her.
“Yes, father,” she said, still smiling.
“What now?”
“We’ll rest a bit,” I decided.
“When the sun goes down, we’ll start out again.”
“In the dark?”
“You’re an owl, Polgara. Night’s the natural time for you to be out
flying.”
“What about you?”
I shrugged.
“Night or day–it doesn’t matter to a wolf.”
“We had to leave our supplies behind,” she noted.
“What are we going to eat?”
“That’s up to you, Pol–whatever’s unlucky enough to cross your path,
I’d imagine.”
“You mean raw?”
“You’re the one who wanted to be an owl, dear. Sparrows eat seeds, but
owls prefer mice. I wouldn’t recommend taking on a wild boar. He
might be a little more than you can handle, but that’s entirely up to
you.”
She stalked away from me muttering swear words under her breath.
I’ll admit that her idea worked out quite well. It would have taken us
two weeks to reach Darine on foot. We managed it the other way in
three nights.
The sun was just rising when we reached the hilltop south of the port
city. We resumed our natural forms and marched to the city gate. Like
just about every other city in the north in those days, Darine was
constructed out of logs. A city has to burn down a few times before it
occurs to the people who live there that wooden cities aren’t really a
good idea.
We went through the unguarded gate, and I asked a sleepy passerby where
I could find Hatturk, the Clan-Chief Algar had told me was in charge
here in Darine. He gave me directions to a large house near the
waterfront and then stood there rather foolishly ogling Polgara. Having
beautiful daughters is nice, I suppose, but they do attract a certain
amount of attention.
“We’ll need to be a little careful with Hatturk, Pol,” I said as we
waded down the muddy street toward the harbor.
“Oh?”
“Algar says that the clans that have moved here from the plains aren’t
really happy about the breakup of Aloria, and they’re definitely
unhappy about that grassland. They migrated here because they got
lonesome for trees. Primitive Alorns all lived in the forest, and open
country depresses them. Fleet-foot didn’t come right out and say it,
but I sort of suspect that Darine might just be a stronghold of the
Bear-cult, so let’s be a little careful about what we say.”
“I’ll let you do the talking, father.”
“That might be best. The people here are probably recidivist Alorns of
the most primitive kind. I’m going to need Hatturk’s cooperation, so
I’m going to have to step around him rather carefully.”
“Just bully him, father. Isn’t that what you usually do?”
“Only when I can stand over somebody to make sure he does what I tell
him to do. Once you’ve bullied somebody, you can’t turn your back on
him for very long, and Darine’s not so pretty that I want to spend the
next twenty years here making sure that Hatturk follows my
instructions.”
“I’m learning all sorts of things on this trip.”
“Good. Try not to forget too many of them.”
Hatturk’s house was a large building constructed of logs. An Alorn
Clan-Chief is really a sort of mini-king in many respects, and he’s
usually surrounded by a group of retainers who serve as court
functionaries and double as bodyguards on the side. I introduced
myself to the pair of heavily armed Algars at the door, and Pol and I
were admitted immediately.
Most of the time being famous is a pain, but it has some advantages.
Hatturk was a burly Alorn with a grey-shot beard, a decided paunch, and
bloodshot eyes. He didn’t look too happy about being roused before
noon. As I’d more or less expected, his clothing was made of
bearskins.
I’ve never understood why members of the Bear-cult feel that it’s
appropriate to peel the hide off the totem of their God.
“Well,” he said to me in a rusty-sounding voice, “so you’re Belgarath.
I’d have thought you’d be bigger.”
“I could arrange that if it’d make you feel more comfortable.”
He gave me a slightly startled look.
“And the lady?” he asked to cover his confusion.
“My daughter, Polgara the Sorceress.” I think that might have been the
first time anyone had ever called her that, but I wanted to get
Hatturk’s undivided attention, and I didn’t want him to be distracted
by Pol’s beauty. It seemed that planting the notion in his mind that
she could turn him into a toad might be the best way to head off any
foolishness. To her credit, Pol didn’t even turn a hair at my somewhat
exotic introduction.
