you, Khanar?’
‘Oh, absolutely, your Imperial Majesty,’ Khanar replied fervently.
‘I wouldn’t think of asking you to turn yourself into a cobra, Lady
Polgara.’
‘I rather thought you might both feel that way about it,I
murmured.
It may have been that conversation in the early autumn of 3817
that had moved Ran Horb to put an end to the civil war in Arendia.
In 3821 he concluded a secret treaty with the Mimbrates, and in
3822, the Mimbrates sacked and burned Vo Astur and chased the
surviving Asturians into the forest. I know it’s not really very nice,
but I did take a great deal of satisfaction in the destruction of Vo
Astur, since it repaid them for destroying Vo Wacune.
NO, I don’t think I’ll pursue that. Gloating isn’t really attractive, so
it should be done in private.
Then, in 3827, Ran Horb II set up the election that ultimately
produced the first Sendarian King. He made one mistake when he laid
down the rules, however. He said that the new king had to receive
a majority of the votes. That turned the whole business into a six-year
holiday in Sendaria. There were seven hundred and forty-three
candidates on the first ballot, and the winnowing-out process took a
long time. Soon, Sendarians were dividing their time almost equally
– mornings devoted to tending the fields and afternoons devoted
to electioneering. They had so much fun that they ignored the fact
that the rest of the world was laughing at them.
I love those people’ When they’re having fun, they don’t care what
the rest of the world thinks.
The ultimate winner, Fundor the Magnificent, had long since
forgotten that he was still a candidate, and his elevation to the throne
came as a complete surprise to him – and quite an inconvenience
as well. Fundor was an agricultural experimenter who hated the
taste of turnips and had been trying for years to replace that
vegetable as a staple in the Sendarian diet with the rutabaga. Since
nobody in his right mind willingly eats rutabagas, Fundor’s
obsession had virtually bankrupted him.
During the course of the six-year-long election, the Sendars had
decided to establish the capital of their incipient kingdom at the city
of Sendar. Their decision was based on the price of land in that
part of Sendaria, and it raised screams of protest from the largely
Tolnedran land-speculators in and around Darine, Camaar, and
Muros.
Following Fundor’s elevation to the throne, all manner of
fortunehunters flocked to the city of Sendar in the hopes of wheedling
noble titles out of their new king. Fundor put them to work instead,
holding back titles until he saw how well they performed various
tasks. The alien concept of actually working to earn – and keep – a
title offended most of the opportunists drawn to his court, but it
ultimately produced a noble class with that most rare of aristocratic
characteristics, a sense of responsibility.
I drifted around the new kingdom for several years, more or less
unobserved, and as time passed I grew more and more certain that
our experiment was working out quite well. Sendaria prospered,
and the peasants were fairly content. I felt that I’d performed my
final duty as the Duchess of Erat satisfactorily and had thus fulfilled
my pledge to Ontrose.
Since that was out of the way now, I returned to mother’s cottage
and to my studies.
Ran Horb’s system of highways – particularly in Sendaria – mightily
offended the Chereks, of course, since it rendered their unique
ability to navigate the hazards of the Cherek Bore largely irrelevant.
There were rumblings of discontent coming out of Val Alorn, but
since you can’t really sink a highway, there wasn’t very much the
Chereks could do about the new state of affairs.
The Tolnedran highway system extended far beyond Sendaria,
however, and its real impact was felt more in the southern
kingdoms. The first contacts between various Tolnedran entrepreneurs
and the Murgos were tentative and very wary, but before long the
goods of the Angarak kingdoms began to appear in the
marketplaces of Tol Honeth, Tol Borune, Tol Horb, and Tol Vordue. Murgo
hostility began to soften, and the trade between east and west
changed from a trickle to a flood.
