than I was. I was hardly more than a baby, after all, although I felt
much older. ‘Stop that,’ he told me, and his tone seemed irritable.
‘You may not care much for the idea, Pol, but I’m your father, and
you’re stuck with me.’ And then he kissed me, which he’d never
done before. For a moment – only a moment – I felt his pain, and
my heart softened toward him.
‘No,
mother’s thought came to me, ‘not yet At the time, I thought
it was because she was still very angry with him and that I was to
be the vessel of her anger. I know now I was mistaken. Wolves
simply don’t waste time being angry. My father’s remorse and
sorrow had not yet run their course, and the Master still had many
tasks for him. Until he had expiated what he felt to be his guilt,
he’d be incapable of those tasks. My misunderstanding of mother’s
meaning led me to do something I probably shouldn’t have done.
I struck out at him with ‘the puzzle’.
‘Spirited, isn’t she?’ he murmured to uncle Beldin. Then he put
me down, gave me a little pat on the bottom, which I scarcely felt,
and told me to mind my manners.
I certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of thinking
that his chastisement in any way had made me change my opinion
of him, so I turned, still holding ‘the puzzle’ like a club, and glared
at him.
‘Be well, Polgara,’ he told me in the gentlest way imaginable.
‘Now go play.’
He probably still doesn’t realize it, but I almost loved him in that
single instant – almost, but not quite. The love came later, and it
took years.
It was not long after that that he turned and left the Vale, and I
didn’t see him again for quite a number of years.
*CHAPTER2
Nothing that ever happens is so unimportant that it doesn’t change
things, and father’s intrusion into our lives could hardly be called
unimportant. This time the change was in my sister Beldaran, and
I didn’t like it. Until my father returned from his excursion to
Mallorea, Beldaran was almost exclusively mine. Father’s return altered
that. Now her thoughts, which had previously been devoted to me,
became divided. She thought often of that beer-soaked old rogue,
and I resented it bitterly.
Beldaran, even when we were hardly more than babies, was
obsessed with tidiness, and my aggressive indifference to my
appearance upset her greatly.
‘Can’t you at least comb your hair, Pol?’ she demanded one
evening, speaking in ‘twin’, a private language that had grown quite
naturally between us almost from the time we were in the cradle.
‘What for? It’s just a waste of time.’
‘You look awful.’
‘Who cares what I look like?’
‘I do. Sit down and I’ll fix it for you.’
And so I sat in a chair and let my sister fuss with my hair. She
was very serious about it, her blue eyes intent and her still-chubby
little fingers very busy. Her efforts were wasted, of course, since
nobody’s hair stays combed for very long; but as long as it amused
her, I was willing to submit to her attentions. I’ll admit that I rather
enjoyed what became an almost nightly ritual. At least when she
was busy with my hair she was paying attention to me instead of
brooding about our father.
In a peculiar way my resentment may have shaped my entire life.
Each time Beldaran’s eyes grew misty and distant, I knew that she
was brooding about our father, and I could not bear the separation
implicit in that vague stare. That’s probably why I took to wandering
almost as soon as I could walk. I had to get away from the melancholy
vacancy in my sister’s eyes.
it almost drove uncle Beldin to the brink of insanity, I’m afraid.
He could not devise any latch on the gate that blocked the top of
the stairs in his tower that I couldn’t outwit. Uncle Beldin’s fingers
have always been large and gnarled, and his latches were bulky
and rather crude. My fingers were small and very nimble, and I
could undo his devices in a matter of minutes whenever the urge to
wander came over me. I was – still am, I suppose of an independent
nature, and nobody is ever going to tell me what to do.
Have you noticed that, father? I thought I noticed you noticing.
The first few times I made good my escape, uncle Beldin frantically
searched for me and scolded me at some length when he finally
found me. I’m a little ashamed to admit that after a while it even
became a kind of game. I’d wait until he was deeply engrossed in
something, quickly unhook his gate, and then scamper down his
stairs. Then I’d find someplace to hide where I could watch his
desperate search. In time I think he began to enjoy our little
entertainment as well, because his scoldings grew progressively less
vehement. I guess that after the first several times he came to realize that
there was nothing he could do to stop my excursions into the outside
world and that I wouldn’t stray too far from the foot of his tower.
My adventuring served a number of purposes. At first it was only
to escape my sister’s maudlin ruminations about father. Then it
became a game during which I tormented poor uncle Beldin by
seeking out hiding places. Ultimately, though it’s very unattractive,
it was a way to get someone to pay attention to me.
As the game continued, I grew fonder and fonder of the ugly,
gnarled dwarf who’d become my surrogate parent. Any form of
emotionalism embarrasses uncle Beldin, but I think I’ll say this
anyway. ‘I love you, you dirty, mangy little man, and no amount of
foul temper or bad language will ever change that.’
If you ever read this, uncle, I’m sure that will offend you. Well, isn’t
that just too bad?
It’s easy for me to come up with all sorts of exotic excuses for the
things I did during my childhood, but to put it very bluntly I was
totally convinced that I was ugly. Beldaran and I were twins, and
we should have been identical. The Master changed that, however.
Beldaran was blonde, and my hair was dark. Our features were
similar, but we were not mirror images of each other. There were
some subtle variations – many of them existing only in my own
imagination, I’m sure. Moreover, my excursions outside uncle
Beldin’s tower had exposed my skin to the sun. Beldaran and I both
had very fair skin, so I didn’t immediately develop that healthy,
glowing tan so admired in some quarters. I burned instead, and
then I peeled. I frequently resembled a snake or lizard in molt.
beldaran remained indoors, and her skin was like alabaster. The
comparison was not very flattering.
Then there was the accursed white lock in my hair which father’s
first touch had bestowed upon me. How I hated that leprous lock
of hair! Once, in a fit of irritation, I even tried to cut it short with a
knife. It was a very sharp knife, but it wasn’t that sharp. The lock
resisted all my sawing and hacking. I did manage to dull the knife,
however. No, the knife wasn’t defective. It left a very nice cut on
my left thumb as my efforts to excise the hideous lock grew more
frantic.
So I gave up. Since I was destined to be ugly, I saw no point in
paying any attention to my appearance. Bathing was a waste of
time, and combing merely accentuated the contrast between the lock
and the rest of my hair. I fell down frequently because I was
awkward at that age, and my bony knees and elbows were usually
skinned. My habit of picking at the resulting scabs left long streaks
of dried blood on my lower legs and forearms, and I chewed my
fingernails almost continually.
To put it rather simply, I was a mess – and I didn’t really care.
I gave vent to my resentment in a number of ways. There were
those tiresome periods when I refused to answer when Beldaran
talked to me, and my infantile practice of waiting until she was
asleep at night and then neatly rolling over in our bed to pull all
the covers off her. That one was always good for at least a half-hour
fight. I discarded it, however, after uncle Beldin threatened to have
Beltira and Belkira build another bed so that he could make us
sleep apart. I was resentful about my sister’s preoccupation with
our father, but not that resentful.
As I grew older, my field of exploration expanded. I guess uncle
Beldin had grown tired of trying to find me after I’d escaped from
his tower – either that or the Master had advised him to let me