muddy, rutted track to the temple. ‘He’s the village idiot,’ the priest
told us rather sadly. ‘His parents were drowned in a flood shortly
after he was born, and nobody knows what his name is. Since I’m
the priest, they turned him over to me. I make sure that he’s fed
but there’s not much else I can do for him.’
,idiot?’ father asked sharply. ‘I thought he was a madman.’
The priest, a kindly old man, sighed. ‘No, Ancient One,’ he said.
‘Madness is an aberration in a normal human mind. This poor fellow
doesn’t have a mind. He can’t even talk.’
‘But -‘ father started to protest.
‘He never once uttered a coherent sound, Ancient One – until a
few years back. Then he suddenly started to talk. Actually, it sounds
more like recitation than actual talking. Every so often, I’ll pick up
a phrase from “The Book of alorn”. King Dras told us all to keep
an eye out for assorted madmen, since they might possibly say
something that’d be useful for you to know. When our local idiot
started talking, I was fairly sure that it was the sign of something
significant.’
‘When his Reverence’s word reached me, I came down here and
had a look for myself,’ Dras picked up the story. ‘I listened to the
poor brute for a while, and then I hired some scribes to come here
and stand watch over him – just the way you instructed that day
back on the banks of the Aldur when you divided up father’s
kingdom. If it turns out that he’s not a real prophet, I’ll send the scribes
back to Boktor. My budget’s a little tight this year, so I’m trimming
expenses.’
‘Let me hear him talk before you close up shop here, Dras,’ father
said. ‘His Reverence is right. An idiot who suddenly starts talking’s
a little out of the ordinary.’
We went around behind the shabby little temple, and I saw that
beast for the first time.
He was filthy, and he seemed to enjoy wallowing in the mud,
much as a pig would – and probably for the same reason. A mosquito
can’t bite through a thick coating of muck. He didn’t have what you
could really call a forehead, since his hairline seemed almost to
merge with his beetling brows, and his head was peculiarly
deformed, sloping back from that jutting browridge. His deep-sun
eyes contained not the faintest glimmer of human intelligence. He
slobbered and moaned and jerked rhythmically on the chain that
kept him from running off into the fens.
I felt an almost overpowering wave of pity come over me. Even
death would have been better than what this poor creature endured.
‘No, Pol,’ mother’s voice told me. ‘Life is good, even for such a one
as this, and like you and me and all the rest, he has a task to perform.’
Father spoke at some length with Bull-neck’s scribes and read a
few pages of what they had already transcribed. Then we returne
to the ship, and I went looking for Khadon again.
It was about noon on the following day when one of the scribes
came down to the river to advise us that the Prophet was talking,
and we trooped once more to that rustic temple to listen to the voice
of God.
I was startled by the change that had come over the sub-human
creature crouched in the mud beside his kennel. There was a kind
of exaltation on his brutish face, and the words coming from his
mouth – words he could not possibly have understood – were pronounced
very precisely in a rolling sort of voice that seemed almost
to have an echo built into it.
After a while he broke off and went back to moaning and rhythmically
yanking on his chain.
‘That should do it,’ father said. ‘He’s authentic.’
‘How were you able to tell so quickly?’ Dras asked him.
‘Because he spoke of the Child of Light. Bormik did the same
thing back in Darine. I spent some time with the Necessity that’s
inspiring these Prophets and using them to tell us what we’re supposed
to do. I’m very familiar with the term “Child of Light”. Pass.,
that on to your father and brothers. Any time some crazy man starts.,
talking about “the Child of Light” we’ll want to station scribes
nearby.’ He squinted out at the dreary fens. ‘Have your scribes make
me a copy of everything they’ve set down so far and send it to me
in the Vale.’
After we returned to Bull-neck’s ship, father decided that he and
I should go south through the fens rather than return by way of
Darine. I protested vigorously, but it didn’t do me very much good.
Dras located an obliging fisherman, and we proceeded south
through that smelly, bug-infested swamp.
Needless to say, I did not enjoy the journey.
We reached the southern edge of the fens somewhat to the west
of where Aldurford now stands, and father and I were both happy
to put our feet on solid ground again. After our helpful fisherman
had poled his narrow boat back into the swamp, my father’s
expression grew slightly embarrassed. ‘I think it’s about time for us
to have a little talk, Pol,’ he said, avoiding my eyes rather carefully.
‘Oh?’
‘You’re growing up, and there are some things you should know.’
I knew what he was getting at, and I suppose that the kindest
thing I could have done at that point would have been to tell him
right out that I already knew all about it. He’d just dragged me
through the fens, though, so I wasn’t feeling very charitable just
then. I put on an expression of vapid stupidity and let him flounder
his way through a moderately inept description of the process of
human reproduction. His face grew redder and redder as he went
along, and then he quite suddenly stopped. ‘You already know
about all of this, don’t you?’ he demanded.
I batted my eyelashes at him in feigned innocence and his
expression was a bit sullen as we continued our journey through
Algaria to the Vale.
Uncle Beldin had returned from Mallorea when we got home,
and he told us that there was absolute chaos on the other side of
the Sea of the East.
‘Why’s that, uncle?’ I asked him.
‘Because there’s nobody in charge. Angaraks follow orders very
well, but they tend to fly apart when there’s nobody around to give
those orders. Torak’s still having religious experiences at Ashaba,
and Zedar’s camped right at his elbow taking down his every word.
Ctuchik’s down in Cthol Murgos, and Urvon’s afraid to come out
of Mal Yaska because he thinks I might be hiding behind some tree
or bush waiting for the chance to gut him.’
‘What about the generals at Mal Zeth?’ father asked. ‘I thought
they’d leap at the chance to take over.’
‘Not as long as Torak’s still around, they won’t. If he snaps out
of that trance and discovers that the general staff’s been stepping
out of line, he’ll obliterate Mal Zeth and everybody in it. Torak
doesn’t encourage creativity.’
‘I guess that only leaves Ctuchik for us to worry about, then,’
father mused.
‘He’s probably enough,’ Beldin said. ‘Oh, he’s moved, by the way.’
Father nodded. ‘I’d heard about it. He’s supposed to be at a place
called Rak Cthol now.’
Beldin grunted. ‘I flew over it on my way home. Charming place.
It should more than satisfy Ctuchik’s burning need for ugliness. Do
you remember that big lake that used to lie to the west of Kamath?’
‘I think so.’
‘It all drained out when Burnt-face cracked the world. It’s a desert
now with a black sand floor. Rak Cthol’s built on the top of a peak
that sticks up out of the middle of it.’
‘Thanks,’ father said.
‘What for?’
‘I’ve been meaning to go have a talk with Ctuchik. Now I know
where to find him.’
‘Are you going to kill him?’ my uncle asked eagerly.
‘I doubt it. I don’t think any of us – either on our side or theirs
should do anything permanent until all those prophecies are in
place. That’s what I want to talk with Ctuchik about. Let’s not have
any more “accidents” like the one that divided the universe in the
first place.’
‘I can sort of go along with that.’
‘Keep an eye on Polgara for me, will you?’
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t need a keeper, father,’ I said tartly.
‘You’re wrong about that, Pol, ‘he told me. ‘You tend to want to
experiment, and there are some areas where you shouldn’t. just
humor me this time, Pol. I’ll have enough on my mind while I’m
on the way to Rak Cthol without having to worry about you as
well.’
After father left, life in the Vale settled down into a kind of homey