time an Angarak army encounters something dirty or dangerous,
they always send in the Thulls. Several regiments of the
thickbodied, dull-eyed Thulls rushed through the gates. They wandered
through the labyrinthine maze inside for a while, and then the Algars
and Drasnians rose from their places of concealment atop the walls
of the unroofed maze and annihilated the Thullish regiments to the
last man. I’m sure that the massed troops outside heard all the
screaming, but they chose not to come inside to find out what was
happening. I thought that was moderately tacky, but I privately
approved. Torak’s brute-force attacks weren’t likely to gain him
entry, and if he planned to propose marriage to me, he was going
to have to get inside first.
During the night after the failed assault, the Algars amused
themselves by catapulting dead Thulls into the Angarak encampment,
and then when murky dawn put in her appearance, the Algar
horsemen who’d been savaging the flanks of Torak’s army as he’d
marched south arrived and very quietly encircled him. His foraging
parties found out about that as soon as they rode out in search of
food. Torak himself didn’t need to eat, but his army did, and they
were on very short rations for the next several years.
Things settled down after a week or so, and father and I concluded
that the siege of the Stronghold would probably continue for a
number of years and that our continued presence wouldn’t really
serve any purpose. We had things to do elsewhere, so we decided
to go back to the Isle of the Winds. Before we left, though, I had
one more talk with Celane.
‘This is very exciting, Aunt Pol,’ the little boy said.
‘The excitement wears a little thin after a while, Celane.’
‘How long do these siege things usually last?’
‘Several years, usually.’
‘That long? Don’t the people outside get tired of it? Can’t they
see that they’re not going to get inside?’
‘They’re soldiers, Gelane. Sometimes it takes soldiers a little longer
to think their way through things than it does ordinary people.’
‘You don’t like soldiers, do you, Aunt Pol?’
,They’re all right – as individuals. It’s when you lump them
together into an army that their brains desert them. I want you to
be very careful here, Gelane. Stay out of sight, and don’t stand in
front of any open windows. One of the reasons Torak has for being
here is that he wants to kill you.’
,Me? Why me? What’d I ever do to him?’
,It’s not anything you’ve done, Celane; it’s what you might do
sometime in the future.’
‘Oh?’
‘You – or your son, or your son’s son, or somebody on down the
line of sons that’ll descend from you – is going to kill Torak. If he
kills you now, he won’t have to worry about that.’
His eyes grew very bright at that. ‘Maybe I’d better get a sword
and start practicing,’ he said enthusiastically.
‘Oh, dear,’ I said, realizing my mistake when it was too late. You
don’t ever want to suggest heroism to a little boy. He shouldn’t even
know what the word means until he’s at least twenty. ‘Gelane,’ I
said patiently, ‘you’re only six years old. Right now, you couldn’t
even lift a sword, much less swing one. Here’s what you should do.
There’s a pile of rocks in the southeast corner of the maze in the
middle of the Stronghold.’
‘Yes, I’ve seen them.’
‘The best thing for you to do is to pick up one of those rocks and
carry it up the stairs to the top of the Stronghold. Then you take it over
to the battlements and drop it on the Angaraks outside the walls.’
,’I’ll bet they wouldn’t like that at all, would they?’
‘Not very much, no.’
‘What do I do then, Aunt Pol?’
‘Go get another rock.’
‘Those rocks look awfully heavy.’
‘Yes, they do, don’t they? That’s the idea, though, Celane. Picking
up heavy things is a good way to make your muscles bigger, and
You’re going to have to be very strong if you’re going to get into a
sword-fight with Torak.”How long will it take – to get big muscles, I mean?’
Oh, I don’t know – six or eight years, maybe. Possibly ten.’
‘Maybe I’ll learn how to shoot a bow and arrow instead.’
‘That might be more interesting. Look after your mother, Celane.
I’ll Come by from time to time to see how you’re coming along with
Your archery.’
‘I’ll practice a lot, Aunt Pol,’ he promised.
I hope you took notes there. The secret word in dealing with
little boys is ‘diversion’. Don’t forbid things. Make them sound
unpleasant instead. Boyish enthusiasm diminishes in direct proportion
to the amount of sweat involved.
Trust me. I’ve been doing this for a long time.
Father and I left the Stronghold at first light the next morning and
flew west to Camaar. We spent the night in our usual inn and flew
on to Riva to gather up the Alorn kings. Then we sailed south in a
small fleet of Cherek war-boats.
Ran Borune himself met us on the wharves, and that was most
unusual. The politics of the situation here were very murky, though,
so Ran Borune went out of his way to avoid offending the sometimes
prickly Alorn kings. I liked Ran Borune. He was a small man, like
all members of the Borune family. Father’s introduction of the Dryad
strain into the Borune line had done some rather peculiar things. A
pure Dryad for example, would never give birth to a male child,
but their tiny size carried over into the men of the family, and you’ll
seldom see a male Borune who tops five feet.
To avoid offending Tolnedran sensibilities, father and I had hinted
around the edges of an outright lie, leading our southern allies to
believe that the names ‘Belgarath’ and ‘Polgara’ were in the nature
of hereditary titles passed down through generations in order to
impress gullible alorn monarchs. I’m told that a whole sub-division
of the history department at the University of Tol Honeth has
devoted years to the study of us, and they’ve even gone so far as
to devise a genealogy of this mysterious family that wields so much
power in the kingdoms of the north. The Duchess of Erat, for
example, was ‘Polgara Vii’, and during the Angarak invasion, I was
‘Polgara LXXXIII’.
I’m not certain if that sub-department’s still functioning, but if they
are I’m probably currently referred to as ‘Polgara CXVII.’
Isn’t that impressive?
The emperor was accompanied by his Chief of Staff, General Cerran.
Cerran was an Anadile, a member of a southern Tolnedran family
that’s always been closely allied with the Borunes. We were lucky
to have Cerran, since the man was a tactical genius. He was a blocky,
no-nonsense sort of fellow with heavy shoulders and no sign of the
paunch that almost all men develop in their fifties.
The Alorn kings had arrived in Tol Honeth some weeks ago, and
they joined us and we all trooped up the hill to the imperial compound
, and Ran Borune advised us that the Imperial War College(
was at our disposal for our strategy sessions. It was a pleasant
building, but its most significant feature was the fact that all the
maps were there. A nation that’s spent well over a thousand years
building roads is going to have a lot of maps, and I’d imagine that
if someone were really curious, he could find a map somewhere in
the War College that’d show the precise location of his own house.
Although we worked at the Imperial War College, we lived in
the various Alorn embassies. It’s not that we wanted to keep secrets,
it was just that guests in the imperial palace seem to attract followers.
I won’t use the word ‘spies’, but I think you get my point.
Father’s ploy of hinting that the Drasnian Intelligence Service,
even as dislocated as it had been by the Angarak invasion, was
providing the information we were actually getting from other
sources gave the Tolnedrans a graceful way to avoid accepting
things they weren’t prepared to look straight in the face. A
Tolnedran will go to absurd lengths to maintain his staunch belief that
there’s no such thing as magic. It’s a little awkward sometimes, but
we’ve always managed to work our way around it. Deep down, we
all know that it’s pure subterfuge, but as long as we all behave as
if we believe it, relations with the Tolnedrans can go smoothly.
Thus, when uncle Beldin arrived in Tol Honeth to report what
he’d seen in southern Cthol Murgos, we passed him off as a Drasnian
spy. Beldin’s had a lot of experience at spying anyway, so he was
able to pull it off rather well. General Cerran found uncle’s report
of the friction between Ctuchik and Urvon particularly interesting.