Now nothing happens in Cthol Murgos without Ctuchik’s open
consent, so it was obvious to my family that Torak’s disciple,
crouched atop that gloomy peak in the middle of the Wasteland of
Murgos, was ‘up to something’. In all probability, Ctuchik wasn’t
really ‘up to’ anything more serious than spying and subverting a
few Tolnedrans, but as my father and uncle Beldin were to discover
after the war with Nyissa, their former brother, Zedar the apostate,
had been more creative. His offer of immortality had enlisted the
aid of the aging Queen Salmissra in Sthiss Tor, and that significantly
altered history.
But that came a bit later. Following the establishment of the
Kingdom of Sendaria, I devoted myself almost exclusively to the study
of that pair of prophecies, the Mrin and the Darine, and I began to
catch brief, tantalizing glimpses of ‘the Godslayer’. Clearly, I was
going to be intimately involved with this titan, but as time went on
and I probed more deeply, I began to get the strong impression that
he wasn’t going to come riding out of nowhere garbed in shining
armor, trailing clouds of glory, and announced by earthquakes and
thunderclaps.
The turn of-the millennium occasioned some serious celebration
in the kingdoms of the west, but aside from noting that the year
marked my two thousandth birthday, I paid very little attention to
it.
in the early spring of 4002 I once again remembered that if I
planned to eat the following winter, I’d probably better get to
gardening. I set my studies aside for several weeks to concentrate on
playing in the dirt.
I was spading up my vegetable garden when father swooped in.
I knew immediately that something serious was afoot, since my
father only flies – usually as a falcon – in emergencies. He blurred
back into his natural form, and his expression was agitated. ‘I need
you, Pol!’ he said urgently.
‘I needed you once, remember?’ I said it without even thinking.
‘You didn’t seem very interested. Now I get to return the favor. Go
away, father.’
‘We don’t have time for this, Polgara. We have to go to the Isle
of the Winds immediately. Gorek’s in danger.’
‘Who’s Gorek?,
‘Don’t you have any idea at all about what’s happening in the
world beyond the edge of your garden? Has your brain shut down?
You can’t evade your responsibilities, Pol. You’re still who you are,
and you’re coming with me to the Isle of the Winds even if I have
to pick you up in my talons and take you there.’
‘Don’t threaten me, Old Man. Who’s this Gorek you’re so worried
about?’
‘He’s the Rivan King, Pol, the Guardian of the Orb.’
‘The Chereks patrol the Sea of the Winds, father. No fleet in the
world can get past their war boats.’
‘The danger’s not coming from a fleet, Pol. There’s a commercial
enclave just outside the walls of the city of Riva. That’s the source
Of the danger.’
Are you insane, father? Why did you permit strangers on the
isle?’
‘It’s a long story, and we don’t have time to go into it right now.’
‘How did you find out about this supposed danger?’
‘I just dredged the meaning out of a passage in the Mrin Codex.’
That brushed away all my scepticism. ‘Who’s behind it?’ I
demanded.
‘Salmissra, as closely as I can determine. She has agents in that
enclave who’ve been ordered to kill the Rivan King and his entire
family. If she manages to pull it off, Torak wins.’
‘Not as long as I’m still breathing, he doesn’t. Is this more of
Ctuchik’s games?’
‘It’s possible, but it’s little subtle for Ctuchik. It might be Urvon
or Zedar.’
‘We can sort that out later. We’re wasting time, father. Let’s go
to the Isle and put a stop to this.’
*CHAPTER25
The shortest route to the Isle of the Winds involved crossing
Ulgoland. Most sensible people avoid that whenever possible, but this
was an emergency, and father and I would be several thousand feet
above the hunting grounds of the Algroths, Hrulgin, and Eldrakyn.
Our brief encounter with Harpies just before we flew over Prolgu,
however, was highly suspicious. So far as I’m able to determine,
that was the only time anyone has ever seen them. Their semi-human
form makes them appear far more dangerous than they really are.
A human face does not automatically indicate human intelligence,
and their lack of a beak makes them a second-rate bird of prey.
Father and I evaded them rather easily and flew on.
Dawn was touching the eastern horizon when we flew over
Camaar. We were both on the verge of exhaustion, but we grimly