but I think it’d mention it if Vo Mimbre were going to fall. That’d
probably be an EVENT, and the Mrin doesn’t miss very many of those.
Get your people together, gentlemen. Move out at first light, but stay
at least five miles back from Torak’s left. The Mimbrates are going to
have to hold out alone for one more day.”
I went northwesterly from their encampment, and it was very close to
morning when I found the Rivans, Sendars, and Asturian archers.
“It’s time to move, gentlemen,” I told Brand, Ormik, and Eldallan.
“I want you to be within striking distance of Kal Torak’s rear by this
evening.
Don’t engage him, though. I’ll need every man I can get when tomorrow
rolls around.”
Brand was holding the shield with my Master’s Orb embedded in the
center of it, and, probably without even being aware that he was doing
it, he was idly stroking the glowing jewel almost as if it were a
puppy.
“Don’t play with it, Brand,” I cautioned him.
“It’ll do some strange things to your mind if you keep your hand on it
for too long. Has your friend told you what you’re supposed to do
yet?”
He shook his head.
“Not yet. I imagine he’ll get around to it when the time comes.”
“You seem to be taking this all very calmly,” Ormik accused him.
“It won’t do me any good to get excited.” Brand looked at me.
“You’ve been the Child of Light once or twice, haven’t you,
Belgarath?”
he asked.
“Once,” I said.
“At least once that I know about. Your friend might have slipped a
couple of others in on me without bothering to tell me about it. Why
do you ask?”
“Did you feel–well–sort of distant from what was going on? I’ve been
feeling just a bit abstracted for the past few days. It’s almost as if
I weren’t going to be personally involved when I meet Torak.”
“That’s the Necessity working. And you’re at least partly right: when
you get right down to it, your friend’ll sort of take over.”
“And Torak’s friend will take him over, as well?”
“I’m not too sure about that, Brand. The two Necessities are
different, and they might do things differently. Ours just steps in
and takes charge. Torak’s might not do it that way. Torak’s not the
sort to take something like that philosophically anyway. Maybe we’ll
find out when the EVENT rolls around. Start your men south, gentlemen.
I’d better get back to Vo Mimbre and see what Zedar’s up to.”
Zedar evidently had been up to no good. There were a dozen or so
mangonels em placed just beyond the range of Asturian arrows as I flew
back to the city, and they were already hurling huge rocks at the
walls. A mangonel’s an oversized catapult, about the size of a small
house, and it can throw thousand-pound rocks for a long distance. There
hadn’t been any of them among the other engines the previous day, and
their sudden appearance this morning was a fair indication that Zedar’d
had a busy night. He hadn’t thrown the Will and the Word directly at
the city or its defenders, so I couldn’t be certain whether he was
breaking the rules yet.
He was pushing at the edges of them, though, and that gave me an idea.
If he could do it without getting himself exploded, then so could I. I
settled onto the battlements, resumed my own form, and went looking for
the twins.
“When did the mangonels start?” I asked them.
“Just before dawn,” Beltira replied.
“They’re doing a lot of damage to the walls, Belgarath. There are
several places where the foundations are starting to crack. We’d
better do something–and soon.”
“I was just getting to that. Did you hear Zedar working during the
night?”
“Quite clearly,” Belkira replied.
“He was in a hurry, so he didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was
using his Will. What are we going to do?”
“The same thing he did. He got away with it, so we can–I think.
Let’s go build some mangonels of our own.”
“They take a long time to aim, Belgarath,” Beltira objected.
“And thousand-pound rocks would be very hard to move, even for us.”
“A thousand one-pound rocks should be manageable, though,” I said.
“We’ll be shooting at the engine crews, not at a solid wall. We won’t
have to be too accurate if all we’re trying to do is fill the sky with
smaller rocks to rain down on the Thulls manning Zedar’s mangonels.
Then, once we’ve got the range, we can start dropping burning pitch on
them. I think they’ll lose interest at that point. Let’s go get
started.”
I had some of the same reservations about the idea as Belsambar’d had
during the War of the Gods. I didn’t like the idea of burning people
alive, but I had to neutralize those engines. If the walls of Vo
Mimbre fell, Torak’d be in the city by nightfall, and he’d win. I