DAVID EDDINGS – SORCERESS OF DARSHIVA

“What? Oh, good idea.” Belgarath yawned and closed his eyes again.

Garion motioned to Eriond, and the two of them trotted off into the tall grass at the side of the trail.

“Garion,” Polgara called, “where are you going?”

“Grandfather can explain it, Aunt Pol,” he shouted back. “We’ll catch up again in just a bit.” He looked at Eriond. “Now let’s get out of earshot in a hurry.”

They went north, first at a gallop and then at a dead run with the grass whipping at their horses’ legs. The chestnut and the gray matched stride for stride, plunging along with their heads thrust far forward and their hooves pounding on the thick turf. Garion leaned forward in his saddle, surrendering to the flow and surge of Chretienne’s muscles. Both he and Eriond were laughing with delight when they reined in on the hilltop.

“That was good,” Garion said, swinging down from his saddle. “We don’t get the chance to do that very often any more, do we?”

“Not often enough,” Eriond agreed, also dismounting. “You managed to arrange it very diplomatically, Belgarion.”

“Of course. Diplomacy’s what kings do best.”

“Do you think we fooled her?”

“Us?” Garion laughed. “Fool Aunt Pol? Be serious, Eriond.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Eriond made a wry face. “She’ll probably scold us, won’t she?”

“Inevitably, but the ride was worth a scolding, wasn’t it?”

Eriond smiled. Then he looked around, and his smile faded. “Belgarion,” he said sadly, pointing to the north.

Garion looked. Tall columns of black smoke rose along the horizon. “It looks as if it’s started,” he said bleakly.

“Yes.” Eriond sighed. “Why do they have to do that?”

Garion crossed his arms on Chretienne’s saddle and leaned his chin pensively on them. “Pride, I suppose,” he replied, “and the hunger for power. Revenge, too, sometimes. I guess. Once in Arendia, Lelldorin said that very often it’s because people just don’t know how to stop it, once it’s started.”

“But it’s all so senseless.”

“Of course it is. Arends aren’t the only stupid people on earth. Any time you have two people who both want the same thing badly enough, you’re going to have a fight. If the two people have enough followers, they call it a war. If a couple of ordinary men have that kind of disagreement, there might be a broken nose and some missing teeth, but when you start getting armies involved, people get killed.”

“Are you and Zakath going to have a war, then?”

It was a troubling question, and Garion wasn’t sure he knew the answer. “I don’t really know,” he admitted.

“He wants to rule the world,” Eriond pointed out, “and you don’t want him to. Isn’t that the sort of thing that starts a war?”

“It’s awfully hard to say,” Garion replied sadly. “Maybe if we hadn’t left Mal Zeth when we did, I might have been able to bring him around. But we had to leave, so I lost the chance.” He sighed. “I think it’s finally going to be up to him. Maybe he’s changed enough so that he’ll abandon the whole idea—but then again, maybe he hasn’t. You can never tell with a man like Zakath. I hope he’s given up the notion. I don’t want a war—not with anybody; but I’m not going to bow to him, either. The world wasn’t meant to be ruled by one man—and certainly not by somebody like Zakath.”

“But you like him, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do. I wish I could have met him before Taur Urgas ruined his life.” He paused, and his face grew set. “Now there’s a man I’d have rather cheerfully gone to war with. He contaminated the whole world just by living in it.”

“But it wasn’t really his fault. He was insane, and that excuses him.”

“You’re a very forgiving young man, Eriond.”

“Isn’t it easier to forgive than to hate? Until we learn how to forgive, that sort of thing is going to keep on happening.” He pointed at the tall pillars of smoke rising to the north. “Hate is a sterile thing, Belgarion.”

“I know.” Garion sighed. “I hated Torak, but in the end I guess I forgave him—more out of pity than anything else. I still had to kill him, though.”

“What do you think the world would be like if people didn’t kill each other any more?”

“Nicer, probably.”

“Why don’t we fix it that way then?”

“You and I?” Garion laughed. “All by ourselves?”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s impossible, Eriond.”

“I thought you and Belgarath had settled the issue of impossible a long time ago.”

Garion laughed again. “Yes, I suppose we did. All right, let’s drop impossible. Would you accept extremely difficult instead?”

