“You’re wrong, Anrak,” I said quite firmly.
“It is that bad. The Great Maelstrom in the middle of it swallows
whole fleets just for breakfast. I’d rather walk.”
“Cherek war boats go through it all the time, Belgarath.”
“This isn’t a Cherek war boat, and you aren’t crazy enough to be a
Cherek. We’ll walk.”
And so Anrak beached his ship, and Pol and I got off. I wonder when
the practice of beaching ships fell into disuse. Sailors used to do it
all the time. Now they stand off a ways and send passengers ashore in
longboats.
It’s probably a Tolnedran innovation. Tolnedran sea captains tend to
be a bit on the timid side.
My daughter and I stood on that sandy beach watching Anrak’s sailors
straining to get his ship back out into the water. When she was
finally afloat again, they poled her out a ways, raised the sails, and
went off down the bay.
“What now, father?” Pol asked me.
I squinted up at the sun.
“It’s mid-afternoon,” I told her.
“Let’s set up a camp and get an early start in the morning.”
“Are you sure you know the way to Darine?”
“Of course I am.” I wasn’t, actually. I’d never been there before,
but I had a general idea of where it was. Over the years, I’ve found
that it’s usually best to pretend that I know what I’m doing and where
I’m going.
It heads off a lot of arguments in the long run.
We went back from the beach a ways and set up camp in a rather pleasant
forest clearing. I offered to do the cooking, but Pol wouldn’t hear of
it. I even made a few suggestions about cooking over an open campfire,
but she tartly told me to mind my own business and she did it her own
way. Actually, supper didn’t turn out too badly.
We traveled northwesterly through that ancient forest for the next
couple of days. The region was unpopulated, so there weren’t any
paths. I kept our general direction firmly in mind and simply followed
the course of least resistance. I’ve spent a lot of time in the woods
over the years, and I’ve found that to be about the best way to go
through them. There’s a certain amount of meandering involved, but it
gets you to where you’re going–eventually.
Polgara, however, didn’t like it.
“How far have we come today?” she asked me on the evening of the
second day.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I replied.
“Probably six or eight leagues.”
“I meant in a straight line.”
“You don’t follow straight lines in the woods, Pol. The trees get in
the way.”
“There is a faster way to do this, father.”
“Were you in a hurry?”
“I’m not enjoying this, Old Man.” She looked around at the huge, mossy
trees with distaste.
“It’s damp, it’s dirty, and there are bugs. I haven’t had a bath for
four days.”
“You don’t have to bathe when you’re in the woods, Pol. The squirrels
don’t mind if your face is dirty.”
“Are we going to argue about this?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Why walk when we can fly?”
I stared at her.
“How did you know about that?” I demanded.
“Uncle Beldin does it all the time. You’re supposed to be educating
me, father. This seems to be a perfect time for me to learn how to
change my form into one that’s more useful. You can suit yourself, of
course, but I’m not going to plod through this gloomy forest all the
way to Darine just so you can look at the scenery.” Pol can turn the
slightest thing into an ultimatum. It’s her one great failing.
There was a certain logic to what she was saying, however. Wandering
around in the woods is enjoyable, but there were other things I wanted
to do, and the art of changing form is one of the more useful ones. I
wasn’t entirely positive that her talent was that far along yet,
though, so I was a little dubious about the whole idea.
“We’ll try it,” I finally gave in. It was easier than arguing with
her.
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Why not now?”
“Because it’s getting dark. I don’t want you flying into a tree and
breaking your beak.”
“Whatever you say, father.” Her submissive tone was fraudulent,
naturally. She’d won the argument, so now she could afford to be
gracious about it.
She was up the next morning before it got light, and she’d crammed my
breakfast into me before the sun came up.
“Now, then,” she said, “let’s get started.” She really wanted to try
this.
I described the procedure to her at some length, carefully going over
all the details while her look of impatience grew more and more
pronounced.
“Oh, let’s get on with it, father,” she said finally.
“All right, Pol,” I surrendered.
“I suppose you can always change back if you turn yourself into a
flying rabbit.”
She looked a little startled at that.
“Details, Polgara,” I told her.
“This is one case when you really have to pay attention to details.
Feathers aren’t that easy, you know. All right.
Don’t rush. Take it slowly.”
And, of course, she ignored me. Her eyebrows sank into a scowl of
intense concentration. Then she shimmered and blurred–and became a
snowy white owl.
My eyes filled with tears immediately, and I choked back a sob.
“Change back!”
She looked a little startled when she resumed her own form.
“Don’t ever do that again!” I commanded.
“What’s wrong, father?”
“Any shape but that one.”
“What’s wrong with that one? Uncle Beldin says that mother used to do
it all the time.”
“Exactly. Pick another shape.”
“Are you crying, father?” she asked with a certain surprise.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am.”
“I didn’t think you knew how.” She touched my face almost tenderly.
“Would some other kind of owl be all right?”
“Turn yourself into a pelican if you want to. Just stay away from that
shape.”
“How about this one?” She blurred into the form of a tufted owl
instead. She was a mottled brown color, and the sprigs of feathers
sprouting from the sides of her head altered that painful appearance
enough so that I could bear to live with it.
I drew in a deep breath.
“All right,” I told her, “flap your wings and see if you can get up off
the ground.”
She hooted at me.
“I can’t understand you, Pol. Just flap your wings. We can talk about
it later.”
Would you believe that she did it perfectly the first time? I should
have had suspicions at that point, but I was still all choked up, so I
didn’t think about it. With a few strokes of those soft wings she
lifted herself effortlessly off the ground and circled the clearing a
few times. Then she landed on a tree branch and began to preen her
feathers.
It took me awhile to regain my composure, and then I went over to her
tree and looked up at her.
“Don’t try to change back,” I instructed.
“You’ll fall out of the tree if you do.”
She stared down at me with those huge, unblinking eyes.
“We’re going in that direction.” I pointed northeasterly.
“I’m not going to turn myself into a bird because I don’t fly very
well. I’ll take the shape of a wolf instead. I’ll probably be able to
keep up with you, but don’t get out of sight. I want to be close
enough to catch you if something goes wrong. Keep an eye on the sun.
We’ll change back about noon.”
She hooted at me again, that strange hollow cry of the tufted owl.
“Don’t argue with me, Polgara,” I told her.
“We’re going to do this my way. I don’t want you to get hurt.” Then,
to avoid any further argument, I slipped into the form of the wolf.
Her flights were short at first. She drifted from tree to tree,
obediently staying just ahead of me. I didn’t have any difficulty
keeping up with her. By midmorning, however, she began to extend the
distance between perches, and I was obliged to move up from a sedate
trot to a lope. By noon I was running. Finally I stopped, lifting my
muzzle, and howled at her.
She circled, swooped back, and settled to earth. Then she shimmered
back into her own form.
“Oh, that was just fine!” she exclaimed with a sensuous shudder of
pure pleasure.
I was right on the verge of an oration at that point. She’d pushed me
fairly hard that morning. It was her smile that cut me off before I
even got started, though. Polgara seldom smiled, but this time her
face actually seemed to glow, and that single white lock above her
forehead was bright as a sun-touched snow-bank. Dear Gods, she was a
beautiful girl!
“You need to use your tail feathers just a bit more” was all I said to