I kept the family in Eingaard for probably longer than I’d stayed
in one place since I’d left Arendia. There weren’t any Angaraks in
Cherek, after all, and the people in Eingaard shrugged off my
longevity with the fairly simple, but wildly inaccurate explanation,
‘She’s a physician, after all, and everybody knows that physicians
all know how to live for hundreds of years. They do it with all them
secret herbs, you know.’ I always choked just a little when I heard
one of them say that, largely because he pronounced the ‘h’ in
‘herbs’. It was their misconception, not their mispronunciation, that
made it possible for me to remain in Eingaard with the descendants
Of Gelane and Enalla. I knew that I was breaking one of the primary
rules, but it’s safe to do that in Cherek, because just about everybody
in Cherek breaks the rules every time he gets the chance.
We were all very happy there, and the centuries moved by at
their stately pace almost unnoticed. I even lost track of the years,
and I’m usually careful about that. I think it was in 5250 – or maybe
it was ’51 – when father stopped by for one of his infrequent visits.
This time it wasn’t a purely social call, though. ‘The twins are
starting to dig some hints out of the Mrin that we’re getting close to the
Godslayer, Pol,’ he said gravely.
‘Is it soon, father?’
Well, no, not too soon, but definitely within the next century or
so.
‘If we’re getting that close, I’d better start thinking about
relocating to Sendaria, hadn’t I?’
He gave me a quizzical look.
‘I can read the Darine and the Mrin as well as you can, father,’ I
told him pointedly. ‘I know where the godslayer’s supposed to be
born.’
‘Don’t jump just yet, Pol. The twins might be able to dig out a
more specific time for us to work with, and I don’t want you
wandering around in Sendaria when I don’t have Chamdar’s location
pinpointed. Who’s the current heir?’
‘His name’s Geran, father. I like to keep that name well-polished
for some very personal reasons. He just got married, so I don’t think
his son’s going to be the one we’ve been waiting for.’
‘Oh? Why not?’
‘His bride’s a Cherek. father, and a friendly glance is enough to
make a Cherek girl pregnant. She’ll probably go into labor before I
can get packed and move us to Sendaria.’
‘Are Chereks really that fertile?’
‘Why do you think they all have such large families?’
‘I thought it might have something to do with the climate.’
‘What could the climate have to do with it?’
‘Well, there are all those long, cold winter nights with nothing to
do but -‘ He broke off abruptly.
‘Yes, father?’ I said sweetly. ‘Do go on. I find your scientific
speculation absolutely fascinating.’
He actually blushed.
*CHAPTER36
It wasn’t too long after father’s visit that mother also paid me a call
– figuratively speaking, of course. ‘Pol,’ her voice came to me.
‘Yes, mother?’ I replied, setting aside the pot I’d been scrubbing.
‘You’re going to have to go to Nyissa. Ctuchik’s trying to subvert
Salmissra. Somebody’s going to have to set her straight.’
‘Why me?’ I didn’t mean it, of course.
There was a long pause, and then my mother laughed. ‘Because I
said so, Pol. Whatever possessed you to ask such a foolish question?’
‘It’s a family trait, mother. I’ve been listening to young boys ask that
same question for twelve centuries or so now. Isn’t it infuriating?’
‘How do you usually answer?’
‘About the same way you just did. I’ll speak with the twins and ask
them to fill in for me here. Then I’ll go talk with the snake woman. Is
Ctuchik corrupting her personally?’
‘No. Ctuchik almost never leaves Rak Cthol. He’s got Chamdar handling
it.’
, Ah, that’d explain why father hasn’t been able to find him.’
‘How is he?’
I shrugged. ‘About the same – unfortunately. You know father.’
‘Be nice.’ And then she was gone.
I sent out my thought to the twins, and they came winging in
about two days later.
. ‘I think I’d rather that father didn’t know where I’m going,’ I said
Just before I left. ‘He always seems to muddy things up when he
sticks his nose into things I’m already taking care of.’
‘You shouldn’t talk that way about your father, Pol,’ Beltira chided
gently.
‘Well, doesn’t he?’
‘I suppose he does, but it’s not nice to come right out and say it
like that, is it?’
I laughed and then introduced them to my little family. I wasn’t
too specific about the reason for my business trip, however. Then I
went out into the surrounding forest and took my favorite
alternative form of the falcon. I could have used the eagle, I suppose, but
eagles are just a little too impressed by their own overwhelming
nobility for my taste. In a peculiar way, eagles are the Arends of
the bird world. Falcons are far more sensible, and they have an
obsessive love of flying fast. Any time two falcons get together,
there’s almost always an impromptu race, which does sort of
interrupt things during the mating season.
I winged my way down over the Cherek Bore and that patchwork
quilt of greens and browns that’s called Sendaria. From my vantage
point several thousand feet above I was able to see just how neat
and orderly Sendaria really was, and I heartily approved of that.
Neatness is not perhaps one of the major virtues, but it does count.
I settled down for the night in a tree in the Asturian forest just
south of the Camaar River, and I took wing again at first light the
next day. I passed on down across Mimbre and on into Tolnedra
before I stopped again.
Go ahead and say it. Yes, as a matter of fact, it is over a thousand
miles from Val Alorn to Sthiss Tor, and no bird alive could possibly
cover that much distance in three days, so I cheated. Does that
answer your question?
it was humid in Sthiss Tor, and I hate places where the air’s chewy.
I came to rest in a tree outside the garishly colored walls of the
city of the snake people and considered my options. I immediately
discarded the notion of my favorite alternative form. The snowy
owl isn’t indigenous to Nyissa, and white birds do tend to stick out
at night. The answer was fairly simple, of course, but I didn’t care
for it very much. I’m sure that bats are hard-working, industrious,
and nice to their mothers, but I’ve always had an unreasoning sort
of prejudice against them for some reason. They have such ugly
faces! I gritted my beak and changed form.
It took some getting used to, I’ll admit that. The flight of a bat is
not at all like the flight of a bird. Feathers are sometimes
inconvenient, but they make it much easier to fly. A bat has to literally
claw his way through the air. I managed that part after a while, but
it took me even longer to get used to the business of steering by
echoes. Did you know that bats do that? They aren’t squeaking just
for the fun of it, you know. A bat can fly in total darkness without
ever running into anything. You would not believe how sharp their
ears are. Once I’d assumed that form, I could hear the whine of a
mosquito from a hundred yards away.
I flapped my way up into the air, passed over the nauseatingly
colored wall of the city, and then zig-zagged my way through the
stinking alleys toward the grotesque palace that was the center of
Sthiss Tor. Then I flew over the wall of the compound and perched
upside down – under a hideous statue of something that’d obviously
grown out of the imagination of some drug-crazed sculptor. I
watched as assorted functionaries passed in and out through a very
large doorway. They were almost all a bit plump, and there wasn’t
so much as a single whisker among them. I’d never fully understood
the reasoning behind the Nyissan custom of obliging all of the
Serpent Queen’s servants to be eunuchs. Given the appetites of that
long line of Salmissras, the idea seems uneconomical, to say the
very least. It was at that point that I began to reconsider my previous
aversion to bats. The bat’s face may be ugly and his jointed wings
ungainly, but his ears more than make up for those drawbacks. I
could hear every word the palace eunuchs were saying. I could even
hear the dry slither of all the snakes creeping around in dark corners.
That made me a bit uncomfortable. The bat is a rodent, after all, and
rodents are a staple in the diet of most reptiles.
‘It’s absolutely ridiculous, Rissus,’ one shaved-headed eunuch was