“Nothing that’s really worthwhile should be easy, Belgarion. If it’s easy, we don’t value it; but I’m certain we’ll be able to find an answer.” He said it with such shining confidence in his face that for a moment Garion actually believed that the wild notion might indeed be feasible.

Then he looked out at the ugly columns of smoke again, and the hope died. “I suppose we should go back and let the others know what’s happening out there,” he said.

It was about noon when Beldin returned. “There’s another detachment of troops about a mile ahead,” he told Belgarath. “A dozen or so.”

“Are they going toward that battle to the north?”

“No, I’d say this particular group is running away from it. They look as if they were fairly well mauled recently.”

“Could you tell which side they’re on?”

“That doesn’t really matter, Belgarath. A man gives up his allegiances when he deserts.”

“Sometimes you’re so clever you make me sick.”

“Why don’t you have Pol mix you up something to cure it?”

“How long has that been going on?” Velvet asked Polgara.

“Which was that, dear?”

“That constant wrangling between those two?”

Polgara closed her eyes and sighed. “You wouldn’t believe it, Liselle. Sometimes I think it started at about the beginning of time.”

The soldiers they encountered were wary, even frightened. They stood their ground, however, with their hands on their weapons. Silk made a quick motion to Garion, and the two of them rode forward at an unthreatening walk.

“Good day, gentlemen,” Silk greeted them conversationally. “What in the world is happening around here?”

“You mean you haven’t heard?” a wiry fellow with a bloody bandage around his head asked.

“I haven’t found anybody to tell me,” Silk replied. “What happened to all the people who used to live in this part of Peldane? We haven’t seen a soul in the last four days.”

“They all fled,” the bandaged man told him. “The ones who were still alive did, at any rate.”

“What were they fleeing from?”

“Zandramas,” the fellow replied with a shudder. “Her army marched into Peldane about a month ago. We tried to stop them, but they had Grolims with them, and ordinary troops can’t do much against Grolims.”

“That’s the truth, certainly. What’s all that smoke up to the north?”

“There’s a big battle going on.” The soldier sat down on the ground and began to unwind the bloodstained bandage from around his head.

“It’s not like any battle I’ve ever seen,” another soldier supplied. His left arm was in a sling, and he looked as if he had just spent several days lying in the mud. “I’ve been in a few wars, but nothing like this. When you’re a soldier, you takes your chances—swords and arrows and spears and the like, y’know—but when they starts throwing horrors at me, I begins to feel it’s time to find another line of work.”

“Horrors?” Silk asked him.

“They’s got demons with ‘em, friend—both sides of ‘em has—monstrous big demons with snaky arms and fangs and claws and suchlike.”

“You’re not serious!”

“I seen ‘em with my own eyes. You ever seen a man get et alive? Makes your hair stand on end, it does.”

“I don’t quite follow this,” Silk confessed. “Who’s involved in this battle? I mean, ordinary armies don’t keep tame demons with them to help with the fighting.”

“That’s the honest truth,” the muddy man agreed. “A ordinary soldier’s likely to leave the service if they expect him to march alongside something mat looks at him as if he was something to eat. I never did get the straight of it, though.” He looked at the man with the wounded head. “Did you ever find out who was fighting, Corporal?”

The corporal was wrapping a clean bandage around his head. “The captain told us before he got killed,” he said.

“Maybe you’d better start at the beginning,” Silk said. “I’m a little confused about this.”

“Like I told you,” the corporal said, “about a month ago the Darshivans and their Grolims invaded Peldane. Me and my men are in the Royal Army of Peldane, so we tried to hold them back. We slowed them some on the east bank of the Magan, but then the Grolims come at us, and we had to retreat. Then we heard that there was another army coming down out of the north—Karands and soldiers in armor and more Grolims. We figured that we was really in for it at that point, but as it turns out, this new army isn’t connected with the Darshivans. It seems that it’s working for some High Grolim from way off to the west. Well, this Grolim, he sets up along the coast and don’t come inland at all. It’s like he’s waiting for something. We had our hands full with the Darshivans, so we wasn’t too interested in what it was he was waiting for. We was doing a lot of what our officers called ‘maneuvering’—which is officer talk for running away.”

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