He controlled himself with some effort. “All right, Pol “ he said. “Don’t take any chances, though. This funny fellow might have some other tricks in his bag.”
“I’m always careful, father,” she replied. Then she moved her horse at a walk until she was several yards in advance of the rest of the party. “It’s a very nice elephant,” she called into the woods as she eyed the huge gray shape swaying menacingly in the shadows ahead of her. “Have you anything else you might like to show us?”
There was a long pause.
“You don’t seem very impressed,” a rusty-sounding voice growled from somewhere nearby.
“Well, you did make a few mistakes. The ears aren’t big enough, for one thing, and the tail is much too long.”
“The feet and tusks are about right, though,” the voice in the woods snapped, “as you’re about to find out.”
The gray shape raised its huge snout and bellowed. Then it lumbered forward directly toward Polgara.
“How tiresome,” she said, making a negligent-appearing gesture with one hand.
The elephant vanished in mid-stride.
“Well?” she asked.
A figure stepped out from behind a tree. It was a tall, gaunt man with wild hair and a very long beard, with twigs and straw clinging to it. He was dressed in a filthy smock, and his bare legs were as white as fish bellies, with knobby knees and broken veins. In one hand he carried a slender stick.
“I see that you have power, woman,” he said to her, his voice filled with an unspoken threat.
“Some,” she admitted calmly. “You must be the hermit I’ve heard about.”
A look of cunning came into his eyes. “Perhaps,” he replied. “And who are you?”
“Let’s just say that I’m a visitor.”
“I don’t want any visitors. These woods are mine, and I prefer to be left alone.”
“That’s hardly civil. You must learn to control yourself.”
His face suddenly twisted into an insane grimace. “Don’t tell me what to do!” he screamed at her. “I am a God!”
“Hardly that,” she disagreed.
“Feel the weight of my displeasure!” he roared. He raised the stick in his hand, and a glowing spark appeared at its tip. Suddenly, out of the insubstantial air, a monster leaped directly at her. It had scaly hide, a gaping muzzle filled with pointed fangs, and great paws tipped with needle-sharp claws.
Polgara lifted one hand, palm outward, and the thing suddenly stopped and hung motionless in midair. “A trifle better,” she said critically. “This one even seems to have a bit of substance to it.”
“Release it!” the hermit howled at her, jumping up and down in fury.
“Are you really sure you want me to?”
“Release it! Release it! Release it!” His voice rose to a shriek as he danced about wildly.
“If you insist,” she replied. Slowly the slavering monster turned about in midair and then dropped to the ground. With a roar, it charged the startled hermit.
The gaunt man recoiled, thrusting his wand out in front of him. The creature vanished.
“You always have to be careful with monsters,” she advised. “You never know when one of them might turn on you.”
His mad eyes narrowed, and he leveled his stick at her. A series of incandescent fireballs burst from its tip, sizzling through the air directly at her.
She held up her hand again, and the smoldering chunks of fire bounced off into the woods. Garion glanced at one and saw that it was actually burning, setting the damp needles on the forest floor to smoking. He put his heels to his horse’s flanks, even as Durnik also spurred forward, brandishing his cudgel.
“Stay out of it, you two!” Belgarath barked. “Pol can take care of herself.”
“But, Grandfather,” Garion protested, “that was real fire.”
“Just do as I say, Garion. You’ll throw her off balance if you go blundering in there now.”
“Why are you being so difficult,” Polgara asked the madman who stood glaring at her. “All we’re doing is traveling through these woods.”
“The woods are mine!” he shrieked. “Mine! Mine! Mine!” Again he danced his insane caper of fury and shook both his fists at her.
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” she told him.
The hermit leaped backward with a startled exclamation as the ground directly in front of his feet erupted with a seething green fire and a boiling cloud of bright purple smoke.
“Did you like the colors?” she inquired. “I like a little variety now and then, don’t you?”
“Pol,” Belgarath said in exasperation, “will you stop playing?”
“This isn’t play, father,” she replied firmly. “It’s education.”
