wide arcs, and eventually reached an open meadow back in the
forest. There were deer tracks, rabbit tracks, and lots of bird tracks
out in that meadow, but no human footprints. Alara had not gone
north.
I judged that it was very close to midnight by now, and it was
bitterly cold out there in that dark forest. I’d already covered the
north, the northeast and the northwest in my methodical search.
Since Annath lay at the bottom of a gorge, sheer cliffs blocked off
the east and west. That left the southern quarter, and I was at least
five miles away from that.
At that point, I threw caution to the winds and changed form. If
that happened to alert Chamdar, that was just too bad. As cold as
it had become, Alara’s main danger now lay in the distinct
possibility that she’d freeze to death before dawn. I absolutely had to find
her.
I had no way of knowing that not long after I’d left Ildera’s
bedside, her false labor became genuine. Geran tried desperately to
find me, but of course he couldn’t. The local midwife attended Ildera
during the birth, and Garion was born shortly after midnight.
I was nowhere near, but fortunately, the delivery wasn’t too
difficult. Ildera was an Alorn, after all, and Alorn women are all designed
for childbirth.
It took me all night to find Alara. Her body lay at the foot of a
fairly high cliff six or eight miles south of the stone quarry. That
explained why I’d been unable to find her with my mind when I’d
first discovered that she was missing. The frozen condition of her
body was a clear indication that she’d died before I’d even become
aware of the fact that she’d wandered off.
I was absolutely devastated when I found her, and I wept and
tore at my hair, blaming myself again and again.
Then I suddenly stopped, staring in horror at the thick column
of smoke rising from Annath in that first faint light of the dawn of
Erastide. Something was burning in a village made entirely of stone!
I swallowed my grief, and as it subsided, I sensed my father’s
presence. He was much closer to the fire than I
was. ‘Father!’ It was
almost a silent scream.
‘You’d better get back here, Pol!’ he replied bleakly. ‘Now!’
I have no idea whatsoever of how I traveled those miles from
Alara’s frozen body to Geran’s burning house. For all I knew, I
translocated myself, and that’s very dangerous out there in
the
mountains. If there happens to be a peak in your way, you’ll go
through it, not around, and thats not the sort of thing I’d care to
experiment with.
Father was kneeling over a small, blanket-wrapped bundle in . the
door yard, and Geran’s solid stone house was totally engulfed in
flames. ‘What happened here, father?’ I almost shrieked at him.
‘It was Chamdar!’ he roared back at me, his eyes filled with
vengeful fury. ‘What were you thinking of, Pol? Why did you run off like
that?’
The question cut into me like a knife, and now, even after all
these years, I can still feel it twisting inside me.
*CHAPTER41
I looked at Geran’s familiar stone cottage now engulfed in
impossible flame, and tears were streaming from my eyes. ‘Is there any
hope at all?’ I asked father, though I knew there wasn’t.
‘None,’ he answered shortly, wiping his own eyes with a
deliberately rough hand. ‘They’re both already dead.’
My entire family had been destroyed in a single night, and no
matter how I squirmed and tried to evade it, I knew that it was my
fault. ‘I’ve failed, father!’ I cried out in anguish. ‘I’ve failed!’
‘There’s no time for that now, Pol!’ he snapped. ‘We’ve got to get
the baby out of here. Chamdar got away from me, and he could be
anywhere.’ Father’s reddened eyes grew hard as he looked at the
fire erupting from the very stones of the cottage. He was quite
obviously considering some unpleasant things to do to Chamdar.
‘Why did you let him escape?’ I asked, realizing that I hadn’t
been the only one who’d failed that night.
‘I didn’t have any choice,’ father explained. ‘That idiot threw the
baby at me. There’s nothing we can do here, Pol. Let’s move!’
I reached down and tenderly lifted the baby. I turned back the
blanket and looked for the first time into the face of the Godslayer.
It was a very ordinary face, but the whole world seemed to reel as
I looked into those drowsy blue eyes. Someday he might indeed
slay a God, but right now, he was just a sleepy, orphaned baby. I
held him very close against my heart. Chamdar’d have to go through
me to get this one.
‘I suppose we’d better come up with a name for him,’ father said.
‘People might talk if we just call him “Godslayer”.’
‘His name’s Garion, father. Ildera and I decided on that months
ago.’
‘Garion? Not bad, I guess. Where did you come up with it?’
‘Ildera had a dream. I think there might have been some tampering
involved. She told me that his real name would be “Belgarion”, but
that we should call him “Garion” until he grows up.’ I steeled my
heart. ‘Chamdar’s got a lot to answer for. doesn’t he?’
‘Indeed he does,’ father replied in a flinty kind of voice, ‘and I’m
personally going to see to it that it takes him at least a week to do
all his answering. What happened to Alara?’
‘She’s dead too, father. She fell off a cliff. We’ll have to bury her
on our way out of town.’
‘Make that two weeks!’ he grated. ‘I’m sure I can come up with
a way to keep Chamdar alive for at least that long.’
‘Good!’ I said. ‘I’ll take Garion to safety. You go after Chamdar.
Take notes, father. I want lots of details when you tell me about it.’
I was feeling at least as savage as father was at that point.
‘Not a chance, Pol.’ Father said it regretfully. ‘I’ve got to get the
two of you to safety first. Our main responsibility’s wrapped up in
that blanket. I’ll deal with Chamdar after I know you’re safe.’
We left the now collapsing house and followed the snow-covered
road on down past the quarry, and then we set off through the trees
to the base of the cliff that had claimed Alara. About all we could
really do was to pile rocks over her, and we couldn’t even mark
her grave. Her gravestone’s in my heart, though, and I’m sure it’ll
always be there.
Father stole a she-goat from an isolated farmstead, and I devised
a nursing bottle. The little nanny-goat seemed actually fond of
Garion, and probably wouldn’t have objected to nursing him. I
didn’t really think that’d be appropriate, though. The goat probably
thought I was being silly, but over the centuries, goats have learned
to expect humans to be silly, I suppose. Father and I stuck to the
woods on our journey down to the low country, and he was very
careful to erase our tracks in the snow as we went. If it’d been up
to me, I’d have left those tracks where they were and set off signal
fires to attract Chamdar or any of his Grolim underlings. I was
feeling vengeful, and I really wanted to kill Angaraks about then.
We avoided all roads and camped out in caves or under fallen
trees. It took us several days to reach the foothills, and we came out
onto a fairly well-traveled road near the village of Outer Gralt. We
didn’t go into the town, but continued on, making our way toward
my house on the shores of Lake Erat, the place I always go when
things fall apart.
,,As it always is when I’ve been away for a long time, the interior
of the house was chill and dusty. I built a fire in the kitchen stove
while father went on out beyond the rose-thicket to have a word
with the twins.
He came back shivering. He dutifully stamped the snow off his
feet at the door, looking longingly at my roaring stove.
‘Don’t bother,’ I told him. ‘You have to milk the goat. She’s in
the stable. You’d better feed her as well.’
‘Couldn’t I just? ‘
‘No, father. You’re up and moving now, and I know how hard it
is to get you started again once you’ve settled down. Get your chores
done first, then you can sit down by the stove.’
He sighed and went back out. There were some things I needed
back in the house, so I deposited Garion in a drawer so that I could
search unimpeded. An open drawer’s a very good place to stow a
newborn infant, did you know that?
I found a cradle and some baby clothes back in the house. Over