“An errand?” she scoffed, with her tongue lolling out in amusement.
“Whoever heard of a wolf with any errand but his own desires?”
“I am not really a wolf,” I explained.
“Really? How remarkable. You look like a wolf, and you talk like a
wolf, and you certainly smell like a wolf, but you say that you are not
a wolf. What are you, then?”
“I am a man.” I said it rather deprecatingly. Wolves have strong
opinions about certain things, I discovered.
She sat, a look of amazement on her face. She had to accept what I
said as the truth, since wolves are incapable of lying.
“You have a tail,”
she pointed out, “and I have never seen a man with a tail before. You
have a fine coat. You have four feet. You have long, pointed teeth,
sharp ears, and a black nose, and yet you say you are a man.”
“It is very complicated.”
“It must be,” she conceded.
“I think I will run with you for a while, since you must attend to this
errand of yours. Perhaps we can discuss it as we go along, and you can
explain this complicated thing to me.”
“If you wish.” I rather liked her and was glad by then for any
company.
It’s lonely being a wolf sometimes.
“I must warn you though, that I run very fast,” I cautioned her.
She sniffed.
“All wolves run very fast.”
And so, side by side, we ran off over the endless grassland in search
of the God Belar.
“Do you intend to run both day and night?” she asked me after we had
gone several miles.
“I will rest when I grow tired.”
“I am glad of that.” Then she laughed in the way of wolves, nipped at
my shoulder, and scampered off.
I began to consider the morality of my situation. Though my companion
looked quite delightful to me in my present form, I was almost positive
that she would seem less so once I resumed my proper shape. Further,
while it’s undoubtedly a fine thing to be a father, I was fairly
certain that a litter of puppies might prove to be an embarrassment
when I returned to my Master. Not only that, the puppies would not be
entirely wolves, and I didn’t really want to father a race of monsters.
But finally, since wolves mate for life, when I left my companion–as I
would eventually be compelled to do–she would be abandoned, left alone
with a litter of fatherless puppies, and subject to the scorn and
ridicule of the other members of her pack. Propriety is very important
to wolves. Thus, I resolved to resist her advances on our journey in
search of Belar.
I wouldn’t have devoted so much time and space to this incident except
to help explain how insidiously the personalities of the shapes we
assume come to dominate our thinking. Before we had gone very far, I
was as much or more a wolf as my little friend. If you should ever
decide to practice this art, be careful. To remain in a shape too long
is to invite the very real possibility that when the time comes to go
back to your own form, you may not want to. I’ll quite candidly admit
that by the time the young she-wolf and I reached the realms of the
Bear God, I’d begun to give long thoughts to the pleasures of the den
and the hunt, the sweet nuzzlings of puppies, and the true and
steadfast companionship of a mate.
At length we found a band of hunters near the edge of that vast
primeval forest where Belar, the Bear God, dwelt with his people. To
the amazement of my companion, I resumed my own shape and approached
them.
“I have a message for Belar,” I told them.
“How may we know this to be true?” one burly fellow demanded
truculently. Why is it that Alorns will go out of their way to pick a
fight?
“You know it’s true because I say it’s true,” I told him bluntly.
“The message is important, so quit wasting time flexing your muscles
and take me to Belar at once.”
Then one of the Alorns saw my companion and threw his spear at her. I
didn’t have time to make what I did seem natural or to conceal it from
them. I stopped the spear in mid-flight.
They stood gaping at that spear stuck quivering in the air as if in the
trunk of a tree. Then, because I was irritated, I flexed my mind and
broke the spear in two.
“Sorcery!” one of them gasped.
“Amazing level of perception there, old boy,” I said sarcastically,
imitating Belmakor at his best.
“Now, unless you’d all like to live out the rest of your lives as
cabbages, take me to Belar at once. Oh, incidentally, the wolfs with
me. The next one of you who tries to hurt her is going to spend the
rest of his life carrying his entrails around in a bucket.” You have
to be graphic to get an Alorn’s attention sometimes. I beckoned to the
wolf, and she came to my side, baring her fangs at them. She had
lovely fangs, long and curved and as sharp as daggers. Her display of
them got the Alorns’ immediate and undivided attention.
“Nicely done,”
I snarled admiringly to her. She wagged her tail, her lip still curled
menacingly at those thick-witted barbarians.
“Shall we go talk to Belar, gentlemen?” I suggested in my most
civilized manner on the theory that sometimes you have to beat Alorns
over the head.
We found the God Belar in a rude encampment some miles deeper into the
forest. He appeared to be very young–scarcely more than a boy, though
I knew that he was very nearly as old as my Master. I have my
suspicions about Belar. He was surrounded by a bevy of busty,
blonde-braided Alorn maidens, who all seemed enormously fond of him.
Well, he was a God, after all, but the admiration of those girls didn’t
seem to be entirely religious.
All right, Polgara, just let it lie, will you?
The Alorns in that crude encampment in the woods were rowdy,
undisciplined, and–by and large–drunk. They joked boisterously with
their Master with absolutely no sense of decorum or dignity.
“Well met, Belgarath,” Belar greeted me, though we’d never met before
and I hadn’t told any of those belligerent hunters my name.
“How goes it with my beloved elder brother?”
“Not well, my Lord,” I replied rather formally. Despite the tankard he
held in one hand and the blonde he held in the other, he was still a
God, so I thought it best to mind my manners.
“Thy brother Torak came unto my Master and smote him and bore away a
particular jewel that he coveted.”
“What?” the young God roared, springing to his feet and spilling both
tankard and blonde.
“Torak hath the Orb?”
“I greatly fear it is so, my Lord. My Master bids me entreat thee to
come to him with all possible speed.”
“I will, Belgarath,” Belar assured me, retrieving his tankard and the
pouty-looking blonde.
“I will make preparations at once. Hath Torak used the Orb as yet?”
“We think not, my Lord,” I replied.
“My Master says we must make haste, ere thy brother Torak hath learned
the full power of the jewel he hath stolen.”
“Truly,” Belar agreed. He glanced at the young she-wolf sitting at my
feet.
“Greetings, little sister,” he said in flawless wolfish.
“Is it well with thee?” Belar had his faults, certainly, but you could
never criticize his manners.
“Most remarkable,” she said with some amazement.
“It appears that I have fallen in with creatures of great
importance.”
“Thy companion and I must make haste,” he told her.
“Otherwise I would make suitable arrangements for thy comfort. May I
offer thee to eat?” You see what I mean about Belar’s courtesy?
She glanced at the ox turning on a spit over an open fire.
“That smells interesting,” she said.
“Of course.” He took up a very long knife and carved off a generous
portion for her. He handed it to her, being careful to snatch his
fingers back out of the range of those gleaming fangs.
“My thanks,” she said, tearing off a chunk and downing it in the blink
of an eye.
“This one–” She jerked her head at me “–was in so much hurry to reach
this place that we scarce had time to catch a rabbit or two along the
way.” She daintily gulped the rest of the meat down in two great
bites.
“Quite good,” she noted, “though one wonders why it was necessary to
burn it.”
“A custom, little sister,” he explained.
“Oh, well, if it is a custom–” She carefully licked her whiskers
clean.
“I will return in a moment, Belgarath,” Belar said, and moved away to
speak with his Alorns.