“Very funny, Pol.” The ugly hunchback dropped heavily into a chair and scratched vigorously at one armpit.
“Was there anything else, father?” Polgara asked.
“Torak wrote something to Garion,” Belgarath replied. “It was fairly bleak, but it appears that even he knew how bad things would get if Zandramas succeeds. He told Garion to stop her at all costs.”
“I was going to do that anyway,” Garion said quietly. “I didn’t need any suggestions from Torak.”
“What are we going to be up against in Peldane?” Belgarath asked Silk.
“More of what we ran into in Voresebo and Rengel, I’d imagine.”
“What’s the fastest way to get to Kell?” Durnik asked.
“It’s in the Protectorate of Likandia,” Silk replied, “and the shortest way there is right straight across Peldane and Darshiva and then down through the mountains.”
“What about Gandahar?” Sadi asked. “We could avoid all that unpleasantness if we sailed south and went through there.” Somehow Sadi looked peculiar in hose and a belted tunic. Once he had discarded his iridescent robe, he seemed more like an ordinary man and less like a eunuch. His scalp, however, was freshly shaved.
Silk shook his head. “It’s all jungle down in Gandahar, Sadi,” he said. “You have to chop your way through.”
“Jungles aren’t all that bad, Kheldar.”
“They are if you’re in a hurry.”
“Could you send for those soldiers of yours?” Velvet asked.
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Silk answered, “but I’m not sure they’d be all that much help. Vetter says that Darshiva’s crawling with Grolims and Zandramas’ troops, and Peldane’s been in chaos for years. My troops are good, but not that good.” He looked at Belgarath. “I’m afraid you’re going to get more burrs in your fur, old friend.”
“Are we just going to ignore the trail, then,” Garion asked, “and make straight for Kell?”
Belgarath tugged at one earlobe. “I’ve got a suspicion that the trail is going to lead in the general direction of Kell anyway,” he said. “Zandramas read the Ashabine Oracles, too, you know, and she knows that Kell’s the only place where she can get the information she needs.”
“Will Cyradis let her look at the Gospels?” Durnik asked.
“Probably. Cyradis is still neutral and she’s not likely to show any favoritism.”
Garion rose to his feet. “I think I’ll go up on deck, Grandfather,” he said. “I’ve got some thinking to do, and sea air helps to clear my head.”
The lights of Melcena twinkled low on the horizon behind em, and the moon laid a silvery path across the surface of the sea. The ship’s captain stood at the tiller on the aft deck, his hands steady and sure.
“Isn’t it a little hard to know which way you’re going at night?” Garion asked him.
“Not at all,” the captain replied. He pointed up toward the night sky. “Seasons come and go, but the stars never change.”
“Well,” Garion said, “we can hope, I guess.” Then he walked forward to stand in the bow of the ship.
The night breeze that blew down the strait between Melcena and the mainland was erratic, and the sails first bellied and then fell slack, their booming sounding like a funeral drum. That sound fitted Garion’s mood. For a long time he stood toying with the end of a knotted rope and looking out over the moon-touched waves, not so much thinking as simply registering the sights and sounds and smells around him.
He knew she was there. It was not merely the fragrance he had known since his earliest childhood, but also the calm sense of her presence. With a peculiar kind of abstraction he sought back through his memories. He had, it seemed, always known exactly where she was. Even on the darkest of nights he could have started from sleep in a strange room in some forgotten town and pointed unerringly to the place where she was. The captain of this ship was guided by the lights in the sky, but the star that had led Garion for his entire life was not some far-distant glimmer on the velvet throat of night. It was much closer, and much more constant.
“What’s troubling you, Garion?” she asked, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“I could hear his voice, Aunt Pol—Torak’s voice. He hated me thousands of years before I was even born. He even knew my name.”
“Garion,” she said very calmly, “the universe knew your name before that moon up there was spun out of the emptiness. Whole constellations have been waiting for you since the beginning of time.”
“I didn’t want them to, Aunt Pol.”
“There are those of us who aren’t given that option, Garion. There are things that have to be done and certain people who have to do them. It’s as simple as that.”
He smiled rather sadly at her flawless face and gently touched the snowy white lock at her brow. Then, for the last time in his life, he asked the question that had been on his lips since he was a tiny boy. “Why me, Aunt Pol? Why me?”
“Can you possibly think of anyone else you’d trust to deal with these matters, Garion?”
He had not really been prepared for that question. It came at him in stark simplicity. Now at last he fully understood. “No,” he sighed, “I suppose not. Somehow it seems a little unfair, though. I wasn’t even consulted.”
“Neither was I, Garion,” she answered. “But we didn’t have to be consulted, did we? The knowledge of what we have to do is born in us.” She put her arms around him and drew him close. “I’m so very proud of you, my Garion,” she said.
He laughed a bit wryly. “I suppose I didn’t turn out too badly after all,” he conceded. “I can get my shoes on the right feet at least.”
“And you have no idea how long that took to explain to you,” she replied with a light laugh. “You were a good boy, Garion, but you’d never listen. Even Rundorig would listen. He didn’t usually understand, but at least he’d listen.”
“I miss him sometimes. Him and Doroon and Zubrette.” Garion paused. “Did they ever get married? Rundorig and Zubrette, I mean?”
“Oh, yes. Years and years ago, and Zubrette is up to her waist in children—five or so. I used to get a message every autumn, and I’d have to go back to Faldor’s farm to deliver her newest baby.”
“You did that?” He was amazed.
“I certainly wouldn’t have let anyone else do it. Zubrette and I disagreed about certain things, but I’m still very fond of her.”
“Is she happy?”
“I think she is, yes. Rundorig’s easy to manage, and she has all those children to keep her mind occupied.” She looked at him critically. “Are you a little less moody now?” she asked.
“I feel better,” he replied. “I always feel better when you’re around.”
“That’s nice.”
He remembered something. “Did Grandfather get a chance to tell you what the Oracles said about Ce’Nedra?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye on her. Why don’t we go below now? The next few weeks might be hectic, so let’s get all the sleep we can while we have the chance.”
The coast of Peldane was engulfed in fog just as Captain Kadian had predicted, but the beacon fires burning on the walls of Selda provided reference points, and they were able to feel their way carefully along the coast until the ship’s captain estimated that they were near the beach shown on Kadian’s chart.
“There’s a fishing village about a mile south of here, your Highness,” the captain advised Silk. “It’s deserted now, because of all the troubles in the area, but there’s a dock there—or at least there was the last time I sailed past this coast. We should be able to unload your horses there.”
“Excellent, Captain,” Silk replied.
They crept along through the fog until they reached the deserted village and its shaky-looking dock. As soon as Chretienne reached the shore, Garion saddled him, then mounted and rode slowly back along the beach with Iron-grip’s sword resting on the pommel of his saddle. After he had gone perhaps a mile and a half, he felt the familiar pull. He turned and rode back.
The others had also saddled their horses and led them to the edge of the fog-shrouded fishermen’s village. Their ship was moving slowly out to sea, a dim shape in the fog with red and green lanterns marking her port and starboard sides and with a lone sailor astride her bowsprit blowing a melancholy foghorn to warn other ships away.
Garion dismounted and led his big gray stallion to where the others waited.
“Did you find it?” Ce’Nedra asked intently in a hushed little voice. Garion had noticed that for some reason, fog always made people speak quietly.
“Yes,” he replied. Then he looked at his grandfather. “Well?” he asked. “Do we just ignore the trail and take the shortest route to Kell or what?”