I knew that my disguise was impenetrable, but it was entirely possible
that Olgon and the fellow in the Nyissan robe had recognized one of the
Drasnian or Tolnedran agents here and that what I’d just seen had been
carefully staged to deceive them. I started to get very suspicious
about this whole business at that point. I waited for another few
minutes, and then I stood up and dumped my tankard out on the floor.
“That’s enough of this swill,” I announced loudly.
“If I want a drink of river water, I can go down to one of the wharves
and drink my fill without paying for it.” Then I stormed out. I kept
my disguise in place until I was certain that I wasn’t being followed.
Then I stepped into another alleyway, resumed my own form, and went
back to the Drasnian embassy as evening settled over Tol Honeth.
“Have any of your people actually seen Asharak?” I asked Kheral.
“Not yet, Ancient One,” the ambassador replied.
“We’ve tried to track that Dagashi back to his employer, but he always
manages to evade us.”
“I’m not surprised. That’s no run-of-the-mill Dagashi. He’s carrying
an adder-sting. He bent over a table in that tavern, and I saw the
outline of the thing under his silk robe.”
Kheral whistled.
“What’s an adder-sting?” Cerran asked.
“It’s a triangular throwing knife,” Kheral replied.
“It’s about six inches across and razor sharp. The tips are usually
dipped in poison. Only the most elite among the Dagashi use them.”
“It doesn’t make sense,” I fumed.
“Those elite Dagashi are very expensive. Why would Asharak pay that
much for an errand boy? I’m starting to get a strong odor of rotten
fish here. Somebody’s paying a lot of money to get us to believe that
Asharak’s here in Tol Honeth, but until somebody actually sees him, I
won’t be convinced.”
“Why would Asharak go to all the trouble and expense to do something
like this?” Cerran seemed baffled.
“Probably because he wants me to believe that he’s here when he’s
actually someplace else,” I replied. I didn’t say so, but I was fairly
certain that I knew where Chamdar really was.
“Well,” I said then.
“Two can play that game. I’m looking for Chamdar, and he’s looking for
somebody else.
I think I can come up with a way to make him come back to Tol Honeth at
a dead run.”
“What are you going to do, Ancient One?” Kheral asked me.
“Chamdar’s got people out looking for Polgara. I’m going to make sure
that they find her–several times a day, actually, and right here in
Tol Honeth. Let’s go to the palace. I need to talk with Ran
Borune.”
The three of us went to the Imperial Compound and were admitted into
the emperor’s private quarters almost immediately.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” Ran Borune said, laying aside the lute he
had been strumming.
“I gather that something’s come up.”
“I need a favor, your Majesty,” I told him.
“Of course.”
“This Chamdar you’ve been hearing about is a Grolim priest who does a
lot of Ctuchik’s dirty work for him.”
Ran Borune’s eyes narrowed.
“He’s more significant than we thought, then. What’s he doing in
Tolnedra? I’d have thought that what happened at Vo Mimbre would have
completely demoralized the Grolims.”
“It probably did, your Majesty, but Chamdar’s no ordinary Grolim.
Ctuchik gave him an assignment a long time ago, and Chamdar’s a dogged
sort of fellow. My daughter’s protecting something that’s important,
and Chamdar’s been trying to find her for years now. He’s so obsessed
with locating her that I don’t think he even noticed Vo Mimbre.”
“Why’s he looking here, then? Your daughter’s not in Tolnedra, is
she?”
“Not at the moment, no, but I don’t think Chamdar is, either. This
whole business with that renegade Honethite’s a trick to lure me into
thinking that he is. He definitely wants my attention locked on Tol
Honeth. Now I’m going to turn the tables on him and see to it that he
comes running back here where Kheral can keep an eye on him for me.”
“How do you plan to manage that?”
“Kherel’s going to have his people start letting some false information
filter through to this Olgon fellow. I’d appreciate your having your
agents do the same. Tell them to be very careful about it, though.