A tree some yards behind the hermit suddenly bent forward, enfolding him in its stout limbs and then straightening back up again, lifting him struggling into the air.
“Have you had enough of this yet?” she asked, looking up at the startled man, who was trying desperately to free himself from the branches wrapped about his waist. “Decide quickly, my friend. You’re a long way from the ground, and I’m losing interest in keeping you up there.”
With a curse, the hermit wrenched himself free and tumbled heavily to the loam beneath the tree.
“Did you hurt yourself?” she inquired solicitously.
Snarling, he cast a wave of absolute blackness at her.
Still sitting her horse with unruffled calm, she began to glow with an intensely blue light that pushed the blackness away.
Again the look of mad cunning came into his eyes. Garion felt a disjointed surge. Jerkily, one portion of his body at a time, the deranged hermit began to expand, growing larger and larger. His face was wholly insane now, and he lashed out with one huge fist, shattering a nearby tree. He bent, picked up a long branch, and broke it in two. He discarded the shorter end and advanced upon Polgara, swinging his great club.
“Pol!” Belgarath shouted in sudden alarm. “Be careful of him!”
“I can manage, father,” she replied. Then she faced the ten-foot-tall madman. “I think this has gone quite far enough,” she told him. “I hope you know how to run.” She made a peculiar gesture.
The wolf that appeared between them was impossibly large—half again as big as a horse—and its snarl was thunderous.
“I do not fear your apparitions, woman,” the towering hermit roared. “I am God, and I fear nothing.”
The wolf bit him, its teeth sinking into his shoulder. He screamed and jerked back, dropping his cloth. “Get away!” he shouted at the snarling wolf.
The beast crouched, its fangs bared.
“Get away!” the hermit screamed again. He flopped his hands in the air, and Garion again felt that disorganized surge as the insane man tried with all his might to make the wolf vanish.
“I recommend immediate flight,” Polgara suggested. “That wolf hasn’t been fed for a thousand years and it’s dreadfully hungry.”
The hermit’s nerve broke at that point. He spun and ran desperately back into the woods, his pale, skinny legs flashing and his hair and beard streaming behind him. The wolf gave chase at a leisurely lope, snapping at his heels and growling horribly. “Have a pleasant day,” Polgara called after him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Polgara’s expression was unreadable as she looked after the fleeing hermit. At last she sighed. “Poor fellow,” she murmured.
“Will the wolf catch him?” Ce’Nedra asked in a small voice.
“The wolf? Oh no, dear. The wolf was only an illusion.”
“But it bit him. I saw the blood.”
“Just a small refinement, Ce’Nedra.”
“Then why did you say ‘poor fellow’?”
“Because he’s completely mad. His mind is filled with all kinds of shadows.”
“That happens sometimes, Polgara,” Belgarath told her. “Let’s move along. I want to get deeper into these woods before the sun goes down.”
Garion pulled his horse in beside Belgarath’s as they rode on into the forest. “Do you think he might have been a Grolim at one time?” he asked.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well—I sort of thought—” Garion struggled to put it into words. “What I mean is, there are two groups of sorcerers in the world—the Grolims and us. He wasn’t one of us, was he?”
“What a peculiar notion,” Belgarath said. “The talent is latent in everybody. It can show up any place—and does. It takes different directions in different cultures, but it’s all related—magic, witchcraft, sorcery, wizardry, and even the peculiar gift of the seers. It all comes from the same place, and it’s all basically the same thing. It just shows up in different ways, that’s all.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Then you’ve learned something today. No day in which you learn something is a complete loss.”
The autumn sun was very bright, though it was low on the northern horizon. Winter was almost upon them. Once again Garion was reminded that they were in a strange part of the world where the seasons were reversed. Back at Faldor’s farm it was nearly summer now. The fields had been ploughed and the crops planted, and the days were long and warm. Here at the bottom of the world, however, it was quite the opposite. With a start, he realized that, except for that brief time in the desert of Araga, he had entirely missed summer this year. For some reason, he found that thought profoundly depressing.