Hatturk’s bloodshot eyes took on a rather wild look.
“My house is honored,” he said with a stiff bow. I got the distinct
impression that he wasn’t used to bowing to anybody.
“What can I do for you?”
“Algar Fleet-foot tells me that you’ve got a crazy man here in Darine,”
I told him.
“Polgara and I need to have a look at him.”
“Oh, he’s not really all that crazy, Belgarath. He just has spells now
and then when he starts raving. He’s an old man, and old men are
always a little strange.”
“Yes,” Polgara agreed mildly.
Hatturk’s eyes widened as he realized what he’d just said.
“Nothing personal intended there, Belgarath,” he hastened to
apologize.
“That’s all right, Hatturk,” I forgave him.
“It takes quite a bit to offend me. Tell me a little bit more about
this strange old man.”
“He was a berserker when he was younger–an absolute terror in a fight.
Maybe that explains it. Anyway, his family’s fairly well off, and when
he started getting strange, they built a house for him on the outskirts
of town. His youngest daughter’s a spinster–probably because she’s
cross-eyed–and she looks after him.”
“Poor girl,” Pol murmured. Then she sighed rather theatrically.
“I
imagine I’ve got that to look forward to, as well. My father here is
stranger than most, and sooner or later he’s going to need a keeper.”
“That’ll do, Pol,” I said firmly.
“If you’ve got a couple of minutes, Hatturk, we’d like to see this old
fellow.”
“Of course.” He led us out of the room and down the stairs to the
street. We talked a bit as we walked through the muddy streets to the
eastern edge of town. The idea of paving streets came late to the
Alorns, for some reason. I put a few rather carefully phrased
questions to Hatturk, and his answers confirmed my worst suspicions.
The man was a Bear-cultist to the bone, and it didn’t take very much to
set him off on a rambling diatribe filled with slogans and cliches.
Religious fanatics are so unimaginative. There’s no rational
explanation for their beliefs, so they’re free to speak without benefit
of logic, untroubled by petty concerns such as truth or even
plausibility.
“Are your scribes getting down everything your berserker’s saying?” I
cut him off.
“That’s just a waste of time and money, Belgarath,” he said
indifferently.
“One of the priests of Belar had a look at what the scribes had taken
down, and he told me to quit wasting my time.”
“King Algar gave you very specific orders, didn’t he?”
“Sometimes Algar’s not right in the head. The priest told me that as
long as we’ve got The Book of Alorn, we don’t need any of this other
gibberish.”
Naturally a priest who was a member of the Bear-cult wouldn’t want
those prophecies out there. It might interfere with their agenda. I
swore under my breath.
The Darine Prophet and his caretaker daughter lived in a neat,
well-tended cottage on the eastern edge of town. He was a very old,
stringy man with a sparse white beard and big, knobby hands. His name
was Bormik, and his daughter’s name was Luana. Hatturk’s description
of her was a gross understatement. She seemed to be intently examining
the tip of her own nose most of the time. Alorns are a superstitious
people, and physical defects of any kind make them nervous, so Luana’s
spinsterhood was quite understandable.
“How are you feeling today, Bormik?” Hatturk said, almost in a shout.
Why do people feel they have to yell when they’re talking to those who
aren’t quite right in the head?
“Oh, not so bad, I guess,” Bormik replied in a wheezy old voice.
“My hands are giving me some trouble.” He held out those big, swollen
hands.
“You broke your knuckles on other people’s heads too many times when
you were young,” Hatturk boomed.
“This is Belgarath. He wants to talk with you.”
Bormik’s eyes immediately glazed over.
“Behold!” he said in a thunderous voice.
“The Ancient and Beloved hath come to receive instruction.”
“There he goes again,” Hatturk muttered to me.
“All that garbled nonsense makes me nervous. I’ll wait outside.” And
he turned abruptly and left.
“Hear me, Disciple of Aldur,” Bormik continued. His eyes seemed fixed