Chamdar’s people aren’t Murgos now. He’s using the Dagashi instead.
Murgos aren’t bright, and they’re easy to pick out of a crowd. The
Dagashi are very clever, though, and they’re almost impossible to
recognize.”
“Who are these Dagashi?”
“They’re members of a semi-religious order based in the Araga Military
District in southwestern Cthol Murgos, your Majesty. They’re primarily
assassins, but they’re also very good spies. They can cause us a lot
of problems, because they don’t look like Murgos.”
“How did they manage that?”
“Interbreeding. The Nyissans sell them slave women from all over the
world, and the male children those slave women produce are trained and
then admitted to the order. They’re fanatically loyal to their elders,
and they’re very dangerous, since to all intents and purposes, they’re
practically invisible. Now we get to that favor I was talking
about.”
“What can I do for you, old friend?”
“I’d like to see a new ladies’ hairstyle become fashionable.”
He blinked.
“Have we suddenly changed the subject?”
“Not really. You’ve met my daughter. Would you be willing to concede
that she has a striking appearance?”
“You won’t get any argument from me there.”
“What’s the first thing you notice about her?”
“That white streak in her hair, of course.”
“Exactly.”
He suddenly grinned at me.
“Oh, you are a sly old fox, Belgarath,” he said admiringly.
“You want me to blanket Tol Honeth with imitation Polgaras, don’t
you?”
“For a start, yes. I want to jerk Chamdar back to Tol Honeth. I’ll
let him run around here for a while, and then I’ll start expanding the
ruse. I think I’ll be able to arrange for him to get word of Polgara
sightings about a dozen times a day–starting here in Tol Honeth.”
“If Polgara really wants to stay out of sight, why doesn’t she just dye
her hair?”
“She’s tried that, and it doesn’t work. The dye won’t adhere to that
white lock. It washes right out, and Polgara washes her hair at least
once a day. Since I can’t make her look like every other woman, I’ll
do it the other way around and make every dark-haired woman in the West
look like her. Tol Honeth’s the fashion center of the Western World,
so if the ladies here start painting a white stripe in their hair, the
ladies in the other kingdoms will follow suit in six months or so. I’ll
pull Chamdar back to Tol Honeth for a start, and then I’ll circulate
around in the other kingdoms and encourage all the ladies I come across
to follow the new fashion. I’ll keep Chamdar running from the fringes
of Morindland to the southern border of Nyissa for the next ten years
with this little trick. To make things even worse, the Dagashi expect
payment for each and every service. Chamdar’s going to pay very dearly
for all those false reports. If nothing else, I’ll bankrupt him.”
I stayed in Tol Honeth for about a month while the new fashion caught
on. I made no effort to conceal the fact that I was there, either. If
Chamdar’s agents reported that I was there, the Polgara sightings would
be far more credible. I sort of hate to admit that it was Olgon’s
conversation with the evil-looking Strag that gave me the idea in the
first place. I embellished it, though. I always embellish other
people’s ideas. It’s called “artistry”–or sometimes “plagiarism.”
It was at that point in my long and speckled career that I assumed a
guise that’s worked out rather well for the past five hundred years. I
became an itinerant storyteller. Storytellers are welcome everywhere
in a preliterate society, and literacy wasn’t very widespread in those
days.
People who’ve known me over the past five centuries always have assumed
that my somewhat shabby appearance is the result of a careless
indifference on my part, but nothing could be further from the truth. I
spent a great deal of time designing that costume, and I had it made
for me by one of the finest tailors in Tol Honeth. Those clothes look
as if they’re right on the verge of falling off my back, but they’re so
well made that they’re virtually indestructible. The patches on the
knees of my hose are purely cosmetic, since there aren’t any holes
under them. The sleeves of my woolen tunic are frayed at the cuffs,
but not from wear. The fraying was woven into the cloth of the tunic
before I ever put it on. The rope belt is a touch of artistry, I’ve
always thought, and the yoked hood gives me a distinctive and readily