still blazed as brightly as it had on that day almost fifty centuries
before when the Orb had punished him for raising it to crack the
world.
Torak shrieked again, staggering back. He jerked Brand’s sword
from his eye, and bright blood gushed forth. Weeping blood, the
God of Angarak stood stock still for a moment. Then he toppled,
and the very earth shuddered.
I don’t believe that anyone on that vast battlefield moved or made
a sound for the space of a hundred heartbeats after that thunderous
fall. What had just happened was such a titanic EVENT that I was a
bit surprised that the sun didn’t falter and then stop in his inexorable
course. I was probably the only one there who heard a single sound
the exulting sound of mother’s howls of triumph. My mother’s spent
thousands of years in the form of the woman we know as Poledra, but
down in the deepest levels of her being, she’s still a wolf.
My own sense of triumph was heavily overlaid with relief. I’m’
usually very sure of myself, but my brief encounter with Torak’s
Will had shaken me to the core of my being. I’d discovered that
when Torak commanded, I had to obey, and that discovery had filled
me with uncertainty and terror.
What followed the fall of Torak wasn’t pleasant. The Angaraks
were surrounded and completely demoralized. To massacre them
– and there’s no other word for it – was excessive, to say the very
least. Brand, however, was implacable. Finally, General Cerran
firmly suggested that enough was enough, but Brand was an alorn
at the very bottom, and when it comes to killing Angaraks, no alorn
can ever get enough. The butchery went on through the night, and
when the sun rose, there weren’t any live Angaraks left on the
battlefield.
Then, when there was no one left to kill, Brand, his wounded
shoulder bandaged and his arm in a sling, ordered his alorns to
bring Torak’s body to him so that he could ‘look upon the face of
the King of the World’ – only Torak’s body wasn’t there anymore.
That’s when Brand rather peremptorily sent for my family and me.
The twins, Beldin, father and I picked our way across the littered
field to the hilltop where Brand stood surveying the wreckage of
Angarak. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded of us in a tone I really didn’t
like much.
‘Where’s who?’ Beldin replied.
‘Torak, of course. Nobody seems to be able to find his body.’
‘What an amazing thing,’ Beldin said sardonically. ‘You didn’t
actually think you’d find him, did you? Zedar carried him off just
as soon as the sun went down.’
‘He what?’
‘Didn’t you tell him?’ Beldin said to father.
‘He didn’t need to know about it. If he had, he might have tried
to stop it.’
‘What’s going on here?’ Brand’s regal tone was starting to irritate
Me.
‘It was part of the agreement between the Necessities,’ father
explained. ‘In exchange for your victory, you weren’t to be allowed
to keep Torak’s body – not that it’d have done any good if you had.
This wasn’t the last EVENT, Brand, and we haven’t seen the last of
Torak.’
‘But he’s dead.’
‘No, Brand.’ I told him as gently as I could. ‘You didn’t really
think that sword of yours could kill him, did you? The only sword
that can do that is still hanging on the wall back at Riva.’
‘Hang it all Pol,’ he exclaimed. ‘Nobody survives a sword-thrust
through the head!
‘Except a God, Brand. He’s comatose, but he will wake up again.
The final duel’s still out in the future, and that one’s going to involve
Torak and the Rivan king. That’ll be the one where they take out
their real swords and where somebody really gets killed. You did
very well here, dear one, but try to keep your perspective. What
happened here was really nothing more than a skirmish.’
I could tell that he really didn’t like that, but his distinctly imperial
behavior was starting to run away with him, and I felt that he
needed to be brought up short. ‘Then all of this has been for nothing,,
he said dejectedly.
‘I wouldn’t exactly call it nothing, Brand,’ father said. ‘If Torak
had won here, he’d own the world. You stopped him. That counts
for something, doesn’t it?’
Brand sighed. ‘I suppose so,’ he said. Then he looked out over
the bloody field. ‘I guess we’d better clean this up. It’s summer, and
if we just leave all those bodies lying out there to rot, there’ll be a
pestilence in Vo Mimbre before the snow flies.’
The funeral pyres were vast, and it took every tree from the forest
just to the north to consume all those dead Angaraks.
After we’d tidied up, we discovered that Aldorigen and Eldallan
had gone off some distance to discuss their differences. The
discussion was evidently quite spirited, since they were both dead
when they were finally discovered. There was a rather profound
object lesson in that fact. If Mimbre and Asturia were to continue
their centuries-old squabble, it was quite obvious that they’d soon
go down that very same road.
There were hot-heads on both sides who’d have preferred to
ignore the obvious, but Mandorin and Wildantor, the two Arendish
heroes of the battle, stepped in to put an end to the bickering by
the simple expedient of offering to fight any of their compatriots
who were too fond of their antagonism to listen to reason. There’s
a certain direct charm to the assertion that ‘If you don’t do it my
way, I’ll kill you.’
Anyway, the two Arendish friends approached Brand with an
absurd proposal. They offered him the crown of Arendia. As luck
had it, I was close enough to Brand to dig my elbow sharply into
his ribs to keep him from laughing in their faces. He managed to
keep a straight face and diplomatically declined, pleading a prior
commitment.
That bell that rings inside my head when two young people whO
are destined to marry meet for the first time had already given
me the answer to Arendia’s political problems, and I’d obliquely
suggested it to Brand – quite some time before the battle, actually.
When he raised the possibility to Mandorin and Wildantor, however,
they both burst out laughing. The reason for their laughter became
obvious when the proposal was presented to Korodullin and
Mayaserana. Terms such as ‘Mimbrate butcher’ and ‘outlaw wench’ do
not bode well for the prospects of a happy marriage.
That’s when I stepped in. ‘Why don’t you children think this over
before you make a final decision?’ I suggested. ‘You both need to
calm down and talk it over between you – in private.’ Then I ordered
them to be locked up together in a little room at the top of the south
tower of the palace.
‘They’ll kill each other, Pol,’ father predicted when we were alone.
‘No, actually they won’t. Trust me, Old Man. I know exactly what
I’m doing. I have arranged a lot of marriages, after all.’
‘Not like this one – and if one of them kills the other, Arendia’s
going to explode in our faces.’
‘Nobody’s going to get killed, father, and nothing’s going to
explode. It may not look like it, but the notion of marrying each
other is already planted, and it’s starting to seep into their minds
slowly, I’ll grant you. They’re Arends after all, and nothing seeps
through solid stone very fast.’
‘I still think it’s a mistake.’
‘I don’t suppose you’d care to make a wager on that, would you,
father?’ I offered.
He glared at me and then left, muttering to himself. Father and
I have occasionally made wagers with each other, and as nearly as
I can recall, he hasn’t won any yet.
Then came the famous conference that resulted in what history
calls ‘the Accords of Vo Mimbre’. We didn’t treat Tolnedra very
well during that conference, I’m afraid. The presence of the legions
at the battle had saved the world from Angarak enslavement, and
then we turned right around and treated Tolnedra like a defeated
enemy. First, however, we had to head off the enthusiastic Alorn
Kings, who all wanted to offer Brand the crown of the King of the
World. When Mergon, the Tolnedran ambassador, protested, the
Alorns started flexing their muscles. Maybe someday, somewhere,
there’ll be an international conference where everyone behaves like
a civilized adult, but when it finally rolls around it’ll probably signal
the end of the world.
MY only real contribution to our impromptu get-together was so
Obscure that it didn’t even make sense to me at the time. It does
now, of course, but that’s only in retrospect. I was adamant about
it, and the others gave up and put it in the Accords just as I dictated
it. ‘From this day forward upon her sixteenth birthday shall each