feathers. I wouldn’t have made much headway trying to fly into the
teeth of that howling gale.
It was two days later and I was about halfway across Ulgoland before
the wind finally abated. Then I took wing and was able to make better
time.
I reached Vo Wacune about mid-afternoon of the following day, but I
didn’t go immediately into the marble city. I circled over the
surrounding forest instead, and it didn’t take me very long to locate
the Asturians.
They were no more than a few leagues from the gates of Vo Wacune.
They’d be in place by morning, and there was absolutely nothing anybody
could do to stop them. I swore and flew on back to the city.
Normally, I’ll change back to my own form before I enter any populated
place, but this was an emergency. I flew on and settled into a tree in
Pol’s garden.
As it turned out, she was in the garden, and she wasn’t alone. Ontrose
was with her. He was wearing chain mail, and he had a sword belted
around his waist.
“It must needs be, dear lady,” he was saying to her.
“Thou must go from Vo Wacune to a place of safety. The Asturians are
almost at the city gates.”
I slid back into my real form and climbed down out of the tree.
“He’s right, Pol,” I said. Ontrose looked a little startled, but Pol
was used to that sort of thing.
“Where have you been?” she demanded.
“I ran into some wind. Get your things together. We’ve got to get you
out of here right now.”
“I’m not going anywhere. Now that you’re here, we can drive off the
Asturians.”
“No, as a matter of fact, we can’t. It’s prohibited. I’m sorry, Pol,
but this has to happen, and we’re not allowed to interfere.”
“Is it certain, Ancient One?” Ontrose asked me.
“I’m afraid so, Ontrose. Has Polgara told you about the prophecies?”
He nodded gravely.
“The passage in the Mrin Codex is very obscure, but there’s not much
question now about what it means. You might want to talk with the
duke.
If you hurry, you may be able to get the women and children to safety,
but the city’s not going to be here in a few days. I saw the Asturians
as I was coming in. They’re throwing everything they’ve got at you.”
“They will have much less when they return to Vo Astur,” he said
bleakly.
“I’m not leaving,” Polgara said stubbornly.
“Thou art in error, dear Lady,” he told her quite firmly.
“Thou wilt accompany thy father and go from this place.”
“No! I won’t leave you!”
“His Grace, the duke, hath placed me in command of the defense of the
city. Lady Polgara. It is my responsibility to deploy our forces.
There is no place in that deployment for thee. I therefore instruct
thee to depart. Go.”
“No!”
“Thou art the duchess of Erat, Lady Polgara, and therefore of the
Wacite nobility. Thine oath of fealty to his Grace, our duke, demands
thine obedience. Do not dishonor thy station by this stubborn
refusal.
Make ready. Thou shalt depart within the hour.”
Her chin came up sharply.
“That was unkindly said, my Lord,” she accused.
“The truth often is unkindly, my Lady. We both have
responsibilities.
I will not fail mine. Do not fail thine. Now go.”
Her eyes suddenly filled with helpless tears. She embraced him
fiercely and then fled back into the house.
“Thanks, Ontrose,” I said simply, clasping his hand.
“I wasn’t making very much headway there.”
“Care for her, Ancient One. She is the very core of my life.”
“I will, Ontrose, and we’ll remember you.”
“That is, perhaps, the best that one can hope for. Now I must go and
see to our defenses. Farewell, Ancient Belgarath.”
“Farewell, Ontrose.”
And so I took my weeping daughter out of the doomed city. We went
north, crossed the River Camaar, and journeyed back through Muros
toward the pass that led across the mountains to Algaria. I kept a
very close watch on Polgara the whole time–I didn’t want any
backsliding, but it probably wasn’t really necessary. She was, as
Ontrose had so pointedly reminded her, a member of the nobility. She
had her orders, and she was not likely to disobey.
She refused to talk to me, but that was to be expected, I guess. What
I didn’t expect was her adamant refusal to return to the Vale with
me.
When we reached the tumbled ruin of her mother’s cottage, she
stopped.
“This is as far as I’m going,” she told me.
“What?”
“You heard me, father. I’m going to stay here.”
“You have work to do, Pol.”
“That’s too bad. You’ll have to take care of it. Go back to your
tower and snuggle up to your prophecies, but leave me out of it. We’re
through, father. This is the end of it. Now go away and don’t bother
me any more.”
I could see that there was no point in trying to argue with her. I’d
been through my own grief, so I had some idea of what she was
enduring.
I’d have to keep an eye on her, of course–from a distance. She’d just
spent hundreds of years in Arendia, and some of it might have rubbed
off.
Arendish ladies turn suicidal at the drop of a hat. If the least
little disappointment comes along, an Arendish lady immediately starts
thinking about knives and poison and rivers and high towers they can
jump from.
Pol would get over this eventually, but in the meantime, she’d have to
be watched.
I went back to the Vale and enlisted the twins. I’d have used Beldin,
too, but he’d gone back to Mallorea. We took turns hiding in the
bushes near Poledra’s cottage for the next five or six years. At first
my brokenhearted daughter simply camped out in the ruins, but
eventually she started making some minimal repairs. I felt that to be
a good sign, and the twins and I started to relax a bit. We still
watched her, though.
The First Borune Dynasty was still in power in Tol Honeth during the
early centuries of the fourth millennium, and they’d established a
professional diplomatic service–largely to keep things stirred up in
Arendia.
Tolnedra definitely didn’t want a unified Arendia on her northern
border.
Tolnedran ambassadors were also dispatched to Val Alorn and Boktor, and
trade was soon established. The Drasnians had made some tentative
contacts with the Nadraks again, and the fur trade began to nourish.
The Chereks were of necessity involved, since they were the only
sailors in the world who could negotiate the treacherous currents in
the Cherek Bore.
The inviolability of the Isle of the Winds drove the Borunes crazy for
some reason. They were positive that the Cherek blockade was in place
to hide some vast treasure on the Isle, and they desperately wanted a
piece of it. As long as they were so hysterical about it, I decided
that the best way to calm them down was to let them take a look for
themselves to find out that there wasn’t anything of value on the Isle.
The isolation of the Rivans was starting to make me nervous. I
remembered the lesson of Maragor all too well.
So I went to Val Alorn and told the Chereks to relax their blockade a
bit. Tolnedrans want a treaty for everything, so the results were the
Accords of Val Alorn–3097, I think. A fleet of Tolnedran merchant
vessels set sail for the city of Riva almost immediately.
I’d assumed that the King of Cherek would advise the Rivans of the new
arrangement, but he had his mind on the last clan war in Cherek, so he
overlooked it. Thus the Rivans weren’t expecting company, so they
didn’t open their gates. The Tolnedran merchants tried to set up shop
on the beach, but the wind kept blowing their tents away, and the
Rivans refused to come out of their city.
The Borune Dynasty had been going downhill steadily for a hundred years
or so, and the last Borune Emperor, clearly an idiot, succumbed to the
importunings of the merchant princes and dispatched legions to force
the gates of the City of Riva. I’m not an expert on commerce, but it
seems to me that trying to drive customers into your shop at
sword-point is not a good way to do business.
The Rivans responded in a fairly predictable way. They opened the
gates of their city, but they didn’t come out for a shopping spree.
They wiped out five Tolnedran legions and then systematically burned
every ship in their harbor.
Ran Borune XXIV was incensed. He was preparing to launch the full
might of the empire at the Isle of the Winds when a note from the
Cherek Ambassador to Tol Honeth brought him up short.
The note is sort of a classic, so I’ll repeat it here verbatim: