Arell, and Balten concocted other medications. Argak’s first
compound did little more than alleviate some of Beldaran’s more
obvious symptoms, and we all concluded that we were going to have
to take more heroic measures.
Argak’s next concoction put Beldaran into a deep sleep. ‘It’s a
natural part of the healing process,’ I lied to Riva and Daran. My
colleagues and I had enough to worry about already, and we didn’t
need the two of them hovering over us adding to our anxiety.
. This was not going the way I’d hoped. My studies had made me
arrogant, and I’d been convinced that with a little help from my
teachers I could cure any ailment. Beldaran’s illness, however,
stubbornly
refused to respond to any measures we could devise. I
frequently went for days with only brief naps, and I began to develop
an irrational conviction that my sister’s illness had somehow become
conscious, aware of everything we were trying to do to save her
and thwarting us at every turn. I finally concluded that we’d have
to go beyond the limitations of the physician’s art to save Beldaran.
In desperation, I sent my thought out to the twins. ‘Please!’ I silently
shouted over the countless leagues between the Isle and the Vale.
‘Please! I’m losing her! Get word to my father! I need him, and I need
him in a hurry. ‘
‘Can you hold off the illness until he gets there?’ Beltira demanded.
‘I don’t know, uncle. We’ve tried everything we know. Beldaran doesn’t
respond to anything we can come up with. She’s sinking, uncle. Get hold
of father immediately. Get him here as quickly as you can.’
‘Try to stay calm, Polgara,’ Belkira told me, his voice very crisp.
‘There’s a way you can support her until Belgarath gets there. Use your
Will. Give her some of your strength. There are things we can do that
others can’t.’
That possibility hadn’t even occurred to me. We’d extended the
procedures we were using to the very edge – almost experimenting
– and some of the medications we were dosing Beldaran with were
extremely dangerous – particularly in her weakened condition. If
Belkira were right, I could support her with my Will and thus we
could make use of even more dangerous medications.
I hurried down the corridor to the royal apartment and I found
an Alorn priest who’d somehow managed to slip past the guards
in the corridor. He was performing some obscene little ceremony
that involved burning something that gave off a cloud of
foulsmelling green smoke. Smoke? Smoke in the sick-room of someone
whose lungs are failing? ‘What are you doing, you idiot?’ I almost
screamed at him.
‘This is a sacred ceremony,’ he replied in a lofty tone of voice. ‘A
mere woman wouldn’t understand it. Leave at once.’
‘No. You’re the one who’s leaving. Get out of here.’
His eyes widened in shocked outrage. ‘How dare you?’ he
demanded.
I quenched his smoldering fire and blew the stink of it away With
a single thought.
‘Witchcraft!’ he gasped.
‘If that’s what you want to call it,’ I told him from between
clenched teeth. ‘Try a little of this, you feeble-minded fool.’ I
clenched my Will and said, ‘Rise up!’ lifting him about six feet above
the floor. I left him hanging there for a while. Then I translocated
him to a spot several hundred yards out beyond the walls of the
Citadel.
I was actually going to let him fall at that point. He was hundreds
of feet above the snowy city and I was sure that he’d have plenty
of time to regret what he’d done while he plummeted down toward
certain death.
‘Pol! No!’ It was mother’s voice, and it cracked like a whip inside
my head.
‘But -‘
‘I said no! Now put him down!’ Then she paused for a moment.
‘Whenever it’s convenient, of course,’ she added.
‘It shall be as my mother wishes,’ I said obediently. I turned to my
sister and gently infused her wasted body with my Will, leaving
the priest of Belar suspended, screaming and whimpering, over the
city. I left him out there for a few hours – six or eight, ten at the
very most – to give him time to contemplate his sins. He did attract
quite a bit of attention as he hovered up there like a distraught
vulture, but all priests adore being the center of attention, so it didn’t
really hurt him.
I sustained Beldaran with the sheer force of my Will for almost
ten days, but despite my best efforts and every medication my
teachers and I could think of, her condition continued to deteriorate.
She was slipping away from me, and there was nothing I could do
to prevent it. I was exhausted by now, and strange thoughts began
to cloud my enfeebled mind. I have very little coherent memory of
those horrible ten days, but I do remember Beltira’s voice coming
to me about midnight when a screaming gale was swirling snow
around the towers of the Citadel. ‘Pol! We’ve found Belgarath! He’s
on his way to the Isle right now!’
‘Thank the Gods!’
‘How is she?’
‘Not good at all, uncle, and my strength’s starting to fail.’
‘Hold on for just a few more days, Pol. Your father’s coming.’
But we didn’t have a few more days. I sat wearily at my sister’s
bedside through the interminable hours of that long, savage night,
and despite the fact that I was channeling almost every bit of my
Will into her wasted body, I could feel her sinking deeper and
deeper into the darkness.
And then mother appeared at my side. It was not just her voice
this time. She was actually there, and she was weeping openly. ‘Let
her go, Pol,’ she told me.
‘No! I will not let her die!’
‘Her task is complete, Polgara. You must let her go. If you don’t,
we’ll lose both of you.’
‘I can’t go on without her, mother. If she goes, I’ll go with her.’
‘No, you won’t. It’s not permitted. Release your Will.’
‘I can’t mother. I can’t. She’s the center of my life.’
‘Do it, my daughter. The Master commands it – and so does UL
I’d never heard of UL before. Oddly, no one in my family had
ever mentioned him to me. Stubbornly, however, I continued to
focus my Will on my dying sister.
And then the wall beside beldaran’s bed started to shimmer, and
I could see an indistinct figure within the very stones. It was very
much like looking into the shimmery depths of a forest pool to see
what lay beneath the surface. The figure I saw there was robed in
white, and the sense of that presence was overwhelming. I’ve been
in the presence of Gods many times in my life. but I’ve never
encountered a presence like that of UL.
Then the shimmering was gone, and UL himself stood across my
sister’s bed from me. His hair and beard were like snow, but there
were no other marks of age on that eternal face. He lifted one hand
and held it out over Beldaran’s form, and as he did so, I felt my
Will being returned to me. ‘No!’ I cried. ‘Please! No!’
But he ignored my tearful protest. ‘Come with me, beloved
Beldaran,’ he said gently. ‘It is time to go now.’
And a light infused my sister’s body. The light seemed to rise as
if it were being sighed out of the wasted husk which was all that
was left of her. The light had Beldaran’s form and face, and it reached
out to take the hand of UL.
And then the father of the Gods looked directly into my face. ‘Be
well, beloved Polgara,’ he said to me, and then the two glowing
forms shimmered back into the wall.
Mother sighed. ‘And now our beldaran is with UL.’
And I threw myself across my dead sister’s body, weeping
uncontrollably.
*CHAPTER 10
Mother was no longer with me. I felt a terrible vacancy as I clung
to my dead sister, weeping and screaming out my grief. The center
of my world was gone, and all of the rest of it collapsed inward.
I have very little memory of what happened during the rest of
that dreadful night. I think that people came into my sister’s room,
but I didn’t even recognize their faces. There was weeping, I’m fairly
sure of that, but I really can’t be certain.
And then Arell was there, solid, dependable, a rock I could cling
to. She held me in her arms, rocking me back and forth until someone
– Argak, I think – handed her a cup. ‘Drink this, Pol,’ she instructed,
holding the cup to my lips.
It was bitter, and I momentarily thought that it might be poison.
What a perfect solution. All the pain would go away now. I drank
eagerly, and my weeping gradually subsided as I sank down into