David Eddings – The Seeress of Kell

Directly behind Durnik came die several carts carrying their packs. Their belongings were quickly transferred to the ship, and Garion went aft to speak with the captain, a grizzled old seaman with a weathered face.

Unlike western vessels, whose bare plank decks were usually holystoned into some semblance of whiteness, the quarterdeck and its surrounding railings were finished with a dark, glossy varnish, and snowy ropes hung in neat coils from highly polished- belaying pins. The effect was almost ostentatiously neat, evidence that the vessel’s master took great pride in his ship. The captain himself wore a somewhat weathered blue doublet. He was, after all, in port. A jaunty velvet cap was cocked rakishly over one of his ears.

“I guess that’s everything, Captain,” Garion said. “We may as well cast off and get clear of the harbor before the tide turns.”

“You’ve been to sea before, I see, young master,” the captain said approvingly. “I hope your friends have, as well. It’s always a trial to have landsmen aboard. They never seem to realize that throwing up into the wind isn’t a good idea.” He raised his voice to an ear-splitting bellow. “Cast off all lines! Prepare to make sail!”

“Your speech doesn’t seem to be that of the island, Captain,” Garion observed.

“I ‘d be surprised if it were, young master. I ‘m from the Mel-cene Islands. About twenty years ago, there were some ugly rumors about me being circulated in some quarters back home, so I thought it might be prudent to absent myself for a while. I came here. You wouldn’t believe what these people were calling a ship when I got here.”

‘ ‘Sort of like a seagoing castle?” Garion suggested.

“You’ve seen them then?”

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“In another part of the world.”

“Make sail!” the captain roared at his crew. “There, young master.” He grinned at Garion. “I’ll have you out of earshot in no time at all. That should spare us all that drasty ‘eloquence. Where was I? Oh, yes. When I got here, the ships of Perivor were so top-heavy that a good sneeze would capsize them. Would you believe it only took me five years to explain that to these people?”

“You must have been amazingly eloquent, Captain.” Garion laughed.

“A bout or two with belaying pins helped a bit,” the captain conceded. “Finally I had to issue a challenge, though. None of these blockheads can refuse a challenge, so I proposed a race around the island. Twenty ships started out, and only mine finished. They started listening about then. I spent the next five years in the yards supervising construction. Then the king finally let me go back to sea. I got me a baronetcy out of it—not that it matters. I think IVe even got a castle somewhere.”

A brazen blast came from the wharf as, in true Mimbrate fashion, the knights of the king’s court saluted them on their horns. “Isn’t that pitiful?” the captain said. “I don’t think there’s a man on the whole island who can carry a tune.” He looked appraisingly at Garion. “I heard tell that you’re making for the Turim reef.”

“Korim reef,” Garion corrected absently.

“You’ve been listening to the landsmen, I see. They can’t even pronounce the name right. Anyway, before you get your mind set in stone about where you want to land, send for me. There’s some very ugly water around that reef. It’s not the sort of place where you want to make mistakes, and IVe got some fairly accurate charts.”

“The king told us there weren’t any charts of the reef.”

The captain winked slyly. “The rumors I mentioned earlier stirred some ship captains to try to follow me,” he admitted, “although ‘chase’ would probably be a more accurate word. Rewards cause that sort of thing sometimes. Anyhow, I was passing near the reef in calm weather once, and I decided to take some soundings. It never hurts to have a place to hide where others are afraid to follow you.”

“What’s your name, Captain?” Garion asked him.

“Kresca, young master.”

“I think we can drop that. Garion will do just fine.”

“Whatever you like, Garion. Now get oifmy quarterdeck so I can maneuver this old tub out of the harbor. *’

THE HIGH PLACES OF KORIM

211

The speech was different, and it was halfway around the world, but Captain Kresca was so much like Barak’s friend Grel-dik that Garion felt suddenly very secure. He went below to join the others. “WeVe had a bit of luck,” he told them. “Our captain is a Melcene. He’s not overburdened with scruples, but he has got charts of the reef. He’s probably the only man in these waters who does. He’s offered to advise us when the time comes to decide on where we want to land.”

“That was helpful of him,” Silk said.

“Maybe, but I think his main concern is not ripping the bottom out of his ship.”

“I can relate to that,” Silk said. “As long as I’m on board, anyway.”

“I’m going back up on deck,” Garion said then. “Staying in a stuffy compartment on the first day of a voyage always makes me a little queasy for some reason.”

“And you ‘re the ruler of an island? ” Poledra said.

“It’s just a question of getting adjusted, Grandmother.”

“Of course.”

The sea and sky were unsettled. The heavy cloud bank was still coming in from trie west, sending long, ponderous combers rolling in from that direction, waves that had in all probability started somewhere off the east coast of Cthol Murgos. Although, as king of an island nation, Garion knew that the phenomenon was not unusual, he nonetheless felt a certain sense of superstitious apprehension when he saw that the surface winds were moving westward while those aloft, as proclaimed by the movement of the clouds, moved east. He had seen this happen many times before, but mis time he could not be positive that the weather was responding to natural causes or to something else. Idly he wondered what those two eternal awarenesses might have done had he and his friends not found a ship. He had a momentary vision of the sea parting to provide a broad highway across its bottom, a highway littered with startled fish. He began to feel less and less in charge of his own destiny. Even as he had on the long trek to Cthol Mishrak, he became increasingly certain that the two prophecies were herding him toward Korim for a meeting that, though he himself might not have chosen it, was the ultimate Event toward which the entire universe had been yearning since the beginning of days. A plaintive “Why me?” hovered on his lips.

And then Ce’Nedra was there, burrowing under his arm as she had during those first few heady days when they had finally discovered that they did, in fact, love each other. “What are

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you thinking about, Garion?” she asked softly. She had changed out of the antique green satin gown she had worn at the palace and now wore a gray dress of utilitarian wool.

“I’m not, really. Probably worrying comes a lot closer.”

“What’s mere to worry about? We’re going to win, aren’t we?”

‘ ‘That hasn’t been decided yet.”

“Of course you’re going to win. You always do.”

“This time’s a little different, Ce’Nedra.” He sighed. “It’s not just the meeting, though. I’ve got to choose my successor, and the one I choose is going to be the new Child of Light—and most probably a God. If I pick the wrong person, it’s possible that I’ll create a God who’ll be an absolute disaster. Could you imagine Silk as a God? He’d be out there picking the pockets of the other Gods and inscribing off-color jokes in the constellations.”

“He doesn’t really seem to have the right kind of temperament for it,” she agreed. “I like him well enough, but I’m afraid UL might disapprove very strongly. What else is bothering you?”

“You know what else. One of us isn’t going to live through tomorrow.”

“You don’t really have to concern yourself about that, Gar-ion,” she said wistfully. “It’s going to be me. IVe known that from the very beginning.”

“Don’t be absurd. I can make sure it’s not you.”

“Oh? How?”

“I’ll just tell them that I won’t make the Choice if they hurt you in any way.”

“Garion!” she gasped. “You can’t do that! You’ll destroy the universe if you do!”

‘ ‘So what? The universe doesn’t mean anything to’me without you, you know.”

“That’s very sweet, but you can’t do it. You wouldn’t do it anyway. YouVe got too great a sense of responsibility.”

“What makes you think you’re going to be the one?”

“The tasks, Garion. Every one of us has a task—some of us more than one. Belgarath had to find out where the meeting’s going to take place. Velvet had to kill Harakan. Even Sadi had a task. He had to kill Naradas. I have no task—except to die.”

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