be aware of it, and it’ll do what you want it to do.”
“I thought you said that I wasn’t supposed to do that,” he objected.
“The rules have changed. The other side’s cheating, so we’re going to
cheat a little, too. Don’t try to hurt Torak, though. You’ll destroy
the world if you do.”
“I’ll do what?”
“You heard me. Concentrate on obliterating the Angaraks instead.
Torak’s clever enough to get the point–eventually. He probably won’t
cheat again.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Riva didn’t sound too sure of himself. He
raised the Orb, though, and I could feel his Will building as he
concentrated on the advancing Angaraks.
But nothing happened.
“You’ve got to release it!” I shouted at him.
“What?”
“You’ve got the thought right, but you’ve got to turn it loose!”
“How?”
“Say something!”
“What do I say?”
“I don’t care! Try “now,” or “burn,” or “kill!” Just say
something.”
“Go.” He said it rather tentatively.
I controlled myself with a certain amount of effort.
“You’re giving orders here, Riva,” I told him.
“Don’t make it sound like a question.”
“Go!” he thundered.
It wasn’t the Word I’d have used, but it turned the trick. The
advancing Angaraks began exploding. Whole strings of them blew up one
after another–bright flashes and sharp detonations running in sequence
from one riverbank to the other. Cherek’s youngest son obliterated the
front rank. Then he went back and methodically destroyed the second
rank, then the third.
“Can’t you do more than one at a time?” I asked him.
“Do you want to do this?” he demanded from between clenched teeth.
“No. It’s not allowed.”
“Then do you want to shut up and let me do it?”
Now do you see how Garion comes by his short temper? Riva was normally
the most even-tempered Alorn I’ve ever come across, but you didn’t want
to irritate him.
After he’d turned the first five or six ranks of Angaraks into puffs of
smoke and floating ashes, the rest of them got the message. They
turned and fled, giving the raging Torak a wide berth.
Torak may have been raging, but I noticed that he was covering his
steel-encased face with his remaining hand. He definitely didn’t want
to lose his other eye. Finally, even he turned and fled howling.
“You can turn it off now,” I suggested to Riva.
“I could go after them,” he offered eagerly.
“I could chase down every Angarak on the whole continent. Torak
wouldn’t have a single worshiper left.”
“Never mind,” I told him.
“You’ve gone as far as you’re supposed to.
Put the Orb away.”
Cherek, Dras, and Algar came back.
“Nice little fight,” the King of Aloria noted.
“That Orb’s a handy thing to have along, isn’t it?”
Alorns!
It seems to me I’ve said that before. You might as well get used to
it. I’ve been rolling my eyes up at the sky and sighing
“Alorns!” for so long now that I don’t even know I’m doing it any
more.
We went down to the mouth of the river and started slogging out across
the ice. The Hounds were keeping their distance now, but they were
still following us.
“Are they going to be a problem?” I asked my friend.
“Not for long. They’ll have to turn back when we get about halfway
across.”
“Why?”
“They’re Grolims, Belgarath. They don’t have any power on your side of
the Sea of the East.”
“Zedar did.”
“That’s because he’s a disciple. Different rules apply to disciples.
Ctuchik or Urvon could keep coming, but ordinary Grolims can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Beldin explained it to you once, remember?”
“Oh, now that you mention it, I guess I do. Grolims don’t have any
power in a place where there aren’t any Angaraks?”
“Amazing. You remembered after all.”
“What now?”
“Pick up one foot and put it in front of the other one. I’ll let you
decide which foot. Don’t try to pick them both up at the same time,
though.”
“Very funny.”
We continued across that awful broken sea ice for the next couple of
days with the Hounds still not too far behind us.
There was no boundary line out there, of course, but I knew when we had
reached the halfway point, because the Hounds suddenly broke off their
pursuit. They lined up along an ice-ridge and sat howling in
frustration.
“Our luck’s still holding,” I told the Alorns.
“How’s that?” Cherek asked me.
“That’s as far as the Hounds can come. We’re home free now.”
That turned out to be premature, because suddenly there was a Hound
directly in front of us–a Hound twice the size of the ones howling
behind us. It seemed to emanate a reddish glow.
“Don’t bother,” I told Riva as his hand dug into the neck of his
tunic.
“The dog’s an illusion. It’s not really there.”
“You haven’t heard the last of this, Belgarath,” the monstrous creature
growled at me, seeming almost to chew on the words with its long
fangs.
“You would be Urvon,” I said calmly, “or possibly Ctuchik.”
“I’ll let you worry about that. You and I are going to meet again, old
man; you’ve got my promise on that. You’ve won this time. Next time
you won’t be so lucky.”
And then it vanished.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
We reached the coast of Morindland a couple of days later. The sun was
rising a little higher and staying up a little longer each day, and the
bitter cold seemed to be moderating. Spring was coming to the north.
We decided not to retrace our steps and cross the arctic wastes of
Morindland again. We went south instead. We weren’t in any danger
now, and we all wanted to find a warmer climate. We followed the
shoreline until we reached present-day Gar og Nadrak, which in those
days was eastern Aloria. Cherek was king there, but he didn’t have
very many subjects in that part of his kingdom–unless you count the
deer. The Alorns who were there were all members of the Bear-cult
anyway, so we avoided them. Bear-cultists have wanted to get their
hands on the Orb since their order was founded, and Cherek and the rest
of us weren’t very eager for any more confrontations.
Once we were beyond the North Range, we turned west again and proceeded
through that vast forest, crossed the mountains, and reached the
Drasnian moors. Then we turned southwesterly, passed Lake Atun, and
eventually reached the banks of the Aldur River on a fine spring
morning.
There was someone waiting for us there.
“Well, boy,” the humorous old man in the rickety cart said to me,
“I
see you’re still headed west.”
“I guess it’s sort of a habit by now,” I replied in as casual a way as
I could manage.
“You two know each other, I take it,” Cherek noted.
“We’ve run across each other a few times,” I replied. I assumed that
my Master had reasons for wanting to remain anonymous, so I didn’t give
him away.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” the old man asked.
“If you want to call it that,” Dras replied.
“A few chunks of dried beef is hardly what I’d call breakfast.”
“I’ve got a camp set up a mile or so down-river,” the old man told us,
“and I’ve had an ox roasting all night. You’re welcome to join me, if
you’re of a mind. Are you thirsty, too? I’ve got a barrel of good ale
chilling in the river back at camp.”
That settled it, of course. The Alorns followed along behind the cart
like a litter of happy puppies as the old man and I led them to
breakfast.
“Let’s feed your friends first,” the old man told me quietly.
“Then you and I need to talk.”
“If that’s the way you want it,” I replied.
Cherek and his sons fell on the roasted ox like a pack of hungry wolves
and plunged into the ale barrel like a school of fish. After an hour
or so of eating and drinking, they all became very sleepy and decided
to take a little nap. The old man and I strolled down to the riverbank
and stood looking out across the water. The spring runoff had begun in
the Tolnedran Mountains, and the river ran bank-full and muddy brown.
“Is there any particular reason for the disguise?” I asked, getting
right to the point.
“Probably not,” my Master replied.
“I use it when I have occasion to leave the Vale. People tend not to
notice me when I’m plodding along in the cart. My brothers and I had a
meeting in the cave.”
“Oh?”
“We’re going to have to leave, Belgarath.”
“Leave?”
“We don’t have any choice. If we stay, sooner or later we’ll have to
confront Torak directly, and that would destroy the world. This
world’s too important for us to let that happen. The Child of Light is
going to need it.”
“Who’s the Child of Light?”