edge of their range. The moon had gone off to the south, but the
northern lights illuminated the sky well enough, and we made good time.
We soon reached the shore of Torak’s Sea.
Fortunately the beach was littered with huge piles of driftwood.
Otherwise, I don’t think we’d have been able to tell where the land
stopped and the sea began. The ground along that beach was nearly as
flat as the frozen sea, and both were covered with knee-deep snow.
“We go north along the beach from here,” Riva told us.
“After a while it swings east. The bridge is off in that direction.”
“Let’s stay clear of your bridge,” I told him.
“What?”
“Torak knows we’re coming, and by now he knows that Zedar wasn’t able
to stop us. He might have a few surprises waiting for us if we follow
that string of islands. Let’s cross the ice instead.”
“There aren’t any landmarks out there, Belgarath,” he objected, “and we
can’t even take our bearings on the sun. We’ll get lost.”
“No, we won’t, Riva. I’ve got a very good sense of direction.”
“Even in the dark?”
“Yes.” I looked around, squinting into the bitterly cold wind sweeping
down out of the northwest.
“Let’s get behind that pile of driftwood,” I told them.
“We’ll build a fire, have a hot meal, and get some sleep. The next
several days aren’t going to be very pleasant.”
Crossing open ice in the dead of winter is one of the more
uncomfortable experiences you’ll ever have, I expect. Once you get out
a ways from shore, the wind has total access to you, and the arctic
wind blows continually. Of course, it sweeps the ice clear of snow, so
at least you don’t have to wade through snowdrifts. There are enough
other problems to make up for the absence of drifts, though. When
people talk about crossing ice, they’re usually talking about a frozen
lake, which is normally as flat as a tabletop. Sea ice isn’t like that
because of the tides. The continual rising and falling of the water
during the autumn and early winter keeps breaking up the ice before it
gets thick enough to become stable, and that creates ridges and deep
cracks that make crossing a stretch of sea ice almost as difficult as
crossing a range of mountains. I didn’t enjoy it very much.
The sun had long since abandoned the north, and the moon had wandered
away, so I can’t really give you any idea of how long it took us to
make it across–probably not as long as it seemed, since I reverted to
the form of the wolf and I could keep going for a long time without
slowing down. Moreover, my malicious running of the Alorns had
conditioned them to the point that they could almost keep up with me.
Anyway, we finally reached the coast of Mallorea–just in time, as it
turned out, because a three-day blizzard came up almost as soon as we
hit the beach. We took shelter under a mountainous pile of driftwood
to wait out the storm. Dras turned out to be very useful at that
point. He took his battle-axe to that jumble of logs and limbs and
hollowed us out a very comfortable den near the center of the pile. We
built a fire and gradually thawed out.
During one of his visits to the Vale, Beldin had sketched me out a
rough map of Mallorea, and I spent a great deal of time hunched over
that map while the blizzard was busy drifting about eight feet of snow
over our shelter.
“How far is your bridge up the coast from where we crossed?” I asked
Riva when the wind began to subside.
“Oh, I don’t know. Fifty leagues or so, I guess.”
“You’re a lot of help, Riva,” I told him sourly. I stared at the map
again. Beldin hadn’t known about the bridge, of course, so he hadn’t
drawn it in, and he also hadn’t included a scale, so all I could do was
guess.
“As closely as I can make it out, we’re approximately due west of Cthol
Mishrak,” I told my friends.
“Approximately?” Cherek asked.
“This map isn’t all that good. It gives me a general idea of where the
city is, but that’s about all. When the wind dies down a bit more,
we’ll scout around. Cthol Mishrak’s on a river, and there’s a swamp
north of that river. If we find a swamp inland, we’ll know that we’re
fairly close.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then we’ll have to go looking for it–or the river.”
Cherek squinted at my map.
“We could be north of the swamp, Belgarath,” he objected.
“Or south of the river, for that matter. We could end up wandering
around up here until summertime.”
“Have you got anything better to do?”
“Well, no, but–” “Let’s not start worrying until we find out what’s
lying inland. Your auguries say this is your lucky year, so maybe
we’ve come ashore in the right place.”
“But you don’t believe in auguries.”
“No, but you do. Maybe that’s all it takes. If you think you’re
lucky, you probably are.”
“I suppose I didn’t think of that,” he said, his face suddenly
brightening.
You can convince an Alorn of almost anything if you talk fast enough.
We rolled up in our furs and slept at that point. There really wasn’t
anything else to do, unless we wanted to sit around and watch Dras play
with his dice–Drasnians love to gamble, but I got much more
entertainment from dreaming about my wife.
I can’t be sure how long I slept, but some time later, Riva shook me
awake.
“I think you’d better reset that sense of direction of yours,
Belgarath,” he said accusingly.
“What’s the matter?”
“I just went outside to see if the wind had died. The sun’s coming
up.”
I sat up quickly.
“Good,” I said.
“Go wake up your father and brothers.
We’ve got a little light for a while. Let’s take advantage of it to
have a look inland. Tell them not to bother breaking down our camp.
We’ll go take a look and then come back. I want it to be dark again
before we start out.”
There were rounded mounds backing the beach where we’d sat out the
storm, and once we got to them, Dras negligently hit the snow-covered
side of one of them with his axe.
“Sand,” he reported. That sounded promising.
We topped the dunes and gazed out over a scrubby forest that looked
almost like a jungle dotted here and there with broad clearings.
“What do you think?” Cherek asked me.
“It looks sort of boggy. It’s frozen, of course, and knee-deep in
snow, but those clearings would be open water in the summer if it is
that swamp.”
“Let’s go look,” I said, squinting nervously at the fading “dawn” along
the southern horizon.
“We’d better hurry if we want to reach it before it gets dark again.”
We trotted down the back-side of the dune and out among the gnarled,
stunted trees. When we got to one of those clearings, I kicked the
snow out of the way and had a look.
“Ice,” I said with a certain satisfaction.
“Chop a hole in it, Dras. I need to have a look at the water.”
“You’re dulling the edge of my axe, Belgarath,” he complained.
“You can sharpen it again. Start chopping.”
He muttered a few choice oaths, bunched those enormous shoulders, and
began to chop ice.
“Harder, Dras,” I urged him.
“I want to get down to water before the light goes.”
He began to chop harder and faster, sending splinters and chunks of ice
in all directions. After several minutes, water began to seep up from
the bottom of the hole.
I suppressed an urge to dance with glee. The water was brown.
“That’s enough,” I told the huge man. I knelt, scooped up a handful of
water, and tasted it.
“Brackish,” I announced.
“It’s swamp water, all right.
It looks as if your auguries were right, Cherek. This is your lucky
year.
Let’s go back to the beach and have some breakfast.”
Algar fell in beside me as we started back.
“I’d say it’s your lucky year, too, Belgarath,” he murmured quietly.
“Father would have been a little grumpy if we’d missed that swamp.”
“I can’t possibly lose, Algar,” I replied gaily.
“When we get back to the beach, I’ll borrow your brother’s dice and
roll the main all day long.”
“I don’t play dice. What are you talking about?”
“It’s a game called hazard,” I explained.
“You’re supposed to call a number before your first roll. If it comes
up, you win. That number’s called the “main.”
“And if it doesn’t come up, you lose?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that. Have Dras show you.”
“I’ve got better things to do with my money, Belgarath, and I’ve heard