was never one to beat around the bush.
“Do we agree then?” he pressed.
“If you let the Marags go home, I won’t burn your stinking swamp.”
“The time will come when you’ll regret this, Disciple of Aldur.”
“Ah, me little sweetie,” he replied in that outrageous Wacite brogue.
“I’ve regretted many things in me long, long life, don’t y’ know, but
I’ll be after tellin’ y’ one thing, darling’. Matin’ with a snake
ain’t likely t’ be one of “em.” Then his face hardened.
“This is the last time I’m going to ask you, Salmissra. Are you going
to let the Marags go, or am I going to start lighting torches?”
And that more or less ended the war.
“You were moderately effective there, old boy,” I complimented my
brother as we left Salmissra’s jungle hideout.
“I thought her eyes were going to pop out when you offered to burn her
jungle.”
“It got her attention.” Then he sighed.
“It might have been very interesting,” he said rather wistfully.
“What might have?”
“Never mind.”
We nursed the limping Marag column back to their own borders, leaving
thousands of dead behind us in those reeking swamps, and then Beldin
and I returned to the Vale.
When we got there, our Master sent me back to Aloria.
“The Queen of the Alorns is with child,” he told me.
“The one for whom we have waited is about to be born. I would have
thee present at this birth and at diverse other times during his
youth.”
“Are we sure he’s the right one, Master?” I asked him.
He nodded.
“The signs are all present. Thou wilt know him when first thou se est
him. Go thou to Val Alorn, therefore. Verify his identity and then
return.”
And that’s how I came to be present when Cherek Bear-shoulders was
born. When one of the midwives brought the red-faced, squalling infant
out of the queen’s bedroom, I knew immediately that my Master had been
right. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just did. Cherek and I had been
linked since the beginning of time, and I recognized him the moment I
laid eyes on him. I congratulated his father and then went back to the
Vale to report to my Master and, I hoped, to spend some time with my
wife.
I went back to Aloria a number of times during Cherek’s boyhood, and we
got to know each other quite well. By the time he was ten, he was as
big as a full-grown man, and he kept on growing. He was over seven
feet tall when he ascended the throne of Aloria at the age of
nineteen.
We gave him some time to get accustomed to his crown, and then I went
back to Val Alorn and arranged a marriage for him. I can’t remember
the girl’s name, but she did what she was supposed to do. Cherek was
about twenty-three when his first son, Dras, was born, and about
twenty-five when Algar came along. Riva, his third son, was born when
the King of Aloria was twenty-seven. My Master was pleased. Everything
was happening the way it was supposed to.
Cherek’s three sons grew as fast as he had. Alorns are large people
anyway, but Dras, Algar, and Riva took that tendency to extremes.
Walking into a room where Cherek and his sons were was sort of like
walking into a grove of trees. The word “giant” is used rather
carelessly at times, but it was no exaggeration when it was used to
describe those four.
As I’ve suggested several times, my Master had at least some knowledge
of the future, but he shared that knowledge only sparingly with us. I
knew that Cherek and his sons and I were supposed to do something, but
my Master wouldn’t tell me exactly what, reasoning, I suppose, that if
I knew too much about it, I might in some way tamper with it and make
it come out wrong.
I’d gone to Aloria during the summer when Riva turned eighteen.
That was a fairly significant anniversary in a young Alorn’s life back
then, because it was on his eighteenth birthday that a description of
him was added to his name. Four years previously, Riva’s older brother
had become Dras Bull-neck, and two years after that, Algar had been
dubbed Algar Fleet-foot. Riva, who had huge hands, became Iron-grip. I
honestly believe that he could have crushed rocks into powder in those
hands of his.
Poledra had a little surprise for me when I returned to the Vale.
“One wonders if you have finished with these errands for a time,” she
said when I got home to our tower.
“One hopes so,” I replied. We didn’t exactly speak to each other in
wolvish when we were alone, but we came close.
“One’s Master will decide that, however,” I added.
“One will speak with the Master,” she told me.
“It is proper that you stay here for a time.”
“Oh?”
“It is a custom, and customs should be observed.”
“Which custom is that?”
“The one that tells us that the sire should be present at the births of
his young.”
I stared at her.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded.
“I just did. What would you like for supper?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Poledra largely ignored her pregnancy.
“It’s a natural process,” she told me with a shrug.
“There’s nothing very remarkable about it.” She continued attending to
what she felt were her duties even as her waistline expanded and her
movements became increasingly awkward, and nothing I could do or say
could persuade her to change her set routine.
Over the centuries, she’d made some significant alterations to my
tower. As you may have heard, I’m not the neatest person in the world,
but that’s never bothered me very much. A bit of clutter gives a place
that lived-in look, don’t you agree? That all changed after Poledra
and I were married. There weren’t any interior walls in my tower,
largely because I like to be able to look out all of my windows when
I’m working. I sort of haphazardly arranged my living space–this area
for cooking and eating, that for study, and the one over there for
sleeping. It worked out fairly well while I was alone. My location in
the various parts of the tower told me what I was supposed to be
doing.
Poledra didn’t like it that way. I think she wanted greater
definition.
She started adding furniture–tables, couches, and brightly colored
cushions.
She loved bright colors for some reason. The rugs she’d scattered
about on the stone floor gave me some trouble–I was forever tripping
over them. All in all, though, her little touches made that rather
bleak tower room a more homey sort of place, and homeyness seems to be
important to females of just about any species. I’d suspect that even
female snakes add a few decorations to their dens. I was tolerant of
these peculiarities, but one thing drove me absolutely wild. She was
forever putting things away–and I usually couldn’t find them
afterward. When I’m working on something, I like to keep it right out
in plain sight, but no sooner would I lay something down than she’d
pick it up and stick it on a shelf. I think putting up those shelves
had been a mistake, but she’d insisted, and during the early years of
our marriage I’d been more than willing to accommodate her every
whim.
We had argued extensively about curtains, however. What is this thing
women have about curtains? All they really do is get in the way.
They don’t hold in any appreciable heat in the wintertime, nor keep it
out in the summer, and they get in the way when you want to look out.
For some reason, though, women don’t feel that a room is complete
without curtains.
She may have gone through that period of morning sickness that afflicts
most pregnant women, but if she did, she didn’t tell me about it.
Poledra’s always up and about at first light, but I tend to be a late
riser if I don’t have something important to attend to. Regardless of
what my daughter may think, that’s not a symptom of laziness. It’s
just that I like to talk, and evenings are the time for talk. I
usually go to bed late and get up late. I don’t sleep any longer than
Polgara does, it’s just that we keep different hours. At any rate,
Poledra may or may not have endured that morning nausea, but she didn’t
make an issue of it. She did develop those peculiar appetites, though.
The first few times she asked for strange foods, I tore the Vale apart
looking for them. Once I realized that she was only going to take a
few bites, however, I started cheating. I wasn’t going to sprout wings
and fly to the nearest ocean just because she had a sudden craving for