Playful puppies.
we preened our feathers almost absently as we grew accustomed
to our union, and then, our thoughts unified, we rose on slow
wings into the rain-swept darkness.
We flew out toward the north, and we soon saw the smouldering
campfires of the Angarak army which had settled for the night not
three leagues from the Stronghold. We continued on to the center
of that huge encampment, and there we spied the iron pavilion of
the Dragon-God. Silently we settled on the ornamental battlements.
Of course, everything about the pavilion was ornamental. The whole
thing was no more than a decoration stacked atop a very large
wagon. Torak’s ego was even more grotesquely expanded than we’d
imagined.
We peered around with our large, golden eyes, and we spied an
embrasured window near the top of one of the towers, and we
found that detail not only amusing but convenient. A few wing
beats lifted us to that embrasure, and our clawed feet caught it
lower edge. Then we wormed our way inside, enclosing ourselves
as we did so – enclosing so completely that we were turned all
inward. It was that inward turning, of course, that made us invisible
and permitted no stray thought to escape to warn Torak of our
presence.
‘I am ill at ease, Zedar.’ The voice was hollow, echoing, and we
immediately saw why. Torak lounged on his iron throne almost in
a posture of repose, but his maimed face was still enclosed in that
polished steel mask. The mask that hid his maiming had become
part of him.
‘It is always thus before a battle, Master,’ Zedar replied. ‘I shall
thy disquiet.’
‘Can the reports we have received of the nature of this Algar
fortress indeed be true?’ Torak asked in his harsh, hollow voice.
‘The Alorns are a stupid people, Master,’ Zedar sneered. ‘Set any
empty, meaningless task before them and they will mindlessly
pursue it for generations. Like ants, the Algars have been piling rocks
atop that absurd heap of stone for eons now.’
‘It is an inconvenience, nothing more, Zedar. I will brush it aside
and continue on toward my goal. Aldur’s Orb will be mine again
and with it yet another prize.’
,Oh?’
‘Long have I considered this, Zedar, and now is my mind set
upon a goal. I will have lordship and dominion over all this world
and a jewel will ornament my crown.’
‘Aldur’s Orb, Master?’ Zedar guessed.
‘Cthrag Yaska – my brother’s Orb – is no ornament, zedar. It is
but a means to an end. Truly I tell thee, Zedar, I do hate that accursed
jewel for what it hath done unto me. The jewel of which I spake is
more fair. I will be the king of all the world, and it is fitting that a
king should have a queen. Already have I chosen she who shall
share my throne.’ Then he laughed a hideous laugh. ‘She is not fond
of me, but, truly, I shall much enjoy bending her to my will. She
will obey me – nay, even worship me.’
‘And who is this fortunate woman who will be thy queen, Master?’
‘Think, Zedar. Truly, it was thine own clever deception of my
brother’s handmaiden, Salmissra, which set me upon my present
course.’ He sighed. ‘My brothers have cast me out, so now must I
father a new race of Gods to assist me in my domination of the
world. Who of all the women of this world is fit to share my throne
– and my bed?’
‘Polgara?’ Zedar asked incredulously.
‘Thou art quick, Zedar,’ the One-eyed God said. ‘Indeed, our
pilgrimage upon the face of this continent hath two goals – two
prizes. The first prize is Cthrag Yaska, my brother’s Orb. The second,
and no less important, is Polgara, daughter of Belgarath. She will
be mine, Zedar. I will have Polgara to wife, and will she, nil she,
Polgara will be mine!’
*CHAPTER32
I shrieked in the silence of mind and heart at this suddenly revealed
horror, and it was only mother’s iron. control that kept my terror
and revulsion from echoing from the Eastern Escarpment to the
mountains of Ulgoland. All thought ceased as I realized that should
a direct confrontation between Torak and me ever take place, his
‘will would crush mine and I’d inevitably succumb to his hideous
blandishments. I would become his slave – and worse. I think that
had mother not been so totally merged with me, I would have gone
mad. Her method of preventing that was fairly direct. She simply
suspended my awareness and took over. I have no memory of our
owl wriggling back out of Torak’s tin palace nor of taking wing as
mother flew us up and up through the rainy darkness.
‘All right, Polgara!’ Her voice at the center of my stunned
consciousness was crisp, ‘Snap out of it!’
‘Oh, mother!’ I wailed.
‘Stop that! You had to know about this, Pol, and you had to hear
it from his own mouth. Now pull yourself together. We have things
that have to be done.’
I looked around and saw that we were much higher than owls
usually fly. Our wings were locked and we were making a long,
shallow descent toward the mountainous Algarian Stronghold. As
soon as we get back, you’d better wake your father and let him
know that Torak’s arrived, but he doesn’t need to know about what
we just heard. Go ahead and call him, Pol. It takes him a while to
start moving when he first wakes up, so we’ll be there before he
climbs all those stairs.’
I grimly pushed my revulsion aside. ‘I think you’d better come up
here, father,’ I sent my thought out to my snoring parent.
,Where are you?’ his thought was blurred with sleep.
‘I can’t understand you, father. just come up the parapet on top of the
north wall. There’s something you’d better have a look at.’
‘Keep a tight grip on yourself, Pol,’ mother suggested. ‘He’ll ask
questions, and you won’t want to be too specific when you answer.’
‘I do that most of the time anyway, mother.’ I’d pushed my private
horror aside enough to be rational.
We swooped in and settled on the parapet just before father came
puffing up the steep stairs. He took one look at the form that
enclosed me and immediately began to scold me. ‘I’ve asked you
not to do that, Pol.’ He couldn’t know, of course, that I wasn’t alone
in that assumed form, but I was, and I was awed by the depth of
,mother’s love for this shabby and sometimes foolish old man.
Then mother and I flowed out of our assumed form and she
wasn’t there any more. Our separation was actually painful to me.
‘I’m not trying to offend you, father,’ I half-apologized, ‘but I’m
following instructions.’ My choice of terms was quite deliberate.
The word ‘instructions’ tends to cut off arguments in our family. I
suppose that my omission of just whose instructions I was following
might be considered an untruth – if you want to be picky about it.
‘I think you’d better take a look at that,’ I said then, pointing at the
sea of Angaraks advancing through the mist like an incoming tide.
‘I was sort of hoping that they’d get lost, or something,’ father
muttered. ‘Are you sure Torak’s with them?’
‘Yes, father. I went out and looked. That iron pavilion of his is
right in the center of the crowd.’
‘You did what? Polgara, that’s Torak out there! Now he’ll know that
You’re here!’
I’d just seen Torak, so I didn’t really need to listen to my father’s
introduction. ‘Don’t get excited, Old Man. I was told to do it. Torak
had no way of even knowing I was there. He’s inside his pavilion,
and Zedar’s with him.’
How long has this been going on?’
I deliberately sidestepped his question. ‘Since he left Mallorea, I’d
“imagine. Let’s go alert the Algars, and then I think we’ll have time
for some breakfast. I’ve been up all night, and I’m positively
ravenOus.’ He was obviously very curious about the means I’d used to
hide my presence from Torak and Zedar, but the word ‘breakfast’
worked its usual miracle on my father. If you say ‘food’ or ‘beer’
to father, you’ll have his immediate, undivided attention.
-,~after breakfast, we went back up to the parapet to see how Torak
and his henchmen planned to assault the Algarian mountain. They
started out conventionally, catapulting rocks at the walls, but that
had no more effect than a quarter century of rain had. I’d imagine
that was very depressing for the catapult crews. Then the Angaraks
rolled up huge battering rams, and that was also a waste Of time
and effort, since the gates weren’t locked.
That must have made the Angarak generals suspicious, because
the Thulls were given the honor of making the first assault. Any